Sitting of 3 July 1995

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

    Network South Central
    Lady Olga Maitland: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from passengers regarding services on Network South Central. [30115]
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Dr. Brian Mawhinney): My Department has received 28 representations this year about services on Network South Central.
    Lady Olga Maitland: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Is he aware, however, that commuters in my Sutton and Cheam constituency are angry, frustrated and tired of the embarrassing service that they are receiving? They complain of delays, overcrowded trains and unintelligible announcements. When I spoke to the director of customer relations on their behalf, he would not accept my complaints. Has not the time come to privatise British Rail, and give commuters the service that they want?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend's last point. I know that there have been difficulties
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    on that line, and that my hon. Friend has—as is her wont—represented her constituents assiduously. I am aware that her constituents have also experienced difficulty in gaining access to proper information. As I think that she knows, I set great store by making as much detailed and accurate information as possible available to passengers.

    Rail Franchises
    Mr. Hoon: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his Department's policy in relation to British Rail being invited to tender for rail franchises. [30116]
    The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts): Under section 25 of the Railways Act 1993, the franchising director has the discretion to exclude the British Railways Board or any wholly owned subsidiary of the board from tendering for rail franchises.
    Mr. Hoon: The Prime Minister says that Conservative Members of Parliament should vote for his sound management, his years of experience and, above all, his track record. Why do those principles not apply to British Rail's tendering for franchises?
    Mr. Watts: The franchising director has decided that British Rail should not be allowed to bid for the first three franchises. He fears that other bidders would be deterred if British Rail were allowed to bid. I emphasise, however, that British Rail management teams—to which I think that the hon. Gentleman was referring—will not be excluded. Indeed, a number of management and employee teams have expressed an interest in becoming franchisees.
    Sir Alan Haselhurst: Has not my hon. Friend made the exact point that, if British Rail is allowed to bid for each and every one of the franchises, the management teams will effectively be precluded from so doing—thus denying the possibility of innovative approaches?
    Mr. Watts: My hon. Friend is entirely right.
    Mr. McLeish: Is it not a scandal that British Rail should be excluded from seeking franchises on political

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    grounds? More important, does the Minister accept that his policy of ensuring that 51 per cent. of train operators held franchises by May is now in tatters? Will he concede that, having spent £1.25 billion on privatisation, the Government have not managed to bring any of the train operators into the private sector? When will the Minister give up this meaningless exercise—or must we wait until the Secretary of State has been moved to another Department before someone will have the guts to abandon this crazy, lunatic idea?
    Mr. Watts: The answer to the last part of the question is never. I would never wish to abandon a policy that I believe would be of benefit to passengers and freight users. I must emphasise to the hon. Gentleman that there is no political involvement in those decisions. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is specifically prevented from giving the franchising director objectives, instructions or guidance on the exercise of his powers under section 25 of the Railways Act 1993.

    Northern Line
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement about investment in the Northern line of London Underground. [30117]
    The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): Prospects for the Northern line have rarely looked better. Angel station has been completely rebuilt at a cost of £72 million, and London Underground is currently renovating 10 stations at the southern end of the line. The entire fleet of trains is being replaced under the private finance initiative, with the first train entering service in the middle of next year.
    Mr. Marshall: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer and I look forward to having a glass of champagne with him on the first new train next year. Will he allow London Underground to discuss with private entrepreneurs the possibility of using the private finance initiative to improve signalling and the track, and to introduce automatic ticket barriers on the Northern line?
    Mr. Norris: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his consistent and persistent support of the campaign to improve the Northern line on behalf of his constituents. He knows that I could not possibly help myself to a glass of his champagne as London Transport has a no alcohol policy, to which of course I would want to adhere. That notwithstanding, he is right. Now is the time that we should be considering how we can apply the principles of the private finance initiative to other sectors such as signalling and power supply, as well as the successful deal on trains.
    Ms Glenda Jackson: I welcome the Minister's reply about the southern end the Northern line, but he must be aware that Hampstead is the deepest station in the whole network. When can we look for improvements at the northern end of the Northern line?
    Mr. Norris: I shall not be doing anything to raise Hampstead station, if that is what the hon. Lady is implying. At the southern end, as she knows, we are improving stations that are not in a satisfactory condition. I welcome her support for the idea that we might get the private sector involved in some renovation work north of the Thames, as there is no doubt that that has proved an
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    extremely lucrative way in which we can improve the system, for the benefit of passengers. I am delighted to have her support.

    Transport Policy
    Mr. Robathan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has to encourage passenger and freight traffic to switch from road to rail. [30119]
    Dr. Mawhinney: Privatisation will bring improvements that will make railway passenger and freight services more attractive to customers.
    Mr. Robathan: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the past 45 years of the nationalised rail network have been years of decline in which freight has been deterred from using railways and pushed on to roads? Will he urge operators when they come forward to win back the business from the Royal Mail, the newspapers and innumerable other operators who send their freight by road instead of by rail because it has been so inefficient?
    Dr. Mawhinney: My hon. Friend is right that, in the past 40 years, there has been a relative decline in the amount of freight moved by train. In 1953, 24 per cent. of goods were moved by train; today the figure is 5 per cent. and falling, but my hon. Friend, and I suspect the whole House, will take encouragement from a survey recently conducted by the rail freight group, which considered current, former and potential rail freight users. It received 83 responses. Two thirds of those who responded expected to increase the use of railways for the moving of freight, and more than half of non-users thought that they were more likely to use rail now than in the past. Those are encouraging statistics and underline the importance of moving the freight railway from the public to the private sector.
    Mr. Tyler: Can the Secretary of State clear up a mystery? He will, I think, agree that one of the principal reasons, particularly at this time of year, for trying to reduce the amount of road traffic and to move it on to rail is to reduce atmospheric pollution, especially for the considerable number of asthma sufferers. During the debate on the Environment Bill, the Minister for the Environment and Countryside said that powers were available to the Secretary of State for Transport to reduce the amount of traffic, to reduce speeds and even to close roads where atmospheric pollution had reached a danger point for asthma sufferers. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has such powers, explain how he intends to use them, and tell us what opportunities he would offer to local authorities to use such powers as well?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to road safety regulations, which are very complex—certainly legally complex. I suspect that both of us think that there may be a case for trying to find an easier way through that particular issue, as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Sumberg: If my right hon. Friend wants to move freight from road to rail, may I give him a piece of advice from my area? I suggest that he abandons the disastrous M62 relief road, which is causing havoc in my constituency, and where the management by his

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    Department of the houses that it has acquired is little short of disgraceful. Will he abandon that scheme sooner rather than later?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is robust in defending the interests of his constituents, as they and he see them. He will note that a number of alternatives are being explored at the moment. I shall reflect on what he has said as we move forward with those investigations.
    Mr. Grocott: If the Secretary of State is serious about transferring freight from road to rail, should he not look urgently at an area of Government policy practised by the Ministry of Defence? At the beginning of the Tory period of Government, no fewer than 40 MOD depots had rail connections to the main line. Half of those connections have since been closed, including the Donington link in my constituency. Is that not a clear illustration of the MOD pursuing an obvious policy of transferring freight from rail to road, and what will the right hon. Gentleman do about it?
    Dr. Mawhinney: You will understand, Madam Speaker, that I do not have responsibility for the Ministry of Defence. However, I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's remarks are brought to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.
    Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is nothing more likely to discourage a move from road to rail than the annual threat of rail strikes? Does he have any idea whether future rail strikes are likely to have the support of the Opposition Front Bench?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I am sure that I am speaking for everyone—at least, all Conservative Members—in saying that any threat of industrial action on the railways cannot be in the interests of the passengers, the industry or those who work on the railways. I should have thought that everyone would have had enough experience of industrial disputes last year to use great caution in the contemplation of similar activities this year—which I sincerely hope will not take place.
    Passenger transport in some areas of the country has not recovered from the negative effects of last year's strikes. We need a buoyant, viable rail service that will be attractive to passengers and there is certainly no way in which industrial disputes are likely to aid that process.
    Mr. Meacher: We certainly hope that the right hon. Gentleman has learnt his lessons from what happened last year. What is the point of him launching a great debate on transport when there is to be no action at the end of it? How does he expect to achieve a major switch from road to rail when last year, for the first time since the war, there were no orders for new rolling stock, because of privatisation? Investment in the rail network as a whole plummeted by a third in one year to its lowest level for the past 50 years. When will the right hon. Gentleman realise that he is fast becoming the eunuch of the transport world—all talk and no follow through?—[Laughter.]
    Dr. Mawhinney: I am sorry, Madam Speaker; I know that I am not supposed to laugh out loud at the hon. Gentleman, but it is too great a temptation.
    First, I did learn a lesson from last year's strikes—that if there is a strike in the public sector, we can always expect the Labour party to row in behind it. I hope that
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    the hon. Gentleman will think very carefully before he repeats the foolish support that Labour Members gave to that damaging industrial dispute last year.
    Secondly, unlike the hon. Gentleman, virtually everyone else in the country—those who take transport seriously—has welcomed the debate. Indeed, I had the opportunity to talk to 700 people at the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford just a couple of weeks ago. I was told that, apart from graduation ceremonies, it was the largest event at the university in the whole of the academic year. People came together to study, debate, discuss and explore the possibilities of transport policy and transport strategy through to the next century.
    We know that the hon. Gentleman does not have a policy—he does not have one on railways, on roads or on aviation—so we understand his embarrassment. We are happy for him to continue to sit on the Labour Front Bench and make his rather silly remarks while the rest of us get on with developing a transport policy for the next century.

    Vehicle Excise Duty Fraud
    Mr. French: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures are being taken to combat vehicle excise duty fraud. [30120]
    Mr. Norris: The number of evaders penalised and revenue recovered from direct enforcement action has been increased in each of the last 10 years. Last year was the best yet, when £46.5 million was recovered from 458,000 evaders.
    Mr. French: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. I congratulate him on the progress that has been made but remind him that there is still a great deal to be done. Constituents of mine regularly produce long lists of registration numbers of vehicles which they know to be untaxed. What is even worse is that when they take those lists to the police, they are told that nothing can be done. May I urge my hon. Friend to arrange constructive talks between his Department and the Home Office to ensure that the problem is cracked once and for all?
    Mr. Norris: Yes, I shall certainly draw my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of the Home Secretary because his point is very serious. We ought to be clear that evasion represents about 4 per cent. of potential revenue. None the less, it is an affront to all those law-abiding motorists who bother to get their VED, and such conduct is quite inexcusable. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks.
    Ms Walley: Why has the Minister not understood that it is a matter not only of tax evasion but of road safety? Is there not a close connection between the number of vehicles, especially heavy goods lorries, that are not only untaxed but unlicensed and the number that are uninsured and illegally operated? Indeed, that connection has been highlighted by the report of the traffic commissioners. When will he introduce powers to confiscate heavy goods

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    vehicles, which are contributing to the cause of accidents? The Minister did not even take that into account in answering the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. French).
    Mr. Norris: In the midst of all that, there was—I suppose—at least one semi-serious point, which I am happy to address.
    Mr. Meacher: How patronising!
    Mr. Norris: It is difficult not to be patronising when faced with such inane contributions from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and his hon. Friends. The issue of some heavy goods vehicles not being covered by operators' licensing is very serious. I have undertaken, with the illegal operations working party, to look at the whole issue of confiscation. I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) to the extent that in some cases confiscation may be the only mechanism capable of deterring those for whom the normal framework of the law is clearly irrelevant.

    A21
    Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made on the plans to upgrade the A21. [30122]
    Mr. Watts: Progress is being made. Preparation work is continuing on three schemes to improve the A21. We continue to keep the needs of the route as a whole under review.
    Mrs. Lait: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, even though it will not relieve the distress among many communities along the A21. On Thursday evening, while driving through Lamberhurst, I noticed posters saying "Bypass Now". My constituents who work in Tonbridge Wells are concerned about the economic success of that town because of its poor communications, and Hastings has the 43rd highest level of unemployment in the country, largely due to appalling communications. Can my hon. Friend give any idea of how we will finally address the problem of upgrading the A21 to a reasonable standard?
    Mr. Watts: I fully recognise the strategic and economic importance of improving the A21. My hon. Friend took the trouble to explain it to me fully when I visited Hastings earlier this year, when I met local business men. The three schemes being taken forward are the section between the Tonbridge bypass and Pembury bypass, the section between Kipping's Cross and Lamberhurst and the Lamberhurst bypass itself. For the section between Kipping's Cross and Lamberhurst, we are also considering whether interim measures can be taken as part of our network enhancement programme.

    Travelcards (London)
    Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his policy in respect of the introduction of competing travelcards in London. [30124]
    Mr. Norris: The existing London travelcard is a rightly popular form of ticketing and we are committed to its continued availability. Future developments in ticketing alongside the existing travelcard will primarily be a matter for the transport operators to pursue.
    Mr. Corbyn: It is the latter part of the Minister's reply that worries me. Can he confirm now, once and for all, that there will be no establishment of competing travelcards in London, that there will be the maintenance of one travelcard which covers bus, underground and railway operations and that he will tell the rail franchising director that there should be no possibility of introducing any other form of travelcard which limits accessibility to, and interchange between, public transport in London? London's success depends on an integrated transport network and on an overall travelcard to facilitate that.
    Mr. Norris: The hon. Gentleman is right. As I said, the travelcard is hugely important. He is also right to say that we would not want for a second to lose it. I hope that he will allow me to say, however, that the idea that we must assume that all ticketing technology is frozen in time is misleading and unhelpful. Stored value ticketing, for example, adds attractive opportunities for London Transport to appeal to people who do not need or want the present travelcard, which is time-limited, but who would like to have stored value in a ticket that they could carry with them to their great convenience. That is the kind of technical development that can sit alongside the travelcard. I say straightforwardly and on the record, because misleading information about the matter is frequently put forward, that we have no plans to water down the present travelcard for we hugely recognise the value that it has for millions of Londoners.

    Crossrail
    Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to lay before the House an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 to authorise a public inquiry into the crossrail project. [30125]
    Dr. Mawhinney: No firm date for an application under the Transport and Works Act has yet been set.
    Mr. Lidington: Given the acknowledgement by the Government, by local authorities along the length of the proposed crossrail route and by organisations such as London First and City Corporation, representing the City of London, that crossrail would bring enormous benefits to London and to the whole of the south-east, may I impress on my right hon. Friend the need for urgency in this project? Has he set a date by which the new review, which he has commissioned, of the feasibility of crossrail should be completed and the report given to him and his Cabinet colleagues?
    Dr. Mawhinney: It is a matter of record that my hon. Friend has taken a long, detailed and informed interest in the subject, and I pay tribute to him for that. He will be encouraged to know that the study that I have put in place is being carried out alongside the preparation of the application and I have asked for the study to be made available to me before the end of the year.
    Mr. Spearing: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the crossrail project, in principle, has cross-party and all-London support? This is not only because 61 of the 66 central London stations would be accessible from a crossrail route, but because the line would run from Heathrow through central London and possibly out to Stansted. Will he confirm that the review that he has commissioned will look at some of the proposals that were not used and that if the Bill procedure proves to be

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    faster than the order procedure under the Transport and Works Act 1992, that procedure would not be entirely disregarded as the way forward?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I understand that there is cross-party support for the scheme and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to that fact. I believe that he would agree that we need to look carefully but quickly at the changed circumstances to ensure that any crossrail project that comes forward is well founded and well based. That is what we are seeking to do at the moment.
    Mrs. Gillan: My right hon. Friend will know how important the crossrail project is to my constituency. Has he had an opportunity to look at the research that has been produced by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which estimates that the project will create 20,000 long-term jobs and will add £1 billion to the gross national product? Can my right hon. Friend hasten the project, and make sure that it does not remain on paper but becomes a reality?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I must be careful in responding to my hon. Friend—whose points I well understand—because I will have a quasi-judicial role later in the process if crossrail proceeds. I understand the economic importance that is attached to the project. On the other hand, my hon. Friend will recognise that, if and when the project goes forward, it must do so on a solid basis so that we can look forward to crossrail adding the benefit and value that all of us would wish to see.

    British Rail
    Mr. John Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to meet the European Commissioner for Transport to discuss European subsidies to British Rail. [30126]
    Mr. Watts: There is no scheduled meeting to discuss subsidies.
    Mr. Evans: Will the Minister confirm that the Government have been forced to repay the millions of pounds that they received from the European Union to implement major improvements in the British Rail network? Does he feel that obtaining money by that method is almost obtaining money by false pretences? Is that not another nail in the coffin of the privatisation of British Rail?
    Mr. Watts: No, no and no.
    Mr. Tredinnick: If my hon. Friend meets the Commissioner to discuss the subject of subsidies, will he consider the importance of the midland main line to Leicester? Now that the channel tunnel rail link is to go to St. Pancras—extensive and expensive works are to take place there—has not the time come for a greater emphasis on the development of the midland main line, which is vital to all those who live in Leicestershire and beyond?
    Mr. Watts: It is, of course, good news for Britain and the areas that have benefited in particular that the railways have obtained grants totalling £150 million during the past 10 years. My hon. Friend is right to say that the railways will still be eligible for such grant aid after privatisation. He will know that the channel tunnel rail link and the west coast main line upgrade are key projects identified by the Christophersen group for priority in funding the
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    under-the-Thames programme. Perhaps consideration will be given in the future to the midland main line, as my hon. Friend suggests.

    East London Line
    Mr. Dowd: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects London Transport underground services to resume on the East London line. [30127]
    Mr. Norris: London Underground has applied for listed building consent to strengthen and waterproof the tunnel carrying the East London line under the Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping. The timing of the reopening of the line will depend on the progress of the application.
    Mr. Dowd: Is it not the case that the decision of the Secretary of State for National Heritage to list the tunnel the day after it was closed for refurbishment has meant that the application for listed building permission has had to be submitted? The Minister will be aware that the East London line is the only tiny connection that the people of south-east London have with the London underground network. Will the Minister—within the limitations of his powers—prevail upon the Secretary of State for the Environment to make the earliest possible decision on the listed building consent for the tunnel, so that those of us in south London can have what little of the underground network that we have restored to us?
    Mr. Norris: I am happy to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's campaign on behalf of his constituents, and the great interest that he has shown in the progress of the East London line. I am keen that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment should be aware that, above all, the East London line is a railway that connects people with jobs and families with families. That should not be forgotten while we discuss the merits and demerits of the listing application.

    Cowden Crash Inquiry Recommendations
    Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what funding his Department intends to make available to enable British Rail and Railtrack to carry out the recommendations of the inquiry into the Cowden crash; and what estimate his Department has made of the cost of those recommendations to British Rail and Railtrack. [30128]
    Mr. Watts: British Rail and Railtrack are evaluating the inspector's recommendations, some of which require programmes of research.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Since the Secretary of State—along with everything else that he is junking—has announced that he is not interested in progressing with the advanced train protection scheme, and since the inspector said specifically in the report that the installation of such a system would be a minimum requirement in all new trains, how can the Minister seriously come to the Dispatch Box and pretend that the Government are interested in the safety of those who use the railways?
    Mr. Watts: On the contrary, my right hon. Friend announced in March that he had accepted in full the advice on ATP from the Health and Safety Executive and that British Rail and Railtrack would put in train further

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    development work on alternatives to ATP, which could deliver some of its benefits. It was also accepted that ATP should be an integral feature of all high-speed lines and that careful consideration should be given to including it in any major resignalling. The hon. Lady is simply wrong.
    Mr. Meacher: Further to my hon. Friend's question, when will the Government implement the recommendations of the Cowden inquiry inspector and of the Hidden committee report on the Clapham crash six years before, that, as a minimum, all new high-speed railways should be fitted with some form of ATP? Is he aware that the installation of an ATP system covering the busiest 30 per cent. of the rail network, and thereby 80 per cent. of passenger miles, could have saved dozens of lives in the past five years, at a cost of less than half of what the Government spent in the same period on promoting rail privatisation? When are the Government going to be more interested in promoting rail safety than in partisan dogma?
    Mr. Watts: The hon. Gentleman is as wrong as his hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), both in his figures and his assertions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be receiving a progress report from the Health and Safety Executive on the development work being undertaken into systems to deliver some of the benefits of ATP. As I said in my reply to the hon. Lady's initial question, it is already accepted that advanced train protection will be an integral part of all new high-speed rail links, such as the channel tunnel and the west coast main line upgrade.

    Transport Facilities (London)
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has to improve transport facilities in London. [30129]
    Mr. Norris: We shall continue to work in partnership with local government and the private sector in delivering the on-going programme of carefully targeted road improvements and traffic management measures, allied to very heavy investment in public transport.
    Mr. Banks: One of the things that could be done to improve movement around London would be the greater co-ordination of all road works. Why are bridges still being closed without any apparent co-ordination? Can we have an assurance that, in the event of the Conservative leadership election going to a second round, there will be co-ordination of all road works associated with the installation of new telephone lines by British Telecommunications, so that the whole of Westminster is not turned into a large building site?
    Mr. Norris: The trouble is that that question is long on rhetoric and short on specifics. The reality is that there is indeed a group to co-ordinate road works, and bridge works in particular. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that bridges are vital, in the sense that they concentrate traffic into narrow corridors. Whenever there is the prospect of more than one bridge being repaired at any one time, there is an extensive programme of co-ordination.
    I recently heard the figure of 30,000 utility diversions in one borough alone mentioned in respect of the huge number of utility adaptations, including cabling and so forth, which are very much in evidence at the moment. I
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    share the hon. Gentleman's frustration, but all the boroughs and the Department take the matter very seriously.
    Mr. Brooke: Granted that the reputation of the Department would stand even higher if there were greater stability and predictability for its public expenditure forecasts for London Transport, will my hon. Friend accept the gratitude of some London Members for the fact that the Department has begun to repair the investment deficiencies that occurred when London Transport was under the London county council and the Greater London council?
    Mr. Norris: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend because he makes an extremely important point. On 1994 prices, investment rose above £150 million only in the mid-1980s and now stands at somewhere around £1 billion a year in London Transport infrastructure alone, along with a heavy programme of investment in railway and road infrastructure. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to contrast that with the dismal record of previous Administrations. We need take no lessons from the Opposition on the amount that we have invested in transport infrastructure in London.

    Air Service Agreement
    Mr. Wilkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will make a statement on progress in air service agreement talks between the United States of America and the United Kingdom. [30130]
    Dr. Mawhinney: The UK and US Governments reached agreement on 5 June on a package of new opportunities for UK and US airlines. We have already started work on the next stage of negotiations with the aim of opening up further opportunities.
    Mr. Wilkinson: May I tell my right hon. Friend how satisfactory it is that he was able to reach that agreement on 5 June? Will he make it clear to the House that he and Her Majesty's Government refuse to be browbeaten by Transport Commissioner Kinnock, who is attempting to bring European Court actions against nations that have rightly maintained their entitlement to negotiate independent national air service agreements with other countries?
    Dr. Mawhinney: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Like him, we attach considerable importance to our bilateral negotiations with the United States over many years, which recently proved to be fruitful and on which we intend to build. I insisted at the last Transport Council meeting two weeks ago, before Commissioner Kinnock could carry forward his proposals, that the Council of Ministers' requirement dating back to 1993 should be carried out. It requires the Commission to undertake a study to demonstrate whether it can negotiate on behalf of member states and whether to do so would be advantageous to member states rather than to countries negotiating bilaterally. It also requires the Commission to establish common interest, which would be difficult given that the United Kingdom has 40 per cent. of transatlantic travel and Luxembourg has 0.02 per cent. I am sceptical about whether the Commission will be able to make speedy progress in that regard. In the meantime, I shall continue to defend and advance UK national interest in bilateral discussions with the United States.

  DUCHY OF LANCASTER

    Citizens Charters
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what further charters, and in what areas, he is proposing; and if he will make a statement. [30146]
    The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. John Horam): New charters for further and higher education in Northern Ireland will be published later this year, as well as revised charters for court users, people passing through customs points, and NHS patients in Wales. A revised charter for council tenants was published in June.
    Mr. Greenway: May I ask for a charter for council tenants and all council tax payers so that they have protection against councils like Ealing council, which is Labour-controlled, as you will know, Madam Speaker? If tenants and council tax payers owe council tax, Ealing council sends them reminders and within a week or a month of their having paid, they receive summonses and repeat summonses. Somebody who came to my surgery last Friday had had 10 summonses for taxes that had already been paid, and that person was over 90.
    Mr. Horam: I assure my hon. Friend that the new council tenants charter sets out clearly the rights of council tenants, and tenants in Ealing should appeal if they feel that they are being disadvantaged. On the general performance of Ealing council, the indicators published by the Audit Commission will have revealed the position all too clearly.
    Mr. Henderson: The Minister will be aware that a number of charges have been made about charters being gimmicks. Is he aware that, by extending charters as he has announced this afternoon, he may further be accused of concentrating on gimmicks? Is he further aware that many people want a toughening of existing charters, for instance in the health service? Currently, no one appears on a waiting list until he or she meets a consultant. Would it not better reflect what is happening if the waiting list count were measured from the time that a person met his or her doctor? Given that the Duchy of Lancaster is providing short-term cover in Wales, will he introduce that system during the time that he is covering for the previous Secretary of State for Wales?
    Mr. Horam: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman continued with the second half of his question because I thought for a moment that the Labour party was exercising yet another U-turn and backing off from its general support for charters. So far, it has been extremely helpful. I am encouraged by the toughness of the second part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

    Science Education
    Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has further to extend scientific education (a) for schoolchildren and (b) for the population at large—correcting the Table Office's typographical error, Madam Speaker. [30147]
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. David Hunt): I am always willing to discuss a wide and varied agenda with my hon. Friend, but I do draw the line at wide and varied gender.
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    The answer to the question of course is that we shall do whatever is necessary to capture the imagination of children and the population at large to the excitement of science, engineering and technology.
    Mr. Hawkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The Table Office had erroneously tried to transfer that question to the Secretary of State for Education, as it did with the later question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies), which I think explains what happened there. I thank my right hon. Friend for his—[HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it."]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The Table Office does not transfer questions; Ministers do. The hon. Gentleman should not attack Officers of the House who do not have a platform to answer back.
    Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful for your guidance, but may I thank my right hon. Friend for the support that he is giving to scientific education? My right hon. Friend knows that I have a strong commitment to that because it is crucial—and I am sure that he agrees—that we are able to compete internationally. Unless the schoolchildren of the future have a very good scientific education, we shall be handicapped in competing with the Germans, the Japanese and the Americans.
    Mr. Hunt: I agree with my hon. Friend that that does revolve around competitiveness. That is why I was pleased, on 22 May, to publish, at the same time as the competitiveness White Paper, the technology foresight steering group report, which set out that we shall need to find the future scientists who will discover the cures for diseases to which there is as yet no solution or cure. They will have to find the motor vehicle of the future. Many exciting challenges lie ahead, and we must ensure that we are ready, willing and able to meet those challenges.
    Mr. Battle: What a complacent response. Is the Minister aware that many 16-year-olds at school are turning their back on science, especially in England and Wales? Is he aware that degree applications for science subjects are down this year for this year's entrants—physics down 3 per cent., environmental sciences down 6 per cent., general engineering down 18 per cent. and electronic engineering down 74 per cent.? What will the Government actually do to sort out that science gap for 16 to 18-year-olds?
    Would it not be timely to consider the model of the Scottish education system, for example, to introduce a broader curriculum for 16 to 18-year-olds to ensure that all youngsters throughout Britain have a better understanding of science and a chance to take science further?
    Mr. Hunt: The hon. Gentleman ignores—I think that he acknowledged that indirectly—the fact that we have ensured that all children now study science up to the age of 16, under the national curriculum. As for 16 to 19-year-olds, he will be aware of Sir Ron Dearing's review, which is currently taking place.

    Civil Servants
    Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many civil servants the Government or their agencies now employ; and what was the equivalent figure in 1979. [30148]
    Mr. Horam: The number of civil servants is 516,100 today, and it was 735,400 in 1979—a reduction of 30 per cent.
    Mr. Jenkin: May I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Government on the very substantial reduction in costs that that entails, but what is the next step for all the next steps agencies, which continue to employ a large number of people? Would it not be sensible, as they are market-tested, that, where they are successful, they are given the opportunity to transfer to the private sector and become businesses in their own right?
    Mr. Tony Banks: Lucky they don't market-test you lot.
    Mr. Horam: The question of privatisation is considered when a next steps agency is set up. We then, under the existing procedures, have a period of five years before that question can be considered again. None the less, I can assure my hon. Friend that that timetable will be adhered to, and that any question of privatisation for a next steps agency will be thoroughly examined.
    Mr. Dalyell: May I ask a question of which I have given notice to the Department?
    Mr. Foulkes: How did my hon. Friend know that he was going to be called?
    Mr. Morgan: Tam Dalyell's charter.
    Mr. Dalyell: I am sorry; this is a very precise question, which is worrying people in the Scottish Office. Is it quite proper that Mr. Gregor Mackay, an official of the Scottish Office, paid out of the public purse, should work in the office of one of the candidates for the leadership of a political party? Is there not some argument for having a code of conduct and making these things very precise?
    Mr. Horam: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, there is a great deal of point in having a code of conduct. There is, in fact, a code of conduct which makes it plain that people should not indulge in party political activities when they are paid from public funds. The gentleman about whom the hon. Gentleman is concerned is on leave at the moment.

    Science Education
    Mr. Quentin Davies: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to encourage more students to take science subjects at university and college. [30149]
    Mr. David Hunt: We support initiatives to bring real life scientific challenges to the classroom.
    Mr. Davies: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that so many science graduates choose a career outside science and technology so that their talents and education are lost both to the advancement of knowledge and to the research and development effort, on which ultimately so much of our economic future depends? Do the Government have any specific ideas on how we can enhance the status and rewards and, therefore, the attraction of a career in science and technology?
    Mr. Hunt: I agree with my hon. Friend. We always seek to promote better career opportunities for scientists, engineers and technologists. I hope that everyone in the
    16
    House will have the opportunity to visit the women in science exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall, which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science opened this morning, when he was able to announce that the Government are doubling their financial contribution towards the Dorothy Hodgkin fellowships.

    Duchy Benevolent Fund
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what financial resources will be available in the Duchy benevolent fund for distribution during the current year. [30151]
    Mr. David Hunt: Approximately £215,000.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Chancellor recognise that part of the money that is left by people who are intestate ultimately goes to the benevolent fund and part of it is used for running the magistracy in the county? Would it not be more appropriate for all the money to be used by the benevolent fund? As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, there are many good purposes to which the money can be put.
    Mr. Hunt: I am not a trustee of the Duchy benevolent fund, but I know that the trustees donate all the income which is received from investments. Last year 88 per cent. of the money donated went to charitable causes in the Duchy. I recall that the hon. Gentleman wrote to me in April about help for the Burnley Alliance silver band. I am delighted to say that a grant of £800 was made to the junior section of the band for a purchase of a new flugelhorn. I am delighted on this occasion to blow the hon. Gentleman's trumpet for him.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: May I ask my right hon. Friend to relay to those who run the Duchy benevolent fund the thanks of many thousands of people for the great care and attention to detail which they give to every application that is made to that excellent fund, which is special for the people of Lancashire?
    Mr. Hunt: I am delighted to hear the authentic voice of Lancashire. I shall convey to all those involved the praise of my hon. Friend.

    Science Week 1996
    Mr. Evennett: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to encourage further involvement from broadcasters and the media in Science Week 1996. [30153]
    Mr. David Hunt: I was delighted with the outstanding coverage of Science, Engineering and Technology Week 1995 and I am determined that the 1996 week should be even bigger and better.
    Mr. Evennett: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Does he agree that science is vital to our national interest and is an exciting subject in itself? Will he continue to press the media, particularly the BBC, to put out more programmes on science and technology and to make them more exciting, fun and interesting for the general public?
    Mr. Hunt: Yes. I recently had a meeting with the BBC at which I met John Birt and Alan Yentob, both of whom

    17
    were delighted with the success of the Science, Engineering and Technology Week 1995. They have already promised their full support for the 1996 week. I take the opportunity to congratulate "Tomorrow's World" on its 30th anniversary last month. It does a great deal to promote public understanding of science, engineering and technology.
    Mr. Skinner: I wonder how the right hon. Gentleman is at doing arithmetic. If somebody in the ballot tomorrow gets 190 votes and another gets 70, can he tell us whether the one who gets 190 votes will stand his ground and keep his job?
    Mr. Hunt: If I were to answer that mathematical hypothetical question, I would say quite clearly to the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will have a decisive victory tomorrow. As for the other implication behind the hon. Gentleman's question, progress in arithmetic under this Government has improved considerably, and I know that, as a result of the past 10 years, even the hon. Gentleman can do joined-up handwriting.
    Sir Giles Shaw: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate those involved in the Science, Engineering and Technology Week? Looking forward to next year, will he assure the House that contributions to that event by local firms are as essential as those made by the media? What steps is he taking to develop further links with chambers of commerce so that they can plug in and make SET Week even more successful than it has been before?
    Mr. Hunt: I agree with my hon. Friend. If we are to make a great success of Science, Engineering and Technology Week 1996, we must involve small and medium-sized enterprises. In view of my hon. Friend's intervention, I shall consider how best to do that. I shall seek out chambers of commerce, training and enterprise councils and, through business links, all firms, so that they can play a positive part in SET 1996.

    Citizens Charters
    Mr. John Evans: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to introduce further citizens charters during 1995; and if he will make a statement. [30154]
    Mr. Horam: A number of new and revised charters have been issued this year. We are also encouraging the production of local charters. Thousands of organisations, including surgeries, hospitals and police forces, have already produced their own charters which reflect the needs of the local user.
    Mr. Evans: Can the Minister confirm that citizens charters were originally introduced to give the voters more power over politicians and bureaucrats? Does he recognise that the unseemly battle taking place among 329 Conservative Members of Parliament to elect the next Prime Minister is a negation of all those charters' principles? Why does he not recognise that the people do not want any more charters but a general election now?
    Mr. Horam: I am afraid that there are no charters that apply to activities inside the House; perhaps there should be.
    Mr. Fabricant: If people do not recognise that charters are achieving something, why is it that the French,
    18
    Germans and Americans are starting to copy our system? Why is it that the only people who knock the system are the Opposition? They do so only because they did not think of it first.
    Mr. Horam: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. One of the first things that President Chirac did on taking office was to introduce a citizens charter. Well done, President Chirac.
    Mr. Winnick: Is not there a case for introducing charters for political and personal courage? If so, does the Minister agree that the ex-Secretary of State for Wales would receive that charter for having the guts to resign from the Cabinet in order to stand for the current leadership ballot? The President of the Board of Trade and the Employment Secretary, though they are desperate for the job at No. 10, simply do not have the guts to do what the right hon. Gentleman did.
    Mr. Horam: I doubt whether that will influence many votes in that particular election.
    Mr. Mark Robinson: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by what mechanisms the Government measure the success of the citizens charters. [30155]
    Mr. David Hunt: Various.
    Mr. Robinson: I thank my right hon. Friend for his splendid answer. Does he agree that one measure of success is the fact that there are more than 2,000 nominations for the charter mark currently in the pipeline, and which he is considering, supported by more than 4,000 individuals?
    Mr. Hunt: Yes. We were expecting 2,000 nominations, so to achieve double that number has been a great success, bearing in mind the fact that in 1992, 296 organisations were nominated; in 1993, 441 and in 1994, 523.
    Mr. Barnes: There is a charter that could be measured easily, and which would follow the greatest charter to be introduced, the initial set of charters introduced by the Chartists to extend the franchise. Why can we not have such a charter to deal with the current franchise, because between 3 million and 4 million names are missing from the electoral register? If we put that right there would be an easy way to measure our success, because the more people on the electoral register, the more that register would be judged a success by that particular charter.
    Mr. Hunt: That is why we strongly support all campaigns to urge people to register for voting and exercise that vote.
    As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, many other countries across the world are following the Prime Minister's initiative of introducing a citizens charter. In May I was discussing this initiative with Vice-President Gore, who has already hailed it as an innovative idea.
    Dr. Spink: Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the measures of success of the charters is national

    19
    health service waiting times? Does he accept that, since the introduction of the patients charter in 1991, those waiting times have been dramatically reduced? Before he answers, will he bear it in mind that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has just joined him on the Front Bench?
    Mr. Hunt: I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and, indeed, the activities of the Welsh Office in Wales, in constantly taking forward the initiatives under the patients charter. I am delighted that, since the publication of the patients charter, there has been a dramatic reduction in NHS waiting times.
    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many charters currently exist; and what plans he has to extend them into other areas. [30156]
    Mr. Horam: There are currently 40 charters. New and revised charters are being introduced during the course of this year, and also many local charters.
    Mr. Foulkes: Does not the Minister realise that when I was sitting, fuming, in a traffic jam the other day I realised that by far the greatest of the Prime Minister's achievements was not the charters, but the cones hotline? How much has the cones hotline cost? How many phone calls have there been to it? What great, new initiative will replace, challenge and equal the cones hotline if the Prime Minister is returned in the ballot tomorrow?
    Mr. Horam: In tune with his forceful presentation of the subject, the hon. Gentleman should take a positive view of charters, not carp on about the minor, negative aspects.

Points of Order
3.31 pm
Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Has the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland approached you about a statement on the release of Private Lee Clegg? If that is not so, could you give me some guidance? I am Private Clegg's constituency Member of Parliament, but I have not been informed of his release this morning. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland assured me that Private Clegg would, rightly, be the first to know and, as his constituency Member of Parliament, I would be notified in due course. I understand that this morning other Members of Parliament were phoned individually to be told of Private Clegg's release and that the newspapers also had prior notification. As a Back-Bench Member of Parliament and Private Clegg's constituency Member of Parliament, I wonder if you, Madam Speaker, could help me.
Madam Speaker: I have not been informed that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is seeking to make a statement today, but he is a most courteous Minister and it seems that there may well have been an unintended oversight on the part of the Department. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter in this way as a point of order and I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will let the Northern Ireland Office know what has taken place. Perhaps an explanation will be given to the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) who, as Private Clegg's constituency Member of Parliament, deserves to know what has happened.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: No.
Mr. Faulds: It is extremely relevant —
Madam Speaker: That is the point—once I have dealt with a point of order, I do not take a further point of order on the subject. The hon. Gentleman's point of order cannot be relevant to the previous one as I have just dealt with it.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you had time to look at today's edition of The Guardian, which carries a report that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) has retired to his newly acquired Back Bencher's Rooms in the House of Commons to hit the telephones? The implication is that the right hon. Gentleman is hitting the telephones to canvass support for the leadership election. I wonder whether you feel that that is an appropriate use of House of Commons facilities.
Madam Speaker: I am not prepared to comment from the Chair on newspaper reports. However, if it is a point of order for me, I shall look into the matter.
Mr. Faulds: On a new point of order, Madam Speaker. You mentioned the courtesy of the Minister who deals with Northern Irish matters, but I wonder whether that is correct. I wrote to him on 31 January, 29 March and, again, on 25 May and I had no response to my comments on the guilt of Private Clegg until I received a letter off the Board as I came in this afternoon. It was very courteous of him. At the end, he says that when any further developments happen, he will let me know. A development has happened. I have not heard.
Madam Speaker: I stand by my original statement. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is a most courteous Minister, both in the duties that he carries out in Northern Ireland and in the way that he deals with hon. Members on both sides of the House. No doubt the Government Whip will make a report of the hon. Gentleman's point of order and some explanation will be given to him.

Opposition Day
[15TH ALLOTTED DAY[

Health Care
3.34 pm
Mrs. Margaret Beckett: I beg to move,
That this House shares with the public, with patients and with health care professionals, growing alarm at the incremental erosion of the public service ethos upon which the National Health Service was founded; rejects the drive to replace the cherished principles of public ownership, co-operation and fairness with private markets, excessive bureaucracy and inequity; calls for a slowing down of the passion for reorganisation; and urges that change in the NHS be based on health arguments, not financial considerations.
Madam Speaker: Order. I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
Mrs. Beckett: The debate is taking place at a time when Ministers have been squabbling among themselves, while in the country at large there is concern that the policies that the Government pursue are neither what the country needs nor what its people want. In no area of policy is that shown more clearly than in the health service, where there is growing alarm at the way in which co-operation and fairness in the delivery of health services are being displaced by competition and bureaucracy, and at the way in which the Government openly use the private finance initiative to privatise core clinical services.
There is little doubt that we shall again hear from the Secretary of State not only that the fears that we express are unfounded but that in holding them, the Labour party stands entirely alone. Unfortunately for the Secretary of State, our debate coincides with the annual conference of the British Medical Association. In a sermon on the eve of that meeting, the Bishop of Ripon attacked the Government's so-called reforms for fragmenting the health service and encouraging confrontation within it, and suggested that their dependence on the market and competition struck at the root of the principle of caring.
This morning, Dr. Macara, the chairman of the BMA council, addressed the conference and spoke of the
"dismantling of the NHS—and the creation of a grim game of winners and losers."
Over the weekend yet another senior clinician, the orthopaedic surgeon Professor Colton—who, like all too many doctors these days, is taking early retirement, in his case at the age of 55—said that many of the reforms had more to do with politics than with patient care. He pointed out that he had received a £20,000 bonus for treating fewer patients—in fact, for having had a children's clinic closed for four months because that closure meant that all his patients were treated in times that met the citizens charter targets. He was paid for seeing fewer people. That puts into context the barrage of statistics with which the Secretary of State will no doubt again bombard the House.
Those are not the only voices raised in concern.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Beckett: I shall give way in a moment. I am about to come to something very pertinent to the hon. Gentleman.
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Some of the criticisms that we make, such as excessive bureaucracy, sweeping and sometimes ill-founded structural and organisational change, have been echoed in the ranks of the Government. The final words of our motion echo the words of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood)—and from before he left the Cabinet.
Mr. Arnold: Does the right hon. Lady really mean that she, in order to prove a point, would have been happy for patients' treatment to have been spread out through the year so that they would have had to wait longer? Surely it was in the interest of those patients to be seen early and well within the time scale that has been required by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health?
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman has entirely missed the point. The professor was saying that his clinic was closed; he was not allowed to treat people. As a result of not treating people, the few people whom he did see were dealt with within the Secretary of State's target time. In consequence, he got a £20,000 bonus, which he thought was money misplaced. He saw fewer people than he could have seen had he been allowed to go on treating patients. That is what happens under the Government's reforms. It is not what is supposed to happen.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: As the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) contests the point, and as my right hon. Friend has raised an extremely interesting case, perhaps during the next four hours the Government could inquire about what happened and give us an explanation in the winding-up speech. We would all, including the hon. Member for Gravesham, like to know what happened.
Mrs. Beckett: I am confident that the Secretary of State will be able to explain it to us. It was announced at the weekend, so she will have had the opportunity to make her own inquiries.
I have no doubt, however, that the fundamental direction that the health service would take under the right hon. Member for Wokingham is exactly the policy followed by the Secretary of State. His policy is also privatisation, as he first made clear back in the 1970s when he spelt it out explicitly in a joint publication with Oliver Letwin, and it is a direction confirmed by his record in Wales.
To be fair, the right hon. Gentleman was approaching the medium to long-term project of privatising the health service with rather more political subtlety than the Secretary of State. As he made clear to the Welsh Select Committee, he seems genuinely able to see something that the Secretary of State apparently cannot—that the Government's plans for the health service are going visibly wrong, and he has enough wit to say so.
In the BMA News last August, the right hon. Member for Wokingham said—
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Beckett: In a moment; I am in the middle of a sentence. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was
"not mad keen to cut hospital beds. It's not politically popular".

25
I now give way to the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), who perhaps does not share that view.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the ex-Secretary of State for Wales reduced the number of bureaucrats in the health service in Wales by only 340, which is a smaller proportion than that by which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has reduced the number of bureaucrats in the health service in England?
Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to the hon. Lady. If she will allow me to continue, I am pointing out that there is some contradiction between what the right hon. Gentleman said and what he has done.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Absolutely. Down with him.
Mrs. Beckett: I can without difficulty detect that the hon. Lady does not intend to offer her support to the right hon. Gentleman in the contest.
I was pointing out that the right hon. Gentleman has rather more sense than the Secretary of State for Health and knows when to keep quiet. Perhaps even more startling is his apparently unique perception among Cabinet Ministers that it would be
"important not to reduce the number of a beds to a point where there are not enough."
That is an insight which has so far escaped the Secretary of State for Health.
The right hon. Gentleman can see that the Secretary of State's proposals for grand solutions and the closure of popular hospitals are deeply angering the public, something that she apparently cannot see. He is sharp enough to spot that the public are deeply disillusioned with Tory commitments that the NHS is safe in their hands.
The Welsh NHS has not adopted the Secretary of State's star rating system now in place in England because the right hon. Member for Wokingham said that
"quality is very important but it's harder to measure than factors such as numbers treated and cost."
He also believes that tables are crude and simplistic.
As I said, the right hon. Gentleman knows when to keep quiet especially if, by not doing so, he would jeopardise his long-term project, which is also that of the Secretary of State—privatisation of the NHS. Therefore, when the private sector bid for a new cardiac centre at the Morriston hospital in Swansea proved uncompetitive and the bid went to the in-house team, the right hon. Gentleman said nothing, refraining even from reporting the outcome to the House.
In spring 1994, the then Secretary of State for Wales announced that the National Blood Transfusion Service would be market-tested and then, this year, he announced that, on the contrary, it would remain within the Welsh Health Common Services Authority. Sadly, the Secretary of State for Health does not know when she has gone too far. She knows neither when to keep quiet nor when to give way, gracefully or otherwise. Although the right hon. Gentleman can see when the Government are mishandling the NHS debate, there is no doubt that he shares the objective of privatisation, except that he would have undertaken it more quickly and more ruthlessly.
26
The right hon. Gentleman has railed against the growing number and cost of non-clinical staff in the health service but appointed an accountant to chair the WHCSA. He supports performance-related pay, which would demoralise staff and set one against another. In Wales, as in England, NHS services have already been market-tested, including clinical services such as blood culture management, dental services, pathology and pharmacy. In most parts of Wales, NHS dentistry has been allowed to wither away as it has elsewhere in England and, while the right hon. Member for Wokingham believes that the Secretary of State should keep popular hospitals open in England, he has refused to support the reprieve of what I am told is Wales' most popular hospital—Cardiff royal infirmary—whose services are being run down.
Since 1991, 6 per cent. of acute beds have been lost in Wales, the same percentage as have been lost in England. Since 1992 the number of managers in the Welsh health service has risen from 890 to 1,330. The right hon. Member for Wokingham claims that he would spend more on the NHS, but in 1993–94 the Welsh Office underspent on health to the tune of almost £30 million. In short the right hon. Member for Wokingham is a little less hamfisted in his public pronouncements than his colleagues at the Department of Health, but he is just as committed to the privatisation of the NHS—
Mr. Dennis Skinner: The Secretary of State has said that she would work for him.
Mrs. Beckett: As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) says, no doubt that is why the Secretary of State has said that she would be happy to work with him.
The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Beckett: No, I will not give way to the Minister. He will have plenty of time to speak later.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham is just as committed to privatisation as he is to the long-term project of ensuring that the NHS no longer provides comprehensive health care for all our people but will instead becomes a small core means-tested service for those who cannot afford any private health care. The Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Wokingham are clearly at one. It appears that the Tory party is faced with no choice at all.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): It is all very well for the right hon. Lady to carp about the health services that are being provided by the Government, but has she set any standards for the number of patients that she would treat if the reforms were carried out? To what extent would waiting lists be reduced? Can the right hon. Lady quantify the result of her intended reforms compared with those that we have already made?
Mrs. Beckett: I am not aware that the Government have ever tried to quantify in advance the results of their changes. I and most people in the health service believe that if the policies that we advocate were adopted as opposed to the ones that the hon. Gentleman and his party support, NHS staff morale would be far better, services would be far better delivered, and patients would benefit as a result. When a Labour Government assess the

27
delivery of health care, we shall certainly not count finished consultant episodes but we shall count what actually happens in the treatment of patients.
While the Tory party is apparently not faced with any choice, the British people have a stark choice—privatisation under the Conservatives or modernisation of the health service under Labour. Under the Conservatives there have been disasters such as the one described last week by at least one newspaper as a "bloody shambles". That of course refers to the shambles that was caused when operations were cancelled after 15 per cent. of the country's blood supplies were recalled by the National Blood Authority because of a fault in a number of blood bags. As the authority's minutes show, it made a policy decision to buy a proportion of its bags from a new supplier, first and specifically to get them at lower cost and, secondly, to introduce competition to the supply, a policy that the Government are always urging.
The debacle that has followed is alarming in itself but it contains a number of striking ironies. For example, the fault was detected by staff at the centre in Oxford, which is threatened with closure in the reorganisation. Those donors who were called in to provide emergency supplies were called to centres such as that at Brentwood which are also threatened with closure because the National Blood Authority says it does not need them any more. Another irony, which I think is unintended, was contained in remarks by the authority's spokesperson, who said that the incident showed that the authority was right to bring in the new company because it was evidently dangerous to rely on one supplier. But the danger arose as a direct result of bringing in a new company, solely to lower costs and introduce competition.
Last week's problems are not isolated examples. Blood stocks were already low: they had been below the safe recommended level for four days. Stocks of O-negative had been below the safe recommended level for 11 consecutive days. That was a result of the worry and the low morale in the service and among donors following the National Blood Authority's recent proposals. All those problems arose before the most recent problem caused the fresh destruction of stocks.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: There is clear evidence that, before any decision is made in the House, this quango will proceed with the appointment of a vast number of administrators. Instead of using its existing centres to continue and expand its service, it is causing chaos.
Mrs. Beckett: I share my hon. Friend's view. No doubt she, like me, hopes that the Secretary of State will come to the House before the summer recess to tell us what decisions have been made about the National Blood Authority's proposals, and what progress there has been—and also hopes that the suspicion that has arisen in the service that the Government intend to postpone any announcement until the House has risen for the recess will prove ill founded.
Operations have been cancelled as a result of the problems that we have identified, but that too is not an isolated occurrence. The most recent figures show that the number of cancelled operations rose by 22 per cent. in the last quarter of 1994–95, and that the number of patients not readmitted within a month rose by nearly 50 per cent.
28
Those specific examples of more dramatic problems are only part of a general catalogue of difficulties in the service.
Nor are the moves towards privatisation occurring in isolation. I wonder how many hon. Members have seen brochures such as the one from SMI, which advertises a conference to be held in September this year.
The conference, entitled "Private Finance in Clinical Services", has been called to "assess" the
"moves towards private finance in core and clinical services".
The brochure suggests that the private finance initiative
"involves a complete culture change, creating entirely new markets",
and states that
"Health authorities … are about to look increasingly to the private sector … to manage pathology and core health services".
I also have a copy of The Link, the staff newspaper for the Royal Hospitals NHS trust. It contains an article by the head of financial planning, one Mr. Sanford, who writes about the private finance initiative. He says:
"In all private finance deals the private sector partner will plan to earn enough income from the NHS to make a profit and cover the cost of its investment."
Mr. Malone: What a surprise.
Mrs. Beckett: It is not a surprise to us that the private sector will want to make a profit out of health care; that is why it exists. What we object to is that it should be making that profit, rather than our public and free national health service.
What may, or should, be of rather more interest to hon. Members who care about public finances is that Mr. Sanford also says:
"So often it may be difficult to demonstrate better value for money through the private sector's involvement."
He goes on to suggest a number of ways in which the extra cost of borrowing from the private sector could be offset. His basic pitch is that, whether in laser surgery or pathology, the private sector will hope to cover the initial investment with income from the health service, and to make large profits out of the potential for private patient income. In the case of pathology, however, Mr. Sanford suggests that the private sector would gain through its profit on the sale of tests from a private sector service to NHS hospitals.
So there we have it: a finance director and specialist explains that it may not be possible to demonstrate better value for money from the private finance initiatives being used for clinical services, although they will certainly be used to generate profits. That may be the Conservative party's project, but it is not what the health service needs or what the country wants.
The Government try to pretend that their policies are right and successful, and that there is no alternative. None of those propositions is true. There is an alternative—in public health policy, for example. There appears at first to be some common ground between the Labour party and the Government, in our recognition of the importance of promoting good health rather than merely curing ill health; but, as always with this Government, the policy is flawed. Their first concentration is solely on the individual. It is up to him to eat sensibly, to keep warm in winter, and not to smoke, but the Government refuse to acknowledge their responsibility, the role of public policy, or the harmful effects on health—let alone on the ability of the individual to carry out those exhortations—

29
of unemployment, bad housing, environmental pollution or poverty. Of course, when it comes to a choice between promoting good health by banning tobacco advertising, and the financial interests of the Conservative party, there is just no contest. A Labour Government would take action at national and local level to tackle such problems, insisting that Government Departments and local authorities alike assess and report on the impact of their policies on health.
We propose alternatives too for health care itself—nothing less than the renewal of health care, national in scope and run as a modern public service, not as a set of individual private businesses. With Labour, the national health service would be a single organisation, its assets owned and its staff employed by the nation. We would replace competition with co-operation, and we see all engaged in the service as partners. Doctors, nurses, professions allied to medicine, accountants, staff, managers, the patients, the public, their representatives—all are or should be health partners in a new health service.
The internal market depends on contracts and on competition. It is divisive, expensive and bureaucratic. We would replace it with a system in which funding came from the Department of Health to health authorities and, through them, to general practitioners and the organisations now known as trusts. That funding would flow to health authorities on the basis of weighted capitation.
The new health authorities will be required to assess the health needs of the population whom they serve, commission care and monitor overall service delivery through comprehensive and long-term health care agreements, covering the range of services required to specified quality and volume within a fixed budget.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: I may have misheard, but I think that I heard the right hon. Lady say that everyone in the national health service would be employed directly by the NHS. Does that mean that general practitioners would lose their self-employed status and become salaried family doctors?
Mrs. Beckett: No. What I am saying is that the staff who are employed in hospitals and other trusts would be employed within the NHS, not within individual businesses, as they are at present. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understood that that was the proposal.
Mr. Keith Mans: That is not what the right hon. Lady said.
Mrs. Beckett: If I can correct the hon. Gentleman, who is interrupting from a sedentary position—I am sorry but I have forgotten his constituency—[Interruption.] No, I am not worried about it: the hon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) may not be representing it for long. What I said was that all staff will work within the NHS, which they all do.
As these new authorities will have a greater range of responsibilities than the individual bodies that they replace, and as we believe that they should give greater attention to the area and to the policies of public health, we do not believe that it is right for those authorities, as was the case with those that they will replace, directly to manage the services that deliver health care. Although the trusts would cease to be separate businesses, and their assets would be owned by a national health service, with Labour, hospital and other trust services would have
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day-to-day financial and managerial independence, and would be free to make day-to-day decisions about how they delivered the care commissioned.
The authorities and services would have governing bodies reconstituted to reflect the interests of stakeholders, and within the guidelines of the Nolan committee. They would be reconstituted to include representatives of the health partners—staff, managers, the local community, service users and so on.
The hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) raised the question of GPs. Again, the House will know that we opposed the creation of GP fundholding on the grounds that it fragmented the health service, added to costs and could lead to a two-tier system. All those concerns, I am sorry to say, proved to be well founded in practice.
Fundholding is one end of a spectrum that we find unacceptable, but so is the extreme alternative: a system of health authority commissioning without any consultation or without the involvement of general practitioners or others in primary care. We find both of those extremes completely unacceptable, but between them there is a range of possibilities and models for GP commissioning that could be acceptable.
In the policy document that we published last week, we identified a number of examples of such models being developed at the grass roots by GPs working in concert with their health authorities. We would find many of those varieties acceptable, but there is one absolutely clear bottom line that must be present in every scheme or model, but which is not present in the model proposed by the Government—that what is good about the provision of primary care must be available to every GP and, through him, to every patient.
With Labour, GP fundholding will be replaced by a system aimed to benefit all patients, not just a few. Every GP will have the opportunity to take part in the commissioning of care. Every GP will have the freedom, at present exercised only by fundholders, to refer hispatient to whatever service and for whatever treatment he believes can best provide the necessary care. Those matters are essential to the provision of a renewed health service that will establish and stand by the principles that the British people expect.
In our proposals for health care, we do not seek to turn back the clock—as the Secretary of State, on automatic pilot, automatically assumed and asserted. However, nor do we suggest that the health service can stay as it is, and certainly not that it should continue to head in its current direction towards privatisation.
In our new document, we identify the stark choice before the British people. They can choose a truly national health service, available to all and based on need rather than ability to pay, or they can choose a fragmented collection of health businesses, increasingly dominated and driven by the interests of commerce. They can choose the competition of the marketplace or the co-operation of a single national health service. They can choose between a privatised health service under the Conservatives or a modernised health service with Labour.
This week, the Conservative party is making a choice which is no choice, between two people bound to the same policies. We believe that it is time for Britain to choose and that that choice should be for a new Government and for a new health service in a new century.
4.2 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"notes that since the introduction of the Government's health reforms, over one million more patients are treated in hospital every year and waiting times have fallen to the lowest on record; welcomes the Government's commitment to a strong and stable publicly-funded NHS where trusts and general practitioner fundholders are free to build further on these achievements; and condemns the inadequate, inconsistent and incoherent policies of Her Majesty's Opposition, which would destroy the key features of the new NHS, would undermine patients' interests and would throw into reverse the progress of recent years.".
We have just heard a speech of incoherence and emptiness, which was soporific most of the time and which did not adequately answer the questions that the public and the Conservative party wanted the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) to answer.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My right hon. Friend is too generous.
Mrs. Bottomley: I apologise for being far too generous.
There was a moment when I wondered whether the right hon. Lady's speech had been drafted in Cowley street, but we moved on from that point. The underlying theme of her speech, apart from her clear and profound discomfort about the health policy that has been foisted on her, was a real loathing of the private sector and the profit motive. The Conservative party knows that only by having a wealth-creating nation can we adequately fund a national health service. The difficulty for the Labour party is that it has never really understood wealth creation and job creation, which provide the fundamental key to a flourishing health service.
Mrs. Dunwoody rose—
Mrs. Bottomley: I hope that you, Madam Speaker, will not mind if I make a little progress before giving way.
Last week, the Health Authorities Act gained Royal Assent. That landmark legislation completes the structural reforms for the national health service. It abolishes the regional health authorities and creates fewer, better, all-purpose health authorities at local level to plan the entire range of health services. The Act is the culmination of a long path of health reforms.
The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 established the basic geography of the new health service—NHS trusts, general practitioner fundholders and the internal market, all aimed to achieve improvements in performance and efficiency. Underpinning the reforms is the principle that the decision should be taken as close as possible to patients. Underpinning the words of the right hon. Member for Derby, South is the principle of a command and control economy, with everything being decided in Whitehall. The regional health authorities had to go. They represented the last bastion of that old structure so favoured by the Labour party.
National health service trusts have freedom to run their own affairs. They can control their assets, their organisation, and—increasingly—their greatest item of cost: pay. The Labour party claims with every passing
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soundbite that it does not want to turn the clock back, yet it would strip trusts of those powers. Trust freedoms are not simply abstract concepts: they work for patients.
Since we liberated trusts from the straitjacket of central control, the number of patients treated every year has increased by well over 1 million. [Interruption.] It is very interesting that, whenever we talk about the numbers of patients treated, the Labour party loathes it. It dismisses fact and statistics. It simply likes to cobble together newspaper cuttings from the inevitable examples where, from time to time, things do not work as well as they should.
Mr. William O'Brien: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing this intervention. Since she is referring to trusts and their work, will she address a situation on 7 June involving a constituent of mine? His doctor applied to admit him to Pinderfields general hospital in my constituency and was told that no beds were available. When a bed was arranged at Dewsbury district hospital, my constituent was told that no ambulances were available. How does the Secretary of State intend to deal with the situation under independent trusts? Will she hold an inquiry to find out why that incident was allowed to occur?
Mrs. Bottomley: If the hon. Gentleman had wanted a detailed answer, he would have given me notice of the question. I shall, of course, come back to him on the detail of that particular case.
There is no health service anywhere in the world where from time to time individual cases are not treated less well than one would have hoped. Nearly always, behind the headlines so sought by the Labour party—food and drink to its debates—there are far more complex and detailed aspects, very often involving confidential information about patients or clinical staff. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is rubbish."] If I may, I shall take, for example, the case of Professor Colton raised in the debate.
The House will have heard about Professor Colton and his decision to spend his time in the independent sector in Switzerland. It was the case that they decided at his clinic not to accept elective, non-urgent cases for a limited period. That was because, at that time, 242 out-patients were waiting a maximum of 56 weeks for treatment. At the end of that programme, 22 out-patients were waiting a maximum of four weeks, and they now offer an orthopaedic service for children, delivering a quality of care of which I, as Secretary of State, am happy to be an advocate. They were quite right to take that necessary short-term decision so that all patients could receive a standard of care.
Labour simply does not care—
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs. Bottomley: No, I will not give way.
Labour does not care about the detail. It simply wants mischievous interpretation. That is only too clear because it is quite unable in any way to undermine evidence that the people of this country now receive a better service than at any stage in the history of the health service.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs. Bottomley: I am not giving way. I have a short amount of time. [Interruption.] The debate is limited, and I gave strict undertakings to my hon. Friends not to over-speak.

33
Apart from the 1 million more patients treated every year since the reforms, we have also put into the hands of doctors, nurses, managers and staff working in hospitals the ability to slash waiting times overall. The average waiting time is now—
Mr. Alex Carlile: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it the procedure of the House, and therefore in order, to refuse interventions on the ground of undertakings given only to Members of one's own party?
Madam Speaker: As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, it is up to the hon. Member who has the Floor to decide whether to give way. It is certainly up to the Secretary of State to determine whether she will take interventions. She appears to want not to do so, but to make some progress for the moment.
Mrs. Bottomley: I have already taken interventions. I noticed that the right hon. Member for Derby, South refused to allow an intervention even from my hon. Friend the Minister for Health.
Mr. Carlile: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman must not insist; the Secretary of State has made her position quite clear. I shall do my best to call the hon. and learned Gentleman; he may like to make his point then.
Mr. Skinner: He is the only Liberal Democrat in the building.
Mrs. Bottomley: True. I want to proceed with my speech, but I shall try to find time to give way when I have made a little more headway.
Waiting times have been slashed to the lowest levels ever recorded. Clinics that were previously open on a strictly nine-to-five basis now open in the evenings or at weekends. Requests for help that previously met with the slamming of glass partitions are now handled with courtesy and speed. Where once 20 people were given a 9 o'clock appointment and then had to wait all morning, individual appointment times are now the rule.
I must make it clear to the House that survey after survey of the patients who use the NHS endorses their enthusiasm and appreciation of the service they have received, and shows that their confidence in the service is growing. I find it extraordinary that the Labour party, whenever the achievements of health service staff are pointed out, sneers at and denigrates that work.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Bottomley: Even more achievements have been documented in the latest figures. In the year to March 1995, the number of patients waiting for more than a year for in-patient treatment fell by a half. That matters to patients. The new figures for out-patient waiting time show that 82 per cent. of patients were seen within 13 weeks, and that 95 per cent. were seen within 26 weeks. We are on course to meet the new patients charter target for out-patient waits that I announced earlier this year. That matters to patients and it is an achievement by the staff.
I can tell the right hon. Member for Derby, South that the league tables coming out later this month will again show that the NHS is becoming ever more efficient and
34
responsive to patients. The Labour party sneers at and denigrates the remarkable document setting out the achievements throughout the country.
Mr. Spearing: Does the Secretary of State agree that what she has just said does not apply to the ambulance service, as is shown by the report from the Select Committee on Health? If, after nine debates:in the House, the ambulance service was not provided with what the Government eventually thought was necessary—they had given £5 million extra in 1991, and they gave £14 million extra last year—how can the Secretary of State say that the Government have calculated the real needs of the health service as a whole? If they got it wrong with the London ambulance service after nine debates in the House, how do we know that they will get it right for the country as a whole?
Mrs. Bottomley: Our Government are committed to making information public and available. There has been a transformation in the amount of information that people have on the performance of ambulance trusts and health services throughout the country. It is precisely by making such information available that we can lever up standards.
The hon. Gentleman is, however, right about the London ambulance service; he and I have spoken at great length about that service, and about its long-standing management and trade union problems. My hon. Friends are only too well aware that the London ambulance service is not an NHS trust. It is a sign of old-style health services and not of the way in which we want to manage health services for the future.
The Labour party claims that trusts would remain, but that they would be called local health services.
Mr. Nicholas Brown: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mrs. Bottomley: Is the Labour party really saying that all it has to show for five years of consultation, deliberation, effort and thought is simply a new name? Oh, no: the plan of the right hon. Member for Derby, South is much more sinister than that. She has already told the House that she thinks that trusts are an abomination. The truth behind her document is that NHS trusts would go. The right hon. Lady wants to take away their assets and freedoms. She aches to get back to the old regional health authorities with their web of committees, bureaucracy and grind. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) agrees.
The Opposition voted against the Health Authorities Act at every stage, and they voted against the abolition of the regions that will save £150 million on administration to spend on patients. The difference between our parties is that the Labour party would pay the pen-pushers and bureaucrats, while we fund the front-line staff and the managers whom the Opposition never avoid denigrating.
The right hon. Lady should be aware that we know the offence she has caused to many in her party who are public servants working in the NHS as managers, and the work of the right hon. Lady and the leaders of her party in constantly denigrating the achievements of those managers is a subject that every Government Front-Bench spokesman has heard time and time again.

35
The right hon. Lady would have national pay, although someone—doubtless from the Leader of the Opposition's office—went over her head and inserted the meaningless words "with local flexibility". No wonder Bob Abberley, whose union Unison helps to pay the right hon. Lady's costs, welcomes her proposals. If the Labour party were ever in government again, it is clear that negotiations with the management side would be extremely difficult, as the management side would have one arm held behind its back by the very people for whose benefit it was negotiating.
Until the Labour party renounces the sponsorships of its Front-Bench spokesmen by the health unions, it will never have any credibility. As for the Labour party's acceptance of research costs being paid for by the health unions, I think that that is an absolute outrage, and the public will increasingly think that also.
One of the advantages of local pay is that it will take pay bargaining out of the national political arena and place it within trusts, closer to patients and focused on patient needs. Staff can and will benefit. Pay and conditions determined according to local circumstances can reinforce teams within trusts. Trusts can design packages for their staff to replace the bewildering array of national terms and conditions that currently exist.
I was pleased that the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives last week accepted the principle of local pay, and they have agreed to start negotiating locally this year. I hope that other unions will see sense and follow their good example, so that we can put this unnecessary dispute behind us.
I am tempted to speculate as to why we are having this debate. Is it the right hon. Lady's chance to put her spin on Labour policies? It must have been galling for the right hon. Lady on Thursday to see her policies being given the soft soap treatment by the Leader of the Opposition. Even as best supporting roles go, I think that the right hon. Lady will be pipped for an Oscar by my hon. and multi-coloured Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). Against a delicate pastel background, the Leader of the Opposition put his pastel spin on her policies, but green was closer to the colour with which I would associate the right hon. Lady.
The Labour party has assured us that it will keep the good elements of the Conservative health reforms. Is it turning the clock back? Heavens, no. The Labour party believes in continuity, progress and—above all—nicking good Conservative policies. The Labour party would renationalise the NHS—a meaningless piece of rhetoric. The spectre of privatisation was, as ever, waved about as the last bullet in the Labour party's threadbare locker.
The right hon. Lady made a performance on "Newsnight", where she snapped at the gentle Mr. Paxman that the market would definitely go, and that fundholding would not only go, but would be gone within the year. All day long, the Leader of the Opposition had been cuddling the NHS with his policies of continuity, but after he was tucked up with his Islington cocoa, the right hon. Lady was out of her cage to tear the whole thing apart.
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Let us be clear—the right hon. Lady does not think that there is anything good about our reforms. She has been forced into a wholly unconvincing and inconsistent compromise by the Leader of the Opposition. The result is:
"Another fudge. These policies have not been properly thought through. They are spatchcock reactions, plundering what is newly popular while genuflecting to old vested interests".
Mr. Dennis Turner: Redwoodism.
Mrs. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman says Redwoodism, but those were not my words, or those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), but those of Melanie Phillips writing in syesterday's The Observer—neither noted for their unswerving support of Conservative causes. Dr. Vernon Coleman, in that other well-known propaganda newssheet for the Government, The People, said that the Labour party's proposals made him want to weep.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South is hopelessly trying to have it both ways. She says that she would keep the purchaser-provider system, but would abolish the internal market. Only Labour would try to ride a bicycle that had the right cogs in place, but no chain. What is the relationship between a health authority and a hospital, if it is not a managed and a market relationship? It is hard to find any precise answers in the document, because it promises armies of think tanks, consultation groups and even royal commissions for all the policies and details that the Opposition have been unable to clarify.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South says that Labour wants to give power to general practitioners, but makes it clear that it would abolish within a year the single most effective means of giving them that power— fundholding. She says that Labour would cut bureaucracy, but in place of local, direct management, she wants commissioning committees, a new tier of regional administration, and enhanced powers for the centre to second-guess local decisions. That is not just turning the clock back, but taking it off the wall and jumping up and down on it. Patients would be the losers.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I raise with the right hon. Lady a question that is causing me much anguish? Last Friday, I attended a meeting in my constituency of parents whose children are unable to speak properly because of the absence of speech therapy. The meeting was deeply worrying, because teachers said that as many as 20 per cent. of children in schools in my constituency are unable to speak properly because of a row between the health authority and the county education provider.
Those children have a medical condition. Can someone bang heads together and get the local health authority to recognise that it has responsibilities? Those children will probably be disabled all their lives because of an argument that is going on now. The right hon. Lady has it within her power to get the health authority to do something about it.
Mrs. Bottomley: I hope that the House will bear with me if I do not give way to Labour Members again. The hon. Gentleman has a good case, and I will be more than happy to provide him with a detailed examination of it, but the issue is the health authority assessing the need and commissioning care on behalf of the local community, and working with education and often social service authorities.

