Sitting of 31 March 1995

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PETITION

  Education Cuts
  9.34 am
  Mr. Harry Barnes: On Wednesday, thousands of people came here from Derbyshire to lobby against the education cuts, exercising their democratic right to lobby. They handed in petitions and gave me other material; for example, yesterday I sent 800 letters to the Secretary of State for Education about the education cuts.
  There are 13,207 signatures on the petition. Some of them lap over into the constituency of Bolsover, because North-East Derbyshire district covers part of that constituency. However, there must be at least 12,000 signatures from my constituency, representing well over 15 per cent. of the constituency population.
  The petition reads:
  To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of the residents of Derbyshire sheweth that
  Government policies threaten standards of education in all Derbyshire schools and that this can only lead to increased class sizes, fewer text books and other resources; plus teacher and staff support redundancies. These policies will also seriously and adversely affect education opportunities of existing and future pupils. We support the campaign to call upon the Secretary of State to address this matter urgently.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House will urge the Prime Minister and his Government not to impede this Petition.
  And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  The petition is signed by Steven O'Brien of 68 Springvale road, Danesmoor and the other petitioners whom I mentioned earlier.
  To lie upon the Table.

Proceeds of Crime Bill
As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
Proceeds of Crime Bill
  New clause 1

    DESIGNATION OF OFFENCES IN RESPECT OF WHICH MAGISTRATES' COURTS MAY MAKE CONFISCATION ORDERS
    'Schedule 4 to the 1988 Act (Offences in respect of which magistrates' courts may make confiscation orders) shall be amended by inserting at the end of Part I—
    "and insofar as they are tried summarily:

    Enactment

    Description of Offence

    Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)

    Sections 107

    offences relating to the infringement of copyright

    Section 198

    making, dealing with or using illicit recordings

    Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (c. 29) Section 1

    offences relating to false trade descriptions

    Trade Marks Act 1994 (c. 26) Section 92

    offences relating to the unauthorised use of trade marks etc.".'.

    —[Mr. John Greenway]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    9.36 am
    Mr. John Greenway: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
    There has been much talk in the news this week about the film industry. Indeed, during recent months there has been a great movement towards supporting the British film industry with funding from, perhaps, the national lottery. That has certainly been very much in the minds of many hon. Members. Today, I believe that we could take steps significantly to help the British film industry by adding my new clause to the Bill. It deals with the growing problem of the counterfeiting of videos, films and, as I shall show, many other items of intellectual property.
    The new clause would make counterfeiting and copyright infringement, under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the Trade Description Act 1968 and the Trade Marks Act 1994, offences that courts could take into account when making confiscation orders under the Bill and under the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The offences would be added to schedule 4 of the 1988 Act.
    My hon. Friend the Minister has been extremely helpful when considering this matter, as has been my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam). However, my hon. Friend the Minister will doubtless say that my aim could be achieved not by adding my new clause to the Bill, but by statutory instrument. As I understand the position, part I of schedule 4 to the 1988 Act lists all the relevant Acts and the offences to which that Act applies. Part II says that the list can be amended by statutory instrument. Is that the best route or should we add the new clause to the Bill? As I understand it, if we add the new clause to the Bill, all the offences could be dealt with by any magistrates court or Crown court, but if we deal with them through a statutory instrument under part II of schedule 4 to the 1988 Act, offences could be dealt with only in a magistrates court. That is the advice that I have

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    been given. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister and others who may be listening to the debate will want to reflect on that point.
    Piracy of videos, music cassettes and compact discs is a growing problem in the United Kingdom. The Federation Against Copyright Theft—FACT—and the British Phonographic Industry estimate that, every year, the cost in lost sales to their industries amounts to £250 million and £20 million respectively—a staggering amount of money.
    It is widely recognised that, when bootleggers are caught, the punishments do not fit the crimes. The fine is often £100 and can be as little as £20 for a first offence. Video piracy is a low-risk, high-reward business. Approximately 20 per cent. of the illicit material that is seized in raids conducted by FACT consist of videos that have not received a certificate from the British Board of Film Classification because they are deemed unsuitable for home viewing. Those videos include two films in particular—"The Exorcist" and "Driller Killer". That is another feature of the sorry tale with which we must deal. Such films are unsuitable for home viewing and they are available at car boot sales and Sunday markets. I suspect that no one is choosing who should be allowed to buy those videos.
    The scale of the operation is mind boggling. From various raids that FACT has undertaken with the police, the industry has discovered that, for a typical counterfeit operation, 100 duplicating machines might be working 24 hours a day, producing 6,000 videos a week, from which the revenue amounts to about £60,000, or £3 million per annum. When that information was first presented to me, I misread it. I thought that about 100 video machines were being used to duplicate videos around the country, so we were talking about 6,000 videos a week and £3 million worth of counterfeit goods nationally. I thought, "What is the problem" until it came home to me that those figures related to one operation.
    I do not wish to fall foul of the rules of the House, but I want to show you, Madam Speaker, this photograph of a raid in Kent, which my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) attended with Kent police. You can see all the machines. Another photograph shows all the counterfeit video covers. Another one shows a garage and boxes full of all the copies ready to be shipped out to the Sunday market. There are more pictures of the video machines. They were part of just one counterfeiting operation. Those photographs show the scale of the problem.
    Lady Olga Maitland: We are suitably horrified by what my hon. Friend has shown us. He told us about one operation, but has he any idea how many other operations of a similar nature are going on around the country? Can he give a guesstimate?
    Mr. Greenway: I shall make a guesstimate later, but, if I do not stick to the order in which I want to present all the facts, I might miss something out and there is much important information. I share my hon. Friend's concern. She is right to point to the fact that such activities are taking place on a wide scale.
    9.45 am
    Another factor causes grave concern. I want to dispel the myth we are dealing only with a few out-of-work young lads operating in what we might call the Del Boy
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    economy around London or in some of our inner cities, and that they are doing nobody much harm by making a few bob on the side pirating the odd video or cassette. It is well known that such operations have strong links with organised crime, especially pornography, drug rackets and even terrorist activity. They all have proven links with video piracy.
    Last night, I was speaking to my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) about that matter. You will recall, Madam Speaker, those halcyon days of the Select Committee on Home Affairs when my right hon. Friend was the chairman, and how we discovered, for example, on our visits to Northern Ireland, how such operations were helping to fund IRA terrorist activity. I pay tribute, in particular, to the tremendous work that the Royal Ulster Constabulary has undertaken in trying to stop those rackets and the proceeds of crime going towards terrorist activities.
    Where does one obtain pirate videos and material? Sometimes, one can pick them up in retail outlets because dealers are tempted by the low prices, but the majority of pirated or counterfeit videos are sold to the public through the non-retail trade, especially car boot sales and Sunday markets. It is just a little aside, but that is an another example of why we need—and I say this passionately to my hon. Friend the Minister, who I know shares my concern—to reconsider the law on car boot sales and some Sunday markets. I hope that we will be able to return to that matter before the year is out.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the confiscated proceeds of crime that he has mentioned could be put towards more stringent criminal enforcement so that we could crack down on Sunday markets and car boot sales and nip such crime in the bud?
    Mr. Greenway: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Whether there should be some hypothecation—if that is the right word—of where the proceeds of crime go is a more general matter for the Bill.
    Again, I am delighted that you are in the Chair this morning, Madam Speaker, because you were with us in Washington when we were shown the 12-seater tourer bus that had been seized by the Washington drugs squad from drug traffickers, and how it used the bus in its campaign against other drug traffickers. I know that such solutions do not go down well with Home Department officials, but it is a tempting thought that we should be able to use such equipment and especially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) said, some of the proceeds to help crack down on crime. I hope that, when the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) has introduced is put on the statute book, and when confiscation of the proceeds of crime significantly increases, that will help my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary in fighting the Treasury over his budget to cut crime. That is an important matter.
    I deal now with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). She asked how big the problem was. In 1994, the Federation Against Copyright Theft seized 1,020 video recorders, 156,500 tapes, 500,000 inlays and 61 television sets in 1,747 searches. Inlays are vital because they are the picture sleeves that make the buyer think how terrific it is that he can buy a copy of "The Exorcist", "I Spit in your Groove" or "Driller Killer". When one thinks that not all

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    searches are successful because the counterfeiters get to know that the police or the federation are coming and shift their stock accordingly, one gets some idea of the scale of the problem.
    The federation works closely with the police and trading standards officers and institutes about 150 criminal actions a year at its own expense. The majority of these actions are undertaken by way of a summons under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
    It is FACT's experience that penalties in the Crown court average about £1,000 a summons, although the maximum penalties available under the Act are unlimited fines and/or two years' imprisonment. Under the Video Recordings Act 1984, the maximum fine available is £20,000. These sums must be viewed as derisory when compared with the value of infringing material that may be seized during a raid because it is not uncommon for that material to be worth more than £1 million.
    What is the point even of a maximum fine of £20,000 if the counterfeiters have made £1 million from their operation? They pay the £20,000 and then go and start all over again. We have to seize the £1 million, which is why it is right that this matter is being discussed in connection with this worthy Bill.
    The federation, trading standards officers and local Members of Parliament are all constantly applying pressure on the judiciary to enforce the maximum penalties available to make their efforts more effective in combating video piracy, but the fact is that even the maximum penalties are not enough—we have to get after the loot.
    The British Video Association and the British Phonographic Industry, which deals with the record business, strongly support the Bill and especially the new clause which would certainly make the Bill more applicable to the bootleggers and the pirates who damage their industry. The BPI is the trade association that represents the majority of United Kingdom record companies whose recordings are widely pirated. It estimates that piracy costs the United Kingdom record industry about £20 million a year. The BPI is active in fighting such piracy and took more than 900 actions against pirates last year.
    Whereas a dozen or perhaps 20 films are extremely popular at any one time—of course, they have been financed by the film industry, which is a big business—there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings available on the high street, but a great many copies are not necessarily sold. We should think of the musicians, some of whom are barely scratching a living or trying to make a future in the industry, whether in popular music or in performing the classical repertoire which, I have to say, is more to my taste. The pirating of copies is a serious problem for them.
    What I am saying, in effect, is that this is not a victimless crime as some people suggest. The victims are often young musicians who are trying to make a career and for whom the royalties from the proper sale of recordings are so important.
    Mr. Oliver Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that record and film companies spend part of their profits on encouraging young talent and enabling people to make their mark in those industries?
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    If those profits are reduced because of pirate copies of recordings, might it not mean that opportunities for young talent could be diminished?
    Mr. Greenway: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, but, in fact, it is worse than that. The extent of pirating and counterfeiting might make record companies decide that it is not worth making certain records in the first place. This is, I understand, a particular problem in some categories of popular music. I do not know enough about it to say which categories, but I understand that some are of very narrow interest. I suspect that the people who might like to listen to such music—those in the 18–30 age group—frequent Sunday markets and car boot sales.
    I shall now detail what happened when a major bootlegger was prosecuted. I am told by the BPI that one of the major known criminals working in this area pleaded not guilty when tried in a magistrates court but was found guilty and given a 12-month suspended sentence for two years. The counterfeit stock in his possession at the time of his arrest was forfeited, which is fair enough, but he was not fined. He was simply ordered to pay £500 towards legal costs, despite the fact that a conservative estimate of his annual turnover was in excess of £500,000.
    The man had been dealing in bootleg product for a number of years, and it has recently come to the attention of the BPI—I am grateful to Sarah John, its director of legal affairs, for giving me this information—that this character is now back in business. That is the heart of the problem. If the courts had the powers to confiscate what they estimate to be the proceeds of crime as set out in the Bill, it would have been much more difficult for that person to have got off so lightly.
    I must explain that this problem does not apply only to the film and music industries. This week, I had a letter from Gillette Management Inc. which reads as follows:
    "I am writing to confirm that, as a major UK manufacturer of consumer products, Gillette fully supports"
    the new clause which, it says, will help it enormously in combating counterfeiting. It continues:
    "As a leading UK manufacturer of shaving products (through its operating subsidiary, Gillette UK Limited with factories in Isleworth and Reading) and writing instruments (through its operating subsidiary, Parker Pen Company with a factory in Newhaven), Gillette has suffered frequently in the past from the importation of counterfeit products into this country. Counterfeiting has the effect of seriously undermining our UK manufacturing base and any strengthening of the law … which increases the penalties for counterfeiting and discourages the import of counterfeit products, is to be encouraged and has the full support of The Gillette Company."
    When one thinks of the areas in which Gillette and Parker Pen operate, one can immediately see that such behaviour must apply right across the board. Throughout the entire commercial and industrial life of this country, people are counterfeiting products or pirating products before they are released. I understand that not long ago there was a scam about ladies' perfume. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) will no doubt be able to tell us a little more about that when they speak. The case for action is abundantly clear.
    10 am
    I shall mention two other important features which are a cause of grave concern. If I deal with the less serious issue first, it will whet the appetite of the House for the second point, which is infinitely worse. The lesser case

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    gives a clear indication of the sort of people with which we are dealing and, as I have already mentioned, the contact that they have with organised crime. The premises of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, FACT, in Middlesex were recently fire-bombed and it is constantly being threatened by some bootleggers.
    The second matter of grave concern arises because of information supplied by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North. I pay tribute to him for the way in which he has brought the matter to our attention. Indeed, he apologises to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for being unable to attend today's debate. My hon. Friend tells me that bootleggers often copy over violent and pornographic films, which they will then sell to anyone with cash. Just imagine a two or three-hour video of a pornographic film, on which 1 hour 40 minutes of "The Lion King" was recorded, that a video sleeve of "The Lion King" was put on the box and that it was sold at a Sunday market for a fiver to some kid who had just been paid for his paper round. He would take the video home, pop it in the machine and 1 hour 40 minutes later, when "The Lion King" finished, he would be watching the most horrendous pornography and bestiality.
    Were he present, my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North would tell the House that he had seen this material with his own eyes as a result of a raid. While we in the House may plead on behalf of British business, British commerce, film makers and musicians who are losing out to pirates and bootleggers, such irresponsibility in the distribution of filth which youngsters may see is the most overwhelming reason why we need to take action.
    The House has a chance this morning to put the matter right, to say to the pirates and the bootleggers that the final curtain is coming down, the videos are being switched off, it is the end of the show and that we shall take away their money and ensure that their dreadful business is brought to a sudden end.
    Mrs. Barbara Roche: At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) said that we were discussing the new clause at a particularly appropriate time in the film world. I think that he was referring to this week's Oscar ceremony. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to mention that in my constituency we have a British Oscar winner, Peter Capaldi, who has also made a great contribution to our life locally. He has accompanied me to a local school where he encouraged young people to consider the possibility of a life in acting, film and theatre. I pay tribute to his tremendous achievement and to that of all our British Oscar winners. They deserve our congratulations.
    I very much welcome the manner in which the hon. Member for Ryedale introduced this most important subject. There is no doubt that the illegal bootlegging industry is causing a tremendous problem and is making a huge amount of money. I shall pursue a number of the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. When he spoke of some of the videos that have been seized, he said they were unsuitable for home viewing and mentioned some of the work in which the Select Committee on Home Affairs had been involved—some of it when you, Madam Deputy Speaker, were a member of that Committee. I was also a member of the Committee, although, sadly, not at the same time as yourself.
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    I was reminded of some of the related inquiries that the Select Committee made into the link between video violence and juvenile crime and also—it is closely related because it sometimes involves the same individuals who are definitely involved in organised crime—into computer pornography. The hon. Member for Ryedale gave the graphic example of events in Washington and some of the sophisticated proceeds of crime that the industry has wrought.
    I shall take this opportunity gently to remind hon. Members and the Minister that one of the amendments tabled by the Opposition to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill—in fact, I tabled it—related to confiscation and forfeiture with regard to computer pornography. It would have facilitated the confiscation, when convictions were made, of the very computers used by criminals to make their appalling computer videos and images. The amendment would have donated that sophisticated equipment to the police, who frequently—I have heard this from senior police officers—have to use equipment which is not as sophisticated as that of the criminals that they are rightly pursuing. I hope that Minister will again consider our plea and not reject it as, sadly, he did during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill.
    The hon. Member for Ryedale was right to talk about some of the discrepancies. The maximum fine under the Video Recordings Act 1994 is £20,000, which is a derisory sum when one considers that £1 million worth of products may be seized during a raid. That is why we should use our best endeavours to stop such activity. The hon. Gentleman was also right to mention the effect on business and, sometimes, on children as a result of this trade.
    I understand that the Minister may suggest that the Bill does not the need the new clause to enable the pursuance of this illegal activity and that we may approach the problem through another means, perhaps by statutory instrument. I shall certainly listen to that very carefully. I shall also be interested to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam), the promoter of the Bill. Clearly there is cross-party support for the fact that something has to be done about this deplorable trade. At this stage, we must probe and pursue the question of what is the best method. We and, I am sure, the hon. Member for Ryedale would need strong assurances from the Minister that there was a way in which to achieve our aim if he did not accept the new clause. We shall listen carefully to what the Minister and the hon. Member for Exeter have to say.
    Mr. Streeter: I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments on this important new clause. The House owes my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) a debt of gratitude for tabling it. He described graphically the Del Boy economy. I am tempted to say, therefore, that only fools and horses would vote against the new clause, but I shall resist that temptation.
    The important message that we must send out from the House this morning, especially to young people, is that crime must not pay. Too many young people believe that crime does pay. The Bill, on which I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam), is sending a clear message that we will hit criminals where it really hurts—in their pockets—by confiscating the proceeds of their crimes.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale described the losses of more than £250 million per annum to the huge film and recording industry. He is right to table the new

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    clause in an attempt to deal with the perpetrators of these crimes. I take the point that the money would be spent, at least in part, by the film and recording industry on encouraging young talent to come forward and on encouraging the creative people in our midst. How much better it would be for the money to be spent on them rather than on the life-style criminals who cock a snook at the system and perpetrate those offences.
    I want now to develop the point which I made in an intervention about the way in which we could use the money that we confiscated from those who commit offences. There is a powerful argument for ensuring that the proceeds confiscated are used in law enforcement. That is an especially powerful argument because we recognise that the outlets for pirate videos and pirate recordings of all kinds are car boot sales, Sunday markets, and so on. It is difficult to police such outlets because they are so widespread.
    There has been a great explosion of car boot sales in all our constituencies. On Sunday mornings, it is difficult to drive along certain roads because there are so many cars parked. Understandably, people enjoy the opportunity to buy a bargain; no one begrudges people obtaining a bargain. These markets are difficult to police because there are so many of them. Would it, therefore, be appropriate to ensure that the cash that may be taken from these criminals under the powers in new clause 1 is used to ensure that more officers are made available to go around the markets and car boot sales so that they can confiscate some of the pirate material and trace it back to source?
    We cannot blame ordinary members of the public for purchasing this material and for trying to buy a bargain. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale made the point that many purchasers are young people. My own children enjoy going with their hard-earned pocket money to Plympton market and to the car boot sale on Peacock meadow in Plympton. They sometimes come back with videos and recordings which they have bought for a few pounds. They do not know whether those purchases are pirate recordings. We cannot blame young people. We must apprehend at source those who sell these items and we must trace them back to those who are creating them.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale gave graphic illustrations of the dens of iniquity which produce the recordings. He described the racks of video recorders and copying machines. Once access is gained to the garages, basements and cellars where the machines are kept, there can be no argument about what the machines are used for. The difficult point is locating them in the first place. Here again, there is a powerful argument for more resources being made available so that we can track down these places of subterfuge—the underground recording studios.
    I hope that we can think seriously about ensuring that the confiscated proceeds are used for further and better law enforcement. I recognise that some will squeal that we are hitting people too hard through the Bill. They will say that the families of criminals will suffer. I believe that we can judge whether we are getting our law enforcement measures right by the amount of squealing from the libertarians. Unless the libertarians and the wishy-washy do-gooders are squealing and protesting, we have not gone far enough. That is one of the ways in which we can judge a measure. I am delighted to hear that one or two people are beginning to voice their concerns about the Bill. If we do not yet hear the usual cacophony of noise
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    from the wishy-washy do-gooders, we may not have gone far enough. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter will consider that point.
    I am keen to ensure that the confiscated proceeds of crime are used to crack down on crime; the money should be used for law enforcement. I hope that we see an end to the despicable trade which my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale described so graphically. I am concerned about the fact that people record over existing porn videos. A few weeks ago, there were cases in the newspapers of families whose children were watching videos, only to see at the end some disgraceful material, which had no doubt come in from the continent. We do not want that to happen. I believe that the House will get behind the new clause as it has got behind the Bill.
    10.15 am
    Mr. John Greenway: My hon. Friend has reminded me, with his reference to the fact that the original videos may come from the continent, of a point that I did not make earlier. Some people may wonder why people copy on to pornographic videos. As I understand it, it is cheaper to buy the pornographic videos than to buy blank video cassettes. The quantities are so great that the pirate operators can pick them up for almost nothing. Alternatively, there is no market in which the porn videos can be got rid of.
    Mr. Streeter: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It may be a reflection on the value of the material recorded on the cassettes that it makes them worth less than new, empty cassettes. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I am grateful to him for the new clause. It has my full support and, I am sure, the support of the House generally.
    Mr. Piers Merchant: The wishy-washies, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), seem to be coming on to our side. I understand that one of the original suggestions for confiscation came from the Howard League for Penal Reform.
    I strongly support the new clause. I listened to the debate on Second Reading with great interest. In retrospect, I am surprised to discover that the categories included in the new clause were not included in the original Bill. We may hear later whether there was a good reason for that.
    Crime must not pay in any circumstances and crime must be seen not to pay. The idea that we can continue to read stories about criminals disappearing and going to live the high life on the Costa or in even more exotic places is unacceptable, not just in itself but because of the appalling example it sets which gives the impression that crime can pay.
    The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) made points on Second Reading about the professionalism of crime today and the extent to which money can be made. The areas covered by the new clause are those in which a large amount of money can be made—what might be called business-style crime which the Bill aims to restrict. It is a sort of white-collar crime—or, more accurately, grey-collar crime, because of the shady characters and racketeers involved, who use pseudo-business techniques but deliberately stray on to the wrong side of the law.

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    Crimes such as those covered by the new clause are, or should be, at the centre of the Bill. That is because copyright crimes of all varieties are often closely linked with more mainline crime—crimes of violence, gangsterism, syndicates and international crime such as money laundering. They are all interconnected, and it would be fatal to imagine that copyright crime is somehow set apart from the rest and is not so bad, or that it is merely carried out by a few men straying into unacceptable business practices. It is far more than that. There is a seamless link between all those forms of crime.
    Indeed, it could be said that copyright crime is more heinous in its effect and in its links with the worst forms of crime than the old-fashioned idea of the safe blower, or even street crime, which is often isolated from the huge sums of money connected with international crime syndicates such as the Mafia. The crimes that we are discussing are certainly not like that.
    Many people who go to a market or buy a video from under a service station counter—that is another way in which counterfeit videos are often sold—might think that they are doing no more than involving themselves with the output of a form of minor crime. They may have in their minds a picture of some fellow with a video recorder who has bought another, linked them together and copied a film from one to the other. They assume that there has been only a minor technical breach of the law, involving only small amounts of cash.
    If someone thinks that, he has not looked deeply into the "business" practices behind such crime. Huge distribution networks are often built up and massive amounts of money are involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) mentioned the sum of £250 million, and even that is an estimate; there could be even more money involved in such improper activity.
    It is easy for a small group of people to set up a bank of video recorders, and one does not have to use one's imagination to work out where many of the recorders may have come from. They then link them together and start reproducing videos at a phenomenal rate. The machines run automatically and can be left to run for 24 hours a day. The raw material—the second-hand videos on which the counterfeit material is recorded—is also easy and cheap to get hold of. The challenge is not the technical side, though to some people that may seem the difficult part, but the distribution, and we have heard examples of how easy that is, too. There are massive profits to be made from counterfeiting. If the Bill does not thoroughly ensure that those profits are liable to confiscation, there will be a gaping hole in it.
    I want also to draw the attention of the House to software counterfeiting. I am not an expert in copyright law, and I am not sure whether the statutes specified by the new clause catch software counterfeiting. I hope that they do. If it is not covered, it should be brought within the Bill in one way or another, for the simple reason that it is even easier than video counterfeiting. It is far quicker to copy a programme from a computer or a disk on to another disk. That can be done in a matter of seconds, or at least minutes, and it can also be done imperceptibly.
    When one video is copied on to another, there is bound to be some loss of quality, unless one has access to a digital machine, and those are hardly available today. The more one copies, and the further the generation of copy,
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    the lower the quality is; with software, there is no loss of quality whatever, so, for forgers and counterfeiters, it presents an even more attractive possibility. It is easier, cheaper and quicker and one can go on doing it for ever.
    There is not yet as big a market for software as for counterfeit videos, but potentially the market is much bigger. There are means of distribution that can even do away with the need to market a physical product. Material can be sold down telephone lines—downline, as it is called. That sphere of activity must be brought firmly and definitely within the scope of the Bill.
    Finally, there is the illicit use of trademarks. All hon. Members must know that it is easy to buy counterfeits of expensive jewellery and watches—the name Cartier comes to mind, and I mentioned that a few weeks ago in another debate. In the far east, one can walk into virtually any watch shop and buy for less than £20 a perfect replica of a Cartier watch, the original of which would cost £7,000 to £8,000.
    There is a whole industry in the far east producing such material, and I do not doubt that there is probably a whole industry in this country too, if it could be found. The products are counterfeit—beautifully done, but illegal. There are huge profits to be made there, too. It is a matter of considerable concern to proper manufacturers. A few months ago, I saw a wonderful photograph of a steamroller running over a massive mountain of confiscated fake Cartier watches. The thought of all those beautiful watches being squashed under those huge wheels was rather frightening, until one realised that luckily they were not genuine.
    That mountain was only the tip of the iceberg—if I may mix my metaphors. It is vital that no holds are barred in the battle against such crime, for crime is what it is. A huge industry would receive a hammer blow if it were absolutely clear that counterfeiters and others responsible for the crime would have their assets confiscated so that, at the end of the day, there was no profit in it.
    The new clause will toughen a law that, rightly, is tough anyway, and will strengthen its purpose. It will inflict another hard blow on the criminals who profit by breaking the law at the expense of others. For my constituents and for me, that blow cannot be hard enough.
    Mr. Heald: I am glad to have the opportunity to make one or two remarks on this important new clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) made an important point when he said that people often think of bootlegging and similar offences in the recording industry as a Del Boy crime—something reasonably comfortable, but the sort of offence that falls into the category of "something that fell off the back of a lorry".
    Mr. Alan Duncan: Like a Labour party policy.
    Mr. Heald: Yes, or perhaps like some of the more Gump-like remarks made by the people on the Opposition Front Bench.
    There is more to the crime than that, because bootlegging is stealing from our most important industries. It is also stealing from the people who benefit from the profits of those industries and from the consumer. Since the 1960s, popular music has probably been one of the most successful British industries—[Interruption.] One of my hon. Friends is muttering that

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    he would not listen to all of it, but groups such as the Beatles, and now Take That, are well-known popular music artistes—[HON. MEMBERS: "Trendy."]
    Mr. Streeter: Or the Bay City Rollers.
    Mr. Heald: I think that the Bay City Rollers are a bit passé. Those groups have done tremendously well for Britain, which has gained thousands of jobs and great credit from the music industry.
    In the film industry, we may only have occasional winners, but what good films they are, such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Chariots of Fire".
    Mrs. Roche: The hon. Gentleman points to some of the wonderful achievements of the British film industry. Does he agree that it is disgraceful that the Government have not given the industry much more support? If the Government listened to the British film industry—
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I suggest that the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) does not follow the hon. Lady down that road, as it is very wide of the new clause we are debating.
    10.30 am
    Mr. Heald: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for not allowing me to be tempted down that route.
    People may wonder why Conservatives are making such a fuss about bootlegging. Although the Conservative party is the party of freedom, free expression and freedom of trade—it is also the party of freedom from high taxes, which may explain the point made by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche)—it has always been the party of freedom under the law, and that is pertinent to the new clause.
    Mr. John Greenway: If bootlegging and piracy were stopped, the film industry would be financially secure, and the question of Government support would not arise.
    Mr. Heald: That is an extremely good point. It is not just the industry and the performers who benefit if profits are left in the company, but the consumer. The effect of taking all that money out of the record and film industries must be that the prices of videos and recordings are unnecessarily high. Everyone suffers from bootlegging.
    There are many young artists in all fields who may be waiting for a talent scout to find them, but the record industry may not be able to afford pay for talent scouts. If the industry cannot pay for training, recording, making samples, quality assurance, marketing, and having the best producers in Britain, the country, British trade, businesses, individuals and consumers suffer.
    Bootlegging is one of the worst offences in a way, because it not only undermines something which is extremely good in Britain but permeates our society when people start to talk about it in Del Boy terms. It is corrupting to think that that sort of theft—which is stealing from all of us—is acceptable, and it is time to put a stop to it.
    Part of the concept behind the Bill is that if a person continues to commit offences, the law will come down on him like a ton of bricks. In America, that is described as "three strikes and you're out", and the same principle
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    must apply here. It must be right for life-style criminals who continue to offend and damage Britain are hit, and hit hard. I welcome the new clause, as it is doing something extremely important to protect us all.
    Lady Olga Maitland: First, may I give a warm welcome to the introduction of the Bill as a whole? I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) decided to choose the Proceeds of Crime Bill as his private Member's Bill. This is the first opportunity that I have had to make remarks on the Bill. This country is crying out for something to be done about criminals who are living off the fat of their proceeds—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but her remarks may be anticipating the Third Reading of the Bill. We are looking at one simple new clause.
    Lady Olga Maitland: I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your remarks, but I felt that it was essential to point out the broad picture before moving on to specific points—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have specifically told the hon. Lady that that is not acceptable.
    Lady Olga Maitland: I stand corrected. The new clause is welcome and important. All of us are proud of the British film industry, and also of the music industry which has produced excellent classical and popular work and we will not stand to see those valuable industries undermined by crime.
    I have had some personal experience of the availability of counterfeit videos. Before Christmas, my 13-year-old son decided to go to Camden market to trawl for Christmas presents. On a stall at the market he found an array of videos, including—for £5—"Four Weddings and a Funeral". He brought it home, and was pleased as punch—so pleased that he decided to go back the next day to get some more copies. The stallholder had bunked off with the profits, but other stallholders were around. He bought more copies, wrapped them up and gave them as Christmas presents.
    We watched one of the videos. I suspected that it had been suspiciously cheap, but how was a young child or any purchaser to know of the source of the video? When the picture came up on the screen, it was clear that it was not a first-class, first-print video. The opening shots were rather awkwardly presented, and there were black margins on the screen before the film finally got into full cry. It was clear that we had been cheated and conned. There is no way in which a customer can get compensation after being diddled in that way.
    I was lucky that my son was not distracted by another kind of video that he could have bought. The availability of pornography is terrifying, and it corrupts everybody—not necessarily the young. We do not need it in our society, and I wish that there was some way in which we could stop it. We did manage to put a stop to pornography coming over the television airwaves through the control of the Red Dutch television programme—
    Mr. Duncan: Red Hot Dutch.
    Lady Olga Maitland: Red Hot Dutch. None the less, it is not just pornography that I am concerned about. I am also concerned about the spread of counterfeit

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    videos which promote violence. These cheap and violent videos are extremely damaging to our society. They have a particularly damaging effect on emotionally vulnerable people who may be easily disturbed. In the end, society pays a heavy price as such a person could lose control.
    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) on giving a graphic description of how counterfeit videos are produced. I had been aware of the method following discussions with police, but his remarks were a salutary lesson in the ease with which counterfeits can be produced and the amount of profit involved. To think that one producer alone can make £3 million out of one lock-up garage is terrifying. It is impossible to estimate the full scale of the industry in the United Kingdom—it is beyond belief.
    Another important point that my hon. Friend made was that behind those innocent-looking videos—some are less than innocent-looking—there are serious racketeers at work. As my hon. Friend pointed out, IRA-Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland has funded its terrorism with such racketeering. I have had several conversations with the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Belfast on just that point. If we could find a way of clamping down on such crime, we would be saving people's lives in the long run. We should not work on the basis that as we now have a ceasefire in Northern Ireland the urgency is not so great. The urgency is always there. When we see how the money goes into weapons and arms, we must realise just how serious and important the new clause is.
    Counterfeiting has funded killing machines not only in Britain but throughout the world. I was worried to read in the Home Affairs Select Committee report on organised crime just how international counterfeiting has become and how it has invaded Britain. An interesting submission was made to the Select Committee on just that point by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Superintendents Association and the Police Federation.
    The Committee examined some of the principal threats that have come from organisations such as the Chinese triads, who operate in Britain. The Committee was told that it was extremely difficult to assess the real extent of their activities, but that it was known that the triads had a high degree of responsibility for counterfeiting. The problems that have to be countered in trying to beat the Chinese triads include the insular nature of the Chinese community, the wall of silence that exists, the distrust of anyone who is not Chinese which makes the organisation impenetrable, the background of fear over many generations about the triads so that no one dares talk about them and the vicious and public nature of the attacks or retribution which promulgate the fear of triad societies. But the triads are just one organisation promoting counterfeit crime which the police are trying to crack.
    The Select Committee also looked into the Caribbean criminals, who have caused great concern. In other
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    countries such as Japan, criminal gangs are rich with illicit funds. Such gangs have invaded our country. The Italian Mafia—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady for a third time, but I must return her to the substance of the new clause under consideration.
    Lady Olga Maitland: With the greatest respect, I am trying to illustrate how important the new clause is. I am also trying to show that counterfeit crime is not only endemic in Britain but is being introduced from overseas and is operated here from just such sources. If you will just give—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Passing reference is one thing, but a general and thorough review of these matters is not germane to the new clause.
    Lady Olga Maitland: Obviously, I bow to your judgment, Madam Deputy Speaker.
    We should take the international aspects of counterfeit crime seriously because they have a bearing on counterfeit crime in Britain. The point was made earlier that counterfeit crime is not merely a harmless little boyo activity in Sunday markets. That boyo working at a Sunday market is often part of a nationwide organised criminal gang. For that reason, we have to take it very seriously.
    On the more general point, counterfeiting is not just about films and recordings. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) talked about other forms of counterfeiting. He was right. Whether we are talking about cheap reproductions of clothing—designer clothes, for instance—perfumes, watches and a whole host of different things, we have to recognise that it is a major crime which should have been included in the Bill in the first place. Now is the time to make sure that it is given the due consideration that it deserves.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I have considerable sympathy with the new clause. I, too, am well aware of the concern that trade organisations and others have expressed about counterfeiting and copyright infringement. While a tremendous amount of the debate has concentrated on videos and the record industry—the music industry, I suppose we should call it now that there are CDs, tapes and so on—I am glad that my hon. Friends have mentioned other counterfeit products such as watches and designer clothing and shoes.
    Many colleagues have also mentioned that counterfeiting is not—I shall have to use the expression so as not to be the only one not to use it in the debate—just a Del Boy type of crime. It is not just people who make a few copies for their friends and run off another few to sell to someone else. I suspect that many people think like that because most people start in that way, before it becomes heavy and organised, making just a few copies or a copy for their own use.
    10.45 am
    What Member of the House or what child these days does not buy a CD or album, as we used to call it, of greatest hits and inevitably find that they like only half, if they are lucky, or even just a third of it? So if one wants to listen to some music in the car, one ends up making a

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    compilation tape. I suspect that every youngster has started on the first step of what could be a counterfeiting career by doing something perfectly legitimate—namely, copying music for personal pleasure. I cannot imagine anyone in the House who has not made a compilation tape. Well, I imagine that my hon. Friend the Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household does not sit with the headphones on listening to a compilation tape of Wet Wet Wet.
    It is probably because counterfeiting has such innocent beginnings that people tend to think that it cannot be a real crime. In every home in this country it is possible to reproduce music on to a tape. Those whom we are trying to get at today are those who massively reproduce material to sell it on and pass it off as something else. I was interested to read in one of my woodworking magazines last year about the man who invented the wonderful Black and Decker workmate. With its corporate muscle, Black and Decker has spent about £10 million worldwide trying to protect the copyright of that simple but brilliant machine from counterfeiters throughout the world.
    When children cry out for the latest designer clothing or those designer shoes or trainers which cost £70 or £80 and still last no more than a month, it is no wonder that many parents are tempted, with screaming children in hand, to go to the market and pick up a £10 pair of apparently designer trainers. We can all have great sympathy with parents in those circumstances. If I read today's press correctly, I suspect that there will be a big market in Manchester United counterfeit strips as it has changed its strip for the seventh time in three years and charges £70 a time. That is good for Manchester United, but not so good for the parents who will feel obliged or pressured to buy a new one each time.
    There is a large industry out there. We are also aware that America is concerned that some countries in the far east have massive state-run factories which mass-produce counterfeit equipment. The message that must go out is that this is a crime. I liked the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) described it: it is theft—theft from the consumer, from the people who invented the original product and from the businesses involved. There can be no doubt that such activities represent a significant threat to legitimate businesses and, as we have heard disturbingly today, that they are a source of income to professional criminals. It is because I am concerned about the links with pornography and organised crime that I have initiated an on-going interdepartmental consultation exercise.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale will understand, the Home Office is not primarily responsible for the legislation that has a bearing on this problem. Clearly, it is sensible to ascertain an estimate of the number of cases that would arise from this proposal and whether the additional court costs and other costs can be met. I agree with my hon. Friend that the best way forward is probably not by means of an amendment to the Bill, which could create an unwelcome precedent. I am grateful also to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) for making the matter clear in the Standing Committee on Wednesday when I was not able to be present. The use of an order made by the Secretary of State, which is already anticipated in part II of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, is probably the best way forward.
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    My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale asked some questions about the powers of the Crown court and magistrates courts. The Crown court has the power to make a confiscation order in respect of any offence listed in schedule 4 to the 1988 Act or, if it is not listed, in respect of any indictable offence—that is covered by section 71(9) of that Act. Magistrates courts can make a confiscation order only in respect of schedule 4 offences. They cannot make an order for any summary, or triable-either-way offence unless it is included in schedule 4. If we make an order and include summary or triable-either-way offences, which we could do, it would mean that the Crown court could still make a confiscation order if a triable-either-way offence is heard in the Crown court.
    The interdepartmental consultation exercise is under way, considerable progress is being made, and I should be in a position to make known the outcome of our deliberations shortly. I certainly expect to be able to do so before the Bill completes its parliamentary passage. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale will consider that an important safeguard from his point of view and a measure of my good faith. I assure him that the Government will consider very sympathetically the addition of these offences to schedule 4 by means of an order.
    I am afraid that, for the reasons that I explained, it would be better to use existing order-making powers. Since I have assured my hon. Friend that I am looking sympathetically at the matter and since I should be able to inform the House before the Bill has completed its parliamentary stages—with that important safeguard built in—I ask him not to press the new clause to the vote, but to leave the matter to the order making powers.
    Sir John Hannam: This debate has touched chords in the House and will do so throughout the country. The scale and extent of the offences that my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) identified are known to pretty well every family in the country because of the measures that he pointed out and the examples that my hon. Friends have given in the debate.
    I recall the pornographic videos that were displayed to Members of Parliament representing the Devon and Cornwall constabulary area, including my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), before we introduced legislation to deal with that type of obscenity. As has been described today, people are using the old pornographic videos, which no longer have any value, as cheap material for recording children's videos. That is a very disturbing example and the sort of thing that we really must deal with.
    The thread running through the debate is that we are dealing with big crime and that is the sort of crime with which the Bill seeks to deal. Criminals are able to get away with it. They might have to pay a small fine or serve a short prison sentence, but until my Bill is enacted, any confiscation orders that might exist can be expunged.
    This is an important debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale introduced it in the manner to which we are accustomed from him. He covered all the important areas. I listened to the remarks of all my hon. Friends and of the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), with considerable interest because I have been involved in copyright matters. I am very sympathetic to the view that we must take action to close that gap.

