Sitting of 17 January 1996

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

Mental Illness
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wells.]
9.34 am
Mr. John Marshall: Today marks the anniversary of the introduction of Wednesday morning Adjournment debates. Everyone who has taken part in them agrees that they have been an outstanding success, enabling Members to articulate a number of topics of concern to their constituents and the wider public in a non-partisan way.
Despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), the Government Whip, may say, Wednesday morning debates have tended to be non-partisan. That may be helped by the fact that members of the press do not arrive in the House of Commons until 2.30 pm; they leave at 4 pm and then write about the short working day of Members. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is to be congratulated on this innovation and I make no apology to the House for introducing yet again the subject of the treatment of the mentally ill, about which I have spoken in a previous Wednesday morning debate.
Yesterday's papers reported widespread concern about the operation of care in the community. It is obviously difficult to talk about the subject because we hear only about the cases that fail. There are a large number of successful cases of care in the community, but my concern and that of the House and the country is that there are too many unsuccessful cases. Certainly, the views of the relatives of those affected is that sometimes the psychiatrists do not listen to the parents and relatives of those afflicted with schizophrenia as often as they might.
Mr. David Martin: In addition to the concerns of parents and relatives are those of our constituents who live next to, opposite or in the same block of flats as people who have been released into the community. They sometimes feel that they are given insufficient back-up when there are major problems with a neighbour who perhaps ought to go back into secure care, and that their concerns are not sufficiently taken into account when they ask for action along those lines.
Mr. Marshall: I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. About a dozen or 15 people from a council-owned block of flats came to one of my earliest surgeries, and I wondered what on earth had gone wrong. They explained that the problem was all to do with a Mr. Campbell. I asked whether he was the caretaker and they replied, "No. He is a patient who has been released into the
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community." Having been released into the community, Mr. Campbell lived in a flat where he had an armchair and a stereo system. His way of life was to operate his stereo system from 8 pm to 8 am and rest for the entire day. That was fine for him, but not for those of his neighbours who had to get up at 8 am to go to work.
My hon. Friend is quite right to say that the neighbours frequently suffer. It was with great difficulty that I was able to get a psychiatrist to look again at Mr. Campbell. In far too many cases, neighbours and individuals who are divorced from the problem become victims of it.
Yesterday's papers were full of the murder of the south London schoolteacher Suzanne Steckel by her son Gilbert, who then committed suicide. Gilbert had discharged himself from the Maudsley hospital, which is a mental hospital. Two lives were lost unnecessarily because of the ease with which he was able to discharge himself.
Secondly, there was a report that 61 murders had been committed by schizophrenics, who were involved in more than 200 suicides. That represents five unnecessary deaths every week. It is not sufficient to say that the trend is downwards from 109 murders in 1979. There are still too many unnecessary killings and deaths as a result of people being released prematurely from hospital.
Yesterday, a report in The Times stated that the Royal College of Psychiatrists attributed suicides and homicides to three factors—a failure of communication, lack of face-to-face contact between patients and doctors, and patients not taking their medication. An article in The Independent yesterday by Nicholas Timmins, a widely respected journalist writing on social issues, described the lack of psychiatric hospital beds. The Royal College of Psychiatrists estimates that London has a bed occupancy rate of 120 per cent. and that Londoners can be sent into secure accommodation as far afield as in Yorkshire or Wales, 200 miles away. The article pointed out that the bed manager of Gordon hospital in London has the telephone numbers of 37 secure units, so that when he receives a request for a secure bed, he has 37 units to call, on the off-chance that he will be able to locate such a bed.
All that is bad enough, but The Independent this morning contained another article by Nicholas Timmins, with further worrying comments:
"At one end of the system, approaching a quarter of Broadmoor's 450 patients could be discharged to a less secure environment if space was available… At the other end, ordinary acute wards are having to handle growing numbers of seriously disturbed patients because they cannot be moved up to more secure accommodation. More medium secure accommodation beds are being provided—numbers are due to rise from 700 to…1,200 by December".
The Mental Health Act Commission believes that the figure should be 2,000 rather than 1,200, and says that there was an underestimate of how many beds were needed to allow for occasional relapses. The commission reported the discovery of previously undetected cases by new community teams, said that there were too few 24-hour nursed beds outside hospitals and noted the premature discharge of patients from mental hospital to free beds for even more drastic cases.
Premature discharge is one of the real issues that we must examine. Individuals are released so that others in a worse situation can take their beds. They are released before the suitable time, then are taken back into hospital. It would be much better if their treatment could run its natural course in hospital, so that patients might be released into the community with a chance of real success.

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As a Member of Parliament representing a London constituency, one tends to talk about the capital—hut the situation that I have described is not unique to London. The Mental Health Act Commission states:
"Occupancy levels of 100 per cent. and above have been reported from areas as far apart as Devon, East Anglia and Cheshire".
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) is in his place to represent that distinguished county. All those issues were raised in yesterday's newspapers, but earlier this year homicides were committed by Wayne Hutchinson, who was guilty of killing two individuals and wounding another three. It was commented that he had been "released by mistake". Earlier this year, Martin Murcell was gaoled for life for the murder of his stepfather and the attempted murder of his mother. In January, doctors reporting on an experimental scheme run by the Institute of Psychiatry in south London noted that 92 patients had been released, resulting in the suicides of three patients, while another killed a young baby.
Last December, Dr. Imweldo in Hampstead was attacked in his surgery when he attempted to defend another doctor, who happens to be a constituent of mine. We read about such cases in the newspapers and all have personal experience of individuals not receiving the treatment which they need and which we and their relatives can see that they need.
There is a tradition in the House to declare one's interests. My interest is as vice-president of the Jewish Association for the Mentally III—although I assure hon. Members that it advises me rather than relies on my advice. I pay tribute to the work of JAMI's volunteers and those of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. Most are relatives of victims of schizophrenia. Some have lost their loved sons and daughters through suicide, but they have not become introspective and miserable. Instead, those parents and relatives decided to use their experience to help other victims of schizophrenia.
The treatment of mentally ill people in this country and every other has undergone a revolution. In the middle ages, the mentally ill were burnt as witches or kept chained in unpleasant and unsavoury surroundings, and that does not happen today. The Victorian asylums that Mr. Enoch Powell was so anxious to close were a remarkable improvement on the dismal surroundings of the past. When people sought to close asylums, they forgot that asylums were a place of refuge—that the mentally ill did much better in them than they would have done at home or in the community. Of course, the rules of the 1940s were far too restrictive—it was much too easy to have someone committed to a mental hospital. The Mental Health Acts of 1959 and 1983 went from one extreme to another. Admission to a mental hospital is now seen as the last resort. The power to section remains, but it is used far too reluctantly.
There has been a failure by psychiatrists to acknowledge the problems of care in the community, under which it has been assumed that persons so mentally ill as to require treatment were sufficiently mentally acute to acknowledge the need for that treatment. Drugs are a powerful weapon in dealing with schizophrenia, but a most unpleasant weapon. We all remember being given a nasty dose of medicine as children and being told by
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our mothers, "The nasty medicine is the most effective." I once persuaded my mother to try the medicine, and with the sort of logic that would not befit a politician I said, "You've taken the medicine, so I do not need to take it." She replied, "Yes, you do. The nasty medicine will make you better."
One may say to a schizophrenic, "You arc sufficiently cured to enter the community, but not to avoid the need to take nasty medicine." Some patients may willingly accept the first piece of advice, but be reluctant to accept the second. The result is that such patients become a danger to themselves and to other people. A policy horn of compassion was misguided in part because it failed to recognise that asylums were a haven for troubled souls and that some individuals needed treatment in institutions rather than in the community. Others will need periods of treatment in hospital, to enable them to return to the community.
Three areas require development. There should be a moratorium on patients, or at least we should reverse the policy of reducing the number of beds for the mentally ill. The dramatic decline from 145,000 beds in 1961 to fewer than 45,000 today has been too drastic.
The remarks of Dr. Searle were quoted in The Independent on 26 September. He said that he had left Hackney
"because it was so appallingly bad".
He continued:
"You had to throw out people who were very mad in order to admit people who were very, very mad. They are still doing that, having to discharge people who down here"—
Dr. Searle now lives in Bournemouth—
"I would be admitting."
There was an article in The Independent on 15 June last year, which stated:
"Hackney operates at 140 per cent. capacity instead of the 80 per cent. recommended to allow for emergency admissions. Admissions are restricted to psychotic patients threatening suicide, violence or facing imminent breakdown. Often, to make room for them, others are discharged before they are ready. Many seriously mentally ill patients are shunted in and out as their condition slightly improves with hospital care and then deteriorates without it."
The reduction in the number of beds has been far too drastic. I am concerned about what will happen to patients at Napsbury when the closure takes place. I would prefer Napsbury not to close. It is an issue of great concern in north London. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to explain how many beds will be provided elsewhere if and when Napsbury closes.
We need a change in the philosophy of psychiatrists. I accept that psychiatry is not an exact science. If someone is suffering from pneumonia, the doctors know what to do. Psychiatrists, however, do not always know what to do when dealing with psychiatric problems. It is too easy to leave mental hospitals and it is too difficult for some people to enter them.
Mrs. X, as I shall call her, is one of my constituents. She has written to many Members claiming that she is being pursued by Mossad, by the Japanese, by MI5 and by various other organisations. The lady's quality of life is quite impossible. I once went to see her. She met me outside the block of flats in which she lives. She said. "We must speak very softly because we are going to he overheard." When I went inside I asked her, "Have you got a doctor?" Her immediate reaction was, "I don't need

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a psychiatrist." I had referred to a doctor, not a psychiatrist. It was clear that the lady's quality of life was appalling.
I went to a meeting in honour of former Prime Minister Rabin. Mrs. X was standing outside with a poster that went from her head down past her knees. Her quality of life is such that she feels persecuted. She is a victim living in the community who would be much better treated somewhere else.
I have another constituent who became convinced that my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) was about to kill her. We had 19 telephone calls on our answering machine one weekend. She kept on saying, "It is Roddy Boyson. He is coming to get me." I could not think of anyone less likely than my right hon. Friend to attack a lady living in west Hendon. I could not believe that my right hon. Friend was going to live on the west Hendon council estate so as to attack this poor lady. Her quality of life was very poor. I cannot believe that she benefited from being in the community. She would have been very much better if she had been cared for elsewhere.
There is talk about civil rights, and I believe that everyone has civil rights. The parents of patients have rights. They would much prefer to see those patients in hospital rather than in the community. Potential victims have civil rights. The right to life is the greatest right of all. We must weigh the rights of neighbours, patients and individuals when considering whether people should be in hospital or in the community.
When we adopted the policy of care in the community, I believe that the Treasury was seduced by the capital that it could see flowing into its coffers. It did not realise that proper care in the community would be very expensive, involving purpose-built homes, adequate supervision and the training of many staff. The Royal College of Nursing believes that we need to double the number of community psychiatric nurses if care in the community is to work.
For far too many, care in the community has been a poor-quality service. I shall always remember my first meeting with members of the NSF. I turned to one lady and asked, "What is your problem?" She replied, "It is my daughter." I asked, "Where is your daughter?" She said, "I don't know. My daughter will be sleeping on a park bench somewhere in London tonight." That girl and her family were cheated by care in the community. The Economist was surely right when it commented that care in the community
"has turned out to mean neglect on a street corner."
That has been the outcome for some. The irony is that some of those who are released into the community for care in the community end up committing crimes and find themselves in a different institution, a prison rather than a hospital.
I welcome the suggestion in The Daily Telegraph of 28 December that the Government will produce a charter for the mentally ill that will provide for easier access to hospital treatment and for consultation with carers and relatives before patients are released into the community. One of the great failings of the care in the community policy is that we have not listened to parents, relatives and carers. All too often, their wishes and knowledge have been ignored. They know the patients best. They should be able to tell psychiatrists more than perhaps psychiatrists sometimes want to hear.
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It is not sufficient to produce a charter. It is necessary to produce more beds for the mentally ill. The current supply of beds is an incentive for premature discharge into the community. It underlines the reluctance of some members of the psychiatric profession to keep patients in hospital.
However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has great experience because he was the Minister with responsibility for the mentally ill. I believe that he recognises the problems. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary should as well because he is a former Secretary of State for Health. But if we fail to recognise the need for improving the quality of care in the community and the need for more beds for the mentally ill, we shall be failing not only the mentally ill but their relatives, their friends, their neighbours and society at large.
9.57 am
Mr. David Hinchliffe: I commend the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) for introducing the debate and once again obtaining time to discuss a serious issue. He has previously been successful in doing exactly that. I genuinely respect his strength of feeling about the problems that have arisen in many respects although I differ to some extent with the solutions that he has put forward. On his own admission, he has concentrated primarily on failures rather than successes. He accepted at the beginning of the speech that there have been successes. It is important to recognise that the successes do not hit the headlines. They are not reported widely in news bulletins and accordingly do not come to the attention of Members. That should be borne in mind. Indeed, it should underpin our thoughts this morning.
I have probably been involved in most, if not all, of the debates on community care since the introduction of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, and on the White Paper that preceded it. I have listened with interest to the opinions of Conservative Members. There is the irony that there is probably more support for the principle behind the Government's policy on the Opposition Benches than on the Conservative Benches. There is a scarcely concealed romantic vision—it underpinned the speech of the hon. Member for Hendon, South—of the past in psychiatry, where there were no problems on the streets and the lunatic asylums were full. I do not share that romantic notion because, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, I spent much of my working life before becoming a Member of Parliament discharging from psychiatric institutions—the former lunatic asylums—people who had been wrongly incarcerated, in many instances before I was born.
I feel strongly that although it is nice to go back to that romantic, idealistic past, we should not forget what happened to vast numbers of people in our society who were incarcerated in a way that nobody should defend. Nobody should want to go back to that. I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman wants to go back to that, but I remind him that I was involved in discharging people from hospital who were incarcerated as moral defectives. They were not in any way mad or ill. They were simply people who had a different way of life from the majority of people at that time. All were women. I had never met a male moral defective until I came to this place. "Back to basics" exposed one or two, but I shall not go into detail on that.

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I respect the fact that the Minister believes in the policy. I have worked closely with him over a number of years, so I exempt him from my accusation. The difficulty that the Government have is that they believe in institutional incarceration, whether in psychiatry or the penal system, but they are not prepared to pay for it. That difficulty has caused many of the problems that we now have in community care. Community care is nothing new. In a sense, what is new is institutional provision. If one goes back in history, one will see that community care was the norm. People lived in the community. There was the village idiot. Such people were accepted more than they are nowadays.
The institution was, for a variety of reasons, invented. Enoch Powell, who was the Minister responsible for the hospital plan in 1962, was advised that there had been changes in the drug regimes and that we could treat people in the community. There was vast evidence—from Goffman and others—of the effects of institutionalisation, but the key issue that persuaded Enoch Powell, who was a monetarist before Lady Thatcher, was that it was far cheaper to keep people in the community. What concerns me, and in a sense the hon. Gentleman referred to this, was that the Treasury attraction to the policy in the 1980s, and the rapid—perhaps too rapid—move towards closing and disposing of establishments and moving patients into the community, was driven primarily by monetarist policies aimed at realising the assets of the institutions rather than looking at the principles behind community care and the human rights that we would all agree should be accorded to people with mental health problems.
I was a member of a health authority when the process was going ahead and I recall the pressures that the authority in Wakefield was placed under to get rid of its psychiatric beds. I remember vividly one meeting at which we had a letter from the Yorkshire regional health authority, expressing concern that the people in Stanley Royd hospital in Wakefield were not dying as quickly as expected and that the number of beds was therefore not being reduced. Concern was expressed to the health authority about the impact of the policy.
We should look at what happened in the 1980s, because that is the key to unravelling some of the problems that we now have. One of the most insidious elements of what was happening with the care in the community programme in the 1980s was the introduction of performance-related pay for senior health officials on the basis of achieving bed reductions, ward closures and the closure of hospitals. They were personally paid bonuses—not to ensure that people were properly rehabilitated in the community, but to achieve the disposal of psychiatric facilities. That'is why we have the problems now. There was a rapid, ill-thought-out move to care in the community—care which, frankly, did not and in many respects still does not exist.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman agrees with many of the points that I am making. We are now picking up the pieces as a result of that ill-thought-out, Treasury-driven policy in many of the tragedies that we face. I in no way underestimate the difficulties facing many people as a result of some of the tragedies. Like the Minister, I have met people who have been directly affected. Jane Zito is an extremely courageous woman for whom I have the greatest respect. After suffering the most appalling
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personal tragedy, she has gone out and fought. As she knows, I do not always agree with what she says, but I admire her courage, and the courage of others who came recently to the House of Commons when the supervised discharge order was being debated, to lobby Members of Parliament about their concerns. I appreciate their concerns and their courage in attempting to say to Members of Parliament, "Do something so that others do not have to face similar tragedies."
The real weakness of Government policy is that community care seems to he in a narrow policy box, divorced from a range of wider issues that impact on the lives of people in the community who face various mental health problems. We had an example of that this week. I understand that the Government are to slash 3,000 prison officers from the Prison Service. In my constituency, I have two prisons, one of which is a top security prison, and I know for a fact that a significant number of people in both those prisons suffer from mental illness. In slashing the number of prison officers and addressing the prison budgets, there has been no evaluation of the impact that that will have on the mentally ill. There has been no consideration of the knock-on effects that that will have or of the way in which the prison system is dealing—in my view, completely wrongly—with many people who should be helped by other means within society. The Government's housing policies have a clear impact on the ability of people from psychiatric hospitals to obtain and respond to care in the community.
What about employment prospects? The mass unemployment policy impacts on the most vulnerable. Clearly, people who want to be rehabilitated need employment opportunities, which are often denied them due to the policy of mass unemployment.
The key area that I wish to emphasise is the wider organisational aspects of community care. We have never really addressed the way in which, in terms of its framework, the current organisation of community care is a shambles. What we have as an organisational framework to assist people in the community is simply not working. I felt that that was so when the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 went through Parliament. I am on record as saying that I felt that we were not offering a way forward, although I did not differ with the Government on moving to assessments by the local authority and on community care planning. Everybody knows that the central motive for the community care changes was Treasury driven—the desire to reduce the social security budget. That was the real reason why we moved to the current system.
I found it amazing that on the one hand the Government introduced community planning within local authorities, and on the other introduced an internal market in health. The two simply do not square up. When there has been an inquiry into what has gone wrong when a person has come out of hospital and caused problems, and when sometimes there have been fatalities, the finger often points at the organisational structure of what is on offer to such people when they are being rehabilitated into the community. I appeal to the Minister to look at the division between local authorities and the NHS, because so long as there is a split responsibility on issues such as community care and continuing care there will he problems. There will be disputes and people will blame one another. That is at the heart of our present organisational difficulties.

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Government policy has become reactive. It changes from day to day in response to various tragedies. As the Minister knows, I understood his dilemma in relation to supervised discharge orders, but the Government have ignored representations from virtually everyone who will have to administer the new arrangements. It has been pointed out that those arrangements are unworkable, and do not deal with the real problems of care in the community.
No alternatives to hospital provision have been devised, although hospital provision has been run down. I agree with the hon. Member for Hendon, South that we need to consider the lack of beds—I hope that he was referring to acute rather than long-stay beds when he spoke of a moratorium—but we should not return to an agenda that involves putting more and more people in asylums. We should, for instance, consider asylum in the community. We do not have to put people in Victorian buildings, away from society. The real challenge of community care is rehabilitation. I have seen good examples of asylum in the community—drop-in and day centres where people feel safe—but, sadly, they are few and far between.
Today's debate is about care in the community. We have reduced the opportunity of vast numbers of people to receive care in hospitals: rightly or wrongly—rightly, in my view—we have tried to move away from the old system. For many people, however, care in the community is not available. The Government should look forward, rather than back to a "golden age" of asylums that, in fact, never existed.
10.11 am
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on obtaining yet another Adjournment debate. I am pleased to be able to speak on this important subject.
We have heard two well-informed speeches, both of which have contributed to a better understanding of the problems relating to mental health. I agreed with every word uttered by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South, and with the overwhelming majority of what was said by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). He and I served for some years on the Social Services and, subsequently, the Health Select Committee, and this subject was frequently discussed in both Committees. The Social Services Select Committee produced excellent reports on mental illness and mental handicap.
No one doubts my hon. Friend the Minister's commitment to care in the community. Hon. Members on both sides of the House consider him humane, sensitive and caring, and his reputation justifies that. But—here I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Wakefield—there has been a change in policy which dates back to the actions of Enoch Powell in the 1960s. As the Select Committee pointed out many times in its reports, the policy of decanting people from long-stay institutions to care in the community was initially Treasury driven: it was thought that care in the community was a cheaper option.
In fact, as anyone who has anything to do with mental illness or handicap will know, care in the community is not cheaper but more expensive, although I agree that it is more humane. I share the view of hon. Members on both sides of the House that long-stay institutions should become a thing of the past, but—and here I disagree with
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the hon. Member for Wakefield—I believe that a number of long-stay beds in asylums are still needed. Hospitals can provide the necessary care for the acutely mentally ill, who may suffer from drug or alcohol problems.
I support the principle of care in the community, but I believe that we have moved too fast. The closure of institutions is often driven by a desire to realise capital gains from the sites involved. Many long-stay hospitals are located in areas where land values are very high, and those managing the health service for the Government are often motivated by performance-related pay. I think it unfortunate that we introduced performance-related pay in a caring service. Hospitals were closed before adequate facilities were available in the community, including staff. In seeking to proceed with a desirable policy, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
My hon. Friend the Minister is well aware of my involvement in these issues, and my support for Parkside, a long-stay mental hospital in Macclesfield. He knows of the battle that I have fought, along with many local people whose relations have suffered from mental illness. We have campaigned to save the hospital; sadly, we have failed—which may demonstrate the lack of power possessed by Members of Parliament. Although for some years I have been a member of the party that is in government, propositions that I consider wise—fully supported by those most closely involved—have been ignored by those who manage the health service on behalf of the Department of Health and, indeed, on behalf of the people.
At Question Time yesterday, I raised two constituency cases. I make no apology for raising them again today. Two people died. One was a young girl called Emma Larkins, who burnt herself to death in her flat in Victoria Park in Macclesfield. She came from a family that was sadly split: her parents divorced when she was three years old. I do not think that I am being disrespectful or unfair to Emma or her family when I say that her behaviour had caused the authorities serious problems for many years. Much of that behaviour was generated by drugs and, perhaps, alcohol.
Emma's father has been in touch with the east Cheshire coroner, sending him his account of his daughter's life and the events leading to her death in November. He points his finger at social services. I agree with the hon. Member for Wakefield, who speaks with considerable knowledge on these matters, that there is a divide between the health service and social services. In the main, that is the gap that has to be closed. More thought has to be given by the professionals and by the Department to how to close that gap which allows tragedies such as that of Emma Larkins to take place.
Mr. Larkins says that social services are responsible and that he is concerned not just for his daughter who is now dead but for all young people like Emma. The social services have said that they do not want to comment on Emma's death until after the official inquest. Emma's mother is more specific. She feels that the health service, and Parkside hospital in particular, is responsible because her daughter went to Parkside hospital on the day of her death seeking help and, basically, seeking support—recognition of her problems. Sadly, the help that she required was not forthcoming. As a result, she returned to her flat and burned herself to death. Moreover, she could have caused the deaths of many other people if the fire had not been caught early before it spread to other apartments in the Victoria Park flats complex.

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As I have said, there is a gap. Why is it that social services, which had been involved with Emma for many years, and the health service, which is responsible for dealing with people who have mental and behavioural problems and who engage in alcohol and drug abuse, were not able more closely to monitor this young person and give her the support and back-up that she needed to prevent her from taking this tragic action? I want to see that gap filled.
Yesterday I also referred to another case in my constituency, that of Lynn Fox who was not such a young woman as Emma Larkins but had created considerable problems for the community for a long time. She had been before the courts and had been taken in by the police, and had received treatment from East Cheshire NHS trust for her condition. She caused her neighbours immense aggravation, to such an extent that one of them, because of the pressure under which he was living, the aggravation that she had caused and the tension that had built up, stabbed her to death. The young man in question, Jason, is now in Walton gaol serving a sentence of just over three years. Why was this allowed to happen?
In recent weeks I have corresponded with Jason Lucas's wife, Deborah, who has provided me with some interesting material. In her latest letter she states:
"I am in possession of all the evidence collated for Jason's trial. This includes a copy of a statement by a Consultant Psychiatrist at Parkside hospital. In his statement he says that Lynn was frequently admitted to hospital, via A and E, after claiming to have taken an overdose. Later she would sometimes admit this was a lie, and declare that she had only said it to get help. The statement also contains the following comments:—
'In my opinion Fox was a chronic alcoholic who could not give up alcohol, she was also addicted to tranquillisers and she used to mix both and overdose on them.
When she was drinking she became abusive and violent and tended to become psychotic.'"
I accept that this is a borderline case. It might be the responsibility of social services or the health service because of that psychotic condition which, I believe, is a mental illness. As a result of Lynn's activities over a protracted period of time, one of her neighbours—the young man whom I have mentioned, who perhaps suffered a bit too much from an aggressive personality—took the action that I have described. I understand that he had received some treatment. None the less, he and his neighbours were driven to hate this woman and in the end he was driven to kill her.
In justification of what I have said about what that man did—that he was driven to do it—I shall relate some comments by the neighbours who shared his problems. One of them said:
"I am not surprised that someone has been driven to do something about the problem."
Another said:
"I'm honestly surprised that she has not been assaulted by someone before. I have certainly felt like hitting her myself, as she has really wound me up on occasions."
Another neighbour said:
"I felt relieved when the police told me she was dead. I feel no sorrow for her at all."
A fourth neighbour said:
"Fox upset and depressed us so much that I thought of doing her harm myself. I am not surprised at all that someone has done her harm. I've been expecting it for some time now."
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I was in touch with the authorities about the behaviour of Lynn Fox over a period of time and nothing was done. I am sure that the House shares my concern about the fact that a young man now finds himself in prison because he was driven to take action, although the responsibility for dealing with this case lay with the health service and the social services.
What can be done to fill the gap and prevent further tragic cases such as the two that I have mentioned? I repeat that I have total confidence in the Minister's commitment and humanity. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South that care in the community is a humane and civilised way of dealing with those who suffer from mental illness. However, we must not go over the top. Long-stay beds are still needed and we need to be able to bring into hospital for treatment those who are clearly suffering from mental illnesses but who, because of their condition, are not prepared to take the decision to go for treatment. My hon. Friend highlighted that point in a number of the cases that he drew to the attention of the House.
I seek to be constructive in these matters. Certainly in respect of the Lynn Fox case I am in touch not only with social services in Cheshire but with East Cheshire NHS trust. I have had 100 per cent. co-operation from the chairman of that trust, Mr. Peter Hayes, who is held in high regard, is committed to the health service and is deeply concerned about matters relating to mental illness. He has given me 100 per cent. support in this case. I am also in touch with Councillor Simon Cussons, chairman of South Cheshire health authority, with the probation service, social services and the police. I am in touch with the Home Office. When I have received replies to all the representations, particularly my latter ones to the probation service and the Home Office, Peter Hayes and I propose to convene a meeting in Macclesfield of all the authorities that I have named to see whether we can prevent such a case recurring. I am seeking to be constructive and, like the hon. Member for Wakefield, to bring the health service and social services closer together so that we do not have this divided responsibility, whereby a gap can result in tragic deaths, with all the problems that go with that.
By securing this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South has done a great service in relation to mental illness. I agree with every word that he said. His concern is genuine, as is mine. The hon. Member for Wakefield is very informed on these matters. Although I disagree with him on a number of issues, overall I have complete confidence in what he is seeking to achieve. We are not far apart—we both want care in the community to work, but problems still exist and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will assure us that the gaps and problems will be dealt with.
10.30 am
Dr. Lynne Jones: Time is short and, if the Minister is to be allowed sufficient time to reply—I certainly want that—I must confine myself to one or two short remarks.
It is a coincidence that this debate is taking place in the same week as the confidential inquiry report into homicides and suicides was published, and that the junior Health Minister who set up that inquiry in 1991 is now Secretary of State for Health. In a press release issued at that time, he said:

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"we must insist that if a discharged patient is involved in homicide or similar incidents, every detail of the history of that patient's management is fully examined and the lessons learnt. One such incident is too many. But if a repeat incident occurs because the lessons of the first have not been learnt, we are all culpable."
It is sad that, since that time, a number of well-publicised incidents have taken place. Usually, the ones that have received the most publicity have involved the killing of people who were unrelated to a mentally ill person. We have had reports on the Christopher Clunis case and several others, some of which have been mentioned this morning. Can the Minister say, hand on heart, that all the lessons of those reports have been learnt?
The Ritchie report into the Christopher Clunis case said that care in the community for that person was a
"catalogue of failure and missed opportunity".
Other reports have highlighted the lack of co-ordination, which has been mentioned this morning, between the various agencies, the health service and social services.
Those are the cases that have received publicity. The confidential inquiry report has shown that, although there have been 39 homicides, most of them have involved members of the mentally ill person's family and that a far higher number of mentally ill people have committed suicide. It is estimated that one in 10 schizophrenics commit suicide.
I congratulate the previous Secretary of State for Health on her intention to give mental health a higher priority and on "The Health of the Nation" target to reduce suicides among mentally ill people by 33 per cent. Sadly, that target has not been met, and we must ask ourselves why. No doubt the Minister will tell us about the increased resources for mental health services. Figures show that more has been spent, but, as a proportion of the total amount spent on health, the mental health service budget has been declining in importance.
I am sure that no hon. Member present, knowing the experiences that they have had, can say that this country has ever had a first-class mental health service. My father suffered from schizophrenia. In the 1950s and 1960s, I had personal experience of the failures of mental health care. He attempted to take his life and, on one occasion, threatened to murder me. I do not think that that was a serious threat—most mentally ill people are not a danger to the community—but, traditionally, this country has failed mentally ill people. We must give mental health a higher priority.
That is not happening in my constituency in south Birmingham. The figures show a dramatic reduction in the number of psychiatric beds—about 150 since 1985—and only about 85 community psychiatric nurses are in post. I have seen people working in the one mental health centre in the community that we have and have witnessed the stress that they are under. All too often, the service shuts at night and at the weekend. We need 24-hour community services and mental health centres.
The promises that we in south Birmingham were given have not materialised. Mental health centres were promised, but have not been opened, and staff have not been appointed. As a result, all too often, flagrantly mentally ill people receive treatment, but people who, in Marjorie Wallace's words, are silently suffering, are ignored and people, relatives and neighbours who silently, and not so silently, suffer with them are ignored as well.
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We must do much more. The concept of community care is supported, but we must have increased resources—it is not enough to say that the resources are sufficient. Last year, in south Birmingham, the mental health service budget was cut by £500,000. This year, it faces a 3 per cent. cut because of so-called efficiency savings. There is no increase in the budget and no possibility that the community services that were promised when Rubery hospital was closed will be provided.
I ask the Minister urgently to consider the position. It is not just a matter of resources, but I note that the confidential inquiry recommends that higher resources should be provided for people who are seriously mentally ill. That is true, but not if there is a shift from other services for people who, as I have said, suffer in silence.
10.36 am
Mr. Alan Milburn: I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on securing the debate and pay tribute to all the speeches that hon. Members on both sides of House have made. We have had an informed debate about an extremely important topic.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) said, this is a timely debate, coming hard on the heels of the confidential inquiry report, which highlighted the tragic toll of homicides and suicides involving people with severe mental illness. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) showed how that death toll is tragically continuing. It is unusual for a month to go by without a further newspaper report highlighting some of the fault lines in the mental health services provision system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, however, all the tragedies tend to obscure many of the successes. It is right to have a sense of perspective. In responding to the confidential inquiry, the Minister has been quick to point out, for example, that the overwhelming majority of people who suffer from mental illness are not a threat, either to themselves or to others. Even people with schizophrenia are more likely to be withdrawn and quiet. If they do harm at all, they are more likely to harm themselves than anyone else.
It is right to strike a balance in these debates and to emphasise that mental illness is not a single problem: it covers a multitude of problems and a multitude of people, but the switch over recent years to care in the community has brought public attention to the plight of mentally ill people. I welcome the care in the community approach because it recognises that most mentally ill people prefer life outside hospital and prosper as a consequence. No one wants a return to the old, large, remote, anonymous asylums. where sometimes brutal care was hidden from public gaze. Care in the community is both more humane and more effective, but the tragedy is that recent failures have dented public faith in the policy to such an extent that I now believe that there is almost a crisis of confidence.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak said, yesterday's publication of the confidential inquiry is but the latest in a long catalogue of reports that have highlighted the inadequacies in current health care provision and, indeed, policy. Christopher Clunis and Jonathan Zito may well have become household names, but many others have fallen victim to the failures in the current approach to

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mental health policy. Let us not forget that yesterday's report analysed 240 suicides and 39 homicides. The battle to overcome the fear of, and ignorance about, mental illness has been badly compromised by those incidents. Whether the number of homicides and suicides is rising is not the question—what is worrying is the extent of public concern about those incidents. Too often, in too many parts of the country, that concern has slipped into fear.
There is now a danger that the care in the community approach, which the Opposition support, will cease to command public support unless urgent action—the need for which was highlighted in yesterday's report—is taken. The hon. Member for Hendon, South referred to a failure to ensure that patients complied with treatment. There have been pleas this morning for more powers to be made available over those who suffer from mental illness. However, by and large, my view is that there are sufficient powers on the statute book. The problem is a lack of implementation.
Hon. Members have highlighted three main problems. The first is a failure of co-ordination between the relevant agencies involved. The second—it was dramatically highlighted in yesterday's report—is that the staff who work with the mentally ill are often overworked and overstressed. The third is that, all too often, appropriate accommodation, whether in the community or in hospital, is not available. The confidential inquiry loudly and clearly referred to the number of overcrowded wards and the lack of appropriate hospital and community facilities. That lack of support is compromising the implementation of care in the community.
The Government have been warned time after time that there is a serious problem. This latest report comes hard on the heels of many others. The mental health policy, as implemented over recent years, has given us the worst of all possible worlds—too few beds in hospitals, inadequate facilities in the community and a shortage of specialist staff in both.
The hon. Member for Hendon, South referred to the dramatic decline in acute provision in our hospitals. The closure rate over recent years has not been accompanied by a similar dampening in demand for acute services. When the Mental Health Act Commission reported last November, it highlighted average occupancy rates of 130 per cent. in some inner-city hospitals—and not just in London. There is a temptation to think of it as a purely London problem, but it is not. The report also referred to occupancy rates in excess of 100 per cent. in Devon, Cheshire and East Anglia. It is a nationwide problem.
It is all too common for psychiatrists to have to spend hours on the telephone desperately trying to find an acute bed for someone who is severely mentally ill. Quite simply, there are not enough appropriate beds available for patients when they need them. There are not enough facilities in the community. The Audit Commission, in its recent report "Finding a Place", argued that comprehensive mental health care facilities in the community had been slow to develop. As a consequence, in too many parts of the country the cart has been put before the horse. There was a rundown in acute provision before the introduction of appropriate community facilities. There must be a balance in provision to deal with the serious concerns that have been highlighted both in today's debate and in yesterday's report.
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There is need for emergency action to deal with the shortfall in provision and the issues of public confidence that have been raised. I have four brief suggestions. First, there should he a moratorium on further acute bed closures pending the development of an appropriate community infrastructure. Secondly, there should he immediate implementation of the care programme approach in all parts of the country. There has been yet another delay in implementation—with the latest deadline now being the end of March—yet the programme was duc to be implemented in April 1991. Thirdly, there must he urgent action to deal with the problem of staff shortages, which is compromising patient care. Fourthly, over time, there should be changes to the mental health funding allocation formula so that cash ends up going where it is most needed. We all know that the inner cities experience a particular problem. Without urgent action, I fear that, before too long, the House will again be debating the same issues, but also a new round of tragedies involving mentally ill people.
10.46 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): I echo what the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) said about the quality of speeches from both sides of the House, including those from the hon. Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). In particular, I commend the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall), who initiated this debate. As usual, he made a robust but thoughtful contribution. I always welcome his views on these matters.
I echo the points made about the need for a balance. We have a great national health service, which has made giant strides in mental health care. I pay tribute to all those working in health and social services, who have achieved so much for mentally ill people. They have transformed the approach to mental health.
Hon. Members were right to point to shortcomings and to the tragedies that occasionally occur. I agree that we need to continue looking for improvements while implementing the right policies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, we need to close the gap.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South referred to the closure of Napsbury hospital. The decision was made some time ago and we are currently considering the consequences. As he knows, our policy is that no psychiatric hospital should close unless there are adequate replacement services. I understand that the chairman of Barnet health authority has given an undertaking that Napsbury will not close until replacement services based in Barnet are ready. Following the debate, I shall write to the chairman of that authority asking for evidence to satisfy me that that is indeed the case.
My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield made balanced and constructive points about the Lynn Fox case. I welcome what he is doing in bringing the agencies together. If, having done that, he would like to come to see me and tell me about what he has discovered, perhaps bringing the trust chairman with him, I would certainly welcome his visit.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South mentioned people who do not seem to have homes, which has been a problem in London. That is why we launched

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our initiative for homeless and mentally ill people. Indeed, immediately following the debate, I shall be going straight to Tower Hamlets to open another stage of that initiative: some move-on accommodation run by the Look Ahead housing association.
Five outreach teams are in place. They cover different parts of London, especially inner London. All 10 hostels that we promised are open. The last one opened in October. They provide 148 bed spaces. We are making progress with the move-on accommodation, to which I have just referred. We have an agreement with the Housing Corporation not only for the 150 supported places that it initially promised us, but for 181 places. Five schemes offering a total of 36 places were open by the end of last year and all the places should be available by the end of the financial year 1996–97. A valuation of that scheme has been generally favourable and I shall be looking to build on that scheme in future.
Reports often refer to the issue of beds. We know that there is a fairly constant provision of 80,000 beds and about 20,000 acute beds. However, important factors are the mix of available beds, where they are, whether they are effectively and efficiently managed and whether the right people are in the right beds. All those factors have come up in this debate and we shall continue to consider them.
We asked the mental health task force to consider the provision of beds, especially in London. I certainly noted the points made in the report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It drew up plans with all the inner-London authorities, which have in turn drawn up their own action plans. I hope that they will prove effective. I am not complacent about London. I am very conscious of the need for community work to be supported by the provision of beds.
Indeed, on one occasion, while meeting representatives of an authority, I heard talk of the ability to close beds once the community facilities were up and running. I said that that was not the case and that the authority would need beds to ensure the success, efficient running and well-being of patients in community service. That is very much the message that I bring to the House and to our mental health service.
Mention has been made of the high-security service. The range of Reed reports on that area of care has exercised our minds. From April, a new structure of three new special health authorities to run three special hospitals supported by new commissioning structures and boards will he introduced. Our purpose is to integrate more closely those hospitals with mainstream mental health services, which—I hope—will prove effective.
The hon. Member for Wakefield mentioned people who are in prison but perhaps should not be, and the need for mental health support. That support is sometimes provided in 'prisons and sometimes provided by transferring prisoners to mental health hospitals—often secure hospitals, for obvious reasons. That support has been a tremendous success. We are not often given credit for the way in which, since 1990, we have enabled more than 2,500 patients to move from prison to hospital. In 1994 alone, 784 people were transferred and found places in the health service under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. That was more than double the number of transfers in 1990.
The facts that we have been discussing illustrate the scale of the issue before us. We know that one in four of us is estimated to suffer from mental illness at some point
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in our lives. We know that mental illness is three times more common than cancer and as common as heart disease, and that few of us will pass through life without being touched by it—whether personally or, as the hon. Member for Selly Oak rather movingly told us, through the suffering of a friend or family member.
The cost of mental illness to society is heavy—not only in terms of human misery but economically. In 1991, for example, some 91 million working days were lost to mental illness even without taking into account days lost by carers who were looking after somebody who was mentally ill. A degree of stigma is still attached to the topic. That is damaging because it makes life more difficult and distressing for mentally ill people and prevents others from seeking help when they need it. Removing stigma is part of our policy and must be part of the onus placed on all of us.
In Health questions yesterday, I referred to Professor Norman Sartorius, the president of the World Psychiatric Association and the former head of the mental health division of the World Health Organisation. Overnight, we have received a further message from him stating:
"England has taken the lead in work to prevent mental illness and to tackle stigma."
Although that is good news—I welcome the tribute—we must strive ever more. We sponsor surveys of public attitudes, we have produced leaflets which discuss in jargon-free terms the policies in different areas, and of course we support World Mental Health Day, which focuses especially on young people.
The debate has concentrated on the sort of support needed to avoid problems. That is why one of the keys to successful policy is the care programme approach, which aims to ensure that care is provided on the basis of properly assessed individual need, with a coherent care plan and a facility for regular review. The vast majority of health authorities have already implemented it. Perhaps, as the hon. Member for Darlington said, some progress is still to be made. On the whole, that relates to those who are not severely mentally ill, in ensuring that such care is available for everybody.
It is our firmly expressed policy that hospitals should not close unless and until alternative provision is available. Indeed, many are not closing but being converted to more modern and appropriate facilities We must have a range of facilities, including residential care, varying degrees of support, hospital facilities, crisis beds and medium-term hospital beds. The whole concept of asylum is essential as part of the package of measures to help people who are mentally ill. Some people will have to spend long periods of time in 24-hour nursed beds—in some cases the whole of their lives—and we should not duck that responsibility.
We also attach great importance to the development of primary care in mental health. We are continuing to part-fund a senior GP fellow who takes national leads in the education of GPs in that area. A senior primary care nurse facilitator does likewise. Our work on defeating depression is also part of that development.
I make no apologies for reminding the House of our programme to increase the number of medium-secure psychiatric beds. They are essential. Despite the fact that a gap in provision was identified by the Glancy committee in 1974, there was not one such bed by 1979. The Government have responded to that, and by the end

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of this year, there will be more than 1,200 such beds through our £47 million investment. With an additional 300 regional beds, and the provision of about 500 beds in the independent sector, the figure just about totals the 2,000 beds to which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield referred.
Mental health services are at the top of our agenda. I am grateful that hon. Members of all parties recognise the priority and emphasis given to that area of our health service by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. That is why, last August, we wrote to health authorities requiring them to let us have details of their plans for service development. The results of that exercise are now being analysed and we hope to make an announcement on the conclusions shortly. I shall be surprised if those conclusions do not show that there are widespread plans for increased investment in mental health services. That underlines our commitment to the mental health service. It is one of the five key areas in "The Health of the Nation" strategy and one of the six medium-term priorities for the 1996–97 priorities and planning guidance for the NHS.
Mentally ill people, like everyone else who receives care, have a right to expect standards of care, and that is why we shall launch for consultation our draft booklet in the patients charter series specifically for users of mental health services. We can improve the system and we can improve the service. We shall do so if we all work together for the benefit of patients.

Severe Weather (Scotland)
11 am
Mr. Alex Salmond: I am very grateful for the opportunity to debate the effects of the extreme weather conditions which prevailed over Christmas and the new year. The presence of so many Back-Bench Members in the Chamber indicates that the matter touched just about every constituency in Scotland.
Today, I shall focus attention on the response of the Scottish Office to a national emergency which demanded a nationally co-ordinated response. I think that the Opposition are united in the view that the performance of Scottish Office Ministers was inept and inadequate. That is also a common view in Scotland.
In recent years, the Scottish Office has not been a byword for speedy action and transparent accountability. That is, perhaps, a criticism that the House would expect from me. However, the whole of Scotland will wonder today why this debate on this subject is proving of so little importance to the Secretary of State for Scotland that he cannot drag himself to the Dispatch Box to consider the matter or to defend his record and the record of his ministerial team. I understand that all the other political leaders of Scotland seek to catch your eye in this debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are entitled to hear a reply by the Secretary of State for Scotland. Instead, he prefers to leave his junior Minister, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch), yet again, to carry the can for the crisis.
Clearly, we would not find on the desk of the Secretary of State the same plaque that was on Harry Truman's. For the Secretary of State, the buck clearly stops elsewhere. After hibernating during the freeze, he is now hiding from the debate. He might well hide because it is his Department that failed the people of Scotland in the recent crisis. He should, therefore, be here to answer personally for his Department's inadequacy. After all, the crisis in Scotland was his first major challenge as Secretary of State for Scotland. For the first time in the tenure of his post, there was an opportunity to show his mettle and to direct the resources available to him to do some good. At the end of 1995, the Secretary of State for Scotland was weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The Secretary of State was on holiday during the crisis. I have no doubt that it was a well-deserved holiday. It must be exhausting setting up quangos here, abolishing byelaws there, listening intently to trade unionists and councillors and generally being the caring, sharing face of Scottish Conservatism.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: And then ignoring them.
Mr. Salmond: Then ignoring them, as the hon. Gentleman says. It must he exhausting to come into the office every day in the sure and certain knowledge, as we see again from today's System 3 poll, that Scotland remains solidly against the Tories and that the impact of young Lochinvar", as Lady Thatcher once memorably described the Secretary of State, has been only to force Tory support downwards.
In my view, exhausted as the Secretary of State undoubtedly was, he had a clear obligation to return to duty over the holiday period when it was obvious that the

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scale of the problem facing Scots in every part of our country was greater than could be imagined. There were, after all, many others—plumbers, electricity linesmen, road workers, housing officers, social workers and a huge cast of unnamed heroes—who abandoned the turkey and plum pudding to help those in trouble. They set a selfless example; that example should have been set from the very top of the Scottish Office structure.
Hon. Members may well ask what the difference would have been if the Secretary of State had taken personal charge. I suggest that the very inaction and lack of direction at the Scottish Office during the Secretary of State's absence show that it might have made a difference. I say that not with any great admiration for the Secretary of State's abilities and powers, but because in Scotland today, the only Minister with the power of initiative is the Secretary of State himself.
As well as telling us something of the calibre of the other Scottish Ministers in the dying days of this Government, that fact tells us a great deal about the way in which the Secretary of State runs his Department. Such is the centralist power of the Secretary of State and the effect of his purification of the machinery of government that without the king, the court is incapable of action. The Scottish Office was as incapable of movement as the water in the pipes of hundreds of thousands of homes across Scotland. The result was departmental inaction amid general chaos.
What did the mice do when the cat was away? The hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside, who is replying to the debate—we should give him credit for that—Wrote himself out of the script at the first opportunity. His response to an appeal to see for himself the difficulties caused by the weather was to say to the Daily Record on 4 January this year that he would
"just get in the way".
That might well be a sign of appealing modesty but if so, I am at a loss to understand why he should be responding for the Government in today's debate.
The facts of the exceptional weather are these. From Christmas eve until at least 1 January, and later in some parts, the low temperatures experienced were exceptional. Glasgow recorded its coldest temperature ever on two successive nights—a record-breaking minus 19 deg. One highland village achieved an unofficial record of the lowest temperature ever recorded in Scotland—almost minus 32 deg. In Shetland, the deepest snowfall since the war cut off hundreds of homes and led to the constant use of an evacuation helicopter for medical emergencies.
Road safety was compromised when water and even de-icing fluid froze as it was being applied to windscreens, not just in the north, but on the M8 in the centre of Scotland. Rail travel was disrupted and some airports were closed for lengthy periods. The west and the north of Scotland were colder than Moscow, without the everyday experience of such conditions that makes life bearable and possible.
The domestic effect of those low temperatures was dramatic. In Strathclyde region alone, half a million homes were reported to have suffered burst pipes and 34,000 homes were without water. That does not take into account the rural homes in places such as Argyll where private systems were, no doubt, frozen for days on end. In Grampian, the water supply was devastated. Domestic
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and industrial cut-offs were common and many old folk and families with young children were put in a truly desperate situation.
Those are the facts. For each individual affected, especially at the festive season, it was an unpleasant and worrying time. Yet what was the considered response of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside? What was his ministerial summation of the situation? As he grandly claimed to the Daily Record, it was not a "major problem".
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Kynoch): If the hon. Gentleman is going to continue to quote a fabricated story by one Scottish newspaper, he will not make anything constructive out of the debate, which we all, I am sure, wish to try to do.
Mr. Salmond: The Minister will have plenty of time in which to answer. Although I do not claim that everything that appears in the press is accurate, the Daily Record seems pretty sure of the story. I hope that the Minister is taking action against the newspaper if it has misquoted him on a matter of such importance to Scotland.
I suspect that the folk memory of those patrician and patronising phrases will come to haunt the Minister for a long time. They may have the same currency as "The national health service is safe in our hands," and they may even match the prophecy by Michael Fish that there would be no hurricane. Even today, the Minister's remarks are reverberating. In another of his ill-judged comments during the crisis, he censured Grampian region for the closure of schools. It was noted in The Scotsman today that he was described yesterday in Grampian region, in a show of unity between the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National parties in that region, as a "buffoon".
Lack of water was the worst problem, which led to many people queuing in the streets with buckets. Lack of power was another major difficulty in Scotland. At Christmas time, 30,000 customers lost power in the Scottish Hydro-Electric area alone. Winds were blowing up to 115 mph. In East Lothian, gas supplies were disrupted for up to 72 hours. The state of transport meant that coal and oil deliveries were disrupted, and pressure on plumbers meant that if central heating went off, it stayed off for a long period.
Mr. John Home Robertson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for referring to East Lothian. While he is right to say that gas supplies were cut off for 15,000 of my constituents for up to three days, the situation was worse than that. British Gas provided some households with electric heaters to make up for the loss of their gas heating, but the surge in demand for electricity that followed resulted in the failure of the electricity supply in some streets. This has been a catastrophe for people who will have to pay enormous costs because of their burst pipes and the failure of the gas supply. British Gas TransCo is offering them £20 compensation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that privatised utility should be required contractually to pay more compensation to all concerned.
Mr. Salmond: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman. All hon. Members will agree that there can

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be no greater criticism of British Gas than to say that that is sadly typical of its response to a whole range of situations in Scotland and elsewhere in the past few years. Hon. Members have illustrated some serious problems, but there were others.
The absence of effective cold weather payments for pensioners and those on benefit—a subject to which I shall return—meant that Scotland's winter death rate, already higher than Scandinavia's, began to rise. In some places, it was running at three times the normal rate. Hospitals have been forced to cancel hundreds of non-urgent operations because of the increased administration following the severe weather and the difficulties it caused. There is a winter crisis in Scotland's health service every year, but this year it has been much worse.
Schools were also badly affected. More than 500 were unable to open last Monday for the new session. Some children are still having to be accommodated in temporary classrooms or schools because water and other damage will take months to fix. I am sure that hon. Members from all over Scotland have their own horror stories of problems that they have encountered in their constituencies. But the overall agreement must be that this was a major national emergency that should have been dealt with—and, if possible, helped—by Government action. The conclusion that we must draw from what we have experienced in the past few weeks is that Government action was not forthcoming when necessary.
In my constituency, all of those who could help turned out to help. For example, the chaotic conditions meant that the director of housing was unable to contact the jammed lines of the local radio station. The station in my area—and others across Scotland—did a first-class job in trying to communicate information to the public. My office had to provide a means of communication between the director of housing and the local radio station. People wanted daily and, indeed, hourly information, and it was a pity that the Scottish Office did so little to co-ordinate or assist in that demand.
I accept that there are lessons to be learnt by all the agencies and services that were challenged by the difficulties and sometimes had great difficulty coping. Some of the companies will admit that they need to review their procedures and basic assumptions so that they are better able to respond if such conditions recur. I received a letter from Robert Young, chief executive of Hydro-Electric, in response to a letter that I wrote to him on Boxing day, which referred to the difficulties of answering the huge volume of calls which rained down on the company over the period.
We are told by some weather experts that we may be entering a period of more extreme weather conditions during winter and, we hope, summer. We must therefore be able to plan sensibly for the increasing vagaries of the weather, rather than always being reduced to responding to a crisis. Following the failure of the emergency systems to cope with the scale of the crisis, there may be deeper lessons to be learnt involving the historic under-investment in the utilities, which might explain why the services broke down on such a large scale in the first place.
These and other related matters require a thorough examination, and I very much welcome the decision of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee to mount an inquiry
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into exactly what went wrong during the big freeze and what can be done about it. In response to the crisis conditions, emergency staff, the utilities, local government and voluntary workers in my view did everything that they could as soon as they could. That is not the issue at stake today. But while everyone else was doing their level best, the key ingredient—the national co-ordinating role that the Scottish Office could and should have provided—was missing.
No one denies that the severity of the weather would have led to difficulties whatever the scale and nature of the Scottish Office response, but the difficulties could have been greatly lessened if a national effort, co-ordinated by the Scottish Office and including the distribution of practical information on how to deal with the problems of frozen or burst pipes, had been made.
According to information received by my office from the Scottish Office information directorate yesterday, there exists in the files at St. Andrew's house a short public information film on how to respond to the problems caused by burst pipes. At a time when householders were struggling with frozen and burst pipes and with water running down walls and through ceilings throughout Scotland, it is outrageous that that film was not shown. Why was the film not offered for showing by national and regional television stations in Scotland? Why was appropriate audio material not provided for local radio stations to transmit? The film was not broadcast during the most severe water crisis for more than 20 years. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when he thinks it appropriate to broadcast it. Judging by the Government's incompetence, we can look forward to seeing the film in perhaps June or July.
One of my favourite childhood memories is a similar film that was frequently broadcast in the 1960s, which starred—if I remember correctly—Dr. Snoddy of "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" fame. If the Scottish Office could provide such information regularly during the 1960s, why could it not be done in the 1990s? Given the enormous public interest in the weather problems, the broadcasting media would have been extremely grateful to have received such material, and that has been confirmed by senior broadcasters.
The BBC's "Frontline Scotland" programme was so keen to track down the 1960s film starring Dr. Snoddy that it set in train a series of investigations. I can inform the House that the film was traced to a company called Water Training International at Kilwinning in Ayrshire, where it forms part of the instruction programme for the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers' Federation. The Minister must explain why such public information was not shown during the crisis.
Where were the full-page advertisements in newspapers providing people with practical information, such as the appropriate emergency telephone numbers to ring? Such things could and should have been done by the Scottish Office, but none was. In what I thought was a lame attempt to defend the indefensible, a Scottish Office spokesperson was reported in the Scottish Daily Mail on 16 January to have said:
"News releases were constantly sent out".
Freezing families and flooded-out businesses needed not Scottish Office faxes trying to put a gloss on ministerial inactivity, but practical information and co-ordinated activity.

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Even yesterday—some three weeks after the event—the Scottish Office information directorate could not provide my office with information about which Ministers were on duty on which days during the holiday period. I was incredulous when my office told me that. So that the Minister understands the difficulties that people have in getting common sense out of the Scottish Office, I shall explain what happened when my researcher contacted the Scottish Office yesterday.
My researcher called the Scottish Office four times, and was told four times that she would be called back. She was called back once. She estimated that she spent one hour being passed from staff member to staff member. Initially, she asked which Minister was on duty during the holiday period, but two press officers were unable to tell her. They said that she would be called back, but that did not happen. A second call was passed by one of the previous press officers to the press officer at the Secretary of State's department, who said that my researcher would be called back. That has not yet happened.
On her third call, my researcher tried the Scottish Office publicity section to ask about the "Keep Warm This Winter" phone line and the Scottish Office public information film. She was passed to another member of staff, who told her that no advertisement was taken out and that the Scottish Office films were 10 to 12 years old and were not being used this year. The story goes on. Can the Minister explain why, even after the event, the Department seems unable to give out information as to what he and his colleagues were doing during the crisis?
The Secretary of State, as we saw in the Scottish Grand Committee on Monday, has become rattled by the criticism that has been made by hon. Members from all parties. Perhaps that explains why he is not at the Dispatch Box today. Responding to journalists' questions earlier this month, the Secretary of State attempted to pass all responsibility for public information to local authorities. This new-found desire to extend the role of local government is somewhat surprising from a Minister who has spent most of his career trying to cut it to the bone. It is also a pathetic and evasive response. The problems that we encountered over the holiday period were national in character, not local. The newspapers and broadcasting stations which should have been targeted and provided with publicity and information extend far beyond even the largest of the local authority boundaries. Local authorities did all that they could, but there was a clear need for the Scottish Office to step in and adopt that national co-ordinating role.
To give the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside, his due, the passing of the buck to local authorities was one of the few initiatives that he took to respond to the crisis. He led his Secretary of State in that, if in nothing else. The Minister may wish to deny this also, but in the Daily Record of 4 January 1996, he said:
"the current problems are the responsibility of the local authorities and, at this stage, to have a minister out and about would be irresponsible. It's my judgement that to go out and be photographed visiting affected areas would be taking up the time of people who are working to rectify the problems".
That is in somewhat sharp contrast to the Secretary of State's post-match explanation on Monday, when he told the Scottish Grand Committee that Ministers were "out and about".
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I must warn the Under-Secretary that—if he is keeping an eye on his boss's opinion—his reticence seems to be out of step with another opinion which the Secretary of State gave to the Grand Committee on Monday. He said:
"I take a pretty dim view of the sort of politicians who sit by their firesides and do not even get out to see what is happening on the ground".—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 15 January 1996; c. 4.]
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: My hon. Friend will recall that during the floods which hit our area of Scotland in September, the Minister was not shy about getting into a helicopter and visiting the flooded areas without even mentioning it to the local Members of Parliament, who were busy co-ordinating activities between the local authorities and others dealing with the emergency.
Mr. Salmond: We all remember the Minister not being backward in coming forward on that occasion. I think that it is possible to go on a fact-finding mission in order to gain a better understanding of people's problems without elaborate photo opportunities.
Apparently the buck is not to stop with the Secretary of State, for with the Under-Secretary of State. On Monday, the Secretary of State for Scotland told the Grand Committee that "the buck stops" with local authorities. It does not stop with local authorities. Scotland is saying that the Secretary of State for Scotland must accept the responsibility which goes with that office. Taking the responsibility is, or should be, his job.
If the Secretary of State has not been attending to the call of duty, what has he been doing? He has been busy pursuing his own political agenda. On 5 January, when Scotland was beginning to recover, hospitals were still under severe pressure, consumers were still without water and the extent of the problems in schools was only just being discovered, he revealed the fruits of his holiday meditation. In his first engagement after the holidays, he unveiled a political poster during a news conference and photo opportunity. He continued his attack on constitutional change. It was only then that it dawned on him that he himself was under attack, and he hurriedly arranged a visit to Strathclyde water services.
The poster is not an issue in this debate, nor is it that the Minister could not even handle its launch correctly—within four hours, it was discovered that the poster about Scottish jobs had been produced in Dublin and had to be covered up the next afternoon. What matters is the sense of priorities held by the Tories' man in Scotland—as opposed to Scotland's man in government.
The Secretary of State's actions show where his priorities are. Many Opposition Members think that there is a great deal wrong with a Scottish Office that is capable of spending public money on monitoring the media during the big freeze, but was incapable of delivering its own information to the media on how to deal with burst pipes. The Secretary of State would rather freeze comment, opinion and debate in Scotland than bring some warmth and relief to ordinary people's lives.
In my view, the moral duty of the Secretary of State and his Ministers is to resign. We cannot hold any expectation that they will volunteer to do that today, so I should like to pursue the subject of what the ministerial team could now do, after the event, to improve the position and provide redress and relief.

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The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities estimates that the cost of weather damage to housing alone will be £25 million to £30 million. It is now proposed that there will be £16.8 million of extra borrowing consent, which fails to remedy even part of the problem, before we consider the huge bill for damaged schools and the many other costs that will accrue.
In relation to council properties, we note that the third member of the ministerial team, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), was anxious to duck his responsibilities and pass the buck. The Under-Secretary was caught out more quickly than the other Ministers with his ill-informed remarks about local authorities insuring their properties. After chiding them for having inadequate cover, he has been squirming because, as has been repeatedly pointed out, it was his Government who commended self-insurance to local authorities, yet the Scottish Office does not insure its own buildings. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South nods. I am glad that he has finally realised that.
The hon. Gentleman argues that the Scottish Office should not act as an insurer of last resort for local authorities. Who is to act as the insurer of last resort for the Scottish Office? Who does he expect to pay the £5,000 bill, for example, for the Scottish Office building that was flooded in the crisis? If he remembers the previous Prime Minister's words, she said that there was no such thing as Government money, only public money. If he expects the Scottish Office to be treated in that way, why does he not understand the plight of local authorities in a national emergency?
Today I ask the Ministers for a clear, unambiguous statement on financial compensation. I ask them not to dodge the issue or appeal to the principle of self-help, which they so lamentably failed to observe themselves. Will they tell us what measures will be put in place, and when, and whether proper and adequate financial compensation will be forthcoming for those local authorities? At one time during the emergency, the Minister praised them for the work which they were doing.
The extremely cold conditions in Scotland this year also brought into sharp relief the country's prevailing climatic conditions. Even in a normal winter, Scotland is a cold place where many people experience great difficulties. In a land of energy plenty, the problem of fuel poverty affects 800,000 households. Even in a normal winter, 3,000 people die of cold-related illnesses in Scotland each and every year.
The incidence of winter deaths is greater in Scotland than in Scandinavia, which has a more severe climate. Last year, during a relatively mild winter, 239 Scots died of hypothermia. That is a damning indictment of the amount of support provided to those people by the Government. Instead of a ramshackle cold weather payment system, what is needed is a guaranteed cold weather allowance for pensioners and others on benefit throughout the winter months. The SNP believes that that can be achieved in the context of an independent Scotland. We propose automatic payment to those in need throughout the winter of sums ranging from £7.40 to £11.15 a week. The total cost of such a system would be £170 million per annum, less than 6 per cent. of this year's estimated revenues from the North sea. Other
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countries, such as Ireland, already have such a system. It is a disgrace that an energy-rich country such as Scotland does not. We must end the scandal of fuel poverty amid energy plenty in Scotland.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) was successful in queuing for a ten-minute Bill last night. Therefore, the House will soon have another opportunity to debate the important issue of cold weather payments. It is not just the SNP which commends that to the House. Every pensioner and benefit claimant in Scotland, all of whom have experienced at first hand in recent weeks the effect of our climate, will want to see that measure given broad support.
The extreme weather conditions over the holiday period in Scotland were a natural phenomenon. We cannot avoid such crises, but we can act effectively to overcome the worst effects of them. The Scottish Office, led by the Secretary of State and staffed by his colleagues, failed to act. In my view, they were in dereliction of their duty. No one perhaps can be surprised at yet another failure by Tory Ministers. That is why this governing party commands the support of one in 10 of the Scottish population. This year's big freeze provides Scotland with yet another example of how badly governed Scotland is within the context of the Union. Even within my admittedly pessimistic view of how the structures of government operate for Scotland, in this debate we will hear that the experience of the big freeze provided something which was worse even than our lowest expectations. We want and need explanations, and we should have resignations and apologies. I hope that we will have no more bluff and bluster, and no more excuses and piling the blame on everyone except those who have clear responsibilities to lead and to act.
At the very least, we should receive a clear undertaking that in future there will be a clear recognition that the primary role of the Scottish Office is not as a ministry of propaganda and photo opportunities, but as a department of public information and public service. That is what Scotland has the right to expect, and it is a measure of the ultimate failure of the Government and the ministerial team that today we have to demand it once again.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that we have 35 minutes before the closing speeches. Obviously, a fair number of hon. Members wish to contribute, so I make an appeal for some short speeches.
11.30 am
Mr. Bill Walker: I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on obtaining it. I was saddened by his speech, because we could learn so much from the experience that we all had. We could have learnt lessons that would make positive contributions towards dealing with people's problems.
One of the comments made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan shows clearly that he missed the opportunity to learn from the events. He sweepingly mentioned pensioners in Scotland. I am a pensioner and I have no intention of accepting public money for freezing conditions. Unlike others, I do not think that all pensioners need such assistance and support.

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I live in probably the most modern house erected in a long time. It was built to the highest specifications laid down for United Kingdom building, yet I suffered five bursts in the main pipes serving the upstairs radiators of that modern house, which is only a few months old. Those five bursts show that the conditions were unique. One lesson that can be learnt is that, obviously, the highest standards laid down today for building in Scotland are not adequate for the conditions that we may meet.
I say "may meet" because I remember vividly the freeze of 1946-47, which the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan probably does not. I was in the Royal Air Force and every station was closed down. We were sent home because we could not heat the billets and the messes. I also vividly remember the conditions in the freeze of the 1960s and, again, I was in the Royal Air Force. The hon. Gentleman must realise that some of us have been down this road before.
I have seen the film that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. If that film had been shown on television, he would have chastised my hon. Friend the Minister for showing an out-of-date and irrelevant film.
I am not opposed to national activity to help cope with such situations as the cold weather caused. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Select Committee will look into the matter. Members of the Scottish Select Committee who are here will know that, on Monday, I suggested that that inquiry should have a very narrow remit and know exactly what it is doing. In that way, we can produce a report that will concentrate on suggesting solutions to the problem, and not on attacking individuals.
Like the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, I wish to place on record my thanks to my local authority, which responded marvellously. I also thank Scottish Hydro-Electric, which in my area responded magnificently, the water authorities and British Gas. The people on duty while others were on holiday did a remarkable job in the most severe conditions that one could expect. That does not mean that lessons cannot be learnt, because they can always be learnt.
We should not be carried away by scandalised reports in a Scottish newspaper. If we were to believe some of the stuff in the papers, few of us would be here doing a worthwhile job, because hon. Members from all parties have been on the receiving end of stories in the papers at some time. Newspapers often use a story to create an issue with little regard for the truth.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan mentioned insurance. In Strathclyde, where the local authority paid to insure its buildings and schools, how will the people feel if they are asked to pay to bail out local authorities that did not insure themselves? That is what devolution means—giving authority to people at local level to make judgments, right or wrong.
We can learn another lesson from the events. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan suggested that Strathclyde should be made to pay for somebody else's decision. That is wrong. If one authority decides to carry the risk—because that is what it is—and another authority decides to pay for insurance, why should the authority that has paid bail out the other?
The difference between the Scottish Office and local government is that all Government Departments are paid for by all taxpayers. One group of taxpayers is not given benefits over others, and the hon. Member for Banff and
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Buchan failed to take note of that. When one local authority decides that it is not going to take out insurance cover, it should make that clear. It should tell the people that it is offering a council tax lower than it would be—or should be—if it took out insurance cover. Then the local people would know that, in the event of another episode of severe weather—which seems to occur about every 20 years—they would have to pick up the tab. That is real local decision making, and the hon. Gentleman got it wrong. He should not suggest something that will disadvantage one group of Scots against another.
There are lessons to be learnt from this episode. I have taken note of what you said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall stop now. If the Scottish Select Committee can produce a helpful report and the Government can respond quickly, we might learn some positive lessons, but we shall get nowhere by attacking personalities.
11.37 am
Mr. David Marshall: As one of many hon. Members who applied for a debate on this important subject but who was unsuccessful in the ballot, I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on his good luck. I also thank him for allowing time for other hon. Members to participate, and I shall be brief.
Over the festive season, Scotland had not just severe weather, but exceptionally severe weather. Record low temperatures were established and the country had never known weather like it since record keeping started. The whole country was affected, but Glasgow suffered especially. For several days, it was one of the coldest cities in the world. Temperatures were recorded of minus 20 deg and even lower. Such freezing weather could not have been foreseen and nothing could have been done in advance to cope with the situation.
I wish to tell the House just how badly Glasgow's housing stock was hit by the weather. I am grateful to Mrs. Margaret Vass, the head of development for Glasgow city council, for some statistics for the period from 23 December to 11 January. During that time, 42,910 emergency repair requests were issued as a result of the severe frost and the subsequent thaw. In a normal winter, the number of such repair requests is around 2,000. Sometimes more than one request was made for the same houses because they had burst pipes on several different days, but about 25,000 council houses were affected, plus several thousand other houses in the city. Over 2,000 of them were in the east end of Glasgow and in my constituency.
I am glad to say that of the total number of necessary repairs reported, City Build has completed about 31,000—a remarkable record in such a short space of time. Of the outstanding repairs, about 9,500 relate to high-cost emergency reinstatement—work estimated to cost £5.5 million. The estimated provisional cost to the council for turning off water and for repairing burst pipes is £2.5 million, to repair major damage, £5.5 million, to pay for staff overtime, £150,000, for emergency equipment, £60,000, for temporary flats being refurnished and repaired, £450,000, for bed-and-breakfast accommodation, £50,000 and for lost rents, £400,000. That adds up to a grand total of £9.11 million. Those costs may vary, but if anything, they are likely to increase before the final figure is known. I suggest that a sum of £10 million is much more likely.