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The point of the reforms and the significance of the distinction between purchasing and provision is that it is being done so that there can be assessment of need and a collaborative approach with other agencies to meet it. I am more than happy to go into further detail, but I will not rehearse the great increase in the number of speech therapists and the improved training and arrangements—I will spare the House those statistics.
The progress of the past few years has been formidable. The Opposition would throw it all into reverse. Fewer patients would be treated, and there would be longer waiting times as staff struggled—in a way that they have no wish to do—to come to terms with the ghastly new world of the right hon. Member for Derby, South, who has ignored the advice that she has received from many of her supporters.
"There is an obvious temptation for Labour to cash in on public concern and promise to undo every change the Tories have made … Such a gut reaction should be resisted."
Those are not my words, but those of two health experts, one an adviser to the last Labour Government, writing in the June Fabian Review.
Professors Brian Abel-Smith and Howard Glennester went on:.
"There is now overwhelming evidence that fund-holders are able to get a better deal for their patients. They can pick those hospitals or departments of hospitals which give their patients a better and more convenient service … They can bully specialists about waiting times. They can insist that test results come back quickly … Fund-holding represents a major transfer of power from specialists to GPs".
[Interruption.]
Hon. Members: Disgrace. Apologise.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I did not hear what the hon. Gentleman said.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: I apologise to the House for any discourtesy. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, did not hear my remark, that is all for the best.
My objection was to the idea that GPs can send contracts for all their out-patients to one hospital, as happens in Bath, while the X-rays are in another hospital. Is that in patients' interests?
Mrs. Bottomley: The point was about the leverage that GP fundholders have within the system to deliver better care for their patients. It is for GPs to make those decisions.
Those are precisely the dynamics of the new NHS which the right hon. Member for Derby, South finds distasteful, because they work and deliver improvements for patients, and patients throughout the country know that. The 10,000 GPs or GP fundholders will make their message only too clear to the Opposition.
Naturally, we are working to spread the benefits of fundholding to all GPs. We believe in levelling up, not levelling down, and have been listening to GPs' concerns. We shall make life easier for family doctors by cutting paperwork. We shall spell out the details of our plans shortly, but I can announce to the House today that an estimated 15 million forms a year will go.
On out-of-hours payments, I remind the House that, as a result of our offer, a typical GP would receive an extra £800 a year for an average of six night visits a month. There can be no excuse for family doctors taking action
38
that damages patients. I am, however, sympathetic to their concerns. The criticism or concern that they have raised about the patients charter—not the cynical reaction of the Opposition—relates to the extent to which we need to remind the public of the importance of using the service responsibly rather than calling out GPs inappropriately, keeping appointments and supporting health staff in their work. That is an area in which we can work together and make good progress.
Our task is to realise the potential of the reforms. We must not turn the clock back and throw the whole system into upheaval. We believe in working with staff constructively and practically. We recently announced extra doctors and a 10 per cent. increase in new medical students. I set out many of those issues in a recent speech to the Royal Society of Medicine. I want to see the long-term perspective.
On contracting, we need to develop more sophisticated purchasing patterns. Contracts should be drawn up with imagination and an eye on the future, and not simply replicate the patterns of the past. They should take account of quality, outcomes and how services will improve, not simply cost.
The Opposition fail to understand that the information that we now have about health services, quality, cost and a number of other issues means that we can progressively fashion an innovative, pioneering and evidence-based service. Such a service will be developed on a research strategy, which is increasingly being acclaimed not only here but around the world, as is our "Health of the Nation" strategy.
In her grudging and mean-spirited way, the right hon. Member for Derby, South talked about the importance of improving health, but did not say that we are now marking the third anniversary of our "Health of the Nation" strategy, which the World Health Organisation is using as a model and which the French Government and many health advisers around the world commend. Today, we launched the next phase—a new phase—in the "Health of the Nation" strategy, to target young people. We have much more work to do in that area.
The Opposition simply wish to reorganise, turn the clock back and disrupt all that is taking place within the service.
Change is necessary in the national health service, but that is change that is driven by new medicine—by new science. Day surgery, laser surgery, bio-pharmaceuticals, genetics, information technology: all those and more are stamping their mark on the evolving pattern of health services. But what does the Labour party do? It resists every closure, every change of use, because Labour frequently supports the patterns of the past, not the patterns of the future.
The Opposition speak about the "public service ethos". Of course the national health service must remain publicly funded, but there is scope, as we see through the private finance initiative, to diversify and expand the range of provision without threatening that public service ethos.
Mr. Hugh Bayley: The Secretary of State speaks about the Government's record on reducing waiting times, and says that it is important that services for young people should be improved. What would she say to the boy in my constituency whose mother wrote to me to complain that he had waited 20 months for a first out-patient appointment for orthodontic treatment, which

39
he has now had, but that, if he is to receive treatment, he will have to wait a further 24 months before he receives the orthodontic treatment he needs, for which his general practitioner has referred him to the hospital?
When will the Secretary of State provide the improvement in services for all people—not just young people—that the patients charter promises?
Mrs. Bottomley: That is another individual incident, which I am more than happy to investigate.
The Labour party appears unable to see the wood for the trees. We have a health service that provides everyone with everything, almost without the use of charges. We have some of the best medical research anywhere in the world. We pioneer new services which are comparable with services anywhere in the world.
Our achievement on waiting times is formidable. We used to have 200,000 one-year waiters; we are now down to 32,000 one-year waiters. In the area of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley), we used to have 7,000 two-year waiters when I first came to the Department, six years ago. Now, no one waits more than nine months in the west midlands.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman should commend the fact that the west midlands has gone from 7,000 two-year waiters to a guarantee of nine months, albeit that, with the complexity of delivering the service that we are entrusted to deliver, there will always be aspects where there is more to do. [Interruption.]
I apologise to the hon. Member with whom I momentarily confused the hon. Member for York. Be that as it may, I could offer him the figures—[Interruption.] Be that as it may, I shall spare him a similar comment about what is happening in York, except to say that the work taking place at the university on the dissemination of reviews—the service it provides and the interest that that is developing throughout the world—provides another example of the way in which we have made the service more fit to meet the future and to tackle the issues, not only of today, but of tomorrow.
One will be able to achieve that only by embracing change—not, like the Labour party, by turning the clock back.
Mr. Brian Sedgemore: There is no tomorrow for you.
Mrs. Bottomley: I profoundly reject the Opposition's misleading motion. The NHS is not a business; it is not for profit; it is not for sale. It will remain a service for all the people to use, regardless of their ability to pay. It must be a health service, not only an illness service; a service focused on the individual patient, responding to their needs and influenced by their choices. It must be an innovative service, evidence-based at every level, and an efficient service, providing value for the taxpayer's money. It must be a service with a long-term view, and a public service with strong ethical foundations.
That is precisely what we are achieving by means of the changes that we have set in hand. The Labour party is stuck in the past, and, although it furiously tries to deny it, the health policies that it proposes show that
"old Labour is far from dead and buried"./
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I say to the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) that those are not my words, but those of the Financial Times. The Labour party would tear up the key elements of the reforms; it would inflict upheaval and uncertainty on staff; it would rob patients of the benefits they receive under the Government's policies.
The choice is not between private markets and public health; it is between the Conservative party, which wants to modernise the national health service, and the Labour party, which wants to take it back to 1948.
4.34 pm
Mr. Richard Burden: I am sorry that the Secretary of State has already fired off one set of statistics about the west midlands in the wrong place. I can explain to her that the west midlands is in a different part of the country from York, although it is a city that I know well.
I should like, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to give one illustration of the way in which the national health service internal market has worked. It is from my constituency in Birmingham. It shows graphically how a bureaucratic nightmare has developed in which the buck is passed from manager to manager, trust to trust and authority to authority. The end result is delay upon delay in the development of new NHS facilities. The much-vaunted private finance initiative, which the Secretary of State mentioned in her speech, has only made matters worse.
In my constituency there is a former psychiatric hospital campus called the Rubery-Hollymoor campus. It takes up about 200 acres of land. The hospitals have closed. The regional health authority, or NHS Executive West Midlands, as it will become, decided to sell off the land and develop it. There has been a great deal of controversy about to what extent local people would have a say in the development, and so on. I do not have time to go into that, but I recommend that hon. Members have a look at that story because it is fairly instructive in its own right.
From the beginning it was said that local people would be able to get out of the development a primary health care centre—something that they had demanded for years. They were told that when the land was sold off, money would come into the health service from the sale. Whatever else happened on that land, they would have a primary health care centre. There was a fair amount of discussion—this is going back to about 1990—between people in the area and the South Birmingham health authority about what the primary health care centre should deal with.
In 1994, the regional health authority published a new plan for health care in the west midlands. It had had some problems up to that point. It had become unpopular with its blueprint for health care in Birmingham. That even led to the resignation of the then chair of the regional health authority. In 1994 the authority published a new document called "Looking Forward". That document referred to a new preoccupation and emphasis in the west midlands on primary health care. It mentioned two flagship projects that would take place in Birmingham. One was a primary health care centre in a place called Quinton and another was a centre on the Rubery-Hollymoor site.
I have to tell the Secretary of State and the House that even though the project was talked about back in 1990, guaranteed at that time, and even though it was proposed

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in the document in 1994, not one stone has been laid to construct that new primary health care centre. For the first year or so, even though we in the area became frustrated, we thought that the delay was due to the various delays in the development in general.
Towards the end of last year I approached the regional health authority and asked what was happening about the development of the centre and why it appeared to be taking so long. The story that I got back was essentially that the main reason why no stone had been laid was that no one in the health service could decide whose responsibility it was to build the centre.
The original initiative had come from South Birmingham health authority. It could not be responsible for building the health centre. Why? Because all that it did these days was purchase health care. It could not be involved in developing a facility. The land was owned by the regional health authority so I asked why it was not taking the project forward. The answer was that the RHA did not really do anything these days but merely monitored what other people did. It was not the RHA's responsibility to build the primary health care centre. I was told that it was the responsibility of the local trusts and that the local mental health trust would develop the primary health care centre. When I asked why it had not got on with the job, I was told that that trust had been in negotiation with the other trusts to try to work out how it would fund the centre. After all, that primary health care centre was designed to offer a range of different services, including community services, general practitioner services and chiropody.
That was a great idea, so why had the mental health trust not got on with it? I was told that its negotiations with the other trusts had ground into the dust. It had asked the other trusts for the type of financial commitment that it felt it needed to develop the centre in the years to come, but they said that they could not make those financial commitments because, under the new NHS market, their financial regime operated just one year in advance. Those negotiations therefore produced no result and the project came to a halt. It was only when local councillors and I started to ask questions that the trusts decided that they had to get on with the centre.
Earlier this year we were assured that the project would go ahead. I asked the trusts what they intended to do and they said that they now had to prepare a business case. I asked for whom and I was told that the project had to be considered under the private finance initiative. The project had, effectively, to be put out to tender. I argued that the project had first been approved way back before PFI was ever contemplated, but I was told that that did not matter and that the project now had to be governed by the rules of the PFI. When I asked what that meant, I was told that the trusts were getting on with the project but the plain fact was that it would be another two years before the health care centre saw the light of day.
I was subsequently told by South Birmingham health authority that a notice for tender would be placed in the relevant journal in May 1995 and that pre-qualification submissions would be returned in early June. On 14 June pre-qualification tenders would be selected and an invitation to prepare an outline tender would be issued to between six and 10 companies. On 21 July, two preferred tenders would be short-listed and invited to prepare fully costed tenders. They are due to be returned on 8 September 1995 and on 3 October a finance committee,
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of the mental health trust I assume, will meet. The trust board will meet on 6 October and the full business case submission will be explored. That is what is due to happen in 1995—about five years after the health authorities agreed to the centre and almost one year after they had been chased up about why nothing had happened until then.
Once the private tenders have been returned and it is decided to work on the basis of the PFI, does that mean that the health care centre will then be built? No, it does not, because it is only at that stage that the trusts can start to submit their planning applications. It is only at that stage that the trusts will talk to local people about what they want at that health care centre.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman has offered us a long catalogue of tender procedures. Is he suggesting that such procedures should not be used and that the project should be given to one bidder only, who might just be the highest bidder? Would not that mean taking money away from patient care?
Mr. Burden: The project was given the go-ahead in early 1990s and had the support of local people. The health service then had a management structure that worked. The different parts of that service hung together and it would have been rather better if people had made the necessary decisions then. We would then never have reached the stage, as we did a year ago, where different trusts were unable to make a decision about who would fund the project, who would use it and who, indeed, would own it because it is always considered to be someone else's responsibility.
The hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) has implied that the PFI may offer better value for money to the health service. I am not too sure about that. I received a letter from South Birmingham health authority on 23 June, when I was updated on progress on the project. I was provided with the list of dates that I outlined a few moments ago. The health authority explained that taking the project through the PFI was a complicated exercise. It is so complicated that it appears that South Birmingham health authority, the trusts or even West Midlands regional health authority, cannot be expected to conduct it themselves. That is why I was told that, in order to pursue the PFI, the mental health trust had brought in outside help, Nexus Health Finance Ltd., to assist it to perform its task under the PFI regime. The trust, in order to obtain that finance, has had to commission and pay a private company to help it. That has happened on the back of the RHA's decision to call in Erdman Lewis company to help it market the land and another private firm to help it develop that land. Some questions must be asked about how much all that activity costs.
The primary health care centre in south Birmingham is just one example from a catalogue of disasters, and it says a great deal about the way in which the health service operates. Any individual manager or health practitioner will have the interests of the patient at heart. It is most unreasonable for Conservative Members to say that the Opposition have attacked people working in the health service. Goodness, we spend our days listening to them and taking up their grievances. We articulate for them because they are often not allowed to do that. That demonstrates what is wrong with the way in which the health service is operating.

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It is clear that throughout the entire process in south Birmingham everyone has had the interests of the patient at heart, but when one puts the picture together and inserts the crucial mechanism of the market, the outcome is chaos. A decision was made that could never be carried through. The RHA wanted the health centre to be developed, but it never had the power to do that. In effect, the RHA took its eye off the ball. The trusts and provider units wanted the centre developed, but they could not reach the necessary agreement. That failure was not intentional, but they knew that the financial regime imposed upon them by the internal market forced them to expect of each other unrealistic financial demands. That led to delay and, finally, the much-vaunted PH. The only effect of that initiative on the proposed health centre in south Birmingham has been to create further delays and add to costs.
At the end of the day, who knows—public money may be used to build that health centre. We know, however, that it will not be built for another two years. Let us go back to the start. It all arose from the sale of hospital land. We were told that that would raise money that could be put back into the health service. The one obvious project arising from that development, however, cannot be financed out of health service money.
There is something radically wrong with the way in which the health service now operates. The market mechanism has not worked. It is because of that example in south Birmingham, and countless others throughout the country, that I welcome the new policy document issued by the Labour party. It is designed to bring to an end that disastrous market mechanism and, in a modern context, get back to the essential principles on which the health service is based. It will then serve the interests of people and patients, not bureaucrats and markets, and it will not be governed by an obsession with privatisation.
4.48 pm
Mrs. Marion Roe: There is no doubt in my mind that the health service reforms were radical and bold. They are now nearly five years old and they have matured into an understanding of the need for strategic long-term relationships between purchasers and providers and, where appropriate, between providers themselves.
I remind the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) that NHS trusts are NHS funded and NHS managed. But, of course, they will tender for services from public or private suppliers where it is advantageous in terms of improved quality and efficiency—for example, for cleaning and catering, and for patient transport. But the objective always remains the same: to secure improved services that are balanced and non-ideological.
Competition stimulates innovation and improves efficiency; it also encourages new and better ways of providing health care. The NHS market is a public market, which is publicly accountable and publicly controlled. All purchasers, responding to the needs of the people they serve, seek to maintain good access to a comprehensive range of general hospital services. Those services will include all emergency treatment, which accounts for 35 to 40 per cent. of all expenditure.
However, in some other services, planning needs to be undertaken jointly between purchasers and two or more providers. The implementation of the chief medical
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officer's recent important report on cancer services could not effectively be undertaken without joint work between trusts to ensure the highest-quality surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy—that requires strong links between cancer centres and local cancer services.
In other services, the private sector may offer the best quality of care—but still funded by the NHS. Private psychiatric providers have specialist expertise for people with severe problems. Some purchasers are now obtaining much improved care at home for very dependent elderly people, such as quadriplegics, who need to receive customer-designed care, fitted to their needs, from specially and specifically trained carers. The private sector can often best provide such carers—funded and supervised by the NHS and social services together.
Mr. Alex Carlile: If it is right that the private sector provides facilities—as well it might—for some areas that are better and give better value than the NHS, can the hon. Lady explain why, in some areas of medicine, the NHS is obtaining services from neither the private nor the public sector? For example, why is it so difficult to obtain medical treatment for anorexic teenagers in the NHS in London, so that some of them suffer for years, while those whose parents can afford to pay can be in a psychiatrist's chair within minutes?
Mrs. Roe: I should draw the hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the Select Committee's report on purchasing. If he reads the report in detail he will see that we considered those sorts of services that were not being provided in some areas, but found that such services were being provided in other areas and were certainly meeting the needs of the local population. I advise him to read that report in detail as he will see that his point is covered by it.
Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because I wish to raise a point relating to the intervention by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile).
Is my hon. Friend aware that the family health services authority in Staffordshire produces a list of waiting times and availability of treatments for various types of disfunction? Is it not true that there is no reason why, if the fundholder is in London, the patient should necessarily have to be treated in London? If the treatment is not available, the patient could certainly easily be treated in areas surrounding London, where treatment is available.
Mrs. Roe: I take my hon. Friend's point but, again, the Committee's report shows that in some areas particular services are provided and are of a high quality.
The East Hertfordshire NHS trust, which covers my constituency, has established a deserved reputation as a prudent, well-operated organisation that has consistently met all its financial targets and contractual requirements, while placing key emphasis on developing new services for local people. In doing so, it has sought and benefited from private sector developments in just the sort of projects that provide benefits for patients first, for the trust second, and for the private sector third.
Most importantly, services for national health service patients have been extended and introduced when that would not otherwise have been possible. For example, new and improved equipment has been introduced where private finance has improved the cost-effectiveness of

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services in a wide range of areas. The use of leased equipment has enabled vital advances while relieving the NHS of the burden of risk and cost.
The East Hertfordshire NHS trust has been able to acquire more than £700,000 worth of essential equipment, ranging from image intensifiers, blood gas analysers and other critical medical equipment, as well as equipment that brings benefits to staff and patients, such as a new switchboard, new information systems and refurbished refreshment facilities within the main hospital. The trust has also developed improved diagnostic services through the provision of an on-site, state of the art, privately operated MRI scanner in a purpose-built unit.
The Chase Farm Hospital NHS trust, which also covers my constituency, has a partnership with the private sector; the trust and its patients have benefited, both financially and by means of direct clinical care, through their partnership with BMI. There is a partnership arrangement with the Kings Oak private hospital, which is on the Chase Farm hospital site and which was built by the private sector on Chase Farm hospital trust land. That yields an immediate income of a minimum of £380,000 a year, with additional benefits.
The benefits include: the sharing of expensive clinical equipment; training offered by the trust to the Kings Oak resident medical officer, with the trust in return receiving the funding for an additional doctor in its accident and emergency department; the ability to sell pharmacy, pathology and CTC scanning services to Kings Oak and generate income for the department involved; the opportunity for the doctors to undertake private practice on the Chase Farm site, thereby being easily accessible to the NHS when they are required; the ability jointly to develop new services such as mammography screening; and sports injury clinics. The Chase Farm trust has also worked closely with Broxbourne borough council, which was able to facilitate a land swap with the private sector, enabling the trust to re-provide Cheshunt community hospital with purpose-built premises in a central location in my constituency.
In my constituency we are concerned about the grass roots delivery of an excellent health service, not about ideological rhetoric, where the word "private" has developed into an abusive term.
Britain does not have to make a choice for the national health service between the public service or private markets. The key to maximising our resources and to providing the high-quality health care we need lies in creative and energetic partnerships between our national health service and the private sector. That is the way forward.
4.58 Pm
Mr. Alex Carlile (Mongomery): It is now 16 years since the Government's political experiment with the national health service started. One would have thought that, by the end of 16 years, even by the standards of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), the experiment would have come to fruition and would have achieved the panacea of the national health service that we had been promised. Listening to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), one has the impression that the panacea has been delivered, at least in leafy Hertfordshire. If it applies in Broxbourne, it certainly does not apply all over the country.
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The hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant), who has temporarily left the Chamber, suggested in response to my earlier intervention that an anorexic teenager from London could be treated in Staffordshire. Are we really to believe that that is the recipe or prescription offered by the Government to people who are facing severe illness early in life? Where is the evidence that the national health service is meeting the acute needs of the great majority of the people?
The reality behind what the hon. Member for Broxbourne described is that there has been a tenfold increase in the number of NHS administrators. Senior managers are earning over £63,000 a year on average, and the best employment offers in the jobs pages of the heavier newspapers are not for doctors, but for national health service administrators. Of course the national health service needs good, well-paid managers who can administer it well; what it does not need is a management structure which has overwhelmed the medical ethos of the service.
It is all very well to talk about day surgery, laser surgery and technological changes; it is right that they should be embraced by the national health service. However, can we really be as satisfied—indeed, as self-satisfied and smug—as the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Broxbourne when we hear, for example, the intervention by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) about speech therapy in Cumbria? It is not only in Cumbria that speech therapy is not available. There is a chronic shortage of speech therapists in rural Wales.
Why have the Government failed to meet the need for speech therapists? Why is there a shortage of physiotherapists? Why does the training that paramedics who attend accidents receive vary greatly from one part of the country to another in a way that may critically affect outcomes?
The Government ought to tell us what answer they have to the triple whammy which they have been given in the past two or three days by senior figures who have made comments about the national health service. The Secretary of State tried to rubbish the comments of Professor Colton, but she failed to deal with the comments of his chairman, Martin Suthers. He is the chairman of Queen's medical centre, Nottingham University Hospital NHS trust, and, one is told, a prominent Conservative. He said:
"I am sorry to see him go, but I understand his frustration."
What frustration was that? Perhaps the Government would care to explain it.
I do not believe that Mr. Suthers is about to go to Switzerland to practise health in the private sector. He remains to try to pick up the pieces after the departure of Professor Colton, a leading paediatric surgeon, from Nottingham, and has been left to find somebody else to take over the children's clinic.
What about the Bishop of Ripon, the Right Reverend David Young? The Minister may laugh at the notion that bishops have any right to say anything about what is going on in our society, but the fact is that bishops see a lot of what goes on through their diocesan work. Why is it that the Bishop of Ripon, despite the Minister's smug and dismissive smile, said:
"The increasingly competitive nature of health care is damaging."
He finds it difficult to see how competition can benefit patients.

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Then, of course, we have Dr. Macara, the chairman of the council of the BMA. That name brought from the Minister not a smile but a double raise of his eyebrows, probably because he cannot do them one at a time. I see that he can. He raised one eyebrow in response to that.
Let us consider Dr. Macara for a moment. He is not a firebrand trade unionist; he has a long record of support for Conservative health policies. However, as chairman of the council of the BMA, this morning he described the regime under which the NHS now labours as "alien." He described the internal market as "an infernal bazaar". He has complained that there is neither equity nor integrity, and called the system whereby whistleblowers working in the NHS are under threat of losing their jobs "dedicated secrecy".
Can the Government really, in the style that the Minister of State carries so well off-the-shoulder, shirk such criticisms? Can the Government really be satisfied with having lost the support of the medical profession?
It simply will not do for the Secretary of State to say that general practitioners who are fundholders will fight to retain their fundholding status. She omitted to tell us that 60 per cent. of GPs have refused fundholding status. It is only the minority who are fundholders. There is some evidence that many of them regret it.
The Nottingham fundholding commissioning group has received a lot of praise, both from the Labour party and from my party. In Nottingham, a very successful alternative has been found to GP fundholding. Part of the evidence is that fundholders have declared that they wish to join the Nottingham group.
Why are the Government not prepared to give a fair run to fundholding groups such as that? Why do they insist on pressing the case for individual practice fundholding as their priority? Why are the Government not even prepared, as my party suggests, to test fundholders before they are given fundholding status, not on the basis of the size of the practice but by a strict system of accreditation, to ensure that they are fit to run the funds for their practices?
When the Minister replies, I would ask him to explain why it is that, mysteriously, only a few days ago, the extremely able chief executive of the new joint Nottingham health commission, who has given great administrative support to the Nottingham fundholding commissioning group, resigned his job. Did that involve interference by the Government? Have there been subtle words to lever him out because he is doing rather too well and the Nottingham experiment is beginning to show great success? We deserve an answer.
Mr. Malone: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Carlile: I will gave way later, even though the Secretary of State refused to give way to me. I ask the Minister to find out the true explanation for the departure of the chief executive from his post. He should give an informed answer at the proper stage of the debate.
Mr. Spearing: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman telling us that in Nottingham, for which the Minister is responsible but in respect of which he may or may not reply, there is a group of GPs who wish to avail
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themselves of advantages through some large-scale co-operative organisation, thus benefiting local citizens, but who are being prevented from so doing? If so, the Government must say why.
Mr. Carlile: The Nottingham fundholders group is extremely well run, by some very good doctors. It is clear evidence that doctors can run important parts of the health service for themselves without large numbers of administrators. However, they have had a great deal of help from the chief executive of the Nottingham health commission, who sadly disappeared—I do not mean physically, but from his job, with very little notice, I understand, at the end of last week. If the Minister can give an informed explanation, I shall give way. I apprehended from his sedentary reaction that he was ready with one of his usual off-the-cuff ripostes rather than the true reasons.
Mr. Malone: The hon. and learned Gentleman asked two specific questions: had the Government engineered the chief executive's departure, and had the Government had any words? The answer to both is no, but I shall see whether there is any explanation that I can offer him. I cannot undertake to do so, but I shall certainly try. While I am on my feet, may I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether, as seems to be the case from what he said about fundholding, he shares the Labour party's view that it should be abolished?
Mr. Carlile: I look forward to the Minister of State's informed reply to my inquiry about the chief executive in Nottingham. The Liberal Democrat view on fundholding is absolutely clear. We would encourage the development of joint commissioning groups. One has to be realistic, and it is not realistic to abolish all fundholding at a stroke. I do not believe that the Labour party would regard that as realistic, either.
The development of joint commissioning groups, as Nottingham has shown, would ensure that fundholding would wither on the vine. Indeed, fundholding has always been a kamikaze policy. It was always in the end bound to set doctor against doctor and patient against patient, and it was quite illogical from the start. It is the doctors in Nottingham and elsewhere who are saving the Government from the consequences of that policy.
I welcome Labour's choice for a debate on the national health service. I hope that, as a result of the Labour party's measured approach to changing the NHS, we shall not return to the old phoney war of all public provision on the one side and possibly all private provision on the other. The NHS should cease to be a political and ideological battleground. It should rather be a service in which patients come first, and those who work in it come only slightly behind them.
Like the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown), who is a member of Labour's Front Bench, I was present at the annual dinner of the National Association of General Practitioner Co-operatives at the weekend. That is another organisation which has shown that doctors can run important parts of the national health service. For a change, I should like to hear the Government say that they will introduce initiatives to ensure that not so much of the management and administration of the health service is taken up by an exponential increase in administrators of only the managerial kind, but is done by doctors as far as possible.

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Although it provides a useful discipline, the internal market is desperately in need of reform. I accept the need to separate commissioners from providers, as it is a useful discipline which ensures that the best value and quality can be obtained. However, the creation of 400 to 500 separate hospital and community trusts, the fact that there are several trusts in some cities—there are four in Shrewsbury and three in Hereford—and that there is now a competitive market for nurses and auxiliaries, which means that continuity of care is not being provided in many areas, cannot be a sensible use of the internal market mechanism.
In addition, the fragmentation of the national health service under the Government has meant that networking is extremely poor. When the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire made his absurd suggestion that anorexic teenagers from London should be shunted up to Staffordshire for out-patient appointments—
Mr. Fabricant rose—
Mr. Carlile: It is clear what the hon. Gentleman meant. He has had his opportunity—
Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to misquote me deliberately in order to mislead the House?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to make his point if he is fortunate enough to catch my eye.
Mr. Carlile: The hon. Gentleman's facility for expressing what he means may not always work in tandem with his mind. However, we understood that he made the absurd suggestion that young people should be shunted—[Interruption.] It has happened. Psychiatric patients in London are being shunted to the north-east of London, away from their families, because one NHS health trust is not able to tell a neighbouring trust what beds are available. That is the reality, and it is only one small example of the chaos that the Government have created in many spheres of medicine—if only they had the courage to realise it.
5.14 pm
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): I am grateful to be called at this opportune moment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If ever there was an example of the Liberal Democrats' woolly thinking and woolly hearing, the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) was it—as Hansard will clearly show.
The point that I was making, and which I shall make again later, is that the family health services authorities can provide lists of where people can receive treatment. To suggest for one moment that people from London would find it difficult to visit the surrounding counties is ridiculous. If the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery knew any geography, he would know that Staffordshire is nowhere near London. I was not saying that people from London should go to Staffordshire.
We heard woolly criticism from the Liberal Democrats, but earlier we were graced by the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), who criticised the
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Government but came up with no tangible suggestions as to what she intended to do. She merely provided a series of models—I believe that that is what she calls them.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: My hon. Friend was accused of supporting the idea that people should be moved from one part of the country to another, but is that not the reverse of our health reforms? More major operations now take place across the country so that people do not have to come to London. Yet we are criticised by the Opposition for tackling the problem.
Mr. Fabricant: As ever, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head with great accuracy.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South talked about a number of different models for Labour party policy and alternative templates, but at the end of the day she came up with no tangible suggestions as to how the health service should be reformed. When I challenged her to say what her party's targets would be in terms of the number of treatments per year or by how much waiting lists should be reduced, she said that it was not her party's policy to set targets. All that we heard is that it is her party's policy to talk about centralism.
You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that before I was a Member of Parliament I used to travel a great deal to the former Soviet Union where people were experts in centralism. The Soviet state committee for planning—or Gosplan—used to come up with wonderful five-year plans.
Mr. John Gunnell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Health Authorities Act 1995 removes a regional tier, thus giving more power to the Department of Health? Does he not consider that a centralising measure?
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman clearly misunderstands the point of the Act, which is to decentralise the health service. He may be old enough—possibly not—to remember the original series of Dr. Finlay's Casebook". Although it may have presented an idealised vision of the health service, it dealt with local treatment. But in those days, of course, the health service was not funded nationally.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South maintains the myth that we no longer have a national health service by saying that, somehow or other, the trusts and fundholders are some form of private medicine. That is not the case, as the health service is funded nationally. Efficiency and the ability to say what is required locally—with clinicians making such decisions rather than a bunch of central bureaucrats trying to plan the health service as Gosplan tried to do in the Soviet Union—has to be admired. Just as the Soviet Union was damned and doomed, so was the national health service as we knew it. But it is still very much a national health service, and that is how it ought to be.
I suspect that the only matter on which I agree with the right hon. Member for Derby, South and disagree with the Government relates to tobacco advertising. It is a strange anomaly that the Government rightly legislated in the Broadcasting Act 1990 to stop tobacco advertising on radio and television, but did not go the whole hog and ban it nationally in other media. That is a strange and inconsistent omission.

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There is much of which the Government can be proud. The Department of Health has produced a statistical bulletin that was prepared by the Government's statistical service. It shows that on 31 March this year 1,440,051 patients were waiting for treatment. However, more than 75 per cent. of those patients had been waiting for less than six months at that time and more than half of all patients had been waiting for less than three months. Those are significant achievements, but did we hear any recognition for them from Labour or the Liberal Democrats, whose spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery has not even had the courtesy to stay for my speech, which followed his? There has been no recognition at all.
When the Opposition were challenged to state what their targets would be, they came up with neither solutions nor targets. All they came up with were empty slogans and rhetoric. Of course, that is the authentic voice not of new Labour, but of socialism, and it speaks of central planning and slogans. The Opposition have no targets and no clear methodology as to how targets might be achieved.
The statistical bulletin shows that the number of patients who had been waiting more than a year had fallen by 50 per cent. since March 1994. Of course people will always be able to quote individual cases. A number of Opposition Members intervened during the speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and spoke about individual cases which they thought should have had better or quicker treatment. However, none of them seems to have had the energy to write to the Secretary of State or the Minister of State to raise those problem cases—if they truly exist.
The threat to scrap GP fundholders is worrying. Lichfield is witnessing the benefits of virtually all its doctors being fundholders. Fundholding is a clear example of how, for the first time since 1948, money is following the patients and not the other way round. That is an appropriate slogan because it summarises the position. The Victoria hospital in Lichfield has direct access surgery, evening radiology and physiotherapy services, additional orthopaedic, dermatological and gynaecological out-patient services and a new surgical wing, which I had the honour to open. All those services are being provided there for the first time and they are the direct result of the Government's strategy and policy. That hospital is ably run by Premier Health, whose managing director is a fully paid-up member of the Labour party. If he were here to speak to the right hon. Member for Derby, South he would probably have something to say about Labour's proposed reform of the trusts. If Labour's ideas were to be implemented not only would there be chaos, but there would be considerable delay in treating the people of Lichfield.
In 1993–94, the out-patients department treated 11,346 people, but it now treats more than 15,500. That is a significant increase, and it is the result of the trusts and fundholders in Lichfield being able to say, "We want our patients to be treated locally." As I say, that is money following the patient and not the other way round. The Opposition's broad proposals, about which they do not go into any detail, would restore the disastrous situation prior to the reforms when patients were shunted all round the country for quite ordinary treatment.
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When I said that, for more complex treatments, people might have to travel a little distance, Opposition Members laughed. One of the great innovations by my FHSA in Staffordshire under the extremely able chairmanship of Mr. Philip Jones, who lives in Oulton Heath in Staffordshire, is a system by which all general practitioners, fundholders or not, receive every month a book which details against waiting lists the different types of treatment that are available in various parts of the country. Fundholders are able to say, "We can send our patients where treatment is most efficient, and to places with the shortest waiting lists." I hope that other counties will be able to emulate Staffordshire's flexibility.
Mr. Bayley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Bayley: Will the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that before the Conservative health reforms every GP was free to refer patients to any NHS hospital? But under the reforms most GPs can refer their patients only to hospitals with which their health authority has a contract. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a GP fundholder can refer patients to any hospital—if that GP wishes to set up a contract—but that just means that some doctors are getting back the freedom of referral that they had before the reforms were introduced. Patients who are not with fundholders do not have the freedom of referral that used to exist.
Mr. Fabricant: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is looking back through rose-coloured spectacles. Many of the NHS hospitals to which he refers did not perform the operations for which people are now referred. If the hon. Gentleman cares to look at the data more carefully, he will discover that. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head in disagreement. He represents a major city but my constituency contains Lichfield, which is the second smallest city in the country. Lichfield did not have access to consultants and patients had to be sent to Wolverhampton, Birmingham or Sutton Coldfield. But since the reforms, consultants from hospitals in those places have to come to Lichfield away from their hospitals and, dare I say it, away from their golf courses, too.
Mrs. Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: Perhaps the right hon. Lady would allow me to finish dealing with the intervention by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) who, I think, was getting at the two-tier system. I should like to see a one-tier system and all doctors being fundholders.
Mrs. Beckett: I have borne, I hope with some patience, the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He seems to be entirely unaware, so may I gently point out to him, that the kind of improvements to which he refers result from GPs being involved in commissioning care and not from people being fundholders. Indeed, similar improvements have been achieved in cases where health authorities and GPs have worked together in GP commissioning of one form or another.
Mr. Fabricant: I am glad that I allowed the right hon. Lady to intervene because she displays an inordinate lack of understanding of how not only fundholders but non-fundholders work. Waiting lists are being shortened not only because hospitals are now being run more

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efficiently, but because fundholders are able to perform the little operations that formerly had to be done in hospital. Simple operations such as the removal of moles which, of course, could lead to sarcomas, can now be undertaken swiftly and efficiently in fundholders' surgeries. That could not be done before the reforms, and the right hon. Lady should accept that. The fact that she refuses to accept this major change clearly demonstrates that she does not have a clear grasp of her brief.
In June 1995, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that the intake of medical students had increased by some 10 per cent., and that the number will have increased by 5,000 a year at the turn of the century. That is another demonstration of the improvements that have been made in the health service, nationally and locally.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South spoke of bureaucracy. Perhaps she would now care to tell me the actual number of people employed in NHS administration. She is constantly saying that the reforms have led to more bureaucracy; has she any idea of the percentage of health service employees who are administrators, and the cost involved? I shall be happy to give way to her.
Mrs. Beckett: And I should be happy to give the hon. Gentleman the answer to his question, if the Government would publish it. However, they refuse to reveal the figures. According to our most recent estimates—which depend on some information about the finance spend—perhaps as many as 30,000 people are now employed in administration. As far as I am aware, it is not denied that the administrative costs of the health service have doubled since the Government carried out what the hon. Gentleman is pleased to describe as their reforms.
Mr. Fabricant: Again, I cannot follow the right hon. Lady's logic. First she says that she cannot gain access to the data; then she says, with great assurance, that the number has doubled. She is clearly talking off the top of her head. I can inform her—she may wish to make a note of this, and no doubt her hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) will refer to it in his winding-up speech—that just 2.6 per cent. of total NHS spend is devoted to administration. That gives the lie to the claim that it is additional—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East say "Rubbish", although they have said that they do not have access to the data. The right hon. Lady now has time to find out the precise figures or to make an estimate, and I look forward to hearing that information when the hon. Gentleman winds up the debate.
The point is that the NHS is the largest organisation in Europe. It spends £110 million of taxpayers' money every day. What would the right hon. Lady do? She says, "We will not get rid of fundholders overnight; we will allow a year before we slash them"—and, no doubt, slash local people's chances of being treated locally. I wonder whether, if there had not been a Conservative Government, the Labour party would be enduring the same old health service that was set up in 1948. Does Labour not accept that demands on the service have changed substantially since then?
Incidentally, Opposition Front Benchers keep coming up with the names of doctors who disapprove of the changes in the health service. Let me remind them that the British Medical Association—including consultants and other doctors—opposed the very changes that created
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the NHS. If we listened to every doctor who said, "We do not want change in the NHS; we want to exist in the same old way as before, although it will mean long waiting lists and will prevent us from treating people locally," no reforms would ever be made. We would never have had an NHS.
For Opposition Members simply to sit there and say, "We will not make these reforms: we do not accept that reform is necessary," is a negation of their duty. It is almost as if, in their heart of hearts, they did not expect to be a party of government. If they were a party of government, it would not be a case of talking about templates and models; they would have to provide tangible policies and targets, which they consistently refuse to do.
Even the Labour party admits that the situation cannot continue as it was. According to a Fabian Society report,
"Dismay was expressed at the myth that NHS managers were evil men in grey suits"—
I know some evil men in grey suits, but they are not in the NHS—
"and there was a plea for the Labour Party not to perpetuate this image … Comparisons were made with the tad old days', when nobody knew who managed the NHS … It was claimed that more and more nurses are taking up management positions, and that 45 per cent. are women … There were some really good things happening in NHS management, it was argued, and the Labour Party would be foolish to dismiss them out of hand"
Those are not my words. At least the Fabian Society is the intellectual wing of the Labour party; at least it takes some pride in trying to evolve policy, rather than engaging in cheap point-scoring as Opposition Front Benchers do. They give us point-scoring and slogans, but no policy, no targets and, as ever, no clear idea of how they would resolve the problem of more patients needing more treatment.
The right hon. Member for Derby, South spoke of bureaucracy, although she did not know the number of bureaucrats involved. She called for the abolition of GP fundholders, although that would result in a more bureaucratic system than that which currently exists. Labour wants the return of regional health authorities, and makes similar demands in its proposed reforms of local government. Who wants regional seats of government in England? No one except the Labour party. Who wants regional health authorities? No one except the Labour party. It is the party of central planning—Gosplan. It is the party of bureaucracy. Indeed, following the Monklands affair, it could be said that it is the party of jobs for the boys. All that is typical of where Labour would stand if—God forbid—it ever gained power.
It is clear that Labour wants to turn back the clock. As Stephen Pollard of the Fabian Society has said,
"The whole issue of the future of the health service is, if you like, a classic test of old Labour against new Labour."
Have we heard from new Labour today? No: we have heard the authentic voice of socialism.
Mr. Turner: Real Labour.
Mr. Fabricant: There we have it. The Opposition Whip himself—the silent one—says that real Labour is the authentic voice of socialism. I hope that that message gets across to the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). In his heart of hearts, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the majority of the Labour party is real

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Labour—old Labour. The old socialists have not been changed, and the oldest socialist of them all sits on the Opposition Front Bench.
According to Mr. Pollard,
"Old Labour … believed in sort of top-down state planning, the men in Whitehall know best about these things, which was typically characterised by the management of the National Health Service".
As I have said, those are not my words but the words of Stephen Pollard of the Fabian Society, spoken in "On the Record".
Once again we have heard the authentic voice of socialism which, we are told, is the voice of real Labour, which is new Labour—it is the same thing. We have heard a criticism of the national health service as run by the present Government; yet we have heard nothing about how the Labour party would run the service if it ever formed a Government. When challenged by me and by others, Labour Members do not answer the question, "What targets would you set for patient care? What targets would you set for ensuring that patients are"—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair has no views.
Mr. Fabricant: I was not referring to the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or indeed to the right hon. Member for Derby, South. I certainly would not point at the right hon. Lady.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: When the hon. Gentleman says "you", he is addressing the Chair.
Mr. Fabricant: As always, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you are right. I bow to your superior experience. I ask your forgiveness as merely a new boy and unaccustomed as I am to public speaking.
The fact remains that real Labour—old Labour, the old socialists, the Gosplans and central planners of this world—has no central plan. Its members simply carp, criticise and come up with slogans. When asked to come up with targets, they answer, "We have no targets. We can provide no targets."
The Government do provide a truly national health service in that the national health service should always be available free of charge to people who need it. Under this Government, it will always be nationally funded, but, whether it is the Soviet Union, which determined that central planning did not work, IBM, or any company in this country that knows that centralised planning never works—
Mr. Bayley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. I was just about to conclude my speech and I know that he will be upsetting his Front-Bench team, but I am happy to give way to him.
Mr. Bayley: The hon. Gentleman says that he is against massive bureaucracies, but does he not agree that, as part of Conservative reforms, two further tiers of bureaucracy have been introduced between the Department of Health and the national health service—the NHS management executive and, beneath it, the regional offices of that executive—and that both tiers are accountable upwards to the Secretary of State for Health rather than outwards and
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downwards to the service, which was the case with the old regional health authorities? Two layers of bureaucracy have been introduced to replace one.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman has studied his brief, is well aware of the facts and has stated correctly that those tiers exist, but he has failed to observe that the number of staff in those bureaucracies has been reduced fivefold. There must always be some overall control of matters such as epidemiology, which, incidentally, no Labour Member has—
Mr. Bayley: Health planning.
Mr. Fabricant: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We should be getting on with the debate.
Mr. Fabricant: I thought that the hon. Member for York was trying to say something. The whole point of the reforms, as the hon. Gentleman obviously knows from his own experience in York, where I know there are many fundholders, is that local fundholders can direct where patients should go and, for the first time, perform operations that they were previously unable to perform.
I remind the House that every doctor gets two degrees, not one. Any doctor who graduates in England or Wales gets a degree in medicine and a degree in surgery—he becomes a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery. That enables him to perform minor surgery in his local trusts. The hon. Gentleman will know that the reforms in York and those that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made in channelling money northwards away from London enable his patients to be directed to local hospitals, which are run now by local people. That is local accountability. That is not centralism. That is a framework in which the NHS has clearly demonstrated that it can reduce the number of people on waiting lists and that the number of patients treated can be increased considerably.
The hon. Member for York and his right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South have come up with no proposals as to what they would do in office. All that they come up with is slogans. Here we have had it—the authentic voice of socialism: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
5.43 pm
Mr. Kevin Hughes: In the short time since my election to this Chamber—three years—I have heard some nauseating nonsense from Conservative Members, but that takes the biscuit.
It is appropriate that we are having this debate today, which has again been initiated by the Labour party. In my three years here, I do not believe that the Government have initiated one debate on the national health service. It was appropriate to hold the debate today because it allowed the Secretary of State for Health to give her swan song—and what a swashbuckling attempt it was. I am sure that by the end of the week she will be looking for a new post.
The debate is especially appropriate following the publication last week of Labour's policy document "Rebuilding the National Health Service", which was ably launched by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby,

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South (Mrs. Beckett). The Secretary of State said that Labour would turn back the clock and return to a command-style national health service. Her criticisms were tongue in cheek and were levelled without foundation. Labour's plans will improve the service that the NHS can give patients, and secure the NHS as a public service for generations to come.
The founding principles of the NHS have been utterly undermined by the Government's policies. Their reforms have introduced competition into the NHS. They have sabotaged the principle of treatment on the basis of clinical need and instead have introduced finance as the main factor that determines whether people receive care.
The NHS was set up to ensure that payment would no longer be a condition of treatment, but the Government have reversed that. They have turned those principles upside down. The internal market has created a system of competing health businesses, each vying with each other for its own niche of the market. That has caused inflexibility, duplication and waste. It has also led to a secrecy and a lack of accountability that has been damaging the service overall, as well as the interests of patients.
The ideology that the Conservatives have imposed on the NHS is totally at odds with its purpose. A collective, co-operative approach is needed to maximise efficiency. What is needed now is a commonsense approach to the NHS to rid the system of the commercialisation, fragmentation and privatisation that the internal market has caused.
Labour will maintain managers' ability to manage at local and regional level to secure the most appropriate services for patients in their region. Services will be properly planned. Duplication and waste will not be tolerated under Labour. Patients must be treated, first and foremost, according to clinical need, but the Government's reforms have perverted that principle. Patients of fundholders may receive quicker treatment than some people whose care is paid for by the health authority, especially if its contract is nearing its end, as happens at the end of every financial year. We have heard stories—and we have checked them out and know them to be true—that, come the end of the financial year hospitals are told by general practitioner fundholders, as they are by different health authorities, not to carry out operations because they are running out of money.
Charges for eye and dental check-ups were introduced and charges for prescriptions have spiralled over the 16 years of this Government. We know that one result is that people have been discouraged from taking eye tests. The number of tests fell dramatically when charges were introduced. We also know that NHS dentistry has been sabotaged by the Government's policies. In May 1995, the General Dental Practitioners Association reported that, since 1990, the proportion of dentistry carried out in the NHS had fallen by one third. I know from experience in my constituency of Doncaster, North that dentists have written to patients, saying that they will not treat any more NHS patients and offering them private cover.
Patients are being told that they can wait months to see a consultant, or choose to pay £50 to see the same person privately the following week if they can stump up the money: for some people, that is some choice. With 1 million people on waiting lists, there is a real temptation for people to take that option, but, of course, not everyone can afford to, and the Government know that.
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Time after time, Government policy has undermined equal access to treatment and treatment based on clinical need, with the least well-off in our society the worst affected. Today, the British Medical Association chairman asked a question: where stands equity when the cash lottery dictates priority to patients with lesser need? At the same time as the market is skewing equal access, lower-income groups continue to suffer more ill health than the rest of society. With economic inequality on the increase, inequalities in health have become more marked.
There is evidence that the service in deprived areas is lower than in other parts of the country, but the Government refuse to take account of deprivation through changes to the funding formula. As bureaucracy has spiralled, health care has suffered. Nationally, about 12 per cent. of the health budget is spent on administration. In Doncaster, administration costs increased by 48 per cent. following the introduction of the internal market, rising to £6 million. Management costs have spiralled even higher.
The Government deny any problems. It is clear that Health Ministers do not read the newspapers and do not listen to either their Back Benchers or Labour Members. Patients are being flown miles across the country to find beds. People are waiting for hours on trolleys because there is no proper space for them in local hospitals. In Doncaster, a number of patients have been farmed out to other hospitals because no beds have been available.
Those are real problems affecting real people, but the Government's response has been non-existent. Instead, they just get on with the job of upsetting health service staff by offering the nurses a pay award of just 1 per cent., by ending national pay, by lumbering them with more administration, by undervaluing their contribution and by failing to listen to their concerns. One trust in Doncaster has not paid the full 3 per cent. award—only 2.5 per cent., with a 0.5 per cent. top-up for this year. That means that in years to come nurses will be 0.5 per cent. worse off. With inflation currently at 3.4 per cent., that is little more than an insult to the people who run our NHS.
Labour recognises that patients and staff are people, not units on a production line. They must all be treated with respect and their views listened to. The Government are failing to do that. The long-running dispute with dentists, the imposition of local pay and the dispute over out-of-hours work by general practitioners proves that. Patients need a voice too, and Labour will tackle the secrecy that the internal market has created, ensuring that both patients and staff have a say in their NHS. Labour will bolster the community health councils as advocates for patients.
In "Rebuilding the National Health Service", Labour has comprehensively set out its vision for the national health service. It is a practical, effective recipe for improvement—a way of removing the worst excesses of the internal market and bringing some sanity back into the NHS—
Mr. Fabricant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes: No, many of my hon. Friends are waiting to speak and we are running out of time.
The Government say that the NHS is safe in their hands, but for those who have had to wait months for operations, for those whose operations have been cancelled—14,500 people in the first three months of this

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year alone—and for those denied services while others jump the queue, Labour has a more impressive agenda to offer. We will dispense with the policies that have left some unfortunate people with a second-rate service; we will introduce a system that can provide a service second to none, which is fair in its distribution of services and effective at meeting the demands of those in need.
We have our agenda for change. The Government will not accept the need for change. The Government must go—and given the current shambles on the Conservative Benches that will be sooner rather than later.
5.53 pm
Lady Olga Maitland: The hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) made one true statement—that patients need a voice. How right he is, and that voice is coming from the Government. It has been passionately expressed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. I can think of no other person who has gone to greater lengths or shown greater commitment to giving patients a voice.
The Labour motion is a complete rag-bag of ideas. It focuses more on "growing alarm" than on any real care and concern, for the patient. Bearing in mind the fact that the Opposition tabled the motion, if they have so much care and concern, why are not their Benches full of Labour Members? Where are they? Their so-called concern for the patient is hypocrisy.
The Government have worked hard for years to get a good deal for patients. Indeed, the evidence of that is clear in the Government's amendment, which points out that
"over one million more patients are treated in hospital every year and waiting times have fallen to the lowest on record".
Why was the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) incapable of paying tribute to those remarkable achievements? Why is she blind to progress? It strikes me that the Labour party is attempting to politicise the health service, rather than focus on patients.
We kept hearing emotive words from the right hon. Lady, such as privatisation is an ogre and the private finance initiative is a dirty phrase. I can tell Labour Members that the PFI will give the NHS a boost and broaden its imagination in a way that has never happened before. I draw the attention of the House to an innovative programme that has been proposed in my constituency for a new Sutton medical campus, which will have the latest in technology and services for patients. How is that to be carried through successfully to the next century? It is by consulting and working with a private finance initiative. I have no doubt that patients throughout the south-west London area will benefit enormously.
Another thought occurred to me when I was listening to the right hon. Lady. Among all her incoherence, she gave me the feeling that she had to alter the NHS just for the sake of it. I maintain, "If it ain't broke, don't mend it." Indeed, what is remarkable is that the NHS is providing a better service than ever before. The greatest evidence of that is that people are now living healthier lives and for much longer because of preventive care—[Interruption.] That does not happen by accident; it is a result of excellent treatment.
Mr. Alex Carlile: Is the hon. Lady satisfied with a situation in which poor people live, on average, eight years less than affluent people?
Lady Olga Maitland: The whole point is that everybody has a different life style. If people choose an unhealthy life style, it is difficult to impose better habits on them.
Mr. Carlile: They are poor people.
Lady Olga Maitland: Yes, but does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that the NHS helps everybody in the community, irrespective of income? With better preventive care than ever before, everyone in the community is leading a healthier life—[Interruption.] If people choose to smoke cigarettes, that is their choice—
Mr. Carlile: So it is down to fags and chips then.
Lady Olga Maitland: If people choose to eat an unhealthy diet, that is their choice. We can offer them the opportunity of a healthier life. There is no evidence that people on low incomes need necessarily live shorter lives. The hon. and learned Gentleman's comment was bogus.
Let us look at the broader picture in the health service today. It is remarkable that the health service is spending £110 million a day on patient care. Sadly, that message does not always get across. When talking to people in the street, I find that the responses are curiously paradoxical. I ask somebody, "How are you getting on?" They might say, "I am getting on very well, thank you." I ask, "Have you recently had any health treatment?" They say, "Oh, yes; I received wonderful service. My operation was carried out promptly, the doctors were dedicated, the nurses were marvellous and I am home, fit and well." I ask, "Why, therefore, are you and so many other people worried and fearful for the future of the health service?" The answer comes back over and over again, "It is what Labour says on television, what Labour says in the media, what Labour says through its politicians."
There has been a very dangerous and irresponsible misinformation campaign. The Labour party is playing on people's fears; it is playing on the fears of elderly people, of young people, of young mothers. That is utterly wrong. Instead, we need to consider their experiences.
In my constituency, the successful St. Helier NHS trust is treating more people every year. Operations are performed more promptly, waiting times are shorter and more out-patients are treated. The Royal Marsden hospital is also in our community. It has an excellent reputation throughout the world for the service that it provides and it is backed by the Institute of Cancer Research, whose research is second to none. More people are screened earlier for cancer, they are treated earlier and their survival rate has vastly improved. No longer do they suffer the fears that they had before.
With modern technology and medical science, GPs are finding that the whole picture has changed. The concept of day surgery has changed the face of modern medicine. We no longer need the same number of acute beds. Day surgery has meant that people recover more quickly at home. They are back on their feet and back to work more quickly. Modern medicine with modern management has made all that possible.
Waiting times have been a curse in the past, and it is interesting to note that, before our reforms, more than 200,000 people were waiting more than a year for hospital

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treatment. Today, the figure stands at only 31,600—the lowest since 1948. Indeed, over the past six years, the average waiting time has been cut in half. Half of all patients are seen right away—on the spot. The GP rings up, the appointment is made, the patient is seen; half the remainder are seen within five weeks. Nearly 75 per cent. are seen within three months and 98 per cent. are seen within a year. That leaves a tiny percentage of patients who have to wait for more than a year—the least urgent cases. Enormous progress is being made in our health service.
Those improvements have been noted. A British social attitudes survey published in November 1994 showed that more people were satisfied than not. A survey conducted for the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts in 1994 showed that nine out of 10 patients who attended hospital in 1993 found the NHS very good, good or average and that three out of four found the service very good or good. That is a tremendous improvement on the past.
I shall turn briefly to the success of GP fundholding practices. I know that the Labour party is absolutely committed to sweeping away the independence of GP fundholders. Its deadly campaign against the independence of GP practices is very similar to what it tried to do to grant-maintained schools. It hates anybody or any authority having the ability to think and manage for themselves. It wants to drag people willy-nilly back under its centralised control and management—politicised management at that. Meddlesome Labour Members cannot let go and cannot stop interfering with other people's lives.
Even Labour party advisers have recognised the dangers of the interventionism that it advocates. Professor Julian Le Grand, founder of the Socialist Philosophy group, has described the health service as "the biggest success story" and noted that GP fundholding is
"now widely thought to be at the cutting edge of the reforms".
Professor Brian Abel-Smith, vice-president of the Fabian Society, co-authored a recent article which said:
"There is now overwhelming evidence that fund-holders are able to get a better deal for their patients from hospitals … Fund-holding represents a major transfer of power from specialists to GPs".
The success of fundholding has also been highlighted and praised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the National Audit Office, the King's Fund Research Institute and a four-year independent evaluation into GP fundholding in Scotland carried out by Professor John Howie and his team at Edinburgh university.
Why should the patient believe that the Labour party holds out any hope for progress or improvement? As an NHS patient, like anybody else in my constituency, I fear the Labour party's doctrinarian ideology. I fear the fact that Labour wants to bring politics into clinicians' decision making, undermining their work. I fear that patients will be faced with the gobbledegook of the Labour party. When the Labour party talks of comprehensive health care agreements, it means interference and meddling.
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The Labour party will try to destroy incentives for hospitals to improve health care. I cannot see how that will benefit the patient.
Mr. Bayley: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Lady Olga Maitland: I am sorry, but I shall continue with my speech because I know that other hon. Members want to speak. At least one Labour Member wants to speak after me—at least I hope that he does; otherwise, it would show the paucity of Labour representation in this debate.
The Labour party is committed to abolishing compulsory competitive tendering, which will divert £100 million from patient care. I cannot see how that would benefit the individual. It is also going to persist with the minimum wage, which will cost the NHS £500 million. How will that help the patient? Surely we should concentrate all available resources on the patient himself.
The patient now faces a nightmare scenario. If this country ever decides to go down a socialist route, the patient will find that he comes second to confused, left-wing ideologies. I believe firmly that when patients look to their own interests, they will realise that there is only one way forward—the Conservative way.
6.9 pm
Mr. John Gunnell: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). When she looks at the Conservative central office brief, she should study the articles from which she takes her selective quotations. If she looks at the article by Brian Abel-Smith, to which she referred, she will find that there are references to some of the shortcomings of the fundholding system. Indeed, the article concludes that the Labour party should consider putting substantial extra funds into services in poorer areas. The hon. Lady was asked earlier about the health of poorer people, but she completely ignored the question. There are grave inequities in health care in our present system and it is important that they are corrected.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam was wrong in some of the factual points she made. A constituent wrote to me recently saying that following a first appointment, she was told that she would be on a 78-week waiting list. Her back condition meant that she could not carry on with her work, so she was forced to seek private assistance; she could not wait 78 weeks to get back to work. Another case concerns an 84-year-old lady who required an urgent bladder operation. Her sons were able to pay for her to have the operation and did so. They did not, however, take her off the waiting list because they were interested to find out just how long it would take for her to have the operation under the NHS. It was two years later that she was told that she could have the operation for which her sons had paid two years previously. That 84-year-old would have had an inordinate wait which she should not have had to suffer. There are real concerns which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam simply ignores because she sees the NHS through rose-coloured spectacles. Perhaps Sutton and Cheam is very different from the areas that other hon. Members on both sides represent.
The Secretary of State was a little petulant in her opening speech. I am sure that she has seen the Labour party paper, "Rebuilding the National Health Service", to which my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North

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(Mr. Hughes) referred. She must have been able to see that it was a constructive paper. It was also obvious that the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) had not read the paper because most of what he said about it was completely wrong.
The Secretary of State and the Minister of State no doubt expected a wrecking paper. They find, however, a paper that is constructive in its approach to the NHS. It makes it clear that the reforms already in place will evolve. Some practices will be jettisoned because they cannot conform to the principles that we espouse for the health service. On the whole, however, the reforms will evolve to meet our principles and without any worsening of patient care or of the service given by GPs. It is obvious that our proposals will be welcomed by patients, by health professionals and by health authorities. Under the present system, health authorities could find themselves in conflict. The reforms recently introduced would reduce the significance of the health authorities and reduce their health promotion and health purchasing roles. I am convinced that the reforms that we will put in place and the transformation that we will bring will benefit the health service and the British public.
It is clear that our first principle is that of a national health service. We do not believe in a service that is an oligarchy, as suggested by the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire, in which all power is centralised. We believe in a service in which regional power and local power exist. We clearly state that we intend to ensure that at the local level, the people who operate the health authorities have a degree of local accountability and that accountability becomes a much more important word. Through the changes that we shall make, we shall reduce the inequities in the service and restore the accountability of the service. We shall make our changes on the basis of the minimum disruption to patient care.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam also suggested that the wording of the motion was inappropriate at almost every point. The motion is clearly worded to show that we have a choice between an increasingly privatised service and a service that returns to being a truly public service. It is important that we consider that point now, when the level of privatisation in the health service is about to increase considerably, if the Conservatives remain in power.
In the early years of the reforms of the health service, the Government did not find it easy to progress privatisation. The market that they set up was not a real but a bogus or quasi-market. Both purchasers and providers depended on public finance. Although in their roles as purchasers and providers they entered into contracts and although money was transferred on the basis of episodes of patient care, the money was almost always public money which was transferred from one body to another. The market was often self-consciously not a market in terms of the normal market mechanisms that the Conservative party espouses.
As members of Leeds Health Care—the Leeds health authority—we were given strict instructions when the authority was set up about the two major hospitals in Leeds. Whatever prices we arrived at through the contracting procedures—one of the hospitals appeared for most purposes to be more expensive than the other—it was regarded as important that each of the hospitals
64
remained viable and in existence. I entirely supported that view. Leeds clearly needs both the Leeds general infirmary and St. James's University hospital. A current review of Leeds health services will, I hope, start from the basis that each hospital is needed. I understood, therefore, why the market mechanism was not a normal market mechanism, but one in which there were priorities other than simply accepting the lowest tender.
It has been difficult for the Conservatives to progress their privatisation proposals as they wish. There is abhorrence in this country at the idea of making money out of people's ailments. There are other societies where that is not the case. Having lived in the United States for eight years, I am well aware that one can enter a completely different system in which one can feel vulnerable. I felt vulnerable when I took children to the United States, as one child developed pneumonia—a condition not covered by insurance. He had experienced that condition in the year before going to America. In those circumstances, one recognises the great strength of the NHS.
Despite what the hon Member for Mid-Staffordshire asserted, the NHS is now not free at the point of delivery. There are charges to pay at many different points of delivery, as the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members well know. Nevertheless, the NHS provides a level of support that is absent in what one might call the more traditional financial market in health care. The Government have been slow to develop the private market in health care in the NHS.
The debate comes at a critical point, because it is clear that a number of initiatives are progressing apace. One specific area that has been developing since the introduction of the Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Act 1992 is the provision of private nursing care. We are aware that many hospitals seem to have a mechanism whereby people move rapidly from hospital care to private care.
Highlighted in The Independent recently was the work of Michael Fallon, a former Member of the House who lost his seat to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn). Mr. Fallon, who made it clear that he was developing "Quality Care", a private nursing home group, was a member of the Government's deregulation task force and an adviser on the private finance initiative.
Mr. Fallon suggested that it was important to take the initiative forward, and he looked forward to a time when companies which are at present operating nursing care will be allowed to run entire hospitals, including the employment of doctors and nurses, on behalf of NHS trusts. The private finance initiative is currently concerned with the various ways in which money can be made through the NHS. I do not think that the NHS has yet created any individual millionaires through the initiative, but that is seen to be a possibility for the future.
The Opposition have never taken the view that there are no appropriate ways in which the public and private sectors could work together, but there remains a suspicion of the direct involvement of the private sector in making profits out of health care.
Two other aspects have been highlighted recently. One is the increasing use of NHS facilities—in particular hospital facilities—to assist private patients. An article in the same edition of The Independent referred to the Royal Surrey county hospital at Guildford, which will be well known to the Secretary of State, and talked about its

65
provision of facilities for private patients. The article stated that those covered by private care—some 11 per cent. of the population—accounted for one in five of all those on the waiting lists for surgery. The facilities are being made available to the private sector because the income is extremely important to the trust, and the article made it clear just how important.
It is clear that there is preferential treatment as far as the receipt of surgery is concerned, which suggests that we have not a two-tier but a three-tier system. Those in the private sector have the best care, with those who are being treated by GP fundholders next on the list. The patients being treated by non-fundholders are at a lower stage.
Dr. John Yates has made a study of consultants and the incomes that they are receiving from private sector consultancies. He is concerned about the level of that private sector work in comparison with their public sector work. There will be a big increase in the level of privatisation in the service if the present Government remain in control, and that could well be to the loss of many people who rely on the health service in all circumstances.
It is important that people see that the Labour party's proposals in our recent document are constructive. In relation to GPs, we are proposing not to sweep away fundholding but to introduce a system of local commissioning on a wider scale so that the choice which is available currently to fundholders becomes available to non-fundholders too. I have seen examples in Leeds where operations were denied to non-fundholders because the contract was used up, and people wanting certain types of surgery have had to wait until the next financial year.
It is important that there is equality at GP level and that all GPs have similar access to hospitals and to hospital care. Far from being rigid, the pronouncements in our document make it clear that there will be many different forms of local commissioning and that we will encourage experimentation in that commissioning.
Our proposals are extremely constructive on trusts. The Secretary of State referred to trusts and their record of producing patient episodes, but what is not clear is the gain that trusts receive from being the owners of the hospital and from having a property management role. Our paper refers to hospitals, which makes a difference from most of the papers that we see nowadays. It is right that those hospitals are clearly publicly and communally owned, and not owned by individual trusts.
Lady Olga Maitland: Is the hon. Gentleman advocating political involvement in health trusts, and that councillors should take decisions over the heads of clinicians? All the evidence that the Labour party has given suggests exactly that. I cannot see how a patient would in any way benefit from such a system.
Mr. Gunnell: The hon. Lady ought to read the paper, and she will see that that is not the case. Of course, there may be a role for some members of a council. We have suggested, for example, that it may be constructive for the chair of a social services committee to be a member of the health authority. I was the chairman of a social services committee in Leeds and a member of the health authority, and it was possible to assist in getting those two bodies to work together. But we are not suggesting that all the people involved should be elected members. There should be a valid local reason for such a person to be a member
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of a health authority. We are not suggesting that they should all be elected members, but it is important to have some link with the local authority. Nor are we suggesting a lack of involvement on the part of professionals in the health service. Indeed, our proposals make it clear that there will be a wider role for them and that consultation with them will be an important factor in decision making.
The health service is at a crucial stage. A change of control is vital for the future of the service and, therefore, I very much look forward to the time when my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) takes charge.
6.30 pm
Mr. Nicholas Brown: This debate has certainly drawn out the philosophical differences between the two political parties. The Opposition believe in a national health service based on the public service ethos, and the Conservatives believe in fragmented private markets.
As our motion makes clear, it is our fear that the public service ethos that underpins the NHS is being eroded. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) said that a doctor's first duty is to the patient—a point of view that is unexceptional on the Opposition side of the House. Mr. Roy Lilley, a leading Conservative thinker on such matters, and a man who is regarded as being in the vanguard of the Secretary of State's reforms, said recently that a doctor's first duty should be not to his patients, but to the employer. Every patient should carefully note that point of view, which comes from the Conservative side of the House.
The public service ethos of the national health service is undermined by the Conservative party's trusts. They are inserting gagging clauses in staff contracts, bringing a cult of Stalinism into the NHS, and preventing clinicians from speaking out. Recently, the Conservatives had the nerve to accuse us of wanting a command-and-control national health service, but it is they, not the Opposition, who have just renationalised functions that used to be carried out at the regional level of the NHS, but which are now being taken in-house, under the Secretary of State's direct control.
On the ground of commercial confidentiality, the Secretary of State is allowing national health service trusts—apparently still publicly owned—secrecy over their affairs. Commercial confidentiality in a public service—those two concepts do not sit happily together. The Nolan committee expressed concern at the appointment procedures used for the boards of NHS quangos. The chairman of the British Medical Association said today that the national health service is
"not so much an internal market as an infernal bazaar, in which considerations of cost reign supreme, whilst concerns for value and values are relegated to second place."
Those concerns are echoed by the clergy. Last year, the Bishop of Birmingham described the reforms as
"distressing, unchristian and morally wrong."
This year, the Bishop of Ripon denounced the internal market, and pointed out that it leads to a "lack of patient choice".
The Government defend what they have done on the ground that it has brought about efficiency savings that have benefited patients. We can see that they have brought about a substantial increase in NHS bureaucracy. It is