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    The motives that underlie the new clause certainly have my support. Like my hon. Friend the Minister, however, I have reached the conclusion that the Bill is not the best forum for dealing with the matter. It is a question, not of whether the offences should be included in confiscation orders—there is no doubt about that—but of how best that can be achieved. As hon. Members will know, specified offences can be brought within the reach of confiscation powers under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 by adding them to schedule 4, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The 1988 Act lays down a procedure for amending schedule 4 by statutory instrument, which is a quicker and more straightforward way to amend it than an amendment by primary legislation, which the new clause is.
    In 1990, schedule 4 was amended by statutory instrument to deal with the problem of acid house parties, from which large illicit profits were being made. Given that precedent, and the simplicity of established procedures for amending schedule 4 by statutory instrument, I am inclined to think that that is the right way to deal with this type of counterfeiting and copyright infringement offence.
    Mr. John Greenway: This is the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, but it is clear from what we have heard this morning—and from the support that I have received from my hon. Friends—that there is support throughout the House, but particularly on the Conservative Benches, for ensuring that the provisions of his Bill cover the types of crime that we have been discussing. He will want the Bill to cover such offences. Is he satisfied, from the discussions that he has had with our hon. Friend the Minister, that we shall get that statutory instrument and that when we leave the House today we shall be able to tell people in the film and record industries that we have been successful and that although the legislation will not be on the face of this Bill the Government are going to act?
    Sir John Hannam: I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that I have every confidence that the outcome will
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    be the same for the serious offences under discussion as for other types of crime that have been brought within confiscation law through the statutory instrument procedure, such as acid house parties.
    Some months ago, when I was first acquainted with the problem, I brought it to the notice of my hon. Friend the Minister. He responded immediately and encouraged me by saying that he would be considering the matter and that a review would take place. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) that that would be the best route for dealing with the problem. I hope that it will not take too long.
    I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister announced that we are to have a clear statement on this important matter before the Bill completes its passage through Parliament. While I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale for exposing this important subject, I hope that he will feel that the right way forward is to seek leave to withdraw his new clause.
    Mr. John Greenway: We have had an interesting and thoughtful debate on the matter and I am most grateful for the support from my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, other hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) for the proposal that I brought before the House. Without question, the issues must be resolved quickly.
    My hon. Friends the Minister and the Member for Exeter have given an assurance that they want those matters covered in legislation. I have listened carefully to their commitment and their assurance that those matters can be dealt with satisfactorily through a statutory instrument. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to introduce that statutory instrument as quickly as possible so that those offences are listed in part I of schedule 4 of the 1988 Act.
    With the benefit of those assurances and the considerable airing that we have given the subject this morning, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
    Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
    It being Eleven o'clock, MADAM SPEAKER interrupted the proceedings, pursuant to Standing Order No. 11 (Friday sittings).

Serious Fraud
11 am
The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): With permission, Madam Speaker, I wish to make a statement setting out the way ahead for the investigation and prosecution of serious and complex fraud.
This issue has now been the subject of two official reports: the Graham report, received in March 1994; and the report by a committee chaired by Mr. Rex Davie, formerly of the Cabinet Office, delivered to me at the beginning of February. The Graham report was published last year. I have today placed copies of the Davie report in the Library.
The key issue focused upon by the Davie Committee was whether to develop and build on the existing structures, or whether to merge them into one organisation and, if so, whether that organisation should be based upon the Serious Fraud Office or the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service. The clear advice of the Davie committee is that the existing structures should be retained and that the role of the police in SFO cases should be clarified. The Davie report makes that principal recommendation against a merger, and nine subsidiary recommendations. I accept them all.
The report emphasises the fact that fraud covers a wide spectrum, from the highly sophisticated banking and commercial frauds involved, for example, in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International or the Guinness cases, to relatively straightforward deception. That broad range requires an effective, proportionate and flexible response. For the heaviest cases, the Davie report endorses the regime based upon Lord Roskill's report in 1986, which brings together the investigation and prosecution of fraud by a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers, accountants, both in-house and from the private sector, and the police, working at all stages under the aegis of a specialist prosecuting authority—the Serious Fraud Office. But intermediate cases can properly be handled by traditional police methods leading to prosecution by the less resource-intensive fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service, and a substantial number of lesser cases should also continue to be prosecuted locally in each Crown Prosecution Service area.
I should emphasise that, despite the often misguided criticism to which the prosecuting agencies have been subject, the Serious Fraud Office and the fraud divisions of the CPS have made real advances since they were set up in the 1980s. In its seven years of existence to date, the Serious Fraud Office has brought to trial 141 major cases involving 309 defendants, of whom 191 have been convicted. More significantly, in over 75 per cent. of the cases brought to trial by the SFO, at least one person has been convicted, usually the principal defendant.
The Serious Fraud Office has a current case load of some 50 cases of which, on average, 20 have been brought to trial each year. At the intermediate level, the police in London and throughout England and Wales consult closely with the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service, London or provincial, in significant fraud cases prior to charge; and between them the two divisions have currently just under 100 cases being tried or awaiting trial in the Crown court. Each fraud division comprises a team of 15 lawyers, supported by in-house accountants, together with a very substantial input from independent
1310
counsel, usually brought in at an early stage of any case going forward to prosecution. This system is less resource-intensive than the Serious Fraud Office but nevertheless provides a specialised service on a multi-disciplinary basis. Each CPS area also handles a number of fraud cases locally, again working in close co-operation with the police and counsel.
At whichever level cases are handled, high levels of expertise, experience and attention to detail are essential. The primary conclusion of the Davie report was that the broad structure of each organisation should remain unaltered. Its subsidiary but nonetheless important recommendations are as follows. It provided a revised set of criteria for determining whether cases should be handled by the Serious Fraud Office or the Crown Prosecution Service. Those criteria, which the report concludes should lead to a heavier case load for, and some enlargement of, the Serious Fraud Office, should be published. The allocation of resources as between the two prosecuting authorities in relation to their case load should be kept under review and the Serious Fraud Office should continue to adopt a flexible approach when deciding precisely how their cases should be handled.
The role of the Joint Vetting Committee, established following the Graham report to consider the allocation of cases, which do not fall clearly to the Serious Fraud Office or the fraud divisions, should be strengthened to allow consideration of policy issues and the Association of Chief Police Officers should be fully represented on the Joint Vetting Committee when policy issues are discussed. The role of the police in Serious Fraud Office cases needs to be clarified, perhaps in a memorandum of understanding.
Finally, there should be closer co-ordination between the two prosecuting agencies to encourage a pooling of expertise, a common approach to policy issues, and improved arrangements for the interchange of staff to broaden their experience and provide for enhanced career development.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office and I all welcome the constructive measures suggested in the two reports. They bring to an end what has been a period of uncertainty for both organisations and provide a sound blueprint for future improvements. There can be no room for complacency, but it can be said with confidence that, without the present structures and organisation, many of the heaviest cases successfully brought to trial and conviction would never have been tried at all. Once the constructive recommendations of these two reports are in place, the ability of both organisations to perform their heavy tasks will be significantly enhanced. The Government are wholly committed to the effective and efficient prosecution of fraud at all levels. I commend the proposals to the House.
Mr. John Morris: I welcome the Davie report and the Attorney-General's conclusions. While I would not necessarily have devised the Serious Fraud Office and maintained a fraud division of the Crown Prosecution Service at the same time, a shotgun marriage now is not the best way to proceed.
There is no single measure of the effectiveness of a prosecuting authority and we are not in the business of knocking either the SFO or the CPS for knocking's sake. Does the Attorney-General accept from my experience

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that both the SFO and the fraud division of the CPS handle complex and difficult cases, and that the number of convictions is not necessarily a yardstick by which to judge their effectiveness?
As regards the Attorney-General's responsibility, will he satisfy himself that both authorities make the widest use of counsel of experience, including those usually defending, and instruct them to consider the further lightening of indictments, what can be done to limit the breadth of evidence, and concentrate on prosecuting the prime wrongdoers rather than trying to catch every tiddler, thereby simplifying the difficult and onerous task of jurors?
As enormous costs are frequently at stake, will the Attorney-General convey to the Lord Chancellor the need to ensure the strongest pool of competent judges to try those cases, and perhaps to signify their qualities properly? That perhaps is often the heart of the matter.
Will the Attorney-General reconsider his remarks about the need to clarify the role of the police in the SFO—a masterly understatement, if ever there was one? I have read the Davie report, which speaks of a much more serious position. It refers to "confusion and uncertainty" in direction of investigations, says that
"relations work in the majority of cases"
end mentions
"the need to resolve current tensions."
It is a masterly understatement to speak of clarifying.
Does the Attorney-General share the anxiety of some commentators that for a time there were few, if any, references from the London police forces to the SFO? The Graham report notes:
"The recent trend of provincial forces collectively to refer more cases than the two London forces is contrary to the expectation that the more likely place of incidence of serious fraud is in London."
Has that now changed? Will he personally ensure the greatest participation by the police in the SFO? Is it good use of scarce talent for the police to serve in the SFO at a very high level for a relatively short time and transfer to more mundane duties, including traffic, very soon after?
Will the Attorney-General make a further report to Parliament on what will be achieved by better co-ordination between the SFO and the fraud division in allocating cases? The report refers to "confusing overlap". Perhaps we might know, as a significant increase in the work of the SFO appears to be intended, what proportion that is likely to be. Will he also ensure that the alarming finding that there is little contact on professional questions between the CPS and the SFO becomes a matter of history?
The use of new methods of recording evidence and new technology has helped juries in their difficult task in some recent complex cases. Will the Attorney-General ensure that resources are not denied to the SFO to make the task of juries easier?
The Attorney-General: First, may I thank the right hon. and learned Gentlemen warmly for his welcome, and his recognition of the value of the Serious Fraud Office and the fraud divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service? He and I are in entire agreement about that important matter and we share the opinion that Davie has correctly identified the way ahead.
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I accept that both organisations have a complex and difficult role. No one should underestimate the strain on everyone involved—the investigating police and accountants, counsel who presents the case and, indeed, the judge—of those heavy cases.
The right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) is right that one must seek experienced counsel to present those cases, that the indictments should not be overweighted by an excessive number of charges, that they should be well focused on the principal suspects and the principal aspects of the case, and that they should not be diverted on to minor and subsidiary matters.
I agree that the selection of the judge is of huge importance. The House should pay respect to the enormous burden on the judge in trying a long case of that nature. There are two key factors in those cases; clear, comprehensive and comprehensible presentation by the prosecution and a clear absorption by the judge, who must keep the case steady, prevent it from being unduly interrupted by unnecessary technicality and then present the case clearly and fairly to the jury in his summing-up. It is a heavy task, for which we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the judges who work so hard to carry it out.
An important argument in the Davie report is that the role of the police needs to be clarified in the SFO, so that the police who work there, who have an immensely important role to play—I say that with great emphasis—have a line of accountability that they fully understand and which enables the Director of the Serious Fraud Office, with his heavy duties, to have clear control and direction of cases under his command.
For a time, there was a reduction in the number of cases coming forward in London. There has been a pick-up. The exact reasons for it are difficult to deduce, although it may be something to do with the recession.
It has been suggested that the police should spend longer periods in the Serious Fraud Office. I have taken a close interest in that matter for about 14 years, since I was first parliamentary private secretary to Sir Michael Havers, long before those offices were set up.
It is specialisation, it is the fact that one knows the game of fraud as well as or better than the fraudsters, that makes an excellent investigator and prosecutor. That applies to the police, and they must be given an opportunity to build up that long-term expertise.
In answer to the final questions of the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon, yes, we shall maintain a close watch on the way in which those matters develop. I am sure that the subject will come up in questions, rightly, from time to time. The shift to the Serious Fraud Office must be considered case by case. We are not dealing with supermarket products here; we are dealing with decisions carefully tailored to heavy cases.
The lack of contact in the past between the SFO and the fraud divisions of the CPS is something that I wish to be changed. Before the report was produced, I had the opportunity to visit and talk personally to the great majority of the lawyers and accountants who deal with those prosecutions. They are anxious for closer contact. They seek an enhanced career structure. I am determined that we shall give it to them.

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Technology is of great importance. In a recent case, the judge praised the way in which 17,000 documents were kept on computer and might be brought instantly to the attention of the jury, greatly enhancing the management of the case.
Mr. John Greenway: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Does he agree that, with the increased prevalence of technology, especially throughout the banking and financial services world, the opportunities for fraud are greatly increased? Does not that demonstrate that the only effective way to discourage those people is to create the certainty that they will be detected and successfully prosecuted? He is right to draw attention to the importance of skills.
I make a plea that the skills in the police are not undervalued by the police themselves, and that there is a proper career structure for police officers working in the Serious Fraud Office, so that their expertise and experience is not wasted by their being returned to other duties.
The Attorney-General: I agree strongly with what my hon. Friend has said. He is a former police officer, and I know, from my several visits to the SFO and the CPS fraud divisions, the huge role that the police do and should play in those matters. They deserve clear lines of accountability and a proper career structure, so that they can play a maximum part in those heavy and important cases and thereby help to show the fraudster that crime does not pay and that it does lead to the condign punishment that it deserves.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I am willing to give a cautious welcome to the statement that has been made. I think that the decision to build on the existing structures is the right one, but does the Attorney-General accept that there remains a good deal of uncertainty and disquiet in the public's mind about the process? Can he confirm that the existing structures must be built on and developed, as he said, so that the public confidence that we need can be established? The jury is still out on the SFO. Although today's announcement will go a long way to dispelling public disquiet, work still needs to be done.
Do any of the Davie recommendations deal with the Attorney-General's role in monitoring the process in future? That was mentioned earlier and it is an essential part of building the confidence in the system which the public are entitled to feel about it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right that we owe a debt of gratitude to judges who conduct such cases. Are they sufficiently trained, however, to digest and break down the evidence that is put before lay members of the jury, so that those juries can make sensible decisions? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman have urgent discussions with the Lord Chancellor to satisfy himself that judges receive the training that is adequate for the task?
The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points with which I agree. I am grateful for his welcome of the conclusions of the Davie report. He is right to agree that we should build on the existing structures.
The hon. Gentleman may say that the jury is out on the SFO or the fraud divisions of the CPS, but they deal with heavy cases. If any of them go wrong it generates a huge amount of publicity. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman
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would agree that to achieve a conviction in 75 per cent. of SFO cases, usually of the principal defendant, is no mean achievement. A certain number of interested people like to run down the prosecuting authorities, perhaps in the hope that they will be less effective in turning their gaze in certain directions.
As for my role, I can tell the House that I and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who has 30 years of prosecuting experience, including such heavy cases, take a close interest in the operation of both organisations, with the assistance of the Directors of the SFO and of Public Prosecutions and we will continue to do so.
The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise not only the burden on judges, but the importance of training. I shall keep in close touch with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor on such matters.
Mr. Oliver Heald: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the SFO has now acquired unique specialist skills and experience? Many cases, such BCCI, Barlow Clowes and Guinness, would not have come to trial without that knowledge and its ability to get behind the defences of some of the most sophisticated criminals in the country.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend also agree that the other area in which the SFO has scored recently is in the presentation of cases? At Oxford recently, Judge May stressed that the way in which 17,000 court documents could be presented by the SFO using computer screens was a fantastic aid to the jury and saved a lot of court time. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, having achieved all those improvements and having that knowledge, it is more likely in the future that criminals will be detected and successfully prosecuted by the SFO than before? Is not that a tribute to its work?
The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend makes a number of good points. It is typical of us in Britain that we often run ourselves down when the rest of the world is praising us. The members of the SFO and the CPS are in great demand overseas, as are their directors, because the rest of the world wants to know how to organise its serious fraud prosecution and prosecution processes generally. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that, going back to the early 1980s, fraud cases took enormously longer to prosecute. I remember one of the Lloyd's cases, known as the Gang of Four case, which took about seven years to come to trial and which did not lead to a conviction. The speed and efficiency with which that sort of matter is now investigated, in tandem with the Department of Trade and Industry, is a sea change from those days. It is a remarkable thing to be able to draw up any one of 17,000 documents, as required, with proper indexing, word recognition and so on. That is the way ahead; my hon. Friend is right to point to it.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is the Attorney-General aware that, by making a narrow statement on the Davie committee report, he has missed a great opportunity to remove from the public's mind the idea that there are two standards of justice in Britain? It seems extremely odd that he has not used this opportunity to explain why some of those millionaire crooks, like Levitt, the Maxwell brothers and others, can get legal aid while they hand around at court. Some of those cases take a month of Sundays, but the people involved manage to live off the public purse and finish up with a few hours' community service.

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Why has the right hon. and learned Gentleman not used today as a chance to explain how the prosecution of such cases will be sped up even more? He should have said that the SFO will explain how the treatment of those in the City, who are making money hand over fist at Baring Brothers and the like, and who have not been brought to justice, will compare to the justice meted out to the little old lady who takes a tin of pilchards from Marks and Spencer and gets locked up within a month?
The Attorney-General: I am not going down the road of commenting on individual cases, particularly any that may be currently before the courts. I invite the hon. Gentleman to take an unusual course and to praise what everyone else in the House has been right to see merit in. The steps that we are taking and the steps that we have taken through the SFO and the fraud divisions of the CPS have done and are doing exactly what he wants. It is ensuring that a high standard of justice will bring the spotlight, indeed the searchlight, to bear on the activities of fraudsters and will bring them to justice far more effectively than before.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: The public could be forgiven if they thought that all fraud cases are either handled according to a conspiracy theory, which seems to be the theory of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), or the cock-up theory, which is often presented to the public by the press. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is rather encouraging that, of the cases that the SFO brings to court, it gains convictions in three quarters of them, frequently of the principal fraudsters? That is particularly meritorious in the light of the complexities of the matter. Does my right hon. and learned Friend consider that what he has announced today will further strengthen the idea in the public mind that fraudsters will be caught up with and properly dealt with by the competent authorities?
The Attorney-General: I agree with my hon. Friend. One can make all sorts of interesting stories in the press. The really interesting story today is that one does not lightly get away with serious fraud. If a case does not lead to prosecution for any reason, even a humanitarian one, where the case is stopped because the defendant is thought to be at danger of his life, as happened in one important case, that is described by some newspapers as a fiasco. That is simply not true. I am not so complacent as to say that there are not lessons to be learned from some past cases—there are—but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the high conviction rate that has rightly been achieved as a result of attention to detail and the focusing of expertise.
Mr. Harry Barnes: There is a clear need to be tough on serious fraud, but it is not clear whether the cautious Davie report goes far towards doing that. There is also a need to be tough on the causes of serious fraud. Does the Davie report touch those areas by starting to deal with the problems of our rip-off society? Does it offer any suggestions that other Ministers should be involved because of concerns about the way in which the Government have led society in the past 15 years?
The Attorney-General: I would not describe this as a cautious report. A report that has the courage to say, in
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the face of often immoderate criticism, that it is not necessary to pull everything up by the roots, is a brave report and right.
As for standards in society, the message that I am delivering loudly and clearly is, "If you think you can get away with fraud, you are wrong. We will not put up with it in today's society." We are putting in place highly effective measures to bring wrongdoers to justice.
Mr. James Clappison: I join in the general welcome given to my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. Does he agree that the cause of crime is criminals and the cause of fraud is fraudsters, whatever the Opposition may think? Does not bringing fraudsters to justice in serious fraud cases usually involve a difficult and complex undertaking, which must be supported by a prosecuting team with the right level of specialist skills and experience?
Should not we view the performance of the SFO against that background? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that convictions at a strike rate of 75 per cent. of cases suggests that some worthwhile progress has been made? There is also good value for money because the SFO's budget is only about £20 million, which must be seen against the much greater cost of loss and damage caused by fraud. Should not we now give the SFO wide-ranging public support in the important task that it is undertaking?
The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is right. He mentioned the cost of investigating and prosecuting serious fraud cases through the SFO as being just under £20 million a year. Professor Levi of Cardiff university, in a recent study, pointed out that that cost should be viewed against the direct loss involved in the SFO's current case load of some £6 billion. It is money properly focused on the worthwhile target of bringing guilty suspects to justice.
Mr. Alan Duncan: My right hon. and learned Friend is right to point out the relative success record of the SFO in its prosecutions. However, are not many of the cases so complex and complicated that it is increasingly unrealistic to expect the jury system and the individual members of a jury sufficiently to understand the details of the issues involved to have the confidence to convict? Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider introducing legislation that would allow many of those uniquely complicated cases to be transferred to decisions by judges, rather than by jury, and so enhance the SFO's future success rate?
The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend rightly makes an important point. It is one on which we focus careful attention from time to time. The point about serious fraud cases and, indeed, most fraud cases, is that while they are complex in execution, they tend to be quite simple in concept—really just hands in the till. The big task is to present the case clearly so that something that the fraudster hopes is buried in tonnes of paper or lost in the interstices of a computer is actually laid clearly before the court. The main burden falls on the prosecution and the judge, and if they can do an effective job juries seldom fail to understand the case in the end. I do not close my mind to my hon. Friend's point, but I think that I have put my finger on the key issue.
Mr. Piers Merchant: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree with the Davie report that the

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key task for the SFO is consultation with senior police officers to ensure that the essential role of the police in large cases is properly defined?
The Attorney-General: Yes, I do. It is right that the report should not funk that important question. As the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) pointed out, in most cases the police work effectively with the SFO. However, there are tensions. It is difficult to work for one organisation when, in a sense, one's loyalty is owed to another. I look forward to tackling the problem with the SFO and CPS Directors and with the police commissioners, to help them to find a satisfactory resolution from the highest level downwards.
Lady Olga Maitland: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it would be helpful to the public if they could understand more of the workings of the SFO, bearing in mind the fact that it employs highly skilled, highly efficient people to tackle very organised crime?
The Attorney-General: Yes, I agree. Indeed, the SFO holds an open invitation to any hon. Member to go and see how it carries out its work. It is fairly impressive to go through its floors, to meet the people who spend a major part of their careers focusing on such an important area and to see how computers can bring the documentation under control so that cases can be marshalled to ensure that something that is immensely complex to start with can be shown in its true light and, if it be the case, its true criminality.

Proceeds of Crime Bill
As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
Proceeds of Crime Bill
  Clause 2

    CONFISCATION RELATING TO A COURSE OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT
    11.35 am
    Sir John Hannam: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 22, leave out 'four' and insert 'two'.
    The clause, which is the cutting edge of the Bill, was examined carefully in Committee. As a result of that detailed scrutiny, I undertook to reconsider whether the first trigger in new section 72AA(1)(c)(i), which requires four convictions on qualifying offences in the same proceedings, should be lowered.
    This is an important issue because the trigger enables a court to apply the assumptions provided for in the clause. I remind the House that the Bill would empower the courts to assume that all property that had passed through a defendant's hands during the past six years had come from crime.
    In accordance with my undertaking in Committee, I have given the matter careful consideration. The amendment would enable a court to make the assumptions contained in the clause when the defendant stands convicted of two convictions in the same proceedings. Hon. Members will recognise that this amendment is identical to the amendment tabled in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Gamier), which we discussed at some length. I am pleased to be able to respond favourably today.
    As I said on Second Reading, great concern is expressed by my constituents—and, I am sure, by the constituents of other hon. Members—about the enormous profits made by those who indulge in a criminal life style. The law already provides tough measures against drug traffickers and terrorists, so it would be most unfortunate if other sorts of criminals, such as those we have discussed this morning, were able to continue to enjoy their profits because we had not set the trigger at the right level.
    Obviously, we would not want the new powers to be used unfairly or in unviable cases, but hon. Members will note that they are discretionary. I am sure that we can rely on the discretion of the prosecutors and the courts to bring the powers to bear only where it would be proper to do so.
    I believe that there is sufficient justification to change the first trigger from four qualifying offences in the same proceedings to two such offences. I hope that the change will find favour on both sides of the House.
    Mrs. Roche: The hon. Member for Exeter has tabled an important amendment, which goes to the crux of the Bill. It is a difficult judgment to make. There were extensive discussions on the matter in Committee—perhaps rather deliberately overlong. Both the Minister and the hon. Member for Exeter felt that there was a difficult balancing act in deciding precisely how to phrase the triggering mechanism.
    It is absolutely right that we are keen to catch those people who have cleverly evaded the law for some considerable time. We know that many serious criminals

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    who are involved in organised crime may not have any previous convictions, and that those who do have previous convictions that go back some years. They probably do not have many convictions when it comes to the "successful" period of their organised crime. It is important, therefore, to consider the triggering mechanism. It is also right, however, that when we consider the balance, we are fair and reasonable, as the hon. Member for Exeter said.
    During our deliberations, the hon. Member for Exeter said that he was anxious that assumptions should not be made in trivial cases because he did not want the new powers on forfeiture to fall into disrepute. I would echo those remarks. In general, if the Bill tightens up the law and catches that class of criminal, that will be considered seriously by Labour Members.
    I should like to issue a little warning note and probe the matter in some detail. At the end of what I hope will be a short debate, perhaps the hon. Gentleman and the Minister will give us an assurance about the nature of the discretion. How will that discretion operate? What will the guidelines be? How will they be made? We are concerned to get the legislation right. It is important that opportunities exist for monitoring and review, so that we can be absolutely assured that the Act is working well, that any changes work well and that the people involved in serious crime, whom hon. Members on both sides of the House want the law to catch, will be caught. At the same time, however, we do not want to catch people in the net who have no place there. My hon. Friends and I look forward to hearing those assurances from the Minister and from the hon. Member for Exeter.
    Mr. John Greenway: For the second time this morning, I find myself passing on apology to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, from one of my hon. Friends—on this occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Gamier). As has been mentioned, he skilfully moved an identical amendment in Committee. I confess that, when I went to the Committee sitting that morning, I had not given a great deal of thought to his amendment, but the more I listened to his arguments, the more convinced I became that it was an important amendment and one that we should make to the Bill.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough could not be here to do it himself, I was determined to table the amendment. When I saw the published amendments, I was delighted to find that the amendment that I had tabled had at its head the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter rather than mine. That clearly showed that he had done what he had promised to do in Committee, which was to go away, talk to Home Office officials, think about the matter and come back on Report and give his verdict. I am delighted that his verdict is that we should make the change.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough put his finger on the issue right at the start of his speech in Committee when he asked, "Why is four the magic number?" It seemed a good question. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, think this matter through yourself, I shall imagine this scenario. A real villain goes before a court and the opportunity exists to seize the proceeds of crime—which is the matter at the heart of the Bill. The jury decides that not enough evidence exists to convict
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    him of all the charges on the long list before it, and it might decide to convict him of one, two, possibly three, but not four. The measure, therefore, seems sensible.
    Another reason exists as to why the figure should be two. Clause 2 tries to establish a pattern of offending. May we just remind ourselves of what, in effect, the clause says and the general arrangement? The question of whether four or two offences are taken into account arises only if it is the first conviction of the person concerned. If, however, he has been convicted previously, only one offence is needed to trigger the measure. Whether one offence triggers it on two occasions, or whether two offences trigger it on one occasion, the principle is the same. That speaks for itself. It is a common-sense approach to establish that pattern.
    11.45 am
    Another reason exists, however, as to why the amendment is right. As was clear from the earlier debate on new clause 1, we are dealing with an attempt to target the serious professional organised criminal. We have just had a statement about the Serious Fraud Office. The matter involves that organisation as well. The police service and the Crown Prosecution Service have a difficult enough job securing convictions. Organised criminals are not the sort of people who put their hands up in court and say, "Okay, guvnor, it's a fair cop. You've got me bang to rights. I plead guilty and don't be too hard on me because I've got my mum and three kids at home to support." We are dealing not with such people but with people who run criminal operations as a business. They will undoubtedly be trying to ensure that they are not convicted of anything.
    Mrs. Roche: I take the hon. Gentleman's argument. Clearly, we are dealing with the sort of people who, to use the expression that was used when I practised at the Bar, would not put their hands up and admit to the crime straight away. We are talking about a trigger of two offences rather than four. However, a defendant who might have pleaded guilty to both offences may decide, because of the trigger, to plead not guilty to avoid confiscation coming into effect. That is a slight concern. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman's reassurances on that point.
    Mr. Greenway: The hon. Lady makes a good point, but the answer to that is that four offences are worse than two. The danger is that a defendant would plead guilty to two offences but not to four or five. We must give the courts and the criminal justice agencies all the flexibility that they need to deal with any eventuality.
    For organised criminals to be convicted at all is a huge mountain for the system to climb. It is illogical that we should say that there must be four mountains. I accept the point that two offences are laid down in the measure to establish a pattern. One offence may trigger the measure on two separate occasions or two offences could trigger it on one occasion.
    I must explain why I am not especially worried that there might be abuse. We can legislate all we want, but, at the end of the day, it is the courts that will implement the law. I have no doubt that judges will need a great deal of persuading that it would be right to use the provisions in the Bill every time some Johnny-come-lately appears in court having at long last been convicted of a couple of offences and they are asked to make an order to confiscate every penny in his bank account. I think that the courts

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    could be very cautious in the use of these provisions and would want to be sure that there were good grounds for making the type of orders provided for in the Bill.
    It must be right, however, that we give the courts the necessary flexibility and choice. I think that we can rely on the judgment of the courts in every case to use the powers sensibly, but, unless the relevant number of offences is two rather than four, few opportunities will arise for the powers to be used.
    I support the amendment and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter was successful in persuading the Minister that it should be accepted.
    Mr. Merchant: I, too, see no rationale for making it a requirement that four convictions rather than two offences should be the trigger. Even now, I do not really understand how or why the figure was arrived at.
    On a superficial level, one might be tempted to suggest that one conviction alone should be sufficient. After all, the intention should be to confiscate the assets of anyone who is involved in criminal activity and who has profited from it. However, I understand that the Bill is aimed specifically at those who build their lives on crime and who are involved in long-standing and often complex crimes. For that reason, I accept that a trigger of one offence would be too restrictive and that we should insist on a requirement that shows a continuity of crime, as it were. In that sense, two would be the minimum number, so I think that the amendment has got it right.
    It is often clear to a court that a person convicted of a crime has been involved in criminal activity for a long time. That may not be obvious at first in the charge or even in the hearing, but it will emerge during the case itself, especially when examination reveals that the person has large assets behind him that could not come from anything other than crime.
    Drugs are an example in point. People are often charged with a drugs offence which may be small in cash terms. However, when their entire background is examined, it may be found that they have accumulated huge reserves of money resulting from their involvement in crime for many years. The Bill aims specifically at those sorts of people—those involved in continual crime. For that reason, I think that two offences should be ample.
    For various technical reasons, a person may be charged with one or two specimen offences even though it is clear that he has carried out a number of identical crimes. It is important that he should not escape the Bill's provisions simply because there were only two specimen charges and the trigger was four offences.
    I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) supports the amendment. Having read the report of the proceedings in Committee, I do not quite understand why she complains that the debate on what she has admitted is an important matter lasted 45 minutes or why the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) objected at the time.
    Mrs. Roche: If the hon. Gentleman reads the account of the first morning of the Committee stage and the following week's deliberations, he will realise that there was a deliberate attempt to filibuster, which we consider to be a great pity. Some Conservatives did not want another private Member's Bill to be debated. That was a shame, especially as the Bill was so warmly welcomed by all parties.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: I trust that we will not have a post mortem on the Committee proceedings.
    Mr. Merchant: I shall certainly not get drawn into that. I was saying that I welcome the Opposition's support for the amendment and was questioning why the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green suggested that a 45-minute debate was excessive for what she admitted is an important principle. I hope that the House will support the amendment.
    Mr. Streeter: I must confess that I am not fully persuaded that the amendment is entirely right, and I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) or, indeed, the Minister, being able to reassure me. I am not against reducing the number of offences from four to two, but why is there a qualifying hurdle at all? I hope that I can be satisfied on that point.
    It is right to give the courts the maximum power to confiscate the proceeds of crime. I am concerned about the cases involving a defendant who may have committed only one offence but where that offence may have been involved numerous acts of criminality over a long period. The example of conspiracy, which was mentioned in Committee, is the obvious one that comes to mind. The offence is technically one crime, but it will have involved a series of criminal acts over a long period. It is important that prosecutors are not prevented from opting to prosecute on a charge of conspiracy simply because it would not necessarily trigger the confiscation provisions—in other words, getting over the hurdle of the two offences being brought before the court.
    I feel strongly that the balance of our criminal justice system must be weighted increasingly against criminals. There is concern that for too long—due no doubt to the liberal intellectual thinking of so many in the Home Office in the past 30 years—the balance has too often been weighted in favour of the criminal, especially the professional criminal. I suppose that I should declare an interest in that I am a partner in a law firm, although I have never practised criminal law. However, I know that the regular and persistent offender, as soon as he is tapped on the shoulder by Her Majesty's constabulary, will turn to his brief. There is nothing wrong with that, but every trick in the book is then employed to ensure that there is no conviction.
    If there is any doubt about where to draw the line on the confiscation of the proceeds of crime, we should draw it in such a way as to allow the courts maximum discretion and flexibility. We have to show criminals that crime does not pay and we need to hit them where it hurts.
    Some concern has been expressed about the impact on the families of criminals if we confiscate too much of the proceeds of crime. It has been said that the sins of the father should not be visited on the second and third generations. It is unrealistic none the less to attempt to insulate families of criminals from the consequences of their parents' acts. Often, families take the benefits. With lifestyle criminals, of which we have heard, families are quick enough to take the benefits such as swimming pools, Spanish villas and so on. We should not draw back from imposing on them too the burdens of their actions. It is an inalienable law of the universe that children benefit or suffer from their parents' actions. I hope that the line may be drawn in the right place so that we may give courts the maximum ability to confiscate the proceeds of crime.

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    12 noon
    None the less, I recognise that, in some instances, there needs to be an opportunity to spell out to a criminal that whereas in life everyone deserves one chance at least, on a second occasion, much more severe consequences would befall him. I am attracted to the system of sentencing which was introduced by the Republican governor in California, Pete Wilson, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) referred, of three strikes and out. A criminal may get one chance and be sentenced for that crime and perhaps again on the second occasion the punishment fits the crime. But if that criminal re-offends to the extent that it is his third conviction, irrespective of the sort of crime, are not we entitled to draw the conclusion that the person is a persistent, habitual offender and should be punished ever so severely?
    I am especially attracted to that proposition because I have learned that the police in Plymouth reckon that 80 per cent. of crime is caused by 1 per cent. of the population: persistent, hardened, professional offenders. We need to target those people in our fight against crime. That is what the Bill and the amendment is all about.
    I welcome an approach to criminal enforcement that targets habitual, persistent offenders. To that extent, the amendment goes some way to satisfy me that we are moving the walls in on such people. I need to be reassured that we need such a qualification at all. Why not give courts the maximum flexibility to confiscate the proceeds of crime?
    Lady Olga Maitland: I warmly support this amendment. My constituents in Sutton take a very tough attitude toward crime. They see no reason why anybody should get away with it, or why there should be any degree of soft treatment. Therefore, why do we need such a trigger mechanism? My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) had a point. If we are too prescriptive, we could let the bad one get away with it. My instinct tells me that we entrust so much to the courts that the power of discretion is definitely worth considering because there is no evidence that it would be abused.
    I read the Committee proceedings of the Bill and saw that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Gamier) asked what was magical about four offences rather than two, to which we never really got an answer. I think that the court would quickly establish that evidence of two convictions would be sufficient for anyone to appreciate that there was something quite serious at fault. Moreover, you can bet your bottom dollar that for every crime committed by very sophisticated, hard criminals who specialise in organised crime, dozens more never come to light. Therefore those one or two convictions on his record are simply the tip of the iceberg. The pattern is well established.
    In seriously considering this amendment, we should question why we should not go the whole way. Why have it at all? We want to put out a clear message to all the organised criminals that there is no safe haven and that they cannot try to protect themselves in technicalities of the law because the law in the end will get the better of them. The public will not stand for it. My constituents
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    will not stand for it. They are mortified when they read stories of high-class, or what I call low-class criminals, leading a high life overseas on fat profits. We have an opportunity to get at those people, ensure that they do not escape and that in the end they serve a penalty which fits their crime.
    Mr. Maclean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) for tabling the amendment which, as we have discussed this morning, would change the first trigger in clause 2 from four to two convictions in the same proceedings. I point out that it is changing one of the triggers in the Bill because we do not want the message to go out from the House that there are two strikes before one is bankrupt. That is not the case. This trigger mechanism—if the House agrees—will be amended from four offences to two, but the other mechanism in the clause means that the lifestyle proceeds of a criminal can be taken from him if he is up in court on one offence and convicted and has been previously convicted in the former qualifying period.
    I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends for making some pretty forceful speeches in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Gamier) has been mentioned. If I remember correctly, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) also made an important and telling speech in which he invoked the great train robbers.
    Mr. John Greenway: That was me.
    Mr. Maclean: I apologise. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) invoked the great train robbers, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, North built on the idea. To be fair, Opposition Members also asked us to look at the issue. My hon. Friends pointed out in powerful speeches the anomalies that may arise when a conviction of four relevant offences in the same proceedings is required before the assumptions are applied. My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter discussed with me whether we had the right level. As my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter and I said in Committee, it was a matter of judgment. My hon. Friend thought that the figure of four was relevant, so did the Government, but my hon. Friend has pressed us to consider another level.
    Why did we arrive at the figure of four? We arrived at it because we thought committing four offences had to be indicative of a continuing course of criminal conduct. I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and for Sutton and Cheam have said this morning. There must be something in the water in places called Sutton to make my hon. Friends so robust in their attitude toward criminals, which I welcome.
    My hon. Friends asked why we should not get rid of the trigger mechanism and why we should not take it down from two to one? I think that they may have thought, although they did not say—perhaps some other hon. Members may be under this misapprehension—that a criminal can be allowed to burgle or steal once and hang on to the goodies and that it is not until he is convicted a second time that the courts may confiscate anything. That is not the case. At the moment, the law allows us quite rightly to take back the goodies from burglary, robbery and theft. We can confiscate assets to the value of the goods which have been stolen for a single offence.