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Just in case anyone thinks that those costs are excessive, it should be borne in mind that 25,000 houses and possibly 50,000 people or more were affected, and that more than 1,000 families had to leave their homes and be put up in temporary accommodation by the council. That does not include the many thousands who left their homes and went to live with relatives and friends, before being able to return home once repairs had been carried out. Moreover, many of the days involved were public holidays, which incurred additional expenditure and caused more difficulties.
Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the results of the freeze will be the delays to other much needed projects and normal repairs—to housing improvements and modernisation, and to other capital projects. Everything will be slowed down now and people will suffer for months and possibly years to come.
Glasgow has seen nothing like this weather in living memory. Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to everyone who helped in the crisis: the plumbers and tradesmen who worked day and night, the water, gas and electricity workers, the Army who helped to provide emergency water supplies in parts of the city, Clyde Action, and Radio Clyde, which set up a special freeze line that helped many people when they needed it most. I also thank all the volunteers who helped others, Strathclyde regional council and social work department, Glasgow district council, and the city's housing department and City Build. Those last two departments are much more used to criticism than to praise, but on this occasion they did a magnificent job, keeping offices and depots open at all hours through holidays and weekends. Staff did all they could to cope with the crisis.
It is always invidious to single out individuals for praise because some who deserve it more than others may be missed out. My constituency includes a higher than average number of elderly and vulnerable people and of the unemployed and people on low incomes. Rosemary Hendry and Dave Hanratty of the Whiterose tenant management co-operative in the Parkhead area of the city opened their community hall and cared for 15 families at a time. They put in beds and fed and looked after those people, who ranged from babies to an old woman of nearly 80. They certainly did a tremendous job. Frank Kelly co-ordinated efforts in Barrowfield, which was particularly hard hit by the effects of the weather.
There were many similar examples throughout the city and doubtless throughout Scotland of people helping others. Their efforts are to be contrasted with the lack of effort on the part of the Government—particularly the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch), the miscalled Minister responsible for industry and local government. He is quoted as having complained that it was his day off: he was not, he said, the duty Minister. It seemed that he was content to sit on his backside at home in front of the fire. No wonder the Daily Record described him on its front page as "A big drip". I do not like criticising other Members, but this time I feel that the Minister's actions left a great deal to be desired. He should have done much more to deal with the crisis.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland have it all wrong. In replies to my written questions, they both refused to visit the hardest hit areas
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and chose instead to concentrate on water supplies. But the problem is not about water supplies; it is about restoring people's homes so that they can get back to normality. The Government seem more worried about the loss of water than about the loss of accommodation.
There have already been references to the insurance problems. It is estimated that almost half the tenants affected in Glasgow had no contents insurance. Before Conservative Members tell me that that was their own fault, I might point out that insurance costs are high. People who are unemployed or on low incomes but who have families to look after and must choose between paying for insurance or feeding their kids will inevitably choose to feed the kids: it is no contest. Many people have no insurance, not because they do not want it, but because they cannot afford it. Poverty is a terrible thing and the city of Glasgow is full of it.
The supreme irony is that while people were losing all their possessions and were in the depths of despair, the rollover jackpot in the national lottery rose to £42 million, with record profits being made for the company. There must be some way of devoting some of the money raised by such schemes to good causes such as helping people when they most need help. Who can think of a better good cause? I can think of none. I do not see why there cannot be a special fund to use some of the money thus generated to help people who have lost everything.
As far as I am aware, the Department of Social Security and the Benefits Agency are not giving grants to people who have suffered loss; they are giving them loans. But people who could afford to pay off loans at £8 or £10 a week would not need the loans in the first place—they could go out and buy replacements for what they had lost. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State and the Cabinet will argue for additional money to be given to local Benefits Agency offices, so that they can give people grants to buy bedding, clothing, cooking equipment and the other essentials of daily life that they have lost because their ceilings have collapsed or their pipes have burst.
The Minister must seriously consider the hardship suffered by people throughout Scotland and must do all that he can to help local authorities by giving them additional resources. Let him do that and earn, for once, the gratitude of i11 the victims of this disaster.
11.46 am
Mr. James Wallace: Hon. Members will recall that when the news about the bad weather broke, it tended to focus at first on my constituency, which between Christmas eve and new year's day experienced some of the heaviest snowfalls in memory, with drifts of up to 30 ft reported in places. I shall not indulge in semantic arguments about when a state of emergency is a state of emergency. Let us be clear, however: these were exceptional circumstances, which rightly prompted Shetland Islands council to activate its emergency response plan. It would appear that it proceeded to co-ordinate the various services remarkably well.
Obviously, people wanted the roads cleared sooner than they were, but we should not underestimate the size of the task. Besides road clearance, important work was done by the social work department, which concentrated on providing help for the vulnerable and the elderly. Fine work

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was also done by the health board—by nurses, doctors and district nurses, who kept the health service going, ably supported by the helicopter services of the coastguard. BBC Radio Shetland came back on air between Christmas and new year and provided an important flow of information. The people themselves were responsible for many acts of neighbourliness and showed their resilience in coping with the exceptional weather.
It would be churlish not to acknowledge the response by the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch), who made it clear that Government resources were available, including military resources which were under review at the time and which were thought not to be necessary. As acknowledged in the local press, he was in regular contact with the islands council and no doubt put his knowledge of the islands to good use, making it quite clear throughout the period that the appropriate Government assistance would be available if required.
Obviously, I know more about my own constituency than about any other, but my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) has lent me a series of press releases relating to water supplies, issued by Grampian regional council. They show just how much activity there was trying to cope with the disaster. It is important not to lose sight of the people who did remarkable work to restore vital services.
Mr. Charles Kennedy: Will my hon. Friend confirm that although there has been some controversy, particularly in the Western Isles, the individuals who performed heroically included local representatives of Scottish Hydro-Electric? Does he agree that, when we and our hon. Friends had the opportunity of a discussion with the chairman and chief executive of that company last week, we learnt of an important subsequent development? They are considering an improved communications system between the central offices in Perth and the outlying areas, to ensure a better flow of information in both directions on instances of power failure and—equally important, if not more so—the restoration of power supplies.
Mr. Wallace: I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. I certainly agree about the work done by individual linesmen and the subsequent response of the chairman and chief executive of Scottish Hydro-Electric.
In circumstances such as this, there is a constant temptation to blame someone. We seem to have got ourselves into the situation in which everything is someone's fault. We blame Scottish Hydro-Electric, the Government, local government or whatever. In the immediate aftermath, the Secretary of State and his Ministers got their priorities wrong—to unveil a poster campaign against the plans of the Scottish Constitutional Convention was completely the wrong set of priorities.
Equally, although I have praised the Under-Secretary of State, he was wrong to blame Grampian region for closing schools for an extra day. Today's edition of The Scotsman states that the chairman of the education committee
"said that Mr. Kynoch's remarks had 'demolished the morale' of council employees working flat out to cope with the crisis."
Obviously, in exceptional weather conditions mistakes will be made. We are all very good at the perfection of hindsight. In the midst of trying to cope, people will inevitably make mistakes. The weather was exceptional
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and party colleagues to whom I have spoken in Glasgow—perhaps hon. Members representing Glasgow can confirm this—said that it was a very dry cold and that people might not have recognised just how low the temperature had plummeted. As a result, precautions might not have been taken.
Recriminations do not always help. The real blame will lie if lessons are not learnt, and we must see where they can be learnt. There will be lessons to be learnt with regard to what the Government can do and their role in public information. Having said that, however, I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) saw what his local council did—it inserted a full half-page advertisement in The Aberdeen Press and Journal on 3 January, which went to considerable lengths to advise water customers.
Mr. Salmond: That is the point.
Mr. Wallace: The hon. Gentleman says that that is exactly the point, but perhaps a clear idea of the responsibilities of local and of national Government is required. If local government is providing the information, I am not sure that there is a case for national Government repeating it. There must be clear demarcation lines as to who is responsible and, if necessary, we must make sure that the financial resources are there to ensure that it is done.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) rightly identified the fact that we are talking about many people's homes and households. I hope that central Government will respond to the problems that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities brought to the attention of the Minister responsible for housing—the scale of the damage to the public housing stock. We are talking about people's homes. It is an immediate problem and the debate should not be protracted over a considerable time.
Local authorities should be examining their emergency plans to find out whether they can be improved. With the advent of the water authorities after April, it will be important to ensure proper co-ordination between them and the local authorities. One complaint, particularly in Grampian, is that while it is accepted that the statutory and prime responsibility is to reconnect domestic supplies—quite rightly—efforts should be made to ensure that industrial users are not disconnected for as long as they were on this occasion.
Scottish Hydro-Electric was another target, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) pointed out, the linesmen responded well. My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon reminded me that, in 1984 when there was heavy snow in his constituency, 20,000 people were cut off for two weeks. I suspect that lessons have been learnt from that exercise because there was nothing on quite that scale on this occasion. That does not mean that people should become complacent. The meeting to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye referred was very constructive, with Scottish Hydro-Electric identifying the fact that its communications were far from adequate and that there is a greater need to ensure a better flow of information to and from customers who are cut off and who want to know when they will be reconnected. The company also accepted that much more could be done to improve the helicopter operation in Shetland to get heavy lifting gear in place, particularly when areas are cut off because of the snow.

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As individuals, we also must consider what we can learn from such experiences. One of the problems is that we all have greater expectations, and there is nothing wrong with that—it prompts Governments and companies such as Scottish Hydro-Electric to provide a better service—but we should not always take things for granted. If our houses are all-electric, we must face up to the fact that there might be times of the year when alternative sources of energy must be available.
On insurance, I echo a point made by the hon. Member for Shettleston. Income support levels do not take into account the payment of any element as a premium for insurance. If the Government are not the insurer of last resort and if people have to pay for insurance, will the Minister point out to his colleagues in the Department of Social Security that they must have the resources to allow them to pay insurance premiums? As the hon. Gentleman said, I suspect that if the choice is between food and an insurance premium, one will buy food. At the moment, such premiums are not included in the calculation.
People must also be able properly to identify what to expect from the authorities. The Shetland Islands council was asked at one stage to provide disposable nappies, which is not the responsibility of local government. We must tackle our own individual responsibilities.
Many lessons must be learnt and, as there may yet be more cold spells this winter, they must be learnt immediately. If they are not and there are more such failures of supply, the scope for recrimination will be much greater than it was for what was an exceptional period of cold weather over Christmas and the new year.
11.56 am
Mr. Mike Watson: I do not think that it is necessarily important to apportion blame for any aspect of what happened due to the severe cold weather. It is much more important to look ahead and ask how we can deal with the problems that have been shown to result from such severe weather.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) eruditely outlined the situation in Glasgow in its widest context. As he said, many of the problems are poverty related. I want to concentrate on health service provision. The crisis in the past few weeks graphically highlighted the fact that the national health service in Scotland is simply unable to cope with the demands placed on it today, irrespective of severe weather. The reduction in the number of beds in recent years, particularly in Glasgow, and the lack of proper central planning following the introduction of an internal market within the NHS have left it unable to cope and to respond flexibly to the demands put on it.
Last week, I was faced with a ridiculous situation in two of the acute hospitals in my constituency. Glasgow royal infirmary had bodies piled high in rooms that were not mortuaries. They were left there for days because the hospital could not cope with the demand, and that was not entirely due to the freeze and to the fact that there could be no burials. The system was unable to cope with the severe numbers.
Clearly, severe cold means that more people, particularly the elderly, die and we accept that. Hypothermia is a serious aspect of the problem, but none
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the less Glasgow royal infirmary, which is perhaps the major hospital in Scotland, was unable to cope with the demands placed upon it and to provide the sort of service for which we have all been paying over the years and which we are entitled to expect.
The lack of flexibility was also shown at Victoria infirmary, which is also in my constituency. When I visited that hospital last week to discuss with management the problems that had resulted, it was interesting to note that no women were being referred there as emergency cases by general practitioners and ambulances, as the hospital had no women's emergency beds left. They had to be ferried onwards to the Southern General, if they could be accommodated there. They were shunted round the city at a time of great need. The management made it clear to me that the crisis had resulted not from the freeze-up or from staff illnesses, although they were contributory factors, but from the fact that the system simply did not provide sufficient beds to deal with the number of cases that were being referred to the hospital.
Obviously, the cold weather caused problems at Victoria infirmary. I understand that there were 83 deaths, mainly of elderly people, at Christmas and the new year, compared with 27 in the same period last year, but it was stressed that the system was not sufficiently flexible and had no slack to take account of extremities in the weather. There were also problems in the summer during the heatwave.
Almost 1,000 elective surgical operations had to be postponed during the crisis. All the patients who required non-urgent surgery did not get their operations. That sums up what is happening in the health service. It cannot cope with the demands that are placed upon it. By all accounts, the position in England, particularly in London, is even worse, but that is no consolation to those of us in Scotland who fought to preserve a health service to provide care at a time of need, free of charge and within a reasonable response time.
I am particularly concerned by newspaper reports in the past couple of days that Victoria infirmary is considering contracting out another 500 jobs and perhaps losing its auxiliary nursing service. The shortage of auxiliary nurses in the new year meant that some operations had to be postponed.
I conclude by 'quoting Matthew Dunnigan, a consultant at Stobhill hospital, who had warned the Government in the past. After the events of the past few weeks, he said:
"You have to look at your needs in terms of coping with peak demand. That is something that is understood by people who run trains and buses, but not, apparently, by those who run the health service…but the Scottish Office are sticking to this aim of reducing beds by 5,000 before the year 2000."
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Watson: I am sorry, but I have no time. I am sure that the Under-Secretary can cover those points in his reply to the debate.
We must completely reassess the number of beds in Scotland. I call on the Government to introduce a moratorium—a freeze on any further bed closures—until the whole picture has been considered in the light of the events of the past month—
Dr. Godman: In Inverclyde as well.
Mr. Watson: Yes—in Inverclyde and in other parts of Scotland. We must make absolutely sure that the health service can provide the services that the people of Scotland are entitled to expect and for which they have paid.
12.1 pm
Mr. Malcolm Chisholm: As someone who applied for a debate on this subject, I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on his success in the ballot, and thank him for allowing me to contribute.
I was perturbed at Hogmanay when a constituent rang me from the royal infirmary saying that water had been cut off in many wards. I telephoned the hospital and spoke to the director of water and drainage. Water was provided by the fire brigade on a temporary basis, but there was still rationing for several days. There should be emergency cover for hospitals in those circumstances.
My main concern is my constituents who were affected by burst pipes in their houses. Many of them do not have insurance. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) that some Government money should be made available to them. I note that a written answer last week referred to loans and grants. Will the Minister please explain who is getting grants? I hope they will be widely available to poor constituents who cannot afford insurance, especially since the Government increased insurance tax last year.
There has been considerable damage to the fabric of houses. Edinburgh district council will have to spend £5 million to repair the damage to its housing stock. If no Government assistance is available, that will mean a rent increase of more than £3, in addition to the £3 increase that will be necessary in any case because Edinburgh, like many other places, receives no housing support grant.
The Minister may refer to the Bellwin formula. How much will that involve for Edinburgh, and how long will it take? I understand that, when it was applied in Perth recently, there was a delay of 18 months. That is not good enough for tenants in Edinburgh, who cannot possibly afford a £6 rent increase next year.
Finally, I have noticed that the council houses most affected in my constituency are those that have not been modernised. Those with central heating systems and lagged pipes were generally unaffected. That is yet another reason why the Government should not carry out the madness of slashing housing budgets next year. Warm homes can provide protection against damage for many tenants—and if the Minister is fed up with me going on about the cuts to the housing budget, he ain't heard nothing yet.
Several hon. Members rose—
12.4 pm
Mr. George Robertson: I very much regret that my hon. Friends have been squeezed out of the debate. I welcome the debate, but it is far from sufficient to deal with a national emergency that should have had national co-ordination. Frankly, it should not have been a matter of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) being lucky enough in the lottery for Adjournment debates and to raise such a serious issue. I very much regret that my hon. Friends the Members for
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Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald), for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) and for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) were unable to make important constituency points that should have been raised in the debate.
There should have been an oral statement to the House last Tuesday, and the fact that one was not made is deplorable. On such an important occasion, when we are debating a matter that affects so many thousands of citizens in Scotland, it is quite unacceptable that the Secretary of State for Scotland could not find time to answer the debate.
In Edinburgh on Monday, the Secretary of State for Scotland made snide comments about the fact that I did not speak in the debate on law and order. When I asked him whether he intended to speak at every debate in the Grand Committee, he said that he would speak on every important issue. However, he is not here today, and the people of Scotland will reach their own conclusions about his priorities.
Despite the parrot cries of somebody who says and thinks that he is a Minister of the Crown, I intend to be constructive in the debate and to put the role of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), into perspective. Perhaps he should heed the advice of his fellow Ministers and remain quiet for the rest of the debate.
I shall concentrate on what needs to be done now to help councils and citizens in Scotland. Ministers have an opportunity to redeem themselves, and perhaps to give a lead on what can be done.
I begin by commending and congratulating the hundreds of public service workers in local councils and the public utilities, who gave up their holidays and left their homes to assist in dealing with the effects of the weather in Scotland over Christmas and the new year. No one who saw them on television, spoke to the countless numbers of Hydro-Electric and Scottish Power workers who recovered power to homes or saw the work of road clearers, transport workers, hospital, water and social workers, social security office workers and Scottish Office officials could be anything other than impressed by their real commitment to public service—which it is all too easy for Conservative Members to denigrate when it suits them.
The national emergency in Scotland was quite unprecedented in climatic terms. It deserved a response on a national basis and national co-ordination, and it is regrettable we did not get that. It is not good enough for the emperors of the Scottish Office to say that the buck stops with the local councils. They have the power, the control and the money, and it was their responsibility to take in hand what everyone regarded as an emergency.
It is rich to hear Conservative Members and Ministers complaining about scandalous and inaccurate treatment by the media. When the Daily Record ran an article about the Minister responsible for industry, whatever he has to say and plead today, and whatever wriggling excuses he has to put forward, that newspaper spoke for Scotland in the midst of a national emergency that affected so many Scottish people. It deserves commendation rather than denigration from Conservative Members. To blame school janitors for part of the problem is to stoop to desperate levels.

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The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), with his usual reasonableness, said that the Secretary of State committed an error of judgment on his first day back at work after a well-deserved holiday, when his priority was to unveil a propaganda poster rather than deal with the problems affecting the people of Scotland. The hon. Gentleman was a little too reasonable. The Secretary of State's behaviour was a spectacular display of indifference and cynicism, given all that we knew of the experience of people in Scotland. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman's 11 per cent. rating in today's opinion poll reflects the conclusion of the Scottish people.
Many Scottish authorities did that which the Scottish Office information department should have been asked to do—mount a serious campaign. The new shadow authority for South Lanarkshire, which is my own authority, widely publicised emergency telephone numbers that were called by people as far away as Shetland who were desperate for information about the crisis.
The heating bills that the public will receive over the next few weeks will be a nightmare for many of them. It was clear to many householders that the only way to protect their property was to turn up their heating to a level that they probably could not afford. In the next few weeks, bills will pop through letter boxes throughout Scotland, creating serious financial difficulty for many of the people who receive them.
Every one of those bills will include 8 per cent. value added tax. I hope that people in Scotland will remember that if Ministers had had their way, and had not been stopped in the House by a Labour-initiated campaign, 15.5 per cent. VAT would have been added to their heating bills. [HON. MEMBERS: "It would have been 17.5 per cent."] I was too reasonable to the Government for a moment, but that will not last.
It is not that long since the last, supposedly election-winning Budget was out of the way. Deep in its small print was a cut in home energy efficiency schemes, which have done so much to help people in Scotland to deal with severe weather. A sum of £3.1 million was taken out of those schemes, under which 200,000 Scottish homes have been insulated—but 20,000 will now be denied the help that was to be available. Building industry installers who planned according to Government promises have discovered yet again that a Tory promise is virtually worthless. That was a mean cut, especially in the circumstances in which people find themselves today. It was scandalous.
What can the Government do to help? How can the Minister redeem himself and the Government's reputation? [HON. MEMBERS: "He cannot."] He can and he should, and he has that opportunity today. Councils are crying out for help. The scale of the damage is massive. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities says that Scottish councils face bills of between £25 million and £30 million, in addition to their planned or forecast winter expenditure, to repair council houses.
That figure does not take into account schools and other properties damaged by burst pipes, which will probably double the estimate. Strathclyde regional council suggests that school repairs and extra staffing costs could involve expenditure as high as £12 million.
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Councils are strapped for cash. The financial settlement announced recently is still being pored over by many councils and leaves them no room for manoeuvre, yet in 11 weeks' time the new unitary authorities are expected to be up and running. It is in no way reasonable to expect them to cope not only with the new challenges and costs of reorganisation but with the additional expense caused by the winter conditions.
I am acutely conscious that there is no pot of gold waiting to be thrown at Scotland's councils or the many people who need help, but central Government have the resources. There is a contingency reserve for precisely such situations. It is important to establish as quickly as possible how much money is available and how much is needed to help local councils, and how generous the Government will be. We expect the Minister to address that priority when he replies.
A letter from the Secretary of State for Scotland to his fellow Thatcherite who heads the Department of Social Security is not sufficient to deal with the misery and hardship that will be caused to many poor people throughout Scotland. The Benefits Agency has been inundated with demands for help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) said, only loans have been given—not grants, which could have made a difference.
More resources must be devoted to the problem, so that the public will not have to continue enduring the misery from which they suffer at present. The Department of Social Security and the Benefits Agency need help, and they need it now. Scotland must learn, and learn quickly, from the lessons of this disaster. I am glad that the Scottish Affairs Select Committee has taken on board an emergency investigation. The priority is to assist local authorities to repair the damage caused. I hope that today's debate will allow them to get on with that important task.
12.16 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Kynoch): I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing this Adjournment debate, but that is probably all on which I will congratulate him. I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond on the Government's behalf to this interesting debate. The many good contributions have generally recognised the significant efforts made by many people during a period of severe cold weather.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) spoke about housing problems and insurance, to which I hope to refer later. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), whose remarks I welcome, is aware of the communication links that were regularly provided between central and local government. I am grateful also for the hon. Gentleman's recognition that we must learn, so as to do things better in future.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) gave one of his usual positive and pragmatic speeches. He clearly understands the realities of difficult situations. He believes not in knocking but in being constructive and finding ways forward. I welcomed his contribution.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) spoke about the assistance sought by local authorities, and the Bellwin formula. It is up to local authorities to prepare details of their costs. I will refer to that aspect later.

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I assure all hon. Members that the Government fully appreciate the concerns and distress produced by a dreadful combination of severe weather, starting in Shetland over Christmas and spreading to the whole country over the Hogmanay period. I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside in commending the many people in power companies, local authorities and emergency services, whose unstinting efforts over the holiday period helped to restore essential services as quickly as weather conditions allowed. They were the most severe encountered since 1963—the most severe weather before then being in 1947.
The penetrating frost between 27 and 30 December caused many parts of plumbing systems within domestic and commercial premises—I stress commercial premises—to freeze. That is not surprising, given the record low temperatures. The consequences were exacerbated by the holiday period. That factor had a marked effect, especially on industrial and commercial premises. Many domestic, commercial and industrial premises were unoccupied, with heating systems set at low levels. In some instances, those systems were switched off.
Commonsense precautions for individuals and businesses could well have had a beneficial effect in reducing some of the problems. The recent mild winters have perhaps lulled people into a false sense of security about severe weather and led them to omit some of the basic steps that I remember were taken in my youth, such as draining systems that might otherwise be unprotected from frost over the holiday closedown.
I can remember that we regularly used to shut down the water supply in the factory. The sprinkler system, which was there to protect against fire by insurance demand, was changed to a compressed air system during frosty weather. Perhaps we have been lulled into forgetting about severe conditions. It is more than 20 years since there have been frosts approaching the severity of those of the recent past.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan referred to a Central Office of Information film, which was produced about 12 years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside rightly said that since then conditions have changed significantly, including the insulation of properties, and that the film is no longer in date.
I hope that, when the review body that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced comes to consider the lessons that can be learnt, it will take into account specifically communications, and the warnings that can be given to the general public. My right hon. Friend has said that we could seriously consider producing an updated film if the media were to revert to previous practice and regularly showed such films.
Responsibility for emergency planning lies with regional authorities—of that there is little doubt. Throughout the period that we are discussing, however, my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Scottish Office team have been in steady and regular contact, through the emergency planning section in the Scottish Office, with all the local authorities.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to a typical contact that we had with a local authority. We asked the authority whether it needed assistance, and if so what assistance. The military was one option. Throughout, no local authority asked for assistance. I would argue that no authority needed assistance because they were coping so admirably.
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Water authorities, of course, have well-established procedures for dealing with burst mains. Generally, authorities mobilised their repair squads quickly as soon as the situation developed, and were usually able to effect repairs to damaged pipes, and restore supply, within 24 hours of a burst being detected.
The authorities' chief concern was the consequences of the massive loss of water through burst pipes, not in their mains but in customers' plumbing systems when the thaw arrived. We know that the thaw was dramatically quick. Overnight flow rates trebled and remained at more than 150 per cent. of normal demand for several days.
Levels in reservoirs, as I heard and saw in Grampian, fell rapidly, and the minimum pressure necessary to maintain supplies to all consumers could not be sustained in some areas. Inevitably, properties in elevated positions, or those at the end of systems or close to a major burst, were most affected.
When I visited the operational headquarters in Grampian, I was told about one industrial leakage that was the equivalent of the normal consumption of about 7,000 houses. That is why the water authorities cut off industrial premises, which were largely closed. When work resumed after the Christmas-new year period, the water supply was restored as quickly as possible. Massive industrial leakages were a major problem for water authorities.
Mr. Salmond: I shall make only one intervention, because time is short. The Minister has conceded that there is a need for a public information film. Media representatives to whom I have spoken have told me that they would be delighted to show such a film, given their experience.
When it comes to insurance, whether it be for councils which were not insured or for individuals, will the Minister tell the House that he will not adopt the argument of the hon. Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) and say that nothing can be done because other people were insured? That is not what Scotland would want, given the extremity of the conditions that were faced by everyone over the past few weeks.
Mr. Kynoch: The hon. Gentleman should have been patient, because I intended to refer to the difficult position of domestic customers.
All the authorities took what steps they could to try to ensure that domestic customers were protected in the first instance. Industry was closed over the relevant period. I emphasise again that emergency planning is a regional council responsibility. The authorities were stretched, but they did not ask for assistance. They were constantly offered it by myself and my ministerial colleagues. The authorities were in the forefront in dealing with the emergency, and I stress that I believe that they performed commendably.
The Government are aware that thousands of Scottish householders in both the public and private sectors have been affected, mainly as a result of burst pipes. Local housing authorities and other agencies responded vigorously, both to the problems in their council houses and by securing temporary accommodation for those made homeless. I am aware that all public sector landlords are working as hard as they can to bring affected houses back into habitable condition as soon as possible, to end the ordeal of those who have had to leave their homes.

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Our understanding from initial discussions with some of the authorities affected is that they are currently assessing the damage to their stock, and are unlikely to be able precisely to quantify the costs involved for some time. It is obviously important that they produce quantifiable information. Once that information is available, my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibilities for housing has expressed his willingness to meet the housing committee of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. He has said that he will consider the authorities' problems sympathetically.
For the most part, the cost of repairs to council houses will initially fall to be met from councils' housing revenue accounts. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibilities for housing took this factor into account in distributing supplementary housing capital allocations totalling £16.8 million last week to 30 housing authorities facing housing capital receipt shortfalls in the current financial year. My hon. Friend is aware of the problems and has been in steady discussions with the authorities.
In due course, some authorities will be reimbursed from insurance, but councils may still be faced with a bill for any excess charges or items not covered by insurance. Housing revenue costs in providing relief and carrying out immediate work fall within the Bellwin scheme, but, as with non-housing expenditure, insurable losses are not covered by the scheme. Housing authorities that consider that they may be eligible for assistance under the Bellwin scheme should quantify the costs involved and contact the Scottish Office as soon as possible.
The Bellwin scheme, as I have said, covers only non-insurable risks. Local authorities can decide to insure or not. If they do not insure, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said recently, they must have a contingency fund.
Mr. Home Robertson: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Kynoch: I do not have time to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I wish to take up a few more points before concluding my reply.
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Individual tenants and owner-occupiers may have claims against their insurers. As the hon. Member for Shettleston said, some people have difficulty in finding funds to insure. Assistance is available to those in difficult financial circumstances through the Benefits Agency, which has arrangements to cope with such problems. It has been remarkably efficient in dealing with the many claims that it has received.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland asked whether insurance premiums were included in the calculation of benefit levels. I am assured that they are.
As for schools, I have been quoted by several hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. The representatives of one newspaper were not present when I made comments about janitors, yet an article appeared in that newspaper on that topic. I merely posed some questions on the basis of what regional councils should be doing. The response of certain newspapers was particularly galling.
Are the necessary precautions in place so that steps can be taken to try to prevent a recurrence of the circumstances that so recently arose?
Reasonable councils should be taking such steps. I remember that, when I was young, the janitor had the authority—indeed, it was part of his duty—to drain water systems. I do not know whether local authorities still do that. I hope that they will look seriously at that alongside the review that my right hon. Friend has instigated.
We must learn lessons. We have been through a particularly severe cold spell. My right hon. Friend has announced that a review will be carried out by a combination of Scottish Office officials, representatives from Scottish Homes, the new water authorities, an existing water department, a local authority emergency planning function and, indeed, representatives of business—the Confederation of British Industry or the Scottish chambers of commerce.
I believe that all those involved in dealing with this exceptionally difficult time did so admirably well, but it is important, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, to learn lessons, so that we go forward and do things even better in future.

Driving Tests (Isle of Wight)
12.30 pm
Mr. Barry Field: If I may, I shall set the background. I am referring in the debate to the new theory test for driving tests. The EC directive 91/439 on driving licences was adopted in July 1991 under article 75 of the European Community treaty. Member states were required to enact any necessary measures for compliance with the directive by 1 July 1994, but the directive itself has to be applied only from 1 July 1995.
The directive requires mutual recognition by member states of driving licences that have been issued by other member states, and allows members to recognise disqualifications for offences that were committed in another state. It also sets minimum standards of competence. That is the aspect that will affect the test and health for drivers.
The directive lists the required competence and the relevant criteria for theoretical knowledge as opposed to the skills element, which is currently covered by a practical test. Drivers are required to be tested on their knowledge of aspects of road safety regulations, the road, other road users, general rules and regulations and the vehicle. There are additional requirements for special categories of vehicle, including motor cycles.
Member states have considerable leeway in how they administer the test to examine candidates on the prescribed areas of competence and knowledge. In the United Kingdom, the practical driving test complies closely with the requirements of the directive, but the theory aspect does not. The wording of the directive says only that the form of the theory test shall be such as to make sure that the applicant has required knowledge of the subjects listed.
At present in the United Kingdom, candidates for the driving test are asked a few oral questions as part of the practical test. The directive itself does not require a written theoretical test, and at first it seemed as though the United Kingdom might implement the theory test requirement simply by expanding the number of questions asked within the present test format. Sadly, however, the decision was taken, yet again, to gold-plate a European directive with the addition of a theory test on its own.
The population of the Isle of Wight is 126,000. Seventy per cent. of households on the island own a motor car. The Isle of Wight has 62,000 registered vehicles, and there are approximately 70 driving instructors in business on the island. The Driving Standards Agency has a driving test centre that employs two full-time examiners. The agency carries out some 3,600 driving tests per year on the island.
With five high schools and a technical college on the island, it is apparent that there are a large number of potential new drivers. The rural nature of large parts of the island makes the ownership of a motor car almost essential. Young people find the process of obtaining a driving licence expensive enough, without the additional expense of having to cross the Solent by ferry to take their theory test.
The Driving Standards Agency put out to tender the examination of the theory test, which is due to start from 1 July. The tender was won by Drive Safe Services Ltd., which, I understand, must provide an examination centre based on population figures from the Department of Transport and cover an approximate 40-mile radius.
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Mr. Tony Beere, secretary of the Isle of Wight Driving Instructors Association, telephoned me to say that he had spoken to Mr. Evans of Drive Safe Services Ltd., who had informed him that there was no provision for the theory test to be available on the Isle of Wight, and that it would need the authority of the Driving Standards Agency to provide it. Mr. Beere asked me to contact the Department of Transport to point out to it the problems that that would cause, and to draw its attention to the fact that the Isle of Wight college was prepared to make facilities available for the test.
I understand that Brian Crane, the island's traffic education officer, also offered the facilities at the traffic education centre on behalf of the Isle of Wight council. My hon. Friend the Minister will clearly recognise that there is no shortage of suitable premises and facilities for the theory test on the Isle of Wight.
I telephoned my hon. Friend's office, was promised a call back by a very helpful civil servant, and was told by a member of my hon. Friend's personal staff that the person dealing with the new theory test would telephone me later that day. Sure enough, later that day, 8 January, my office received a telephone call from the person responsible, who was quite adamant that, because the Isle of Wight is within a 40-mile radius of Portsmouth, my constituents would indeed have to travel to the mainland for the theory test from 1 July this year.
I then wrote to my hon. Friend—I also buttonholed him in the Lobby—and told him how concerned I was about the problem. I also asked Madam Speaker for this short debate, so that the record could provide what I hope will be an enduring solution for the people of the island.
On 15 January, I received a faxed copy of a letter from Mr. Steve Madden, the implementation director of Drive Safe Services Ltd., addressed to Mr. Tony Beere, the secretary of the Isle of Wight Driving Instructors Association, in which he says, inter alia:
"You may well be aware that Drive Safe Services Ltd. have now been authorised by the Driving Standards Agency to open an additional test centre on the Isle of Wight. I can confirm then that by 1st July 1996, when the theory test service is delivered to the public, there will be a facility on the Isle of Wight."
The headed notepaper, however, on which that letter came, has no address. It has no company number. It has no list of directors, which makes it an illegal document under EC law. That apart, I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give me, the young potential drivers and the driving instructors of the Isle of Wight the cast-iron assurances we seek.
My hon. Friend will be aware that Her Majesty's Government have pursued a consistent policy towards the Isle of Wight, to try to ensure that, so far as possible, it has all the facilities and infrastructure that a modern community requires. As recent examples, ministerial decisions have been taken to ensure that services and facilities are not siphoned off to the mainland, thereby causing unnecessary inconvenience and unacceptable additional expense to my constituents, such as the magistrates court service, the island's tax office and the provision of VAT and valuation office inquiries on the island.
My hon. Friend will rapidly appreciate that the Department of Transport has—with the notable exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), who, while a Minister in that Department obtained road

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signs on the motorway around Southampton and Portsmouth which gave directions to the Isle of Wight—sadly gained an unenviable reputation for being singularly unhelpful in meeting the islanders' needs and aspirations. Nevertheless, it would fly in the face of consistent Government policy if that impediment were to remain by requiring Isle of Wight residents to travel to the mainland for their theory tests.
There is already a strongly held view on the island that, as the vehicle excise duty is the same as that for the rest of the United Kingdom, there should be some evidence that those of us who do not drive on the mainland should derive at least some advantage from the taxation we pay, rather than the "Road Closed" signs or the corrugations in the road surface that give rise to the famous Isle of Wight rattle.
I can recall a time when, to see a set of traffic lights on the island, learner drivers were taken out to the Yarmouth swing bridge, which had the only set of traffic lights on the island in those days. Things have progressed a little since those times, and we have even made the man with the red flag who walked in front of the motor car redundant. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will appreciate the need to provide the residents of the Isle of Wight with the convenience and accessibility that are available to residents of the rest of the south coast.
I understand that my hon. Friend will not stand at the next election. Let me say with all sincerity—not just for myself, but on behalf of many Back Benchers—that he has earned an enviable reputation as a hard-working Minister who has always tried to provide solutions to problems.
One of my abiding memories is of sitting in the back of a long-wheel-based Range Rover that was reversing up a jungle track in Dominica during a tropical thunderstorm when the temperature was 98 deg F and it was very humid. My hon. Friend—who always endeavours to lower the temperature—displayed his usual aplomb, leading the passengers in a rendition of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". The fact that at least three of the passengers were Ministers in the Dominican Government who had never seen a snowflake and were somewhat puzzled, is by the bye.
I have great expectations of this short debate. I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to deal with an impediment that has not been resolved by a telephone call from me or by correspondence. Let me put it on the record that, as soon as I drew it to my hon. Friend's attention, he promised a solution. He was very much on my side, seeing the problems that would be posed to Isle of Wight residents who would have to travel to the mainland to take the theory part of their driving tests.
That did not surprise me: when my hon. Friend represented an Oxford constituency, he was one of the first Members of Parliament to speak for me on the Isle of Wight, and I know that he is well aware of the island's problems.
12.41 pm
The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): I have seldom had such a pleasant task as that of replying to this debate. I fear that my hon. Friend the
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Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) has blown my cover: as far as I can recall—and, for reasons that may be all too apparent, my recollection is somewhat hazy—my hon. Friend had spent much of that day engaging in a serious educational process. As a result, I can now mix a strawberry Daiquiri, and will shortly learn how to spell it. My hon. Friend is clearly a master of his brief, and I am greatly indebted to him.
If you ever travel abroad with my hon. Friend, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I commend it—you will find it a singular experience. My hon. Friend's constituency is unique; he is monarch of all he surveys. If you have the particular good fortune to visit an island whose dimensions are roughly the same as his, you will realise that he can claim virtually to represent the entire process of government. For that reason, my hon. Friend is treated in a way that bears more relation to Napoleonic imperialism than to British parliamentary democracy. It is a heady experience, which ensures that the hospitality that my hon. Friend tends to generate is lavish.
My hon. Friend also carries artefacts on his world tours, with which he blesses various dignitaries: tie pins, badges, ties and all manner of paraphernalia celebrating the island's—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but I see little connection between his interesting discourse and the subject in hand.
Mr. Norris: I stand corrected, Madam Deputy Speaker—although I had hoped to convey the special nature of my hon. Friend's constituency, which, after all, led to today's debate.
My hon. Friend wants special recognition of his constituency's particular circumstances, and I welcome the opportunity to reassure him about arrangements for the new theory driving test, which constitutes the most important change to the test since it was introduced 60 years ago. I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind if I do as he did, and begin by describing some of the salient features of the general proposals before responding to his specific constituency point.
On 1 July this year, a new separate theory test will be introduced, which learner drivers will have to pass in addition to the familiar practical test on the road before they can obtain a full licence. The theory test will enable us to meet the new minimum test requirements of the European Community's second directive on driver licensing. My hon. Friend is, however, right in saying that member states will be left with a broad discretion in regard to the arrangement of their driving tests. We aim to secure the maximum road safety benefit from the exercise.
When I examined the subject, along with the then Secretary of State—my right hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney)—we considered the option of simply posing some questions in addition to those that are currently asked at the end of a driving test, which might have satisfied the minimum requirements of the directive. It is important to remember, however, that Britain has the best road safety record in the world, because we take such issues seriously. My right hon. Friend and I discussed how we could use the theory test to expand the awareness and perception that are needed by new drivers in particular.
I am confident that the new theory test—which, incidentally, has the overwhelming support of motoring and road safety organizations—will make a significant

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contribution to improving road safety and reducing the accident rate among newly qualified drivers. In that regard, it will also make an important contribution to the achievement of the objectives specified in "The Health of the Nation" White Paper.
The current test is basically sound, but some candidates can pass it without adequate preparation for all aspects of driving. All new drivers need knowledge and understanding if they are to be safe. Drivers in the 17-to-21 age group—which includes most new drivers—constitute 10 per cent. of licence holders, and are involved in 20 per cent. of accidents and 25 per cent. of fatalities. It has been said that a young driver in that category is seven times more likely to be involved in an accident involving injury than a person of my age or that of my hon. Friend—in other words, a person in middle age or, in the case of my hon. Friend, old age.
Let me describe the position more graphically. Road deaths constitute 30 per cent. of all deaths among young people, and 75 per cent. of all accidental deaths in that age group. If we are to go on making our roads safer, we must ensure that the building blocks are right. We must ensure that learner drivers are taught more about observing and anticipating hazards.
I am confident that the theory test will achieve that, and will strengthen the preparations that new drivers make for their driving tests. Because they are likely to take the process more seriously, I expect the pass rate for the practical test—which is currently only about 50 per cent.—to rise.
Obviously, we shall carefully monitor the new test during the first five years, and we shall evaluate it rigorously to make sure that it has the desired effect. If it fails in that respect, we shall certainly be prepared to make appropriate adjustments. The test will last for about 45 minutes, and for cars and motor cycles it will consist of about 35 questions. Motor cyclists will have their own version of the test, with some questions specific to motor cycling.
Most questions will be multiple choice, and will require candidates to choose the correct answer from four possible options. It will also contain some multiple response questions, and candidates will be required to select several answers from five or six options.
As I have said, there will be separate questions for motor cyclists, but each question paper will test about 12 topics, including: driver attitude; traffic signs and regulations; the effects of alcohol, drugs and fatigue on driver behaviour; safety and environmental aspects of vehicles; and so on. Some theory test questions will be picture questions: the pictures might be of road signs or road situations, and a perfectly straightforward question will be asked.
There will be separate tests for learner drivers of lorries, buses and coaches, and they will cover separate topics that are relevant to those licence categories. Each test will consist of 25 multiple choice or multiple response questions.
It is important that the new theory test should discriminate between candidates only on the basis of their knowledge. It is not an intelligence test. The design of the questions and the layout of the papers take special account of the difficulties that people may experience if English is not their first language. The test takes special account of those with dyslexia or other reading difficulties, of the
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deaf and of people with other disabilities. We have taken some pains to consult all the relevant disability groups to make sure that the arrangements are practicable and as accessible as possible.
Provisions to meet the special needs of candidates will apply irrespective of the category of the theory test that is to be taken. Welsh variations of the test will be available in Wales. Versions of the test using British sign language or a lip speaker will be available for deaf candidates, and facilities will be provided to enable disabled candidates to take the theory test. Where necessary, that could include personal help from a member of staff in filling in the test paper, or perhaps even a test at the candidate's home.
The normal arrangement will be that learner drivers must pass a theory test before they are able to book a practical test. However, during the first six months between 1 July and the end of 1996, there will be a special arrangement to allow test candidates to take the practical test first. To gain a full driving licence, test candidates would need to take the theory test within the following six months. Those measures will help to avoid a bottleneck caused by candidates who cannot book practical tests because they have not passed the theory test. They will also help with the management of any surge in demand for theory tests following the introduction of the new tests.
Irrespective of the order in which the tests are taken, learner drivers will have to pass both the theory and the practical tests before they can drive unaccompanied and before they can be issued with a full driving licence. A programme of publicity has been developed to ensure that learner drivers are properly informed about the new tests well in advance of their introduction. Since September 1995, that has included enclosing with all the provisional licences issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea a leaflet providing information about the new tests.
The basic information needed to answer the theory test questions is contained in the "Highway Code", and in the Driving Standards Agency book called "The Driving Manual", which is readily available. Additional material to support test candidates is being developed by the DSA and a number of other publishers.
In March, the DSA will publish a book containing all the theory test questions for car and motor cycle learner drivers. The theory test questions for learner drivers of lorries, buses and coaches will be published in early May. As well as providing all the theory test questions and answers, the DSA books will contain text and graphics explaining why the correct answers are right and highlighting aspects of incorrect answer choices.
Before I leave this description of the general arrangements and turn to my hon. Friend's question, perhaps I may be allowed to address myself to young people who are currently contemplating the new test. I should like to do that because I understand from some driving schools and from occasional items in the press that some young candidates are desperate to take the test as soon as they can, so as to get in under the wire before the new arrangements are established.
No driver who is capable of passing the practical test need fear the theory. As I have said, the pass rate for the practical test is currently about 50 per cent. We anticipate that the theory test pass rate will be significantly higher. I urge candidates not to attempt to rush driver training to avoid the theory element.

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I hope that people will have the chance to read what I have said. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight will appreciate it. It is clear that the test will not be arduous. It will provide a full basis for understanding the questions and the answers, and why the answers are right. Therefore, no driver should fear it in any sense. I fear that young drivers who try to get in under the wire are far more likely to experience first-time failure, consequent extra cost and even more delay if they do not approach the subject sensibly and conscientiously. I make it quite plain that the theory test should hold no fears for the competent learner driver.
I now turn to the specific concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight. The specification for the establishment of the theory test and theory test centres was based on responses to DSA customer surveys. Driving test candidates and their instructors thought that it was reasonable in general terms to travel up to 20 miles for a driving test. A national network of theory test centres will be developed and will run frequent test sessions to meet candidates' needs.
The specification for theory test centre locations requires that, for most people, the centre should be available within 20 miles. In towns and cities where the population density is higher, a test centre should be available within about five miles. There might be slight changes in rural areas, where it may be appropriate to go as far as 40 miles, but, in general, we want the test centres to be accessible.
It is precisely on the issue of accessibility that I received a representation from my hon. Friend, and that has led to this short debate. I am extremely grateful to him for paying such a generous tribute to my private office staff, who are absolutely first class. I am glad that they were able to respond so constructively to my hon. Friend.
Following receipt of my hon. Friend's inquiry, I looked into the matter, and confirmed that the initial proposals for test centre locations did not include siting a theory test
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centre in the Isle of Wight. However, I have considered carefully what my hon. Friend has said on the matter. I know the island, and I enjoyed being there with my hon. Friend for an extremely successful meeting. In the light of his representations, and particularly in the context of the special circumstances on the island, I am happy to confirm to him that I have given directions for an additional theory test centre to be sited on the Isle of Wight.
As my hon. Friend says, practical driving tests for people on the island are provided in Newport, where two examiners are permanently based. If demand requires it, the agency will readily detach additional examiners from Southampton or Portsmouth. As my hon. Friend knows, motor cycle, lorry and bus tests are conducted from a centre at Rookley. That is not a permanently staffed centre, but test programmes are arranged there to fulfil known demand as required. At present, all the agency's target waiting times are being met at the centers—that is, six weeks for cars, four weeks for LGV and PCV vehicles and three weeks for motor cycles.
There have been changes to the DSA's network of booking offices in the past few months. The agency has closed five of its regional offices, including Eastbourne, which used to manage the booking of tests for centres in the Isle of Wight. That work was transferred to the agency's office in Cardiff. There were some initial difficulties there about making contact with the office because of the volume of telephone calls being received, but I am pleased to say that measures to address that have succeeded in improving the situation. As evidence, the booking staff at the office are answering 90 per cent. of all calls within a minute, which is the agency's service standard.
I am glad to have been able to satisfy my hon. Friend that we intend to offer his constituents the standard of service for which he has properly and rightly campaigned on their behalf. I am grateful to him for drawing the matter to my attention and for giving me this opportunity to set matters right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) might have remarked, my hon. Friend has got a result.

Rotherham District General Hospital
12.59 pm
Mr. Peter Hardy: I make no apology for raising this matter, as experience suggests that hon. Members have an obligation to maintain an interest in agencies and local organisations that serve their constituencies. National health service trusts and other bodies that administer the health service are extremely important in their regions and nationally. Their duties are vital. The funding for which they are responsible is large and needs to be larger. As the taxpayer provides those funds, the Member of Parliament, the taxpayer's representative, is entitled to maintain an interest—indeed, it may be an obligation.
That interest may not always be convenient to, or welcomed by, those bodies, but they need to appreciate that national health service trusts owe their position to the Minister. They are not directly democratically based or clearly representative in their nature—Members of Parliament are. I make the point because, on two or three occasions over the years, my relationship with bodies serving my constituency has not always been smooth and easy. It has usually been cordial, and I have great respect for the people who serve on those bodies. Some years ago, however, one chief officer imagined that he could refuse to meet local Members of Parliament: the Minister will appreciate that the meeting did take place.
Two or three years ago, hon. Members had cause for concern when a project of major importance was not drawn to their attention at a reasonably early stage and the trust's initial response to the public's growing concern was less than sensible. In another matter, I expressed serious concern about the fact that my constituency provided no lay member to serve on Rotherham health authority, an authority of considerable quality, which serves three constituencies: Rother Valley, Rotherham and my own. That was a serious omission. It led me to see the then Health Minister—the present Secretary of State for Health—who, unfortunately, was ill-informed about the position as he said that my constituency did not provide the authority with a lay member before it was reorganised. I was able to give him the relevant names and addresses.
Lest it be suggested that I am wholly critical, I make it clear that I recognise the fact that many of my constituents are justifiably grateful for, and appreciate, the services and help that they have received from the national health service in Rotherham, and that I share their view that the medical, nursing and caring staff at the hospital and in the service generally maintain high standards and show a commendable dedication to their work, which should be consistently recognised. Their position led me to seek this debate. I am not sure that the people responsible for the leadership of the service have adequately recognised their obligation to consider staff and to give proper regard to their views.
I accept that smoking is bad for health—that is beyond dispute. I agree that people, especially the young, should not be encouraged to smoke. I do not quarrel with the efforts of public bodies such as health trusts to discourage smoking and to take steps to protect others from the effects of smoking. Nor do I object to the Department of Health's advice on that matter—that point needs to be made clear from the outset. In effect, this debate is about not smoking, but the conduct of public business and Rotherham trust's approach.
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The trust decided to introduce a complete ban on smoking, phasing it in until full implementation on 1 April 1995. That met the wish of Rotherham health authority, which, in compliance with its obligation to the Department, required its providers to operate an anti-smoking policy within Government guidelines. Just before the complete ban came into effect, constituents expressed their concern to me that they were to be prevented from smoking, not only in the hospital but within its grounds and in the car park, including in their motor cars.
On 28 March 1995, I wrote to the trust to express concern about the absolute nature of the ban. The acting chief executive responded promptly to say that the trust had unanimously approved the decision, and he informed me that that was in accordance with Department of Health guidelines. Constituents then said to me that they had been told that the ban had been introduced on the Minister's advice or instructions, so I wrote to the Minister involved—the noble Lady Cumberlege—who replied on 22 April. Her letter referred to the setting aside of a limited number of smoking rooms for staff. That position was significantly different from that of the trust.
National health service guidelines cover the point. They say specifically that a limited number of smoking rooms are to be set aside for members of staff who cannot give up smoking. They assume that all members of staff wish to give up smoking. The Minister who is to reply will accept that not all of them do—it is a free society. The Department asked district health authorities to implement the anti-smoking policy and specific reference was made in the guidelines to the provision of separate smoking rooms for patients and visitors. Rotherham appears to have disregarded that.
Many staff were unhappy about that absolute approach. I understand that the hospital administration department was unhelpful in the drawing up of a petition. The Minister will be aware that more than 500 members of staff at the hospital—500 dedicated and hard-working people—signed a petition seeking the provision of a smoking room. The petition was submitted to the trust and rejected, despite the fact that the Department's guidelines provided for that facility.
Following receipt of the noble Lady's letter, I wrote to the trust and said that the position was anomalous. The noble Lady had advised me that patients could be allowed to smoke if the clinician approved and if the arrangements to allow that had been put in place, and that the facility would be only for patients and not for staff, visitors or anyone else. However, given the number of patients who gather around to smoke outside the hospital, it is peculiar that the trust tells me that facilities have been provided for patients to smoke. If they had, they would not be standing by the hospital doorways in wet and cold weather indulging in the habit.
I wrote to the trust after I had received the noble Lady's letter and waited for a reply. Unfortunately, none came. At a function, I saw the chairman of the trust, a local and distinguished citizen whom I view highly and have known a long time. We still have a cordial relationship. I said that I had not received a reply to my letter. He assured me that the contents of my letter were being taken seriously, but I still did not get a reply.
Like other hon. Members, during recesses I make a number of visits and hold a number of meetings to fulfil my constituency obligations. Following usual practice,

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a meeting with the trust was arranged for 12 September last year, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and I attended. As soon as the meeting began, I drew attention to the fact that I had not received a reply to my letter and the chairman unhesitatingly offered a full apology. We discussed the problem of the smoking ban in detail. I hoped that, following that meeting, a rather more sensitive approach would be taken. However, within a short time I learnt that the trust had endorsed its existing policy in every particular and again claimed that it was complying with Department of Health policy—which it clearly was not.
I wrote to Baroness Cumberlege again, but I received a reply that I thought was inconsistent with her previous letter. The Minister may disagree about that. Baroness Cumberlege said that she stood by everything that she had stated in her previous letter about the provision of smoking rooms, but she then expressed total support for the trust's decision. I am sure that the Minister has seen the correspondence.
Baroness Cumberlege also referred to the claim that the vast majority of patients, staff and visitors wholeheartedly supported the trust's policy. I have very real doubts about that—514 members of staff requesting a different arrangement can hardly be described as overwhelming support. As far as I know, the trust has made no attempt to discover whether it actually does have the overwhelming support of the community, patients and visitors. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the only exercise to establish that was carried out by members of staff. It revealed that the majority of people who do not smoke as well as the overwhelming majority of people who do smoke disagreed with the trust's policy. That clearly shows that the trust's claim that its policy enjoys overwhelming support is not well founded.
I am concerned about people who visit the hospital and use their own cars. Despite the enormous successes of hospitals in modern times, they remain places of stress. To add additional stress by refusing to allow any opportunity to smoke is not necessarily wise. It is also rather oppressive to tell people that they cannot smoke in their own cars. I pointed out to the trust last September that it would face wholesale disregard of its ban. South Yorkshire is not the sort of area where big brother immediately and automatically commands obedience and respect. I told the trust that docile, obedient, responsible citizens would obey the ban, but a very large number of people would not, which would make those who respected the ban feel somewhat angry and embittered. The ban does not help to foster good relationships. It is much too oppressive to tell people that they cannot smoke in their own cars.
There has been a slight advance because the chairman has now told me that the trust will not enforce the ban. I am not happy about that because I believe that regulations should be sensible and enforceable. If they are not, they should not have been made. I hope that there will be a different approach.
The Department of Health is responsible for the trust and it appoints its members. It has issued guidance to which I do not object and nor do the majority of people and the staff of Rotherham hospital. However, the trust, which does not have a democratic mandate, has chosen to disregard the staff and impose a ban. That places a burden
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on staff, one of whom is a constituent of mine who has not had a day off work for health reasons in 20 years. She is now told that she cannot smoke within the precincts of the hospital.
The trust feels entitled to disregard the Department's advice on the provision of smoking rooms. It is distasteful that the trust, having decided to differ from the Department's advice, has not acknowledged that difference but instead claimed, both before and after the ban and during our meeting, that its action was in accordance with departmental advice. Will the Minister make it clear to the trust that it should not say that it is following ministerial instructions when it is not?
We are concerned here not with the merits or demerits of smoking but with the proper conduct of public business. Perhaps it would be appropriate for the Minister to confirm that trusts should always be willing to meet Members of Parliament and that they should never mislead them. Hon. Members are entitled to be, and must be, given accurate information by all the public bodies that serve their constituents. In this case, I do not think that I was given accurate information. Neither do I think that the trust recognised its obligations to the community and to its parliamentary representatives.
The dedicated and caring staff of Rotherham hospital should have received adequate information. I am not sure whether it is correct, but I have been told by several members of staff that they were not properly consulted. The Minister will acknowledge that departmental advice makes it absolutely clear that staff should be consulted. In this case, I have a real suspicion that they were not. I hope that there will not again be the same insensitive disregard of the views of staff that has clearly been the case until now. I hope that there will be an understanding that sometimes a draconian attitude can be counter-productive.
As I said earlier, when I have driven around the hospital area, I have been surprised by the number of people smoking. Not long ago, someone counted 250 cigarette ends by the front door. That shows that a hard and insensitive approach does not produce the desired result. I suspect that more tobacco has been consumed in and around the hospital since the ban than was ever the case before. Many people, including myself, would not smoke in the hospital when attending meetings and so on. However, as I was leaving after my last visit, I noticed that a great number of people were smoking. Therefore, the trust might wish to consider whether its policy is wise. Coercion should always be avoided and the views of the staff should be more carefully considered.
The matter was fully discussed at the recent annual meeting of the hospital trust. I was concerned to hear that when someone who attended the meeting asked to see the minutes, he was told that legal opinion was being sought on whether they could be shown to him. The trust should recognise that we are still living in a democracy. I hope that democracy will play a larger part in its future consideration of such matters.
1.18 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Horam): I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy), who raised some important points. I have always respected his talents as an implacable pursuer of

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causes that are dear to his heart—which certainly include bodies that are not democratically elected. Indeed, he is quite right to point out that it is precisely the function of Members of Parliament, who are democratically elected, to raise such matters. Incidentally, I am also glad to note that he paid particular tribute to the staff of Rotherham district general hospital, and I would like to associate myself with that tribute.
I understand that this debate is not so much about smoking policy or anti-smoking policy per se, but about what the hon. Member for Wentworth called the proper conduct of public business—in this case the conduct of the trust. None the less, before coming to that matter, I shall briefly comment on Government policy on smoking, since it was the origin of the problem.
The Government believe that people are entitled to breathe air unpolluted by tobacco smoke and that non-smoking should be the norm in buildings frequented by the public, with special provision for smoking where local managers feel that it is appropriate. National health service premises are required to be virtually smoke-free. Smoking is responsible for about 110,000 premature deaths in the United Kingdom each year, and the treatment of smoking-related diseases costs the NHS, and therefore the taxpayer, about £610 million a year.
As the largest employer in the United Kingdom, and as the manager of premises used by thousands of members of the public, the NHS has a responsibility to protect patients, visitors and staff from the health risks of smoking. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would disagree with that. The NHS, precisely because it is the NHS, should and does develop an exemplary role, leading the way and providing the model for other employers to follow.
In July 1992; the White Paper "The Health of the Nation" set out a requirement for the NHS to work towards a virtually smoke-free environment for staff, patients and visitors as rapidly as possible. Soon after that, guidance was issued in October 1992, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, which set out the action required of NHS hospitals and authorities. That guidance is called "Towards Smoke-Free NHS Premises".
The Department co-operated with the Health Education Authority in the production and distribution of guidance on the design and implementation of smoking policies. That publication set out the basic requirements of an NHS policy, but left management free to tailor arrangements to suit local circumstances. Advice was also included on the responsibility of health authorities to specify that, wherever possible, NHS services should be provided in a smoke-free atmosphere.
It is worth remembering that the Government guidance issued to help implementation of that policy does not require hospitals to provide separate smoking facilities for staff and patients. It sets a minimum standard, which all parts of the NHS are expected to achieve. It is up to local managers—I emphasise that—to decide whether they feel that it is necessary or practicable to set aside such smoking rooms for staff and/or patients.
Following receipt of the Department of Health guidance, the Rotherham General Hospitals NHS trust set up a task group in 1993 to look at the question. On 4 October 1993, it sent out a letter, which was—to use the bureaucratic terminology—cascaded to staff via the team-brief network, and a policy statement, which I think that the hon. Gentleman has seen, setting out its
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position on anti-smoking policy. The letter asked for comments or questions by the end of December of that year. The consultation lasted for three months from the beginning of October to the end of December 1993. I am told—the hon. Member for Wentworth has not controverted this—that only two members of staff individually made representations during that three-month period.
The first stage of the policy, which was issued to staff—I understand—in a letter with their pay packets, was implemented on 1 April 1994. It made it plain that to help staff, a smoking room would be set aside until 1 April 1995, after which—two years after the beginning of the process—the whole policy would come into force. That is the burden of the problem raised by the hon. Member for Wentworth.
I am also aware that in February 1995, a 500-name staff petition against banning smoking was considered by the trust board. I should point out that although the hon. Member for Wentworth said that the petition received substantial support, the trust employs 3,000 staff and the petition therefore represents quite a small proportion of employees—fewer than one in five.
Mr. Hardy: I am sure that there would have been a much larger response to the petition had the people responsible for it been allowed to put a notice on the staff notice board and the administration had not been especially discouraging. Many staff work strange hours, including night shifts, and so on, and I am assured by those responsible for the petition that many more signatures would have been obtained had it been simple to do so.
Mr. Horam: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I can obviously go only on the facts in front of me.
Since April 1995, when its policy was introduced, the trust, which treats about 300,000 patients a year, has received only three formal complaints from patients about its smoking policy.
I shall deal with the effect on patients before I deal with the effect on staff. The trust decided to allow discretion for clinicians to designate smoking areas for wards where certain patients are allowed to smoke. Long-stay patients who are addicted to smoking are allowed to smoke, as are terminally ill patients, where the medical staff in charge of their care feel that it is in the patients' best interests. The trust is considering offering free nicotine patches to all in-patients for use during their stay. I am aware from the correspondence that some patients do indeed go outside the building to smoke, but they do so against medical and nursing advice. I stress to the hon. Member for Wentworth that about 500 deaths a year in Rotherham are attributed to smoking—that is one in five.
I understand that some staff reacted strongly when the trust removed the designated smoking room, although ample notice was given in the course of the procedure that I have described, and proper consultation was conducted. As the hon. Member for Wentworth has pointed out, the trust has adopted a lenient approach to staff smoking in hospital grounds. Although the trust cannot of course forbid smoking in private cars—that would be quite oppressive, to use the hon. Gentleman's word—it has every right to forbid smoking in its own vehicles.
The hon. Member for Wentworth kindly wrote to me on 13 January, raising a number of points related to the debate. He said:

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"I do not entirely disagree with your comments about smoking. However, your letter overlooks several of the matters which I have raised.
The NHS guidelines do refer to the provision of smoking rooms. Rotherham has refused to provide these."
Simply, my point is that that is a matter for local decision. It is a matter for the Rotherham General Hospitals NHS trust and it is not therefore in conflict with Government policy. It is simply exercising its right to carry it a step further than the Government guidance suggests.
The hon. Member for Wentworth also asked whether the Department knew about the 500-name petition. It is not clear from the chain of documentation whether we were fully aware of it. As far as my noble Friend Lady Cumberlege could determine from all the evidence, we were, however, fully aware that there was not a majority in favour of reversing the ban imposed by the trust. We have discussed the figures and the hon. Gentleman has made his point. None the less, the petition contained only about 500 signatures, and there are 3,000 employees of the trust.
The hon. Member for Wentworth went on to ask what arrangements had been made to enable patients to smoke where a clinician agreed that they should be able to do so. That is an important and practical point. An arrangement may be made between staff and a patient so that he or she may smoke at agreed times, for example after meals. In such a case, a single room off the main ward may be made available or a sister's office can be allocated for that purpose by agreement with staff. The trust has made it clear that there are no spare rooms and no specific rooms are designated for smoking.
The hon. Gentleman finally raised the question of smoking out of doors and in cars. I take his point that a general ban was imposed at first. However, in the light of experience and, perhaps, common sense, the trust now operates that aspect of the policy leniently.
All those matters were raised again by the acting chief executive and by the non-smoking policy group just before Christmas—in October or November—and the trust board considered them at its meeting in December. Various recommendations were made—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order.

A12 (Waveney)
1.30 pm
Mr. David Porter: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the matter of the A 12 trunk road in Waveney and to express some of my constituents' fears about the consequences of leaving it as it is, without development and without significant improvement.
When the roads programme was cut in the previous Budget, it was understood that all road schemes had to be reconsidered; no one argues against that. My hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads and the Department of Transport can only do what they can with the money that the Treasury gives them. It is also now unfashionable in some quarters to build roads.
I hope, however, that my hon. Friend will understand the sense of betrayal and desertion that I feel on behalf of my constituents as a result of the fact that the commitment in the White Paper "Roads for Prosperity" to dual the A12 from London to Great Yarmouth by 1999 has been abandoned in the re-ordering of priorities. Such schemes are abandoned without hope when they are wiped out for ever instead of being put back. Putting back is not satisfactory, but expectation and community feeling are kept alive. Axing completely simply demoralises individuals, businesses and communities that trusted in that original hope.
I shall concentrate on two parts of the A12. The first is the A12 through Wrentham, an attractive village whose case for a bypass was established and settled many years ago, when the Department of Transport kept the A12 north of Ipswich as a trunk road and took over the Wrentham bypass scheme from Suffolk county council. On 27 November last, a child, Grace Wright, was almost killed crossing the A12 after school at 4.30 in the afternoon. By a miracle and as a result of intensive care in Addenbrooke's hospital, she is now recovering. There may be some traffic-calming measures, and there may be traffic controls and further speed restrictions, but what does it take to happen—how many lives will be put at risk—before a bypass, which was accepted when traffic volumes were lower than they are now, is built on road safety, environmental and quality of life grounds?
Surely when the Kessingland bypass was built, the Wrentham bypass should have been added to it. Having delayed the scheme with inquiries and arguments over routes, surely the most sensitive decision would have been to keep it in the active programme. Whatever the arguments about the stretch through Lowestoft, which I shall come to next, surely Wrentham was a stand-alone case with a watertight justification. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to reinstate the scheme to a higher priority as so much money has already been spent on its preparation.
In Lowestoft, to the north of Wrentham, there is an even worse case. The Government have simply wiped out the spine road from Kessingland to Pleasurewood, roads on both sides of the river and the bridge that crosses Lake Lothing. The campaign for a third crossing at Lake Lothing began at the end of the first world war in 1918 and some of the approach corridors have been preserved since the mid-1960s. The two existing crossings, the crossing at Mutfordlock in Oulton Broad and the bascule bridge in Lowestoft harbour, have been variously replaced over the years. The Mutfordlock crossing was rebuilt most recently, but it is not a trunk road.