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harder to demonstrate that that has been to the benefit of patients. Until the reforms were introduced, administrative spending in Britain's health service was among the lowest in the world. At the moment, for every £10 spent in the health service, £1 is spent on administration. In 1989–90, it was £1 in every £20. That is a substantial increase.
The administrative costs of GP fundholding average £80,000 per practice, and trusts have spent around £117 million on conveyancing and image building. Every trust was given a one-off payment of £300,000 towards set-up costs.
Increasing bureaucracy has made patient admissions to hospital more complicated. It is a time-consuming paper-chase, and it was condemned in an article in the journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs, in June—a right-wing institute and not one associated with the Labour party. It described the red-tape nightmare in today's national health service thus:
"The very act of getting a patient on to a waiting list and then admitted has become a bureaucratic obstacle course for clinicians. The patient's postcode must be matched to their DHA. The GP must be identified in case they are fundholding. The procedure must be checked to see if it is chargeable to the GP or the DHA. The contract must be scrutinised to ensure it covers the proper operation … Sending the patient for admission requires many more hurdles to clear. An audit of one unit's admission process found 24 different steps were now required before the patient could be sent for."
The institute concludes:
"It is difficult to reconcile this with the White Paper's assertion that the 'reforms will make it easier for consultants and their colleagues to get on with the job of treating patients'."
That quotation is from a right-wing institute, not the Labour party.
Recently, the Select Committee on Health studied the London ambulance service to find out how well the Secretary of State's reforms were doing. I attempted to intervene on the Secretary of State, but she did not let me, and it will be pretty clear why when I read this passage from the report. That all-party Committee, which commands great authority in this place, had this to say about Ministers:
"We do not think that Ministers can be absolved of blame for the sorry record of the LAS. Ministers represent the final link in the chain of accountability. Had the political will existed at Ministerial level, the problems of the LAS might have been effectively addressed years ago. We are heartened by recent assurances that the political will does now exist."
We will wait and see what that turns out to mean in practice.
The Government's reforms have been accompanied by cost cutting on patient care. The recent scandal over the National Blood Authority purchasing cheap blood bags, which have turned out to be defective, has caused widespread public concern, as well it might. Running parallel—this might almost stand as a vignette for the entire NHS—to that scandal, which has relied so much on public good will to help sort it out, there has been a change in the structure of the key management of the service.
Where previously one director and a small staff would do, there are now 23 key managers, including 11 regional chief executives, some of whom are paid more than £100,000 per year, as well as getting a nice new leased car. The public look at the bloated management and the failing service, and draw their own conclusions.
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In debate after debate—all initiated by the Opposition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North rightly pointed out—we have heard of wards running at dangerously high capacity because of the relentless, management-led drive to get rid of beds. We have heard of casualty departments shutting their doors to new admissions—for almost 40 hours at the Homerton hospital, which is a case in point. We have heard of patients being driven and flown hundreds of miles to find an available specialist bed.
The situation is especially serious in intensive care, sometimes with fatal results. More and more patients are having their operations cancelled at the last minute before admission because of bed shortages. Psychiatric departments in inner London hospitals are regularly running at capacities of as much as 120 per cent., with the result that seriously mentally ill people, who are in need of treatment, are being turned away.
The Secretary of State must be proud that new wards are being named after her, even if they are only corridors with trolleys parked up in them.
Lady Olga Maitland: Cheap.
Mr. Brown: That is exactly the point—it is cheap. The hon. Lady is right. That is our criticism of what is being done. The money should be spent on patient care, rather than on a burgeoning bureaucracy.
The service is over-reliant on junior doctors. We have the worst patient-to-consultant ratio of many our European neighbours. We over-use bank and agency nurses to drive down the staff bill. The only area where NHS trusts are not attempting to keep the wages bill down is that of senior managers' pay. In 1993–94, the remuneration of trust chief executives rose by an average of 6.6 per cent., which is particularly remarkable given that there was a public sector pay limit of 1.5 per cent. for that year. Perhaps managers no longer regard themselves as part of the public sector.
Local pay is designed to push down wages and terms and conditions of employment. Apparently, it is now intended that it will apply to junior doctors as well as to nursing staff, with individual trusts instead of regional authorities holding their contracts. I presume that that is a prelude to local pay bargaining for junior doctors as well.
No wonder staff morale is at rock bottom. A survey in Doctor magazine found that 75 per cent. of doctors would leave the national health service if they could. The number of consultants taking early retirement has increased by 212 per cent. since 1988. The range of national health service employers are finding recruitment more and more difficult. The position is particularly bad for nurses and junior doctors, and it is difficult to get GPs to serve in deprived inner-city areas.
It is exactly that emphasis on primary care that is the Government's justification for removing secondary services, particularly hospital beds. The Government's amendment boasts that
"waiting times have fallen to the lowest on record".
As a number of hon. Members have mentioned, Dr. Christopher Colton had something to tell us about that over the weekend. He says that the way in which he was ordered not to exceed his targets meant that he had to close his children's clinic for about four months and have no referrals. As he points out, it logically followed that he was seeing so few people that another target, that

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nobody should wait for more than 30 minutes, was 100 per cent. successful and he was rewarded with a £20,000 bonus. If a service is shut and the number of people who use it is thinned out, naturally one achieves that target, but it is a reprehensible way to run a public service.
We believe in a unified public service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell) pointed out. The Under-Secretary of State said recently that he sees no reason in principle why the private sector should not run entire hospitals on contract to the national health service. Expenditure on purchasing care from the private sector has increased by some 80 per cent. between 1992–93.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) referred to the private finance initiative, which transfers risk to the public sector and profits to the private sector, and referred to its failings in his constituency.
Market testing in the national health service is progressing apace. Thirty clinical services have already been market-tested for privatisation and 1,100 private companies are on a Department of Health market testing database. The privatisation agenda is clear from a recent directive issued by the national health service executive, which expresses its concern that
"Collusion between providers and purchasers may prevent the entry of other organisations"—
I presume that that means private health care firms.
The Labour party believes that there should be no entry of other organisations, and that both purchasers and providers should be publicly owned. It is interesting that the Government's motion does not refer to the public ownership of those who have the provider functions. It
"welcomes the Government's commitment to a strong and stable publicly-funded NHS"
but does not go on to say that the trusts and general practitioners will be in the public sector. The implication of the Government's amendment is that that will not be the case.
The Conservative party has been in government for a long time. Perhaps power brings a complacency of its own. Let me tell Conservative Members what a former leader of the Conservative party, Disraeli, had to say when the Conservatives had been in opposition for 19 years:
"A leader should not be afraid to dismiss his followers."
The modern Conservative party, before its 19 years in opposition, clearly believes that the followers must not be afraid to dismiss the leader. The only thing that can be said with certainty about the last 10 days' events is that Mr. Hugh Grant has done his chances of getting elected leader of the Conservative party no good.
Today's BMA conference, perhaps anticipating the outcome of tomorrow's vote, has heard Dr. Sandy Macara say:
"We are labouring under an alien regime".
The present Secretary of State is apparently willing to do so. Her statement that she is willing to serve in a Redwood Government—we have not been told that she has been asked to serve in such a Government—may say something about the likelihood of her services being retained by the present regime.
I do not understand how the Government can come before the House with a motion boasting of success, when the whole world knows that the architect of that success is about to be fired. I do not see how the Secretary of
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State for Health can offer to serve under Mr. Redwood when their views are so obviously at variance. She will no doubt double cross that bridge when she comes to it.
Mr. Redwood—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the convention that hon. Members do not refer to colleagues by name.
Mr. Brown: My problem is that it is difficult to keep up with the resignations, and I was not sure how far the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) had gone.
In his manifesto and recent speeches, the right hon. Member for Wokingham, as he is at the time of speaking, has offered to keep local hospitals—he describes them as "cherished institutions"—and to recruit more medical staff. He boasts that he will spend up to £114 million on the national health service in Wales next year. He also offers to cut taxes by £5 billion. Those policies are clearly the product of a great mind. He is right to want to breathe life back into the national health service, but combined with his tax cuts it will clearly be "life, John; but not as we know it."
While the Opposition deplore Mr. Redwood's drive towards the privatisation of public service—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has forgotten my previous admonition. He must refer to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood).
Mr. Brown: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. We deplore the drive towards privatisation of the hon. Member for Wokingham —
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Right honourable.
Mr. Brown: The hon. Lady is right.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Those matters may safely be left to me.
Mr. Brown: I think so too, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was certain that the Prime Minister would not have deprived the right hon. Member for Wokingham of his membership of the Privy Council.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham has spoken of
"the shining principles of the national health service";
our motion speaks of "the cherished principles". The right hon. Gentleman has condemned excessive bureaucracy; our motion condemns excessive bureaucracy. Our motion calls for
"a slowing down of the passion for reorganisation".
We lifted that phrase word for word from the right hon. Gentleman's speech.
Our motion calls for change in the national health service to
"be based on health arguments, not financial considerations."
The right hon. Gentleman said that change in the national health service
"must be based on the health arguments, not financial considerations"—
just as our motion says. Clearly, the right hon. Gentleman's advice to Conservative Members is, "Save your seats." I must tell them, "Vote for Labour's motion." May I add some helpful advice of my own to those

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Conservative Members who really want to save their seats at the next election: the very best chance they have is to stand as a Labour candidate.
6.48 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): I shall resist the temptation placed before me by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) to follow him down his road of puns instead of discussing the substance of the debate. It has been an extraordinary debate, because it afforded an opportunity for the Labour party to set out with some clarity what lay behind its paper, so recently published, about the future of the health service.
Straining at the speeches of the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) and her Opposition friends, it was obvious to me that what was certain about that document was that there was a change of philosophy. It is a centralist philosophy, concentrating power in an old-fashioned health service whose time has gone. It was a philosophy of replacing bureaucracy, recently abolished, and it was a philosophy of taking away from clinicians the discretion that they have been given by the Government—no more so than in GP fundholding.
The debate was typified, again and again, by the myths and scares that we so often hear from the Labour party. I felt the same frustration during the debate that I once felt when I was in the "Today" studios at Radio 4 in the morning, when, having set out the facts of the matter, I was greeted with the astonished and pathetic plea, "The facts are all very well, Minister, but?" That is the Labour party's approach throughout: the facts are all very well, but.
I turn to a matter that was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Derby, South specifically, when she spoke about facts. She constantly tells the House—
Mr. Andrew Miller rose—
Mr. Malone: I will not give way; I have been given very little time.
The right hon. Lady constantly tells the House that we skew the figures. She and her hon. Friends always pray in aid the fact that we use finished consultant episodes to organise and describe the activity that takes place in the national health service.
Let me take the opportunity to tell the House the basis for those figures, and perhaps to surprise the right hon. Lady by reminding her that the figures had their genesis in the royal commission appointed by the last Labour Government in 1976, which, when it reported, said that there was no satisfactory basis of measuring activity in the NHS.
As a result, a group was eventually set up under the chairmanship of Edith Körner, who was then vice-chairman of the South-Western regional health authority. The aim of its investigations was to find a system that would accurately reflect the information needed by management to perform complex tasks of efficient administration, effective planning and genuine accountability.
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That steering group's ultimate report said that, if the work done by individual consultants as specialty groups is to be accurately recorded, each consultant episode must be separately identified. That was the basis on which the change was made.
It is astonishing that, between 1979 and 1989, when the changes were made, not only did the Labour party make no criticism of that change, but it called for the more rapid introduction of the changes. I have consulted the Official Report, and there—lo and behold—over the years, and as recently as 1988, is the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), urging the Government, in question after question, to get on with it. What were the Government afraid of? Were they afraid that those statistics would cause them a problem?
The simple truth—which the whole House should always remember when the Labour party makes those accusations in the way it does—is that the figures were a fine stick with which to beat the Government when the Labour party believed that it would suit its purpose, but, when it became clear that the activity in the national health service, as measured by those new and well-founded statistics, was not going to fit its arguments, it started to criticise them.
It is important that as those figures, described as "mere statistics" by the—
Mr. Miller rose—
Mr. Malone: I have told the hon. Gentleman that I shall not give way.
The truth is that those are important facts, determined using the best methodology that is available. The House should know that, and I have pleasure in placing it firmly on the record.
I turn to several of the arguments that were made in the debate. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) expressed unease about the private finance initiative as it affected his constituency. The whole purpose of the PFI is to secure better care of patients and best value for money for the taxpayer. There is a transfer of risk, often away from the public sector to the private sector. That is the intention, and it benefits the national health service.
As far as the constituency of the hon. Member for Northfield is concerned, I would remind him that the reforms have served it well. No Birmingham in-patient or day case now waits longer than nine months for treatment. All Birmingham health authorities are signed up to a target of having no in-patient or day care patient case waiting more than six months by March 1996. If the hon. Member does not believe that that is good, and a vindication of the reforms in his constituents' eyes, I believe that they feel very differently.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), as always, made an important speech.
Mr. Burden: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Malone: I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
My hon. Friend emphasised the benefits of partnership with the private sector. I agree with her entirely. It is important that we are not—as the Labour party is—purblind to the benefits that others can bring to the health service. Partnership brings in extra funds and extra activity. That is to be welcomed.

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The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) made two specific inquiries. He queried why the chief executive of Nottingham Healthcare is leaving, and he suggested, rather strangely, that he did not want any "off-the-shoulder" remarks from me. I do not quite know what that means. I believe that he meant "shooting from the hip." He has been watching too many Versace dresses in the papers recently, and he is getting his analogies mixed up.
I can tell the hon. and learned Gentleman what the background is. I repeat what I said to him; there certainly has been no interference from Government. Dr. Reynolds is leaving on 10 October 1995 to take up a new post in the private hospital sector. I understand that Dr. Reynolds has a background in the pharmaceutical industry, and that he joined Nottingham Healthcare only on the understanding that at some time he would return to the private sector.
The hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) gave some general support to Labour party policy, but he was unable in any sense to say how much better health would be under those policies.
Something was markedly absent from the debate—very much the dog that did not bark. The Labour party has published a document, and I believed that the debate might give us an opportunity to hear the answer to the following question. How much money is the Labour party prepared to add to the national health service if it intends to bring about those great changes? What will its commitment be?
I say to the right hon. Member for Derby, South, if she is saying that there will be more commitment—every implication of what she says at that Dispatch Box and in the House is that more funding will be needed—what will the level of funding be? Will she tell the House tonight that she would at least do as well as the Government have done since they came into office and during the present Parliament, in increasing resources in real terms year on year? The right hon. Lady will not answer, and she is pretending that she does not hear what I am saying by being in deep conversation with her hon. Friends.
There we are, Madam Deputy Speaker. We hear that there is absolutely no commitment—no attempt to put us right on that issue.
We have had a typical debate from the Labour party, in which Labour Members have bad-mouthed a series of things that are happening in the NHS. They bad-mouthed management, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says continually. It is a disgrace to bad-mouth management, who have delivered so much in the NHS.
In the NHS, fewer people are now involved in management, as compared with patient care, than 12 years ago. Sixty per cent. of people were involved in patient care about 12 years ago; now 66 per cent. are. That is an improvement, and it is a benchmark by which the Government are prepared to be judged.
Labour Members lose no opportunity, do they, to raise scares that are unfounded? I return to an argument that the right hon. Member for Derby, South made in the previous debate about health, when she made certain accusations about events that were going on in my constituency, concerning a patient who had not received proper treatment. It is a disgrace that, even when given the opportunity to retract, she has not done so.
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The right hon. Lady has managed to get herself in the position in which not only am I pretty cross about her making unfounded accusations about a hospital in my constituency, but the chairman of the trade union group in that hospital has urged her to make a formal apology, and she has not. It takes quite something for me to forge an alliance in my constituency with that gentleman.
We have heard yet another debate in which Labour Members have made sterile arguments. We have heard the Labour party's philosophy of taking the health service back into central hands, abolishing GP fundholding and ruining the discretion of trusts—trusts that are developing unparalleled levels and quality of health care. The Labour party would destroy the health service that we have created. It has been in our hands for longer than it has been in the Labour party's hands. It will continue to improve in our hands. That is what its future will be.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 218, Noes 288.

Division No. 189]

[7.00 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Dafis, Cynog

Adams, Mrs Irene

Dalyell, Tam

Ainger, Nick

Darling, Alistair

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Davidson, Ian

Allen, Graham

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Alton, David

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Ashton, Joe

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

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Dewar, Donald

Barnes, Harry

Dixon, Don

Barron, Kevin

Dobson, Frank

Battle, John

Donohoe, Brian H

Bayley, Hugh

Dowd, Jim

Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Bell, Stuart

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Eagle, Ms Angela

Benton, Joe

Eastham, Ken

Bermingham, Gerald

Etherington, Bill

Berry, Roger

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Betts, Clive

Fatchett, Derek

Blunkett, David

Faulds, Andrew

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

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

Fisher, Mark

Burden, Richard

Flynn, Paul

Byers, Stephen

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Caborn, Richard

Foster, Don (Bath)

Callaghan, Jim

Foulkes, George

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Fraser, John

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Fyfe, Maria

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Galloway, George

Campbell-Savours, D N

Garrett, John

Cann, Jamie

Godman, Dr Norman A

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Godsiff, Roger

Chisholm, Malcolm

Golding, Mrs Llin

Church, Judith

Gordon, Mildred

Clapham, Michael

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Grocott, Bruce

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Gunnell, John

Clelland, David

Hain, Peter

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Hall, Mike

Coffey, Ann

Hanson, David

Cohen, Harry

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Corbett, Robin

Henderson, Doug

Corbyn, Jeremy

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

Corston, Jean

Hodge, Margaret

Cummings, John

Hoey, Kate

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

75

Hood, Jimmy

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Hoon, Geoffrey

Pearson, Ian

Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

Pike, Peter L

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Hoyle, Doug

Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Primarolo, Dawn

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Purchase, Ken

Hutton, John

Quin, Ms Joyce

Illsley, Eric

Radice, Giles

Ingram, Adam

Randall, Stuart

Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

Raynsford, Nick

Jamieson, David

Reid, Dr John

Janner, Greville

Rendel, David

Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

Robertson, George (Hamilton)

Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

Jones, Marlyn (Clwyd, SW)

Rogers, Allan

Jowell, Tessa

Rooker, Jeff

Khabra, Piara S

Rooney, Terry

Kitfoyle, Peter

Ruddock, Joan

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Sedgemore, Brian

Lewis, Terry

Sheerman, Barry

Liddell, Mrs Helen

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Litherland, Robert

Short, Clare

Livingstone, Ken

Skinner, Dennis

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Loyden, Eddie

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

Lynne, Ms Liz

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

McAllion, John

Snape, Peter

McAvoy, Thomas

Soley, Clive

Macdonald, Calum

Spearing, Nigel

McFall, John

Spellar, John

McKelvey, William

Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

McLeish, Henry

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

McMaster, Gordon

Steinberg, Gerry

MacShane, Denis

Stevenson, George

McWilliam, John

Straw, Jack

Madden, Max

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Martin, Michael J (Spingburn)

Timms, Stephen

Martlew, Eric

Tipping, Paddy

Maxton, John

Turner, Dennis

Meacher, Michael

Tyler, Paul

Meale, Alan

Vaz, Keith

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Walley, Joan

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Milburn, Alan

Wareing, Robert N

Miller, Andrew

Watson, Mike

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Welsh, Andrew

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Wicks, Malcolm

Morgan, Rhodri

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Winnick, David

Mudie, George

Worthington, Tony

Mullin, Chris

Wray, Jimmy

Murphy, Paul

Wright, Dr Tony

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Young, David (Bolton SE)

O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

O'Brien, William (Normanton)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Olner, Bill

Mr. Jon Owen Jones and

O'Neill, Martin

Mrs. Barbara Roche.

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Alexander, Richard

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Amess, David

Baldry, Tony

Ancram, Michael

Banks, Matthew (Southport)

Arbuthnot, James

Bates, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Batiste, Spencer

Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

Bellingham, Henry

Ashby, David

Bendall, Vivian

Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

Beresford, Sir Paul

76

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Garnier, Edward

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Gill, Christopher

Booth, Hartley

Gillan, Cheryl

Boswell, Tim

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

Gorst, Sir John

Bowden, Sir Andrew

Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

Bowis, John

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Brandreth, Gyles

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Brazier, Julian

Grylls, Sir Michael

Bright, Sir Graham

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Hague, William

Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

Browning, Mrs Angela

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Budgen, Nicholas

Hannam, Sir John

Burns, Simon

Hargreaves, Andrew

Burt, Alistair

Haselhurst, Sir Alan

Butcher, John

Hawkins, Nick

Butler, Peter

Hawksley, Warren

Butterfill, John

Hayes, Jerry

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Heald, Oliver

Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

Heath, RI Hon Sir Edward

Carrington, Matthew

Hendry, Charles

Carttiss, Michael

Heseltine, RI Hon Michael

Cash, William

Hicks, Robert

Channon, RI Hon Paul

Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

Churchill, Mr

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

Clappison, James

Horam, John

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Coe, Sebastian

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Colvin, Michael

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

Congdon, David

Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

Conway, Derek

Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre Forst)

Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Hunter, Andrew

Couchman, James

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Cran, James

Jack, Michael

Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Jenkin, Bernard

Davis, David (Booth ferry)

Jessel, Toby

Day, Stephen

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Jones, Gwityrn (Cardiff N)

Devlin, Tim

Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

Dicks, Terry

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Key, Robert

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

king, Rt Hon Tom

Duncan, Alan

Kirkhope, Timothy

Duncan-Smith, Iain

Knapman, Roger

Dunn, Bob

Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Durant, Sir Anthony

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Dykes, Hugh

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

Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

Knox, Sir David

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Evennett, David

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Faber, David

Legg, Barry

Fabricant, Michael

Leigh, Edward

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

Held, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Lidington, David

Fishburn, Dudley

Lltley, RI Hon Peter

Forman, Nigel

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

Lord, Michael

Forth, Eric

Luff, Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

MacKay, Andrew

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

French, Douglas

Madel, Sir David

Gale, Roger

Maitland, Lady Olga

Gardiner, Sir George

Major, Rt Hon John

Garel-Jones, RI Hon Tristan

Malone, Gerald

77

Mans, Keith

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

Marland, Paul

Robathan, Andrew

Marlow, Tony

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Robertson, Raymond(Ad'd'nS)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Robinson, Mark(Somerton)

Mates, Michael

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Rumbold, Hon Dame Angela

Merchant, Piers

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Mills, Iain

Sackville, Tom

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Moate, Sir Roger

Shaw, David (Dover)

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Shaw Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Nelson, Anthony

Shaw Rt Hon Gillian

Neubert, Sir Michael

Shephard, Colin (Hereford)

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Nicholls, Patrick

Shersby, Sir Michael

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Sims, Roger

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Sims, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Norris, Steve

Soames, Nicholas

Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

Spencer, Sir Derek

Oppenheim, Phillip

Spicer, Sir James(W Dorset)

Ottaway, Richard

Spicer, Michael(S Worcs)

Page, Richard

Spink, Dr Robert

Paice, James

Spring, Richard

Patnick, Sir Irvine

Sproat, Iain

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Squire, Robin(Hornchurch)

Pawsey, James

Steen, Anthony

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Stephen, Michael

Pickles, Eric

Stern, Micheal

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Stewart, Allan

Porter, David (Waveney)

Streeter, Gary

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Sumberg, David

Powell, William (Corby)

Sweeney, Walter

Rathbone, Tim

Sykes, John

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Tapsell, Sir peter

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Richards, Rod

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Riddick, Graham

Taylor, Sir Teddy(Southend, E)

78

Temple-Morris, Peter

Watts, John

Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

Wells, Bowen

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

Thornton, Sir Malcolm

Whitney, Ray

Thurnham, Peter

Whittingdale, John

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Widdecombe, Ann

Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

Wiggin, Sir Jerry

Tracey, Richard

Wilkinson, John

Tredinnick, David

Willetts, David

Trend, Michael

Wilshire, David

Trotter, Neville

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Twinn, Dr Ian

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Wolfson, Mark

Viggers, Peter

Wood, Timothy

Walden, George

Yeo, Tim

Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Waller, Gary

Ward, John

Tellers for the Noes:

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Mr. David Lightbown and

Waterson, Nigel

Mr. Sydney Chapman.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes that since the introduction of the Government's health reforms, over one million more patients are treated in hospital every year and waiting times have fallen to the lowest on record; welcomes the Government's commitment to a strong and stable publicly-funded NHS where trusts and general practitioner fundholders are free to build further on these achievements; and condemns the inadequate, inconsistent and incoherent policies of Her Majesty's Opposition, which would destroy the key features of the new NHS, would undermine patients' interests and would throw into reverse the progress of recent years.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

  Queen Mary and Westfield College Bill (By Order)
  Order for Third Reading read—Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.
  7.13 pm
  Mr. Peter Brooke: The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who moved the Bill's Second Reading, is abroad on parliamentary business and is therefore unable to be present tonight.
  The Bill is promoted by three colleges of the university of London, of whose council I am a member, an interest which I declare. In the era of the ultra cautious, I should perhaps add that my mother, who is entitled as a noble Baroness to sit in another place, has been an honorary fellow of Westfield, and I learnt to play tennis upon its courts. One of the colleges, St. Bartholomew's hospital medical college, is in my constituency.
  The Bill is designed to bring about the merger of those three colleges. Two of them, Bart's and the London hospital medical college, are medical colleges, the third, Queen Mary and Westfield, is a multi-faculty institution. It is the fourth largest college of the university of London. The Bill is designed to bring those three colleges together into one institution in line with developments across London, which are integrating medical and dental education and research within multi-faculty institutions. Those developments enjoy the widest measure of support in the academic and medical worlds.
  The Bill received overwhelming support on Second Reading after a speech of great length and admirably consistent relevance by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). It has passed its Committee stage and I hope that hon. Members will support its Third Reading.
  It is now some five years since the three colleges joined together in the City and East London Confederation for Medicine and Dentistry, when the pre-clinical departments from the two medical colleges were transferred to Queen Mary and Westfield college. This has been successful, but it is now agreed that the process needs to be taken further. To be able to educate those medical and dental students with the widest curricular opportunities; to give them a much fuller experience of being educated alongside students of other subjects; and to strengthen research both within medicine and across disciplinary boundaries, that union of the colleges is imperative.
  Is the Bill needed for that purpose? The answer is an unequivocal yes. The colleges have powers to co-operate and collaborate. They could create a joint school of medicine and dentistry, but without the Bill they cannot come together as a single institution with one governing body and single administrative, financial, managerial and academic structures. No misuse of the royal prerogative is involved: only legislation can bring about the full legal merger of the colleges. A number of consequential changes are then needed to the statutes of Queen Mary and Westfield college, which require the approval of the Privy Council. Those amendments will not come into force until the Bill is enacted.
  80
  How do the Bill and the merger proposals relate to St. Bartholomew's hospital? Hon. Members will be aware of my views about the decisions relating to St. Bartholomew's hospital to transfer its activities to the Royal London hospital at Whitechapel. The three colleges each concluded, prior to the decisions on the future of St. Bartholomew's hospital, that their merger and the creation of a new school of medicine and dentistry was unquestionably the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do even if St. Bartholomew's hospital were to remain. The new school of medicine and dentistry would then teach its students and conduct its research at the Royal London hospital at Whitechapel and St. Bartholomew's hospital in West Smithfield in the City.
  If Bart's closes, teaching and research will have to take place elsewhere. I still entertain the hope that, despite the decision earlier this year, Bart's will escape closure. If that is so, the new college and medical school will take full advantage of the facilities and activities at West Smithfield. If the hospital ceases its activities, it is absolutely vital that the new unified school is brought into being and the education of students and medical and dental research are able to carry on unimpeded elsewhere.
  Does the Bill involve the destruction of Bart's medical college, as was alleged on Second Reading? Saving the grace of my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch, it does not. A medical school or, indeed, any other academic institution, is not just the physical buildings in which it operates. It is, above all else, people working in an environment which has, over the years, developed certain characteristics, reputation and ethos.
  St. Bartholomew's hospital medical college, like the London hospital medical college, will certainly undergo change in the process of amalgamation. But the same number of medical and dental students will be educated, at least the same amount of research will be prosecuted, all the staff will continue to be employed and, overall, the facilities and opportunities secured by the merger should be greater.
  The process of bringing together three separate institutions such as this is not without its difficulties and the process is a challenging one for all involved. But opportunities are offered here, and all three college councils are convinced that it is the right way forward.
  The Bill is important for London and for medical education generally. As can be seen from the Second Reading debate, no coherent arguments can be advanced against it. The proposal even enjoys the support of The Times Higher Education Supplement, although some might think that that is a poisoned chalice. I commend the Bill to the House.
  7.20 pm
  Mr. Brian Sedgemore: I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), who spoke with his usual charm, grace and conciseness—perhaps that will be a lesson to me as I spoke for two and a quarter hours in the previous debate on the subject. I shall not do that tonight. The right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South certainly draws the short straw. Only a week ago he was introducing in the House a private Bill that he apparently found so disdainful that he never pressed it to a vote.

  81
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who moved the Second Reading of the Bill, has found it such a poisoned chalice that he has this evening absented himself on a parliamentary visit. I wonder what procedural device the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South will use to block the Bill tonight.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would come to the subject of the debate.
  Mr. Sedgemore: Of course, I shall, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was trying to give a charming and easy introduction to put everyone at ease.
  We meet on a tumultuous evening, with historic events about to take place tomorrow. People are naturally asking me what the link is between the Queen Mary and Westfield College Bill and the election of the leader of the Conservative party. I imagine that it is precisely because there is a link that the Chairman of Ways and Means has tabled the Bill for debate tonight. There is such a disruptive campaign taking place that we all expect an election, probably by Christmas—by spring at the latest—which, of course, the Labour party will win. That means that St. Bartholomew's hospital will be saved. After the hospital has been saved, we shall look again at the position of the medical colleges of St. Bartholomew's hospital and the London hospital.
  I am told that there is only one unifying force in the extraordinarily disruptive campaign involving the Prime Minister, the right hon. Members for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo) and for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). If we look at the list of proposed Cabinets, we see that the Secretary of State for Health does not appear in any of them. That makes a difference to us because perhaps after this week we shall be able to discuss the future of St. Bartholomew's hospital and its medical college in rational terms—something which we have not been able to do.
  I wish to make a plea to two sets of people tonight. First, I wish to ask Conservative Members to vote down the Bill. Secondly, I wish to make a plea to peers of the realm in another place. Should the Bill receive a Third Reading in the House, I ask them to block it, delay it and vote it down when it comes to its Second Reading in the other place.
  I ask Conservative Members to think back to that great Conservative philosopher, Edmund Burke—perhaps the greatest Tory philosopher there has ever been. Edmund Burke based his theory on the virtues of custom, tradition, stability, continuity, renewal and excellence. St. Bartholomew's hospital and its medical college stand for all those virtues.
  I could understand it if the Labour party in the 1960s proposed to abolish St. Bartholomew's hospital and to merge its medical college with the Royal London hospital. I cannot understand how the Conservative party in the 1990s should be advancing that proposal. I ask Conservative Members to stand back, think of the great Conservative philosopher and reject barmy 18th century notions of classical liberalism that appear to form the theory driving the two proposals.
  I suppose that it may be impertinent for a mere commoner, dressed in a shabby lounge suit, to tell peers of the realm what to do. However, I ask them to come to
  82
  London and vote down the Bill on its Second Reading in the Lords, should it go through the House tonight. I make that plea not just to life peers, but to hereditary peers—the squirearchy of England. I ask all 1,200 them to come down here, if necessary with their footmen, livery men, maids, and perhaps even mistresses, to vote the Bill down. They will be defending the greatest medical college in the world. It only needs one peer to block a Bill in the House of Lords. Whom shall we choose? We know that the Duke of Gloucester spoke on the subject of St. Bartholomew's hospital in the House of Lords, damned the Secretary of State to eternity—and did so beautifully. Perhaps he can do it; if not him, perhaps another peer will.
  Stopping the Bill is an important matter. Not so long ago—not even a week ago—I went to a ball organised by St. Bartholomew's college. I shall let the House into a secret: the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South went to the same ball; we sat at the same table. His wife and I exchanged views that were so confidential that I dare not talk about them in the House.
  Mr. David Ashby: But the hon. Gentleman will.
  Mr. Sedgemore: Not at all.
  While I was moving around the ball I was stopped by consultant after consultant who told me that every week and every month that I hold up the Bill, I am doing St. Bartholomew's hospital a good turn. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South said about the enthusiasm with which St. Bartholomew's hospital supports the Bill, not one of those whom I met at the ball told me that it would be helpful if I stopped what I was doing because I was making a nuisance of myself. No—I received 100 per cent. support. It is ironic that, in politics, one can use balls instead of the corridors of Westminster as a good way of conducting research into important issues such as those that we are now discussing.
  I said that St. Bartholomew's was a place of excellence. I was looking through the exam results from 1988 to 1993. There are nine London medical colleges and I see that, in 1988 St. Bartholomew's ranked second overall in pass rates, first in 1989, third in 1990, first in 1991, first in 1992 and third in 1993. We should surely not abolish a place that produces excellence, but in terms of distinctions, the college came second in 1988, first in 1989, first in 1990, first in 1991, third in 1992 and first in 1993.
  I looked at the latest results for 1994 and found that, in terms of distinctions, 33 per cent. of those who took the exam at St. Bartholomew's received distinctions and the college was ranked first. At the London hospital, 21 per cent. of those who took the exam received distinctions and the medical school ranked fourth. At University College hospital—the place of greatest excellence—17 per cent. received distinctions and the college ranked ninth. There should be no doubt about it—we are talking about a medical college of great academic distinction.
  I wish to answer the points made by the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, who say that there is agreement about the Bill. There is not. I know that it looks odd because St. Bartholomew's hospital is one of the Bill's supporters. That is what everyone finds difficult to understand.

  83
  This afternoon, I looked through the annual reports of the medical colleges and found that in 1985, 1986 and 1987 there were great criticisms of the proposal when Dr. Kelsey Fry was the dean. I see also that there was a judicial review and that the merger between St. Bartholomew's and the London medical college was dropped in favour of the City and East London Confederation for Medicine and Dentistry to which the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South referred. The confederation has worked perfectly happily ever since and, in my view, could still.
  In 1992, the Tomlinson report recommended first, the closure of the hospital and secondly, the complete merger, both pre-clinical and clinical, of the two medical colleges. Professor Lesley Rees, currently the dean of St. Bartholomew's medical college and someone who, presumably, knows as much as anybody about the matter, is a superstar if ever I have met one. When the Tomlinson report came out in 1992, she wrote in the Christmas 1992 Barts Journal:
  "As far as the Medical College is concerned the Tomlinson Report recommends a merger with The London Hospital Medical College and Queen Mary and Westfield College. I believe that the City and East London Confederation for Medicine and Dentistry (CELC) provides the optimum link between the two Medical Colleges and Queen Mary and Westfield College. The Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences at QMW has largely met the claims made for medicine being placed within a multi-faculty college of the University. Cementing further the CELC arrangement will provide no added advantage that I can see in a medical faculty structure for teaching and research. Indeed with activities on at least three major sites such a Faculty structure would be unlikely to create economies of scale."
  The current dean of St. Bartholomew's medical college says that there is no added advantage. If there are hon. Members with the ability to contradict Professor Rees, I should like to hear them.
  Of course, she may have changed her mind since then but in the annual report of the medical college in 1993, Professor Rees said:
  "This has been a momentous year in the fortunes of the College and for our hospitals.
  In line with Government Policy we were required to inform the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) by the 1st October 1993, of our intention to merge with the London Hospital Medical College and Queen Mary and Westfield College."
  I repeat that she says "we were required".
  Members of Parliament are versed in the subtleties of what people have to do by force majeure and what they do voluntarily. When the dean of a medical college writes "we were required" to do something and finds no higher words of praise than that, one must take it that the dean is saying that something that the college does not want to be done is being forced on it. That is the truth. This is not a private Bill and never has been. It is a public Bill; it was whipped on Second Reading and is to be whipped again tonight. That is why I am going to keep my speech short. There is no point arguing against the force majeure of votes in the House.
  When the Bill's Second Reading was moved, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said:
  "My second reason for claiming that this Bill should be largely uncontroversial is that the merger is an agreed measure … In no sense is it a takeover bid, either by the London medical college for Bart's medical college or by Queen Mary and Westfield medical college for the other two."
  84
  In favour of his argument, he went on:
  "As for personnel, the warden of the new school of medicine and dentistry will come from the London, and all those concerned want his deputy and successor to come from Bart's."—[Official Report, 19 April 1995; Vol. 258, c. 277.]
  I can tell right hon. and hon. Members that the warden of the new medical college is Sir Colin Berry. His so-called deputy is Professor Lesley Rees from Bart's. The principal of the medical college, Professor Zellick, wrote to me in connection with the Bill and blocking motion saying that it was not a takeover and that Sir Colin Berry from the London was the warden—selected before the Bill had had a Second Reading, an odd way of going about creating a new institution which has no parliamentary approval of any kind. Never mind, we know that Professor Zellick has contempt for Parliament because he had to apologise through his agent at the Bill's unopposed Committee stage, which I personally attended. He also said that Lesley Rees had the offer to be the dean of clinical medicine. What could be fairer than that? I sent his letter to Professor Rees for her comments. They are very brief. In a letter dated 12 April 1995, she said:
  "I made it quite clear to Professor Zellick that my application was for the Wardenship only and that I was not interested in the position of Dean of Clinical Medicine. The 'package' he mentions was never publicised or discussed with me before or during the interview. In fact, the intention at the time was to advertise for the position of Dean of Clinical Medicine.
  I also made it abundantly clear to Professor Zellick and to many others that in the event I was not appointed as Warden, I would not be an applicant for the post of Dean of Clinical Medicine."
  We have Professor Zellick telling my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, who moved the Bill's Second Reading, and writing to me, giving information which misleads us, in the hope presumably that we will mislead the House. I had the good sense to check it. That is the truth of the matter, so let us not say that there is massive agreement and that it is no sense any kind of takeover.
  Indeed, as regards personnel I give credit to the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South who, in one of our more general debates on Bart's hospital, first raised the point about the number of people at the medical college who were leaving because of the uncertainty that had been created. A lot of the personnel do not want the merger.
  To bring matters right up to 1995, there is my research last week at the ball, where all the consultants were saying to me, "Keep it up Sedgemore. For the first time in your life, you are doing a bit of practical good in Parliament." If the House is to support an institution, the institution has to be able to show that it has acted in good faith. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but the college lost a wonderful opportunity when it turned down Professor Rees as warden and appointed Sir Colin Berry before, as I said, Second Reading.
  It was bizarre that Eastman dental hospital, which is not part of the new institution, had a vote on who should be the warden of the medical college. That struck me as extraordinary. But the choice of Sir Colin Berry suggests that it is not the sort of institution to which the House should give its approval.
  Clive Priestley, who is lay vice-president of St. Bartholomew's medical college, said to me in the presence of Professor Zellick, that he had asked before the warden was appointed whether it would be in order for him to ask one of the candidates whether there was

  85
  anything to that candidate's detriment that might damage the college. That seems a perfectly reasonable question—the sort of question asked at all kinds of interviews. However, Professor Zellick ruled the question out of order.
  I have never heard of a principal of a college ruling out of order a question that could discover whether a person who might be about to be appointed has some skeleton in the locker that could damage the college. In this case, we know that the warden, as a pathologist, had in fact misdiagnosed two women whose breasts were cut off, and we know that there had been a vote of no confidence in him by some staff. Even the general and fat controller at the Royal Hospitals NHS trust, Sir Derek Boorman and Gerry Green, realise that it has all been a terrible mistake.
  Perhaps my point is laboured because I understand that the Government may be prepared to bail out Queen Mary and Westfield college. There is a real chance, I am told, that none of the people there will ratify the appointment of Sir Colin Berry as warden. The Government now realise that he is so useless that they could make him chair of a quango and therefore satisfy everyone.
  The medical college at St. Bartholomew's hospital has existed almost from the time of the hospital itself. It was founded in 1123 by Rahere, an Augustinian monk, and was linked to the priory at St. Bartholomew's hospital. Soon, there were apprentices who worked with the doctors and they, in effect, were the first students at the medical college. I think that Conservatives should recognise that, down the centuries, it has fought off a number of tremendous attempts to close it, and it is ironic that they who should be the creatures of custom, tradition, excellence and renewal in the style of Edmund Burke are now about to change all that.
  Henry VIII desperately tried to close the college. He wanted to dissolve the monasteries and introduced the Acts of Dissolution 1536 and 1539. The college refused to close itself and eventually Thomas Vicary, who had trained at Bart's and who was Henry VIII's surgeon, persuaded the king to grant it a royal charter in 1546. A hospital that fought off Henry VIII cannot survive the modern House of Commons.
  In September 1666, the great fire of London did its worst and tried to destroy the hospital and the medical college. On that occasion, God and the weather came to the aid of the medical college, and I very much hope that tonight God will come to its aid again.
  Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman knows that he and I are shoulder to shoulder on some aspects of the matter, although we are on opposite sides on the Bill. He has in his narrative relating to the hospital, omitted one of my favourite passages which is that the index of the history refers to "English Civil War (Effect on the Parish)". An institution has to be pretty self-confident to make that its single reference to the English civil war.
  Mr. Sedgemore: The right hon. Gentleman—I was about to call him my right hon. Friend because we are so close on this matter—shows how great and self-confident one can be. I think Balliol college, Oxford, used to call it the unconscious realisation of effortless superiority, which is something that St. Bartholomew's as well as Balliol college had. Certainly, I doubt that it is something that the Minister will have when he replies. However, we shall see.
  86
  The medical college did not entirely escape the ravages of the great fire of London. Much of Bart's property was destroyed, and it was calculated that it lost income of £2,000 a year. It was a huge sum but Bart's quickly recovered. Therefore, the medical college survived Henry VIII and the great fire of London, but it cannot apparently survive the House of Commons in 1995.
  In the war, Hitler's bombers tried to destroy the hospital and the medical college. On 23 and 24 September 1940, they bombed the medical college and, in October that year, they bombed Charterhouse square, which is mentioned in one of the clauses. Shortly after the war, and as a result of all the bombing, the Department of Health said that it should perhaps close the hospital. Perhaps it was that niggle which entered the psyche of the Department of Health as long ago as 1945 which has found fruition 50 years later and led to the suggestion that the hospital be shut and the medical college wound up. Sometimes the bureaucrats never give up. I speak as someone who worked in the civil service—I know the way its mind works. In any event, the college beat Henry VIII, the great fire of London and Hitler's bombers, but we cannot beat the Conservatives in the House of Commons in 1995.
  I shall draw my remarks to a close, but many people, past and present, will be saddened by what we are doing. They include the eminent surgeon Percival Pott, who was one of the first people to act as a real professor at the medical college; John Abernethy, who effectively formalised teaching at the hospital and who is usually regarded as its founder in the 18th century; Lord Horder, Sir Archibald Garrod and William Marsden, who was ultimately responsible for the foundation of the Royal Marsden hospital in 1851.
  Last but not least I must mention the great W. G. If anyone knows who the great W. G. is, it will be the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South. I am sure that all hon. Members know that I am referring to Dr. W. G. Grace, the greatest Englishman who ever lived and one of the finest batsmen the world has ever known. W. G. qualified as a doctor at St. Bartholomew's hospital and he will be turning in his grave tonight. There is no better reason to oppose the Bill than to let W. G. rest in peace.
  I believe that the hospital can be saved; then we can look again at the medical college. That would be the wisest and best thing that we could do. I hope that hon. Members will oppose the Bill.
  7.44 pm
  Sir Edward Heath: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke). In doing so, I must, in deference to Mr. Justice Nolan, declare an interest in that Queen Mary college conferred an honorary degree on me. That fact is listed in all publications and is well known throughout the country. I received no remuneration although I was given one free meal. Having established that, I can say that I strongly agree with what my right hon. Friend said.
  I am amazed at the contribution by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). I have heard him make a serious and persuasive speech, but that was certainly not the case tonight. The frivolity with which he treated the matter is deplorable. To begin by

  87
  saying that the Bill was to be debated at this time because of a party leadership election shows that he is living in a world of fantasy. As for the hon. Gentleman's arguments, my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South dealt with them.
  I share my right hon. Friend's view that the decision taken about Bart's was and is a mistake. The Tomlinson committee considered every technical and physical development of the hospitals; the only matter that it did not consider was the people. It is for that reason that the decision was a mistake, quite apart from Bart's great history. Although we had an interesting history lesson this evening, the fact that Handel played the organ at Bart's was omitted—that is perhaps the most important thing of all.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South said that there was no reason why the change suggested in the Bill should not go ahead. We have been given no real reasons against that. I accept what my right hon. Friend said and the advice that I have received.
  Most unusually from an Opposition Member, we heard a quotation from Edmund Burke. Burke also said:
  "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment".
  I have endeavoured over the past 45 years to contribute some industry; now I contribute my judgment, which is that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right.
  7.46 pm
  The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), who made some cogent remarks. I, too, was interested in the alliances forged by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). He called on forces beyond the grave in the shape of Dr. Grace and attempted to forge what was, to my mind, a rather unusual alliance with the other place. The thought of him leading the combined forces of that other place on any subject is indeed an interesting one. However, I am not sure that he did his case much good by referring to the peers of the realm as the squirearchy. That will perhaps set back his cause to some extent. In any event, it was an interesting notion.
  The House is well aware of the fact—I shall, nevertheless restate the convention—that my purpose in such debates is to give a broad outline of the Government's position. I greatly welcome the arguments that my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) has put before us in the case for the merger of the medical schools within the Queen Mary and Westfield college. I am happy once more to state the Government's broad position in welcoming the Bill and the opportunities that it presents for developing a continuing partnership between medical education, research and clinical services in east London.
  As the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) made clear on Second Reading, and as my right hon. Friend reiterated this evening, the Bill has the support of the institutions involved. The principles supporting the case for the merger of the colleges have been laid before the House and, I believe, stand firmly on their own merits.
  88
  To put it in context, the Bill is one of a number introduced over the past 20 years or so to unite medical colleges within multi-faculty colleges of the university of London. It will strengthen the institutions concerned and develop important links with departments of life sciences. It will also ensure that the tradition of excellence in medical teaching and research in that part of London will continue from a strong academic base.
  My Department and the Department for Education welcome the Bill. It will contribute to securing London's leading position in these fields as well as securing a medical and dental school of great distinction in east London to match those that are being established in other parts of the capital. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South on putting the case for the merger so concisely and well. I hope that the Bill can now proceed quickly for consideration in another place, perhaps free of the cohorts that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch hoped to bring as legions to oppose it. The Bill deserves to be placed on the statute book as quickly as possible, and the Government confirm their broad support for the measure.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 56.

  Division No. 190]

  [7.50 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Coe, Sebastian

  Alexander, Richard

  Colvin, Michael

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Congdon, David

  Alton, David

  Conway, Derek

  Amess, David

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Ancram, Michael

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Arbuthnot, James

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Couchman, James

  Ashby, David

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

  Dalyell, Tam

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Day, Stephen

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Baldry, Tony

  Dicks, Terry

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Bates, Michael

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bellingham, Henry

  Dover, Den

  Bendall, Vivian

  Duncan, Alan

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Dunn, Bob

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Dykes, Hugh

  Booth, Hartley

  Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

  Boswell, Tim

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Bowis, John

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Evennett, David

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Fabricant, Michael

  Brazier, Julian

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Field, Barry (lsle of Wight)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Burns, Simon

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Burt, Alistair

  Forth, Eric

  Butcher, John

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Butler, Peter

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

  French, Douglas

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Gale, Roger

  Carrington, Matthew

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Cash, William

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Garnier, Edward

  Chapman, Sydney

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Clappison, James

  Gorst, Sir John

  89

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Merchant, Piers

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Hague, William

  Mills, Iain

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Hannam, Sir John

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Hawkins, Nick

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Hawksley, Warren

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Heald, Oliver

  Norris, Steve

  Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Hendry, Charles

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Page, Richard

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Paice, James

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Hunter, Andrew

  Pawsey, James

  Jack, Michael

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Pickles, Eric

  Jessel, Toby

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Rendel, David

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Richards, Rod

  Key, Robert

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Robathan, Andrew

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Knapman, Roger

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

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

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Knox, Sir David

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Shersby, Sir Michael

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Spicer, Michael (S worcs)

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Squie, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Lidington, David

  Stephen, Michael

  Lightbown, David

  Stern, Michael

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Stewart, Allan

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Streeter, Gary

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Sweeney, Walter

  MacKay, Andrew

  Sykes, John

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Malone, Gerald

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Mans, Keith

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Marland, Paul

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Marlow, Tony

  Thurnham, Peter

  90

  Townsend, John (Bridlington)

  Whitney, Ray

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Whittingdale, John

  Trotter, Neville

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Tyler, Paul

  Wilkinson, John

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Willetts, David

  Waller, Gary

  Wilshire, David

  Ward, John

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Wood, Timothy

  Waterson, Nigel

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Watts, John

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wells, Bowen

  Mr. Peter Brooke and

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Mr. Michael Lord.

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs lrene

  Loyden, Eddie

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Barnes, Harry

  McKelvey, William

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Burden, Richard

  Maxtor, John

  Caborn, Richard

  Meale, Alan

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Cann, Jamie

  Miller, Andrew

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Mullin, Chris

  Cummings, John

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Dafis, Cynog

  Olner, Bill

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Pike, Peter L

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Purchase, Ken

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Galloway, George

  Simpson, Alan

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Skinner, Dennis

  Godsiff, Roger

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Golding, Mrs Lin

  Spearing, Nigel

  Grant Bernie (Tottenham)

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Hanson, David

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Wareing, Robert N

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Welsh, Andrew

  Hood, Jimmy

  Wray, Jimmy

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Jamieson, David

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Lewis, Terry

  Mr. Harry Cohen and

  Livingstone, Ken

  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day

  Education
  8.3 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Robin Squire): I beg to move,
  That the draft Education (Assisted Places) Regulations 1995, which were laid before this House on 26th June, be approved.
  As hon. Members will know, we introduced the assisted places scheme in 1981 because we are committed to choice and diversity and because we wish to encourage high standards in education, wherever they are to be found. We want parents to be able to choose the education that they think best for their children, regardless of income. The scheme has opened up educational opportunities for many thousands of able children from less well-off families, and continues to be an outstanding success. Under the present Government, it is here to stay.
  Our best independent schools have a long tradition of academic excellence, of which they are rightly proud; but schooling is not just about achieving good results on paper. Schools in the scheme take a justifiable pride in developing their pupils as individuals, and equipping them in every way to make a full and valuable contribution to society.
  Independent schools are also here to stay. We believe that the range of opportunities that they offer should not be restricted to those who can afford to pay for them. Independent schools have a long history of providing bursaries and scholarships for less well-off pupils, and the Government welcome that, but there is a limit to what the independent schools can do themselves.
  The assisted places scheme builds on and extends the schools' own contributions. It not only expands opportunities for children from lower-income families, but helps to widen the social mix and create greater awareness and understanding across communities. In short, the scheme is an academic success: assisted pupils, on average, achieve better GCSE and A-level results than their peers in independent and maintained schools, and have high entry rates into further and higher education. The scheme is successful in the wider opportunities and experiences that it provides in sport, the arts and other aspects of personal development, and it is successful in giving all those opportunities to children who could not otherwise have afforded them. Over 40 per cent. qualify for a totally free place, and 80 per cent. of their families have incomes below the national average.
  The regulations governing the scheme were last consolidated in 1989. Amendments have been made in each year since then, mainly to uprate the parental contribution tables that set out the amounts that parents must pay towards their children's assisted places. The House is considering new consolidated regulations, whose effects I shall explain shortly.
  Consolidation is essentially good housekeeping, to bring all the previous changes into a single document, update some detailed aspects of the rules and remove redundant wording. The consolidated regulations include this year's parental contribution uprating. There are no radical changes in the operation of the scheme. If approved, the regulations will come into force on 25 August, for the school year 1995–96.
  92
  Part I of the draft regulations—that is, regulations 1 and 2—deals with citation, commencement and application and with the interpretation of expressions used throughout the text. The main changes here are in connection with the definition of "parents" for the purpose of income assessments under the scheme, and with the use of the term "European Economic Area" with regard to the residence of applicants for assisted places.
  The definition of "parents" in regulation 2 has been revised to take account of provisions in the Children Act 1989 and subsequent developments, and to limit the definition to the person or persons with whom the child normally lives. There have been no major changes of substance, but the wording has been clarified. In the usual case, the "parents" are of course the natural mother and father, and both must make a declaration of their joint incomes to be eligible for assistance under the scheme. The regulations also cater for adoptive parents, those who are guardians or foster parents and those who, although not the natural parents, have custody or care and control of the child.
  Part II of the draft regulations—regulations 3 to 8—deals with eligibility for an assisted place. The wording of regulation 3 has been made clearer, and the requirement that parents and child applying for an assisted place must fulfil all the conditions specified is strengthened.
  Draft regulation 4 sets out the residence requirements. The vast majority of assisted pupils will, of course, satisfy the requirement that they should be ordinarily resident in the British islands for at least two calendar years before taking up the assisted place. In addition, there have always been conditions applicable to children who have been living in European Community countries and have been nationals of those countries. Those conditions have been revised in the draft regulations to take account of the European Economic Area agreement, and to reflect our legal obligations to provide access to free or subsidised tuition for children of migrant workers on the same basis as for British residents. By the same token, the requirement that a child from a member state of the European Community be resident in the British islands on 1 January before taking up an assisted place is removed.
  The conditions as to age in draft regulation 5 remain largely the same. The only exception is that the somewhat anomalous requirement that a child should have attained the age of 11—the scheme's minimum age—by 31 July following his admission to an assisted place is now amended, so that the child concerned must have reached the specified minimum age by 31 August, the conventional end of the school year.
  There have been some minor technical amendments and drafting changes in part III of the draft regulations—regulations 9 to 15—dealing with remission of fees. Cross-references in footnotes to other relevant legislation have been updated. Draft regulation 11 provides for an allowance to be made for each dependent child, other than the assisted place holder, against parents' total income when calculating their contribution towards school fees. This year, the allowance is raised from £1,140 to £1,165, in line with inflation, and will maintain the help for families with more than one child.
  Draft regulation 15 refers to the scales of fee remission in schedule 2 which, in turn, sets out the income bands used for assessing parents' contribution to fees for the school year 1995–96. I announced those to the House on 26 January last. Like the dependant's allowance, those

  93
  bands have been uprated in line with the 2.4 per cent. movement in the retail prices index over the 12 months to October last year. The income threshold at or below which parents pay nothing towards fees is raised from £9,352 to £9,572 a year. There are corresponding increases in the thresholds for the higher income bands. The effect is that parents whose relevant income has risen by no more than inflation will continue to contribute the same proportion of that income, and indeed the same amount in real terms. Parents whose incomes have risen by less than inflation will pay less. All those adjustments help to achieve the objective of targeting assistance on those who need it most.
  The provisions of the remaining parts of the draft regulations cover the administrative arrangements and miscellaneous requirements of the scheme. They remain essentially unchanged. Draft regulation 19, for example, lies at the heart of the scheme and requires participating schools to recruit at least 60 per cent. of their assisted pupils from publicly maintained schools.
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that what he has just said reinforces yet again the fact that the only remaining people who disapprove of the assisted places scheme, which has already benefited 70,000 children over the years since its introduction, are Opposition Members who are still peddling the politics of envy? Does he agree that it is noticeable that people, such as a gentleman in my constituency, are resigning from the Labour party when their children have benefited from assisted places because they recognise the poverty and hypocrisy of the Opposition's ideology, which is based on, "We're all right Jack, knock away the ladder"? No fewer than seven members of the shadow Cabinet have benefited.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows full well my view that interventions should be short. That was getting very long.
  Mr. Squire: The intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) was enjoyable, however, at least from where I was sitting. I congratulate him on what he said, which is well known not just in the House, but, I am pleased to hear from his comments, among a growing number of erstwhile supporters of the Labour party.
  The scheme is not intended for those who would have sent their children to independent schools in any event, but a small number of assisted place holders were attending private preparatory schools before taking up their secondary school place and have been awarded assisted places on the ground of hardship.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the Minister tell me how many pupils in Wales are currently on an assisted places scheme and what percentage that is of the overall school population in Wales?
  Mr. Squire: I have that information, but I do not have it immediately to hand. Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to cope with that in my concluding comments rather than give him an estimate and then, in a sense, have to correct that estimate?
  Mr. Brian H. Donohoe: I ask the same question in relation to Scotland. Will the Minister give us the figures for Scotland?
  Mr. Squire: The regulations do not affect Scotland. They cover purely England and Wales, so whether or not I can find the figures for Wales, those for Scotland are not affected by the regulations.
  Finally, the technical arrangements for the computation of parents' income in schedule 1 to the draft regulations have been updated and amended, mainly as a result of various Finance Acts brought into force in the intervening years since 1989.
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Squire: I am anxious to make progress, but I shall give way to the hon. Lady.
  Mrs. Campbell: There is of course a great deal of alarm and concern among parents about the falling school budget. What would the Minister say to the head teacher of my local sixth form college, who has written to me and recently published a press release saying:
  "Governors, staff, students and parents therefore want to know why recent parliamentary answers suggest that the Government allocates up to twice as much per student to buy an assisted place in an independent school"
  as that head teacher has been allocated to teach his pupils?
  Mr. Squire: Several answers would accurately sum up the position and give useful information to the head teacher to whom the hon. Lady referred. The first and most obvious point is that the fees paid under assisted places to private independent schools cover not merely revenue expenditure, but capital, whereas the allocation under the standard spending assessment covers only revenue items. Secondly, although I hope that she would not expect me to run through the figures on 109 SSAs, she will find that, even taking that into account, the amount allocated to some local education authorities per pupil under the SSA for the current year is greater than the average allocated in relation to the scheme.
  Mrs. Campbell: I have some figures here. In 1994–95, funding for 16 to 19-year-old students, including capital, at my local colleges in Cambridge—funded of course through the Further Education Funding Council—was £2,823 per year. I have not had the exact figures, but I know that the sum at a school such as Leys school in Cambridge approaches £5,000 a year. As I said earlier, the figure is almost double for such schools.
  Mr. Squire: The hon. Lady has made her local point. I repeat that, considering the full range of schools within the assisted places scheme, and, separately, the amount advanced by the standard spending assessment annually, there is an enormous range of figures. In particular, the other thing the hon. Lady will know is that the whole funding of sixth forms, be it sixth form colleges or sixth forms as part of schools, displays significant variances as well.
  Mr. James Pawsey: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the admirable answers that he has given to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), which I am certain will entirely satisfy her. Some disquiet is being expressed about the assisted places scheme. The disquiet that I have heard is that the Government may not be firmly committed to it. I would

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  therefore be grateful if my hon. Friend would put those rumours to rest and nail the Government's colours firmly to the mast of the scheme.
  Mr. Squire: I am delighted to give my hon. Friend the utter and complete assurance that the Government are committed to the assisted places scheme. We see its continuing advantages and we have no plans to cut it, let alone to abolish it.
  I hope that I have explained to the satisfaction of the House the purpose behind the laying of these draft consolidated regulations, and that I have covered the main areas where some minor changes have been made. Whatever Opposition Members may feel about the assisted places scheme as a whole, I am confident that the House will welcome both the tidying-up that we have undertaken in the regulations and, of course, the annual uprating to preserve its value. I commend the regulations to the House.
  8.17 pm
  Mr. Peter Kilfoyle: We will vote tonight against the regulations and we will do so simply because we are against the whole scheme in principle. I shall explain why, but before I do, may I enlighten the Under-Secretary and tell him that in Wales approximately 720 pupils are on the assisted places scheme?
  There are three principal reasons for opposing the assisted places scheme. First, it is unfair and inefficient to penalise the many to advantage the few, yet that, effectively, is what the scheme does. Secondly, in the main, schools select the most academically able through the scheme, distorting the academic profile of children in the maintained sector and inflating the image of academic excellence projected by many independent schools. Finally, it is a totally unwarranted subsidy by the state of the private sector.
  The Government would have us believe that the scheme is an unqualified success, but they regularly refuse to make more detailed information available. My hon. Friends have regularly tabled questions to the Department for Education so that a clearer picture might emerge, but it has all been to no avail. On 17 January, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) sought information as to which local education authorities had a concentration of assisted places, but he was told that the data were not broken down by local education authority.
  Later that year, on 2 March, my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) attempted to find out how many families using the scheme could have afforded private education anyway—something to which the Under-Secretary referred earlier. He was told that that would apply to very few. How can the Government possibly know that without the relevant data—which, from their own evidence, they do not collect?
  The Scottish Office told my hon. Friend:
  "The number of such pupils is impossible to assess accurately but they must be very few."—[Official Report, 7 March 1994; Vol. 239, c. 54.]
  At least the Welsh Office was honest when, on 4 March last year, it told my hon. Friend:
  "No such assessment has been made."—[Official Report, 4 March 1994; Vol. 238, c. 906.]
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  The truth is that the Government neither know nor care because the scheme is motivated by ideology and they do not want it to be scrutinised too closely.
  Mr. Hawkins: While on the subject of provision of information, does the hon. Gentleman agree that no fewer than seven of his Front-Bench colleagues have been beneficiaries of the sort of schools that his opposition to the regulations would damage?
  Mr. Kilfoyle: I would not have a clue about to whom the hon. Gentleman is referring. Perhaps I am one of them because I went to a direct grant school that eventually opted for the independent sector. There is hardly a case to be made against hon. Members who, at the age of 11, were arbitrarily selected by a system that they neither understood nor in which they participated.
  The Under-Secretary has been party to the smokescreen around the assisted places scheme. When my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) asked how many households with children on the assisted places scheme were in the bottom tenth of disposable income levels under Department of Social Security statistics, he obfuscated by saying that the information was not available in the form requested.
  That lack of information and clarity does not, in any shape or form, prevent the Department for Education from making odd claims about the scheme. Last week, at my request, it faxed me its view of the scheme and made four principal claims, which have been echoed tonight by the Under-Secretary—that it widens opportunity to the poor; it extends choice to those who would not have it; it justifies the intake as otherwise not choosing the private sector; and it claims
  "295 good independent schools in the scheme (in England)."
  The argument that the scheme widens opportunity lacks any conviction. Despite 100 per cent. take-up of first-year places, it consistently involves between 0.8 and 0.9 per cent. of the total number of secondary pupils. That obviously implies that more than 99 per cent. of our pupils do not cut the mustard academically to qualify for the scheme.
  The second argument, of extension of choice to those who otherwise would not have it, again denies choice to 99 per cent. of the population by virtue of the narrowness of the take-up. It reinforces our view that the whole notion of choice in education is chimerical, at least for the vast majority of people. At best, preference is exercised, not choice.
  The third argument is a very odd claim as it is predicated on the statement that almost 70 per cent. of assisted pupils have come from maintained primary schools. Given that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor both sent their children to state primary schools and then on to independent schools—as have thousands of parents—that appears to be a spurious deduction to make. On the contrary, I would be more concerned with the 30 per cent. plus who have gone from independent primary schools to independent secondary schools at the taxpayers' expense.
  The Department for Education will continue to laud the achievement of children on the scheme, as the Under-Secretary has done this evening. Of course those children will do well academically—that is why they are

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  creamed off from the maintained sector to inflate the otherwise dubious academic records of many of the schools in the scheme—295 in England alone.
  Mr. Robin Squire rose—
  Mr. Kilfoyle: Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes I will accept that many of those schools are good schools and have always been good schools in their own right. I argue against the assertion that all of them are good schools that could stand alone without the infusion of fresh blood—fresh academic talent—being brought in from the maintained sector.
  Is it any wonder that organisations such as the Independent Schools Information Service use the scheme as propaganda for their own promotion? For example, is it a coincidence that in the autumn edition of its publication, under a banner headline about Labour party policy and the assisted places scheme, it makes great play of the academic success of independent schools? The implication was clear—that independent schools add value to the fewer than 1 per cent. of pupils who are creamed off. Is not it the 1 per cent. who add value to the schools, not only academically but by propping them up financially? In an open market, many of those schools would have collapsed long ago.
  The Department for Education claims the scheme is good value for money and that the total cost is justified by a significant increase in opportunities and an extension of choice. I am afraid that such outlandish statements are far from the truth.
  Mr. Robin Squire: The hon. Gentleman suggested that some schools would have collapsed long ago without the benefit of the assisted places scheme. Will he improve on the example given a year ago by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), speaking for the Liberal Democrats, who could submit only the name of Dulwich college as a school that would have collapsed? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could give a better example.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: The four schools out of the top 50 which the DFE says take more than £1 million a year from the public purse in subsidy, and may even have in excess of 40 per cent. of their pupils on the assisted places scheme, could hardly find it easy to exist without the material support of the students or the huge sums of money that they are given.
  Between 1989 and 1995, the cost of the scheme rose from £50.9 million to £102 million—a 100 per cent. increase. Can the Under-Secretary explain why, during the same period, the number of places increased by only 2.6 per cent., from 33,280 to 34,139? Where did the money go? Obviously, the Under-Secretary either does not wish or is unable to tell us where it has gone.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) referred to the position in Wales, where the average budget per pupil in the maintained sector is £2,373. In the independent sector, the grant per head for the assisted places scheme is £3,790 for the 720 pupils to whom I referred. In England, the position is even worse. According to the House of Commons Library, the average per head in the maintained sector is £2,250, but for places under the APS the average grant per place is £4,110. Where is the value for money between the two?
  In my county of Merseyside, five schools are in the top 50 recipients of money under the scheme. Between them, they receive £3.5 million a year. Other schools in the
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  county also take money under the scheme. If we assess the cost of a teacher at £20,000—a figure off the top of my head—that £3.5 million would pay for an additional 175 teachers for schools in the county. What would that do to raise standards for all our pupils in all our schools? How many other savings could be made—for example, filling surplus places that we are busy taking out of the system, which is costing a fortune both centrally and locally?
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are buying something that is, perhaps, not very good value for money? The college that I mentioned earlier—Hills road sixth form college, which is just outside my constituency—gets £2,800 per year per pupil. However, it consistently comes in the top 10 schools, including the public schools. It is the one state school that gets on to that list and consistently gets a high proportion of its pupils into Oxford and Cambridge. Schools that get twice as much money do not come anywhere near it in their results.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: It is absolutely true to say that the Government are using and abusing the maintained sector to maintain an ideological position on the assisted places scheme. The school, that takes in more pupils under the assisted places scheme than any other, is, as I recall, not a million miles from Cambridge: Wisbech grammar school. Several schools take nearly as many pupils on the scheme.
  The Minister might argue that the scheme is an egalitarian measure, pointing out that around 40 per cent. of pupils pay nothing, going entirely free to these grand schools. But what of the 60 per cent. who are being subsidised in one way or another together with the schools? I note that the schools chosen by other members of the Cabinet, such as the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary—the Etons, the Harrows and the Marlboroughs—do not figure at all in any of the parliamentary answers.
  Winchester is an exception, creeping into the list of schools taking up the scheme, but it is certainly not one of the top 50 schools. If anything, it has a token involvement in the scheme. Perhaps its sense of noblesse oblige does not quite square with the parvenu erstwhile direct grant schools, which are trying to gain status from the scheme rather than anything else.
  Mr. Robin Squire: I shall try not to interrupt the hon. Gentleman excessively, but he partly answers his own point. As he knows, the origins of the scheme lay in the old direct grant schools and their efforts. It would be surprising if a significant number of other schools were brought in—not least since there is a waiting list of other schools trying to get on the assisted places scheme.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: In fact the Under-Secretary reinforces my point. The scheme is ideologically driven to enable the old direct grant schools to continue a selective, elitist approach to education by creaming off the best from the maintained sector. In government, the Labour party will without doubt abolish this scheme.
  Mr. Pawsey: Like grant-maintained schools?
  Mr. Kilfoyle: The hon. Gentleman refers to grant-maintained schools. Although they are not particularly relevant to this debate, his intervention warrants an answer. We propose to narrow down six

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  categories of schools into three. He will not be surprised to find that that proposal is receiving an increasingly favourable response from head teachers, governors and parents involved in all areas of the maintained sector.
  Mr. Pawsey: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for rising like a particularly plump fish to my intervention.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education (Mr. Tim Boswell): A plump trout.
  Mr. Pawsey: All right, rising like a trout. Is the hon. Gentleman able to say that his party, if elected to government, would abolish the grant-maintained sector in its entirety?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I must remind the House that we are debating the assisted places scheme. We must return to that subject.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: I may be able to answer within the remit of this debate by saying that when the Labour party goes into government, Labour Members intend to look after the interests of all our children, in all our schools, regardless of the school they may attend.
  The Labour party in government will abolish the scheme—not in any way which will damage the progress of the pupils currently studying under the scheme, but by halting new places under it. I hasten to add that Labour Members recognise that there are—as there have always been—cases which require support.
  Only last week I met the admirable Mr. Tom Juckes, the chairman of the Lord Wandsworth Foundation, which, as the Minister may know, is an umbrella charity for a number of other worthy causes and deals with children in particular educational, social, psychiatric and financial need. We believe that, where appropriate, help can be offered to people who, like those helped by the foundation, use the assisted places scheme. At one time, in local government circles, such help was known as the Martin Rules, which were certainly catered for in section 81B of the Education Act 1944, if the Minister cares to check it out. I fail to see why the assisted places scheme has been subverted to provide places which are already catered for—unless it is for ideological reasons.
  We will not perpetuate the wholly unacceptable practice of hiving off a few to the disadvantage of the many, to prop up schools which wish to remain elitist and which ignore their wider educational responsibilities to their communities. The Minister's alarm bells ought to be ringing because our new structure, catering for all schools, is looking increasingly attractive to former direct grant schools, which are aware that the future Labour Government will remove any advantages under the assisted places scheme. Indeed, they have already suffered under the pressures of the second great recession since the Conservative party took office since 1979. Labour Members will most certainly and happily vote against the regulations.
  8.34 pm
  Mr. James Pawsey: I was a little surprised to discover that this draft statutory instrument is being opposed. I say that quite eliberately,
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  notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) has said, because Labour Members are now coming around to the wholesale adoption of Conservative education policies. For example, they are coming around to the acceptance of league tables. They have discovered virtue in them. They have discovered virtue in the national curriculum and even in testing. In short, they are beginning to adopt many Government policies. They have found excellence, and it is excellence that this motion is all about.
  The motion makes a contribution to parental choice. It enables parents to select schools and it broadens children's horizons. It enables a child from an ordinary family to share in some of the benefits and the advantages which spring from the independent sector. The scheme helps those parents who, while appreciating the benefits of independent schools, would simply not be able to afford them. It enhances available diversity and choice, which Labour Members are coming around to accepting.
  If Labour Members believe in diversity and choice, let them tonight withdraw their ill-founded and spiteful opposition to the assisted places scheme. The scheme positively helps children who may be socially disadvantaged; it helps children from single-parent families; it helps children who come from the inner cities. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Walton want me to give way? I thought that he wanted to intervene. Since he does not, I shall continue.
  All those laudable objectives should not receive the spiteful attention of Labour Members. We are seeing the old egalitarian enmity of Labour: old Labour dressed up as new. It takes more than a smiling leader to change the mind of the hard-nosed municipal socialist. The popularity of the assisted places scheme can be seen from the fact that about 30,000 pupils hold assisted places at almost 300 participating schools. That is an overall take-up of about 90 per cent. and I have to remind the hon. Member for Walton that 100 per cent. of the new places made available each year are now being taken up.
  The hon. Member for Walton referred to polls. Interestingly, a MORI poll undertaken on behalf of the Independent Schools Information Service shows that the number of parents coming from the C2 group amounts to almost 40 per cent. That is the answer to the question that the hon. Gentleman put to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. Almost 40 per cent. is about 12,000 children. Among APS parents, 80 per cent. have relevant incomes below the average household income of about £12,750. Even more to the point, 40 per cent. of parents have incomes below the scheme's school's threshold of £9,352 per year, which will be uprated to £9,570 in the coming year.
  Children from those families qualify for free places at APS schools. I need hardly remind Opposition Members that many of those parents voted Labour in the past, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) said. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Walton wish me to give way this time?
  Mr. Kilfoyle: The hon. Gentleman has quoted figures. Are they for income before it is adjusted or afterwards? Can he tell us what elements are taken out before the base figure of £9,000-plus is reached?
  Mr. Pawsey: I am sure that those detailed figures will be given by my hon. Friend the Minister when he winds up the debate. I can, however, quote from an admirable