    1325
    In this Bill, we are considering a new power to say that in addition to taking back the goods stolen or the value of the assets stolen or defrauded or whatever, we shall apply an assumption in law that everything else that the criminal has—the cars, the swimming pools, the house, the money in the bank account—are also ill-gotten gains.
    One needs to show a pattern of offending behaviour before, in all fairness, one can apply those assumptions. It is no good saying that someone who has been convicted of one crime was probably responsible for others. We cannot go on gut feelings that someone may have been a criminal; we must rely on the convictions before the court. If someone is convicted of only one offence, it is right to take back from him the value of the goods involved in the theft or crime, but it is not right to apply an assumption and to say, "In addition, chummy, we are going to take everything else you own because you probably got that from theft as well." That would be unfair. That is the counterbalance to the argument that four is too high a level. I believe that one is too low a level. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter in setting the trigger at two. It is, of course, only one of the two triggers in the Bill.
    The amendment will provide the prosecutors and the courts with additional flexibility and additional discretion about which cases are pursued; that discretion is important. Obviously, there will be cases in which it is not appropriate to apply the assumption. That is taken into account by the proposal's discretionary nature.
    The Home Office intends to be closely involved with the Crown Prosecution Service in the formulation of guidelines. We shall ask the prosecuting authorities to monitor, over a set period, the kinds of cases that are being dealt with under clause 2. Clearly, we expect the powers to be used when police inquiries show evidence of persistent offending. We should, however, bear it in mind that the powers cannot be used just at the whim of the police or at the whim of the CPS. The assumption in the Bill can be triggered only by notice by the prosecution. After the prosecution has given notice, the courts have the final say on whether the assumption will apply in a particular case.
    We do not want the powers to be used in trivial cases. There may be various ethical and moral reasons for that; there are also some pretty sound financial reasons. Much as it might please me, my hon. Friends and, perhaps, the victims of burglary to believe that we could clean out the video and the telly from the home of the burglar who stole them from us, there would be little tactical point in doing so. We would be cutting the taxpayer's nose to spite our faces if we had to spend a few thousand pounds on CPS fees, lawyers' fees, accountants' fees and court fees. Inevitably, there will be a cost in going after the assets of lifestyle criminals. I see no merit in spending £5,000 or £6,000 in such costs just to get a few hundred pounds back, although it might give us pleasure to think that the criminal was paying a proper penalty.
    The way in which to deal with such criminals is through the fines, penalties or imprisonment they face. I want the powers in the Bill to be used where there is a net return for the taxpayer. I want the powers to be used when we get much more back than the money we spend on going for the lifestyle criminal's proceeds. That is a sound investment for the Treasury and for all involved in fighting crime.
    1326
    I welcome this short debate; I am glad that it has been shorter than the debate in Committee, although the points made then were valid and sensible. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) is right. This issue goes to the heart of the Bill. Our short debate this morning has been terribly important. I welcome the amendment and I welcome the support it has on both sides. I commend it to the House because I believe that it strengthens the Bill significantly and it enjoys the Government's full support. I look forward, when the Bill has gone safely through another place without amendment, to giving maximum publicity and attention to these provisions. I hope that we may not have to use them in some cases; I hope that they will scare lifestyle criminals witless. They will know that they will not profit from their ill-gotten gains. They will realise that it is not just the money that they have stolen, but all the rest of their property and goods which could be taken back unless they can prove that they have got them honestly.
    12.15 pm
    Sir John Hannam: I am grateful for the support for the amendment shown by hon. Members on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend the Minister has covered most of the points raised by hon. Members. We are toughening up the Bill, which was the desire of the Committee. In answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), we are dealing with the triggering of assumptions. Other clauses provide details of the various protections built into the proceedings.
    We have dwelt pretty constantly on the major criminal who is, obviously, our main target, but we must not forget the smaller lifestyle criminals whose operations affect our constituents. They are often on the receiving, or rather the giving, end of smaller, but hurtful crimes committed against them. They are anxious that our legislation also deals with such criminals. We are after those perpetrators of remunerative crime as well as the major criminals.
    We have removed the £10,000 qualification figure. The court will be allowed, on occasions when it feels it to be necessary, to take action and to confiscate the proceeds of smaller crimes. That is the balance that we have been seeking to achieve. I hope that the House will see the amendment in that light and that it will accept it.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Sir John Hannam: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 29, leave out 'both' and insert 'all'.
    Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also the following amendments: No. 4, in line 32, leave out 'and' and insert—
    '( ) it is an offence which was committed after the commencement of section 2 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995; and'.
    No. 14, in clause 16, page 23, line 7, leave out subsections (5) to (7) and insert—
    '(5) Section 1 above shall not apply in the case of any proceedings against any person where that person is convicted in those proceedings of an offence which was committed before the commencement of that section.
    (6) Sections 8(1) and 9 above shall not apply where the offence, or any of the offences, in respect of which the confiscation order was made was committed before the commencement of section 1 above.'
    Sir John Hannam: The amendments deal with an important point. They are intended to secure the Bill

    1327
    against a possible challenge under article 7 of the European convention on human rights which prohibits the imposition of a heavier criminal penalty than could have been imposed when the offences took place. The amendments take account of the recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Peter Welch. It was held that the confiscation order under drug trafficking legislation was a heavier penalty.
    The amendments provide that the enhanced confiscation orders envisaged under the Bill will apply only when the offences in respect of which such orders are made are committed after commencement. I am sure that hon. Members will understand that it has been necessary to consult widely and closely with the Government on the implications for the Bill of the recent judgment by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of the convicted drug trafficker, Peter Welch. It would be appropriate for me to look to my hon. Friend the Minister to inform the House about the detailed background to the case of Mr. Welch.
    In general terms, however, the amendments are intended to ensure that the provisions are, as far as possible, protected against an application similar to that made by Mr. Welch under article 7 of the European convention. In other words, the intention is to ensure that the Bill, when it comes into force, will not impose a penalty on the defendant that is heavier than that which could have been applied before the Act came into force. That was the key element of the European judgment. I commend the amendments to the House.
    Mrs. Roche: As the hon. Member for Exeter has stated, the amendments are intended to take into account the Welch case. As I am sure hon. Members will recall, Welch won and Britain, unfortunately, lost the case in the European Court of Human Rights on what I consider to be a technicality. Britain was ruled to have penalised Welch, who was convicted of serious drugs offences, by making a confiscation order under the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 despite the fact that his crimes were committed before the Act came into force. Article 7 of the European convention on human rights provides that no one convicted of a crime shall suffer a higher penalty than one applicable at the time the offence was committed.
    Britain argued, rightly in my view and in that of my hon. Friends, that a confiscation order was a method of recovering ill-gotten gains, not a penalty and, therefore, that the law could be applied retrospectively. Unfortunately, that line of argument did not gain favour with the court.
    I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire, North (Mr. O'Brien), who pointed out in Committee that the Bill might fall foul of the court's decision. He was right, and it is also right that the hon. Member for Exeter has gone away, consulted and come back with the amendments.
    I regard the European Court of Human Right's ruling as extremely bad and unfortunate. As the shadow Home Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), said at the time, the decision was alarming. He said:
    "This decision is a bad one, which the British public will find almost impossible to understand. It is entirely right that those who profit from drugs ought to be hit in their pockets."
    1328
    The amendments are necessary to ensure that once this important Bill is enacted, as we hope it will be, it is not challenged, but we should continue to point out that we are talking not about penalties—much though some of our language, when we talk about the life-style criminal, may imply that—but about recovery of assets. We ought to continue talking in that vein, because that is what the Bill is all about.
    There are no additional penalties; we are simply recovering ill-gotten gains from people who through their crimes have gained substantial amounts of money and property. That is what the legislation is all about, so it is right that we continue to stress that fact. However, we must make sure that the Bill is not open to challenge; therefore, the hon. Member for Exeter has the Opposition's full support for his amendments.
    Mr. Maclean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter for tabling the amendments, and I shall certainly assist him by taking the opportunity to set out the Government's views. Like many of Her Majesty's subjects, and like the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green and many other hon. Members, the Government learnt, with considerable dismay, of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the Peter Welch case.
    As the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the court came to the wrong judgment on a technicality. I can only conclude that it was a pretty cockeyed judgment. I assure the House that, although we support the amendments to ensure that the measures in the Bill do not fall foul of any potential similar judgment in future, that does not mean that we think that the Government were wrong originally.
    The hon. Lady is right to insist that the powers to confiscate the ill-gotten gains of drug traffickers do not constitute a financial penalty. If I wanted to penalise them, I would say that they should spend their lives in prison; that would be the penalty. But taking back their ill-gotten gains would not be part of it. In our view, confiscation is not a penalty. However, the European Court of Human Rights came to a different conclusion, and that is why it is now sensible to amend the Bill.
    As hon. Members will know, the Government have introduced legislation promptly since 1986 to enable the courts effectively to confiscate the proceeds from those who traffic in drugs. Our legislation has been praised by other countries, and has often been used or adapted as a model for other countries' drug trafficking laws. Our laws are tough, and deliberately so. It is therefore most unfortunate that the European Court of Human Rights did not feel able to accept the United Kingdom's reasons as to why a contravention of article 7 of the European convention on human rights had not occurred in the Welch case.
    With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall explain the background to the case in some detail so that there can be no misconceptions by those outside or those who report our proceedings today. The power to make a confiscation order under part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 is based in some respects on the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986, now consolidated in the Drug Trafficking Act 1994. Both statutes enable a confiscation order to be imposed on anybody charged after commencement of the legislation, even where the offences that led to the charges were committed before the legislation came into force.

    1329
    The inevitable consequences of the present provisions in the Acts that I have mentioned are that a few—I stress that there are only a few—cases will have arisen in which a person was charged after the confiscation legislation came into force and a confiscation order was made on the basis of offences committed before commencement.
    I understand that when the 1986 and the 1988 Acts were introduced, my predecessors were mindful of the provisions of article 7, and had no desire to violate it. However, the view was taken that the purpose of the confiscation order is not to punish offenders but to deprive them of the property that they should never have had in the first place.
    In that light, it was considered that the confiscation legislation did not involve the imposition of a retrospective criminal penalty, and that its propositions accorded fully with article 7. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green for stating that the Opposition entirely agree with that. I am always slightly nervous when I find the Opposition in agreement with me, and myself welcoming the Opposition's agreement, but on this occasion our unity is strength.
    For the reasons that I have explained, we did not believe that confiscation of ill-gotten gains was a retrospective criminal penalty. That was reasonably considered by the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. Welch committed drug trafficking offences in 1986, before commencement of the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986. Some of the charges against him were not laid until 1987, however, by which time the legislation had come into force, with the result that when he was convicted in 1988 the court rightly proceeded to make a confiscation order against him.
    The European Court of Human Rights considered that in the particular circumstances of Welch's case the confiscation order imposed on him in 1988 was a penalty, and that that penalty was heavier than was available when the offences were committed in 1986. As a result, according to the court, there had been a violation of article 7 of the convention.
    In reaching that conclusion the European Court emphasised four principal characteristics of a confiscation order in England and Wales, which, in its opinion, tended to point to the penal nature of the measure. Those four characteristics were: the assumptions provided for by the legislation as to the illicit origin of the offender's property; the fact that confiscation orders are calculated according to gross proceeds, as opposed to net profits; the role of imprisonment in default in enforcement of confiscation orders; and proportionality—the possibility of a relationship between the extent of the order and the degree of the offender's guilt.
    Some of those characteristics apply also to confiscation orders under part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, both in its original form and as amended by the Bill. I have reached the conclusion that a confiscation order under part VI of that Act might also be regarded by the European Court of Human Rights as a penalty. Consequently, the new provisions in the Bill may result in the creation of a heavier penalty than is available at present.
    As it currently stands, the Bill contains the same commencement provision as earlier confiscation statutes and it gives courts the power specifically mentioned by the European Court of Human Rights to make the assumptions, which is not currently available under part
    1330
    VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. One cannot therefore exclude the possibility that certain provisions of the Bill will create a heavier penalty than would currently be imposed, and that that penalty may be imposed in a few cases where proceedings are instituted after the Bill comes into force but where the offences were committed beforehand.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter was right to table amendments to deal with the issue, and the Government support them. His amendments will ensure that any provisions in the Bill that might give rise to a heavier penalty will apply only where offences with which a person has been charged are committed after commencement. Amendment Nos. 2 and 3 specifically prevent the assumptions from being made unless all the qualifying offences for both triggers are committed after commencement.
    12.30 pm
    Amendment No. 13 is directed at the provision abolishing the £10,000 limit. Hon. Members will recall that a confiscation order cannot be made at all at present under part VI of the Criminal Justice Act unless the defendant's benefit and the amount of realisable property available for confiscation both exceed £10,000. For the purposes of article 7 of the European convention, a confiscation order cannot be regarded as available in such cases at present. Therefore, the same risk of violation arises as with the triggering offences that attract the assumptions. The provisions of clause 1, which provide for the abolition of the £10,000 limit, will therefore apply only where a person has been convicted of offences committed after commencement.
    Amendment No. 14, to clauses 8(1) and 9, relates to the provisions on imprisonment in default and the addition of interest to unpaid confiscation orders. A confiscation order will continue to be expunged by the service of imprisonment in default unless the offences in respect of which the order was made are committed after commencement. Similarly, interest will not be added to a confiscation order unless the offences leading to the order were committed after commencement.
    I apologise for making such a lengthy intervention, but it is important that the Government's position on this matter is made clear. I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green for her support for the amendments, which will protect the Bill. Having heard the Government's views on the extraordinary judgment by the Strasbourg court, I hope that the House will my support hon. Friend's amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment made: No. 4, in page 3, line 32, leave out 'and' and insert—
    '( ) it is an offence which was committed after the commencement of section 2 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995; and'.—[Mr. Maclean.]
    Sir John Hannam: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 3, line 46, leave out from 'court' to 'in' in line 1 on page 4 and insert—

    '(i) to be held by the defendant at the date of conviction or at any time in the period between that date and the determination in question, or

    1331

    (ii) to have been transferred to him at any time since the beginning of the relevant period,

    was received by him, at the earliest time when he appears to the court to have held it, as a result of or'.

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With this, it will be convenient to discuss also the following amendments: No. 6, in page 4, line 3, leave out from 'his' to 'in' in line 4 and insert
    'since the beginning of the relevant period was met out of payments received by him as a result of or'.
    No. 7, in page 4, line 35, after 'section', insert—
    ' "the date of conviction" means—

    (a) in a case not falling within paragraph (b) below, the date on which the defendant is convicted of the offence in question, or

    (b) where he is convicted of that offence and one or more other offences in the proceedings in question and those convictions are not all on the same date, the date of the latest of those convictions;'.

    No. 8, in clause 5, page 8, line 10, after 'apply' insert
    '(subject to subsection (8A) below)'.
    No. 9, in line 13, at end insert—
    '(8A) For the purposes of any determination to which section 72AA above applies by virtue of subsection (8) above, none of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section shall be made in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'
    No. 10, in clause 6, page 9, line 47, after 'apply' insert
    '(subject to subsection (6A) below)'.
    No. 11, in line 50, at end insert—
    '(6A) For the purposes of any determination under or for the purposes of subsection (3) above to which section 72AA above applies, none of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section shall be made in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'
    No. 12, in clause 7, page 11, line 1, at beginning insert
    'subject to subsection (3A) below,'.
    No. 13, in line 18, at end insert—
    '(3A) Where—

    (a) the court is under a duty to make a fresh determination for the purposes of subsection (3)(a) above in any case, and

    (b) that case is a case to which section 72AA above applies,

    the court shall not have power, in determining any amounts for those purposes, to make any of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'
    Sir John Hannam: As the Bill stands at present, a court is permitted to assume that property that has passed through a defendant's hands in the past six years has come from crime. The purpose of the amendments is to permit a court to make a further assumption that property held by the defendant has also come from crime.
    The amendment brings the assumptions in the Bill fully into line with those in the drug trafficking legislation. I should mention that the Bill as originally drafted reproduces three of the four assumptions provided for in
    1332
    the drug trafficking legislation. In so doing, it allows the court to look only at property that has been transferred to or spent by the defendant in the past six years.
    The other assumption in the drug trafficking legislation—that property held by the defendant has come from crime—is presently omitted from this legislation on the principle that the existing assumptions are sufficient to allow the courts to confiscate the proceeds following a continuing course of criminal conduct. The courts should now have the power to make that fourth assumption provided for in the drug trafficking legislation.
    If the provision is omitted, the result might be that proceeds evade confiscation. For example, there will be cases where property can easily be shown to be held by a defendant at the time described in the amendment where there will be no trace of transfers or expenditure by the defendant in the past six years. For example, a defendant may own a large manor house and estate yet have been technically unemployed for several years. The court can assume that that property has come from crime, unless the defendant can show to the court's satisfaction that he acquired that manor house legitimately. We anticipate that the court will use that assumption only in particularly serious cases.
    Amendment Nos. 7 to 13 are technical amendments which are consequential on the new provisions. Their main purpose is to ensure that in the revaluation of cases provided for in clauses 5 to 7 the court assumes that property held by or transferred by the defendant came from crime only if that property was held or transferred before sentence. That is a sensible safeguard, arid I commend the amendments to the House.
    Mrs. Roche: The amendment is in the nature of a tidying-up measure. It brings the Bill into line with the drug trafficking legislation. It seems entirely right that, if the prosecuting authorities can make assumptions that lead to certain conclusions about the habits of life-style criminals, they should not be stopped there but should be allowed to continue. The amendments would allow the court to assume that property held by a defendant at the time of his or her conviction or at any time up to the time of the court's final determination have indeed come from crime. I understand from the hon. Member for Exeter that that is the intention of this group of amendments. If that is so, they certainly have our full support.
    We can all envisage circumstances in which proceedings take place and property is mysteriously disposed of during the trial, at the time of conviction or at the time of sentence. The property is no longer there. If it is a fairly complex matter, as some of these matters are, some time may elapse between the commencement of criminal proceedings and the court's final determination. It would surely be entirely wrong that the court could not look back at that period.
    I have one question which may well be for the Minister to answer. Given that this is such an obvious measure, why was it not in the Bill in the first place? I accept that we live in an imperfect world and that we always have to consider human fallibility, but it seems that this is one measure that could have been taken in the first place as it brings the Bill into line with previous legislation.
    Mr. Maclean: The amendments will strengthen the assumptions that the court can make about the illegal origin of the defendant's property. As the Bill stands, the court will be able to assume that only property that passed

    1333
    through the defendant's hands in the six years before the institution of proceedings came from crime. The amendments will enable the court to assume that property held by the defendant at the time of his conviction or at any time thereafter up to the time of the court's determination has also come from crime. The amendments bring the assumptions in the Proceeds of Crime Bill into line with the drug trafficking legislation.
    The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked me a pertinent point. She will be aware that the design of the Bill is slightly different from other legislation. The aim was to deal with life-style criminals. That is why we picked the trigger four rather than the trigger two or no trigger at all. When we made legislation dealing with a different type of criminal and sought to take the proceeds of life-style criminals, we made parts of it slightly different. That seemed appropriate at the time. I accept responsibility. Having looked at the matter again, I, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, take the credit for having the wisdom to bring the Bill more into line with the drug trafficking legislation. It is important that we make those changes.
    I was impressed when I visited recently the south-east regional crime squad and met the fantastic police officers who work on serious crime. In one case, a person has now been convicted and awaits sentence. He last came to the attention of the police officially when he was released from prison for robbery in 1979. He came out of prison apparently without any assets and went back to a small council flat. Since then, he has had no convictions whatever. It looks as if, up to his conviction a few weeks ago for serious drug offences, his assets have increased to half a dozen mansions scattered over south-east England. I hope that, as it is drug trafficking legislation, even if he is charged with only one offence, which he has not been—I believe that he has been charged with a few—if the prosecution so wishes and the court makes the assumption, it will be possible to get at all his assets.
    For some of these life-style robbers there is a very long gap between convictions. Some of my hon. Friends have pressed me to extend the six-year period to 10 or 15 years. Again, a judgment has to be made, and that might be going back a little too far.
    Amendment No. 7 defines "the date of conviction" for the purpose of clause 2 and is necessary because the new assumption about property held by the defendant considers property held at the time of conviction or thereafter and not at the time that proceedings are instituted. Before the amendment, the Bill considered only property transferred to a defendant before the institution of proceedings or any expenditure in the relevant period.
    The amendments to clauses 5, 6 and 7 are also technical and consequential on the new assumption that has been added to clause 2. That clause, as amended, could have an unfair effect in revaluation cases, since the court without a compensating amendment would be able to assume that property held by the defendant between conviction and the revaluation is the proceeds of crime. In revaluation cases, the intention is that the court should be able to make the assumptions in respect of property received by a defendant before conviction and should also be able to take into account property received by the defendant after conviction. Where property is received by the defendant after conviction, it must be demonstrated that the property
    1334
    in question was received from relevant criminal conduct carried out before conviction. The court should not simply be able to assume that it was.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter explained, the amendments will bring the assumptions provided for in the Bill fully into line with those in the drug trafficking legislation and, for those reasons, his amendments have the Government's full support.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendments made: No. 6, in page 4, line 3, leave out from 'his' to 'in' in line 4 and insert
    'since the beginning of the relevant period was met out of payments received by him as a result of or'.
    No. 7, in line 35, after 'section', insert—
    ' "the date of conviction" means—

    (a) in a case not falling within paragraph (b) below, the date on which the defendant is convicted of the offence in question, or

    (b) where he is convicted of that offence and one or more other offences in the proceedings in question and those convictions are not all on the same date, the date of the latest of those convictions;'.—[Sir John Hannam.]

Clause 5

  REVIEW OF CASES WHERE PROCEEDS OF CRIME NOT ASSESSED
  Amendments made: No. 8, in page 8, line 10, after 'apply' insert
  '(subject to subsection (8A) below)'.
  No. 9, in line 13, at end insert—
  '(8A) For the purposes of any determination to which section 72AA above applies by virtue of subsection (8) above, none of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section shall be made in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'—[Sir John Hannam.]

Clause 6

  REVISION OF ASSESSMENT OF PROCEEDS OF CRIME
  Amendments made: No. 10, in page 9, line 47, after 'apply' insert
  '(subject to subsection (6A) below)'.
  No. 11, in line 50, at end insert—
  '(6A) For the purposes of any determination under or for the purposes of subsection (3) above to which section 72AA above applies, none of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section shall be made in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'—[Sir John Hannam.]

Clause 7

  REVISION OF ASSESSMENT OF AMOUNT TO BE RECOVERED
  Amendments made: No. 12, in page 11, line 1, at beginning insert
  'subject to subsection (3A) below,'.
  No. 13, in line 18, at end insert—
  '(3A) Where—

  (a) the court is under a duty to make a fresh determination for the purposes of subsection (3)(a) above in any case, and

  1335

  (b) that case is a case to which section 72AA above applies,

  the court shall not have power, in determining any amounts for those purposes, to make any of the assumptions specified in subsection (4) of that section in relation to any property unless it is property held by or transferred to the defendant before the time when he was sentenced or otherwise dealt with in the case in question.'—[Sir John Hannam.]

Clause 16

  SHORT TITLE, INTERPRETATION, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT
  Amendment made: No. 14, in page 23, line 7, leave out subsections (5) to (7) and insert—
  '(5) Section 1 above shall not apply in the case of any proceedings against any person where that person is convicted in those proceedings of an offence which was committed before the commencement of that section.
  (6) Sections 8(1) and 9 above shall not apply where the offence, or any of the offences, in respect of which the confiscation order was made was committed before the commencement of section 1 above.'—[Sir John Hannam.]
  Order for Third Reading read.
  12.42 pm
  Sir John Hannam: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I am proud to have had the opportunity to guide the Bill through the House. As I embark on what may for me be the last lap, I must express my thanks for all the kind support that I have received from both sides of the House throughout proceedings on the Bill. It has made the journey thus far a good deal smoother than it might otherwise have been, since the subject matter of the Bill is not entirely straightforward, as I would be the first to admit. Hon. Members have commented on the complexity of what appears, on the face of it, to be quite a simple Bill.
  The Bill has not emerged entirely unscathed from its passage through the House and I will comment briefly on the amendments. First, we changed the long title to allow for clause 14 to be inserted.
  Clause 1 amends the Criminal Justice Act 1988 substantially and has not been amended. Clause 2, which deals with the confiscation of the proceeds from persistent offending, is at the heart of the Bill and has been much debated, especially in Committee. It has been amended so that the court can apply the assumptions where the defendant is convicted of only two relevant offences in the same proceedings instead of four. The assumptions have also been strengthened and brought into line with drug trafficking legislation.
  Clause 2 has also been amended so that it will apply only when the triggering offences are committed after the Bill comes into force. That amendment is intended to ensure that it conforms with our international obligation and takes into account the decision of the European Court of Human Rights which was issued immediately after the Second Reading.
  Clauses 3 and 4 are unaltered. We have made technical amendments to clauses 5, 6 and 7. Those are consequential on the new provision in clause 2, which allows the court to assume that property held by the defendant has come from crime. The purpose of those technical amendments is to prevent unfairness, about which we have been anxious during the Bill's passage.
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  Clauses 8 to 13 are unchanged. Clause 14 is the new clause that amends the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 and the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990. It was introduced to provide a more effective enforcement of external forfeiture orders. Clause 15—formerly clause 14—has not been amended. Clause 16—formerly clause 15—now provides that certain sections of the legislation will apply only where offences are committed after it comes into force. That is a result of the Welch case in the European Court of Human Rights. It has also been amended consequential to clause 14.
  As hon. Members will see, the changes that we have made have not affected the Bill's basic structure and thrust. The Bill is now even better and more valuable than when it started. It sets out to strengthen our protection against criminal conduct by extending the courts' powers to confiscate the accrued gains of life-style criminals in all types of crime. If crime is seen to pay, there is a continuing incentive to commit offences, even with the risk of a prison sentence. Whether a life-style criminal is engaged in theft, fraud, pornography or whatever, if he or she stashes away and launders the proceeds of crime ready to pick them up after completing a sentence, that criminal will be deterred and victims reassured that justice prevails only if we seize those illegally gained assets.
  By removing the £10,000 threshold, abolishing the expunging of confiscation through a prison term, and providing the fullest powers of search and investigation of criminal assets, the Bill takes the important steps needed to win the fight against crime. I am therefore proud to commend the Bill to the House.
  12.48 pm
  Mr. Harry Barnes: The House has never been divided on the Bill. Although we have had a number of votes, the House has generally accepted the amendments put forward. Throughout Second Reading and in Committee we have never disputed a matter to the point of dividing the House. However, the Bill has changed and the hon.*Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) has done a service to the House in introducing this measure. I am still doubtful about why a private Member's Bill was necessary, given that the Government support the measure. Nevertheless, it is the hon. Gentleman's choice and the Bill has undergone various procedures.
  What upsets me about our procedures is that Standing Committee C, which is the only Standing Committee that can discuss private Members' Bills, spent three weeks discussing this Bill. I know that time must be spent discussing Bills and that, even if probing amendments are tabled, they serve a purpose and help to shape a Bill's development, but a sittings motion could have been passed to allow the Bill to go through Committee much more quickly.
  The Committee's third sitting lasted for 18 minutes. Those 18 minutes took up an entire sitting day and presented a grave problem for hon. Members with important Bills further down the queue. The hon. Member for Exeter is aware of what one of those important Bills is, because he has supported it. It is the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, although that is not the only important Bill in the queue.
  Sir John Hannam: It is fair to point out that the Committee's third sitting would have lasted much longer

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  if the important new clause, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale was due to present, had been proceeded with and not withdrawn on that day. It could have been a long debate because, as we have heard this morning, that new clause dealt with an important matter. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) should understand that, although that sitting finished within half an hour, it was expected to last much longer.
  Mr. Barnes: I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. I nevertheless consider that I am entitled to feel aggrieved about procedures that have been followed, and especially about the work in Standing Committee C. It is not merely the Proceeds of Crime Bill that has taken longer than it should have done in that Committee when there was no dispute, and when there was adequate agreement between parties on both sides of the House to seek to progress with the measure.
  I wanted to place those matters on record, rather than to say anything about the nature of the measure before us. I appreciate that the House has reached agreement about the measure and there will obviously be no Division on Third Reading.
  12.50 pm
  Mr. Merchant: I shall speak briefly in support of the Third Reading of the Bill.
  First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) on bringing the Bill to the House and successfully piloting it through its stages. He deserves great credit for doing so, and I hope that he receives that credit publicly, because that tough piece of legislation obviously builds on the public's expectations of action.
  Confiscation is tough in itself, but confiscation of assets acquired over a period, which are presumed to have been the proceeds of crime, is an even tougher step to take, although it is absolutely right. It should be borne in mind that the Bill incorporates in its clauses proper defences for people who can show that those assets were not illicitly gained.
  It is perhaps a sign of the times that that hardening of the law is so widely accepted. Time was when such a suggestion would have produced a series of objections from all quarters. It struck me that today even the Opposition were beginning to sound like parts of a Conservative party conference.
  Mrs. Roche: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is no new departure? If he casts his mind back, he may recall that the previous legislation on forfeiture and confiscation received the whole-hearted support of the Opposition, especially as regards the proceeds of the dreadful trade in drugs.
  Mr. Merchant: I am not so certain that the Opposition were always so keen on fighting crime as they now purport to be, but I am happy to accept the hon. Lady's remarks about the drugs trade at least.
  Increasing crime has created a massive public backlash against a perceived weakness of the law and the courts, and that anger is understandable. It is caused not only by fear but by the juxtaposition of those who live law-abiding lives and note what gains they receive and those who appear to be getting away with a life of crime and obtaining much greater gains.
  1338
  There has been a demand for tougher punishment and a demand to ensure that people do not profit from the proceeds of crime. Other legislation tackles the first issue, but the second issue is adequately and thoroughly tackled by the Bill. It is not over-simplistic, and it is important not to be so in tackling crime.
  However, the Bill precisely tackles the problem. It is not about the yob who gets drunk and thumps someone; it is not about a teenager with a personality difficulty who goes astray; it is not about the pathetic habitual criminal who finds that he cannot get away from a life of crime. The Bill concentrates on the professional criminal. It concentrates on the successful crook and fraudster. It concentrates on the racketeers, on the people who cock a snook at society and in many cases acquire massive fortunes—large houses, pools, yachts, foreign villas—who live on the in my view rather inaptly named, "costa crime".
  Those criminals may try to live an upper class life-style, but they do not practice upper class crime; they involve themselves in the violence and intimidation that one encounters at all levels of the criminal fraternity. The Bill strikes against some of the most evil gangsters, against the cold and calculated decisions made by some to profit from crime, against the Mr. Bigs, against the criminal fraternities and organisations and especially against international crime. The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) made a good speech about that type of crime on Second Reading and it is regrettable that it is becoming ever more prevalent in Britain. We can see the effects of it in Itaiy and the United States.
  I am delighted that the Bill has reached its Third Reading. I hope that it will pass into law quickly, so that proper measures can be taken against those who have profited from crime. Punishment is important, but it is not enough. It is also important to make criminals realise that the price of their behaviour is not worth paying. They should realise that they will be caught up with eventually and that crime does not pay. The Bill will ensure that that happens and for that reason I am happy to support it.
  12.55 pm
  Mrs. Roche: It will not surprise hon. Members to learn that I welcome the Bill, as I did its Second Reading. My hon. Friends and I also supported it in Committee. It is right that life-style criminals should not profit from their gains and that legislation should be brought into line with that currently enforced against drug traffickers.
  This is a particularly topical week in which to have the Bill's Third Reading, because we have learnt that the risk of becoming a victim of a home burglary has trebled from one in 32 in 1979 to one in 11 last year. Similarly, a person's risk of being a victim of violent crime now stands at one in 64 whereas it was one in 213 in 1979. Unfortunately for my constituents, the figures for London are even more alarming. Only yesterday the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys revealed huge increases in burglaries from its general household survey which, unlike Home Office statistics, collects the details on all burglaries whether or not they are reported.
  The Opposition believe that the criminals who burgle our constituents' homes and jeopardise their safety should not profit from their actions. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) should note that it is right to say that the Labour party is not only tough on crime and

  1339
  the causes of crime, but on the proceeds of crime. We have demonstrated that by our continuing support for Bills of this nature.
  One of the concerns that I raised on Second Reading was that the proceeds of confiscation should be used to fund crime prevention. Where possible, the money that is confiscated should go back to the victims—those who lost a great deal through the crimes of others. Where that is not possible—in many instances, due to the passage of time, it is almost impossible to identify the victims—the money should go towards crime prevention. As I said on Second Reading, just 0.2 per cent.—a tiny proportion—of Britain's spending on the criminal justice system is devoted to crime prevention. Numerous reports have called for better crime prevention policies and many schemes cannot be implemented due to lack of funding.
  This week, the Government announced 120 successful bids for closed circuit television schemes. That is welcome, but only seven of the excellent bids from London were successful. The unsuccessful bids included one for a CCTV scheme for Wood Green high road. It had the support of Wood Green traders and businesses, Hornsey police and Haringey council in my constituency. I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for making a special plea for that excellent scheme. We are still absolutely flabbergasted that it was unsuccessful and do not understand why. It is, however, one of many worthwhile schemes that should be supported. It would be fine and fitting to think that money confiscated from criminals as the proceeds of crime could be rechannelled to prevent further crimes.
  I have already spoken about a particular CCTV bid in my constituency, but I also know that there is great concern among the Jewish community, which also put in bids for CCTV for Jewish schools. Unfortunately, I believe that not one of those bids was successful. As hon. Members will know, unfortunately there are many security fears within the Jewish community. Many Jewish schools, with the encouragement of the police, put in bids that were unsuccessful. I should declare an interest because I was a pupil at a Jewish school which, while I was there, had occasional security alerts and risks.
  We are coming to the end of this stage of the Bill's passage through this House, so it is right to congratulate the hon. Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) on the courteous and expert way in which he handled the Bill in Committee. I am a comparatively new Member of Parliament, but I believe that he has followed the very best traditions of the House. On behalf of the Opposition, I offer him our warmest congratulations. I also pay tribute to the sponsors of the Bill, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport (Ms Coffey) and for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), who served in Committee. We wish the Bill well in its passage through the other place.
  G. K. Chesterton once said that it was not true to say that thieves had no respect for property. He felt that they had a great respect for property: they respected it so much that they wanted it to become their own property so that they could more perfectly respect it. The Bill's purpose is to thwart that aim and we support anything that can achieve that purpose.
  There is a well-known adage that crime does not pay. Unfortunately, for too many criminals crime pays very well indeed. The Opposition are happy to support a Bill
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  to ensure that wealth accumulated through crime does not profit the perpetrators. We believe that in the 20th century criminals should not be rewarded for their crimes. For that reason, we give our wholehearted support to the Bill.
  1.2 pm
  Mr. Maclean: I reiterate the Government's gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir J. Hannam) for agreeing to take forward this important Bill. I know that that gratitude is shared by the whole House and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) for the warm tribute that she paid to my hon. Friend.
  My hon. Friend has remained unfailingly calm and considerate in the face of what he rather generously described as provisions which are not entirely straightforward. The concept of what we wanted to do, and what my hon. Friend has achieved in his Bill, is very straightforward. However, because of the nature of the amendments that we have to make to previous legislation, the Bill is very complex. Indeed, I am relieved that I did not have to take the lead on it. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the masterful way that he took the lead and for his unfailing courtesy during the Committee stage.
  I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes). He knows that in every private Member's Bill Committee there will be Back Benchers, from both sides, with their own agendas. However, if he looks at the Committee proceedings he will recognise that most of the probing amendments that were tabled have ended up being accepted because they were eminently sensible. Contrary to what may happen with some private Member's Bills, where a number of spurious amendments are tabled but never accepted, most of the amendments tabled to this Bill were accepted.
  The Bill was given a thorough scrutiny in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter was right to point out that it is only because our hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) twisted our arms for a debate on the Floor of the House today, and because I agreed seriously to consider our statutory instrument making power, that our hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale agreed to curtail our discussions in Committee last Wednesday. The improvements that have been made to the Bill should ensure that enforcement authorities in the courts have at their disposal some worthwhile powers to use against life-style criminals. I want briefly to dwell on those important changes.
  We have given wholehearted approval to the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter which lowers the first trigger in clause 2 from four convictions in the same proceedings to two. Let no one underestimate that change. It represents a substantial strengthening. We agree with hon. Members who have drawn attention to the fact that convictions for four offences in the same proceedings may mean that the sort of criminals that we are all aiming at will escape. A defendant may, for example, be convicted of only three offences in the same proceedings; that, to say the least, would be most unfortunate.
  Amendments have proved necessary as a result of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the Welch case. The Government agreed to those amendments with considerable reluctance, but I reassure the House—this is the important point—that the

  1341
  substantive provisions of the Bill remain unaffected by those amendments. The assumptions in clause 2 will apply, looking back six years from the date of the offender's conviction. All that the amendments do is to provide that the triggering offences must have been committed after the commencement of the Bill.
  It is worth reflecting on some of the clauses that have not been debated today—for example, clauses 3 and 4, which provide for statements by both the prosecution and the defendant. That will do much to ensure that confiscation orders are made for the true value of the benefits that have been obtained. The police will welcome the new powers in clauses 12 and 13. Both in Committee and in the House today, hon. Members have mentioned how adept criminals are at concealing and laundering the proceeds of their crimes. It is vital that the police are given the same powers to obtain financial information from banks, and to have search and seizure powers in relation to the proceeds of crime generally. The law allows them to do that in relation to the proceeds of drug trafficking.
  All too often, despite all the information available to it, the court manages to confiscate only the tip of the iceberg. All too often, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green rightly said, a crime is seen to pay. It is important that the criminal should not be able to conceal the proceeds and get away with it. Clauses 5, 6 and 7 will give prosecutors new powers to go back to court and seek a revaluation of the proceeds if new evidence comes to light.
  It only remains for me to repeat that the Government are deeply grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter for steering the Bill so ably through Committee and through the House today, for listening to my hon. Friends, and for making sensible amendments to the Bill. Last year, various sections of the big Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 received much media attention. I do not think that the media or, perhaps, my colleagues in the police service have fully realised the extent and effect of the Bill before us today. They may have seen that it was a private Member's Bill and how terribly complex it was, but perhaps failed to pick up how sexy it is deep down.
  I hope that, after the Bill returns successfully from another place, becomes an Act of Parliament and begins to bite, a wave of fear will go through the criminal fraternity. It will say, "Where on earth did this measure come from? Who invented this? We didn't know this went through." My hon. Friend will take the credit for that. It is a pity that he cannot also take a percentage of the assets belonging to the individuals who have been robbed and burgled and that we shall recover, as it would be a sound investment.
  The message should go out from the House today that a powerful weapon has been created in the Bill. That weapon will be used effectively not just against drug traffickers and terrorists—we have provision to do that—but against every criminal who wants to profit from the proceeds of crime. We can get at their assets. We can destroy their life style. The Bill will ensure that, for a great many of the nastiest criminals in society, crime does not pay. I commend it wholeheartedly to the House and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter yet again.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.