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The existing bascule bridge is the only main link for the two halves of Lowestoft and beyond in either direction. To the north, there is Great Yarmouth where hundreds of my constituents travel to work. To the south, there are Ipswich, London and the channel tunnel. The bridge also provides a link to the A14 east-west link. That bridge is thus central and critical.
The bascule bridge is coming towards the end of its life. The previous bridge failed and for weeks, the town was cut in half. Business, cultural and social life almost died. The replacement was built in 1972 with an expected life span of 30 years, so we are only six years from its expected end, with no replacement in hand. Last summer, the bridge failed during a peak bank holiday period. The tailbacks were horrendous and life was literally rendered intolerable for thousands of people. I keep asking what plans the Government have in the event of permanent failure of that bridge. The answer seems to be that they have none. I ask again today what my hon. Friend will do if the bridge fails beyond repair.
In February 1991, I corresponded with Christopher Chope, who was then Minister for Roads and Traffic, about failures of the bridge in November 1990 and January 1991—failures of the same chaotic magnitude as last summer's. He replied:
"In November 1990 my Department announced the preferred route for the Al2 Lowestoft Relief Road which incorporates a new crossing in the vicinity of the North Quay. Subject to completion of statutory procedures and the availability of funds construction could start in 1994 and would take about two year… I hope that we can avoid further failures of this kind but recognise that the long-term solution is the construction of a new harbour crossing."
Nothing has changed since then except that the traffic volume, the pollution and the inconvenience have got worse. The need is still there.
Even when the bridge is working properly, it causes problems. It opens to shipping, on average, 12 times a day. Each opening takes three to four minutes although if there is more than one vessel to go through, openings can take 10 minutes or more. Average tailbacks of traffic at bridge openings are three quarters of a mile in both directions. The hundreds of stationary vehicles often keep their engines running throughout.
Of course the bridge openings are vital to the economic well-being of the port and no one suggests that the bridge should not be opened. The area is trying to encourage tourists and there is a growing Dutch visitor element. Those Dutch visitors, who are, in effect, our competitors in Europe, are astonished that a town the size of Lowestoft, with 65,000 people, has to hold its breath and hope that the bridge, having opened, will close again to allow the vehicles across. In Holland, there is no question of bridges not working or not being replaced because they are a priority in keeping commerce going.
What other town of Lowestoft's size and importance—it is the second largest in Suffolk—has to have a trunk road going through its heart while being 80 miles from the nearest point of the motorway network? In the north of the town, the A 1 2 is reduced to a single lane in several places although it carries more than 33,000 vehicles a day. In the south, where London road south runs through the Kirkley area, exhaust fumes were monitored last summer, with ghastly findings. The incidence of asthma around that part of the Al2 is twice the frequency for Lowestoft in
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general, which is itself higher than the national average. Drawing trunk traffic flow from those areas into the corridors that have been preserved is the only solution.
If there is any doubt, we need look no further than the circular, sent out every year by the Department of Transport, which advises local authorities on how to prepare their transport policies and programmes. The local authorities—I quote from instruction 25—are told:
"Authorities should pay particular attention to air quality in preparing transport plans especially through consideration of measures to reduce traffic levels in sensitive areas such as town centres."
What is good enough advice for local authorities should be good enough advice for the Department of Transport.
What of the corridors, the houses and the land that have been blighted and bought with taxpayers' money? Whole housing developments and minor roads have been built over the years which leave the Al2 spine road corridors. Are the corridors to be allowed to go to development—ribbon and odd-corner development—just because the spine road has been arbitrarily axed?
I was born and brought up in Lowestoft. For all my life—certainly all my political life—Lowestoft's traffic problems have been beyond any joke. There is an all-party consensus on the need for a bridge. There is agreement from industry and business, from the elderly and from young families that the third crossing is the solution. We call it the third crossing; the Department of Transport calls it the second crossing, implying that the bascule bridge will eventually go and that the new bridge will be built west of the inner harbour. Such joke as there was, was that the second coming would occur before the third crossing. As things stand now, that may well be so.
Those who did not want the new bridge are happy now. Some argued that the spine road was not a panacea and would encourage yet more vehicular traffic. There are those—I am certainly among them—who say, "If we cannot have a £80 million bridge up river, what can we have? What do we as a community want from our road layout which will improve the quality of our lives and our economic prospects?"
While we have been given a chance to rethink, there is a fear that nothing at all will be done to help Lowestoft solve its economic problems, which are being experienced deeply by many of my constituents. In recent years, Lowestoft has suffered a decline in its traditional industries, and jobs lost in food-related industries, shipbuilding and fishing have put local unemployment at about 11 per cent.
The existing A12 links are at best sub-standard and at worst wholly inadequate, given the economic pressures on the area. The area failed to get assisted area status, although nearby Great Yarmouth did. If the decision had been made a few weeks later, unemployment in Lowestoft would have been high enough to allow us to get assisted area status also. Lowestoft has been designated an EU objective 5b area, but so far we have not received approval for any big job creation ideas. That approval must come from the Government via the Government office for the eastern region, which includes my hon. Friend the Minister's Department.
Eighteen months ago, European Commission official Alfonso Gonzalez Finat visited Lowestoft and was shown the potential of the port. He pointed out that the road links create an unfair disadvantage for a port with such

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excellent European sea links. In 1980, a British Road Federation report criticised the state of all road links to ports, and singled out Lowestoft. Since then, nothing has been done except for one small piece of work—the eastern relief road from the port. Despite that, a single carriageway trunk road still goes through the heart of the town. The relief road funnels the traffic instead of moving it. When the bridge is open, the eastern relief road is no more than an expensive temporary car park.
The promise of road improvements has helped investment in Lowestoft to some degree, but now that the hope following the 1989 promise has been removed, we fear relocations and closures. There is a feeling in East Anglia that the central corridor of Great Britain from the north through the middle of England and London to the channel tunnel is being developed. That is fair enough, and I will not argue with that. But as a consequence, the furthest edge of East Anglia is being sidelined. I hope that that is not being done deliberately, but that appears to be the case.
People often say to me that the charm of an isolated area such as north Suffolk is what brings in the tourists, and that is true. The Broads and the North sea are great natural assets that attract visitors, while the local bathing beaches are the finest in England. North Suffolk is one of the most appealing parts of the country. There are people who visit the area regularly for many years, and some end up retiring there. But a thriving tourist industry based on water, entertainment, history and indigenous charm must be accessible. There must be a thriving local economy, and not one that is simply choked by traffic.
We were awarded objective 5b status to ameliorate the deficiency in our communications and infrastructure that adversely affects local businesses and communities and which erects barriers preventing sustainable development. The A12 at Waveney is surely a classic candidate for priority treatment under that criterion.
Where do we go from here? What is to happen to the Wrentham bypass, the spine road and the bridge? What schemes is the Department of Transport now looking at to ease Lowestoft's traffic problems? What will happen when—not if—the bascule bridge fails for good? What plans has the Department made in the event of the bridge failing for a few days, weeks or months? Will a replacement be provided for that crossing?
Why can we not build a bridge at the proposed crossing place, but under the private finance initiative? There is surely scope there for such a development. Will my hon. Friend undertake to look at that proposal urgently? At the end of last year, the Government were considering dividing the road network into 27 regions, controlled by a corporation set up to extend, run and maintain the road system. Drivers would have to pay companies by electronic metering, zone permits or a fuel levy to use the roads, in return for the scrapping of the £140 vehicle excise duty. That would mean that all of the money raised for roads would be spent on roads. Is that the answer for the A 12 and for other roads? If not, what is the answer? What can I take back to my constituents, who have been deeply affected by the change in the economic base in the past decade? With their great hopes of investment in the area's infrastructure from taxpayers wiped out—at least for now—what can I take back to my constituents?
1.43 pm
The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) on securing the debate. I know from many recent discussions with my hon. Friend of his concern at the lack of progress on work on the A12 in Waveney, and the Kessingland to Pleasurewood improvement and bridge in particular.
A combination of sharply rising road construction costs and reduced funds in the public expenditure settlement necessitated a review of the trunk road programme, as my hon. Friend has acknowledged. As part of the announcements at the time of the Budget in November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced the "Managing the Trunk Road Programme" review, which had looked at the whole national programme. The revised programme represents a practical assessment of what can realistically be achieved within the resources likely to be available.
We have targeted the new programme at key routes, while seeking to make the best possible use of the network. The new programme includes a significant number of bypasses, but many very desirable and strongly supported schemes have had to be deferred or withdrawn altogether. Within East Anglia, our main priorities are the A14 and the M11-A11. It was recognised in the review that the A12 and A140 between Ipswich, Lowestoft and Norwich were of lower priority in national terms. I accept, however, that they may be very important locally.
We have withdrawn all schemes on the A140, but on the A12 north of Ipswich we have retained the following four schemes in the longer-term programme—Martlesham to Wickham Market, Wickham Market to Saxmundham, the Yoxford bypass and the Wrentham bypass, to which my hon. Friend referred. These have been retained in the longer-term programme primarily because of the environmental benefits they will bring.
In Waveney, three of the original schemes on the Al2 fall within the boundary of the district council. The bypass for Blythburgh was withdrawn from the programme because of its serious effect on the local environment. It would have passed through an area of outstanding natural beauty, and close to a Ramsar site and a site of special scientific interest.
The scheme that combined the Kessingland to Pakefield improvements and the Lowestoft relief road—and, as my hon. Friend has explained, would have included a third crossing of Lake Lothing—has been withdrawn. I know that there is strong local support for it, and I sympathise with the view which my hon. Friend has expressed today that the economic development of Lowestoft is being constrained by poor links to the national road network and congestion in the town. The scheme would be very expensive, however, and the bridge is a particularly costly element within it. The scheme would cater mainly for local traffic.
The decision to withdraw the scheme was a difficult one in the light of local needs. My hon. Friend and I have previously discussed arguments advanced by local authorities—he advanced these arguments again today—that the bridge element of the scheme could be considered a candidate for a design, build, finance and operate project. But although the private sector would fund the work within a DBFO contract, an arrangement based on shadow tolling would still place a burden on the

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Department's public expenditure budget. Faced with tight limits on expenditure for highways infrastructure, a third harbour crossing for Lowestoft could not be regarded as a high priority for investment in national terms. Any further developments of DBFOs will be targeted towards schemes that are of sufficient national importance to be included within the main road programme.
My hon. Friend mentioned his concerns about the bridge itself. I hope that I can assure him that a structural assessment and detailed inspection of the bridge completed recently has shown that it is in generally good condition. However, it is likely that some further inspections and testing will take place later this year, together with other minor maintenance works.
The lifting bridge is operated by Associated British Ports, which also oversees the maintenance of the mechanical and electrical systems on behalf of the Highways Agency. The structure of the bridge itself is maintained by the county council as agents of the Highways Agency. A detailed programme of routine maintenance is managed by ABP, which continues throughout the year. This involves day-to-day servicing of the operating systems, as well as a replacement and refurbishment of major components on a regular basis.
I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend that the bridge is in generally sound condition and should continue to operate satisfactorily for many more years. I acknowledge his point that we must look far enough ahead to take account of what might be required in terms of substantial refurbishment or, perhaps, replacement of the bridge.
We consulted the public on the proposed Wrentham bypass in the summer of 1993. I realise how frustrating a further delay in that scheme must be, particularly for those who live alongside the existing trunk road. As I explained earlier, the A12 is not one of the nation's most important routes, and we have not yet been able to find a place for the bypass in the main programme. The scheme has not been abandoned but placed in the longer-term category, which means that we shall take it forward as we make progress with the main programme.
I cannot give any promises now as to when the scheme might be brought into the main programme because it will depend on our progress and resources during the next few years. In the meantime, work on the scheme will be suspended. In the near future we shall make an announcement locally about how matters rest following the 1993 consultation.
Where we have withdrawn major schemes or we are unable to make rapid progress with them in the foreseeable future, as a matter of course we shall consider whether more limited improvements to the existing roads can be implemented to improve safety and ease congestion.
Recent improvements to the A12 include work on the Lowestoft eastern relief road, which forms part of the one-way trunk road system north of the harbour, and was completed in 1994. That scheme was funded by the Department of Transport using a 100 per cent. grant under section 272 of the Highways Act 1980 and incorporated into the network on completion.
The new road is expected to boost the local economy by improving access to the town's industrial areas and docks. In addition, the scheme has removed some 7,500 vehicles a day from Lowestoft's Triangle market shopping
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area. The local environment also benefits from reduced congestion and lower vehicle emissions—a point which my hon. Friend stressed.
The Department of Transport has carried out a programme of local improvements along the A12 corridor. Those include signing, road markings, junction modifications and improved facilities for pedestrians and cyclists.
A study has been carried out on the existing A12 corridor through Lowestoft, and a package of improvements has been identified, which includes changes to the one-way system, the introduction of a bus lane, changes to signal controls, junction improvements, signing, road markings, and waiting and loading restrictions. The package is designed to ease congestion and improve safety, and individual elements can be implemented to suit the level of any future funding allocation. Preliminary consultations have been carried out in order to draw up the proposals, but a more detailed consultation exercise will be necessary prior to implementation.
North of Lowestoft, a scheme is being prepared for the installation of central reserve safety fencing on the one and three quarter-mile length of dual carriageway north of Lowestoft. That will complete the installation programme for the county and assist in the overall installation target for the whole country by the end of 1996.
At Kessingland bypass southern roundabout, a scheme has been prepared to improve the existing layout in order to reduce the high number of overrun accidents. Contract documents have been approved, and the scheme is ready to go out to tender when funds become available.
A scheme has been prepared to install a right-turn lane at the A12 Benacre junction in order to reduce turning accidents. Contract documents have been prepared, and negotiations for land acquisition are under way. When that has been completed, the scheme will be ready to go out to tender when we can make funds available.
A scheme is also being prepared to improve the Wangford junction in order to reduce accidents. There is also a scheme to close one leg of the Wangford junction crossroads, where there is poor visibility, in order to reduce accidents.
A study has been carried out into the provision and standard of laybys on the A12, which has identified a further package of improvements along the route. It is intended that a rolling programme of improvements should be drawn up to suit the available funds.
I mentioned an investigation to identify improved facilities for cyclists along the route, not that we have forgotten the needs of pedestrians as well. A further scheme to reduce accidents along the A12 seeks to improve the conspicuity of junctions and implement other local low-cost measures.
We must look further than the A12. The other major route serving Lowestoft is via the A143 and A146 from the A14 at Bury St. Edmunds. The Government have provided considerable grant support for the Norfolk and Suffolk county council schemes to upgrade that route. In the past two years alone, support has been given for the Scole-Stuston bypass, the Brockdish-Needham bypass and the Rickinghall-Bottesdale bypass, all of which are now open to traffic.

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We also continue to maintain the existing routes, and we have completed three schemes this year within the Waveney district. We have undertaken resurfacing work at Kirkley Cliff, at a cost of £25,000, resurfacing and reconstruction work at Waveney road, at a cost of £98,000, and resurfacing at Denmark road, which has cost £30,000. We propose to undertake further maintenance next year, including the resurfacing at Battery Green road and resurfacing at Sparrows Nest, at a combined cost of £186,000. I hope that that shows our commitment to a realistic programme of improvements to the strategic routes serving Waveney on trunk and county primary roads.
I said at the beginning of my speech that it was vital that priorities were set within a realistic financial framework. We have done that in a responsible manner, concentrating our efforts on the key national routes.
In East Anglia, the most important road project in recent years was the A14, which was opened in 1994. It is a dual carriageway trunk road from the Ml-M6 junction to Felixstowe, and it is regarded as one of the key strategic routes for the region. We have six schemes for capacity and safety improvements in the programme for that route. As part of the Ireland-UK-Benelux road, it is one of the 14 Christophersen priority projects for the European Community and therefore eligible for some funding from the trans-European networks budget. The A14, as I mentioned earlier, serves the needs of Lowestoft via the link at Bury St. Edmunds.
Our next priority is the M11-A11 route from London to Norwich. That priority appears to be widely accepted in the region as the key route to Norwich and the coast. We are making great strides with the dualling of the A11 from south of Cambridge, with eight of the 12 schemes already opened—I opened one scheme only a month ago—and the Besthorpe-Wymondham scheme to open later this year. That will leave us with only three schemes, all of which are retained in the main programme.
The Roudham Heath-Attleborough improvement is ready to start when funds become available. It is our firm intention to complete the dualling of the A11 from the M11 to Norwich.
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On our third priority, the A47, we have spent some £150 million in recent years, on the schemes in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, between the A1 at Peterborough and Great Yarmouth; including the Norwich southern bypass, which has considerably improved travel to the coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and, to some degree, Lowestoft. There are further A47 schemes in the main and longer-term programme, but I recognise that the long-cherished hope of many businesses and authorities for a complete dual carriageway route will not be forthcoming.
I know that my hon. Friend would like more by way of future intentions and improvements to the A12, but we have carried out a thorough review of the roads programme and put into the main programme a number of types of schemes which we think that we can deliver within the funding that we believe will be available over the next few years. We have identified for the longer-term programme schemes which we still believe will be needed at some time in the future, but which are not of sufficient priority to be taken forward immediately. It would not have been responsible of us not to recognise that, beyond those two elements of the programme, there are other schemes of which the possibility of being delivered is so far into the future that it would not be reasonable to continue to impose the blight which attaches to schemes in the programme, even if they are many years ahead.
To have kept schemes in the long-term programme which we know we have very little realistic opportunity to deliver would be to con people. I know that my hon. Friend would not want me—I know that he would never do it—to excite expectations which could not be realised among his constituents. I shall continue to reflect on what he has said, and to pay close attention to the bridge and the measures necessary to keep it available as a vital link on the A12 and within the town of Lowestoft, so that some of the problems which have been experienced in recent months will not be repeated.
It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    North Channel Gas Pipeline
    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recent consideration he has given to the representations he has received concerning the British Gas pipeline in the north channel.[7885]
    The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian Lang): I am kept fully informed of developments on this issue and my Department, with others, continues to consider all representations.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware, however, that last night BBC Scotland showed a video, made before the pipeline was laid, revealing extremely dangerous munitions on the route of the pipeline, which explains why the Ministry of Defence opposed that route from the start? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House exactly what requirements will be made of British Gas before the pipeline is commissioned so that ferry passengers, fishermen, submariners and, above all, my constituents can be assured that there are no further dangers from the munitions and from the gas pipeline?
    Mr. Lang: I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that safety will be the predominant consideration before the pipeline is licensed for use. As the hon. Gentleman knows, following the survey carried out last November a further survey is now in contemplation. I have no doubt that the Health and Safety Executive will want to be fully satisfied of the safety of the pipeline before it is authorised.
    Mr. Beggs: What assurance can the Secretary of State give to potential consumers in Northern Ireland that gas will flow and that there will be secure supplies to Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Lang: That is the objective of laying the pipeline. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be the first to agree that safety considerations must be satisfied before the use of the pipeline is authorised. I acknowledge that one advantage of converting Ballylumfort power station from crude oil to gas will be more competitive electricity generation prices. The conversion will also have the environmental benefit of reducing the acid rain emissions affecting south-west Scotland.
    Mr. Salmond: The President of the Board of Trade used to be Secretary of State for Scotland, and he has been a Member of Parliament for 17 years in south-west Scotland. Why has he said and done so little about the munitions that were dumped off the south-west coast of Scotland and the resulting huge environmental problems? Will he explain to the House why the assurances that he gave to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) today should be given any more credibility than the assurances given in the past, which have proved worse than useless under examination?
    Mr. Lang: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured by the provisional findings of the survey carried out in
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    November as a direct result of the anxieties that were expressed about the munitions, which came to light because of the laying of the pipeline. Although the samples and findings are subject to final analysis, the preliminary conclusions are that there is no danger to the food chain and no pollution problem, and that the pipeline will be satisfactory once all the health and safety considerations have been addressed.

    Export Levels
    Mr. Pawsey: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the current level of United Kingdom exports to the European Union, to north America and to the rest of the world.[7886]
    Mr. Lang: In the year to October 1995, UK visible exports to the European Union were worth £88 billion. In the year to November 1995, exports to north America were valued at £20 billion, while the rest of the world accounted for £42 billion.
    Mr. Pawsey: I am grateful for that full reply, especially as it emphasises the success of British exporters compared with that of our principal competitors in the European Union. To what extent would that success be jeopardised if the social chapter were introduced to the United Kingdom, as Opposition Members would like, and what would be the implications for British jobs?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the dangers of signing on for the social chapter, in accordance with Labour party policy. One of the great competitive advantages that the British economy undoubtedly enjoys is the flexibility of our labour market and our relatively low non-wage costs. Although average production worker take-home pay is higher than in most countries in Europe, and equal to that in Germany, non-wage additional labour costs are much lower in the United Kingdom than elsewhere. That is what gives us our competitive advantage, enabling our exports to do so well.
    Mrs. Beckett: Surely a Government who claim to understand business recognise that no business and no country ever prospers by giving its attention solely to one side of the balance sheet and ignoring the whole picture. Although we all welcome the strength of British exports, surely the Secretary of State does not deny that our problem is that imports to this country have risen even faster. As a result, we still have a trade deficit, not just with the rest of Europe, including France and Germany, but with north America and the rest of the world. Do the Government not recognise that those continuing problems will never be resolved unless we engage in and press for a great united national effort of the kind that the Labour party is urging on the country?
    Mr. Lang: The right hon. Lady will be aware that many imports come to this country in a semi-manufactured state to be converted into fully manufactured exports, so the increased economic activity represented by imports is also reflected in these record-breaking export figures. The leader of the Labour party was in Singapore recently, where I hope that he had time to listen and to appreciate the successes of Singapore and not just to make speeches there. Had he done so, he would have recognised that the value of our exports to Singapore in the year to last June rose by 60 per cent.

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    Since that time, Rolls-Royce has secured a major £1 billion contract for its Trent engines with Singapore Airlines.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: Do not the figures that my right hon. Friend has just given—exports to the EU of £88 billion and to the rest of the world of £62 billion—reinforce the enormous importance to this country's economy of the single market? Will he therefore take this opportunity to pay tribute to the single market, and to Baroness Thatcher, whose initiative in introducing the Single European Act and providing for qualified majority voting established the essential precondition for the success of the single market programme?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. United Kingdom exports are doing extremely well. In 1994 the UK increased its exports faster than the United States and Japan, and faster than our European competitors.

    Telephone Numbers
    Ms Janet Anderson: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on telephone number portability.[7887]
    The Minister for Science and Technology (Mr. Ian Taylor): I welcome the conclusions of the MMC's report on number portability, which mean that from this spring customers will be able to keep their telephone number when they change their telephone operator.
    Ms Anderson: The Government claim to wish to encourage competition in telecommunications services because that is in the interests of consumers—and we welcome what the Minister has just said—but who is to shoulder the cost for this?
    Mr. Taylor: The MMC decided to allocate 65 per cent. of the costs to BT and 35 per cent. to the other telephone operator. The prospect of competition in the telephone industry has been of enormous advantage to customers. The real costs of telephone calls have fallen by 40 per cent. since the privatisation and liberalisation that were originally opposed by Opposition Members. The benefits are to be seen in the investment in the industry, not just by BT but by many other companies, such as Energis, and by the cable industry. Customers have enjoyed enormous improvements in terms of quality and much reduced costs and are now gaining access to the super-highways which will deliver new and exciting multimedia services.
    Mr. John Marshall: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the United Kingdom has the most liberal telecommunications regime in western Europe and that other countries will be copying us? That is a tribute to the Government and shows how short-sighted the Opposition were when they opposed privatisation.
    Mr. Taylor: I think that the Opposition are beginning slowly to realise that Conservative policies work, which is why they are attempting to adopt them in their speeches. The reality is that the rest of the European Union is also adopting liberalisation policies. I hope that the strict regulatory regime and the encouragement for market entry for new companies will both be factors that other countries in the European Union will adopt as they move towards 1 January 1998—the date for liberalisation.
    Mr. Hoon: Is the Minister really saying that the best way to protect telephone consumers is to commission a
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    Monopolies and Mergers Commission report which takes eight months to produce and runs to 213 detailed pages? Does not resorting to such a cumbersome procedure demonstrate the Government's consistent and continuing failure to anticipate the problems involved in the regulation of privatised industries? Is not that failure exactly the same as the Government's failure to anticipate the massive confusion caused by the break-up of our railway network and the belated recognition that two new quangos will have to be established to sort out the mess that the Government have created?
    Mr. Taylor: The hon. Member might like to go away and practise that question again as I am not sure whether he means that the Labour party is now not in favour of regulation at all, or whether it is in favour of the regulator having such powers that no commercial company has a right to debate any changes in the licensing in public before those changes are permitted. The purpose of addressing a matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is when an interested party—in this case British Telecom—and the regulator cannot agree on how costs are to be allocated. That is the role of the MMC. It did an excellent job and I have already welcomed its conclusions. The benefit of its conclusions will carry through to customers because if they wish to change to a new operator, they will not have the hassle of losing their telephone number with the change. That is very good news and I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Member will welcome it.

    Electronics Industry
    Mr. Congdon: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the impact of the electronics industry on the British economy. [7888]
    Mr. Ian Taylor: With an estimated annual output of £22 billion, the UK has the fifth largest electronics industry in the world and it is growing fast. Electronics contributes to the production of industries using computers, electronic control, multimedia and telecommunication systems. My Department has several schemes designed to provide wide-ranging support for the growth of the industry.
    Mr. Congdon: Does my hon. Friend also agree that the electronics industry has been particularly successful in attracting inward investment which has benefited it? Is not the success of that industry illustrated by the fact that this country is the seventh largest supplier of silicon chips, Scotland provides 35 per cent. of the personal computers produced in the European Community and, surprisingly, this country is now a net exporter of television sets? Is that not a credit to our electronics industry, which would be flat on its back if the Government had followed the policies advocated by the Labour party?
    Mr. Taylor: I am delighted to say that the Government did not listen to the Opposition and so have attracted inward investment. That investment has done a terrific job in the electronics industry, which is so crucial. In semiconductors, we are moving up the international league tables very fast. Siemens has put its massive plant in the north-east, which will transform not only work in industry, but the benefits to universities of research. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland, saw an

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    enormous benefit there. Scotland now has a remarkable record—35 per cent. of all European production of personal computers is based there, which is a great tribute to the economic climate in this country and the industriousness of workers in the industry.
    Mr. Ingram: If inward investment in such key sectors as the electronics industry and the selling of the United Kingdom abroad are some of the Government's main aims, can the Minister explain the outrageous and potentially damaging comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister and other senior Ministers when they attacked the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his recent speech in Tokyo, when he promoted Britain as a place for inward investment to business leaders there? Why do Ministers persist in such cheap, party political point scoring, to the detriment of the long-term interests of British industry and the economy? When will they learn that there are more important issues at stake than papering over the cracks of the divisions and disarray that are becoming the hallmarks of the present Government?
    Mr. Taylor: Nothing about this Government is cheap. Even in our criticisms of the Opposition, we indulge only in high value added jibes and taunts. I welcome the work of the Leader of the Opposition in promoting the United Kingdom in Asia. He realises, as we do, just how successful the Conservative Government have been and we are delighted with his efforts to tell the rest of the world about the success of the United Kingdom economy. I do not criticise him for that. If you, Madam Speaker, would allow it I might indulge in some discursive criticism of stakeholders, but that is not permitted now. It is crucial that Opposition Members realise the importance to the United Kingdom of investment by Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese companies, among others. The enormous investment in the electronics industry is creating jobs. There has also been investment from north America and Canada, producing terrific opportunities in the United Kingdom. And it is all thanks to the work of the Conservative Government.

    Export Support
    Mr. Nigel Evans: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what support his Department is giving to United Kingdom businesses which are seeking to export their goods. [7890]
    Mr. Lang: The Government believe that international trade is vital to national competitiveness. Through Overseas Trade Services, my Department provides a first-rate package of information, advice and practical assistance to all British companies wishing to explore new export opportunities. In particular, we are assisting smaller firms through the business links network, which will help them to develop effective strategies to take advantage of international trade opportunities.
    Mr. Evans: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that many companies can export successfully with little support from the DTI? One example is 3M in my constituency, which employs 250 people and exports 58 per cent. of its production of pharmaceutical aerosols and containers. However, many other companies need full support from the DTI to enable them to export their goods. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the trained
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    staff in our embassies and high commissions take a proactive line in ensuring that the opportunities available abroad are made known, not only to those companies which contact the DTI but to others which do not?
    Mr. Lang: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I particularly welcome the fact that there are now more commercial officers at FCO posts overseas. We have a programme of training and experience to improve the professionalism of Overseas Trade Services staff. My hon. Friend mentioned the pharmaceutical industry. He may like to know that exports by that industry rose last year by 37 per cent. to the European Union and 16 per cent. to non-EU countries.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: In so far as representatives of the Campbell's Soups company are in contact with departmental officials to discuss export marketing initiatives, why cannot those discussions be used as a forum in which representatives of that company can be told the real position of departmental officials and what is going on in my constituency? Does the Secretary of State share my outrage and concern and that of 332 other Members? In that light, is it not now time that departmental officials took a more hands-on approach to the matter?
    Mr. Lang: The main question before the House relates to exports. I am not certain whether the hon. Gentleman is contemplating the export of the soups produced by that factory. The context of his question makes it impossible for me to answer it and remain in order, but I can reassure him that since 1979 the volume of British exports has nearly doubled and manufacturing exports have risen by almost 90 per cent.
    Mr. Thomason: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department is looking to encourage exporters among small businesses, of which are there are many in my constituency, as they are not always aware of the opportunities which may be available to them and have particular needs which larger companies can often fulfil within their own specialisations? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that small businesses are also important to his Department?
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend on that point. Successful though our export record is, we are keen to increase by a further 30,000 the present total of 100,000 or so companies which currently export. To that end, we have recruited some 70 export counsellors who will make their services available to small companies through the business links network.
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Does the President of the Board of Trade acknowledge that cumulatively over the years Scotch whisky has become our biggest single export? Although it is welcome that the Chancellor of the Exchequer reversed his tax increase on whisky of the previous fiscal year, the industry still encounters resistance in persuading difficult markets abroad to lower their taxes. Meanwhile, it continues to suffer penal taxation rates at home. Will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to continue reducing the penal rate of tax on Scotch whisky compared with, for example, that on imported wine?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman knows how my right hon. and learned Friend responded in his last Budget to

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    the case made by the Scotch Whisky Association. The issue of whisky duty in Japan has been taken by the British Government to the World Trade Organisation under its arrangements for dispute settlement. Scotland's largest export is electronic office equipment. Overall, UK computer exports to the European Union have increased 55 per cent. in the last year.

    Trade with Japan
    Mr. Dunn: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the balance of trade between the United Kingdom and Japan. [7891]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Philip Oppenheim): In 1994, the last full year for which figures are available, the UK had a balance of trade deficit with Japan of £5.9 billion. In the first 11 months of 1995, UK exports to Japan rose 25 per cent. while imports rose 9 per cent. in the same period.
    Mr. Dunn: Although I welcome those figures, to what extent would our trade with Japan grow if we reintroduced the closed shop and had worker councils, the minimum wage, union-only labour and all the policies to which the deceitful bunch opposite would sign up if given the chance?
    Madam Speaker: Order. Did I hear the hon. Gentleman use the word "deceitful" in referring to hon. Members? If so, I am sure that he will wish to rephrase his question.
    Mr. Dunn: Of course I withdraw the remark, Madam Speaker. I did not mean it, in the heat of the moment.
    Mr. Oppenheim: I can give my hon. Friend a graphic example of what happened to British industry when Labour implemented those policies. Triumph was a world leader in motor cycle manufacturing in the 1950s. By the 1970s, after Government meddling and bad industrial relations, Triumph was bankrupt and the Japanese took over the market. That was the reality of British manufacturing under Labour. Triumph motor cycles started up again in the 1980s. It is now competitive and producing high-quality bikes. It exports world wide, including to Japan, and jobs and production are expanding. That is the reality of the high-quality manufacturing that Britain has under the present Government.
    Mr. Sheerman: Is the Minister not aware that under a Labour Government, at least in manufactured exports, this country had a surplus against Europe and against the rest of the world, including Japan? The Secretary of State did not answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett). This country's economy will not be right until it starts manufacturing the products wanted abroad and selling them in greater numbers.
    Mr. Oppenheim: It might surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that I entirely agree that we shall get the economy right when we manage to sell our goods to the world. That is precisely what did not happen under Labour, when the surplus fell sharply and Britain's productivity growth was bottom of the group of industrialised nations. I will tell the hon. Gentleman about two important figures. Since 1980, British manufacturing productivity growth has been
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    top of the major industrialised nations, and this country has closed no less than three quarters of the productivity gap with Germany. We may not be back in the first division of industrialised nations, but we are getting there, which is far better than in the 1970s under Labour.
    Mr. Atkins: Is my hon. Friend aware of the contract that has just been made between Leyland Trucks Ltd. in my constituency and Isuzu of Japan to manufacture and assemble 1,000 trucks over the next few months? The two specific reasons that Japan gave for the contract were the excellence of my constituents' manufacturing ability and its belief that the British economy is the best in the western world.
    Mr. Oppenheim: My right hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Opposition Members will recall the situation in the 1970s, when multinational car manufacturers such as General Motors and Ford were falling over themselves to push capacity out of Britain and foreigners would not buy GM or Ford cars if they were made in this country. Today, General Motors, Vauxhall, Isuzu and other Japanese manufacturers are investing massive amounts of money in car manufacturing in Britain and are exporting those vehicles. That stark comparison illustrates how much more competitive and efficient British manufacturing is now, compared with the dark days of the 1970s.

    Coalfield Communities
    Mr. Tipping: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to ensure that the activities currently undertaken by British Coal Enterprise in coalfield communities will continue. [17892]
    The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Energy (Mr. Richard Page): The sale of British Coal Enterprise is a matter for British Coal, which has recognised from the start that in considering proposals the continuation of effective assistance to coalfield communities by purchasers is a priority.
    Mr. Tipping: Will the Minister confirm that he has seen research from independent experts showing that British Coal Enterprise has created thousands of jobs in coalfield communities? Will he talk to the chairman of British Coal to ensure that BCE is not necessarily sold to the highest bidder but goes to the bidder offering value for money—that is, the bidder who promises to retain and create much needed jobs in coalfield communities?
    Mr. Page: I pay tribute to the work that BCE has done over the years. It estimates that it has created about 123,000 job opportunities in the coalfield areas. British Coal has pre-qualified 14 organisations to bid for all of BCE or its individual activities. These include nine organisations for business funding, six for work space and four for Grosvenor. The deadline for receipt of firm offers will be the end of the month and BCE remains on course for sale by the end of March. British Coal will regard as a priority those bids which seek to continue BCE's work.
    Mr. Battle: As a result of the Government presiding over wholesale pit closures, entire communities are facing a generation of unemployment. Does the Minister agree that some mining communities still face unemployment levels between 30 and 50 per cent. above the national average? Has not the promise made by Ministers two

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    years ago to mining communities suffering dislocation proved entirely inadequate? Selling off British Coal Enterprise will not help. Where are the Government's detailed action plans for investing in desperately needed economic restructuring to ensure that mining communities get some work and some hope? Or will the Government walk away again, leaving behind a shambles with everyone but themselves expected to pick up the tab?
    Mr. John Marshall: Arthur would like that.
    Mr. Page: As I have said, the sale of BCE is a matter for British Coal. I must reject what the hon. Gentleman says. The Government continue to provide support for economic regeneration activities through regional selective assistance and the single regeneration budget, in addition to support available for European structural funds. The coal industry to which the hon. Gentleman seems to be harking back—and which I believe, indeed, that Arthur Scargill wishes to recreate—was losing the country and the taxpayer £1.3 billion a year. The hon. Gentleman seems conveniently to forget that sort of figure. I know, however, that he will gain comfort from the fact that unemployment rates in all of the 27 coal communities have fallen since 1992 as well as from the fact that coal production in 1995 was up on that in 1994 and imports were down in that period. That is a success story of which we should all be proud.

    Insurance and Financial Services
    Mr. John Greenway: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is his latest assessment of the value to the United Kingdom of overseas earnings from insurance and financial services. [7893]
    The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Mr. John M. Taylor)It has been estimated by British Invisibles that net overseas earnings of the UK financial sector rose by nearly a third in 1994 to £20.4 billion, of which net overseas earnings by insurance institutions contributed £3.9 billion.
    Mr. Greenway: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the London Insurance and Reinsurance Market Association on its fifth anniversary yesterday and on the success achieved in that time at the new London underwriting centre, which has contributed to the excellent news that he has announced? When I asked leading members of the association yesterday what concerned them about the future, I was told that it was European monetary union. It seems that they are as ambivalent about it as the House is. They said, however, that in view of the complexities of a single currency for London-based insurers it is vital that the Government remain central to the discussions about EMU. Will my hon. Friend bear those concerns in mind?
    Mr. Taylor: I certainly will. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating LIRMA on its fifth birthday. He will know better than me that the main currency of reinsurance is US dollars, but the London market is well used to dealing in multiple currencies. My Department stays in close touch with the industry. I agree with the prudence of staying close to all negotiations in Europe.
    Mr. Olner: Although I welcome the earnings that insurance companies bring into the country, does the Minister agree that Baroness Thatcher was completely and
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    Utterly wrong when she thought that all this country's benefits could in future be supplied by the insurance industry and not the manufacturing industries, whose capacity we have lost year after year?
    Mr. Taylor: I think that it is appropriate for me to tell the House that the UK has an extremely successful insurance market. London is the world's leading insurance centre. The Department of Trade and Industry, with secondees from the industry, is working with insurers to maintain our competitiveness: this includes a major benchmarking initiative to spread best practice throughout the industry; making the best use of new technology; and improving management development and training. Insurance is a major British success.

    Small Businesses
    Mr. Hawkins: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what further steps are planned to remove unnecessary regulations on small businesses. [7894]
    Mr. Page: Small firms are vital to Britain's well-being. My ministerial colleagues and I therefore always look for ways to reduce the burden of regulation on small firms. One of the most significant ways in which my Department achieves that is by exempting small business from regulation wherever possible, for example in company law and competition law.
    Mr. Hawkins: I welcome what my hon. Friend has just said about small businesses, which are so vital in constituencies such as those in Blackpool. What are the Government doing systematically to ensure that unnecessary regulations are not placed on the backs of small businesses to start with? Surely prevention is better than cure.
    Mr. Page: My hon. Friend has put his finger on the nub of the problem. Prevention is better than cure. The Government, through the competitiveness White Paper which is produced every year, are looking to see how they can reduce the various regulatory burdens on small business. I know that a series of conferences is taking place throughout the country, entitled "Your Business Matters", and the messages on the burdens that are unnecessary are coming through and will be responded to.
    The most positive thing that has happened has been the appointment of a small business Minister in every Government Department, as announced by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I am convinced that those small business Ministers, who will watch legislation as it is proposed and how it might affect smaller businesses, are the way to improve the situation for the future.
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: Have not 1,000 regulations been identified as suitable for repeal, and have not the vast majority of them been carried into law by the Government since 1979? Do not the facts contradict the rhetoric that we always get from Conservative Members? Have not the Government engulfed small businesses in red tape and bureaucracy?
    Mr. Page: I look forward to the hon. Gentleman supplying me with information that proves that the statement that he just made is factually correct, because I sincerely have my doubts. Of the 1,000 regulations earmarked for amendment or repeal, more than 500 had

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    been dealt with by the end of last year: for example, 75,000 small firms no longer need to pay VAT; there is a continuous licensing system for goods and public service vehicle operators; and restrictions on shop hours have been removed. We have made a positive move to reduce the burdens on smaller firms.
    Sir Michael Grylls: I welcome the very good work that my hon. Friend has done, but will he undertake to use the maximum exemption limit for small firms—those with a turnover of £4 million—rather than a lower figure? The limit of £4 million, as allowed by the European Union, would exempt far more firms from unnecessary red tape. Surely we should use the maximum figure rather than set a lower figure, because a firm with a turnover of £4 million is still a very small firm.
    Mr. Page: My hon. Friend is well known for the support that he has given small firms over the years, and I can only listen to what he has to say with reverence and attention. I assure him that we shall do whatever we can to reduce burdens on small firms.

    EU Directives
    Mrs. Gorman: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the implementation of EU directives by his Department. [7897]
    Mr. Oppenheim: The Department carries out full consultation with industry during the negotiation and implementation of EC directives. National legislation implementing EC directives is scrutinised to ensure that there is no confusion between European and national laws, and that legislative requirements are as light as possible.
    Mrs. Gorman: Does the Minister agree with the view expressed by Mr. Bryan Cassidy, a Member of the European Parliament who came to speak to a Back-Bench committee recently, that none of the European directives comes with penalties attached or requires the attachment of such penalties? Does he agree that much of the damage that such directives cause to industry is due to the fact that we do not treat them as the rest of Europe does—as examples of best practice that should not necessarily be implemented fully? Could not the Department set a shining example by refusing to gold-plate any of the 19 major directives that Mr. Cassidy warned us were in the pipeline, and that were recently announced by Mr. Santer?
    Mr. Oppenheim: My hon. Friend has made some fair points. There is currently more awareness of the need to ensure that we do not gold-plate directives, and that responsibility is taken seriously. Eight directives are being reviewed, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has a programme of visits to other European Union states to ensure that they realise how burdensome regulations can be, particularly for small businesses. Penalties are sometimes needed to ensure compliance with, in particular, health and safety regulations, which involve important considerations, but I have much sympathy with what my hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Minister accept that, to date, Britain has done more gold-plating and adding on to European directives than any other European Union nation? The Government have done that to prevent the
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    House from discussing the issues. Will the Minister go a little further than he did a few moments ago, and guarantee that that will not happen in future?
    Mr. Oppenheim: There are so many self-serving fallacies in that that it is difficult to know where to begin. The hon. Gentleman's party accepted the social chapter, which would impose a further huge burden of expensive regulation on British business and would cost people their jobs. Moreover, surely the idea of the stakeholder economy is all about regulation. What is it if it is not regulation? Opposition Members have a cheek talking about a stakeholder economy; when they were in power we had a hamburger economy, because they had made mincemeat of British industry.
    Mr. Budgen: I warmly congratulate the Government on their announcement last week in the other place that they would not endorse a European directive that prevents the use of the drug emtryl in game birds. Does that not reflect a fundamental change in the Government's attitude to European directives? Does it not demonstrate that such directives lack democratic validity, are not properly discussed and are not uniformly enforced, and that the general arguments about the importance of the rule of law do not apply to directives that are forced down the throats of the British people?
    Mr. Oppenheim: I accept my hon. Friend's warm congratulations, and reciprocate them with the same warmth. However, his sporting credentials in regard to putting drugs down the necks of game birds are probably stronger than mine, and his comments might be more appropriately directed to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
    We take non-compliance in other states very seriously. Any substantive complaints that my hon. Friend has should be made to the DTI's single market compliance unit, which will investigate them.
    Dr. Howells: Is the Minister aware that, although this country might be prepared to implement European Union directives, other member states are less compliant? The draft directive on the opening up of the electricity market in Europe, for example, continues to be flouted by the French Government, and they deny British generators access to very profitable continental markets. What do the Government intend to do to ensure that our efficient and low-cost companies are given the opportunity to compete fairly with the likes of Electricité de France, subsidised as it is up to its nuclear eyeballs, and secure good futures for our power stations, coal mines and gasfields?
    Mr. Oppenheim: It is a marvellous tribute to the rightward lurch of Labour that an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman is singing the praises of liberalisation and saying that the most efficient and cost-effective companies should have access to the market. If the hon. Gentleman is so against subsidies and regulations and so in favour of competition and liberalisation in France, why do the Opposition constantly oppose those things in Britain?

    Aerospace Industry
    Mr. David Evans: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proportion of the total export of the United Kingdom is accounted for by the aerospace industry. [7899]
    The Minister for Industry and Energy (Mr. Tim Eggar): The best currently available estimate of the

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    proportion of the UK's total manufactured exports accounted for by the aerospace industry in 1994 is about 7 per cent.
    Mr. Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a strong home market leads to a strong export market? Does he also agree that it is a bit rich for that lot over there to start talking about cutting the defence budget by £6 billion and about making things that nobody wants, as they did in the 1970s? Is it not about time that we told them straight that we have the best defence industry and have spent £6 billion more on defence than they would have done? When that lot opposite stop talking about stakes in Britain and start talking common sense, it will be better for all of us.
    Mr. Eggar: I could not have said it better myself.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Is the Minister in a position to say whether there are any concerns at the moment in the aviation or aerospace industry? What is the latest on the future large aircraft?
    Mr. Eggar: I think it is fair to say that in the civil aerospace industry, including the sector that is covered by Shorts, demand is generally more buoyant now than it has been for a couple of years, and expectations are rising. British companies, Rolls-Royce and BAe in particular, have had some spectacular orders over the past few months. It is an internationally competitive market. We have to continue assisting our aerospace industry to keep costs down and to stay in the forefront of technology. The Government are totally committed to that.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Would my right hon. Friend congratulate Avro International Aerospace, a subsidiary company of British Aerospace, on its great success with its RJ series which it is selling not just in Europe but in many countries, including America? Is my right hon. Friend's Department assisting British Aerospace with any future developments of aircraft which are so vital to this country's manufacturing capacity?
    Mr. Eggar: I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating Avro International, which won a particularly important order in August from Sabena. I pay tribute to everybody in British Aerospace who has transformed that company. There is no doubt that in manufacturing it is a world leader and it is accepted as such by aerospace companies throughout the world. My Department is working extremely closely with that company. One of the encouraging signs is that BAe is working not just with the Government but with its suppliers and engine manufacturers to present to the world a better integrated UK capability in the whole aerospace supply chain. That is in the interests of BAe and the whole country.

    Water Companies
    Mr. Hanson: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to ensure that all bids by water companies for other privatised utilities are referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. [7901]
    Mr. John M. Taylor: No. Each merger case will continue to be considered on its own merits and against the background of the market position at the time.
    Mr. Hanson: Does the Minister think that it is in the interests of consumers in places such as south Wales and
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    north-west England for one monopoly to buy another to create an even bigger monopoly? Is that not both anti-competitive and anti-consumer? Will he take time today to rethink his decision so that the basic interests of people in those regions are at least reviewed by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
    Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw my attention to consumers' interests. I will tell the House the story of the privatised utilities. Water investment has doubled. Our water is among the cleanest in Europe. Electricity prices are down 7 per cent., gas prices are down 23.5 per cent. and, since 1984, telecoms prices have been down 35 per cent. That is a success story all round, especially for the consumer.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: What is the position in Thames Water's region? Is it not true that at no point were hose bans introduced during the hot weather, and that supplies were properly maintained to all parts of the Thames region throughout the recent water shortages? What is the quality of Thames Water?
    Mr. Taylor: Better than ever is the answer to the final limb of my hon. Friend's question. He is right to offer an antidote to the scaremongering. I am glad that he brings a proper balance to these issues.
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Does the Minister agree with Ian Byatt, the water industry regulator, that there cannot be adequate regulation of a water industry that has been taken over by companies unless they are listed separately on the stock exchange and present separate accounts to stop them hiding gross profiteering from consumers and avoiding complying with Greenbury rules on executive perks and pay disclosure?
    Mr. Taylor: I should not want to comment on any case that is uncompleted. It is for the Director General of Fair Trading to advise my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, who will make decisions and announcements in due course, but I will carefully study the matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

    Steel Industry
    Mr. Barry Jones: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what special measures he proposes to assist the United Kingdom steel industry; and if he will make a statement. [7903]
    Mr. Eggar: My Department is working with the industry on a number of initiatives aimed at improving further the competitiveness of an industry, the performance of which since privatisation has been among the world's best.
    Mr. Jones: In view of the wretched trade figures, why do the Government not give priority to steel exports, and specifically manufactured goods? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the steel industry and, specifically, steel workers have made a great contribution to Britain's enterprise, ensuring productivity, flexibility and profitability? Why does not the Minister, on the Government's behalf, acknowledge the great sacrifices made by steel communities in terms of redundancies and closures and acknowledge that the industry needs more Government support with exports?
    Mr. Eggar: The lesson of the past 20 years in the steel industry is that when the state owns it and intervenes it is

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    a blinking disaster, but that when it goes into the private sector after privatisation it is extremely successful. Let me spell it out for the hon. Gentleman. Between 1975 and 1985, every individual in this country subsidised British Steel to the tune of £135. Since privatisation in 1986, British Steel has contributed £220 million in corporation tax to the Exchequer. Privatised British Steel has been a success; state-owned British Steel was a disaster.
    Mr. Michael Brown: To underline what my right hon. Friend has said, may I inform him that, on Monday, I visited Humber power station, which is under construction in my constituency? Will he note that that gas-fired power station was given the go-ahead by Her Majesty's Government and that every piece of steel that I saw there had been produced by British Steel, Scunthorpe? Is not the answer to the question of the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) that we must ensure that there are customers such as Humber Power, which buys steel because of its price and quality?
    Mr. Eggar: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The changes that have been made to the previously state-owned sector have turned around what was a serious position for the providers of our infrastructure, electricity and gas. From lagging behind the rest of the world in efficiency, they have become world leaders. That has benefited the British steel industry and British industry as a whole because it has reduced energy costs overall.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Minister understand that part of the cost and loss of the nationalised industry was due to the investment decisions of Lord Walker and a former Conservative Government, who instructed it to pursue a policy investment that would realise a 30 million tonne a year capacity?
    Will the right hon. Gentleman focus his mind on the serious problem that steel production may be moving down from the top of the cycle—he must realise that it is a cyclical industry—and accept that it is therefore imperative that the Government prevent our European neighbours from continuing the unfair trading practices that they enjoyed for several years until the cycle improved?
    Mr. Eggar: The hon. Gentleman is rewriting history with his view of the investment pattern of British Steel. I find it surprising that the hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about the industry, has not welcomed British Steel's investment announcement of another £65 million for the Llanwern mill. He has also not welcomed the fact that British Steel used to take 13 man hours to produce a tonne of liquid steel, whereas now it takes only four man hours. That is the scale of achievement by a privatised British Steel and the hon. Gentleman should pay tribute to it.

    Digital Terrestrial Services
    Mr. Fabricant: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to promote the manufacture and marketing of digital terrestrial television converters and digital audio broadcast receivers; and if he will make a statement. [7904]
    Mr. Ian Taylor: We are creating the regulatory framework in which digital terrestrial services can flourish in the United Kingdom. Applicants for multiplex
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    operating licences under the Broadcasting Bill will be judged on their proposals for promoting or assisting the acquisition of digital receiving equipment by viewers and listeners in the proposed coverage areas.
    The Government have put in place a practical plan that will ensure that analogue services are switched off at the earliest achievable date. That will create a significant market opportunity for the industry, with perhaps about £8 billion in replacement televisions alone.
    Mr. Fabricant: I thank my hon. Friend for his long, detailed and helpful answer. Does he agree that this country has led the world in introducing a liberalised policy for broadcasting and broadcasting technology? Does he recall that the Labour party opposed the introduction of ITV, opposed the introduction of satellite broadcasting and opposed the introduction of Channel 4 and Channel 5 television? Does he agree that the last thing we want is a Government stakeholder in companies such as British Telecom?
    Mr. Taylor: There is no doubt that the policies of the Labour party would drive a stake through the competitive nature of the telecoms industry that is so vital if we are to deliver the information society at prices that the customer can afford.
    In this digital age for television, I very much welcome the Broadcasting Bill. It will give Britain the opportunity to be the first country in the European Union to move to digital television. If things go well and investments improve, the Bill will give me a fairly rapid opportunity to retrieve the analogue spectrum, which I can then redeploy for further broadcasting and telecommunications activities.
    Mr. Miller: Towards the end of the Minister's response, he mentioned the radio spectrum. Which Departments have provided him with information on the potential release of the parts of the spectrum that they currently control? Will he expand on his comment about the distribution of the analogue spectrum when some of the terrestrial television companies release it?
    Mr. Taylor: The Radiocommunications Agency, which reports to me, is responsible for the management of all the spectrum in this country. It is doing an efficient job, including clawing back underused spectrum from Departments such as the Ministry of Defence. We are also considering the way in which the emergency services deliver their use of the spectrum.
    It is clear that the new mobile services, the new fixed-link service and the results of the recent competition to use parts of the spectrum to deliver multimedia services in rural areas will all require very close and detailed management of the spectrum. I am confident that as analogue is switched off and the public move to digital—which has enormous benefits for them—I shall be able to claw back and use the analogue spectrum on what are known as television bands 4 and 5. In those areas, some of it will be used for digital, but the majority will be redeployed with great value to telecommunications and further broadcasting activities.
    I want that to happen as soon as possible. We have undertaken to review it within five years or when there is 50 per cent. coverage in the United Kingdom. The details are in the Broadcasting Bill.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: My hon. Friend will know that the all-party cable and satellite television group meets

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    regularly. It has heard from some broadcasters who are concerned that the Department of Trade and Industry may be giving preferential treatment to existing terrestrial broadcasters over the distribution of digital channels, especially those via satellite. In allocating the digital spectrum, I urge him to ensure the widest possible access to the television market for as many people as possible and not to leave monopolies to the BBC and the existing terrestrial ITV companies.
    Mr. Taylor: I hear what my hon. Friend says. A terrific amount of investment will be required to move into the digital age. There are not that many players in the game with the required capital, but alliances that we cannot predict at the moment may take us into this exciting new market. The Broadcasting Bill—on which the Department of Trade and Industry, as well as the Department of National Heritage, has had considerable impact—gives the maximum flexibility to incomers who wish for the first time to be involved in digital transmission and the control of multiplexes. It also gives existing terrestrial broadcasters the opportunity to do what they can to make the most of their enormous content and production facilities. ITV, BBC and Channel 4 will have to notify us within a certain period whether they wish to take that opportunity. It is absolutely right that they should be given that opportunity if we are to develop a competitive marketplace.

    Fuel Supply
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will meet the chairmen of the privatised utilities to discuss fuel supply. [7906]
    Mr. Eggar: I have no present plans to meet the chairmen of the privatised utilities.
    Mr. Canavan: When the Minister eventually gets round to meeting them, will he discuss the widespread incidence of fuel poverty? Although the chairmen may say that there has been a decrease in fuel disconnections by the fuel companies in recent years, there has been an increase in self-disconnection by people who simply cannot afford to pay their fuel bills, including pensioners who are at risk of hypothermia, especially during severe weather such as that recently experienced in Scotland. Will the Minister urge his ministerial colleagues to reduce VAT on domestic fuel and introduce a much fairer system of cold weather payments to help to eradicate fuel poverty?
    Mr. Eggar: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tribute that he has paid to the privatised utilities for the way in which they have reduced significantly the number of cut-offs of domestic consumers. A number of the English regional electricity companies have not cut off any individual consumer now for some months. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would also be the first to pay tribute to the Government and the electricity companies
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    for the introduction in England and Wales of the £50 rebate as a result of the flotation of the National Grid. That will be welcomed by many electricity consumers—those well-off and those less well-off.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: What has been the reduction in the real cost to consumers of gas and electricity since privatisation?
    Mr. Eggar: Gas prices have fallen by about 23 per cent. in real terms since privatisation. Customers can look forward to further significant reductions as a result of the introduction of competition in gas. The latest offer being made to consumers in the south-west gas trial area is a further reduction of 25.2 per cent., as against the British Gas standard tariff, if they sign up and buy gas from one particular company. That is as a result of the introduction of competition and the sustained Government policy of privatisation and giving choice to consumers.

    Telephone Numbers
    Mr. Timms: To ask the President of the Board of Trade which EU countries have adopted the 04 prefix for mobile telephone numbers and which 06; and if he will make a statement. [7907]
    Mr. Ian Taylor: The Director General of Telecommunications, who has responsibility for numbering issues within the UK, announced a major review of numbering in October. It will cover many issues, including the question of the numbering range for mobile services, noting that there is not yet a complete Europe-wide database listing the proposed use of different numbering prefixes.
    Mr. Timms: Is the Minister aware that the current proposal appears to be that the UK will adopt the digit 4, whereas France and the Netherlands have adopted 6, and Germany is likely to do the same? Is not this one area in which, notwithstanding Conservative difficulties over European issues, everyone would agree that there should be a common European approach? Is the Minister also aware of the possibility that if the UK, uniquely, adopts the digit 4, a 6 will have to be added on to the front of all the numbers at some point, causing immense disturbance and nuisance to everybody? Should we not stick with the European solution, on this issue at least?
    Mr. Taylor: I am aware that the hon. Gentleman had experience in this area before he joined the House. The Director General of Telecommunications obviously wishes to maintain control over the national numbering plan. He is, however, well aware of the implications of what is happening in the rest of the European Union. There is absolutely no doubt that the common spread of standards in mobile telephony throughout the European Union, now that we are moving into the digital age and one can move from country to country with the same phone, is vital. I take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Water Charges (Amendment)
3.30 pm
Mr. Paul Tyler: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Water Industry Act 1991 to prohibit the use by water undertakers of rateable values as a basis for charging from 31st March 1997; to provide for charging by water undertakers in accordance with council tax bands; and for connected purposes.
I put on record at the outset my warm appreciation of the widespread support for the Bill by all parties. The sponsors include senior Members not only from all parts of the House, but from all parts of England and Wales. I especially appreciate the support of the other four officers of the all-party water group, who top the list.
I have not invited Scottish Members to endorse the Bill for the simple reason that the council tax banding system is already used in Scotland to calculate sewerage charges. From April this year, it will be used for the water and sewerage elements so that the charges can be raised by that means. That may give cause for thought to any maverick Conservative Members who think that our Bill is impractical, undesirable or ill timed. Surely, what is good enough for Scotland is good enough for England and Wales.
By way of background, I shall sketch out the scale of the water charge problem. This year's average domestic bill for water and sewerage services nationally will be £205. In many water company areas, rises are around 8 per cent., which is way above inflation. However, that figure understates the burden in many areas.
The highest charges in the country are to be found in the south-west, which has the lowest average household income, above average unemployment and many more elderly residents than is the case for most other areas. The South West Water average this year is a staggering £332. Many people pay well over that—up to £600 or even more—if they live in highly rated properties. Many of those people are pensioners on low incomes.
Seven years ago, the average water and sewerage bill in the south-west was just £150. It increased by £153 to £303 by 1994, more than doubling in five years. Although the rate of increase has eased, the impact on low-income households is still disproportionately severe. South West Water's charges are £38 higher on average than those of the second most expensive water company, Anglian, and a staggering £150 more than the charges of the cheapest water and sewerage company, Thames Water.
Many hon. Members in the Chamber will acknowledge that the area has some of the highest levels of unemployment in the country, while average earnings are 20 per cent. below the national average. People who live in an area with the lowest average earnings in the country are paying the highest water charges. Some 3 per cent. of the population are paying for cleaning up 30 per cent. of Britain's eligible beaches. Some 30 per cent. of customers in the south-west are pensioners, and almost 9 per cent. of their income is being spent on water bills. Many individuals must pay even more. Nationally, the burden may not seem so dire, but the basic illogicality of the charging system is no less stark.
In the past, it has been suggested that universal metering was the answer. Even if the Government and Ofwat tried to force everyone on to water meters—which
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is impossible in the foreseeable future—there would be minimal savings for most householders. The extra costs of installation would take years to pay off, with limited charge reductions. I am indebted to the Consumers Association and to Which? for an excellent analysis of what would happen. In the Southern company area, it would take nearly 11 years to recoup the cost of installing meters. In Wessex, it would take nearly nine years, while in the Thames area, it would take nearly 23 years. In the North West, Northumbrian and Severn Trent area, the costs of installation would never be recouped.
This is an issue of national concern. The House will recall that the Government admitted the total inadequacy of the rating system when they abolished its use for local council purposes some seven years ago. Today, it is manifestly even more out of date. Ministers acknowledged some nine months ago that there is not the faintest chance of transferring all householders to water meters in the foreseeable future.
The Bill would ensure that water companies switched to the council tax banding system in April 1997. That would have five major advantages: first, it would mean that the valuation would be relatively recent and subject to a fair review; secondly, single residents or householders could be made eligible for a 25 per cent. rebate—as with the council tax—to reflect their lower usage; thirdly, the benefit system could be used to cushion the cost for lower-income householders, especially the elderly and those in the highest water charge areas; fourthly, there would be an obvious administrative saving, since councils could collect water charges on an agency basis and could cut out duplication; and fifthly, in the interests of simplicity, accountability and transparency, the householder would be able to compare the relative costs of different local services and he confident of co-ordination if and when there were band changes.
Given that the Government now acknowledge that the estimated cost of the complete metering of domestic properties is in excess of £2 billion and that it could take from 15 to 20 years, the banding system is the only realistic solution for now. Such a system involves capital savings, rather than increased capital costs. Southern Water, which carried out the largest trial of metering in the Isle of Wight, stated that it was opposed to widespread national metering, while the most innovative and enterprising companies—such as Wessex and Welsh Water—have declared their support for the change encompassed in the Bill.
In the South West Water area—where consumer costs have doubled since privatisation and are forecast to go on rising in the next four years—huge savings would result for the average low-income household. Significantly, in Scotland—where the council tax system is already used to calculate sewerage charges—the average combined water and sewerage bill is only £107, less than one third of the current burden for consumers in the south-west.
Of course, we still need public investment from the Government and from the European Union to ensure that a disproportionate burden does not fall on local residents, but with Ministers still reluctant to pursue that we simply cannot wait for a fairer system of charges. Some west country pensioners are already paying almost one tenth of their total income for water services.

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In the meantime, the Bill could make a substantial difference to those people without removing the metering option for those who prefer it. The Bill has the support of all the officers of the all-party water group.
We call upon hon. Members from every part of the United Kingdom and every part of the political spectrum to help us persuade Ministers to back the Bill and to get it on to the statute book as quickly as possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Paul Tyler, Mrs. Helen Jackson, Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock, Mr. Richard Burden, Mr. David Nicholson, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. Matthew Taylor, Mr. Peter L. Pike, Mr. A. J. Beith, Ms Jean Corston, Mr. Simon Hughes and Mr. Dafydd Wigley.

WATER CHARGES (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Paul Tyler accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Water Industry Act 1991 to prohibit the use by water undertakers of rateable values as a basis for charging from 31st March 1997; to provide for charging by water undertakers in accordance with council tax bands; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 2 February and to be printed. [Bill 43.]

Social Security
3.40 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Mr. Eric Forth): I beg to move,
That the draft Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
Madam Speaker: I understand that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following motions:
That the draft Income Support (General) (Jobseeker's Allowance Consequential Amendments) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
That the draft Social Security (Back to Work Bonus) Regulations 1996, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th January, be approved.
That the draft Housing Benefit, Supply of Information and Council Tax Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
That the draft Employer's Contributions Re-imbursement Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 12th December, be approved.
Mr. Forth: The jobseeker's allowance is a major step forward in creating a labour market in Britain that will continue to generate jobs and help unemployed people get those jobs. It is the next stage in the Government's strategy, the success of which is becoming clear to everyone—or at least to almost everyone.
The unemployment figures that were announced this morning demonstrate the strength of that strategy. For the 28th successive month, there has been another welcome decrease in the unemployment rate, which is due to two main factors. First, the economic environment created by the Government is widely recognised to have created as favourable an environment as can be imagined for the start of new businesses and inward investment into the United Kingdom, which not only creates new jobs but consolidates existing jobs. Secondly, the policies that we are developing and the dedication of our Employment Service staff identify the needs of individuals who, regrettably, have lost their jobs and help them back into work.
The fall in unemployment is set against a background where this country now has lower unemployment and more of its people in work than any other major European Union country. Employment has grown substantially in recent years, and new vacancies continue to be notified to jobcentres at record levels. The number of people getting jobs through the help of Employment Service staff is also at a record level. In all, we have seen unemployment fall by almost three quarters of a million since the recovery began. We are determined to reinforce that success, and believe that the benefit system has a vital role to play in helping unemployed people find jobs.
The benefit system should help and motivate every jobseeker, but the truth is that the current system of unemployment benefit and income support has not always done that, and it is not providing that help now. The system contains disincentives to work. It is complex and out of date and it can be confusing for claimants. It fails, above all, to target help on those who most need it.
Ms Angela Eagle: The Minister mentioned the disincentives to work in the current unemployment benefit regulations. He is surely referring to the benefit

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traps that are created by the loss of income among people who move from a stable amount of benefit payments into paid work that may be quite low paid. Will he explain how the jobseeker's allowance exacerbates that problem by bringing forward means testing from 12 months to six months? Does not that create a positive incentive for the partners of people who are means-tested after six months to give up their part-time jobs?
Mr. Forth: I do not believe that that disincentive operates, because we are improving the position for couples, or people with partners. The change from 12 months to six months will not have the effect that the hon. Lady describes because, as she knows—and as was well rehearsed during the passage of the Jobseekers Act 1995—happily the bulk of people who find themselves out of work are back in work within a six-month period. That fact, combined with the detailed, improved provisions in the regulations, especially for couples or people with partners, means that the effect suggested by the hon. Lady will not occur.
Mr. Frank Field: Surely the Minister's arguments lead in the opposite direction. If most people are back in work within six months, why bring in the change? The change is necessary only if most people are still out of work after six months.
Mr. Forth: That does not follow. As the hon. Gentleman knows better than almost anyone in the House, the current regime was designed and has operated for many years in very different circumstances. What we have attempted to do by introducing the jobseeker's allowance, with its many different provisions, is to reflect the current position as accurately as possible. Therefore, as most people find work within the six-month period, we felt that it was appropriate that the regime should reflect that as far as possible.
I do not deny—I do not think it has ever been denied—that there is a balance in the regulations that means that some will gain from them and others will not. That is inevitable when one makes a change. I stand behind the provision—in the Act, not the regulations—on the six-month cut-off period. In a sense, that is not negotiable. It may be debatable, but it is not contained in the regulations.
The existing regime can be seen as having been designed to support people who are out of work, but unemployed people want help to get back to work. That is what the jobseeker's allowance seeks to do and that is what the regulations are about.
In the White Paper in October 1994, the Government set out the three main aims for the new benefit regime. First, we aim to improve the operation of the labour market by helping people in their search for work, while ensuring as far as possible that they understand and fulfil the conditions for the receipt of benefit. The JSA emphasises the responsibilities of unemployed people to take every advantage of the opportunities open to them to get back to work.
Secondly, we aim to secure better value for money for the taxpayer by streamlining administration; by closer targeting on those who need financial support; and by introducing a regime that more effectively helps them to find jobs.
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Thirdly, we aim to improve the service that we give to unemployed people through a clearer, more coherent benefit structure and a better integration of the payment of benefits with the delivery of help and advice to find work. We want to give jobseekers the most effective and up-to-date system that we can devise. Through the new labour market computer system, employment advisers will have unprecedented access to information on vacancies and other opportunities so that they can be matched against the individual needs of the jobseeker. We have taken great pains to ascertain and to meet those needs.
In achieving those aims with the implementation of the JSA in October this year, we expect to make jobs—the pursuit of jobs and the winning of jobs—the focus of our efforts on behalf of unemployed people.
Our proposals were debated at length, in the House and in another place, during the passage of the Jobseekers Act 1995. The regulations provide a further level of detail and set out the rules that will apply when the allowance is introduced in October. In view of those earlier debates and the extensive nature of the regulations, I thought it best to cover matters in a general and relatively brief introductory speech. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans), and I will of course listen carefully to comments made during the debate, and my hon. Friend will respond to as many of the questions raised as possible.
At the heart of the allowance are the labour market tests, which are designed to ensure that all jobseekers are open to as many as job opportunities as possible and are making all reasonable efforts to find work. There will be no change in the jobseeker's allowance to the basic availability condition that people must be willing and able to take up immediately any offer of employment. That has been a requirement for unemployment benefits for a long time. But the regulations do require, for the first time, that claimants should usually be available for employment for at least 40 hours a week; and that when they restrict the hours for which they are available, they should be able to agree an individual pattern of availability across the week. That flexibility is very much in line with the current labour market.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Can people in the tops of trees be described as available for work?
Mr. Forth: I was wondering which of my colleagues would be the first to raise that matter—I am not surprised to find that it is my hon. Friend. As she would expect, we have looked into it. I am satisfied that the Employment Service in the area where the difficulties have arisen—around Newbury—is treating everyone with the same fair-minded and even-handed approach that we would expect of that service. In other words, anyone receiving benefit from or through the local jobcentre will indeed be expected to demonstrate his availability for work and the fact that he is actively seeking work.
Some people have had their benefits disallowed because they have been unable to meet the conditions; others have been able, so far, to satisfy the jobcentre that they can meet the conditions applied to everyone. There may be some rather unusual circumstances at times. After all, one of the features of the current regime and of the jobseeker's allowance is that people are recognised as

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having hugely varying circumstances. We do not want to treat people in the mass; we have a flexible enough regime to deal sympathetically but firmly with people's varying circumstances. That is as it should be, as it is, and as it will be under the proposals in the Act and in the regulations.
Mr. Edward Leigh: Will the local Employment Service take these people's word for it that they are not taking part in the political activity? How will their good faith be tested? If there is evidence, photographic or otherwise, that they are taking part in the demonstrations, will the Employment Service be able to use it to disallow their benefits?
Mr. Forth: I have to be slightly careful when answering that question, because I must not intrude on the well-established relationship between Ministers and agencies. It is the responsibility of the Employment Service properly to implement the rules. As far as I am aware, taking part in what my hon. Friend describes as "political activity" will not in itself disqualify someone from eligibility for benefit. The key is availability for work and the fact that someone is actively seeking employment.
Political activity may sometimes be compatible with availability for work and with actively seeking it. A Member of Parliament seeking work might—who knows?—be able to do both things at the same time. I well understand the concern of many people about the fact that taxpayers' money in the form of benefits is being given to those indulging in activities of which we might not approve. That is not the test, however. The test in the rules, applied even-handedly and fairly, is whether people—regardless of their views and political activities—meet the requirements laid down for everyone in those rules. I am assured by the Employment Service—I am prepared to accept its assurance—that it is applying the rules even-handedly to everyone concerned.
Whether the Employment Service accepts a particular type of evidence is a matter for the service, but I should have thought it highly likely, if evidence came the way of the local jobcentre, that it would make it its business to look at it and then make a judgment.
Mr. Leigh: Of course we all accept that a person can be looking for work at the same as engaging in political activities—attending political meetings in the evenings and so on—but these people are devoting themselves full time to disrupting others in their lawful activities. They are clearly not available for work, so Conservative Members would be grateful for my hon. Friend's assurance—I think he has already given it—that evidence that people are taking part in these activities, which are full time by their very nature, will be held against them; and that they will be made to understand that they will immediately lose all their benefits.
Mr. Forth: What my hon. Friend may know that I do not, is whether the people engaging in full-time activity are in receipt of benefit.
Mr. Leigh: They are.
Mr. Forth: If my hon. Friend has evidence of that, I hope that he will let me have it and I shall certainly pass it on to the jobcentre. I cannot assume—it would be wrong of me to do so—that everyone we see on television
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and in the newspapers engaging in the sort of activity of which he and I might well not approve is in receipt of benefit. Equally, we are not sure whether those who are receiving benefit are participating only occasionally in those activities and are otherwise available for work and seeking it. I do not know that; the local jobcentre assures me that it does. Unless my hon. Friend can provide me with evidence, which I should be happy to pass on, there I must leave it.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Surely we are not going down the road of taking the lawful right to demonstrate away from someone because he is on the dole. I hope that we are not going down that road.
Mr. Forth: At the moment, I fear that we are not going down any road—that is the point at issue. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is satisfied from what I have said that there is no question of taking away that right. We must not confuse being available for and actively seeking work with someone's views, political activities and the like. I hope that that is not the case now and, from my point of view, I hope that it never will be. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance.
Mr. Campbell: I was worried about that.
Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman must not worry. The matter is safe in my hands.
To follow on from the points that have just been made, the regulations make provision for people wanting to restrict their availability on religious or conscientious grounds, for those with caring responsibilities for children or sick or elderly relatives and for people with disabilities. In line with the commitments that we made during the passage of the Jobseekers Bill, disabled people may restrict their availability in any way, provided that the restrictions are reasonable in the light of their physical or mental condition.
Having said that, jobseekers must actively seek employment in every week that they are unemployed. In this, we are making no significant departures from an approach which, since the benefit reforms of the 1980s, has become accepted as a key responsibility of claimants. We want jobseekers to be more flexible in their approach to the search for work, so the regulations broaden the range of steps expected of a claimant so that they include actions to improve prospects of employment, such as drawing up a curriculum vitae or seeking specialist advice. At the same time, we are ensuring that jobseekers who deliberately undermine their chances of finding work may be penalised. As a new condition of entitlement, claimants must enter—
Mr. Alan Howarth: The Minister said that he is introducing some new flexibilities to take into account people improving their prospects of employment. What view are the Government taking of an appropriate eligibility for benefit for people engaged in study and training that is designed to improve their skills in the labour market? The present system penalises people who choose to study and to improve their opportunities in the knowledge-based economy—an economy in which people's personal opportunities depend increasingly on their intellectual skills—which is perverse. Have the Government been able to introduce changes or do they contemplate any changes to encourage people to study, rather than penalising them for doing so?
Mr. Forth: I suppose that I am fortunate that that question is aimed at both my responsibilities—the

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hon. Gentleman probably skilfully designed it so—and I accept it as such. The direct response is that we are not seeking to use the jobseeker's allowance as a vehicle to improve the support for those who are studying. That is the straightforward answer. There are more detailed considerations. We are clarifying the detailed requirements for people who are studying—guided hours and so forth—in line with the Further Education Funding Council, with which the hon. Gentleman is familiar. The answer to his question, however, is that it is not our intention to use the regulations, or indeed the provisions of the Jobseekers Act 1995, which covers them, to provide some sort of new regime to support people who are studying. That is for another time and it is part of my other responsibilities. I certainly believe that it is something to which the House and the Government will have to return.
Our "Lifetime Learning" consultation document raises questions in that regard. We shall examine the replies that we receive and the overall provision through higher and further education and full and part-time study, to see how best we can define the responsibilities between individuals, institutions and the taxpayer to promote the development of skills and qualifications.
Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to the Minister for that thoughtful and serious reply. He said that he did not envisage that the powers provided under the legislation gave any positive enhancement of the incentives for people to study. Can he at least give an assurance that no penalties will be imposed upon people who decide to study—for example, that the jobseeker's directions, reinforced by benefit sanctions, will not be used to require unemployed people to take a Government-provided course that would interrupt or prevent them from pursuing a course of study on which they had already embarked, or which they reasonably judge may be more useful to equip them with skills to enter employment?
Mr. Forth: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman such an assurance in the form in which he is seeking it. The form of words that he used would provide an almost total discretion and give the individual carte blanche to say, "I believe that what I am doing is best for me, therefore, by implication, I expect you, the taxpayer, through the benefit regime to support me in doing that for as long as I consider that it is beneficial."
Mr. Howarth: I said that there should be reasonable discretion.
Mr. Forth: Even with the word "reasonable", that approach would open up far too widely a responsibility on the taxpayer to fund almost any study that any individual considered beneficial. We cannot approach the matter from that direction. We have to approach it from a different direction that will better define the areas and vehicles for study, self-improvement and the acquisition of skills and qualifications, and identify the best means of financing them. We shall have to consider where the responsibilities should lie—with individuals, institutions, employers or the taxpayer, or more probably a combination of them all. Although those are important matters, with respect, I do not consider that they can or should be resolved through the vehicle of the regulations before the House today.
Ms Eagle: Can the Minister confirm that, under the 16-hour rule, the regulations will force students who may be just approaching an examination to participate in a Government programme and be unable to attend their course, even at a crucial time in that course, so that they can be taught how to look for work? That seems rather absurd.
Mr. Forth: The hon. Lady understands that the requirements now and under the jobseeker's allowance mean that a person must take a job if one becomes available. If we devised more individual circumstances in which not taking a job would be permissible, we should end up not just back where we started, but further back beyond that. I am not prepared—and it is not appropriate, even during today's debate—to invent new rules to make matters different, easier or better for certain prescribed groups of people. Therefore, I cannot give the hon. Lady the undertaking that she seeks.
I move on to a key part of the process. As a new condition of entitlement, claimants must enter into a jobseeker's agreement with the Employment Service. Each agreement will be individually tailored, recording how each jobseeker will be available for work and the best route for him or her to find a job. The agreement will ensure that jobseekers have information about the expert advice and services available at jobcentres. Trials of a prototype of the agreement have already been conducted in some jobcentres, with very encouraging reactions from jobseekers.
Many of the provisions relating to the agreement and the access to independent adjudication for the resolution of disputes lie within the Act. The regulations before us today, however, cover a number of more minor details such as the prescribed contents and the circumstances relevant to the backdating of an agreement.
While the vast majority of unemployed people make every effort to find work, we need effective measures against the minority who perhaps do not. Social security law has always included penalties for those who break the rules. It is wholly reasonable that people who pay taxes should not subsidise those, however few in number, who make little attempt to get a job. The sanctions regime in the jobseeker's allowance will make it crystal clear that persons who do not meet their obligations will suffer a loss of benefit. The 1995 Act sets out those obligations and the sanctions that may be imposed, but it also recognises that sanctions should not be imposed where a jobseeker has good cause for his actions in, for example, refusing the offer of a job or a place on an employment course.
The regulations set out the circumstances that we expect independent adjudication officers to consider and the circumstances in which a jobseeker is to be regarded as having good cause. A balance must also be struck between protecting the taxpayer and protecting vulnerable individuals from loss of benefit, which may subject them to unreasonable hardship. We shall protect persons most at risk of hardship. Claimants with children, who are sick, disabled or pregnant or who have partners in that position, and those with caring responsibilities will at any time be able to receive reduced payments if they would otherwise suffer hardship. They are also protected against delays in the system of deciding entitlement to benefit. The regulations provide for the making of hardship payments and identify the circumstances in which a person is to be regarded as being in hardship.