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  document given to me by the Department for Education. Indeed, I will quote it in full for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. The document says:
  "80 per cent. of APS parents have relevant incomes of less than the national average household income of £18,760 … over 40 per cent. of parents have incomes below the scheme's threshold of £9,352 pa (to be uprated)"—
  as I have mentioned already—
  "and their children qualify for free places at these schools".
  Does that satisfy the hon. Gentleman? I take it from his silence that it does, and I am delighted.
  The House will recall that the scheme has been in operation for about 15 years. Indeed, I served on the Standing Committee which considered the Bill that became the Education Act 1980. I have to compare the debates which took place at that time with our recent debates. Fifteen years ago, Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen would speak with passion and commitment, but that has all dissolved and drained away. Increasingly, Opposition Members are coming to accept the education reforms that we have introduced, at times painfully and always in the teeth of ill-considered opposition from Labour Members.
  The assisted places scheme is now an accepted and integral part of the education scene. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South said, it provides an admirable ladder of opportunity for a great many children. However, I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister that my cheerful demeanour is qualified. There is at least one aspect of the scheme that genuinely disappoints me—the small percentage of APS parents of African, Asian and Caribbean origin. The figure is only 7 per cent. I say to my hon. Friend in all seriousness that we should do a great deal more to promote the scheme to those parents.
  I should like to see many more parents from ethnic communities taking advantage of the scheme. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister, therefore, to introduce measures specifically designed to encourage more children from those groups to apply for assisted places. I do not believe that the scheme should be seen as being intended principally for the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant child. It has a much wider appeal and I should like many more children from ethnic groups to take advantage of the scheme. As I said earlier, I believe that the scheme should reach out to all parts and all members of our national community. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, when he winds up the debate, to advise the House of more measures which might be taken to widen the assisted places scheme to bring in more children from the ethnic minorities.
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the assisted places scheme currently costs us £102 million a year? If the scheme were abolished, the money could be used to benefit all members of society—ethnic minorities, children from working-class backgrounds, and so on. My authority would benefit by an extra £1 million a year, which would do a great deal to make good the appalling cuts imposed by the Government this year.
  Mr. Pawsey: Unlike the hon. Lady, I come from a working-class background. I was born in the working class and educated in the working class, and I am proud of that. I say to her gently that I need no lectures from her on what she believes the working class requires. I want the maximum choice and diversity. It might be
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  argued that grammar schools, for example, cost more. Is that why the hon. Lady would like to see them abolished? Is that why Labour Members would like to see grant-maintained schools abolished? Are we bringing everything down to mere money? [Interruption.] The reaction of Labour Members is to laugh. For them, the education of our children is something to laugh about. Those of us who have our children educated within the state sector do not share that light-hearted view. We take the matter seriously.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Pawsey: It is a great pleasure to give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I regard as a cheerful friend.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: The hon. Gentleman is trying to ruin my reputation with my hon. Friends. I have a simple question for him. If the answer is mere money, why is the same amount of mere money not given to children in the maintained sector as is given under the assisted places scheme?
  Mr. Pawsey: I have no doubt that as the economy strengthens, more funds will be made available for education. I see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education sitting in her place in this debate. Where is the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), the hon. Gentleman's leading education spokesman? He is not in the Chamber listening to what is being said. The fact that my right hon. Friend is present to hear this debate is a clear sign of her commitment to education discussions generally.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) has more faith.
  Mr. Pawsey: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has faith. Under her guidance, the education of the nation's children will continue to flourish.
  Criticism has also been levelled at the geographical spread of the assisted places scheme. Again, that matter should be urgently addressed. If the participating school is some distance away from the family home, parents will be deterred from applying for an assisted place. Conservative Members at least know how expensive it is to get children to school and we know of the importance of school transport. That point is not lost on Opposition Members whose colleagues in Essex are taking away free transport for children who attend grammar schools. In those remarks, I include the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), who occasionally leads for the Liberal Democrats on Education.
  Earlier, we listened with a sense of déjà vu to what the hon. Member for Walton said. His speech was entirely predictable. In some ways, it reminded me of the earlier comments made by him and his colleagues about grant-maintained schools. I suspect that it will probably take an application by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) for an assisted place for his son to make this measure acceptable to his colleagues.
  The Secretary of State for Education (Mrs. Gillian Shephard): It might help.
  Mr. Pawsey: My right hon. Friend makes an interesting intervention. She is right; clearly it would help. If the right hon. Member for Sedgefield applied, it would

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  immediately stamp the scheme with the seal of new Labour. At a stroke, Labour Members would fall into line and would immediately see virtue in the APS that had previously eluded them. Like St. Paul on the way to Damascus, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield sees a blinding light which illuminates Conservative education policies and he seeks at once to make them his own. He believes that the light will show him the way to Downing street. Opposition Members will need to do a lot more than simply pinch our policies to get themselves into Downing street.
  I commend the regulations, especially to Opposition Members and particularly to the right hon. Member for Sedgefield. I very much hope that Labour's ill-considered opposition will be withdrawn.
  8.48 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Unlike the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), I was not here for the first year of this debate and I was not a member of the Committee that considered the Bill which became the Education Act 1980, although I have been here for 12 such debates and have taken part in several of them. Fundamentally, the arguments have not changed.
  Some of the evidence has changed, but the arguments have not. My party's position has also been consistent throughout, and it will remain consistent tonight. We shall oppose the regulations because they are not justified, and the Minister tonight—as with other Ministers in the past—has not made a case to justify them. The case for assisted places has never been made in a way that justifies it as a logical way of spending the relevant amount of public money. The Minister accepts that the assisted places scheme provides opportunities for a few. There is no debate about that, as we are talking about around 30,000 assisted places pupils. If one argues that the few should be treated in a particular way, one must ask whether that way is justified.
  Let me make two preliminary points clear. First, there are some cases for treating a few in a particular way and for particular reasons, the most obvious of which is special needs. If special needs provision, for example, is not arranged locally through county or borough schools, it is often purchased elsewhere. That is perfectly justifiable.
  Secondly, we must ask if the debate about the scheme is to do with the validity of independent schools per se. I do not oppose the existence of independent schools, and I would regard as very unsatisfactory a nation in which there were only public authority schools. If one is trying to have diversity in education, it is very important that there is diversity in the school providers. I am not arguing for one species of schooling, as a case could not be made for maintained schools or Church schools if that were so.
  If we ask the principal question—whether the assisted places scheme is justified—we must then ask the following five questions. First, does the scheme fundamentally change things? I would argue that it does not, because it brings assisted places to so few pupils. Therefore, it does not make a fundamental difference to the educational provision of the nation. Secondly, is it good value for money? We have heard the regular debate tonight, and the figures vary from year to year. They are far from conclusive.
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  Thirdly, does the scheme provide a better product for public money than we could get elsewhere? That is at least arguable, and it has never been proven. The research has never concluded that the scheme is the best way of spending a limited amount of public money. The scheme clearly has implications of the type which were alluded to by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) in her intervention. If we take a certain amount of money to buy places for a few and we spend roughly twice as much on doing that as we would need to spend to educate the same number of pupils in the maintained or public sector—the capital costs having already been paid in those sectors—the number of people we are assisting is therefore fewer. In doing that, we are at the same time depriving others of the advantages that they would have received from the extra money. That is a very obvious point.
  In an age when there is a general complaint—the Secretary of State knows this as well as anybody—from nearly all local education authorities that their real terms cash is being cut and class sizes are going up, it is clearly not to their advantage or to the advantage of the much larger number of children in those schools that such a funding system applies. If the money were used for a different purpose, more money would go to the other schools and the class sizes would not be so big. The education of others is being hindered by that money going elsewhere.
  Fourthly, does the scheme reach the parts that it is intended to reach? The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth referred to an undisputed piece of survey research about what percentage of assisted places goes to which category in terms of population, economic and social categories. The hon. Gentleman made a criticism in passing that very few places go to ethnic minority children. The research has made it clear that, in the 15 years of the scheme, assisted places have not gone mainly to the sort of children for whom they were intended. They have gone to some of those children and they may now go to more, but the evidence suggests that it is the children of parents who would otherwise have benefited the most from the education system who have been the beneficiaries. They, of course, have an interest in the scheme continuing, as the lottery has come up with a good result for them. It would be difficult to abolish the scheme as far as they are concerned, but it is not providing a fundamentally large social change. We are not identifying only the most needy families and taking them out of a system which gives them the worst schools.
  Fifthly, is the scheme consistent? The Secretary of State and the Minister are right to say that educational standards have gone up in recent years. So they should, and they still need to go up hugely in many parts of the country. If educational standards in county and borough schools and the maintained sector are going up, do we not need the assisted places scheme less? Surely now we do not have such a great need to take pupils out of the normal education system and to place them elsewhere.
  I wish to deal with two other matters which were raised. The Minister referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), and I want to put on record in my hon. Friend's defence the context in which he referred to Dulwich college. My hon. Friend cannot be here this evening because he is on his way to Littleborough and Saddleworth. He referred in a previous debate to an article that had appeared in The Sunday Times which pointed

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  out that a number of independent schools were pegging their fees because they were finding it difficult to attract pupils. My hon. Friend said that the schools were holding down their fee levels in an attempt to reverse the drift away by parents who were struggling to pay their bills.
  One of the schools mentioned in the article was Dulwich college, which the previous year received the largest amount of assisted places money—£1.3 million. Dulwich college is a school in my borough, which is also the borough of the Minister for Transport in London, who is in his place. My hon. Friend was not arguing that Dulwich college could not do without assisted places, but he made the case that there were a small number of schools which benefited, with a much smaller number of schools which received a disproportionate benefit. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) made the point that Wisbech grammar school gets more than 49 per cent. of its pupils through the assisted places scheme.
  Mr. Robin Squire: I will not labour the point, but, as the hon. Gentleman's quotation demonstrated, the reference to Dulwich college and the fact that it received the highest amount followed immediately after a reference by his hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) to the fact that
  "a number of independent schools … find themselves in increasing difficulties."—[Official Report, 19 July 1994; Vol. 247, c. 269.]
  If it was not meant to be read together, why did he follow the first comment with the second?
  Mr. Hughes: I do not want to go into a detailed analysis. The point is that a relatively small number of schools benefit. Clearly, the scheme is a relevant consideration and is financially helpful for them. I am not arguing that the Government keep the scheme in operation to keep certain schools in being. Coincidentally, it may have that advantage. However, if I were running an independent school that was dependent on fees, I would certainly regard it as helpful if I could get the local authority to pay for a certain number of places.
  Finally, the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth mentioned a subject that is tangential to the debate, but which must be dealt with. When counties such as Essex, which happens to be under a joint Liberal Democrat and Labour administration, decide that they cannot continue funding travel out of area, they do so on budgetary grounds. Like every other education authority at a time of Government restraint on their funds, they have to look for money savings. That is not an invalid criticism. The Secretary of State and Ministers keep on telling education authorities that they must shepherd their resources properly—excuse the pun—as they must, and that was the reason for the cut. It was not an ideological attack on a certain type of schooling as such travel represented a considerable budget cost. The cut has resulted in considerable savings, which have gone to other mainstream school activities.
  Mr. Pawsey: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is purely coincidence that children whose schools happen to be attacked by both his party and members of the Labour party were selected? If he is saying that, I must point out, very gently, that I am not entirely persuaded that it is accurate.
  Mr. Hughes: My colleagues voted to reduce the budget in that sector and transfer the money elsewhere, not for
  106
  ideological but for cost reasons. The hon. Gentleman can believe it or not as he chooses. It is a perfectly valid ground for the decision and it is the one that they chose.
  There is all the difference in the world between accepting the continuing existence of the independent sector and working with it, and buying places for a few pupils, which clearly gives them an advantage that the majority do not get. My hon. Friends and I will oppose the regulations this year, as we have opposed them in previous years, because of the failure to attain any of the objectives and the lack of evidence that the scheme is succeeding in what it was intended to do or fundamentally changes anything and, above all, the lack of evidence that it is the best way to spend what will always be limited public resources. We would not continue with assisted places. Of course, we would not prejudice those who currently enjoy them, but in the future we would look for better ways to use public money, to ensure that co-operation, where appropriate, was delivered. I believe that the public would find that considerably more acceptable.
  9.1 pm
  Mr. David Atkinson: I want to use the opportunity of this debate to refer briefly to a practical example in my constituency, which clearly demonstrates how this modest, low-cost but great value-for-money assisted places scheme is helping those whom it is designed to help, by providing greater opportunities for able pupils from less well-off families, who would be cruelly affected if Labour were ever given the opportunity to abolish it, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) confirmed tonight.
  Earlier this year, I received a letter from Rev. Godfrey Taylor, the vicar at St. John's Anglican church in Boscombe, which is in my constituency. I am sure that he will not mind my mentioning his name because, as he reminds me in his letter, some of his previous correspondence with me has been critical of Government policies. In this letter, however, he tells me how much his family have appreciated the assisted places scheme for children from families such as his, where money is tight. He is a Church of England clergyman on a very low income, with four children to educate, one of whom has been able to benefit from the scheme by going to an excellent independent girls' school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill)—Talbot Heath. He certainly could never have afforded to send her there on his income, regardless of any personal sacrifice that he and his family were prepared to make.
  In addition to his experience, my constituent tells me that he knows of many other families in his parish who have found this scheme of equally great assistance to them. In no way can those families—my constituents—on low incomes be described as
  "creating a self-perpetuating elite whose grasp of the profound economic and social changes taking place is minuscule",
  to quote the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) in his article in The Daily Telegraph on 28 November 1994.
  My constituent has not always supported the Government but has taken the trouble to commend them on the assisted places scheme. He hopes that it will be safe in the future and, in so doing, is clearly not alone

  107
  among my constituents. On their behalf, may I welcome the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Minister, which he has since confirmed to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey): that the scheme, and independent schools, will be safe in the Government's hands? As we now know from both Opposition spokesmen, it will be safe only in the Government's hands.
  9.4 pm
  Mr. David Jamieson: It is usually my lot in education debates to follow the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey): tonight is an exception, I am pleased to say. He said that the Secretary of State had entered the Chamber due to her interest in this matter. She came in only during the hon. Gentleman's speech and I suggest that it was not out of her natural interest in the debate but simply to hear his eloquence. Given how he performed tonight, I suspect that we might see his name tossed forward on Wednesday for even higher office.
  The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth said that tonight's debate was about excellence. It is not about excellence; it is about division. He said that the assisted places scheme gave children from inner cities an opportunity to benefit from private education. But that applies only if they are bright. Does he accept that children from inner cities and other deprived areas, who are of average or below-average intelligence, could also benefit from the assisted places scheme? I take it from his silence that he does not accept that.
  Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman clearly listened to the first part of my remarks. Had he concentrated with equal intensity on their latter part, he would have heard me say that I am anxious to see the scheme reach down—for example, into the ethnic communities. I want more young people to attend those schools from all strata of society. [Interruption.] I cannot speak over the barracking nonsense from the Labour Back Benches. The hon. Gentleman may remember my saying that I was keen on ensuring that the scheme did not apply simply to white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I want it to have a much broader base.
  Mr. Jamieson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reaffirming what I already believed: that he believes that the scheme should be open only for bright children and does not accept that children of average, just above average or just below average ability should benefit from it.
  I shall not repeat the points that were made ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). It is interesting that we should have this debate a week or so after a debate on the capping orders. Those orders cut the budget of my authority of Devon by £9 million, which is having profound effects on children in my area.
  In that debate it was argued that the funding provided for children in my area and other capped areas was sufficient. Let us contrast that argument, which we heard but a week ago, with those that we are hearing tonight from the Minister and his apologists on the Conservative Back Benches. Last year the assisted places scheme
  108
  received £102 million for just 32,000 children. I do not want to trouble the Minister with too much arithmetic because I know that it gives him difficulties. May I assist him by explaining that, in a local authority secondary school—even a grant-maintained secondary school where capital is included—the average amount spent is £2,200 per pupil. Yet if the Minister works out what is spent on each place in the assisted places scheme, he will see that it is at least £3,300 per pupil. If he then adds the parental contribution, he will find that we are giving about twice as much funding to children in private schools as we are to those in local education authority schools.
  Decent. ordinary people throughout the country are asking: if that funding can be made available to private schools, why cannot it be made available for our children in local education authority-funded schools?
  If we need extra funding to create smaller classes in private and independent schools, why cannot that money be available to local education authority schools? Like many other matters, such as the double funding of grant-maintained schools and the massive extra amounts that have been given to city technology colleges, it is simply intended to prop up the failed dogma of the Tories.
  The Minister says that the purpose of the regulations is to give choice to parents. Why does not he give all parents the choice of their children, whatever school they attend, benefiting from twice as much funding as at present?
  Many other arguments have been advanced in the debate, but I shall not go into them all. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins)—who is not in his place at the moment—said that the Opposition were displaying the politics of envy. I can tell him that people in my part of the country do not understand the politics of envy, but they do understand the politics of fairness.
  There is a difference between private and independent schools and local education authority schools, and it is to do with accountability. For years, the Government have made great play of accountability, the national curriculum, the standard assessment tasks and the compulsory Office of Standards in Education report, some of which we support. However, I should like the Minister to answer the following question: why does he not expect the same accountability in those private and independent schools that receive £102 million under the assisted places scheme?
  The taxpayer also pays more than £130 million into private and independent schools through the service boarding scheme. For the Minister's assistance, I calculate that slightly more than £0.25 billion of taxpayers' money is being poured into private and independent schools, which are not properly accountable in the ways that local education authority schools have been made accountable.
  One or two of those schools have had Ofsted reports. Under the law as it stands, not only does an LEA school have to meet the parents, governors and the inspectors and provide to all parents a summary of the Ofsted report, but it has to make the full report available to all those parents who want it: contrast that with the schools that receive money from the taxpayer under the assisted places scheme.
  I refer the Minister to a letter that I received from the then Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), on 17 February 1994. He said, on the subject of independent schools:
  "Any … school which is the subject of a published report is supplied with copies which it can distribute as it sees fit"—

  109
  none of that sending it to all parents. It is not, "make the report available to all parents", but
  "distribute as it sees fit".
  One way in which a school might distribute that report is to distribute it around the head's study and ensure that it got no further than the boundaries of the school.
  The then Under-Secretary of State said in the final sentence of the letter:
  "The onus is on the school to distribute the report to interested parties or to advise them where reports can be obtained."
  I refer the Minister to an example of a school that I have dealt with in the past year or so, a private school that receives substantial amounts of taxpayers' money—Finborough school in Suffolk. It is not in the assisted places scheme, but it is a private school.
  In March 1994, the head teacher wrote to the parents of the school, as follows:
  "We have not obtained copies of the Report"
  the Ofsted report—
  "for parents because"
  and then he goes on to list all the reasons why parents cannot have the Ofsted report.
  I suggest to the Minister, and to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that if we are to place £102 million of taxpayers' money into private and independent schools, the least that we should expect of them is the accountability that we expect of local education authority schools.
  9.14 pm
  Mr. Robin Squire: We have had an interesting debate. If nothing else, I can assure Opposition Members that any doubts that they may have about the assisted places scheme are not shared by the many parents on modest incomes whose children have benefited from it in the past, who continue to benefit from it now and who hope to participate in it in the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) made that point well in his good speech.
  The assisted places scheme is plainly achieving its objective of giving access to some of the best independent schools for children who would not otherwise have been able to contemplate them. Conservative Members believe that it can be only to the pupils' and the nation's advantage. We believe that the scheme has a vital continuing contribution to make. That is why we have introduced the draft regulations.
  Hon. Members raised detailed points, which I shall deal with briefly. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) leads for the Opposition on these matters. He must have enjoyed being able to made an education speech in which for once he was able, root and branch, to oppose a Conservative reform. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) so tellingly reminded us, a litany of reforms introduced in the past 10 years or so were fought tooth and nail by Labour Members only for us to find, particularly in the past couple of years, that suddenly the penny had dropped, the light shone and all the things that we had said about testing, publicising results and so on—I will not go through the whole list now—were accepted as a significant contribution to improving standards in this country, as of course they are.
  The hon. Member for Walton found a subject tonight on which his party was able to unite. I find it a strange subject on which it unites. Let me go into the detail of some of the
  110
  points that he made. He and several hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), made great play of the alleged extra cost of the assisted places scheme. I covered part of the point in my immediate response to the hon. Member for Cambridge, but let me say a little more.
  The most obvious point is that any suggestion that the abolition of the scheme would save more than £100 million a year is obviously untrue. If the scheme were abolished, the great majority of assisted pupils would have to be accommodated in the maintained sector because their parents simply would not be able to afford full fees in the independent sector. Moreover, the figures quoted by some Opposition Members were misleading. That possibly even includes the hon. Member for Devonport, whose grasp of some of the figures may be just a little shaky. There is little difference between the average cost of an assisted place and that of a maintained school place when all relevant factors are taken into account. It is misleading to contrast the average net cost per assisted pupil—about £3,700 in the current financial year—with the standard spending assessment unit cost of maintained secondary schooling, for example—currently more than £2,600 pre-16 and more than £3,600 post-16. That is not comparing like with like.
  First, the assisted places scheme has a greater proportion of sixth form places, which, as the House will be aware, are more expensive to provide. Moreover—
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Squire: No. I was generous in giving way earlier, as I know the hon. Lady will concede. I am anxious to answer the points raised in the debate.
  The scheme's overall unit costs include elements for capital and other overheads not counted in SSAs. There are wide variations in SSAs between different local authorities. Some of them, for example, in inner London, are higher than the cost of the average assisted place, even without making the adjustments that I have just mentioned. Above all, the assisted places scheme offers good value for money. It produces better GCSE and A-level results than the maintained sector, as well as choice and diversity.
  The hon. Members for Walton and for Southwark and Bermondsey, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, asked about targeting. I do not want to drown the House in figures, but the simplest way to demonstrate how the scheme continues to reach those on low incomes is to compare figures on the average income of parents with children on the assisted places scheme in 1984–85 with the average national income and the figures nine years later in 1992–93—the latest year for which I have the full figures. In that time the proportion of parents on average income with children on assisted places has fallen from 69.3 per cent. to 58.5 per cent. In other words, as average national incomes have grown, the average income of parents with children on the assisted places scheme has not increased at the same rate.
  Mr. Kilfoyle: The Minister has moved sharply from costs to targeting. I remind him of one of my earlier questions. To put it simply, if the cost of the scheme between 1989 and 1994 has gone up 100 per cent., from £50.9 million to £102 million, can he explain why the actual

  111
  expansion of places available has gone up by only 2.6 per cent. and the take-up by just 6 per cent? Where has the money gone?
  Mr. Squire: The simplest answer to the hon. Gentleman is to look gently at how the costs in education have grown in that time. He will note a significantly similar movement in the figures. He can by all means pursue the subject on a future occasion, but I suggest that that is where the answer lies.
  The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey spoke about targeting. The Government do not claim, nor have they ever done so, that the assisted places scheme alone will meet our educational needs. The scheme should be seen as part, albeit an important one, of the Government's overall strategy to improve the education of all pupils in the maintained or independent sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth said in a telling intervention, if one were to run through each and every aspect of diversity in education—which the Government endorse and applaud—the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey could pick off grammar schools and a range of other measures and subject them to exactly the same schedule.
  The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) asked about Wales. I confirm that 700 pupils have assisted places in schools in Wales. I cannot give a precise figure for the percentage that that represents of the total pupil population in Wales, but I do not believe that it will be different from the corresponding figure in England of about 0.5 per cent. The number of assisted places in Wales reflects the number of schools that wish to participate—eight—and the demand from parents for places.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, whose speech I have already praised, made an important point about the use made by ethnic minorities of the assisted places scheme. I take his point, but the proportion of such children on the scheme is broadly in line with the population as a whole. I will, however, certainly consider what further steps the Government and schools might take to ensure that ethnic minority families are fully informed about the scheme and given every encouragement to seek places on it.
  The hon. Member for Devonport rehearsed his argument about the accountability, real or imagined, of independent schools to Ofsted. I am inclined to repeat what the Minister of State said to him 12 months ago: he should take the matter up with Ofsted because it is an independent body which is not in any way controlled by the Government.
  Mr. Jamieson rose
  Mr. Squire: No, let me finish. Hon. Members have had a good run and I have given way quite a lot. I believe that I have covered all the points raised in the debate.
  Despite the current user-friendly style that the Labour party leadership tries to throw over all its policies, the Opposition remain at heart opposed to real parental choice. That was demonstrated in their recent education policy statement. Nothing better underlines that attitude than their continuing opposition to APS. We point out tonight, and on every occasion that we can, that the Labour party, led incidentally by someone who was educated at Scotland's premier private school, no longer has time for bright children from poorer backgrounds. There was a time when
  112
  the Labour party would have emphasised enhanced opportunities for such children. Now, those children and their parents must look to the Conservative Government to fight their cause. We shall not let them down.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 243, Noes 169.

  Division No. 191]

  [9.25 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Dorrell Rt Hon Stephen

  Alexander, Richard

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Duncan, Alan

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Amess, David

  Dunn, Bob

  Ancram, Michael

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Arbuthnot, James

  Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Ashby, David

  Evennett, David

  Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

  Fabricant, Michael

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

  Forman, Nigel

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Baldry, Tony

  Forth, Eric

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Bates, Michael

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  French, Douglas

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Gale, Roger

  Body, Sir Richard

  Gardnier, Sir George

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Booth, Hartley

  Garnier, Edward

  Boswell, Tim

  Gillen, Cheryl

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Bowis, John

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Boyson, RI Hon Sir Rhodes

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Brazier, Julian

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Hague, William

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hannam, Sir John

  Burt, Alistair

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Butcher, John

  Haselhurst, Sir Alan

  Butler, Peter

  Hawkins, Nick

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Carrington, Matthew

  Heald, Oliver

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hendry, Charles

  Cash, William

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Churchill, Mr

  Howard, RI Hon Michael

  Clappison, James

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Coe, Sebastian

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Colvin, Michael

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Congdon, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Conway, Derek

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Jack, Michael

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Corrnack, Sir Patrick

  Jessel, Toby

  Couchman, James

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Cran, James

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Key, Robert

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Day, Stephen

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Devlin, Tim

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Dicks, Terry

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

  113

  Knox, Sir David

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Sackville, Tom

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Legg, Barry

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Leigh, Edward

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lidington, David

  Shersby, Sir Michael

  Lightbown, David

  Sims, Roger

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Lord, Michael

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Luff, Peter

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  MacKay, Andrew

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Steen, Anthony

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Stephen, Michael

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Stern, Michael

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Stewart, Allan

  Malone, Gerald

  Streeter, Gary

  Mans, Keith

  Sweeney, Walter

  Marland, Paul

  Sykes, John

  Marlow, Tony

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Merchant, Piers

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Mills, Iain

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Thurnham, Peter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Norris, Steve

  Viggers, Peter

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Walden, George

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Waller, Gary

  Page, Richard

  Ward, John

  Paice, James

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Waterson, Nigel

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Watts, John

  Pawsey, James

  Wells, Bowen

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Pickles, Eric

  Whitney, Ray

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Whitfingdale, John

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Wilkinson, John

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Richards, Rod

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Riddick, Graham

  Wolfson, Mark

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Wood, Timothy

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Yeo, Tim

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Mr. Simon Burns and

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Mr. David Willetts.

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Byers, Stephen

  Ainger, Nick

  Caborn, Richard

  Ashton, Joe

  Callaghan, Jim

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Barnes, Harry

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Battle, John

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Campbell-Savours, D N

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Cann, Jamie

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

  Berry, Roger

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Betts, Clive

  Clapham, Michael

  Blunkett, David

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

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

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Burden, Richard

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  114

  Clelland, David

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

  Coffey, Ann

  Martlew, Eric

  Cohen, Harry

  Maxton, John

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Meale, Alan

  Cummings, John

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Milburn, Alan

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Miller, Andrew

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

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

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Denham, John

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Dewar, Donald

  Mudie, George

  Dixon, Don

  Mullin, Chris

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Murphy, Paul

  Dowd, Jim

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Olner, Bill

  Eastham, Ken

  Pike, Peter L

  Etherington, Bill

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Flynn, Paul

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Fyfe, Maria

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Galloway, George

  Purchase, Ken

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Godsiff, Roger

  Raynsford, Nick

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Reid, Dr John

  Gordon, Mildred

  Rendel, David

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Gunnell, John

  Rooker, Jeff

  Hall, Mike

  Ruddcok, Joan

  Hanson, David

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Sheerman, Barry

  Henderson, Doug

  Short, Clare

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Simpson, Alan

  Hinchliffe, David

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hoey, Kate

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbemauld)

  Smith, Chris (Islton S & F'sbury)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Snape, Peter

  Hoyle, Doug

  Soley, Clive

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Spellar, John

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Hutton, John

  Stevenson, George

  Illsley, Eric

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Jamieson, David

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Jones, Marlyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Turner, Dennis

  Jowell, Tessa

  Tyler, Paul

  Khabra, Piara S

  Wallace, James

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Walley, Joan

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Lewis, Terry

  Wareing, Robert N

  Livingstone, Ken

  Watson, Mike

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Loyden, Eddie

  Wigley, Dafydd

  McAllion, John

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Winnick, David

  Macdonald, Calum

  Worthington, Tony

  McFall, John

  Wray, Jimmy

  McKelvey, William

  Wright, Dr Tony

  McLeish, Henry

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  McMaster, Gordon

  Tellers for the Noes:

  McWilliam, John

  Mr. Joe Benton and

  Madden, Max

  Mr. Jon Owen Jones.

  Questions accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Education (Assisted Places) Regulations 1995, which were laid before this House on 26th June, be approed.

  Wroxham-Hoveton Bypass
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dr. Liam Fox.]
  9.37 pm
  Mr. Michael Lord: I am most grateful to have been granted this Adjournment debate, which gives me the opportunity to bring before the House the worst case of its kind that I have come across in my 12 years as a Member of Parliament.
  My constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Balchin, have had their lives completely ruined through no fault of their own. Their misfortune is entirely due to the heavy-handed, unsympathetic and, I have to say, incompetent treatment that they have received at the hands of the authorities responsible for building a bypass beside their home. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London in his place, although he is not personally responsible for the events that I shall describe. If I use strong language, I trust that he will understand. I am not aiming at him, but I trust that, by the time I have finished, he will entirely understand why I use it.
  Mr. and Mrs. Balchin were living happily in their house called Swan's Harbour until along came Norfolk county council, aided and abetted by the Department of Transport, with plans to build the A1151 Wroxham-Hoveton bypass just 32 yd from their property. The result of the exercise was that Swan's Harbour became unsaleable and valueless. The security that the house had given to Mr. Balchin's business was removed, and the business collapsed. It no longer exists, and the house stands deserted. Huge debts are owed to both bank and building society, and Mr. and Mrs. Balchin have had to stand helplessly by while all this happened.
  Before granting planning permission for the bypass, the Department of Transport clearly indicated that it expected Norfolk county council, which is responsible for the scheme, to take care of Mr. and Mrs. Balchin. The council refused to do so. The result has been the loss of their home, the loss of their business and eight years of misery, with no one prepared to accept responsibility for what has happened.
  The bypass was first proposed by Norfolk county council in 1984, and a public inquiry was held in 1990. The case first came to my attention in 1992, when Mr. and Mrs. Balchin, having been forced to leave their home, came to live in my constituency. The decision by the Secretary of State to allow the bypass to go ahead was conveyed to Norfolk county council in a letter signed by Mr. J. W. Horton, dated 3 June 1992.
  In a moment, I shall read a couple of extracts from that letter to Norfolk county council, but before I do, I should state that Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's house was worth £375,000 and had been sold for that sum before the news of the bypass drove the potential purchaser away. I shall quote from a letter to Mr. Balchin from William H. Browne, a well-known and reputable estate agent:
  "Due to the very close proximity of the proposed, and now confirmed, route of the Wroxham bypass, the proximity of the proposed flyover and underpass being so close and intrusive, I consider that at this particular moment in time the property is unsaleable on the open market. The prospect of the construction work and ultimate usage of the bypass would, without doubt, dissuade any potential purchaser".
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  Overnight, a £375,000 house with a potential purchaser became unsaleable and the Balchins' world started to collapse.
  Was that foreseeable? Of course it was. The minutes of Norfolk county council's planning and transportation committee as far back as 17 December 1987 state:
  "the value of the property is considerably reduced by the proposed bypass. And Mr. Balchin uses the property as security for business loans. He claims that the decrease in value, due to the bypass, will reduce the amount he can borrow, and he believes this will adversely affect his business as a property developer. The bypass, when built, would completely alter the character of the house. If the Council does purchase, the price could be in the region of £325,000 to £375,000".
  One interesting note in the minutes states:
  "if the Council does not purchase Swan's Harbour, the owner will only be entitled to claim for depreciation due to physical factors. It is difficult to assess the extent of these in advance, but it is unlikely that more than £50,000 in current values will be payable".
  I remind the House that, so far, Mr. and Mrs. Balchin have not seen a single penny from Norfolk county council or from anyone else, and have spent a fortune in time and money trying to defend themselves.
  The final recommendation of Norfolk county council's planning and transportation committee on that day states:
  "As the owner has no statutory rights to insist on the property being acquired, Members are recommended not to agree to this purchase".
  I ask the House to remember that date—17 December 1987—because it was the date on which Norfolk county council set its face against doing what was right, and it has stubbornly, and against all sense of natural justice, clung to that decision ever since.
  I now turn to the Department of Transport's letter dated 3 June 1992, informing Norfolk county council of the Secretary of State's decision to allow the bypass to be built. For the sake of clarity and the record, I shall quote one or two sections from that letter. In the section dealing with the objector's case, paragraph 24 states:
  "Swan's Harbour will be particularly affected, being so physically dominated by the route that no countermeasures could reduce the impact. Searches in 1984 did not reveal a proposed bypass and Swan's Harbour has been substantially improved since then. The property is unsaleable and your Council refuses to buy it. The effects of the proposal have been devastating on the owners. The Council should be directed to purchase all the properties seriously affected by the proposals."
  Under the heading "Inspector's Conclusions and Recommendations", paragraph 44 states:
  "The proposals will have an adverse effect on the general ambiance of the high-quality Beech Road residential area and on Timberley Lodge, Swan's Harbour and Copperbeech Cottage. Whilst your Council has given adequate assurances in relation to construction and other problems at Timberley Lodge, the same cannot be said for Swan's Harbour and Copperbeech Cottage. The road would overpower these properties despite the effects of any countermeasures. If a decision is made in favour of this route, adequate compensation arrangements should be made urgently in respect of Swan's Harbour, particularly in view of the owners' financial situation."
  When it comes to conclusions, under paragraph 50, after saying that the eastern bypass should be constructed, the letter recognises all the disadvantages that the route will have—particularly for people—but also recognises that those disadvantages can be mitigated to some extent by compensation.

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  Paragraph 51 states:
  "sympathetic consideration should be given to the particular adverse effects that confirmation of an Eastern route would have on Swan's Harbour and Copperbeech Cottage and the plight of the owners".
  Crucially, under the heading "The Secretary of State's Decision", in paragraph 62 appears the following:
  "It is noted that the Inspector has drawn particular attention in his conclusions at Paragraph 11.47 to certain matters arising from his consideration of the Orders and Bridge scheme. He called for `sympathetic consideration' by your Council of the plight of the owners of Swan's Harbour and Copperbeech Cottage. And finally, he said that whilst they are not for his consideration here, the Secretary of State is confident that your Council will give these matters early consideration".
  At the end comes the sting in the tail:
  "Details of compensation arising in consequence of the confirmation of these Orders are for negotiation with the acquiring authority, not with the Secretary of State."
  Having said that he hopes that Norfolk county council will take steps to look after Mr. and Mrs. Balchin as a matter of urgency, the Secretary of State fails to take the one step that would have guaranteed their protection: the withholding of his consent to the scheme until the different parties concerned had arrived at a fair settlement.
  I suppose that, in some ways, it was not unreasonable for the Secretary of State to think that Norfolk county council might behave as he wished—with reason, fairness and a little compassion; but I am afraid that he was gravely mistaken. Norfolk county council hid behind the letter of the law, and refused to help. I remind the House again of the recommendation that its officers had made, which was endorsed by elected members:
  "As the owner has no statutory rights to insist on the property being acquired, Members are recommended not to agree to this purchase".
  In the hope that I might persuade someone on Norfolk county council to realise just how unfair the council had been, I wrote to the leaders of the three main political groups—Mrs. Cameron, Mrs. King and Mr. Revell—explaining Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's distress and urging them to look at the case again. I received a reply from Mr. Barry Capon, Norfolk county council's chief executive and clerk. The final paragraph stated:
  "The decision not to purchase Mr. Balchin's house was taken without dissent, by agreement across all parties, and they do not see any good and sufficient reason to raise the matter again".
  I can only say that I hope that those ladies and gentlemen are able to sleep soundly in their beds at night—in their unblighted homes—and that they do not call to mind too often the way in which they have destroyed one family.
  For a number of years, I have been a member of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—in other words, the parliamentary ombudsman. Over those years, I have seen many cases of this kind. As Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's case was the worst that I had ever seen, I was more than happy to refer it to the ombudsman in January 1994.
  In December 1994, I received the report on the case, in which—while accepting all the facts set out by Mr. and Mrs. Balchin and all the harm they had suffered—the ombudsman failed to find maladministration on the part of the Department of Transport.
  As a member of the Select Committee, I am well aware of how carefully Mr. Reid, the ombudsman, goes about these matters, so it was only after thinking the matter through most carefully and consulting widely that I asked him to reconsider the matter, and had a meeting with him
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  to discuss it. He felt unable at that stage to alter his report or its findings. Mr. and Mrs. Balchin are currently seeking leave to challenge the ombudsman's decision in the courts.
  I remain convinced that maladministration has occurred. Both the inspector who conducted the public inquiry and the Secretary of State recognised and accepted that unacceptable harm would be caused to the Balchins' property by the construction of the bypass. Those are more than adequate grounds to refuse to confirm the order for the bypass until the necessary arrangements had been put in place. These are administrative measures, and they were mishandled. What can be more maladministrative than that? What is the purpose of a public inquiry, an inspector's report and the Secretary of State's scrutiny if it is not to ensure that mistakes—and this is a huge mistake—do not happen?
  If it is not maladministration in the sense that I have described it, as I believe it is, then it is maladministration as clearly defined for the ombudsman Select Committee by the Minister of State, Treasury, when he appeared before the Committee on 2 November 1994, and by Sir Patrick Brown, on behalf of the Department of Transport, giving evidence to the same Committee on 1 March 1995.
  Again for the record, I want to quote directly from the minutes of evidence taken before the ombudsman Select Committee on 1 March 1995. In questioning Sir Patrick Brown, I quoted the Minister of State, Treasury as having said, when he appeared before us in November 1994:
  "failure to mitigate the effects of strict adherence to the letter of law, where this produces manifestly inequitable treatment, that will now be an example of maladministration".
  I asked Sir Patrick Brown to confirm that, and he said:
  "Yes, Mr. Nelson was speaking for the government".
  I then said:
  "What we are really saying is that, even where everything has been done precisely by the law of the land, and is defensible in that sense, where that produces clearly distress and problems, then maladministration may well be shown to have occurred".
  Sir Patrick Brown replied:
  "That is the current arrangement for dealing with cases of this sort."
  There we have it. If this is not maladministration in one form, it is maladministration in another. I trust that, before too long, that will be conceded.
  Although Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's case is the worst that I have seen, they are not alone in their difficulty. A Lieutenant Colonel David Owen has recently taken on the Department of Transport because of the proposed Cirencester bypass, which is planned to run 150 m from his home. He was refused compensation, but the Court of Appeal found that he was entitled to be bought out, because his home had lost value as a result of the road. The Appeal Court judges described the existing guidelines on compensation as "a shambles". Colonel Owen's home was 150 m away from the bypass; Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's is 32 m.
  It seems likely, as a result of that case, that new guidelines will be drawn up, but Mr. and Mrs. Balchin cannot wait for that. In recent weeks, I have had meetings with the Secretary of State to plead the Balchins' case yet again. He listened sympathetically, but insisted that the Government were unable to help.
  This sort of inhuman treatment, dealt out to innocent citizens by the authorities, whoever they may be, might be understandable in some lawless banana republic, but

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  surely not in this country in 1995. I have already said that I do not hold the Minister present tonight responsible for what has happened in the past, but I will hold him responsible, with others, for what happens in future. His Department cannot simply wash its hands of this case. Tonight, I want to hear not Pontius Pilate platitudes from the Minister but proposals for a sensible solution.
  At first sight, it may seem that the Government are not to blame, or at least not wholly to blame, for what has occurred, but no one can deny that the Government were involved in the procedures that caused the problem, or that the Department of Transport, in the power it had not to sanction the bypass, was a crucial link in the chain of events that did the damage.
  In a chain, one link is as important as the whole chain. When the link is as important as the Government's power in this matter, it becomes absolutely crucial. I believe that those of us who are so very concerned about the case are entitled, both morally and legally, to say that the Government have a considerable responsibility for what has happened.
  In the time that Mr. and Mrs. Balchin have been suffering, the Government have introduced citizens charters of all sorts, and we continually talk about proper consultation and people's rights. If all the new initiatives are to mean anything, to me, to Mr. and Mrs. Balchin or to anyone else in this country, something must be done about the case.
  What is absolutely clear in all the evidence—and it has never been denied by the Government—is that it was acknowledged that harm would be done to Mr. and Mrs. Balchin and their property. It was also acknowledged that someone had to look after them. The Department of Transport, which had the power to ensure that that was done before allowing the bypass proposals to proceed, singularly failed to take the steps that could have turned a pious hope into a fair and reassuring reality.
  The Balchins' plight is desperate. They have no money, and their health is suffering. A solution must be found, and found quickly.
  9.56 pm
  The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) on his assiduity in pursuing this case on behalf of his constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Balchin. I know that my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Ryder)—who cannot speak in the House—is also concerned about the case. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) is here, and I know that he is concerned, too.
  It is a difficult case, and, on the facts outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central, any reasonable person would have a great deal of sympathy with Mr. and Mrs. Balchin. It might be helpful if I outline how the Department views the facts of the case, and where they lead.
  My hon. Friend has been a good friend for the past 12 or 13 years in this House, but perhaps I could tell him that, in his enthusiasm to prosecute the case on behalf of his constituents, he should not be drawn into an
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  examination of the Owen case. I have studied that case and been involved in it for some time, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the basis for that case is very different from the facts that have been adduced in my hon. Friend's case.
  My hon. Friend must recognise that the most important point of all is that there is a difference between a national road scheme, which is promoted by the Department, and a local highway authority scheme, where the county council is the highway authority. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the Wroxham-Hoveton bypass is being promoted by Norfolk, in its role as the local highway authority. In February 1990, it submitted a statutory bridge scheme and orders for confirmation by the Secretary of State for Transport. Because of the number of objections to the proposals, my right hon. Friend convened local public inquiries into the bridge scheme and orders, which opened in October of that year. The inspector submitted his report on the inquiries, for consideration by the Secretary of State, in March of the following year.
  In his report—and I do not think that there is any difference between my hon. Friend and me on this—the inspector drew attention to the especially adverse effect the bypass would have on Mr. and Mrs. Balchin's property, called Swan's Harbour, and on the neighbouring property Copper Beech Cottage, owned by a Mr. Evans. Although neither property was required for the bypass, in the words of the inspector it would, in the case of the Balchins' property,
  "have a somewhat overpowering effect".
  In recommending confirmation of the bridge scheme and orders, the inspector therefore expressed the hope that the plight of the owners of Swan's Harbour and Copper Beech Cottage would be looked on sympathetically by the county council. Those sentiments were reflected in the letter of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, confirming the bridge scheme and orders issued in June 1992, in which he expressed his confidence that the county council would give the matter early consideration.
  That letter also pointed out—this really is important, and I am sure that, when he considers the point, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central will recognise its strength—that matters of compensation arising as a consequence from the confirmation of orders were for negotiation with the acquiring authority and not with the Secretary of State—
  It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dr. Liam Fox.]
  Mr. Norris: Following the issue of the Secretary of State's decision letter, an application to quash the bridge scheme and orders was made in the High Court in August 1992 by a group calling itself the Alternative Bypass Group. Although that challenge subsequently proved unsuccessful, the delay caused in the implementation of the scheme resulted in the expiry of the county council's planning permission for the project, and planning permission for the bypass is therefore being re-sought by the county council.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central has said, in the interim he lodged on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Balchin a complaint with the Parliamentary

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  Commissioner for Administration, based on counsel's advice that the Secretary of State should have assured that adequate compensation would be payable to the Balchins before confirming the bridge schemes and orders. In his report of December 1994, the commissioner found the complaint to be not made out, and that matters of compensation arising from a road scheme were for the highway authority and outside his jurisdiction. It is there, I submit to my hon. Friend, that the Secretary of State's quasi-judicial involvement in the scheme ends.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central is aware from the correspondence that he and I have had, I fully sympathise with the predicament in which the Balchins find themselves. However, as the ombudsman made clear, matters of compensation arising from a local highway authority road scheme lie outside the jurisdiction of Ministers.
  Indeed, at the specific request of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I looked carefully at the issue of compensation. I have concluded, after careful examination, that there are no powers whatever available to my right hon. Friend to provide compensation in this case or to secure the provision of compensation by the local authority.
  When Parliament gives the power of decision over a matter to the local authority, responsibility and accountability lie with that local authority. There is no general power which allows central Government simply to override a decision by a local authority. With respect to my hon. Friend, he knows that that way would lie chaos. Indeed, in the absence of any proper power, it would be quite improper, and probably counter-productive for a Minister to attempt in some way to exercise pressure on a local authority on the way in which it exercises its power.
  Mr. Lord: I know that my hon. Friend is answering the points that I have made in great detail. In such circumstances, what frequently happens is that the Secretary of State says that he will not grant permission for a particular development until the parties concerned have got together and satisfied him that questions of compensation—or whatever has to be ironed out—will be ironed out. The parties go away, sort things out, agree the compensation, and then the Secretary of State says, "Okay, now you can go ahead." This case was an example of the Secretary of State saying that something must be done, yet not taking the practical steps to ensure that it was done.
  Mr. Norris: No, I am sorry: on that point, and with the greatest respect, my hon. Friend is simply wrong. In this case, my hon. Friend's complaint to the ombudsman was that the Secretary of State ought to have sought a resolution of the issue of compensation before he confirmed the orders.
  The Secretary of State submitted that in this case, he simply did not have the power to refuse to make the order until the matter had been resolved, because that resolution was in the hands of the local highway authority. That does not imply that he welcomed the local authority's decision, as I shall explain, but it makes it clear that he does not have the power to refuse to make the order.
  With the greatest respect, I say to my hon. Friend that he can make the point as many times as he likes. He can imply that Ministers have the right to sweep their arms,
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  to sweep away the rights of local authorities and to impose their interests in the matter, but he knows that that is simply not the case, and I am rather grateful for that fact.
  Mr. Lord: I know that Adjournment debates are not normally prolonged, but I must ask my hon. Friend a question. What, then, is the point of the Secretary of State's scrutiny of these matters? I am sure that I can produce for my hon. Friend, not tonight but on a future occasion, numerous examples in which the Secretary of State has not been satisfied that matters have been properly organised, and has therefore simply held back permission until such time as they have been organised.
  Mr. Norris: My hon. Friend is right to say that we do not have the time, or, I suspect, the legal advice, to be able to debate this point at any length. I make it clear, however, to my hon. Friend—I am sure he knows this—that, in the exercise of his quasi-judicial function in terms of confirmation of an order sought by a local authority, the Secretary of State has to satisfy himself that the powers that the local authority seeks are properly sought; that they are within the vires of the authority; that the orders have been correctly made; that the procedures have been correctly followed; and that the local authority has acquired thereby the right to take the steps that it seeks in the order.
  The Secretary of State is not thereby given the right to determine that he does not like the proposal put forward by the local authority, that he will sweep away the right of the local authority, conveyed by Parliament, to exercise discretion, and that he will substitute his own discretion.
  A Minister might find the matter as frustrating as my hon. Friend does, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that it is not enough to be frustrated in these matters. One must be clear where the legal remedies lie. I offer my hon. Friend some thoughts that need not stop me attempting to explain as far as I can, on the basis of the correspondence available to me, the specific position that has now been reached in the Balchin case. I believe that I may have something useful to offer my hon. Friend.
  The problems in this case, and the problems of the others affected by the planned bypass, stem from Norfolk county council's decision not to use advance discretionary purchase powers, which are given to all highway authorities by section 62 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, which inserted section 246(2A) in the Highways Act 1980. The county council has adduced in correspondence a number of factors as underlying the decision not to use advance discretionary purchase powers.
  The council considered, for example, that the depreciation of Swan's Harbour owed more to the general decline in property prices than to the existence of the bypass proposals. I note that my hon. Friend smiles. I observe only that that may be a plausible assessment of part of the reason for the reduction in value of the property. There is, after all, no doubt that the property will have suffered from the recession, as did others. My hon. Friend may, however, conclude that that is not the whole story.
  It also appears that the council did not operate a discretionary scheme to implement section 246(2A). The council referred to general tightness of funds as one of the reasons why it had decided not to operate such a scheme. It concluded that the right way in which to deal with the situation faced by the Balchins was not to acquire

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  their property, but to compensate them for the loss of its value due to the road one year after the new road was opened, using the powers of the Land Compensation Act 1973—assuming, of course, that they were still eligible claimants at that time.
  It is not for me to override the judgment of the council. Any redress that remains for the Balchins will be for the courts, or, if there is any question of maladministration, the local government ombudsman, to decide, rather than the parliamentary commissioner.
  In recent years, the courts—through mechanisms which include judicial review—have not been slow to defend the interests of citizens who may have suffered from decisions of public authorities which may lack satisfactory justification. It is not for me to obtain legal advice in this case, but there may be a question about whether the decision not to operate a discretionary scheme for which statutory provision has been made by Parliament can be justified. I emphasise that those matters are ultimately to be considered by lawyers.
  Certainly, if this case had occurred in relation to a national roads scheme promoted by the Department, I—as the Minister charged by the Secretary of State with dealing with cases of discretionary purchase—would have looked carefully at the option of advance purchase. Mr. Balchin had, after all, no foreknowledge of the scheme before he purchased the property, which falls within the
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  distance limits defined by the Department's discretionary scheme. We would also have considered hardship, and the need to realise the proper value of the property under our scheme.
  The valuation would have been based on what the value of the property would have been in the absence only of the road scheme at the appropriate time. It cannot be appropriate for the acquiring authority—Norfolk county council in this case—to compensate the Balchins for the general decline in property values, which the council observed may have been just as significant as the road in this case.
  I hope that my hon. Friend will read this debate carefully, because I believe that I have offered him an avenue which he may care to examine, which offers a realistic prospect of pursuing the case on behalf of his constituents. I hope that he will also gather that I have a great deal of personal sympathy for the Balchins. My hon. Friend graphically described their plight, and I know how strongly he feels about the case.
  I hope my hon. Friend understands that no Member of this House—certainly not my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State nor I—would wish to stand by and see an injustice occur were it within our power to correct it. I have offered my hon. Friend the best advice possible in the circumstances, and I hope that he will find my remarks helpful in taking the case forward.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twelve minutes past Ten o'clock.

HEALTH

  Readmission Rates
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what definition of readmission is used when calculating readmission rates. [30421]

  Mr. Sackville
  There is no nationally agreed definition of readmission, nor is there a central mechanism available for collecting information on readmission rates in England. Work is in progress that will in time enable hospital admissions data to be linked to individual patients.

  Food Poisoning
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of food poisoning were reported in each of the last 10 years in(a) York, (b) North Yorkshire, (c) Yorkshire and Humberside and (d) England. [31600]

  Mr. Sackville
  The information requested is published annually in series MB2 "Communicable disease statistics". The latest available publication is series MB2 no. 19, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Asthma
  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the annual NHS expenditure on the treatment of asthma; and what proportion of the total budget this represents. [31411]

  Mr. Sackville
  In 1994 the net ingredient cost of national health service prescriptions for asthma medication was £381 million, some 11 per cent. of the net ingredient cost of all prescriptions. The net ingredient cost is the basic price of a drug before discounts and the addition of dispensing costs or fees. Estimates have been made for the financial year 1989–90 of the cost of other NHS services, excluding community health services. It is estimated that the cost of services for asthma was £72 million, which was 0.6 per cent. of the total cost of these services.

  Royal Hospitals NHS Trust
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many consultants were at the hospitals that make up the royal hospitals two years ago; what is the current figure; and what is the projected number after the reorganisation as a number and as a whole-time equivalent; [31355]

  (2) how many orthopaedic beds were under the control of the Royal Hospital trust before and after the reorganisation; on which site they will be located; and what will be the numbers on each site. [31365]
  2
  Mr. Malone
  This information is not available centrally. The right hon. Member may wish to contact Sir Derek Boorman, chairman of the Royal Hospitals NHS trust for details.

  Diabetes
  Mr. Jon Owen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what is the average cost to her Department of providing a diabetes sufferer with a lifetime of free prescriptions; [31407]

  (2) what is the total annual cost to her Department of providing free prescriptions to sufferers of diabetes; [31405]

  (3) what is the average cost to her Department of prescriptions to diabetics per annum, per patient. [31404]

  Mr. Sackville
  The available information is shown in the table.

  Drugs used in the treatment of diabetes, 1994 (provisional)

  England

  Ingredient cost/item

  Net ingredient cost

  £97.3 million

  Prescription items

  9.4 million

  Average net ingredient cost per prescription item

  £10.33

  Notes:

  1. Drugs as defined by the British National Formulary section 6.1

  2. The information was obtained from the Prescription Cost Analysis system which is based on a full analysis of all prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacists and appliance contractors, dispensing doctors and prescriptions submitted by prescribing doctors for items personally administered in England.

  3. The net ingredient cost refers to the cost of the drug before discounts and does not include any dispensing costs or fees.

  Mr. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many diabetics there are in Britain. [31406]

  Mr. Sackville
  An estimated 1.2 per cent. of the British population have clinically diagnosed diabetes.

  Diptheria
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action she is taking for the population of the United Kingdom in respect of the World Health Organisation guidance that the people should receive a booster vaccine against diptheria every 10 years; and if she will make a statement. [31503]

  Mr. Sackville
  We are not aware of any such recommendations by the World Health Organisation. WHO recommends that a primary course of three doses of diphtheria vaccine should be part of the immunisation programme and in the United Kingdom children are offered three doses of diptheria vaccine at two, three and four months of age. A reinforcing booster dose is offered as part of the pre-school booster to four-year-olds and a further low dose booster of tetanus/diphtheria vaccine is offered to teenagers.

  The chief medical officer has issued advice for boosting requirements for travellers to eastern Europe.
  3

  Surgeons (St. Bartholomew's Hospital)
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the resignation of three orthopaedic consultants at St Bartholomew's hospital. [31356]

  Mr. Malone
  This is a matter for the Royal Hospitals National Health Service trust. The right hon. Member may wish to contact the chairman, Sir Derek Boorman, for details.

  Ask-a-Nurse Service
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the ask-a-nurse service by Access Health United Kingdom; and what plans she has to finance it. [31350]

  Mr. Malone
  It is for health authorities, in consultation with clinicians and the public, and bearing in mind the national framework set out in the priorities and planning guidance for the national health service, to decide what treatments and services are required in order to meet local needs.

  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what NHS funds have been paid from the NHS to Access Health United Kingdom in each of the last three years. [31349]

  Mr. Malone
  This information is not available centrally.

  Dysentery
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of dysentery were recorded in(a) York, (b) North Yorkshire, (c) Yorkshire and Humberside and (d) England in each year since 1990. [31601]

  Mr. Sackville
  Information on the number of cases of dysentery are published annually in the MB2 series, "communicable disease statistics," copies of which are available in the Library.

  Cosmetic Surgery
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research her Department has carried out into an assessment of nasal shape after surgery using Quicktime; what were the findings of that research; and if she will make a statement. [31502]

  Mr. Sackville
  The Department of Health has conducted no research into this subject.

  Births
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of births outside marriage were registered by both parents living in the same address in(a) York, (b) North Yorkshire, (c) Yorkshire and Humberside and (d) England in each year since 1979. [31603]

  Mr. Sackville
  The available information is shown in the table.
  4

  Percentage of births outside marriage which were jointly registered by parents living at the same address

  York County District

  North Yorkshire

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  England

  1986

  50.0

  51.2

  47.3

  47.1

  1987

  51.6

  53.5

  47.7

  48.2

  1988

  51.5

  55.4

  48.6

  49.9

  1989

  57.2

  56.5

  50.9

  52.0

  1990

  56.0

  58.9

  52.6

  53.5

  1991

  57.3

  60.4

  53.4

  55.0

  1992

  58.3

  59.8

  54.6

  55.9

  1993

  60.0

  62.8

  54.9

  55.3

  Folic Acid
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish the details of the campaign to be commenced in the autumn on the importance of folic acid taken before conception and then in early pregnancy. [31331]

  Mr. Sackville
  Plans for a public awareness campaign about folic acid and the prevention of neural tube defects are nearing completion and an announcement will be made shortly.

  Mr. Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to make folic acid available free of charge as a pre-pregnancy supplement. [31333]

  Mr. Sackville
  None. Folic acid is already available on prescription free of charge for women who are pregnant or who are entitled to remission of prescription charges on grounds of low income.

  Trauma Units
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the hospitals which have specialist trauma units. [31504]

  Mr. Sackville
  Trauma patients are normally taken to hospital accident and emergency departments.

  In 1988 a Royal College of Surgeons report suggested that outcomes for patients with life-threatening injury might be better if they were treated in regional trauma centres.

  We set up a pilot trauma centre at the North Staffordshire Hospitals National Health Service trust in 1990. The evaluation of this pilot is now complete and a report is being drafted.

  Private Health Care
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the expenditure by each hospital trust in each of the past four years in purchasing health care or facilities in the private sector; and what was the total expenditure for this purpose in each year. [31839]

  Mr. Sackville
  The financial returns of national health service trusts provide expenditure figures on the purchase of health care from non-NHS bodies, whether in the public or private sectors. The figures for England are £12,204,000 in 1991–92, £45,436,000 in 1992–93, and £50,386,000 in 1993–94. The Government welcome cost-effective co-operation between the NHS and
  5
  independent sector. This increases the range of options available to patients and health service managers and makes optimum use of available resources.

  Meconium Aspiration
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many deaths have occurred as a result of meconium aspiration in each of the past 10 years; and what action she will take to reduce the number of deaths resulting from meconium aspiration. [30890]

  Mr. Sackville
  Figures for stillbirths, neonatal deaths— deaths under 28 days—and postneonatal deaths—deaths between 28 days and under one year—with a cause coded to the international classification of diseases, ICD 9th revision code 770.1, massive aspiration syndrome, will be placed in the Library.

  Fertility Treatment
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her estimate to date of the number of children born as a result of fertility treatment within the national health service. [30891]

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not available centrally.

  Medical Qualifications
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the effect of the European medical directives on United Kingdom registered medical practitioners who are also United Kingdom citizens, and who obtained their primary medical qualification outside the United Kingdom. [31330]

  Mr. Malone
  European legislation deals only with the mutual recognition of medical qualifications issued by member states of the European Economic Area. Each member state may decide for itself whether to recognise medical qualifications gained outside the EEA. The competent authority in each member state must, in considering an application for registration from a person whose qualification has been gained outside the EEA, take account of and give appropriate weight to the fact that an applicant's primary medical qualification has been recognised by another EEA state and the knowledge, experience and qualifications gained by an applicant in an EEA state, subsequent to obtaining his primary medical qualification outside the EEA.

  Young People Leaving Care
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of young people who left care in each of the past five years for which figures are available(a) went into furnished private accommodation, (b) went into furnished local authority accommodation, (c) went in to unfurnished accommodation and (d) went into temporary accommodation; and what percentage is currently homeless. [31616]

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not available centrally.
  6
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of young people leaving care receive a leaving care grant; what is the average value of the grant; and if she will give a regional breakdown of the amounts given. [31613]

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not available centrally.

  National Blood Authority
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what new posts have been designated by the National Blood Authority in preparation for possible re organisation; and if she will state the titles of the posts and the names of those provisionally appointed. [31996]

  Mr. Sackville
  This is a matter for the National Blood Authority.

  Fostering
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when she expects to publish her response to the consultation about the delegation of fostering duties to profit-making organisations and the easement of respite care regulations; and if she will make a statement. [32101]

  Mr. Bowis
  We are considering the responses received to the consultation document.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  Atmospheric Pollutants
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners what action the Commissioners are taking to obtain Government repair grants for damage caused by atmospheric pollutants; and if he will make a statement. [31090]

  Mr. Alison
  None, so far as the Commissioners' own property is concerned.

  Pensions
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners (1) what plans the Commissioners have to establish two pension funds, one for the dignitaries and staff at Church House and No. 1 Millbank and another for the parish clergy; [31992]

  (2) what plans the Commissioners have for a single fund into which they will pay the future contributions of dignitaries while each diocese will be asked to meet the future contributions of the parish clergy. [31993]

  Mr. Alison
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave him on 14 June 1995,Official Report, column 556.

  One of the proposals of the joint report on pensions by the Central Board of Finance, the Church of England Pensions Board and the Church Commissioners which will be considered by the General Synod in July, is that pensions contributions in respect of future service of the parochial clergy should be raised by dioceses—through parishes—and invested in a separate pensions fund. The

  7
  Commissioners would make contributions into the same fund in respect of those dignitaries whose stipends they meet in full.

  The Commissioners will be seeking the power to spend capital to discharge their existing liability for past service pensions. That power could also be used to enable the establishment of a funded scheme for the staff in their employment.

  Temporary Income
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners (1) what was the cost of capital losses incurred to purchase £12.9 million temporary income mentioned in the 1994 annual report;

  (2) what was the total temporary income generated since the Commissioners began the practice of obtaining this income; and what effect this has had on the size of the capital base of the Commissioners' assets.

  Mr. Alison
  Temporary income refers to the accounting policy of recording interest on gilt edged securities on a receipts basis rather than on an accruals basis. The temporary income generated up to the end of 1994 was £56.7 million. As explained in appendix 12 of the Social Security Committee's recent report, in so far as the above amounts would otherwise have been treated as capital and retained, the fact that they have been recorded as income and distributed within the Church has led to capital being reduced by the same amount.

  The Commissioners have repeatedly made it clear that the current level of income distribution as a percentage of their assets remains unsustainably high, despite a reduction to 6 per cent. in 1994. The generation of temporary income is but one element of an investment strategy which is required to produce the level of income needed to meet the Commissioners' current commitments to the financial support of the ministry. The Commissioners are reducing their expenditure and re-balancing their assets at a pace which is feasible for them and manageable for the Church.

EMPLOYMENT

  Jobseeker's Allowance
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has to review the provision in the proposed jobseeker's allowance that a claimant has to be available for work for 40 hours per week and still accept any job that is offered, in the light of changing trends in the number of jobs which are part-time. [31660]

  Miss Widdecombe
  None. People claiming jobseeker's allowance should ensure that they are open to a wide range of job opportunities. They should therefore be willing to work for a minimum of 40 hours per week, even if they would prefer to work fewer hours. Jobseekers will not, however, be subject to a sanction for refusing a job offered to them if they can show good cause for that refusal.

  Young People Leaving Care
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what percentage of young people who left 8
  care in each of the past five years for which figures are available are currently (a) on YTS schemes, (b) employed and (c) unemployed. [31620]

  Mr. Paice
  The information requested is not available. The labour force survey and the youth cohort study both gather information on the employment status of young people, but neither asks whether respondents have been in care.

  Employment Service
  Mr. Ian McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what progress the Employment Service has made in meeting the targets outlined in the 1994–95 annual performance agreement; and if he will list the targets and the outcomes achieved. [32596]

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Employment Service has performed excellently in 1994–95, exceeding all but one of its targets. It placed 1,876,800 unemployed people into jobs, against an annual target of 1.7 million. This represents 236,900 more placings than 1993–94. Performance against all the targets for 1994–95 is set out in the following table:

  Employment service performance against target April 1994–March 1995

  Annual performance targets

  Target levels

  Performance

  1. To place 1.7 million unemployed people into work at a planned unit cost of £188, assuming 2.4 million vacancies are notified

  1.7 million

  1,876,800

  2. 29.5 per cent. of total unemployed placings achieved to be long-term claimants.

  29.5 per cent.

  29.7 per cent. (556,600)

  3. 26 per cent. of total unemployed placings achieved to be people in inner cities.

  26 per cent.

  28 per cent. (526,300)

  4. 50 per cent. positive outcomes for unemployed claimants invited to a 12 month advisory interview.

  50 per cent.

  53 per cent.

  5. 35 per cent. positive outcomes for unemployed claimants invited to a 24 month advisory interview.

  35 per cent.

  44 per cent.

  6. 92 per cent. of clients due an advisory interview to receive one, assuming 9 million interviews are due.

  92 per cent.

  95 per cent.

  7. 9 per cent. of initial claim enquiries not to be pursued as new claims

  9 per cent.

  10.3 per cent

  8. 135,000 submissions to adjudication where there is an arguable case, with supporting information to show that the claimant is not available for, actively seeking or willing to accept work.

  135,000

  203,500

  9

  Employment service performance against target April 1994–March 1995

  Annual performance targets

  Target levels

  Performance

  9. At a planned unit cost per claimant of £14.80 for all benefit claims:

  —despatch 75 per cent. of first payments of Unemployment Benefit within 10 days of a claim

  75 per cent.

  65 per cent.

  —97 per cent. of Unemployment Benefit payments by value to be correct.

  97 per cent.

  96 per cent.

  10. 3.3 per cent. of total unemployed placings achieved to be people with disabilities

  3.3 per cent.

  3.7 per cent. (70,300)

  11. 70,000 claims to be withdrawn of those suspected of obtaining benefit by deception following fraud investigation.

  70,000

  78,200

  12. To achieve £25.1 million in efficiency savings.

  £25.1 million

  £29.09 million

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  High Commission, Nairobi
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give a breakdown of the cost involved in the building of the new United Kingdom high commission office in Nairobi, Kenya. [31703]

  Mr. Goodlad
  The building cost to date of the new British high commission in Nairobi totals £5,640,000, comprising land cost of £65,000, consultants' fees of £1,230,000 and construction costs of £4,345,000.

  Indigenous Peoples
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy on the rights of indigenous peoples. [31847]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We are concerned that the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people, including indigenous people, should be respected. We believe that indigenous people should participate fully and freely in all aspects of society, in particular in matters of concern to them. We participate in the discussion on indigenous issues within the UN.

  France (Nuclear Testing)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to make representations to the French Government about its intention to resume nuclear testing. [31777]

  Mr. David Davis
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) on 28 June,Official Report, column 636.
  10

  South Pacific
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to sign the treaty of Rarotonga on a South Pacific nuclear-free zone. [31778]

  Mr. David Davis
  The treaty of Rarotonga is not open for signature by the United Kingdom. We have no current plans to become a party to any of the protocols to the treaty of Rarotonga.

  Complaints
  Ms Hodge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what policy and procedure exists for dealing with complaints against his Department by members of the public; when the policy was last updated; what time limit and target for dealing with such complaints his Department has; and what follow-up procedure exists where complainants are not satisfied with his Department's response to a complaint. [26220]

  Mr. Goodlad
  The FCO's diplomatic wing policy and procedure for dealing with complaints from members of the public in respect of the legalisation office, consular service and overseas trade services is as follows:LEGALISATION OFFICE
  Complaints dealt with on the spot where possible; target of three workings days where further investigation required.
  Complaints procedure published with names and addresses of individuals to whom complaints should be addressed.
  Complaints procedure reviewed and updated 1 February 1995.
  CONSULAR SERVICE
  —Overseas
  Target of three working days to respond to complaints.
  Each post offering consular services displays procedures for complaints and named individuals to whom complaints should be addressed.
  Procedure has not been updated.
  —At home
  Complaints replied to within seven working days if channelled through an MP; target of twenty working days to reply if complaint made direct.
  OVERSEAS TRADE SERVICES
  Target of five working days for service provider to respond to complaints. Target of fifteen working days for Customer Services Manager to respond if complaint taken to that level.
  Guidelines shortly to be published.
  Guidelines reviewed annually but have not been updated.

  Complaints on all other matters, including complaints relating to the Overseas Development Administration, sent by a Member of Parliament are dealt with within seven working days. Other written complaints are dealt with within the 20 working day deadline for letters to members of the public.

  Guidance on complaints procedures advises members of the public to contact their Member of Parliament or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration— Parliamentary Ombudsman—if they are not satisfied with the way in which their complaint has been handled.

  Departmental Performance
  Ms Hodge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what performance indicators and performance targets there are for measuring the
  11
  performance of his Department in (a) answering letters from members of the public and (b) answering telephone calls from members of the public; how performance is monitored; and what are the latest figures for performance measured against the target set. [26236]

  Mr. Goodlad
  The FCO has an office-wide target of 20 working days for replying to letters from members of the public. For the diplomatic wing, performance is monitored within each department and central returns submitted. Between 1 April 1994, when the target was introduced, to 31 December 1994, 23,329 letters were received of which 98 per cent. were replied to within the target. In the Overseas Development Administration, 1,477 requests for information were received within the same period, of which 94 per cent. were replied to within the target.