Regulation of Diet Industry Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
1.9 pm
Mrs. Alice Mahon: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is important to put it on record that when I introduced the Bill last year I was completely overwhelmed by the response and the support that it received. I received great support from the media, national newspapers, women's magazines, the medical profession, eminent nutritionists such as Dr. Tom Sanders of King's college, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and an active organisation called Diet Breakers founded by Mary Evans Young. Most important, I was also bowled over by the support that I received from thousands of women, and a few men, who have tried dieting, sometimes for years, and have either poured money down the drain and regained any weight lost after a couple of years or damaged their health, sometimes seriously.
It was the health hazards of dieting that first caught my interest as a Member of Parliament. A few years ago, two young girls and their mothers visited me at one of my weekly advice surgeries. Both girls, who were very young, were suffering from serious slimming illnesses. One of them had decided when she was 11 years old that she was too fat. She wanted to look like the skinny models on the catwalks and in girls' and women's magazines. She set about starving herself to fulfil her aim. She did so secretly, without her parents knowing.
For at least two years, her anxious parents fretted about her weight loss, listlessness and mood swings. Only when it was almost too late did they find out what the truth. They then sought help because she was suffering from severe anorexia nervosa. The girl, who is now almost 17 years old, is still ill. She does not have periods and doctors fear for her fertility. There have been many well-publicised extreme cases involving young women who have been slimming. Some have ended in death. I shall deal with slimming diseases in a moment.
Further investigation on my part led to the discovery that we have an epidemic of dieting in the United Kingdom and, indeed, in the western world. In this country, 90 per cent. of women diet at some time in their lives. At any given time, 50 per cent. of women are dieting, including girls as young as seven and eight and women as old as 75.
I also discovered that a multi-million pound diet industry operates in this country—it is worth about £1 billion a year. We spend about six times the gross national product of the Gambia on gimmicks such as patches, tablets and various courses and cures, trying more often than not to be unhealthily thin while many people in the developing world are dying because they do not have enough food and subsequently suffer starvation.
Sadly, many of the people who diet do not need to do so. The vast majority have absolutely no reason to diet. I teamed up with Diet Breakers and Mary Evans Young because I liked their positive approach to the subject. So much about dieting is shrouded in secrecy and misery and depends on people's insecurities. Diet Breakers was like a breath of fresh air. It opposes the diet industry by and large and opposes what it calls the tyranny of thinness

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which has gathered so much momentum in this country. Diet Breakers and Dr. Thomas Sanders of Kings college, who wrote the very good book "You Do Not Have To Diet", gave me considerable help when I was drawing up my Bill to regulate the industry. I would like to record my thanks to Mary Evans Young and Tom Sanders.
Mary Evans Young is bringing out a book that I hope will offer help to thousands of women who are going through the misery of dieting. "Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having To Diet" is an excellent book. It is a fresh approach and full of common sense. Let us hope that many people read it and that the young, especially, have access so it.
My Bill would regulate the diet industry by requiring weight-loss centres to display prominently a health warning that rapid weight loss can be dangerous to health. All weight-loss companies would have to provide consumers with a card which clearly outlines the risk of any rapid weight loss. Anybody selling such products or running a clinic would also have to disclose any additional charges because too often the consumer buys a product and then discovers that extra charges are incurred when the diet programme is devised. There are many cons in the industry.
Most importantly, my Bill would also require that all weight-loss pills, potions and patches are brought under a medicines Act and, of course, that medicines such as amphetamines and amphetamine-type pills are not given to aid slimming. I very much welcome and congratulate the Minister on his press release on 29 March, which was presumably in response to concerns being expressed in the media, by organisations such as Diet Breakers and, indeed, by hon. Members. The Minister said that a move to ban the use of certain amphetamines and amphetamine-type drugs as aids to losing weight would be shortly under way.
The press release says:
"The Medicine Control Agency, an executive of the Department of Health, is to start consultations with a view to restricting the use of such drugs, under section 62 of the 1968 Medicines Act, under certain circumstances."
I know that the Minister has taken an interest in the matter. He clearly and rightly describes in his press release what is so wrong when he says that a number of doctors have set up slimming clinics to prescribe amphetamines, which are addictive drugs, as an aid to weight loss.
Such drugs have dramatic and devastating effects when they are dished out to some women. There have been reports, as the Minister said, of people being damaged mentally and physically by the drugs and of them leading to addiction and psychosis. There have also been reports of hair loss, palpitations and other side effects. I welcome the press release. The Minister has taken a positive move and I hope that that ban does not take too long to implement.
I should like to tell the House about some of the many hundreds of letters that I have received since I started looking into the industry and, in particular, into the use of drugs which are dished out like sweeties in some of the clinics to which the Minister referred. I shall not give the name of the person who wrote this letter, but it says:
"Dear Mrs. Mahon,
I have been meaning to write to you for some weeks following a report on the BBC news about your involvement in trying to have the slimming business regulated. The enclosed newspaper article can only describe to some extent my experiences in what I can only describe as a year of hell."
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That person goes on to describe how she was horrified by the side effects of the pills, which appear, she said,
"to be generally well-known among the medical profession",
yet doctors still give them out.
An article from Woman's Journal which my correspondent enclosed talked about experiences similar to her husband's. Woman's Journal also outlines a couple of cases that I think are worth putting on the record. One concerns a woman who was brave enough to give her name—Susan Weeks, aged 34. She was a stone heavier than she would have liked to be. Five years ago, six weeks before her marriage, she decided to lose the extra stone before her wedding day. She saw an advertisement in the yellow pages for a local slimming clinic and she made an appointment. In her words:
"I only saw the doctor for a few minutes. He just asked me a few questions, weighed me and gave me two sorts of pills, plus a vitamin supplement and a diet sheet. On the day I married I was the thinnest I'd ever been. I also felt terrible—hypersensitive, panicky and weak. I put it down to stress, but I knew it was the pills and that diet. When I came back from the honeymoon—nearly back to my old weight and feeling really well—I saw the remaining pills and flushed them down the loo."
Other experiences did not end as positively as that.
A well-documented case, which the Daily Mail highlighted fairly well, was that of Christine Malik who died the day after taking pills prescribed to help her lose a few pounds before her holidays. Another woman was not even seen by a doctor before she was given diet pills, although they were a controlled drug described as amphetamine-like and chemically related to ecstasy. As a result, the clinic was searched and two arrests were made. That woman was given the pills although she was not even seen by a doctor. That is an example of the dangerous practice now taking place.
I also put on the record another case which came to me from Mary Evans Young of Diet Breakers as we were collecting evidence and information for the Bill. The case concerns a woman called Mandie who is 5 ft 10 in tall—she is quite a tall woman—and weighs 12 stone. She is 22 and works in a factory. She writes:
"My one wish is to be able to forget dieting and stop worrying about my body size. I have been dieting non-stop for as far back as I can remember. My mum has always dieted too, and so after 1 received a few jokes about my size at school, I decided I would follow suit.
I began to get paranoid and one of my earliest memories of how miserable worrying about my body size is quite funny. I was in the junior school (so I was younger than 11) and besotted with horses like many young girls at that age."
She was very much in love with horses. The letter continues:
"The walls of my room were covered in horse posters and religiously, every night before I got undressed, I would pull the top two pieces of Blue-Tak from the wall so that the horses' heads faced towards the wall and they couldn't see my body as I undressed! Then, before I got back into bed every poster was put back again. This ritual was repeated for years."
It is really, really sad that a young girl is so obsessed with how she looks and with her image that she resorts to that when she is less than seven years old.
The letter continues:
"Until recently, dieting had become just a part of my life. Every Monday I began a new diet. Although I was not huge I didn't like myself and my body because if you are told something often enough, you start to believe it. Anyway, I got more miserable and tried more and more diets. With each one I lost weight initially, but after sticking to it for a short while I put on everything I had lost plus

1345
some more. I hit rock bottom, became very depressed and would cry for no reason at all. Going out became really hard for me as I was ashamed of myself and couldn't bear to be seen in public. Eventually I got some counselling and as a result I have come to realise that my problems stemmed from the pressure on me to be slimmer than my healthy natural body size."
Mandie's experience is the experience of thousands who are daily bombarded with images of unhealthily thin models on the catwalks. Magazines are full of pictures of size 10 women, but we all come in different shapes and sizes; we are not all alike.
When I was young Marilyn Monroe was my role model, and I used to take bottles and bottles of stuff called Weight On in a desperate attempt to put on a few pounds. Later in life I developed gallstones, much to the surprise of my doctors, who said that sufferers were usually people older and fatter than myself. I am pretty sure that all that stuff that I poured into myself contributed to that illness.
So there was pressure even then, although it is far more intense now than when I was younger. A lack of self-esteem and a desire to look like those whom the image-makers portray as beauties makes many young girls dissatisfied with their bodies. And that now applies to boys, too, because sadly the fashion industry is targeting boys. All those advertisements showing boys in slim-fitting jeans are part of that process.
Diet Breakers undertook a survey to establish the patterns of dieting, and asked where the pressure to diet comes from. The survey, which was extremely interesting, covered 516 women, and 45 per cent. of them answered that the pressure came from the media and from the fashion and advertising industries, whereas only 15 per cent. said that it came from doctors.
When asked what part of their bodies they felt most negative about, 25 per cent. said stomach, 15 per cent. thighs and 15 per cent. bottoms. When my Bill of the same name was before the House last year the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) said that the diet industry provided a useful back-up service for the overstretched national health service. The statistics that I have quoted show that argument to be flawed, although well before the survey, common sense also showed that it was flawed.
Those figures show why the diet industry's chief guru, Rosemary Conley, gives her books titles such as "The Hip and Thigh Diet" and "The Flat Stomach Diet". But Mrs. Conley's own health has not always been good. Like me, she has had gallstones, which is a common ailment among constant dieters.
The survey also asked for the reasons why people could not accept themselves as they were. Low self-esteem was mentioned by 32.5 per cent. of respondents. In other words, that multi-million pound industry is exploiting women's low self-esteem by promising them success, not only in losing weight but with the implied new life that is supposed to go with it.
The Diet Breakers survey also asked, "Did your mother diet?" The results show that dieting runs in families. That has been my experience too. People write to me about it, and one woman in particular sticks in my mind. She said that she had stopped going to Weight Watchers because she had had to rethink dramatically about dieting. She had been taking her 11-year-old daughter, who was very slender, with her to Weight Watchers, and had noticed that even she
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was becoming interested in losing pounds as a way of life. I found that quite frightening and very honest, and I was pleased that the woman joined Diet Breakers.
Sixty-four per cent. of the respondents aged up to 41 said that their mothers had dieted too, whereas 72 per cent. of respondents aged 60 and over said that their mothers did not diet. That too is an interesting statistic.
Dieting has become an unhealthy national epidemic. We have been encouraged to believe that a diet for losing weight is the same as a healthy diet, but the two are completely different. A healthy diet means being able to enjoy food without feeling guilty. Only then can people develop a well-balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. Eating what one fancies and stopping when one is full is natural and healthy.
The diet industry, with its gadgets and gimmicks, its meal replacements and low-calorie dinners—we have all seen them—does not teach people to develop a healthy relationship with their bodies and their food. That is why the British Dietetic Association supports my Bill.
Another element of the diet industry rip-off is the so-called "meal replacement" such as biscuits, bars, milk shakes and "healthy" ready-made meals. Those products can cause people to lose weight too quickly, which means a loss of lean tissue and a lowering of the metabolic rate. They can cause people to have poor nutritional value, as most of the products are high in fat and sugar. All the biscuits and bars are low in protein, and we need protein to live for any length of time.
Many of the meal replacements are not significantly lower in calories than many snack foods. They also encourage unhealthy eating habits because of their emphasis on biscuits, sweets and high-fat snacks. They are also enormously expensive, and people are getting ripped off. They are much more expensive than buying fruit and vegetables and having a balanced and healthy diet.
We have also mentioned the diet pill part of the industry, and I am pleased to say that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society—the professional body of pharmacists—supports what I am trying to do. It says that the marketing of products and the claims made for them are a matter of concern. The society believes that the products should be subject to the controls of the marketing of medicinal products.
In addition, the society is concerned about the widespread and inappropriate use of appetite suppressants, and the extent to which these are supplied through slimming clinics to customers who may be unaware of the effects of the medicines. Another young woman who had taken slimming pills told Diet Breakers about what happened to her, and I received similar letters during my campaign.
The young girl said that the first diet pill that she took made her feel dizzy and unwell. She went back to the clinic, and was given a different bottle of pills. These made her hair grow thin and start to fall out. She was worried, stopped taking the pills and returned to the clinic, where it was suggested that she try a third type of diet pill. She took those and her hair regrew, but this time it was permanently grey. She was only 23 years old.
Some 5,000 children in this country are being treated for eating disorders on the NHS. Children as young as seven and eight are dieting and feeling that they are too fat. As legislators and people interested in health, we must

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teach children to be positive about their body image. The Department of Health is trying to promote healthy eating in its documents on health, and we must teach children that they can look attractive if they are a different shape from the person sitting next to them, or if they have more weight, are taller or have longer arms. Those differences do not mean that a person cannot be attractive and important.
The all-pervasive arm of the diet industry reaches out. The recent survey by Diet Breakers showed the effect that mothers had on their children, but there is also evidence to show that the attitude gets into the classroom. There are now sponsored slims being held in classrooms, and that is irresponsible. "Home Alone", a children's film recently shown on television, was sponsored by Diet Coke, but healthy children who are getting plenty of exercise and who have a healthy diet do not need Diet Coke. It is the subtle introduction to the diet mentality that is worrying. People are losing their right to be viewed and valued for who they are and for their personality.
On 6 May this year it is international No Dieting Day. I have to give it a plug before I finish my speech. It is important that people get together and support each other. No Dieting Day has now become international. We have contacts with people all over the world who have been on the treadmill of dieting and want to get off or celebrate the fact that they are off it.
People throw the accusation at us that serious slimming diseases such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are complex and simply dieting does not bring them on. I have done some work on eating disorders. The Eating Disorders Association is made up mainly of parents or people who have suffered slimming illnesses. They all say that all serious slimming illnesses start with people dieting. There may be other causes, although I am not medically qualified to say yes or no. The Eating Disorders Association says:
"Exciting, new, and miraculous diets, promising weight loss with minimum effort or discomfort are featured every week in various women's magazines, followed by pictures and recipes for delightful, easy to bake treats. As a result, many women worry continually about what they can and cannot eat and it is not surprising that so many turn to dieting."
Most people with eating disorders start by dieting. They start by reading how they should look and how they should not look.
Rachel Bryant-Waugh, the principal clinical psychologist working on slimming diseases at the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond street has written an excellent article which goes through the complexities of slimming diseases. I do not pretend that such illnesses are caused simply by dieting. She says:
"Predisposing background conditions include cultural factors such as the current obsession with slimness … and possibly factors related to family, school or work."
I pay tribute to a woman whose daughter killed herself recently. Her story was in the Mail on Sunday magazine. She wanted to speak out about her daughter Karen's suicide. It must have been incredibly difficult for her to speak out. Mrs. Ros Frewer told her story to the press because she wanted to warn other parents to watch out for such problems. The young woman had been starving herself. She was bulimic. She had seen a GP and a counsellor, but had kept the illness secret. She was a lovely girl with her whole future in front of her.
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Mrs. Frewer said:
"It's clear that Karen desperately wanted to be thin. In fact, she was an attractive, fashion-conscious girl, who hovered between sizes 12 and 14—a long way from fat, but she couldn't see it."
The image makers got to her. She decided that she could not cope with how she was.
The British Dietetic Association, which supports moves legally to regulate the diet industry, says:
"Western society tends to see 'thin as good' encouraging many people, especially women to 'diet' unnecessarily."
It goes on to say how many women diet. It points out that
"only 16 per cent. are obese ie have a body mass index of 30 or more. This may be detrimental to their physical and psychological health".
It will be more detrimental to them if they do not go to a doctor and reduce their weight properly. It can positively harm them if they go on extreme diets or use patented slimming medicines or potions. Such medicines are ineffective with someone who has a genuine problem of obesity.
State registered dieticians are well-qualified people. They will tell you that it is a healthy diet that matters. It is not all these gimmicks and quacks.
I cannot sit down without paying tribute to the media. It is most unusual for Members—especially Opposition Members—to pay tribute to newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Mirror. I must also pay tribute to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Bolton Evening News, the Yorkshire Post and Central Television, Scottish Television and the Kilroy-Silk show. I apologise if I have left out anyone who has mounted a major campaign. In the past few years, all have responsibly looked into clinics and the Jack-the-lads who are peddling all sorts of rubbish and nonsense and highlighted some of the extreme end of the market. We should say congratulations.
Women's Realm, which has been responsible for selling some of the foods in the past, produced an excellent article not long ago, entitled, "Made ill by diet doctors." I have only received one bad report from a newspaper—Maggie Drummond in The Daily Telegraph suggested that I only had half a brain because I was taking this issue seriously. The fact that only one journalist failed to recognise that the issue is serious is not bad going and the press should be congratulated.
The proposals in the Bill are fairly modest. The Minister is going to tackle the most wicked side of the diet industry, but I want to go much further. I might introduce another Bill later this year, as I want to add the provision that anyone offering weight loss or spot reducing services and advertising them to the public should have to register annually with the Department of Health and submit the following information. Such services should be provided by trained and qualified personnel, who also provide counselling as well as weight loss services. Ingredients and nutritional information should be provided for any food, formula or drug products sold or provided as part of a weight-loss programme so that everyone can see what is in them.
If the service has been on offer for a year or more, a record should be kept of the number of clients in the previous year who successfully achieved weight loss according to the programme's goals. Information on the total number of clients served in the previous year should be provided and, in the case of diet clubs, a breakdown

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between new members and those rejoining because they have failed. We should also know how many clients have reported medical problems linked to the weight loss service.
Every person, firm or corporation registering pursuant to the legislation would be charged a fee so that the service would not cost the Department of Health anything. The Department should compile the information and make it available to the public in a report every year.
We are going for healthy eating and we recognise that what we eat when we are young often dictates our health in later life. A healthy diet is good preventive medicine and could save the national health service a lot of money. The Department of Health could periodically review the records of firms and corporations advertising weight-loss services, to verify the accuracy of the information submitted. Those aims are fairly moderate and could be worked into another Bill.
The Advertising Standards Authority has tightened its code of practice, which is very welcome, and I was interested to see recently that a company in Birmingham had been fined £15,000 for selling misleading slimming aids. Vitahealth Ltd., which supplies the aids by mail order, was charged with six offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. I am pleased about the fine because there are no miracle pills or slimming cures—I will not go into the worst excesses now as I did so when I moved the Bill. They do not exist. Nothing replaces exercise and healthy eating. We should accept how we feel about ourselves. Fat, thin or indifferent, we all have something to offer.
The fourth international No Dieting Day on 6 May will give us a good opportunity to promote and celebrate good health and self-acceptance. People from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Norway will participate. The other weekend, I took part in a radio phone-in to a live Australian chat show which was dealing with this matter, and the Australian health department is taking the matter extremely seriously. Common sense recognises that peddling ill health works to the cost of the health service.
We shall hold a press conference in the House of Commons on 3 May; I shall present a further early-day motion, which I hope will have all-party support; and a book by Mary Evans Young will be published on 20 April. So good things are happening. I hope that the Minister will act quickly against the peddlers of misery in slimming clinics. I commend the Second Reading of my Bill to the House.
1.45 pm
Lady Olga Maitland: I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on introducing this important Bill. It deals with a matter that has always worried me, and I am delighted that the hon. Lady is acting while we have stood around waving our hands in anguish and concern.
The time has come to stop peddling quack remedies and to bring an end to the neurotic obsession with dieting, which began not in recent years but some 70 years ago. It gathered speed after the memorable phrase by the late Duchess of Windsor, who said that one could not be too rich or too thin. I do not mind being a little too rich, but she put on the map the idea that, if one wants to be successful and smart and to make one's way in the world
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and attract good-looking men, such as we have in the Chamber today, one must be extraordinarily pencil slim to the point that, ultimately, it is dangerous to one's health.
We must pay serious attention to this matter. I applaud the plea by Dr. Tom Sanders for more common sense about eating habits. He said that we should bring to an end the soothsayers of slimming pills and magic potions and return to a sensible approach to our lives.
I am sorry that I did not have a chance to meet the Diet Breakers organisation. From what I have heard and read, it sounds as though it is doing excellent work in breaking a myth. That myth has built a billion pound industry in this country alone. In America, which is the founder of many of our cultural developments, it is a $50 billion industry. That is an export to this country which I am happy to send back.
The Bill wisely does not try to tackle too much. If one goes for a limited area, one has a chance of getting it into operation. I congratulate the hon. Lady on suggesting that we should bring a little rationality into our lives and ensure that people understand the risks involved. I agree that risks must be properly advertised so that people understand that rapid weight loss can be dangerous to their health. Likewise, any book, recording or video that is promoted on that subject must carry a health warning, as customers should know not only the benefits but the risks. The customer is entitled to know the timetable of those diets. They appear to be never-ending.
The customer also needs to know the charges. If there is one industry in which an enormous scam is going on, it is the diet industry which is making a fortune having promoted itself through a host of media.
The Daily Mirror conducted some research about the clinics that promote those different drugs and diets. It sent out some researchers—I have to say, anonymously—to investigate what was on offer. The Daily Mirror described how a researcher, Kate,
"visited … the Kings Private Clinic in Paddington Street … she was charged £25 and given a six-week supply of ionamin. She wasn't told that the drug can cause nervousness, nausea and insomnia."
That is highly dangerous.
"At Dietmania in London's Harley Street, she was given a three-week supply of ionamin for £50 and told not to worry about side-effects.
Another researcher, Sue, visited the Swiss Cottage DIET Clinic in North London, where they gave her a one-week supply of duromine for £13, with a limited explanation of the side-effects.
At the Medical DIET Centre in Harley Street she was not given any drugs but was charged £50 for a consultation and single sheet of paper"—
talk about an easy way to make money.
The terrifying thing is that, as the Consumers Association, which has investigated the industry very carefully, says,
"Anyone can set up a clinic. And although you need to be registered to buy the drugs and prescribe them … there is concern that"
there are clinic doctors operating in the field who are not registered.
We must be sure that patients and people understand the harmful effects of those appetite suppressants, the diuretics and thyroid hormones. Some people definitely must not take those potions, especially people with heart diseases, high blood pressure, asthma, epilepsy or glaucoma and those who are pregnant.

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All those are serious warnings that the industry has spun out of control. We should listen carefully to people who have studied the industry and who utter health warnings of their own. For instance, I draw the attention of the House to the words of Peter Bazalgette, the executive producer of the BBC's "Food and Drink" programme, who has studied the matter for a long time. He says:
"It's heartening to see scientific research mustered to join the attack on our appalling 'dieting' mania. The triple tyrannies of the diet, fashion and health industries have conspired to give us a wholly misleading idea of what a healthy weight is. In fact, we now know that the plump live longer than the very thin."
There is hope for us all.
I refer again to Professor Tom Sanders, because I think that he has managed to strike the key note on the topic. He is the professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's college, London. He said on one occasion:
"The health risks of obesity are often exaggerated compared with other lifestyle aspects such as smoking and drinking. It does increase the risk of diabetes and arthritis. But the health risks of plumpness are negligible: it may even offer advantages to women. The evidence against weight cycling isn't sufficiently compelling to deter the very obese or people with metabolic conditions such as diabetes from controlling their weight."
As time is getting short, I simply want to place on record the support that I give to the hon. Member for Halifax.
I have noticed the way in which our culture has spread dieting mania throughout the country, especially among the young. There is barely a teenage girl who has not said to me, "I am dieting." I have a lovely daughter of my own, aged 19. She watches her weight, but I would be extremely angry with her if I found her going down that obsessive road. It led one or two of her friends to suffer from anorexia, which is the curse of the modern age and, in a sense, of prosperity. One would never find people of the third world opting to diet in such an obsessive and extraordinary way.
We need to enhance education about healthy eating and healthy living habits. It is a curious paradox that today's teenagers are far larger than their parents. They are all giants. One need only visit any university to see that they are bigger people than those in older generations. That is why they should not try to judge their ideal weight according to standards set in the past. They all weigh in at a bigger, healthier weight than their predecessors. That is all the more reason why we should tell them to accept that weight and be proud of that. It will guarantee that they have healthy lives unless they wreck them by falling for the media hype of the diet industry, which, frankly, has conned thousands and thousands of women to profit the pockets of those who run that industry without offering any benefit to others.
I have one word of advice. Let us go back common sense. I believe in moderation, but a little bit of what you fancy does you good.
1.55 pm
Mr. Jacques Arnold: I came to the House this morning to support the Proceeds of Crime Bill. I am also interested in a number of other Bills before the House, should we discuss them today. When I noticed from the Order Paper that the second Bill set down for
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consideration was the Regulation of Diet Industry Bill, I saw red, because anything that starts with the word "regulation" has that effect on me.
When I got a copy of the Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), I noticed that it was sponsored by a further 11 hon. Members, all of whom could be described as luminaries of the trendy left. I therefore began to smell an appalling rat.
When I looked at the names of the 11 sponsors, two things came to mind: first, they are all enthusiasts for the description of being politically correct and, secondly, not a single one of them is in the Chamber now to support the Bill. When I looked down the list of sponsors, I also thought that some of them were structurally challenged, but you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I said who I meant, which would, indeed, be ungallant.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax, however, because her speech was an extremely useful opportunity to air the subject of slimming and the dangers that can arise in far too many circumstances. In that sense, the debate is useful.
I approached the debate with some trepidation, because I have just come from the Members' Dining Room, having had a good lunch. I thought that I could get into immense trouble if I spoke, particularly when the menu in the Dining Room offers an array of hefty puddings, including syrup pudding, coconut sponge, bread and butter pudding, jam roll and chocolate sponge. A diet of such puddings would almost have the diametrically opposite effect of the general meaning of that word on those who consumed them.
I agree with the hon. Member for Halifax that it is far better to rely on fresh vegetables, salads, fruits, good red meat, good healthy eating and a lot of exercise. The House will not be surprised to learn that, with my French name, I adopt that approach.
I have considered the Bill in detail and I should like to draw the attention of the House to a number of its clauses and subsections. Clause 2(1)(a) requires that any person in the diet industry should
"ensure that at any premises where he carries on his business a notice is prominently displayed stating that rapid loss of weight is dangerous to health".
That is an extremely broad generalisation, because in a number of cases—only medically qualified people could state it case by case—it may be beneficial to lose a lot of weight. It would be rather dangerous to put up such broad-brush notices as that suggested by the subsection.
Clause 2(1)(b) also requires that a person engaged in the diet industry should
"cause any book, recording or video work which he produces to carry a notice stating that permanent loss of weight is unlikely and cannot be guaranteed".
That is a broad statement, which could not be said to be the case. It is wrong to produce a propaganda statement in such a generalised form.
After all, far too often a certain product is advertised on our television screens—time and again, it is thrust down the throats of the British public. It is presented by a young salesman with a winsome smile and using warm words. He even comes from a Tory family. The product he sells is very dubious. It includes advertising slogans such as being tough on crime and the causes of crime and other similar soundbites. Should we necessarily attach to the product the description that that is unlikely and cannot

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be guaranteed? With that product, I would certainly say that because of the Labour party's record over the last few decades. Therefore, we must be careful about obliging people to put a description on a particular product.
Clause 2(1)(c) requires that other notices should be displayed, for example, to outline clearly
"the benefits and risks of loss of weight"
or to provide
"an estimated or actual timetable for any diet which he"—
the practitioner—
"proposes that the customer should follow".
Surely much of that is common sense, so I wonder whether it should be included in a notice, a booklet or in straight medical advice, which we receive from our doctors if we are worried.
It is important that the House ensures that a Bill such as this draws a careful distinction between the overwhelming majority of responsible doctors and the minority of quack doctors. We must not throw out the baby with the bath water by tarring good, responsible doctors—of whom there is a vast number—with the same brush as those quack doctors who are guilty of disgraceful and unscrupulous behaviour.
Quack doctors are nothing new; we need only go back through the centuries to see the many quack remedies which existed and which, in fact, are an absolute disgrace. Queen Elizabeth I covered her face with a white material that had a lead base because it was deemed to make her beautiful. All the lead did was to corrode the body. Many of the ancient quack remedies were stuffed with lead components that had a disastrous corrosive effect. It was all done in the interests of so-called good appearance.
We do not have to go back through many decades to recall women squeezing themselves into corsets to produce a wasp waist, with all the damage that that did to internal organs. The wish to look good can be extremely dangerous, but to produce broad generalisations that will sweep up the good doctors as well as the quack doctors, to whom we are all opposed, is a bad idea.
The hon. Member for Halifax introduced a ten-minute Bill last year in which she gave examples of products. She said that for one cream it was claimed that
"all one has to do is to lie on one's back, rub the tummy and the fat will disappear."—[Official Report, 29 June 1994; Vol. 245, c. 816–17.]
She advised people not to try it as it did not work. That is likely to be true, because it seems to be far too easy. Some of the more generously proportioned hon. Members would immediately resort to it if it were that easy. We come back to the old adages such as, "There's one born every day" and "A fool and his money are soon parted".
We must proceed with caution on the Bill. After all, we already have remedies against quack medicines. A good example of that was given recently when the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), proposed a ban on a number of products that make use of amphetamines as slimming aids. My hon. Friend is operating under section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968. His proposal is subject to consultation, but he has rightly drawn on the advice of highly qualified medical practitioners. He is exercising an Act that has already been passed by the House and that deals with products that are clearly demonstrably harmful.
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As we go through the Bill, we immediately identify a considerable number of points on which we should act exceedingly cautiously. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) referred to her concern about her daughter having an obsession with slimming. I have a similar concern with my own daughters, but, so far, they seem to have exercised a remarkable amount of common sense.
We need common sense. We need to eat less and to do more exercise. A number of hon. Members can be seen teetering to and fro around the courtyard on their bicycles. How much better it would be if so many more of us in the population did likewise. We need to rely on legislation that provides conditions by which we can obtain the necessary ban on individual products.
If I were to give any advice to the House, I would say that if the Bill receives a Second Reading today after sufficient consideration by hon. Members, it will need careful consideration in Committee.
2.5 pm
Ms Tessa Jowell: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on her speech, on her extraordinary success in raising public concern about the issue, and on securing the debate today. The measure is remarkably practical. It seeks to impose some minimal standards of responsibility on an industry that, in part, flagrantly exploits the anxieties of vulnerable people.
The Bill's provisions cannot simply be parodied as busybody interference. As the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) reminded us, it is extremely important to safeguard the Bill's proposals against misrepresentation. The Bill does not propose a new regulator—no Off-Fat is proposed—or any cumbersome bureaucracy. No one reading this short Bill could possibly argue that its propositions are unreasonable. On the contrary, its proposals are so obviously fair and sensible that the diet industry will have to demonstrate why on earth it is not prepared to adopt the proposed practices. An industry it certainly is, and one which grows fat on stimulating millions of fit and healthy people into believing that there is something wrong with the way that they are.
People come in all shapes and sizes, but the slimming industry wants to turn us all into Barbie dolls. Its targets, of course, are overwhelmingly women—and increasingly, young women. Estimates suggest that, at any time, about 50 per cent. of women are on a diet of some sort. As the incidence of unhealthy weight is about 16 per cent. of the population, it follows that about a third of all women are being induced to diet for no good reason. In doing so, they put about £1 billion a year into the pockets of the diet industry.
Many young girls are tortured by anxiety about their weight anyway. To some extent, that is a normal part of adolescence and growing up. But instead of encouraging girls to love their bodies, whatever their shape or size, the diet industry perniciously feeds on those anxieties, occasionally with tragic results. At present, 125,000 women suffer from bulimia, 70,000 suffer from anorexia nervosa, and the number is doubling every decade. Great Ormond Street hospital has seen a fourfold increase in the number of children treated at its eating disorder clinic.

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There are two main strands of opposition to the Bill. The first is that we already have all the regulation that we need, primarily in the form of the Advertising Standards Authority. The other is that the diet industry is performing a valuable public service in tackling a plague of obesity, with its attendant health risks. Neither of those claims stands up. The Advertising Standards Authority monitors only advertisements, whereas the Bill refers to the conduct and practice of so-called dieting experts at their slimming centres and clinics. Nor could that authority deal with the numerous magazines whose editorial content is an endless assault on the normal shape of normal people.
Obesity certainly exists, but it is not cured by miracle diets. On the contrary, the evidence is that the preoccupation with unnatural slimness is itself the cause of a great deal of physical as well as psychological illness. It cannot be a coincidence that the number of people reported to have a serious eating disorder has grown so rapidly over the past 20 years. Of course, not everyone who starts dieting ends up with an eating disorder, but everyone with an eating disorder started by dieting.
There is all the difference in the world between public health policies which promote healthy eating and a diet industry which promotes an obsession with dieting. Yesterday I bought a batch of magazines from the corner newsagent, which were on sale to all and sundry. They promise, "You can be 14 lb lighter in four weeks" or "Lose a stone in a month" and offer "50 top tips for the new you". What can possibly be wrong with requiring the sellers of this stuff to warn readers of the risks attendant on such promises?
The diet industry thrives on its failure. American figures show that 97 per cent. of the people who diet put any lost weight back on and probably lose self-esteem in the process. The industry spends 13 per cent. of sales revenue on advertising, endlessly stimulating demand for a product that seldom works.
The Minister's announcement that the prescription of amphetamines for slimming is to be banned is very welcome, as is the promise of stiffer penalties for doctors who breach the rule. Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States have stricter regimes for regulation than we do.
There is clearly a strong measure of cross-party support for the Bill and a belief that action must be taken. I hope that, as an expression of that determination, the House will give this practical and important Bill a Second Reading.
2.11 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tom Sackville): I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on introducing this important Bill, which certainly merits discussion.
I welcome something that we seldom hear from the hon. Lady, namely her praise for the Government's initiative on amphetamines. She also praised many parts of the media, which is something she also does but rarely. She included the Bolton Evening News, my excellent local newspaper, which did an enormous amount of work on this subject some months ago and came up with numerous
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examples of people who had been damaged by slimming mania and specifically by amphetamine or amphetamine-like substances.
The Government are concerned that industry, including that which claims to aid weight loss, is properly regulated. We are also concerned to ensure that consumers are not misled by inaccurate or misleading claims about products, that they have sufficient information to make an informed choice and that the products themselves are safe. Our philosophy is therefore very much in tune with the good intentions of the Bill in as much as both seek to protect the public.
I understand very well the concerns that have prompted the Bill, but I am confident that when I have explained the broader picture surrounding the whole issue hon. Members will question the necessity of the Bill's provisions.
Obesity among men and women is a serious and growing problem in this country. People's personal appearance is a matter for them, of course, and the Government would not seek to influence such choices, but when people's personal weight becomes a risk to their health more generally it becomes a matter of concern to the national health service. Obesity contributes to raised plasma cholesterol and raised blood pressure and is a risk factor for both coronary heart disease and stroke—two major causes of premature death in the UK—as well as for diabetes, gall-stones, as the hon. Member for Halifax mentioned, arthritis and a number of other less well known conditions.
For that reason, the problem of rising obesity as it is clinically defined has to be addressed, which is why a target for reducing the prevalence was included in the coronary heart disease and stoke section of the White Paper, "The Health of the Nation". At the time those targets were set, the figures showed that 8 per cent. of men and 12 per cent. of women were obese. The latest position, portrayed by the recent report from the Health Survey for England, showed that those figures have increased to 13 per cent. for men and 16 per cent. for women. Regardless of whether the two sets of figures are exactly comparable, they show a fairly alarming increase.
Perhaps it would be helpful at this stage if I defined exactly what we mean by obese, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Dulwich (Ms Jowell). It is a matter of having a body mass index of greater than 30. If I may explain further, body mass index is calculated by dividing an individual's weight, expressed in kilograms, by the square of his or her weight in metres.
Mr. Timothy Wood: Height in metres.
Mr. Sackville: I am so sorry. I should have said height in metres. It was worth having a Whip within earshot.
Just to clarify matters for hon. Members who do not understand those European terms, obesity would therefore mean a woman of 5 ft 6 in having a weight of more then 13 stone or a man of 6 ft having a weight of more than 15½ stone. I will not try to define what my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) described as structurally challenged, but perhaps he will give us his own definition of what he may have meant.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: I felt that it would be excessively cruel to ask which of the sponsors of the Bill could be referred to as fat, and "structurally challenged" seemed fashionably correct on the Labour Benches.
Mr. Sackville: Well, now we know.
It is important to make the distinction between the term clinical obesity and people whom the Bill seeks to protect—victims who believe that they are overweight when very often they are not at all. I have already explained that there are good medical and health reasons for concern about being overweight. I should also point that the problem of increasing obesity is not confined to this country but is prevalent throughout the developed world. It is a serious problem with no easy solutions and for those reasons, as I have already mentioned, we must address it.
The nutrition task force was created to devise a strategy for achieving the diet and nutrition targets in "The Health of the Nation" White Paper, which included a target for obesity. It was proposed that, in the first instance, attention should be particularly directed towards the prevention of obesity. As overweight and obesity result from taking in more energy from food than that expended on physical activity, exercise is required to address the problem. The nutrition task force also agreed that action to achieve the targets should be considered jointly with the physical activity task force.
People could be forgiven for thinking that if the problem is caused by eating more than one needs for daily activity, the solution is simple—to eat less and to be active. We know, however, that it is not so easy as it sounds. One of the main contentions behind the Bill is that diets, in the sense of diets for weight loss, do not always work. Many diets help people to lose weight, but the problem lies in keeping the weight off in the long term. That is why the two task forces decided on a preventive approach both to help to prevent the population as a whole from getting fatter and to target help at those groups of the population most at risk from obesity.
As a first step, a symposium of experts was convened last year. Those attending were asked to suggest courses of action to prevent further rises in levels of obesity. The symposium considered trends in obesity in the United Kingdom, the factors controlling energy imbalance and the potential contribution that might be made by local authorities, schools, industry, the NHS and everyone else concerned. Consideration is currently being given to the future course of action to be taken within the task forces for improving dietary habits, together with the strategy of the task force on physical activity aimed at increasing levels of physical activity. One important point that we have identified is the need for more research into long-term solutions.
To turn to the central matter of the Bill, we must always make the important distinction between medically desirable weight, which forms the basis of Government advice, and cosmetically desirable weight. What is commonly portrayed as being cosmetically desirable is often thinner than what would be considered medically desirable. It is also true that the long-term efficacy of relatively short-term proprietary slimming products has rarely been demonstrated. Just as it is not healthy to be overweight, it is not healthy to be underweight. By not eating enough for the body's needs and becoming
1358
underweight, people may not be getting all the nutrients that they need from their food and they run the risk of suffering ill health as a result.
I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Halifax said about the pernicious influence of the fashion industry, especially through magazines and television. Obsession with weight has been a problem at various times in history, but it is probably much more of a problem in the age of the mass media, with the power of television and the power of attractive and cleverly presented magazines. I remember reading in the press of a recent survey which said that a certain percentage—it may have been 60 per cent.—of women reading a well-known mass weekly magazine became severely stressed after three minutes of looking at the various role models in front of them. Whether or not that is an exaggeration, there is no doubt that there is a powerful wave coming all the time, particularly at women, telling people that they need to be thinner. We must consider such attitudes dangerous.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) mentioned putting an end to all this and to the various quack medicines and products. I am not sure that we shall be able to put an end to them. We are really asking people to change their attitudes to themselves. We are asking for a complete alteration in the way in which people look at themselves, in their relationships with others and in their self-esteem. That is a very tall order and I am afraid that it is a problem much wider than the provisions in the Bill.
It makes sense, therefore, for people to try to be sensible and to maintain a healthy weight in relation to their height. The best way to do that is simply by eating a healthier diet and by participating in some form of regular exercise. That message form the cornerstone of Government advice on the issue. However, those ideas, especially those concerning diet and exercise, are not welcome to a large part of the population, and although enormous activity has been generated over the past two or three years by our White Paper, "The Health of the Nation", in the end we still need an enormous shift in national attitudes to get people to realise that their health and how they look after their bodies is to some extent their own responsibility.
Even in terms of the Bill there needs to be a great change in the way in which people view themselves and their weight. The Bill's use of the term "diet" suggests that it should be interpreted as a food regimen for weight loss, but diet should really be considered as involving the way in which we eat in everyday life. Diet is not something that we go on or off, but a vital part of our whole lives.
It rather worries me that the Bill appears to be based on the premise that a large proportion of the people professionally involved in slimming, other than medically qualified practitioners, are various sorts of charlatan. Although we know that many people active in the slimming industry could be described in that way, we must be careful to distinguish between good and bad advice. The activities of many professionals well qualified to advise individuals on diet and nutrition would undoubtedly be restricted. Dieticians and nutritionists are obvious examples, but there are others who play a vital role—
Mrs. Mahon: May I point out to the Minister that the dieticians and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain support the Bill? Most of the professionals involved with dieting support it.
Mr. Sackville: I appreciate and welcome that fact in terms of the spirit of the Bill, but we must be careful when we talk about the slimming industry. I have had some experience of that this week following an announcement that I made about amphetamines.
We must be careful not to lump everybody into the same pot. Dieticians, nutritionists and others with a role to play in assisting people with dietary matters—such as pharmacists, nurses, midwives, health visitors, dentists, practitioners of other profession allied to medicine, or health promotion specialists—are all active in giving people the right advice about diet and exercise, and sometimes about weight loss. In order to help to achieve "The Health of the Nation" targets a project team from the nutrition task force has drawn up a core curriculum in nutrition for the education of health professionals, which was published last year.
The Bill does not refer to the activities of a group of people who, as many hon. Members have said, are especially culpable—doctors who set up private slimming clinics so that they can prescribe addictive amphetamine-type products to assist with weight loss. As the House knows, I have announced that we are considering a ban on amphetamine-type slimming pills under section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968, and intend to consult on the topic. We are considering action because we know that many qualified practitioners are prescribing inappropriately, although legally, slimming pills which were not designed for people who are, or who believe themselves to be, slightly overweight. The pills contain substances licensed for various purposes, including treating people with moderate or severe obesity, as defined earlier in my speech. In terms of the Bill and also the proposals which I announced this week, we must make sure that there is a distinction between people who are properly using certain substances to help people with a real clinical problem, and those people who are using it to make money and prescribing entirely inappropriately.
The Bill proposes that any book, recording or video produced would need to state that permanent weight loss is unlikely and cannot be guaranteed. I am sure that hon. Members will not need me to describe the regulatory machinery that such a provision would entail. The Act resulting from any such Bill would also oblige anyone giving advice to provide—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order.
It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed on Friday 28 April.

Remaining Private Members' Bills

  BREAST CANCER (NATIONAL PLAN) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 28 April.

  TRANSPORT OF ANIMALS FOR SLAUGHTER BILL
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [20 January].
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Debate to be resumed on Friday 21 April.

  ENERGY SAVING MATERIALS (RATE OF VALUE ADDED TAX) BILL
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [20 January].
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Debate to be resumed on Friday 21 April.

  PRISONERS (RETURN TO CUSTODY) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 21 April.

  LAND REGISTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 21 April.

  NATURAL DISASTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 21 April.

  CIVIL RIGHTS (DISABLED PERSONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 21 April.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (AMENDMENT) BILL
  Read a Second time.
  Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills),
  That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Austin-Walker.]
  Question agreed to.
  Committee on Friday 21 April.

  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
  Ordered,
  That Mr. John Horam be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr. Peter Thurnham be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Wood.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at the sitting on Tuesday 4th April, the Speaker shall put the Question on the Motion in the name of Mr. Tony Blair relating to the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula Regulations 1995 not later than one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings thereon; and the said Motion may be entered upon and proceeded with, though opposed, after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Wood.]