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The Government also guarantee a suitable youth training place to every young person under the age of 18 who wants one. We are spending £676 million on youth training this year in England alone. That means that there is no reason for young people needing to be unemployed. We do not wish to encourage dependency on benefit at such an early age. The Government's guarantee to 16 to 17-year-olds removes the need for general access to benefits. The current approach in income support will be continued in the jobseeker's allowance. We recognise that there are circumstances in which young people need to claim benefits. We provide for them, and will continue to do so in the JSA.
The regulations provide that young people in vulnerable groups—for example, those who have recently left local authority care—will be able to claim JSA for a period, to allow them to overcome their temporary difficulties. Young people who are waiting for a suitable youth training place will be able to claim JSA if they would otherwise suffer severe hardship. But at the same time we aim to improve the help and service to young people. A specially tailored jobseeker's agreement will be introduced. That will reflect the Government's commitment to the importance of training for young people. It will build on a form completed at the careers service and will include details of the type of training and work that the young person is seeking and the action agreed to achieve his goals. The vital role of the careers service will continue, but as part now of a two-stop service—young persons need have contact only with the careers service and the jobcentre to make a claim for jobseeker's allowance. They will no longer have to attend the Benefits Agency as well.
The new allowance will provide financial help for unemployed people and their dependants according to their needs, and that will be paid as long as they need it. Persons who have paid national insurance contributions will receive a personal rate, irrespective of their capital or their partner's earnings, for up to six months—the point at which the majority of jobseekers leave unemployment. We expect that the majority of unemployed people will receive the income-related element of JSA. In bringing together the contributory and income-related elements in the one benefit, we shall provide a single coherent benefit for unemployed people. There will be an end to the confusion when unemployed people could be entitled to one or the other benefit handled by different agencies or both benefits at the same time.
Much of the content of the regulations deals with the assessment of the amount of benefit to which people are entitled—for example, regulations dealing with the applicable amounts and the treatment of income, capital or earnings. In the majority of cases, we have had the example of income support to follow. But there will be some significant updating and improvements to income support provisions. For instance, we shall provide new help for couples, enabling partners of JSA and income support claimants to work for up to 24 hours, not 16 as now. We believe that that will encourage partners to remain in or to take part-time work. Couples will also be able to earn £10 without their allowance being affected, even if only one is working.
Many unemployed people get substantial occupational pensions from their previous employer. Pensions are already fully taken into account in income support, and it is right that larger occupational and personal pensions
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should reduce the amount of contributory benefit for people of any age. The present limit is too severe, so we are removing the arbitrary age threshold and raising the amount of pension that can be paid without affecting benefit, from £35 to £50 a week.
Throughout the passage of the Jobseekers Bill, we emphasised that JSA should be seen as part of a far-reaching package of work incentive measures. The other sets of regulations before the House today complete the picture.
The unemployment and poverty traps have been significantly alleviated over recent years. Only a tiny proportion of the working population would not now be better off in work than remaining on out-of-work benefits. This imaginative package of regulations addresses three big issues. It gives direct encouragement to unemployed people to undertake part-time work and to use that as a stepping stone to full-time work. It removes uncertainty at the point of moving into work, encouraging employers to look more favourably on the long-term unemployed.
The back-to-work bonus is a clear demonstration of our resolve to remove disincentives within the benefit system. At present, unemployed people who take part-time jobs can lose benefit almost pound for pound. Yet if they could keep their part-time earnings on top of their benefit, they would surely have little incentive to go on to full-time work. The back-to-work bonus squares the circle. It is a far more effective measure than the calls that are sometimes made to raise earnings disregards across the board, because it is more targeted.
Jobseekers and their partners who take small amounts of work while on benefit can build up entitlement to a lump sum bonus of up to £1,000. They can cash that in when they move off benefit into work. We shall also pay the bonus to people who move off JSA at pension age and at the age of 60 to income support claimants who have participated in the scheme so that the bonus will not be lost.
Following commitments that were made during the passage of the enabling legislation, we are providing for extensive linking rules to protect the position of many people who leave JSA for incapacity benefit during long periods of sickness or disability. We expect to pay at least 150,000 bonuses to JSA claimants each year once the scheme is up and running. It will encourage people to stay in touch with the world of work while they are on benefit and to keep their skills up to date, and it will give claimants a financial boost at a crucial time by helping them to meet the expenses connected with the move back to work.
Building on the incentives for the long-term unemployed already provided by programmes funded by my Department, the regulations provide for a national insurance contribution holiday for up to 12 months for employers who employ someone who has been out of work for two years or more. That will encourage employers to take on long-term unemployed people. We estimate that about 120,000 people are likely to be helped by the scheme, and it is worth about £50 million to employers in national insurance savings.
In that context, I commend to the House the Housing Benefit, Supply of Information and Council Tax Benefit (Amendment) Regulations. Those regulations underpin the measures being introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to enable housing and council tax benefits to run on for four weeks regardless of earnings for people who leave unemployment for work.

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The purpose of the measure is twofold. First, it protects the claimant from the gap in income that currently causes concern and difficulties on returning to work—a fear that I recognise can sometimes act as a deterrent to taking a job. Secondly, it ensures that local authorities give priority to dealing with continuing housing benefit and council tax benefit claims from those who take advantage from the run-on. That means that entitlement to benefit is established before the end of the four-week period and there is no gap in housing benefit if an individual continues to be entitled to it.
The House should be aware that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has drawn the special attention of the House to the JSA regulations. I am happy to say that the Committee has identified only one aspect. The fifth report has drawn attention to regulation 150, where there are two printers' errors in the formulae, and has reported regulation 152 as being defectively drafted to both Houses.
The formula contained in regulation 150(1)(a) should read N multiplied by A divided by 7. Similarly, the formula in regulation 150(1)(b) should appear as N multiplied by (A minus 1) divided by 7 minus B.
Mr. Alan Howarth: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Forth: I hoped that I would not be asked a question.
Mr. Howarth: The implications of the text that the Minister has read to the House are clearly considerable and important. As the House does not have power to amend the regulations, what will he do about the errors?
Mr. Forth: I am assured that the rather unusual procedure in which I am now engaged will enable us to correct the regulations. That is why I am detaining the House, but only for another minute or two. I am sure that I have been correctly advised. I hope that Opposition Members will accept that in good faith we are trying to find a way to ensure that the regulations emerge from our process properly and in the way intended, and are not vulnerable to a printing error.
Mr. David Blunkett: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Forth: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman is not happy with my response.
Mr. Blunkett: Is the Minister saying that reading into the record a change that the Joint Committee has requested will ensure that the change will be made, irrespective of the fact that we are not able to amend the regulations this afternoon?
Mr. Forth: The Joint Committee has identified a printing error in the regulations, and I have been advised that there is a way to correct that. I should like, if I may, to take further advice on that. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can return to it.
I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and his colleagues will accept that it is the desire of the House that a printing error in regulations as important as these, and which are so important to individuals, should be corrected. I have been advised in
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good faith that there is a method so to do. If Opposition Members are unhappy with that, they are, of course, entitled to pursue the matter. However, if we could not correct the regulations this way, I should be very unhappy if they had to emerge from the House in an unsatisfactory condition, particularly when they refer to a formula that could affect people's entitlement to benefit.
Ms Eagle rose—
Mr. Frank Field rose—
Mr. Alan Howarth rose—
Mr. Forth: I give way seriatim to Opposition Members, starting, of course, with the hon. Lady.
Ms Eagle: I thank the Minister for giving way to me first. I hope that he is doing so alphabetically rather than for any other reason.
Perhaps the Minister will explain the difference between the formula—with the so-called printing error that has appeared in the regulations—and the amendment that he is seeking to read into the record, and what it means in practice, rather than just reading out mathematical formulae.
Mr. Forth: It is concerned with the meaning of the term N, which is a definition of the week, or the number of days, which then gives rise to the calculation of benefit entitlement. All that we are trying to do is ensure that the formula is correct and that its meaning is correct in the terms of the regulations. It is one of the ways in which benefit entitlement is calculated, and that is why I want to go to these rather extraordinary lengths to ensure that it is correct. There is no more and no less to it than that. The error has arisen, of course, after the report of the Joint Committee, which we are trying to follow in spirit.
Mr. Frank Field: What the Minister is saying could not be more important. He suggests to the House that we should not pass regulations that are wrong, but he hopes that by reading a correction into the record all will be well. If we discover that the Minister cannot change the regulations merely by standing at the Dispatch Box and reading something different from what they say, as a result of which they will emerge wrongly, should we agree them? Is he suggesting that he will withdraw them? As he said, he has no wish for the regulations to be passed today if they are wrong.
Mr. Forth: Subject to advice, I think that I would still have to ask the House to approve the regulations today, including the error. I would ask the House to approve the regulations with this small drafting error, which has arisen from a printing mistake—
Mr. Field: It is a small error that affects benefits.
Mr. Forth: If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I shall answer his question.
I envisage that I would then have to introduce amending regulations subsequently to correct the error.
Subject to further advice that I may take, I or my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will seek to clarify the matter for the House. I have no desire to confuse. Nor do I have any desire to undermine the authority of the House. I hope that Opposition Members will accept this in good faith. If it is found that this approach is not reasonable or,

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indeed, that it is in breach of any of the rules of the House, I shall still ask the House to approve the regulations and will then proceed with amending regulations subsequently. I think that that would be less satisfactory, given the enormity and complexity of implementing the jobseeker's allowance across the country.
I hope that Opposition Members will bear with me and that during the debate, or perhaps in his winding-up speech, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will return to that matter with further advice. I can understand the points raised by Opposition Members. I am attempting only to get this right.
Mr. Field: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. How long must we exist in our present limbo, not knowing whether the regulations that we are approving are wrong or right? Should we not know that now?
Madam Speaker: The Minister is attempting, in good faith, to help the House as much as he can. He has explained his position. It is a printing error; that is all. He has said that, between now and the winding-up speeches, the Minister who will wind up the debate will have time to make the position clear. The Minister who is now at the Dispatch Box is doing his best to deal with a little difficulty involving a printing error. I think that the House should be tolerant, and wait a while until the Government have been able to make a clear statement. The Minister hopes to do that shortly.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker. Let me continue what I was saying in the spirit in which I began, for the sake of completeness.
The correct formulae are reproduced in a memorandum sent yesterday to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments by the Department of Social Security, attached as an annexe to the fifth report. As both mistakes resulted from a printer's error, we undertake to correct them in the version of the regulations that will be published subject to the approval of both Houses.
As for the defective drafting, it appears that printing gremlins have also got into the Joint Committee's system. The definition of the variable N for whose absence regulation 152 was reported as being defectively drafted is, in fact, missing from regulation 151. As the Committee pointed out, the meaning of N is reasonably clear, but should nevertheless have been included. For the avoidance of doubt, let me explain that N should be defined as the number of days in the part week. That partly answers the question posed by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I should like to give an undertaking—subject to the guidance that you have given us, Madam Speaker—that the deficiency will be corrected by means of an amending instrument as soon as possible.
I am about to end my speech. If any hon. Members are not happy with what I have said—or, dare I say, with what Madam Speaker said—
Mr. Ken Purchase: I shall come back another day.
Mr. Forth: I shall quit while I am behind.
We are debating an extensive and far-reaching package of legislation, but the regulations have one simple common theme: the Government's commitment to offer every help, encouragement and incentive to unemployed people to find work as quickly as possible. We already
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offer 1.5 million opportunities to unemployed people on Government programmes, and will continue that commitment next year. I am happy to say that the Employment Service is already placing a record number of people in jobs; we want to build on its achievement, and the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance will further that success.
I commend the regulations to the House, subject to further advice that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary or I may wish to give.
4.22 pm
Mr. Ian McCartney: On 24 January last year, the Jobseekers Bill commenced its stormy passage through Standing Committee. During the Committee's first sitting, I described the actions of the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), as inequitable and monstrous. The regulations with which we are dealing today lay to rest any pretence that the Tories are a party with one-nation values.
Both here and in the other place, the Bill was criticised for its lack of appropriate detail, before and after its enactment. In truth, the Act was a mere skeleton; all the vital issues and draconian measures contained in it were removed from public awareness and parliamentary scrutiny. If the motion is passed, the Secretary of State will have 116 powers to control the lives of the unemployed without further recourse to the House. Expansively drafted catch-all clauses, to be implemented by non-negotiable and, at the time of the Bill, non-defined regulations, would prescribe circumstances leading to the loss or reduction of benefit for upwards of a quarter of a million unemployed people and their families.
This contemptuous sleight of hand, devised to evade parliamentary scrutiny and deceive the public about the real purposes of the legislation, was forced through the House with all the subtlety of an elephant sitting on a pinhead. The Bill was badly drafted, ill thought out and socially divisive—51 pages of legislative vitriol directed at innocent victims of the Government's failed economic and social policies. Following scant consultation, the Government revealed the real Act under the guise of the regulations. They are a mesmerising 160 pages long, have 13 parts, 172 regulations and eight schedules. To that can be added a sprinkling of back-to-work regulations. The Act had only 51 pages and contained three parts, 41 clauses and three schedules.
The regulations are controversial and technical, but they will be forced through the House in approximately two and a half hours' time. The whole process brings Parliament into disrepute, and demeans this place as a democratic legislature. During the Minister's speech there were points of order and he asked us to bear with him. During the passage of the Bill, there was a complete negation of all attempts at dialogue with Opposition Members, behind the scenes, across the Dispatch Box or in Committee, about the nature of the regulations. All attempts, whether with the Minister of State or the Under-Secretary of State, to have such a relationship were rejected out of hand.
I want some clarification. If the Minister can seek by a verbal statement to amend the regulations, is it possible for the Opposition to do likewise? At least one regulation

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is seriously defective. If I am correct, it renders another two regulations ineffective, or at least in need of redrafting or of being withdrawn altogether.
If there is to be such an arrangement, as a matter of principle it must be for all hon. Members. If the Minister knew about this matter before he came to the House, he should at least have had the courtesy to consult behind the Chair and elsewhere with my right hon. Friends who have Opposition responsibility for the business of the House. If that had been done, perhaps we would be a little more forgiving about the shambles that the Minister outlined at the end of his speech.
The shambles does not stop there. In the Bill, the Minister claimed savings to the Exchequer of £10 million in the financial years 1996–98. That was reduced to a net saving of £320 million after taking into account measures relating to the national insurance contribution rebate.
So ill planned has been the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance regulations that the costs of implementation have escalated. On 8 November 1995, I questioned the Minister of State about the implementation cost, and I was advised in a written answer that it was £270 million for the four main areas of implementation. The cost for information technology was £110 million; for training, it was £70 million; for premises, £45 million; and for project management and communications, £45 million.
No costs were given for other areas of implementation. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) wheedled out of the Minister a further range of figures relative to implementation costs. A sum of £979,000, rising to £2.147 million, was for private consultancy fees and advice. Just as worrying as the private sector consultancy financial bonanza was the Minister's statement that he could give no firm figure for the additional support costs.
We have had the revelation that to tart up the fading image of Department for Education and Employment Ministers, they spent a total in the past five years of more than £74 million on furnishings, carpets and curtains in the Department. That gave the staggering total of £346,329,791 as the cost of implementing this so-called legislation. Even if we take out the cost of carpets and furnishings, the costs so far, with the meter still ticking, are near to £320 million, reducing the savings to about £40 million. And for what?
Mr. Forth: It is difficult to imagine how the hon. Gentleman thinks that Ministers in the Department could sit on £73 million-worth of furniture. I hope that he accepts that, rightly in my view, we upgrade the quality of accommodation for officials working in the Department and in the jobcentres and make jobcentres fit for people to work in and for claimants to come to receive advice.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that there is anything wrong with placing contracts with expert outside private consultants to help in the implementation of a system as complex as this. If he imagines that it could be done without them, I should like to know how he thinks it would be possible.
Mr. McCartney: I shall deal with the last point first. It would have helped the House if it had been informed
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of the cost of private consultancies, and if implementation costs had been subject to public scrutiny. Secondly, the vast majority of jobseekers and unemployed people believe that the Government would do better to squeeze the budget for new chairs rather than budgets for training and other job creation activities.
At one point in the summer, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment was, we understand, offered three options on the regulations—to scrap them, to introduce further delay or to implement them in a less sophisticated form. She was also told, at all costs, to prevent another Child Support Agency debacle. Such is the Government's loathing for unemployed people that they are blundering on regardless.
Chapter II of the regulations, which deals with availability for employment, had a mini run-out in yesterday's debate on training. The Secretary of State claimed, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), that the Government had worked an economic miracle and had got rid of the north-south divide—and so they have, but in a uniquely Tory way: not by decreasing unemployment, poverty and insecurity in the north, but by dramatically increasing them in the south.
From the time when the Prime Minister took office to his relaunch at last year's Tory conference, we have witnessed the scale of the problems that the regulations in chapter II are supposedly designed to deal with. In the south-east, unemployment has increased by 82 per cent. In Greater London, it has rocketed by 73 per cent. In East Anglia, the message is much the same—it is up by 61 per cent.—and in the south-west it has increased by 55 per cent.
In the country as a whole, unemployment has increased by 32 per cent., and among young people it has grown by 23 per cent. Among those out of work for at least six months, it has increased by 54 per cent. In Great Britain, in the past five years, long-term unemployment has gone up by 70 per cent. More than 1 million people are still out of work compared with when the Prime Minister took office.
Figures released today show that vacancies are down by 3,400 and that an average of 12 people chase each advertised vacancy in Britain. In London, the average is 20 for each vacancy, and in the north it is 18 for each vacancy. That is the real extent of mass unemployment in the United Kingdom. That is the real problem we face, but these regulations do not recognise it.
The real cost of unemployment is more than £23 billion—equivalent to 4.6 per cent. of our gross domestic product and to almost two thirds of the Government's current borrowing. Without Government borrowing to finance mass unemployment between 1990 and today, the basic income tax rate would have had to increase from 25 to 30 per cent.—taxing for failure instead of investing for success.
With that record, the Government deserve no plaudits for the minuscule reduction in the benefit claimant count, especially in view of the fiddled nature of the figures. Independent Library estimates show that 900,000 unemployed people are no longer included in any Government measure of the true level of unemployment.
What is the Government's response?
Mr. Forth: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the labour force survey figures or the figures produced by the

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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and by the European Union are all wrong? He will know that they all mirror closely our claimant count figures for people in work and those out of work.
Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. In its entirety, the labour force survey reflects what has been said by the House of Commons Library: that about 900,000 to 1 million unemployed people are not included in the Government's measure of unemployment. In the past 12 months, we have already had an inquiry and report saying that the way in which the Government are conducting their so-called count of the unemployed is unsatisfactory and does not accurately reflect the real unemployment figure. It recommended that the Government should change the way in which the number of unemployed people is recorded. There has been a deafening silence from the Minister since that independent report was published.
Mr. Alan Duncan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McCartney: I shall give way in a minute.
What has been the Government's response? Has it been to invest in training? No. That has been cut by 50 per cent. in real terms. Schemes have closed with alarming regularity. Many of the programmes are ineffective in helping unemployed people to gain access to the labour market. Have the Government ended insecurity at work? They have not done that either. Insecurity is a plague across the nation.
No one, and I mean no one, has job security any more. The jobseeker's allowance, the supposed miracle cure, means what? The costs have escalated since its symbolic introduction. There is no genuine assistance for people to gain access to employment. Instead, additional benefit traps have been introduced that empower the Minister to reduce the period for unemployment benefit from 12 to six months.
Let us put the record straight—we are talking about a national insurance contribution scheme. People have paid thousands of pounds over many years to provide benefit should they become unemployed. Yet, at the same time as cutting the benefit period, the Government have increased national insurance contributions. They have awarded themselves a windfall increase of £2 billion in taxation, while cutting benefits for which people have already paid.
If it were a private sector insurance scheme, the provider would be in the High Court for breach of contract. It is scandalous that, having taken thousands of pounds of national insurance contributions from millions of people, the Government are now cutting the benefit period from 12 to six months.
Mr. Duncan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
Mr. McCartney: Sit down. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a minute. I will give him more chances than he would ever give the unemployed.
After six months, there will be no benefit for people with partners in full-time jobs, and reduced benefit for people with partners in part-time jobs. That is a real disincentive for low-paid workers on minimum wages. Irrespective of their level of income, if they work more than 24 hours a week, they will be required either to give up their jobs and go on to benefit or to maintain the
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partner, irrespective of that partner's financial circumstances. That will disproportionately hit women in employment.
There will be no benefit after six months for people with more than £8,000 savings. That is a real attack on middle England, at a time when job insecurity and joblessness are rising in some sectors of banking and insurance. Those who receive more than£8,000 in redundancy payments will, after six months, have to maintain themselves, because they will receive no benefit. For those with £3,000 savings, after six months there will be a cut in benefit—despite the fact that they may have paid thousands of pounds into the national insurance fund.
Mr. Duncan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way at last. If he believes that the unemployment figures, including those released today, are unduly optimistic, will he categorically confirm that, if Labour ever came to power, it would immediately revise the basis on which the figures are calculated, resulting in the higher figure that he believes to be valid?
Mr. McCartney: Let us get the language correct—today's unemployment figures are a disaster, because more than 2.3 million people are unemployed. It is nonsense to say that the figures are good. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, in Committee and on the Floor of the House, I have twice given a commitment that a Labour Government would implement the recommendations of the independent inquiry. I ask the Minister to give a similar commitment and bring some common sense, understanding and legitimacy to labour market figures. I have given a clear and precise commitment to do so after the general election.
People undertaking study to improve their chances of obtaining a job will be hit, because the 20-hour rule will become the 16-hour rule. There will be no automatic increase in JSA in line with inflation, so the principle of state unemployment benefit will wither on the vine. The regulations say nothing about that; it is not something that the Government have trumpeted. However, for the first time, the Act will remove the legal requirement for the annual uprating of unemployment benefit in line with inflation.
The setting of the next JSA level will remain in place not for one or two years, but for three, four or five years, thus dramatically reducing the actual value of the benefit, despite the contributions paid by the recipients. That is the first step towards removing the concept in principle of the state being involved in the funding of unemployed people.
The truncated time available for this debate prevents me from going into greater detail about the regulations, and I therefore give notice to the Secretary of State that I shall be putting before her in the coming days a significant number of questions in order to clarify a range of ambiguities thrown up by the regulations, some of which seem contrary to guarantees given during the passage of the Bill. The questions will cover areas including young people, new jobseekers, age-related distinctions, and definitions of "seriously ill", "low pay", "actively seeking work", "variation of the jobseeker's agreement", "good cause", and "part-time study".
For the moment, I shall seek clarification in five areas of the regulations. Regulation 9 is about low pay. I call it the no-pay regulation. It describes the basis on which

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people may be offered a job for £1 an hour after—we thought—13 weeks, and if they do not take it, they lose their right to benefit. That regulation opens up the labour market to cowboy employers, to impose any level of wages, irrespective of the individuals' skills.
The regulation states that, after six months,
"a person may not restrict his availability for employment by placing restrictions on the level of remuneration in employment for which he is available."
Does that mean that, in that six-month period, a person can restrict his availability for employment by restricting the level of remuneration in employment for which he is available? That is what the regulation implies, yet it clearly contradicts regulation 16 on the permitted period, and regulation 72(7)(a) relating to sanctions for refusing a job offer because of the level of remuneration.
Is regulation 9 the result of having to meet international labour law requirements? If so, the Social Security Act 1989, which introduced the permitted period and the regulations preventing claimants from refusing job offers after 13 weeks because of low wage levels, was a contravention of International Labour Organisation regulations.
If regulation 9 is linked to international labour law, preventing disqualification from national insurance or employment benefit for refusing low-paid job offers, it raises serious questions about claimants penalised in such circumstances since the implementation of the 1989 Act.
I know that detail bores the Minister—we could tell that from his speech—but it is not boring for those it affects. After study of the regulations, crucial points arise—more serious than the spelling errors he mentioned.
A regulation similar to regulation 9 covering unemployment benefit would have protected claimants from being disqualified during the first 12 months of unemployment for refusing a low-paid job if they were in receipt of unemployment benefit. If that is the case, the Government have been wrongfully disqualifying claimants for periods of up to six months since the 1989 Act was implemented in 1990. I would like some legal clarification on that. It could have serious implications for thousands of benefit recipients, as well as the Government's financial commitments in the Budget to the paying of benefits.
Regulation 12 deals with volunteers. The Government agreed to conduct consultation following pressure during the passage of the Bill in another place, and I thank the Minister for carrying it out. There is, however, at least one unresolved question to be addressed.
The voluntary sector has given examples of considerable inconsistencies between employment offices in their interpretation of the regulations. That has led to a person in one part of the country being penalised for volunteering, while someone else is allowed to do exactly the same type of voluntary work and not be penalised. Will the Minister give details of the training that will be given to employment officers on the eligibility of volunteers for the jobseeker's allowance, so that consistency can be achieved?
During the passage of the Bill, I was given a commitment by the then Minister of State, Department of Employment, the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss
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Widdecombe), that, from 1 April 1996, all staff training would be completed. Has that timetable been met or has it to be extended to, say, October? I would welcome information on that.
Regulation 18 deals with the so-called spoiling tactics of claimants. That provision was a shambles in Committee.
The then Minister argued against the wearing of earrings by certain job applicants, despite the fact that her civil service adviser, who was sitting 2 ft away from her, was wearing two earrings at the time. Now that the Minister is Minister of State at the Home Office, she is positively enthusiastic about the wearing of chains, although she is obviously still against the wearing of earrings by those claiming unemployment benefit.
Regulation 18(4) is particularly vague. It provides grounds on which claimants who otherwise meet the actively seeking work regulations can be disqualified. Employment staff can say that a claimant has an abusive manner or has spoiled the application form. They can say that his behaviour or appearance has undermined his prospects of securing the employment in question. During the passage of the Bill, spoiling an application form was not mentioned. Will people who are not proficient at filling out application forms be disqualified from benefit for that reason alone?
What standards will be used to determine what behaviour or appearance is suitable? Will the Secretary of State place in the public domain the Employment Service and adjudication officers' guidance on those issues?
What is involved is a matter of opinion rather than a matter of fact. If we are not careful, many people will be disqualified from benefit on the basis of factors that are outside the regulations, such as the length of their hair or their style of dress—whether they have a clean shirt on for the interview. There could be a shambolic number of complaints and appeals because of the wording of the regulations. It is important that the advice of adjudication officers and of the Employment Service is published and placed in the public domain.
Regulation 73 defines what is good cause for not attending a Government programme, and relates to the reduction from 21 hours to 16 hours. Again, the Minister owes us an adequate explanation. There is no provision in regulation 73, which covers people who are studying under the 16-hour rule, to protect people from being forced to give up their studies so that they can attend a Government programme, under threat of a benefit sanction.
Under the current system, Employment Service staff are advised to refer people in that position to compulsory re-motivation courses, such as restart and jobplan, during the vacations. Yet evidence suggests that that flexibility is rarely offered to claimants, and that the majority have their studies disrupted by attendance at those courses. If they do not attend the courses, they suffer a 40 per cent. deduction from their income support.
That has become an even greater problem with the introduction of workwise and worklink, the compulsory course for 18 to 24-year-olds. The course lasts for four weeks. Missing that amount of time from a part-time course can leave people with little opportunity to fulfil the coursework requirements. The jobseeker's allowance sanction for missing the compulsory courses will be much harsher, forcing more claimants to give up their studies to attend them.

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In addition, the jobseeker's direction will enable Employment Service staff to instruct claimants to attend much longer Government programmes, such as training for work and job clubs. That will force more claimants to give up their part-time studies for inappropriate placements on Government schemes. How does that square with the Government's desire to improve access to skills to assist a person's employability?
A recent report, under the heading "Policy Analysis", says that there will be regional variations in the 16-hour rule, which will add further complexity to the regulations. Will the Minister give a clear explanation of the rules in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Why will the rules there be different from those applying to people studying for 16 hours in England? Why is there a change? Why was that change not explained clearly during the passage of the Jobseekers Bill?
Regulation 17 deals with workers on short time. Some workers whose companies are suffering difficulties, thanks to the Government's economic failures, temporarily stop work or are put on short-time working. At present, workers who are laid off temporarily or who work a certain number of days a week or weeks a month are allowed to claim unemployment benefit, and do not have to be available for work on the days when they are working at their normal jobs.
Under regulation 17, after a 13-week permitted period, a worker will be disqualified from benefit. To continue receiving benefit, claimants must be available for any job, irrespective of the fact that they are on short-time working for their employer. The rule will force workers who are temporarily laid off or who are working short time to give up their jobs. Many of those thus forced into unemployment will remain unemployed.
As I have said, most businesses that have introduced short-term working or laid off staff are in difficulties. For some, losing experienced staff will be the final straw, forcing them to make further redundancies among the remaining work force. I wrote to the Minister on this issue, but received a bit of a non-answer. Perhaps the implications of the regulation will be clarified during the passage of the Bill.
Regulation 63 deals with a range of issues affecting young people, on which I shall write to the Minister again. Why are the Government not giving a commitment during the passage of the legislation to help young people who are coming out of care and young people with special needs? The Minister said that the regulations protect them, but we know that the regulations will lead in some circumstances to vulnerable young people coming out of care—some without a family and some who may have been sexually or physically abused—being disbarred from benefit.
The regulations may also lead to a young person being sent on a training course or employment opportunity. If it is the second occasion on which the young person has been sent on such a course, there is no requirement on the employer to guarantee the quality of training, employment opportunities or the level of wages, and no prior check of the health and safety environment of the premises will be carried out by the Department. That is unacceptable in any circumstances, and I therefore ask the Minister to have another look at the young jobseeker's agreement and the complaints that we have consistently made about it.
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The Government need a rethink, and there is an issue that I would like to raise that could form part of that rethink. In yesterday's debate on the cuts in training, I asked the Secretary of State to confirm the arrangements for the new project work pilots. She kindly confirmed to me that one of the two areas selected was the Medway travel-to-work area, which includes the constituency of the former Minister of State, Department of Employment, the hon. Member for Maidstone—the person largely responsible for this legislation.
I received a fax this morning advising me that that travel-to-work area was not the original choice for the pilot scheme, which had been an area in London. The fax alleges that, because unemployment in the hon. Lady's constituency has risen by 91 per cent. in the past five years—and by 39 per cent. in the marginal constituency next door—a lobbying exercise was undertaken by the former Employment Minister to ensure that the project was placed in her area, despite unease and unhappiness among Employment Service advisers. Perhaps, before the end of the debate, the Minister will clarify the process of placing the pilot scheme.
Mr. Forth: I can do that for the hon. Gentleman now. In the normal way, the Employment Service and officials from my Department came to me with a number of different options. These were discussed and considered, and they included a number of different areas, including Maidstone. With advice from my officials, I decided on what I thought would be two reasonably representative areas to give us usable results for the pilot project.
The hon. Gentleman should not read conspiracies in everything. There was a perfectly straightforward process, and it illustrates the harmonious relationship among Ministers, officials and the Employment Service, which I am confident will continue.
Mr. McCartney: That was an interesting and revealing answer. I offer no conspiracy theory—I just asked a clear question. It was interesting to note that the Minister referred to the "harmonious relationship" between Ministers. [HON. MEMBERS: "And officials."] Fair enough. I apologise to the officials, who are neither seen nor heard in this place. But his answer seems to indicate that there was at least some discussion between the Minister and his hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone about the matter. Is that the case? Were any representations made to the Minister on the placement of the pilot scheme?
Mr. Forth rose—
Mr. Blunkett: The Minister must be careful what he says.
Mr. Forth: I shall be very careful, and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's advice.
I had no discussions with any colleague, other than the Secretary of State—I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that that was correct—about the decision, which was mine to make. I gave advice to the Secretary of State, and she was content with the advice I gave. I had no discussions with other colleagues, parliamentary or ministerial.
Mr. McCartney: I accept in good faith what the Minister said. [HON. MEMBERS: "So apologise."] I will

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apologise for nothing. I raised a pertinent point, which the Minister has clarified to my satisfaction. Let us hope that the matter will rest there. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] But we must wait and see. There are enough lawyers in this place to make mischief on almost any issue. I am not one of them. I am not a lawyer, but mischief-making is another matter.
It is important that, if the regulations are passed in their present form, when hon. Members seek, either collectively or individually, to discuss their implications with Ministers, there is an open-door policy. The regulations are complex. There is insufficient time today to cover all the issues which arise from the regulations, but I have tried to express—I hope without boring the House unduly—how seriously we take their implications. We need some assurances and some clarification of the regulations from the Minister, which I hope he will provide in his reply.
We reject the JSA and all it stands for. The only vote that will count, however, will be at the next election, when we will get rid of not only the JSA but this Government. We will then introduce employment policies to benefit the whole nation.
4.55 pm
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: The speech—
Mr. Gary Streeter: Some sense at last.
Mr. Hughes: My hon. Friend might want to make that judgment after I sit down.
The speech by the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) was very revealing, and I hope that those who look after such things will ensure that Conservative central office has it duplicated and sent out to business men.
Mr. Duncan: We will.
Mr. Hughes: While the hon. Gentleman's leader goes around making speeches about a conservative economy and taking tough decisions, and even mentions workfare and the need to crack down on people who do not deserve to receive benefit, not one bit of that has washed through to any of his colleagues, including his spokesmen. It is clear that old Labour, which is real Labour, is alive and well and living in the whole of its policies.
Mr. David Shaw: We can hear it.
Mr. Hughes: Not only can we hear it, it is clear that the country will hear it as time goes on. The speech of the hon. Member for Makerfield was grossly old-fashioned and demonstrated a lack of understanding that the only people in the world who do not believe in a conservative economy are those in the British Labour party.
Is it not curious that the Labour party leader must go around pretending to believe in a conservative economy? Perhaps he does, but his party plainly does not. I shall provide a brief tutorial for the Labour party, before I turn to the regulations. Unemployment does not cause excess Government spending, as the hon. Member for Makerfield
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suggested. Excess Government spending causes unemployment. If he understood that, he would understand a great deal more.
Ms Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, after significant and hard cuts in public expenditure in the Budget, only £3 billion was saved for tax cuts? Year on year, however, we are spending at least £20 billion, and possibly as much as £22 billion, to support the mass unemployment that has persisted for the entire life of this Government.
Mr. Hughes: I have no doubt that the figures given by the hon. Lady are correct. There were not cuts in public expenditure; the rate of growth was reduced, which is a significant difference.
Mr. Duncan: Let us be intellectually honest.
Mr. Hughes: As my hon. Friend says, it is intellectually honest, but that is not something that one would expect from the Labour party. What the hon. Lady has said shows that she does not understand new Labour either. Perhaps there is someone on the other side who does understand new Labour and who will explain it to us. It is a bit rich for the hon. Member for Makerfield to say that the regulations are being forced through in three hours, because a proper piece of primary legislation has been put before the House. I have no doubt that Ministers, Back Benchers and Opposition spokesmen spent many hours in Committee discussing the regulations.
Ms Eagle: The problem is that the regulations had not even been drafted when the Jobseekers Bill was in Standing Committee. This is, in effect, the first sight that we have had of them, yet they form much of the detail of that Act. That is one of the objections we had to the shape and status of the Act as it went through the primary legislation stage.
Mr. Hughes: If we reach the dark days of a brief sojourn under a Labour Government, we will remember those words about every detail being on the face of every Bill which that Government might bring forward. However, I believe that we are unlikely to have a Labour Government.
Undoubtedly, there is much confusion among people who administer the system and, most important, among the people who receive the benefits. There is confusion between unemployment benefit and income support. Therefore, it is important that we should replace that confusing and out-of-date two-benefit system. Those two benefits cover different periods and play different roles. They require different bureaucracies, offices and computer systems, so it is not surprising that people are confused about it. The system is probably too complex for staff to administer, and it is bound to be more expensive for the taxpayer. Therefore, I welcome the principle behind the Bill.
I also welcome another element of the regulations, which I might describe as the carrot. That element is the way in which the new jobseeker's allowance will encourage people back into work. We all understand, from different perspectives, that the longer people remain on benefit, the more their motivation and skills decline, thus reducing their chances of finding a job.
I welcome the fact that the new system will attempt to keep people in touch with the labour market by encouraging them to take part-time work, and will help

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people to move from part-time to full-time employment. It will also allow others to take unfamiliar work without being unfairly penalised if the jobs do not work out.
The back-to-work bonus enshrined in the legislation is very inventive. At present, after a small initial level of earnings—£5 per person or £10 per couple a week—income support is reduced pound for pound, which discourages part-time work by claimants and partners. Under the new back-to-work bonus, the Government will set aside 50p of every £1 by which benefit is reduced when claimants enter part-time work to pay to them, up to a maximum of £1,000, when they enter full-time employment. That will have a genuine effect of increasing the incentive to begin work again. It will certainly reward honesty and encourage part-time work as a stepping stone to employment, while retaining the essential difference between a benefit that is paid to people out of work and one that is paid to people who are in full-time employment.
I also welcome another aspect of the regulations which could be called the stick—the regulations take the carrot and stick approach. I have a genuine criticism of what the hon. Member for Makerfield said in his speech, because the Labour party is good at talking about incentives, carrots, and not very good at contemplating the idea that one has to be tough sometimes and make people seek work, sticks. I welcome the sanctions on people who are simply working the system—those whom one might call the workshy—although everyone in the House, especially Conservative Members, recognises that most claimants make every effort to find work and that the jobseeker's allowance will assist them.
Taxpayers are rarely mentioned in the equation, but they have rights as well. They have the right to be protected against those who are not genuinely available for and looking for work. The discussion that my hon. Friend the Minister had earlier with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) is very important. Of course, claimants' politics and the fact of taking part in political activity are no bar to their getting employment and should not be any bar to benefit. Nor will they be, but if people set themselves up as full-time political activists and deliberately make themselves unavailable for work, why should the taxpayers, who are suffering from those activities, pay the bill?
Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend was present when I asked the Minister how one could prove whether people were available for work. There is a simple way, because if we had a full system of workfare, which I would fully support, people would either work in return for their benefits or have an ordinary job. [Interruption.] There would be no doubt about whether they were engaging in full-time political activity.
Mr. Hughes: That is certainly one of the merits of such a scheme. The reception given to what my hon. Friend has just said by Opposition Members is interesting. He was heckled when he suggested workfare. I thought that the Leader of the Opposition had recently floated that idea. Opposition Members must decide whether they are on the side of their leader or whether they will toddle off to join Arthur Scargill, where their hearts really are.
Under the existing scheme, in order to receive the jobseeker's allowance, unemployed people will have to be available for and actually seek work. The tests will be
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extended to ensure that people who take steps that deliberately undermine their prospects of finding work will be penalised. We have read enough in the papers about Government officials paying benefits to people living in tree-tops, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster put it. Those officials can continue making those visits, but with a different purpose. We can find out who is demonstrating and whether the taxpayer is having to support them.
Mr. Purchase: And penalise them when the officials catch up with them.
Mr. Hughes: No, I wish to penalise them only if they are not available for work. If the hon. Gentleman does not support that, that is an interesting commentary on how much he supports the leader of the Labour party.
People must be available for work for a minimum of 40 hours. That will reinforce the message that people should be prepared to be open to as many job opportunities as possible and should be prepared to work full time for a full-time benefit. In other words, if people are prepared to take full-time benefits, they should be available full time to seek work. The existing official recommendation whereby Employment Service staff can instruct people to take certain steps to find a job will be widened under the new jobseeker's direction, and I welcome that. If unemployed people refuse all the help that is offered to them, it is right that the trained advisers should be able to require them to take opportunities for improving their prospects of finding a job.
I am sure that my hon. Friends and anybody else listening to the debate will have been deeply unimpressed by the way the hon. Member for Makerfield failed so dismally to welcome today's unemployment figures. Of course, any unemployment figure is too high if it means that people are actively seeking work but cannot find it. Nobody welcomes that, but the hon. Gentleman was so churlish that he did not welcome the reduction in unemployment.
Mr. Ian McCartney: Will the hon. Gentleman give his view, as a London Member of Parliament, on why there are 20 unemployed people in London for every one vacancy, even after today's figures? When will he start advocating for those people instead of being a sycophant to the Government?
Mr. Hughes: I gave my views on that at the beginning of my speech. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not understand the economics involved. No one welcomes unemployment; it is important to reduce it. But it is wrong to believe that we can buy our way out of unemployment—although that is Labour policy. The Labour party wants a tax on windfall earnings; Opposition Members believe, farcically, that that will do the trick. The Labour party has already tried to spend the money 11 times over and doubtless will come up with other ideas for spending it again. That is not a formula for improving the job prospects of anyone's constituents.
Unemployment has been falling and is lower here than in most of our European partners' countries. The European unemployment average is 10.5 per cent. of the population of working age. In this country, unemployment averages 8.2 per cent.; in Germany, it averages 8.4 per cent.; in France, 11.4 per cent.; and in Italy, 11.3 per cent. Of course it is important to give young people the best

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possible training opportunities to enable them to find jobs. In socialist Spain, youth unemployment is 40.3 per cent.; in the United Kingdom, it is 17.2 per cent.—quite a difference. Suggesting that those differences have nothing to do with the policies followed by the Governments concerned is ludicrous.
Mr. David Shaw: Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that we have heard nothing from the Opposition on whether the stakeholder economy will increase or reduce unemployment? Why cannot the Opposition tell us whether it will reduce unemployment by 500,000, or a million, or any other number? Is it because "the stakeholder economy" is an empty and meaningless phrase uttered by the Leader of the Opposition?
Mr. Hughes: As a vegetarian, I find the idea of the stakeholding society offensive—but my hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. It is designed as an empty and meaningless phrase, among many other such phrases. The leader of the Labour party, interviewed on the television on Sunday, seemed to think—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, may I inquire how this relates to the regulations under consideration?
Mr. Hughes: The number of people seeking jobs, Madam Deputy Speaker, is directly affected by the handling of the economy—but I agree that I have gone a long way down this road. I had intended to finish soon, but I was being egged on by my hon. Friends who, as ever, have been a bad influence on me.
We are told that the Labour party has embarked on a project to "think the unthinkable" on social security. The party has proved by its attitude to this subject that it has not yet got as far as the first word of that phrase. If Opposition Members started to think, they might come up with good ideas. So far, they have not even begun.
5.12 pm
Mr. Ken Purchase: I speak in today's debate because of the bad news given to me about the employment figures in my constituency. I welcome the fact that unemployment generally is falling, but I regret that today's figures show that it has risen in my area. That is because of redundancy problems; most recently, 520 people lost their jobs at a local steelworks. Most of them will not register in the figures until January, however. On top of that, there will be another 100 redundancies in a local foundry unless a buyer for it can be found.
Like many hon. Members, I take a keen interest in the jobseeker's allowance. I have read the regulations, and I am interested in how they are supposed to work. I am forced to the conclusion that they will not significantly help to bring people back into work. The main way to increase the number of jobs in an economy is to increase demand. In this and many other countries, however, the right sort of demand has been absent. Increasing consumer demand has not led to increased demand for British goods; it has merely sucked in imports throughout the economic cycle. According to the most recent trade balance figures, manufactured imports are running four
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percentage points ahead of exports. That represents a crisis for the British economy in what must be the longest recession, properly defined, since the war.
Even if these regulations were brilliantly thought out, novel and expeditious in their application, they would not significantly help people back to work. The Government must take responsibility for the debilitation of thousands of people, young and old, who have become disenchanted and lost all understanding of the world of work. People's understanding of the society in which they live may be summarised by the three Ws: work, wealth and welfare. We have to work hard to create the wealth that we can then distribute in the form of welfare. There is no purpose in going to work apart from improving the condition of all the people of this country through the distribution of welfare, in the widest sense of that word.
The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) talked about the earnings from windfall profits. That was a contradiction in terms. If they are a windfall, they have come, by definition, accidentally or fortuitously. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is how your Government defined the word when they decided to tax the windfall profits of the banks. I am doing no more than your Government did at the time—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should be addressing me.
Mr. Purchase: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Nigel Evans: The hon. Gentleman is banging on with commendable compassion about unemployed people. He seems to want to do more for the unemployed, but if a Labour Government were returned to power they would introduce a minimum wage which, it has been said, would make 1.7 million more people unemployed, because of differentials erosion and because employers would not be able to afford to employ them. How would the hon. Gentleman explain that to his constituents?
Mr. Purchase: I shall deal with that directly in a moment, but I want to make some progress with my speech.
The Government have succeeded in breaking the link, especially for young people, between work and welfare. It is worth considering how many young people understand where wealth and welfare come from. Many of them see wealth and welfare as a girocheque dropping through the door on to the mat. They are disconnected from the process of work and wealth creation, and that is wholly due to the policies of this Government. Trying to mend the failure by these regulations—they did not appear in the Bill; Ministers claim that their details could not have appeared in the Bill—is disgraceful.
The Minister claims that the regulations have been forced on him because of printing errors, at least in respect of the arithmetical formula used. One wonders whether he should have got out of bed this morning. It is farcical to introduce regulations and Bills that are incomplete. It is not fair to the people who are forced for the foreseeable future to depend on benefits.
We know the purpose behind the Government's welfare regulations. They are not about targeting; one could make a respectable case for targeting limited resources. The whole purpose is to save money. That is what they will be doing and that is their intention with this new set of regulations.

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As we all know, the social security and unemployment regulations are already so complex that there is considerable and continuing underclaiming. With the type of formula being brought before us today, the people who have to administer the system will not properly understand what people are entitled to. They simply cannot unravel the regulations to ensure that people are cared for properly by the unemployment benefit offices.
Unemployment has increased massively. There are a million fewer jobs than when the Conservatives came to power. What has been made up in part-time jobs in no way compensates for the loss of full-time jobs, particularly in west midlands constituencies such as mine, where there has been a proud history of innovation, scientific endeavour and engineering and technology to create the wealth from which we have all benefited for so many years. This country has been losing jobs in manufacturing industry year on year—200,000 every year. How do we count that unemployment?
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman lists a catalogue of gloom and doom about the employment statistics. I have the figures for his constituency here. In December 1994 there were 4,914 unemployed, whereas in December 1995 there were 4,433. That represents a drop of almost 10 per cent. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that.
Mr. Purchase: I was moving on to that very point. It is an excellent illustration of the way in which the Government have tried to fiddle the unemployment figures.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: It cannot be a fiddle. Those are the figures.
Mr. Purchase: I am telling the hon. Gentleman that it is a fiddle and a farce. I shall give the real figures for my constituency. My figures were compiled by the economic development unit of the local authority, which takes them from proper census information rather than from the imagined benefit claimants on which the Government's figures are based.
Another 149 people have been claiming benefit in my constituency—149 additional people on top of the total of almost 4,000 men and women claiming benefit. I shall give the House some of the ward figures, which are accurate because they are based on proper, up-to-date information about people who are of economically active age, but who are not in work. In the Heath Town ward, 25 per cent. of all men are unemployed. In the Low Hill ward, 25 per cent. are unemployed. Those are the real figures.
However one tries to disguise the fact, the evidence of people's eyes and their experience shows that they are unemployed now, they were unemployed 12 months ago and, sadly, in 40 per cent. of cases they have been unemployed for much longer than 12 months. That is the sort of problem that we have to face.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: Is there not one loophole that states that anyone over the age of 50 who has not been gainfully employed for 10 years does not come under the rules? Surely that will help the Conservatives. After the next election, half their Members will not come under the criteria. They will still be able to claim.
Mr. Purchase: My hon. Friend is right. That helps the Conservatives. It is appalling for my constituents and for everyone else's, but that is not part of the equation that they bring before us today, or any other day.
Let us move on and find out how else the Government have made the position so much worse and how much more they are spending on benefits and unemployment pay.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt, but we are dealing with the regulations that relate to the jobseeker's allowance. Although it is in order to adduce various examples, I hope that this will not become a general debate on unemployment, because that is not the purpose of this afternoon's debate.
Mr. Purchase: I take your guidance on that matter, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to show that the regulations will not assist in the way in which the Government say they will, because the problems lie deeper and, to some extent, are buried elsewhere. The regulations simply do not tackle the matters that the Government claim they are tackling. They will not assist my constituents and many others back into work, which is the express purpose of the regulations.
The question is: how much money is having to be spent and how could it be reduced without attacking people's benefit? The drive towards market rents in the local authority and housing association sectors means that rents have doubled and trebled. People are forced to stay unemployed because, if they work for the very low wages that some people are earning, they will not be able to meet any of the costs that they normally can because their benefits will be withdrawn. They will be in what we used to call, and still call, the poverty trap, because they will not get back into work, and they will not be assisted by the regulations.
I know that other hon. Members want to speak, but I want briefly to mention the way in which the Government deal with the problems. Boardroom scams in the privatised industries have been mentioned. This may be an old-fashioned, old-Labour way to put it, but I am proud to be associated in that sense with the sentiments that I am about to express. When a chief executive of a nationalised industry is given £250,000 in bonuses—earned or unearned—it is called market forces, and it is because we need to attract the right calibre of people into those jobs. They do not need a jobseeker's allowance—it is not on the cards. But when the labourer asks for an extra 2 per cent., it is a scandal and the ruination of the economy.
The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) mentioned the minimum wage. He is not correct in saying that it would lead to X million job losses. That is not the evidence, which is that, in the short and medium term, employment would increase. The evidence shows that demand would increase within the economy and that, because that increase would be from those on the lowest incomes, home-manufactured goods would be purchased in the shops and in the high street, which would assist in getting people back into employment. That will happen when the labour market gets back into balance and people can properly demand a reasonable day's pay for a reasonable day's work.
Mr. Forth: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier in the debate, I drew the attention of the House to the report of the Joint Committee on Statutory

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Instruments of yesterday's date, which pointed out printing errors in the regulations as laid before the House. Perhaps I made slightly heavy weather of dealing with the matter, but I did so in a spirit of openness, as I hope the House will accept. Labour Members expressed some concerns about the approach that I suggested. I have since had the benefit of conversations with Opposition Members, the authorities of the House and even more mysterious figures whom I dare not even mention because their anonymity is total. All the advice is that, since it is a printer's error and the Joint Committee's report makes that clear, it will be in order for that error to be corrected. If the House approves the regulations at the end of the debate, it can be corrected. That would be proper and that would be accepted. I hope that Opposition Members can accept that. I have raised the matter in good faith and that was the advice that I received. I hope that the House will be prepared to accept that that is how we should proceed in this important area.
Mr. Ian McCartney: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can confirm that the hon. Gentleman has had discussions with me and with what he claims to be other mysterious persons on the Opposition Front Bench. We have accepted his explanation in good faith. We have checked all his pockets, his wallet and other parts of his anatomy to ensure that he is not sneaking anything else through. On the basis that we could find nothing, we have accepted that this is simply another Government error—another bungle.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. That seems to deal with the matter satisfactorily. I call the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan).
5.28 pm
Mr. Alan Duncan: The rather large batch of regulations that we are debating today has the merit of fitting coherently into the Government's intellectual path in their reform of social security. Nothing points out more clearly the benefits of the Government's wider economic policy and the detail of the regulations under discussion than the fact that unemployment figures have fallen for the 28th month in succession. That is important to every individual who manages to get a job, although, sadly, the Opposition have acknowledged it so begrudgingly. The Government's economic policy is working, and the regulations that we are studying today will help that policy work further to the advantage of individuals to whom getting a job actually matters.
Ms Eagle: I thank the hon. Gentleman, to whom I always listen with interest. Does he realise that the regulations are not yet in force, therefore, by definition, they cannot possibly be working.
Mr. Duncan: Had she listened carefully, the hon. Lady would realise that I described the regulations as an extension of an economic and social security policy that is already in practice. It operates under the watchful eye of the Secretary of State, whose reforms have been to the advantage of the economy generally and the many individuals who have secured a job and have concentrated benefit on those who are most in need. It sits in stark contrast to the intellectual dishonesty of the Opposition that has been in clear evidence today.
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The Opposition say that the Government are financing mass unemployment. That slogan is designed to deceive. It is a concoction of two economically illiterate concepts in an attempt to convince the public that Opposition policies would somehow deliver more employment. Regulations that properly assess how the labour market and the housing market work will deliver the progress that we seek.
When the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) accuses us of financing mass unemployment, is he saying that he would reduce what I loosely call unemployment benefit? Is he saying that he would stop paying those who are unemployed and compel them to take jobs and that if Labour were in government resources would be diverted into forcing people to accept work in sectors for which they are not appropriately trained? That is economic nonsense. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues know that it is a deceit. They should go back to the drawing board and devise policies that are intellectually more honest.
The reforms are good because they have been thought through in considerable detail, which is here for us all to see in rather too many pages of regulations. None the less, the regulations are designed to work.
The House will recall that I spoke in the debate on Second Reading of the Bill that produced the regulations. The jobseeker's allowance has much merit in simplifying the benefit system and combining unemployment benefit and income support into a single benefit. I regret that Opposition Members have not welcomed the simplification of a system that has caused many distortions in the past. The reform is designed to address the distortions and remove the traps and disincentives that many people have faced in the past.
The regulations improve incentives to work. Perhaps I find a common cause with the hon. Member for Makerfield in seeking regulations that do not give individuals an undue incentive to remain out of work and on benefit. He and I agree on that, and it is the purpose of the regulations, yet he does not give them the welcome that they deserve.
Mr. Ian McCartney: Has the hon. Gentleman read them?
Mr. Duncan: I am asked whether I have read them and the answer is yes. There are 200 pages of regulations and I have taken the time to read them all. They did not make the most exciting reading, and are slightly more expensive than Mogadon, but I have gone through every page. I even read the printing error. The Opposition made heavy weather of the printing error, but the format of the equation is obvious further down the page. I am glad that the Minister and the Opposition spokesman have reconciled their differences and reached an accommodation to allow the regulations to continue.
I am concerned that the regulations are so extensive. I have an innate objection to regulations and, wherever possible, would like fewer, simpler, easier and less complicated ones. I rather feel for the employee at the Benefits Agency who has to administer this rather complicated, long and extensive series of documents—the regulations that we are debating today.
There is much to grasp and many rules over which there is bound to be dispute. When regulations are so complicated and designed by the best brains in the civil

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service in an attempt to cover every eventuality, there are bound to be problems. However, they are worth swallowing—albeit they are a lot to swallow—to deliver the benefits that Government policy rightly considers will work to the advantage of those who are unemployed and seeking a job or income support.
Although Conservatives take the view that Government involvement in such matters should be as limited as possible, the Opposition do not appear to share the same restraint. Opposition Members should realise that were regulation—in this case, properly designed for a good cause, so I welcome it—applied to other areas of Government and policy, it would produce a bureaucratic nightmare. It is in the nature of the beast that state involvement will produce just that, and the less of it we have, the better.
I confess that I would like the language and the drafting of the regulations to be much plainer and simpler. The House should address with a great measure of concern and concentration the fact that the convoluted language that bedevils so much of our legislation is translated into practice not by lawyers, but by people making decisions about delivering benefits to people in genuine need. Inasmuch as the regulations have been drafted with that in mind, those who produced them have done a good job, but we must be watchful in trying to work out the detail. The devil is in the detail and regulations should be as simple and practical as possible.
The regulations are an improvement on what went before. I found, from my heavy reading of them and my study of the Act on which I spoke, that they remove some of the distortions that have crept into the labour market and the housing market to the disadvantage of those who genuinely seek work and to the advantage of those who wish to make the most of the regulations and claim money from the state in return for no work at all.
Whenever the state becomes involved, the labour market faces certain distortions. We judge that the distortions that are caused by paying unemployed people are worth while in order to alleviate the pain of unemployment, but we have to beware of further distorting the labour market. The combination of benefits in the regulations draws together the incentives and disincentives in a far more practical way, to the advantage of a freely working labour market.
I draw attention to the regulators relating to housing costs, which does the same in the housing market. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) said about the grave distortions introduced in the housing market by the housing benefits system, the way in which the regulators will apply to younger people represents an improvement. Otherwise, there is an incentive—that also applies to regional variations—for people to take the most and for rents to rise to the level of the benefit available, which ultimately does no one any good.
One effect of any package of such regulations is that people learn how to use them. Regulations are constructed on the assumption that people will behave decently and claim only when they genuinely need to do so. Nevertheless, when state money is available, some people will realise that there is a way of getting some of that money and will use regulations and the system to get money for nothing if they can. The detail in the regulations is effectively designed to ensure that risk is
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minimised. I commend that approach because whereas the Department of Social Security properly wants to attack fraud, it has been cleverer of late in designing regulations that can be practically applied, to ensure that a system designed to help people in need cannot be abused.
After 28 months of successive falls in unemployment, the House should pause for a moment to consider what would happen if these regulations were being introduced in a different climate and under a different Government. Contrary to Labour's claims, if its policies of a social chapter, minimum wage and so-called stakeholding were implemented—under which trade unions would be back in control and demanding so much from the Government in return for power—the total number of unemployed would be far higher than today and the figure would be rising, not falling. Labour has had great fun over the past couple of years in trying to convince the electorate that it would deliver an economic miracle. The public are gradually waking up to the deceit contained in many of Labour's slogans and so-called policies. Economic reality is dawning again, and the public realise that our policies will deliver the prosperity that this country is increasingly enjoying.
5.41 pm
Ms Liz Lynne: I will concentrate mainly on the jobseeker's regulations because they are the most controversial, but I will speak briefly to other regulations as well.
The Employer's Contributions Re-imbursement Regulations are welcome but are likely to get an insufficient number of long-term unemployed back to work. Unfortunately, most long-term unemployed are perceived by employers to be a liability. I doubt that the average of £375 per employer will encourage many employers to take on that many unemployed. A proper benefit transfer scheme is needed, which would get the long-term unemployed back into work.
The Housing Benefit, Supply of Information and Council Tax Benefit (Amendment) Regulations are also welcome. They recognise the difficulties that confront unemployed people when they take a job, such as the extra money needed to travel to and from work and other difficulties experienced in the first few weeks of employment. The Social Security (Back to Work Bonus) Regulations are welcome but do not go far enough, and how they work in practice remains to be seen. I imagine that they could create an administrative nightmare, and we will have to monitor those regulations carefully.
The most complimentary remark that I can make about the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations is that the Government had the good sense to delay implementing some aspects of them until October—those relating to the computer system and staff training in particular. Anyone who followed the fiasco of establishing the Child Support Agency's computer system can only welcome that decision. I hope that the computer system will be got right in this case. Otherwise, the jobseeker's allowance will risk being in the same mess as was caused by the implementation of the Child Support Act 1991.
The Government are not delaying the majority of the jobseeker's allowance provisions—such as the non-means-tested reduction in payment from 12 months to six months, which will go ahead in April. Partners of unemployed people, usually women, will be encouraged