  The FCO has no set target for answering telephone calls from members of the public.

  UN Conference on Women
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make arrangements for those representing the United Kingdom at the Beijing conference on women to receive a briefing from those non-governmental organisations and other organisations on the human rights position of women in China. [26900]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We already have close contact with human rights organisations dealing with the Peking conference on women.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chinese authorities regarding the provision made for non-governmental organisations at the United National conference on women to be held in Beijing. [26898]

  Mr. Hogg
  We have been associated with European Union representations to the Chinese authorities about provision for non-governmental organisations at the world conference on women.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he had made to the United Nations regarding the practice of using geographical rotation to choose the venue for the United Nations conference on women irrespective of the human rights record of a country. [26899]

  Mr. Hogg
  None.

  Indonesia
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent meetings have been held with the Government of Indonesia concerning human rights abuse; and if he will make a statement. [27088]

  Mr. Goodlad
  We continue to take every appropriate opportunity to urge the Indonesian Government to continue to improve their human rights record.

  The issue was raised by my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development during her recent visit to Indonesia.
  12

  Bangladesh
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which Ministers from his Department have visited Bangladesh in each of the last three years. [26992]

  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs visited Bangladesh in January 1995. I visited in November 1994.

  Facility Trips (Journalists)
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list facility trips abroad which have been granted to British newspaper journalists in the last two years. [25907]

  Mr. Baldry
  The details are as follows:

  Dale of visit

  Destination

  Number in press party (journalists)

  1–4 June 1993

  Romania

  4

  Bulgaria

  Macedonia

  6–8 September 1993

  UAE

  7

  Saudi Arabia

  22–24 October 1993

  Syria

  6

  3–7 January 1994

  Lebanon

  10

  Israel

  Occupied Territories

  Jordan

  Malta

  19–20 January 1994

  Turkey

  2

  4–11 April 1994

  Brazil

  2

  Falklands

  22–24 May 1994

  Russia

  3

  Ukraine

  11–20 September 1994

  Thailand

  2

  Vietnam

  Hong Kong

  Japan

  12–14 October 1994

  Kuwait

  16

  Bahrain

  Saudi Arabia

  Jordan

  Syria

  Turkey

  4 December 1994

  Former Yugoslavia

  11

  3–9 January 1995

  Bangladesh

  1 (4 others—Lahore/ Islamabad leg only)

  India

  Pakistan

  13–14 February 1995

  Sweden

  1

  11–12 April 1995

  Slovakia

  2

  Poland

  In all cases, journalists are charged for air and ground transportation.
  13

  Kashmir
  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the burning of the Mosque and village of Charar-e-Sharief in Kashmir on Thursday 11 May. [25447]

  Mr. Baldry
  We deeply regret the burning of the village of Charar-e-Sharief in Kashmir and its historic shrine. We have urged all sides to exercise restraint. We shall continue to try to promote a peaceful solution in Kashmir.

ENVIRONMENT

  Water Disconnections
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many households had their water supply disconnected as a result of non-payment of bills in (i) York, (ii) North Yorkshire, (iii) Yorkshire and Humberside and (iv) England in each since 1989. [31583]

  Mr. Atkins
  Information on disconnections is not available in the form requested. The Director General of Water Services publishes data on disconnections twice a year in Ofwat news releases, by water company area. Copies of Ofwat news releases are in the library.

  Chlorinated Paraffins
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he has given to the environmental case for phasing out the production of chlorinated paraffins. [31875]

  Mr. Atkins
  The production and use of short-chain chlorinated paraffins are being examined currently by the Department of the Environment in the context of EC regulation No. 793/93 on the evaluation and control of existing substances to determine the extent to which they pose a risk to the environment. The outcome of this examination will be used to determine whether control measures may be necessary.

  Single Regeneration Budget
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list for each local authority the current single regeneration budget in cash terms and per head of the pollution. [31679]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Single regeneration budget resources are not allocated or recorded by references to local authority districts. Many schemes and initiatives supported by the SRB, including the challenge fund element, relate to a range of geographical and administrative areas, and funding is directed to a range of bodies such as training and enterprise councils and voluntary groups in addition to local authorities.

  Education Standard Spending Assessment
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by cash value the education standard spending assessment for 1995–96 for each of the 38 shire counties for(a) primary and (b) secondary education. [31686]
  14
  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Mrs. Winteron
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment by what percentage, and by what cash value, the education standard spending assessment for 1995–96 for Cheshire differs from(a) the average such education standard spending assessment and (b) the highest such education standard spending assessment, for (i) all education authorities, (ii) shire counties, (iii) north-west education authorities and (iv) London boroughs. [31687]

  Mr. Jones
  The 1995–96 education standard spending assessment for Cheshire is £332.027 million. The figures requested are given in the table:

  Amount £ million

  Absolute difference from Cheshire £ million

  Percentage difference from Cheshire Per cent.

  Average English local education authority

  156.184

  175.843

  113

  Average shire county

  264.864

  67.163

  25

  Average North West local education authority

  135.438

  196.589

  145

  Average London borough

  84.888

  247.139

  291

  Highest English local education authority (Kent)

  559.063

  -227.036

  -41

  Highest shire county (Kent)

  559.063

  -227.036

  -41

  Highest North West local education authority (Lancashire)

  483.978

  -151.951

  -31

  Highest London borough (Newham)

  123.810

  208.217

  168

  The following table expresses differences from figures for Cheshire in terms of £ per head of resident population, with Cheshire's figure being £341 per head. It therefore takes account of numbers of people resident within each local education authority's area.

  Amount (£ per resident)

  Absolute difference from Cheshire (£ per resident)

  Percentage difference from Cheshire (Per cent.)

  Average for all English local education authorities

  351

  -10

  -3

  Average for shire counties

  333

  9

  3

  Average for North West

  360

  -18

  -5

  Average for London boroughs

  404

  -63

  -16

  15

  Amount (£ per resident)

  Absolute difference from Cheshire (£ per resident)

  Percentage difference from Cheshire (Per cent.)

  Highest English local education authority (Tower Hamlets)

  710

  -369

  -52

  Highest shire county (Bedfordshire)

  393

  -52

  -13

  Highest North West local education authority (Knowsley)

  449

  -108

  -24

  Highest London borough (Tower Hamlets)

  710

  -369

  -52

  Mrs. Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will identify and quantify the factors which were taken into account when establishing Cheshire's education standard spending assessment for 1995–96 [31688]

  Mr. Jones
  Information on the factors which were taken into account when establishing the education standard spending assessment for 1995–96 for every English local education authority is available in the Local Government Finance Report (England) 1995–96 and "Standard Spending Assessments: Guide to Methodology 1995–96" edition, both of which are available in the Library.

  Information on the amounts used in establishing the education standard spending assessment for Cheshire county council for 1995–96 was sent to Cheshire county council on 31 January.

  Area Cost Adjustment
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what value of area cost adjustment is proposed for 1995–6 for(a) Bedfordshire, (b) Hertfordshire, (c) Leicestershire and (d) Cheshire; and if he will specify in each case how that figure was calculated. [31690]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  Full details of the value of the area cost adjustment for all English local authorities which benefited from that adjustment are available in the Library. The information covers the years 1991–92 to 1995–96.

  The methodology that is used to calculate the area cost adjustment is set out in the departmental publication, "Standard Spending Assessments: Guide to Methodology 1995–96". A copy of this publication has been placed in the Library.

  Fire Safety
  Lady Olga Maitland
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what conclusions he has reached on the study his Department has been making of fire safety in large single storey buildings. [32591]
  16
  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  In February last year, a deputation of senior fire officers and representatives of building control and the insurance industry, came to see my predecessor, the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), about fire safety in single storey buildings with large undivided spaces. They were concerned about the safety of firefighters, as well as people within such buildings should they catch fire, and also about the possible pollution and large financial loss that might result. Buildings of this type are found throughout the country as supermarkets, factories and warehouses.

  Recognising that if these buildings are to fulfil their functions properly they should not have to be divided into small fire compartments, the deputation recommended that the guidance issued on how to comply with building regulations should be changed so that when new buildings of these types exceeding 4000 sq m were being designed and constructed, a sprinkler system should be incorporated.

  Although my Department had reviewed this aspect of the guidance not long before, my predecessor asked that a further study should be made of the fire safety of this type of building taking into account recent fires. This has now been done with the assistance of the Fire Research Station of the Building Research Establishment, the Fire Advisory Panel and the Building Regulations Advisory Committee.

  This work has shown that while there may be a case for accepting the deputation's proposal in some respects, it is finely balanced and more time is needed to acquire better information on certain important factors before consultation can take place on detailed technical proposals. However, the following general conclusions have been reached:

  (i) a case can be made for sprinklers in new retail single storey buildings with compartments exceeding 4000 square metres, in the interests of occupant and firefighter safety; but a similar case has not been made from the available data for large compartment single storey industrial storage buildings;

  (ii) the guidance on measures to restrict fire spread through voids in these sorts of building should be reconsidered, with firefighter safety in mind as well as the occupants. Similarly we should take steps to improve the design and construction of fire barriers;

  (iii) automatic smoke ventilation without sprinklers in buildings with low ceilings does not appear to be beneficial to occupants threatened by very fast-growing fires;

  (iv) a case can be made for there to be a minimum 4 metre ceiling height in new retail single storey buildings over 4000 square metres, as an additional measure to sprinklers;

  (v) the deputation drew attention to fires in which large insulating wall and ceiling panels seem to have been a significant feature. We plan to study the fire implications of the use of these panels in buildings such as cold stores and food factories, with a view to amending guidance or sponsoring a code of practice if appropriate.

  My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is considering the implications for existing occupied buildings if these proposals were to be adopted in building regulations.

  In the light of the above, I have asked my officials, in liaison with other Departments and taking account of the advice of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, to prepare a consultation document covering issues (i) and (iv) above, if possible to be issued by the end of this year.

  17
  To the extent that it is possible within that time scale the other issues will also be addressed, but items (ii) and (v) in particular are likely to require research and may take considerably more time to resolve. The consultation paper will cover revisions to the whole of the part B approved document, and will therefore incorporate other suggested changes to that part which have arisen since it was last revised in December 1991. Any relevant conclusions from the interdepartmental scrutiny of fire safety legislation and enforcement, on which a separate statement is being made, will also be incorporated.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the(a) monthly and (b) annual change in the numbers of asylum seekers accepted as homeless by local authorities under the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993. [30546]

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  [holding answer 26 June 1995]: The data collected from local authorities in England on the numbers of households for which they accept responsibility to secure permanent accommodation under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985 have, since the beginning of 1994, included the numbers accepted after being granted asylum. The available data are as follows:

  Acceptance of former asylum seekers

  Percentage change on previous quarter

  Quarter 1 1994

  300

  n/a

  Quarter 2 1994

  260

  -13

  Quarter 3 1994

  210

  -19

  Quarter 4 1994

  250

  +19

  Quarter 1 1995

  250

  0

  Director General of Water Services
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the salary of the water regulator for each year since the post was established; and what is the percentage change in his earnings since the post's establishment in(a) cash terms and (b) real terms. [31539]

  Mr. Atkins]
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Mr. Ian Byatt was appointed as Director General of Water Services from 1 August 1989 at an initial salary of £59,800 per annum; salary increases since his appointment are listed in the following table:

  Director General of Water Services

  Year

  Salary £

  Percentage change Cash terms

  Real terms

  April 1990

  63,390

  6.00

  -1.9

  January 1991

  64,300

  1.44

  -2.5

  April 1991

  69,120

  7.50

  +5.2

  December 1991

  70.400

  1.85

  -0.1

  April 1992

  73,216

  4.00

  +1.7

  April 1993

  75,328

  2.90

  +1.6

  April 1994

  79,396

  5.40

  +2.8

  April 1995

  81,381

  2.50

  -0.8

  18

  Dounreay
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action his Department has taken to date in respect of the RM Consultants report published in 1991 in relation to the Dounreay reprocessing plant; and if he will make a statement. [31207]

  Sir Hector Monro
  I have been asked to reply.

  RM Consultants were commissioned by the then Scottish Development Department to look at a range of engineering options for the management of radioactive wastes in the Dounreay shaft. Following the publication of that report, HM industrial pollution inspectorate required the UK Atomic Energy Authority to carry out further studies aimed at identifying a clear strategy for the long-term management of that waste. Given the novel nature of the problems that had to be addressed these studies have taken some time and the results are not yet available.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Judicial Appointments
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department on how many occasions judicial appointments have been vetoed by the Prime Minister in each of the last 10 years. [30761]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Senior judicial appointments at the level of the Court of Appeal and above in England and Wales are made by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

  Primary Legislation
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to his answer of 15 June,Official Report, column 606, what assessment he has made of the acceptability of one third of primary legislation readily available to members of the public in its current amended form; and if he will make a statement. [31036]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  I have not received any representations from members of the public relating to the availability of primary legislation in its current amended form. Work towards the implementation of the statute law database system at the Statutory Publications Office is now well advanced. This system will provide the opportunity to meet the needs of all who require improved access to primary legislation in its current amended form.

  Mr. Prentice
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to his answer of 15 June,Official Report, column 606, if he will set target dates for raising the proportion of primary legislation readily available to hon. Members and the general public in its current amended form above (a) 50 per cent. and (b) 75 per cent. [31035]

  Mr. Taylor
  No. The editorial task of applying the effects of new legislation to the database will be approached in strict chronological sequence. The target date for completion of the exercise is March 1997.
  19

  Small Claims
  Mr. Peter Atkinson
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if proposals to increase the small claims limit will be subject to a full consultation process; and if he will make a statement. [30948]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Lord Woolf consulted widely in the preparation of his interim report. In view of this, the Lord Chancellor does not intend to undertake further public consultation on whether he should implement Lord Woolf's recommendation that the limit for small claims, other than those for personal injury, should be raised to £3,000. The power to make the necessary amendments rests with the county court rule committee who, as part of its consideration of the matter, consults interested parties.

  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make it his policy that any increase in the small claims court limit will be in line with the rate of inflation since July 1991. [30949]

  Mr. Taylor
  The present limit of £1,000 does not reflect the value of many cases which would be appropriate for disposal in the small claims forum, including straightforward claims relating to home extensions and improvements, family holidays or major car repairs. In order to make this cheaper and less formal procedure available to litigants with this type of claim it would not be sufficient simply to raise the limit in line with inflation.

TREASURY

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much has Government spending changed in 1994–95 as a result of the private finance initiative; what is the estimated effect in 1995–96; how many jobs are to be created by schemes approved to date under the initiative and how many have been lost as a consequence in the public sector; and what is the forecast of transfer of employment from public to private sector over the last five years because of the initiative. [30825]

  Sir George Young
  [holding answer 28 June 1995]: The presence of private finance and management expertise will often allow projects that would not have gone ahead under conventional procurement either to go ahead, or to go ahead earlier. However, many factors were taken into account in determining priorities for public expenditure in 1994–95 and 1995–96, and it is not possible to measure the impact of the initiative in isolation.

  Records are not kept centrally of the effect of the initiative on patterns of employment, but the number of jobs transferred from public to private sector as a result of the initiative to date is small. As the initiative allows more and better projects to go ahead, it will tend to create jobs, particularly in the private sector.
  20

  Astra plc
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the responsibilities of J. W. Cassey within Her Majesty's Customs and Excise; and in what capacity he visited the headquarters of Astra plc in April 1990. [31435]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Mr. J. W. Cassey was employed in Customs and Excise between February 1972 and January 1990.

  Any visit made by him to Astra plc in April 1990 would not have been on behalf of Customs and Excise.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list by convenient category the documents removed from Astra plc and its subsidiaries which are retained by his Department. [31436]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: No. It is not Customs' practice to make public details of documents taken up during the course of inquiries, other than those revealed in the course of legal proceedings, lest such details cause unfairness to individuals or prejudice current or future investigations or proceedings.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the dates and periods of service on behalf of Customs and Excise of Mr. V. W. Cassey. [30090]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  Customs and Excise has no record of currently or having previously employed a Mr. V. W. Cassey.

  A Mr. J. W. Cassey was employed in Customs and Excise between February 1972 and January 1990.

  CS Gas
  Ms Clwyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what quantities of CS gas equipment are shown by Customs and Excise records to have been exported to Indonesia in each year since 1985. [31760]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Export trade relating specifically to CS gas—o-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile—and "CS Gas Equipment", is not identifiable within the trade statistics.

  ECOFIN
  Ms Primarolo
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the discussions held at ECOFIN on 19 June. [31609]

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave in response to a very similar question from my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) on 29 June Official Report, columns 772–73.

  Inland Revenue Computer Contract
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the original estimate of the cost of the Inland Revenue's computer contract with EDS; what is the current estimate; and if he will make a statement. [31645]

  Sir George Young
  When the Inland Revenue signed a 10-year outsourcing contract with EDS in May 1994, its estimated value based on the work load identified in the invitation to tender was £1 billion, which represented a potential saving of £225 million over the in-house costs.
  21
  The Inland Revenue and EDS have since agreed that the costs attributable to the work and resources transferred in the first phase of the tranche, in July 1994, were greater than those in the ITT. This increase in work load, which is largely due to the transfer of planned expenditure from third party suppliers to EDS, will increase the value of the contract by £250 million over 10 years. As the adjustment is on a broadly pound-for-pound basis, it does not increase the Department's overall expenditure nor decrease the potential savings.

  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the implications of the current difficulties with the Inland Revenue computer project for the timetable for the introduction of self-assessment; and if he will make a statement. [31644]

  Sir George Young
  Self-assessment will be introduced in 1997 as originally planned. The Inland Revenue and its IT services suppliers, EDS, are fully committed to the successful delivery of self-assessment.

  Departmental Computer Systems
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions there have been between his Department and the Department of Social Security over the possible merger of the Department of Social Security and Inland Revenue computer systems; and if he will make a statement. [31646]

  Sir George Young
  There are no plans to merge the computer services supporting the operations of the Inland Revenue and Department of Social Security and there have been no discussions on such a merger between the two Departments.

  Register of Conditionally Exempted Works of Art
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated total market value of the items on the register of conditionally exempted works of art. [31873]

  Sir George Young
  The information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Treasury Solicitors
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if any of the Treasury Solicitors acting or advising in the case against former directors of Astra under the Company Directors Disqualification Act had, in any capacity within legal services of Government, acted or advised in the case of Rv. Henderson, Allen and Abraham. [30786]

  The Attorney-General
  I have been asked to reply. Mr. Leithead and Mr. Howes of the Treasury Solicitor's Department, who are acting on behalf of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the case referred to, advised in the case of Rv. Henderson, Allen and Abraham.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the previous posts and duties within the Government service of Sir Gerald Hooper, Mr. Leitzead and Mr. Howes of the Treasury Solicitor's Department. [30782]

  The Attorney-General
  I have been asked to reply. The question is understood to refer to Sir Gerald Hosker,
  22
  Mr. Leithead and Mr. Howes. The information is as follows:

  Sir Gerald Hosker KCB QC

  1960–66: Legal assistant: conveyancing duties

  1966–72: Senior legal assistant: legal advice to the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Defence

  1973–87: Successively as assistant Treasury Solicitor, principal assistant Treasury Solicitor and deputy Treasury Solicitor: legal advice to Her Majesty's Treasury and associated Departments.

  1984–87: Duties as deputy Treasury Solicitor

  1987–92: Duties as solicitor to the Department of Trade and Industry

  1992 to date: Duties as HM Procurator General, Treasury Solicitor and Queen's Proctor.

  Mr. Leithead

  1977 to date: Senior legal assistant and from 1982 assistant Treasury Solicitor: legal advice to and civil litigation for the Department of Trade and Industry, the Office of Fair Trading, the Export Credits Guarantee Department, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and related bodies, and some specialist advice on litigation both civil and criminal.

  Mr. Howes

  1971–77: Legal assistant and from 1976 senior legal assistant: conduct of prosecutions and civil litigation on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Security

  1977–79: Senior legal assistant: advice to the DHSS on employment law and industrial tribunal work

  1979–81: Senior legal assistant: advice on employment law and industrial tribunal work for various Government Departments as a member of the Treasury Solicitor's Department

  1981–83 Senior legal assistant: European Community litigation

  1983–86: Senior legal assistant: Chancery and charity litigation, public inquiries and Lands Tribunal work

  986 to date: Senior legal assistant and from 1989 grade 6: conduct of litigation for the Office of Fair Trading and the Department of Trade and Industry

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Millennium Fund
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage (i) how many bids were made for millennium funding; and what percentage of them were successful(a) in England and (b) in London; [31999]

  (2) in which parliamentary constituency each successful millennium bid is situated; and how much each successful project was awarded. [32000]

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage in what respect the university of Ulster— peaceline campus of the new millennium project did not meet the Millennium Commission criteria. [31317]

  Mr. Dorrell
  These are matters for the Millennium Commission. I shall reply to the hon. Members in my capacity as chairman of the commission and place copies of my replies in the Libraries of the House.
  23

  Radio Authority
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will issue guidance to the Radio Authority that efficient use of the spectrum will be assessed by reference to the potential audience reach of the services involved. [31946]

  Mr. Dorrell
  Section 123 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 requires that the Radio Authority's frequency planning work must be directed towards securing that the frequencies assigned to the authority are used as efficiently as is reasonably practicable. Potential audience demand is one of the factors taken into account by the Radio Authority in discharging this responsibility.

  Trafalgar Square, London
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what proposals his Department has on filling the empty plinth in Trafalgar square, London; and if he will make a statement. [31498]

  Mr. Sproat
  I am aware that Miss Prudence Leith, OBE, chairman elect of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, is putting proposals together for a statue to go on the empty plinth, which she intends to submit to the Department later this year. We shall carefully consider any proposals received. Under the Public Statute Metropolis Act 1854, the Secretary of State must approve the erection of any statute in London.

  Television Franchise Bids
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what representations he has received on allowing ITV companies to negotiate their franchise bids earlier than the Broadcasting Act 1990 currently allows to free money for programming; and what response he has made. [31917]

  Mr. Dorrell
  None.

  BBC (Transmission facilities)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what plans he has to privatise the BBC's transmission facilities. [31908]

  Mr. Dorrell
  We are considering the options for the future of the BBC's transmission service and will announce our decision in due course.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Betts
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage (1) by how much Government spending has changed in 1994–95 as a result of the private finance initiative; what is the estimated effect in 1995–96; how many jobs are to be created by schemes approved to date under the initiative and how many have been lost as a consequence in the public sector; and what is the forecast of transfer of employment from public to private sector over the last five years because of the initiative; [30839]

  (2) how many schemes and to what value have been approved in 1994–95 under the private finance initiative; what are the estimates for the current financial year; how many schemes are currently being considered and at what value; for how long have they been
  24
  considered and how many have been in the assessment process for over (a) six months and (b) 12 months; and what was the average length of time taken to assess schemes so far approved. [30838]

  Mr. Sproat
  [holding answer 28 June J 995]: My Department operates mainly through its many sponsored bodies and agencies and undertakes little expenditure on its own account. Its effort is therefore largely devoted to encouraging those whom it sponsors to exploit to the full in their own capital programmes the opportunities of the private finance initiative. The cost of this effort within the Department is about £65,000 a year.

  One PFI project has so far required to be approved by my Department—the move of the Royal Armouries from the Tower of London to Leeds. The proposal was submitted in May 1992 and approval was given in December 1993. The total cost of the project is £42.5 million. The public sector contribution comprises: £20 million, financed by the Historic Royal Agency from increased receipts at the Tower of London; £5 million from Leeds development corporation; and £3.5 million from Leeds city council. The effect on public sector manpower is neutral, but the project will increase opportunities for private sector employment.

  No projects required departmental approval in 1994–95. A number of projects are at various stages of consideration by my Department's sponsored bodies in the current— 1995–96—financial year. Of these, it is not possible to estimate the number that will require departmental approval.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Arable Area Payments Scheme
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent representations he has received concerning the need for greater flexibility in the arable area payments scheme; and if he will make a statement. [31940]

  Mr. Jack
  Representations have been received from a wide range of agricultural and environmental bodies concerning proposals issued for consultation on 11 May on exchanges of eligible and ineligible land. These are being considered and details of any arrangements for 1996 will be included in the arable area payments explanatory guide 1995–96 due to be published this summer.

  Mrs. Winterton
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action his Department is taking to achieve provision for swapping of eligible and ineligible land under the terms of the arable area payments scheme; and whether those changes will be in place for 1996 integrated administration and control system claims. [31939]

  Mr. Jack
  A consultation document was issued on 11 May 1995 outlining in broad terms proposals for the conditions under which exchanges of eligible for ineligible land might be permitted. Representations are now being considered and I would expect shortly to take a decision on any arrangements for 1996 claims. Details of any changes will be included in the arable area payments explanatory guide for 1995–96, due to be published this summer.
  25
  Mrs. Winterton
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals the European Commission has so far brought forward to ease the setting up of individual base areas in the context of the arable area payments scheme; and if he will summarise them; and what response he has made. [31937]

  Mr. Jack
  The European Commission has not put forward any proposals on this subject.

  Agriculture Council
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement summarising the decisions taken by the December 1994 meeting of the Agriculture Council in relation to greater flexibility in defining land eligibility under the arable area payments scheme; and what action subsequently has been taken by his Department in relation to those decisions. [31938]

  Mr. Jack
  At the December 1993 Agriculture Council that agreement was reached, subject to terms to be determined, on greater flexibility on land eligibility. In August 1994, EC Commission implementing regulations were brought into force establishing eligibility for land growing certain multi-annual crops on 31 December 1991; providing for the declaration of new land as eligible following compulsory purchase; for exchanges of land under certain circumstances and for structure plans in certain other member states.

  In the light of UK representations, the EC Commission subsequently recognised concerns over conflict between the terms of the Council agreement as laid down in EC Council regulations 1765/92 and the Commission implementing regulations, and indicated that it would consider corrective changes. The Commission determined finally not to take such regulatory action and restricted further amending provisions, which came into force on 22 April 1995, to detailed rules of exchanges of eligible land.

  Details on the application of these changes, including any arrangements resulting from consultation on a UK plan for exchanges of eligible land, will be contained in the arable area payments explanatory guide for 1995–96 due to be published this summer.

  Butter Council (Advertising)
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he intends to take to counter the Butter Council's use of European funds to finance advertisements against the margarine industry; and if he will make a statement. [32098]

  Mr. Jack
  A final decision on EC funding for the Butter Council's advertising campaign will be taken by the intervention board when the Council completes its contract later this year. The board will take account of the views which have been expressed by the Advertising Standards Authority on the advertisements. In the meantime, with the Government's support, the EC Commission has decided to prohibit negative comparative advertising in future contracts under the EC scheme for promoting the consumption of milk and milk products.
  26

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Metropolitan Police Committee
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many times the Metropolitan police committee has now met; what advice it has proffered to him; and what action has been taken in response to its advice. [32002]

  Mr. Maclean
  The Metropolitan police committee has held five full committee meetings, various meetings of subgroups and a number of meetings with representatives of the Metropolitan police and local bodies. The committee's advice to the Secretary of State is confidential. Since 1 April 1995 the Home Secretary's actions as police authority for the Metropolitan police have been informed by the Metropolitan police committee's advice.

  Elected Police Authority
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what advice he has received from serving police officers, including senior officers within the Metropolitan police service, regarding the establishment of an elected police authority for London. [32001]

  Mr. Maclean
  Any advice that Ministers may have received on this topic would be confidential.

  Political Asylum
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average time and cost to public funds of processing each application for political asylum. [31852]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  For applications for asylum received since implementation of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 and decided in the last six months the estimated average time to process each application is 7.8 months. The average cost of processing each application in the asylum division was £165.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have sought political asylum in the United Kingdom in each of the last three years; and how many applications have been granted. [31856]

  Mr. Baker
  The information requested is published in table 1.1 of Home Office statistical bulletin issue 15/95 "Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 1994", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Dart Harbour and Navigation Authority
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will investigate the reasons for the time taken to consider a request by the Dart harbour and navigation authority for an amendment to its byelaws. [31855]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State has considered the matter, which my hon. Friend raised in his letter to her of 6 June, and has today written to him.
  27

  Miss A. O. Bamgbose
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the report on Miss A. O. Bamgbose was sent by Becket house to the entry clearance officer in Lagos, Nigeria. [32210]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  On 27 March 1995.

  Council Property
  Mr. Sedgemore
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what was the purpose of the meeting held on 31 October 1994 between his Department's officials from the immigration service, Ms Arnfield, Ms Hutcheson and Mr. McCormack on the one hand and Mr. Bernard Crofton and Mr. K. Ostler of Hackney's tenancy audit team on the other: [32166]

  (2) what was the status of Mr. Bernard Crofton with Hackney council when he met immigration service officials on 31 October 1994; and what information on this status was available to the officials concerned. [32165]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  Following the suspension of Mr. Croften from his post of director of housing at Hackney council, Mr. Ostler sought a meeting to establish that the immigration service would continue to co-operate with an investigation by Mr. Ostler's tenancy audit team into the misuse of council property, which had already led to the apprehension of a number of immigration offenders and the return of several properties to the council. The officials confirmed that they would continue to co-operate with the tenancy audit team.

  Emergency Calls
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information his Department holds and at what level of detail, on the number of 999 calls received by central fire control headquarters in each authority in England and Wales. [31659]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The information requested is not held centrally.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of people from(a) Sri Lanka, (b) Pakistan, (c) India and (d) Kenya seeking asylum and being held in detention as of 19 June. [31372]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The available information is that as at 28 June 1995, 22 Sri Lankans, 22 Pakistanis, 91 Indians and six Kenyans who had sought asylum were held in detention. These include people awaiting removal following refusal of the application, as well as those whose applications were under consideration or subject to appeal.

  Prison Searches
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many body and cell searches took place in Holloway prison during the week of 19 June. [31276]
  28
  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 Brian Landers to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 3 July 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about Holloway prison.
  Holloway conducted 103 cell searches during the week of 19 June. They also conducted 449 strip searches, which would have occurred as part of cell searches; on reception and discharge; after visits; or as part of the mandatory drug testing programme. Prisoners would also have been subject to rub down searches routinely as they moved around the establishment.

  Boot Camps
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has received from the United States on the effectiveness of boot camps. [30987]

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Copies of the readily available published reports have been placed in the Library. I have also received advice from officials.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what have been the findings of his Department about boot camps. [30985]

  Mr. Forsyth
  My right hon. and learned Friend hopes to be able to make an announcement shortly.

  Mr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research he has conducted as to the proportion of inmates in youth detention centres in the early 1980s who had been(a) in care and (b) were illiterate; and what are the implications of these findings for boot camps. [30986]

  Mr. Forsyth
  A report, "Tougher Regimes in Detention Centres", was produced in 1984. This report incorporated findings as to the proportion of inmates found to have been in care or illiterate in six detention centres during the period May 1979 to September 1980. In 1991, the national prison survey found that the proportion of young offender population who had spent time in care was very similar to that shown by the 1984 report.

  A proposal to introduce a new regime for young offenders based on the more positive aspects of American boot camps is under consideration. Any new regime that is introduced will take into account current knowledge about the backgrounds and attainments of young offenders.

  Recidivism
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made as to the extent to which broadening the range and scope of training for offenders reduces recidivism. [30989]

  Mr. Maclean
  There have been a number of studies on reconviction rates associated with different sentences, including "Explaining Reconviction Rates: a critical analysis", HORS No 136, although these studies have not specifically assessed the impact of training upon reconviction rates.
  29
  We will be evaluating the effectiveness of seven new Home Office training projects announced in May. These projects will fund seven training and enterprise councils to help offenders in the community improve their training and their job prospects. The evaluation will include a reconviction study.

  Justice and Home Affairs Council
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the matters discussed and decisions taken at the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council in Luxembourg; and if he will indicate those matters where votes were taken. [31069]

  Mr. Howard
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby) on 22 June, at columns 405–6. The items agreed by the Justice and Home Affairs Council were adopted by unanimity, in accordance with the relevant provisions of title VI of the treaty on European Union.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Milburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 2 May,Official Report, column 121, if he will provide comparable details on civil service early retirement packages on grounds of inefficiency. [29297]

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 19 June 1995]: Inefficiency is a ground for dismissal. Accrued superannuation benefits, which vary for individual members of staff, would normally be preserved for payment at retiring age. Departments may, however, make an immediate lump sum payment of up to two years' salary in cases where compensation is thought to be appropriate; in the case of persons aged over 55, this may be forgone in favour of immediate payment of accrued superannuation benefits. We have no record in the Home Office, excluding agencies, of any compensation payments being made, or of the alternative immediate payment of accrued superannuation benefits, in recent years.

  Special Constables
  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been achieved to date in the drive to recruit 30,000 special constables by the end of 1996. [31763]

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Public response to our recruitment campaign has been very encouraging. Over 38,500 members of the public responded to our advertising and have expressed an interest in joining the special constabulary. Many have gone on to make preliminary applications and these have been passed to police forces. We hope that a significant number of these applications are successful.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Internet (Government Information)
  Sir Graham Bright
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received 30
  from (a) individuals and (b) organisations who access Government information via the Internet. [30157]

  Mr. Horam
  The majority of representations have been to CCTA, the Government centre for information systems, which manages the worldwide web server on which most Government information on the Internet is made available. There have been 3,000 responses to the comments page of the server, and more than 1,200 contributors to the collaborative open group. Formal submissions and letters have also been received about CCTA's study into the ethical issues relating to information superhighways.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received from organisations requesting more Government information on the Internet. [30159]

  Mr. Horam
  There have been a number of suggestions made to CCTA, the Government centre for information systems, which manages the world wide web server on which most Government information on the Internet is made available. CCTA is discussing with the relevant Departments what further information can be added to the CCTA Government information service, which is expanding every week.

  Science Week 1995
  Mr. Coe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations from broadcasters he has received following Science Week 1995. [30158]

  Mr. David Hunt
  I have already had meetings with John Birt and Alan Yentob, both of whom were delighted with the success of Science Week 1995. They have already promised the 1996 week their full support.

  Citizens Charters
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans the Government have to involve citizens in the formulation of the citizens charter. [30150]

  Mr. Horam
  Consultation with people who use services is a key charter principle. Services should talk to their users to find out what they want before making decisions about standards and priorities. Service providers are actively encouraged to involve users when preparing charters and setting standards and are given guidance and help by Departments and the charters unit.

  Many service providers involve users when revising national and local charters. For example, the Department of Health asked the public what standards they would want in the revised patients charter. The reduction in waiting time targets, and the inclusion of patients' rights when using NHS dentists and standards for children's services were a result of this consultation. The tenants charter published in June 1995 also benefited from user feedback.

  Medical Research
  Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what recent studies he has made of the funding of medical research. [30145]
  31
  Mr. David Hunt
  After careful studies I announced earlier this year an increase of 3.2 per cent. in the Medical Research Council budget to £277.8 million. The Department of Health will spend £413 million on research and research-related activity in 1995–96, an increase of 7.3 per cent.

  Climate Change
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what advice he has given to the Economic and Social Research Council concerning the provision of funds for research into the economics of climate change other than those based on cost-benefit analysis. [30376]

  Mr. Horam
  None.

  Public Administration Pay Bill
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) on 26 June 1995,Official Report, column 462, what information he has on the total cost of the public administration pay bill for the years (a) 1993–94 and (b) 1994–95 corresponding to the departmental staff totals given in the letter placed in the Library; and if he will give the figure for total staff in all departments on 1 April provided in the figures for 1 April 1994 in the documents placed in the Library. [32382]

  Mr. David Hunt
  Information on the total pay bill for(a) 1993–94 and (b) estimated outturn for 1994–95 can be found in table 3.7 of "Public Expenditure Statistical Supplement to the Financial Statement and Budget Report 1995–96", Cm 2821, copies of which are in the Library. Figures for total staff in all home civil service Departments, excluding Northern Ireland civil service Departments, can be found in "Civil Service Staff in Post Summary at 1 April 1994" and "Civil Service Staff in Post Summary at 1 April 1995", copies of which are in the Library. Staff numbers for Northern Ireland civil service Departments for 1993–94 and estimated outturn for 1994–95 can be found in table 12.7 of "Northern Ireland Expenditure Plans and Priorities", Cm 2816, a copy of which is also in the Library. Figures for Northern Ireland civil service Departments at 1 April each year are not available.

  House of Commons Disqualification Act
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) how many people are covered by the disqualifying reasons in each of the disqualifying categories of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975; [31518]

  (2) how many bodies have been (a) added to and (b) deleted from the list of disqualifying bodies under the House of Commons Disqualification Act schedule since 1979; and if he will list them;

  (3) what is the total number of people currently covered by the disqualification provisions of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975; and what was the equivalent figure in 1979; [31516]

  (4) what considerations as to the time which would have to be taken by other duties or offices underlay the schedule of disqualifying offices under the terms of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975; [31528]
  32
  (5) how many people are currently covered by each of the disqualifying categories of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. [31517]

  Mr. Horam
  The number of persons disqualified for membership of the House of Commons under the provisions of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is as follows:

  Category

  Numbers disqualified (rounded)

  Employed in the Civil Service of the Crown

  Home Civil Service

  520,100 (at December 1994)

  Northern Ireland Civil Service

  21,800 (at March 1995)

  Northern Ireland Court Service

  680 (at December 1994)

  Diplomatic Service

  3,930 (at April 1995)

  Forestry Commission

  3,870 (at December 1994)

  Royal Hospital Chelsea

  200 (established)

  Armed Forces of the Crown or the Ulster Defence Regiment

  Armed Forces

  237,000 (at June 1995)

  Royal Irish Regiment1

  5,000 (established)

  Police Forces

  England and Wales

  126,600 (at December 1994)

  Scotland

  14,200 (at April 1994)

  Northern Ireland

  12,200 (at December 1994)

  Members of Non-Commonwealth Legislatures

  not estimated

  Schedule 1 of the Act

  Part I: Holders of Judicial Office

  896 (at June 1993)

  Part II: All members of certain bodies

  3,503 (at June 1993)

  Part III: Other disqualifying offices

  81,439 (at June 1993)

  Part IV: Those covered by limited disqualification

  197 (at June 1993)

  1 The Ulster Defence Regiment was replaced by the Royal Irish Regiment with effect from the 1 July 1992.

  The total number of persons currently disqualified under the terms of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, excluding members of non-Commonwealth legislatures, is 1,031,615. Figures are updated when orders are made to amend schedule 1 to the Act. No order was made to amend schedule 1 in 1979; but when an order-was made in 1982 the equivalent number of persons disqualified was 1,221,520.

  Information is not held centrally on the number of offices that have been added to, or deleted from, schedule 1 since 1979. Many offices have been added or removed from schedule 1 by means of primary legislation, as well as by Orders in Council. The latest reprint of the House

  33
  of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 (No. 14) lists in schedule 1 those offices the holders of which are disqualified for membership.

  There are four basic criteria for disqualification under parts II and III of schedule 1 to the 1975 Act. Ministers have explained these to hon. Members over the years and hon. Members have accepted them in the course of affirmative resolution debates. These are:

  (i) offices of profit in the gift of the Crown or Ministers— subject to a de minimis limit, which is currently £8,000, to prevent trivial disqualification;

  (ii) certain positions of control in companies in receipt of Government grants and funds, to which Ministers usually, though not necessarily, make appointments;

  (iii) offices imposing duties which with regard to time or place would prevent their holders from fulfilling Parliamentary duties satisfactorily; and

  (iv) offices whose holders are required to be, or to be seen to be, politically impartial

  No central record is kept for offices disqualified under parts II and III of schedule 1 as to the disqualifying categories into which they fall.

EDUCATION

  Disclosure of Information
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans she has to review the disclosure of information requirements on non-departmental public bodies with particular reference to the Further Education Funding Council. [30152]

  Mr. Boswell
  My right hon. Friend endorses the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which propose the adoption by executive non-departmental public bodies of the 1994 "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information" together with the committee's own guidelines. The Further Education Funding Council has published for consultation a draft code on access to information which is in accordance with the committee's proposals.

  Young People Leaving Care
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) what percentage of young people who left care in each of the past five years for which figures are available is currently in full-time education; [31621]

  (2) what percentage of young people who left care in each of the last 10 years (a) left school with no formal qualifications, (b) gained A-levels or equivalents or (c) gained vocational qualifications. [31614]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will list by local education authority for the 34
  latest available year the percentage of four-year-olds participating in pre-school education. [31889]

  Mr. Forth
  The Department does not publish information about four-year-olds alone by local education authority. Information about three and four-year-olds by local education authority in January 1994 was published in statistical bulletin 2/95, a copy of which was placed in the Library.

  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will make a statutory provision for all pre-school children to have access to nursery education. [3220]

  Mr. Forth
  The Prime Minister has made a commitment to provide, over time, a pre-school place for every four-year-old whose parents wish to take it up, with the first places becoming available during the lifetime of this Parliament. My right hon. Friend will make an announcement on how she plans to implement that commitment when the details have been finalised.

  Pupil-teacher Ratios
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what information she has concerning the pupil-teacher ratio for(a) primary and (b) secondary schools in (i) Cheshire, (ii) on average nationally and (iii) on average for shire counties. [31689]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Provisional pupil-teacher ratios in maintained primary and secondary schools in England in January 1995 were 22:9 and 16:5 respectively. Figures for Cheshire local education authority and the shire counties will be available in the autumn. Information requested for January 1994, the latest date for which the information requested is available, is shown in the table.

  Pupil-teacher ratios in maintained schools in England

  January 1994

  Primary schools

  Secondary schools

  Cheshire LEA

  23:9

  16:8

  Shire counties

  22:9

  16:6

  England

  22:7

  16:4

  School Meals
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many and what percentage of primary school children received free school meals in(i) York, (ii) North Yorkshire, (iii) Yorkshire and Humberside and (iv) England in each year since 1979. [31588]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The available information is shown in the table. Comparable information prior to 1989 is not available although results of earlier school meals censuses were published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy in, for example, "School Meal Statistics at October 1988" copies of which are available in the Library. Information for York is not available.
  35

  Numbers and percentages1 of day pupils taking free school meals in maintained primary school in North Yorkshire local education authority, Yorkshire and Humberside and England

  Position in January each year

  North Yorkshire LEA

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  England

  Year

  Pupils

  Per cent.

  Pupils

  Per cent.

  Pupils

  Per cent.

  1989

  3,403

  6

  62,179

  15

  511,360

  13

  1990

  3,566

  6

  61,888

  14

  515,277

  13

  1991

  4,033

  7

  65,871

  15

  559,042

  14

  1992

  4,938

  9

  77,015

  18

  676,613

  17

  1993

  5,513

  9

  85,246

  19

  768,784

  18

  1994

  6,073

  10

  89,032

  19

  810,648

  19

  1 The number of day pupils who took a free meal on the census day expressed as a percentage of the number of day pupils on roll.

  Assisted Places
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will list by reference to each local authority area the number of assisted places at schools within each area. [31525]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The number taken up through the Government's assisted places scheme in the academic year 1994–95 at participating schools situated within each local education authority area in England is given in the following table. Many of these schools serve wide catchment areas and may offer places to pupils from outside the local authority area in which they are situated.

  Assisted places scheme—academic year 1994–95

  Local education authority area

  Number of assisted places taken up

  Corporation of London

  264

  Camden

  147

  Greenwich

  204

  Hackney

  no APS schools

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  505

  Islington

  no APS schools

  Kensington and Chelsea

  no APS schools

  Lambeth

  164

  Lewisham

  383

  Southwark

  654

  Tower Hamlets

  no APS schools

  Wandsworth

  377

  City of Westminster

  170

  Barking

  no APS schools

  Barnet

  75

  Bexley

  no APS schools

  Brent

  no APS schools

  Bromley

  223

  Croydon

  611

  Ealing

  191

  Enfield

  no APS schools

  Haringey

  41

  Harrow

  203

  Havering

  no APS schools

  Hillingdon

  52

  Hounslow

  no APS schools

  Kingston upon Thames

  198

  Merton

  132

  Newham

  no APS schools

  Redbridge

  222

  Richmond upon Thames

  322

  Sutton

  70

  Waltham Forest

  139

  Birmingham

  422

  Coventry

  281

  Dudley

  no APS schools

  Sandwell

  no APS schools

  Solihull

  466

  Walsall

  no APS schools

  Wolverhampton

  267

  36

  Assisted places scheme—academic year 1994–95

  Local education authority area

  Number of assisted places taken up

  Knowsley

  no APS schools

  Liverpool

  759

  St. Helens

  no APS schools

  Sefton

  691

  Wirral

  362

  Bolton

  493

  Bury

  462

  Manchester

  964

  Oldham

  401

  Rochdale

  no APS schools

  Salford

  no APS schools

  Stockport

  379

  Tameside

  no APS schools

  Trafford

  95

  Wigan

  no APS schools

  Barnsley

  no APS schools

  Doncaster

  no APS schools

  Rotherham

  no APS schools

  Sheffield

  96

  Bradford

  296

  Calderdale

  18

  Kirklees

  270

  Leeds

  380

  Wakefield

  318

  Gateshead

  no APS schools

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  794

  North Tyneside

  26

  South Tyneside

  no APS schools

  Sunderland

  no APS schools

  Avon

  1,584

  Bedfordshire

  505

  Berkshire

  290

  Buckinghamshire

  6

  Cambridgeshire

  648

  Cheshire

  356

  Cleveland

  68

  Cornwall

  211

  Cumbria

  190

  Derbyshire

  285

  Devon

  793

  Dorset

  168

  Durham

  154

  East Sussex

  341

  Essex

  340

  Gloucestershire

  95

  Hampshire

  1,218

  Hereford and Worcester

  895

  Hertfordshire

  893

  Humberside

  307

  Isle of Wight

  17

  Isles of Scilly

  no APS schools

  Kent

  427

  Lancashire

  987

  Leicestershire

  372

  37

  Assisted places scheme—academic year 1994–95

  Local education authority area

  Number of assisted places taken up

  Lincolnshire

  215

  Norfolk

  300

  North Yorkshire

  255

  Northamptonshire

  243

  Northumberland

  no APS schools

  Nottinghamshire

  400

  Oxfordshire

  491

  Shropshire

  123

  Somerset

  586

  Staffordshire

  577

  Suffolk

  488

  Surrey

  820

  Warwickshire

  304

  West Sussex

  118

  Wiltshire

  89

  Grant-maintained Schools, Hampshire
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations her Department has received from local education authority schools in Hampshire regarding the impact of the expansion of, and admissions policy of, grant-maintained schools in Hampshire. [31511]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  During 1995 the Department has received correspondence from seven local education authority schools objecting to published statutory proposals to expand grant-maintained schools, and from one LEA school about the admission policy of a grant-maintained school.
  38

  School Buildings (Safety)
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what requirements are placed on school governors to ensure regular(a) structural surveys on school buildings and (b) fire safety inspections; and if she will make a statement on whether these responsibilities are being fulfilled. [31527]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981 lay down specific requirements governing load-bearing structure, weather protection, health and safety and fire protection.

  The Education Act 1944 places a statutory duty on local education authorities and the governors of grant-maintained schools to satisfy themselves that their school buildings comply with the standards set out in the regulations.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Cycling
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the right hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed as representing the House of Commons Commission (1) what measures the Commission proposes to take to encourage its employees to cycle to work. [30862]

  (2) what proposals the Commission has to introduce interest-free loans for the purchase of bicycles to encourage staff of the House to commute to work by bicycle.

  Mr. Beith
  I shall arrange for the suggestion of loans to be considered, and shall write to the hon. Member. [30861]
  39

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Taxi Licences
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what account is taken in the regulations on taxi licences of the transport needs of the disabled. [31420]

  Mr. Moss
  Belfast public hire taxis first licensed on or after 20 December 1994 must be wheelchair accessible. All other Belfast public hire taxis will have to be wheelchair accessible by 20 December 2000. Arrangements elsewhere in Northern Ireland are currently under consideration.

  Royal Ulster Constabulary
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list schools visited by RUC

  Promotion—Constable to Sergeant 1994

  CB1

  CB2

  CB3

  Sub totals

  Total

  CB2

  F

  Stages

  M

  F

  percentage

  percentage

  Applications

  290

  18

  14

  293

  29

  322

  5.6

  9.0

  Selected

  54

  2

  2

  54

  4

  58

  3.4

  9.6

  All promoted.

  Promotion—Sergeant to Inspector 1994

  CB1

  CB2

  CB3

  Sub totals

  Total

  CB2

  F

  Stages

  M

  F

  percentage

  percentage

  Applications

  153

  11

  7

  161

  10

  171

  6.4

  5.9

  Selected

  39

  4

  1

  42

  2

  44

  9.1

  4.6

  Twenty two waiting for promotion which includes 3 CB2, 1 female.

  Promotion—Inspector to Constable/Sergeant 1994

  CB1

  CB2

  CB3

  Sub totals

  Total

  CB2

  F

  Stages

  M

  F

  percentage

  percentage

  Applications

  219

  21

  6

  234

  12

  246

  8.5

  13.3

  Selected

  38

  7

  0

  39

  6

  45

  15.6

  13.3

  Eleven waiting for promotion which includes 1 CB2, 1 female.

  Promotion—Constable/Inspector to Superintendent 1994

  CB1

  CB2

  CB3

  Sub totals

  Total

  CB2

  F

  Stages

  M

  F

  percentage

  percentage

  Applications

  83

  10

  2

  94

  1

  95

  10.5

  1.1

  Selected

  21

  3

  1

  24

  1

  25

  12.0

  4.0

  Fifteen waiting for promotion which includes 1 CB2.

  Notes:

  CB1—corresponds to Community Background Protestant.

  CB2—corresponds to Community Background Roman Catholic.

  CB3—corresponds to Community Background Other unknown.

  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many officers in the RUC involved in traumatic incidents are currently receiving counselling and rehabilitation. [31043]

  Sir John Wheeler
  In 1987 the RUC established a post-incident support system providing on-going support to officers who have been involved in a critical incident.

  The precise information requested is not available, but since the introduction of this service, a total of 2,611
  40
  recruiting officers to encourage female and Catholic applicants since January 1994. [31042]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The Royal Ulster Constabulary is committed to equality of opportunity, and aims to attract applicants from every section of the community.

  All schools are contacted by recruiting officers offering literature, careers talks and other information. The type and extent of further contact is up to each school.

  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people and what promotions were made within the RUC in 1994; and how many of these were awarded to(a) women and (b) Catholics. [31041]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information requested is as follows:

  initial support debriefings have taken place. Since 1 September 1994 there have been 83 referrals.

  NHS (Competitive Tendering Costs)
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the total competitive tendering costs for NHS support services for each year since 1990 for each health and social services board, defined so as to include market testing process costs, HPSS staff and consultants, monitoring and contract management costs, redundancy
  41
  and early retirement costs, avoidable overhead costs and national insurance costs. [31080]

  Mr. Moss
  The total expenditure on market testing— competitive tendering—for HPSS support services is given in the table, on a financial year basis since 1990–91. The figures include the expenditure on the market testing process—HPSS staff and consultants; monitoring and contract management; and redundancy and early retirement.

  There is no additional expenditure incurred with regard to "avoidable overhead costs". These relate to in-house overheads such as personnel, training, finance, supplies and payroll services which are not included in the direct costs of the in-house service. The estimated costs of these overheads are set against in-house tenders to ensure fair comparison between tenders and calculate the bottom line net savings. They are included only to the extent that they would be saved if a service is contracted out. Outside contractors include such overhead costs in their tenders.

  Similarly, there was no additional expenditure incurred against notional insurance costs. The estimates of the costs of insurance are set against in-house tenders to ensure fair comparisons between tenders and the proper calculation of net savings. Outside contractors must have insurance cover and the costs of this are included in their tenders.

  All national insurance costs are included in the bids submitted by tenderers, either in-house or commercial, and are therefore not appropriate to these costs.

  Total market testing expenditure: HPSS support services—by board area

  Board area

  1990–91 £

  1991–92 £

  1992–93 £

  1993–94 £

  1994–95 £

  Northern

  41,270

  65,000

  134,000

  140,000

  148,000

  Southern1

  330,245

  554,677

  108,878

  117,182

  128,721

  Eastern2

  632,464

  851,531

  496,699

  464,097

  489,232

  Western

  160,000

  678,400

  182,000

  200,000

  220,000

  1 The figures for Southern Board area include those for the HSS Trusts which are based within the area.

  2 The figures for Eastern Board area include those for the HSS Trusts which are based within the area and the Central Services Agency.

  Anti-racketeering Investigations
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people were arrested in Northern Ireland in 1994 by the anti-racketeering squad; and how many have been successfully prosecuted. [31045]

  Sir John Wheeler
  Anti-racketeering investigations in 1994 were as follows:

  Number

  Persons Arrested

  41

  Persons Charged

  38

  Persons Convicted (Including summary proceedings)

  28

  Note:

  Figures do not necessarily relate to the same individuals.
  42

  Sheep Scab
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the recorded levels of sheep scab in each of the last five years. [31238]

  Mr. Ancram
  The information is as follows:

  Year

  Cases

  1990

  36

  1991

  46

  1992

  59

  1993

  48

  1994

  71

  Private Training Agencies
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much public money has been spent, in the further education sector, on private training agencies in each of the past five years. [31424]

  Mr. Ancram
  This is a matter for the Training and Employment Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Julian Crozier. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from J. S. Crozier to Mr. Tony Worthington, dated 30 June 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me, as Chief Executive of the Training and Employment Agency, to reply to your question.
  No public money is given to private sector training agencies to provide training in the further education sector as such.
  However money was paid in the last 5 years to private sector training organisations to provide training under the Youth Training Programme and under the Agency's Job Training Programme which offers training to unemployed adults. Such organisations receive from the Agency a weekly block grant paid in respect of each participant on training. They commonly buy training facilities from Further Education colleges out of the block grant. Details of these payments are not provided to the Agency and I am unable therefore to provide the information in the form requested.
  However the attached table details the total monies paid over the past 5 years to private sector organisations in the delivery of the Agency's training programmes.
  I hope you find this information helpful.

  Youth programmes expenditure

  Youth training Paid1 to private sector £

  Adult training Fees2 paid to training organizations £

  1990–91

  8,881,402

  3,379,403

  1991–92

  10,175,432

  4,500,344

  1992–93

  11,264,446

  6,943,978

  1993–94

  11,742,859

  9,447.598

  1994–95

  12,044,957

  11,107,560

  1 The cost of trainee allowances are included in the expenditure and would be approximately 35 per cent. of the total costs.

  2 The amounts represent the total expenditure on adult provision.

  The Agency does not keep separate details for Private Sector organisations.

  Neil Latimer
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress there has been in the
  43
  review of the conviction of Neil Latimer; and if he will make a statement. [31953]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The judgment about guilt or innocence in a criminal case is entirely a matter for the courts and Ministers cannot substitute their own assessments of the evidence in a case for that of the courts.

  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has a statutory power to refer a case to the Court of Appeal again. There is, however, a criterion which, consistent with his predecessors, the Secretary of State would normally expect to be fulfilled before he would use this power. It is that there is some new evidence, or other consideration of substance, which has not previously been before the court and which appeared to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction.

  Mr. Latimer's case has already been before the courts on three occasions. The first two were the trial of Mr. Latimer and three other UDR soldiers, Winston Allen, Noel Bell and James Hegan, and the subsequent appeal to which they had an automatic right. The third time was in 1991 when, after very careful consideration of representations made to him, and the production of new evidence, the then Secretary of State referred the cases of the soldiers back to the Court of Appeal.

  In a very fully argued written judgment, delivered on 29 July 1992, the Court of Appeal unanimously quashed the convictions of Winston Allen, Noel Bell and James Hegan on the grounds that they were unsafe and unsatisfactory. The court was, however, unanimously satisfied on separate evidence, including his admitted confession statements, as to Neil Latimer's guilt, and that his convictions were safe and satisfactory.

  The Secretary of State has continued to receive further representations on Mr. Latimer's behalf, all of which he gave the most careful and thorough examination. He concluded, however, that none of them was sufficient to justify him in the exercise of his statutory power to refer the case to the Court of Appeal again.

PRIME MINISTER

  Housing (Young People)
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Prime Minister how many letters he has received recently expressing concern about the housing conditions of young people. [32099]

  The Prime Minister
  I have received a number of letters on this subject.

  Brent Spar
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library copies of the briefings he has received on the options for the final disposal of the Brent Spar platform. [31117]

  The Prime Minister
  It has been the practice of successive Governments not to release ministerial briefing material.
  44

  Information Technology
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Prime Minister what consideration has been given to the implications of merging the Department of Social Security and Inland Revenue data; and if he will make a statement. [31729]

  The Prime Minister
  There are no plans to merge Department of Social Security and Inland Revenue data, but as part of the Government deregulation initiatives both the DSS and the Inland Revenue are required to review their respective information technology strategies.

  Ministerial Posts and Pay
  Dr. Wright
  To ask the Prime Minister what have been the changes since 1979 of(a) the number of Ministers, (b) the cost of ministerial salaries and (c) the number of parliamentary private secretaries and other unpaid posts. [31514]

  The Prime Minister
  On the basis of the definition of Ministers within schedule 1 of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, and including the Lord Chancellor,(a) the number of Ministers on 9 May 1979 was 107 and is currently 108; (b) in cash terms, on 9 May 1979 the cost of ministerial salaries was £1,356, 188 and the current cost is £3,598,084; (c) comparable information for this date is not available.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his statement on 28 June 1995,Official Report, columns 893–909, on the outcome of the Cannes summit if all the reductions in Britain's contribution to the European development fund will be retained in the overseas development budget and used for bilateral aid to African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. [32158]

  The Prime Minister
  Our contribution to the eighth European development fund will be spent over some five years from the year 2000. Final years for the aid budget in these years will be determined during the annual public expenditure survey in the light of all relevant factors.

  LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL
  Mr. Hinchcliffe
  To ask the Lord President of the Council, on how many occasions the provisions of section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983 have been used. [32100]

  Mr. Newton
  None.

WALES

  Tenby Sewage Works
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) when he decided not to call in the Dwr Cymru application for a sewage treatment plant at Tenby in Pembrokeshire; what were the reasons for his decision; and when he informed those who had requested the calling in of his decision; [31375]

  (2) what representations he received requesting the calling in of the Dwr Cymru application for a sewage treatment plant at Tenby in Pembrokeshire. [31377]
  45
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Some 150 letters requesting call-in were received. Various other representations relating to the Tenby scheme, including a petition, were also submitted.

  It has been the approach of the Secretary of State for Wales not to intervene in applications for discharge consent unless matters of more than local significance are raised or novel or unusual matters which have not been publicly debated in another context are involved: the requests were considered in the context of this policy and the information available, but the view was taken that such matters were not raised in this case. It was therefore decided not to intervene and those who had requested call-in were advised of this in a letter dated 31 May.

  Countryside Council for Wales
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list those organisations which received(a) copies of his action plan for the Countryside Council for Wales released on 4 May, (b) copies of the accompanying press release and (c) both plan and press release. [31677]

  Mr. David Hunt
  Both the Council of Welsh Districts and the Assembly of Welsh Counties were sent copies of the action plan and consulted formally on the implications therein for their members. In addition, the Welsh Office sent copies of the plan, on request, to a range of individuals and organisations such as the Farmers Union of Wales, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and the Country Landowners Association. Copies of the press notice were sent routinely to the media.

  Cadw
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the grants made by Cadw for(a) the maintenance, (b) the upkeep and (c) the restoration of toll houses in Wales in each year since 1990. [31113]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Since 1990, Cadw's only grant in this category was for the restoration of the toll house at Telford's Conwy suspension bridge. A grant of £34,000 was offered in 1993.

  Young People Leaving Care
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of States for Wales 1) what percentage of young people who left care in Wales in each of the past five years for which figures are available went into(a) furnished private accommodation, (b) furnished local authority accommodation, (c) unfurnished accommodation and (d) temporary accommodation; and what percentage is currently homeless; [31619]

  (2) what percentage of young people who left care in Wales in each of the last 10 years (a) left school with no formal qualifications, (b) gained A-levels or equivalents or (c) gained vocational qualifications; [31611]

  (3) what percentage of young people leaving care in Wales receive a leaving care grant; and what is the average value of the grant, for each of the past five years for which figures are available; [31615]

  (4) what percentage of young people who left care in Wales in each of the past five years for which figures are
  46
  available are (a) claiming benefits, (b) on YTS schemes, (c) employed, (d) unemployed and (e) in full-time education [31617]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  This information is not available centrally.

  NHS Waiting Lists
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 2 May,Official Report, column 139–40, if he will now give comparable figures for national health service waiting lists at 30 March. [32381]

  Mr. David Hunt
  The information relating to waiting lists at 31 March 1995 is shown in the following table:

  Health Authority area1

  Number waiting more than 6 months for out-patient appointment

  Number waiting more than 18 months for in-patient or day case treatment

  Clwyd

  701

  74

  Dyfed

  1,294

  109

  Gwent

  3,021

  2

  Gwynedd

  585

  22

  Mid Glamorgan

  3,536

  203

  Powys

  206

  —

  South Glamorgan

  3,799

  156

  West Glamorgan

  3,382

  100

  Wales

  16,524

  666

  1 Including patients of GP Fundholders.

  source:

  Welsh Office Core Performance Indicators.

  Price Inflation (NHS)
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has of input price inflation in the health service in Wales for each of the last five years. [32379]

  Mr. David Hunt
  Health authorities receive a cash increase each year and are set targets for the generation of efficiency saving through their contracts with service providers. Taken together, these are sufficient to offset pay and price inflation and enable growth in patient services.

  Overall cash increases and efficiency targets for the last five years are as follows:

  Overall per cent. cash increase

  Efficiency target per cent.

  1991–92

  9.8

  1.1

  1992–93

  7.0

  1.1

  1993–94

  2.2

  2.0

  1994–95

  2.8

  2.7

  1995–96

  5.6

  3.0

TRANSPORT

  Rail Privatisation (Consultants)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the total paid to consultants, outside individuals or organisations for services relating to rail privatisation. [30131]
  47
  Mr. Watts
  Total payments made for consultancy services by the Department, the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, and the Office of the Rail Regulator between 1991–92 and the end of May 1995 were £51.2 million.

  Integrated Public Transport System
  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he intends to take to ensure that the United Kingdom develops an integrated public transport system; and if he will make a statement. [30132]

  Mr. Norris
  The quality and quantity of public transport services in the United Kingdom has improved significantly under this Government, as a direct result of greater private sector involvement, increased competition and deregulation. We have a range of proposals to ensure that this improvement continues.

  Motor Bicycle Riders (Safety)
  Mr. Booth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representation he has received in respect of the effectiveness of current safety provision for motor bicycle riders. [30133]

  Mr. Norris
  My Department regularly receives correspondence and representations on various motorcycling issues, including road safety.

  ScotRail
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the proposed privatisation of ScotRail. [30135]

  Mr. Watts
  The franchising director has invited and received pre-qualifying applications from potential bidders for the ScotRail franchise and he will issue invitations to tender in due course.

  Thornaby Bypass
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what advice he has given Stockton borough council about the future of the Thornaby bypass. [30136]

  Mr. Norris
  My right hon. Friend's decision to withdraw support reflected the lack of progress with the scheme. It is open to the local authority concerned to submit a fresh bid for funding when the scheme is ready to proceed.

  Road Accidents
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the number of road deaths and serious injuries in 1994. [30137]

  Mr. Norris
  Nineteen ninety-four data were published in May. Deaths and serious injuries were respectively 35 per cent. and 38 per cent. below the baseline average for 1981–85, thus meeting the Government's target reduction of one-third by the year 2000 some six years early.

  Ferry Safety
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he is promoting to improve ferry safety; and if he will make a statement. [30138]
  48
  Dr. Mawhinney
  In my statement to the House on 5 April, I announced the results of UK research which suggested that the fitting of transverse bulkheads could improve ferry survivability in the event of water invading the vehicle deck. We made this research available to the International Maritime Organisation's panel of experts which was set up following the "Estonia" disaster last September.

  As I made clear in my statement, the Government support the thrust of the panel's recommendations and we will press for agreement to their implementation at the International Maritime Organisation's diplomatic conference in November. If satisfactory agreement cannot be reached we shall seek to introduce the necessary standards by other means as quickly as possible.

  Motorway Building (Costs)
  Mr. William O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the cost per mile of building motorways(a) in a rural environment and (b) in an urban environment in the last five years. [30139]

  Mr. Watts
  The average costs of three-lane dual carriageway motorways built in the last five years in a rural environment were £9 million per mile and in an urban environment were £14 million per mile, excluding VAT at 1994 prices.

  Rail Privatisation
  Sir Fergus Montgomery
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guarantees will be available to rail users on the privatised railway which were not available on the nationalised railway. [30140]

  Mr. Watts
  Rail users on the privatised railway will be able to enjoy, for the first time, contractually guaranteed levels of service, guaranteed ticket retailing facilities and the regulation of key daily fares and season ticket prices. The combination of these guarantees with the flexibility for franchisees to innovate will ensure a better service for passengers.

  Heavy Goods Vehicle Licences
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will consider changing the law so that parish councils can request notification of all heavy good vehicle operators' licence applications made in their locality. [30141]

  Mr. Norris
  There is no need to change the law.

  Parish councils are already able to find out about applications for operator licences by subscribing to a licensing authority's fortnightly publication "Applications and Decisions". This is published by each traffic area office and gives details of all applications for operator licences made in that area.

  Road Casualties
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what new proposals he has to reduce road casualties. [30142]
  49
  Mr. Norris
  The road safety report for 1995 describes measures which have been taken or are being planned to reduce road accident casualties. Copies are in the Library.

  Pollution
  Mr. Khabra
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment is made of the reduction in airborne pollution when constructing a rail link. [30143]

  Mr. Norris
  Under standing orders relating to private and hybrid Bills and Transport and Works Act procedures, promoters of new rail links must prepare an environmental statement. This must include an assessment of any likely significant direct or indirect effects on air quality arising from the scheme.

  Rail Freight
  Mr. Roy Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to improve the efficiency of rail freight; and what discussions he has had on the subject with the operators. [30144]

  Mr. Watts
  The key to improving the efficiency of rail freight is liberalisation and privatisation. We have already opened up the rail network to competition. The process of privatising British Rail's freight businesses has begun. My right hon. Friend has regular discussions with the British Railways Board and others about the performance of the freight businesses and progress towards privatisation.

  A1
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport by what date he now expects the Al to be dualled from Morpeth to the Scottish border. [30134]

  Mr. Watts
  There are three schemes in the road programme which, when complete, would provide continuous dual carriageway from Newcastle to the north of Alnwick. Future progress on schemes between Alnwick and the Scottish border will depend upon the overall availability of resources and the national priorities.

  Rail Freight Companies
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what sum he has allocated for grants to rail freight companies to encourage the transfer of freight from road to rail, over the period from 1994 to 1997; and what has been the expenditure to date. [31927]

  Mr. Watts
  The grant provision for the period 1994–95 to 1996–97 is £43.1 million. Expenditure to date is £2.8 million.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the grants made to rail freight companies, providing services to or from Hampshire, to encourage the transfer of freight from road to rail. [31928]

  Mr. Watts
  No such grants have been made to rail freight companies. However two freight facilities grants have been awarded which affect Hampshire.

  A £3.7 million grant to ARC Southern for rail facilities at Whatley Quarry in Somerset has allowed some 10,000
  50
  lorry journeys a year to be removed from roads in the Fareham region of Hampshire since 1988.

  In 1993 a grant of £403,000 was awarded to the Esso Petroleum Company towards the cost of refurbishing a bulk bitumen storage facility in Plymouth. This has enabled the traffic to continue to be carried by rail from Fawley near Southampton, saving an estimated 2,000 annual lorry trips between Southampton and Plymouth.

  Disability Discrimination Bill
  Mr. Sykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what assessment he has made of the economic impact of the Disability Discrimination Bill on the provision of rural transport services; [31681]

  (2) if he will list the representations which have been made to him by the transport industry on the Disability Discrimination Bill; [31682]

  (3) what assessment he has made of the impact of the Disability Discrimination Bill on the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom transport industry. [31672]

  Mr. Norris
  It is not our intention to impose any requirements that will jeopardise either manufacturing or operating industries in the UK.

  We recognise that different solutions will be needed, for example, for different types of vehicle, or for the same type of vehicle operating under different conditions as may be the case for some rural services. Similarly, we envisage that different time scales will have to be applied. The flexibility to achieve this in regulations has been built in to the new clause which were moved in Committee in the House of Lords on 27 June.

  Officials have already begun detailed discussions at industry level through the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Confederation of Passenger Transport. In addition, they are visiting a number of individual manufacturers to discuss in detail how we can make accessibility requirements work effectively. Those discussions will be continuing as we work up the detail of the regulations.

  Full compliance cost assessments will be produced before any regulations are made.