Pesticides
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wood.]
2.32 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: This debate relates to the dangers to health caused by the use of lindane, but it also concerns other pesticides in the organochloride and organophosphorus groups which are increasingly used in the home, agriculture and manufacturing. One example to which I shall refer at a later stage is permethrin, which was sprayed on 8 October 1991 in the Grays benefit office where my constituent Cassy Stanton worked. She was in the early stages of pregnancy. I shall return to her case in a moment.
As well as Cassy Stanton coming to my surgery, I was prompted to raise the issue of these chemicals by articles in the journal of the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union, of which I am a sponsored Member of the House. I was also prompted by the effective and legitimate lobby by the Greenetwork, and influenced by a number of broadcasts, including Central Television's "Earth Dwellers Guide" which was presented by Philip Tibbenham on 21 August 1993, Channel 4's powerful "Dispatches" programme on 30 November 1994 and a number of small, but not unimportant, items broadcast on "Farming Today". These broadcasts, together with the contents of other programmes, have prompted me to raise the issue of lindane and similar pesticides in the House.
Since my debate appeared on the Order Paper, it has surprised but reassured me to realise that many hon. Members are worried about the matter. Many hon. Members from both sides of the House have approached me in the past few days. My hon. Friends the Members for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell), for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) and for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) would have been here for the debate, but for overriding pressing commitments in their constituencies.
It is also significant that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) has recently asked questions from the Liberal Benches about the matter. Last, but by no means least, the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body) has consistently and vigorously drawn attention to his anxieties about the dangers arising from the widespread use of agricultural pesticides over a number of years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) approached me last night and drew to my attention the fact that he had an Adjournment debate on the use of lindane on 28 February 1989. It followed the tabling of early-day motion 143, signed by 117 hon. Members. In that debate he was supported by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse). Significantly, on that occasion a reply was given by the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. I raise that point because responsibility for and interest in lindane ranges across Departments. In the past few days I have tabled questions to the Departments of Employment and of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department for Education and the Department of the Environment. Arguably, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also

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has responsibility for lindane when he has his science hat on. That is important in view of my desire to persuade the Minister that the Government have not got to grips with properly examining in a range of programmes the extent of and dangers implicit in the use of Lindane and comparable chemicals.
Lindane is a potent insecticide and a dangerous organochloride. It is in the same family as DDT and has similar properties in as much as it is absorbed and accumulates in body fat and inevitably gets into the food chain. Such chemicals do not easily break down in the body. They are highly persistent.
As members of the public and as workers, we encounter Lindane in a number of forms. It can he odourless and colourless. It can be a solid, a white powder, a liquid or in the smoke-bomb fumigator variety. It is used in soil treatment against insect pests. It is used in the production of animal feeds. It is widely used in sugar beet production areas.
Lindane or similar chemicals are used in sheep dips, and workers are involved in what is described as bucket chemistry because they have to mix their own chemicals. The use which particularly caused me anxiety on watching the broadcast was in timber protection. Often, lofts are sprayed with lindane as a condition of mortgages. I point that out to the Minister and ask him to pause and consider that many of us simply do not know whether we are exposed to the chemical. We go into pubs, schools, homes or any other variety of buildings which might have been sprayed recently with lindane or comparable chemicals. We would not know that we were so exposed.
We absorb lindane by breathing the gas and vapours. It goes straight into the lungs and into the bloodstream. Fine dust can follow the same route. Larger particles are trapped in the nasal passages or the mucus escalator of the bronchial tubes. It is not necessary to have direct contact with the chemical. It can be swallowed because food and water can be contaminated directly by exposure to lindane. Lindane can be absorbed into the air. It mixes with food and water.
Lindane can also be absorbed by touching the product. I am particularly concerned about unskilled and untrained workers who have to handle the product in the timber industry or in the application of the pesticide to timbers in lofts.
One amazing fact is that, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the use of lindane in lofts where bats might reside is forbidden, because it might kill them, yet there is no similar embargo on its use where human beings congregate.
Lindane accumulates in body fat and can stay there a long time after exposure. While I acknowledge that, as is the case with many diseases, some people are more susceptible or sensitive to the effects of chemicals than others, and that some people suffer no ill-effects, nevertheless far too many people have experienced one or more of the following disorders following exposure to lindane.
One of the most serious is aplastic anaemia, which is a form of leukaemia and is a killer. There is substantial evidence to show that lindane also causes damage to the nervous system, and provokes headaches, convulsions and loss of limb movement, as well as mental illness, anxiety,
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depression, memory loss, vomiting, sore eyes, urticaria—raised red areas on the body—oedema, which is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in body tissues that causes swelling, diarrhoea, and loss of appetite. Lindane also probably contributes to anorexia and irritable bowel syndrome. It clearly aggravates respiratory diseases and can cause nasal inflammation, sores and breathing problems. Longterm tiredness, which is sometimes diagnosed as myalgic encephalomyelitis, is also attributed to lindane exposure. The final disease on that list is epilepsy.
The constituent to whom I referred earlier subsequently gave birth to a child who suffers from CHARGE, which is a particularly sad and painful handicap. In such children, only part of the retina functions and in some cases, there are problems with the iris. The children also suffer from heart defects and blockage of the nasal passages due to bone material or a membrane and their growth is retarded. In male infants, the genitals are not properly formed and do not develop. They also suffer from ear abnormalities.
The Department of Health has been furnished with a considerable body of evidence and I believe that it shows that CHARGE is, at least in part, caused by the exposure of the mother between 35 and 45 days from conception to lindane or other chemicals of the same family, such as permethrin.
Lindane has been banned or is severely restricted in some countries, including New Zealand, Sweden and Finland. Forty years ago, doctors in the United States drew attention to the association of lindane with the bone marrow disease aplastic anaemia, in which the bone marrow stops producing blood cells that fight infection and the platelets that stop bleeding. As I said, that can be a fatal condition. Subsequently, the United States, which has vigorous environmental laws and agencies, banned the use of lindane as a wood preservative and pesticide for domestic use.
The hon. Member for Holland with Boston has also drawn attention to the link between breast cancer and lindane and I think that the evidence is compelling. Sixty-five per cent. of the milk that we buy contains small quantities of lindane and it has even shown up in human breast milk. British and American scientists now point to lindane as a factor in the high incidence of breast cancer in the United Kingdom. When lindane was banned in Israel in 1978 it was reported that the death rate from breast cancer among women under 35 fell by a third. I do not believe that that is a coincidence.
In Britain, however, we are told by the various agencies—and hitherto by Ministers—that the amount of lindane in our food is within acceptable safety guidelines. Experts who were interviewed for the "Dispatches" programme believe that even the minutest amounts of lindane are unsafe in the human body and that, ingested over long periods, the pesticide has a cumulative and extremely damaging effect on the body. Part of that programme focused on the county of Lincolnshire, which includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Holland with Boston and has one of the highest rates of the disease in the country. It is also an area where lindane is widely used for sugar beet production, which dominates that county.
On wood treatment—which was the subject of the earlier Adjournment debate in 1989—the Minister must bear in mind the fact that many contractors do not advise or counsel their customers to vacate treated rooms for up to 48 hours.

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That is the industry's guideline on the appropriate period for a room treated with lindane to be in quarantine. I think that 48 hours is woefully inadequate, but ample evidence shows that, for a variety of reasons, be they selfish and commercial or sheer ignorance, contractors do not advise their customers about the prudence of vacating rooms treated with the product even for that period.
The London Hazard Centre believes that rooms should be vacated for not days but weeks, and the Building Research Establishment has shown that lindane can build up in the air for a month or more after treatment. Many public and commercial buildings, to which we are all exposed, are treated, but no warnings are given about whether we should enter. Clearly, pregnant women are particularly, although not exclusively, vulnerable and, where lindane has been applied or sprayed, warnings should be given by regulation. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 are being flouted and ignored on a widespread scale. Many contractors, employers and customers are not advised of the hazards and risks, or the need for protective clothing when lindane is being applied.
The veterinary medicine directorate and the pesticides safety directorate, which are supposed to advise and counsel the Government, are letting us down. I do not doubt the Government's good will in this matter. However, they should pause, take a step back and set up an inquiry that is independent of their existing advisers. Although those two directorates are not puppets of Government, they have been extremely weak, if not craven, inasmuch as they probably must follow the wider Government policy of not sending "the wrong signals to industry". The problem is that they are, to a large extent, both licensing and surveillance authorities so they have a vested interest in not proving that they have previously made a mistake in authorising licensing of an unsafe product.
The United Kingdom does not appear to have a duty of care with regard to regulations covering pharmaceutical and chemical products, as exists under common and civil law. We have no freedom of information Act, so companies can claim commercial confidentiality and refuse to release their research data. That is unacceptable. We need full disclosure of research data from producers and marketers of such products. Another problem is inappropriate and inadequately applied regulations. Testing by the producers of those products provides for safety clearance to start at the point of a product first being sold. Surveillance and evaluation frequently stop thereafter, whereas monitoring and examination should continue throughout the period of public use.
Extensive public concern exists about lindane and similar chemicals used in agriculture, manufacturing and the home. People have no confidence in the existing regulatory procedure. Public confidence is extremely important, so I hope that the Minister will make a name for himself and make one of the briefest speeches in an Adjournment debate by simply saying that he will examine not only the matter that I have raised but the evidence from all interested parties and individuals. He should examine evidence particularly from those who, although they may have suffered illness or even death, are not included in the statistics because many producers and manufacturers of those products have settled with them out of court. As a consequence of those settlements, cases of death and serious illness are not being fully examined or reported to Government.
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A line should be drawn, and the Government should give some expedition to independent re-examination of the matter.
I cannot help feeling and anticipating, although I hope that it will not be the case, that the Minister will use more or less the same brief as his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), used in 1989. If he does, may I draw attention to the fact that on that occasion the Employment Under-Secretary said:
"Discussions about"
those chemicals
"are taking place within the European Community, and the Government"—
that is the United Kingdom Government—
"have proposed across the board controls on the use of wood preservatives throughout the European Community."—[Official Report, 28 February 1989; Vol. 148, c. 258.]
What has happened to that initiative? Years have passed, and now is the time for a line to be drawn. Now is the time for the Minister to make a name for himself in Brussels, and to say that the United Kingdom will not tolerate this any longer. It is time for him to say that we shall severely restrict the use of lindane and comparable chemicals and ban its use in the home, as have Finland and Sweden.
This is not another "food scare". It is not a party issue, as I have demonstrated. It is a matter that causes widespread anxiety throughout the communities in the United Kingdom. I should like the Minister to respond accordingly.
2.51 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tom Sackville): I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on obtaining the debate, and on his courageous attempt to spell out ME in full. After two and a half years, I continue to have difficulty.
The hon. Member for Thurrock is right that there is widespread anxiety about pesticides and about many medicines and other substances, but I have to tell him one or two things in opening.
First, we have probably the best regulatory system in the world. When the hon. Gentleman says that there is no confidence in it, I reply that, if there is no confidence in the system, it is because certain people who have an interest in shaking confidence in it, through often ill-researched and fairly irresponsible television programmes and so on, have gone out of their way to do so. The members of the committees that regulate medicines, pesticides and similar matters include some of the leading experts in the world, with enormous international and national reputations to maintain. I defy the hon. Gentleman to give me evidence that there is any covering up of facts.
Secondly, if some of the material that I shall give the hon. Gentleman today is the same as that which has been used before, it is because the facts have not changed. I can only state the facts as we understand them.
Lindane, sometimes known as gamma HCH, is an organochlorine pesticide, as the hon. Gentleman knows, which has been used to treat animals with external parasites. It continues to have an important role in killing pests on crops and treating wood to prevent pest infestation.

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The media have stated, and it has been stated elsewhere, that in some countries lindane has been banned. I understand that it has even been claimed that the United Kingdom is the only country that continues to use it. That is absolutely not so. Figures from every country in the world are not available, but in most developed countries, including the UK, lindane continues to be accepted for limited use, as an agricultural pesticide and for wood treatment.
Lindane has been withdrawn from use as a pesticide in seven countries—Indonesia, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand and St. Lucia and two European countries, Sweden and Finland. The House will note that the list does not include Israel. That is because lindane continues to be accepted for use there, and the high levels of lindane reported to be found in Israeli food were due to its use as a cattle louse treatment whereby it was directly applied to the cattle. That use has, indeed, ceased.
Such use is not permitted in the United Kingdom. The use of lindane as a veterinary medicine was licensed under the Medicines Act 1968 by Ministers acting on the advice of the Veterinary Products Committee. Licences for sheep dips were revoked in 1984, and the last licence for other veterinary uses lapsed in 1991.
In this country, the advertisement, sale, supply, storage, and use of pesticides is subject to the Control of Pesticides Regulations 1986. Ministers approve pesticides under those regulations and those approvals set out the crops on which the pesticide may be used and the conditions of use. The statutory conditions of use are displayed on the label on the pesticide packaging. The agricultural inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive monitors the application of those regulations and can prosecute those who fail to comply. The penalty on conviction in a magistrates court is a fine of up to £5,000 or an unlimited fine on conviction in a Crown court.
Further control is exercised through the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Crops, Food and Feeding Stuffs) Regulations 1994. Anyone putting into circulation any product listed in the regulations which contains pesticide residues above the limits specified in those regulations can, on conviction, be fined on the same basis as the fines set for a conviction under the control of pesticides regulations. Both those controls are intended to protect the health of people using pesticides or who are exposed to them in any other way.
In the United Kingdom, the Government are advised on pesticide approvals and revocations by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, a statutory body consisting of independent medical and scientific experts representing all the relevant specialisms related to human toxicology, environmental safety, agricultural, horticultural and other uses of pesticides. They have the necessary qualifications and experience to understand the research and interpret its findings on the safety and efficacy of pesticide use. Ministers must take the advice of that committee before they approve or revoke the use of any pesticide. I assure the House that the Government pay careful attention to the committee's advice and have always acted on it.
Before any new pesticide is approved or when the approval for any existing pesticide is reviewed, the potential exposure of the users and people eating food that might contain residues is carefully assessed. Approval is not given if those exposures are likely to cause harmful
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health effects. As well as the evidence of exposure and of food residues that companies must provide when seeking approval of their products, the Government have established a residues monitoring system under which food is regularly surveyed. Similar considerations apply before the statutory Veterinary Products Committee advises Ministers as to whether a product should be licensed.
Of course, as I have explained, lindane is no longer licensed for use in this country as a veterinary medicine. The evidence is that lindane residues in cows milk, which are primarily due to traces of lindane in their feeds, are falling. Indeed, when found, they are around the limit of detection. Such levels are well below the internationally agreed acceptable daily intake, a level that would not be expected to cause harm to health even over a lifetime of exposure.
While the effect on human health is of paramount importance when considering the approval of a product for use, other considerations must be taken into account as well. The fact that it is withdrawn in one country may have no bearing on its use in others. Countries have different pest problems, different climates and different environmental and agricultural considerations. A product appropriate for one country may simply have no use in another. Breast cancer rates alone, in countries in which lindane is no longer used, give no indication of whether or not there might be a causal relationship.
Some concern of late, mentioned in the programme "Dispatches" and elsewhere—the hon. Member also referred to it—has arisen because more women without a family history of breast cancer are developing the disease.
The Government are concerned about the high incidence of breast cancer and that is why we have established the breast screening programme and made the reduction in mortality from breast cancer a major target of our "Health of the Nation" initiative. Certainly a family history is one of the known risk factors, but there are others, for example, late childbearing, not having children, early menarche, late menopause, obesity and repeated exposure to ionising radiation. The reason for its high incidence in developed countries, however, remains unknown. There is a wide geographical variation in both incidence and mortality and the populations with the highest risk of developing breast cancer are those in western Europe and North America.
Much has been made of the high rates of breast cancer in Israel in the early 1970s and of the dramatic increase in breast cancer mortality rates from 1976 onwards. If lindane had a causal relationship with breast cancer, however, mortality rates would be expected to remain high for several years after the withdrawal of its use. That is because breast cancer takes several years to develop.
What actually happened in Israel is a rather different story. First, the so-called dramatic decrease in mortality rates for breast cancer began shortly before the drop in pesticide exposure. The Israeli researchers, Westin and Richter, noted that phenomenon. Lindane was withdrawn from use as a louse treatment in 1978. Secondly, and more tellingly, it was only the deaths from breast cancer that declined at that time, not the incidence. There is no evidence of a sharp decrease in the number of women in Israel who developed the disease; on the contrary, in the 25 to 34 age group, the relatively small number of cases

1369
stayed much the same, but in the age group 35 to 44, there was a steady rise in breast cancer incidence in the period 1976 to 1986.
In most developed countries, including Israel, the statistics follow a familiar pattern—an increasing number of women developing this dreadful disease, but also a decrease in the number of deaths. The most likely reason for the rise in incidence and drop in death rates is the improvement in treatment and public awareness—for example, earlier detection.
I emphasis that if there were any reason to think that the use of lindane or, indeed, any other manufactured product was the cause of such a widespread and serious disease, we would have no hesitation in withdrawing it. But there are, unfortunately, only a very few cancers where we can say with any certainty that they have a particular extraneous cause.
Unfortunately, in the time available I cannot deal with all the points raised about lindane. I want to reiterate that
1370
in this country we have an excellent system for approving pesticides and for licensing veterinary medicines. Under both systems, the Government are advised by independent statutory committees which, I have to tell the hon. Gentleman, are respected around the world as being the best. We listen to those expert committees and if they tell us that a product is likely to harm people, we do not let it get on to the market.
Lindane has been carefully considered, certain uses have been reviewed and the agricultural pesticide use is presently under review. We can rest assured—
The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Three o'clock.

HEALTH

  Nursing Staff
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of nursing staff were at any one time(a) on fixed-term contracts and (b) bank or agency staff (i) in the current year and (ii) in each of the last 10 years, in each regional health authority. [15368]

  Mr. Sackville
  Information on the percentage of bank and agency nursing and midwifery staff will be placed in the Library. Figures for 1994 onwards are not yet available.

  Data on the percentage of nursing and midwifery staff on fixed-term contracts are not available centrally since this is a matter for local determination.

  Speech Therapists
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many speech therapists per 1,000 population are provided for children in(a) Southwark, (b) Birmingham, (c) Manchester, (d) Kingston, (e) Lewisham and (f) England. [15325]

  Mr. Bowis
  This information is not available centrally.

  NHS Dental Treatments
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list all the dental treatments currently available under the national health service, together with the amount paid by the Government to general dental practices for each treatment, for the five most recent years for which figures are available. [15402]

  Mr. Malone
  The information will be placed in the Library.

  Prescription Fraud
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action her Department is taking to reduce the level of prescription fraud. [16887]

  Mr. Malone
  From 1 April 1995 patients who obtain dispensed items from community pharmacists or dispensing doctors will be asked to complete a written declaration stating the specific grounds for claiming exemption or remission of the prescription charge due, or the amount of the charge paid. The revised declarations will improve the effectiveness of confirmatory checks and are a significant first step towards reducing prescription fraud.

  I am considering what further measures are necessary.

  Birth Certificates
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the purpose of asking applicants for full and short 814
  birth certificates if they are the subject of the certificate or a relative of the subject. [17159]

  Mr. Sackville
  In their White Paper "Registration: proposals for change", Cm 939, the Government proposed new arrangements for the purchase of certificates of recent events and a different approach to the prevention of intrusions into privacy, personation and fraud. Statutory powers would be introduced to require applicants for certificates to identify themselves and complete a more comprehensive application form. They would also be required to state their relationship to the subject of the required certificate and the purpose for which the certificate was to be used. The application forms now in use by the Registrar General ask for this additional information, but applicants cannot, at present, be obliged to provide the answers.

  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health for how long application forms for full and short version birth certificates are kept after the certificates have been issued. [17161]

  Mr. Sackville
  The Registrar General currently retains application forms relating to the issue of birth certificates for a minimum of five years.

  Thyroid Cancer
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list for each of the last 10 years the number of cases of thyroid cancer that have been reported in(a) North Western, (b) Mersey, (c) Northern, (d) Yorkshire, (e) Trent and (f) West Midlands regional health authorities; and what the national average was for each of the years. [17137]

  Mr. Sackville
  The information is published in tables 2 and 7 of "Cancer statistics, registrations, series MB1, Nos. 11–22", HMSO, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Asbestos-related Diseases
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proposals she has to improve the quality of diagnosis and certification of deaths involving asbestos-related diseases. [17078]

  Mr. Sackville
  Diagnosis is a professional issue and we would look primarily to the health care professions to provide guidance on it.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are her current assumptions about the levels of asbestos-related deaths in the United Kingdom. [17080]

  Mr. Sackville
  The recorded numbers of deaths from asbestos-related diseases continue to grow. Such diseases are nearly always the result of occupational exposure to asbestos fibres, and are prescribed as industrial diseases. Asbestos-related diseases generally take a long time to develop. The deaths now occurring, and most of those expected to occur in the future, reflect past industrial exposure before the introduction of the controls whose enforcement is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.

  Royal Liverpool University Hospital
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has to ensure that the Royal Liverpool
  815
  University hospital obtains a fire certificate from the Merseyside fire brigade. [17221]

  Mr. Sackville
  Royal Liverpool University hospital is currently undertaking work agreed with the Merseyside fire brigade, due for completion by August 1995.

  Helicopter Emergency Medical Service
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients were conveyed by the London helicopter ambulance service for each year since 1991. [17239]

  Mr. Sackville
  This information is not available centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. William Wells, chairman of South Thames regional health authority, which is managerially responsible for the London helicopter emergency medical service.

  Region

  Estimated average time (in months) waited by patients still on waiting lists for inpatient and day case admission as at:

  March 1990

  March 1991

  March 1992

  March 1993

  March 1994

  Northern

  7.0

  5.9

  4.7

  4.1

  4.2

  Yorkshire

  7.2

  7.1

  5.2

  4.5

  5.1

  Trent

  7.4

  6.3

  5.5

  4.7

  4.4

  East Anglian

  9.0

  8.4

  5.4

  4.7

  4.5

  North West Thames

  9.4

  9.2

  6.4

  5.3

  5.3

  North East Thames

  10.9

  8.7

  5.7

  5.0

  5.6

  South East Thames

  10.1

  8.8

  5.7

  5.0

  5.1

  South West Thames

  10.2

  7.2

  4.1

  4.1

  4.4

  Wessex

  8.2

  7.5

  4.8

  4.7

  4.2

  Oxford

  8.9

  8.0

  5.7

  4.4

  4.2

  S. Western

  8.5

  8.1

  4.5

  3.8

  3.6

  W. Midlands

  8.7

  7.7

  4.7

  4.2

  4.5

  Mersey

  4.9

  4.5

  3.7

  3.7

  3.8

  North Western

  8.6

  7.2

  4.8

  4.5

  4.5

  Source:

  Derived from quarterly Körner elective admission list returns.

  NHS Purchasing
  Mr. Trend
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will respond to the first report of the Health Committee of Session 1994–95 on "Priority Setting in the NHS: Purchasing;" and if she will make a statement. [18207]

  Mrs. Bottomley
  I have today published the Government's response to the Select Committee report, Cm 2826. A copy has been placed in the Library.

  The Government welcome the Committee's report on priority setting in the national health service. It sets out a thoughtful and wide-ranging investigation of the issues, from the Government setting national priorities to the choices faced by individual clinicians every day. The Government welcome the Select Committee's support for many of the policies that they are pursuing in this area.

EDUCATION

  Internet
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will list the Internet electronic mail address of(a) her Department and (b) each Minister in her Department;

  Herbal Medicines
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many herbal medicine products are currently being sold in Britain without a licence. [17130]

  Mr. Sackville
  All medicinal products on the market in the United Kingdom are subject to the Medicines for Human Use (Marketing Authorisations Etc.) Regulations 1994 unless otherwise exempt. The Medicines Control Agency will investigate any case which appears to breach this.

  Waiting Times
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average waiting time for admission by region in each of the last five years. [13396]

  Mr. Malone
  [holding answer 17 March 1995]: This information is shown in the table:

  and if she will make a statement on her Department's approach to the information super-highway. [17742]

  Mr. Forth
  The Department has a mailbox on the Internet—info@dfe.gov.uk—for general inquiries to the Department's public inquiry unit. This provides a service to those who have access to the Internet and prefer to use electronic mail as a method of communication.

  The Government's consultation paper on broadband communications in education will be published after Easter.

  Leicestershire Local Education Authority
  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much was spent on education by the county council in Leicestershire in each of the last five years; and how much is planned for this financial year. [17155]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Total expenditure by Leicestershire local education authority from 1989–90 to 1993–94, the latest year for which provisional outturn figures are available, is shown. These figures have not been adjusted for any changes of function. The figure for 1994–95 is drawn from Leicestershire LEA's revenue account return, and is not directly comparable with the outturn figures which have a different coverage.
  817

  Leicestershire LEA—total expenditure (in actual terms)

  Year

  £ million

  Outturn

  1989–90

  337.5

  1990–91

  372.8

  1991–92

  409.0

  1992–93

  440.8

  1993–94 (provisional)

  400.6

  Planned

  1994–95

  326.8

  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the number of teachers employed in state schools in Leicestershire in each of the last five years. [17154]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The table shows the full-time equivalent number of teachers employed in maintained nursery, primary and secondary sector in Leicestershire for January 1990 to January 1994.

  Teachers—FTE—in the maintained nursery, primary and secondary sector in Leicestershire

  January

  FTE

  1990

  7,886

  1991

  7,764

  1992

  7,830

  1993

  7,570

  19941

  7,832

  1 Excludes sixth form colleges.

  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the amount of the salary bill for teachers in Leicestershire for each of the last five years; and how much is planned for this year. [17158]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Expenditure by Leicestershire local education authority on salaries for teachers at its maintained schools from 1989–90 to 1993–94, the latest year for which provisional outturn figures are available, is shown. Information on planned expenditure on teachers' salaries is not collected centrally.

  Leicestershire LEA—expenditure on teaching staff (in actual terms)

  Year

  £million

  Outturn

  1989–90

  172.9

  1990–91

  185.0

  1991–92

  204.2

  1992–93

  224.9

  1993–94 (provisional)

  194.9

  Publications
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what has been the cost of the production and distribution of (i) the updated parents charter, 1994; (ii) the special educational needs information, 1994; (iii) the school governors' guides to the law, 1994; (iv) the private finance initiative, 1994; (v) the national school tests, 1993, 1994 and 1995, information leaflet; and (vi) the grant-maintained schools information, 1993 to 1995. [17107]
  818
  Mr. Forth
  The costs in the financial years 1993–94 and 1994–95 of production and distribution were as follows:

  £000

  Parents Charter (1994)

  3,073

  Special Educational Needs Information (1994)

  1,137

  School Governors' Guides to the Law (1994)

  300

  Private Finance Initiative

  119

  National School Test (1993, 1994 and 1995)

  1673

  1 Estimated.

  The estimated cost of the campaign on grant-maintained schools information in 1993–94 and 1994–95 is some £1.922 million. This includes the cost of press advertising, a video and a series of regional conferences.

  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is the budget for the "Schools Update", 1993 to 1995, publication.

  Mr. Forth
  "Schools Update" is the Department's termly newsletter for school teachers and governors. Over the last two years, costs of producing and distributing copies are as follows:

  Financial year

  £

  1993–94

  169,000

  1994–95

  1219,000

  1 Estimated.

  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many responses she has had to the information booklet on the private finance initiative, 1994. [17108]

  Mr. Forth
  The booklet "Education Means Business" was published as part of a wider strategy to promote the private finance initiative in education. Although it is difficult to separate the impact of the publication from other aspects of the initiative, about 2,000 inquiries have been received within the Department specifically referring to the booklet.

  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her answer of 17 March,Official Report, columns 732–34, what estimate she has made of the individual or combined cost of the campaigns and publications (a) DFE summer roadshow, (b) European choice booklet, (c) grant-maintained schools information and (d) the updated parents charter. [17297]

  Mr. Forth
  [holding answer 30 March 1995]: In the financial years 1993–94 and 1994–95, the combined cost of these campaigns and publications is estimated at £5.616 million.

  Devon Local Education Authority
  Mr. Allason
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the average figure for administration per school in Devon retained by the local education authority. [17282]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  For the financial year 1994–95, the Devon local education authority's planned expenditure on "management and administration" amounted to £10,163 per school. This figure relates to all county, voluntary and special schools maintained by the authority and is derived
  819
  from the budget statement published by the authority under section 42 of the Education Reform Act 1988.

  St. Philip's College
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education what was her response to the open letter to her from the staff of St. Philip's Roman Catholic sixth form college dated 22 March. [17160]

  Mr. Boswell
  My right hon. Friend is considering her response to the letter and will reply shortly.

  Free School Meals
  Ms Estelle Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will give the percentage of children in the secondary sector who are entitled to free school meals in(a) selective schools, (b) voluntary-aided schools and (c) grant-maintained schools, listed by local education authority; and what is the average in each local education authority for children in the secondary sector.

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Information—derived from schools' annual returns—about pupils known to be eligible for school meals is provided in the following table.

  Percentage of day pupils known to be eligible for free school meals in secondary schools in each local education authority in England

  January 1994

  Selective schools1 2 3

  Voluntary-aided schools2

  Grant-maintained schools3

  All secondary schools

  Corporation of London

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Camden

  —

  8.5

  3.2

  26.9

  Greenwich

  —

  4.8

  0.0

  36.4

  Hackney

  —

  19.1

  0.0

  59.2

  Hammersmith

  —

  13.2

  2.3

  36.3

  Islington

  —

  11.9

  —

  51.7

  Kensington and Chelsea

  —

  6.2

  2.8

  40.6

  Lambeth

  —

  —

  21.7

  51.4

  Lewisham

  —

  6.8

  —

  40.4

  Southwark

  —

  8.0

  11.7

  55.9

  Tower Hamlets

  —

  11.0

  1.8

  64.0

  Wandsworth

  —

  —

  23.8

  34.5

  Westminster

  —

  14.0

  —

  44.1

  Barking

  —

  2.1

  —

  18.5

  Barnet

  0.1

  0.7

  5.6

  14.7

  Bexley

  0.8

  —

  1.8

  10.9

  Brent

  —

  —

  17.9

  27.4

  Bromley

  0.1

  —

  5.9

  13.0

  Croydon

  —

  2.0

  3.4

  18.7

  Ealing

  —

  3.8

  13.2

  29.8

  Enfield

  0.1

  1.2

  4.9

  18.5

  Haringey

  —

  7.2

  —

  40.2

  Harrow

  —

  0.8

  0.7

  13.8

  Havering

  —

  0.5

  1.6

  10.4

  Hillingdon

  —

  0.2

  11.0

  13.0

  Hounslow

  —

  0.8

  1.8

  20.7

  Kingston upon Thames

  0.5

  —

  3.3

  9.4

  Merton

  —

  3.1

  —

  18.6

  Newham

  —

  3.5

  1.9

  39.4

  Redbridge

  0.3

  0.7

  1.3

  16.8

  820

  Percentage of day pupils known to be eligible for free school meals in secondary schools in each local education authority in England

  January 1994

  Selective schools1 2 3

  Voluntary-aided schools2

  Grant-maintained schools3

  All secondary schools

  Richmond upon Thames

  —

  3.5

  —

  16.3

  Sutton

  0.5

  —

  2.2

  8.7

  Waltham Forest

  —

  1.9

  2.2

  34.1

  Birmingham

  0.5

  2.7

  4.4

  31.6

  Coventry

  —

  4.1

  —

  23.8

  Dudley

  —

  2.0

  4.0

  16.7

  Sandwell

  —

  0.5

  1.3

  25.3

  Solihull

  —1

  2.8

  —

  12.0

  Walsall

  0.2

  2.3

  3.5

  25.1

  Wolverhampton

  0.1

  2.4

  3.7

  25.3

  Knowsley

  —

  16.0

  4.4

  51.8

  Liverpool

  —

  15.4

  2.1

  39.2

  St. Helens

  —

  3.0

  —

  17.4

  Sefton

  —

  6.0

  —

  20.7

  Wirral

  0.8

  4.8

  0.4

  25.8

  Bolton

  —

  1.9

  1.5

  16.4

  Bury

  —

  2.2

  —

  13.5

  Manchester

  —

  11.9

  —

  43.4

  Oldham

  —

  32.8

  —

  53.5

  Rochdale

  —

  4.9

  1.4

  28.9

  Salford

  —

  4.5

  0.6

  26.3

  Stockport

  —

  1.0

  —

  14.4

  Tameside

  —

  1.9

  2.0

  19.8

  Trafford

  2.3

  1.3

  5.9

  20.0

  Wigan

  —

  3.7

  —

  17.5

  Barnsley

  —

  —

  —

  22.8

  Doncaster

  —

  1.2

  —

  22.5

  Rotherham

  —

  0.7

  —

  18.5

  Sheffield

  —

  —

  1.2

  24.2

  Bradford

  —

  1.7

  2.4

  31.2

  Calderdale

  0.8

  0.9

  3.2

  18.1

  Kirklees

  0.1

  0.5

  0.3

  17.6

  Leeds

  —

  2.2

  0.2

  18.7

  Wakefield

  —

  0.7

  —

  17.3

  Gateshead

  —

  4.6

  —

  24.9

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  —

  3.7

  —

  27.4

  North Tyneside

  —

  1.0

  —

  18.2

  South Tyneside

  —

  3.9

  —

  25.8

  Sunderland

  —

  2.5

  —

  25.8

  Isles of Scilly

  —

  —

  —

  35.8

  Avon

  —

  0.6

  0.3

  15.5

  Bedfordshire

  —

  1.3

  2.5

  16.6

  Berkshire

  0.4

  0.4

  1.3

  8.5

  Buckinghamshire

  0.5

  0.3

  2.1

  8.6

  Cambridgeshire

  —1

  0.2

  4.8

  13.1

  Cheshire

  —

  1.9

  0.5

  12.0

  Cleveland

  —

  4.4

  —

  28.0

  Cornwall

  —

  —

  —

  15.9

  Cumbria

  —

  0.9

  2.2

  12.1

  Derbyshire

  —

  0.6

  2.8

  13.5

  Devon

  0.5

  0.5

  0.8

  12.9

  Dorset

  0.9

  0.5

  2.1

  10.2

  Durham

  —

  1.7

  —

  17.4

  East Sussex

  —

  1.6

  —

  18.1

  Essex

  0.2

  0.5

  7.0

  12.3

  Gloucestershire

  0.6

  0.4

  5.8

  11.0

  Hampshire

  —

  0.4

  1.7

  10.6

  Hereford and Worcester

  —

  0.3

  0.5

  9.6

  Hertfordshire

  —

  0.5

  2.1

  9.6

  821

  Percentage of day pupils known to be eligible for free school meals in secondary schools in each local education authority in England

  January 1994

  Selective schools1 2 3

  Voluntary-aided schools2

  Grant-maintained schools3

  All secondary schools

  Humberside

  —

  0.9

  —

  17.3

  Isle of Wight

  —

  1.2

  —

  21.0

  Kent

  1.1

  0.7

  5.5

  13.2

  Lancashire

  0.1

  2.2

  0.6

  19.7

  Leicestershire

  —

  0.5

  0.7

  12.5

  Lincolnshire

  1.1

  0.1

  4.3

  9.8

  Norfolk

  —

  0.3

  2.6

  10.7

  North Yorkshire

  0.2

  0.7

  —

  7.4

  Northamptonshire

  —

  1.2

  3.1

  12.5

  Northumberland

  —

  0.5

  0.2

  12.7

  Nottinghamshire

  —

  1.7

  0.7

  20.0

  Oxfordshire

  —

  0.7

  —

  9.8

  Shropshire

  0.0

  0.4

  2.1

  13.6

  Somerset

  0.0

  0.3

  0.0

  10.7

  Staffordshire

  —

  0.7

  0.9

  13.3

  Suffolk

  —

  0.4

  —

  11.7

  Surrey

  —

  0.6

  1.5

  7.2

  Warwickshire

  0.2

  0.6

  1.8

  8.7

  West Sussex

  —

  1.1

  —

  9.2

  Wiltshire

  0.1

  0.1

  2.5

  9.8

  England

  0.1

  1.9

  2.1

  17.7

  1 Schools which admit pupils wholly or mainly with reference to ability or aptitude.

  2 Some voluntary schools are selective.

  3 Some grant-maintained schools are selective.

  —There are no schools of this type in the LEA.

EMPLOYMENT

  Union Carbide Corporation
  Ms Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will now publish the safety report regarding the Union Carbide Corporation plant at Wilton, Teesside, submitted by ICI to the Health and Safety Executive in June 1989 and updated in June 1992.

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The Health and Safety Executive is currently discussing with the companies whether they would consent to the release of all or part of the report and I shall write to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Trade Unions
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what representations he has received in favour of the trade union activity as a stabilising and helpful force in the workplace; [15657]

  (2) what is his policy towards the retaining of union representatives experienced in understanding the employers' and employees' positions in a workplace; [15659]

  (3) what assessment he has made as to the benefits for employers and employees of the maintenance of union facilities at workplaces; [15658]

  (4) what action he takes to discourage employers from phasing out fair and legitimate union activity. [15660]
  822
  Mr. Oppenheim
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I meet trade union delegations periodically and listen to their views on their role. The Government believe that unions can make a useful contribution on issues close to the workplace, but to do so they must be accountable, well informed and able to speak with knowledge and authority. However, the Government also believe employers and employees should be free to conduct their own affairs with the minimum of interference. Individual workers must be free to decide whether to be members of trade unions and the law protects them from dismissal or acts of victimisation on grounds of trade union membership or activities. Employers must be free to decide whether or not to recognise trade unions for bargaining purposes.

  Where an employer chooses to recognise an independent trade union, employees who are members of that union become entitled to reasonable time off during working hours to take part in any trade union activity. Employees who are officials of that union become entitled to reasonable time off with pay to carry out certain trade union duties and undergo training relevant to those duties.

  Statutory References
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what statutory references to hon. Members have been made in legislation introduced by his Department, or its predecessors, since 1965. [17041]

  Miss Widdecombe
  An analysis of all legislation introduced by this Department and its predecessors since 1965 for any reference to the type requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. It would be extremely unlikely for reference to be made specifically to an individual hon. Member. Frequent references are made to officers of state and occasional general reference are made to persons who are Members of one or other of the Houses of Parliament.

  Agencies
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what proportion of(a) building workers, (b) lorry drivers and (c) secretaries have been (i) directly employed or (ii) employed by agencies in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [17491]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  The information requested for 1991 to 1994 is provided in the following table. Comparable information prior to this is not available.

  Employment status by occupation in Great Britain: Labour Force Survey at spring of each year

  Percentage

  Building occupations

  Drivers for road goods vehicles

  Secretarial occupations

  (i) Employed directly

  1991

  100

  99

  97

  1992

  100

  99

  99

  1993

  100

  100

  98

  1994

  100

  98

  98

  (ii) Employed via agencies1

  1991

  0

  1

  3

  1992

  0

  1

  1

  1993

  0

  0

  2

  1994

  0

  2

  2

  1 Information based on temporary employees only.

  South London Training and Enterprise Council
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many contracts were issued by SOLOTEC to provide training for people with special needs in the financial year 1994–95; and how many are expected to be issued in 1995–96. [17431]

  Mr. Paice
  SOLOTEC issued 10 contracts providing training for special needs in the financial year 1994–95. Subject to final contracting, it is anticipated that there will be eight special needs contracts issued for 1995–96 for the current four boroughs. Provision for the boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham is still under discussion.

  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if elected local authority representatives are eligible for the expanded board of SOLOTEC. [17432]

  Mr. Paice
  The eligibility conditions for training and enterprise council directors are laid down in the Department's contract with TECs. These require that at least two thirds are top executives from the private sector and that all TEC directors from the public sector must be at chief executive level or its equivalent. Any new directors recruited to SOLOTEC's board must meet these requirements. Status as an elected authority representative does not disqualify someone from being a TEC director so long as the eligibility conditions are met.

  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many training providers are currently under contract to SOLOTEC for the provision of(a) training for youth credits, (b) training for work courses and (c) investors in people on 1 March; how many are expected to be contracted as at 1 April; and what advice he has received about the size of the supplier base for SOLOTEC when it accepts responsibility for training provision in Lewisham and Greenwich post-24 April. [17433]

  Mr. Paice
  SOLOTEC had 20 training providers under contract for youth credits and 24 for training for work as at 1 March 1995. Subject to final contracting, it is anticipated that there will be 20 youth credits providers and 18 training for work contractors from 1 April. SOLOTEC does not contract with providers for investors in people as the training and enterprise council has an in-house team which works directly with employers. Provision for the boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham after 24 April 1995 is still under discussion.

  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many youth training guarantees were made in the financial year 1994–95 to young people in the area covered by SOLOTEC; and how many are expected to be made in 1995–96. [17430]

  Mr. Paice
  Some 2,335 youth training guarantees were made in 1994–95 to young people in the area covered by SOLOTEC. The figure for expected guarantee starts in 1995–96 in the current SOLOTEC area is 2,250.

  South Thames Training and Enterprise Council
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many training providers are under contract to the receiver for South Thames TEC for the provision of(a) training for youth credits, (b) training for work courses and (c) investors in people as at 1 March; how many are expected to be contracted as at 1 April; and how many of these contracts he expects to be renewed by SOLOTEC by 1 May. [17434]
  824
  Mr. Paice
  As at 1 March 1995, South Thames training and enterprise council had 41 training providers under contract for youth credits, 45 for training for work and 25 for investors in people. It is not possible to estimate how many of these providers will still be under contract to the TEC at 1 April 1995 or how many of these providers may be offered new contracts by SOLOTEC by 1 May 1995.