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to leave part-time employment even sooner, to ensure that their husbands or wives have entitlement to benefit. Even more important is their entitlement to passported benefits. Many people entering employment discover, having lost passported benefits, that they were better off out of work.
At the heart of the regulations is the desire to coerce people back to work. Since 1986 the Government have introduced stricter tests and more benefit sanctions. In 1986, the sanction for leaving a job or being dismissed for misconduct was increased in terms of non-payment of benefit from six to 13 weeks, and doubled in 1988 to 26 weeks. Stricter measures affecting availability for work were introduced, and now the Government have introduced the jobseeker's allowance. We have seen one stricter regulation after another.
The regulations will make all Government employment and training schemes compulsory. Regulation 25 states that entitlement to the jobseeker's allowance will cease if the person fails to attend a training programme. Is that power really necessary? Are not the Government just conceding that many training schemes offer little hope of employment after completion? I would like an answer from the Minister when he winds up. Instead of coercion, surely the answer is better training and better employment schemes that people want to join.
Some of the conditions imposed on people actively seeking work relate to their appearance. Again, I would like the Minister's clarification. Will a young man with a ponytail have to cut it off? Will a young woman have to wear make-up, a shorter skirt or a longer skirt? Who will decide—the interviewer? Will guidance be issued? Will the interviewer have to provide the jobseeker with specific guidance on his or her appearance for a particular job?
Ms Eagle: Has the hon. Lady noticed that regulation 18(4), to which she refers, introduces a new criterion for disallowing benefit—that of an inability to fill in the application form properly? Is not that worrying, particularly when there is the problem at the lower end of the labour market of people being unable to read or write properly?
Ms Lynne: I totally agree and share the hon. Lady's deep concern. People who are now denied incapacity or invalidity benefit and who go to a jobcentre to sign on for the jobseeker's allowance may encounter extreme difficulty in completing the necessary form.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Roger Evans): Perhaps I may end that controversy by directing the hon. Lady to regulation 18(4)(b). The act that causes disallowance to be triggered is spoiling the application—not something due to disability, but a deliberate act for the purpose, of not getting a job. We are not talking about people who are unable to complete the form or who have difficulties with it.
Ms Lynne: I am grateful to the Minister, but is there a reference to "deliberately" spoiling? I believe that there is not. Unless there is such a reference, the provision could be interpreted to apply to anyone who is unable properly to complete the application form. If the Minister intended the provision to mean deliberately spoiling the application form, surely he should have made that clear. He did not.
Mr. Evans: I did not read the whole of the relevant provision to the hon. Lady. If she reads the concluding words, she will find the clear proviso:
"unless those circumstances were due to reasons beyond his control."
In other words, spoiling must be intentional. It cannot arise "due to reasons beyond" someone's "control", such as inability to write.
Ms Lynne: I do not want to delay the House because I know that many hon. Members wish to speak. I do not think that the provision to which the Minister has referred gives a guarantee. I would like to see "deliberately" inserted. I shall move on because time is short.
One of my most serious concerns is that the regulations will force claimants into taking low-paid work. Claimants will not be able to say that they will work for a certain wage. They will be debarred from taking that approach even if the wage on offer is inappropriate to their skills and financial circumstances.
The idea of a public employment service matching individuals to appropriate vacancies has now been abandoned. We are seeing an attempt to drive more people into low-paid employment.
It is right, of course, that some people should take work with lower wages than those that they were receiving before becoming unemployed.
Mr. Duncan: I am.
Ms Lynne: Of course some people should do that.
I am concerned that individuals will not be able to opt out. That is entirely wrong. We know that individuals could give specific reasons for being unable to take a job at a certain wage level.
The regulations will encourage more employers to pay low wages. They know that the unemployed person will be forced to take their jobs whatever the wage. With the abolition of the wages councils, the position is even more serious.
Conservative Members have been talking about the taxpayer. The consequence of the regulations is that the taxpayer will be asked to subsidise the low-paying employer. That cannot be right. The JSA will increase employees' financial hardship. What they need is encouragement, training and proper job opportunities. They do not need further coercion and benefit sanctions.
5.52 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: 1 am glad to have the opportunity to speak briefly on the regulations, especially on the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 1996. I was delighted to hear the speeches of the hon. Members for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase). They prove that the old Labour party is still alive, kicking and well. Employers throughout the country should be wary of the prospect of a future Labour Government when a social security spokesman makes a speech of that sort.
There is a fundamental difference of philosophy between the two sides of the House. We believe that the social security system should provide for those in need. But those in need, and genuinely claiming it, need to help themselves, so that they can organise their affairs and do

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not claim benefit indefinitely. The Labour party is content for the present system to remain in place so that claimants can remain on benefits for as long as they want, or for the rest of their lives.
Under the present system, a millionaire can claim unemployment benefit for up to a year without being means-tested. That is daft. I recently participated in an audience-contribution television programme. The spokesman who appeared on behalf of the Labour party defended her party's wish—this was her interpretation of it—to have universal benefits available for all. Half the audience was unemployed and the other half consisted of floating voters. When I said, "It is you people who deserve benefit if you are eligible for it, not every millionaire in the country," they fully agreed with me.
I think that the country will agree with that approach. We should target the huge amount of benefit we pay to those who genuinely need it, not to millionaires. It is—[Laughter.] Labour Members laugh, but the country will make a judgment in due course. If Labour Members oppose the regulations, they must tell us how they will find the extra £4 billion to pay for the present system. Implementation of the regulations will save £4 billion. If Labour Members do not like them, what will they put in their place?
According to the Red Book, we shall spend £98 billion on the social security system this year. It so happens that income tax raises £68 billion and corporation tax £20 billion. The two taxes raise about the sum that we spend on social security. Without the present system, we would not need income tax or corporation tax. That demonstrates the scale of our expenditure on social security.
We are not advocating, of course, the abolition of the social security system, but we want to ensure that what we spend on it is directed to those who really need it. Surely—[Laughter.] Again, I do not know why Opposition Members laugh. The regulations make eminently good sense.
We are channelling two benefits into one. In other words, we are simplifying the system. The process will be of benefit to claimants, because they will have to complete only one form and go to only one office to obtain their benefit. The regulations will simplify and reduce the cost of administering the system. That is also important. We shall need to have only one office, as it were, one set of regulations and one set of annual upratings under the new system. That must make sense.
Conservative Members are all keen on reducing social security fraud. If we simplify a system, we are bound to reduce fraud. I believe that I have common cause with the hon. Member for Makerfield and others, because I accept that the vast majority of our people want to work. Unfortunately, a few are prepared to work the system. That being so, we must do all we can to ensure that the system cannot be defrauded.
It must be right that those who are unemployed for more than 12 months must be made to go on one of the myriad of schemes that are set out in the regulations. Indeed, the regulations propose an element of coercion to embark on such schemes. It cannot be in the taxpayers' interests or those of claimants that they, claimants, should be able to sit at home, go to the office once a week to draw money and have to do nothing else for the rest of their lives. That culture is not in the interests of the country or of claimants.
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I welcome the raft of extremely sensible schemes set out in the regulations. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends carefully to examine the Labour party's proposed windfall tax and the changes that it presages in introducing a workfare system. I have worked closely with my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Sir R. Howell), and I know that the idea of a community job creation programme is not a new one, although the Labour party claims it as its own. He produced two papers in the early 1980s, called "Why Work?" and "Why Not Work?", long before the Labour party had even begun to think about the subject.
I would like to see a more general element introduced into the community workfare scheme. Two such schemes have been introduced in north Norfolk, but at large cost, because they are trial schemes. I believe that, through the private sector, we could introduce a workfare scheme that would benefit both the unemployed and the country. We would all be a lot better off morally and spiritually, if not economically, because such a scheme is not cheap, as the Labour party has proved by its windfall tax.
The problem with a windfall tax, as has already been proved this evening, is that one can use it only once. The Labour party has so far pledged to use it about 11 times. I do not know how many more times it will pledge to use it before the election. It is also completely economically illiterate, because one cannot spend the money twice. If one takes the money away from the companies, the utilities that the Labour party proposes to tax—I am straying from the subject, Madam Deputy Speaker, while you are not listening—they will not be able to reinvest in the infrastructure, and then it will complain about leaks next week.
I come back now to the regulations, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Not before time.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I take note of your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I now come to housing benefit regulation 5. Housing benefit is one of our single most costly benefits. It will cost us a huge £12.5 billion this year, and that figure is rising rapidly. Until we recently introduced the housing benefit reduction scheme, there was no incentive whatever for local authorities, which have to administer that costly scheme, to investigate the claims to see whether they were genuine or not. The scheme that I have just described will encourage local authorities to investigate claims. The regulations before us will further that process.
It is vital that we find a mechanism for people to get off the raft of benefits and back into work. There is no doubt that housing benefit is one of the greatest deterrents for people to go back into work. Under the present regulations, there is a huge, marginal tapering tax rate with which an unemployed person gets clobbered the moment he goes back into work. The thrust of Conservative philosophy is to reduce those rates, so that people have every incentive to take part-time jobs and to work gradually into a full-time job, which is what we all want.
Housing benefit has the additional stigma that it tends

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to be concentrated in what are called "housing benefit ghettos". I should like to see that slowly broken down. Our housing policy has a much more imaginative part to play. We can have much more imaginative mixed housing schemes, so that people on housing benefit can start to live among people who are in work and be part of that culture. I believe that the regulations further that aspect, but we should go further still.
Regulation 6 relates to national insurance payments. I warmly welcome the changes that were announced in the Budget, and the national insurance holiday for employers who take on people who have been unemployed for two years or more. Employers will get a national insurance holiday of 12 months.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne), the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said that it was a small amount, but I think that some £300 is quite a reasonable incentive for employers to consider taking on the long-term unemployed. I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor is about to announce a general reduction in the rate of employers' national insurance, because I believe that the tax is a disincentive for businesses to take on new employees.
I am hopeful that, if—as should happen—we are re-elected after the general election, we will be able radically to cut the amount of national insurance, and, if necessary, put a small amount on corporation tax. That would help this country to become the enterprise centre of Europe that Conservative Members are determined it should be. I am determined that the regulations should enable us to build on the record number of people in this country who are.currently employed.
The Labour party derides and opposes the regulations, but there is no disputing the fact that more people in this country are in work today than ever before—almost 26 million people. If it opposes the regulations, it behoves the Labour party to tell the House what it would put in their place, and what economic policy it would follow to ensure that we have the lowest unemployment rate in Europe.
It is no accident that this country has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, particularly among the young. The young people are the real people of tomorrow. We must ensure that we employ them, and the regulations will build on that. It is no coincidence that the countries that have a minimum wage have the highest rate of youth unemployment. Just look at what the Labour party would put in place of the regulations. It would put in place a minimum wage, which—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is becoming a little excited and is going off the point, so could I bring him back strictly to the regulations?
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I hope that I am not getting excited, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am using my normal passion to ensure that the debate on these somewhat humdrum regulations is a little more easy to listen to, and I had hoped that it would encourage other hon. Members to take part.
I wholeheartedly welcome the regulations. It behoves the Labour party, if it opposes them, to tell us what it would put in their place; how much it would spend on the social security system; and how it would run the economy so that more people are employed.
6.5 pm
Mr. Frank Field: I agree that the passion of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) perhaps unhinged him from the debate on the regulations.
As hon. Members have said, many people, thankfully, are unemployed only for a short period. But others in our constituencies are unemployed for long periods and—although they have been on endless training schemes, the number of which they cannot recall—are still unemployed. To what extent does the bundle of statutory instruments that we are considering today help that group?
We are considering 10,000 lines of regulations in a little over 200 minutes. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) assures us that he has read them all. We could be forgiven for thinking that the Minister has not, for it was the Joint Committee, not he, that spotted the errors in them.
There is a slight element of farce to the conclusion of our debate—that we have 10,000 lines of regulations to consider in under 200 minutes; and that we were assured that, although there was an error in them, if the Minister read the proper words on to the record, all would be well. He follows a long tradition of Ministers who produce regulations. Most social security legislation is followed by regulations that are amended before the regulations take effect. The Minister, by reading changes on to the record, broke that record.
There is, of course, another important lesson to draw from our debate tonight, as the population is being taught a very important lesson. The regulations tear up a contract that the Government made with those who contribute to the national insurance scheme.
The Government rightly draw attention to the decline in moral standards, the decline in honesty and the decline in the number of people who keep their word. Yet tonight we are debating regulations which teach people that, although they should keep those standards, the Government should behave differently.
The Government do not really understand the power of legislation. We have passed divorce law reform in the House that allows divorces to take place—for a contract to be broken—after only half the length of an average hire purchase agreement. Then the Government turn around and say, "We are immensely worried about the number of divorces." Today, we are passing regulations that teach people that it does not matter whether they keep their word—and the Government will turn around and say, "Isn't it appalling? More people are breaking their word."
We are required to make payments to the national insurance fund, and a contract was laid down in the previous regulations. The Act, and the regulation that has followed it, breaks that contract. We were paying for 12 months of unemployment; now, by edict, the Government are changing the period to six months. That means that all the people who made contributions expecting to draw 12 months' benefit will receive half that amount. The Government have broken their word.
Mr. Forth: In fact, the Act rather than the regulations that followed it changed the position. It is also questionable whether, strictly speaking, this was ever a contract in the normally accepted sense of the word; but I accept the burden of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He

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must surely recognise, however, that nothing in the relationship between Government and people is set in concrete. Circumstances change.
It must be generally accepted in the political environment that Governments are free to make changes from time to time. It is for them to justify those changes, and, indeed, to live with the consequences. It cannot be right to suggest that, once an arrangement is in place, it can never be changed on the basis that it is to the advantage or disadvantage of those involved.
Mr. Field: If this were a private contract, people would be able to enforce their rights in the courts. The courts would say that breaking the contract was improper behaviour. But we have a sovereign body here in the Chamber; the Government control the Chamber, and can therefore break their word. They could have said that all who made contributions expecting to receive 12 months' benefit could continue to draw that amount, whereas those who paid under a different contract from this day forward could receive only six months' benefit; but they have not said that.
The Government are breaking a contract, and breaking their word. That teaches the country a powerful lesson. When we are trying to teach children not to deface areas with graffiti and to keep their word with school, parents and friends, it does not help when the most powerful authority in the land decides to break its word because it is a sovereign body and, unlike any other state authority, can take such action.
Mr. Nigel Evans: I have considerable time and respect for the hon. Gentleman, but surely his argument applies to previous Labour Governments. It was a Labour Government who cut benefit from 18 months' worth to 12.
Mr. Field: They were equally wrong, as would any future Government be who broke a contract.
What we are really debating is whether the national insurance fund is safe in Government's hands. That is why some of us have talked about stakeholding, and believe that those who have made contributions—both employers and employees—need to run the schemes themselves. The Government should not be able to put their sticky fingers into them.
Let me say a little about the word "flexibility". We were given an example of flexibility today: we found that there were errors in the regulations, and that the Minister wanted to read changes on to the record. We understand from certain faceless creatures that that is allowed. In general, we all like flexibility, provided that it does not apply to us. Today we are applying it to the unemployed—but I believe that, in important respects, the Government remain inflexible. Indeed, the regulations suggest that they are becoming less flexible in regard to the needs of the unemployed.
Under existing income support regulations, a couple who have been receiving benefit for more than two years are allowed a £15 disregard; under the regulations, that disregard is cut to £10 for everyone. Those in receipt of the £15 would have thought, "Yes, this is flexibility"—but presumably flexibility in the wrong direction, if the aim is to reintroduce people to the world of work.
Let me give a second example of flexibility working to the claimant's disadvantage. The regulations tighten controls on those who spend their time profitably while
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they are unemployed by undertaking courses: the 21-hour rule becomes a 16-hour rule. That is another Poor Law, allowing people to claim benefit only if they are doing nothing profitable. It represents flexibility from the Government's point of view, and inflexibility from that of the claimant.
My final example of inflexibility is the worst. Our economy increasingly involves households with no workers, and households with many workers. The benefit system is a major reason for that, and it is reinforced in the regulations. The partner of someone who is unemployed and receiving insurance benefit is free to work: indeed, it pays that person to work. Under existing law, as soon as the 52nd week is reached and the recipient is dragged down to means-tested benefit, it pays almost no partners to continue working; in fact, if they do so, they will be substantially worse off. So what happens? People think economically, and give up their jobs.
The Secretary of State has said that one of the most important reasons for the growing inequality in household incomes is the fact that people have unequal access to the labour market. On the one hand, there are many households without work; on the other hand—thank God—there are many households with many people in work. The regulations are driving an even greater wedge between the two groups.
We are discussing 10,000 lines of regulations, but what we are debating is how those regulations will affect people. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton was right: most people, thank goodness, move quickly from one job to another. Others, however—because of their lack of skills, and because of their age—find that immensely difficult. All of us represent many people who have found it impossible for decades to secure work.
We no longer collect the information on how long people have been out of work. In a fantastically powerful passage in "Doctor Zhivago", the storyteller condemns the wicked Bolsheviks not just for killing Lara, but for not even keeping a record of where the evil deed took place. We no longer know how many people have been out of work for five, 10, 15 or 20 years.
Aspects of the regulations, the new Act and the training schemes should be supported, but I beg the House not to kid itself that, by limiting ourselves to the present agenda, we shall either solve the problem of unemployment or—much more important—help those who have stood the longest at the end of a very long queue.
6.18 pm
Mr. Nigel Evans: It is always a privilege to listen to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I know that he is sincere, although obviously I do not agree with all that he says.
I welcome the fall in unemployment about which we have heard today. I consider it good news for those who have been unemployed even for a short time: unemployment is a worry for them if they are not certain of securing employment immediately, although two thirds of those who become unemployed will find jobs within six months. Their circumstances must be stressful for them and their families. Unemployment is an individual tragedy for each unemployed person. I am fortunate because unemployment is low in my constituency, but I am not complacent because, as the hon. Member for

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Birkenhead said, we are talking about people and about individual tragedies, stress and worry, and that applies even if there is only one unemployed person in a constituency.
As well as this month's drop in unemployment, I welcome the drops that we have had in the past 27 months. I hope that we shall be able to welcome unemployment falls in the months to come. We must make sure that we have policies that allow our businesses, especially the smaller ones which created so many jobs in the 1980s, to be able to create jobs in the 1990s. If each of those businesses took on just one extra person, there would be no unemployment problem.
It is of little consolation to the 8 per cent. of people who are unemployed to hear comparisons with France and Spain where far more people are unemployed. That 8 per cent. of people live in the United Kingdom and they are interested in our policies to try to get them jobs and keep them in employment. The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) had an opportunity to welcome the drop in unemployment in his constituency. Even over the past 12 months, it has gone down by 7.1 per cent. and, since 1992, it has gone down by 34.8 per cent. I acknowledge that, during the recession, there was a massive increase in unemployment, but we must welcome the current trend. I hope that other hon. Members who speak in the debate will welcome the drop in unemployment in the past few years.
The regulations are complicated and there are many of them, but we have to guarantee that those who implement them have the best available training so that those at the receiving end of the rules and regulations will get a fair deal.
Ms Eagle: The hon. Gentleman demonstrates a commendable worry about the unemployed. Why is he supporting regulations that increase coercive measures and apply them across the board to everybody rather than targeting them at those who are cheating the system? How can he welcome that while at the same time pretending that he is concerned about the unemployed? The regulations attack the unemployed rather than the causes of unemployment.
Mr. Evans: Of course they do not. The hon. Lady had an opportunity to speak about unemployment in her constituency dropping between December 1994 and December 1995 from 5,298 to 4,827 and about a drop of 17.4 per cent. since 1992, but we hear nothing about that.
The regulations help those who are looking for work. The jobseeker's allowance is changing the culture of unemployment. I was on the Standing Committee that examined the legislation and we spent many happy days going through the Bill that led to the Jobseekers Act 1995. I welcome the Act and the fact that we are able to discuss the rules and regulations. Opposition Members had an opportunity to talk about the back-to-work bonus that is paid to people who use the stepping stone from unemployment to part-time employment. Part of the problem faced by those people is the obvious one of losing benefit and income support. It applies pound for pound at an early stage after 10 and a bonus of up to £1,000 will be paid to people who move from benefit to full-time employment. That money will be extremely
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valuable at the time that they enter full-time work. They get it when they need it most, and that is an imaginative way to help people to escape from the benefit or poverty traps that too many have experienced in the past.
Hon. Members have spoken about people who are workshy. I am the first to admit that there are few such people. The vast majority of people—92 per cent. of the working population—are in work. I recognise that only a small percentage of those who are out of work are not interested in any work whatever. The regulations will help them. We speak about appearance and ask whether the unemployed are putting enough energy into looking for work. That is a proper question because all hon. Members want to ensure that the available money will be targeted at those who need it. Therefore, those who are not serious about seeking work ought to face sanctions, and that is exactly what they will face under the regulations.
Earlier in the debate, we spoke about people who seem to spend 100 per cent. of their time on demonstrations, one of which is being held at the site of the proposed Newbury bypass, where demonstrators are living in trees. The Minister said that such people would face exactly the same rules and regulations and scrutiny as anybody else. I was delighted to hear that, and I hope that those who are enforcing the regulations in Newbury and in other parts of Britain and who witness such demonstrations, where it is obvious that some of the demonstrators have committed 100 per cent. of their time to demonstrations rather than to looking for work, will ensure that they face the full rigour of the regulations. If some of those people spent as much energy looking for work as they spend demonstrating up trees, they would not be in receipt of benefit.
In an intervention during the speech by the hon. Member for Birkenhead, I said that the benefit rules were being simplified by bringing unemployment benefit and income support together and by reducing the time from 12 months to six months. That is the continuation of a policy of a previous Labour Government, and it is right. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) spoke about millionaires and those who are extremely wealthy because of a good pay-off from a previous job. Those people would be able to get some of that money for an extra six months, but the Government have a duty to all taxpayers to ensure that money is targeted at those who definitely need it, and a means test after six months is the appropriate way to do that.
The jobseeker's agreement on page 30 of the regulations places a responsibility on those who are seeking work to demonstrate that that is exactly what they are doing. It is useful for people in the Employment Service to be able to see what their clients are doing so that if there are deficiencies, whether in the CVs or the letters that people are sending out, they can be picked up at an early stage and people can be given assistance to look for work. That is an onus on the Government under the contract. The legislation is not a draconian measure saying, "We do not trust the unemployed." It is a way of bringing the Employment Service and its clients together to see how one can help the other.
We have a responsibility to taxpayers because it is their money that is being utilised to pay unemployment benefit. There is a responsibility on those who seek work and a responsibility on the Government. We have heard a good deal about training, but it is pointless to say that we will

787
cajole people into training that they would prefer not to do while at the same time not providing the schemes that will he absolutely necessary to give such people the opportunities that they seek. A marvellous book called "The UK at Work", which was published by the former Department of Employment, details some of the schemes that are available. Programmes in 1995–96 offered opportunities to almost 1.5 million people. We must ensure that such programmes are available.
If one had to be critical about those programmes, one could say that there are too many of them, and that, perhaps, many people find them too complicated to know what is available; but I welcome the fact that they are available for those who are seeking work.
Mr. Harold Elletson: I apologise for not being here for the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech, but I have greatly enjoyed the remarks that I have heard. Is he aware of the appalling problems faced by tourist resorts, especially in constituencies such as mine? He may have noticed the rapid and incredibly large increases in housing benefit and unemployment benefit in the past five years. Does he share my concern about the way in which tourist resorts continue to be affected by such benefit problems and to be a magnet for people who come to them, often from all over the United Kingdom? They do not genuinely look for work, but are an appalling strain on the tourist industry. Does he not think it time that we dealt with that problem?
Mr. Evans: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Obviously, it was his loss that he did not hear the first part of my speech, but he will, no doubt, have the opportunity to read it tomorrow. I know that he is a doughty fighter, not only for people who live in his constituency, but for people who visit it. It is vital that tourist resorts are able to present a picture that will attract tourists and not people who are obviously trying either to avoid work or just to claim benefits. I know that he has been working hard on that matter with a number of other hon. Members who represent seaside resorts.
We have heard so much whining—we are still hearing it and, no doubt, we will continue to hear it before the end of the debate—from the Opposition. The regulations aim to increase opportunities for jobseekers. We hear that the Labour party really cares for unemployed people, but we know that its measures would wreck jobs. We hear about the introduction of the minimum wage and of the social chapter. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) disputed that view and said blindly that the minimum wage would create more jobs, but even the deputy leader of his party has said that there would be a massive shake-out if a minimum wage were introduced.
It has been estimated that, if the minimum wage were introduced at £4.50, because of differentials, 1.7 million people would become unemployed. We need an enterprise economy that is backed up by a jobseeker's allowance which will help people into work, not policies that will throw people on to the dole. That is what they would face if the Opposition ever came to power.
6.31 pm
Mr. Keith Bradley: We are debating five sets of regulations, principally the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 1996. The point has
788
been well made that the way in which we deal with regulations is unsatisfactory. That is especially true of those regulations, which are 160 pages long and more extensive than the original Bill, were laid before the House only at the end of December, are to be debated tonight in less than four hours and, crucially, are unamendable—at least by Labour Members. Suffice it to say at this late stage that I hope that we will introduce more sensible ways of dealing with regulations in the House to enable better parliamentary scrutiny on behalf of our constituents, to whom these matters are critical.
The main regulations refer to the jobseeker's allowance, but I shall briefly deal with the other regulations, which have not had proper debate in the time available. The Housing Benefit, Supply of Information and Council Tax Benefit (Amendment) Regulations amend the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987 and the Council Tax Benefit (General) Regulations 1992. The new regulations extend housing benefit and council tax payments for four weeks to people who have been out of work and subsequently start work. That is clearly welcome.
Regulation 6 inserts new schedule 5A into the housing benefit regulations, and regulation 14 inserts a new schedule into the council tax benefit regulations to allow for extended payments. Eligibility is limited, however, to certain categories, which exclude one important group of people: the chronically sick or disabled who move into work. Regulations 6 and 14 make no provision for extended payments for people who move off incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance or income support where a disability premium is payable on the ground of incapacity for work. Will the Minister explain the reasoning behind that exclusion and give a commitment to review the scheme's progress with a view to extending it to other groups? There are other points on those regulations to do with the linking rules and the way in which claims are processed, but I shall write to the Minister on those for detailed comment.
The Employer's Contributions Re-imbursement Regulations 1996 are welcome. However, regulation 2 provides for circumstances where someone is to be treated as entitled to jobseeker's allowance for two years immediately before employment. That can include periods when the claimant was in receipt of a training allowance, a carer or a lone parent. Again, there is no mention of disability. Will the Minister agree to review the position at the earliest opportunity with a view to extending the national insurance contribution holiday to employers recruiting disabled people who return to work?
The Social Security (Back to Work Bonus) Regulations were not even laid until last Thursday, so limiting even further the amount of time that hon. Members have had to scrutinise them. Clearly, the back-to-work bonus is the element of the jobseeker's allowance that the Government have promoted most. Although that bonus may receive a cautious welcome, it is no more than meagre window dressing of the whole range of measures. I shall do no more than quote Samuel Brittan, who said in the Financial Times on 20 October 1994:
"The scheme is typical of the minimalist reform that civil servants with the Treasury breathing down their necks, produce for Conservative ministers".
Declaring earnings and calculating and allocating the bonus will require complicated and costly administrative and technical procedures and could result in disputes

789
between claimants and the Employment Service. Will the Minister confirm that all the necessary administrative arrangements, the computer system required and the training of staff to deal with the back-to-work bonus are in place and will be ready for implementation in October?
The main regulations relate to the jobseeker's allowance. As we have heard in elegant speeches from Labour Members, the crucial aspect of the new regulations is the benefit cut from 12 to six months, so moving people at an earlier stage to means-tested benefits. That is being introduced at a time when national insurance contributions have risen by more than 50 per cent.—from 6.5 per cent. in 1979 to 10 per cent now. With those regulations, people will pay more in work and receive less if they have the misfortune to become unemployed.
As we have heard, key groups of people will be especially disadvantaged by the regulations. We can highlight further the problems of people who have savings or who receive large redundancy payments. Those will be taken into account six months earlier. Those people may lose all entitlement to benefit because of those savings or redundancy payments.
Similarly, under new regulation 79 of the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations, 18 to 24-year-olds will receive reduced benefit, although they may have paid the same amount of national insurance contributions as a person over 24 years of age. Will the Minister yet again explain why he believes that 24-year-olds have fewer costs and should therefore be entitled to less benefit than a 25-year-old?
Regulation 13 of the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations affects disabled people. Sick and disabled people face particular problems from the combined effect of the jobseeker's allowance and incapacity benefit, which came into effect last April. The Government have said that, eventually, 250,000 people who would have qualified for invalidity benefit will not qualify for incapacity benefit and will have to claim jobseeker's allowance. Many sick and disabled people are especially concerned that they may fall through what may be described as the "incapacity trap". Some people will not be able to pass incapacity benefit's tighter incapacity test, but will still have severe problems that limit their opportunities to work.
To enable people entitled to incapacity benefit, who want to look for jobs, to claim JSA, the Government have allowed them to limit their job search in line with conditions under regulation 13(4). However, it is not clear how that will work in practice and how extensive the limitation will be. For example, will a person with sickle cell disease who wishes to claim disability benefit be able to avoid being forced into a job where there are cold or damp conditions? I am aware of a case in which an adjudication officer ruled that someone suffering from irritable bowel disease was available for work which started early in the morning—yet because of the disability that person could not be available. Will the Minister give us further details of how the regulation will work in practice?
There is not time to touch on the important issue of how hardship payments will be made and how vulnerable groups will be provided for. Suffice it to say that the amount of discretion allowed to adjudication officers will need to be monitored carefully.
790
There is also not time to do justice to regulation 46 on waiting days. Most of the alignment of JSA between unemployment benefit and income support regulations brought it into line with the latter, because the Government claim that that is a modern benefit and therefore more appropriate. However, for waiting days the alignment has been with unemployment benefit, so claimants will have to wait an extra three days before being entitled to benefit. Yet again, we are debating measures that are basically about finding the lowest common denominator to limit benefits in any way possible. Will the Minister comment on that?
I want to highlight the problems that have already been experienced because of the way that the administration of JSA has been piloted in different parts of the country. When the legislation was in Committee, we raised the potential problem of aligning the service under a one-stop agency. The practice of one benefit officer not only making a decision about someone's availability and eligibility for benefit, but informing that person that he will not receive any money, could lead to confrontation. There have already been disputes in various parts of the country, especially the north-east. Will the Minister assure us that all the fears that we expressed about the same officer dealing with the two aspects that I have mentioned have not proved to be valid? Will he confirm that all the relevant training of staff has been completed and that all the necessary administration is in place to ensure the smooth implementation of the new benefit?
It is clear from our debate tonight, our various discussions and the questions still being asked of Ministers that there is a real danger that the introduction of JSA will result in the same disarray as other measures such as the Child Support Agency. We know that JSA is not about helping people under a strategic welfare-to-work plan, but is a mean-minded attempt to cut benefit for unemployed people as part of the Government's aim further to reduce the social security budget and public expenditure to find money to fund tax cuts to bribe voters at the next general election. We know that that will not work.
We are disappointed that we have not had sufficient time to scrutinise the regulations. However, we are absolutely sure that when they are implemented it will be Conservative Members who will be looking at the fine print, because after the general election they will be, searching for jobs.
6.44 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Roger Evans): We have been debating the original Bill—now an Act—and the regulations over a considerable period and I therefore feel it fair to say that I am not surprised by the peroration of the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), even if I disagree with it. Where was the flash of lightning? Where was the comment that no one expected? Where was the interesting idea?
The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) criticised the actions of previous Labour Governments in the same way that he criticised our actions—on a point of principle. He is not in his place, but I want to explain why I believe that his argument is fundamentally misconceived. He said that the arrangement in the regulations to alter the national insurance fund should be likened to a breach of contract.

791
In other words, he believes that an understanding reached at a particular point in time is binding on everybody for life. That is an interesting model, which is used in personal pension plans and retirement annuity contracts. It is the classic model of the private provision of a personal pension—someone pays in contributions for a certain period and at the end takes out of the fund what has been paid in, with the ability to sue if that amount is not actually paid.
The difficulty with the private model, ideal though it may be, is that it is not entirely followed in the private sector. With occupational pension schemes, discretion must be given to trustees over how much they will pay, especially when the payment is linked to final salary rather than what one puts in being what one gets out.
The free-market right argues for the privatisation of all national insurance schemes. However, the national insurance fund—rightly or wrongly, and it is a creature of some antiquity—has always been a public scheme regulated by successive Acts of Parliament and statutory instruments that Parliament approves. However, the House is an elected body and from time to time priorities alter. There has never been a pledge cast in concrete, unalterable from 1948 to the present day. Successive Governments have argued from time to time—not without some controversy as it is a serious matter—that the national insurance scheme should be slightly altered or reformed. That is what the regulations do.
I understand that Labour Members do not approve of many, if any, of the alterations. However, I believe the principle to be well established. We are entitled by Act and statutory instrument to alter the arrangements for the national insurance fund. I reject the moral charge that what we are doing is dishonourable. It may be a matter of controversy, but it is a perfectly acceptable action for a Government, of any persuasion, to take from time to time.
The two examples of unfair flexibilities in the regulations given by the hon. Member for Birkenhead—which he used to support his argument against flexibility—included the abolition of the long-term disregard for couples. In fact, the purpose of the back-to-work bonus is a much better way of helping that category and, indeed, a wider one. It is thought that currently only some 15,000 people benefit from the disregard.
I am glad to note that the hon. Gentleman has now returned to the Chamber. The second example he gave, which is a matter not of substance but simply of changing definitions in the context of a fluctuating education system, is the change from 21 hours to 16 guided learning hours. The Department believes that the effect of that on eligible people will be neutral. It is simply that the education system has altered its terminology. Instead of people being made to turn up and sit behind desks so that the number of hours can be measured, they now follow modules and have guided learning hours.
I contrast what I regarded as a serious attack—intellectually and morally—on what we are proposing with the views of the official Opposition, especially the Front-Bench team. The House was left baffled and bewildered about what the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) proposes to do in place of the Jobseekers Act and the regulations. He has fought them tooth and nail at every stage. He tabled a large number of amendments, many of which would have had the effect—
792
or would have had if they had been agreed—only of increasing public expenditure and not carrying out the labour market improvements that we have effected.
Judging from his opening remarks, I thought that the hon. Member for Makerfield was going to oppose all the regulations, but his hon. Friend—
Mr. Ian McCartney rose—
Mr. Evans: I shall come to the specifics in a moment if the hon. Gentleman is patient. I thought that he was going to say that he opposed all the regulations, but the goodies—I gathered from the hon. Member for Withington—in the form of regulations dealing with the back-to-work bonus appeared to be welcome.
I come to the specific queries raised by the hon. Member for Makerfield. I am very conscious of the fact that I have been asked a large number of questions. I shall try to answer as many as I can, and I shall obviously write to hon. Members if I do not complete answering the very long list and I miss out sickle cell disease. That is a serious question, but very specific.
I begin with the general point made by the hon. Member for Makerfield. He was complaining about the lack of opportunity to discuss and amend the regulations and the skeleton nature of the Act. I regret the complexity, length and detail of the regulations. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), but it is difficult to draft such regulations. They are long and complicated. My hon. Friend said that we had done a pretty good job. I merely suggest to him—and I can understand the arguments of the hon. Member for Makerfield on this point—that were we to have a bundle of private insurance policies to cover the range of misfortunes and disasters encompassed in the Act to fit the whole population of the United Kingdom, I doubt whether even the private sector, using the plainest of English, would manage to do it very quickly.
Mr. Frank Field: If we had private insurance policies, they could be enforced in the courts if the contractor broke his word—unlike the Government's national insurance scheme.
Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman did not hear my argument, although I appreciate the force of his point. Under a contract for a personal pension scheme, one pays in so much, one is entitled to the fund invested and one can withdraw it. That can be enforced as a ordinary contract. It is like buying an annuity; it is fixed and simple. The difficulty with that model is that under the occupational pension scheme, for example, which guarantees X per cent. of final salary, there cannot be a simple contract. Therefore, one has a system involving trustees, a comparable system of regulation and a comparable series of discretions. It is more complicated because of the flexibility necessary. In the case of the public system, Parliament has always been involved, and rightly so.
I return to the specific questions asked by the hon. Member for Makerfield. I accept his point on uprating, but he should bear in mind the relative absurdity at the moment, whereby two thirds of the people who are unemployed draw income support, not unemployment benefit. Whether they are better off on unemployment benefit or income support depends on whether unemployment benefit, being uprated by the retail prices

793
index, nudges ahead of income support, which is uprated by the Rossi index. That is simply the choice; there are two separate indices. The hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that one is a discretion and one is a mandate from Parliament, but there is a record of that.
Mr. Ian McCartney: Is that a commitment on the record that there will be an annual uprating of allowances?
Mr. Evans: It is a historical reflection on an accurate description of the state of law.
I am advised that regulation 9 has nothing to do with international law. On regulation 12, the new regulations, for very much the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman, are very detailed. That is their purpose. I give the assurance that training is being given and will be given to staff to implement those new regulations.
Mr. McCartney rose—
Mr. Evans: I should be delighted to give way, but I am concerned that I have only six minutes in which to deal with rather a lot of queries.
On regulation 18, the earring point as somebody helpfully called it, I ask the hon. Member for Makerfield to bear in mind the words of his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), who said:
"If it is simply a matter of dress, deportment and drawing up a good curriculum vitae, or trying to motivate people, no one could object."—[Official Report, 24 October 1994; Vol. 248, c. 635.]
That is the responsible response to regulation 18, which will be applied reasonably by the Employment Service. There is also of course a right of appeal.
I was asked in respect of regulation 73 why the rule was drawn differently for England and Wales on one hand and Scotland and Northern Ireland on the other. That is simply because Scotland's education system has a different legislative structure and the terminology is different. Northern Ireland is not dealt with at all in the regulations. That is a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who will deal with it in due course.
I was asked about regulation 17, which refers to the 13-week rule and temporary work. The point that the hon. Member for Makerfield did not seem to appreciate is that it is all very well talking about a permanent job when one is not working or not working regularly, but there comes a point at which the jobseeker's allowance must be about getting people back into full-time employment, not simply perpetuating short-time working.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about young people coming out of care. They will be a prescribed group and will be able to obtain the jobseeker's allowance without having to satisfy the severe hardship test. Young people generally will be able to restrict their availability to jobs offering suitable training.
The hon. Gentleman finally asked me whether students could be forced on to full-time training. I was a little concerned about the precise definition of the question, but as I understand it, the answer is that students who are part-time educated—up to 16 guided learning hours under the regulations or 21 hours under the existing regime—have of course to make themselves available for work. At the moment, the position is analogous to that referred to
794
by the hon. Gentleman. A part-time student may have to drop an examination or the completion of a course because a job is offered of a certain sort, which satisfies all the characteristics.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) asked whether benefit will cease if a claimant refuses any training scheme. I can assure her that sanctions will apply only to particular prescribed employment programmes and training schemes. The details of the framework for that are set out in regulation 75. For many years there have been mandatory programmes, which have a proven record.
The hon. Member for Rochdale further asked about the administrative training and other preparations necessary for the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance—a point taken up by the hon. Member for Withington. I can assure her that training has begun. It began in the summer of 1995. All staff will be trained to carry out the jobseeker's allowance functions for which they will be responsible in October 1996. We are confident that the computer systems will be ready as planned for model office testing in the summer and for implementation in due course in October.
The hon. Member for Withington asked whether the national insurance contribution holiday for long-term unemployed people of two years or more and the housing benefit and council tax run-on should be extended to disabled people. The measures are designed specifically to help the long-term unemployed get back into work. The issue of disability is separate and there is separate provision for it.
I repeat more specifically, in respect of the back-to-work bonus, that all necessary administration, computers and staff will be in place. I shall deal with all the other points in correspondence.
I commend the five statutory instruments to the House, as part of a firm-minded Government programme to promote employment.
Question put: —
The House divided: Ayes 282, Noes 260.

Division No. 26]

[7.00 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Boswell, Tim

Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Alexander, Richard

Bowden, Sir Andrew

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Bowis, John

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Arbuthnot, James

Brandreth, Gyles

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Brazier, Julian

Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

Bright, Sir Graham

Ashby, David

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Browning, Mrs Angela

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Burns, Simon

Baldry, Tony

Burt, Alistair

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Butterfill, John

Bates, Michael

Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

Batiste, Spencer

Carrington, Matthew

Beggs, Roy

Carttiss, Michael

Bellingham, Henry

Cash, William

Bendall, Vivian

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Beresford, Sir Paul

Chapman, Sir Sydney

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Churchill, Mr

Body, Sir Richard

Clappison, James

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

795

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

Hicks, Robert

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

Coe, Sebastian

Hill, James (Southampton Test)

Congdon, David

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Horam, John

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Couchman, James

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Cran, James

Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

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

Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Jack, Michael

Day, Stephen

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Jenkin, Bernard

Devlin, Tim

Jessel, Toby

Dicks, Terry

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

Dover, Den

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Duncan, Alan

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Duncan-Smith, Iain

Key, Robert

Dunn, Bob

King, Rt Hon Tom

Durant, Sir Anthony

Kirkhope, Timothy

Dykes, Hugh

Knapman, Roger

Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Elletson, Harold

Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

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

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Knox, Sir David

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Evennett, David

Legg, Barry

Faber, David

Leigh, Edward

Fabricant, Michael

Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Lidington, David

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Fishbum, Dudley

Lloyd, Fit Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Forman, Nigel

Lord, Michael

Forth, Eric

Luff, Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

MacKay, Andrew

Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

McLoughlin, Patrick

French, Douglas

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Gale, Roger

Madel, Sir David

Gallie, Phil

Maitland, Lady Olga

Gardiner, Sir George

Malone, Gerald

Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

Mans, Keith

Garnier, Edward

Marland, Paul

Gill, Christopher

Marlow, Tony

Gillen, Cheryl

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Mates, Michael

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

Gorst, Sir John

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

Merchant, Piers

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Moate, Sir Roger

Grylls, Sir Michael

Molyneaux, Rt Hon Sir James

Hague, Rt Hon William

Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

Neubert, Sir Michael

Hannam, Sir John

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Hargreaves, Andrew

Nicholls, Patrick

Harris, David

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Haselhurst, Sir Alan

Norris, Steve

Hawkins, Nick

Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

Hawksley, Warren

Ottaway, Richard

Hayes, Jerry

Page, Richard

Heald, Oliver

Paice, James

Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Patrick, Sir Irvine

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Patten, Rt Hon John

Hendry, Charles

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Pawsey, James

796

Pickles, Eric

Sweeney, Walter

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Sykes, John

Porter, David (Waveney)

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Powell, William (Corby)

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Rathbone, Tim

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Temple-Morris, Peter

Richards, Rod

Thomason, Roy

Riddick, Graham

Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Thornton, Sir Malcolm

Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

Thumham, Peter

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Tracey, Richard

Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

Tredinnick, David

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Trend, Michael

Sackville, Tom

Trimble, David

Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Twinn, Dr Ian

Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Viggers, Peter

Shaw, David (Dover)

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Walden, George

Shepherd, Rt Hon Gillian

Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

Waller, Gary

Shersby, Sir Michael

Ward, John

Sims, Roger

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Waterson, Nigel

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Watts, John

Smyth, The Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Wells, Bowen

Soames, Nicholas

Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

Spencer, Sir Derek

Whitney, Ray

Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

Whittingdale, John

Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

Widdecombe, Am

Spink, Dr Robert

Wiggin, Sir Jerry

Spring, Richard

Wilkinson, John

Sproat, Iain

WiIletts, David

Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

Wilshire, David

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Steen, Anthony

Wolfson, Mark

Stephen, Michael

Yeo, Tim

Stem, Michael

Stewart, Allan

Tellers for the Ayes:

Streeter, Gary

Mr. Timothy Wood and

Sumberg, David

Mr. Derek Conway.

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Byers, Stephen

Adams, Mrs Irene

Callaghan, Jim

Ainger, Nick

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Allen, Graham

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Alton, David

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Campbell-Savours, D N

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Canavan, Dennis

Armstrong, Hilary

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Chisholm, Malcolm

Ashton, Joe

Church, Judith

Austin-Walker, John

Clapham, Michael

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Barron, Kevin

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Battle, John

Clelland, David

Bayley, Hugh

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

Coffey, Ann

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Cohen, Harry

Bell, Stuart

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Bennett, Andrew F

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Benton, Joe

Corbett, Robin

Bermingham, Gerald

Corbyn, Jeremy

Berry, Roger

Corston, Jean

Betts, Clive

Cummings, John

Blair, Rt Hon Tony

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Blunkett, David

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Boateng, Paul

Cunningham, Roseanne

Bradley, Keith

Dafis, Cynog

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Darling, Alistair

Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Davidson, Ian

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

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

797

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Johnston, Sir Russell

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

Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

Denham, John

Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

Dewar, Donald

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Dixon, Don

Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

Donohoe, Brian H

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

Dowd, Jim

Jowell, Tessa

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Eagle, Ms Angela

Keen, Alan

Eastham, Ken

Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

Etherington, Bill

Khabra, Piara S

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Kilfoyle, Peter

Ewing, Mrs Margaret

Kirkwood, Archy

Faulds, Andrew

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Liddell, Mrs Helen

Flynn, Paul

Litherland, Robert

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Livingstone, Ken

Foster, Don (Bath)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Fyfe, Maria

Llwyd, Elfyn

Galbraith, Sam

Lynne, Ms Liz

Galloway, George

McAllion, John

Gapes, Mike

McCartney, Ian

Garrett, John

McFall, John

George, Bruce

McKelvey, William

Gerrard, Neil

Mackinlay, Andrew

Gilbert Rt Hon Dr John

McLeish, Henry

Godman, Dr Norman A

Maclennan, Robert

Godsiff, Roger

McMaster, Gordon

Golding, Mrs Llin

McNamara, Kevin

Graham, Thomas

MacShane, Denis

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

McWilliam, John

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Madden, Max

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Maddock, Diana

Grocott, Bruce

Mahon, Alice

Hain, Peter

Marek, Dr John

Hall, Mike

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Hanson, David

Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

Hardy, Peter

Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

Harman, Ms Harriet

Martlew, Eric

Harvey, Nick

Maxton, John

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Meacher, Michael

Henderson, Doug

Meale, Alan

Heppell, John

Michael, Alun

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Hinchliffe, David

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Hodge, Margaret

Milburn, Alan

Hoey, Kate

Miller, Andrew

Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Home Robertson, John

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Hood, Jimmy

Morgan, Rhodri

Hoon, Geoffrey

Morley, Elliot

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

Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd)

Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

Hoyle, Doug

Mowlam, Marjorie

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Mudie, George

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Mullin, Chris

Hutton, John

Murphy, Paul

Illsley, Eric

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Ingram, Adam

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

O'Brien, William (Normanton)

Jamieson, David

O'Hara, Edward

798

Olner, Bill

Speller, John

O'Neill, Martin

Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Pearson, Ian

Steinberg, Gerry

Pickthall, Colin

Stevenson, George

Pike, Peter L

Stott, Roger

Pope, Greg

Strang, Dr. Gavin

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Straw, Jack

Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Primarolo, Dawn

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Purchase, Ken

Timms, Stephen

Quin, Ms Joyce

Tipping, Paddy

Radice, Giles

Touhig, Don

Randall, Stuart

Turner, Dennis

Raynsford, Nick

Tyler, Paul

Reid, Dr John

Vaz, Keith

Rendel, David

Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

Robertson, George (Hamilton)

Wallace, James

Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

Walley, Joan

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Rogers, Allan

Wareing, Robert N

Rooker, Jeff

Watson, Mike

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Welsh, Andrew

Rowlands, Ted

Wicks, Malcolm

Ruddock, Joan

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

Salmond, Alex

Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

Sedgemore, Brian

Winnick, David

Sheerman, Barry

Wise, Audrey

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Worthington, Tony

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Wray, Jimmy

Short, Clare

Wright Dr Tony

Simpson, Alan

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Skinner, Dennis

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Tellers for the Noes:

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Mr. Eric Clarke and

Spearing, Nigel

Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER then put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour.
Resolved,
That the draft Income Support (General) (Jobseeker's Allowance Consequential Amendments) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
That the draft Social Security (Back to Work Bonus) Regulations 1996, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th January, be approved.
That the draft Housing Benefit, Supply of Information and Council Tax Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 19th December, be approved.
That the draft Employer's Contributions Re-imbursement Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 12th December, be approved.—[Mr. Forth.]

Orders of the Day
  Education (Student Loans) Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Education (Student Loans) Bill
    New clause 3

      COMMITMENT TO PAY SUBSIDY FOR PRIVATE SECTOR STUDENT LOANS NOT TO BE MADE BEFORE 31ST MAY 1997
      'No commitment which would require the payment of subsidy under subsection 1(1A) of the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990 shall be entered into before 31st May 1997.'.—[Mr. Byers.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      7.14 pm
      Mr. Stephen Byers: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The need for the new clause arises because of the difficulties that the Government experienced in Committee, and it comes on top of a difficult couple of months for the Government on education matters. They have had to backtrack from their fast-track process of grant-maintained status for voluntary-aided schools. They have had difficulties with their nursery voucher scheme and with the four pilot authorities which have struggled to find sufficient places. On top of all that, the Minister had to announce on the second day of the Committee that the Government were unable to proceed according to their original timetable—which would have seen the Bill's proposals implemented by autumn this year—and would have to delay the implementation of the student loans measure by 12 months, so that the Bill's proposals will not start to be effective until autumn 1997.
      Most hon. Members are aware that the proposals to privatise the student loans system appeared in the Queen's Speech very late in the day, and the measure was deemed necessary to appease those right-wing members of the parliamentary Conservative party who were desperate to have a privatisation measure somewhere in the Queen's Speech.
      The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Mr. Eric Forth): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way at such an early stage. I am sure that he does not mean quite what he says. This cannot be a privatisation of student loans, since—as the hon. Gentleman well knows—the Student Loans Company will continue to exist as an alternative source of lending for students. The hon. Gentleman might wish to clarify his unusually loose use of the term "privatise" in this case.
      Mr. Byers: I do not want to embark on an exercise in semantics, although the Minister clearly would prefer that to a debate on the matters of substance that are before the House this evening. But even this Minister should accept that the Bill will mean that the private sector will have an opportunity to take part in the student loans system. It is a privatisation by any other name.
      The point that the Minister is trying to avoid is that he proclaimed the importance of the measure on Second Reading and on the first day in Committee, and added that it was vital that steps were taken—almost in haste—to ensure that the benefits, as the Minister saw them, of the
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      measure would be available to students by autumn this year. Just 48 hours later, however, the Minister had to announce that the Government were unable to proceed along the lines they had originally intended. Instead, he had to announce to the Committee in a very embarrassed way on 14 December—
      Dr. Norman A. Godman: My hon. Friend will not embarrass the Minister.
      Mr. Byers: As my hon. Friend says, it is unusual for the Minister to be embarrassed, but, on this occasion, he was. On 14 December, he said:
      "following our discussions with the banks, we have decided to defer the implementation of the loans scheme from October 1996 to October 1997."
      That is significant because it means that the scheme will not be implemented until a few months after the general election. New clause 3 deals with that issue as it is intended to ensure that under the Bill, and then the Act, no contractually binding arrangement will be entered into by the Government to provide subsidies for private sector student loans before 31 May 1997.
      New clause 3 is intended to ensure that a new Government—who will be elected by 31 May 1997, and, we expect, of a different political complexion—
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: There is absolutely no way that will happen.
      Mr. Byers: We expect that we will have a Government of a different complexion, and therefore we feel that it is essential that that Government should have the freedom and flexibility to decide how to proceed and should not be tied into a contractually binding arrangement.
      The thrust of the Minister's decision to defer implementation, as well as the nature of the public subsidies that will be made available to the private sector, is all to do with making the scheme attractive to the banks and other financial institutions, which he has accepted that it must be. When he announced the delay, he said:
      "Following fruitful discussions with the banks to date, they have pointed out to us that, among other things, considerable changes to their information technology systems would be required to pick up the offer that we are making to them and that, obviously, the considerable merger activity taking place in some sectors of the financial institutions—mainly in building societies—would make it difficult for them to meet the tight deadline that we envisaged earlier."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 14 December 1995; c. 40.]
      The Minister had to admit that. Two days before, however, he had argued and voted against a Labour proposal to delay the implementation for precisely that length of time.
      The Opposition's concern is that because the Government are now desperate to ensure the implementation and delivery of the scheme by autumn 1997—which will require the active participation and involvement of the private sector—they will be prepared to offer a subsidy from the public purse, paid by the taxpayer to the private sector. In normal circumstances, that would be unacceptable. The Government, in desperation, have been forced into a corner with a deadline of their own making, and might well enter into a contractually binding agreement that might be in the

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      political interests of the Government but will not be in the long-term interests of the taxpayers and the students. That is why new clause 3 is particularly important.
      One point that the Minister has failed to mention, arising from the delay that he announced on 14 December, is how the Government intend to make up the financial gap created as a result of the loss of the £100 million savings—which they announced in the Budget—that was expected to be accrued as a result of the student loans system privatisation coming into effect from autumn this year. Many of us are concerned that that £100 million will be found somewhere else in the education service.
      The Minister has failed to give us any assurance on where that money will come from. It would greatly assist the House this evening if he would tell us where that money will be found. Is his silence a consequence of the fact that he knows that it will be taken away from other services within the Department for Education and Employment? He should identify this evening where it will come from.
      Mr. Edward Leigh: If the new clause were passed and a Labour Government were elected, how would the incoming Labour Government finance student loans?
      Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman was an active participant in the proceedings in Committee. We made it clear on numerous occasions which criteria and principles we would apply to the system of student financial support. We clearly said that we would strike a balance between the interests of students and the legitimate interests of the taxpayer and the Exchequer which took into consideration the need wherever possible not to push students into debt and poverty while they were studying.
      Our system of student financial support will bear those two interests in mind. We will make positive proposals that may not be supported by Conservative Members but will have broad and popular support throughout the country, which the present student loans system clearly does not.
      Mr. James Pawsey: Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), can the hon. Gentleman tell us when he expects he will make known his proposals on this matter, and what the costs will be?
      Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman should not be so impatient. We will come forward in good time with our own—
      Mr. Leigh: Come on.
      Mr. Byers: "In good time" is the only answer that the hon. Gentleman will get from me this evening. We will come forward with positive and popular proposals, which will be of benefit to students and also recognise the demands that are made on the Exchequer. That is the balance that we will strike between the two, and we believe that we can provide financial support to students that reconciles those two conflicting interests.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, just before our meeting at Lancaster
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      university, the Labour party research department issued a document which said that the Labour party would abolish all grants? I know that the Labour party wriggled and wriggled—[Interruption.] Do not natter when I am talking. I know that the Labour party wriggled and wriggled and wriggled on this matter, but that is what was published at the time. Can the hon. Gentleman give an absolute and categoric assurance that that policy will not be implemented? If he cannot, my students will be interested to know it.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. The hon. Gentleman would not be wise to respond to that point. The debate is going much wider than new clause 3.
      Mr. Byers: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I shall address new clause 3 in accordance with your guidance. The hon. Lady's point is an important one which could usefully be debated at some future time, and there will no doubt be opportunities to do so. If the Government's business managers wish to arrange a suitable opportunity, they can do so.
      New clause 3 would prevent the Government from entering into a contractually binding agreement with private providers which would entail payments of public subsidies before the next general election. Our concern is that, because they have got themselves into political difficulties, the Government will put their own interests first. The delay of implementation until the beginning of the academic year 1997–98 will certainly come some months after the last possible date of the next general election.
      The importance of the new clause is that it would prevent a future Administration from being bound by any contractual arrangements entered into by the present Administration. That would be appropriate, and it might be important, because as the Minister himself said, on Second Reading:
      "Private financial institutions would be invited to bid for the right to offer subsidised loans. That would probably be for a period of five years."—[Official Report, 27 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 951.]
      So any contractual agreement entered into by the Government would be likely to last throughout the period of the next Government. It would be inappropriate to tie the hands of a future Government in that way.
      In Committee, the Government refused to accept any amendments to allow parliamentary scrutiny of the contractual arrangements between the Government and the banks, building societies and other financial institutions. Therefore, we have only a skeleton of a Bill. The interesting detail has not been revealed to hon. Members. Part of that detail will be the contractual agreements between the Government and private sector institutions. We believe that it is appropriate for that information to be made available to hon. Members before the Bill goes through all its stages.
      The Minister has been steadfast in his refusal to disclose any details of discussions with institutions that might be interested in providing loans to students. Indeed, the Minister has not even been prepared to identify the institutions involved. No financial institution, bank or building society has been named by the Minister as being interested in taking part in the scheme. That raises the question of whether the financial institutions have any interest in taking part in the scheme.

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      7.30 pm
      The Bill has been badly thought out, and the Government have tried to follow a highly restrictive and constrictive timetable. Sir Christopher Johnson, the former chief economic adviser to Lloyds bank, made an appropriate comment:
      "There is every sign that a half-baked idea has been launched prematurely to get it into the Queen's Speech in time. Haste born of financial desperation is not a good recipe for fundamental reform."
      We agree with that.
      The Bill has been born out of haste and political expediency and that is why we are concerned about the nature of the contractual agreements that the Government will make. We have had no information from the Minister about the financial institutions that might be involved in the scheme, so we fear that the Government, for their own reasons, will make an agreement or contract that will not be in the long-term interests of the taxpayer or of students.
      I shall give the House three examples of the possible results—if the subsidy were made available to private sector institutions—and the sort of agreements that could be made in a desperate attempt to ensure that the private sector was enticed into the new scheme. First, the details of the loan scheme are not he published and debated in principle in the House. They are dealt with annually by an order, brought forward by the Government. That order states clearly the amount of the loans being made available, the period for which the loans will be available and the rates of interest that can be charged for the loans. Under the existing regime, the loans are, in effect, made available free of interest. The level of public subsidy is then set at a rate high enough to cover the commercial return for the financial institutions. If the scheme is privatised, the taxpayers' subsidy would provide the profit for the bank involved.
      We know from the Committee stage that a second regime was suggested to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer by the student loans working group. The Minister was kind enough to acknowledge—48 hours later—that such a group existed and that it made recommendations to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State. He also acknowledged that the working group suggested two approaches. The first was the one which is now followed—the loans are interest free. The second possible approach identified by the working group was radically different, but the working group claimed it would be far more attractive to the financial institutions. It would require the students to pay a commercial rate on their loans, but they would have an interest-free period while they were studying. They would have to repay that interest when they entered the world of work.
      The working group claimed that only a commercial rate would convince the private sector that it should become involved in the scheme, because it would then receive a flow of income that fully covered the cost of borrowing, administrative costs and an element of profit. That regime is a radical departure from the system that we now have.
      The Opposition are worried that, because that second scheme would be commercially attractive to the private sector, it will become the preferred option and the Government in desperation will adopt it. If we pass the Bill without the new clause, we will give them the power and authority to do that. That would be inappropriate, and it would ensure that more students would regard higher
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      education as no option for them if students were to be charged a commercial rate for their loan. We would welcome a guarantee from the Minister that that will not be an option that the Conservative Government, for as long as they are in office, will support. We hope that he can give that guarantee this evening.
      The second result could be that the Government will try to come to a cosy arrangement with the financial institutions that are interested in taking up other governmental financial services work. One financial service that the Government have offered for many years is the Teachers Pensions Agency. It is a high-quality service, which is highly profitable and very desirable to the private sector. We know that six financial institutions are being considered by the Government with a view to one of them being given the contract to run the privatised—as it will be—Teachers Pensions Agency.
      It is interesting that the Minister refused in Committee to deny that those six organisations—during their meetings with the Government to consider the privatisation of the agency, work that they would like to do—might be encouraged to take on responsibility for the student loans privatisation as part of the arrangements into which they enter. In that context, there would of course be discussion of the amount of public subsidy to be provided, and that subsidy might be hidden because it would come from the profits that those companies would receive from the privatisation of the Teachers' Pensions Agency. That sort of cosy arrangement would not be in the long-term interests either of the operation of the agency or of the British taxpayer.
      The third and possibly most important reason why we are concerned and why we believe that new clause 3 is essential lies in the amount of subsidy to be provided by the taxpayer for the private sector. As the Bill stands, there will be no limits on the subsidy; we must rely on the negotiating skills of the Minister to secure a good deal for the British taxpayer. We do not believe that any Minister, let alone this one, should be given a blank cheque.
      In Committee, we tabled a modest and reasonable proposal that the subsidy should be capped at no more than a quarter of the total value of the loan being provided. That was voted down by the Minister and his colleagues. We must, however, ensure value for money for the taxpayer. There are considerable doubts whether the Bill would guarantee to secure that.
      The worries are that some sweetheart deal will be struck between the Government and the lender to save face, not to meet the interests and needs of the British public. Our view is that the taxpayer should not have to bail out the Government from the political difficulties that they have caused for themselves. If money is available, it is surely better to use it not to subsidise the banks but to expand the financial support that we give students.
      That is all the more important when we hear, as we have in the past 24 hours, that for the first time in living memory the number of applicants to universities has fallen. The reason why universities and higher education in general are becoming less attractive to 17 and 18-year-olds considering applying is that the latter recognise that their friends and colleagues who have entered higher education have entered a world of debt and poverty. That acts as a massive disincentive.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that ridiculous point?
      Mr. Byers: If the hon. Lady cares to rephrase her question, I am prepared to give way.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that precise point?
      Mr. Byers: Yes.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: It is still a ridiculous one, though. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that my exceptionally well-run university has about 10 applicants for every place, and that some of its faculties attract about 100 for every place? We have absolutely no dearth of students applying even though they know perfectly well what the regime will be.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, may I point out that he is getting close to a Second Reading debate?
      Mr. Byers: I am rapidly coming to a conclusion. If the Government are providing money to subsidise the private student loan sector, their priorities must be questioned. Many of us think that the money would be better spent on financial support for students than on subsidising financial institutions with taxpayers' money.
      The new clause deals with the concerns that I have expressed. It would ensure that a future Government would not have their hands tied, perhaps for as much as five years, by an agreement entered into for political expediency by this Government. I commend the new clause to the House.
      7.45 pm
      Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Earlier, the Minister objected to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) calling the Bill a privatisation of student loans. Yet it was crystal clear from our discussions in Committee that if the scheme turned out so successful that the Student Loans Company ended up on its uppers, lending only to a tiny handful of students, that would be fine by the Minister, because he wants to open up the loans to as many financial institutions as happen to be interested.
      Crucially, the amount of subsidy intended to be given to each bank has still not been revealed. We all know that the banks have expressed varying degrees of uninterest in the entire scheme—ranging from downright rejection to an expression of the view that a number of difficulties need to be overcome. Those difficulties include technological and merger problems.
      The Minister claimed that it was not true that the banks were wholly uninterested: they were, he said, merely making opening moves in the negotiations. My hon. Friends will recall from serving on the Committee that the Minister seemed to think it laughable that the banks might mean what they are saying and that when they say no, they mean no. The clear implication is that the banks have only to keep on saying no to convince the Minister that they really mean yes—if the price is right.
      We are talking about what may be immense subsidies of public money for these banks just to ensure that the Minister does not get egg on his face and can persuade an
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      unembarrassing number of banks to take part. So the largesse will go to whichever banks can be persuaded to take part, if they ever can be.
      This contrasts starkly with the treatment of the under-25s in respect of housing benefit, and with the treatment of students living in poverty. The citizens advice bureaux in Scotland and elsewhere have produced clear evidence of students in dire difficulty because of poverty. Thus the contrast between the treatment of the banks, which do not need the money, and the students, who do, is dramatic.
      I was reminded of the Minister's view—that the banks do not really mean no when they say no—last night when I was re-reading "Pride and Prejudice", having recently watched the excellent BBC production of the novel. Everyone must be familiar with the character of Mr. Collins, and the part of the book in which he offers his hand in marriage to Elizabeth Bennet. She refuses, saying that she is quite sure that neither Mr. Collins' happiness nor her own would be enlarged by the prospect: under no circumstances would she marry him. He replies that he understands that young ladies may say no when they really mean yes, so he feels encouraged by her refusal.
      What do the banks have to do to make the Minister understand that if they say no they really mean it? If the Minister thinks that he can persuade the banks to adopt this course, will he reveal what sums of money he has in mind?
      Mr. Gordon Oakes: You and I have been in this House for a long time, Mr. Deputy Speaker. One of the advantages of the Report stage of a Bill is that it is brought back to the House. When I was Minister of State responsible for education, 17 years ago and dealing with higher education, funding students was a problem. Now, it is a far more acute problem because of the welcome increase in the number of people in universities and higher education.
      I do not know what the Minister will say in reply to this debate, but he is looking a gift horse in the mouth if he rejects the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers). The new clause defers consideration of negotiations until after the next general election. No matter how long the Government limp on, 31 May of next year will be beyond the next election.
      This is a most unwelcome Bill. Students do not want it and have never wanted it; the universities and vice-chancellors have never wanted it; the banks and building societies do not want it. The Government are considering the time factor—whether 31 May 1997, or today—in which they can bribe banks and building societies to engage in the Bill's provisions. Frankly, the banks and building societies do not want it. It is of no commercial interest to them.
      I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend that I thought some of the comments by Conservative Members very fair. They asked what the Opposition would do if the Bill were deferred until 31 May next year. As the Irishman said when asked how he would get to a certain place, my reply would be, "I would not start from here." I would not start from this Bill and I would abandon this process altogether.
      We must grasp the fact that we now have a very large student population—a population that the nation finds it difficult to support financially. Whether a Conservative

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      Government are in office or we are in office, that is a fact that we have to face. Neither the Government nor we, the Opposition—I regret to say—have faced up to how we are to fund students.
      Many schemes have been put forward and have been tinkered with or played with, but they have never really been considered due to political expediency, or whatever. One is the Australian scheme—Australian students repay loans through a statutory income tax system according to their degree and ability to pay. The vice-chancellors have put forward a scheme to the Government and the Opposition, suggesting ways to tackle the problem. The Australian scheme, the vice-chancellors' scheme or any other scheme bear no resemblance to the weird system that the Government propose, which will solve nothing.
      Meanwhile, tens of thousands of students are living in poverty and misery, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) said, when they should be devoting their attention to their studies. Instead, they have to devote their attention to wondering where their next meal is coming from and that must be wrong.
      Mr. Colin Pickthall: My right hon. Friend might not be aware that the Minister made it clear in Committee that he did not believe that there was any connection between student poverty and the quality of students' educational performance.
      Mr. Oakes: If the Minister tried to make that clear, it is the most nonsensical statement that I have heard. Every hon. Member, on both sides of the House, is aware of student poverty—not just poverty among working-class students, but among middle-class students and across the board. They will be the leaders of industry, the professions and academia in this country and that is the way that we treat them. The new clause gives the Government and my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench time to think of an alternative to this ludicrous scheme, which no one loves.
      One of the advantages of a Report stage is that another line can be put. I have served on many Standing Committees, as you have, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I know that members of such Committees look at the problem from the point of view of the Committee. The new clause will give more time and I hope, therefore, that when considering it the Minister will grasp the gift horse with which the Opposition have presented him and will willingly accept it, saying that negotiations shall not take place until after 31 May 1997. I hope that if we are in government, those negotiations will not take place at all because we will have a far better scheme for funding students than this ludicrous Government scheme.
      Mr. Mike Hall: First, I must repeat something that I said in the Standing Committee about the principle behind new clause 3. The new clause is uncontroversial, helpful and necessary and it will benefit the Government. It is in line with the Government's timetable for the introduction of the private sector into the payment of student loans.
      I hope that the Minister will accept the new clause on behalf of the Government because it will improve a very poor Bill. As it stands, the Bill encapsulates everything that is wrong with the Tory party approach to government—it is an arrogant abuse of power. The Government do not seem to care that they have not been able to explain to Parliament the full costs of the measures
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      included in the Bill. The Government are asking Parliament for a blank cheque. They are saying, "Pass this enabling Bill and allow the Government to get involved in the negotiations with the private banks and to provide subsidies to them to grant loans to students." They are saying that they are not prepared to tell us what the cost to the taxpayer will be or to say what the cost of the student loans will he. They are asking us to take it on trust and to take the Bill through.
      The new clause straightforwardly states that the Government can go so far but that, given that they do not want to implement the Bill in the private sector until 1997, the new Parliament can decide whether it wishes to proceed with the measure. That is the real strength of the new clause. It will prevent the Government's arrogant abuse of power—the fact that they are not telling us how much they are prepared to commit to the scheme.
      The new clause allows time for the Government to say that the negotiations have been completed and to tell us which high-street banks will become involved in private sector student loans. So far they have been unable to tell us and, if they have the information, they have refused to reveal it. I believe that they are not holding anything back because they do not know which banks will become involved. A number have said that they will not do so. The new clause will allow Parliament the full knowledge of which high-street banks and private institutions are prepared to get involved in the scheme and, therefore, strengthen the democratic process.
      The new clause will also give us time to consider the effects on students. Opposition Members tried to do that in Standing Committee, but the Government strongly resisted it. The Government have given great consideration to the effects that certain changes that we tried to make in Committee would have on private financial institutions, but have had no regard whatsoever to the impact on students. On Second Reading, in Committee and on Report—and, I suspect, on Third Reading—we have had no sign from the Government of how the scheme will affect students. New clause 3 introduces a means by which those omissions can be overcome.
      At the second sitting of the Committee—it was almost thrown in as an aside—the Minister announced that there would be a delay in the implementation of the scheme. Instead of being introduced by October 1996, it would be done by October 1997, which will be some time after the next general election. That delay will give the Government the opportunity to put right all the problems that they have created within the Bill. That is another good reason for the delay that new clause 3 would put on the face of the Bill.
      The Conservative party has nothing to fear from the new clause. If it wins the election, which is highly unlikely and most improbable—
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: No.
      Mr. Hall: The hon. Lady says no, but she is completely wrong, as she is on every other issue.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: No.
      Mr. Hall: The hon. Lady continues to make the same mistakes. No doubt she will continue with the arrogant view that the Conservative party has nothing to fear from the electorate when it has everything to fear.