  Trans-European Network
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was his policy at the recent meeting of the European Council of Ministers of Transport in respect of the European Parliament's proposal, amendment 59, to the Commission's proposal COM (94) 0106 to delete the proposed Birmingham northern relief road from the proposed trans-European transport network. [31746]

  Mr. Watts
  The UK opposed the deletion of the proposed Birmingham northern relief road from the proposed trans-European road network. This road forms part of the Ireland-UK-Benelux priority project.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was his policy at the recent meeting of the European Council of Ministers of Transport, in respect of the European Parliament's proposal, amendment 166, to the
  51
  Commission's proposal COM (94) 0106 to ensure that at least 40 per cent. of EU expenditure on priority projects within the proposed trans-European transport network is spent on railways and at most 25 per cent. is spent on roads. [31747]

  Mr. Watts
  The UK opposed the amendment imposing a target of 40 per cent. for Community spending on rail projects and limiting the level of spending on roads to 25 per cent. of the available budget. We need flexibility to ensure Community resources are targeted at the projects which best meet the agreed criteria for TENs funding. Since eight of the 14 priority projects are rail projects, and a further two cover both road and rail, the major part of the TENs budget is, however, likely to be devoted to rail projects.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was his policy at the recent meeting of the European Council of Ministers of Transport, in respect of the European Parliament's proposal, amendment 12, to the Commission's proposal COM (94) 0106 for a strategic environmental impact assessment of the proposed trans-European transport network. [31745]

  Mr. Watts
  The UK and other member states rejected this specific amendment proposed by the Parliament but agreed to a new indent in article 5 on environmental implications of the network and a new recital. These changes will help to ensure that the environment is taken fully into account in the development and implementation of the network.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was his policy at the recent meeting of the European Council of Ministers of Transport, in respect of the European Parliament's proposal, amendment 8, to the Commission's proposal COM (94) 0106 for an assessment of the effects of the proposed trans-European transport network on the regions and on jobs. [31744]

  Mr. Watts
  The UK and other member states agreed with the Commission that this proposed European Parliament amendment was unnecessary. The aim of the network is to contribute to strengthening economic and social cohesion. Each project will have to demonstrate it is potentially economically viable taking account of socio-economic costs and benefits.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the recent discussions of the European Council of Ministers of Transport in respect of the proposed trans-European transport network. [31748]

  Mr. Watts
  As reported in an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) on 27 June,Official Report, column 545–46, at its meeting held on 19–20 June the Council of Ministers discussed the Commission proposal for Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network in the light of the European Parliament's opinion received at the end of May. In addition to the amendments suggested by the European Parliament, a number of proposed amendments put forward by member states were discussed. I was pleased that the Council was able to
  52
  reach a common position on the proposal. This will now return to the European Parliament for further consideration.

  Corporate Logo
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for each of the executive agencies within his Department the cost of the design and production of the corporate logo. [31837]

  Mr. Norris
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  EC Directives
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the draft EC directives currently being discussed by either the European Parliament or Commission relating to transport. [31826]

  Mr. Norris
  The following Commission legislative proposals are currently being discussed by either the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers:

  proposal for a decision on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network;

  proposal for a directive on the reporting of movements of vessels carrying dangerous or polluting goods;

  proposal for a directive on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods and passengers by sea;

  proposal for a regulation on the implementation of the International Safety Management code for roll-on/roll-off ferries;

  proposal for a regulation on the free provision of services in transport by inland waterway;

  proposal for a directive on the liberalisation of airport ground-handling facilities;

  proposal for a directive on the licensing of railway undertakings;

  proposal for a directive on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the charging of infrastructure fees;

  proposal for a directive on the interoperability of the high-speed rail network;

  proposal for a directive on the transport of dangerous goods by rail;

  proposal for a directive on dangerous-goods safety advisers;

  proposal for a directive on the weight and dimensions of certain motor vehicles;

  proposals for directives on the standards of and fitment of seatbelts in buses and coaches;

  proposal for a multichapter directive on whole type approval for motorcycles;

  proposals for directives on frontal and side-impact standards for cars;

  proposal for a directive on emissions from light commercial vehicles and small diesel engines;

  proposal for a directive on the harmonisation of rules for the use of self-propelled machinery on public highways;

  proposal for a directive on recording equipment in road transport;

  proposal for a directive on the hiring of road-haulage vehicles without drivers; and

  proposal for a directive on passenger-carrying cableways.

  53

  Long-distance Coaches
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many complaints he has received about inadequate toilet facilities on long-distance coaches; and if he will make a statement. [31607]

  Mr. Norris
  There is no record of complaints on this matter. The provision of toilet facilities on coaches is a matter for the operators.

  Mr. Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what regulations there are regarding toilet facilities and the replenishing of same on long-distance coaches travelling between the United Kingdom and other European countries; and if he will make a statement. [31598]

  Mr. Norris
  There are no regulations regarding this matter and I am not aware of plans to introduce any such regulations in the European Union.

  Mr. Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision for long-distance coaches to have their toilet facilities replenished; and if he will make a statement. [31599]

  Mr. Norris
  I have made no such assessment.

  Motorway Signs
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the locations of signs on motorways in England indicating the proximity of a hospital. [31348]

  Mr. Watts
  There is none.

  Departmental Grants
  Miss Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many voluntary sector organisations his Department has(a) paid grants to or (b) entered into contracts with in (i) 1993–94 and (ii) 1994–95; and what was the total value of these grants and contracts. [31303]

  Mr. Norris
  The figures requested are as follows:

  Year

  Number of organizations receiving grants

  Number of organizations with whom contracts have been entered into

  1993–94

  17

  3

  1£487,812

  £266,424

  1994–95

  18

  5

  1£540.651

  £138,110

  1 Total value

  Hospitality
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for each of the last five years the amount spent by his Department and executive agencies on official hospitality. [31831]

  Mr. Norris
  The centre of the Department of Transport, now known as the central transport group, and 54
  its agencies have respectively spent the following amounts on official entertainment since 1990–91:

  Department of Transport

  1990–91: £204,040

  1991–92: £170,015

  1992–93: £233,762

  1993–94: £234,986

  1994–95: £127,247

  1995–96: £18,661 (Estimate to date)

  Agencies

  1990–91: £24,114

  1991–92: £30,216

  1992–93: £45,454

  1993–94: £59,850

  1994–95: £91,042

  1995–96: £77,462 (Estimate to date)

  National Parks
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the benefits and disbenefits of restricting vehicle access to the national parks. [31871]

  Mr. Norris
  None. Traffic management in the national parks is principally a matter for the relevant local traffic authorities.

  Departmental Vehicles
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the cars(a) owned and (b) operated by his Department including the model and engine size and estimated mileage. [31828]

  Mr. Norris
  The information requested is as follows:

  Central Transport Group Average 3,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Renault

  Clio

  1,400

  Renault

  19

  1,400

  Rover

  Metro

  1,100

  Rover

  216

  1,500

  Subaru

  Impreza

  1,800

  Toyota

  Carina

  2,000

  Vauxhall

  Cavalier

  1,600

  Ford

  Escort

  1,300

  Ford

  Transit

  2,000

  Ford

  Fiesta

  1,100

  Nissan

  Micra

  1,000

  Nissan

  Sunny

  1,400

  Nissan

  Prairie

  2,000

  Nissan

  Versa Vanette

  1,500

  Peugeot

  405

  1,600

  Plymouth/Chrysler

  Voyager

  3,300

  Dodge/Chrysler

  Voyager

  3,300

  Driving Standards Agency Average 10,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Vauxhall

  Astra

  1,400

  Vauxhall

  Astra

  1.700

  55

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency Average 15,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Ford

  Transit

  2,500

  Ford

  Sierra

  1,800

  Volkswagen

  Passat

  1,900

  Volkswagen

  Golf

  1,900

  Ford

  Mondeo

  1,800

  Highways Agency Average 21,500 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Ford

  Sierra

  1,800(2)

  Ford

  Mondeo

  1,600(2)

  Vauxhall

  Astra

  1,400

  The Coastguard Agency Average 7,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Land Rover

  88

  2,300 (5)

  Land Rover

  90

  1,500(87)

  Nissan

  Patrol

  2,800 (15)

  Nissan

  Terrano

  2,400 (11)

  Nissan

  4 x 4

  2,400 (10)

  Nissan

  Sunny

  1,300 (5)

  Lada

  Neva

  1,600 (4)

  Vauxhall

  Astra

  1,700 (31)

  Vauxhall

  Merit

  1,700 (7)

  Vauxhall

  Brava

  2.300 (10)

  Vauxhall

  Brava

  2,500 (45)

  Fiat

  Panda

  1,100

  Fiat

  Citivan

  1,100 (2)

  Peugeot

  309

  1,900 (13)

  Fiat

  Tipo

  1,900

  Renault

  Clio

  1,900 (56)

  Renault

  19

  1,900 (5)

  Citroen

  Xantia

  1,900

  Transport Research Laboratory Average 10,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Vauxhall

  Cavalier

  1,600 (3)

  Ford

  Mondeo

  1,800

  Vauxhall

  Carlton

  1,800

  Leyland

  Montego

  1,600

  Ford

  Sierra

  1,800 (11)

  Vauxhall

  Carlton

  2,000 (3)

  Ford

  Escort

  1,600 (13)

  Ford

  Escort

  1,400

  Vauxhall

  Astra

  1,600

  Ford

  P100

  1,800

  Leyland

  Metro

  1,000 (2)

  Toyota

  Corolla

  1,600

  Rover

  216

  1,600

  Renault

  Espace

  1,800

  Opel

  Omega

  2,000

  Rover

  218

  1,800

  Jaguar

  XJ6

  4,200

  BMW

  320

  2,000

  Oldsmobile

  Trans AM

  6,300

  Pontiac

  Trans AM

  6,500

  Ford

  Cortina

  2,000

  Ford

  Fiesta

  1,000

  56

  Vehicle Certification Agency Average 4,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Nissan

  Primera

  2,000

  Vehicle Inspectorate Average 17,000 miles per vehicle per year

  Make

  Model

  Engine size

  Skoda

  120LS

  1,100

  Austin

  Montego

  1,600

  Lada

  Samara

  1,300

  Ford

  Escort

  1,100

  Austin

  Maestro

  1,300 (2)

  Ford

  Escort

  1,600

  Austin

  Metro

  1,000

  Rover

  214

  1,400 (3)

  Austin

  Maestro

  2,000 (2)

  Rover

  Montego

  2,000 (11)

  Ford

  Sierra

  1,800 (32)

  Vauxhall

  Cavalier

  1,800 (6)

  Land Rover

  Discovery

  2,500

  Bedford

  Special unit

  2,300 (4)

  Freight Rover

  Sherpa

  2,000 (5)

  The number in brackets denotes the number of vehicles if more than one. The Marine Safety Agency does not own or operate any cars.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for each vehicle registration office the amount of vehicle excise duty collected and the number of cases discarded in the latest available year. [31832]

  Mr. Norris
  The amount of vehicle excise duty collected by each vehicle registration office is not available but the total for 1994–95 amounted to some £600 million.

  In the year 1994–95 vehicle registration offices and the London enforcement office received 1.67 million excise offence reports from the police. Of these some 458,000 resulted in the payment of out-of-court settlements or successful prosecutions. Of the rest, only 77,548 were discarded unactioned, the rest receiving some investigation before being dropped. This represents some 4.6 per cent. of receipts. The numbers, office by office, are as follows:

  Office

  Cases discarded

  Manchester

  9,090

  Sheffield

  37

  Liverpool

  0

  Bangor

  0

  Chester

  4,835

  Huddersfield

  0

  Leeds

  0

  Preston

  728

  Hull

  1,254

  Aberdeen

  0

  Inverness

  0

  Dundee

  0

  Middlesbrough

  482

  Newcastle

  10,294

  57

  Office

  Cases discarded

  Carlisle

  0

  Edinburgh

  0

  Glasgow

  3,939

  Luton

  1,666

  Ipswich

  0

  Chelmsford

  13,383

  Norwich

  0

  Haverfordwest

  32

  Swansea

  0

  Taunton

  714

  Truro

  0

  Gloucester

  4,645

  Exeter

  198

  Bristol

  96

  Worcester

  1,078

  Swindon

  1,216

  Reading

  83

  Portsmouth

  0

  Oxford

  0

  Brighton

  1,142

  Maidstone

  14

  Guildford

  456

  Bournemouth

  0

  Stoke

  0

  Leicester

  0

  Lincoln

  293

  Nottingham

  6,077

  Peterborough

  144

  Northampton

  647

  Birmingham

  6,017

  Coventry

  755

  Shrewsbury

  0

  London Enforcement

  8,233

  Total

  77,548

  Chiltern Line Services
  Mr Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent discussions he has had with the management of the Chiltern line in respect of train services to Northolt park; and if he will make a statement. [30553]

  Mr. Watts
  None. I understand that Chiltern Railways has decided to reinstate the evening peak train service to Northolt park.

  London Docklands
  Sir Michael Neubert
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to make an official visit to London docklands to discuss further developments in respect of the road and rail infrastructure. [31141]

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I have no plans to do so at present. My hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London will chair the next meeting of the docklands transport steering group in October.

  Heavy Goods Vehicles
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what further measures he proposes to prevent the use of overloaded heavy goods vehicles. [30121]

  Mr. Norris
  The Vehicle Inspectorate expects to weigh 115,000 heavy goods vehicles in 1995–96 using the 58
  Department's national network of strategically located enforcement weighbridge sites.

  Terminal 5
  Dr. Goodson-Wickes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessments he has made of the transport and noise implications of a new terminal 5 at Heathrow. [30118]

  Dr. Mawhinney
  As I will be jointly determining the outcome of the inquiry into BAA's proposal I have not made any assessment of its aviation implications. However, I am responsible for promoting improvements to the M25 and M4 access roads. Their noise effects have been assessed and the results are contained in the environmental statement for the schemes.

  Office of Passenger Rail Franchising
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans exist to undertake a census of capacity for commuter routes running to and from Newcastle and Cardiff; when such a census was conducted in previous years; if he will publish the results of the last such survey in tabular form; and if he will make a statement as to how OPRAF intends to proceed in consideration of passengers in excess of capacity targets for such routes. [31888]

  Mr. Watts
  British Rail's monitoring systems collect data relating to capacity for all its services as a matter of normal practice. OPRAF intends to apply load factor or seating capacity requirements on certain commuter routes. These will be specified in the passenger service requirements included in franchise agreements. No decisions have yet been made as to the specifications which will apply in respect of commuter services to and from Newcastle and Cardiff.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps OPRAF will take to prevent rail franchise holders who are operating services which were previously part of Network SouthEast from transferring a substantial number of passengers to the services of another operator in order to exceed passenger capacity targets. [31894]

  Mr. Watts
  The draft franchise agreement contains a provision prohibiting franchisees from avoiding their obligations with regard to the provision of adequate capacity on commuter services by taking action which might transfer a material number of passengers to another operator.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what obligations or incentives OPRAF intends to impose or provide to ensure that rail franchise holders will upgrade their rolling stock; if specific target dates will be set for(a) the provision of trains with lavatories and (b) the carriage of cycles. [31896]

  Mr. Watts
  The specification of replacement stock, when this becomes necessary, will be a matter for the commercial judgment of the franchisee.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport under what circumstances OPRAF may release
  59
  rail franchise holders from minimum standards applying to stations which it operates; to what extent persistent vandalism would constitute a relevant factor; and how the costs and benefits of repairing the effects of such vandalism or of increased security to prevent its recurrence will be measured by OPRAF when considering any relaxation of standards. [31878]

  Mr. Watts
  Rail franchise holders will be required to meet minimum station standards, except where the franchising director considers the cost of compliance would significantly outweigh the benefit to passengers, or where he is persuaded that the standard is impractical.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what requirement OPRAF will impose on rail franchise holders operating stations or providing waiting rooms in relation to the proportion of platforms to be provided with this facility and the hours they should be open. [31880]

  Mr. Watts
  In general, operators will be required to provide covered waiting accommodation at each station. Adequate alternative shelter must be provided where waiting accommodation is not available or is temporarily out of use.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if OPRAF will compensate(a) franchisees and (b) passengers in the event of any adjustment in the rate of VAT on passenger rail transport before 31 March 2003; [31882]

  (2) what level of benefits to railcard holders will be guaranteed in franchise agreements; [31886]

  (3) if OPRAF will be permitted to suspend ticket inter-availability requirements only when his judgment is that this will lead to benefits to passengers; how such benefits will be identified; and whether forecast benefits will be published for consultation prior to a final decision. [31885]

  Mr. Watts
  I refer the hon. Member to the passenger rail industry overview, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if the weighting employed by OPRAF in designing the tariff baskets of controlled fares for capping purposes will be published; and what audit arrangements will be put in place to ensure that changes to specific fares made by any franchise holder are compatible with fares capping requirements set by OPRAF for the total basket of controlled fares. [31884]

  Mr. Watts
  The franchising director does not propose to publish the weighting employed by OPRAF in designing tariff baskets of controlled fares for capping purposes. Franchise operators must notify the franchising director of any proposals to increase regulated fares. Fares will be monitored periodically by OPRAF to ensure compliance with fares regulation.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if rail franchise holders will be obliged to inform passengers, at each station which they operate, of timetables for all passenger trains stopping at those 60
  stations; whether they will be obliged to do so in the form of a single booklet or leaflet at staffed stations, and a single information display at all stations; and if he will define more precisely the derogation as far as practicable, employed by OPRAF, in specifying this obligation. [31887]

  Mr. Watts
  Franchise holders will be obliged to display at all stations the times of all trains and details of principal connections and, where stations are manned, this information will be available in written form.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport under what circumstances OPRAF will specify connections as part of the passenger service requirements; what definition OPRAF will employ of the rail franchise holder's own commercial interest when considering whether such a specification should be made; and what written definition or guidance on such circumstances exists in documents produced by OPRAF or in instructions from the Government to OPRAF. [31895]

  Mr. Watts
  Generally, OPRAF will specify a connection where it provides a socially necessary service which would not otherwise be provided for operational reasons or under the operator's general duty within the franchise agreement to provide a reasonable pattern of connections.

  The Government have not given the franchising director any instructions or guidance in relation to the specification of connections. OPRAF has set out its policy approach in information to consultees in relation to passenger service requirements.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport under what circumstances OPRAF will be permitted to propose changes to passenger services requirements during the lifetime of a franchise; if such proposed changes(a) must be only in the direction of offering an enhanced level of service to passengers or (b) will be subject to consultation with rail users consultative committees and others and (c) can be made only with the agreement of both OPRAF and the franchise holder and how the consequential adjustments to franchise payments will be determined. [31879]

  Mr. Watts
  The franchising director has the right to adjust passenger service requirements during the life of a franchise, but the instructions and guidance given to him by the Secretary of State stipulate that any changes from the existing pattern of services should be made gradually. The franchising director will consult the relevant rail users consultative committees and local authorities before making significant changes to PSRs and will adjust franchise payments so that the franchise operator does not gain or lose as a result.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport for what reasons he has decided that the historical performance of a train operating company should be of relevance when specifying performance targets for those companies after privatisation. [31879]

  Mr. Watts
  This is a matter for OPRAF. Performance benchmarks will be set in relevant franchise agreements based on actual performance in either 1993–94 or
  61
  1994–95, whichever is the more typical of an average year, or the passengers charters targets if these are higher.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if OPRAF will place any requirement on training operating companies in franchise agreements or elsewhere that trains should carry guards or other on-board staff. [31881]

  Mr. Watts
  OPRAF has no plans to impose any requirements additional to those needed for reasons of safety.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if rail franchise holders operating service groups with London terminuses which were previously part of Network SouthEast will be permitted to increase the number of excess passengers, as measured by the means used in compiling the annual autumn census of capacity, provided that the resulting figures do not exceed the permitted percentage in excess of capacity specified by OPRAF. [31883]

  Mr. Watts
  Yes.

  Slots (Heathrow Airport)
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what benefits have been gained by transferring the allocation of slots at Heathrow from London to Brussels; and what has been the consequential cost to public funds. [31853]

  Mr. Norris
  The allocation of slots at Heathrow airport is carried out from Heathrow by Airport Coordination Ltd., an independent company owned by the UK airlines. There has been no transfer of the function to Brussels. ACL and other airport co-ordinators in the European Community operate within the terms of EC regulation 95/93 on common rules for the allocation of slots at Community airports.

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to announce the result of the competition to build the channel tunnel rail link; and if he will make a statement. [31151]

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Four tenders were submitted on 14 March this year. The Government and their advisers have now completed their evaluation of the bids. In accordance with their recommendation, I have selected two consortia, Eurorail CTRL Ltd. and London and Continental Railways, who will be invited to go forward for further detailed negotiations.

  The Government welcome and applaud the immense effort which all four bidders have put into their tenders. This is another indication of the very real commitment of the private sector to the railway industry of the future. It is already clear that bringing in the private sector is going to add value to both the CTRL project and the European passenger services business. This is another good example of the benefits flowing from the Government's private finance initiative.
  62
  The evaluation of the bids has been conducted strictly in accordance with the criteria which were set out in the competition overview document published last summer. The ranking of bids in the first stage has been based mainly on an evaluation of the level and timing of the Government contribution and the approach taken by the bidders to risk, together with a qualitative assessment of their financial proposals. The evaluation also took account of other transport benefits.

  There are two very strong candidates left in the race. I am confident that at the end of the coming negotiation phase we shall be in a position to strike a deal which is good for the project and its backers, good for passengers and good for the taxpayer. We are on schedule and I hope to announce the winner of the competition before the end of the year.

  Ro-ro Ferries
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will support the Japanese proposal for regional agreements within the International Maritime Organisation on ro-ro ferries; and if he will(a) support a decision on the matter at the November meetings of the IMO and (b) support a modification date for existing ferries of no more than three years from the November meetings. [31612]

  Mr. Norris
  The United Kingdom will pursue the application on a worldwide basis of the high standards recommended by the panel of experts for ro-ro ferries. If it is evident that this will not attract sufficient support at the IMO, the earliest application of that standard to ferries operating to and from United Kingdom ports will be vigorously pursued within a regional concept similar to that put forward by Japan.

  Charter Week
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the main events he is proposing for Charter Week; what is the total cost to public funds; and how many(a) civil servants and (b) other public officials will be playing part. [31980]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: The main transport event linked to Charter Week is the mobility roadshow, a major exhibition of vehicles and mobility equipment for elderly and disabled people which takes place from July 14–16 at the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne, Berkshire.

  This is a biennial event organised by the Department of Transport. There will be no additional costs or staff resources attributable to Charter Week.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what evidence he has of the contribution that hand-held mobile phones used by motorists have made to road accidents. [31490]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: This information could not be obtained other than at disproportionate cost.
  63

  Flight Delays (Heathrow)
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the average delay time of scheduled flights to European destinations from Heathrow in March and June. [31854]

  Mr. Norris
  The average delay to scheduled passenger flights between Heathrow and European airports in March 1995 was four minutes.

  Statistics for June 1995 will not be available for approximately eight weeks.

  Marine Safety Exercises
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 23 May,Official Report, column 569, how long was the interval between (a) the general alarm signal and the abandon ship signal, (b) the abandon ship signal and the reception of all passengers aboard lifeboats or liferafts and (c) the reception of all passengers aboard lifeboats or liferafts and the reception ashore, in the ferry exercises Common Aim 3, Claymore, Goodwin, Liverpool Bay, Eddystone, Webex, Seafire, Beauforts Dyke and Sovereign. [31491]

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

  Letter from C. J. Harris to Mr. Paul Flynn, dated 3 July 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question as the question deals with an operational matter, for which I have responsibility as Chief Executive.
  The information requested is not recorded by the Department.

  Aircraft Instruments
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures are being taken to reduce the danger of interference from passengers' electronic devices with aircraft flight instruments. [31643]

  Mr. Norris
  The Civil Aviation Authority has issued a notice to UK air operators directing them to ensure that the use of personal electronic equipment is prohibited during certain critical phases of flight, including take-off and landing. The notice also bans completely the use of portable telephones in aircraft. These instructions are reflected in the passenger safety briefing given before each flight and are soon to be in incorporated in passenger briefing cards.

  The CAA has commissioned research into the problem of electronic interference and, based on the results of this, will determine whether more specific guidance should be issued to operators.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Advertising Costs
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how he is responding to Britain's advertisers' informal complaints to his Department on the effect of the cost of air time on the competitiveness of British industry. [31916]
  64
  Mr. Eggar
  The cost of air time is a matter for the commercial judgment of the organisations concerned. The subject was one of several issues raised at a recent meeting officials in my Department had with representatives from the advertising sector.

  Military Exports (Singapore)
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if exports of(a) cannon mounts, (b) cannon components and (c) cannon kits were licensed between 1984 and 1990 for export to Singapore without (i) being licensed under the military list of (ii) an end user statement or certificate being insisted upon. [29164]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  All the goods listed in the hon. Member's question are military list items and any export licence application in respect of these items would have been considered on that basis. As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade made clear in his statement to the House on 13 June 1995,Official Report, columns 595–97, items on the military list were on occasion exported without full supporting documentation being insisted on. However, in all cases the licence application form includes a formal statement of the end user.

  An answer to this question would require the detailed examination of several hundred licence applications, which would entail seriously disproportionate cost. however, I shall bear the hon. Member's question in mind in the course of any further research into export licences granted for Singapore.

  Insurance Risk Assessment
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the use of post codes by insurance companies to assess risk of exposure to(a) crime and (b) subsidence; and if he will make a statement. [31930]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  Postal codes are widely used by insurance companies as a tool in assessing premiums. It is the commercial judgment of insurance companies that the premiums charged for any particular area can be expected to reflect the claims experience for that area.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has made to regulate the use of post codes by insurance companies to assess insurance risk. [31931]

  Mr. Evans
  None. The Secretary of State's powers under the Insurance Companies Act 1982 are primarily concerned with the solvency of insurance companies and, except where such matters are concerned, he does not intervene in their day to day business.

  Military Exports (Nigeria)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what were the number and type of export licences issued for military equipment for use by(a) the Nigerian police force and (b) the Nigerian UN peace keeping corps for 1994 and for 1995 to date. [31779]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  It has been the practice of successive Governments not to reveal details of export licences or applications for licences unless the requirements of confidentiality are outweighed by the public interest.
  65

  Insolvency Practitioners
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many insolvency examiners have been dismissed since 1990 for failing to achieve the relevant accountancy qualifications. [32609]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  Four examiners have been dismissed as a result of failing to pass the required accountancy examinations during their two-year probationary period.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will set out the method by which, after a meeting of creditors has failed to appoint a trustee in bankruptcy or a liquidator of a company in liquidation the Secretary of State determines the identity of the insolvency practitioner who is to be appointed as a trustee or a liquidator under(a) section 295 or (b) 137 of the Insolvency Act 1986, with particular reference to whether the insolvency practitioner who is appointed is required to be located within the same region as the bankrupt or the company in question. [32320]

  Mr. Evans
  Each official receiver maintains a rota of insolvency practitioners within the locality of his office who are willing to accept appointments by the Secretary of State. The criteria for entry on to the rota are that the insolvency practitioner should have a permanently staffed office with insolvency personnel in regular attendance within the locality of, or conveniently accessible to, the local court. Generally speaking, where no trustee or liquidator is nominated at a meeting of creditors and if the official receiver considers it desirable that one be appointed, he will seek that appointment by reference to his local rota.

  During 1994 a special unit was set up in Manchester, on a temporary basis, to complete the administration of cases remaining open as a result of the high level of insolvencies of earlier years. In such cases where, some time after the making of the order, there were sufficient assets to enable a distribution to creditors to be made, local practitioners were appointed to carry out that work.

  Bankruptcies and Liquidations
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what future trends he expects in the number of bankruptcy orders and winding up orders over the next five years. [32589]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  The Insolvency Service does not publish forecasts of insolvencies although for planning and resource allocation purposes as part of the MINIS process it bases its business plan on an expected number of cases in the following financial year. For 1995–96 the service's business plan is based on a total of 25,000 cases comprising 20,000 bankruptcies and 5,000 compulsory liquidations.

  Insolvency Service
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the total annual salary costs of the staff of the Insolvency Service of grades B and above, both in absolute terms, and as a percentage of the total wage bill of the Insolvency Service. [32325]
  66
  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  Some £3.1 million was incurred in 1994–95 on the salary costs of Insolvency Service staff of grades B and above. This amount represents approximately 8 per cent. of the total pay costs of the Insolvency Service for 1994–95.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many man days were lost in the Insolvency Service due to sick absence for each year since 1986. [32308]

  Mr. Evans
  Details of the number of man-days lost to the Insolvency Service due to sick absence is available only for the years since 1991. The details are as follows:

  Year

  Days

  1991

  17,270

  1992

  18,168

  1993

  23,082

  1994

  21,324

  Prior to March 1990, when the Insolvency Service became an executive agency, details of sick absences were combined with those of the Department.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the current policy of the Insolvency Service regarding the circumstances under which staff are required to transfer involuntarily between official receivers'offices. [32311]

  Mr. Evans
  The Insolvency Service endeavours to fill vacancies in its offices by transferring staff on a voluntary basis. If, exceptionally, mobile staff are transferred compulsorily the costs directly associated with such a transfer are paid within agreed limits.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what procedures and provisions are in place to enable staff to relocate voluntarily or involuntarily between official receivers' offices; and what changes are planned to these procedures in the event of the contracting out of some of the functions of the official receiver. [32310]

  Mr. Evans
  The Insolvency Service endeavours to fill vacancies in official receivers' offices on a voluntary basis. Staff may apply for transfer to another office at any time and such requests will be considered on their merits. They will normally be agreed subject to the existence of a suitable vacancy. Where a transfer is a compulsory one or where a voluntary transfer involving relocation is in the service's interest the costs directly associated with the relocation are reimbursed within agreed limits.

  No changes are planned to these procedures.

  Weapons Exports
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the overseas countries in which British weaponry may be sold. [31497]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  Anywhere where there is no embargo, in which respect I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 16 January 1995.Official Report, column 283.
  67
  Decisions on export licence applications are, however, taken in light of established criteria to which we are committed, including those agreed by the European Union, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list those countries in which an embargo on selling British weaponry has been lifted during the last 12 months. [31496]

  Mr. Taylor
  Haiti and Syria, with a UN call for voluntary restraint—not an arms embargo—on the supply of military equipment to Yemen also lapsing during the year.

  Chemical Weapons Convention
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many responses his Department received to the consultation document "Industry and the Chemical Weapons Convention" by the close of the consultation period on 31 March; and what progress has been made in assessing the responses. [31122]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Over 2,500 copies of the discussion document were issued widely to industry, largely through trade organisations. We received 33 responses. Of these, 15 were from trade organisations, who were responding on behalf of their membership. The responses, overall, supported the approach my Department proposes to adopt in implementing the convention. The results of the consultation were included in a speech given to the House on 24 April,Official Report, columns 638–42, by my hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Technology.

  Astra plc
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations have been made by ministers or officials of his Department to the receiver of Astra plc concerning access to and availability of documentary material returned to the company by the Ministry of Defence Police. [31433]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: It is for the administrative receivers of Astra Holdings plc to decide what access they allow to the company's papers. Before my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade appeared before the Trade and Industry Select Committee on 28 June, officials informally raised with the receivers the question of disclosure to the Select Committee and were informed that legal advice had been sought.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list by convenient category the documents removed from Astra plc and its subsidiaries which are restrained by his Department. [31432]
  68
  Mr. Evans
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: The papers of Astra Holdings plc are now held by the administrative receiver. The inspectors appointed to investigate the affairs of the company made and retained copies of documents relevant to their investigation. These principally comprise certain statutory material, financial and accounting records and information, correspondence, internal and external memoranda and reports.

  Export Licence Applications
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his statement of 13 June,Official Report, column 597, what percentage of the rise in export licence applications related to (a) high-tech exports and (b) arms exports. [31434]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Export licence applications received in the years 1984 and 1987 were broken down as follows:

  1984

  1987

  Per cent. increase

  Military

  14,398

  17,590

  22

  Industrial and nuclear

  34,428

  70,031

  1103

  Other

  9,215

  10,221

  211

  Total

  58,041

  97,842

  68

  1 No breakdown by 'high' and 'low' technology is available.

  2 Primarily metallic scrap and heritage items.

  United Arab Emirates
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the value of United Kingdom visible and invisible trade with the United Arab Emirates. [31530]

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 29 June 1995]: Information on visible trade is published in Central Statistical Office business monitor MM20, available in the Library of the House. Information on invisible trade with the United Arab Emirates is not available.

  BMARC Ltd.
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will place in the Library all documents held by his Department in relation to the trading activities of BMARC Ltd. and if he will make a statement. [30232]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 26 June 1995]: No. The hon. Member has asked for a very large number of documents, which could be put together only at disproportionate cost.

  There are particular issues concerning the release of documents obtained by inspectors under compulsory powers. I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) by my hon. Friend the Minister for Corporate and Consumer Affairs on 27 June 1995, Official Report, columns 570–71.

  Nevertheless. I recognise the great public interest in the trading activities of BMARC and I welcome the decision of the Trade and Industry Select Committee to inquire into the affairs of BMARC. My Department will be co-operating fully with the Committee's inquiry.
  69

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, how many civil servants in his Department are working on matters related to the Scott inquiry, if a dedicated unit has been established; and what is the estimated cost to date of civil servants dealing with matters relating to the Scott inquiry. [28861]

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 15 June 1995]: A Scott inquiry unit was established in DTI in December 1992. Currently the unit consists of two posts. The approximate cost of the unit to date, excluding the cost of the provision of papers, is £247,000.

  Arms Export Licences
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many staff in his Department were responsible for monitoring and approving arms export licences for each year since 1979. [29334]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 19 June 1995]: The table below shows the number of staff within the Department responsible for the processing of arms export licence applications from 1989 to 1995, including, where necessary, monitoring compliance with licence conditions. The figures prior to 1989 could be made available only at disproportionate cost. Technical advice on military licensing matters is available from the DTI's sensitive technologies unit. Applications are also routinely assessed by advisers from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence. Enforcement of export controls—including controls on military goods-is carried out by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

  Year

  Number of Staff

  1989

  15

  1990

  29

  1991

  27

  1992

  29

  1993

  32

  1994

  35

  1995

  39

SCOTLAND

  Privatisation
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those parts of his Department or departmental agencies which were privatised without an in-house bid; if he will indicate the expertise which was absent in his Department or departmental agencies which prevented an in-house bid taking place; which future parts of his Department or departmental agencies he intends to privatise; and which of them do not have the necessary in-house expertise to mount an in-house bid. [29425]

  Mr. Lang
  It is my aim to ensure that the services undertaken by my Department and its agencies are provided and managed so as to give better service to the public in Scotland and optimum value for money to the taxpayer. That is the policy which underpins the decisions 70
  I have taken to contract out strategically certain services provided by my Department and its agencies. The broad reasons for contracting out without an in-house bid are set out in Taking Forward Continuity and Change—Cm 2748. These include, for example, when my Department judges that the private sector is better equipped to deliver a specific service, has a better understanding of market needs or a greater capacity to invest in new technology. A strategic decision to contract out might also be taken where an activity may be relatively small in size and peripheral to a department's core functions.

  No parts of my Department or departmental agencies were privatised without an in-house bid. The following activities within my Department and its agencies have been strategically contracted out without an in-house bid since April 1992.

  Activities Strategically Contracted Out

  Marine Laboratory Estate Management

  Maintenance of New National Health Service Radio Systems

  Superannuation Services

  Audit of NHS Boards

  Animal House, Scottish Agricultural Science Agency

  Facilities Management at Victoria Quay1

  Audit of 1st Wave NHS Trusts

  Audit of 2nd Wave NHS Trusts

  Audit of 3rd Wave NHS Trusts

  Data Preparation Services

  Historic Scotland Patrolmen at Edinburgh Castle

  Prison-based education, Scottish Prison Service

  Scottish Office Pensions Agency Pensions Administration System

  Security at Scottish Agricultural Science Agency

  Publications distribution and sales

  Additional typing services

  Mainframe Applications Support

  My Department and its agencies have not yet identified any activities for future privatisation or contracting out without an in-house bid.

  Ministerial Visits
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many ministerial visits by Ministers of his Department were made to Scottish parliamentary constituencies since 1 May 1994.

  Mr. Lang
  Scottish Office Ministers have made 362 visits to Scottish parliamentary constituencies since 1 May 1994.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many ministerial visits have been made by himself and his Ministers to the parliamentary constituencies of(a) Tayside, North, (b) Kincardine and Deeside, (c) Edinburgh, Pentlands, (d) Dumfries, (e) Aberdeen, South, (f) Stirling, (g) Ayr, (h) Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, (i) Perth and Kinross and (j) Eastwood since 1 May 1994. [29588]
  71
  Mr. Lang
  The information requested is set out in the table:

  Constituency

  Number of visits made

  (a) Tayside North

  3

  (b) Kincardine and Deeside

  2

  (c) Edinburgh, Pentlands

  3

  (d) Dumfries

  9

  (e) Aberdeen, South

  6

  (f) Stirling

  13

  (g) Ayr

  7

  (h) Galloway and Upper Nithsdale

  15

  (i) Perth and Kinross

  8

  (j Eastwood

  1

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which parliamentary constituency in Scotland received the most ministerial visits by Ministers of his Department since 1 May 1994. [29589]

  Mr. Lang
  Since 1 May last year, Edinburgh, Central has received the largest number of ministerial visits by Scottish Office Ministers.

  Heavy Vehicles (Bans)
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the existing powers of local authorities to ban heavy vehicles from minor roads in urban areas; and what pressure he has had for changes to the existing position. [29850]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Powers are available to local traffic authorities under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to make or revoke traffic regulation orders preventing the use of roads by vehicular traffic of a kind or in a manner which is unsuitable having regard to the character of the road. Mandatory restrictions can cover small lengths of road or large area networks and can be based on gross vehicle weight, axle weight, length, height or width or any other readily understood characteristic of the vehicles. A local traffic authority may also include provisions for specifying through routes for heavy goods vehicles. My right hon. Friend has received no representations about changing the existing powers.

  Local Government Finance
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will increase Ettrick and Lauderdale district council's non-housing revenue account consent for 1995–96. [30036]

  Mr. Lang
  All resources currently available for capital investment in housing in 1995–96 have been fully allocated. I will take account of the needs of Ettrick and Lauderdale district council should additional resources become available later in the year.

  Locate in Scotland
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total amount of inward investment attracted to the city of Glasgow in 1994–95 by Locate in Scotland; how many jobs this created or safeguarded; and if he will make a statement. [30960]
  72
  Mr. Kynoch
  During 1994–95, Locate in Scotland and the Scottish Office Industry Department helped attract to Glasgow eight inward investment projects involving planned investment of nearly £30 million and the expected creation or safeguarding of over 1,300 jobs.

  Sheep Scabs
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the recorded level of sheep scab in each of the last five years. [31245]

  Sir Hector Monro
  The numbers of confirmed cases of sheep scab in Scotland during the period 1990 to June 1992 were as follows:

  Number

  1990

  4

  1991

  5

  1992 (to 30 June)

  17

  Further Euducation
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the Government's financial plans for the further education sector over the next few years. [31318]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Information on the plans for the provision for further education colleges and agencies is given in the departmental report of March 1995, "Serving Scotland's Needs"—Cm 2814—as follows:

  1995–96: £251 million

  1996–97: £249 million

  1997–98: £243 million

  The figures for 1996–97 and 1997–98 are provisional and subject to review in the annual public expenditure surveys.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what capping measures have been imposed on certain types of courses in further education colleges; and for what reason. [31319]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Following a period of rapid expansion of higher education level courses in further education colleges, my right hon. Friend decided to consolidate the number of new full-time entrants to higher education courses in 1995–96 at the level achieved in each college during 1994–95. There are a number of specific exceptions and colleges are free to develop new programmes and to decide the number of students to recruit for particular programmes within the consolidated ceiling. No restrictions are applied to part-time higher education students or to students taking non-advanced courses.

  The consolidation is required on grounds of affordability and is broadly consistent with the approach over recent years within the higher education institutions.

  University of Paisley
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the academic contribution made by the university of Paisley to the social, industrial and economic life of Scotland since it
  73
  earned its new status; what plans he has to ensure the security of the university in its preparation for future development; and if he will introduce further measures to develop higher education in the Paisley area. [31390]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The university of Paisley has made a great deal of progress since the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992 introduced new arrangements for the constitution and funding of higher education institutions in Scotland.

  The academic achievements and diversity and scale of provision of the university were recognised in the granting of permission to use university title in June 1992, and of powers to award its own degrees in September 1992. I also approved in July 1993 the merger with Craigie college of education, and welcomed then the commitment to develop and strengthen the vocational mission of the new university.

  Evidence of the teaching quality of the university is given in the published reports of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council's assessment of teaching quality, and the report of the Higher Education Quality Council in April this year on its audit of the university arrangements for academic quality assurance.

  Allocation of funds for the teaching and research of higher education institutions is now the responsibility of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Each institution has been required to submit annual strategic plans and financial forecasts, as well as strategies for estates and research, to SHEFC. It is for SHEFC to determine appropriate allocations to individual institutions in the light of the information it receives and its assessment of the needs of the sector as a whole.

  Dounreay
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the recommendations of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee concerning the treatment of waste at Dounreay in accordance with modern standards, and on the history of how waste particles came to be found over a period of years on the Dounreay foreshore; and if he will make it his policy that there will be regular, independent, and public reviews of progress in the decontamination of the area affected in the vicinity of Dounreay. [29796]

  Sir Hector Monro
  As at present, HM industrial pollution inspectorate and HM nuclear installations inspectorate, in co-operation with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, will be working to ensure that all actions related to radioactive waste and its disposal are carried out in accordance with modern standards.

  All the waste metallic particles found near Dounreay were detected as a result of regular beach monitoring carried out by the UK Atomic Energy Authority and a history of the finding of the particles is contained in the joint report by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment and the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee.

  The main recommendations of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee on this matter fall to be considered by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, in co-operation with the regulatory authorities. The Secretary of State will consider the question of how
  74
  progress on decontamination is to be reviewed in the light of the outcome of the on-going discussions between the operators and the regulatory authorities.

  Glasgow City Council Elections
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if anyone is to be prosecuted as a result of the alleged breach of electoral law relating to the submission of nominations in the Bridgeton ward of Glasgow city council for the elections held on 6 April 1995; and if he will make a statement. [32023]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Crown Counsel has instructed the procurator fiscal to take summary proceedings in Glasgow sheriff court in connection with alleged contraventions of section 65 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. One of the alleged contraventions relates to the Bridgeton ward of the city of Glasgow.

  Schoolgirls (Computing Subjects)
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the secretary of State for Scotland how many girls in S5 and S6 studied computing subjects in education authority schools; and what percentage this was of the total number of S5 and S6 pupils in(a) 1989, (b) 1991 and (c) 1993; and if he will make a statement. [30860]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The number and percentage of girls studying computing subjects in S5 and S6 in education authority secondary schools in 1989, 1991 and 1993 are as follows:

  Year

  Number in S5/S6

  Percentage of S5/S6

  1989

  4,933

  7.8

  1991

  5,172

  8.0

  1993

  15,157

  7.8

  1 In the figures for 1993 information was not available for two schools.

  The figures do not include pupils studying computing subjects in short courses. In addition, many pupils study computing subjects in S3 and S4. Thus, the actual figure of girls studying computing subjects in education authority schools will be significantly higher than those numbers provided.

  Rural Policy
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made in the consultation process on rural policy in Scotland; which organisations he is consulting with; and when the White Paper will be published. [31892]

  Sir Hector Monro
  The current consultation on rural policy in Scotland has taken three main forms.

  We sought the advice of the rural focus group—made up of representatives of the Central Scotland Countryside Trust, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Rural Forum, Scottish Agricultural college, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Homes, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Tourist Board, and chaired by the Scottish Office.
  75
  We commissioned Rural Forum Scotland to convene a series of conferences and workshops to examine specific themes of relevance to the White Paper and these were held across Scotland in May and June.

  Almost 900 organisations and individuals were invited to submit ideas and comments and some have conducted their own conferences and surveys. So far, 112 responses have been received and these will be of considerable assistance in the development of the White Paper, which will be published in the autumn.

  Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
  Mr. Chisholm
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the proposed allocation of risks between the national health service and the private sector for the proposed new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh; and what are the public expenditure implications. [31994]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh trust has yet to finalise details of the specification to be issued in September to its shortlisted tenderers. Therefore, details of proposed allocation of risks will not be available until that time. However, the trust will be seeking to transfer risk in the areas such as design, planning, construction, maintenance, equipment obsolescence, residual value of assets and performance in terms of quality support services. Until final details of risk transfer are available, the effect on public expenditure cannot be estimated.

  Director, Information Directorate
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the recruitment of the director of his Department's information directorate; and what was her previous employment before joining the Scottish Office. [31362]

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 29 June 1995]: The director of my Department's information directorate, Ms Elizabeth Drummond, was recruited in April 1992 following an open recruitment campaign.

  Ms Drummond's early career was spent with the Government Information Service. Immediately prior to joining the Scottish Office, she was employed by Westminster city council as head of public relations and publicity.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Electro-shock Weapons
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Attorney-General what action his Department has taken to follow up allegations made in January in relation to illegal and unauthorised production, export and arrangement of sale of electro-shock weapons and equipment; what legal action has been and is being undertaken in consequence of such investigations; and if he will make a statement. [32073]

  The Attorney-General
  The police responsible for the conduct of the investigation into possible offences arising out of allegations made January 1995 relating to electro-shock weapons have now submitted a report to the Crown Prosecution Service.
  76
  As to the matters under investigation in Scotland, I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 23 May 1995 by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland at column 576) to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). I understand that the position remains unaltered.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Attorney-General, pursuant to his answer of 22 May,Official Report, column 452, what progress is being made in the investigations into matters relating to British Aerospace and the export of electro-shock equipment. [32073]

  The Attorney-General
  The police have recently submitted a report to the Crown Prosecution Service which is at present being considered.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Child Benefit Claim Pack
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what channels are being used for the distribution of the leaflet "New Child Benefit Claim Paper: Can You Help"; and what factors underlay his choice of these channels. [31293]

  Mr. Burt
  The distribution of the child benefit claim pack is a matter for Mr. Ian Magee, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Ian Magee to Mr. Martyn Jones, dated 30 June 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the channels being used to distribute the Child Benefit claim pack and the factors underlying the choice of these channels.
  Three main outlets are being used for the distribution of the pack. First, they are readily available to the public from local Social Security offices. Secondly, they are distributed directly to new and expectant mothers by inclusion in a complimentary baby products package, known as a Bounty Pack, which reaches 97.5 per cent. of new mothers in the UK per year. Third, they are available on request direct from the Child Benefit Centre, Washington.
  The factors which underlay the choice of these channels were cost effectiveness, accessibility and the ability to contact the correct customer group.
  I hope you find this reply helpful.

  Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many claims for the year 1994–95 have been made in(a) South Yorkshire, (b) Humberside, (c) North Yorkshire and (d) West Yorkshire for industrial disablement benefit for emphysema and chronic bronchitis; how many have been successful; how many have been refused and what grounds; and what are the comparable figures for the previous year. [31095]

  Mr. Hague
  The administration of industrial injuries disablement benefit is a matter for Mr. Ian Magee, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available.

  Letter from Ian Magee to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 30 June 1995:

  The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about claims made for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit in respect of chronic bronchitis and emphysema in Yorkshire and Humberside in 1994–95.
  77
  Information about the number of claims, their success rate and the number disallowed is not available in the exact format requested. This is because figures for the number of claims made since the end of the initial twelve month take-on period have been collected separately and in a slightly different format. The take-on period lasted from September 1993 to October 1994.

  The available information is shown in the enclosed tables. The information in the first three columns of Table 1 was collected at Area Directorate levels. The information in the last two columns was collected at the Disability Benefit Centre (DBC) in Leeds,

  Table 1: September 1993–October 1994

  Failed (reason)

  Area

  Claims

  Successful

  20 year rule

  Lung test1

  Cat. I pneumoconiosis

  South Yorkshire and Humberside

  6,521

  773

  171

  6,551

  3,957

  North and West Yorkshire

  2,676

  420

  90

  1 These figures were collected by the Disability Benefits Centre (DBC) at Leeds. Leeds DBC also dealt with other areas so the figures do not equate exactly.

  Table 2: October 1994–March 1995

  Failed (reason)

  Area

  Claims

  Successful

  20 year rule

  Lung test

  Cat. 1 pneumoconiosis

  South Yorkshire and Humberside

  214

  33

  9

  127

  95

  North and West Yorkshire

  121

  21

  9

  59

  23

  All tables include claims received but not decided within the period.

  Source: 100 per cent. count, figures are subject to amendment.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many and what percentage of families with children age 18 years or under claimed housing benefit or its equivalent in (i) York, (ii) North Yorkshire,

  Housing Benefit—number of families with dependants aged 18 years or under and as a percentage of all families with dependants aged 18 years or under

  May 1990

  May 1991

  May 1992

  May 1993

  Area

  Number (000s)

  Per cent.

  Number (000s)

  Per cent.

  Number (000s)

  Per cent.

  Number (000s)

  Per cent.

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  76

  —

  80

  —

  110

  —

  96

  —

  England

  747

  13.2

  846

  14.5

  1,035

  17.6

  1,098

  18.7

  Source:

  Housing benefit management information system, annual 1 per cent. sample inquiries with and without income support, taken at the end of May for each year.

  Family Expenditure Survey, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993.

  Notes:

  1. The numbers given refer to the number of benefit units, which may be a single person with dependants or a couple with dependants.

  2.The numbers have been rounded to the nearest thousand and the percentages to one decimal place.

  3. Information on total families with dependants under 19 is not available regionally, therefore we are unable to provide percentages for Yorkshire and Humberside.

  4. Information on the number of families with dependants aged under 19 is not available prior to 1990 for housing benefit.

  5. Reliable information is not available for York or North Yorkshire.

  Pensioners' Capital
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the average capital owned by individuals on retirement in the form of(a) home ownership and (b) non-pension savings. [31234]

  Mr Arbuthnot
  The information is not available.
  78
  which covers the Yorkshire and Humberside area of the country. Leeds DBC also dealt with the claims from some customers outside these areas.

  The information shown at Table 2 was collected at Area Directorate level and covers the six month period from October 1994 to March 1995. This table outlines successful claims and all three categories of disallowance; because of the 20 year rule, failure to meet the criteria for lung function loss or category 1 pneumoconiosis.

  I hope you find this reply helpful.

  (iii) Yorkshire and Humberside and (iv) England in each since 1979. [31582]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  Information is not available in the form requested. Available information is set out in the table:

  Personal Pensions
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the expenditure in(a) 2010, (b) 2020 and (c) 2030 on (i) national insurance rebates paid to members of appropriate personal pension schemes and (ii) the additional national insurance rebate paid to members of appropriate

  79
  personal pensions relative to that paid to members of contracted-out money purchase schemes. [31235]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The table shows estimates for the expenditure in 2010, 2020 and 2030 on the national insurance rebate payable to members of appropriate personal pension schemes using assumptions consistent with those used for the report by the Government Actuary on the "Financial Provisions of the Bill on the National Insurance Fund", Cm 2714. The rebate rates quoted in that report are provisional and will be reviewed before age related rebates come into effect in April 1997.

  It is not possible to provide a valid estimate of additional expenditure on the national insurance rebates paid to members of APPS compared to what would have been paid if they had received rebates designed for members of contracted-out money purchase schemes. This is because total numbers of people with APPS would be likely to reduce significantly in those circumstances. The rebates for APPS will be set at a higher level than those for COMPS to reflect higher levels of providers' expenses and the delay in payment by the DSS of a greater part of the rebate. If the rebate for APPS failed to reflect these factors, it would not generally be worthwhile for people to take out or for providers to offer APPS.

  Year

  Expenditure in £ billion (1994–95 prices)

  2010

  2.7

  2020

  2.5

  2030

  2.2

  Young People
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many young people in Wales who left school at 16 years were subsequently in receipt of(a) severe hardship payments under income support provision and (b) other Benefits Agency payments, in each of the past 10 years for which figures are available. [31610]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The information is not available.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of young people who left care in each of the past five years for which figures are available are currently claiming benefits. [31618]

  Mr. Evans
  The information is not available.

  Pensioners' Incomes
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the percentage of pensioners who will have an income on retirement in(a) the most recent year, (b) 2010 and (c) 2020 which is (i) less than 25 per cent. of average earnings, (ii) less than 50 per cent. of average earnings, (iii) less than 75 per cent. of average earnings, (iv) equal to average earnings, (v) up to 25 per cent. more than average earnings, (vi) up to 50 per cent. more than average earnings and (vii) up to 75 per cent. more than average earnings. [31236]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The latest available information is for 1992 and is shown in the table. Forecasts of pensioners incomes at retirement for 2010 and 2020 are not available.
  80

  Gross income of recently retired pensioner units as a proportion of average earnings

  Proportion of average earnings

  Percentage

  (i) Less than 25 per cent.

  5

  (ii) Less than 50 per cent.

  43

  (iii) Less than 75 per cent.

  70

  (iv) 100 per cent. (average earnings)

  n/a

  (v) Up to 125 per cent.

  89

  (vi) Up to 150 per cent.

  93

  (vii) Up to 175 per cent.

  95

  n/a = not available.

  source:

  Family Expenditure Survey 1992.

  Employment Gazette, February 1995.

  Notes:

  1. Average earnings are based on full time employees on adult rate in all industries and services for 1992.

  2. Recently retired pensioner units are defined as single pensioner units and married couples where the individual or head of the household is less than five years over state pension age.

  3. The proportion receiving precisely the same level of income as average earnings is not available.

  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the average pensioner income at retirement in(a) the most recent year, (b) 2010 and (c) 2020, expressed as a percentage of average earnings. [31237]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The latest available information is for 1992. These estimates show that recently retired pensioner units received an average gross income equivalent to 74 per cent. of average earnings. Forecasts of pensioners' incomes at retirement for 2010 and 2020 are not available.

  Source:

  Family Expenditure Survey 1992

  Employment Gazette, February 1995.

  Notes:

  1. Average earnings are based on full time employees on adult rate in all industries and services for 1992.

  2. Recently retired pensioner units are defined as single pensioner units and married couples where the individual or head of the household is less than five years over state pension age.

  Home Responsibilities Protection
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual cost by the year 2030 of replacing the special arrangement known as home responsibility protection with a credit for class 1 contributions for the same qualifying group; and on what basis he estimates this cost. [31932]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  It is estimated by the Government Actuary's Department that replacing the special arrangements known as home responsibilities protection with a credit for class 1 contributions for the same qualifying group would cost £150 million by the year 2030.

  State Earnings-related Pension
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual cost by the year 2030 of calculating entitlement to benefits under the state earnings-related pension scheme if a disregard was introduced for the final five years of earnings, but only if this disregard does not diminish the SERPS payment; and on what basis he estimates this cost. [31936]
  81
  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The annual cost by the year 2030 of calculating entitlement to SERPS if a disregard was introduced for the final five years of earnings; and the denominator in calculating SERPS is also reduced by 5, is estimated to be about £2 billion in 2030–31.

  Notes:

  1. The cost is in 1994–95 prices and is the estimated increase in Retirement Pension expenditure.

  2. This estimate is consistent with the figures in the Government Actuary's Report on the Pensions Bill 1994 and in the Government Actuary's Quinquennial Review on the National Insurance Fund.

  3. This assumes that the increase in SERPS entitlement would apply equally to contracted-out and not contracted-out individuals.

  4. This assumes SERPS accrues up to the financial year prior to reaching age 60 at an accrual rate of 20/44 per cent. rather than at a rate of 20/49 per cent. up to the year before reaching age 65.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual cost by the

  Thousands

  Contracted-in only

  Mixed contracted-in/contracted-out

  Reckonable earnings in 1992–93

  Men

  Women

  Men

  Women

  £10,000 per year and over

  1,287

  485

  370

  218

  £20,000 per year and over

  211

  33

  88

  32

  Source:

  1 per cent. sample from National Insurance Recording System.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual costs of phasing in the reduction of the entitlement to the additional pension to a widow or widower over a 10-year period between 5 April 2000 and 6 April 2010 in 5 per cent. annual increments; and on what basis he estimates this cost. [31934]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The information is in the table:

  Year

  Cost £ million

  2005–08

  350

  2010–11

  400

  2015–16

  300

  2020–21

  200

  1. The cost is in 1994–95 prices and is the estimated total increase in retirement pension expenditure.

  2. The estimate assumes that the increased level of additional pension would apply equally to contracted-in and contracted-out contributions.

  3. This estimate is consistent with the assumptions and projections in the Government Actuary's report on the Pensions Bill 1994 and in the Government Actuary's Quinquennial Review on the National Insurance Fund.

  State Retirement Pension
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual cost by the year 2030 of equalising the number of qualifying years for the category A pension at 39 for both women and men; and on what basis he estimates this cost. [31933]
  82
  year 2050 of calculating entitlement to benefits under the state earnings-related pensions scheme on the best 39 years of earnings; and on what basis he estimates this cost. [31935]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The estimated cost is £5 billion.

  Notes:

  1. The cost is in 1994–95 prices and is the estimated total increase in retirement pension expenditure.

  2. This estimate assumes that the best 39 year rule would apply equally to contracted-in and contracted-out earnings.

  3. This estimate is consistent with the assumptions and projections in the Government Actuary's report on the Pensions Bill 1994.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many(a) men and (b) women are in receipt of state earnings-related pension (i) who earn more than £10,000 per year, and (ii) who earn more than £20,000 per year. [32005]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The information is in the table.

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The annual cost is estimated to be about £³ billion by 2030.

  Notes:

  1. The cost is in 1994–95 prices and is the estimated total increase in retirement pension expenditure.

  2. This estimate assumes that the change would be made to male pension for awards from 2010 onwards and the female rule would remain as at present for all years.

  3. The estimates are relative to the projected costs of basic pension after allowing for the changes in the Pensions Bill.

  4. This estimate is consistent with the assumptions and projections in the Government Actuary's report on the Pensions Bill 1994 and in the Government Actuary's Quinquennial Review on the National Insurance Fund.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many(a) divorced and (b) widowed pensioners are receiving a full state pension based on their spouse's national insurance contribution record; and of these how many are also in receipt of (i) income support or (ii) other state benefits. [32074]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The figures for widowed and divorced pensioners are not available separately. The total number in March 1993 was 1,783.

  It is not possible to identify how many of these people were receiving income support or other benefits.

  Source:

  Retirement Pension Statistics Biannual enquiry 31 March 1993.

  National Insurance Contributions
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for State for Social Security if he will estimate the annual income to the Exchequer of removing the lower earnings limit on employer contributions to national insurance contributions; and on what basis he estimates this sum. [31997]
  83
  Mr. Arbuthnot
  If employers were to pay contributions on earnings below the lower earnings limit, the additional income would be an estimated £150 million in a full year. This figure was derived using information from the April 1993 new earnings survey, which was then adjusted to take account of the latest earnings estimates for 1995–96. The contribution rate is assumed to be 3 per cent. which is the rate currently payable by employers in respect of earnings just above the lower earnings limit.

  Source:

  Government Actuary's Department.

  Funeral Expenses
  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what changes have been made to the social fund funeral expenses regulations following those published in Cm 2858 in May. [31710]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) Amendments Regulations (SI 1995/1229) were laid on 9 May this year and came into force on 5 June.

  The funeral payment scheme covers all the reasonable costs of burial or cremation disbursements arranged by the funeral director and allows up to £500 for his services. Everyone who is entitled to help with arranging a funeral through the social fund will be able to choose either a burial or cremation in all parts of the country. So total costs paid by the taxpayer could, in the case of burials, exceed £1,000.

  A copy of the regulations is available in the Library.

  Married Women's Pensions
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many women are in receipt of the married woman's pension of £35.25; and what is the Government's estimate of how this figure will change over the next 10 years. [32075]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The number of women in receipt of the married woman's pension of £35.25 at 31 March 1994 is 1,905,140.

  An estimate of how this figure will change over the next 10 years is not available. However, over the next 10 years the total of category BL and ABL pensioners is likely to remain approximately stable. Within this group the numbers with category ABL will rise and numbers with category BL and ABL pensions will fall.

  In the longer term, due to the effects of home responsibilities protection and the abolition of the married women's reduced rate option, more women will become entitled to a category A pension at over 60 per cent. The numbers with category A pensions will rise and the numbers with category BL and ABL pensions will fall.

  Note:

  Category BL pension is payable to a married woman on her husband's contributions at up to 60 per cent. of the standard category A rate, provided she and her husband have both reached pension age. Category ABL pension is payable to a married woman and is a combination of category A and category BL. Where a married woman's own category A entitlement is less than 60 per cent. of the standard rate, the pension is supplemented up to that level with category BL pension based on her husband's contributions.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social 84
  Security how many people in residential or nursing homes have wives living elsewhere who receive the married woman's pension of £35.25. [32076]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many women in receipt of the married woman's pension of £35.25(a) are also in receipt of income support and other state benefits, (b) have incomes above income support levels and other state benefit levels and (c) are entitled to but are not claiming income support and other state benefits. [32077]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many women in receipt of the married woman's pension of £35.25 would still be in receipt of income support and other state benefits if the substitution rules were changed to allow women living apart from their husband because the husband has gone into nursing or residential care to claim a full state pension. [32078]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The information is not available.

DEFENCE

  Royal Dockyards
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the redundancy and pension provisions for dockyard employees in the event of privatisation or another of the options currently under consideration. [31425]

  Mr. Freeman
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced the Government's policy towards the future management of the royal dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth on 18 October 1993 at columns 39–41. Since then, I, my predecessor and my officials have had numerous meeting with the national officers of trade unions with members employed by the Ministry of Defence and the dockyard companies—Devonport Royal Dockyard plc and Rosyth Royal Dockyard plc—which, I should stress, have been private sector companies since 1987, to discuss the proposed privatisation of the dockyards. I have found these meetings a valuable opportunity to clarify the concerns felt by the dockyard company employees who may be affected by the proposed privatisation. At my most recent such meeting, on 20 June, I undertook to give a full and considered statement, in the light of detailed legal and other advice, of my Department's position on the issues raised with me.

  My officials have also discussed these issues with the tenderers for the dockyards—Devonport Management Ltd. at Devonport and Babcock International Group plc at Rosyth—and, where appropriate, this statement takes account of my understanding of those discussions. Each tenderer, of course, remains fully responsible for any statements that it has made or may make in the future.
  85
  The Government's preferred option for the future of the dockyards is that each should be moved wholly into the private sector as a separate and independent entity, provided the terms are right and meet the needs of the taxpayer and the Royal Navy. The Government believe that this would offer the dockyards the best opportunity to become more competitive in seeking work from my Department and other customers. As elsewhere in industry, maintaining competitiveness is crucial to employment levels; it is essential to a secure long-term future for the dockyards and their employees.

  My Department is now holding detailed discussions with each tenderer with a view to agreeing satisfactory sale terms. No decisions have, however, yet been taken on whether to proceed with the sale of either dockyard. As I made clear in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) on 23 November 1994 at column 146, I do not rule out other options for the future management of either dockyard; the detailed implications for dockyard company employees are, however, hypothetical in view of the Government's preferred option.

  I appreciate the concerns, as expressed by the trade unions, of the dockyard company employees about the effect that the proposed sale may have on them. I understand the stance of the trade unions, but I believe that their concerns, as they have articulated them, are misplaced. They take less than full account either of the opportunities for the employees and all others concerned that would be opened up by privatisation of the existing protections available under employment law.

  It is important to be clear about what is proposed. Under the proposed arrangements for the sale of each dockyard, the employer of the existing dockyard company employees would remain the same. Terms and conditions of employment for existing employees, including redundancy and pension entitlements and collective bargaining agreements, would continue unless or until specifically changed. Both tenderers are aware that contracts of employment can be varied only by means allowed for under employment law—that is to say, only, in normal circumstances, by the agreement of the parties; unilateral variation may be a breach of contract and the law prescribes remedies in such circumstances. The law does not, however, provide for employees or trade unions to have an absolute veto over changes to terms and conditions of employment.

  Each dockyard company is responsible for the terms and conditions of employment of its employees and for any changes to them, subject of course to the provisions of the term contracts, due to expire no later than April 1996, between my Department and the dockyard contractors—Devonport Management Ltd. and Babcock Rosyth Defence Ltd.—under which each dockyard is currently managed. As the trade unions have frequently referred to provisions of the term contracts, I should stress that neither term contract was intended to impede the conduct of bargaining between employer and employee, nor did either affect the legal position that contracts of employment may be terminated on notice. During the course of the term contracts, changes to terms and conditions have been negotiated between the contractors and the trade unions representing dockyard company employees. The responsibility for the management of the dockyards is now a matter for the contractors and would,
  86
  after any sale, be a matter for the new owners. Although both tenderers have assured my Department that they will in all cases comply with all provisions of statute, statutory instruments, regulations and codes of practice relating in any way to employment, the provision of services or the conduct of collective bargaining, I do not intend to impose any constraints on the right of any new owners to manage the businesses as they see fit in order to secure future success—success which will be in the interest of the employees.

  I understand that discussions have begun between each tenderer, the dockyard company employees and their duly authorised representatives about the tenderers' approach to employment issues which may arise after any sale. I welcome this fact. It is not the Government's intention to intervene in these discussions or to seek to determine their outcome.

  I understand the trade unions to be seeking four principal guarantees:

  (i) that the redundancy entitlements of Dockyard company employees should be protected in all circumstances;

  (ii) that the pensions of Dockyard company employees should be protected, with no change after any sale except by agreement;

  (iii) that there should be no change to terms and conditions of employment of Dockyard company employees except by negotiation and agreement; and

  (iv) that there should be contractual guarantees relating to the future workload at each Dockyard.

  Redundancy liabilities and entitlements

  Although the term "redundancy entitlement" is widely used, it is important to be clear what is meant. The redundancy scheme at each dockyard, which is part of dockyard company employees' terms and conditions of employment, includes rules for calculating the payment that a dockyard company employee would be entitled to receive at any given point in time if made redundant in a redundancy situation as defined in the scheme. A dockyard company employee's terms and conditions therefore entitle him to receive a contingent payment on redundancy which is calculated in accordance with the rules of the scheme. As part of his terms and conditions of employment, those rules may be changed only by means allowed for under employment law or any provisions of the redundancy scheme itself. Any failure to make a redundancy payment in accordance with the redundancy scheme may be a basis for an employee to pursue a legal remedy against the employer.

  Both tenderers have made clear their view that if the long-term future of each dockyard is to be secured, the issue of the redundancy entitlements of the dockyard company employees must be addressed. At the same time, both tenderers recognise the importance to the dockyard company employees of their service up to the time of any sale of the dockyards in the determination of their redundancy payments. Each tenderer has assured my Department that, in the commercial circumstances currently envisaged, which will where appropriate be the subject of negotiation between my Department and each tenderer, it does not intend to seek to impose changes in the redundancy payments due for past service under the existing redundancy scheme.
  87
  Although the Government can give no guarantees on the way in which redundancy payments are calculated, I consider, as indicated in my supplementary answer to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson) on 6 June at column 8, that the redundancy entitlements of the existing dockyard company employees, enshrined as they are in their contracts of employment, are already properly protected in law and that the proposed privatisation would not impair this protection.

  It may be helpful to set out clearly my Department's continuing policy with regard to the future recovery of redundancy costs by the dockyard operators from the Ministry of Defence. Under current arrangements and subject to certain conditions, my Department reimburses the dockyard contractors for the costs of any redundancies properly incurred. These arrangements are co-terminous with the term contracts and will therefore lapse at their expiry within the next nine months. Future provisions for any recovery of redundancy costs from my Department will be a commercial matter for negotiation between it and the tenderers. My Department's position is that the normal arrangements between it and private sector companies for recovering such costs should apply in the case of the dockyards. As it is, and will remain for some years, the major customer for each dockyard, my Department, will, recognising the particular circumstances at the dockyards, consider making a commercialy appropriate contribution to any redundancy costs at the dockyards after any sale, where these are directly attributable to special or unusual factors for which my Department is responsible, either as a direct payment to the company or through inclusion in its overheads. The detailed arrangements for any such reimbursement—not, I stress, the details of the way in which an individual's redundancy payment is calculated—are for negotiation between my Department and each tenderer as part of the overall arrangements for any sale. Any such arrangement would, as now, be a contractual matter between the company concerned and my Department alone.

  In the light of the protection afforded by the law to employees' terms and conditions and of my Department's policy on cost recovery as set out above, I do not think it appropriate to consider making further provision in relation to the payment of redundancy entitlements or liabilities.

  Pensions

  On the subject of pensions, I have already made clear to the House in my supplementary answer to the hon. Member for Devonport on 6 June at column 8 that accrued benefits as at the point of sale will be given protection. Under the arrangements envisaged for the proposed sale, the existing pension scheme at each dockyard would continue after sale, subject to certain amendments being discussed with the tenderers and the trustees, including, in accordance with received good pensions practice, the appointment of an independent trustee. Each tenderer has indicated that it is willing to take on the current scheme, with any agreed amendments, at the point of any sale; both tenderers have indicated that they see scope for making changes to the schemes to improve the competitiveness of the business from which the employees derive their livelihoods, but each has declared that it would seek to make such changes after consultation, negotiation and agreement wherever possible.
  88
  The ways in which pension arrangements may be changed are governed by relevant legislation and the terms of the trust deed and rules applicable to each pension scheme. Looking beyond the proposed sale, the relevant points in relation to each scheme are, in broad outline, as follows:

  (i) The actuary to the scheme would generally determine the overall required contribution rate and any changes to it.

  (ii) changes proposed by the employer to benefits under the scheme would, as now, require the consent of the trustees, who would include member representatives and an independent trustee;

  (iii) the employees' contribution rate would primarily be for the employer to determine but this, and any change, would in the normal course of events be the subject of consultation and negotiation between the employer, the employees and their duly authorised representatives, with a view to reaching agreement wherever possible.

  Any employer may bring about more fundamental changes to a scheme by terminating it and replacing it by alternative arrangements; in that event, accrued benefits relating to service up to the point of termination would be provided in accordance with the trust deed and rules. The law does not normally require the consent of the trustees or the members of the scheme to such action. It may, however, be open in certain circumstances to the members of the scheme to seek legal redress against the employer.

  Although the Government can give no guarantees about the provision of pension benefits of dockyard company employees relating to service after the date of any sale, I believe that the law and the trust deed and rules of each scheme provide satisfactory protection for the pensions of existing dockyard company employees. The Government therefore see no need to make further provision in this respect.

  Other changes to terms and conditions

  With regard to other changes to terms and conditions of employment, both tenderers know that employment law governs the ways in which these may be made and provides protection against unlawful dismissal. Changes must, wherever possible, be achieved after consultation, negotiation and agreement between the employer, the employees concerned and their duly authorised representatives where applicable; only if it proves impracticable to reach agreement may the question of unilateral change arise.