  It is for SOLOTEC to determine which providers it wishes to contract with to provide services in the boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham.

  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people were employed by the receiver for South Thames TEC on(a) 1 February, and (b) 1 March; and how many are expected to be employed on 1 April and 1 May. [17435]

  Mr. Paice
  I understand from the receiver that the number of people employed by him at South Thames training and enterprise council was 82 on 1 February and 70 on 1 March 1995. The figure is expected to be 46 on 1 April. I am unable to estimate what the figure will be on 1 May.

  Labour Statistics
  Ms Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he will provide a regional breakdown of the most recent labour force survey to identify separately the numbers of employed and self-employed people in part-time work who could not find full-time work, expressing the data by percentage, gender and age; [16103]

  (2) if he will provide a breakdown by region and gender from the latest labour force survey of (a) the number of employees in temporary jobs because they could not find permanent employment and (b) the total number of employees in temporary jobs. [16105]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 27 March 1995]: This information is available from the labour force survey and can be obtained via the Quantime LFS service available in the Library.

  United States Wages
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information is held by his Department about the minimum wage levels operating in Washington DC and the 50 states of the United States of America. [16927]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 29 March 1995]: The information is given is the following table. The federal minimum wage is currently $4.25 an hour and has been since 1 April 1991. Figures in the table set out the minimum hourly wage rates under state laws.

  USA: minimum and subminimum hourly wage rates under state laws (subminimum wage rates applicable only to learners or apprentices)

  State*

  Minimum wage rate ($)

  Subminimum wage rate ($)

  Alabama

  none

  none

  Alaska

  4.75

  175 per cent.

  Arizona

  none

  none

  Arkansas

  4.5

  none

  California

  4.25

  2, 385 per cent.

  Colorado

  33.00

  none

  Connecticut

  4.27

  485 per cent.

  Delaware

  4.25

  none

  825

  USA: minimum and subminimum hourly wage rates under state laws (subminimum wage rates applicable only to learners or apprentices)

  State*

  Minimum wage rate ($)

  Subminimum wage rate ($)

  District of Columbia*

  5.25

  144.25

  Florida

  none

  none

  Georgia

  3.25

  none

  Hawaii

  6.25

  15—

  Idaho

  4.25

  16—

  Illinois

  4.25

  570 per cent.

  Indiana

  3.35

  none

  Iowa

  4.65

  none

  Kansas

  2.65

  15—

  Kentucky

  4.25

  none

  Louisiana

  none

  none

  Maine

  4.25

  16—

  Maryland

  4.25

  none

  Massachusetts

  4.25

  6—

  Michigan

  3.35

  none

  Minnesota

  74.25

  6—

  Mississippi

  none

  none

  Missouri

  4.25

  185 per cent.

  Montana

  194.25

  none

  Nebraska

  4.25

  175 per cent.

  Nevada

  4.25

  none

  New Hampshire

  4.25

  175 per cent.

  New Jersey

  5.05

  15—

  New Mexico

  4.25

  none

  New York

  4.25

  15—

  North Carolina

  4.25

  190 per cent.

  North Dakota

  4.25

  9—

  Ohio

  204.25

  10—

  Oklahoma

  4.25

  none

  Oregon

  4.75

  none

  Pennsylvania

  4.25

  185 per cent.

  Puerto Rico*

  0.24–8.50

  17—

  Rhode Island

  4.45

  11—

  South Carolina

  none

  none

  South Dakota

  4.25

  none

  Tennessee

  none

  none

  Texas

  3.35

  none

  Utah

  4.25

  none

  Vermont

  4.25

  1285 per cent.

  Virginia

  4.25

  none

  Washington

  184.90

  1, 385 per cent.

  West Virginia

  4.25

  none

  Wisconsin

  4.25

  1375 per cent.

  Wyoming

  1.60

  none

  Notes:

  *District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are not states of the USA.

  1. Where a state is shown as having a lower rate than the federal minimum of $4.25 this would apply only to workers whose work involves no interstate commerce. In practice, such a condition will apply to only a small minority of workers. Most workers in these states will be covered by the federal rate.

  1 Percentage rate of the statutory minimum for learners and/or apprentices.

  2 Percentage rate for first 160 hours of employment.

  3 By state wage board order(s).

  4 Percentage rate, for first 200 hours of employment.

  5 Percentage rate, for up to six months.

  6 Scale of rates for specified occupations.

  7 $4 an hour for employers whose annual gross volume is less than $362,500.

  8 At minors rate, for first 300 hours of employment.

  9 Sub-minimum rate to certain students may be granted.

  10 85 per cent. for apprentices for period of up to 90 days.

  11 At rate determined by director of labour for up to 90 days.

  12 Percentage rate for retail, wholesale and service establishment by wage order, for up to 240 hours or 30 days for learners.

  13 Percentage rate, for student learners aged 14 to 18, under wage order.

  826

  14 For persons with less than 60 calendar days experience in laundry and dry-cleaning occupation.

  15 Sub-minimum rate may be prescribed by rules.

  16 Special licence or certificate may be issued authorising sub-minimum rate.

  17 Specific rates established by wage order for various categories of employees.

  18 $5.15 an hour for employees of certain contractors providing services to medical care recipients.

  19 $4 an hour, for employer whose annual gross volume is $110,000 or less.

  20 $2.80 an hour, for employer whose annual gross volume is less than $150,000.

  Source:

  The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.

  Health and Safety
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish the details of the industrialists and insurance companies consulted by Touche Ross and the Health and Safety Executive in preparing HSC report 92/129. [17332]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  [holding answer 30 March 1995]: No. The basis on which the consultation was carried out did not include publicising the details.

TRANSPORT

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what outline contingency plans or policy options his Department has drawn up to provide for the reduction, by a range of percentages, of carbon dioxide emissions beyond 2000 from the United Kingdom transport sector. [16956]

  Mr. Norris
  The United Kingdom climate change programme document—Cm 2427, published in January 1994—sets out the policy measures for meeting the United Kingdom commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases across the whole economy up to 2000. Chapter 10 looks at some of the policy options beyond 2000. UK policies and measures for beyond 2000 will need to be decided in the context of international agreement on future commitments. The first conference of parties to the framework convention on climate change is currently taking place in Berlin.

  Railways
  Mr. Nigel Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will announce British Rail's and Railtrack's external finance contributions for 1994–95; and if he will make a statement. [18277]

  Mr. Watts
  British Rail's external finance contribution for 1994–95 will be £310 million. Railtrack's EFC will be £316 million. The railway industry external finance limit for this year will be £1,560 million, made up as follows:
  827

  £millon

  OPRAF and MRG grants

  2,009

  British Rail EFL

  -310

  Railtrack EFL

  -316

  EPS EFL

  177

  Total EFL

  1,560

  In setting the overall industry EFL and those for the individual businesses, we have taken account of BR's needs for additional resources—£64 million—as a result of working capital movements which have an unfavourable impact on BR. A number of further factors have also been taken into account. These include the final apportionment, between BR and Railtrack, of the costs of the signalling dispute. The EFLs also reflect the latest forecast of the BR—Railtrack trading account; and they include upward adjustment of £87 million to grant paid by the franchising director. This adjustment to grant comprises claims submitted by BR and accepted by the franchising director to the value of £52 million, and a £35 million grant payment to BR carried over from 1993–94. There is also a £2 million downward adjustment to the total of metropolitan railway grants.

  Rail Passengers
  Sir Russell Johnston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was(a) the number of passengers travelling on sleepers from London to Fort William and Fort William to London and (b) the percentage of capacity for each month over the last three years for which figures are available. [17302]

  Mr. Watts
  The number of passengers travelling on the London-Fort William sleeper between 1991–92 and 1993–94 was:

  1991–92: 13,500

  1992–93: 14,600

  1993–94: 14,600

  The percentage of available capacity used during the 1993–94 winter season was 50 per cent. and during the summer season 60 per cent. Figures are not available for 1991–92 and 1992–93, or on a month-by-month basis.

  Great Western Railways
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will ensure that the tender document for the Great Western region includes a requirement to run services to and from Paddington to Castle Cary, Westbury and Pewsey, and a commitment that the Reading to Taunton rail link will remain in existence for the foreseeable future. [17529]

  Mr. Watts
  The franchising director's consultation document on Great Western includes a requirement to run services to and from Paddington to Castle Cary, Westbury and Pewsey. All services in both directions stopping at Castle Cary will also be required to stop at Taunton. The consultation period finishes on 31 March, and the franchising director will announce the Great Western passenger services requirement after consideration of the responses.

  Sleeper Trains
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he has taken to ensure that the West 828
  Highland sleeper trains to Fort William will be kept in service in accordance with section 37 of the Railways Act 1993 until the consultation procedures for line closure which Parliament has laid down for the protection of the travelling public under that section have been carried out. [17496]

  Mr. Watts
  Section 37 of the Railways Act 1993 applies where the person providing all railway passenger services on any line or from any station proposes to discontinue all such services on that line or from that station.

  I understand that the franchising director has not received from British Rail any notice of a proposal under that section relating to the discontinuance of any railway passenger services in Scotland.

  Air Safety (Leases)
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action he is taking to ensure that all aircraft granted approval for(a) wet and (b) dry leasing by United Kingdom operators are maintained to required International Civil Aviation Organisation standards. [16297]

  Mr. Norris
  The leasing of aircraft by EC airlines is governed by EC Council regulation (EC) No. 1407/92. Under article 10 of this regulation, an airline licensed by a member state has to obtain the approval of its own licensing authority in order to operate a foreign registered aircraft. For the purposes of this regulation, the Civil Aviation Authority is required to approve any application by United Kingdom operators to lease foreign aircraft.

  Before granting approval to UK airlines for both dry leases—the lease of an aircraft without crew—and wet leases—the lease of an aircraft with crew—the CAA is required to satisfy itself that the aircraft will be operated to acceptable safety standards equivalent to UK national standards.

  For short-term wet leases, it has been agreed that, provided the foreign aircraft is registered in a state that is a signatory to the Chicago convention, prior approval is not required. This is to meet the operational requirements of UK operators where, due to unforseen circumstances, they might be unable to use their own aircraft at short notice.

  Aircraft Movements
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on how many occasions in the last year for which figures are available an aeroplane touched down on United Kingdom land having originated its journey(a) in a foreign country and (b) in a country outside the European Union. [16671]

  Mr. Norris
  The Civil Aviation Authority has supplied the following in relation to full reporting airports for 1994:(a) 463,416 and (b) 141,766. These figures do not include business and private light aircraft and military movements, which are not available, or arrivals at smaller airports, for which the statistics do not separately identify flights originating outside the EU.

  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consideration he has given to the statement contained in the air accidents investigation branch bulletin No. 3/95 concerning the lack of a system in place to allow the joint aviation authorities to respond
  829
  as a body to safety recommendations raised by national investigating authorities; and what actions he is taking in response to this situation. [16901]

  Mr. Norris
  The Civil Aviation Authority will be raising this matter with the joint aviation authorities next month.

  Exhaust Emissions
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the number of roadside checks within the Greater London area on faulty exhaust emissions on motor cars and lorries in each of the last three months. [17233]

  Mr. Norris
  The number of vehicles checked at specific exhaust emissions roadside checks was as follows:

  December

  January

  February

  a: heavy goods vehicles

  46

  27

  22

  b: cars (including light goods vehicles)

  74

  1

  76

  In addition, a visual assessment is made of vehicle emissions at other general roadside enforcement checks. The details for the last three months are:

  December

  January

  February

  a: heavy goods vehicles

  194

  131

  169

  b: cars (including light goods vehicles)

  75

  28

  53

  Driving Licences
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to abolish the charge to motorists over 70 years of age required to renew their driving licences. [17649]

  Mr. Norris
  We have no plans to abolish the £6 fee for renewing driving licences from age 70.

ENVIRONMENT

  Pollution, Doncaster
  Mr. Kevin Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information his Department has available on air quality in south Yorkshire and Doncaster, with particular reference to quantities of black smoke, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. [16706]

  Mr. Atkins
  The Department of the Environment undertakes continuous automatic monitoring of the pollutants nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide at Sheffield. In addition, my Department, in co-operation with local authorities, operates a number of non-automatic national monitoring networks including those measuring the levels of black smoke and nitrogen dioxide. This includes monitoring of nitrogen dioxide in Doncaster, four sites, and Rotherham, four sites; and of black smoke at Doncaster, five sites; Barnsley, four sites; Sheffield, two sites; Grimethorpe, two sites; Brampton; Cudworth; Dinnington; Goldthorpe; Hoyland Nether; Maltby; Wath-upon-Dearne; Wombwell; and Worsbrough bridge.
  830
  A detailed summary of data covering the aforementioned pollutants at sites in south Yorkshire and Doncaster has been placed in the Library of the House.

  High Sheriffs
  Sir Gerard Vaughan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if high sheriffs will continue in counties proposed to be replaced by unitary authorities; what provision will be made in these counties for back-up staff for the lord lieutenant or the high sheriff; and if Berkshire will retain its title as a royal county. [16869]

  Mr. Curry
  In Berkshire, although the county council will be abolished, the county area will remain. Along with its lord lieutenant, it will retain its high sheriff and its title as a royal county. As regards other areas, we have yet to take decisions on Cleveland. High sheriffs will be appointed for the new counties of Bristol and the east riding of Yorkshire, and the remaining parts of Avon and Humberside will be associated variously with neighbouring counties for ceremonial purposes. We expect that local authorities will want to continue to provide support to their lord lieutenant and high sheriffs.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Raynsford
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the total level of(a) usable and (b) set-aside capital receipts for each local authority in England; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of set-aside receipts which remain available. [17042]

  Mr. Curry
  A list of the amounts of the total usable capital receipts held by each authority in England was placed in the Library of the House in response to the question of Thursday 9 February 1995 from the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson),Official Report, column 343.

  A list has also been placed in the Library of the amounts set aside by each authority as provision for credit liabilities and not yet applied. These include amounts set aside both from capital receipts and revenue. Separate figures are not available.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimates he makes of the amount by which carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 will exceed those in 1990, in the case of(a) the USA, (b) Canada and (c) Australia. [16951]

  Mr. Atkins
  My right hon. Friend has made no separate estimate of the carbon emissions of other countries in 2000. Estimates by each country are included in their national programmes submitted under the UN framework convention on climate change.

  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the Government will be supporting the alliance of small island states' proposed target for the carbon dioxide emissions of industrial countries, of a reduction of 20 per cent. of the 1990 level in 2005. [16953]

  Mr. Atkins
  No. My right hon. Friend has called for developed countries to commit themselves to a challenging but achievable objective of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions to between 5 and 10 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010 within the framework of the convention.
  831
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimates his Department has arrived at, assuming current trends for global carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions continue, of the likely date of the disappearance of the islands of(a) Trinidad and (b) Tobago. [16954]

  Mr. Atkins
  We have made no such estimates.

  Climate Change Convention
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether United Kingdom Government representatives at the first conference of the parties for the climate change convention will support the proposal for an interim report on the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change work on the cost-benefit analysis of global warming to be presented to and discussed at the meeting. [16957]

  Mr. Atkins
  There is no such proposal on the agenda for the first conference of the parties. The IPCC's second assessment report is not expected to be published until early 1996.

  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make arrangements to discuss with the high commissioner for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago the United Kingdom Government's stance at the first conference of the parties for the climate change convention. [16955]

  Mr. Atkins
  My right hon. Friend expects to hold discussions with the representatives of many countries during the conference.

  Allerton Outreach Team
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what future funding has been agreed to support the Allerton outreach team; and if he will make a statement. [17255]

  Mr. Curry
  The Allerton estate is the subject of a comprehensive programme of housing and environmental improvements costing £31.9 million. It is being supported by £20.75 million estate action commitment under the single regeneration budget. We approved the first phase of work in December 1994. The Employment Service undertook to fund jointly with Bradford council, and for a limited three-month period until March 1995, the cost of outreach work to help unemployed adults access the training and employment opportunities created by the estate action programme. Discussions have been taking place with the council to explore how the scheme might be extended into 1995–96. Bradford training and enterprise council has offered to contribute £10,000 towards the cost of an outreach worker in 1995–96, and to arrange for up to £10,000-worth of guidance vouchers to be ring-fenced for use by Allerton's residents. It is hoped that the local authority will also make a contribution. These discussions are continuing.

  Cash Limits
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what changes he proposes to his Department's cash limit for 1994–95. [18062]

  Mr. Gummer
  I propose to make the following changes:832

  a. The DOE/OES—other environmental services—non-voted cash limit will be increased by £15,828,000 from £30,390,000 to £46,218,000. This increase reflects the take-up of end year flexibility (£2,384,000), as announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 14 July 1994, Official Report, columns 729–34; a transfer of £580,000 from the vote 5—central environmental services etc.—cash limit from savings there; and a technical transfer of £12,864,000 from the DOE/NT—new towns—cash limit.

  b. The DOE/HC—Housing Corporation—non-voted cash limit, covering capital expenditure financed by the Housing Corporation in England, will be increased by £2,250,000 from £1,484,540,000 to £1,486,790,000. This increase reflects transfers from vote 5 and vote 8—revenue support grant, payment of non-domestic rates, Valuation Office services etc., England—and will be used to fund additional expenditure under the corporation's approved development programme.

  c. The DOE/LACAP—local authority capital—non-voted cash limit will be increased by £44,000 from £2,221,200,000 to £2,221,244,000. The increase will be matched by a corresponding reduction in the DOE/NT cash limit. This results from the provision of additional supplementary credit approval resources to Wrekin district council to purchase residual rented housing stock from the Commission for the New Towns.

  d. The DOE/RI—regeneration initiatives— non-voted cash limit will be increased by £321,000 from £1,298,357,000 to £1,298,678,000. The increase will allow the issue of an all capital purpose supplementary credit approval in respect of the East Manchester regeneration programme grant expenditure. The increase reflects the transfer of £321,000 from the cash limit for class VII, vote 5, which will be reduced accordingly.

  e. The DOE/NT—new towns—non-voted cash limit will be reduced by £11,280,000 from—£123,346,000 to —£134,626,000. This net reduction is the result of an increase of £1,628,000, reflecting the take-up of end year flexibility as announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 14 July 1994, Official Report, columns 729–34; and the reductions of £44,000, being transferred to DOE/LACAP, and £12,864,000, being transferred to DOE/OES, resulting from additional receipts from local authorities.

  f. The DOE/LGR—local government reorganisationnon—non-voted cash limit will be reduced by £4,435,000 from £44,660,000 to £40,225,000. The savings are due to lower than expected take-up of SCAs for the transitional costs of local government reorganisation and the delayed start-up of the Local Government residuary body, but partially offset by an increase in the granting of other SCAs.

  g. The cash limit for class VII, vote 5—central environmental services, etc.—will be reduced by £2,601,000 from £437,145,000 to £434,544,000. This reduction, possible because of forecast savings will allow increases of £1,700,000 to the DOE/HC cash limit; £580,000 to the DOE/OES cash limit; and £321,000 to the regeneration initiatives cash limit to be made.

  h. The cash limit for class VII, vote 8—revenue support grant, payments of non-domestic rates, Valuation Office services, etc. England—will be reduced by £550,000 from £29,633,432,000 to £29,632,882,000. This reduction is due to a £300,000 saving on valuation tribunals and a £250,000 saving on the Local Government Commission and will allow increases of £550,000 to the DOE/HC cash limit.

  The increases will be offset by transfers or charged to the reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

  EU Habitats Directive
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will commence consultations on special areas of conservation to be designated under the EU habitats directive; and if he will make a statement.
  833
  Mr. Gummer
  I am pleased to announce today that the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland and I are launching a wide-ranging public consultation on a list of areas which have been proposed as qualifying for designation as special areas of conservation under the EU habitats directive. The proposals constitute the advice of English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Countryside Council for Wales and the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, co-ordinated through the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to ensure UK-wide consistency.

  The habitats directive requires member states to submit national lists to the European Commission by 5 June 1995. The SACs will build on our existing framework of designations. I am looking at a simplification of that framework in preparing the rural White Paper. In Scotland, the Government have asked Scottish Natural Heritage to carry out a review of designations and look forward to receiving its advice.

  The Government are committed to full and effective public consultation before deciding which areas to include in the United Kingdom national list. The consultation will be at both national and local level. My colleagues are writing today to national organisations inviting comments on the proposals. At the same time, site-by-site consultations of landowners and occupiers and other interests, including local authorities, are being undertaken at local level by the appropriate country nature conservation agency and DOE(NI). The views expressed in the consultation will be considered fully before any decisions are made about the list of sites to be put to the Commission.

  The habitats directive, adopted in 1992, was one of the most important milestones for nature conservation in Europe. The Government played an active part in its negotiation and we have pursued implementation in accordance with its requirements. This latest step is the next phase of implementation which identifies those sites considered by the nature conservation agencies and DOE(NI) to represent an appropriate contribution from the UK to the Union-wide Natura 2000 network.

  The consultation package, which I am making available in the Library of the House, includes a document which explains the way the scientific advice has been formulated. The directive requires that sites selected as SACs should be significant in terms of the biogeographical region. The habitat types and species listed for site protection are among the rarest or most threatened in Europe. The aim of the SAC network is to maintain or restore these habitat types and species at a favourable conservation status. The sites eventually selected will be those which make a significant contribution to that aim, to the coherence of the network or to the maintenance of biological diversity. The Natura 2000 network will therefore consist of sites which are the most precious in the European Union and these proposals should be considered in that context.

  The sites on the list cover both land and marine areas. All land-based sites in Great Britain which are included in the consultation are already notified as sites of special scientific interest and in Northern Ireland all land-based sites are, or shortly will be, declared areas of special scientific interest. The nature conservation agencies advise that there are some habitat types and species for which SACs will, in due course, be recommended which are not yet SSSI. Further SSSI notifications are planned
  834
  to cover, in particular, certain rivers and riverine species, active raised bogs and blanket bogs and some inter-tidal areas. This notification work will be undertaken before consultation on possible SAC designation for them takes place. The consultation list is also incomplete for certain species. Further scientific information is being sought on the freshwater pearl mussel, the great crested newt and the otter before a full range of possible sites is proposed and consulted on for these species. The Government also await further scientific advice on an additional estuarial site.

  I look forward to receiving comments on the proposals. There is already a constructive dialogue between landholders on the one hand and the country agencies and DOE(NI) on the other. There is similar discussion between these statutory bodies and users of the marine environment. This present consultation continues and reinforces the dialogue which is fundamental to the co-operation and consensus we must have to secure effective and lasting conservation.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Judges
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans he has to introduce compulsory retirement for judges(a)at age 65 and (b) at age 70 years. [16256]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993, which is coming into force today, establishes a compulsory retirement age of 70 for those first appointed to full-time judicial office on or after that date, subject to provision for the service of office-holders below the level of the High Court to be extended, up to an age limit of 75, for periods not exceeding one year at a time, where the Lord Chancellor considers it in the public interest to do so. He expects to exercise this power sparingly. There are no plans to reduce the compulsory retirement age for judges to 65.

  Appeals Delays
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what discussions he has had and what representations he has received in respect of delays in dealing with(a) social security benefit appeals, (b) immigration case appeals and (c) other appeals; and if he will make a statement. [16500]

  Mr. John. M. Taylor
  Information is not collated in the form requested, and the question can therefore be answered only at disproportionate cost. I can confirm, however, that I received 320 letters from hon. Members during the course of 1994 relating to tribunals. The great majority of these related to immigration appeals, and many of them expressed concern about delays.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what efforts his Department has made to reduce delays in dealing with(a) social security benefit appeals, (b) immigration case appeals and (c) other appeals; and if he will make a statement. [16499]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The information is as follows:

  (a) Additional staff have been appointed to the Office of the Social Security and Child Support

  835
  Commissioners to deal with the increased work load. Further, the chief commissioner has introduced streamlined procedures for certain categories of appeal and a computerised case tracking system is being developed to improve administrative efficiency.

  (b) In response to increased waiting times at certain centres of the immigration appellate authorities measures have been introduced to ensure that available court rooms are used as effectively as possible. Furthermore appellants at the London and Feltham centres are offered hearings at one of the regional centres, where waiting times are shorter.

  (c) Additional staff have been recruited for the pensions appeal tribunals to give administrative support. Extra judicial members have also been appointed and additional tribunal sittings have been arranged to help reduce waiting times for a hearing.

  Magistrates
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, pursuant to his answer of 24 February,Official Report, column 346, if he will take steps to bring the political balance among magistrates in Doncaster into line with the national political opinion. [16248]

  Mr. John. M. Taylor
  It is the wish of the Lord Chancellor that each lay bench should broadly reflect the community it serves. To that end, the Lord Chancellor has already asked his advisory committee for Doncaster to take appropriate steps to improve the political balance of the bench and that is being done. The Lord Chancellor would be grateful for any encouragement to this aim that the hon. Member can give locally.

  Press Officers
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many press officers there are in his Department currently, and what the figure was in 1979. [16576]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  There are currently six press officers in my Department. There were no press officers employed by the Lord Chancellor's Department in 1979.

  Legal Aid
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will give in each of the last five years the number of cases where the defence legal aid costs have exceeded £1 million. [16245]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The numbers of cases where the defence legal aid costs have exceeded £1 million, including VAT, in each of the last five years, in criminal proceedings, were as follows:

  1989–90: 1

  1990–91: —

  1991–92: 1

  1992–93: 3

  1993–94: 14

  Mrs. Danielle Souness
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what is the cost 836
  to the legal aid funding of Mrs. Danielle Souness's case against Mr. Souness. [16417]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  No moneys have been paid from the legal aid fund.

  Tribunal Staff
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assessment he has made of the impact of staffing shortages on the time taken to deal with(a) before and (b) after the appeal itself has been held; and if he will make a statement. [16501]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  There are presently five vacant posts from a total complement of 220 administrative staff for all the tribunals run by my Department. These vacancies have not had a significant impact on the time taken to deal with cases either before or after an appeal hearing.

SCOTLAND

  Secondary Education
  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the future relationship between the Scottish Examination Board and the Scottish Vocational Education Council in the light of the proposals he announced for the reform of upper secondary education in Scotland last year. [17948]

  Mr. Lang
  I am pleased to announce that I am publishing a consultation paper entitled "Options for the Future Relationship between the Scottish Examination Board and the Scottish Vocational Education Council" today. The paper looks at possibilities for the future relationship between the two bodies and seeks respondents' views on the way forward. Copies of the document have been deposited in the Libraries of the House.

  Registers of Scotland
  Mr. Gallie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the targets he expects the Registers of Scotland executive agency to achieve in 1995–96. [18275]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I have set the Registers of Scotland the following key targets for 1995–96:

  to reduce the turnround time over the year for recording writs on the sasine register from 35 working days to 33 working days, with performance in any quarter not exceeding 36.5 working days;

  to reduce the turnround time over the year for dealings on the land register not attached to a first registration or a transfer of part from 57.5 working days to 55 working days, with performance in any quarter not exceeding 60.5 working days;

  to reduce unit costs in real terms by 4 per cent. against 1994–95 target for sasines and 7 per cent. against 1994–95 target for dealings;

  to continue the land register extension programme and achieve the transfer of Aberdeen and Kincardine on 1 April 1996;

  to achieve trading fund status by 1 April 1996;

  to recover full operating costs; and

  to achieve at least 97 per cent. of customers expressing themselves satisfied with the accuracy of work and helpfulness of staff for all parts of the business.

  Caledonian MacBrayne
  Mr. Gallie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he intends to set targets for Caledonian MacBrayne for 1995–96. [18276]

  Mr. Lang
  I have decided to set the following targets for Caledonian MacBrayne for the year 1995–96. The company will be required to achieve as a financial target that fares income should meet at least 58 per cent. of operating costs, including depreciation charged on a replacement cost basis and provision for an 8 per cent. forgone rate of return on capital. As an efficiency target, the company will be asked not to exceed a maximum unit cost of 84p per passenger car unit capacity kilometre. As a quality of service target, the company will be asked to achieve a figure of 97 per cent. of sailings arriving on time, excluding sailings which are delayed or cancelled for safety reasons, for example, adverse weather conditions. I consider that the setting of these targets will provide a clear framework for the operation of the company in 1995–96, which is consistent with the Government's objectives of securing continued improvement in operational efficiency and standards of service.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Income Support
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to issue consistent advice through the Benefits Agency offices on how to treat men and women who receive training grants from the European social fund. [16841]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The administration of income support is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Michael Bichard to Mr. Barry Sheerman, dated 30 March 1995:
  The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking about the advice issued to Benefit Agency offices when people are receiving training grants from the European Social Fund (ESF).
  To ensure national consistency in the adjudication of benefit claims the Chief Adjudication Officer issues an interpretation of legislation in the form of the Adjudication Officer's Guide (AOG). The AOG is available in all Benefits Agency (BA) offices. AOG paragraphs 25468 to 25471 gives guidance on the meaning of training allowance.
  BA Central Services issues operational guidance for all benefits to BA offices in the form of various manuals. An Income Support Handbook entitled "Directory of Training and Education Programmes", paragraphs 450–499, specifically covers the treatment of income from the ESF.
  Staff in BA Central Services and Central Adjudication Services (CAS) are also available to discuss any queries staff in offices may have with any guidance that is issued.
  Copies of the AOG and the Income Support handbook are available in the Library.
  The Chief Adjudication Officer's view, reflected in the national guidance, is that payments from the ESF do not constitute a training allowance for the purposes of benefit entitlement because they are not paid out of public funds. Income from this is therefore taken fully into account in determining entitlement to Income Support (IS).
  This is based on caselaw which says that where a regulation says public funds that means the public funds of Great Britain unless the
  838
  draftsman explicitly states otherwise. He has not in the case of ESF payments. Therefore ESF payments do not receive the same special treatment that is given to other training allowances paid by or on behalf of Government Departments.
  The Chief Adjudication Officer's view of these payments is however currently being tested in a case awaiting a hearing before the Social Security Commissioner.

  I hope you find this reply helpful.

  Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance
  Ms Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security in what circumstances employed status participants in training for work, or in independent programmes supported by the European social fund, can claim in-work benefits including family credit and disability working allowance; and if he will make a statement. [15155]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  In general, any employee, including a participant in a training scheme supported by the European social fund, can claim family credit or disability working allowance, provided that he satisfies the other conditions of entitlement. However, because the Training for Work (Miscellaneous Provisions) Order 1993 and the Training for Work (Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise Programmes) Order 1993 specify that participants in those schemes shall not be treated as being employed, employed status trainees under those schemes are currently unable to qualify for family credit or disability working allowance although they may qualify for income support. My hon. Friends the Under-Secretary of State for Employment and the Minster with responsibility for industry and local government at the Scottish Office propose to lay new orders shortly in order to enable such trainees to qualify for family credit and disability working allowance on the same basis as other employees.

  Participants in any training scheme can claim housing benefit and council tax benefit and will continue to be able to do so.

  Residential Care and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many of those in residential care and nursing homes on 31 March 1993 were in receipt of(a) income support; (b) attendance allowance and (c) disability living allowance. [16263]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  Information is not available for the date requested that includes attendance allowance or disability living allowance. In May 1993 the following number of residents were in receipt of:

  (a) Income Support: 284,000

  (b) Income Support and Attendance Allowance: 113,000

  (c) Income Support and Disability Living Allowance: 31,000.

  The number of residents in residential care and nursing homes in receipt of income support on the 27 March 1993 was 281,000.

  Note:

  The figures for income support for May 1993 are for preserved rights cases only.

  Source:

  "Income Support Statistics Annual Enquiry, May 1993".

  Residential Care and Nursing Home 100 per cent. scan March 1993.

  Mesothelioma
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement about the
  839
  findings of the Health and Safety Executive-Peto report, "Continuing Increase in Mesothelioma Mortality in Britain", and its consequence for his Department's policy. [17073]

  Mr. Hague
  Diffuse mesothelioma is already included in the list of prescribed diseases for which industrial injuries disablement benefit is payable. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is advised on the list by the independent Industrial Injuries Advisory Council which is aware of the Peto report. The council monitors developments in the field of occupational disease, and intends to review asbestos-related diseases as part of its work programme for the current year.

  Habitual Residence Test
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his oral statement of 21 March,Official Report, column 259 what is the global figure for the number of people who have won their appeals against refusal of benefit under the habitual residence test. [17437]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  In the debate on 21 March I referred to certain global figures which had been supplied to the hon. Member. Unfortunately these figures relate to the application of the habitual residence test at the point of claim, not the appeal stage.

  The position on appeals is as I have previously explained. The reasons for an appeal are not routinely identified and figures for past appeals could not be obtained without disproportionate cost. Department officials are looking at whether this type of information could be extracted without disproportionate cost for future appeals.

  Incapacity Benefit
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what are his latest estimates of the numbers of people who will receive(a) short-term incapacity benefit at the lower rate, (b) short-term incapacity benefit at the higher rate and (c) the long-term rate of incapacity benefit, in each of the years (i) 1995–96, (ii) 1996–97, (iii) 1997–98 and 1998–99. [17440]

  Mr. Hague
  The available information is in the table.

  Estimated number of people in receipt of Incapacity Benefit at the end of March in each year

  Thousand

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Short-term Incapacity Benefit (lower rate)

  145

  145

  145

  145

  Short-term Incapacity Benefit (higher rate)

  110

  110

  110

  115

  Long-term Incapacity Benefit

  1,545

  1,430

  1,380

  1,340

  Notes:

  1. Estimates are provisional and as such will be subject to revision at a later stage.

  2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5,000.

  3. Figures take account of the estimated effect of the new medical test.

  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 23 January,Official
  840
  Report, column 83, if he will explain how the 48 per cent. of savings resulting from the exclusion of existing claimants of incapacity benefit is to be achieved; and whether this 48 per cent. includes the 41 per cent. of savings arising from the exclusion of existing claimants by the medical test. [17436]

  Mr. Hague
  The answer was incorrectly printed in the Official Report. It should have read:
  "In 1995–96, 13 per cent. of the estimated savings are accounted for by the exclusion of new claimants as a result of the medical test of incapacity and 41 per cent. by the exclusion of existing claimants. In 1996–97, 17 per cent. of the estimated savings are accounted for by the exclusion of new claimants as a result of the medical test and 48 per cent. by the exclusion of existing claimants."

  All the estimated savings to which the answer refers are to be achieved by the application of the medical test of incapacity.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Public Relations
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what guidelines his Department has issued to its agencies and other public bodies under its authority in respect of the employment of public relations companies and the procedures to be adopted in relation to requesting tenders for public relations companies. [16216]

  Sir John Wheeler
  No specific guidelines in respect of the employment of public relations companies have been issued. General guidance on the use of consultants, which covers public relations companies, was issued in 1989. A copy has been placed in the library.

  The Northern Ireland Office, NI Departments and their agencies and public bodies can, and do, avail themselves of advice on purchasing issues, including tendering procedures, from the Government purchasing service, which is a specialist purchasing unit within the Department of Finance and Personnel.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much his Department spent on public relations during the financial year 1993–94; how much contracts with the private sector cost; and if he will list the activities covered by these contracts. [16283]

  Sir John Wheeler
  Public relations and other forms of publicity within Northern Ireland Departments and the Northern Ireland Office fall primarily to departmental information officers and the information services. In addition, departmental staff carry out an extensive range of public relations activities. To disaggregate the total cost of these activities from their other duties would involve disproportionate cost.

  The total cost of public relations contracts with the private sector in 1993–94 was £996,118. These involved the following projects:

  Preparation of Department of Education's corporate image, including logo.

  Department of Education (NI) stand at the ideal home exhibition.

  Advertising and publishing of parents charter for Department of Education (NI).

  Updating Department of Education's database (Touch screen exhibition equipment).

  Promotional video for the Department of Education (NI).

  841

  Public relations contracts in the Industrial Development Board's (IDB) target markets of North America, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

  Consultant employed by the Department of Economic Development (DED), in the fair employment field.

  Privatisation of Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE).

  New corporate identity for Making Belfast Work (MBW).

  Best of Northern Ireland exhibition at Westminster.

  Stormont castle publicity booklets and promotional material.

  Launch of Valuation and Lands Agency.

  Government purchasing service (NI) stand at HMT public procurement exhibition at Olympia.

  Public Records Office publications.

  Miss Shirley Robbins
  Dr. Hendron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which Government Department is responsible for paying the extra costs of electricity arising from the use, for medical reasons, of a new ventilator machine for Miss Shirley Robbins of Morpeth street, who suffered from polio as a child. [16715]

  Mr. Moss
  As this matter involves personal information relating to Miss Robbins, I will write to the hon. Member.

  Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when his Department will undertake a review of the application of all provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to all alleged offenders in the north of Ireland; and if he will make a statement. [16784]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 applies only to England and Wales. Virtually identical legislation was introduced in Northern Ireland in the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. A number of amendments are currently being considered to the order and my right hon. and learned Friend will make an announcement shortly.

  Police Authority
  Mr. Maginnis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the salary paid to the chairman of the Northern Ireland Police Authority; and to what other allowances he is normally entitled. [17046]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The chairman of the Police Authority for Northern Ireland presently receives a remuneration of £31,865 per annum. Travel and subsistence allowances in line with civil service rates are payable for official business.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Press Officers
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Attorney-General how many press officers there are in his Department currently; and what the figure was in 1979.

  The Attorney-General
  There are currently eight press officers employed in the departments for which I am responsible. There were no such officers in 1979, on which date the Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office, which currently employ six press officers and two press officers respectively, were not in existence.

PRIME MINISTER

  Advertising
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list each non-departmental public body and agency for which he has responsibility and, for each, list separate figures for spending by that body or agency on(a) television advertising,(b) radio advertising, (c) newspaper advertising, (d) other promotional materials and activities, (e) the totals in each year of (a) to (d), and (f) the proportion of (e) that was spent on recruitment advertising, for each year since 1979–80 or for each year since 1979–80 or for each of its existence if it has been created since then; and what are his latest estimates of (a) to (f) for the years 1994–95 and 1995–96. [17632]

  The Prime Minister
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Rupert Pennant-Rea
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Prime Minister whether he approved the terms of the letter sent by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Mr. Rupert Pennant-Rea in answer to his resignation letter; and what is the Government's policy on standards of behaviour of senior public officials. [17120]

  The Prime Minister
  My approval was neither sought nor required to the letter my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer sent to Mr. Rupert Pennant-Rea. I have now read it and agree with it. The Government's policy is to uphold the highest standard in public life.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Arms Sales
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Turkish Government to ensure that no arms given to Turkey by NATO are being used in the attacks now taking place against Kurdish safe havens in northern Iraq. [17234]

  Mr. David Davis
  None in this context. Proposed United Kingdom arms sales to Turkey, as to other countries, are considered on a case-by-case basis and are subject to stringent licensing procedures. In particular, we do not grant licences for the sale of equipment which we believe is likely to be used for internal repression.

  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what equipment Her Majesty's Government consider is covered by its ban on arms sales to China.

  Mr. Goodlad
  Since 7 June 1989 the United Kingdom has enforced an embargo on the sale to China of"weapons, and equipment which could be used for internal repression".

  The EU introduced a ban on arms sales to China on 26 June 1989 but the scope of that ban has, in the absence of agreement on a common interpretations, been left for national interpretation. In the interests of clarity we have decided that henceforward the embargo will include:

  843

  lethal weapons such as machine guns, large calibre weapons, bombs, torpedoes, rockets and missiles;

  specially designed components of the above, and ammunition;

  military aircraft and helicopters, vessels of war, armoured fighting vehicles and other such weapons platforms;

  any equipment which is likely to be used for internal repression.

  All applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis in the light of these criteria as well as our usual criteria governing all defence exports.

  EU Council Meetings
  Mr. Dover
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on forthcoming business in the Council of the European Union.

  Mr. David Davis
  The information meetings are planned:

  3–4 April: Culture/Media

  6 April: Fisheries

  7 April: Industry

  10–11 April: Foreign Affairs

  The following subjects are likely to be discussed:

  3 April: Culture Council

  14.30:

  —Adoption of the provisional agenda

  —Adoption of the list of "A" points

  — Audiovisual policy:

  — Proposal for a MEDIA II programme: orientation debate

  —Co-ordination of legislative, regulatory and administrative measures in the member states concerning television broadcasting: presentation from the Commission of its proposal to modify the Council directive of 3 October 1989

  —Financial mechanisms intended to permit the mobilisation of finance for audiovisual production: oral communication from the Commission

  17.00:
  —Joint meeting of the Council and the countries of central and eastern Europe concerning co-operation in the fields of both culture and audiovisual policy.