      809
      If the Tories win the election, they can proceed with the measure in the next Parliament. If they lose, the delay will allow the new, incoming Government, with a new mandate, to tackle the problem according to the promises in their election manifesto.
      8 pm
      The new clause strengthens the democratic process and is, therefore, nothing to fear. Accepting it would show, at this late stage, in the 17th year of the Conservative Government, that they have some regard to the democratic process. They would then be able to consider at length the principles involved in the Bill, which legislates for the use of taxpayers' money to subsidise private institutions to provide student loans. That is a crucial part of the Bill and represents a fundamental change from the current policy.
      Parliament needs to give far more consideration to the principle of using taxpayers' money to subsidise banks to do the same business that they have carried out for years. Why do high-street banks or other financial institutions in the business of lending money need huge subsidies from the taxpayer to allow them to participate in the business in which they have been established for many years? That fundamental question goes to the core of the Bill and is one reason why new clause 3 is so important.
      The new clause would allow proper parliamentary scrutiny. As I have said, although we have considered the Bill on Second Reading and in Standing Committee and we are now considering it on Report and no doubt will on Third Reading, we still do not know the precise cost to the taxpayer.
      When the matter was raised in Committee, the Minister said that we will know the full cost to the taxpayer 12 months after the scheme has been implemented. Therefore, Parliament will not know how much the legislation will cost until October 1998. That is totally unsatisfactory and is an abuse of the democratic process.
      Parliament needs to know the cost of the scheme and the new clause would allow us to address the errors in the Bill. It may well allow the Government to justify what we have said—that the estimated cost of the subsidy is £1,500 per loan. We used that figure throughout the Standing Committee and the Minister decided not to disavow it. He has made no comment whatsoever about the costs. Perhaps he is frightened to reveal them because he knows full well that the Government's use of money would create an outrage. Now he refuses to say whether the figure of £1,500 is right or wrong. The Minister may find it funny, but if the Government are prepared to subsidise high-street banks or private institutions at a cost of £1,500 per loan, perhaps they should give the money directly to the students and ease the problems of student poverty that has been well documented by my hon. Friends.
      Implementation of the new clause would allow us to evaluate the effect of the Education (Student Loans) Bill on students. It is clear that the Government have been prepared to legislate to include discrimination. They decided that students should not be told why they may have been refused a private sector student loan; they see no reason why students need to know why they have been refused and they see nothing wrong in the institutions refusing the loans passing that information on to a third party. That is scandalous. It is an outrage in itself. The
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      Government decided quite straightforwardly that there should be no appeals procedure. All that involves taxpayers' money to support our public education system. We need to build some accountability into that system and new clause 3 allows us to do that.
      The Minister may respond by saying that the new clause expects him to negotiate on the Floor of the House the deals between the Government and the private sector. It does not. The Government can conduct their negotiations with the private sector, work out which banks are involved, produce the costs and tell us the implications of the scheme and that information will be available and ready to be used in the new Parliament on 31 May 1997, therefore the argument about negotiation on the Floor of the House does not hold water.
      The other argument that the Minister used in Committee against the approach in new clause 3 was that it would delay the progress of the Bill. However, he has now delayed the progress of the Bill and moved the implementation date to October 1997, therefore there is no reason not to accept the new clause. The rationale of the arguments that the Government used in Committee does not apply. It does not stand up to scrutiny, so I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will support the democratic process and allow hon. Members to do the job for which they were elected—to scrutinise legislation and improve it where they can.
      Mr. Forth: We have not yet learnt what Opposition Members would do. I fought valiantly in Committee to winkle that out of them, but I failed totally. Yet again, the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) disappointed us, although he did not surprise us. It was also significant that the right hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes), in the perceptive way that we would expect of a Member of such experience, said with some sadness that he could detect no policies emerging from the Labour party.
      We learnt only one significant and interesting fact, for which I am grateful. The hon. Member for Wallsend accepts—by implication, so do his colleagues—that the general election will not take place until April or May 1997. That was a step in the right direction. It gives not just the debate, but other matters, an interesting perspective. I assume that he has the approval of the Leader of the Opposition in making that statement. If he has not, that is something for the hon. Gentleman to sort out. That is part of the background to new clause 3.
      The other piece of background that the House will want to recall is that the measure was duly signalled in the normal way as part of the Government's programme. It received a Second Reading and was considered in Committee, where, as has been said, I resisted an Opposition amendment to put on the face the Bill an arbitrary delay in the implementation period.
      I then announced a delay of one year, because, for perfectly practical reasons, the financial institutions that might be interested in picking up the opportunities offered in the Bill persuaded me—with no great difficulty—that it would take that length of time properly to put in place the procedures and mechanisms to give effect to the Bill's measures.
      Mr. Hall: The Minister has just said that, during his discussions with the private sector institutions, they revealed that they would find it difficult to be ready for 1997, because of the information technology

      811
      requirements. That statement implies that certain institutions had expressed an interest in the Bill. At this late stage, will he tell us the names of the institutions involved?
      Mr. Forth: The answer is no. I should correct the hon. Gentleman. The difficulty would have been with implementation in 1996, which was the original target date. There would be no difficulty with implementation in 1997, unless the House were to agree to the new clause—which I hope it will not—in which case there would be no possibility of meeting that target date for implementation in 1997. To implement the measure in time for the start of the 1997–98 academic year, contracts would have to be finalised by the mid-point of this year, to give the financial institutions sufficient time. To delay the Bill in the way that new clause 3 proposes would defer implementation until 1998, which would be unacceptable.
      Another argument for new clause 3 is a constitutional theory of which I was not hitherto aware—that a Government are unable to make any new policies or commitments, or to promote their legislative programme, in the 15 to 18 months before the likely date of a general election—or, as the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Hall) told me, the actual date of the next general election. That is new stuff of which I was not aware.
      I am not sure that new clause 3 is the correct vehicle for an entirely new constitutional theory that will guide us in the governance of this country. It seems that Opposition Members are persuaded that there must be a sterile period of 15 to 18 months before a possible general election, even though we generally do not know when a general election will be. That seems a complication, although Opposition Members seem secure in their knowledge that a general election will not occur until spring 1997. That is all a horrible muddle, and simply will not do.
      I assume that it is not incompetence that has brought new clause 3 to the House this evening, but mischief. There has been an element of mischief-making in this Bill, which I accept in the spirit in which Opposition Members offer it, but anyone who pauses for thought will realise that the Government cannot accept the new clause.
      We have made it clear that we want to introduce the measure as rapidly as possible, consistent with its being implemented in a proper fashion. I have been persuaded that it is reasonable to delay the provision for 12 months, and I believe it proper that we should now aim at the period of tendering, invitation and finalisation of contracts ending at the mid-point of 1996. That will give the financial institutions that come forward approximately one year in which to prepare, which is a reasonable and practical timetable for implementing the Bill. New clause 3 would undermine that process.
      Mr. Hall: The Minister is hopeful that, by the mid-point of this year, it will be possible to finalise the financial institutions that will be involved. Can the Minister say today, in mid-January, which financial institutions are involved now? If the Minister hopes to finalise matters by the middle of this year, he must know now the institutions involved.
      Mr. Forth: I cannot recall offhand the hon. Gentleman's career before he entered the House, but I believe that it was in education. I suspect that he does not have wide commercial experience, or he would realise the folly of his question. The term "commercial confidence"
      812
      does not seem to have impinged on the hon. Gentleman's consciousness. If we were to proceed to make arrangements with private institutions in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, bandied names about in a loose fashion and revealed details of contractual agreements at every stage, that would effectively make any deal between Government and the private sector impossible.
      That may be the way in which the hon. Gentleman envisages a Labour Government, if ever there were to be one, conducting themselves. Because the hon. Gentleman does not have wide commercial experience, he may be unaware of the difficulties that would be imposed. That cannot be the way to proceed because it would undermine the whole process.
      If the hon. Gentleman is making a commitment on behalf of his party that, on any future occasion that a Labour Government had a requirement to deal with the private sector, that Government would follow the hon. Gentleman's precepts of naming names and making revelations of detailed contractual arrangements at every stage, we will take that into account. If the hon. Gentleman reflects for a moment, he will realise the folly of that approach.
      Mr. Roy Beggs: Has the Minister received assurances from financial institutions that, once his legislation is in place, he will have the support of those institutions in implementing the new conditions?
      8.15 pm
      Mr. Forth: No, because we are nowhere near that stage. The institutions are aware of the direction in which the Bill is taking us, and we had considerable preliminary discussions with a wide range of financial institutions. The delay I mentioned was part of the result. The financial institutions persuaded us that the changes that they would have to make to their systems and other developments would make an implementation date of October 1996 impracticable. I was prepared to delay 12 months to give the institutions a reasonable opportunity to go through the tendering and contractual process, to establish their systems and to make other changes.
      We have not reached the point about which the hon. Gentleman inquires. I envisage us doing so some time between spring and summer this year. At that stage, I will give the House as much information as I reasonably can, within the constraints that I explained. New clause 3 is either mischievous or ill-founded, or it has been tabled in the wrong debate, for the wrong Bill. It seeks to alter our constitutional arrangements. One way or another, I must ask the House to reject it.
      Mr. Byers: As to the date of the next general election, and for the sake of clarity
      Mr. Anthony Coombs: Wriggling.
      Mr. Byers: I am not wriggling at all. We know that the Government want to hang on until Easter 1997, but we shall do all we can to ensure that does not happen. It is worth planning, on this occasion at least, on the basis that the Government and the Prime Minister may get what they want, which is why new clause 3 was tabled.

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      I was disappointed by the Minister's response. He failed to answer four specific questions. How do the Government intend to make up the £100 million deficit in the education budget as a result of the 12-month delay in implementing the measure? Will there be cuts elsewhere in the education budget? It would have been appropriate this evening for the Minister to give the House a reassurance that money will not be cut from other education services, or to identify precisely where cuts will be made. As it stands, £100 million of unspecified cuts will affect the education service in some way. I regret the Minister's failure to address that issue.
      The Minister refused to give an assurance that the Government will not begin to charge a commercial rate for student loans, in accordance with the recommendation by the student loans working group to the Secretary of State and the Chancellor. The Minister confirmed that was one of two options, but he refused to give an assurance that that option will not be pursued. There has been no indication of the level of the taxpayers' subsidy to be made available to the private sector.
      Finally, the Minister did not name one financial institution—be it a bank or a building society—that is interested in participating.
      Mr. Hall: I noted the Government's spurious arguments about commercial confidentiality. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have not even said how many institutions have been involved, let alone revealed their names?
      Mr. Byers: I agree. It is not without precedent for the Government to identify organisations with which they are in discussion in relation to such matters. The Teachers Pensions Agency is a good example. The six interested financial institutions have been named, and they are in negotiations and discussions with the Government to determine which will be selected. The procedure has been used in the past. The Minister has refused to respond this evening, because there is no interest in the private sector.
      Mrs. Fyfe: It is interesting that the Minister has also failed to make it clear that there is a possibility that a financial institution could receive a large amount of public subsidy, that a general election could take place, and that the institution could hang on to that subsidy although the process would not continue under a Labour Government.
      Mr. Byers: That is another good reason why the new clause has considerable merit. We are disappointed that the Minister is not prepared to accept it, given the positive way in which it was introduced.
      We have had a useful debate. We do not want to divide the House. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New clause 5

      ESTABLISHMENT OF APPEALS PANEL IN RESPECT OF STUDENT LOANS
      '() (1) The Secretary of State shall establish a Student Loans Appeals Panel ("the Panel") with the functions of investigating and adjudicating upon disputes between borrowers or intending borrowers (whether in respect of public or private sector student loans) and any person or body engaged in the making of such loans.

      814

      (2) The grounds of any dispute referred to the Panel under subsection (1) above may include—

      (a) the refusal of a student loan; and

      (b) the unreasonable disclosure to a third party of information relating to any applicant for a student loan held by any person or body engaged in the making of student loans under the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990.

      (3) The Panel shall consist of three persons appointed by the Secretary of State, at least one of whom shall have recent employment experience in the field of higher or further education.

      (4) Any party to a dispute referred to the Panel under subsection (1) above shall accede to any reasonable request to furnish the Panel with documents or information it requires in order to discharge its functions.'.—[M r. Byers.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Byers: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 4, in schedule, page 3, line 40, leave out from `(c)' to end of line 42 and insert
      'sub-paragraph (5) shall be omitted.'.
      Mr. Byers: The new clause would establish a new student appeals panel. As a consequence, we would need to delete the provisions contained within the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990 for the establishment of the independent assessor.
      In Committee, the Government refused to accept any amendments aimed at providing students in both the private and public sectors with a right to appeal to the independent assessor. We felt it appropriate that, when a student applies for a loan and is then denied that loan, there should be an appeal mechanism.
      At present, a student who is denied a loan by the Student Loans Company or is unhappy about the process or operation of that company may appeal to the independent assessor. We have had our reservations about the way in which the independent assessor has operated over the years. The operation has been limited in its application, and there has been a reluctance to publicise its workings. As a result, little use has been made of the independent assessor appeal procedure.
      Nevertheless, it appears that the Government have recognised the failings of the process. The independent assessor is now conducting his business in a slightly different way, and is prepared to publicise the service he offers. The result has been—this may be because of some difficulties being experienced by the Student Loans Company as well—an increase in the number of students taking their cases to the assessor.
      As the Bill stands, those students who wish to take out a loan with the private sector will have no one to go to to consider any grievance they might have. If they take their loans out with the already established Student Loans Company, the independent assessor will be available. We have two different systems. In one instance, the student will have the independent assessor, but if a student takes out a loan with a private sector institution, which is the Government's preferred option, there will be no appeal mechanism.
      By means of the new clause, we seek to establish a mechanism to allow students to make an appeal. We list in the new clause the circumstances in which we feel that such an appeal might be made if an individual student felt a grievance.

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      It is important to recognise the emphasis that the Government are placing on the significance of the private sector element of the student loans system. The Minister has made it clear that, over a period, the Government want to see the majority of students taking out loans from private sector institutions. That means that the number of loans taken out with the Student Loans Company will reduce. We feel that it is appropriate that, in those circumstances, the majority of students, who will be dealing with private sector institutions, should have an appeal mechanism available to them if they have a grievance about the way in which they have been treated.
      The Government—especially the Minister—have argued that it would be inappropriate to interfere in the manner in which private sector institutions conduct their business. They say that commercial decisions are for private sector institutions to make, and that it would be wrong for the Government to intervene or interfere in the way we propose. We disagree with that. We feel that there is a strong case for placing restrictions on the operation of private sector institutions.
      In Committee, the Minister argued:
      "there is no obligation on financial institutions to give their reasons for offering or withholding loan or other facilities. To put students into a mysterious different category from the rest of society would be extremely dubious."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 19 December 1995; c. 108.]
      At another stage, in January, the Minister argued;
      "People go to banks for loans to buy a home or a car, which may be an essential to their family, lifestyle or business. A student loan, albeit for something as important as education, is no more important than a loan for other essential purposes."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 9 January 1996; c. 134.]
      That argument is fundamentally flawed. First, on principle, we cannot regard the necessity to take out a student loan—a student is being pushed into that position—as being on a par with taking out a loan for a car or for an extension to a house. We feel that students can be placed in a separate category.
      First, the student loans system gives an entitlement to a student loan that is provided by statute. Students are treated by the Government through statute as being in a different and exceptional category. That being so, different and exceptional provisions can be made available. That is what we seek to do through new clause 5—to introduce a student appeal system.
      Secondly, students will differ from other borrowers because their right to borrow exists only in so far as they are students. In general terms, their entitlement to borrow and the terms and conditions under which loans are made available are prescribed by Government.
      We are also aware that, when many students apply for a loan, it is likely to be the first time that they have made such an application. A 17-year-old who is about to leave sixth form to go into higher education may make his first loan application at that stage. He or she may apply to a private sector institution. That institution can turn down that young person, as the Bill stands, without giving any reason for so doing. It may reach its decision on the basis of incorrect information. The student will never know about that because he or she will not be given a reason, yet the rest of his or her life will be blighted.
      We are all aware that, if we apply for credit of any description—for a mortgage, for example—one of the main questions on the application form will be, "Have
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      you ever been denied a loan—yes or no?" That poor student will have to say yes. He or she will not know why the loan has been denied. It is just that, for some reason, the private sector institution determines that he or she is not suitable to receive a loan from it.
      Given the significance to the individual of being denied a loan from the private sector institution at 17, if that is to happen, the individual should at least be given an explanation why. As things currently stand, that is not so.
      In Committee, the Minister was conscious of the problems that could arise as a result of someone being denied a loan, and showed his usual concern about these issues. He was very clear that there was really no need to worry, because, if a student was denied a loan by the private sector institution, the banking ombudsman would come galloping over the horizon to the student's rescue. The Minister made that clear in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Hall), who asked where a student could take a grievance about being refused a private sector loan.
      8.30 pm
      The Minister replied:
      "He would go exactly where students go to at the moment—to the banking ombudsman".—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 9 January 1996; c. 135.]
      Perhaps the Minister should have referred to the terms of reference of the banking ombudsman before making that comment. I have had the opportunity to do so, and it is clear that the banking ombudsman would have no status in considering a student's application that has been rejected by a private sector institution.
      The limits on the ombudsman's powers are clearly stated:
      "The Ombudsman shall have power to consider a complaint made to him except: —
      (a) to the extent that the complaint relates to a Bank's commercial judgment in decisions about lending or security".
      I am afraid that the Minister got it totally wrong in Standing Committee. The banking ombudsman has no part to play. If a student is denied a loan by a private sector institution, no one can intervene on the student's behalf. That is why new clause 5 is so important. The Minister was mistaken in Committee. He thought that the student had the right to raise the matter with the ombudsman. That is not the case. We need something in place that will allow the student to raise the matter so that further consideration can be given. New clause 5 puts such a mechanism in place.
      In the light of those facts, I hope that the Minister will recognise, as he did in Committee, that there should be an avenue to consider these matters, because of the importance to the individual of having an application refused. I hope also that he will consider sympathetically the need for an appeals panel along the lines outlined in new clause 5.
      Mrs. Fyfe: I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers), particularly about subsection (2)(a).
      I appeal to the Minister once again to consider the refusal of a student loan. My hon. Friend pointed out that, when a student's loan application is refused, it could be as a result of wrong information, and that could affect him or her for a lifetime.

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      In my constituency, an adult came to me because he could not understand why for years he was refused credit. In the end, it turned out that he had a common surname, and that someone else with the same surname and forename lived in a different tenement flat but the same tenement stair. That is a common problem in Scotland, as I hope the Minister will recognise, where so many tenement dwellings exist.
      Wrong information could dog a person for years. It could, of course, be correct information, but perhaps the student comes from an area where bad debts are pretty rife, and far more common than the norm. In that case, such a decision could stay with the student for life, no matter how careful that individual was about repaying debts, and no matter how successful he or she turned out to be in a subsequent career after graduation.
      The National Union of Students agreed with us, not surprisingly, that there is hardly any justice in an institution refusing to give a student information on why he or she has been refused a loan, yet at the same time being willing to disclose to third parties information about the student's financial situation, and whether to give a grant or loan. The Minister tabled an amendment to the Bill to protect students and graduates from unwanted mail shots that might result from that disclosure. Unwanted mail shots are the least of a person's worries; they can easily be thrown in the bin.
      A student could be refused for unfair and inadequate reasons and would never know why, yet other financial institutions are allowed to have that information. There is no justice in that, and I hope that, at this eleventh hour, the Minister will change his mind.
      Mr. Forth: Whatever happened to new Labour? I thought that we were told by the leader of the Labour party that this was the era of new Labour and stakeholders and all those exciting new visionary concepts. I thought that new Labour was at ease with capital and business and that it would be friendly with the City. Yet I think that the truth is rather more unpalatable. The reality is that Opposition Members either do not understand the way in which business and the commercial sectors operate, or—I suspect—are instinctively hostile to the concept of private business and what the private sector does. That surfaced in Committee and it has surfaced again.
      As the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) pointed out, where the Student Loans Company currently operates, and where it will operate in future, there is an independent assessor to whom students can go if they are unhappy with the way in which the company has dealt with them. The hon. Gentleman knows, although he did not give the figure, that, in the year to July 1995, such was the extent of rife dissatisfaction with the Student Loans Company that the huge number of students who approached the assessor was five. Only five students went to the assessor and complained, one way or another, that they were not satisfied with what the Student Loans Company had done for them. I shall leave hon. Members to make their own judgment about the Student Loans Company on the basis of that information.
      Opposition Members argue that it is necessary to have an independent assessor mechanism to protect individuals against a public sector monopoly provider, which is what
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      the Student Loans Company hitherto has been, but then they argue that it is necessary to have the same mechanism to deal with private sector providers or lenders. That is not so for a whole number of reasons, not least because students will continue to have a choice not only on whether they deal with the private sector or the Student Loans Company but on which private sector provider to use. We are talking about a competitive environment where the student—the customer—has choice, as opposed to the public sector. Until the provisions of the Bill become effective, the student has no choice of where to go for a loan. There is a real difference between the private and the public sectors.
      Mr. Byers: At the moment, the Student Loans Company is required to make available a loan to a student who applies for one. It has no choice in the matter. The private sector will be able to choose the students to whom it wishes to lend. It is the refusal of a loan application by a private sector institution that causes Opposition Members concern, because of the future implications of such a refusal. That is why We believe that an appeal mechanism is necessary.
      Will the Minister address that issue and recognise that we cannot compare the necessities of the assessor for the Student Loans Company with that of a newly established private sector institution that is involved?
      Mr. Forth: We must inevitably compare them, as students will. If the hon. Gentleman believes that students will be blighted by a fear of dealing with banks, in his scheme of things no student would approach a private lender, fearing the humiliation of being rejected. I do not think that students hesitate to ask banks for credit cards, loans or overdrafts. It is a matter for them, but they do it, apparently with maturity and confidence. Some may be turned down, but I doubt that their lives are blighted by that. The hon. Gentleman is making far too much of the issue.
      The hon. Gentleman's point does, however, lead me to a worry about the new clause that is fundamental to my objection to what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends suggest. New clause 5 asks for a student loans appeals panel
      "with the functions of investigating and adjudicating upon disputes between borrowers or intending borrowers…and any person…engaged in the making of such loans."
      I can interpret that, and the thrust of what Opposition Members have said, only as meaning that the body concerned would have the power to oblige a private lender to lend to an individual. That is a new and disturbing development in the thinking of Opposition Members: if they are suggesting that a statutory body should have power to oblige a private concern—a bank or building society, for instance—to lend to an individual, we are in new and dangerous territory. If the new clause does not mean that, I do not think that it means anything; so, one way or another, that is what it must mean. If all that the panel will say is, "Having looked into the matter, we rather regret that you did not lend that person any money," I am not sure what its establishment will achieve.
      Mr. Byers: The Minister says that we are in "new and dangerous territory", but nothing could be further from the truth. We already have industrial tribunals, which do not require an employer to take an employee back if he does not wish to: we have a system of adjudication that

      819
      does not require a party to a dispute to do something that he may not want to do. That system works reasonably well in industrial tribunals, and we believe that it would also work well in the context of student loans.
      Mr. Forth: In that case, I have doubts about the point or effectiveness of such a panel. Would it make financial awards? A tribunal can do that. Presumably, it could not undo the fact that a bank had turned down an applicant for a loan, so the blight that worries the hon. Gentleman would still exist. Disappointed students—with a blot on their record that will be with them for life—would, we now learn, have only the satisfaction of the fine that the panel would impose on the lender for having wrongly rejected the application.
      The more we discuss the proposal, and the more detail I elicit from Opposition Members, the more absurd it becomes. I am suggesting that students should be able to choose between a number of private lenders and the Student Loans Company. There would still be an independent assessor to deal with the Student Loans Company, and the existing mechanisms of competition, the framework of law and all the other provisions that protect every citizen—including students—in regard to financial services would apply.
      I believe that even young students are capable of learning how to deal with the various institutions, and possess the maturity and confidence to do so. I do not think it right to think of students as a special group that needs to be patronised, defended and protected at every turn, even when borrowing is involved.
      Mr. Pickthall: In Committee, opposing our suggestions about income-contingent repayment, the Minister stressed that one of the main reasons for his opposition was the danger presented to confidentiality. Confidentiality was clearly important to him in that context; why is it irrelevant now?
      Mr. Forth: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to explain himself. He has lost me.
      Mr. Pickthall: I refer to the confidentiality that the panel would try to secure for a student whose application had been refused. In Committee, the Minister said that the need for confidentiality was his main reason for objecting to income-contingent repayments based on national insurance. Surely there is an inconsistency here.
      8.45 pm
      Mr. Forth: I did not say that that was the main reason for my objection; it was on a long list of powerful arguments that I advanced to explain why I was not enamoured of the idea of linking income contingency with national insurance contributions or income tax payments. As for confidentiality, I said then, and will say again, that a satisfactory number of arrangements exist to protect confidentiality in the context of financial services. That is the case now, and I expect it to continue to be so in the future. I was not persuaded then, and am not persuaded now, that any additional measures will be required. In any event, I do not accept that the measures proposed in the new clause and amendment are necessary, or would be particularly beneficial.
      We are talking about students—young people, admittedly, but young people with intelligence and ability—learning to deal with different financial
      820
      institutions for many different purposes. As I have said, they do that more than adequately now, and I am confident that they will continue to do so. I cannot agree with Opposition Members that we should single out students as a group, assuming that they are incompetent and that private lenders will spend all their time doing them down and gratuitously turning down their loan applications, with all the implications that that would have for the lenders' reputation and their competitive position.
      Opposition Members have presented a false analysis. The new clause is unnecessary, and would damage the relationship between the Government and the private sector, a relationship about which those Opposition Members seem less concerned than their leader wishes to persuade us. I hope that the House will reject the new clause and the amendment.
      Mr. Byers: The Minister suggests that it would be improper to single out students, but the Bill does precisely that: students are to be treated differently from other sections of the community. We feel that, when public money is involved—as it will be in this instance, because a subsidy from the taxpayer will be made available to the private sector—there is nothing wrong with attaching terms and conditions, especially when that is in the public interest. The establishment of a student loans appeals panel would allow proper consideration to be given to wrong decisions or the provision of erroneous information to the private sector institution involved, resulting in the denial of a loan.
      As the Bill stands, a student cannot raise questions or appeal to any body about the refusal of a loan. Students can never know why their loans have been refused. The information involved may well be incorrect, but the student will be unaware of that. An appeals system would allow the information to be made available to an independent body, and would enable a student to find out why the loan was refused.
      In Committee, the Minister clearly believed that there was an avenue of appeal to the banking ombudsman. That was his powerful argument. It is now clear that, under his terms of reference, the banking ombudsman cannot deal with such matters. The Minister should accept that he was incorrect in Committee, although he recognised the need for a body that could look at the matter. Given that the banking ombudsman cannot do that, we need a body that can consider those matters. We have advanced some powerful arguments for new clause 5, and we regret the Minister's refusal to accept it. However, the matter may be raised in another place and it is inappropriate to press the new clause to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    Clause 1

      SUBSIDY IN RESPECT OF PRIVATE SECTOR STUDENT LOANS
      Mr. Bryan Davies: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 13, at end add—
      '(1B) The Secretary of State shall, as soon as any arrangements under subsection (1A) above have been concluded, lay before each House of Parliament a statement containing the names of any person with whom those arrangements have been concluded and the terms of the arrangements, including the amount of subsidy to be paid to each such person under that subsection.'.

      821
      The amendment seeks to establish the absolutely bare minimum of parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's measures. As my hon. Friends have repeatedly stressed, the Bill is skeletal, an enabling measure. It contains barely any detail of the new private sector student loans that will become operative. Parliament is being asked to give blanket authority to the Government to negotiate with the private sector as they see fit. The Minister wants authority for public expenditure subsidies of whatever order he considers necessary to persuade the banks and building societies to participate in the scheme.
      We know from experience how liberal the Government can be with public money when it is used as a sweetener to ensure that their privatisation measures do not bite the dust. For example, the additional cost to the taxpayer of a privatised railway system will be £850 million a year, which is more than £2 million a day. The Government cannot even be trusted with taxpayers' money in connection with overseas projects and Governments. We all recall Pergau dam and it has not gone unnoticed that the chief whistleblower in that affair, the former permanent secretary to the Department for Education and Employment, is no longer in the Government's employ.
      In deliberations in Standing Committee, the Minister repeatedly rejected arguments that would have allowed the House to examine the arrangements that he finally negotiates. He did that on the ground that Parliament cannot be involved in the negotiation of commercial contracts. The amendment simply asks the Minister to report in a full statement to the House the outcome of his negotiations—the details of the contracts when they have been concluded. That is often the practice in the House when significant commercial contracts involving public money are awarded. Sometimes even the Prime Minister chooses to give the House advance notice of a decision, as he helpfully did yesterday over Land Rover ambulances.
      As the Bill stands, it will offer no opportunity for Parliament to question the Minister on his arrangements. That surely undermines the rights of the House. How can the Executive object to making a proper statement to the House on a new set of contracts of this kind? Should we simply accept that we have to read a press release on the outcome of the Minister's negotiations, or a written answer, or should we have to go to the Library to look at a document that the Minister has kindly put there?
      Let us not forget the magnitude of the issue that we are considering. Outstanding student loans, that is, principal and interest, will total some £5 billion by the end of the decade. We are not debating a small matter: these are substantial commitments of resources. Public subsidies to the private sector will be very significant. As the Minister cannot tell us the amount of those subsidies, he should surely accept the responsibility of presenting a full statement to the House when he is in a position to do that.
      The House has a right to expect answers to a number of key questions. What level of subsidy will be paid to private sector lenders? How much will private sector lenders obtain for administration costs, for interest rate subsidy and for default on loans? All those factors are significant in the current public sector scheme under the Student Loans Company. This is the crux of the matter. Huge subsidies will be needed if the banks and building
      822
      societies are ever likely to get involved. Anyone who doubts that should consider the pronounced reluctance of financial institutions at this time.
      The Minister wants to walk off with a blank cheque and does not want to account for how he spends it. That is scarcely standard commercial practice, unless one works for a financial institution such as Barings bank. Of course the House is aware of the close relationship between the Conservative party and Barings bank, which gave the party more than £600,000 between 1979 and 1993. Nick Leeson caused the ruin of one of the most reputable institutions in the City at the same time as he caused great damage to the cash flow of one of the least reputable institutions in politics—the Conservative party.
      Unlike secret Conservative party accounts, the subsidies to the banks and building societies should be open to public and parliamentary scrutiny as soon as possible. For instance, we require an answer to the question whether the subsidies will include the start-up costs of new information technology systems for the banks and building societies. Considerable importance has been attached to that issue. Scratching for an explanation in Committee as to why the timetable for the Bill was proving so totally unrealistic, the Minister stated that one of the crucial factors was the problem of the need for new technology systems to handle student accounts.
      Why on earth did it take the Minister until after the Bill had been presented to discover those matters? Why did he not carry out some serious investigations and make inquiries before it was presented? It is worth remembering that the Student Loans Company, for which the Minister bears some responsibility, has invested some £20 million in computer operating systems since 1990.
      When asked in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) whether there would be a disclosure of the amount of public money that went towards the start-up costs in the private sector, the Minister said that he did not think that he could be specific at that stage, for the obvious reason that the detailed nature of the contractual arrangements had not yet been finalised. The Minister insists that we are obliged to accept that argument for the time being. But surely that question must be answered for Parliament to be satisfied with the Bill's provisions. The amendment gives the Minister the opportunity to assure the House that he will do that.
      What about the public sector borrowing requirement effects of the scheme? When do Ministers expect the combined public and private sector loans scheme to secure public expenditure savings? When can we expect revised forecasts for the performance of the student loans scheme in its dual provision? What will be the exact terms and conditions attaching to student loans? How will repayment terms vary under the new scheme, and what repayment terms will be offered to students by different private sector providers? The Minister was exceedingly coy in Committee about even the basic principles upon which he was working when we questioned him on those matters.
      Will the chosen private sector lenders offer sufficient geographical coverage in the United Kingdom? What guarantees do we have to ensure that all students in different localities throughout the country will be served by the new arrangements? Hon. Members will surely regard all that information as vital, but none of it is in

      823
      front of the House of Commons in definitive form. Unless the Minister can tell us otherwise, a revised tender document has not even been made available.
      9 pm
      Nor, significantly, do we know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend said, how the Minister is making up the £100 million shortfall caused by the delayed introduction of his scheme. That figure will be of the greatest interest to all people in higher education who are wrestling with the savage implications of the 7 per cent. cut in recurrent and capital funding for next year. Is the higher education sector expected to bridge that shortfall with a further squeeze on its unit of resource? If so, that is to pile Pelion on Ossa. The Minister might have to bear some serious consequences should he attempt to go down that road.
      Parliament cannot have any confidence in the new scheme when it is to be delayed for one year. The measure is short-sighted and ill considered. Surely, the Government have a duty to put flesh on the bare bones that they have offered to the House. That is why the amendment seeks a full statement from the Minister to the House at the appropriate time at the conclusion of his negotiations.
      Mr. Forth: The hon. Member for Oldham, Central and Royton (Mr. Davies) makes a passionate request, but yet again, he is going not a little over the top. I have told him and the Committee—and I repeat to the House—that it is of course our intention that, when the Government finalise contractual arrangements with private lenders to give effect to the Bill's aims, I shall notify the House of those lenders. That is not a problem.
      I have also said that details of public expenditure and private sector loans will be set out annually in the appropriation accounts and in the Department's annual report, and that all the normal arrangements of the National Audit Office and the other panoply of checks will apply in this case. That much is clear. When, however, the hon. Gentleman expects, as he does in the amendment, that the terms of the arrangements and details of contracts concluded—in this case, between the Government and private lenders—should be in the public domain, I cannot agree with him.
      In Committee, I asked the hon. Gentleman whether he was giving an undertaking that any future Labour Government, in their dealings with the private sector across government, would publish in every case all the contracts in detail and all the contractual arrangements made between that Government and a private sector provider of goods or services. He did not give me an answer then and I suspect that he is not going to give me an answer now. If the amendment is a new enunciation of the doctrine that would form the basis of the relationship between thrusting, entrepreneurial new Labour and the private sector, which has been wooed by the hon. Gentleman's colleagues, I would be surprised, although many of my colleagues would not be.
      This issue goes to the heart of the relationship between the Government of the day and the private sector. The relationship between this Government and the private sector is well established and well understood, but it is in the new clauses and amendments to this Bill of all Bills that we get a glimpse of the reality of Labour Members' attitude to the private sector, and of what their approach to that sector would be, were they ever to be in government.
      824
      I do not agree with the amendment because it takes us into territory that Conservative Members find unacceptable. It would undermine and prejudice the operation of the arrangements between the Government and the private sector. I urge to House to reject the amendment.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 247, Noes 278.

      Division No. 27]

      [9.04 pm

      AYES

      Abbott Ms Diane

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Adams, Mrs Irene

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

      Ainger, Nick

      Denham, John

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Dewar, Donald

      Alton, David

      Dixon, Don

      Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

      Donohoe, Brian H

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Dowd, Jim

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

      Eagle, Ms Angela

      Ashton, Joe

      Eastham, Ken

      Austin-Walker, John

      Etherington, Bill

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Barron, Kevin

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      Battle, John

      Faulds, Andrew

      Bayley, Hugh

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Flynn, Paul

      Beggs, Roy

      Foster, Rt Hon Derek

      Beith, Rt Hon A J

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      Bell, Stuart

      Fyfe, Maria

      Bennett, Andrew F

      Galbraith, Sam

      Benton, Joe

      Galloway, George

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Gapes, Mike

      Berry, Roger

      Garrett, John

      Betts, Clive

      George, Bruce

      Blunkett, David

      Gerrard, Neil

      Boateng, Paul

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Bradley, Keith

      Godman, Dr Norman A

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Godsiff, Roger

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

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Graham, Thomas

      Byers, Stephen

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Callaghan, Jim

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Grocott, Bruce

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Hain, Peter

      Campbell-Savours, D N

      Hall, Mike

      Canavan, Dennis

      Hanson, David

      Cann, Jamie

      Hardy, Peter

      Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Chidgey, David

      Harvey, Nick

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Henderson, Doug

      Church, Judith

      Heppell, John

      Clapham, Michael

      Hill, Keith (Streatham)

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Hinchliffe, David

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Hodge, Margaret

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Hoey, Kate

      Clelland, David

      Hogg, Norman (Cumbemauld)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Home Robertson, John

      Coffey, Ann

      Hood, Jimmy

      Cohen, Harry

      Hoon, Geoffrey

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

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

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

      Corbett, Robin

      Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd)

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Hoyle, Doug

      Corston, Jean

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Hutton, John

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Illsley, Eric

      Dafis, Cynog

      Ingram, Adam

      Darling, Alistair

      Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

      Davidson, Ian

      Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      Jamieson, David

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

      825

      Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

      Prescott, Rt Hon John

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

      Purchase, Ken

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Jowell, Tessa

      Randall, Stuart

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Raynsford, Nick

      Keen, Alan

      Reid, Dr John

      Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

      Rendel, David

      Khabra, Piara S

      Robertson, George (Hamilton)

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Roche, Mrs Barbara

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Rooker, Jeff

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Liddell, Mrs Helen

      Rowlands, Ted

      Litherland, Robert

      Ruddock, Joan

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Salmond, Alex

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Sheerman, Barry

      McAllion, John

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      McCartney, Ian

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      McCartney, Robert

      Short, Clare

      McKelvey, William

      Simpson, Alan

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Skinner, Dennis

      McLeish, Henry

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Madennan, Robert

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      McMaster, Gordon

      Smyth, The Reverend Martin

      MacShane, Denis

      Spearing, Nigel

      Madden, Max

      Speller, John

      Maddock, Diana

      Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

      Mahon, Alice

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Marek, Dr John

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Stevenson, George

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      Martlew, Eric

      Straw, Jack

      Maxton, John

      Sutcliffe, Gerry

      Meale, Alan

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Michael, Alun

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Timms, Stephen

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

      Tipping, Paddy

      Milburn, Alan

      Touhig, Don

      Miller, Andrew

      Trimble, David

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Turner, Dennis

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon Sir James

      Tyler, Paul

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Vaz, Keith

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      Morley, Elliot

      Wallace, James

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

      Walley, Joan

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Wareing, Robert N

      Mudie, George

      Watson, Mike

      Mullin, Chris

      Welsh, Andrew

      Murphy, Paul

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Williams, RI Hon Alan (SW'n W)

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

      O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

      Winnick, David

      O'Hara, Edward

      Wise, Audrey

      Olner, Bill

      Worthington, Tony

      O'Neill, Martin

      Wray, Jimmy

      Pearson, Ian

      Wright, Dr Tony

      Pickthall, Colin

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Pike, Peter L

      Pope, Greg

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Mr. John Cummings and

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Mrs. Bridget Prentice.

      NOES

      Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Alexander, Richard

      Baldry, Tony

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Bates, Michael

      Arbuthnot, James

      Batiste, Spencer

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Bendall, Vivian

      Ashby, David

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

      Body, Sir Richard

      826

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Gillen, Cheryl

      Boswell, Tim

      Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Bowden, Sir Andrew

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Bowis, John

      Gorst, Sir John

      Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

      Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Brazier, Julian

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Bright, Sir Graham

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Browning, Mrs Angela

      Hague, Rt Hon William

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

      Burns, Simon

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Burt, Alistair

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Butterfill, John

      Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

      Carlisle, John (Luton North)

      Hannam, Sir John

      Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Carrington, Matthew

      Harris, David

      Carttiss, Michael

      Haselhurst, Sir Alan

      Cash, William

      Hawkins, Nick

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Hawksley, Warren

      Chapman, Sir Sydney

      Hayes, Jerry

      Churchill, Mr

      Heald, Oliver

      Clappison, James

      Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Hendry, Charles

      Coe, Sebastian

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Congdon, David

      Hicks, Robert

      Conway, Derek

      Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      Hill, James (Southampton Test)

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

      Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

      Horam, John

      Couchman, James

      Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Cran, James

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

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

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

      Howell, Sir Ralph (N N'folk)

      Davies, Quentin (Starnford)

      Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Day, Stephen

      Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Hunter, Andrew

      Devlin, Tim

      Jack, Michael

      Dicks, Terry

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Dover, Den

      Jessel, Toby

      Duncan, Alan

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Dunn, Bob

      Jones, Robert B. (W H'fordshire)

      Durant, Sir Anthony

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Dykes, Hugh

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

      Key, Robert

      Elletson, Harold

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Knapman, Roger

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

      Knight, R Hon Greg (Derby N)

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

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

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Knox, Sir David

      Evennett, David

      Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

      Faber, David

      Lait, Mrs Jacqui

      Fabricant, Michael

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Lawrence, Sir Ivan

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Legg, Barry

      Fishburn, Dudley

      Leigh, Edward

      Forman, Nigel

      Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

      Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

      Lidington, David

      Forth, Eric

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

      Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      Lord, Michael

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      Luff, Peter

      French, Douglas

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Gale, Roger

      MacKay, Andrew

      Gallie, Phil

      Maclean, Rt Hon David

      Gardiner, Sir George

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Garnier, Edward

      Madel, Sir David

      Gill, Christopher

      Maitland, Lady Olga

      827

      Malone, Gerald

      Spencer, Sir Derek

      Mans, Keith

      Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

      Marland, Paul

      Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

      Marlow, Tony

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Spring, Richard

      Mates, Michael

      Sproat, Iain

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Merchant, Piers

      Steen, Anthony

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Stephen, Michael

      Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

      Stern, Michael

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Stewart, Allan

      Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector

      Streeter, Gary

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Sumberg, David

      Needham, Rt Hon Richard

      Sweeney, Walter

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Sykes, John

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Norris, Steve

      Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

      Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Ottaway, Richard

      Thomason, Roy

      Page, Richard

      Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

      Paice, James

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Patnick, Sir Irvine

      Thornton, Sir Malcolm

      Patten, Rt Hon John

      Thurnham, Peter

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Tracey, Richard

      Pawsey, James

      Tredinnick, David

      Pickles, Eric

      Trend, Michael

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Viggers, Peter

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

      Rathbone, Tim

      Walden, George

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Waller, Gary

      Richards, Rod

      Ward, John

      Riddick, Graham

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Waterson, Nigel

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Watts, John

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Whitney, Ray

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Whittingdale, John

      Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Sackville, Tom

      Wilkinson, John

      Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

      Willetts, David

      Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Wilshire, David

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

      Wood, Timothy

      Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

      Yeo, Tim

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Sims, Roger

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Dr. Liam Fox and

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Mr. Bowen Wells.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Order for Third Reading read.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have to inform the House that Madam Speaker has not selected the reasoned amendment.
      9.17 pm
      Mr. Forth: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      Our objectives in the Bill are simple and straightforward. We want to extend choice, competition and diversity in the provision of loans to students. Those are our fundamental principles in education, and indeed throughout the public sector. Through competition, student borrowers will get a better service and a better tailored product. Personal lending is best done by the banks and building societies—the experts, after all—and
      828
      not necessarily by the Government. It is surely preferable that the enormous sums involved are raised and that the risks are largely borne by the private sector.
      Any loan scheme has to balance the interests of the taxpayer and of the student. Our scheme offers preferential terms, including deferment and a retail prices index-linked interest rate for students, and a relatively short repayment period benefits the taxpayer. To that extent, our scheme is already income contingent. I am not persuaded that other schemes would offer a better balance.
      We will have to wait to see whether Opposition Members want to shift the balance towards the taxpayer or the student, when they eventually decide what they want to do. At least we know that some Opposition Members appear to accept the principle of loans—five years after we debated the previous Education (Student Loans) Bill. I hope that we do not have to wait that long before we hear the Opposition's attitude to some of the more developed aspects of policy.
      The Labour party aspires to be the party of business. Indeed, the matter was raised yet again while discussing the final amendment tabled on Report a few minutes ago. Yet given the opportunity to back choice and competition in the private sector, the Labour party has shown how truly empty its aspiration is—certainly in the context of the Bill. All that Labour could come up with was more or less pointless regulation and an inherent distrust of the private sector.
      I believe that this modest Bill will move us forward significantly in quality and choice in the provision of loans to students. We have discussed it in detail in Committee and again on Report. The Bill, in its present form, will provide the ideal vehicle for the enhanced provision of loans to students, within the constraints of the existing regime. We should also bear it in mind that the new provision will exist in parallel with continuing provision from the Student Loans Company, which will continue to operate and to offer a choice between private and public sector loans. I hope that the House appreciates the merits of the Bill, however modest it may be. I ask the House to give it a Third Reading.
      9.20 pm
      Mr. Bryan Davies: I oppose Third Reading of the Bill. We are getting accustomed to the Government misusing the concept of choice in education. The choice that they suggest for school students and their parents frequently turns out to be choice by schools of students. Here we have the supposed extension of choice and opportunity to students. It is, however, clear that the choice will be exercised by banks and private institutions.
      The Bill is an enabling Bill, without detail on the way in which the Government intend to act. It is without detail because there was not adequate preparation before it was introduced. The Bill was introduced in a tremendous rush, and that rush was born of one concept only—how to ensure that the Government could write into the budgetary forecast £100 million of savings from privatising an expensive part of the student loan provision. This first piece of legislation of the Government's last full parliamentary Session, the pathfinder of the Government's legislative programme, is sadly off course and is proving an appalling augury of the Government's Bills this Session.

      829
      Before the Bill was discussed in Committee, the Minister said that the whole issue was about breakneck speed and the necessity for extreme urgency in implementing the Bill. That urgency was, of course, born of an attempt to deliver £100 million of savings in the public sector in 1996–97. In Committee, the Minister admitted that the game was up for this year and that the Bill's real impact would be postponed until after the next general election, whenever that might be.
      Why should Parliament indulge a Government on their last legs who seek to condition the actions of future Governments, against a background of their having manifestly failed to produce details of how the scheme should work and of there being no convincing sign that anyone supports the Bill, apart from Ministers and Conservative Back Benchers? Is there a single interest group concerned with higher education or any group concerned with the welfare of education that has had a good thing to say about the Bill? Why should the House grant power for subsidies to the private sector when critical assurances have not been given on how the Minister intends that the subsidies should be guarded?
      In Committee and today, there has been no explanation of how the Minister will seek to give even limited protection to students—the remnants of a fair deal—before the legislation comes into force. What will dictate the allocation of loans to students will, of course, be straight commercial criteria. There will be no right of appeal for students and no guarantee that public money is being allocated on the basis of fair principles. The Minister believes in caveat emptor for students—they will have to look after themselves when dealing with the banks.
      Moreover, the Government have learned nothing from the widely catalogued difficulties of the existing student loans scheme through the Student Loans Company. The present scheme is subject to almost universal criticism, yet the Minister has made no concession at all to that. He gave no concession to any concept that loans should be repaid on the basis of income contingency, and he made no attempt to recognise what is needed to support a learning-centred society.
      The Government have thrown away an opportunity to consider how to guarantee the numbers of students in higher education adequately, and to guarantee that students are properly resourced on a fair basis to ensure that the country develops the skill levels that we desperately need. Instead, the Minister has produced a Bill that merely builds on the weaknesses of the existing system. The Bill is modelled on a scheme that has been subject to criticism on every side. Instead of using the opportunity to think afresh and to produce a new and good scheme—of which many models have been put before the Minister in recent years—the Minister has produced two bad schemes. The House should reject the Bill.
      9.26 pm
      Mr. George Walden: When I was trying to sell the concept of student loans as a junior Minister in the mid-1980s, one of the many objections I heard was that the scheme was the thin end of the wedge. I was careful at the time not to deny that; frankly, I believe that the wedge has a long way to go.
      830
      I disagree with nothing in the Bill, but I would add a footnote. The way in which our universities and higher education establishments are developing means that, one of these days, we will have to drive that wedge in further to sustain the undoubted quality of our system. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will have to start thinking and talking about contributions to higher education fees, and not just what we are discussing in the Bill—student loans for maintenance.
      That suggestion is recognised by honest Opposition Members, notably the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who has come up with the notion of a graduate tax. I do not think that Conservative Members should dismiss that proposal out of hand on partisan grounds. As a Chamber, as a House of Commons and as a country, we face the problem of how to finance the tripling in the number of students without going down the road of some of our continental partners, who provide a low-grade mass higher education system. We do not want that.
      There are some signs of an increasing lack of facilities, and there is news today of an increase in the drop-out rate. One of the great things about our system was that we had a low drop-out rate, and we should read the warning signs and try to be as honest as we can in electoral and partisan terms about this matter. I am not such a fool as not to realise that that suggestion is electoral dynamite, because we are talking about some form or other of contribution from the middle classes towards the maintenance of the high standard of a system which their children preponderantly benefit from. That was not a very good sentence, and I am sorry about that.
      I do not want to criticise the Government and, having been in at the beginning of the process, I understand the circumstances and why they are introducing the measure. This is not the end of the process, however. It is a thin wedge, but if we want to maintain the high quality of higher education, the Government—or Labour, if it takes power—will have to force the wedge in deeper. Funds will have to come from outside the Government, and that will involve some form of contribution towards university fees.
      9.28 pm
      Mr. Don Foster: The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) is right to challenge all political parties as he has done. The sadness is that the Bill does not address that challenge, which must be addressed. It is a desperate measure which has been hastily prepared and introduced. The Bill's passage through the House, as the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) was keen for me to point out to the House, is a further example of the chaos and confusion created by the Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thought that Labour Members would like that.
      Although there may be some merit in sharing loan risk with the private sector, in many respects the Bill fails. It fails to tackle the real problems of student debt and poverty. Despite what the Minister told us in Committee, student debt and poverty have an impact on the quality of students' learning, and are at least in part responsible for the unacceptably large number of students who simply do not complete their courses, creating a real waste of talent.
      The Bill fails to provide support where support is urgently needed, for part-time students in higher and further education. It is particularly important that we should be considering those students this year, which is the European Year of Lifelong Learning.

      831
      The Bill fails to consider the possibility of moving from a mortgage-type repayment scheme to an income-contingent repayment scheme, which would be fairer to the borrowers and much more secure for the lenders. The Bill fails to meet the legitimate demands for parliamentary scrutiny, and it even fails to ensure that higher education institutions are properly recompensed for the costs that they incur in the administration of the proposed scheme.
      The scheme has failed, above all, to attract the rush by the private sector to become involved with the scheme that the Government assumed would occur. The Government's failure to attract the private sector has meant that, only two months after the Chancellor's Budget, the education budget is now £100 million adrift.
      When the Bill was introduced, it looked weak and pallid. As we studied the Bill in much more detail in Committee, it became apparent that it was seriously ill. The building societies and the banks are avoiding it like one would avoid a contagious disease. It is a sad and miserable Bill, and hon. Members should put it out of its misery by declining to give it a Third Reading.
      Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 276, Noes 247.

      Division No. 28]

      [9.30 pm

      AYES

      Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

      Cash, William

      Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Alexander, Richard

      Chapman, Sir Sydney

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

      Churchill, Mr

      Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

      Clappison, James

      Arbuthnot, James

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

      Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

      Coe, Sebastian

      Ashby, David

      Congdon, David

      Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

      Conway, Derek

      Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

      Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

      Baldry, Tony

      Couchman, James

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Cran, James

      Bates, Michael

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

      Batiste, Spencer

      Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

      Bendall, Vivian

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Day, Stephen

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Deva, Nirj Joseph

      Body, Sir Richard

      Devlin, Tim

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Dicks, Terry

      Boswell, Tim

      Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

      Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

      Dover, Den

      Bowden, Sir Andrew

      Duncan, Alan

      Bowis, John

      Duncan-Smith, Iain

      Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

      Dunn, Bob

      Brandreth, Gyles

      Durant, Sir Anthony

      Brazier, Julian

      Dykes, Hugh

      Bright, Sir Graham

      Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Elletson, Harold

      Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

      Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Browning, Mrs Angela

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

      Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

      Burns, Simon

      Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

      Burt, Alistair

      Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

      Butterfill, John

      Evennett, David

      Carlisle, John (Luton North)

      Faber, David

      Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Fabricant, Michael

      Carrington, Matthew

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Carttiss, Michael

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      832

      Fishburn, Dudley

      Leigh, Edward

      Forman, Nigel

      Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

      Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

      Lidington, David

      Forth, Eric

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

      Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

      Lord, Michael

      Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

      Luff, Peter

      Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      French, Douglas

      MacKay, Andrew

      Gale, Roger

      Maclean, Rt Hon David

      Gallie, Phil

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Gardiner, Sir George

      Madel, Sir David

      Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

      Maitland, Lady Olga

      Garnier, Edward

      Mans, Keith

      Gill, Christopher

      Marland, Paul

      Gillan, Cheryl

      Marlow, Tony

      Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Mates, Michael

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

      Gorst, Sir John

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

      Merchant, Piers

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

      Moate, Sir Roger

      Grylls, Sir Michael

      Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Hague, Rt Hon William

      Needham, Rt Hon Richard

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

      Neubert, Sir Michael

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Hannam, Sir John

      Norris, Steve

      Hargreaves, Andrew

      Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

      Harris, David

      Ottaway, Richard

      Haselhurst, Sir Alan

      Page, Richard

      Hawkins, Nick

      Paice, James

      Hawksley, Warren

      Patnick, Sir Irvine

      Hayes, Jerry

      Patten, Rt Hon John

      Heald, Oliver

      Pawsey, James

      Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Pickles, Eric

      Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Hendry, Charles

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Hicks, Robert

      Rathbone, Tim

      Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Hill, James (Southampton Test)

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

      Richards, Rod

      Horam, John

      Riddick, Graham

      Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

      Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

      Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

      Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

      Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

      Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

      Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

      Sackville, Tom

      Hunter, Andrew

      Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

      Jack, Michael

      Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Jessel, Toby

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

      Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Sims, Roger

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Key, Robert

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Spencer, Sir Derek

      Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

      Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

      Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

      Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

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

      Spink, Dr Robert

      Knox, Sir David

      Spring, Richard

      Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

      Sproat, Iain

      Lait, Mrs Jacqui

      Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Lawrence, Sir Ivan

      Steen, Anthony

      Legg, Barry

      Stephen, Michael

      Stern, Michael

      833

      Stewart, Allan

      Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

      Streeter, Gary

      Waller, Gary

      Sumberg, David

      Ward, John

      Sweeney, Walter

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Sykes, John

      Waterson, Nigel

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Watts, John

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Wells, Bowen

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

      Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

      Whitney, Ray

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Whittingdale, John

      Thomason, Roy

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

      Wilkinson, John

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Willetts, David

      Thornton, Sir Malcolm

      Wilshire, David

      Thurnham, Peter

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Tracey, Richard

      Wolfson, Mark

      Tredinnick, David

      Wood, Timothy

      Trend, Michael

      Yeo, Tim

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Viggers, Peter

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

      Mr. Roger Knapman and

      Walden, George

      Mr. Patrick McLoughlin.

      NOES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Corbett, Robin

      Adams, Mrs Irene

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Ainger, Nick

      Corston, Jean

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Alton, David

      Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

      Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

      Dafis, Cynog

      Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

      Darling, Alistair

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Davidson, Ian

      Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

      Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

      Ashton, Joe

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Austin-Walker, John

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

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

      Barron, Kevin

      Denham, John

      Battle, John

      Dewar, Donald

      Bayley, Hugh

      Dixon, Don

      Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

      Donohoe, Brian H

      Beggs, Roy

      Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

      Beith, Rt Hon A J

      Eagle, Ms Angela

      Bell, Stuart

      Eastham, Ken

      Bennett, Andrew F

      Etherington, Bill

      Benton, Joe

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret

      Berry, Roger

      Faulds, Andrew

      Betts, Clive

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Blunkett, David

      Flynn, Paul

      Boateng, Paul

      Foster, Rt Hon Derek

      Bradley, Keith

      Foster, Don (Bath)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Fyfe, Maria

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

      Galbraith, Sam

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Galloway, George

      Byers, Stephen

      Gapes, Mike

      Callaghan, Jim

      Garrett, John

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      George, Bruce

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Gerrard, Neil

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Campbell-Savours, D N

      Godman, Dr Norman A

      Canavan, Dennis

      Godsiff, Roger

      Cann, Jamie

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

      Graham, Thomas

      Chidgey, David

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Church, Judith

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Clapham, Michael

      Grocott, Bruce

      Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

      Hain, Peter

      Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

      Hall, Mike

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Hanson, David

      Clelland, David

      Hardy, Peter

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Coffey, Ann

      Harvey, Nick

      Cohen, Harry

      Henderson, Doug

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Heppell, John

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Hill, Keith (Streatham)

      834

      Hinchliffe, David

      O'Hara, Edward

      Hodge, Margaret

      Olner, Bill

      Hoey, Kate

      O'Neill, Martin

      Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

      Pearson, Ian

      Home Robertson, John

      Pickthall, Colin

      Hood, Jimmy

      Pike, Peter L

      Hoon, Geoffrey

      Pope, Greg

      Howarth, Alan (Strafrd-on-A)

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd)

      Prescott, Rt Hon John

      Hoyle, Doug

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Purchase, Ken

      Hutton, John

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Ingram, Adam

      Randall, Stuart

      Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

      Raynsford, Nick

      Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

      Reid, Dr John

      Jamieson, David

      Rendel, David

      Jones, Barry (Alyn arid D'side)

      Robertson, George (Hamilton)

      Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

      Roche, Mrs Barbara

      Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

      Rooker, Jeff

      Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

      Rowlands, Ted

      Jowell, Tessa

      Ruddock, Joan

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Salmond, Alex

      Keen, Alan

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Khabra, Piara S

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Short, Clare

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Simpson, Alan

      Liddell, Mrs Helen

      Skinner, Dennis

      Litherland, Robert

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Smyth, The Reverend Martin

      Lynne, Ms Liz

      Spearing, Nigel

      McAllion, John

      Spellar, John

      McCartney, Ian

      Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

      McCartney, Robert

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      McKelvey, William

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Mackinlay, Andrew

      Stevenson, George

      McLeish, Henry

      Stott, Roger

      Maclennan, Robert

      Strang, Dr. Gavin

      McMaster, Gordon

      Straw, Jack

      MacShane, Denis

      Sutcliffe, Gerry

      McWilliam, John

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Madden, Max

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Maddock, Diana

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Mahon, Alice

      Timms, Stephen

      Marek, Dr John

      Tipping, Paddy

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Touhig, Don

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

      Trimble, David

      Martlew, Eric

      Turner, Dennis

      Maxton, John

      Tyler, Paul

      Meacher, Michael

      Vaz, Keith

      Meale, Alan

      Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

      Michael, Alun

      Wallace, James

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Walley, Joan

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Milburn, Alan

      Wareing, Robert N

      Miller, Andrew

      Watson, Mike

      Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

      Welsh, Andrew

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon Sir James

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

      Morley, Elliot

      Winnick, David

      Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

      Wise, Audrey

      Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Wray, Jimmy

      Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

      Wright, Dr Tony

      Mudie, George

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Mullin, Chris

      Murphy, Paul

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Mr. John Cummings and

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Mrs. Bridget Prentice.

      O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Bill read the Third time, and passed.
      Mr. Alex Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you had any request for a statement from any Scottish Office Minister about some remarkable developments in the Scottish Office information directorate tonight?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I have had no request for any statements on any subjects.
      Mr. Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it a new point of order?
      Mr. Salmond: Yes. Is it within the province of the Chair to consider "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", as issued by the Cabinet Office of May 1992? As you may know, this morning the Secretary of State missed an important debate on the cold weather in Scotland to deliver a speech in Scotland which, to many people, seemed to consider some political elements. A section of that speech was subsequently withdrawn by the Scottish Office information directorate, although the text was delivered verbatim by the Secretary of State. The director of the directorate—a former press officer for Westminister City Council—has been forced to apologise—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that that is not a matter for the Chair.
      Mr. Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it on an entirely new subject?
      Mr. Salmond: It is within the province of the Chair to consider a breach of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is not for him to decide what is within the province of the Chair. That is for the Chair to decide. I call the Minister for Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell).
      Mr. Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can the Chair advise me whether it is in order for me to raise what is an admitted breach by the Scottish Office of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", when the director of the Scottish Office information directorate has been forced—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am happy to advise the hon. Member that matters of ministerial procedure are entirely a matter for the Prime Minister and are nothing to do with the Chair.
      Mr. Salmond rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had three bites at the same cherry. That is quite enough for this time of night.

  Potato Marketing Scheme
  9.46 pm
  The Minister for Rural Affairs (Mr. Tim Boswell): I beg to move,
  That the draft Potato Marketing Scheme (Commencement of Revocation Period) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 12th December, be approved.
  The draft order is presented in accordance with the requirements of the Agriculture Act 1993. Its purpose is to specify the date 12 months from which the potato marketing scheme will be revoked. The order is straightforward, therefore, but at the time of the debates on the Agriculture Bill in 1993 concerns were expressed about the future of the scheme. I will attempt to show that those concerns are now both misplaced and out of date.
  I shall begin by briefly reminding the House of the background. The 1993 Act gave Ministers power to revoke the potato marketing scheme should they consider it necessary or in the public interest. In debate on the Act, which aroused considerable interest both here and in another place, Ministers made it clear that no decision had been made as to revocation of the scheme. Indeed, the then Minister, now Secretary of State for Education and Employment—my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), whom we are pleased to welcome to the Front Bench tonight—made it clear that she wished to consider all the arguments at first hand before coming to any decision. That she did, with considerable care. As a result, she made the definitive announcement in November 1993 that, on both trading and deregulatory grounds, the scheme must come to an end. In that, she was echoing the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities which, when examining the Commission's proposal for a common organisation of the market in potatoes, concluded that, even if there were no agreements on such a regime, Britain should not continue to impose unilateral market controls.
  That Committee believed, as the Government now believe, that Britain would be better able to compete in Europe without the constraints of the potato marketing scheme.
  Mr. James Pawsey: Will my hon. Friend confirm for the benefit of farmers in my constituency that British and European farmers will operate on a level playing field without benefit to our European competitors?
  Mr. Boswell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. We seek a level playing field for our farmers in this as in other respects. I shall explain to the House in a moment the nature of the present provisions and the advantages of a lightweight regime in effecting that.
  Indeed, there is a suggestion that my hon. Friend has reiterated that a link should be forged between agreement on a potato regime and revocation of the scheme. I intend to show that such a linkage is not only invalid, but would be damaging to our interests. As that is an important point, I shall explain it in a few moments.
  Returning to the history of the matter, in announcing the intention to revoke the scheme—in 1993, as the House will recall—the Government recognised the need that was expressed within and outside the industry for it to have

  837
  time to adapt to the conditions of the free market. The scheme was therefore allowed to continue in a modified form for three years. The modifications were based on suggestions by the Potato Marketing Board and the National Farmers Union. I shall not go into detail as to the modifications. Suffice it to say that they all led towards loosening the quota controls operated by the board, removal of intervention buying and reducing the administration costs of the scheme.
  The industry has made excellent use of the intervening period. All the modifications requested by Ministers were speedily introduced and so much progress has been made towards the free market that the board has already decided that it will not operate quota controls this year. That means that there will be a de facto free market in 1996—a full year before the scheme is revoked. That is evidence of an adapting and forward-looking industry of which the free market need have no fears.
  We have now completed all the necessary preliminaries to laying the draft order. They included consultation of representatives of producers, purchasers, retailers and consumers of potatoes as required by section 25(3) of the 1993 Act.
  The draft order simply specifies 1 July 1996 as the first day of the 12-month period, at the end of which the potato marketing scheme will be revoked. That means that the scheme itself will come to an end on 30 June 1997. The reason for selecting the June date is not arbitrary; it marks the end of the potato marketing year and is therefore the most convenient transition date for all concerned.
  Mr. Paddy Tipping: Will the Minister confirm that that is the earliest date to wind up the scheme and that he has the power to extend the scheme if necessary? Will he use that power if he is not confident that there is a level playing field across Europe?
  Mr. Boswell: I shall explain to the House why it would be positively inimical to the interests of growers to continue with a scheme that is past its sell-by date, which is bureaucratic and which shackles the ability of the industry to respond to the new, free market conditions. I advise the House to accept the link between those two terms.
  Mr. Paul Marland: Will my hon. Friend explain to the House what mechanism will be in place to ensure that our European partners do not favour their own industries with domestic assistance? I do not know whether it is just the potato growers in the Forest of Dean, but I suspect that throughout Gloucestershire—and I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) feels the same—there is considerable suspicion among potato farmers that other Governments may not treat the matter in the same way as we do. Burnt into our memories is the fact that when the French decided to take on the British turkey industry, the turkey processors were awarded a grant of 120 per cent. to build a turkey processing plant in Brittany in breach of the rules and regulations. Can my hon. Friend reassure the potato growers in Gloucestershire?
  Mr. Boswell: I can tell my hon. Friend, who is much respected in agricultural circles, that there is widespread
  838
  concern on exactly that point. It is the clear wish of producers that there should be, as far as humanly possible, a level playing field. In recent years, producers have done quite well—as is shown by their export performance—within the existing system, where there is no common organisation of the market. To effect the competition rules against state aids—my hon. Friend will be aware that those rules operate only where state aids distort competition, not automatically—it would be necessary to specify that in some common organisation of the market. That is a clear interest in having a so-called lightweight regime, to which I shall return. I thought it sensible to take time to explain that point, because of the concern felt by many hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  Within six months of the order's commencement date, section 27(1) of the 1993 Act requires the board to apply to the Agriculture Ministers for approval of a scheme to transfer its property, rights and liabilities to a successor body or bodies—unless growers, in a poll, tell it not to do so. The 1993 Act was framed specifically to allow for a successor, so that the desirable activities of the board—I emphasise that they are desirable activities—in research, promotion and information on behalf of the industry could continue. The Act allows for one of three different types of successor—a development council, registered company or friendly society. Our consultation revealed widespread support in the industry for a body funded by levy to succeed the board, which means in effect a development council.
  The House will be interested and, I hope, encouraged to know that not only has the industry agreed on the necessity for a levy-funded successor body to the board but all sectors of the industry have reached consensus on the form that such a body should take. I am not in a position to comment today on the detail of the industry's proposals, as it will be for the board to present proposals to Ministers for approval at the appropriate time, if growers wish.
  Mr. David Harris: Can my hon. Friend assure the House that any body established on the levy principle will be answerable not just to the Minister but primarily to the growers, as the payers of the levy?
  Mr. Boswell: I understand my hon. Friend's feelings. Appointments to a development council, particularly in the new climate set by the Nolan committee, cannot be in any sense dictated in advance, but are the responsibility of Ministers taking advice. There can be no narrow constituency that automatically entitles one particular group of interests to a seat on the board. If my hon. Friend considers the experience of existing development councils, although occasionally they are not without their critics, they broadly represent the interests of those concerned in the industry. I am sensitive to my hon. Friend's point and hope that he will be sensitive to the constitutional propriety that I described.
  The House will appreciate that details of the successor body are not yet available, but the fact that consensus on such a body exists is another testimony to the potato industry's progressive attitude.
  I return to the linkage of the revocation of our scheme with agreement on a common agricultural policy regime for potatoes. The Government are well aware of and sensitive to widespread concern within the industry that a lightweight European Union regime for potatoes should

  839
  be introduced as soon as possible, to remove national aids currently operating in other member states. The UK has been the only member state that has consistently supported the European Commission's proposals for just such a regime.
  Mr. George Stevenson: Will the Minister confirm that there is not an EU potato regime and that any such regime that may be established, no matter how lightweight, will cost a considerable amount of money?
  Mr. Boswell: I can tell the hon. Gentleman immediately, if he is in any doubt, that there is not an EU potato regime. I do not agree with him about cost. We do not wish to involve ourselves in a regime that is inordinately expensive. One of the concerns expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House has been the high costs of the withdrawal and intervention system in the separate area of fruit and vegetables. That is exactly what we do not want. Nor do we want to tip the discussion into a mode where we end up having it against our will. We would resist that firmly. That is why we have been consistent supporters of the Commission's proposals for a regime.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: The only supporter.
  Mr. Boswell: I am sure that it is nice occasionally to be on the side of the Commission.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister pressed the Spanish—
  Mr. John Home Robertson: Will the Minister confirm that he is winding up a scheme which is costing the taxpayer nothing, or next to nothing, and calling for the introduction of a European scheme that is likely to cost something quite significant?
  Mr. Boswell: I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the likely cost of the European scheme. The purpose of a lightweight regime is primarily to safeguard our position on unfair and distorted competition through national aids. That is what we conceive as the main objective. The costs, if any, would be cast with that objective in view.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: If it is, as the Minister says, that Britain is the only country in the Community that is prepared to accept the Commission's proposals and he does not want a regime that will cost money while all the other states clearly do, on what basis can he possibly say that when the present scheme is ended at the beginning of July, he will be able to deliver his undertakings?
  Mr. Boswell: The hon. Gentleman, in his anxiety to interrupt me, has jumped to the wrong conclusion. It is by no means the case that other member states want a heavyweight regime with the full works of intervention, or whatever. There are many member states that do not want a regime. We are interested in and prepared to support one. As I have already said, British potato growers have been doing very well. We are confident that they will do even better when the board is not round their necks.
  Sir Peter Tapsell: Is not the reality that it is most unlikely that we shall be able to negotiate a potato regime with the other members of the EU? It suits
  840
  them well to intervene nationally to help their potato growers. The great merit of our Potato Marketing Board in the past has been that it has kept supply and demand reasonably in balance without imposing any costs on the British taxpayer. What will happen to the British potato grower the next time we have a glut of potatoes in Britain and in the rest of Europe, when all the European Governments will be subsidising their growers and we will not be helping ours?
  Mr. Boswell: With great respect, I do not accept that the practice of subsidising potato growers is by any means universal in the Community among other member states. I understand the concern that my hon. Friend expressed so eloquently during the passage of previous legislation, when he advocated a control system with quotas and the maintenance of the familiar system of the Potato Marketing Board, even though it is in abeyance for this year. Our view, from the experience of member states that do not have such a regime and quota control, and from the experience of British growers who have been able to export competitively into Europe, is that whether or not we achieve a lightweight regime, it would still be justified to wind up the board, which is the expectation of the industry, and the Potato Marketing Board is anxious to make progress to pave the way for the establishment of a successor body.
  Mr. Nick Ainger: Will the Minister give way on that point?
  Mr. Boswell: I have given way many times. Hon. Members may make their speeches in a moment.
  Mr. Henry Bellingham: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Boswell: I shall give way to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Bellingham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I know that he has nearly finished. One point that he has not touched on, however, is the cost of winding up the board. He will be aware that there are producer assets with the board and they may well be used entirely on redundancies, property, pensions and so on. Will he please comment on that important point?
  Mr. Boswell: I am aware of the overall situation. There is little indication that the overall liabilities of the board under winding-up procedures are likely to exceed its assets. It is likely to be positive and there are, of course, provisions in any winding-up scheme to deal with the situation if there is no transition to a successor body. To introduce the principle of Government subsidy for winding-up costs would be a difficult precedent. It was not adopted, for example, in relation to the milk marketing scheme, nor would it be justified in principle, however seductively my hon. Friend makes the point, because it is claimed that the board has been run as a producer organisation, and although there have been safeguards for consumers, the board has been for the benefit of producers over the years, and they have incurred some responsibilities as well as benefits. We think that they should meet those obligations, and I have every reason to think that that will be possible.
  Mr. Christopher Gill: I am sure that my hon. Friend will concede that the board is being wound up at the behest of Government. Surely there is some moral

  841
  obligation, therefore, on the Government to fund these costs, as the board could not possibly have forecast them when it was making its future plans all those years ago.
  Mr. Boswell: I think that my hon. Friend will he able to share with me some of the memories of the early years of the board. I am looking back to the end of de-control some 40 years ago. I am not sure that that is particularly helpful to the present case. I am saying that I do not believe that it is right to use taxpayers' money to add to the assets of the board on its winding up when we have not been prepared to do that for other marketing schemes.
  We do not believe that there is any justification for further delay in taking the final steps towards a free market. Our side of the contribution is the revocation of the scheme. For its part, the board has worked very hard with other organisations in the industry to ensure that it is in a position to submit proposals for a successor by the end of this year. In fact, it wishes to put its proposals to growers during the next few weeks. It will be greatly assisted in that process by the fact that the necessary order has been approved. Therefore, I commend the order to the House.
  10.7 pm
  Mrs. Llin Golding: I did not realise that there were so many jokes about potatoes until earlier this evening. As hon. Members went past, we heard, "That lot over there get their chips", "The Minister is in a soup", "Boil them in oil!" and similar jokes.
  Mr. Home Robertson: That is the lightweight regime.
  Mrs. Golding: That is right. I must say that the jokes were very repetitive, and I shall not repeat all of them.
  Mr. Pawsey: There was the one about stakeholder and chips.
  Mrs. Golding: Hon. Members missed that one.
  Tonight we are talking seriously about potatoes. If there is one thing that Ministers should understand, it is the anxiety that is caused by occupational uncertainty and insecurity. The Government have, of course, brought their own troubles on themselves and deserve the retribution that they will undoubtedly face. Unfortunately, they have also blighted the lives of so many others who deserve better, including the blameless potato growers. In abolishing the very successful potato marketing scheme while neglecting to meet the legitimate needs of growers in other respects, the Government have once again put ideology before the welfare of people who want only to do a useful job for the country—[Interruption.]—unlike Conservative Members who are interrupting.
  The Government's case against the potato marketing scheme was put during proceedings on the Agriculture Bill 1993. I do not intend to plough that field again; suffice it to say that the scheme was supported strongly by farmers in a ballot. They considered that it not only provided Britain with a steady supply of good-quality potatoes, but gave growers fair incomes at no cost to the taxpayer.
  Mr. Stevenson: In his perambulation around the issue, the Minister failed to mention the impact on prices for the
  842
  consumer. He did mention the deregulation of the milk marketing arrangements, which resulted in significant price increases. I believe that increases will be inevitable when the Potato Marketing Board is disbanded. Would my hon. Friend care to comment on the Minister's omission?
  Mrs. Golding: Nowadays, the Government are not interested in the cost to the consumer and the taxpayer.
  Mr. Boswell: I welcome the hon. Lady to her first debate speaking from the Front Bench. Why does she expect the lifting of a quota regime, and the concomitant increase in flexibility and freedom of supply, to lead to an overall rise in prices?
  Mrs. Golding: That is what the Minister said about the Milk Marketing Board. Yesterday, people in Birmingham expressed a very different view. The Potato Processors Association takes a more optimistic view of the abolition of the scheme, but it does not appear to have as much at risk as the growers.
  The argument this evening relates chiefly to time, and to the Government's lackadaisical attitude. It is about not ideology, but incompetence and a lack of effort. The Minister will be aware of the excellent, practical, pragmatic brief sent to hon. Members by the National Farmers Union in London and the Scottish NFU. Their argument, in a nutshell, is that the Government should not destroy what we have until they have something to put in its place. It is a sensible and reasonable petition.
  The growers have done everything possible to save the situation themselves. As the Minister is well aware, the NFU has said:
  "During the last two years, the Potato Marketing Board has, with the support of growers and the NFU, laid aside its quota and intervention arrangements, reduced its staff and board numbers, welcomed further industry wide involvement, and cut by half its levy on growers".
  The NFU has bent over backwards to give Ministers what they wanted—the removal of quotas, a year earlier than the Minister wanted, as he has admitted; an increase in planting thresholds; the end of intervention buying; a reduction in the levy to a level appropriate for the funding of the board's other activities, such as research, promotion and the provision of market information; a reduction in the board's membership; and the ending of licensing and registration of potato merchants. Unfortunately, the Government have failed to match its efforts.
  The growers would have liked to keep the potato marketing scheme—hence the ballot. At the very least, they want a reasonable alternative. As they see it, the Government have severely constrained the industry's choice of replacement arrangements while making no progress towards a free and fair European market.
  As the House knows, the Agriculture Act 1993 provides three possible options. The first is a development council based in statute, which could impose a compulsory levy; the second is a friendly society; and the third is a company. When he announced the results of his consultation just before Christmas, the Minister stated that there was widespread support for an industry body, which would be funded by a strategy levy, to succeed the Potato Marketing Board, and he said that it would be for the board to develop appropriate proposals if that was what growers wanted. That is what growers want.