  While each tenderer has made clear that it is reviewing terms and conditions of employment, both have indicated that no decisions have been taken in relation to possible changes to these. Each, moreover, has expressed its determination, where it may wish to seek changes, to continue to do so through established local procedures for dealing with such matters after consultation, negotiation and agreement wherever possible. Although the Government can provide no guarantees about the means by which such changes may be sought, we believe that employment law provides sufficient protection for dockyard company employees, in the same way as for all other comparable groups of employees, and that no further provisions would be appropriate.
  89
  Future work load

  Finally, on the question of future work load, the Government's overall policy of concentrating nuclear refitting at Devonport and providing Rosyth with an allocated programme of surface refitting work was set out to the House on 24 June 1993 at columns 447–450 and there has, as I made clear in answer to the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) on 25 May 1995 at column 658, been no change to that policy. We have indicated that contractual provisions relating to the future work load at each dockyard could be a matter for negotiation with tenderers and this is a subject of discussion with them. Any contractual arrangements will need to take account of the many operational and other factors that lead to regular changes in the refit programme, and the award of individual refit contracts will continue to be subject to negotiations about price on the basis of my Department's requirements.

  Information and consultation

  The Government and both tenderers are aware of their obligations under the law and relevant agreements; each has stated that it intends to honour these. For its part, my Department remains committed to inform and consult, insofar as it has obligations to do so, those who are, or may be, affected by the proposed privatisation of the royal dockyards throughout the process of moving towards any sale transactions. At this stage, and until such time as any firm decision is taken to proceed with any sale, my Department's responsibilities with regard to the provision of information to, and consultation of, dockyard company employees relate only to the following matters:

  (i) matters of general principle relating to the proposed sale;

  (ii) the conduct of the sale process and its associated time scale; and

  (iii) the general arrangements that would apply to the future management and ownership of each dockyard, insofar as only my Department can comment on these: aspects within the remit of the prospective future private sector owner are for that company.

  The provision of information and consultation in relation to redundancy entitlements, pensions and other terms and conditions of employment is for the tenderer or, as appropriate, dockyard company in question.

  My Department is separately obliged to consult its own employees and their representatives in respect of the implications of the proposed sale transactions and connected arrangements for Ministry of Defence staff. This process will be taken forward as and when appropriate.

  In the spirit of my answer to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) on 6 June at column 148, I and my officials are very willing to meet the trade unions as and when appropriate over the next months about matters that are the responsibility of my Department. As I have already made clear to the trade unions, my Department's commitment, within the parameters listed above, to inform and consult at the appropriate time with dockyard company employees does not extend to standing in the way of, or influencing, discussions between each tenderer, the relevant dockyard company, its employees and their duly authorised representatives, about how the tenderers might each wish to approach employment issues after any sale. The emphasis should henceforth shift to those discussions. The tenderers, employees and their trade unions should now
  90
  make use of all appropriate local and other channels for the provision of information and consultation to take the process forward with a view to securing the long-term future of both dockyards and their employees.

  Forces Exhibition, Aldershot
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if Nigeria has been invited to send a delegation to the Royal Navy and British Army equipment exhibition taking place in Aldershot in September. [31780]

  Mr. Freeman
  Nigeria has not been invited to send a delegation to the Royal Navy and British Army equipment exhibition taking place in Aldershot in September.

  Attack Helicopter
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much money his Department has invested in the development and other costs of each of the three final contenders and their systems in the attack helicopter contest. [30870]

  Mr. Freeman
  The UK is participating with France and Germany in the development of the long range TRIGAT missile system offered with Tiger by BAe/Eurocopter: the UK's share of development costs to 31 May 1995 was £210 million, at 1995–96 prices. The UK also co-operated with France during the 1980s in the development of the RTM 322 engine which is offered as an option for the Westland Helicopters Apache; the UK's share of the development costs was about £21 million. It is likely that some other equipments offered by the attack helicopter bidders may be derived, in whole or in part, from earlier developments to which the Ministry of Defence has contributed; this is, however, unquantifiable.

  Memorandum of Understanding (Britain and Indonesia)
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the provisions of the memorandum of understanding signed in November 1991 by the British and Indonesian Governments. [30802]

  Mr. Freeman
  Details of exchanges between Governments are confidential; and it has been the general policy of successive governments not to reveal them.

  Al-Yamamah Programmes
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what(a) internal and (b) external audit functions his Department exercises (i) on its own behalf and (ii) on behalf of others in respect of contracts place under the Al-Yamamah programmes. [31279]

  Mr. Freeman
  All my Department's accounts are subject to the normal audit arrangements, the results of which are reported as appropriate. It is not the Government's practice to comment on detailed matters concerning individual defence export sales.

  International Military Services Ltd.
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what(a) income and (b) offset of costs his Department derives from the administrative expenses of International Military Services Ltd. [31280]
  91
  Mr. Freeman
  None.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the businesses or subsidiaries disposed of by International Military Services Ltd. since July 1991. [31281]

  Mr. Freeman
  I understand that International Military Services Ltd. has not disposed of any businesses or subsidiaries since July 1991.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what basis he approved the appointment of the new chairman of International Military Services Ltd. in 1993. [31282]

  Mr. Freeman
  The chairman of International Military Services Ltd. is elected by the board of the company but board appointments are subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Defence as the major shareholder.

  Official Dinners
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the guests, cost and purpose of the dinners his Department or its agencies held at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in December 1993; and if he will indicate which Ministers were present. [31284]

  Mr. Soames
  Only one official dinner was held at the Royal Hospital Chelsea during December 1993. This was arranged for the Sultan of Brunei, who was on an official visit, at a total cost of £1,110.19. The following people attended:

  HOSTS

  Mr. Jeremy Hanley

  Minister of State for the Armed Forces

  General Sir Peter Inge

  Chief of the General Staff

  General Sir John Learmont

  Quatermaster General

  Lieutenant General Sir Peter Duffell

  Inspector General Doctrine and Training

  Lieutenant General Michael Rose

  Commander United Kingdom Field Army

  Major General Michael Walker

  Assistant Chief of the General Staff

  GUESTS

  His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam

  His Excellency Dato Haji Mohamad Kassin Bin Haji Mohamad

  Daud

  High Commissioner, Brunei Darussalam High Commission

  Mr. A. J. Sindall

  High Commissioner, Brunei

  Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir Peter Harding

  Chief of the Defence Staff

  Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon

  Chief of the Air Staff

  General Sir Brian Kenny

  Governor, Royal Hospital Chelsea

  Lord Weinstock

  92

  Managing Director. General Electric Company

  Sir Dennis Thatcher

  Mr.Thorold Masefield

  Assistant Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  Major General Robert Corbett

  General Officer Commanding London District

  Major General Jack Deverell

  Director General Army Manning and Recruiting

  Major General Mike Jackson

  Director General Personal Services (Army)

  Major General (retired) David Pank

  Chief Executive of Newbury Racecourse

  Mr. Christopher Hanbury

  Former Equerry to His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei

  Mr. Max Hastings

  The Editor Daily Telegraph

  Lieutentant Colonel Hamon Massey

  Commanding Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment

  Lieutentant Colonel Hj Brahim bin Jumahat

  Defence Adviser High Commission Brunei

  Live Animal Exports
  Mr. Olner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what agreement has been entered into for the export of livestock by air from the military airbase at Thurley, north of Bedford. [32030]

  Mr. Soames
  My Department has entered into no agreement for the export of livestock from Thurleigh airfield, nor have we been asked to enter into such an agreement.

  Orders
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department continues to consider contract bids from the defence companies Borletti, Gebruder Junghans, and AS Raufoss. [31770]

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: No. The position remains as stated by my predecessor on 26 November 1993 at column 239.

  Public Interest Immunity Certificates
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many public interest immunity certificates he has signed in each of the last three years. [31775]

  Mr. Soames
  [holding answer 30 June 1995]: Since the answer to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) on 10 March 1994, Official Report, column 399, I have signed two public interest immunity certificates— one for each of two potential military witnesses for the prosecution in a criminal case. Both certificates set out the national security and personal safety grounds for screening the witnesses from the public. In the event, the witnesses were not called to give evidence and the certificates were not used.
  93

  Laser Weapons
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if it is Government policy to support a protocol to ban laser weapons or blinding as a method of warfare; and if he will make a statement; [31201]

  (2) what measures Her Majesty's Government are taking to persuade other countries to agree to a ban on laser weapons. [31202]

  Mr. Freeman
  The Government would be prepared to support the addition to the UN weaponry convention of a new protocol covering lasers, if it were to meet humanitarian concerns without restricting normal military uses of lasers. We are considering specific proposals.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library a copy of the study by F. H. Cripps and A. Stimson at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment entitled "The Distribution of Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239 around the United States Airforce base at Greenham Common". [31072]

  Mr. Freeman
  The report is currently being retained under section 3(4) of the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. It will be reviewed at regular intervals until release into the custody of the Public Record Office becomes possible.

  Mr. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consultations he has had with his United States counterpart in regard to his announcement on 18 June that the United States wishes to resume nuclear tests. [31123]

  Mr. Freeman
  It is for the United States Government to determine what is necessary to ensure the safe stewardship of their nuclear weapons.

  Mr. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will place in the Library a copy of the unclassified version of his departmental report evaluating the effectiveness of the Migrant Echo nuclear weapons accident exercise in April 1994; [31066]

  (2) if he will place in the Library a copy of the scenario used by the Migrant Echo nuclear weapons emergency exercise held in Suffolk in April 1994; and if he will make a statement on the exercise. [31068]

  Mr. Howard
  I have been asked to reply.

  Exercise Migrant Echo was an exercise which was held on 14–15 April 1994, prior to Exercise Diver Mist, with the objective of testing the joint UK-US procedures for dealing with a terrorist threat to nuclear materials held on a RAF base in Suffolk.
  94
  A series of classified contingency plans exist for responding to a wide range of terrorist threats, including those which might involve the threatened or actual use of nuclear, chemical and biological materials. In the interests of national security and the protection of the public these are regularly reviewed, tested and updated in the light of changing circumstances.

  Peacekeeping Medals
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many United Kingdom personnel have been awarded UN peacekeeping medals in each year since 1965. [31509]

  Mr. Soames
  Information on the number of UN peacekeeping medals awarded to United Kingdom personnel is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence by whom the decision to award a UN peacekeeping medal is taken. [31510]

  Mr. Soames
  Within the United Nations the decision to award a UN peacekeeping medal is established by the Secretary-General. The award of the medal is authorised by the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations. In the United Kingdom, final approval for the acceptance of the medal by United Kingdom service men and women is granted by her Majesty The Queen on the advice of the chiefs of staff, the Secretary of State for Defence and the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals.

  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many days service on a UN peacekeeping mission are necessary before qualifying for a United Nations peacekeeping medal(a) for each NATO country and (b) for the United Kingdom. [31506]

  Mr. Soames
  The qualifying period for a United Nations peacekeeping medal for service on a Nations peacekeeping mission for all NATO countries, including the United Kingdom, is 90 days' consecutive service.

  Mail Deliveries
  Mr. Viggers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what assessment he has made of the efficiency of mail deliveries to and from service men based at Incerlik, Turkey; [30946]

  (2) What is the average time taken by mail each way between the United Kingdom and service men based at Incerlik, Turkey; and if he will take steps to improve the speed of delivery. [30947]

  Mr. Soames
  The average delivery time for mail between the United Kingdom and Incerlik should be seven days. Recently, however, mail has been taking longer than this and a review of mail operations has been conducted. A number of improved procedures and checks have been identified and where possible these will be implemented.

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

United Kingdom: Defence Spending
Lord Jenkins of Putney Lord Jenkins of Putney asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, with regard to their statement that there is no good reason to align defence expenditure with the lower levels of other European countries (Lord Henley, H.L. Deb., 24th April, col. WA65), the release of large sums of money to be spent on health and education would constitute a good reason.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Henley): My Lords, the level of spending on defence is based on the Government's assessment of our defence needs and priorities, and reflects the importance which we attach to maintaining the Armed Forces to meet United Kingdom defence commitments—principally the protection and security of this country and its dependent territories.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a huge sum of money could be saved immediately by abandoning expenditure on Trident submarines? Will he tell the House under what conceivable circumstances a Trident missile could be fired strategically, sub-strategically or tactically?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I shall not answer that question. However, I can assure the noble Lord that the independent nuclear deterrent has preserved the security of this country for some 40 years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I see no reason whatever for changing that. As regards the generality of defence expenditure, we have made reductions in real levels of defence expenditure over the past 10 years. Nearly £8,000 million has been freed for other uses, which include allowing the taxpayer to keep more of his own money.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, within the lifetime of some of us in this House, on two occasions the government of the day allowed British defences to fall to a level that brought us very near to defeat in war? Should we not be extraordinarily foolish if we ignored that lesson, and did so for a third time?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I should be extraordinarily foolish, as would Her Majesty's Government, to fail to take the advice of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Similarly, we should be extraordinarily foolish if we took the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, will the Minister consider reminding the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and the House that when the noble Lord, Lord Healey, was Secretary
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of State for Defence he was asked the same question? His reply was: if you do not have adequate defences, you do not have schools or hospitals; what you have is a heap of rubble. Is not that principle as sound today as it was then?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and with his remarks about the noble Lord, Lord Healey. The first priority of any government is the defence of this realm. That will be the first priority of this Government; we shall continue that policy.
Lord Judd: My Lords, will the Minister agree—I believe that he will—that in our highly interdependent global community the only way to approach defence expenditure is to define the threat and the challenge, and then, taking into account social expenditure which helps to make the nation worth defending, do whatever we can and can afford, together with others, to meet that challenge? Will he agree that, given the current instability in the world, above all what are needed are highly integrated, effective international forces? Will he accept that this side of the House will do everything to support the Government when they use their place on the Security Council—and indeed their place within NATO—to achieve that objective?
Lord Henley: My Lords, if I understood the noble Lord correctly—I am not sure that I did—I suspect that he got the stress the wrong way round. I recommend that he take advice from the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and listens to the words of his noble friend Lord Healey, as quoted, and the remarks that he made when he was Secretary of State for Defence in the 1960s. The defence of this realm comes first.
Lord Judd: My Lords, will the Minister accept that I did not get the question the wrong way round? My point was that it is necessary to have adequate social expenditure to ensure that we have a nation that is worth defending.
Lord Henley: My Lords, we have adequate social expenditure. We have social expenditure that is far, far greater than was ever the case in real terms when the party that the noble Lord represents was in office; and it has continued to increase in quite dramatic terms over the years. Health expenditure, for example, has continued to grow in real terms over and above inflation every year since 1979.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to inform the House as to what countries are helping Britain with the cost of our Rapid Reaction Force in Bosnia?
Lord Henley: My Lords, that is another question. Obviously, these are matters for the United Nations, and we look to contributions from the United Nations for the Rapid Reaction Force.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind the dangerous world in which we live, will the Government at all times take very good care to see that no British Minister enters any conference naked or unprepared? Will they make sure that no Minister is put into an inferior position because other people might have greater weapons than we have?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I have to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. Perhaps he will offer some advice privately, in the tea-rooms or wherever, to his noble friend Lord Jenkins.
Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, does the Minister agree that a strong and effective defence policy is an essential component of a strong and effective foreign policy and an essential part of the defence and promotion of our national political interest, as well as our security?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with his usual wisdom. The point is that these matters are irretrievably linked. Foreign policy and defence policy must run together. The one without the other is nothing.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that all members of the European Union and Western European Union have differing rights and responsibilities in terms of security? Does he further agree that we have freedom to act in defence of our own interests without constraint, to meet the requirements of our three defence roles with all the military tasks that go with that, and to meet the requirements of NATO policy in terms of nuclear defence?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct. His analysis is right. That is what Her Majesty's Government will pursue and continue to pursue.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the Minister accept that there can be two opinions about the proper and best way of expending money on defence? Will he further accept that my point argued that expenditure on Trident is a useless form of expenditure? I did not say—I need no advice on this point—that we should entirely strip ourselves of defence expenditure. On the contrary. Does he agree with my argument for proper expenditure on defence which excludes Trident?
Lord Henley: My Lords, obviously there can be two opinions on most matters. On this particular occasion, if there are two opinions, I believe that the feeling of the House is that my opinion is right and the noble Lord's opinion is wrong. If the noble Lord so wished, we could spend our entire gross domestic product on health services. It would not give the noble Lord eternal youth, if that were desirable, or even everlasting life. What is important is that we assess our defence priorities correctly and get them exactly right. I believe that we have done so.

Au Pair Scheme and Poland
2.45 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton Lord Belhaven and Stenton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will extend the au pair placement arrangement to citizens of Poland in view of the fact that it already includes citizens of the Czech Republic, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Macedonia, the Slovak Republic and 11 other European countries.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, no. We have no plans at present to extend the au pair scheme to Poland or to any other countries, but we do keep it under review.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Can she explain why, when most other former communist countries—certainly those in central Europe—have been admitted to the scheme, Poland, which has closer ties with the people of this country than any other country of central or eastern Europe, is excluded? Can she further explain the apparent hostility of the Home Office to Poland on this and other matters?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is not true that there is hostility within the Home Office against Poland specifically at all. There is considerable immigration pressure from Poland and therefore, it is thought, a real danger that the au pair scheme in particular would be used as a means of securing entry into this country in order to undertake full-time employment.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that more people from Poland are admitted into this country by other means than from any of the countries mentioned in the noble Lord's Question? Does she agree that substantial numbers of people from Poland are admitted monthly to this country under various other schemes?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the Poles come in under student schemes, immigration schemes and, as the noble Lord said, other schemes. Whether there are more than from any other country, I am not sure. There is some doubt about the figure. Certainly, more come in than from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Unfortunately, the au pair scheme has been used as a means to gain entry and for taking up full-time employment illegally. Indeed, one au pair agency told us that about three-quarters of the au pairs on its books worked illegally as well as carrying out their duties, often with the support of the host family.
Lord Braine of Wheatley: My Lords, can my noble friend give the reason for such discrimination against the citizens of one of our bravest allies in the Second World War and a firm friend in peace?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I hope that nothing in any of my answers detracts from the relationship between this country and Poland; I acknowledge the particular points made by my noble friend. However, since the abolition of the visa requirement in 1992, the number of Polish nationals refused entry has risen considerably. In 1994, over 2,000 were refused admission, representing about 1.5 per cent. of those seeking leave to enter. Four hundred and seventy-two Polish nationals were detained as illegal immigrants; and 200 were found to have overstayed or to have been working in breach of their conditions.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether there has been a great change in the situation? I had a Polish au pair 25 years ago and when I saw the Question I thought that perhaps au pair now meant something different. I had an au pair helping

935
with my children. She was from Poland and was admitted by the Home Office. Has that arrangement changed and, if so, when? Are they now specifically excluded?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, there was a change in 1980 but this particular scheme is for young people—men or women—between the ages of 17 and 27. They must have no dependants whatever in their countries. They come here on a special contract with a family who will keep them as a member of the family, paying them up to about £35 a week and assisting them to learn English. It is a very good scheme.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I acknowledge that a retreat into nostalgia can be a little dangerous. Will the Minister bear in mind, however, that those who drive along the A.40 pass at Northolt a memorial to the Polish squadron who fought very bravely on our behalf in the war? Are those considerations to be abandoned altogether in these modern times or are we sometimes a little guilty of base ingratitude?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have absolutely no difficulty in recognising and agreeing with all that the noble Lord says. We are talking here about one particular scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Dean, made the very real point that there are many ways of coming into this country and visiting it. Many Polish people live here and many of their relatives visit; many of them come in on the schemes. In fact, to return to the normal immigration controls, 141,000 applied to come in last year. Of that figure, 2,000 were refused, but that still means that 139,000 were granted entry into the country. It is just that the level of those staying here illegally and the level of breaches of the scheme is higher in the case of people from Poland, sadly, than it is for those from, say, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, if the Government are so worried about abuses of the au pair scheme, why is it not policed better?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this matter was raised in relation to another Question I answered the other day. It would be disproportionate to have a policing system on almost every house in the land to check up on what people are doing. Those involved come here on a two-year scheme; it is expected that they will go back. However, it is difficult to detect when a young au pair is working for a friend of the family. We know that there is widespread abuse of the scheme.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am trying to understand the Government's position. In a sentence, is the Minister saying that the reason the scheme is not extended to Poland is that, in the Government's view, Polish citizens are more likely to cheat than are the citizens of the Czech Republic, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Macedonia, the Slovak Republic and the 11 other European countries? Is that what the Government are saying?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, no, and that is rather a crude way of putting it. I said that in statistical terms the figures that I gave for Poland are infinitely higher
936
than they are for all the countries named. I do not call it cheating. I am simply saying that the scheme exists and the scope for abuse is greater.

BBC Educational Programmes
2.52 p.m.
Baroness David Baroness David asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are concerned that the BBC is cutting down on the broadcast of educational programmes.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I understand that the BBC has no plans to reduce its output of educational programming. The BBC's own publication, People and Programmes, identified educational programming as an important area which the BBC aimed to develop and strengthen over the next few years. I believe that in this area, as in many others, the UK is fortunate to have the best quality broadcasting services in the world.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I certainly support the BBC in its educational service. However, the Minister did not give us much information in that Answer. Can she say whether or not the policy has changed? I understood that it had. For instance, there is greater regionalisation. Can the Minister confirm that? Can the Minister say too whether or not there are more repeats of programmes than before? Also, can she say how many staff have already left and whether more staff are leaving, as is rumoured?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, dealing with the last point first, staff will be reduced by 40 from a total of 200 and future staffing levels are a matter for the BBC. It has developed a new educational strategy which identifies and aims to meet the educational needs of adults and children learning at home, at work, at school and in colleges. It will broaden the base of the BBC's output and involve the introduction of new services for further education colleges and children of pre-school age, and the Government intend that the new BBC Royal Charter will identify education as one of the BBC's continuing priorities.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the BBC World Service is not cutting down on its educational programmes? As technically there is freedom to broadcast to eastern and central Europe, the educational programmes have actually increased. There is more teaching of the English language and support for the Marshall Plan for the Mind of £1.5 million from the know-how fund. Will the Minister ensure that that continues?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Government and the BBC are strongly committed to the future of the World Service. The World Service will continue to contain a broad range of high quality educational programming, including those teaching the use of the English language.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, how much do the Department of Education or institutions of higher education pay the BBC for the broadcasting services it provides for them?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the BBC pays, not the institutions, except in the case of the Open University. The production costs for the programmes agreed between the BBC and the Open University are met by the Open University.
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether it is part of the new strategy that the Esther Rantzen programme is funded from the educational programming budget?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be well aware that education can take many forms. The BBC recognises that reaching people who have not made the most of the formal education system can be difficult. They can be put off by programmes which are labelled "educational". The BBC is looking for ways of providing educational material through mainstream programmes. The Esther Rantzen show is one example and receives a contribution from the education budget to reflect the educational element.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the expected job losses in London may be compensated for by job increases in the regions as a result of the new strategy of moving new programmes to the regions?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, that is one way of looking at the situation. In general, the BBC is keen to find ways of redeploying staff whose jobs disappear. That may include relocation. The extent to which that may be possible is a matter for the BBC and the individuals involved.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, there seems to be a severe difference of opinion between the BBC management, which argues strongly that it is maintaining if not increasing its educational output, and the staff, who see cuts and an increase in repeats. We do not expect the Minister to resolve that problem on the spot, but does she agree that educational broadcasting is one of the main reasons why the BBC holds its privileged position of being in receipt of licence fee money? It would be surprising and certainly imprudent were the BBC ever to contemplate cutting expenditure on educational broadcasting.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, received the BBC's educational factsheet, which should have set his mind at rest. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady David, received it. The BBC recently announced a major increase in investment in programme commissions from outside London. That will not lead to reductions in educational output.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, can my noble friend arrange with the BBC for the placement in the Library of the document called, BBC Education Programmes—The Facts, which challenges the whole of the factual basis upon which the original Question was based?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I have just referred to that document, which was circulated to interested Peers. If those Peers who are interested but did not receive the document
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wish to contact me, I shall ensure that they receive individual copies. I shall also ensure that a copy is placed in the Library.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, perhaps I may point out that we all received the factsheet, which was interesting and impressive. But other factsheets are often circulated which contain different facts based on different assumptions.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, having received that factsheet, I am surprised that the Question was pursued.
Baroness David: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister something which has not been mentioned regarding the Open University. Is the noble Baroness aware that the Open University organisation is anxious about the new plans for the broadcasting of its programmes? Everybody recognises that it has been brilliant in the past, but it is worried that many programmes in the future will be delivered at night. That will mean that a good many likely students will miss them. There is a great capacity to excite in the BBC broadcast programmes. People who happen to catch those are stimulated and send in inquiries. The Open University is worried that those people, who make up a large percentage of their students, will miss such programmes if the night-time plans increase.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the number of hours of Open University programmes will not he cut. With regard to night programmes, the Government favour any measures which increase the amount of educational programming which it is possible to deliver. The programmes are based on schools, most of which have access to video recorders. Broadcasting overnight allows far more material to he made available to schools. However, there may still be a need to provide programmes during normal school hours and it is for the BBC to determine where to strike the balance.
Baroness David: My Lords, there are many more students in higher education in the Open University than in any other establishment.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I said that there would be no cuts.

The ERM
2.59 p.m.
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy on the feasibility of rejoining the European exchange rate mechanism.
Lord Henley: My Lords, on many occasions Her Majesty's Government have clearly stated that we do not anticipate the United Kingdom joining the exchange rate mechanism in the lifetime of this Parliament.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, I am very keen to help the Prime Minister in this respect because I very much agree with his policy of keeping options open on joining the single currency. But if he is keeping options open on that, should he not also be keeping options open on the exchange rate mechanism?
Lord Henley: My Lords, since at the ECOFIN meeting last week it was agreed that there will be no move to a single currency in 1997, I do not think that it is quite necessary to take the line that the noble Lord is pursuing. As regards the first part of his question, in which he offered to support my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, I shall of course convey that back to my right honourable friend. I am sure that he will be most delighted to receive support from such a welcome source.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: My Lords, may I commend the consistency with which my noble friend has responded to this Question and others on very similar topics in recent months and years and may I also commend the consistency of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister? May I go so far as to ask whether my noble friend will agree that in the light of these repeated assurances there is a risk that the Question from the noble Lord opposite was otiose to the point of superfluity?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not intend to answer the last part of my noble friend's question. As regards consistency, I can assure him that I and all colleagues in Her Majesty's Government have answered this Question and similar Questions with the utmost consistency ever since they were first asked by the noble Lord and other noble Lords in all parts of the House.
Lord Merlyn-Rees: My Lords, the noble Lord has given us government policy as of just after three o'clock today. Can he assure the House that it will be exactly the same policy after half-past five tomorrow?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord absolutely that assurance. After half-past five or half-past six tomorrow my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will still be Prime Minster. He will be Prime Minister in two weeks' time, he will be Prime Minister in two years' time, and for many years thereafter.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, may I remind my noble friend—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Tebbit:—in a form interrogative by asking whether he remembers that Her Majesty's Government's policy was absolutely clear—that we remained in the ERM—until the glorious 30th September 1990? Would he not agree that we should look for changes which may come under pressure? Would he not further agree that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was right to raise this matter, for if we are to have the option of entering the single currency on 1st January 1999, which has not been excluded by the Government, we should have to join the narrow band of the ERM by 1st January 1997, which is really not very far away to allow for a change of policy?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct that we should look for changes. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the entire Government have made it quite clear that we shall keep our options open. That is the deal that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister negotiated at
940
Maastricht; and at that time possibly my noble friend supported the deal that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister negotiated.
Lord Peston: My Lords, the noble Lord does not seem to understand his noble friend's question. That is why the Question is not otiose but is vitally important. Is he aware that the option under Maastricht is a nullity unless we are members of the exchange rate mechanism? That is what we signed in the Maastricht Treaty. The question being put to the noble Lord, which I, too, would like him to answer, is this: if we are not going to join the exchange rate mechanism before 1997, why is his party tearing itself apart on the single currency? The issue will not arise for them. They will not be able to exercise the option because the option will not be there. That is the whole point of the Question. Why does not the noble Lord answer it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I suspect that it is the noble Lord who is in ignorance on these matters. He is right to imply that membership of the ERM is one of the convergence criteria. He then goes on to suggest that the refusal to join implies a ruling out of EMU. That simply is not the case. The exchange rate criterion in the treaty was written at a time when the ERM operated under very different rules from the way it operates at the moment. It is not now clear how the requirement will be measured, but there is no legal or practical need for a formal interpretation of the treaty on the subject now, especially since, as I made quite clear, the 1997 start for the EMU is ruled out. For that reason it is quite clear that we can keep our options open on the ERM until well after the election and we can keep our options on EMU open for considerably longer. We can make up our mind at the time as is appropriate.
Lord Desai: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to help him by saying what he really means in answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit? Does he agree that what he means is that perhaps Parliament would be dissolved before January 1997 to allow us both options of keeping with the currency, perhaps under either government?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as and when Parliament is dissolved is a matter for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, who will be Prime Minister in 1997 and, as I said earlier, will be Prime Minister for considerably longer after that.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, the noble Lord seemed to be saying that, as there is no question of joining the single currency by 1997, there is no need to say what the Government are going to do on the exchange rate mechanism. Why in that case, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said, are the Government troubling themselves with the whole question of a single currency? If they are leaving the options on a single currency open until the end of the century or beyond, why do they not also leave the options open on rejoining the exchange rate mechanism, or, as Article 109j says, at least stay within the fluctuation margins of it?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I do not think that I can take the noble Lord much further. It is quite obvious that there is no need to make our decisions on either for

941
the foreseeable future. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that he did not foresee any chance of joining the ERM in the lifetime of this Parliament.

Business of the House: Debate, 4th July
3.7 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lady Saltoun of Abernethy set down for tomorrow shall be limited to five hours.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sports (Discrimination) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Commonwealth Development Corporation (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
Lord Judd: My Lords, I shall not detain the House for many moments but there are some things that should be said before the Bill leaves this House. We express our appreciation for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has gone to pains to ensure that we can all understand the purpose of his Bill and for the commendable way in which the Minister explained the Government's support for it. However, it is important to recognise that there are certain points which still need consideration.
First, all of us on this side of the House who have unqualified admiration for the work of the Commonwealth Development Corporation remain convinced that its role is to increase the number of people participating in the real economies of the third world countries in which it operates. Therefore, the way in which the Bill enables the corporation to function must be judged by how far that objective is or is not fulfilled. It is because of the assurances we received in that respect that we have seen fit to give the Bill a speedy passage through this House.
One other point should be made at this juncture. Since we began debating the Bill the announcement of the name of the new chairman of the corporation has been made. I believe that all of us who have the privilege of knowing the noble Earl, Lord Cairns, and of his distinguished record not only as a merchant banker but as the chairman for many years of Voluntary Service Overseas and indeed also as a board member of the Overseas Development Institute will feel encouraged that he has the purposes of the corporation, as we understand them, very much at
942
heart. Had we known of his appointment in advance I am sure that it might have encouraged us to give even speedier assistance to the Bill.
However, we must learn two things from the experience of this Bill. First, if the Bill is so important to the corporation, why was it that Members of this House on all sides were only acquainted of the burning significance of the issues covered by the Bill when it arrived in this House? Why were those who were so well disposed towards the corporation not briefed long before that this was something about which the corporation was frustrated?
Secondly, why was it that while the Government's own Bill on the future of the corporation was still before both Houses of Parliament we saw this Private Member's Bill brought forward, covering an essential element of the corporation's future which the Government had not seen fit to include in their own Bill, accompanied by protestations from them at every stage that the Bill was essential to the future of the corporation? It seems to us to display some confusions, which are not altogether reassuring, about relationships between the corporation and the Government. We have given a speedy process to the Bill despite our anxieties on that front.
In recognising that the Bill now goes forward to an inevitably more hazardous phase before the other place, perhaps I may conclude by emphasising that the role of the corporation, as we see it, is a commitment to development, taking the disciplines of good business and the marketplace very seriously rather than being just another business with a development interest.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord for his friendly remarks towards me and the Bill. I hope that that friendliness is repeated by his honourable and right honourable friends in another place when the Bill comes to be considered there, as I hope it will. As regards the reasons why the Bill came forward as it did, rather than as part of the earlier government Bill, the noble Lord may recall that many of us had hoped that it would be possible to amend the government Bill to take into account the proposals contained in my Bill. Sadly, that was not possible within the rules of this House. Those circumstances gave rise to the Private Member's Bill which I have taken the liberty of bringing before your Lordships' House. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for what he said. I hope that your Lordships will now allow the Bill to pass. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Criminal Appeal Bill
3.14 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Criminal Appeal Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Bill read a third time.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No.1:
Leave out Clause 1.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment and speaking to Amendment No. 2, with the leave of the House I shall also use the opportunity to speak to the starred Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, which I know he will speak to later. Also, for the convenience of the House, I shall speak to government Amendment No. 12 to Schedule 2, which is simply consequential to government Amendment No. 2. Finally, I shall speak to Amendment No. 13 to Schedule 2, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner.
The Government have tabled Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 to give effect to the intention, as we understood it, of the clause tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and others, which was supported by this House at Report stage, and which is now Clause 1 of the Bill.
They have been tabled because the Government take the view that the Bill should not leave the Lords in a technically unsound condition. However, I should make clear to the House that the tabling of the amendments has been undertaken without prejudice to the view that the other place might take of the matter. The Government's position in another place will be for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to deal with when the Bill is further considered there.
The current Clause 1 is technically deficient. In particular, it does not provide any mechanism for the hearing of an appeal or establish the powers which would be available to the Court of Appeal when dealing with such appeals.
Our amendment would therefore replace Clause 1 of the Bill with a clause to amend the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 in order to establish a right of appeal for persons convicted of murder against recommendations made by the courts as to the minimum period which should elapse before the Secretary of State orders their release on licence. The new clause we propose would make clear that appeal lies with the leave of the court, or with a certificate from the trial judge, and would attract the relevant procedural provisions of the 1968 Act.
We have taken the view that it would be preferable to create a new right of appeal rather than to define an appeal against a minimum recommendation as an appeal against sentence. The recommendation is not a sentence and we do not think that it would be right to suggest that it is. In particular, we take the view that the Court of Appeal should in these cases be able to declare a minimum period which appears to the court to be appropriate, whether this period is shorter or longer than the period originally specified by the trial judge. I had understood this to be the import of the question asked of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, during our previous debate on the subject. We do not think it would be right for the court to be in a position whereby it could not state the recommendation that seemed to it to be right if that period were longer than the original minimum.
We have not included a power for the Attorney-General to refer unduly lenient recommendations to the Court of Appeal. I would say that we had not understood that that was the will of the House in supporting Clause 1. It is a separate and, I suggest, additional issue.
That would, however, be the effect of the government new clause were the noble and learned Lord's starred amendments accepted. As I have said, this would not have been the effect of Clause 1; and our objections to such a power do go beyond the reasons I set out in opposition to the original clause.
As the House will be aware, the Attorney-General's power of reference was introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to ensure that in the most serious cases it was possible for justice to be done where it appeared that an unduly lenient sentence had been passed by the trial judge. While the original power has been extended to apply to some categories of cases not covered by the original provision, this has only been after very careful consideration.
In the case of an unduly lenient recommendation some remedy is, of course, already available without the introduction of a power for the Attorney-General to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. The final tariff is set by the Secretary of State.
I made clear during Report stage that one reason for thinking that the new clause, which was supported by this House, would not result in the provision of better advice to the Secretary of State was that the holder of that office would be deprived of a second judicial view in any case where the convicted person did not appeal, including those cases where a lenient recommendation had been made. I accept that he or she could obtain a second judicial view in some of those cases if the Attorney-General had a power of reference.
The Secretary of State finds a second judicial view very valuable. Its lack is, I believe, a necessary consequence of the decision made by your Lordships' House and cannot, with respect, be so easily overcome as the noble and learned Lord may have thought: nor, indeed, could it be the whole answer to the problem. The Attorney-General may well have a view on sentencing but he is not a part of the tariff setting process. He is accustomed to looking at sentencing matters but the minimum recommendations at issue here are rather different. Even if the Attorney-General were given such powers, unless he were to refer all cases which would be an inappropriate use of those powers, there would still be cases coming to the Secretary of State where he did not have the benefit of a second judicial opinion.
This amendment is therefore not the answer to the problem which I put before your Lordships: indeed, I fear that it risks adding new issues which it would be unwise to attempt to resolve in haste at this late stage in the Bill's passage.
As the amendment stands, the amendment itself and the practical procedures which lie behind it present unanswered questions. With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, we see some deficiencies in his drafting of his amendment to Amendment No. 2. It refers to,

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"the danger to the public of such release".
Those may be grounds why the Parole Board decide not to recommend release on licence of a prisoner at the end of the tariff period, but such grounds are not part of the tariff-setting process which relates to the retributive and deterrent element.
The amendment is in terms of an appeal by the Attorney-General. In other comparable provisions the procedure is for the Attorney-General to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
We also have some reservations about the precision of the words,
"if he considers that the recommendation substantially underestimates the gravity of the offence"
though we have not yet had time to reach conclusions on that.
The Government are equally worried about procedural questions which neither the Government nor this House have had an opportunity properly to consider. In other cases where the Attorney-General has power to refer to the Court of Appeal, his inquiries into particular cases are triggered in practice, as I understand it, by reports from the prosecuting authorities, the reaction of victims or their families, and press reports. Such cases can then be considered by the Attorney-General in the context of established practice, including experience of comparable cases and Court of Appeal guidance, before he decides whether or not to refer the case to the court.
The position would be distinctly different if the noble and learned Lord's amendment were passed. The amendment would take the Attorney-General into different territory: he would not be dealing with a sentence of a court which, but for his power of reference, would be final. He would be dealing with a recommendation which is not binding on the Home Secretary.
That in turn raises questions about the respective roles of the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary in such a case. In the initial stages, until a body of Court of Appeal judgments built up, it is difficult to see on what criteria the Attorney-General would decide whether to refer a case. It would, I suggest, look very odd for him to take advice from the Home Secretary in such a matter: but in practice experience of tariff setting, and of the relationship between judges' recommendations and eventual tariffs in different classes of case, would be found only in the Home Office.
I would not want to rely too heavily on arguments relating to the Attorney-General's workload, but I think the logical consequence of the noble and learned Lord's amendment would be that the Attorney-General would need to consider a reference to the Court of Appeal in every murder case where there was no appeal against the recommendation, if only to make absolutely certain that the Attorney-General was approaching such cases entirely independently rather than linking—and some would say "confusing"—his role with that of the Home Secretary of the day.
There may be a way through these difficulties. My point is that we have not yet found it and, with great respect to the noble and learned Lord, his amendment
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in relation to the Attorney-General does not give it to us. The Government have tabled amendments to give effect to the specific amendments for which the noble and learned Lord won support in this House, because we regard it as our duty to ensure that this Bill leaves this House in a workable form reflecting the decisions of this House at earlier stages of our proceedings. There was, I concede, a passing reference to the question of a role for the Attorney-General at an earlier stage but that was not an issue clearly before the House when the vote was taken and there are no amendments before the House which would confidently resolve the issue which the noble and learned Lord has raised.
There are too few stages left in this Bill to risk adding new issues. The Government have gone to some lengths, as I hope the House will recognise, to give effect to amendments which, as your Lordships know, we would have preferred this House not to have passed. I suggest we should confine ourselves to that.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has also tabled an amendment to Schedule 2. That amendment effectively renders redundant—as does government Amendment No. 2—Clause 1 of the Bill. If the House accepts government Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, and whether or not it accepts the noble and learned Lord's starred amendments, Amendments Nos. 3 and 4, and the amendment to schedule 2 proposed here would also be redundant. I hope, therefore, that the noble and learned Lord will agree not to press this amendment to a vote.
I hope that the House will accept government Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 which, as I have explained, simply seek to give effect to the spirit of Clause 1 of the Bill. The two government amendments to Schedule 2, to which I referred at the outset, are simply consequential on Amendment No. 2, and I hope that they will be accepted on that basis. I beg to move.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, it will not surprise the House to know that any amendment moved by the Government which is in the interests of justice will he supported by the judiciary; per contra, any amendments which are designed purely for Executive convenience are likely to be strongly resisted. I put that into practice in regard to the proposed amendment by the Government before we come to my amendment to it. I am quite happy for the essential two differences which have been added by the Government; namely, that before one can appeal leave should be obtained either from the trial judge or from the Court of Appeal. That acts as a useful filter. We did not burden our amendment with that detail but, speaking for myself, I am quite happy to accept it.
The other important difference is made in subsection (4) of Amendment No. 2, which provides for quite an unusual situation. If a defendant appeals to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the recommendation was excessive and too severe, he can end up not merely losing that appeal, but finding that the Court of Appeal says that the recommendation should have been even higher than it was. That has the nostalgic flavour of the days when one appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal at one's danger because the court had the opportunity not only of dismissing the appeal but of increasing the sentence. It is nostalgic of the days before

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Lord Goddard. When he presided, one would listen with intense anxiety as to the fate of one's colleagues as they addressed the court and then hoped that one would be in time, if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, to withdraw one's appeal before the court was able to deal with it. It gave one a sense of modified triumph when one saw the look of disappointment on the faces of the judges in that court. However, that is what is being proposed and I think that that is significant for a reason that I shall develop later.
Again, speaking for myself, if a person attacks the recommendation as being excessively strong, I see absolutely no reason why the court (which is dealing with a recommendation) should not say, "Since we have to deal with a recommendation and we have guidelines on these matters, we end up saying what in our view is the right recommendation", which is something to which the Home Secretary attaches particular significance. In other words, today—unlike last week—he is saying to what extent the Court of Appeal can be of great assistance to the Home Secretary and he is inviting that assistance in a wholly unfamiliar way, as I have pointed out.
I return to my amendment. The purposes of the amendment which I moved last Monday were as follows. It achieved open justice. It got rid of the behind-the-scenes activities of the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice who, without much material to go on, advised the Home Secretary as to the penal part of the sentence, the tariff.
Secondly, it equated, so far as it could, the procedure in regard to discretionary life sentences so that one did not have an odd contrast between the discretionary life sentence, often imposed in regard to more serious crimes, and the murder mandatory life sentence. Thirdly, as has happened in respect of the discretionary life sentence, it enabled the establishment of guidelines or clear open criteria, so that judges who are going to make, as they are obliged to essentially under the practice direction, except in rare circumstances, the recommendation after hearing argument in open court know what the criteria are and how to proceed with consistency. Those were the three aims to be achieved.
The noble Baroness has overlooked the fact that the stimulus for my amendment was not some sudden change of tack. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, asked a most perspicacious question in these terms:
"I wonder whether in winding up my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner will say whether his amendment will theoretically permit, in certain grave circumstances, the Court of Appeal to recommend an increase in the period which should be served before an individual can be released on licence".
Before I answered that question in my reply, the House had the benefit of hearing the Minister. There appeared to be an echo of the noble Lord's anxiety in the following terms. The Minister drew attention to the cases where there would be no appeal by the prisoner against the recommendation. She said:
"This might be a considerable proportion of cases—and would certainly include those cases where the judge had erred on the side of an unduly lenient recommendation. This means that precisely in those cases where it would be patently right for the Secretary of State to consider imposing a longer tariff than that recommended, he would have no second judicial view to help him in reaching a decision".
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I believed, therefore, that when I replied to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, I might, sub silentio, receive some applause from the Minister, because I said:
"With regard to the question which was posed to me as to whether with this amendment the Court of Appeal would have the power to increase the recommendation made by the trial judge, I would have thought the answer is clearly yes. But the procedure which would be adopted would no doubt be by process of the Attorney-General seeking to move the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) as he does in other cases where it is alleged there has been under-sentencing".—[Official Report, 26/6/95; cols. 547–553.]
In researching the matter, I found that there was a technical problem. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which gives the Attorney-General his power to intervene where sentences are unduly lenient, he must find a "sentence" because he is operating against unduly lenient sentences. Therefore, given the success of the amendment that was tabled last Monday, he could not proceed to intervene unless and until one made the technical amendment so that the word "sentence", which is defined to cover a multitude of oddities in Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act 1968, was extended yet further. Your Lordships may be interested to know that it already covers recommendations for deportation (which is not a sentence), confiscation orders and declarations of relevance under the Football Spectators Act.
Therefore, in the naive conviction that I was serving not only the interests of justice but achieving what is not always easy—that which the Government wanted—I tabled a simple amendment, which your Lordships will see is now Amendment No. 13. It reads:
"In section 50 (meaning of sentence), at the end of subsection (1), insert"—
this will come under the definition of "sentence"—
"and a recommendation by the trial judge to the Secretary of State under section 1(2) of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 as to the minimum period".
That amendment would have tied up the technicality.
I used Schedule 2 because it dealt with minor and consequential amendments to a number of Acts, including the 1968 Act, which contains the definition of "sentence". I was therefore surprised to receive a long and, as always, immensely courteous letter from the noble Baroness. It was faxed to me at home last Friday and it contained a copy of the amendment which is being moved by her today. It also dealt with the position of the Attorney-General. Perhaps I may read what the noble Baroness stated in regard to the reintroduction in our legislation of power for the Court of Appeal to increase the severity of that which is being ordered:
"In considering what I have said above, you will wish to note that the Government amendment"—
that is subsection (4)—
"would ensure that the Court of Appeal was able to quash the minimum recommendation made by the trial judge and put in its place a recommendation for an alternative period. The Court would not be prevented from making a recommendation for a longer period than that recommended by the trial judge, if that seemed appropriate based on the facts of the case. Whilst the power to increase the minimum recommendation would be unlikely to be used with any frequency, we take the view that there might be cases where the Court of Appeal reached the view that the original recommendation was too lenient. In such circumstances, we do not think that it would

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be right for the Court to find itself in a position whereby it could not ensure that the minimum recommendation made to the Secretary of State by the judiciary was the most appropriate one".
That is sound thinking but, of course, it relates only to the case in which the appeal is brought by the prisoner.
The only way of dealing with the situation in which the prisoner does not appeal, and therefore puts himself at risk, is via the Attorney-General who since 1988 has had the power, with the leave of the court, to intervene where sentences are unduly lenient. So why on earth not complete the circle and say that the Court of Appeal can make it clear to the Secretary of State what in its view is the right recommendation, not only when the prisoner appeals but when he, with some sense of wisdom, fails to appeal and the Attorney-General intervenes in order to ensure that judicially—because the recommendation has been made by the trial judge—the judicial recommendation does not run the risk of misleading the public in general and the Home Secretary in particular?
Of course, that is all part and parcel, one would have thought—naive though I am—of the Government's policy of stressing how firm they are on law and order and that, so far as they can, they will not allow to be left a judicial recommendation which is clearly under-appreciating the severity of the offence or the danger to the public. That is as I thought was the case.
According to the letter of last Friday, the consideration which moved the Government to resist is stated as follows:
"As you know, the Attorney-General's power of reference was introduced to ensure that there was a remedy available to the Crown in serious cases when unduly lenient sentences appeared to have been passed by trial judges and where justice demanded that the sentence be increased. With an unduly lenient recommendation a remedy is, of course, already available because the tariff is set by the Secretary of State"—
I intervene there to ask why the Court of Appeal should be given power to increase the recommendation on an appeal by a prisoner—I read on:
"and the Attorney-General's power of reference would not, therefore, play the very significant role which it does in the other cases to which it applies".
The letter then states:
"Extending the power of reference in the way you propose would also have potentially serious implications for the workload of the Attorney-General. We could not extend the power without very careful consideration with him and a careful weighing of the merits of such an addition to his role".
It does not need a careful weighing; it needs a simple telephone call to Master McKenzie, the Registrar of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, which I made about an hour ago. For the past four years, since 1991, the Attorney-General has had the power, and therefore the right, to intervene in discretionary life sentence cases where the judge makes his recommendation in open court.
Consistent with the practice direction in 1993, the judges have been obliged to make such recommendations in all but very rare cases. Therefore, over the years, there must have been a very large number of recommendations made by trial judges. My inquiry of Master McKenzie was very simple. I asked him whether he could tell me how many applications have been made by the Attorney-General—the same judges would be dealing with the mandatory life
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sentence cases—for leave to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the recommendations were unduly lenient. Without a moment's hesitation, because all the applications come before him, he said that there had been none.
Where is that heavy workload coming from? The same judges will be making the recommendations in the murder cases who make them in the discretionary life sentence cases. So far, their record is such that they have not apparently under-recommended or substantially under-recommended. Why should there be any difference in relation to the same judges going through exactly the same motions as regards murder cases? Why has that simple telephone call not been made?
I suggest to your Lordships again that the main consideration in the Government's thinking on this subject is Executive convenience; it is not justice at all. It was the conflict between those two considerations which lost the Government the amendment which I moved last Monday. There is a risk that the Attorney-General may not take the same line as the Home Secretary. He may move in cases in which the Home Secretary wished he did not; or when appearing before the Court of Appeal, having obtained leave, he may put forward what he considers is the right recommendation cheerfully adopted by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. Of course I speak only from a convenience point of view. But what will then be the situation when publicly the Home Secretary doubles that which both the Attorney-General and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division have endorsed? There may be inconvenience and there may be embarrassment, but if the Attorney-General is kept out of the matter so that it is a one-sided situation, that problem does not arise.
There is a strange pettiness about the Executive's approach to this clear matter of justice. I invite your Lordships to take the view that there is no earthly reason why this amendment should not be accepted. To say that we are injecting something quite different from that which was contemplated by the House is quite wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, raised the point. I did not raise it. I plead guilty to that for two reasons: first, I did not realise the technical problems which would have to be surmounted; and, secondly, I assumed—hence the somewhat confident telephone call to Master McKenzie—that the Attorney-General would not have been very active on this subject. Therefore, it had not entered my mind that it would be necessary. But, quite clearly, from a theoretical point of view the power should exist. It exists with regard to discretionary life sentences because when the judge makes his recommendation in those cases there comes into existence an order. Because that happens, power is given to the Attorney-General under the 1988 Act to intervene in relation to any sentence since a sentence is defined by Section 50 of the 1968 Act as including any order.
As I have indicated to your Lordships, this is a simple, technical matter involving no form of major alteration. It is merely a tidying-up operation which I overlooked. I should tell your Lordships that I have spoken to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice, who endorses wholeheartedly my recommendation and my amendment.

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The noble Baroness has criticised the drafting of my amendment but she has not criticised the drafting of the amendment to Schedule 2. For my part, she may make her choice. The amendment to Schedule 2 achieves exactly the same objective. But when the noble Baroness tabled her amendment I thought, returning the compliment, that as a matter of tidiness it would be better if everything on this subject were dealt with in one place and that one should not look for the position of the Attorney-General in the schedule but that it should be found all in one section.
I need not take the matter much further. This is not a filibustering speech, as I mentioned with regard to last Monday, but the sitting Law Lords are still, as one would expect them to be, sitting, although I have little doubt of their support. The retired Law Lords, genially known by their brothers as members of "the mothball fleet", are here in quite extensive numbers. I beg to move.
Lord Lane: My Lords, I am not quite sure whether this is the right time for one of the mothballs to stand up to support the amendment moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner. However, I shall be very brief because my noble and learned friend covered all the points that seem to me to arise. Judges, being human, may make mistakes. They may make a mistake by sentencing over harshly, or they may make a mistake by sentencing too leniently. Hence the right of the Attorney-General, again after many years of argument, to apply to the court to increase sentences which he considers to be over lenient. That is in the ordinary run of the case. But it is just as important—indeed, perhaps more important—that he should have that right when making recommendations in life sentence cases. It is only by that method that the Court of Appeal will be able to produce a body of guidelines sufficiently based upon applications made to it.
At present, in the way that the Minister mentioned, the only way that the matter of an over-lenient sentence can be rectified is if the defendant himself is rash enough to apply to the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, to have his sentence reduced because it is too severe. If he has the sense to keep quiet and say nothing, as things stand and without the amendment of my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner, there is no method by which the matter can be considered by the Court of Appeal. It is that hiatus—and it is a dangerous one—which the amendment seeks to cure. I therefore support it.
Lord Lowry: My Lords, deluded by my own inexperience, when I saw the Minister's amendment I thought for a moment or two that the Government were accepting the general principle of the suggested amendment moved by my noble and learned friend last week. Of course, that was wrong. I am not being sarcastic when I say that. I realise that when an amendment goes through it is the Government's duty to ensure that it goes to the other place in the most acceptable possible form, even if they do not like the amendment itself. Perhaps I may say, in parenthesis, that I very much hope that the other place will accept this part of the Bill in the state in which it finally leaves your Lordships' House.
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I wish to support my noble and learned friends in what they said about the position of the Attorney-General. I believe that he should be able to appeal or to refer the matter, whichever phraseology one likes to employ. He already can do so with discretionary sentences, including discretionary life sentences. Frankly I did not like that provision when it was introduced. I tried to stop it in Northern Ireland, but I did not succeed. I had a feeling that when one achieved finality, even if occasionally the accused was rather fortunate in his judge, it should be an end to the matter. However, it is not. Therefore, I believe that we should be consistent about the role of the Attorney-General. I have much more heart in saying that because the Attorney-General would be trying to get a recommendation changed and not trying to interfere with something which had achieved finality.
I have just five very short points to make. In being brief I hope that your Lordships will not, for that reason, consider them entirely insignificant. First, the role of the Attorney-General in looking at a life sentence is not quite the same as that of the Executive. That point was made very cogently by the noble Baroness when the point was last debated. Secondly, the Home Secretary is not considering only the same matters as the Attorney-General and the courts when he is coming to his final conclusion. He can take into account certain considerations and he can differ not only from the court but also from the Attorney-General without, indeed, showing disagreement.
Thirdly, the Royal prerogative can now be exercised in a way which can exhibit a difference from something which the Attorney-General, or those acting on his behalf, have been arguing in court. For example, when an accused person appeals against sentence to the Court of Appeal and the Crown presents arguments the other way, what the Home Secretary might finally do may, to the untutored mind, appear to run counter to something which the Crown had said. That, of course, is also true when the Attorney-General refers what he considers to be an unduly lenient sentence to the Court of Appeal. Admittedly, I am talking about the Royal prerogative and not about the statutory procedure in dealing with mandatory life sentences.
Fourthly, why should we not trust the Attorney-General to behave with good judgment and discretion? Why should we foresee that as a complicating factor? Further—and this relates to something that I said last week but which I believe is still relevant—is it not best that the Home Secretary should receive the greatest possible assistance before he has to apply his own mind to the subject?
Fifthly, in deference to the noble Baroness, and confirming what I ventured to say about her last week, your Lordships will have been impressed by the way in which she put the point. I believe that the noble Baroness has a much easier brief this week, but not perhaps one in which she ought to prevail. However, I agree that this is a more open question than the original question of principle. But I still think that it would be very much better if both sides were able to go further if necessary.
Lord Bridge of Harwich: My Lords, I have but a few words to say. It seems to me that the central issue here is very clear. Surely it must be quite illogical that the Court of Appeal should have power to increase the length of the recommended tariff, which has been made by the trial judge where the defendant has appealed, but no such power where he has not. No amount of technicality can hide that illogicality.
My noble and learned friend Lord Ackner referred with nostalgia to the days when Lord Goddard presided in the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division. I do not regard those days with nostalgia at all. At that time, the power to increase the sentence when a prisoner appealed against it was simply used in terrorem of appellants to keep down the lists. That was most unsatisfactory and that is why it went. Surely the logical thing to do, if one is to allow an increase in the recommended tariff period when an appeal is brought, is to provide some mechanism to enable an inadequately recommended tariff by the trial judge to be corrected when a defendant does not appeal.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, as a non-lawyer, I should like to say just a few words on the topic. I would prefer not to see the clause in the Bill. I find the repetition of the case for it that we have heard today no more persuasive than I found it last week. I thought the Minister's answer disposed of it pretty completely, but I know that that is not the issue today.
I would just make two points. First, I have grave doubts about the drafting. I am not a lawyer but I have had a good deal of experience of drafting Bills. I have also had a good deal of experience of the unsatisfactory result of putting things in at the last possible moment without adequate time for consideration. I sometimes think there is some merit in the procedure in the other place where one cannot amend a Bill on Third Reading.
Secondly, it seems to me that there is a much greater and clearer distinction between the discretionary life sentence and the mandatory life sentence procedure, and that in the case of the mandatory sentence the risk to which the Minister has drawn attention of confusing the role of the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General is considerable. For other reasons, too, I am against the amendment we are now considering.
4 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, there is really no further argument that needs to be advanced. The case has been cogently and to my mind conclusively argued by my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner. It has been supported by a former Lord Chief Justice, and a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. My noble and learned friend Lord Ackner says that his amendment also has the support of the present Lord Chief Justice. Further, your Lordships have heard from my noble and learned friend Lord Bridge, a former member of the Court of Appeal and—may I also say?—a former Treasury devil, so particularly cognisant of the viewpoint of the Executive.
This amendment covers the responsibility of the Home Office, the Attorney-General and the judiciary. I hope that your Lordships will acquit me of egotism if I
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say that I support the amendment as a former Home Office Minister, a former Law Officer and a former judge. There is only one other thing that I would venture to say. The Minister seems slightly minatory about what might happen in the other place. It would be extraordinarily foolish if the Government encouraged the other place, using their Whip, to challenge your Lordships' view carried so strongly in numbers, particularly when one considers that there are 18 payroll votes in support of the Government, and, perhaps even more strongly, when one considers how the voting went in the Division Lobbies. It seems to me that the Government would be in danger of losing the whole Bill because I can conceive of no reason why your Lordships should change their view after such cogent argument and after such consideration. For the moment I support the amendment.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I wonder whether I could be foolish enough to intervene in this interesting discussion. I was not able for family reasons to attend the debate which was held on the occasion when the Government were beaten by five votes. However, I believe that I have read every word of the debate. I had the most intense sympathy with my noble friend Lady Blatch. She was given an absolutely unrelenting brief by the Home Office with no room for manoeuvre at all and without any technical knowledge of her own to bring to her support if she wished to relent in any way. Therefore no blame attaches to her either for the result or for the fact that she did not make any concession.
I speak now not as someone with a professional background, although I suppose from the time when I was called to the Bar in 1932 to the time when I resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1987 I must have dealt, in one way or another, with 40 or 50 murder cases, even confining myself to that limited range of subjects. I think it is absolutely lamentable that the Government should find themselves—I speak now as a politician—in opposition to what is virtually a united judiciary. They really ought to listen to what has been said by this united branch of most distinguished lawyers speaking on their own subject. I have rather heretical views but I feel that the Government ought to have given way and ought to give way on the substantive issue which was discussed last time and as to which they have introduced what is virtually a drafting amendment but without commitment as to what they will do in another place. It is extreme folly on the part of the Government to disregard professional opinion to this extent.
Having said that, I want to express my own perhaps more foolish view. It all arises from the mandatory life sentence itself. If there were no mandatory life sentence at all attaching to murder—I have said this in both a judicial and a political capacity—this problem would not arise. Why is there a mandatory life sentence? Murder is not a single crime; it is a bundle of crimes of vastly different culpability and wickedness. It includes the doctor who terminates the life of a dying patient in order to save pain. It includes the case which we have seen in the newspapers today of Private Clegg—about which I shall say nothing other than to mention it—who is being let out after four years only. In my opinion he ought never

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to have been prosecuted at all. Murder includes the wickedest crimes. There are two factors which we must bear in mind when we deal with murder or indeed homicide of any kind. The first is that murder is, as I say, a bundle of crimes of vastly different culpability. There is also a sheer lottery about it because it all depends on whether the victim dies within a year and a day. If he does not die within a year and a day, it is not murder; it is an ordinary crime of violence and the offender is subject to the ordinary discretionary laws of sentencing for any other ordinary crime.
Murder is a "result" crime which depends upon the chances of the criminal having been successful in ending the life of the victim within a year and a day. I wonder what possible justification there is in the light of those two facts for the existence of the mandatory life sentence at all. We must also remember that we are dealing in the case of the discretionary life sentence, which is a different apparatus of law, with another rather curious thing. That does not mean life. It can mean life and it has certain permanent consequences attached to it, but it is in fact a sentence of imprisonment for an indefinite period. It is not a sentence for 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, or for the whole of a life.
I believe that the Government should approach the judiciary with a greater degree of respect than they have shown in this case. I do not think I have ever known such unanimity to be expressed from the noble and learned Benches as has been expressed in these two debates. I think a little more give and take ought to be displayed by the Home Office and the Home Secretary on both issues which have been discussed today. I shall not take up any more time by inflicting my variously heretical opinions upon your Lordships.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am on the side of the Minister in this matter. I do not believe that non-lawyers have anything to apologise for in taking part in debates of this kind. We represent a far larger number of people than do lawyers and we have a political and public position to uphold.
Perhaps a non-lawyer may intervene briefly to try to establish what common ground there is and what it is we are arguing about. We are not arguing about the mandatory life sentence. That issue is not before the House today. There are two views on the matter, but it is part of the law and it has to be accepted. I do not believe that we are even arguing about the merits or otherwise of the amendment that was carried last Monday. There can also be two views on that issue. It was carried by the House, and in my view the Government behaved perfectly honourably by seeking to clean up the amendment to make it acceptable in legislative terms to go to another place. Though I very much respect the views of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, on these matters, nevertheless the issue decided last Monday is not before us today.
We are speaking today about a marginal issue. The issue is whether, in one type of case only—a mandatory life sentence where there has been no appeal against sentence—there should be an opportunity for the state (it does not matter whether it is the Attorney-General or the Home Secretary in this sense) to appeal against too lenient a sentence. I am very much opposed to excessive
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sentences and I am rather opposed to the idea of appeals against sentences on the ground that the state believes that they are too lenient. I am encouraged in that view by the description given by noble and learned Lords of the lottery that existed in the Court of Appeal a number of years ago. I did not quite understand the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bridge, but I believe that he described it as a rule of terror. That horrifies me. I would hate to think that any amendment would take us back to that. But whatever we may think about it, that issue is not before the House today.
The question before the House today is whether we are completing the object of the amendment which was carried last week by extending it to the power of the Attorney-General to appeal to achieve a more stringent or longer sentence. In pure logic, not emotion, I do not believe that there is an answer to the case put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I do not believe that when he moved his amendment he had thought it out adequately, nor do I believe that he was prepared for the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I do not believe that it was implicit in what was said in that lengthy debate; but in logic, if that was what was carried last week, we have to carry something on the lines of what the noble and learned Lord has said today.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Bridge of Harwich: My Lords, I should like to correct a mishearing of what I said. The phrase that I used in reference Lord Goddard's regime was that he used the power to increase sentences in terrorem to discourage appellants. If one appealed, one was in danger of having one's sentence increased.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not understand that. Is that a reign of terror or not?
Lord Bridge of Harwich: One uses the power in terrorem to discourage people from appealing. Perhaps it is a technical legal expression.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It sounds bad enough to me.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Listowel): The Question is that this amendment be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say Content.
Noble Lords: Content.
The Deputy Speaker: To the contrary, Not-Content?
Noble Lords: Not-Content.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I believe that we are discussing the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Blatch, which I understand not to be opposed in any way. The words Not-Content which emerged from the Benches behind me—I speak not in terrorem—possibly resulted from a misunderstanding.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I apologise. I believe that we are now terrified.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I believe that, as we have spoken so much about the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, the House has become rather emotionally attached to voting upon it. The amendment

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that is before the House now is my Amendment No. 1. Therefore, I should call "Content" rather than "Not-Content".
Lord Ackner: My Lords, I took some instruction with regard to this matter. I understand the position to be quite simply that, having moved an amendment to the amendment—
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
Recommendation in case of life sentence for murder
(".After section 11 of the 1968 Act insert—
"Appeal against recommendation
Appeal against recommendation in case of life sentence for murder.
11A.—(1) Where under section 1(2) of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 a court has made a recommendation to the Secretary of State as to the minimum period which should elapse before he orders the release on licence of a person convicted of murder, the person may appeal to the Court of Appeal against the recommendation.
(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, an appeal under this section lies only with the leave of the Court of Appeal.
(3) If the court which made the recommendation grants a certificate that the case is fit for appeal under this section, an appeal under this section lies without the leave of the Court of Appeal.
(4) On an appeal under this section the Court of Appeal, if they consider that a different recommendation should be made, may—

(a) quash the recommendation; and

(b) in place of it declare the period which they recommend to the Secretary of State as the minimum period which should elapse before he orders the appellant's release on licence."").

Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord Ackner Lord Ackner moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 2, Amendment No. 3:
Line 9, after ("person") insert ("(or the Attorney General if he considers that the recommendation substantially underestimates the gravity of the offence or the danger to the public of such release)").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships have heard full argument and submissions on this amendment. On the substantive issue which we debated last Monday I quoted Justice referring in its briefing papers to the substantive amendment as being a modest but useful step towards justice. What I propose in this amendment is a minor consequential amendment. It should follow the consequences of the amendment which was passed by your Lordships last Monday. I beg to move.
4.19 p.m.
On Question, Whether Amendment No. 3, as an amendment to Amendment No. 2, shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 99; Not-Contents, 111.

Division No.1

CONTENTS

Ackner, L. [Teller.]

Barnett, L.

Addington, L.

Blackstone. B.

Ampthill. L.

Bridge of Harwich, L. [Teller.]

Avebury, L.

Brightman, L.

Banks. L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

958

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Lowry, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

McNair, L.

Craigavon, V.

Mallalieu, B.

David, B.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Marsh, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Mayhew, L.

Ezra, L.

Molloy, L.

Faithfull, B.

Monkswell, L.

Falkland, V.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Fitt, L.

Nelson, E.

Foot, L.

Nicol, B.

Freyberg, L.

Ogmore, L.

Gallacher, L.

Pender, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Redesdale, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Richard, L.

Grantchester, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Grey, E.

Sainsbury, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Seear, B.

Halsbury, E.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Hamwee, B.

Shaughnessy, L.

Hanworth, V.

Shepherd, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Simon, V.

Hayter, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Stallard, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Stedman, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hughes, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Tordoff, L.

Jeger, B.

Varley, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Waverley, V.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wharton, B.

Judd, L.

White, B.

Kennet, L.

Wigoder, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Lane, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Chesham, L.

Addison, V.

Coleraine, L.

Ailsa, M.

Courtown, E.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Annaly, L.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Astor, V.

Davidson, V.

Astor of Hever, L.

De Freyne, L.

Balfour, E.

Denham, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Beloff, L.

Elles, B.

Blake, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Blaker, L.

Finsberg, L.

Blatch, B.

Flather, B.

Blyth, L.

Foley, L.

Boardman, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Borthwick, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Gainford, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Geddes, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Goschen, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Burnham, L.

Gridley, L.

Butterworth, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Cadman, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Henley, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Hogg, B.

959

Holderness, L.

Munster, E.

HolmPatrick, L.

Newall, L.

Hood, V.

Northesk, E.

Hooper, B.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Hothfield, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Howe, E.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Huntly, M.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L

Inglewood, L. [Teller]

Rawlings, B.

Ironside, L.

Renton, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Renwick, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Leigh, L.

Romney, E.

Lindsay, E.

Seccombe, B.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Long, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Lucas, L.

Strathcarron, L.

McConnell, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller]

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Sudeley, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Swinton, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trumpington, B.

Manton, L.

Ullswater, V.

Marlesford, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Merrivale, L.

Wade of Choriton, L.

Mersey, V.

Wedgwood, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Westbury, L.

Milverton, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Mountgarret, V.

Wise, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment No. 3, as an amendment to Amendment No. 2, disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 4, as an amendment to Amendment No. 2, not moved.]
On Question, Amendment No. 2 agreed to.
Clause 14 [General provisions about references]:
4.27 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I call Amendment No. 5.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, before my noble friend speaks, I do not believe that we have voted on Amendment No. 1.
Noble Lords: We did.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, we voted on Amendment No. 2.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I have called Amendment No. 5.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 11, line 35, leave out from ("verdict") to end of line 8 on page 12 and insert (", finding or sentence shall not be made under any of sections 10 to 13 unless—

(a) the Commission consider that there is a real possibility that the conviction, verdict, finding or sentence would not be upheld were the reference to be made,

(b) the Commission so consider—

(i) in the case of a conviction, verdict or finding, because of an argument, or evidence, not raised in the proceedings which led to it or on any appeal or application for leave to appeal against it, or

(ii) in the case of a sentence, because of an argument on a point of law, or information, not so raised, and

(c) an appeal against the conviction, verdict, finding or sentence has been determined or leave to appeal against it has been refused.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) (b) (i) or (c) shall prevent the making of a reference if it appears to the Commission that there are exceptional circumstances which justify making it.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I understand my noble and learned friend's confusion, but Amendment No. 1 was voted on.
Turning to Amendment No. 5, Clause 14(1), as drafted, sets out the broad criteria for the referral of a conviction, verdict or finding by the commission to the courts. Essentially it requires that there must appear to be a real possibility that the conviction, verdict or finding will not be upheld on appeal following a reference and that there is some new element, whether argument or evidence, for the courts to consider before they should be asked to look at the case again.
These criteria are framed so as to enable the commission to refer possible convictions to the courts so as to discourage unmeritorious applications and references, while at the same time ensuring that cases which should be decided again by the courts are not prevented from going back there by what will be the only remaining avenue. We have always recognised that this is a delicate balance to strike; and so I listened very carefully to all that was said by your Lordships in Committee and last week during the Report stage of the Bill. As I acknowledged then, we saw the force of some of the concerns put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, the noble Viscount, Lord Runciman, and others. Clearly in setting reasonable criteria for references we must ensure that references are not precluded in circumstances where injustice would result. Although, given their width, the circumstances in which a case which does not need the present criteria but will nevertheless merit referral will clearly be rare, we must ensure that such a referral is still possible.
I undertook at Report stage to bring forward the appropriate amendments today. My first amendment, Amendment No. 5, replaces subsections (1), (2) and (3) of Clause 14 with two new subsections. These enable the commission to refer a conviction, verdict or finding in the exceptional case where the existing criterion for there to be argument or evidence not already raised in any relevant proceedings is not met yet but there are nevertheless compelling reasons to justify its referral.
The second amendment is purely a drafting amendment. It effectively divides Clause 14, as amended, into two new clauses, thus making its terms clearer and easier to understand. I beg to move.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment and in particular to thank the noble Baroness for having listened to concerns expressed in various parts of the House during the earlier stages of the Bill. I and others were concerned that the commission might find itself in a position where it considered that there was a possibility that a conviction was unsafe and was unlikely to he upheld if referred back to the court but felt unable to do so because the evidence or argument was not new and had been raised in some form, however rudimentary or unsatisfactory, at an earlier hearing.