  4 April: Culture Council

  —European heritage and multimedia: draft resolution

  —Co-operation with the countries of central and eastern Europe: draft resolution

  —Proposal for a decision establishing a support programme for artistic and cultural activities (KALEIDOSCOPE 2000): orientation debate

  —Proposal for a decision establishing a community support programme for the dissemination of literary, theatrical and reference works through translation and specialist training of literary translators (ARIANE): orientation debate

  —Community support programme in the field of cultural heritage (RAPHAEL): information from the Commission

  6 April: Fisheries Council

  —Total allowable catches for the Greenland halibut

  —Objectives and strategies for the period 1994 to 1997

  —Additional conditions for year to year management of total allowable catches and quotas

  —Technical conservation measures

  —(possible) Guide prices

  —(possible) Common marketing standards for shrimps, edible crabs and Norway lobsters

  —(possible) Tariff quotas for certain fishery products

  —(possible) Structural assistance—scale of premiums

  —(possible) Structural assistance—early retirement

  —Fisheries relations with Morocco.

  844
  7 April: Industry Council

  —Industry and competition—an oral presentation by the Commission on its interim report on competition policy in 1994

  —Industry and research—a joint presentation by Commissioners Bangemann and Cresson

  —Industrial co-operation with central and eastern Europe discussion on Commission communication and adoption of Council conclusions

  —Industrial competitiveness—adoption of Council conclusions on Commission communication on follow-up to previous Council conclusions on competitiveness

  —High technology industries—adoption of Council conclusions

  —Information society—Commission report on G7 conference and follow-up to Bangemann report

  —Steel—report on monitoring of state aid

  —Possible presentation of modification to aid code

  10–11 April: Foreign Affairs Council

  —Adoption of the agenda

  —Approval of the list of "A" items

  —Resolutions adopted by the European Parliament at its part-sessions (Brussels, 28 February to 2 March, and Strasbourg, 13 to 17 March 1995)

  —Preparation for the joint meeting with the associated CEEs

  —Determination of the common position to be adopted for the first meeting of the Association Council with the Czech Republic

  —Determination of the common position to be adopted for the first meeting of the Association Council with Romania

  —(possible) Negotiating directives for the adaptation of the Europe agreements and free trade agreements with the Baltic countries, further to enlargement

  —Relations with Russia

  —Former Yugoslavia

  —Relations with Croatia

  —(possible) Stability pact: Follow-up to the concluding conference

  —Nuclear non-proliferation: Preparation for the conference on the NPT

  —Burundi

  —(possible) EU supervision of elections in the Palestinian territories

  —(possible) Union action concerning anti-personnel mines

  —Mediterranean policy

  a) Bilateral negotiations with Israel, Morocco and Tunisia

  b) Preparation for the Euro-Mediterranean conference: Adoption of the summary report

  —Relations with Malta

  a) Action to be taken on the Commission report

  b) Decision on signing the fourth financial protocol.

  —Relations with Cyprus

  —decision on signing the fourth financial protocol

  —Relations with Latin America

  a) (possible) Chile: Presentation by the Commission of its assessment report

  b) Mexico: Strengthening of relations between the European Union and Mexico

  —(possible) Japan

  —Commission communication

  —Trade questions

  —establishment of the WTO and multilateral trade negotiations

  —Mid-term review of the Fourth ACP-EC convention

  —8th EDF

  —(possible) South Africa

  —negotiating directives

  —Council report on the functioning of the treaty on European Union

  —Transparency of Council proceedings

  Obscene Publications
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) if he will publish the text of his letter to the hon. Member for Congleton of 13 March in connection with the agreement for the suppression of the circulation of obscene publications; [16525]

  (2) pursuant to his letter to the hon. Member for Congleton of 28 February, what inquiries have now been made of the United Nations by his Department in connection with the status and operative provisions of the agreement for the suppression of the circulation of obscene publications; what proposals there are to comply with those provisions of the agreement which require the five-yearly consideration of the desirability of calling a conference on the matters covered by the agreement; and if he will make a statement. [16523]

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 27 March 1995]: The United Nations treaty department has confirmed that an agreement for the suppression of the circulation of obscene publications was signed in 1910 and amended by a protocol in 1949, and a convention for the suppression of the circulation and traffic in obscene publications was concluded in 1923 and amended by a protocol in 1947. Article 16 of the 1923 convention, not the 1910 agreement, contains the provision for calling a conference at the end of each period of five years. As amended in 1947 it states:
  "Upon a request for a revision of the present Convention by five of the signatory or acceding Parties to the Convention, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations shall call a conference for that purpose. In any event, the Council will consider the desirability of calling a conference at the end of each period of five years".

  There is no record of five members asking for a conference. The secretariat of ECOSOC has confirmed to us that it has come under no pressure from signatories to review the 1923 convention, nor has it opted to call a conference as provided for under article 16.

  The convention is still active: the Czech and Slovak Republics succeeded to it—independently—on 28 August 1993. If there were a proposal by five member states signatory to the convention, the Economic and Social Council would call a conference. We are not aware of any current proposals to do so.

  Copies of the texts of the 1910 agreement and the 1923 convention will be lodged in the Library of the House in due course.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Fishing Quotas
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the prosecutions pursued by his Department against fishermen for breaching non-sector quotas and what fines or other penalties were imposed in each successful case in each year since 1988 in England and Wales. [15590]

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 23 March 1995]: The number of prosecution cases involving breaches of non-sector quota limits is summarised in the table. Some of the vessels prosecuted may have belonged to producer
  846
  organisations but fished against non-sector quota limits for certain stocks.

  Year of offence

  Number of successful prosecution cases

  Total fines incurred£

  1988

  1

  10,000

  1989

  3

  35,095

  1990

  7

  10,050

  1991

  14

  75,803

  1992

  25

  140,237

  1993

  13

  97,086

  1994

  3

  310,000

  Public Relations
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what guidelines his Department has issued to its agencies and other public bodies under its authority in respect of the employment of public relations companies and the procedures to be adopted in relation to requesting tenders for public relations companies. [16658]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The circumstances in which a commercial public relations company may be employed by Government Departments are strictly limited. They are set out in central guidance, as are the procedures to be followed in respect of contract tendering. Agency framework documents explicitly reiterate the need to observe central Government requirements in purchasing of any external services.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much his Department spent on public relations during the financial year 1993–94; how much contracts with the private sector cost; and if he will list the activities covered by these contracts. [16285]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  In the financial year 1993–94, my Department, excluding agencies, spent £4.3 million publicity, publications and pamphlets. Central rules specifically preclude the engagement of commercial consultants for direct representational tasks and none was so employed.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the cost of the common agricultural policy per citizen in the European Union in each year since 1973. [16131]

  Mr. Jack
  The only readily available estimates of the total transfers to agriculture from consumers and taxpayers in the European Community are those based on analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The information, which is available only on an annual basis from 1986 and as a three-year average back to 1979, is given in the table:

  Year

  Total transfers billion ECUs

  1979–81

  57

  1983–85

  58

  1986

  105

  1987

  104

  1988

  102

  1989

  92

  847

  Year

  Total transfers billion ECUs

  1990

  104

  1991

  116

  1992

  111

  1993

  116

  Notes:

  The estimates relate to the EC Twelve except for the period 1979–85 when they relate to the EC10. The ex-GDR is included from 1990.

  Source:

  OECD, Agricultural Policies and Trade, annual.

  It should be noted that these estimates are likely to overstate the true cost of the CAP because the consumer cost element is based on the difference between EC producer prices and world prices. In the absence of support, world prices would almost certainly be higher.

  Estimates of population are given in the EUROSTAT's "Basic Statistics of the Community", copies of which are in the Library of the House.

  Integrated Administration and Control System
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a comparison between the documents required in support of the integrated administration and control system in each member country; and if he will make a statement. [16146]

  Mr. Jack
  [holding answer 24 March 1995]: Documentation relating to IACS produced by other member states is reviewed periodically. During our last review, we found that the explanatory literature produced in some other member states is short. But this is achieved in a number of ways. In some countries the booklet contains only general material, while instructions on completing the forms appear in separate leaflets. Some simply use much smaller print. Others give only basic information and instruct farmers to consult their local offices if they need more or refer back to EC or national rules. Others may rely on producer groups to help farmers with their applications, on the basis of software provided by the Government. We have preferred a comprehensive approach which takes the applicant step by step through the forms. This approach is also generally favoured by the industry whose views we sought this year and who have preferred not to change a format which is now familiar to farmers.

  The EC rules on IACS recognise that there will be differences of approach betweeh member states because of different administrative structures. Thus, the Commission's role in ensuring uniform adherence to the rules is a vital one.

  Milk Quotas
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans his Ministry has to review the allocation and method of allocation of milk quotas(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) between EU countries. [17015]

  Mr. Jack>
  Milk quotas have been allocated to producers in the United Kingdom in accordance with current EC legislation. That legislation will be reviewed before 31 March 2000 when it is due to expire. In the meantime the Government are pressing, so far without success, for a change in the rules to permit the leasing of milk quotas across member state frontiers.
  848
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the UK's estimated milk production capacity; and what is the United Kingdom's total milk quota.

  Mr. Jack
  Conditions in much of the United Kingdom are ideal for producing milk. But we are prevented from making the most of our natural advantages by the EC milk quota system. The UK's total milk quota is currently 14,590,047 tonnes.

  Milk Imports
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much milk is imported annually into the United Kingdom; and how much of this comes from the EU. [17020]

  Mr. Jack
  In 1993, the latest year for which figures are available, a total of 92,887 tonnes of milk were imported into the UK. This entire amount came from other EU member states.

  Statutory References
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what statutory references to hon. Members have been made in legislation introduced by his Department, or its predecessors, since 1965. [17035]

  Mr. Jack
  An analysis of all legislation introduced by this Department since 1965 for any reference of the type requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. It would be extremely unlikely for reference to be made specifically to an individual hon. Member, although frequent references are made to officers of state.

  Poultry
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total number of birds slaughtered under programme code PP2:02; and what was the cost of compensation for these birds. [17022]

  Mrs. Browning
  The total number of poultry birds compulsorily slaughtered in Great Britain because of salmonella infection and the compensation paid for these birds since the introduction of the policy in March 1989 are set out in the following table.

  Type of bird slaughtered

  Total slaughtered

  Compensation paid £

  Layer

  2,340,254

  3,717,952

  Layer breeder

  106,121

  903,805

  Broiler breeder

  1,131,178

  3,258,998

  Total

  3,577,553

  7,880,755

  Sheep (Salmonella)
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what programmes his Ministry has to reduce the occurrence of salmonella in sheep. [17023]

  Mrs. Browning
  There are no formal programmes to reduce the occurrence of salmonella in sheep which remains relatively low. However, all isolations have to be reported to a veterinary officer of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food who, on the basis of the
  849
  information received, will decide the need for further action or advice.

  Hormones
  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what evaluation he has made of the findings of the Consumers Association in respect of traces of EU banned hormones in United Kingdom meat samples; and if he will reconsider current monitoring standards in the light of the European test findings on hormones in meat. [17280]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The concentrations of banned hormones found in the United Kingdom meat samples taken by the Consumers Association are unlikely to pose a threat to human health. Nevertheless, the findings are a cause for concern. Officials at the veterinary medicines directorate have been in contact with the Consumers Association which has provided some additional information on the samples, but, in view of the time that has elapsed since they were purchased and the results published, coupled with the absence of any packaging material, it is proving very difficult to establish the source.

  Surveillance for banned hormones is carried out in the UK under the national surveillance scheme for residues in meat, which implements directive 86/469/EEC. The number of samples taken each year is based on a statistical analysis of the numbers of animals slaughtered in the previous year, so that within prescribed confidence limits, we can be satisfied that the results obtained are truly representative. The number of samples can be increased in the light of developments, but, although the position is being kept under review, we have no plans at this stage to change the level of monitoring as a result of these findings.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how his Ministry's tests on meat samples are carried out to monitor for the use of banned substances. [17281]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Samples of bile, urine, serum and thyroid which have been collected from cattle, pigs and sheep at slaughterhouses and on-farm under the statutory national surveillance scheme for residues in meat are analysed for the presence of banned substances in accordance with the provisions of Commission decision 92/256/EEC. This lays down the methods to be used for detecting residues of banned substances having a hormonal or thyrostatic action.

  Samples of meat and meat products purchased from retail outlets under the separate non-statutory surveillance programme, and covering both home-produced and imported meat and meat products, are also tested for the presence of banned hormonal and thyrostatic substances using similar procedures.

  The results of both the statutory and non-statutory surveillance programmes are published annually in the veterinary medicines directorate's annual report and accounts and updated quarterly in its MAVIS newsletter.

  Pig Producers
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to give grant aid to pig producers for the replacement of sow stalls and tethers. [17063]
  850
  Mr. Jack
  I have no such plans. Pig producers have been given an eight-year adequate transitional period to introduce the new arrangements and have a unique opportunity to supply British consumers with pork and bacon produced to a high welfare standard. A grant aid scheme would not be fair to those producers who have already made the change.

  Spanish Fishermen
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the extent to which Spanish fishermen have been catching undersized fish, illegal fish, using undersize nets and or using illegal holds while fishing off Canada; and if he will make a statement. [17490]

  Mr. Jack
  Enforcement in the international waters off Canada regulated by the North-west Atlantic Fisheries Organisation is the responsibility of NAFO members fishing there. The United Kingdom has no fishing vessels or national inspectors operating in these fisheries and therefore has no first-hand experience of fishing practices and enforcement there.

  Meat Hygiene Service
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish the framework document and performance targets for the Meat Hygiene Service. [18395]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The Meat Hygiene Service will be launched on 1 April as an executive agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I am arranging for copies of its framework document to be placed in the Library of the House.

  My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales and I have set the following targets for the Meat Hygiene Service in 1995–96.

  Financial Performance
  To recover from plant operators the full economic costs of providing the statutory health inspection and controls at fresh meat premises, taking account of any transitional financial arrangements which Ministers may agree.
  To recover from Government Departments and agencies the full economic costs of providing agreed services or other work undertaken on their behalf.
  To comply with budgetary controls resulting from PES and the Supply Estimates.

  Efficiency
  To work from the outset for gains in efficiency inter alia by:
  (a) minimising the total number of hours and the associated costs of meat inspector and OVS time required to operate the service to the standards laid down and taking steps to adjust staffing levels wherever possible following the completion by end October 1995 of the audit of standards and staffing levels in all full throughout plants;
  (b) holding overhead costs in 1995–96 within a limit of £8.115 million (before deduction of income from services provided to central Government).
  Note: On this basis the MHS will deliver in 1995–96 an efficiency gain of approximately 10 per cent. in relation to the estimated total costs in 1994–95, and will establish a firm base for further gains in efficiency in future years.

  Quality and Delivery of Service
  To apply hygiene requirements in such a way as to raise levels of compliance by slaughterhouses and cutting premises progressively by:

  851

  (a) establishing a baseline in terms of HAS score where this has not already been done;

  (b) in red meat slaughterhouses fully approved on 30 September 1995 which had a score of less than 65 at the last inspection by the state veterinary service in 1994–95, working with plant management to raise HAS scores by at least an average of 10 points by the end of 1995–96.

  To complete a welfare audit by the plant OVS of all licensed slaughterhouses, and agree with plant management a timetable for any necessary corrective action, by the end of November 1995. To meet the standards laid down in the MHS customer service statement.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Hampshire Police
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the additional police to be recruited by the Hampshire police force will be stationed on the Isle of Wight. [17422]

  Mr. Maclean
  It is for the chief constable to decide how his officers are to be deployed within the force area. I understand that decisions have not yet been taken about the deployment of extra officers to be recruited.

  Closed Circuit Television
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who was on the judging panel which recommended to Ministers which bids should be successful under the closed circuit television challenge scheme; and how many of their recommendations Ministers accepted. [17441]

  Mr. Maclean
  The recommendations to Ministers were based on the assessments of a five-person panel comprising Home Office officials—including one with technical expertise—a business consultant and an academic consultant, both on secondment to the Home Office. Of the 480 bids received, 289 were assessed by the panel as being of good or very good quality. From that total, Ministers selected the 106 winners.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) unsuccessful and (b) successful bids for closed circuit television challenge funding fell into each of the four categories listed in the bidding guidance. [17443]

  Mr. Maclean
  A significant number of bids, both successful and unsuccessful, fell into more than one category. The total number of bids by main category as described in the bidding guidance was as follows:

  Number

  Category A (Town Centre Schemes)

  295

  Category B (Neighbourhood Schemes)

  40

  Category C (Travel and Business Areas)

  46

  Category D (Community Centres)

  99

  Total

  480

  The number of successful bids by main category was as follows:
  852

  Number

  Category A

  90

  Category B

  1

  Category C

  11

  Category D

  4

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many London bids were received for the closed circuit television challenge competition; and what amount those bids were for. [17445]

  Mr. Maclean
  Some 60 bids were received from the London region, seeking a total of £3,414,000.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the(a) successful and (b) unsuccessful bids for the closed circuit television challenge scheme attracted private funding; and what was the average proportion of the total cost of each scheme to be financed by private funding. [17438]

  Mr. Maclean
  Some 103 of the 106 successful bids had pledges of private sector funding. The remaining three successful bids were for neighbourhood or community schemes where private sector funding was not a requirement. It is estimated that the total value of private sector funding pledged for all bids received was £10 million.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state for each of the successful bids in the closed circuit television challenge scheme(a) how much they will receive and (b) how much they bid. [17442]

  Mr. Maclean
  The information is as follows:

  CCTV competition: winners by government office region (and Wales)

  Eastern Region

  In this region each of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for.

  Chelmsford Town Centre: £100,000.

  Ely Town Centre: £8,300.

  Peterborough Town Centre: £100,000.

  Stevenage Town Centre: £100,000.

  Hitchin Town Centre and Letchworth Business Park: £100,000.

  Harlow Town Centre: £50,000.

  Thetford Town Centre: £100,000.

  Hadleigh and Sudbury Town Centres: £100,000.

  East Midlands

  In this region each of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for, except Mansfield which bid for £100,000.

  Gainsborough—Industrial Estates: £90,000.

  Scawsby Community Centre, Workshop: £4,250.

  Boston Town Centre: £20,000.

  Kirton Town Centre: £7,500.

  Kettering Town Centre: £50,000.

  Ilkeston Town Centre: £45,000.

  Norris Hill, Moira: £8,500.

  Donington Town Centre: £8,250.

  Loughborough Town Centre: £48,100.

  Mansfield Town Centre: £50,000.

  Market Harborough Town Centre: £40,000

  South West

  In this region all but two of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for. The Crown Glass Centre bid for £58,000 and Boscombe bid for £32,500.

  Crown Glass Centre, Nailsea: £40,000.

  Tiverton Town Centre: £12,000.

  Boscombe Town Centre: £20,000.

  Berkeley Square Car Park, Bristol: £19,000.

  853

  Bodmin Town Centre: £12,000.

  Cirencester Town Centre: £70,000.

  Falmouth Town Centre: £25,000.

  Newquay Town Centre: £50,000.

  Truro Town Centre: £40,000.

  Salisbury Town Centre: £100,000.

  Torquay Town Centre: £50,000.

  Wiltshire Mobile CCTV System: £10,000.

  Gloucester City Centre: £10,000.

  Tiverton Business Park: £7,400.

  West Midlands

  In this region all but two of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for. Worcester bid for £24,500.

  Tamworth bid for £75,000.

  Worcester City Centre: £20,000.

  Shrewsbury Town Centre: £100,000.

  Tamworth Town Centre: £60,000.

  Stratford upon Avon Town Centre: £50,000.

  Rugby Town Centre: £70,000.

  Hereford City Centre: £60,000.

  Solihull Town Centre: £60,000.

  Lichfield Town Centre: £93,300

  Ledbury High Street: £10,000.

  South East

  In this region all but five of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for. Maidstone, Folkstone, High Wycombe and Wokingham each bid for £100,000. Addlestone bid for up to £100,000.

  Fawcett Road Shipping Area, Portsmouth: £28,500

  Maidstone Town Centre: £50,000.

  Ashford Town Centre: £89,000.

  Havant Town Centre: £50,000.

  Dover and Deal Town Centres: £17,500.

  Folkestone Town Centre: £70,000.

  High Wycombe Town Centre: £50,000.

  Newhaven Town Centre: £41,000.

  Egham Town Centre: £65,000.

  Eastbourne Town Centre: £50,000.

  Sandwich Town Centre: £7,500.

  Rochester Business Estate: £35,000.

  Dartford Town Centre: £50,000.

  Tonbridge and West Malling Town Centres: £36,000

  Addlestone Town Centre: £50,000

  Banbury: £60,000

  Wokingham Town Centre: £50,000

  Basingstoke Town Centre: £25,000

  Chesham: £23,000

  Merseyside

  Kirkby Railway Station:

  Received: £28,750. Bid: £28,750.

  London

  In this region each of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for.

  Harrow Town Centre: £50,000

  Hillingdon Mobile CCTV System: £14,000

  Sunbury Cross Shopping Centre: £45,000

  Archway Mall, Islington: 12,400

  Hounslow Town Centre: £50,000

  Erith Town Centre: £50,000

  Webbs Industrial Estate, Higham Lodge Business Centre and Blackhorse Mews, North Walthamstow: £46,000

  Richmond Town Centre: £50,000

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  In this region all but one of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for. York bid for £100,000.

  Harrogate Town Centre: £50,000

  Outwood Grange School, Wakefield: £22,000

  Balby Street School, Doncaster: £5,000

  Lower Don Valley, Sheffield: £53,000

  854

  Driffield Town Centre: £6,000

  Keighley Town Centre: £34,700

  Scarborough Town Centre: £100,000

  Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Hull: £50,000

  York City Centre: £50,000

  Boroughbridge Town Centre: £7,000

  Brigg Town Centre: £49,900

  North West

  In this region each of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for.

  Clitheroe Town Centre: £28,500

  Neston Town Centre: £80,000

  Carlisle City Centre: £60,000

  Blackpool Town Centre: £50,000

  Chester City Centre: £25,000

  Hyde Town Centre: £21,000

  Penrith Town Centre: £71,000

  Rochdale Town Centre: £50,000

  Wigan Town Centre: £80,000

  Tameside Business Development Centre: £2,000

  Bury Town Centre: £80,000

  Lancaster City Centre: £58,500

  Morecambe Seafront: £59,700

  North East

  In this region all but one of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for. Team Valley, Gateshead bid for £100,000.

  Whitley Bay Town Centre: £100,000

  Team Valley Estate, Gateshead: £50,000

  Gateshead Town Centre: £65,000

  Chester-le-Street Town Centre: £80,000

  Bishop Auckland Town Centre: £75,000

  Skippers Lane Industrial Estate, Cleveland: £80,000

  Mill Lane Primary School, Cleveland: £6,000

  Wales

  In Wales each of the winners, as listed below, received the amount bid for.

  Colwyn Bay Town Centre: £100,000

  Cwmbran Town Centre: £100,000

  West Glamorgan Mobile CCTV System £4,400

  Rhondda Fawr Road, Ystrad £1,750

  Haverfordwest Town Centre £16,000

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to extend closed circuit television funding. [17444]

  Mr. Maclean
  The recent CCTV challenge competition has injected £5 million into local CCTV schemes, generating up to £13.8 million in other funding. The possibility of further competitions in the future has not been ruled out, but it is too early to give a firm commitment.

  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the(a) successful and (b) unsuccessful bids for closed circuit television challenge money were applications to extend or upgrade existing schemes; and what proportion of the funding this will represent. [17446]

  Mr. Maclean
  There were a total of 65 bids to extend or upgrade existing systems, of which 15 were successful. Funding for those 15 bids amounted to £487,000, representing 9.7 per cent. of the total made available.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many asylum seekers are currently detained under Immigration Act powers in HMP Rochester; and when use of the second wing within HMP
  855
  Rochester to hold Immigration Act detainees is likely to begin; [17690]

  (2) how many asylum seekers are currently detained under Immigration Act powers; and if he will provide a breakdown of those detained, by length of detention and by location. [17689]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  As at 29 March 1995, a total of 619 persons who had sought asylum were detained. This figure includes people awaiting the setting of directions for removal following refusal of the application, as well as those whose applications were under consideration or subject to appeal. Of this figure, 171 had been in detention less than one month, 87 between one and two months, 171 between two and six months, and 190 had been in detention longer than six months.

  Information on the location of these detained persons, as at 29 March 1995, is given in the table. The second wing of Her Majesty's prison, Rochester is due to become available to house Immigration Act detainees during May 1995.

  Number of people detained on 29 March 1995 who had sought asylum, by location

  Number

  Prisons

  Haslar RC

  79

  Rochester

  54

  Winson Green

  42

  Brixton

  11

  Manchester

  10

  Wandsworth

  9

  Greenock

  8

  Wolds RC

  7

  Bristol

  6

  Brinsford YOI and RC

  5

  Exeter

  4

  Hindley RC

  4

  Armley, Leeds

  3

  Belmarsh

  3

  Risley

  3

  Wormwood Scrubs

  3

  Birmingham

  2

  Norwich

  2

  Strangeways

  2

  Other

  17

  Other places of detention

  Campsfield House

  147

  Harmondsworth

  86

  Gatwick Detention Centre

  35

  Stansted

  13

  Gatwick Beehive

  11

  Queens Building

  8

  Dover Harbour Board

  6

  Newhaven

  4

  Birmingham Detention Suite

  2

  Manchester Airport Detention Suite

  1

  Police Cells

  32

  Total

  619

  Michael Grant
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) under what procedure and by whom the decision was made to transfer Michael Grant to Ford open prison; [17142]
  856
  (2) what factors were taken into account in determining Michael Grant's most recent security classification; [17144]

  (3) what was the classification awarded to Michael Grant following his conviction; and when, and under what procedure, the original classification was lowered. [17143]

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 30 March 1995]: Responsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. George Howarth, dated 31 March 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about the security classification of Michael Grant and the decision to transfer him to Ford open prison.
  Michael Grant was held as a provisional category A prisoner when he was convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court on 24 October 1988 of attempted murder. His case was considered by the Category A Committee at its meeting on 16 March 1989, and on 24 April 1989 the then Director General approved the recommendation that he should be confirmed in category A.
  Michael Grant's security category was next reviewed during the following year. The case was considered by the Category A Committee and the Director General. On 5 June 1990 it was decided that Mr. Grant's security category should be reduced to category B.
  On 28 January 1991 Mr. Grant was transferred from Gartree to Coldingley which was a category B training prison at the time. On 17 December 1992 the head of custody at Coldingley approved Mr. Grant's re-categorisation to category C. Mr. Grant had demonstrated his suitability through completing a number of escorted home visits. He was made a category C prisoner on 1 January 1993.
  Mr. Grant was recommended for re-assessment of his security category at Coldingley prison on 30 May 1993. On 16 June 1993 Mr. Grant was the subject of a re-assessment board for reclassifying him from category C to category D, that is, the lowest security category. This is for prisoners who can reasonably be trusted to serve their sentences in open conditions. The Governor approved the Board's recommendation to reclassify Mr. Grant to category D on 21 June 1993.
  The factors that were taken into consideration by the Board were good behaviour whilst in prison, completion of a successful period of home leave and a successful period of temporary release to attend his father's funeral. He had a sound prison employment record, and probation reports demonstrated that he had the backing of a supportive family. Although his earliest date of release was not until November 1997, the Board considered that he was a prisoner who could be reasonably trusted to serve the rest of his sentence in open conditions.
  Mr. Grant was initially held as a category D prisoner at Coldingley. He was later accepted by Ford, who took into account his history of good behaviour in prison and the fact that he had successfully completed several periods of home leave. He was transferred to Ford on 23 May 1994.
  Following Mr. Grant's recent failure to return from temporary release on time, he later returned voluntarily and will be recategorised to C and is now held in a segregation unit at Ford.

  Murderers
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many murderers released on licence since the abolition of the death penalty have been convicted of a subsequent murder. [16395]

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 27 March 1995]: Some 11 persons convicted of murder and released on licence since the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 have been subsequently convicted of murder in England and Wales and a further four subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
  857
  In another case, one person committed suicide before being tried for the second homicide offence.

  A further person was subsequently convicted of murder in Scotland and another in Northern Ireland.

  In addition, three persons convicted of manslaughter for which they received a life sentence and released on licence since 1965 have been convicted of a subsequent murder in England and Wales.

  Non-animal Experiments
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what level of funding was given by his Department for the development of non-animal experiments in each year since 1985. [17062]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) on 16 December 1994,Official Report, column 828.

  Immigration
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many sponsors, required to be interviewed following entry clearance applications, whose papers were referred initially to Leeds-Bradford airport,(a) have been interviewed and (b) are to be interviewed at other ports; and if he will list the numbers of sponsors (i) interviewed and (ii) to be interviewed, at each port since January. [17242]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  The information requested is a follows:

  Port

  Interview completed

  Awaiting an interview

  Hull

  14

  4

  Stockton

  4

  7

  North Shields/Newcastle Airport

  4

  11

  Total

  22

  22

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many sponsors are, at the latest date, awaiting interview at Leeds-Bradford airport; and if he will appoint additional immigration staff at Leeds-Bradford airport. [17243]

  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  Some 124 sponsors are awaiting interview at Leeds-Bradford airport. As a matter of routine, the immigration service is currently reviewing the work loads and staffing at a number of ports, including Leeds-Bradford.

  Statutory References
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what statutory references to hon. Members have been made in legislation introduced by his Department, or his predecessors, since 1965. [17032]

  Mr. Howard
  Statutory references to disqualification for membership of the House of Commons are contained in the House of Commons Disqualification act 1975, the Representation of the People Act 1981, schedule 7 to the 858
  British Nationality Act 1981, the Representation of the People Act 1983 and section 427 of the Insolvency Act 1986.

  An analysis of other legislation introduced by this Department since 1965 for any reference of the type requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost since information is not held centrally.

  Donkey Escape
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the donkey that escaped from Thorn Cross, Warrington young offender institution has been recaptured; how many personnel were involved in the search; what has been the cost of the search; and if he will make a statement. [16246]

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 31 March 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about a donkey that went missing from the grounds of Thorn Cross Young Offender Institution.
  On the morning of 13 March staff discovered that one of two donkeys held in a paddock near Thorn Cross was missing. Four members of staff spent approximately 30 minutes searching in and near the institution for the donkey but failed to find it.
  The local police were informed as a precaution against the stray donkey becoming a hazard on the nearby motorway.
  A short while later the police notified Thorn Cross that the donkey had been put into a field, earlier that morning, about one mile away from the prison by a passing motorist. The donkey was subsequently collected and returned to the paddock.
  This incident involved five prison staff at an approximate cost of £75 plus the services of the local police.
  The two donkeys are cared for by inmates on behalf of Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary and are visited by local handicapped children and other school children.

  Prisoner Places (Cost)
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average cost per prisoner place, as measured by the Prison Service's net current expenditure divided by the total number of prison places for each of the past 12 months in England and Wales. [16266]

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

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 31 March 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the average cost per prisoner place for each of the past 12 months.
  Cost per place is calculated on an annual basis. Variations in the pattern of expenditure mean that monthly expenditure is not a meaningful indicator.
  This information is published annually on a financial year basis once the Prison Service Audited Appropriation figures are available. The most recently available cost per place figures are those published in the Prison Service Annual Report for 1993–94.

  Blackmail (Definition)
  Mr. Nicholls
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider amending the definition of blackmail to include the application of pressure to disclose publicly personal sexuality. [15959]

  Mr. Maclean
  I do not think it would be appropriate to amend the offence of blackmail in this way. Removing the requirement for there to be material gain or loss would widen the scope of the offence unacceptably, encompassing types of behaviour unsuitable for regulation by the criminal law.

  Prisons (Attempted Suicides)
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many attempted suicides took place in each prison in(a) 1979, (b) 1985, (c) 1990 and (d) the last year for which figures are available; and how many of those attempts resulted in death. [16199]

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 28 March 19951: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mrs. Barbara Roche, dated 31 March 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about attempted suicides and attempted suicides which resulted in deaths.
  The information is set out in the table below:

  Year

  1979

  1984–851

  1989–902

  1991–92

  Self-harm with suicidal intent

  300

  402

  398

  805

  I regret that detailed records on self-harm are not available centrally for individual establishments and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  It is difficult to distinguish between self-harm incidents with or without suicidal intent. For this reason, prisons have not been asked to make this classification since 1992 and the figures above should be treated with caution.

  Year

  1979

  1984–851

  1989–902

  1991–92

  Self-inflicted deaths

  29

  37

  43

  43

  1 In 1984 self-harm figures began to be collected in financial years and cannot be split into calender years. Therefore, the 1984–85 figure covers 15 months from 1 January 1984 to 31 March 1985. The last two figures in the table cover the same period.

  2 The figures for 1989–90 and 1991–92 cover the period 1 April to 31 March.

  The attached tables give a breakdown of deaths for each establishment, copies of which will be placed in the Library of the House.
  860

  Breakdown of deaths resulting from self-harm by establishment, number of incidents and verdict for the year 1979

  Establisment

  Number of incidents

  Verdict

  Gartree

  1

  Suicide

  Wormwood Scrubs

  2

  Suicide

  Dartmoor

  1

  Suicide

  Wandsworth

  2

  Suicide

  Wandsworth

  1

  Open

  Brixton

  5

  Suicide

  Pentonville

  1

  Misadventure

  Pentonville

  1

  Suicide

  Haverigg

  1

  Misadventure

  Lincoln

  2

  Suicide

  Bristol

  1

  Misadventure

  Brockhill

  1

  Open

  Huntercoombe

  1

  Misadventure

  Liverpool

  2

  Suicide

  Liverpool

  1

  Accidental

  Liverpool

  1

  Misadventure

  Shrewsbury

  1

  Suicide

  Winchester

  1

  Suicide

  Leeds

  1

  Suicide

  Lewes

  1

  Suicide

  Stafford

  1

  Suicide

  Breakdown of deaths resulting from self-harm, by establishment, number of incidents and verdict for the financial year 1984–1985 (1 April to 31 March)

  Establishment

  Number of incidents

  Verdict

  Wormwood Scrubs

  2

  Suicide

  Swansea

  1

  Suicide

  Swansea

  2

  Misadventure

  Pentonville

  3

  Suicide

  Brixton

  5

  Suicide

  Durham

  2

  Suicide

  Norwich

  2

  Suicide

  Bristol

  1

  Misadventure

  Exeter

  3

  Suicide

  Leicester

  2

  Suicide

  Shrewsbury

  1

  Suicide

  Lewes

  1

  Suicide

  Wakefield

  1

  Suicide

  Wandsworth

  1

  Suicide

  Birmingham

  1

  Suicide

  Parkhurst

  2

  Suicide

  Leeds

  1

  Suicide

  Leeds

  1

  Open

  Winchester

  1

  Misadventure

  Preston

  1

  Suicide

  Portsmouth

  1

  Suicide

  Liverpool

  1

  Accidental Death

  Holloway

  1

  Open

  Breakdown of deaths resulting from self-harm, by establishment, number of incidents and verdict for the year 1989–90 (April—31 March)

  Establishment

  Number of incidents

  Verdict

  Littlehey

  1

  Suicide

  Brixton

  4

  Open

  Brixton

  2

  Accidental death

  Brixton

  2

  Suicide

  Lewes

  1

  Suicide

  Dartmoor

  1

  Suicide

  Winchester

  1

  Suicide

  Winchester

  1

  Open

  Risley

  1

  Open

  Manchester

  5

  Suicide

  Stafford

  1

  Suicide

  Exeter

  1

  Suicide

  Lancaster

  1

  Suicide

  861

  Breakdown of deaths resulting from self-harm, by establishment, number of incidents and verdict for the year 1989–90 (1 April—31 March)

  Establishment

  Number of incidents

  Verdict

  Rochester

  2

  Suicide

  Wormwood Scrubs

  1

  Suicide

  Garth

  1

  Suicide

  Cardiff

  1

  Accidental death

  Shepton Mallet

  1

  Suicide

  Bristol

  3

  Suicide

  Canterbury

  1

  Suicide

  Hindley

  2

  Suicide

  Swansea

  1

  Suicide

  Leeds

  1

  Suicide

  Long Lartin

  1

  Suicide

  Liverpool

  1

  Open

  Bedford

  1

  Suicide

  Camphill

  1

  Suicide

  Pentonville

  1

  Misadventure

  Durham

  1

  Suicide

  Glen Parva

  1

  Suicide

  Breakdown of deaths resulting from self-harm by establishment, number of incidents and verdict for the year 1991–92 (1 April–31 March)

  Establishment

  Number of incidents

  Verdict

  Oxford

  1

  Accidental

  Garth

  1

  Suicide

  Leeds

  1

  Open

  Leeds

  1

  Suicide

  Liverpool

  2

  Suicide

  Brixton

  1

  Suicide

  Featherstone

  1

  Suicide

  Wormwood Scrubs

  1

  Open

  Durham

  2

  Suicide

  Pentonville

  2

  Suicide

  Pentonville

  1

  Open

  Parkhurst

  1

  Suicide

  Full Sutton

  1

  Misadventure

  Grendon

  2

  Suicide

  Manchester

  1

  Suicide

  Birmingham

  3

  Suicide

  Preston

  1

  Suicide

  Dorchester

  2

  Open

  Wakefield

  1

  Suicide

  Feltham

  2

  Suicide

  Feltham

  1

  Accidental death

  Feltham

  1

  Open

  Nottingham

  1

  Suicide

  Glen Parva

  2

  Suicide

  Cardiff

  1

  Suicide

  Winchester

  1

  Suicide

  Haverigg

  1

  Open

  Stafford

  1

  Open

  Norwich

  1

  Misadventure

  Norwich

  1

  Suicide

  Stoke Heath

  1

  Suicide

  Long Lartin

  1

  Suicide

  Hull

  1

  Suicide

  Bristol

  1

  Suicide

  Prisons (Offensive Weapons)
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) firearms, (b) knives and (c) other dangerous weapons were found secreted in Her Majesty's prisons in (i) 1979, (ii) 1985, (iii) 1990 and (iv) the last year for which figures are available. [16687]

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 28 March 1995]: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated
  862
  to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Derek Lewis to Mrs. Barbara Roche, dated 31 March 1995:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking how many (a) firearms, (b) knives and (c) other dangerous weapons were found secreted in Her Majesty's prisons in (i) 1979 (ii) 1985 (iii) 1990 and (iv) the last year for which figures are available.
  Finds of knives and other related sharp instruments are not recorded centrally. Weapons such as firearms and CS gas canisters have been reported and recorded centrally since June 1988.
  The information on firearms and CS gas canisters for 1990 and 1994 is contained in the table below:

  Firearms Other (all hand guns)

  Other (all gas canisters)

  1990

  Nil

  Nil

  1994

  51

  2

  1 Four incidents—one without ammunition. A gas canister was also found on 12 January of this year.

TREASURY

  Public Relations
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what guidelines his Department has issued to its agencies and other public bodies under its authority in respect of the employment of public relations companies and the procedures to be adopted in relation to requesting tenders for public relations companies. [16274]

  Mr. Nelson
  The Treasury does not have any agencies. Grants in aid are paid from the Treasury vote to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the British-American Parliamentary Group, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Private Finance Panel Executive. The conditions relating to the way in which these grants can be spent are set out in financial memoranda which do not include specific requirements in respect of public relations companies.

  Alcohol Smuggling
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what revenue he estimates has been lost to Customs and Excise as a result of the smuggling of beers, wines and spirits in the last year. [16770]

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  It is difficult to calculate the true extent of smuggling. Assuming a detection rate of one in 20 would suggest, for the 12 months to 31 January 1995, a revenue loss relating to alcohol in the order of £37 million.

  Manufacturing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a sector breakdown for manufacturing showing for each sector the quarterly peak output since 1985 as a percentage of the figure for the fourth quarter of 1994 together with his forecast for 1995 and 1996. [17117]

  Mr. Nelson
  These figures are to be found in the "Monthly Digest of Statistics", published by the Central
  863
  Statistical Office and available in the House of Commons Library. The Treasury does not publish forecasts of the sectoral breakdown.