  843
  The NFU insists on the need for a compulsory levy, for which only the first option provides. It also wants those who pay the levy to have control, but apparently that is being resisted by officials. Will the Minister give a clear answer to the growers' question? Can they have a compulsory levy over which they have control?
  The NFU is also concerned about the European dimension, as are some others. The Government have sunk the lifeboat that was provided for 60 years by the potato marketing scheme. What are they doing to ensure that growers are thrown the lifebelt of a lightweight EU potato regime? The impression given by the Government is that, far from running for the lifebelt, they have neither the wit nor the will to do anything other than watch the growers go under. They have long since forgotten the fine words in Standing Committee when the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), now the Secretary of State for the Environment, uttered sentiments and said that no sensible Government would stand aside and say, "Let the Dutch take over," or, "Let the French subsidise their industry into defeating ours." He also said that he wanted to get rid of other countries' support for their potato organisations. Those are fine words.
  Mr. Marland: It is a terrible indictment of British potato growers by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to say that, as a result of this measure, British potato growers will go under and that the entire needs of British potato eaters will be imported from Holland. Does she really mean that?
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: That is not what my hon. Friend said.
  Mr. Marland: That is indeed what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) said. Does she believe that British potato growers are so gutless and uninventive that they will stand back and watch the Dutch potato growers swamp the market? Potato growers throughout the UK should understand exactly what the hon. Lady says about them.
  Mrs. Golding: It is nice to listen to the hon. Gentleman and to know that, in addition to Opposition Members, a Conservative Member wishes to support potato growers. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman should listen to what I have to say. I assure him that we are committed to supporting potato growers and we want to ensure that they have fair competition. The hon. Gentleman, of all people, should understand that.
  As I have said, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal used fine words in Committee, but the NFU says that foreign growers are supported. There is support in surplus seasons to retain productive capacity; support for processing facilities, production and research; and support for exports to the British home and export markets. The Government appear to be doing nothing about that, and that is one of the matters on which I take issue with the Minister. It is not the Minister but we who are pressing the Government to do something.
  To stop other Governments undermining our growers, the growers are asking for those common rules of competition that an EU lightweight scheme would provide, and they seek a scheme that would avoid the market support regime, with the highly expensive policy of intervention buying that is wanted by some countries. The NFU believes that
  844
  "the Minister should undertake that, in good time before the scheme is revoked he will make a statement to the House, supported by a written report, indicating

  1. The action which the UK Government has taken to secure common rules of competition in the European Potato Market, and particularly whether or not there will be a lightweight regime in place by 30 June 1997.

  2. The results of a UK investigation into the state of competition in the European potato market at that time, including all available information on EU Member State aids.

  3. The measures that the Minister proposes to take which will ensure that the GB potato industry can compete on even terms in the European market after June 1997."

  Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Hon. Members: Not to him.
  Mrs. Golding: I will give way.
  Mr. Walker: Opposition Members will know that my constituency has a large potato growing area.
  Mr. Home Robertson: It is represented by one.
  Mr. Walker: I listen to the laird with great interest. As an ordinary working-class chap, I am always fascinated by what he says.
  Will the hon. Lady tell the House how a Labour Government, if we ever have one, would ensure that all her proposals would be forced through the European Union—how that would be achieved? We would be interested to know how the Opposition would deal with qualified majority voting.
  Mrs. Golding: This is, of course, a typical question. When Conservative Members are in a mess, have got rid of something that they know works, and do not know what to put in its place, they ask the Opposition what they would do.
  The NFU says:
  "If other European producers are still in a position to receive national support GB producers will expect equivalent support."
  It would be helpful if the Minister responded to the NFU position and to one other important point included in the NFU brief. It states:
  "the PMB is being wound up purely as a result of UK Government policy."
  Remember the ballot. It goes on:
  "The majority of producer assets in the PMB are likely to be spent in meeting the wind-up costs in relation to property, redundancies and pensions. We seek a commitment from the Minister that the Government will meet a significant proportion of the costs of winding up the Board."
  Mr. Boswell: Is that a spending pledge? If so, has it been cleared with the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown)?
  Mrs. Golding: Another Minister is looking for the Opposition to get him out of a mess. He should never have got rid of the board. If he had abided by the NFU's ballot, he would not have done so.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Raymond S. Robertson): That is not an answer.
  Mrs. Golding: That is the answer.

  845
  To express again our strong support for potato growers, and yet again to register our complete dissatisfaction with the Government and their incompetence, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the order.
  10.23 pm
  Mr. Roger Gale: Since I have been in the House, I have sought to represent the interests of potato growers in my constituency of North Thanet. One of the most contentious things that I am likely to say tonight is that they grow the finest potatoes in the United Kingdom and, probably, in Europe. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and hon. Friends representing the Forest of Dean, seats in Norfolk and elsewhere might find that difficult to comprehend, but we in Thanet have significant potato growers of first early and main crop potatoes.
  When I first arrived in Thanet, I was most compelled by growers' concern about the damage that the Potato Marketing Board and the regime were doing to their business. They cited two counts—first, that they were subjected to quotas, and secondly, that they were subjected to a levy. The quotas were especially damaging to the crops of first early growers, who faced ludicrous competition, especially from the French growers who did not have quotas and were dumping potatoes willy-nilly in the United Kingdom. Buyers in Covent Garden were sending back locally grown and excellent potatoes on quality grounds simply because they had already committed themselves to, and had to pay for, overseas products. The businesses also found the levy intolerable. They could not understand why a Conservative Government were allowing the continuation of a regime that placed such controls upon them.
  One of the first things that I had to do as the newly elected parliamentary representative was to prevail upon my colleagues in the Ministry to abolish the potato marketing regime. I am absolutely delighted that tonight we are witnessing the dying throes of a regime that placed ludicrous controls on some of the finest potato growers in the world.
  At that time, the growth in the potato consumption market was, as it is now, almost exclusively in processed potatoes. Then, as now, the housewife did not wish to peel spuds. I took the trouble—which I doubt Labour Members have done—to visit the potato processing plants being established throughout Holland and northern France, where processors knew that they had access to good, reliable, cheap and abundant crops. That investment was made on the European mainland rather than in the United Kingdom, largely because of the restrictions imposed upon our growers by the Potato Marketing Board.
  The growth in the potato consumption market is still in processed potatoes. Thank heavens that there is at last investment in potato processing plant in the United Kingdom. It is creating jobs. The processing business is now aware that it can rely on an unregulated crop, free of quotas, from the United Kingdom. I regard that as progress. I am sad that no Labour Member—or, indeed any of my hon. Friends—has mentioned that point.
  Mrs. Ann Winterton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I shall be brief. When he went to inspect the Dutch processing industry, did he ascertain whether it received any state aid?
  Mr. Gale: I was about to deal with precisely that point. We want a level playing field. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] Labour Members moan and groan, but their Front-Bench spokesman made a plea for state subsidy—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) said that other countries were subsidising plant and crops and pleaded for some of that for Britain. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, she did. I want none of that. [Interruption.] I wish Labour Members would listen.
  I did not stand here 10 years ago and I do not stand here tonight arguing for deregulation of the United Kingdom market, solely to see the imposition of regulation and subsidy in Holland and France, just 20 miles across the channel from my constituency. I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister's view of the need for a light European Union regime. Subsidy is outside European regulation—it is not permitted, nor should it be. I simply want to know that the Government will take a robust view of any hint of any kind of subsidy to our competitors on the European mainland. Having deregulated the industry in this country, having freed up our farmers to create the crop that we need, having seen the investment in plant that we wanted, I do not expect that plant to be supplied by cheap, subsidised products from either France or Holland.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gale: No, I will not give way. Stick to soup.
  The signs are that the regime will be succeeded by a development council funded by a levy on producers. That is what the producers in my constituency want. Indeed, my constituent Richard Ash made that point to me only yesterday. The producers are paying the fiddler and they wish to call the tune. They want that development council to he answerable to them, the farmers, not simply to Ministers. Can we have that assurance?
  I have listened carefully to the arguments concerning wind-up costs and money that may be left over from the Potato Marketing Board. I do not expect pensioners in North Thanet as taxpayers, any more than I expect pensioners anywhere else in the United Kingdom, to subsidise the wind-up costs of the Potato Marketing Board. My hon. Friend the Minister has said that there is likely to be surplus money after the wind-up costs have been paid. If that is so, will he assure me that that money will be paid directly to the development council to help it launch its work?
  10.30 pm
  Mr. Nick Ainger: I speak as a Member who represents a new potato growing area in Pembrokeshire that rightly has an excellent reputation. My growers are telling me, through the National Farmers Union and the Potato Marketing Board, that the commitments that they have been seeking from the Government before winding up the marketing scheme have not been given. That has certainly been confirmed by what the Minister has said tonight.

  847
  Absolutely no commitments have been given about a fair and open market in Europe or about the reduction or elimination of state aids to growers in our competitor countries, regardless of whether they are on the Iberian peninsula, or in Italy, France or Greece. All the Minister has been able to tell us is that, on our own, the Government, with the support of the Commission, are in agreement. Every other state, which is subsidising its growers in one form or another, is opposed to the Commission's proposition for a lightweight regime.
  The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) could not have been listening to what the Minister was saying, because the latter made it quite clear that there was no way in which he could give any guarantee whatever that, by the time the scheme is wound up, there will be a level playing field—as it is called—or that there will be fair competition and no state aids.
  I am concerned because the new potato market is extremely sensitive to competition, especially unfair competition. New potatoes have a very short season. We already have traditional competition from the near east, north Africa and southern states of Europe. There is concern that, if the protection—admittedly, it is only in the form of support by the growers—is removed in a year or two, there will be problems. There have already been problems over the past few years. The winter might be long or the spring wet. Certain problems always arise.
  Without protection, and because the Government have failed totally to eliminate unfair competition in Europe, growers will undoubtedly go to the wall. The market is incredibly competitive. All it takes is a wet week or a wet fortnight, and the window for the market of premature new potatoes is lost.
  Until the Government can give the growers the assurances they are seeking, which they have certainly failed to give tonight, the growers, through the farming unions and the Potato Marketing Board, will be very disturbed about the fact that the Government are going ahead with the revocation, willy-nilly and irrespective of what is happening in Europe.
  The Minister rightly praised the work of the Potato Marketing Board, and its progress since the Agriculture Act 1993. I am sure that Members on both sides have received a letter from the chairman of the Potato Marketing Board highlighting the three commitments it seeks. The first is an assurance that
  "British potato growers will be able to compete on even terms with their EU counterparts after the end of the Scheme".
  The second commitment that the board seeks is a
  "strong statement that the UK Government will do all in its power to ensure that EU member states are not able to provide state aids to their producers when British growers can not enjoy similar support. This should be achieved preferably by seeking the introduction of a lightweight EU potato regime".
  The third commitment sought relates to the winding-up costs of the board.
  The chairman, whom the Minister has congratulated, says that he believes that, if those commitments are satisfied, British growers can compete satisfactorily in this country and in the export market. He then says that, as long as the commitments are given, the vast majority of potato growers will accept the ending of the scheme and the move to deregulate the market.
  848
  However, that acceptance is conditional on the first two commitments in particular being given. As the Minister has absolutely failed even to address those issues properly tonight and has not given any commitments, the Opposition will oppose the revocation.
  10.35 pm
  Mr. David Harris: I represent an area that grows a lot of potatoes, both early potatoes and early main crop potatoes for the crisps industry—crispers, as they are called. Most of that production takes place on a contract basis.
  I must confess that when, under the Agriculture Act 1993, we took the first step towards the abolition of the Potato Marketing Board, I expected an outcry from some of my farmers, but not from all of them, because some of the farmers in my constituency have been very much against the workings of the board. However, I thought that those who supported the board—possibly the majority of farmers in my constituency—would be extremely worried.
  All I can tell the House is that I have not had a single letter or telephone call. I addressed the Penzance branch of the National Farmers Union just before Christmas, and no one mentioned the factors that have featured in our debate tonight. Like every other hon. Member who has a constituency interest, I have had the documents from the NFU and the Potato Marketing Board that have been quoted. I am not in any way trying to rubbish the points they make. Obviously, there is concern on the part of the NFU and the board. I can report only that individual growers—I have a lot of them in my constituency—have not voiced those concerns to me.
  Although, in more recent years, the Potato Marketing Board has come in for some criticism, not least from the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), in whose constituency the campaign against the Potato Marketing Board was centred, it is right to pay tribute to the work done by the board over many years. I know some dedicated people in my constituency, such as Mr. John Badcock, who served on the board for many years. It is only right that we should pay tribute to those people.
  I came to the conclusion, however, that the system we had some years ago could not be sustained, for the very reason given by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet—that it did not make sense to have a quota system that exposed us to competition, especially in the processed area, from countries that did not have a quota system.
  Since the changes were announced in the Agriculture Act 1993, the potato industry has begun to make the necessary changes, and has adapted to the situation. Therefore, I am somewhat reassured. However, I share the fears being expressed on national aids, and when or if evidence is produced—none has been produced so far tonight—that some member states are making unfair use of national aids to distort competition, the Government will have to take action under the competition sections of the treaty, because that power exists.
  I am also reassured by my hon. Friend the Minister's comments about the costs of winding up the scheme, because he made it clear that the board is likely to have a surplus to disburse, so there will be no need to go back to the industry for extra money to meet the winding-up costs.
  Mr. Boswell: May I clarify a point that my hon. Friend has raised, and to which my hon. Friend the Member for

  849
  North Thanet (Mr. Gale) also referred? The existing board has been making provision for its winding-up costs, and there is a reference in the board's annual report to the position of pension funds under the board. The likelihood is that, if there is a surplus in assets, it will be possible to transfer those under any proposed scheme to a successor body. If that does not happen, funds will be redistributed to the producers.
  Mr. Harris: I am most reassured by that. I wish to re-emphasise a point that I tried to raise in an intervention—that, when a new system is introduced, the growers themselves should be in charge of it. That is a very important point.
  I end on a topical issue. Brown rot is a matter of extreme concern to growers, particularly in Cornwall. I ask for an assurance that the Government will maintain their checks for brown rot on seed potatoes coming into this country from Holland. On balance, I would conclude that the House should approve the order.
  10.41 pm
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris), if only to endorse his point about brown rot, which is extremely serious in our part of the country. The hon. Gentleman was lucky if, in the time he attended the annual meeting of the county branch of the NFU in Truro last Friday, he was not lobbied about the order, because I was. I was at the meeting in the latter part of the day—the hon. Gentleman was there earlier—and the issue came up several times.
  The hon. Member for St. Ives has been misled. The issue tonight is not whether we keep the scheme in place but what will replace it and when. That is the question, and I very much hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the wise words of the hon. Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell). The hon. Gentleman intervened to say that, if the scheme is swept away without real progress for the regime throughout Europe, our growers will be exposed to a most intolerable situation.
  Before I return to that matter, I wish to deal with one or two misconceptions. Some hon. Members may have received a briefing from the Potato Processors Association. I think that the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) quoted from it.
  Mr. Gale: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tyler: No, I have very little time, and the hon. Gentleman did not give way during his speech.
  The association's briefing states:
  "last season, processors of frozen potato products and par fries increased their usage of potatoes in UK factories by 10 per cent. whilst imports of processed products reduced by 24 per cent."
  That gives the impression that everything is wonderful, that growers are doing very well and that imports are being cut. But we must recognise the very special climatic conditions that affect this sector of the industry.
  In 1993–94—the year before the one referred to in the briefing—there was a poor, wet and cold season, after which the harvest collapsed. In previous years, those latest import figures were nothing like as encouraging as implied by that brief.
  850
  It is misleading for hon. Members to be given that impression. I hope that the Minister will not rely on that. It is certainly not true that growers are doing so well that the scheme can be cheerfully dumped. That is the first correction that I want to make.
  Mr. Boswell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tyler: The Minister will have a chance to reply to the debate. I want to be as brief as possible, in case other hon. Members wish to speak.
  The Minister implied that it was impossible—I think that he used that very word—for the new development council to be truly accountable to growers. He made that point twice. He said that there was no precedent. There is a precedent. The Scottish Seed Development Council includes several direct grower representatives. The Minister can quote no precedent for the position that he now describes. It is an illusion to lead us up that blind alley.
  The Minister said that there was no precedent for sharing the costs of abolition as opposed to putting the whole burden on the growers who have contributed all these years to the success of the scheme and the board. He has not been at the Ministry long, whereas I have now shadowed four Ministers. The precedent is that, when changes were made to the sheep variable premium scheme and the beef premium scheme, the Meat and Livestock Commission was compensated by MAFF. There is a precedent for a contribution from the Government.
  I do not think that any of the Ministers on the Treasury Bench now were involved in the Committee which considered the Agriculture Bill. Few of the Opposition Members present this evening were involved, but I was. The text that we were given then did not come from the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard). She was not the Minister. The Minister was the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer).
  I and my fellow members of that Committee remember extremely well that the Minister did not deign to appear at many of the sittings of the Committee, but he did appear to give some explicit assurances—hon. Members on both sides of the House will recall them—about the circumstances in which he would agree to the abolition of the potato marketing scheme.
  The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal gave us the following assurance to encourage us to agree to the abolition of the scheme:
  "I want a system under which no country tries unfairly to promote its own potatoes against other countries' so that we can all use the single market to sell our products. I want that because I think that British potatoes are good potatoes, that our producers and processors are of a high quality, and that we could beat the lot of them. We could do that only if we operated on a fair and equal basis.…
  Most of those countries that want a heavy regime would prefer a light regime to no regime if that were the only proposal on offer. Most of those countries that would prefer no regime will recognise in the end that they cannot have both no regime and a level playing field. They must decide which they prefer. In almost every case—I say almost because I have learnt not to say every—they will plump for a lightweight regime.
  We shall find ourselves with the package of a lightweight regime, which will be supported by enough countries for it to be accepted. That is the best assessment of what is the overwhelming likelihood. It could be that, for some reason which I have not detected, what I think is extremely likely to occur does not occur, but that is the best advice I can give to the Committee."

  851
  That was the advice given to Members on both sides of the Committee. Conservative Members, Opposition Members, and I, as spokesman for Liberal Democrats, accepted in good faith the assurance that we were given by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal.
  The right hon. Gentleman continued in the Standing Committee:
  "I am merely saying that, without the very likely European regime, if it became clear that Britain was shooting itself in the foot by continuing the current potato marketing regime, no sensible Government would stand aside and say, 'Let the Dutch take it over. Let the French subsidise their industry into defeating ours.' In those circumstances, we would take measures, which would have to be approved by affirmative resolution, to replace the current potato marketing scheme with those elements that benefit us in the quest for export and import substitution and remove those elements that disadvantage us."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 4 May 1993; c. 225–27.]
  The Minister has not come before the House with any of the measures that his predecessor promised that Committee. We were fooled then into believing that he would. I hope that the House will recognise that we are being led up the garden path tonight.
  The growers deserve nothing less than the fulfilment of that ministerial promise. I know that some Conservative Members share my concerns; they have expressed them privately and publicly; they have expressed them to growers; they have expressed them to the National Farmers Union. I hope that they will not let down the growers tonight.
  There is no urgency about the passage of this order tonight. We could now insist that Ministers be held to their promise and that we get what they promised us. The growers must be given the explicit assurance that Ministers will now face up to the threat of predatory support by other member states' Governments to assist our competitors in the European Union.
  The Minister tonight admitted failure so far. Why should that be a reason to trust the Government to achieve something in the future? Nothing has yet been achieved. The House of Commons must insist that Ministers be held to account for the promises that they have made.
  10.50 pm
  Mr. Martyn Jones: What we are discussing this evening will not improve Britain's agriculture one iota. Deregulation of potato marketing is another example of the Tory policy of removing the steering wheel in the blind hope that that will make the car lighter and more efficient—ignoring the vehicle's susceptibility to crash.
  I remind the House that the horrendous effects of BSE on the beef industry are a direct result of deregulation. Allowing the rendering industry to lower its temperature and solvent extraction standards to save a few pounds resulted in an epidemic that has cost the taxpayer over £200 million, and has cost farmers dearly.
  Deregulation of the crop acreage of potatoes will allow for increased encouragement of precisely the unsustainable, monocultural and intensive agriculture that we are trying to move away from, buoyed up by the boom and bust cycle of an unordered market. That benefits the processor in the short term, but not in the long term. There is a vicious circle: the unordered market increases acreage, thereby increasing pollution and possibly ruining
  852
  productive land. By encouraging this monoculture, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, as our growers are caught up in a spiralling risk of crop and/or market failure.
  An unordered market leads to an increase in acreage devoted to potatoes, an increase in pesticide and fertiliser use, an increase in processor power over UK growers, and an increase in farmers' vulnerability. We need to be sustainable; we need to be fair. We must not cut farmers adrift and leave them in a sea of market distortion. Other EU countries are allowed to subsidise their potato production.
  We are becoming increasingly sceptical of subsidising over-production and waste. Labour policy seeks to redirect regulation to encourage good, not bad, practice. Regulation under a light regime could allow us to move toward sustainable and efficient practices. The NFU is absolutely right in its reasonable desire to compete on even terms with our EU counterparts. We have heard a lot about level playing fields; perhaps we should refer to level potato fields for a change. Secondly, the NFU wants common rules governing competition—for example, not allowing other member states to provide state aid for their producers while British growers cannot enjoy similar support.
  Thirdly, funding—if the Government are to go ahead with this daft idea—must be provided for winding up. Such transition funds should be used to smooth the path of farmers and producers alike towards a lightweight EU-wide regime.
  The stakeholders have contributed to the potato marketing scheme, so it would only be right and proper for the Government to foot the bill for the producers, who do not want the change in the first place. The Government have expelled a lot of hot air about all the things they have done in the past six weeks. They have had three years to consider the matter, but are acting only now because they cannot think of anything better to do. They are panicking as they realise that they have not done enough work. Tory Members with rural constituencies know that, as some of their interventions—not their speeches—have shown.
  The NFU and the Potato Marketing Board are wondering why the Minister does not implement his party's policy, as stated in the Committee quotation from 4 May 1993 read by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). What has changed since then? Nothing—or nothing in Europe, anyway. This is just another doctrinaire policy, based on ideology and not on common sense.
  10.54 pm
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: May I say one or two words, and perhaps ask a couple of questions of the Minister? My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, and the Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), raised an important issue in this debate, which is that, in Standing Committee on the Agriculture Bill, Ministers gave us clear assurances about what would happen in certain conditions. We sought those assurances because the industry—in the form of the National Farmers

  853
  Union—and potato producers wanted to establish what Government policy would be in the event of difficulties in the marketplace.
  I sensed that the Minister had not considered the speech made by his right hon. Friend the then Minister in Committee when he spoke tonight. My first question—perhaps the Minister can give us a clear answer—is, did he read that speech, and does he believe that he has met the undertakings given to Parliament in 1993?
  Secondly, to what extent does the Minister have complete access to all Commission reports on state aids to the potato processing industry and potato producers throughout the European Community? Can he give us an assurance that he has an unfettered right to all the reports that the Commission produces?
  If the Minister intends to take the British potato producers into a free market without undertakings on subsidy—to which the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) and I object anyway—surely he must have some mechanism for being made fully aware of what subsidies are being paid within the Community, so that, when they are being paid, he can immediately raise the matter with the Commission with a view to those national aids being removed.
  Finally, the scheme was devised in such a way as to reduce the potential for volatility in price. As I understand it, the mechanics of the scheme are such that potato producers take decisions on what to plant in any particular year within a quota system and target areas, and are guided not to over-produce. They have to guess to what extent they would be prepared to plant up to quota. If I remember rightly, some research done by Nottingham university in 1992 proved that there would be considerable price volatility in the market if the scheme were removed.
  If that is the case, what will happen in the event that, let us say for two or three years in succession, there is a glut in the United Kingdom potato market? In those conditions, growers will totally lose confidence. Having lost money in successive years, they will worry and wonder whether it is worth their while planting potatoes in a third year, not knowing what the price is likely to be and not being able to assure their bank managers, who may well be lending them money, what will happen to their loan repayments.
  As a consequence, we may be faced in one, two or three years with a sudden drop in the area planted in the United Kingdom, and a scarcity in the marketplace on an unparalleled scale, which might well lead to the importing of potatoes.
  I wonder what will happen—
  Mr. Bellingham: They will put up the price of soup.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman should know. The plant in his constituency is taking jobs from mine in two months' time. I cannot say that I would look favourably on anything that would help Campbell's Soups at the moment.
  What will happen if there is a total loss of confidence in the marketplace? I have great reservations; I know that it is an argument of the past, but without the scheme, so
  854
  as far as there is a potential for a loss of confidence, Parliament needs some reassurance as to what the Government's actions might be.
  11 pm
  Mrs. Ann Winterton: I shall detain the House only briefly. I have a simple political philosophy: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Cheshire farmers and growers believe strongly that the Potato Marketing Board has not only served them well by ironing out the peaks and troughs of production, but has served the consumer well. The reforms—the removal of quotas and so on—have benefited growers, processors and consumers.
  My only worry is that, after we have got rid of the potato marketing scheme, the industry may face unfair competition from our partners in Europe. Surely we are not so naive that we do not remember examples in the past, when we played the game as it should be played and removed subsidies, and other countries used subsidies from their national Governments to undermine our success.
  I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies to the debate, he will reassure hon. Members on both sides of the House who share my concern that he would consider using his powers to extend the revocation period, and that he will tell the House that if at the time—that is, in June 1997—he found that the market conditions within Europe were unfair, he would then seek to act on behalf of not only British growers, but British consumers.
  11.1 pm
  Mr. John Home Robertson: It is extremely unusual for East Lothian and Congleton to be in agreement, but that is the case tonight. I represent some hundreds of potato producers in East Lothian. I also represent 68,000 potato consumers. It is surprising that more has not been said about the interests of consumers, who are also important.
  I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that for many years the Potato Marketing Board has served the interests of consumers and producers very well. It is a complicated commodity and matters could become difficult for producers and consumers. Over a long period of years, the board has ensured a reasonable balance between supply and demand. I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) that if we do away with the quotas and regulations, as the Minister is doing tonight, in a future year there could be a glut, the price could collapse and there could be a serious shortage in the following year. That would be bad news for all concerned in the United Kingdom, and our neighbours in mainland Europe would certainly take advantage of that. That brings me to state aid to industry on mainland Europe. I am anxious that today we are doing away with one scheme and creating a vacuum that could be completely against the interests of our producers and consumers.
  Various Conservative Members have said that the Government should pay careful attention to state aid on mainland Europe and should be ready to take vigorous action. What on earth does that mean? Will the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food go round auditing the accounts of potato producers and processors in every nook and cranny of mainland Europe? Obviously the

  855
  Commission will not do so, unless there is the regime that we want to see. It is likely that unfair competition will develop. It would be a serious error to tear up what is left of the scheme in the absence of something better in its place. It is grotesquely irresponsible of the Minister to be leading the industry and consumers up the creek without a paddle as a result of the debate.
  11.4 pm
  Mr. Boswell: With the leave of the House, I shall reply to the interesting points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) made the most revealing speech of many in a revealing and useful debate. The totem that she enunciated, in which she was apparently joined in unity by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), was that we should not destroy that which we have. If that is new Labour, it is an interesting gloss on new Labour. I was disappointed that the hon. Lady, in her somewhat limited remarks, was not able to define—and no other Opposition Member could—the position of stakeholders. The hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) characteristically identified himself solely with producer interests. Conservative Members firmly believe in the interests of producers and consumers, who will be favoured by the proposed deregulation.
  Only through the House passing the revocation order will the Potato Marketing Board be free to implement its plans to bring forward agreed proposals for a successor body. That is the way forward for the industry, rather than staying as it is.
  The hon. Lady and other hon. Members did not seem to reflect the correct economic context. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) mentioned the current state of exports and imports, particularly in relation to processing. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) referred to the familiar fact that a high proportion of our imports are for processing—an area where we have tended to lose market share over the years. It is significant that since our announcement more than two years ago on winding up the scheme, processors have committed themselves to £50 million of additional investment in this country, which supposes that they will obtain supplies and that it will be economic to source from British producers.
  There was a degree of obsession with activities in Europe, both as to state aids and the economic regime for the countries involved. It is clear that the most successful countries—in certain cases, those that want no regime—are those that do not subsidise their growers and emphasise the importance of being able to produce for the market.
  As to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet, I much welcomed his robust attitude to the principle of subsidy and control arid his general remarks about state aids, which struck a chord with me. I understand his concern and that of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger) regarding the special conditions for early potatoes. Occasionally, as is bound to happen with any commodity market, there is some instability where there is a high emphasis on the seasonal premium. As we move into a single market, the logic is that it should not readily be possible to dump, because it is open to our producers to export into markets offering a higher price. That is exemplified by recent experience.
  856
  There is no universal or general experience of damage to our growers from the prevalent practice of state aids in other member states being applied in such a way as to distort competition.
  Mr. Ainger: Why did the then Minister, now Secretary of State for the Environment, go to such great lengths in Standing Committee to make a series of commitments in relation to state aids in Europe? Can the Minister answer that?
  Mr. Boswell: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister, who normally attends the Council, is tireless in pursuing those matters and in pressing the Commission and his colleagues to obtain a regime that will enable us to go forward.
  There is no significant evidence at this stage—if there is, perhaps hon. Members will send it to me—of damage caused to the British potato industry by the imports to which reference has been made. They cause nothing like the damage that is done by the industry being held back by outmoded modes of regulation. I say to those who have argued in favour of the maintenance of the scheme—they are apparently in favour of quotas—that merely maintaining it, when the board has taken the decision to lift quotas, would not by itself produce that which they want.
  It is interesting that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) made it clear that in reality there is no systematic or serious opposition to our proposals. There are concerns, of course, and there is acknowledgement of the board's role in the past and of some of its achievements. That I readily acknowledge, but there is no systematic wish to continue with the practices of the past.
  An issue that does not strictly arise from the order—it was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives—is brown rot, which is apparent in Dutch seed potatoes. The Commission, on the advice of the Plant Health Committee, has taken action. We supplemented that with our own agreed national action. We take the matter seriously. We are determined to protect the British potato industry and our seed stocks. As a result of our testing programme, one lot of seed imported from the Netherlands has been identified with a case of brown rot. The matter has been reported to me within the past 24 hours. Under current legislation, we have the ability to control that seed. It cannot be planted without our permission. We have notified the Dutch authorities and the Commission, which will be considering the matter again in the Plant Health Committee next week. We shall continue to pursue our testing regime and to control all imports from the Dutch source.
  I return to the general points. What is the regime that is desirable for the potato industry? Whatever the merits of a lightweight regime, which we shall continue to press vigorously in Europe, there is no advantage in holding up the revocation of the scheme to secure such a regime. The consequences of the present scheme and the inhibitions and costs that it has imposed and incurred are greater than any advantages that it offers the British grower or consumer. It would be desirable to secure a lightweight regime, but the two matters are separate. It is time to move on.
  The emphasis of the existing regulations, which have their genesis in the thinking of two generations ago, is bureaucracy and restriction. The board and the industry

  857
  are ready and waiting for change. We will not reintroduce quotas and control. We believe that there should be the earliest possible action and that the right way to take that action is to pass the order that I have commended to the House.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 193, Noes 161.

  Division No. 29]

  [11.13 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Fabricant, Michael

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Forman, Nigel

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Forth, Eric

  Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  French, Douglas

  Baldry, Tony

  Gale, Roger

  Bates, Michael

  Gailie, Phil

  Batiste, Spencer

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Beggs, Roy

  Garnier, Edward

  Bellingham, Henry

  Gill, Christopher

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Gillen, Cheryl

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Boswell, Tim

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Bowis, John

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Brazier, Julian

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Harris, David

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Haselhurst, Sir Alan

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Burns, Simon

  Hawksley, Warren

  Burt, Alistair

  Heald, Oliver

  Butterfili, John

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hendry, Charles

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Horam, John

  Cash, William

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Chapman, Sir Sydney

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Clappison, James

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Jack, Michael

  Coe, Sebastian

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Congdon, David

  Jessel, Toby

  Conway, Derek

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Knapman, Roger

  Cran, James

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Knox, Sir David

  Day, Stephen

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Devlin, Tim

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Dover, Den

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Duncan, Alan

  Legg, Barry

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

  Dunn, Bob

  Lidington, David

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Dykes, Hugh

  MacKay, Andrew

  Elletson, Harold

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Malone, Gerald

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Mans, Keith

  Faber, David

  Marland, Paul

  858

  Marlow, Tony

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Sproat, Iain

  Mates, Michael

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Merchant, Piers

  Steen, Anthony

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Stephen, Michael

  Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

  Streeter, Gary

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Sweeney, Walter

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Norris, Steve

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Thomason, Roy

  Page, Richard

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Paice, James

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Thomton, Sir Malcolm

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Thurnham, Peter

  Pickles, Eric

  Tredinnick, David

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Viggers, Peter

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Richards, Rod

  Waller, Gary

  Riddick, Graham

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Waterson, Nigel

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Watts, John

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Whitney, Ray

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Whittingdale, John

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Willkinson, John

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Willetts, David

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

  Wlofson, Mark

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Wood, Timothy

  Sims, Roger

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

  Mr. Bowen Wells and

  Mr. Patrick McLouglin.

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs Irene

  Cummings, John

  Ainger, Nick

  Dafis, Cynog

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Darling, Alistair

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Davidson, Ian

  Armstrong, Hilary

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

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Denham, John

  Battle, John

  Dewar, Donald

  Bayley, Hugh

  Dixon, Don

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Berry, Roger

  Dowd, Jim

  Betts, Clive

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Boateng, Paul

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Bradley, Keith

  Eastham, Ken

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

  Etherington, Bill

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Flynn, Paul

  Byers, Stephen

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Fyfe, Maria

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Galbraith, Sam

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Gapes, Mike

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  George, Bruce

  Campbell-Savours, D N

  Gerrard, Neil

  Canavan, Dennis

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Chidgey, David

  Godsiff, Roger

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Golding, Mrs Lin

  Clapham, Michael

  Graham, Thomas

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Clelland, David

  Grocott, Bruce

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Hall, Mike

  Coffey, Ann

  Hanson, David

  Cohen, Harry

  Harvey, Nick

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Henderson, Doug

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Heppell, John

  Corston, Jean

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  859

  Hinchliffe, David

  O'Neill, Martin

  Hoey, Kate

  Pearson, Ian

  Home Robertson, John

  Pickthall, Colin

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

  Pike, Peter L

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Pope, Greg

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Illsley, Eric

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Ingram, Adam

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Jamieson, David

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Jones, Marlyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Reid, Dr John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Rendel, David

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Rooker, Jeff

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  McAllion, John

  Rowlands, Ted

  McCartney, Ian

  Salmond, Alex

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Sheerman, Barry

  McMaster, Gordon

  Short, Clare

  McWilliam, John

  Simpson, Alan

  Madden, Max

  Skinner, Dennis

  Mahon, Alice

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Marek, Dr John

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Meale, Alan

  Spearing, Nigel

  Michael, Alun

  Spellar, John

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Milburn, Alan

  Stevenson, George

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Morley, Elliot

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Tipping, Paddy

  Mudie, George

  Touhig, Don

  Mullin, Chris

  Turner, Dennis

  Murphy, Paul

  Tyler, Paul

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Olner, Bill

  860

  Wallace, James

  Wise, Audrey

  Walley, Joan

  Wray, Jimmy

  Wareing, Robert N

  Wright, Dr Tony

  Watson, Mike

  Welsh, Andrew

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Mr. Joe Benton and

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  Mr. Eric Martlew.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Potato Marketing Scheme (Commencement of Revocation Period) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 12th December, be approved.

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  FINANCIAL SERVICES
  That the Financial Services Act 1986 (Investment Services) (Extension of Scope of Act) Order 1995 (S. I., 1995, No. 3271), dated 18th December 1995, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th December, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
  Question agreed to.

  LIAISON
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Richard Caborn and Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith be discharged from the Liaison Committee and Mr. Martin O'Neill and Mr. Giles Radice be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Brandreth.]

  Campions Wood
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
  11.25 pm
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I suppose I should begin by apologising to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), for keeping him up so late. As some small consolation, I should tell him that the first time I had an Adjournment debate in the early 1970s, it came on at about 4 am. At least this is a comparatively civilised hour.
  It is almost 40 years since the problem that I wish to raise began, because it was on 13 November 1956 that permission to extract clay and associated materials from a 65 acre site in fields on the edge of the mining village of Cheslyn Hay was granted. That site came to be known as the Campions Wood site, hence the title of the debate.
  In 1970, shortly before I was elected to the House to represent that village and the rest of my then constituency of Cannock, the Minister of Housing and Local Government—who, if my memory serves me correctly, was the late Anthony Greenwood—on the recommendation of an inspector gave planning permission on appeal for a housing development right up to the boundary of this land after Cannock district council had refused planning permission.
  The developer soon began to build his houses, and nice houses they were. It seems that the original owners moved in in ignorance of the earlier planning permission, and it does not seem to have been found in the searches that were conducted by their solicitors. There was no real problem until 1993. There had been some small-scale excavations that the county council was told by its legal advisers were probably of a sufficient scale to maintain the permission.
  In 1993, prospecting began in earnest and one week in July 1995 operations began and a great bund some 6 m high was constructed less than 5 m from the gardens of my constituents. The House can imagine the appalling problems that they have faced as a result. I have been inundated with letters over the past six months or so, a great many of which have been received on my fax machine over the past 24 to 48 hours since it became widely known that I had secured this debate. I shall not quote from all of them but will quote merely from one that lists the problems that are faced by a constituent and his neighbours.
  The letter states that there is no respite from noise or dirt, that windows can no longer be opened for any length of time, that houses and cars are continually covered by dust and dirt, that the immediate environment has been ruined and that there is severe blight on properties. Obviously, people wish to sell their houses to get away from that ravaged environment, but nobody wants to buy the houses. Residents are worried by the potential for accidents created by the enormous pit that is opening just behind their garden fences. It is
  "an accident waiting to happen",
  as my constituent says in his letter. The mud must be seen to be believed. The aspect to the village from the south has been ruined. The whole village has been blighted.
  862
  Residents believe, and I understand why, that only an end to the quarrying and subsequent landscaping can make the site acceptable. [Interruption.] I am relieved that my hon. Friends have finished their conversation. Residents have appealed to the county council to exercise its powers. It has begun negotiations, but it feels that it is in a dilemma. After all, it can in no sense be blamed for what has happened, which I accept.
  The council has asked me therefore to appeal, just as my constituents have, to my hon. Friend the Minister. Over the past few months, he and I have exchanged a number of letters. He has referred me to the Environment Act 1995, which requires planning authorities to review planning permissions. This site does fall in the first category to be reviewed, but, even if the council lists it by the end of this month, the earliest that it can require the operator to submit to any new scheme of conditions is 1 February 1997. Even then, any conditions imposed on the site should not, I am told, prejudice to an unreasonable degree either the economic viability of the site or processing operation, or the asset value. There is no certainty therefore that, even if they take that route, my constituents will be relieved. It is certain that they will not be relieved for at least another year, even if everything falls into place.
  The district council is powerless because it has no jurisdiction in the matter. The county council is unwilling immediately to revoke permission because of the liability for compensation, which is understandable. It is pursuing an alternative of negotiating, but the owner, Dr. Roberts, is often at sea—he is a medical doctor and serves, I believe, on a Cunard ship. It is difficult to contact him or his representatives. A third party, I understand, has now bought a portion of the site and it has been difficult to trace that party.
  I asked my hon. Friend the Minister whether he would be willing to receive a delegation from the county council. He said that it might prejudice the Secretary of State's discretion in the event of any appeal, so he could not do so. Meanwhile, my constituents continue to suffer—the blight continues. All the appalling consequences of the quarrying—to which I referred when I quoted the letter—persist.
  In these circumstances, and bearing it in mind that the houses are there only because a previous Minister who was not in this Government or even in the Conservative party granted permission, there is a moral obligation on the Government. I understand the constraints to which my hon. Friend referred in his correspondence. For the reasons to which I have alluded, this is in no sense a criticism of him or of the Government; it is a plea on behalf of some hard-pressed constituents. The debate is, I venture to suggest, a classic illustration of the worth of Adjournment debates, where a Member of Parliament can bring such concerns to the Floor of the House.
  I should like to make two suggestions to my hon. Friend. I hope that he will either allow me to bring a group of residents to see him so that he can discuss with them their fears and worries and try to find a way forward or, better still, convene a meeting, to which representatives of the county council, the developer and residents would be invited with me, to discuss a way forward.
  A way forward must be found. We cannot allow the lives of those people to be blighted in this way. We cannot allow children to grow up in the appalling atmosphere of

  863
  dust, dirt and danger. The quarrying could continue for another decade, well into the next century. Children could grow up never knowing anything other than a large bund at the end of the garden with an enormous hole beyond that, with all the attendant dirt, dust and danger. When the quarrying ends, what will happen about filling in the hole?
  There is a problem and it must be tackled. I appeal to my hon. Friend to use his well-known sympathy and considerable ingenuity to help me to find a way forward.
  11.35 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): I congratulate—rather than thank—my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) on landing this problem on my plate at this hour. As he said, perhaps I should be thankful that it is not 4 o'clock in the morning.
  My hon. Friend has raised a considerable problem. The Government have recognised both it and the passions and concerns that it has aroused. That is why we responded significantly with primary legislation. He is aware that we have reformed the old quarry permissions and that considerable progress has been made. The Environment Act 1995 has given the local planning authority wide environmental powers. He knows that I cannot refer to the details of the case in question, but the planning authority has the power to impose environmental constraints upon working sites.
  As my hon. Friend said, 31 January is the date by which the list of sites must be published and I expect the site in question to be included. An application must be made for new conditions and a date must be specified. I shall check whether it is possible for that date to be brought forward from 1 February next year, which was suggested by my hon. Friend.
  In essence, my hon. Friend made one suggestion—that I act as a negotiator. I listened carefully, but I do not know whether he means between all sides.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I made two suggestions—first, that my hon. Friend should allow me to bring a deputation of residents to meet him, and secondly—this is preferable—that he convenes a meeting with representatives of the county, the developer and residents, accompanied by me, to try to find a way forward.
  Sir Paul Beresford: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. He is aware that his first suggestion is not
  864
  really an option. It could cause a problem if there were an appeal because I, as a representative of the Department and the Government, would have listened to only one side of the argument. After this debate, I shall reflect on his second suggestion. Although it appears to be fraught with difficulty, it has possibilities.
  The best way to proceed is for the county council to review the permission under the new legislation. It is an opportunity to ensure that it conforms to modern conditions. It would involve neither revocation nor payment of compensation. It would remove many of the difficulties, such as dirt and noise, referred to by my hon. Friend.
  As my hon. Friend suggested in some of the correspondence, it would be possible for Staffordshire county council to revoke the permission. If it did that, it would have to pay compensation, as my hon. Friend said. He suggested that the Secretary of State should revoke the permission. That could happen only in absolutely exceptional circumstances, and I fail at this stage to consider the circumstances of this case exceptional. Even if the circumstances were exceptional sufficiently for the Secretary of State to revoke the permission, the county council would still have to bear the compensation by law. There is no choice.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: If that is, indeed, the case and if the other avenues that I have suggested came to a dead end, my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State would lose nothing by treating the case as exceptional—as it properly is—and revoking the permission.
  Sir Paul Beresford: I am afraid that I disagree with my hon. Friend. I do not think that the case is exceptional. There are such cases up and down the country that have been carefully considered. That is why the Government required in the Environment Act 1995 an updating of the environmental conditions for the working of quarries.
  I shall however take away the two points that my hon. Friend has made and consider them again. First, I shall see whether there is any way in which the date may be moved forward. Secondly, I shall consider whether there is any way in which some form of arbitration and negotiation between the various parties can be initiated in order to find mutually agreed, environmentally acceptable conditions, which will help the people and at the same time allow the quarry to be worked.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve midnight.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Crown Court Statistics
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the number of cases coming to trial in the Crown court, acquittals and convictions in 1994, and in that part of 1995 for which figures are now available. [8479]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  The question concerns a specific operational matter on which the chief executive of the Court Service is best placed to provide an answer and I have accordingly asked the chief executive to reply direct.

  Letter from M. D. Huebner to Mr. Jack Straw dated 17 January 1996:
  CROWN COURT TRIAL, ACQUITTAL AND CONVICTION FIGURES FOR 1994 AND 1995
  The Parliamentary Secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Department has asked me to reply to your Question about the number of cases coming to trial in the Crown Court in 1994 and 1995 and the number of acquittals and convictions in these years.
  The figures requested are as follows:

  1994

  1995 (January-November)

  Cases committed to the Crown Court

  89,301

  75,790

  Defendants pleading guilty

  59,827

  58,650

  Defendants pleading not guilty: convicted on more counts

  15,206

  14,879

  acquitted on all counts

  15,772

  15,299

  The total number of defendants does not equate directly to the number of cases committed to the Crown Court as a proportion of cases will have more than one defendant and as some cases are discontinued by the prosecution before trial.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Upper Waiting Hall Exhibition
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee if he has considered an application for an exhibition relating to NatWest's "Face 2 Face with Finance" scheme to be displayed in the Upper Waiting Hall from 19 February to 23 February. [8090]

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  I understand that, under procedures agreed by the Administration Committee, arrangements have been made for the exhibition to be held in the Upper Waiting Hall from Monday 19 February to Friday 23 February 1996.

DEFENCE

  Gulf War (Low Flying)
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the comments by Sir Peter de la Billiere on the suspension of low flying in the Gulf war for the future operational needs of low flying; what are the consequences for low flying training; and if he will make a statement. [9483]

  Mr. Soames
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) on 15 January 1996,Official Report, columns 423–24.

  Torture
  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to investigate allegations of torture regarding soldiers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers serving in Bosnia. [9395]

  Mr. Soames
  I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Newport, West on 15 January 1996,Official Report, column 425–26.

  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if soldiers from the Royal Welch Fusiliers will give oral evidence to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague regarding allegations of torture in Bosnia. [9394]

  Mr. Soames
  As part of its investigation into the detention of UN personnel by Bosnian Serb forces, the UN war crimes tribunal proposes to interview a representative group of soldiers from 1st Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers who were among those taken hostage in May 1995.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what guidance he intends to issue to(a) Departments, (b) executive agencies, (d) non-departmental bodies and (d) outside bodies and arms-length organisations which he has responsibility for, or an interest in, regarding the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement. [9224]

  Mr. Soames
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 15 January by my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People,Official Report, columns 417–18. I will ensure that my Department and any bodies for which it is responsible will be made aware of their responsibilities under the Act.

  Cyprus (Forces' Behaviour)
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what measures have been taken by the British military authorities in Cyprus to control the behaviour of British military personnel towards the local population when off duty. [9392]

  Mr. Soames
  British Forces Cyprus attaches great importance to the maintenance of the very good existing relations with the local population. With this in mind, all service personnel and their dependents are briefed on the expected standards of conduct on arrival in Cyprus. The message is reiterated in routine and other orders and the Commander, British Forces Cyprus, regularly reminds his
  577
  subordinate commanders that they have a responsibility to ensure that service personnel behave in an exemplary manner both on and off duty.

  This is reinforced by a number of selective restrictions which exclude service men from potential trouble spots. The tourist strips in Limassol and Larnaca are subject to a I am curfew for service personnel, and individual premises elsewhere may be placed out of bounds. In addition, the Ayia Napa area remains out of bounds in the wake of the death of Louise Jensen in September 1994. The penalties for the infringement of these rules range from a fine to the sending home of the individual concerned to the UK.

  Many disturbances in Cyprus involving groups of local youths are unconnected with the British military presence, with service personnel occasionally suffering unprovoked attacks. The restrictions applied are, therefore, as much to protect UK military personnel as for other reasons. Analysis shows that British Forces Cyprus has a good record for discipline, with a relatively small number of serious disciplinary incidents.

  Landmines (International Ban)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress is being made in the international discussions aimed at outlawing the use of landmines. [9385]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  The first resumed session of the UN weaponry convention review conference is taking place this week in Geneva. The purpose of this conference is to strengthen protocol II to the convention, which governs the use of mines in armed conflict. We are working hard to achieve international agreement on effective measures to reduce the dangers to civilian from the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel mines.

  Devonport Dockyard
  Mr. Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has received on the stability of the geological base on which Devonport dockyard is built; and if he will make a statement. [9381]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Site investigations, including borehole surveys, and desk studies have been carried out to verify that the nature of the underlying geology is suitable to support the development of nuclear submarine refitting facilities at Devonport royal dockyard. The surveys confirmed that the rock underlying the site will form a suitable foundation for the proposed nuclear installations. No significant geological problems have been encountered on site to date.

  Trident Refitting
  Mr. Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the public expenditure implications of the Trident missile submarine refit at Devonport beyond those specified in the successful tender documents submitted by Devonport Management Ltd. [9380]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Negotiations on the design and build of facilities for refitting Vanguard class submarines at Devonport are proceeding and it would not be appropriate to speculate about details, including cost, while negotiations are under way.
  578
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he intends to take to ensure the highest safety standards are enforced in the future refitting of Trident submarines. [9358]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Refitting facilities for nuclear powered submarines are being designed and will be constructed to meet all necessary safety standards and are being monitored and regulated by both civilian and MOD authorities. The future operators of the nuclear powered submarine refitting facility will be required to demonstrate to these authorities the appropriate levels of safety standards in order to obtain a nuclear site licence and the necessary consent to operate the facility.

  Ms Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the negotiations with Devonport Management Ltd. over Trident refitting. [9357]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Negotiations on the design and build of the facilities for refitting Vanguard class and ultimately all nuclear powered submarines at Devonport are proceeding with the consortium forming Devonport Management Ltd. A decision on contract award is expected in the first part of this year.

  Ms Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions there have been formal and informal contacts with Rosyth royal dockyard on the Trident refit programme since July 1993; and who initiated each contact. [9355]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Between July and September 1993, my Department corresponded regularly with the Rosyth royal dockyard management company about the decision to construct nuclear submarine refitting facilities at Devonport. Since then, there have been no formal discussions or negotiations with the company about the location at which Vanguard class submarines will be refitted. During the last year, the company wrote on two occasions indicating that Rosyth would be capable of accommodating Vanguard class refits should the Government wish to reconsider their decision. I wrote to the company in August to the effect that the Government have no such plans. No record is held of the number of informal contacts that Ministers or officials have had with representatives of the Rosyth royal dockyard management company since July 1993 nor of the topics of discussion.

  MOD Police
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much the Royal Ordnance paid his Department for the services of the Ministry of Defence police in(a) 1993–94 and (b) 1994–95; and if he will make a statement. [9376]

  Mr. Soames
  It is not the Department's practice to disclose commercially sensitive information.

  Army Ambulances
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Army ambulances were(a) used and (b) damaged or lost in (i) the Gulf conflict and (ii) in deployment with the United Nations in the former Yugoslavia. [9456]
  579
  Mr. Soames
  Information regarding the number of Army ambulances used, damaged or lost during the Gulf conflict is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  The number of Army ambulances deployed to the former Yugoslavia in support of the United Nations fluctuated throughout the period, but the average number in theatre at any one time was 17 wheeled ambulances and 13 tracked ambulances. No ambulances were lost during the deployment. Information on the number damaged is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Air Misses
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 9 January,Official Report, column 96, when he expects the study on the probability of a random mid-air collision to be completed. [9778]

  Mr. Soames
  The study should be completed by the end of this year.

  Mr. Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the causes of the mid-air collision on 10 January involving two Tornado F3 fighters. [9693]

  Mr. Soames
  An RAF board of inquiry is investigating the cause of this accident. A copy of the summary of its findings will be placed in the Library of the House in due course.

  Royal Marines School of Music
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what(a) costs additional to those forecast and (b) delays in preparing the naval detention quarters are being incurred in connection with the closure of the Royal Marines school of music at Deal and the proposed move to Portsmouth; and if he will make a statement. [9681]

  Mr. Soames
  The contract now let for the conversion of the former RN detention quarters is at a cost of £505,000 compared with our original estimate of £450,000 contained in the consultative document. The conversion work is planned to be completed by mid-April, when the RMSM personnel return from their normal Easter leave.

  Equerries
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many equerries are provided by his Department; and to whom they are allocated. [8682]

  Mr. Soames
  Five equerries are provided by my Department to the royal households. They are allocated as follows:

  HM The Queen

  HM The Queen Mother

  HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

  HRH The Prince of Wales

  HRH The Duke of York.

  Royal Yacht
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many days the royal yacht was used on official business in 1994–95. [8684]

  Mr. Soames
  In 1994, HMY Britannia was at sea for 164 days, of which 31 entailed royal duties, and 13 were devoted to trade promotion. In 1995, she was at sea for 156 days, of which 35 entailed royal duties, and 11 were devoted to trade promotion.

  Brown and Root
  Ms Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what steps he is taking and has taken to investigate Brown and Root's ability to oversee the refitting of Trident submarines; and when he will make a decision; [9356]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the suitability of Brown and Root for Trident refitting work; [9353]

  (3) what assessment he made of the records of the parent company in the United States in respect of contracts when considering the suitability of Brown and Root for Trident refitting work. [9354]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Brown and Root Ltd. is a UK-based company and is a member of the consortium forming Devonport Management Ltd., with which my Department is involved in contractual negotiations for the design and build of nuclear refitting facilities at Devonport. A decision on contract award is expected in the first part of this year. Steps have been, and will be, taken to ensure that any company ultimately contracted to undertake the work is both able and suitable to do so, including the provision of appropriate guarantees and assurances from parent companies where necessary.

  HOME DEPARTMENT
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the powers and authority of the Home Office controllers at Doncaster prison; what are their salaries; and if he will make a statement. [8056]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the powers and authority of the Home Office Controllers at Doncaster.
  The Criminal Justice Act of 1991 requires that "every contracted-out prison shall have a Controller who shall be a Crown Servant appointed by the Secretary of State". This function is currently carried out at Doncaster prison by a senior governor grade and his deputy. His duties include authorising the temporary release of prisoners, their removal from association, approving the use of special cells and restraints, and carrying out adjudications. He also has a general duty to keep under review and to report to the Secretary of State on the running of the prison by and on behalf of the Director as well as to investigate and report to the Secretary of State on any allegations made against prisoner custody officers performing custodial duties at the prison. The Controller is also

  581
  authorised to suspend and refer for revocation the certificate of a prisoner custody officer if he considers him or her not to be a fit and proper person to carry out custodial functions.
  The current salaries of the Controller and Deputy Controller are £43,000 and £32,000 a year respectively.

  Prisons (Cellular Accommodation)
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to provide more robust cellular accommodation within the prison estate. [8256]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Doug Hoyle, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about what plans he has to provide more robust cellular accommodation within the prison estate.
  Since the late 1980s all new prisons and all new houseblocks and refurbished accommodation at existing prisons have included secure cellular accommodation to the current security standard. This standard is kept under review and revised as necessary.
  The six new privately built and managed prisons which are planned will include secure cellular accommodation to accepted standards.

  Holloway Prison
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional inmate places will be available for use by the end of 1996 at HMP Holloway. [8446]

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

  Letter from A. J. Butler to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question asking how many additional inmate places will be available for use by the end of 1996 at Holloway prison.
  There are no additional inmate places planned for Holloway prison in 1996.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for how long the mother and baby unit at Holloway prison has been closed; for what reason; when it is expected to be available for use again; and if he will make a statement. [9038]

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

  Letter from A. J. Butler to Mr. Harry Cohen, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question asking how long the mother and baby unit at Holloway prison has been closed; for what reason it has been closed; and when it is expected to be available for use again.
  The mother and baby unit at Holloway prison has not been closed and there are no plans to close it.

  Prisons (Mental Health Care)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many inmates in Doncaster prison received some form of mental health care in each month since the prison opened. [8426]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the number of inmates in Doncaster prison who have received some form of mental health care in each month since the prison opened.
  Listed on the attached table are details showing the number of inmates seen by a psychiatrist.

  New referrals

  Follow-up appointments

  July 1994

  2

  0

  July 1994

  4

  7

  August 1994

  5

  2

  September 1994

  11

  7

  October 1994

  15

  9

  November 1994

  20

  10

  December 1994

  4

  7

  January 1995

  6

  4

  February 1995

  8

  4

  March 1995

  19

  1

  April 1995

  29

  3

  May 1995

  21

  11

  June 1995

  21

  18

  July 1995

  20

  26

  August 1995

  31

  20

  September 1995

  20

  17

  October 1995

  23

  12

  November 1995

  24

  29

  December 1995

  23

  14

  Prisons (Sick Leave)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the daily average number of prison staff at Doncaster prison absent on sick leave, as a total number and as a percentage of the total prison's work force. [8425]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the daily average number of prison staff at Doncaster prison absent on sick leave, as a total number and as a percentage of the total prison's work force.
  The average daily sickness is 10.23 staff, which represents 3.28 per cent of the daily work force.

  Prisons (Inmate Places)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional inmate places
  583
  will be available for use by the end of 1996 at Doncaster prison. [8445]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about how many additional inmate places will be available for use by the end of 1996 at Doncaster prison.
  The Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) at Doncaster prison was increased from 771 to 850 from Monday 20 November 1995 for a period of six months. This is intended to be a short term measure in order to help cope with the current high population levels. When the arrangements cease, it is intended that the CNA will revert to 771.

  Prisons (Mechanical Restraints)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the(a) shortest, (b) longest and (c) average time during which inmates at HMP Holloway have been detained in a bodybelt or mechanical restraint since January 1990. [8443]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking what is the (a) shortest, (b) longest and (c) average time during which inmates at Holloway prison have been detained in a bodybelt or mechanical restraint since January 1990.
  The shortest period of time prisoners have been restrained in a bodybelt or mechanical restraint at Holloway prison since January 1990 is 1 hour 40 minutes; the longest is 5 hours 10 minutes; and the average time is 3 hours 13 minutes.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how often the Home Office official at HMP Holloway responsible for the punishment of inmates has authorised the use of(a) bodybelts, (b) ankle straps, (c) handcuffs and (c) special segregation unit cells for each year since January 1990. [8423]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking how often the Home Office official at Holloway prison responsible for the punishment of inmates has authorised the use of (a) bodybelts, (b) ankle straps, (c) handcuffs and (d) special segregation unit cells for each year since January 1990.
  The use of body belts, ankle straps, and special cells in the segregation unit have been authorised by the governor since 1990 on the number of occasions shown in the attached table, as a means of restraint and not punishment.
  Handcuffs are used as a security measure when prisoners are being moved and are a routine occurrence. In the context of restraining violent prisoners there is no record of their use.
  584

  Body belt

  Ankle straps

  Special cell Segregation Unit

  Handcuffs

  1990

  0

  0

  9

  0

  1991

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1992

  0

  0

  13

  0

  1993

  0

  0

  13

  0

  1994

  1

  0

  17

  0

  1995

  2

  0

  14

  0

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action the heads of all his Department's executive agencies are taking to protect pre-retirement courses from being abandoned in the event of such agencies seeking to make economies; and if he will make a statement. [9133]

  Mr. Howard
  Pre-retirement courses continue to be run for staff in the Home Office and its agencies, apart from the Prison Service, by the main Home Office. In the Prison Service courses are organised by the Prison Service college. There are no plans for any reductions in the number of courses.

  Police Vehicle Escorts
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidelines exist for police escorting slow-moving loads on motorways, with special reference to whether single police vehicles should drive in the inside lane behind the slow-moving vehicle. [9401]

  Mr. Maclean
  The precise procedure adopted for the escorting of abnormal loads is an operational matter for chief officers of police. But guidelines on the escorting of abnormal loads on motorways are contained in the police service's "National Motorway Manual", which has been issued to forces by the traffic committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

  The guidelines advise that police vehicles should be positioned not less than 50 m to the rear of the load and occupy a complete lane. In normal circumstances the lane the police vehicle occupies will be determined by the width of the load. Loads which project into the second or middle lane will normally be followed by a police vehicle in that lane.

  British Citizenship
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy that every woman who is not herself a British citizen but is or has been the wife of a British citizen who is the mother of a child by that husband and the child is a British citizen, will in all but the most exceptional circumstances, be granted a permanent right to abode in the United Kingdom; and if he will give the number of such mothers who have during the last 12 months been refused right of abode in the United Kingdom. [9315]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  No. Each application for leave to remain as the wife of a British citizen is considered in the light of all the relevant circumstance. There are no
  585
  separate statistics of the number of foreign wives, married to British husbands, with British children, who are refused leave to remain.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 18 December,Official Report, column 969, if he will specify the items of expenditure wrongly classified as hospitality in the original figure given for 1994–95. [9539]

  Mr. Howard
  The reclassification related solely to expenditure by the Fire Service College executive agency. The provisional figure given in my answer of 1 May at column 94, included the cost of meals and accommodation provided free of charge to visiting lecturers, auditors and contractors who would otherwise have included an element for these expenses in their invoices, and to candidates attending certain course selection interviews which should have been attributed to the costs of the course. The expenditure classified as hospitality should have been only that incurred on the business entertaining of the college's clients and potential clients.