961
In her letter to my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, was good enough to explain the amendments that she now proposes and to amplify her understanding of the expression "exceptional circumstances" in Amendment No. 5. She stated:
"These could include, for example, a case where the defence had failed to represent adequately the defence's case to the court at trial or on appeal, or where the court has developed the law by accepting an argument which it has previously rejected".
Those were the main worries which I and others expressed at earlier stages of the Bill. We are glad to see that this amendment makes it clear that the commission now has wide discretion to refer appropriate cases.
I accept the distinction that the noble Baroness draws between conviction cases and sentence cases and am grateful to her for bringing forward these amendments in this way.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 6:
Divide Clause 14 into two clauses, the first (Conditions for making of references) to consist of subsections (1) and (2) and the second (Further provisions about references) to consist of subsections (4) to (9).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 22 [Meaning of "public body" etc.]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 7 to 9:
Page 17, line 26, leave out ("mean").
Page 17, line 28, after ("Reserve,") insert ("are to").
Page 17, line 30, after ("authority,") insert ("are to").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, these are purely drafting amendments designed to improve the clarity of Clause 22(2) of the Bill, which defines "chief officer of police" for the purposes of Clauses 19 and 20. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 29 [Minor and consequential amendments and repeals]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 22, line 26, leave out from ("amendments") to end of line 27 and insert ("shall have effect.
(2) The enactments specified in Schedule 3 (which include spent provisions) are repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a minor technical amendment. It is necessary if the Bill is to comply with the rule that we point up the presence in a repeal schedule of spent provisions. It has no other effect. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [The Commission: further provisions]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 26. line 22, at end insert:
("() Such a report may include an account of the working of the provisions of sections 10 to 25 and recommendations relating to any of those provisions.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we have previously discussed whether the Bill should specify what the commission may include in its annual reports
962
to the Secretary of State on the discharge of its functions. I said at Report stage, in response to an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that I saw some merit in making it clear on the face of the statute that the commission could comment in its annual reports, if it chooses, on the sufficiency of its own powers and procedures and that I intended to bring forward an amendment to this effect. This amendment is the result. As your Lordships see, it empowers the commission to include in its annual reports to the Secretary of State any comments it wishes to make on any matters which have caused it concern, or whatever, in relation to the working of its functions and powers as set out in Clauses 10 to 25 of the Bill; and of course it may also make any recommendations relating to any of those provisions. I think that that meets the concerns expressed by noble Lords opposite. I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I welcome the amendment. There was a debate on this matter at Committee stage and further discussion at Report stage. Subsequently, there was an exchange of correspondence between the noble Baroness and myself. The amendment meets our anxieties. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 27, line 26, at end insert:
("() In section 18 (initiating procedure), in subsection (2), at the end insert "or, in the case of a recommendation, from the date of the declaration of the recommendation".
() In section 22 (right of appellant to be present), in subsection (3), after "on a person" insert ", or declare a period which they recommend as the minimum period which should elapse before the Secretary of State orders a person's release on licence,".").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment was spoken to with Amendments Nos. 1 to 4. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 13 not moved.]
4.38 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
I said at Second Reading that this Bill is a measure of great importance for it is concerned with both the pursuit of justice and with public confidence: confidence that justice is done and is seen to be done. That this is true has been amply demonstrated by our debates both today and at earlier stages in our discussions. Perhaps I may say that I was greatly heartened by the warm welcome which the Bill received in your Lordships' House and by the constructive approach which has characterised our discussions.
There have, I think, been three main areas on which our debates have concentrated: the criteria for referral, the commission's investigative powers and, lastly, openness and disclosure, and in particular the degree to which the commission will he able to disclose information to applicants.

963
The Bill places broad conditions on the power of the commission to refer convictions, verdicts, findings and sentences to the courts. Their purpose is to guide both the commission and those wishing to make representations as to the sort of circumstances in which it will be appropriate for the courts to hear a further appeal as a last resort. But the criteria must not exclude any case in which an injustice would result if it could not be referred. Following the very helpful earlier debates on this issue in your Lordships' House we have again looked at this. As a result we have extended the existing criteria in the Bill so that the commission may in exceptional circumstances refer a conviction, verdict or a finding to the courts even where the very broad criteria in Clause 14(1) (b) (i) are not met. I am grateful to your Lordships for your contributions to this debate at each stage.
A number of your Lordships have rightly stressed the importance of putting in place procedures for investigating cases which are both effective and independent. To that end, the powers in the Bill for the commission to engage the assistance of police forces and other public bodies and the commission's ability to employ professional experts of all kinds are of the utmost importance. Here again your Lordships have been instrumental in strengthening the commission's powers. The commission will have various means of investigating at its disposal, and the police will play a vital part in helping it. The extent to which the commission's own staff or those it may contract from outside will take part in investigations has been the subject of much scrutiny and much helpful discussion. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and I have had a helpful further discussion since Report stage, and I am happy to confirm the position.
So far as the power to investigate is concerned, Clauses 19 and 20 enable the commission to co-opt police officers or, if appropriate, members of other public bodies. They do not require the commission to do so. The commission will be resourced and equipped on the basis that it will make full use of its Clause 19 powers to request police assistance. But its resources will certainly allow it, if necessary, in an exceptional case to do itself or to commission others to do work that would otherwise normally be done by police officers. The commission will in any case do, or commission others to do, a good deal of investigating of a kind that is not specifically police-type work.
Our debates focused very properly, too, on the accountability of the commission, which is a necessary counterpart to its independence. The Bill contains provisions that will require the commission to submit to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary an annual report on its work, together with appropriate accounts. Both will be laid by him before Parliament. The Bill also now makes it clear that its reports may include any matters which the commission may wish to bring to the attention of the Home Secretary with regard to the sufficiency of Clauses 10 to 25 once in force.
But parliamentary scrutiny is just one aspect of the openness of the commission's work for which the Bill provides. The Bill requires a statement of the commission's reasons for referring a case to be sent to
964
the court where a case is so referred and requires that statement to be copied to all the likely parties to the resulting appeal. The Bill also requires that a fully reasoned explanation of any decision not to refer to be given by the commission to the applicant. We have further provided that the commission may disclose such information as may be appropriate in the individual circumstances of the case. Thus the commission will have full power to discharge its obligations of disclosure in the interests of fairness to the applicant within the framework determined by the courts.
One issue not directly related to the main focus of the Bill has, of course, exercised this House; namely, the creation of a right of appeal against a minimum recommendation made by the trial judge under the terms of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965. I would simply remind the House, as I made clear earlier, that the amendments tabled by the Government on this matter are without prejudice to the view that the other place might take. I think that we shall rue the day if we believe in this House that we can take a view that the other place should never be critical or take a contrary view simply because of the size of the majority in this place. When a matter is considered in another place, it is considered by another place entirely on its merits, and Members are entirely free of the elected Chamber and wholly accountable to members of the public outside Parliament to take a view independently of the size of the majority in this House.
The Government are fully committed to putting in place the best—the most effective—criminal justice system that it is possible to provide. With this Bill, we have taken another major step towards achieving that aim.
In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords on the Front Benches opposite who have been so constructive and helpful during the course of this debate. I also thank my eminent adversary, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, towards whom I promise I bear absolutely no malice. I have been daunted by the sheer weight of argument and legal support that have streamed in here after four o'clock on each of the afternoons that we have met. I hope again that we have been sufficiently constructive to open up a very healthy debate in this House.
That leaves me only to thank my noble friend Lady Trumpington, who gave me enormous support on these Benches, as did my noble friends behind me. The Bill has clearly benefited from the attention that your Lordships gave to it and important improvements have resulted. The public will have reason to be grateful for the contributions made in our debates, just as I am grateful for the spirit in which they were all put forward.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Blatch.)
4.45 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, the final stages of this Bill have been for us something of an intellectual ordeal—and possibly, if I may say so with great respect, for the noble Baroness herself. You have to be a High Court judge to understand all the intricacies of the debate through which we just went. However, this

965
Bill in its original form received the full approval of this House. I re-read the debate at Second Reading and saw how unanimous was approval for the Bill in that form. It was only when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, introduced on Report his amendment regarding life sentence recommendations that we got into controversial deep water.
I hope that the Government will not send the Bill back to this House with the new clause in it. The noble Baroness reserved the Government's position on the principle of the matter, as I understood her remarks at the beginning. However, I hope, now that this House has accepted the technical dressing up of the amendment, that it will present no technical difficulties; and I hope that it will present no difficulties on grounds of policy. After all these years of controversy about the penalties imposed on those who are found guilty of murder, this House is entitled to take any opportunity of looking at experience and of trying to bring to bear a degree of humanity, if no more, upon a very difficult subject.
I do not believe that all murderers are bad people. I believe that good people sometimes suffer from the passions and feelings of human beings which from time immemorial have occasionally governed human conduct. If we look at history in all its forms, we see the emotional reactions of the deeply embedded psyche of the living creature to a situation that dominates all attempts at reason or logical decision. One must sometimes deeply sympathise with those who get into this dreadful situation.
We can at least, however, deal with some of the consequences of the actions taken in the past by Parliament in relation to this matter. Parliament said that capital punishment should end; and it has said more than once since then that capital punishment will not be reintroduced. I am sad to hear that one of the contestants for the leadership of the Conservative Party has taken on board, in his policy manifesto, support for the return of capital punishment. I regard that as a disqualification right away. It just shows that his political thinking is no better than that which existed 50 years ago.
When we decide that we shall no longer kill those who are convicted of murder, we have to consider what are the consequences of the alternative that we adopt. Without repeating the remarks I made last week, I feel that the amendment to the Bill in its present form meets the desire for a little more humanity and a little more certainty about the sentence of life imprisonment. Life imprisonment is a sham. We all know that. Only in very extreme circumstances does anyone serve a sentence literally for life.
Therefore, we must consider what we are doing to people. They are men and women. We have decreed that they shall be treated as human beings. We must do our best to give them the opportunity to earn some respite from the horrors of prison and re-enter their previous free life. Humanity must be uppermost in all matters relating to crime, which is one of those big subjects about which it would be unfair to release on the House a lot of philosophical considerations.
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Let me finish my pleading that the Bill as it stands now should be accepted by the Government. It should not be sent back. Despite the little difficulties over Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 we can feel that we have achieved something worthwhile in the Bill as a whole. We need have no reservations whatever about the wisdom of having put some hope in the minds of those who are sentenced to life imprisonment so that at any rate there exists a target to which they may work and, if they or those advising them feel that the sentence is excessive, there is the right to have it reviewed. That, uttered at the beginning, is the right of the prisoner. Therefore, in all the circumstances, I support the Bill.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in case we are tempted to be too satisfied with ourselves as we come to the end of the Bill, we should remember the very serious problems with the criminal justice system that gave rise to the appointment of the Runciman Royal Commission and, following the Royal Commission, the first drafting of this Bill.
The discussion document issued last year by the Home Office mentioned three objectives for what was then called a criminal cases review authority. One was that conditions which cannot be considered safe are quashed, leaving those which are safe to stand. The second was that there must be arrangements to ensure that doubts about the safety of a conviction can be considered and resolved at the earliest opportunity. The third was to ensure consistency of approach in criminal proceedings. None of those existed before the Royal Commission—or, rather, before the rather horrific cases which gave rise to the appointment of the Royal Commission.
It is a fact that, whether or not they were IRA terrorist cases—many of them were not—there were a number of cases where the procedures before and at trial in very serious offences were inadequate, where the investigations after trial and after conviction were inadequate, where the ability and sometimes the willingness of the Court of Appeal to accept the results of those investigations and the new information were wholly inadequate, and where there was a serious question about the independence of the review procedures which exist to correct miscarriage of justice. As a result, there was a whole series of cases of miscarriage of justice, which sometimes took 15 years or more after conviction to correct. Indeed, in my view, and in particular in the Bridgewater case, there are some which have still not been corrected. Let us be in no doubt about the seriousness of the issues which lie behind the Bill and its predecessor commission.
Having said that, I pay tribute to the integrity of objective of the Government in the discussion paper last April. But before that I pay tribute to the Runciman Royal Commission, which must take precedence over all. I pay tribute to the discussion document in trying to implement the results of the Runciman Commission. I also pay tribute to those who persuaded the Prime Minister that it was possible to get the Bill into this year's legislative programme. Apparently it was only at the last minute, hut we have it and we are grateful for that. Again, I pay tribute to those who have been

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involved in drafting the Bill, in the presentation of the Bill in this House, and in the discussions that have taken place.
The Minister referred to three particular issues. One was the basis on which the commission might refer cases to the Court of Appeal. As we have heard within the last half hour, the ability of the commission to refer cases is not to be restricted to a very simple, and possibly over-simple, form of words. There are powers to make other referrals in exceptional circumstances. My noble friend Lady Mallalieu played a most valuable part in achieving that objective.
The second issue to which the Minister referred was the investigative powers of the commission. We have always accepted that the majority of investigations should be carried out by the police or comparable bodies. After all, they were the ones involved in the original investigations. They start with greater knowledge than anyone else and it is common sense that in most cases the investigation should return to them. What has been achieved in the passage of the Bill, as the Minister rightly reminded us, is a considerable extension of the powers of the commission to direct investigations and, as she said in her reply a few minutes ago, to carry out investigations themselves. I am enormously grateful to her for the way in which she approached this issue and accepted the necessity for the integrity and independence of the commission as an investigative body to be maintained and enshrined in statute.
The third issue to which she referred was disclosure. I must confess that we have not achieved the kind of changes that we wished. It is still the case that disclosure is the exception rather than the rule in what I think of as Clauses 22 and 23 but which no doubt are differently numbered now. It is still the case that there is insufficient protection for appellants to ensure that after their trial they have access to the information that is necessary for them to put forward an effective case. But, as we understand it, disclosure is to be the central subject of a major criminal justice Bill to be introduced probably in the next Session. Nobody can say what will be in the Queen's Speech—if there is to be a Queen's Speech from this Government—and therefore I am content to leave that issue until we come to the major debates on disclosure at that stage.
I do not think that we have obtained all that we wanted on legal aid. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Mallalieu will agree on that. Nevertheless, there have been improvements in the conditions for legal aid.
The Bill started off as a well intentioned and honourable Bill. It lands up as a good Bill. This House can be proud of the changes that have taken place. I am grateful for the collaboration of noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches; the noble Lords, Lord Rodgers and Lord Harris. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Mallalieu and to Ministers on the Front Bench.
I found myself in the rather strange position of being a constant ally of the judges. That is not normally my position. Their interventions were constructive and, when I fully understood them, I tended on the whole to agree with them. I admire and respect the noble and
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learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and his colleagues for their persistence in putting forward those points. We end up with a Bill which will satisfy the noble Viscount, Lord Runciman. For me, personally, it is a Bill which would have satisfied my late father-in-law, Tom Sargant, who was the first secretary of Justice for a period of more than 25 years. On his behalf, I am proud to have played some part in the passage of the Bill.
5 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I associate myself with almost everything said by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, about the Bill and its progress through the House. I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Minister for dealing with what was an extremely complex Bill. I am delighted that I was not in her position, with her brief, and particularly delighted that I did not have to do battle with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I would have done much less well than she, and I say that irrespective of whether or not I agree with the Government's position on the matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, referred to the latter stages of the Bill as being an intellectual ordeal. I prefer to think of them as having been an education. This is certainly the first experience I have had of the Law Lords in action, either retired or active. They are a formidable group and it is an interesting commentary on changes in our society that for many of us the Law Lords now speak as a radical voice whereas, once upon a time, they were essentially the voice of the status quo.
One part of the Bill in which I expressed specific interest was the question of the investigative powers of the commission. I shall look carefully at what the Minister said following her discussion with the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. In Committee she referred to the powers of the commission as being substantially prescribed, in so far as it would not be able to undertake investigations of its own because it would have no in-house team. However, on Report she said,
"an investigation can be undertaken by the commission".—[ Official Report, 26/6/95; col. 581.]
Those two points of view are reconcilable. I believe the noble Baroness was seeking to show that the commission had wide powers; that it would be independent; and that, although it may not have the resources to undertake an investigation on its own, it could go a long way in the direction of ensuring its terms and controlling it thereafter.
I agree that the Bill is a useful addition to the statute book. I agree also with what other noble Lords said in expressing the hope that it will return to this House in its present form and that the Government will take no lead in seeking to amend it. The Bill has made progress here and has been improved during that time.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, in a few words I should like to add my congratulations to those already accorded to the noble Baroness on a quite outstanding grasp of a complex Bill—and an important Bill too. She managed to achieve a great degree of co-operation and, as a result, significantly improved parts of the Bill.

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My intervention, as I indicated at the start, was a modest one. It had nothing to do with the discretion of the Home Secretary to decide how long a prisoner stays in prison. I echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and express the hope that the experience of the Clegg case may perhaps have persuaded the Government that it is not a happy situation when one mixes politics with the judicial function of sentencing.
I associate myself also with the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Simon of Glaisdale with regard to the treatment in the other place of the clause resulting from our Amendment No. 2, which we debated today. Of course one does not decide whether to reject or accept what comes from this House purely on the basis of the size of the majority. Incidentally, I believe it was 16, and not as stated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, who was referring to an issue that I lost rather than one that I won; that is, in relation to contingency fees. One must have regard to the weight of the argument.
In this Bill the judiciary established a record. I have been in a number of debates where the number of Law Lords who voted against the Government reached 10. On this occasion, if we include my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, a former Master of the Rolls, as Law Lords, no fewer than 17 judges of that distinction voted against the Government, with not one in their favour. When one is dealing with a legal subject, if their advice is rejected in the manner which has already been threatened when this goes to another place, then it is a poor outlook for the triumph of justice over executive convenience. I hope that that situation will not occur. However, as I indicated, this was only a minor part of an important Bill to which tributes have been justifiably paid to the noble Baroness. I support the Motion.
On Question, Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Town and Country Planning (Costs of Inquiries etc.) Bill
5.5 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to present to your Lordships' House what is inevitably a rather technical government Bill. The Bill is important because it seeks to remove the current source of uncertainty about who should pay for the services of a planning inspector who is appointed to hold an inquiry on the planning authority's behalf into objections to a development plan or some other similar plan. This applies in Wales and Scotland as well as England.
I should like to refer briefly to the history of the matter. Since the 1970s, when the first local plan inquiry was held under what was then the Town and Country
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Planning Act 1971, my department and local planning authorities assumed that it was lawful, on the basis of an implied contract, to impose a charge for making available the services of an inspector. That seemed entirely natural. The planning authorities were statutorily required, as they still are, to hold their development plan inquiry. All concerned therefore expected the authority to pay for the expense of that process, including the cost of an inspector whom the Secretary of State appoints independently of the authority.
Late in 1992 and the following year, Birmingham City Council queried the amount it was charged by the Planning Inspectorate Agency for the inspector appointed to hold the council's unitary development plan inquiry. Subsequently, the council also questioned whether any statutory power existed to levy those charges. To support its argument the council cited the judgment of the House of Lords in the case of McCarthy & Stone (Developments) Ltd. v. Richmond upon Thames London Borough Council. If I may attempt to summarise it, that judgment held that there is no power for a public body to levy a charge for its services in the absence of an express or implied statutory provision. Moreover, I am advised that even though the Planning Inspectorate Agency and the local planning authority normally agree on the terms on which an inspector is to be appointed for a development plan inquiry, there is no implied power to charge the authority for that service on any contractual basis.
When my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and other colleagues were made aware of this legislative gap, the Government decided that the only reasonable course was to fill it as soon as parliamentary time could he made available. My noble friend Lord Arran announced, in a Written Answer on 21st February last year, the Government's intention to legislate on this issue in order to put the matter beyond doubt. I regret that we could not find an earlier opportunity to fulfil that intention.
Following that announcement, the Planning Inspectorate Agency's chief planning inspector informed all local planning authorities in February last year that the inspectorate would collect no further charges for development plan inquiries until the proposed legislation had been enacted. In the meantime, any local planning authority wishing to claim a repayment of its charge would receive it, but authorities were also advised to make full budgetary provision for the amounts which would be due to my right honourable friend's department if the proposed legislation were eventually enacted. Authorities who were naturally concerned about these matters thus received a proper explanation of what was involved and were reasonably advised not to expect the benefit of a "windfall" payment. Prudent authorities have followed that advice.
The sums at stake may not seem large in total local government public expenditure terms. The underlying principle is nonetheless important. In England and Wales, up to and including 1992–93, they amount to £4.5 million. For 1993–94, £1.4 million has been recovered from planning authorities and paid into a suspense account. A further £2.6 million is owing to

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my department. For the year 1994–95, approximately £3 million is due to the department. In future years, charges will amount to approximately £3.6 million on average while the present development plans workload continues. The department has repaid some £3 million to 100 local authorities together with interest payments of approximately £108,000 to 28 authorities.
The principle on which the Bill is based is that authorities should pay for the services which these charges represent and for which provision is made in the annual local government finance settlement. It is relevant at this point to mention the Royal Town Planning Institute's independent assessment of the Bill. In its observations, published on 11th January, the institute said:
"The Institute has no fundamental objections to this Bill which essentially puts the law back to what it had been universally seen as being for 25 years until last year".
I turn now to the clauses in the Bill. Clause 1, applying in England and Wales, is the core provision of the Bill. The clause does two things. First, it enables the department to recover from planning authorities my right honourable friend's costs, through the Planning Inspectorate Agency, in appointing an inspector to hold what is called "a qualifying inquiry". These are inquiries into objections to local plans, or unitary development plans, or simplified planning zone schemes; to consider objections to such schemes; or to conduct an examination in public into structure plan proposals. Secondly, the clause enables my right honourable friend to provide by regulations the "standard daily amount" and the travel and subsistence allowances which planning authorities are to pay to persons, other than inspectors, who are appointed to conduct an examination in public into structure plans. My right honourable friend will lay the regulations in Parliament and bring them into force, subject to parliamentary process, as soon as practicable after Royal Assent to the Bill. The retrospective provisions of the Bill will validate the charges made up to the date of Royal Assent. Until regulations are brought into force, the provisions in subsection (2) of Clause 1, which refer to the amount being "determined and notified", will effectively continue to validate those charges until the regulations come into force. I appreciate that the provisions of Clause 1 may seem too lengthy and detailed. That is necessary to ensure that they do the job properly.
Clause 2, also applying in England and Wales, deals with retrospection. The Government are persuaded that, exceptionally, retrospection is justified on this occasion for two main reasons. First, Clause 2 imposes no new financial burden on local planning authorities. It simply validates past payments which authorities made in good faith, believing, as did the department, that they were sought and paid lawfully. In this context, I remind noble Lords that general provision was made in the annual local authority finance settlement for the estimated sums planning authorities expected to incur by way of charges for inspectors' services at development plan inquiries. Secondly, without retrospection, the other provisions in the Bill would be unfair to those planning authorities which, through no fault of their own, have not yet reached the stage of holding an inquiry as part of their development plan process. We see no reason why
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planning authorities which have already passed that stage should receive a "windfall" financial benefit through not including retrospective provisions in the Bill.
I shall briefly mention the comparable Scottish provisions in the Bill. I understand that the position has not been tested in the Scottish courts. In addition, planning authorities in Scotland have not so far pressed for repayment of the sums paid in the past. Nevertheless, because my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland thinks similar problems may arise he considers it prudent to legislate now in order to remove any doubt about the basis of charges made.
Clause 3 enables my right honourable friend to set charges by regulations. It establishes a firm statutory basis for payment by planning authorities in Scotland. This will apply in the case of both local plan and simplified planning zone inquiries. While this provides equivalent powers to Clause 1, there are a number of distinctive Scottish features. First, the reporters who hold local plan or simplified planning zone inquiries in Scotland are appointed not by the Secretary of State himself (as in England and Wales) but by the planning authority from a list provided by the Secretary of State. That list may include both full-time reporters and other suitably experienced people who are not officers of the Secretary of State. Secondly, examinations in public into structure plan proposals in Scotland are carried out on behalf of the Secretary of State; so the cost does not fall on the planning authority, as it does in England and Wales. Finally, the Scottish Office inquiry reporters' unit remains part of the Secretary of State's department and is not a Next Steps agency. Clause 3 reflects these distinctive elements but with the same underlying objective and effect as Clause I for England and Wales.
Clause 4 makes retrospective provision with regard to local plan inquiries, held under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Acts of 1969 and 1972. There have been no simplified planning zone inquiries in Scotland yet.
As in England and Wales, neither of these clauses imposes any new burden on Scottish planning authorities. They are intended to put on a firm statutory footing the charging arrangements which have operated in practice for a number of years.
In conclusion, this short Bill provides formal charging powers which everybody had assumed existed for some 20 years. Today we are concerned with the principle of the Bill. The Government consider that the Bill is soundly based on the principle that it is reasonable for the user of a public service to pay for it—including, in this case, an essential provision for retrospective payment. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. — (Viscount Ullswater)
5.17 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Viscount for introducing what he rightly says is a short Bill. It is, nevertheless, an important Bill, as I am sure he recognises. I do not intend to move the amendment that I have tabled, not

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least because I tabled it at a very late stage and I do not think I gave the House sufficient notice. But the fundamental issues contained in the amendment are ones with which we shall have to deal when the Bill reaches Committee.
The noble Viscount quite rightly said that there was a problem which the Government had to meet. With Clauses 1, 3 and 5 of the Bill—looking at the future—there seems to be no particular problem. We shall discuss in Committee whether the measures the Government are replacing are right or wrong, whether indeed local authorities should pay the planning inspectorate for the costs of inquiries when those are imposed by statute, whether local authorities should be invited to sign a blank cheque, which is effectively what it is, without any appropriate agreement between themselves and the planning inspectorate on costs, and so on. We shall pursue a number of detailed points in Committee.
Had the Bill stopped there I do not think that there would be any point of major principle between us. There would be points of detail. But in Clauses 2 and 4 the Government have introduced retrospective legislation. The noble Viscount is quite right to say that the matter has not been tested in the Scottish courts and that therefore there has been no repayment. He was right in saying that under the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 development plan inquiries were mandatory and charges were levied, and have been levied since then. They were levied for approximately 21 years.
This arrangement was challenged by Birmingham City Council in 1992 on the ground that the Government had no authority from Parliament to levy those charges. Birmingham City Council won the case. It was clear to the court that an implied contract did not constitute proper authority for the Government to levy charges on local authorities in this respect. As the noble Viscount went on to say, the Government decided that they would have to rectify the position. In the meantime, the money that had been paid by local authorities to government over those 21 years, was repaid. I have a figure of 97 local authorities. I believe that the noble Viscount said that there were 102, but the matter is not of great significance.
The money was paid back to local authorities with interest on the grounds that it had been levied by government ultra vires. Since 1992 charges have either not been paid because local authorities realised that the court had decided that the Government were acting ultra vires in levying such charges, and such charges as were paid have been put into a suspense account pending the matter being cleared up in one way or another.
As the noble Viscount quite rightly said, it is a question of transferring from one public pocket to another in the sense that, as long as one eliminates the council tax element of local authority revenue, it is the revenue support grant that supplies the bulk of local authority revenues. So if the Exchequer gives to local authorities with one hand it can take away with the other.
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But it seems that the reasons for retrospection—and here I rely on the opinion of noble friends who are more expert than I am in constitutional law—are not very convincing. First, the fact that there is no new financial burden on local planning authorities does not seem to me to be a reason at all, but the fact of the matter. Obviously, if there were a new financial burden—and we shall discuss that later on—then clearly the retrospective element would be intolerable.
Secondly, the noble Viscount gave as the next excuse that the law now is where it was thought to be. I am advised, again by my noble friends who are more expert than I am, that that is a matter which is not necessarily justification for retrospection. Thirdly, the noble Viscount said that it would be unfair since those authorities who have yet to have their development plans approved by statutory inquiries, or tested by a planning inquiry, would be disadvantaged if Clause 1 is accepted and Clause 2 not accepted. Again, my noble friends say that that is often tried on—that is, unfairness—but the law is neutral in these matters.
Therefore, unless the Government come up with some better answers, we shall have to have a serious debate in Committee on this matter. Furthermore, I am advised that the authorities which have commented on retrospective legislation regard it as being the special responsibility of the law officers of the Crown. The public at large quite rightly view retrospective legislation as undesirable. There is the matter of whether the law officers of the Crown have looked at this Bill and seen it to be expedient in one form or another; and if so, why?
The reason why I ask these things is evident. Any form of retrospective legislation sets a precedent for future forms of such legislation. Let us suppose that instead of local authorities, which the Government can hammer as they wish, the victims were private sector companies. Can we seriously imagine that the Government would produce legislation validating charges that had been levied on private sector companies over 21 years, before a company had the nous to take them to court and say that they had no vires to do so? Can we seriously imagine that such a Bill would be presented to your Lordships?
Then we come to precedent. What would happen if the same principle were to be applied to individuals, with payments levied over 21 years which we are then told are illegal? Can we seriously imagine that the Government would introduce retrospective legislation to correct that matter? What would happen if local authorities themselves made mistakes in charging for their services? Are we to assume that the precedent which the noble Viscount has introduced of no financial burden, etcetera, and that the law was what it was thought to be, will allow local authorities to ask for legislation to correct the mistake they had made in being ultra vires in levying charges?
I ask all these questions because your Lordships are particularly sensitive to retrospective legislation and all that that implies. The noble Viscount will know that my right honourable and honourable friends in another place did not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill on the grounds that they would have a satisfactory explanation

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of the retrospection at the Committee stage of the Bill. That did not happen and my right honourable and honourable friends voted against the Bill at Third Reading precisely on the grounds that they had not received a satisfactory explanation. The explanation which the noble Viscount has given is exactly the same as that given by the Minister in the other place. We shall have the same view as my right honourable and honourable friends in the other place when we come to it.
So my thesis is that we need much more information from the Government on why such retrospection is necessary. What are the precedents? Have the law officers of the Crown given their judgment on this? Have they put their names to any form of memorandum, opinion or approval that, on the face of it, this is a desirable principle to introduce into legislation? We must bear in mind. that any precedents which are set by this Bill, however small the Bill, may be relevant to those matters which might arise in the future. I very much hope that the Government will pay attention to what I am saying and before we reach the Committee stage produce a report of some sort to the House which answers my questions.
5.27 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, the retrospective nature of the Bill is its most obvious attribute. When I read it I was struck by another word; namely, "reciprocity". The noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, has told the House of the background to this Bill. It is a background with which I was personally involved—that is to say, the issue of charging by local authorities for giving planning advice to prospective developers.
Perhaps I may take a moment or two of your Lordships' time to explain that background because I believe that it is relevant to my objections to this Bill. It seemed to my authority, Richmond upon Thames, at a time when I chaired the planning committee, that it was not appropriate for prospective developers of large developments—I do not mean people considering small, rear extensions to residential premises—to receive free advice at the expense of local taxpayers; in other words, when they sought advice from the planning authority on what might be acceptable, the cost of the advice should be recovered. It is not a question of gaining a profit but simply of ensuring that developers, who, after all, stand to gain very considerably, should not be a charge to the local taxpayer. That seemed to be reasonably well accepted by many developers. That was welcome and we discussed their ideas with the planners until McCarthy & Stone challenged the arrangements. Therefore, your Lordships will understand that I feel particularly sore that, having identified a gap which, as the Minister said, should be filled, the only gap that the Government saw fit to fill was the lack of power on the part of central government not providing the power for local government.
I have been led to believe that the Department of the Environment is not unsympathetic to the attempts made by my authority, which are being looked at with interest by other authorities. After all, in these tough days a certain market approach is generally appreciated by
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central government. As I said, I am sore—perhaps my feeling goes a little further up the spectrum towards incensed—that only one gap has been filled by the Bill.
There is another inconsistency in the approach taken in the Bill. I refer to the cost of the development plan and similar inquiries. As the House will be aware, we work now in a plan-led system where the most material consideration—I do not use the term in an entirely technical sense—is the development plan. That is the context in which planning applications are considered. I applaud that approach. However, it has meant that there are longer, more detailed inquiries at the development plan stage. It is now more important to landowners and to prospective developers to investigate fully the constraints that there might be on the development of major sites and to ensure, as far as they can, that the plan, having gone through the inquiry stage and eventually been adopted, provides the most favourable situation for their future applications. That has inevitably affected the length of inquiries and the work that is involved. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that the development plan inquiry is to some extent taking the place of an appeal against a refusal of a planning application under the old system.
The inconsistency seems to be this. As I understand it, on an appeal against a refusal of planning permission, the costs of the inspector are borne by the Government. If that is so, it seems that there is an argument which we should certainly explore as to whether the costs of the development plan inquiry should similarly be borne by the Government. I should add that there is a widespread view that in paying for the inspector, local planning authorities are paying the piper without being able to call the tune. By "tune" I do not mean the outcome of the inquiry, but comments have been made to me about the way in which inquiries are conducted, such as, "It went at a leisurely pace", and, "It was not a productive use of time". It is understandable that local authorities, having to pay the bill if time is not used productively, will comment to that effect.
Before the debate I inquired about how the matter is dealt with in standard spending assessment terms. I was told that the cost of inquiries comes in the "other services" block. I would not attempt to identify that. I am glad to know that it is there, but one has to take it on trust. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell the House how within that block the figure can be assessed, given that there will be such expenses in some years but not in others. As the Minister knows, one of the complaints made by local authorities is about the difficulty of budgeting for inquiries.
As I have suggested, we need to address the relationship between local authorities and the inspectorate. If the inspectorate is to act more like a private sector organisation—I believe that that is what the Government want—the relationship between the inspectorate and the authority needs to be clear and even-handed.
I have another question for the Minister. I apologise for not having given him notice of it, but I should he grateful if he could confirm either today or later what will be covered by the costs. I assume that by "the costs of the inquiry", we arc to understand that it is not only

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the costs of the inspector's time that will be covered but also the costs of the programme officer and the ancillary costs such as the reporting at a later stage.
I return to the major issue, the retrospective nature of the Bill. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, that the Government have to make their case convincingly in suggesting that your Lordships should agree to retrospective legislation. I say that with a little less passion than would be the case if the Bill were not putting everyone into the position in which they thought they were in. However, the propriety of what is being done must be scrutinised if for no other reason than the precedent which the noble Lord suggested. As one of their reasons, the Government said that it would be unfair on authorities which had not yet reached the inquiry stage if they had to pay while other authorities did not. There is a simple—I hope not too simplistic—response to that: if each authority were given one "free" inquiry, there would be no unfairness towards those which came later in the process.
On the question of precedent, the noble Lord asked about the position of a local authority that had been found to have made a mistake and whether the Government would agree to retrospective legislation to put right that local authority's position. As I have suggested, this Bill could have been an opportunity to allow for that. The Minister knows my views on the need for local authorities to have wider powers than they do and to have a power of general competence, which would not mean that each action taken by a local authority was scrutinised as to its vires However, given that the Government have identified that gap and decided to fill it, I am sad that they have not filled it completely.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, although my name is not down to speak in this Second Reading debate, perhaps I may ask the Minister a simple question. When he dealt with the Scottish aspects of the Bill, the Minister was kind enough to say that no money had been returned to any Scottish local authority and that no Scottish local authority had challenged in a Scottish court the right to collect that money. That being so, can the Minister explain why it is necessary to introduce retrospective legislation in relation to a situation in Scotland which simply has not arisen?
It seems to me that the Government are obsessed with the retrospective aspect of the Bill to such an extent that they are introducing retrospective legislation even where it is totally unnecessary. No money has been returned to Scottish local authorities and the position has not been challenged in the Scottish courts. Therefore, it seems absolutely unnecessary to extend the retrospective aspect of the Bill to Scotland. It would make far more sense in legislative terms to introduce a measure to regularise the matter from the date on which the Bill becomes an Act. We certainly do not need the introduction of retrospective legislation for a situation which, on the Minister's own admission, has simply not arisen.
5.38 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for saying that he will not be moving his amendment this evening. Perhaps I should start by reminding noble Lords that my noble friend Lord Arran announced to your Lordships' House as long ago as 21st February last year in a Written Answer the Government's intention to introduce this Bill. My noble friend's Written Answer explained that the proposed legislation would be retrospective in order to validate payments already made and to secure fair treatment for all planning authorities irrespective of the timing of their individual local plan inquiry. That statement made the Government's intention plain. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, has not raised the issue until this moment—
Lord Williams of Elvel: I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. The Government make many statements about the future legislative programme. Some Bills arrive on the statute book, some arrive before your Lordships and some do not. It is not until a Bill is produced by the Government, who have made a raft of promises about legislation, that we can actually concentrate on it.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the noble Lord tries to justify his position but I do not accept it. There have been plenty of opportunities for raising the issue by Oral or Written Question since the time of my noble friend's Written Answer.
I understand the anxieties of noble Lords opposite about the inclusion of retrospective provisions in the Bill and I gave a full explanation of the reasons for those provisions. We recognise that there is a common law rule of construction that a statute should not be interpreted retrospectively so as to impair an existing right or obligation unless that result is unavoidable on the language used in the statutory provisions. I am advised that that common law rule of construction applies to statutory provisions where the retrospective effect is uncertain.
That is not the situation in respect of Clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill where the retrospective effect is clear and deliberately intended. Here we are merely restoring the local planning authorities and the departments to the position that they had all assumed and acted upon for a long time. In short, we are restoring the validity of payments which authorities made in good faith for each department's services. I remind noble Lords opposite that authorities have already received the benefit of the services of a planning inspector to conduct the inquiries in question.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, asked whether the Government had received the benefit of an opinion from the Law Officers. Regardless of which government are in office, it is a firm convention that they never disclose publicly whether the advice of the Law Officers has been obtained. That is so that any litigation in a court will not be prejudiced by the knowledge of any such opinion.

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The provisions will also be thoroughly examined by the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this House. As regards the issue of precedents for retrospective provisions, each case must be considered on its merits. We are concerned here only with the validation of payments which were universally regarded by everyone involved as being lawfully made in respect of development plan inquiries. To that extent, there is no unfairness. Local planning authorities also receive sums in their financial settlements to cover the costs of such inquiries. That is very different from imposing a new and unforeseen burden, involving planning authorities in extra costs without the financial provision to meet them.
Perhaps I may quote a precedent which the noble Lord, Lord Williams, may find intriguing. In the Bates case, Mr. Justice Gatehouse said in relation to Section 132 of the Financial Services Act 1986:
"To argue that Section 132 of the 1986 Act created a new obligation was, in his Lordship's opinion, not supported by the rationale of the decided cases which the House of Lords made clear in the Boucraa case was founded on the concept of fairness. His Lordship saw nothing unfair in restoring the parties to the contractual position they had both assumed and long acted upon".
As I explained in my opening remarks, the Bill is necessary to remove the present doubt about the basis on which the long-standing charges for planning inspectors' services—and, in Scotland, inquiry reporters' services—to local planning authorities in holding their development plan inquiries are made.
In return for putting these charging arrangements on a proper footing, planning authorities can rightly expect to receive an efficient and effective service. Since its setting-up in April 1992, the Planning Inspectorate Agency has striven to improve the standard of service it provides to all its customers.
The inspectorate intends to offer a "service agreement" between the agency and individual planning authorities which will attempt to specify the level of service they can expect from the inspector appointed to hold their development plan inquiry. Following consultation which is now taking place with the Local Authorities' Associations, the agency will offer this agreement to individual authorities before each inquiry. We believe that this flexible approach is better than the legalistic basis of a contractual arrangement. As a Next Steps agency, the inspectorate intends to account as fully as possible to planning authorities for the charges they will be expected to pay for development plan inquiries if this Bill becomes law. In Scotland, although it is not a Next Steps agency, the Scottish office inquiry reporters' unit will follow the same approach, on which the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) is being consulted.
The noble Lord, Lord Ewing, asked why it was necessary to introduce the retrospective clause for Scotland. The Bill simply puts the position beyond the doubt of a possible future challenge. There are some occasions when putting Scotland on the same basis as England and Wales is perhaps a wise decision.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, indicated that somehow the payments which local authorities are expected to make have not been provided for and that if private companies or individuals had asked to reclaim
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the money which they had paid we would not be taking these steps. The payments which authorities have been and will be expected to make are provided for in the overall total of the annual local government finance settlement. Provision has been made for them in the standard spending assessments and that will continue.
Perhaps I may briefly explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that the SSAs are not built up from such small components as the sums which authorities spend annually on development plan inquiries. Planning services for which local authorities are responsible are included in a large group of local authority services categorised as "all other services". This year the total sum is approximately £7,426 million. That compares with approximately £3 million annually for development plan inquiries, or 0.03 per cent. of the total sum. The total amount is reached after taking account of estimated commitments and the scope for economies. In practice, planning authorities know in advance when they will incur expenditure for an inquiry. Therefore, they should be able to make budgetary provision for this commitment, just like any other. In future, improved administrative arrangements between the authorities and the planning inspectorate should remove the difficulties that some authorities have experienced.
The noble Baroness asked about the costs, in particular the overhead costs. For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to clear up any misunderstanding about the reference to subsection (4) of new Section 303A to,
"the general staff costs and overheads of his department".
This does not mean that the planning inspectorate's charges for inquiries will in future be loaded with an additional component representing the staff costs and overheads of the Department of the Environment's headquarters costs. What it means in practice is that the daily charge for an inspector's services will include a component representing the hypothecated cost to the Planning Inspectorate Agency of the agency's staff and administrative costs of holding development plan inquiries. We believe that that is entirely reasonable. It continues the previous arrangements for including this component in the charges that planning authorities have been paying. It is not a "hidden" extra cost.
The noble Baroness also thought that she had found another hole in the Bill that she would like to have filled in relation to why the Government are not in favour of local planning authorities charging for pre-application discussions. Potential developers may be unfamiliar with the planning process—we accept that—or wish to obtain a local planning authority's initial reaction to the proposal. Therefore, we encourage them to approach planning authorities for informal advice before a planning application is made. That applies in particular to small businesses. Those preliminary discussions may produce a better understanding between authorities and developers. Charging for those discussions may deter applicants from seeking advice and may lead to misconceived applications and an increase in the number of appeals.
I believe that the Government provided a great deal of information in the course of the debates on Clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill in another place. I have given the House a full explanation today and there will he a full

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opportunity to debate the matters during the remaining stages of the Bill, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. However, I believe that I have answered all the questions which he raised.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down, perhaps I may take him back to one comment which he made when he talked about the service to be offered by the inspectorate. I do not think that he used the term "service level agreements" but that is what I understood him to be describing. He went on to say that the Government believe that that is better than having a contractual arrangement. I confess to being confused. I had thought that a service level agreement would amount to a contract. Perhaps the noble Viscount will clarify the matter.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I did indeed mention service agreements. I should have to inquire whether that is the same as service level agreements. I indicated that that approach may be better rather than having a legalistic contract. But what is extremely important is that local authorities should know exactly what they are to receive and costs of that. I believe that that is what the Bill does, and I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Income Support for Care of the Elderly
5.52 p.m.
Lord Stallard Lord Stallard rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to increase income support payments to meet in full the costs of care of older people.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the financial problems being experienced by older people in care are increasingly in the public eye. None of us can have failed to notice the press articles about people losing the properties for which they have paid over a lifetime of work in order to meet the costs of their care. In a number of cases, the families of older people are being called upon to meet the difference between the costs of care and the support which is available. That causes a great deal of heartbreak and hardship for families who wish but are unable to bridge the gap, which may mean the difference between quality care in a comfortable environment and care in far less suitable accommodation. I certainly would never wish to experience some of the problems about which I have heard from those families who have found themselves in that situation. However, I know exactly how they feel. Therefore, older people and their families are facing real problems in meeting the shortfall between the costs of care and the ability to pay for it.
In a very short debate it is difficult to cover all the problems, but I should like to bring to your Lordships' attention one particular issue which is beginning to affect the care available to many older, vulnerable people in residential care and nursing homes. A number of cases have been drawn to my attention of people who have been evicted or threatened with eviction. In
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general, the charities have managed, but only just, to cope with the problems of finding additional top-up fees which those people need to stay in their homes. But as the number of cases increases, as it undoubtedly will, we shall hear that large numbers of that group of particularly vulnerable people have been evicted from their homes.
People living permanently and voluntarily in a private residential or nursing home before April 1993 have preserved rights to higher rates of income support to help meet the costs of their care. Those rates are set by central government and take no account of local or regional cost differences. Age Concern has received a large number of inquiries from older people and those concerned with their welfare which indicate that there is a growing concern about the ability of older people who have preserved rights to meet the costs of the residential and nursing homes in which they live. Older people face severe difficulties in areas where preserved rights to income support are not sufficient to meet the costs of local care. Local authorities are required to contract with homes at the local rate and are expected to negotiate the best terms available. However, income support levels are still failing to meet the costs of care in many parts of the country.
Where there are shortfalls between the income support rates and the costs of care, only limited help is available. Local authorities can help residents with preserved rights over pension age who face eviction or the closure of a residential home only by making arrangements for them to move to another home. If the person needs to move into a nursing home or already lives in a nursing home, local authorities have no power to offer anything other than advice. They are not able to provide top-up money to enable a person to live in the same home. For people over pension age in nursing homes, there is no clear-cut statutory responsibility should they face eviction from or closure of the home. I could cite many examples of that.
Therefore, the situation is even worse for people in nursing homes who face eviction. Local authorities have no power to offer anything other than advice or guidance, although they have the power to make alternative arrangements for people under pension age who have preserved rights and are in nursing homes. Health authorities have responsibilities if they originally purchased the nursing home place. Otherwise, a health authority may have a responsibility only if the resident's care needs fall within their locally determined priorities as to those who should receive long-term National Health Service care and those who should not. Therefore, the onus for finding alternative accommodation for those people over pension age in nursing homes lies with the resident or his relatives, with perhaps some help from a home owner. That is because the pensioner will have arrived at the home as a result of private arrangements. That is laid down in government regulations.
The rules are complex and are far too complex to cover in detail, but they were issued as part of the Government's community care policy. I accept that the proposals were intended to prevent exploitation by less scrupulous providers of care homes by transferring

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people into their care to more expensive homes. I accept that that was a genuine intention. But, in practice, that has meant that older people are being moved to homes many miles from those in which they were resident. That may have a disastrous effect on the quality of life of very sick people.
Let us consider somebody who is in that unfortunate circumstance. He may be old, sick, or both. He is visited regularly by children, relations and friends and then suddenly finds that he is moved 50, 60 or 70 miles away, where he has nobody. He has been well-established in one place and has had set patterns of life, which are extremely important to older, sick people. In some cases a sudden move may have tragic consequences.
A number of charities have been extremely helpful in that regard. They are working together. I know that one charity is donating £2,000 per year. But for obvious reasons we cannot rely on the charities to continue to bridge the gap. Charities have financial difficulties. They are unable to meet the increased costs of those people and we should not demand that they do so. We are in no position to demand that charities should take on that task.
Members of the all-party group on ageing issues met with representatives of Age Concern, the Association of Charity Officers and a provider of homes earlier this year. Members of that group were deeply concerned about the prospect of eviction hanging over that most vulnerable group of people. The numbers are not small. In a Written Answer in another place, the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, Mr. Roger Evans, said that there were 116,200 people in residential care homes and 84,460 people in nursing homes who were in receipt of the higher income support limits. Those people will be at risk if they are unable to meet the difference between the cost of their care and the income support which they receive.
We also know from a Written Answer given on the same day by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, Mr. John Bowis MP, that:
"the Department does not collect information of fees charged, but Laing and Buisson have estimated on the basis of their latest—November 1994—survey of independent sector homes that the average weekly fees for elderly residents were £234 and £333 [per week] for residential care and nursing homes respectively. No information is available on the proportion of nursing home fees which relate to nursing care".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/6/95; col. 480.]
However, the Minister failed to quote from the other part of that most important document which says that local authorities are in difficulty in negotiating fees at income support levels or below, or, indeed, anywhere near it. In fact, the report says:
"Many care homes … particularly those in the more affluent areas of Britain, will have benefited from the upward flexibility in fees paid from state funding sources following the transfer of state funding from the Department of Social Security to local authorities in 1993".
But, as the report asks, how can that upward flexibility in local authority baseline fees be reconciled with evidence that nursing and residential home fees for elderly people have not kept pace with either income support upratings or the average earnings index between 1993–94 and 1994–95? The Minister could have quoted
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the fact that nearly half of the local authorities which are negotiating costs with the homes have had to pay above, and are setting their baselines at above, income support level. That is a lot of people.
Age Concern has also produced an analysis of the financial shortfall between income support and the weekly charge of homes for elderly people. Its report shows that the number of people in care whose charges are above the weekly income support limits fell from 46 per cent. in February 1994 to 45.4 per cent. in 1994. None of us will be surprised at that, knowing the kind of people with whom we are dealing.
People with preserved rights to income support will have been resident in residential care or a nursing home before 1st April 1993. Their numbers will inevitably fall. Therefore, the cost of funding the difference is not a major long—term commitment. It cannot be. Indeed, the very nature of the thing indicates that such people will not exist for as long as that. In May 1994, 57,160 people in residential homes in Great Britain were in homes with charges above the weekly income support limits. That is not a large proportion of the ageing population. However, it is an unacceptably large number to be facing eviction.
Income support moneys may not meet the cost of care for a number of reasons. One area may be more expensive than another. We know of examples in London and the home counties where the charges are far in excess of those in areas such as Humberside in Yorkshire and such other places. There is a huge difference.
In those cases the resident has some limited options as regards what to do in attempting to meet the shortfall. First, such people can negotiate with the homeowner. But that could lead to a great deal of acrimony, delay and discussion, and in the end very few such cases are settled. Secondly, they could try to raise the shortfall themselves. However, in many cases that is impossible. Thirdly, they could see whether there was another home in the area with a vacancy at income support rates and then move. But, if there were such a place, those people would experience the same difficulties as they had experienced in the home that they were in. Therefore, it is unlikely that they would find a solution down that road.
Once those possibilities have been exhausted, the resident is left in the situation where he or she still does not have enough money to pay for the accommodation and care. Although many homeowners endeavour to maintain a resident for as long as possible—indeed, some are very good at it—there may come a point when that is no longer viable. At that point the resident may well face eviction. I recognise that that is an emotive term. It comes in many guises. It rarely appears as an eviction notice. The agreement with the home usually states that either party must give a period of notice which is often as little as four weeks. However, its effects are equally as devastating. If one receives such a letter after four weeks, it is obviously just as devastating as receiving an eviction notice. There are a number of examples of actual evictions which I do not have time to give your Lordships.
As I stated earlier, the "preserved rights" were issued as part of a move to community care. There was no malicious intent in their introduction. But, unfortunately, they have led to some of the most vulnerable members of our society being faced with the prospect of eviction from care homes. Again, Age Concern has raised a number of issues which it feels Ministers in the Department of Social Security should consider to alleviate the distress and financial burden which the preserved rights rules have placed on older people in residential care and in nursing homes and also on their relatives. I understand that those points have been delivered to Downing Street and the appropriate Ministers. I hope that the Minister who is to reply tonight will have something to say about the suggestions made.
However, if the noble Lord cannot think about all of those suggestions, I believe that he ought to be able to say tonight that the Government accept the proposal that the Secretary of State for Social Security should take into account and actually reflect the local variations in the amounts being contracted by local authorities in the uprating of preserved rates of income support, using the powers under Section 135 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. We raised that question many months ago. That section of the Act gives the Secretary of State for Social Security powers to take into account the differences in local authority areas as regards such costs. I believe that that is the least assurance that I could hope to receive from the Minister as a result of tonight's debate.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for introducing the debate in such a very complete way. The truth is that it is a very complicated question. Therefore, one is very glad, if one can, to avoid talking about the complications. As the noble Lord has dealt with them fairly satisfactorily and made it perfectly clear that things will not do as they are, I will move away from detail and make one or two generalisations largely based on personal experience.
I should like to thank various organisations who have given me information on the subject; for example, Help the Aged, the Citizens Advice Bureaux, the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services and Age Concern. They are all charitable concerns which are mixed up deeply in the problem. They are all equally dissatisfied with what is going on.
Quite a number of people in this House are old enough—although, I hasten to add, not all of those who are present in the Chamber tonight are anything like old enough—to have a proper understanding of the misery and worry facing people of our age who, often as a result of painful bereavement, find themselves pushed from pillar to post in an endeavour to find somewhere to die in peace. Many of us are of an age when serious illness and eventually death of ourselves or of a loved one is to be expected. I want to report the fact that, if
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one has enough money to pay one's way, one will be helped at every turn and the nightmare period is made bearable as far as possible.
I believe that the noble Lord who introduced the debate is trying to ensure that this very hard to bear period in all our lives is made equally bearable for those less lucky than ourselves who cannot afford to pay their way as we can. When I say "we", I am speaking for myself and a number of colleagues. I believe that any government worthy of our support should struggle to find a way to help people less lucky than ourselves to meet such crises despite lack of funds to pay their way. My slogan is: we stand on the right of every citizen rich or poor, male or female, to die in his or her own home.
I wish to say a few words about the help available. First, of course, there is the GP, who will arrange visits as required in case of illness, even sometimes twice daily, from the local health authority district nurses. I have had to deal with two or three and each was first class. Then there is the hospital. Hospital treatment is expensive if you can pay, but rightly so. However, the hospital is anxious not to keep one longer than one's treatment demands. When the time comes for one to go, the question is whether one can go home if provided with some extra help, or whether one must go to a nursing home or hospice. Here carers come into the matter. Again, they are not cheap, but I have found them most excellent.
This brings me to the hospice movement, of which I cannot speak too highly. Associated with it are such charities as the Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund and Marie Curie Cancer Care. Once again, I have had experience of all these and I was astonished at their effective kindness and tact and their excellent educational influence on confused and unhappy people.
Some of these charities confine themselves to cancer cases, but not all. Therefore help can be obtained in all cases. There are over 200 day hospices which enable people who are terminally ill to spend time away from home and offer physical care and social support as well as respite to carers, many of whom are of course elderly themselves.
Let me recommend one simple and direct government action which would do a great deal of good and would not be too expensive, and that is to increase the existing National Health support to hospices, which now averages 38 per cent., to 50 per cent. of total hospice expenditure. I would like to add that to the various changes already recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard.
I have been speaking of people who are not only old but also ill. Of course there are many—I am one myself—who are old but who are not particularly ill and who need carers in the home rather than trained nurses. I manage with a son and two daughters, whose help is never ending, and with two charming girls who are young mothers who come to my small house for half an hour twice a week and do all the washing, ironing, sweeping and cleaning for £5 an hour each and who are out of the house before I have realised they are in it. The family help, of course, is fundamental and people without that help are in a much worse position.

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The noble Lord has discussed in valuable detail the question of helping people who have too little money to avoid eviction. That is the hub of the question. It is a matter of cash being provided to avoid a desperate and disagreeable situation for someone who is old and probably already rather confused. I agree with the noble Lord that the situation has been allowed to get into a muddle and that elaborate objections are made to almost every course which may be suggested in difficult cases. As we have an energetic and clear—minded Minister who does not suffer from old age to reply to this debate, I hope that he will lay down clear directions to avoid the hard cases which have been mentioned, where unhappy people are sometimes evicted and do not know where to go. I stand by the slogan, "Every citizen must he allowed to die in his own home". I hope that the Minister will accept the slogan.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Stallard for the debate he has introduced. I am neither old nor a resident in care and therefore I have no personal interest in this matter. I have not been a recipient of the various briefings that other noble Lords have received. Therefore I shall stick to generalities.
I was pleased to note that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, pays a wage that is above the minimum wage as advocated by my party. Five pounds an hour is a good deal above the minimum wage—and long may the noble Lord continue in his good Labour practice.
I want to examine why this situation has arisen, not only in terms of residential care for the elderly but also in terms of housing benefit. The Government want to introduce flexibility and choice in the provision of various services. As regards the housing market, they wanted to introduce much more private renting and greater flexibility. As regards care for the community they want to introduce flexibility. If one allows prices to be determined by the market—it is not a fully free market but rather a quasi-free market—and one has administratively determined uniform payments, one is bound to find that some people will find their money falls short, as happens with some elderly people. As regards housing benefit, if one is committed to pay whatever the market charges, soon one will find that one is paying too much. The panic that has arisen as regards housing benefit shows that there is an inconsistency in allowing the free market to determine private rents and having a commitment to pay housing benefit and then worrying about the budget.
A similar situation has occurred as regards the matter we are discussing now. If one wants flexibility in provision—as I presume we do—some care has to be taken and some arrangements have to be made to make the payments to people who are entitled to them not uniform but slightly variable. That is a tricky thing to do but it has to be done. Let us say that 16 out of 42 local authorities have agreed to pay care costs that are above income support level and they are in London. But, typically, those elderly who find themselves living in an inner city area will suffer a shortfall whereas people who are not living in inner cities will find that, by and large, they can manage. Because market costs are
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different in different locations and administrative payments are uniform, there is a problem. I can pay a different price for a hamburger in inner London as compared with a rural area. The market does not believe in uniform pricing; it believes in variable pricing. However, administrators believe in uniform payments and not in variable payments. That is the crux of the problem. It will be a tricky matter to reconcile those factors.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is in his place. He does a lot of thinking for the Conservative Party and perhaps I should therefore pass this problem to him. It may be possible to pay an inner city allowance or make it more age-related. The problem arises when old people cannot pay. In that situation it would be almost cruel to evict them. Many of the really elderly are women. Women represent a much larger proportion of those over 80 than do men. Typically in our society women have fewer assets to fall back on, whereas men may have some assets or may have earned something through their lifetime. Some subtle thinking is required to address this problem. I do not believe that a great deal of money is at stake here although when any sum of money is mentioned unfortunately people tend to throw up their hands in horror and say, "Oh my God, we cannot afford £10 million. It is too much". If the shortfall is £100 a week—I am taking a figure out of nowhere—and there are roughly 60,000 people at risk, to pay them £100 extra would result in an expenditure of about £30 million. The Minister may throw up his hands in horror and ask where my party is going to find £30 million. I remind him that given the social security budget of £90 billion, £30 million represents a small fraction of that. If the party opposite can find £5 billion out of nowhere for a tax cut, I am sure they can find £30 million from somewhere; but I do not want to make a party political point.
There is a conflict between the free market provision of social services—which may be perfectly welcome—and an administratively fixed uniform payment. That issue will come up again and again, and some thought will have to be given to it in terms of a special concession, either age or location-related, or through other tax concessions that make it possible to meet this particular challenge.
A related matter has the opposite effect of what is intended. The Government have been very keen to take people away from SERPS and occupational pensions and into personal pensions. SERPS and occupational pensions are to some extent gender blind. They give men and women more or less the same pension. However, as far as personal pensions are concerned, a man who pays £100,000 to buy an annuity and subscribe to a pension plan will receive £10,000 per year for the rest of his life but, for the same amount of money, a woman will receive £8,000 to £9,000. Because it is a private pension plan it makes perfect sense as women live longer than men. Nevertheless, women have to save more money to get the same provision as men. Although it makes perfect sense for a profit-maximising private company to operate in that way, I believe that elderly women should have a tax concession or something like that to redress the imbalance. We shall find increasingly

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that elderly women become a big problem. A statement that money cannot be found to take care of 20,000 or 25,000 elderly women will not be taken too kindly. It will not do.
6.22 p.m.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for allowing me to say a few words in this debate. I should declare an interest on behalf of my husband who died at home last month. When he became unable to do everything for himself early in 1994 I applied for attendance allowance and was duly granted the lowest scale after the statutory wait of six months. When it became obvious that he needed full-time care, in April 1995 I applied for a review of his case. Six weeks later I had not even received an acknowledgement of my request. After two further weeks I received a form which I returned immediately. When I pointed out the delay, the office in Blackpool apologised and was extremely charming. I had no argument with it. There had been a considerable upheaval in the whole system. The office explained that no increase in the allowance would be payable for another six months, even if there was a review.
Can my noble friend explain why, having been granted the original attendance allowance, a further six months' wait was needed following a review? My husband was not a wealthy man. What is left of his estate, having paid for private carers—I wished him to stay at home, as he did until he was no longer aware of what was going on around him—goes to my step-children, quite rightly. There must be thousands of people who find that further six-month wait very unfair. It is for that reason that I raise this matter today. When my noble friend comes to reply I hope that he will have plans to vary the extra six-month wait for the higher rates of attendance level.
6.24 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lady Hollis who has unfortunately been called away on urgent matters. The need for this debate illustrates that the Government have not thought through the problems of long-term care for the elderly, particularly those in residential homes. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Stallard for introducing the debate. I do not wish to repeat the arguments that he put so eloquently, nor do I wish to repeat the moving points made by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. My noble friend Lord Desai spoke about the problems of the free market when the bill was being paid by the Government or the local authority. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response to that. In addition, the points put by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharpies, demand a reply from the Minister.
As all speakers have pointed out, those with adequate money or a supportive family usually have little problem. The difficulty arises when there is a shortfall between income support and the charges made by the home. As my noble friend Lord Desai pointed out, when income support is enough to pay for the cost of care in some areas there are no problems. He told us that in
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other cases, however, income support was not enough either because the locality was more expensive or because the individual needed a higher level of or more specialised, care. When older people go into homes they and their families know that they will be expected to use up all their capital. There can be no certainty about how long they will live or the amounts by which the fees will increase. When those eligible for income support go into homes, fees might increase beyond the income support levels. When that happens, or the resident runs out of money, relatives can be in a desperate situation. Usually, they will try to keep it from the resident. Many are retired themselves and are not in a position to make up large weekly payments. They will write around to charities, or look at other homes to see if they can find one that is cheaper. That is seldom possible without moving away from the area. It is most unsettling because the home will have become the resident's home. The home may say that the resident will have to leave if the relatives cannot make up the difference between income support and the fee that the home currently charges. It is a process of attrition that goes on for months. Eventually, a conclusion will be reached, sometimes with charities coming to the aid of the resident, relatives paying a little extra, or the home reducing the fee. Sometimes, homes have no alternative but to evict. My noble friend Lord Stallard told us that eviction was a very traumatic experience and that residents could be given four weeks' notice.
Local authorities have power to help only when people are in residential homes, are evicted or are on the point of eviction. The last thing the relatives want is for the resident to have to move to another home. Local authorities have no power to help beyond giving advice to those who are in nursing homes. The problem is made worse because of the fragmented responsibility between the Department of Health and the local authority and the Department of Social Security and the local authority. All of us agree that it is inhuman to ask elderly people of 80 or more to move from one residential home to another.
A number of suggestions have been made. One is the Hartley Booth solution which would allow local authorities to intervene and help residents to remain in homes if there was medical advice that it would not be in their interests to be moved. Perhaps another interim solution is to give local authorities power, but not the duty, to top up to avoid unnecessary disturbance. That would enable local authorities to negotiate acceptable rates with home owners. The local authority would probably pay in the end anyway, but it would avoid a lot of unnecessary difficulty.
Older people and their families face real problems in meeting the shortfall between income support and the cost of care. We await with interest the Minister's proposals for a solution.
6.29 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for having given us the opportunity to debate an issue which is of concern to us all.

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The principle which guides the Government is that we are determined to do our best to ensure that older people receive a decent level of care. We are justly proud of our record in this area. In 1979 there were just 12,000 people in residential care and nursing homes claiming benefit to meet their fees at a cost of £10 million. Since the introduction of the community care scheme, the numbers claiming income support with preserved rights to the higher limits has obviously fallen. However, there are still just over 200,000 receiving help through this old scheme at a cost of around £2 billion. That is quite apart from the income support paid to nearly 80,000 people in homes under the new scheme and the large amounts of money paid by local authorities to support new residents.
There is, of course, other income from the state, such as retirement pension and attendance allowance, that is taken into account when calculating entitlement to benefit. The whole adds up to a vast amount of money which, I firmly believe, shows the Government's commitment to these very dependent people.
We believe that income support limits have generally kept pace with costs. Indeed, practically all limits have increased in real terms since 1985. The elderly limit for people in residential care homes increased by 16 per cent. in real terms between April 1985 and April 1994, and that in nursing homes by 38 per cent. Those real-term increases are significant, especially as we have to bear in mind the Government's overall public expenditure objectives and take decisions in the light of cash available for benefit uprating as a whole. Organisations like Age Concern will, quite rightly, pressure us to do more, and we will, of course, never be able to do everything that they ask.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, asks if we have any plans to increase income support payments to meet the full costs of care of older people. We already meet reasonable costs and charges for care. Our aim could not be to meet all fees however high they may be set. That would be an open-ended commitment, and we should bear in mind that fees can reach £1,000 a week or more.
Perhaps I may now address some of the particular arguments that have arisen in this debate, setting them in the context of the 1993 changes.
In 1993 we changed the system of funding for care of elderly people from a national, income support-based system to a local, community care-based one. It is clear, in retrospect, that we were right to do so. The new scheme allows a much more flexible, innovative, appropriate response to the needs of individual people and, I hope, goes a long way to solving the problems outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. It also achieves excellent value for money.
There is a general misconception that all local authorities are contracting for fees way above the level of the income support limits. In fact the level of contracts still tends to follow the limits, although I accept that there are local authorities which contract above the limits. Indeed, a small but increasing number of local authorities are contracting below the limits. Additionally, some authorities are continuing to contract at their 1994 levels and not increasing the level of fees they will meet in line with our increases. I hope that that
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information gives some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, that income support levels are not greatly out of line with the levels under the new system. Although the contracting levels under community care tend to follow the limits, there are arguments why they should not. One has to bear in mind that the old income support system could only deal with cases in general while the new system assesses an individual's care needs and funds the appropriate care.
At this point I should like to associate myself with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, about people's desire to die in their own homes and about the sterling work of the hospice movement. Under the community care arrangements, the Department of Social Security made a transfer of resources to health authorities for hospice care. We fully support the work of the hospice movement.
When we changed the system we gave preserved rights to all those in registered residential care. That is to say, we guaranteed that they would remain within the old system, and continue to receive the income support limits. We did this to aid the smooth changeover to the new scheme; to reassure current residents and provide security for vulnerable groups; to remove the need for care assessments for current residents; and to reduce administration for local authorities. Noble Lords will recall that the idea of preserved rights proved immensely popular, and indeed there was a rush to enter residential care before the closing date.
Several noble Lords have asked us to make changes to the preserved rights arrangements. We shall listen to what has been said carefully and consider what might be done in response to the points raised, taking account of our responsibility to the taxpayer. However, I should warn your Lordships that most of the points raised are well known to us.
Age Concern and others have brought to our notice a very few cases where people have been forced to move home because their existing home would not continue to look after them at preserved rights levels. Even a few such cases are a few too many. The vast majority of homeowners are responsible, caring and committed. I am sure that local authorities would prefer to deal with those which live up to these ideals.
Perhaps I may give the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, some comfort. Local authorities now have new powers to provide a safety net in cases where someone is evicted. However, it was never anticipated that local authorities would have powers to top up income support limits.
We have thought long and hard about how we might deal with the problem and have considered, I believe, all the remedies proposed by noble Lords, along with many others. However, we have yet to find a remedy which will work and which will not lead to the kind of general escalation of fees that has been seen before. For example, in 1991 most income support nursing home limits were increased by £45 a week. Instead of reducing the number of residents whose fees were met by income support, nursing homes simply increased fees by the amount of the benefit increase.

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Our best estimate is that to solve the problem faced in its ultimate form by perhaps a dozen residents out of 200,000 would cost the taxpayer at least £200 million a year. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, had a good grasp of the magnitude of the problem. Even my noble friend Lord Skidelsky—in his temporary residence on the Bishops' Benches—would be hard put to find an answer to it. We shall continue to look for one.
Many people in residential care receive private and charitable help. We applaud that. However much the Government do, people will always want to do more for their own relatives and for those people with no one to help them. It would be quite wrong for the Government to act in such a way as to prevent relatives, friends and charities stepping in and assisting. Indeed, the benefit system deals generously with such contributions by disregarding payments intended to top up benefit levels to enable people to live in the home of their choice. Many people in receipt of such help would appear to be in a home above income support limits because they receive that help.
I shall write to my noble friend Lady Sharples about the problem she raised. I cannot give an adequate answer today.
I trust that I have made the Government's position clear. We are determined to do our best to ensure that older people receive a decent level of care. However much we may disagree with some noble Lords about
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practical matters, about amounts and procedures, I am sure that we are all at one about the principle of what we are seeking to achieve. We shall therefore consider carefully what has been said in the debate tonight.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down would he care to deal with the point that I made about Section 135, under which the Secretary of State already has powers, within an Act of Parliament, to take into account variations in local authority charges and the amounts being contracted in the operation of preserved rates of income support? The power already exists. The Secretary of State need only implement it. That is the least that I expected to hear tonight.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, that is a complicated point to answer, and I shall write to the noble Lord with a full, and I hope satisfactory, explanation.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time and to be printed.

Environment Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments and with a privilege amendment; the Commons amendments ordered to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before seven o'clock.

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