  Health and Safety
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Treasury building in Great George street, Whitehall, was last inspected by the relevant local authority for health and safety at work purposes; and whether it currently fully meets all the requirements of the current legislation in that respect. [17308]

  Mr. Nelson
  The Health and Safety Executive is the responsible authority for enforcing current health and safety legislation in the Treasury building in Parliament street. They last inspected the building in 1992. My staff regularly arrange health and safety inspections of the building by competent persons with a view to ensuring that it meets the requirements of the current health and safety legislation.

  Mr. Rupert Pennant-Rea
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he made as to whether the previous deputy governor of the Bank of England should resign; and what was the reason for these representations. [17111]

  Mr. Nelson
  It was Mr. Pennant-Rea's own decision to resign. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor made clear in his letter to Mr. Pennant-Rea, he felt Mr. Pennant-Rea had done an exceptional job as deputy governor and he was sorry that Mr. Pennant-Rea had decided to resign.

  Price Increases
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what criteria he applies in deciding on whether an increase in prices is inflationary. [17112]

  Mr. Nelson
  Any price increase adds to the 12-month inflation rate for 12 months. Whether it affects the inflation rate after that depends on whether other prices rise in response.

  Manufacturing Output
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the reasons for the changes in manufacturing output less food between(a) 1990 and 1994 and (b) the peak quarter of 1990 and the fourth quarter of 1994. [17138]

  Mr. Nelson
  There are a large number of reasons for changes in output which it is not possible separately to quantify.

  National Savings
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to publish a remit for sales of debt by the Department for National Savings. [18394]

  Mr. Nelson
  The remit for the Department for National Savings for 1995–96 is as follows:

  Objectives

  The Department for National Savings' declared aim is to support the Government's management of its debt and its policies for personal savings by attracting and retaining
  864
  investments from the retail market efficiently and cost-effectively.

  The Department's primary task is therefore to be an efficient and cost effective source of funding for Her Majesty's Government. It is also charged with maintaining a suitable range of schemes to encourage savings among the population.

  Volume of Funding in 1995–96

  The net contribution of National Savings to funding in 1995–96 is assumed to be around £2.5 billion.

  Responsibilities

  The Treasury is responsible, under the National Loans Act 1968, for setting the terms of National Savings products. DNS will normally take the lead in bringing forward proposals to Treasury Ministers on product terms, including rates.

  Cost comparisons

  The Government intend that National Savings' contribution to funding should offer value for money overall compared with its other sources of funding. Product terms will take account of the need for DNS to retain the capability and market presence to contribute to the Government's funding needs over the medium term.

  Crown Estate Rents
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to make representations to the Crown Estate Commissioners to keep rent rises for Crown Estate tenants to reasonable and affordable levels. [16923]

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  [holding answer 28 March 1995]: The Government are not involved in the setting of rent levels for Crown Estate tenants. The Crown Estate Commissioners act within the provisions of the Crown Estate Act 1961, and the requirements of housing legislation.

WALES

  Standard Spending Assessments
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement concerning indicative grants for Welsh unitary authorities. [16771]

  Mr. Redwood
  Distribution formulae for calculating unitary authority standard spending assessments are being developed in consultation with the Welsh Consultative Council on Local Government Finance. I will announce my provisional local government revenue settlement plans for 1996–97 as soon as possible after the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget statement.

  NHS Administrative Costs
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 7 March,Official Report, column 153, if he will list the administrative cost of the national health service in Wales for each year since 1979 in current prices.

  Mr. Redwood
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 7 March 1995,Official Report, column 153.

  Asthma
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people in Wales who(a) are under the age of 18 years and (b) in total per health authority are known to suffer from serious asthmatic conditions. [16772]

  Mr. Redwood
  Information on the number of people suffering from diseases is not collected centrally. However, latest estimates of the number of completed consultant episodes for the hospital treatment of asthma to residents of Wales are as follows:

  Health authority area of residence

  Age of patient

  Under 18

  1All ages

  Clwyd

  356

  790

  East Dyfed

  191

  484

  Gwent

  475

  993

  Gwynedd

  213

  486

  Mid Glamorgan

  649

  1,237

  Pembrokeshire

  131

  267

  Powys

  35

  144

  South Glamorgan

  475

  1,000

  West Glamorgan

  164

  408

  1 Includes age not known.

  Countryside Council for Wales
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he will make public the recently agreed action plan of the Countryside Council for Wales. [15964]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West, (Mr. Morgan) on 27 March,Official Report, column 424, by my right hon. Friend.

  NHS Dentistry
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 21 March,Official Report, column 192, how many people requested assistance from the relevant family health services authority in registering for NHS dentistry during (a) 1993 and (b) 1994. [17746]

  Mr. Redwood
  From the information supplied by family health services authorities, the numbers of people asking for assistance were as follows:

  1993

  1994

  Clwyd

  1,592

  2,187

  Dyfed

  1,359

  1,168

  Gwent

  991

  1,120

  Gwynedd

  8,365

  7,792

  Mid Glamorgan

  337

  298

  Powys

  977

  1,034

  South Glamorgan

  2,408

  1,250

  West Glamorgan

  130

  160

  This information was supplied for management purposes only and is not statistically validated.

  Bryn Alyn Hall School
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) pursuant to his letter to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West dated 10 March, what period Of time was requested by the proprietors of Bryn Alyn Hall school, Clwyd, to enable them to remedy those matters referred to in the 866
  OHMCI Wales letter of May 1994 in relation to the school's approval to admit local education authority placements of special educational needs children; [17692]

  (2) pursuant to his letter to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West of 10 March, if the Department has received the detailed plan of action from the proprietors of Bryn Alyn Hall school to remedy the matters pointed out in the OHMCI Wales letter to the school of May 1994; what further proposals he has made to inspect the school; and if he will make a statement. [17691]

  Mr. Redwood
  In line with the legislation, my Department agreed the request of the proprietors of Bryn Alyn Hall school to allow a period of time to remedy the shortcomings identified by OHMCI. The period of time requested was not specified, but in a letter 5 July 1994 to the school proprietors my Department allowed an extension of time in two phases: receipt of an action plan within four weeks and, subject to receipt of that plan, a period of four months to address the breaches in approval requirements; the action plan was received. It was also made clear in the Department's letter that OHMCI would be asked to carry out a further inspection of the school in November 1994 to assess progress. The Department is currently considering what, if any, action needs to be taken in the light of the information received from OHMCI following that inspection.

  Public Bodies
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has to introduce statutory guidelines for the non-departmental public bodies he sponsors to protect board members who take action to supply information to him regarding allegations of mis-spending of public money; and if he will make a statement. [17671]

  Mr. Redwood
  The code of best practice for board members of public bodies, sent to all NDPBs in July last year, already confirms that members of an NDPB board have corporate responsibility for ensuring that the body complies with all relevant statutory or administrative requirements for the use of public funds. Any individual member who has a particular concern should raise this in the first instance with the chairman or board. An individual member has the right to raise with Ministers any matter of importance relating to his or her duty as a member of the board. Any board member who has evidence of impropriety by others should make sure it is passed on to someone who can deal with it impartially and fairly.

  Accident and Emergency Services
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he proposes to reserve the right to make the decision on the proposed transfer of regional accident and emergency services from the Cardiff royal infirmary to the University Hospital of Wales pursuant to section 57 of the June 1991 guidelines entitled "Substantial Changes in the Use of Health Buildings." [17748]

  Mr. Redwood
  I have not reserved the right to decide this matter. The next step is for the community health council to submit a constructive and realistic alternative proposal to the health authorities. The matter will be referred to me for decision only if the CHC and the health authorities are unable to reach agreement on the proposals.
  867
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what guidance he has given to the South Glamorgan health authority and the Cardiff community health council concerning the time allowed for the health council to prepare alternative proposals for the future of regional accident and emergency departments and the financial and other resources required by the health council to prepare such proposals pursuant to paragraph 52 of the June 1991 "Guidelines on Substantial Changes in the Use of Health Buildings". [17747]

  Mr. Redwood
  The recommended period for the provision of alternative proposals is eight weeks from the end of the consultation period arranged by the health authority. Health authorities are expected to provide community health councils with reasonable assistance to help councils develop constructive and realistic alternative proposals for the delivery of effective and efficient health services.

  Committee of the Regions
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what public indication he has given on whether he may be willing to provide financial support to the Welsh Forum. [17493]

  Mr. Redwood
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) on 28 November 1994, column 917.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has received asking him to consider giving financial support to Welsh representation on the Committee of the Regions; and if he will list those from whom these representations were received. [17495]

  Mr. Redwood
  Nine; three from the hon. Member, two from Councillor Eurig Wyn of Gwynedd county council and a member of the Committee of the Regions, one from J. H. R. Hughes Esq., central services manager of Rhymney Valley district council, two from Councillor J. R. P. Evans of Rhymney Valley district council and a member of the Committee of the Regions, and one from Councillor T. J. Mahoney of the Assembly of Welsh Counties.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has received asking him to consider giving financial support to the Welsh Forum; and if he will list those from whom these representations were received. [17494]

  Mr. Redwood
  Five; two from the hon. Member, one from Councillor Eurig Wyn of Gwynedd county council and a member of the Committee of the Regions, and one from Councillor T. J. Mahoney of the Assembly of Welsh Counties.

  Work Skills
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the skills gap in Wales; and what new steps he is planning to improve the numbers of qualified technicians in Wales and the supply of suitable applicants for apprenticeships on offer leading to technician-level qualifications. [17744]

  Mr. Redwood
  The 1994 Welsh employers survey, conducted by the independent researchers IFF, covered nearly 3,000 employers in Wales. It found that about 5 per cent. of manufacturing establishments in Wales had 868
  vacancies that were hard to fill because of a lack of skilled or qualified applicants. Improving the supply of qualified technicians has long been one of my priorities. In December 1993 I announced that support for new modern apprenticeships in Wales would concentrate in 1994–95 on manufacturing engineering, training people to NVQ levels 3 and 4. Nearly 500 people have started modern apprenticeships in manufacturing engineering in Wales in 1994–95. To support this, during 1994–95 I invested £5 million to update colleges' engineering facilities. This is in addition to the normal capital funding available to colleges through the Further Education Funding Council for Wales.

  A concerted action plan to strengthen the supply of technicians in manufacturing industry is set out on pages 12 and 13 of "People and Prosperity—an Agenda for Action in Wales", which I published on 20 March. I wrote to all the TECs on 8 March to tell them to take action ahead of any shortage of engineer, electronics specialists and construction trades appearing.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has had from National Panasonic concerning the adequacy of the supply of suitable applicants for apprenticeship to intermediate levels of skills between the craft and graduate engineer level. [17694]

  Mr. Redwood
  A copy of the press release that Panasonic issued on 16 March was obtained by the Welsh Office, and a Welsh Office official spoke to the company. No direct representations from the company have been received, but at my request South Glamorgan training and enterprise council is meeting the company to discuss the issue and to try to solve the problem.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from business leaders in Wales concerning the adequate supply of qualified(a) craftsmen and women, (b) technicians and (c) graduate engineers; and what consultations he has had with the educational establishments in Wales and with the Wales engineering centre concerning the supply and demand for engineering technicians in electronics and other branches of engineering. [17693]

  Mr. Redwood
  In the course of my visits to companies in Wales, business leaders have commented on these issues but no formal representations have been made recently to my Department. The Welsh Office issued a consultation paper on engineering skills in May 1993. Fifty-four responses were received. In the light of this, I announced in December 1993 a package of measures to improve the supply of engineering skills, linked to modern apprenticeships. I attach high priority to increasing the number of trained engineers and electronics specialists and have instructed the training and enterprise councils to do this.

  Health Promotion
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales on what date he completed the ministerial review of the functions of the Health Promotion Authority for Wales; when he proposes to make his conclusions public; and if he will make a statement. [17670]

  Mr. Redwood
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales made his recommendations to me at the end of January. I agree with his conclusion that there is a need for a national body to help with health promotion work in Wales. I have asked my officials to look at the
  869
  feasibility of alternative framework for this body before deciding on changes that may be required.

  Disability Benefits
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how many people in Wales were registered for, and in receipt of, mobility allowance in each year since 1992; and if he will make a statement; [16775]

  (2) how many people in Wales are registered for, and in receipt of, attendance allowance in each year since 1992; and if he will make a statement. [16776]

  Mr. Hague
  I have been asked to reply.

  Information is not available in the form requested. In April 1992 disability living allowance replaced and extended the existing provisions of mobility allowance and attendance allowance for people under the age of 65. AA continues for disabled people whose needs arise after the age of 65. The available information is in the table. Figures for 1993 reflect the fact that AA recipients aged under 65 were automatically transferred to DLA.

  Number of people in receipt of attendance allowance in Wales

  Date

  Number of people

  31 March 1992

  70,000

  31 March 1993

  56,000

  31 March 1994

  67,000

  Notes:

  Source: Analytical Services Division based on a 5 per cent. extract.

  1. No DLA payload figures are available for Wales.

  Invalidity Benefit
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people in Wales were registered for, and inreceipt of, invalidity benefit in each year since 1992; and if he will make a statement. [16777]

  Mr. Hague
  I have been asked to reply.

  The available information is in the table:

  Number of Invalidity Benefit recipients in Wales

  Number

  April 1992

  1159,000

  April 1993

  1172,000

  April 1994

  2184,000

  February 1995

  2186,000

  Notes:

  1 Based on a 1 per cent. sample of claimants, rounded to the nearest thousand, at 4 April 1992 and 3 April 1993.

  2 Based on a 100 per cent. clerical count of cases in the Benefits Agency offices, rounded to the nearest thousand, on the last working day of the month. The figure will include some people who have claimed but are not actually receiving benefit: eg because they are in receipt of a higher overlapping benefit. Figures are provisional and are subject to amendment.

DEFENCE

  Queen's Flight
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the cost of the Queen's Flight in(a) 1992–93 and (b)1993–94. [16515]
  870
  Mr. Soames
  The total operating cost of the Queen's Flight borne on class I votes was £7,590 in 1992–93 and £9,105 in 1993–94.

  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which members of the royal family used the Queen's Flight; and on how many occasions in 1993–94. [16769]

  Mr. Soames
  The number of occasions during the financial year 1993–94 on which the named member of the royal family was the principal passenger on an aircraft of the Queen's Flight is as follows:

  Her Majesty the Queen: 39

  HRH The Duke of Edinburgh: 84

  Her Majesty The Queen Mother:20

  HRH The Prince of Wales: 112

  HRH The Princess of Wales: 56

  HRH The Duke of York: 38

  HRH The Prince Edward: 66

  HRH The Princess Royal: 190

  HRH The Princess Margaret: 51

  HRH The Duke of Gloucester: 33

  HRH The Duchess of Gloucester: 25

  HRH The Duke of Kent: 82

  HRH The Duchess of Kent: 118

  HRH Prince Michael of Kent: 12

  HRH Princess Michael of Kent: 2

  HRH Princess Alexandra: 40

  Indonesia
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the exact dates of visits to Indonesia by officials in his Department since 1 January 1990 and the reasons for those visits in each case. [16514]

  Mr. Freeman
  Details of such visits are not held centrally. Officials have visited Indonesia from time to time since 1 January 1990 to discuss defence and security matters of mutual interest. Details of their discussions are confidential, as is usual.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the exact dates of ministerial visits to Indonesia since 1 January 1990(a) naming the Ministers and (b) the reasons for the visit in each case. [16507]

  Mr. Freeman
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence visited Indonesia in May 1993. His predecessor visited in September 1991, and the then Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces visited in March 1990 and May 1991. The purpose of these visits was to discuss defence and security matters of mutual interest. As is usual, details of these discussions are confidential.

  Press Officers
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many press officers there are in his Department currently; and what the figure was in 1979. 16555]

  Mr. Freeman
  The number of service personnel and civilians employed at present in complemented press and public relations and public relations support posts in London and districts and commands at home and overseas is 160. A figure for 1979 is not available.

  Flying Training
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the number of flying training units which were active in the years(a) 1965 and (b) 1975 and the number which will be active after the "Front Line First" changes have been implemented and the number of training aircraft in use in each unit in each year. [17423]

  Mr. Soames
  The information requested, by individual service, is as follows:

  Royal Navy

  (a) The number of flying training squadrons in 1965 and the number of training aircraft could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  (b) The flying training squadrons (Sqn) in 1975 were as follows:

  705 Sqn. Gazelle1

  750 Sqn. Sea Prince

  706 Sqn. Sea King1

  737 Sqn. Wessex/Sea King1

  849 Sqn. Wasp1

  Phantom training unit—Fixed Wing training squadrons

  Buccaneer training unit—Fixed Wing training squadrons

  Records are no longer available of the numbers of training aircraft in this year.

  (c) Post "Front Line First" squadrons are:

  750 Sqn. Jet Stream: 17 Aircraft

  706/810. Sqn Sea King 5/61: 20 Aircraft

  849 Sqn. Sea King W (AEW)1: 2 Aircraft

  848 Sqn. Sea King 41: 4 Aircraft

  702 Sqn. Lynx 81: 12 Aircraft

  899 Sqn. Sea Harrier FA2: 6 Aircraft

  1Denotes helicopter squadrons.

  1Airborne early warning.

  Army

  (a) and (b) all Army flying training in 1965 and 1975 was undertaken at Middle Wallop. The numbers of training aircraft could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  (c) Following the establishment of the Defence helicopter flying school at RAF Shawbury in 1997, Army flying training will be conducted at both Middle Wallop and RAF Shawbury. The number of training aircraft at both sites has yet to be finalised.

  Royal Air Force
  (a) and (b) From the records available, the following flying training units and aircraft were operated by the RAF in 1965 and 1975:

  1965

  1975

  Flying School

  1 Flying Training School (FTS)

  39

  28

  2 FTS

  42

  —

  3 FTS

  42

  40

  4 FTS

  49

  36

  5 FTS

  21

  —

  6 FTS

  42

  34

  7 FTS

  42

  —

  1 Air Navigation School (ANS)

  24

  —

  2 ANS

  22

  —

  Central Navigation School

  36

  —

  Refresher Sqn.

  38

  —

  Central Flying School (CFS)

  50

  38

  CFS (Helicopter)

  24

  22

  RAF College

  77

  23

  Air Engineer School

  13

  —

  (c) Once the "Font Line First" changes have been implemented, the active RAF flying training units and aircraft numbers will be as follows:
  872

  Aircraft

  Main Operating Bases

  RAF Cranwell

  40

  RAF Linton on Ouse (1 FTS)

  54

  RAF Valley (4 FTS)

  73

  Relief Landing Grounds

  RAF Barkston Heath

  17

  RAF Newton

  1—

  RAF Topcliffe

  19

  1 To be decide

  Airfields
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the number of Royal Air Force airfields which were active in(a) 1965, (b) 1975 and (c) which will be active after the "Front Line First" changes have been implemented. [17424]

  Mr. Soames
  There were a total of 216 RAF airfields in 1965 and 162 in 1975. It is currently planned that, following the implementation of the "Front Line First" initiatives, there will be 39 active RAF airfields in 1999.

  Air Defence
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the number of Royal Air Force squadrons engaged in the air defence of the United Kingdom and the number of aircraft in each squadron in(a) 1965, (b) 1975 and (c) 1985. [17425]

  Mr. Soames
  As of 31 March in 1965 and 1985 the squadrons and operational aircraft strengths were as follows:

  1965

  1985

  19 Squadron

  12

  5 Squadron

  12

  23 Squadron

  12

  11 Squadron

  12

  56 Squadron

  14

  right">29 Squadron

  15

  64 Squadron

  1—

  43 Squadron

  17

  74 Squadron

  12

  56 Squadron

  13

  92 Squadron

  12

  74 Squadron

  14

  111 Squadron

  1

  111 Squadron

  16

  Total

  63

  99

  1 No. 64 Squadron had no operational aircraft on strength in the UK. It is understood that they were deployed to the far east.

  Individual figures for squadrons are not available for 1975. The overall strength of operational air defence aircraft on 31 March 1975 was 85 aircraft.

  Air Cadets
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received about the air cadets in the last year. [17426]

  Mr. Soames
  My Department has received a number of representations about air cadets during the last year.

  RAF (Overseas Postings)
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to ensure that there will be adequate uniformed RAF technical personnel available for overseas posting at very short notice during periods of hostility or threatened hostility against United Kingdom interests. [17427]
  873
  Mr. Soames
  The RAF has recently carried out an initial validation of its core requirement for uniformed regular manpower for operations. Detailed validation work is continuing to establish the service personnel required by rank, branch, trade and skill level to meet contingency operations and to protect United Kingdom interests. The RAF has sufficient technical personnel available for deployment to areas of tension as part of the immediate and rapid reaction forces.

  Arm Exports
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his Department's policy towards increasing arms exports to(a) Asia and (b) the Pacific region; and if he will make a statement. [17521]

  Mr. Freeman
  The Defence Export Services Organisation has decided to direct additional resources specifically towards Asia and the Pacific region with the objective of increasing the United Kingdom share of the defence market—within, of course, the restraints of governmental and international policy.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what forms of government support are provided to British arms exports. [17526]

  Mr. Freeman
  Within the Ministry of Defence, support for defence exports is provided, primarily, by the Defence Export Services Organisation which exists to help British manufacturers market and sell their products abroad, complementing the wider range of services offered by the DTI. In addition to the DESO/DTI support, the Export Credits Guarantee Department makes available its range of export credit facilities to support defence sales.

  Fish Research
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what communications he has had with the Industrial Ecology research centre of the university of Liverpool in relation to arsenical traces discovered in fish in the proximity of munitions dumps in the Irish sea; [17530]

  (2) if he will provide additional finance for the Industrial Ecology research centre of the university of Liverpool to undertake further research work on arsenical traces in fish in the vicinity of munition dumps in the Irish sea. [17531]

  Mr. Soames
  My Department has no record of any contact with the Industrial Ecology research centre of the university of Liverpool and we have no plans to fund any of its research activities.

  Sea Dumping (Munitions)
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will(a) list the quantity in tonnage and (b) specify the type of (i) chemical weapons and (ii) other munitions dumped in the sea surrounding the British Isles in each of the last 30 years; [17534]

  (2) if he will make a statement about the sea dumping of (a) chemical weapons and (b) other munitions in British waters from 1965 to the present day; [17536]

  (3) if he will make a statement about the sea dumping of (a) chemical weapons and (b) other munitions in international waters from 1965 to the present day; [17535]
  874
  (4) if he will list the names of operations undertaken by his Department regarding the sea dumping of munitions; if he will list the location of dump sites; and if he will specify the type and quantity of munitions dumped. [17652]

  Mr. Soames
  There has been no sea dumping of chemical weapons since 1957. My Department ceased all sea dumping of conventional ammunition and explosive stocks on 1 January 1993 in line with the Oslo and Paris conventions. Complete records do not exist for dumping before this date. Beauforts dyke operated as my Department's main conventional munitions sea dump site between 1920 and 1973, and Hurds Deep, a site 1,000 miles off Land's End, acted as the dump site of redundant or demilitarised munitions from 1973 until sea dumping was terminated. No records are available to cover more distant international waters.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will make a statement about the dumping on land of(a) chemical weapons and (b) other munitions from 1965 to the present day; [17532]

  (2) if he will (a) list the quantity in tonnage and (b) specify the type of (i) chemical weapons and (ii) other munitions dumped on land in each of the last 30 years; and if he will specify the locations thereof. [17533]

  Mr. Soames
  It has never been my Department's policy to use land burial as a final disposal route for redundant munitions.

  Deaths (Canada)
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many members of the armed forces have died on training courses in Canada in each of the last 10 years; what were the dates of the deaths and the name and regiments of those involved; and if he will list details of each incident together with the conclusions of any inquiries carried out into these deaths. [17523]

  Mr. Soames
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence will write to the hon. Member.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions his Department has had with its Irish counterpart concerning Operation Sandcastle. [17651]

  Mr. Soames
  The Irish Government have been given details about Operation Sandcastle. There have been no intergovernmental discussions about this operation nor has any request for a meeting been received from the Irish Government.

  Departmental Land
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the total value, at today's prices, of land, buildings and equipment sold by his Department in each of the last 10 years; and what are the forecast total receipts for the next financial year. [17522]

  Mr. Soames
  Due to the volatile nature of the property market it would not be possible to apply present day values to land and buildings which have been sold by my Department during the past 10 years. The actual receipts achieved for each of the years in question are as follows:
  875

  £ million

  1984–85

  27.7

  1985–86

  60.2

  1986–87

  75.6

  1987–88

  77.8

  1988–89

  149.6

  1989–90

  74.0

  1990–91

  81.6

  1991–92

  102.2

  1992–93

  68.0

  1993–94

  70.7

  1994–95

  162.0

  1 Projected.

  The land buildings forecast receipts for the next financial year are £122 million. Any equipment associated with the sale of land and building is included in the figures.

  Army Light Vehicles
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 9 February,Official Report, column 415, what is the current operational availability of his Department's 846 RB44 Army light vehicles; and if he will make a statement. [17650]

  Mr. Soames
  All 846 vehicles have been taken out of service while a steering under braking defect is investigated. No vehicles will be returned to service until a satisfactory solution of the problem is achieved.

  Vehicle Integrated Communications and Information Distribution System
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the total cost to date of his Department's vehicle integrated communications and information distribution system; what was the original total cost of this project at today's prices; what was the original in-service date; when the project is now due to be in service; and if he will specify the changes made to the project in the last two years. [17524]

  Mr. Freeman
  The total cost to date of the vehicle integrated communications and information distribution system—VICDS—is just over £5 million. The original estimated cost of developing VICDS to production standard at today's prices is £7.5 million; funding for production of VICDS is the responsibility of projects which require VICDS as their communications bearer. The original date for the completion of development was December 1994; VICDS development is now due to be completed in October 1997. VICDS will first enter service with Bowman whose in-service date is April 2000.

  There have been no major changes to the VICDS requirement since the successful field trials in 1992. However, following a detailed project review in 1993, the Department revised the procurement strategy for VICDS to address the risks identified in the original programme and to align the VICDS timetable with that of project Bowman. Contracts for the current risk reduction phase were let with Racal Communications Systems Ltd. and Hunting Engineering Ltd. in August 1994.

  World Defence Market
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence by what percentage he expects the world defence market to change over the next five years. [17528]
  876
  Mr. Freeman
  My Department forecasts that the world defence market annual average value of new orders for the period 1995 to 1999 will be more than 20 per cent. lower than the annual average value in the previous five years.

  Injuries Claims
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assistance is normally given to members of the armed forces in pursuing claims against third parties in foreign countries for compensation for injuries incurred in the course of their duties on service abroad. [17672]

  Mr. Soames
  There is no general provision for such assistance to service or civilian employees. Some advisory assistance to members of the armed forces serving abroad may be given by service legal officers where appropriate, but this would not extend to meeting the costs of any legal action that an individual might wish to pursue. My Department does however operate a discretionary ex-gratia criminal injury compensation scheme for members of the armed forces and their dependants who are the victims of crimes of violence while serving overseas.

  Aircraft Accidents
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations have been received from the Canadian Government in regard to the possible toxic or radioactive contamination caused by any accident of RAF aircraft en route from the Pacific to the United Kingdom on a flight path over Canada. [17537]

  Mr. Soames
  I am not aware of any such representatives.

  Recruits, Wales
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many recruits to the armed forces were from Wales in 1993–94; and if he will make a statement. [16780]

  Mr. Soames
  During financial year 1993–94 the number of recruits enlisted into the armed forces from Wales were as follows:

  Royal Navy: 71

  Army: 587

  Royal Air Force: 41

  The figures for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force represent personnel recruited through careers information offices located in Wales, while the Army figure represents the number of recruits who gave their normal place of residence as Wales. No central records are maintained of the country of origin of officers, or airmen aircrew in the Royal Air Force, and the information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Lockerbie
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action was taken by Her Majesty's forces to warn off rescue workers at Lockerbie from looking at objects under a red tarpaulin. [16707]

  Mr. Soames
  My Department is not aware of any such action or incident.

  Nuclear Materials (Transport)
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consideration his Department has given to ending the use of airflights for the transportation of radioactive nuclear material over Britain. [16787]

  Mr. Soames
  Arrangements for the transportation of defence nuclear materials are kept under review, but in some circumstances RAF aircraft will continue to be the most appropriate means of transportation.

  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what precautions his Department adopts to minimise the risk of an air disaster involving air flights carrying radioactive nuclear material over Britain. [16789]

  Mr. Soames
  There are stringent regulations and procedures governing all aspects of the movement of defence nuclear material by air.

  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what policies his Ministry adopts to minimise the flight of radioactive nuclear waste over urban areas. [16788]

  Mr. Soames
  As matter of long-standing policy, the transportation of all defence nuclear material is kept to a minimum consistent with conduct of business. Route selection criteria for flights include the avoidance of population centres wherever possible.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Electricity
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the progress that is presently being made towards the introduction of full competition in the supply of electricity in 1998. [17966]

  Mr. Eggar
  The Government attach great importance to the successful introduction of full competition in electricity supply in 1998. Consumers in the existing competitive market have already seen the substantial benefits that competition can bring. Customers with a maximum demand above 1 MW have been able to choose their electricity supplier since April 1990, when the electricity industry was vested, and the latest figures released yesterday show that average electricity price paid by manufacturing industry in Great Britain fell by nearly 11 per cent. in real terms between 1989 and 1994. Evidence suggests that some smaller industrial and commercial customers have achieved price reductions of up to 10 to 15 per cent. since the competitive market was further widened to cover all premises above 100 kW last year.

  We want small consumers, including domestic consumers, to be able to share in these benefits after 1998. The broad objective is therefore that the industry should establish practical arrangements for 1998 that will enable customers to change their electricity supplier cheaply and easily, while continuing present levels of customer protection. This is a major undertaking with implications for every household. It requires careful planning if consumers and suppliers are to have confidence in the new market.
  878
  The Director General of Electricity Supply issued a consultation paper in January of this year in which he set out his initial views on the trading and licensing arrangements that will be appropriate for 1998 and beyond, and in which he announced that he was setting up a 1998 co-ordination group for England and Wales under his chairmanship and with the participation of my Department. A separate co-ordination group for Scotland has also been set up. He has now held the first meetings of these groups. I welcome that initiative. The duty to promote competition is written into the Electricity Act 1989 and it is appropriate for the director general to take the lead in ensuring that all parties are working together.

  I understand that the director general will shortly set a timetable for the 1998 process, which identifies each of the key issues to be addressed, those responsible and the deadlines that need to be met. Many decisions need to be taken as soon as possible this year and I encourage the electricity industry to work with Offer to ensure that the opening up of the market to full competition in 1998 takes place smoothly and delivers benefits to consumers.

  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade to what extent the timing of the sale of shares in the electricity generators was a consideration in determining the date of the publication of "Energy Paper 65". [16952]

  Mr. Eggar
  "Energy Paper 65" was published as soon as it was ready. The timing of the sale of shares in the electricity generators was not a consideration in determining the publication date. The prospectus for the sale of shares in National Power and PowerGen included a reference to the new projections.

  British Coal
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he will make a statement on the future of British Coal's ex-employee liabilities. [17965]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Acting on behalf of my Department, British Coal and the trustees of the British Coal pension schemes, Touche Ross yesterday invited applications from potential bidders to pre-qualify to tender for the services undertaken by British Coal's Centris division in administering pensions, concessionary fuel entitlements, personal injury claims and other benefits. As well as ensuring value for money, a key objective in the tender process will be to ensure continuity in the high-quality services provided to beneficiaries. The tender will not affect the security of the pension and concessionary fuel entitlements of former British Coal employees and their dependants which the Government are committed to safeguarding.

  Post Office
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the performance targets for the Post Office. [18274]

  Mr. Eggar
  The Government have in recent years set the Post Office performance targets on a three-year basis. The current three year targets expire at the end of the 1994–95 financial year. I therefore need to set the board new targets.

  During the current target regime, the Government carried out a review of the structure and organisation of

  879
  the Post Office. But it is now several years since there was a detailed external study of the operational efficiency of the Post Office. A performance review would clearly be desirable before setting further three-year targets and my Department will be appointing consultants shortly to carry out such a review.

  This review will not, however, be completed until the autumn. In order to ensure that the Post Office has targets applying from the beginning of the financial year, I have agreed with the Post Office board that the existing three year targets should be extended on an exceptional basis to create a four-year set of targets to cover the period 1992–93 to 1995–96.

  I therefore propose to set the board the following targets:

  Annual return on capital employed

  Royal Mail

  Post Office Counters

  Parcelforce

  18 per cent.

  9.5 per cent.

  Break even (before exceptional items)

  Reduction in Unit Costs (financial years 1992–93 to 1995–96)

  Royal Mail

  Post Office Counters

  5.5 per cent.

  6.5 per cent.

  This RUC target compares to a three-year target for Royal Mail and Post Office Counters of 4 per cent. and 3 per cent. respectively for the three years to 1994–95. They take account of progress towards those targets in the three years to date, which both Royal Mail and Post Office Counters are likely to over-achieve in the three years to 1994–95. Parcelforce is not set an RUC target as it is subject to the competitive marketplace.

  I believe these performance targets are realistic and will continue downward pressure on the Post Office's costs in the interest of taxpayers and consumers. They will continue to be matched by stretching quality of service targets for both Royal Mail and Post Office Counters which are set after consultation with the Post Office Users National Council.

  Business Links
  Dr. John Cunningham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish the internal audit by his Department on business links; and if he will make a statement. [15182]

  Mr. Heseltine
  It is not the practice to publish internal audit reports.

  Gas Bill
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to seek to amend clause 1 of the Gas Bill to provide, in the event of an agreement being reached at the first conference of the parties for the climate change convention to negotiate a protocol to the treaty establishing targets for carbon dioxide emissions 880
  beyond 2000, for the promotion of energy efficiency to become one of the regulator's duties and objectives. [17001]

  Mr. Eggar
  The Gas Bill will provide new opportunities for companies to market energy efficient services and packages. In a competitive market, this strategy can allow a supplier to gain business from other firms, while saving energy.

  The Bill provides that the Secretary of State and the director shall each have a duty to exercise his functions in the manner he considers best calculated to promote the efficient use of gas conveyed through pipes. No amendment to clause 1 is therefore needed to enable energy efficiency to be one of the regulator's duties.

  Public Relations
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what guidelines his Department has issued to its agencies and other public bodies under its authority in respect of the employment of public relations companies and the procedures to be adopted in relation to requesting tenders for public relations companies. [16222]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Guidance on Government use of public relations companies is contained in "A Working Guide for Government Information Officers", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Overseas Licensing
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what role Her Majesty's Government have in the procedure for licensing the manufacture of equipment, with special reference to Land Rover vehicles, in countries other than the United Kingdom; what account it take of those countries' human rights records when making the licensing arrangements; and if he will make a statement. [17141]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 30 March 1995]: It is a matter for manufacturers' commercial judgment as to whether they wish to have their products manufactured overseas under licence. Vehicles and related equipment, specially designed or modified for military use and components therefore specially designed or modified for military use are controlled under schedule 1, part I, group 1 of the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1994, category ML6. Exports of equipment and technology for the production of all goods specified in group 1 of the Export of Goods (Control) Order are also controlled (category ML18). Any application for licence to export such vehicles, equipment or technology would be considered against internationally agreed criteria governing the control of exports of military equipment. These criteria include consideration of the human rights record of the country to which the goods would be exported. There are military equipment embargoes imposed by the European Union against Burma and China which were put in place as a result of those countries' record on human rights.

  Energy Charter
  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about funding for the energy charter secretariat. [17210]
  881
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  In common with many other international organisations, the energy charter treaty secretariat will be funded by contributions from contracting parties according to a scale agreed in the course of negotiation. Depending on the final number of signatories, the United Kingdom contribution is likely to be about 7 per cent. of the budget which is expected to be agreed at the provisional charter conference on 5 and 6 April.

  The United Kingdom approach to funding international organisations is to require them to produce budgets which, while meeting clearly defined objectives, also reflect the need for value for money and recognise the financial constraints on all Governments.

  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representation he has received about proposals to site the energy charter secretariat in London; and if he will make a statement. [17208]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  I have received no representations seeking to locate the energy charter treaty secretariat in London.

  Mr. Elletson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about his Department's plans to promote the energy charter. [17209]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  In December 1994, when the energy charter treaty was signed, my Departmental issued a press notice and sent a briefing note, "The Energy Charter Treaty: Key Points For British Business", to about 500 companies and organisations with energy interests. I have today placed copies of this publication in the Library of the House. We will be discussing future plans for promoting the Treaty with UK energy organisations after the provisional charter conference on 5 and 6 April.

  British Embassy, Washington
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what reports the British embassy in Washington DC has made on the Democrat party administration's deregulation activities. [17089]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  [holding answer 30 March 1995]: The most recent report on the deregulation activities of the Democrat party administration from the British embassy in Washington DC was made in September 1993. The report concerned the national performance review report "From Red Tape to Results: Creating A Government that Works Better and Costs Less", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Advertising
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list, for 1992–93 and 1993–94, separate figures for the spending by his Department on(a) television advertising, (b) radio advertising, (c) newspaper advertising, (d) other promotional materials and activities, (e) the totals in each year of (a) to (d) and (f) the proportion of (e) that was spent on recruitment
  882
  advertising; and what are his latest estimates for the years 1994–95 and 1995–96. [17621]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Expenditure from my Department's centrally managed publicity budgets has been as follows:

  1992–93

  1993–94

  £000 1994–951

  (a) TV Advertising

  0

  0

  0

  (b) Radio Advertising

  1

  2

  2

  (c) Press Advertising

  1,138

  782

  554

  (d) Other Promotional Materials and Activities

  8,784

  7,684

  7,337

  (e) Total

  9,923

  8,468

  7,893

  (f) Proportion of (e) that was Spent on Recruitment Advertising Percentage

  0

  0

  0

  1 Estimated forecast outturn.

  The budgets for 1995–96 have yet to be finalised.

  Recruitment advertising is not funded from the Department's centrally managed publicity budgets.

  Departmental Report
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the cost of producing and circulating the last departmental annual report; what was the circulation list; how many copies were produced; how many copies were sold; and at what price. [16620]

  Mr. Heseltine
  The cost to my Department of producing and circulating DTI's most recent departmental report—"Trade and Industry 1995", Cm 2804—was £43,378.67, including VAT, but not including staff time. In addition, £25,627.30 was the cost to DTI of the copies it purchased for internal and external circulation from Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The costs of printing and publishing, were borne by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, which aims to recover these costs from sales revenue, including revenue from the copies sold to DTI, referred to above.

  The report was circulated to the top 1,000 companies in the United Kingdom, to other companies which seconded staff to the Department during 1994 or which supported such secondments; to trade associations, chambers of commerce, training and enterprise councils, business links and other key opinion formers in the business community. Copies were also sent to members of the Trade and Industry and of the Science and Technology Committees of the House of Commons and to the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham).

  Five thousand five hundred copies of Cm 2804 were printed and published. In addition to those required by Parliament and the Department, nearly 1,550 copies were produced to satisfy sales at a price of £16.80 net.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the cost of producing and circulating the Department annual report for each of the last 10 years in real terms. [16621]
  883
  Mr. Heseltine
  Departmental reports were published for the first time in 1991. The external costs to the Department of production and circulation in real terms, including VAT, for the five years of publication were as follows:

  Year

  Cost at 1994–95 prices1£

  1991

  210,560.98

  1992

  28,109.82

  1993

  2,317,300.00

  1994

  28,061.99

  1995

  43,378.67

  Notes:

  1 The figures do not include the costs of copies purchased by the Department from HMSO.

  2 The departmental report was not widely circulated externally by the Department in 1991, 1992 and 1993. In addition, much of the production work was carried out in-house in these years and is not included in the figures. In 1994 and 1995, this work was increasingly contracted out.

  3 The figure for 1993 is an estimate.

  Patent Office, Newport
  Mr. Touhig
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what has been the cost of the consultants employed to examine if the marketing section at the Patent Office in Newport is to be contracted out. [17413]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  The Patent Office will be looking at the feasibility of contracting out its marketing activities and consultancy advice may be sought. However, so far no consultants have been appointed.

  Pergau Dam
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recent changes have taken place in the cost of the Pergau dam; and what is now the total cost of the dam. [17081]

  Mr. Heseltine
  Whilst I am aware of press reports about possible additional costs arising in connection with the Pergau dam project, these would be matters of a commercial nature for discussions between the contracting parties. Unless made public by those parties, any revision of costs would be subject to normal considerations of commercial confidentiality.