  Incapacitants
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what evidence he has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the safety of (i) pepper spray and (ii) CS incapacitant. [9668]

  Mr. Maclean
  The Home Office police scientific development branch has reviewed all the available information about the effects on human health of CS and of incapacitant products containing oleoresin capsicum. In addition, research commissioned by my right hon. and learned Friend has been undertaken into the possible carcinogenic effects of oleoresin capsicum's main incapacitating ingredient, capsaicin.

  Dr. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the reason for the suspension of trials in the west midlands on CS incapacitant. [9669]

  Mr. Maclean
  West Midlands police is one of a number of forces due to participate in police trials of CS incapacitant for self-defence. The Association of Chief Police Officers announced last November that the trials would be delayed pending further work to ensure that the solvent used to disperse the CS irritant was the most appropriate, and to ensure that the advice to police officers and medical practitioners on the aftercare of people sprayed was the best available.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what legal costs, arising from the Scott inquiry, have been incurred by the Department on behalf of current and past(a) civil servants and (b) advisers and secondees; [8749]

  (2) what legal costs, arising from the Scott inquiry, have been incurred, on behalf of Ministers and ex-Ministers, by his Department; and if he will name the individuals concerned. [8751]
  586
  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 15 January 1996]: No legal costs have been incurred by my Department on behalf of Ministers, ex-Ministers, civil servants, former civil servants or other advisers or secondees of my Department in connection with the Scott inquiry. The cost of any advice in connection with the Scott inquiry given by Government lawyers as part of their normal duties cannot be quantified.

  Ashford (Middlesex) Remand Centre
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to sell the site of the former Ashford (Middlesex) remand centre as soon as possible. [8531]

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the temporary Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. David Wilshire, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the future of the former Ashford remand centre.
  The Prison Service is currently considering a number of sites in the London area for a new prison. The site at Ashford is not a preferred option and the Prison Service does not have any current plans to rebuild a prison on the site.
  However, the anticipated growth in the prison population, particularly in the London area, necessitates the retention of the Ashford site for future possible development should the need arise. The Prison Service is currently in the process of renewing the lease for the site from the Council.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9750]

  Mr. Howard
  Mobile telephones, including car telephones, are procured after comparison of service providers' tariffs to meet individual requirements at best value for money. The companies which have supplied mobile telephones to my Department in the last three years are Advance Communications, British Telecommunications Mobile, Cellnet, Mercury One-2-One, Martin Dawes, Motorola, Orange, People's Phone, Securicor, Vodac, Vodafone and WaveTech.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9749]

  Mr. Howard
  There are currently no agreements with companies for the provision of mobile and car telephones other than the contracts for the individual telephones.

PRIME MINISTER

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Prime Minister what guidance he intends to issue to(a) Departments, (b) executive agencies, (c) non-departmental public bodies and (d) outside bodies and arm's-length organisation which he has responsibility for, or an interest in, regarding the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement. [9217]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People on 15 January,Official Report, column 417. I will ensure that my office and those bodies for which I am responsible are made aware of their responsibilities under the Act.

  Civil List
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Prime Minister what was the amount of the civil list in 1994–95; what is the projected amount for 1995–96; and what is the current assessed surplus over actual expenditure. [8685]

  The Prime Minister
  As announced by my predecessor on 24 July 1990 Official Report, columns 299–300, and implemented by SI 1990/2018 of 12 October 1990, the provision of Her Majesty's civil list is £7.9 million in each year of the current 10-year settlement. Surplus provision in the early years is designed to cover shortfalls in the later ones.

  For details of the current surplus, I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) on 10 January, Official Report, columns 244–45.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what legal costs, arising from the Scott inquiry, have been incurred by the Department on behalf of current and past(a) civil servants and (b) advisers and secondees; [8750]

  (2) what legal costs, arising from the Scott inquiry, have been incurred, on behalf of Ministers and ex-Ministers, by his Department; and if he will name the individuals concerned. [8752]

  Mr. Hanley
  The cost of legal services charged by the Treasury Solicitor's Department together with accounts settled to date from public funds for the provision of external legal services incurred on behalf of Ministers, ex-Ministers, civil servants and former civil servants of my Department in connection with the Scott inquiry is £318,165.46. No legal costs have been incurred on behalf of other advisers and secondees. The cost of any legal advice in connection with the Scott inquiry given by Government lawyers as part of their normal duties cannot be quantified.

  It is not the Government's policy to identify the individuals who have received legal advice either directly or indirectly.

  Hafez Dalkamoni
  Mr. Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of Germany concerning the possible release by the German authorities of Hafez Dalkamoni. [9403]

  Mr. David Davis
  None. Any decision concerning the release of a national of a third country from a German prison is solely a matter for the German authorities.

  British Council
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what discussions have taken place with the British Council about its withdrawal from countries overseas as a result of the proposed reductions in the aid budget. [9603]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the effect on the British Council's overseas activities of the reductions proposed in the autumn statement. [9602]

  Mr. Hanley
  Preliminary discussions have taken place with the British Council about the possible effects of the 1995 Budget settlement. The council is preparing detailed proposals which will be discussed further with the FCO, diplomatic wing, and the ODA.

  Kurds
  Dr. Twinn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent reports he has evaluated in respect of alleged mass killings by Turkish troops of the Kurds; and if he will make a statement. [9695]

  Mr. David Davis
  I have seen no reports on the mass killings by Turkish troops. I am aware of photographs which recent newspaper articles have alleged to show Turkish soldiers posing with the mutilated bodies of Kurds. I understand that the Turkish ambassador in London has sent copies of the photographs to Ankara for investigation.

  Ivory (Hong Kong)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current total of all ivory notified to his Department as held in Hong Kong; and on what date it was last assessed. [8884]

  Mr. Hanley
  The aggregate total declared quantity shown on commercial ivory possession licences in Hong Kong was 307 tonnes on 31 December 1995.

  Mr. Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current number of licensed ivory traders in Hong Kong; and what was the number on 26 February 1992. [8900]

  Mr. Hanley
  There were 821 possession licences held by commercial ivory stock-holders in Hong Kong on 31 December 1995. The number was 963 on 26 February 1992.

  Mr. Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the confiscation of ivory by the Hong Kong
  589
  authorities since 25 February 1992; and what prosecutions for illegal export have occurred during that period. [8902]

  Mr. Hanley
  Since 25 February 1992, the Hong Kong authorities have seized a total of 909.6 kg of ivory. There were three prosecutions for illegal export during the period.

  Mr. Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current tradeable ivory stock held in Hong Kong; and to which countries ivory has been exported since 7 July 1990. [8898]

  Mr. Hanley
  The aggregate total declared quantity shown on commercial ivory possession licences in Hong Kong was 307 tonnes on 31 December 1995. No commercial exports of ivory have been authorised by the Hong Kong authorities since 7 July 1990 except for pre-convention specimens to the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

  Mr. Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many spot checks on ivory-holding premises were carried out by the Hong Kong authorities in each year since 1991. [8899]

  Mr. Hanley
  The number of checks carried out by the Hong Kong authorities on ivory-holding premises in each year since 1991 are as follows:

  Year

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Number of checks

  220

  319

  320

  807

  284

  Mr. Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on licenses issued by the Hong Kong authorities for the export of ivory since 1991. [8901]

  Mr. Hanley
  No commercial exports of ivory have been authorised since 1991 except for nine licences to export pre-convention specimens to the United Kingdom and USA.

  British Embassy, Moscow
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was the total cost of modifications and decoration in the British embassy in Moscow during 1994–95; what was the figure for the previous financial year; and what was the total cost in respect of manpower and materials associated with the proposed additions to the banqueting hall in 1994. [8908]

  Mr. Hanley
  The total cost of modifications and decoration at the British embassy in Moscow in 1994–95 was £431,000, including £377,000 on re-organisation of the visa section. In 1993–94, the cost of modifications and decoration totalled £760,000. This included £540,000 for a complete refurbishment of the run-down—outhoused—commercial office and £215,000 for the installation of new security gates at all embassy entrances.

  There is no banqueting hall as such. Formal dinners are held in the dining room of the ambassador's house and official functions in the reception room there. No
  590
  additions to either room were proposed or carried out in 1994. The reception room was redecorated in 1994 at a total cost, including manpower and materials, of £28,000.

  Endangered Species (Hong Kong)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the items from endangered species seized by the Hong Kong authorities in each year since 1992; and how many prosecutions arose from such seizures. [8905]

  Mr. Hanley
  Since 1992, the Hong Kong authorities have seized a wide variety of specimens of endangered species. Details of seizures will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. During the same period, there were 1,239 prosecutions.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9757]

  Mr. Hanley
  Within this current financial year, 11 mobile phones have been withdrawn from service at an estimated total cost of £750 for contractual disconnection charges. The companies involved were Cellcom Ltd. (seven), British Telecom Mobile Communications (two) and VODAC Ltd. (two) Most disconnections result from obsolete or damaged equipment.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9755]

  Mr. Hanley
  Service contracts of 12 months duration have been awarded to the following companies:

  VODAC Ltd.

  VODACOM Ltd.

  British Telecom Mobile Communications

  Motorola Telco Ltd.

  Cellular One Ltd.

  Direct Mobile Communications Ltd.

  DVH Communications Ltd.

  Operating costs for the current financial year in respect of 217 phones, including call charges and monthly line rental/airtime totalled £83,200.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9756]

  Mr. Hanley
  Service contracts are awarded to companies submitting the most competitive bid and offering the best value for money. The following companies have variously been involved:
  591

  VODAC Ltd.

  VODACOM Ltd.

  DVH Communications Ltd.

  BT Mobile Services

  Bradford Mobile Phone Company

  DX Mobile Phones

  K1 Mobile Phones

  Mercury Mobile Services

  Motorola Telco Ltd.

  NAG Telecom

  Woodend Communications.

HEALTH

  Nursing Home Costs
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many extra people will now have their nursing home costs paid(a) entirely and (b) in part as a result of raising the thresholds to (i) £10,000 and (ii) £16,000; what is the cost of each category to the Treasury; how many people will have their care costs paid in full as a result of raising the capital threshold from £3,000 to £10,000; and what is the cost to the Treasury. [8696]

  Mr. Bowis
  Around 50,000 people in residential care and nursing homes are expected to benefit from the increases in the capital thresholds. The estimated cost of the increases is around £60 million. All residents, whether placed in residential care or nursing homes by a local authority, or in receipt of income support to pay towards their care costs, have to contribute out of income as well as capital, so the number of those having their care costs paid in full is negligible.

  Vaccinations
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will consider involving parents in the preparation of future leaflets produced to warn of the adverse effects of vaccinations along the lines of the co-operative scheme established in the United States. [8702]

  Mr. Horam
  The design of all immunisation and promotional materials by the Health Education Authority is informed by qualitative and quantitative research into parents' needs and concerns. At the developmental stage, qualitative research is undertaken to determine parents' perceptions of individual diseases and immunisations. Draft materials are then pre-tested with parents and modified to improve clarity and understanding.

  In addition, quantitative tracking studies monitor awareness of promotional activity and materials, as well as which sources of information are most used and considered to be most useful by parents of young children. This research is also used to assess the information given to them by health workers.

  Mr. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research his Department has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated into the incidences of Crohn's disease in relation to vaccinations. [8648]
  592
  Mr. Horam
  Considerable research has already been conducted around the world and convincing links between immunisation and Crohn's disease have not been demonstrated.

  Mr. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to establish a compensation fund for victims of the adverse effects of vaccines along the lines of the scheme in place in the United States. [8701]

  Mr. Horam
  None. Compensation for alleged vaccine damage is a matter that should be determined by the courts. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security administers the Vaccine Damage Payment Act 1979. Payments made under the Act are not compensation but are intended to ease the present and future burdens of those suffering from vaccine damage and their families.

  Mr. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will establish a public inquiry into cases of adverse effects of the administration of immunisation against measles and rubella. [8703]

  Mr. Horam
  The Department has undertaken rigorous evaluation of the measles/rubella campaign, including the analysis of reports of suspected adverse reactions. This analysis concluded that measles/rubella vaccine was very safe and this conclusion was supported by two independent committees of clinical experts: the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises the Department of Health, and the Committee on Safety of Medicines, which advises the Licensing Authority regarding the safety of vaccines. Details of adverse reactions have been published in "Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance", a copy of which is in the Library. This publication is sent to all doctors, pharmacists, dentists and coroners who are then free to comment publicly on the data. In view of this action and the very low reporting rate of suspected adverse reactions, there is no need for a public inquiry.

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action heads of his Department's executive agencies are taking to safeguard the provision of pre-retirement courses in the event of such agencies seeking to make economies; and if he will make a statement. [9149]

  Mr. Horam
  The Department provides a range of counselling, "life planning", career management and employee assistance courses to those staff in the Department's executive agencies who have successfully applied under the Department's voluntary early retirement or voluntary severance schemes. The contract for these services is funded centrally by the Department.

  Pre-retirement courses for staff approaching normal retirement age are not funded by the Department centrally and provision for them must be considered by individual agencies as part of their forward planning exercises.

  Hospices (National Lottery)
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the impact of the national lottery on raising funds to support the development and operation of the hospice movement and
  593
  hospices; what plans he has to ensure the financial security of hospices; and if he will make a statement. [9281]

  Mr. Horam
  There is as yet no conclusive evidence concerning the impact of the national lottery on the fund-raising activities of voluntary hospices. The National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services and the National Association of Hospice Fund-raisers, are continuing to keep this under review. Three hospices in England have, however, benefited from the national lottery fund.

  To help promote hospices' financial security, Government funding for hospices and specialist palliative care services has, since 1994–95, been built into health authorities' general allocations and health authorities have been encouraged to enter into three year rolling contracts for the purchase of specialist palliative care services.

  Incontinence Pads
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his policy is in relation to the supply of incontinence pads to those who require them because of disability; what plans he has to review these arrangements; and if he will make a statement. [9212]

  Mr. Bowis
  The organisation of continence services in England and the matter in which they are delivered, including the provision of continence pads, are matters for district health authorities and hospital and community trusts. They are under a general obligation to provide these services where the need exists and in the light of their resources and priorities.

  National health service responsibilities for meeting continuing health care needs, which include the provision of community health services such as the supply of continence pads, are set out in circular HSG (95) 8, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Dentists
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists in each family health services authority have withdrawn from the NHS in each year since 1992. [9503]

  Mr. Malone
  This information will be placed in the Library. At 30 September 1995, there were 15,951 dentists on the lists of family health services authorities in England, the highest September figure ever.

  Divorce
  Mr. Wicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what forecast has been made by Her Majesty's Government of the proportion of new and recent marriages that are likely to end in divorce; and what previous estimates have been made. [9601]

  Mr. Horam
  An estimate has recently been made of the proportion of marriages which would end in divorce if divorce and death rates each remained at the average level recorded throughout 1993 and 1994. On this basis, 41 per cent. of marriages in England and Wales would end in divorce. Earlier estimates based on 1979–80 and 1987 rates remaining constant were 34 and 37 per cent. respectively. The latest estimate, together with associated 594
  commentary and technical explanation, is due to be published by HMSO in mid-March in an article in "Population Trends, 83", copies of which will be placed in the Library.

  Newcastle General Hospital (Chemotherapy)
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients are currently receiving chemotherapy in Newcastle general hospital; how many were turned away from the hospital during the first two weeks in January 1996 owing to the scarcity of beds and; if he will make a statement. [9670]

  Mr. Horam
  This is a matter for the Freeman Group of Hospitals national health service trust, which manages chemotherapy treatment on the Newcastle general hospital site. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. Leonard Barron, chairman of the trust for details.

  NHS Trusts (Staffing)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will instruct the NHS executive to investigate medical staffing in NHS trusts. [9906]

  Mr. Malone
  The national health service executive takes advice on staffing from the advisory group on medical education, training and staffing. The number of doctors in higher specialist training in each specialty is planned through the specialist workforce advisory group, to ensure that there are sufficient trained candidates to fill consultant posts in the future.

  Prescription Charges
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what would be(a) the annual cost and (b) the current charges if prescription charges had been raised in line with price inflation since 1979. [8962]

  Mr. Malone
  The loss of income to the national health service if the prescription charge had been raised in line with the GDP deflator index would be about £260 million per year. This calculation is based on a comparison with charge income in 1994–95.

  The standard prescription charge per item would be £0.51.

  Cataracts
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what was the number of operations for cataracts undertaken in each of the last five years by the NHS; [9193]

  (2) what is the estimated annual cost to the NHS of cataract eye disease; [9191]

  (3) what is the incidence of cataract eye disease in England, Wales and Scotland. [9192]

  Mr. Horam
  The number of eye lens operations, which are mainly for cataracts, undertaken in England in the last five years is shown in the table.
  595

  Year

  Thousands

  1989–90

  92.2

  1990–91

  97.9

  1991–92

  111.7

  1992–93

  118.6

  1993–94

  130.5

  Source:

  Hospital Episode Statistics.

  Information on the incidence and the estimated annual cost to the national health service in England of cataract eye disease is not available centrally.

  Information concerning Wales and Scotland is a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland.

  Meningitis
  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to improve the information and training offered to general practitioners in diagnosing meningitis; and if he will make a statement. [8760]

  Mr. Horam
  The chief medical officer issued advice on meningococcal infection in his update letter of October—CMO update 7—which is sent to all doctors, copies of which are available in the Library. In this letter, doctors were reminded of the seasonal increase in meningococcal infection, were given advice on the early diagnosis of suspected cases and on the need for antibiotic treatment and urgent referral to hospital. The letter follows on from previous reminders which have been sent to general practitioners in the past. Additionally, articles in medical journals continually emphasise to doctors advice similar to that issued by the chief medical officer.

  The training received by GP trainees during their vocational training year covers infectious diseases. This is supplemented and developed further through the inclusion of infectious diseases in continuing medical education programmes.

  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what information is made available on a nationwide basis to parents in care of infants of the symptoms of meningococcal disease and the procedures that should be adopted once the symptoms have been observed; and what plans he has to increase the information made available during an outbreak of 'flu; [8893]

  (2) what steps his Department is currently taking to inform the public of the symptoms of meningitis and the procedures that should be adopted at the outset of such symptoms; [8896]

  (3) the leaflet produced by the Department on meningitis was first made available; and in what manner the leaflet has been distributed. [8894]

  Mr. Horam
  Health visitors provide new parents with the Health Education Authority's leaflet "A Guide to Childhood Immunisations", which includes advice on recognising meningitis. In February 1994, new public information leaflets on meningitis and septicaemia were sent to all general practitioners to be made available to the public. Copies of both leaflets are available in the Library. Supplies of the leaflet were provided to the National Meningitis Trust and Meningitis Research.596
  Leaflets have also been distributed to college students and there was a further wider distribution to students in September 1995. The Department of Health also provides funding to the National Meningitis Trust to support its valuable information and support work. The trust is active in raising public awareness immediately before, and during, the winter peak. Advice on recognising meningitis can be found in the Health Education Authority's "Birth to Five" book which is issued to all first-time parents. The Department of Health also contributes to the many newspaper articles and television and radio programmes that appear during the winter peak.

  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for health what procedures are currently in place to inform staff working in nurseries, playgroups and schools of the symptoms of meningitis and the procedures that should be adopted once the symptoms have been observed; and if his Department plans to update these procedures. [8895]

  Mr. Horam
  This is a matter for local arrangement by the local consultant in communicable disease control. Revised guidelines for outbreak management of meningococcal infection, prepared by the meningococcal working party of the Public Health Laboratory Service, were published in the "Communicable Disease Report" vol. 5, No. 13 in December, copies of which are available in the Library. The guidance has been sent to all public health physicians including consultants in communicable disease control and includes advice on notifying nurseries, playgroups and schools.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9753]

  Mr. Horam
  In September 1993, the Department invited, via an advertisement in the EC Journal, tenders for the supply of minor items of telecommunications equipment which included mobile telephones. Full open tendering procedures were followed. The companies which tendered were:

  Vodafone

  Mercury Communications

  Rocom

  Martin Dawes

  BT (Cellnet)

  Interconnect

  Phillips

  Securicor

  Pennine Telecoms Ltd

  Motorola.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9752]
  597
  Mr. Horam
  A contract of three years with a possible one-year extension was awarded to Vodafone from 1 April 1994 for the supply of mobile and car phones. For each mobile phone ordered, a one-year agreement applies—thereafter 90 days notice is required to terminate individual mobile phone agreements. Since April 1994 approximately 200 mobiles have been issued at a rental cost of £60,000—£300 per unit per annum. In addition, there are the call charges at £30,000, which average about £150 per unit per annum.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9754]

  Mr. Horam
  No costs have been incurred by the Department as a result of withdrawing from the contract with Vodafone as it is still in place.

  Live Vaccines
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to increase funding support for research into alternatives to live vaccines. [8700]

  Mr. Horam
  The main agency through which the Government support medical and clinical research is the Medical Research Council. The MRC is an independent body which receives its grant-in-aid from the office of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. The MRC gives high priority to research relevant to developing new and improved vaccines against diseases. A proportion of this is relevant to developing alternatives to live vaccines.

ENVIRONMENT

  Fur Imports
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library the briefing notes prepared by United Kingdom representatives in Brussels for the Coreper deliberations on the import of furs from animals caught in leg-hold traps in countries outside the European Union. [8698]

  Mr. Clappison
  It would not be appropriate for such papers to be placed in the Library. The papers are internal documents whose disclosure might harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion.

  Local Government (Services to Disabled People)
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest assessment of the impact of local government reorganisation on the provision of services for disabled people; what guidelines he(a) has issued, and (b) intends to issue, to unitary authorities on the provision of services for and to disabled people; what arrangements he intends to put in place to ensure the continuation of services which are currently provided across the new local government authority boundaries; and if he will make a statement. [9238]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  All new unitary authorities will be responsible for deciding how their statutory responsibilities for personal social services can best be 598
  discharged. On 12 May 1995 the Department of Health issued an advice document to all local authorities entitled "Social Services: Maintaining Standards in A Changing World", under cover of a local authority social services letter (95)5. Copies of the advice document are available in the Library. It draws attention to the special features of social services which the new authorities will need to consider if they are to deliver those services effectively to people who need them.

  Local Government (Essex)
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment on which date he expects to receive the final proposals of the Local Government Commission in respect of the county of Essex; and when he expects to announce his decisions arising from the report. [9326]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The Local Government Commission published its final report for all its reviews of individual districts on 19 December 1995. Interested parties have until 13 February to make representations; we aim to announce our decisions soon after that date.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what guidance he intends to issue to local authorities about the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement. [9245]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People on Monday 15 January 1996,Official Report, column 417.

  Local Government Elections
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in what circumstances it is possible to hold the general election of all councillors for proposed unitary authorities at a time other than the normal scheduled date in May. [9325]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  It is possible by means of a structural change order to hold elections in other months. This is consequential upon the structural change. However, it is our policy not to have local elections other than at the normal time in May. Local authorities do not receive full powers to plan for change until the elections and we believe that, given the importance of proper preparation, there should be the full 11 months between the elections and reorganisation. In addition, because the May elections could be cancelled only by means of the structural change order, the result would be two sets of elections in the one year.

  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest date upon which parliamentary approval would be required for those orders giving effect to the proposals of the Local Government Commission in respect of the county of Essex to permit the holding in May 1996, of the general election of all councillors for the proposed unitary authorities. [9327]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Davies) on 11 January 1996,Official Report, column 288.

  National Rivers Authority
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to require water companies to provide financial and other information to the National Rivers Authority relating to the costs of implementing activity plans drawn up by the National Rivers Authority. [9691]

  Mr. Clappison
  No. It is for the Director General of Water Services to secure that those appointed as water and sewerage undertakers are able to finance the proper carrying out of the functions of such undertakers. Accordingly, water and sewerage undertakers provide financial and other information to the director general including in respect of obligations arising from requirements imposed or to he imposed by the National Rivers Authority and in future the Environment Agency. As regards any requirement to provide information to the agency, the Government's view was set out in another place during the passage of the Environment Act 1995,Official Report, 31 January 1995, column 1376, including in respect of the potential implications of such a requirement for the Environment Agency in carrying out its duties under section 39 of that Act.

  Education Standard Spending Assessment
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, for each authority in England, the education standard spending assessment for 1995–96 and the provisional education standard spending assessment for 1996–97. [9689]

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

  Mine Accidents
  Mr. Ian McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish figures showing the number of(a) fatal and (b) serious reportable accidents, gathered by the mines inspectorate, covering (i) direct and (ii) contract employees of each of the coal companies operating deep mines which were previously publicly owned, in those months in 1995 for which figures are available; and if he will publish equivalent figures for 1994 [9775]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Information for individual mines is not produced. Statistics for the industry are published as an aggregate figure in the Health and Safety Commission's annual report. Those for the period from January 1994 to March 1995 are included in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 statistics. Copies of the commission's annual reports have been placed in the House Library.

  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information, and at what intervals, is required to be provided to the Health and Safety Executive regarding serious injuries occurring in private coal companies. [9717]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985—RIDDOR—require the manager of the mine to notify the Health and Safety Executive forthwith in the event of an accident at work to any employee or member of the public resulting in a fatality or major injury or if there is a dangerous occurrence. Accidents at work to employees 600
  resulting in an absence of more than three days must be reported within seven days. Cases of occupational disease specified in the schedule to the regulations must be reported as soon as an employer receives notification from a doctor.

  Incidents must be reported on an approved report form published by HSE. The information required includes details of the employer concerned, the premises where the incident occurred, the injured person and the nature of their injuries, and a description of the accident.

  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will require private coal companies to publish, at regular intervals, detailed statistics relating to the number and types of serious reportable accidents, sustained by(a) directly employed and (b) contract workers. [9776]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  No.

  Gas Engineers
  Mrs. Helen Jackson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further steps he is taking to ensure that only Confederation of Registered Gas Installers—approved gas engineers carry out work on gas appliances. [7924]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1994 require that gas installation businesses carrying out gas work in domestic or commercial premises must be registered with a body approved by the Health and Safety Executive. Currently, the approved body for this purpose is the Council for Registered Gas Installers. This legal requirement is being reinforced in the HSE's current national publicity campaign about the dangers of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning.

  On 1 December 1995, the HSE published new criteria against which it will consider and approve organisations to operate a statutory registration scheme for gas installation businesses. These criteria introduce a specific requirement on bodies so approved to publicise regularly the need for the public to use only registered installation businesses to undertake gas work. An approved body must operate within criteria prescribed by the HSE.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the effect of the change in the estimated level of Government financial support for 1996–97, on(a) local government expenditure and (b) local government taxation. [8891]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  The overall level of aggregate external finance—that is the total central Government support for English local authorities—will increase by £960 million—2.8 per cent.—in 1996–97. This increase in AEF is to support the Government's view of the appropriate level of revenue spending for local authorities in England—total standard spending, which is £44.9 billion in 1996–97; an increase of 3.3 per cent.

  Local authorities are however, subject to capping, free to set their budgets at the level they consider appropriate. The actual level of local authority expenditure will therefore depend on local decisions. If English local authorities increase their spending in line with the

  601
  increase in TSS, average council taxes in England would increase by between 5 and 6 per cent. in 1996–97. The pessimistic view of local authority behaviour taken in my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "Financial Statement and Budget Report", imply that council tax levels will rise by 8 per cent. on average next year.

  Local authority funding in Wales is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

  Elephant Ivory
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many licences he has issued for the sale of elephant ivory since 17 October 1990. [8897]

  Mr. Clappison
  Since 17 October 1990, my Department has issued 138 individual licences allowing the sale of items made from, or containing, ivory, in accordance with the EC convention on international trade in endangered species.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment which TECs included funding for business start-up(a) grants and (b) training in their last single regeneration budget bid; and which of these bids were successful. [9195]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Information in the form requested is not available. The kind of support provided for business start-up activity in SRB challenge fund bids is determined by local partnerships to reflect the needs of their localities. Challenge fund grant is made available by the Government to help meet the costs of these locally determined initiatives.

  In rounds 1 and 2 of the challenge fund, a total of 25 training and enterprise councils took the lead in 39 successful bids that included funding for business start-up. Over their lifetime, these schemes are expected to provide 36,000 new business starts and to receive £140 million in challenge fund support. The TECs concerned are:

  Merseyside

  Greater Nottingham

  Hereford and Worcester

  South London

  London East

  Central London

  City and Inner London

  North West London

  North London

  West London

  AZTEC

  Gloucestershire

  Cheshire, Ellesmere Port and Wirral

  St Helens

  South and East Cheshire

  Greater Peterborogh

  Herts

  Norfolk and Waveney

  Shropshire

  Lancashire Area West and East Lancashire

  Teesside

  602

  Tyneside

  Northumberland

  Heart of England

  North Yorkshire.

  A further 199 challenge fund schemes are expected to produce an additional 44,000 business start-ups over their lifetime. Although not led by TECs, most of these schemes involve TECs as members of partnerships.

  Butterflies
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what value he places on the number of butterflies as an indicator group of the state of biodiversity of species; [9297]

  (2) what proposals he has to monitor the number of rare and common butterflies; and what new proposals he has to establish new butterfly conservation areas; [9298]

  (3) his Department will respond to the biodiversity steering group's recent published report; [9299]

  (4) what proposals he has to honour the United Kingdom's commitments made at the Rio de Janeiro earth summit in regard to butterfly and moth conservation. [9300]

  Mr. Clappison
  The United Kingdom was one of the first countries to produce a national biodiversity plan when "Biodiversity: The UK Action Plan" was published in January 1994.

  The biodiversity steering group, chaired by my Department, with members drawn from all sectors, published its findings on 13 December 1995. "Biodiversity: The UK Steering Group Report", identifies 25 butterfly and 122 moth species whose populations should be monitored where practicable. The report includes costed action plans for seven of the butterflies and three of the moths and recommends that costed action plans for a further three butterflies and 50 moths be produced within three years. The Government expect to publish their response to the report in the spring of 1996.

  On 8 January, two further candidate special areas of conservation for the conservation of the marsh fritillary butterfly were submitted to the European Commission. In all six candidate SACs for this species have been notified to the European Commission. Butterflies will be one of the groups of species used in the preliminary package of UK indicators of sustainable development which my Department will publish in the early spring of 1996.

  Car Boot Sales
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent discussions he has had with local authorities about more effective planning controls for car boot sales. [9622]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  There is a general planning permission to use land for car boot sales for up to 14 occasions in any period of 12 months. If there is a real and specific threat to amenity or the environment however, a local planning authority may withdraw this right and require a planning application for such use. We have no plans to change this position and have not recently discussed the issue with local authorities.

  Tenants' Choice
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the future of tenants' choice. [10524]

  Mr. Curry
  Part IV of the Housing Act 1988 introduced the tenants' choice scheme in 1989. The scheme has been overtaken by other more effective initiatives which meet its objectives of improving housing management performance and providing local authority 604
  tenants with opportunities to change their landlords. Better services and more tenant control are being delivered through right to manage and tenant consultation on housing management compulsory competitive tendering. Change of landlord can be achieved through large-scale voluntary transfers, and the new estates renewal challenge fund.

  The tenants' choice scheme no longer serves a useful purpose and the forthcoming Housing Bill will include provisions to repeal the legislation in England and Wales.

TREASURY

  Income Tax Relief
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the full year yield of restricting income tax relief available at the 40 per cent. marginal rate to(a) £2,000, (b) £3,000, (c) £4,000, (d) £6,000 and (e) £8,000, (i) including and (ii) excluding profit-related pay, giving in each case the number of people affected. [7064]

  Mr. Jack
  The full-year yield of restricting income tax reliefs, but not personal allowances, for higher rate taxpayers only and the number of people affected at 1996–97 income levels are given in the table. Detailed information is not available to provide estimates taking account of profit-related pay.

  Upper limit for total allowances1

  Yield in full year £ million

  Number of higher rate taxpayers thousands

  2,000

  1,100

  890

  3,000

  830

  490

  4,000

  680

  310

  6,000

  500

  160

  8,000

  400

  100

  1Including only reliefs available at 40 per cent. marginal rates and excluding profit related pay.

  The estimates do not take account of any behavioural effects which might result from the introduction of such a limit.

  Profit-related Pay Schemes
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what evaluation his Department has undertaken of profit-related pay schemes during the last two years; and what is his evaluation of the success of the scheme in achieving the objectives intended for it. [8309]

  Mr. Jack
  An independent survey of the tax relief for profit-related pay was commissioned by the Inland Revenue, the Department of Employment and the Treasury and was published in May 1995. The survey suggested that tax relief had stimulated significant additional take-up of profit-related pay.

  United Kingdom (seasonally adjusted)

  June of each year

  Population1 Thousands

  Workforce in employment2 Thousands

  Unemployed (claimant count) Thousands

  Workforce in employment as a percentage of the population1 Percentage

  1971

  32,548

  24,661

  859

  76

  1972

  32,558

  24,636

  727

  76

  1973

  32,580

  25,209

  534

  77

  1974

  32,583

  25,280

  513

  78

  1975

  32,626

  25,183

  780

  77

  1976

  32,757

  24,946

  1,095

  76

  1977

  32,945

  24,970

  1,159

  76

  1978

  33,173

  25,115

  1,150

  76

  1979

  33,436

  25,492

  1,067

  76

  1980

  33,607

  25,445

  1,274

  76

  Save-as-you-earn Share Options Schemes
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many employees were involved in save-as-you-earn share option schemes in each year since 1980; how many employees use the savings and bonus to purchase shares and at what cost to public funds; and how many employees take out the savings and bonus without buying shares and at what cost to public funds. [8308]

  Mr. Jack
  Estimates of the cost of income tax relief for options exercised under approved savings-related share option schemes, and the number of employees to whom options were granted are published in table 6.1 of "Inland Revenue Statistics 1995", a copy of which is the Library.

  The number of employees who exercised options is given in the table.

  Year

  Number exercising options (thousands)

  1984–85

  20

  1985–86

  25

  1986–87

  65

  1987–88

  60

  1988–89

  70

  1989–90

  100

  1990–91

  175

  1991–92

  165

  1992–93

  190

  1993–94

  240

  An estimate of the number of employees who take out their savings and bonus without buying shares is not available, but the cost of tax relief for the related save-as-you-earn accounts is included in the estimated cost of SAYE shown in table B.1 of "Inland Revenue Statistics".

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list(a) the total number of adults of working age, (b) the total in employment, (c) the total who were unemployed and (d) the total in employment as a percentage of the total number of adults for each year since 1966. [8528]

  Mrs. Angela Knight
  Available information relating to 1971–95 is given in the following table.
  607

  United Kingdom (seasonally adjusted)

  June of each year

  Population1 Thousands

  Workforce in employment2 Thousands

  Unemployed (claimant count) Thousands

  Workforce in employment as a percentage of the population1 Percentage

  1981

  33,780

  24,477

  2,176

  72

  1982

  33,934

  24,039

  2,521

  71

  1983

  34,199

  23,758

  2,805

  69

  1984

  34,480

  24,412

  2,897

  71

  1985

  34,676

  24,692

  3,019

  71

  1986

  34,846

  24,719

  3,120

  71

  1987

  35,029

  25,248

  2,836

  72

  1988

  35,166

  26,137

  2,294

  74

  1989

  35,292

  26,945

  1,786

  76

  1990

  35,391

  27,198

  1,615

  77

  1991

  35,469

  26,313

  2,301

  74

  1992

  35,533

  25,738

  2,735

  72

  1993

  35,589

  25,348

  2,920

  71

  1994

  35,689

  25,478

  2,645

  71

  1995

  35,760

  25,722

  2,314

  72

  Notes:

  1Men aged 16 to 64 and women aged 16 to 59 years.

  2Includes employees in employment, self-employed, HM forces and those on work-related Government training programmes.

  Source:

  CSO (LMSG) and OPCS.

  Unemployment Benefit (Seaham and Peterlee)
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people in the Seaham and Peterlee areas are in receipt of unemployment benefit. [9505]

  Mrs. Angela Knight
  In November 1995, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits—unemployment benefit, income support or national insurance credits—numbered 1,303 in the Employment Service local office area of Seaham and 1,833 in the Peterlee local office area. These figures are not seasonally adjusted.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the use of the private finance initiative in the purchase of information technology by Government Departments. [7896]

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the use of the private finance initiative in the purchase of information technology by Government Departments. [7918]

  Mr. Jack
  On 22 December, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister announced the appointment of Graham Jordan as head of the new unit set up to co-ordinate a strategic approach to information technology across Government. At the core of this approach will be the use of the private finance initiative. With Government spending over £2 billion a year on IT, there are many exciting opportunities to improve public services in this area through the involvement of the private sector. The private finance panel has already identified around 150 potential IT private finance initiative projects.

  Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an itemised breakdown of the costs of maintaining the Central Chancery of the Order of Knighthood in 1994–95. [8913]

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The breakdown for 1994–95 is shown in the table.

  £000

  Insignia

  204

  Staff

  201

  Printing

  92

  Capital equipment

  16

  Maintenance

  12

  Stationery

  8

  VAT

  53

  Less receipts

  (26)

  Total

  560

  Extra-statutory Concessions
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many extra-statutory concessions will remain in effect following enactment of clause 186 and schedule 35 of the Finance Bill. [9292]

  Mr. Jack
  There are 207 published extra-statutory concessions. Clause 186 and schedule 35 of the Bill will enact 11 of these. A further five will be enacted by other provisions in the Bill.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is the estimated level of Government financial support for each local authority, for England and for the United Kingdom in constant prices for(a) 1994–95, (b) 1995–96 and (c) 1996–97, indicating the percentage yearly change in each case and the overall cumulative

  609
  change (i) net of community care and the estimated cost of local government reorganisation and (ii) including community care and where appropriate the estimated cost of local government reorganisation; [8886]

  (2) what is the estimated level of Government financial support for each of the new unitary local authorities and for Scotland as a whole in constant prices for (a) 1994–95, (b) 1995–96 and (c) 1996–97, indicating the percentage yearly change in each case and the overall cumulative change (i) net of community care and the estimated cost of local government reorganisation and (ii) including community care and the estimated cost of local government reorganisation. [8887]

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Central Government support to local authorities comprises:

  Table 1: Central Government support to local authorities at 1994–95 prices: United Kingdom

  Yearly change

  1994–95

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1995–96 per cent.

  1996–97 per cent.

  Cumulative change per cent.

  Including reorganisation and community care

  61,254

  60,438

  58,725

  -1.3

  -2.8

  -4.1

  Excluding reorganisation and community care

  59,771

  58,239

  56,074

  -2.6

  -3.7

  -6.2

  Some of these elements are distributed by Departments with responsibilities spanning Great Britain. Not all of these Departments have yet allocated their spending plans for 1996–97 between the countries of the Union. It is therefore not presently possible to break down the United Kingdom figure for support for that year. This information will be included in the statistical supplement to the "Financial Statement and Budget Report", to be published in February.

  The table shows the figures which are available.

  Table 2: Central Government support to local authorities at 1994–95 prices

  1994–95 £

  1995£961 £

  Change Per cent.

  England

  Including reorganization and community care

  50,218

  49,074

  -2.3

  Excluding reorganization and community care

  48,939

  47,237

  -3.5

  Scotland

  Including reorganization and community care

  7,292

  7,219

  -1.0

  Excluding reorganization and community care

  7,174

  7,017

  -2.2

  1Figures shown in this column are not necessarily consistent with table 1 above, which is based on later information which was not broken down between the countries of the Union.

  Grants and credit approvals are distributed to local authorities by a number of different Departments. Figures for the total support provided to each authority could therefore only be collated at disproportionate expense.
  610
  grants within aggregate external finance, which represent central Government's contribution towards the cost of core local authority services such as education and community care. They include revenue support grant, non-domestic rates redistributed to authorities from the national pools and certain grants in respect of specific services;

  current specific grants outside AEF, notably in respect of housing benefit and mandatory student awards;

  capital grants; and

  credit approvals.

  Table 6.7 of the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1996–97" (HC 30) set out the Government's plans for total support to local authorities and their components. The table shows those figures in the form requested, including and excluding Department's latest plans for support in respect of local government reorganisation and the current costs of community care. The capital costs of community care are not separately identified.

  Cheques
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will bring forward proposals to amend the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 to allow(a) the electronic presentation of cheques, (b) dishonour of cheques by electronic means and (c) authenticated copies of cheques to be valid as receipts, in accordance with the recommendations of the Jack report. [10409]

  Mrs Angela Knight
  I am pleased to announce the publication today of a consultation document setting out proposals on these issues. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the Government intend to bring forward an order under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, to give effect to the proposed changes. Copies of the consultation document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Incomes
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of wealth was owned, by the most wealthy 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 per cent. of the population in each year since 1979. [9317]

  Mr. Jack
  The available information on marketable wealth is given in table 13.5 of "Inland Revenue Statistics 1995", a copy of which is in the Library.

TRANSPORT

  British School of Motoring
  Mr. Chidgey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many schools are now using the British School of Motoring's ignition young driver education course; and how many of these are supplying the names
  611
  and addresses of pupils using the British School of Motoring package. [8302]

  Mr. Norris
  The information requested is not held centrally. It is a matter for individual schools to determine both how and when they provide road safety education and which resource materials or programmes they use to support that teaching.

  Transport Research Laboratory
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which of the shortlisted bidders he has selected as the purchaser of the Transport Research Laboratory; and if he will make a statement. [10621]

  Mr. Norris
  The Government have selected the Transport Research Foundation as the preferred purchaser for the final negotiations on the sale of the Transport Research Laboratory. The foundation includes members of TRL's existing management and is seeking to acquire TRL as a non-profit distributing company. Although the competing bid from the consortium of Pell Frischmann Consulting Engineers Ltd., Mouchel Associates Ltd., the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club was strong, the foundation's bid was judged better to meet the objectives for the sale announced by the then Secretary of State on 14 March 1995.

  We expect to complete the sale of TRL by the end of February.

  Royal Train
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how often the royal train was used in 1994–95 on official business. [8683]

  Mr. Watts
  Between 1 April 1994 and 31 March 1995, the royal train was used 27 times to enable members of the royal family to carry out official engagements.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9732]

  Percentage increases in all fares: 1986–87 to 1995–96

  London Buses

  London Underground

  All London Transport

  Network SouthEast

  British Rail

  Actual

  Real

  Actual

  Real

  Actual

  Real

  Actual

  Real

  Actual

  Real

  1986–87

  5.9

  2.6

  5.7

  2.5

  5.6

  2.3

  7.0

  3.7

  7.5

  4.2

  1987–88

  4.9

  0.9

  6.4

  2.3

  5.8

  1.7

  5.2

  1.2

  5.4

  1.3

  1988–89

  10.8

  4.6

  10.3

  4.1

  10.3

  4.0

  7.0

  0.9

  7.1

  1.1

  1989–90

  10.3

  2.3

  11.1

  3.0

  10.8

  2.8

  8.5

  0.6

  8.0

  0.2

  1990–91

  10.3

  0.5

  11.2

  1.4

  10.8

  1.0

  10.1

  0.4

  10.2

  0.5

  1991–92

  9.6

  4.6

  9.9

  4.9

  9.7

  4.7

  9.5

  4.5

  9.2

  4.3

  1992–93

  7.9

  4.6

  7.8

  4.5

  7.8

  4.5

  7.7

  4.4

  6.9

  3.7

  1993–94

  8.0

  6.2

  7.6

  5.8

  7.8

  6.0

  7.7

  5.9

  5.9

  4.1

  1994–95

  5.8

  3.0

  5.8

  3.0

  5.8

  3.0

  5.4

  2.6

  3.7

  1.0

  1995–96

  4.5

  n/a

  4.5

  n/a

  4.5

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  612
  Mr. Norris
  The procedures adopted for award of contracts relating to mobile phones across the Department of Transport has ranged from full competitive tendering procedures to simple competitive quotations, dependent upon the number of phones and predicted future requirements involved.

  The companies involved with the processes are, in alphabetical order:
  BT Mobile, Carphone Warehouse, Connections, Cellcom, EDS, ETC Communications, Hutchison Telecom, Intercity Mobile, Intercell, Martin Dawes, Mobile Cellular, Motorola, Newgate Corns, Prestige, Securior Cellular, Talkland, Uniqueair, Uplands Radio, Vodac, Vodacom Ltd., Voicecast.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9733]

  Mr. Norris
  Some £800; as a result of one agency consolidating its time contracts. Companies involved were British Telecom, Hutchison Telecom and Cellcom.

  Public Transport (Fare Increases)
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list(a) the annual percentage change and (b) the increase in fares on (i) London Buses, (ii) London Underground, (iii) all London Transport, (iv) Network SouthEast and (v) British Rail in each year since 1986–87 taking 1985–86 as the base and showing the increase in both actual and real terms; what estimate he has made for 1995–96; and if he will indicate the percentage change relative to the rate of inflation in each year since 1991 for (1) adults and (2) children; [9160]

  (2) if he will list (a) the annual percentage change and (b) the increase in child fares on London Transport in each of the years since 1986–87, taking 1985–86 as the base and showing the increase both in actual and real terms; [9159]

  (3) what is the annual per cent. increase in fares on London Buses, London Underground and British Rail Network SouthEast in each of the financial years 1985–1995. [9156]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 15 January 1996]: The information is shown in the tables.
  613

  Percentage increases in London Transport Child fares1, 1986–87 to 1995–96

  Actual

  Real

  1986–87

  0.8

  -2.4

  1987–88

  8.0

  3.8

  1988–89

  19.5

  12.8

  1989–90

  18.7

  10.1

  1990–91

  9.2

  -0.4

  1991–92

  16.4

  11.1

  1992–93

  9.8

  6.5

  1993–94

  3.8

  2.1

  1994–95

  2.3

  0.0

  1995–96

  0.1

  n/a

  1Ordinary tickets only. Information on travelcards and season tickets is not available.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9731]

  Mr. Norris
  Figures are not available for the cost of each agreement nor the specific number of phones involved. Contract duration varies between 0 to 24 months, the bulk being 15 months including notice period. Companies with which the Departments and its executive agencies hold air-time contracts are, in alphabetical order.BT Mobile, Cellcom, Hutchison Telecom, Intercell, Intercity Mobile, Martin Dawes, Motorola, Newgate Corns, Securior Cellular, Talkland, Uniqueair, Uplands Radio, Vodac.

  Rail Transport Research
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he will be introducing to ensure that research into rail transport will continue following rail privatisation taking place. [8606]

  Mr. Watts
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: It will be a matter for companies in the railway industry to determine their own individual research requirements and how they may best be fulfilled.

  London Transport
  Mr. Dowd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff worked for London Transport on 24 November 1994; and how many permanent staff, full-time equivalent, were employed by London Transport on the most recent date for which figures are available. [8945]

  Mr. Norris
  On 12 November 1994—the nearest date to 24 November 1994 for which figures are available—London Transport employed 21,391 staff, of whom 20,437 were permanent staff, full-time equivalent.

  On 9 December 1995, the most recent date for which figures are available, London Transport employed 18,152 permanent staff, full-time equivalent.

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action heads of his Department's executive agencies are taking to safeguard the provision 614
  of pre-retirement courses in the event of those agencies seeking to make economies; and if he will make a statement. [9137]

  Mr. Norris
  The chief executives of the agencies in my Department will continue to offer pre-retirement courses to all their staff who are due to retire.

  Telematics
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what his Department's telematics budget has been for the last five years; and what amount has been allocated for the next three years. [9687]

  Mr. Norris
  There is no separate budget for telematics, the use of advanced information and telecommunciation technologies. In each particular case where a telematic solution is thought to be the most cost-effective approach, it is budgeted for in the normal way as part of the relevant programme.

  A13 (Private Management)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has in respect of private management schemes for the A13. [9686]

  Mr. Watts
  My right hon. Friend announced on 28 November a further tranche of design, build, finance and operate road schemes, which included the A13 between east London and the M25.

  The scope of the project is being refined, but it is intended to include the improvements at Ironbridge-Canning Town, A117 Woolwich Manor way junction and Movers lane junction, together with the management and maintenance of the A13 between east London and the M25. This will include management of the improvements between west of Heathway and Mar Dyke after construction is completed. Works are expected to commence in mid-1997.

  Road Repairs
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects local authorities to have established a computerised street works register. [9333]

  Mr. Norris
  The Department of Transport is arranging for the provision of a computerised street works register for England and Wales. The contactor expects it to be fully operational by 1 March 1997.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what powers local authororities have to set timetables for street repairs by utilities in order to minimise traffic disruption; what plans he has to increase these powers. [9341]

  Mr. Watts
  Local highway authorities, in their capacity as street authorities, have a power under section 56 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 to give directions to undertakers of proposed street works, in certain specified circumstances, as to the times when the works may or may not be carried out. The power does not apply to emergency works or to certain other urgent works for which no advance notice is required. There are no plans to increase it.
  615
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to improve the co-ordination of road repairs(a) between local authorities and (b) between local authorities and the Highways Agency. [9332]

  Mr. Watts
  Under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, highway authorities have a duty to co-ordinate the execution of works of all kinds in the streets for which they are responsible. That duty extends to co-ordination with other highway authorities where necessary.

  Arrangements for implementing this requirement between local highway authorities are a matter for the authorities concerned. For trunk road and motorway work which affects local roads, co-ordination meetings between the Highways Agency and local highway authorities are held on a regular basis to agree future programmes of major road repairs. Improvements, through the greater use of information technology, are being developed.

  British Rail Engineering Ltd. (Asbestos)
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many claims for compensation for contracting asbestos-related diseases have been received by British Rail from or on behalf of former employees of British Rail Engineering Ltd. based in(a) York, (b) Derby, (c) Crewe and (d) other locations; in how many of these cases the former employee has died from an asbestos-related disease; how many of these claims have been settled; what was the (i) highest, (ii) lowest and (iii) the average cash sum paid in compensation in cases which resulted in the death of the employee; and how many weeks on average were taken in settling these claims from the time that they were initially submitted to British Rail. [9201]

  Mr. Watts
  British Rail has provided the following information:

  BREL: asbestos-related compensation claims

  York

  Derby

  Crewe

  Other

  Claims registered

  43

  20

  28

  194

  Claims closed

  19

  5

  13

  69

  These data relate to claims registered since 1 April 1991.

  Information on the number of cases in which former BREL employees have died from an asbestos-related disease, and on the compensation payable in such cases, is not readily available. In addition, in some cases the claim may be settled before death, and in others death may have occurred before the claim was submitted.
  Details of, financial settlements to date

  Highest settlement: £262,134–05

  Lowest settlement: £5,385–50

  Average settlement: £37,515–64.

  This information relates to all cases arising out of an asbestos-related disease, not just to those which resulted in the death of the employee.

  The average time taken in settling claims from registration to closure of the case is 91 weeks. This period includes the time taken to pay plaintiff's costs and any costs payable by British Rail to its own legal advisors, as the claim cannot be closed until all legal costs have been paid.

  Public Transport (London)
  Mr. Austin-Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the change in fares on public transport in London in real terms relative to the rest of Britain since(a) 1991 and (b) 1992. [9157]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 15 January 1996]: The table shows real percentage increases in public transport fares.

  1991–92 to 1994–95

  1992–93 to 1994–95

  London

  Rest of Great Britain

  London

  Rest of Great Britain

  Bus fares

  14.2

  5.9

  9.4

  3.7

  British Rail1

  13.4

  8.9

  8.6

  5.1

  London Underground

  13.9

  n/a

  9.0

  n/a

  1Network SouthEast for London. All British Rail fares in Rest of Great Britain column.

  Heavy Goods Vehicles
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to seek additional powers to deal with defective foreign HGVs. [9840]

  Mr. Norris
  None. The Government are satisfied that the powers in the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 and in the Road Traffic Act 1988 are sufficient.

  Water Spray
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to require commercial vehicles to take steps to reduce water spray from their vehicles. [9832]

  Mr. Norris
  The Department is continuing to conduct research to find a reliable and repeatable way of measuring the effect of spray on driver's vision. When the research is comple1ted, we shall be in a better position to consider improvements to the current standards.

  Loose Loads
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to require commercial vehicles to restrain or cover loose loads. [9833]

  Mr. Norris
  The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990 already require drivers of goods vehicles to ensure that loose loads are covered or restrained when being operated on the roads or in quarries.

  The Department also issues a code of practice on the safety of loads, which has gained wide recognition within the haulage industry, in which advice is given on methods to constrain loose loads.

  A30
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the contract for the improvement of the A30 trunk road junction at Kennards house, north Cornwall, to be let. [9609]
  617
  Mr. Watts
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: I have asked the chief executive of the Highways Agency to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Lawrie Haynes to Mr. Paul Tyler, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Minister for Railways and Roads, Mr John Watts, has asked me to write to you in reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking when the Secretary of State for Transport expects the contract for the improvement of the A30 trunk road junction at Kennards House, North Cornwall, to be let.
  It had been planned to let a contract for this scheme during the current financial year. However, in light of the reduced level of funding for National Roads announced in November's Budget Statement, the Secretary of State announced changes to the Highways Agency's Business Plan for 1995/96 on 10 January. The scheme has been deferred but will be taken forward when funds become available.
  I am sorry I cannot be more forthcoming at the moment.

  Public Consultation
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what public consultation exercises his Department has undertaken in the last three years in respect of transport policy. [8607]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: "Transport: The Way Ahead" was published as part of the national transport debate launched in 1995, and sought views on the future direction of transport policy. My Department has also conducted a number of consultation exercises on individual aspects of policy including:

  Passenger Rolling Stock (January 1993);

  Gaining Access to the Railway Network (February 1993);

  The Operation of Local Bus Services outside London (March 1993);

  Consultation on Route Options for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (undertaken by Union Railways on behalf of DoT, Summer 1993)

  Paying For Better Motorways (May 1993);

  The Merchant Shipping Registration Regulations (August 1993);

  The future of Taxi and Private Hire Services in England and Wales (October 1993);

  Consultation on the principles of DBFO policy which accompanied the document, "Preliminary Note on Design, Build Finance and Operate contracts" (April 1994);

  Privatisation of the National Air Traffic Services (May 1994);

  Donaldson Report "Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas" (May 1994);

  Wreck Removal Powers (June 1994);

  Waste Reception Facilities in UK Ports (April 1995);

  Proposals for New Regulations on Transport of Radioactive Materials by Road In GB (April 1995);

  River crossings to the East of Tower Bridge (June 1995);

  Possible changes to Bus Deregulation (July 1994).

  In addition, there have been a large number of consultations on very specific and/or technical issues such as: railway noise regulations and loading gauge standards; amending highways and vehicle regulations and aviation and shipping matters.

  Motor Vehicles (West Yorkshire)
  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Secretary of State for. Transport how many motor vehicles over 25 years of age are currently registered in west Yorkshire. [8883]
  618
  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: An estimated 9,350 vehicles over 25 years of age are currently licensed in the west Yorkshire area. Of these, 2,900 are in private and light goods, motorcycle or tricycle taxation classes and will qualify for exemption from vehicle excise duty as a result of the vehicle taxation changes announced in the budget on 28 November 1995.

  Electric Cars
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what research his Department has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated into the potential use of the electric car; and what proportion of his Department's transport budget this constituted in (i) percentage and (ii) real terms. [8598]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: The Government are considering the role that alternative fuels, including electricity, might play in minimising road transport emissions. To that end, they are continuing to sponsor studies, including the £1.2 million collaborative field trials of alternative fuels and a study into life cycle emissions. Results are expected towards the end of this year. It is not possible to apportion costs by fuel type.

  Railway Stations
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many railway stations were(a) closed and (b) opened in the United Kingdom between (i) March 1974 and April 1979 and (b) May 1979 and December 1995; and what was the net figure for openings and closures for those two periods. [9608]

  Mr. Watts
  In Great Britain, between March 1974 and April 1979, 14 stations were closed and 31 opened or reopened, giving a net gain of 17 stations. Between May 1979 and December 1995, 63 stations were closed and 233 opened or reopened, giving a net gain of 170 stations. Figures for closures, openings and reopenings of stations in Northern Ireland between March 1974 and April 1979, and between May 1979 and December 1995, would be available only at disproportionate cost.

  Coastguard Service
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the running cost budget for the Coastguard Agency in each of the last five years; and what it is for the current year. [9559]

  Mr. Norris
  I have asked the chief executive of the Coastguard Agency to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from C. J. Harris to Ms Joan Walley, dated 17 January 1996:
  The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your recent Question about running cost budgets for the Coastguard Agency in each of the last five years.
  The Coastguard Agency was formed on 1 April 1994 and the budgets since then are as follows:

  1994–95: £24,882

  1995–96: £25,596.

  Jubilee Line
  Mr. Spellar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action his Department is taking to ensure that workers on the construction of the Jubilee line are legitimately employed [9104]

  Mr. Norris
  Day-to-day management of the Jubilee line extension project is the responsibility of London Underground Ltd., whose contracts require construction companies to comply with the appropriate legislation covering the employment of labour.

  Merchant Vessels
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what percentage of merchant vessels of 500 gross registered tonnes or more registered worldwide were constructed in(a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland an (d) Northern Ireland in each of the past five years. [9566]

  Mr. Norris
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: I understand that the information, as sourced from Lloyd's maritime information services, is as follows:

  Operational merchant vessels in world fleet at 30 September 1995 By year and country of build

  Percentage of registered vessels completed in year by country of build

  Year of build

  England

  Scotland

  Northern Ireland

  1990

  1.6

  0.0

  0.2

  1991

  1.2

  0.0

  0.5

  1992

  1.1

  0.2

  0.1

  1993

  0.2

  0.2

  0.2

  1994

  0.3

  0.2

  0.5

  No merchant vessels were constructed in Wales during this period.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

  Eastern Europe
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are his Department's projections for future expenditure in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. [8948]

  Mr. Hanley
  Planning figures for the period 1996–97—1998–89 are being finalised. As usual, these will be published in the 1996 Foreign and Commonwealth Office departmental report in March.

WALES

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what action heads of his Department's executive agencies are taking to safeguard the provision of pre-retirement courses in the event of those agencies seeking to make economies; and if he will make a statement. [9136]
  620
  Mr. Hague
  Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments under its chief executive, Mr. T. J. Cassidy. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from T. J. Cassidy to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 17 January 1996:

  PROVISION OF PRE-RETIREMENT COURSES
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your Parliamentary Question about the provision of pre-retirement courses with respect to Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments.
  Cadw is an executive agency within the Welsh Office and all staff are employed by the parent Department. As a general rule, the agency does not run its own training courses. Cadw staff are eligible for in-house training courses provided by the Welsh Office (which include pre-retirement courses) and will also attend specialist courses provided by external trainers.
  All staff in the agency are encouraged to attend courses relevant to their needs at the appropriate time and it is my understanding that the Welsh Office intend to continue with the existing programme of pre-retirement training.

  Dentists
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations the Welsh Office had with(a) the British Dental Association and (b) dentist representative bodies in Wales, before instigating the Welsh Office initiative to attract more dentists to those areas in Wales where NHS dental capacity is currently inadequate; and if he will make a statement. [9339]

  Mr. Hague
  During the course of consultations on the Government's Green Paper, "Improving NHS Dentistry", Welsh Office officials met the British Dental Association, the General Dental Services Committee and held meetings with each of the eight local dental committees in Wales to which all dentists were invited. An individual meeting was offered to any dentist who wished to express views privately. Over 40 per cent. of dentists in Wales were seen in this way.

  Local Government
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what will be the effect of the change in the estimated level of Government financial support for 1996–97, on(a) local government expenditure and (b) local government taxation. [8890]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  My right hon. Friend's provisional 1996–97 settlement proposals announced on 28 November provide for central Government support for local authority spending—through aggregate external finance—to rise by 2.1 per cent. to £2,517.4 million. This level of support represents 87.8 per cent. of total standard spending, compared with 88.6 per cent. in 1995–96.

  Actual council tax levels depend also on local authorities' own budgetary decisions.

  Butterflies
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what new proposals he has to strengthen and enlarge the work of butterfly conservation through nature reserves and butterfly and moth conservation areas. [9294]
  621
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The statutory countryside agencies, including the Countryside Council for Wales, are jointly funding with the World Wide Fund for Nature a three-year project "Action for Butterflies". It is intended to produce action plans for the conservation of 25 species of butterfly. In addition, two sites containing the Marsh Fritillary—Rhos Llawr Cwrt and Gower Commons—have been submitted to the European Commission as candidate special areas of conservation under the habitats directive. The Countryside Council for Wales continues to support the establishment of local nature reserves, many of which contain significant butterfly and moth populations.

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his most recent calculation of the proportion of Welsh families that have state nursery education available to them in each education authority for children aged(a) three to four years and (b) four to five years. [9352]

  Mr. Richards
  No calculations have been made on the basis of families. The following table shows the number of children at maintained nursery and primary schools at January 1995, with estimated ages at 31 December 1994, expressed as a percentage of the Registrar General's mid-1994 population estimates for three and four-year-olds.

  Percentage of children at maintained nursery and primary schools, by LEA and by age

  Age

  LEA

  3 years

  4 years

  Clwyd

  63.4

  98.5

  Dyfed

  43.4

  86.7

  Gwent

  50.3

  93.6

  Gwynedd

  23.2

  75.2

  Mid Glamorgan

  52.9

  91.9

  Powys

  26.8

  87.1

  South Glamorgan

  38.2

  80.4

  West Glamorgan

  72.7

  99.2

  Wales

  49.7

  90.2

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9770]

  Mr. Hague
  Welsh Office has no live contracts for the provision of mobile phones. Airtime contracts are presently held with:

  Number of phones

  Astec Communications

  13

  BT

  8

  Cellular Communications Corporation

  1

  Martin Dawes Communications

  3

  Mercury Communications

  1

  622

  Number of phones

  Mobile Telecomms

  6

  Peoples Phone

  100

  Talkland International

  4

  Uniqueair

  5

  VHL Communications

  1

  VODACOMM

  16

  Airtime contracts for existing mobile phones are initially for 12 months from purchase date and following that period are reviewed competitively and let to ensure value for money.

  Contract values are dependent on mobile phone usage.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9771]

  Mr. Hague
  My Department's standard competitive tendering procedures are used for the purchase of mobile telephones and car phones. Companies invited to tender for the supply of mobile phones include Peoples Phone, Talkland, Martin Dawes, Uplands Communications, Avenguard Communications, Astec Communications and VHL.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9772]

  Mr. Hague
  In the last three years we have paid £264 in penalties for terminating contracts early. The companies involved were Peoples Phone, Vodacom and Uniqueair.

  Cardiff Bay (Birds)
  Mr. Sweeney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will announce his plans for bird compensation measures for the loss of the Cardiff site of special scientific interest; and when he expects these to be completed. [10410]

  Mr. Hague
  I am pleased to announce my plans to proceed immediately with bird reserve compensation measures at Uskmouth and Goldcliff and the area in between on the Gwent levels. These new proposals have been developed with the assistance of the Countryside Council for Wales, from the conclusions reached by the Cardiff Bay development corporation steering group report on alternative mitigation measures—October 1995—and discussed with the European Commission. I have placed a copy of the steering group report in the Library of the House.

  I have asked the Cardiff Bay development corporation to set up immediately a project implementation steering group to oversee the establishment of the new integral reserve of over 375 hectares, with the firm objective of completion before the start of impoundment of the waters in Cardiff bay. The longer term objective is for the reserve to be developed so that it qualifies for special protection

  623
  area status. The first task of the group will be to provide clear proposals for the management of the site and by the end of May, specific targets for the birds to be attracted to it. The Land Authority for Wales, working on behalf of CBDC, has already secured from National Power 164 hectares of the land required and lodged a planning application for engineering works for the whole of the reserve site.

  Animal Feedstuffs
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what guidelines the agricultural section of his Department gives to farmers and other workers in Wales with regard to the need to use gloves when handling animal feedstuffs; and if he will make a statement. [8693]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Health and Safety Executive has not issued specific guidelines concerning the use of gloves by farmers and other workers when handling animal feedstuffs. However, suppliers of animal feedstuffs have a duty to provide information regarding precautionary measures if the feedstuffs present a health hazard to people.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Engagements
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will list her engagements for Monday 18 December and for Tuesday 19 December 1995. [8608]

  Mrs. Bottomley
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: In addition to my parliamentary duties, I had a series of meetings with ministerial colleagues, officials and others.

  Military Knights
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will identify each of the military knights of Windsor who occupy accommodation on the occupied royal palaces estate; and what is the total amount received in rents and other charges from the occupiers. [8906]

  Mr. Sproat
  There are 13 military knights in residence at Windsor castle. All the military knights are distinguished ex-service men.

  The military knights, who receive no payment for performing their ceremonial duties, live rent free but are responsible for internal repairs and decorations. They have paid a total of £1,287 in charges for water from the Windsor castle waterworks for the financial year 1995–96. They are billed for other utilities by the suppliers and they pay council tax.

  Royal Residences
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what resources have been provided from public funds for the maintenance of each of the royal residences in each year from 1992–93. [8912]
  624
  Mr. Sproat
  The cost to my Department for the maintenance of each of the royal residences, since 1992–93, is as follows:

  £Million

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  Buckingham Palace

  1.103

  1.326

  2.380

  Buckingham Palace Mews and Gardens

  1.760

  0.613

  0.624

  Kensington Palace

  0.483

  0.985

  1.145

  St. James's Palace

  1.106

  0.974

  2.172

  Clarence House and Marlborough House Mews

  0.468

  0.271

  0.241

  Hampton Court Mews and Paddocks

  0.067

  0.061

  0.155

  Windsor Castle

  8.518

  5.380

  2.077

  Windsor Castle Mews

  0.198

  0.137

  0.372

  Windsor Castle Homes and Great Park

  0.463

  0.361

  0.483

  The figures for Windsor Castle exclude fire restoration costs.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Turkeys
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking to ensure that turkeys are reared and slaughtered humanely. [8721]

  Mrs. Browning
  Legislation is already in place to ensure that the welfare of turkeys is protected. We are currently considering the recommendations in the Farm Animal Welfare Council's report on turkeys which was published last year. We shall also participate actively in future discussions on the proposed Council of Europe recommendations on the welfare on turkeys.

  Hedgerows
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many miles of hedgerows have been reinstated in the last four years; how many miles of hedgerows have been removed in each region; and at what cost in subsidy to public funds. [9606]

  Mr. Clappison
  I have been asked to reply.

  Financial support for hedgerow restoration and planting is mainly provided through the Countryside Commission's countryside stewardship scheme, which incorporates the hedgerow incentive scheme, and MAFF's farm and conservation grant scheme.

  The information requested in relation to countryside stewardship is set out in the table:

  Agreement year (1 October–30 September)

  Length of hedgerow planted/reinstated (approximately)

  Expenditure (approximately) £

  1992–93

  142 miles (229 km)

  410,169

  1993–94

  279 miles (449 km)

  802,350

  1994–95

  487 miles (784 km)

  1,522,087

  1995–96

  468 miles (754 km)

  1,354,818

  625

  Comparable information in respect of the Farm and Conservation Grant Scheme is as follows:

  Financial year

  Length of hedgerow planted/reinstated approximately

  Expenditure approximately £

  1991–92

  450 miles (735 km)

  1,469,744

  1992–93

  570 miles (920 km)

  1,839,446

  1993–94

  710 miles (1,146 km)

  2,292,570

  1994–95

  530 miles (855 km)

  1,709,479

  Neither scheme provides assistance towards hedgerow removal.

  Fish Stocks
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make it his policy to commission studies into the artificial development of fish stocks by use of(a) discarded gas and oil structures, (b) protected closed areas and (c) other means and if he will make a statement. [8370]

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 15 January 1996]I see no justification for commissioning further studies of enhancement of marine fish stocks because work done so far, both in the United Kingdom and world-wide, suggests that such measures are rarely effective. On the specific suggestions made by the hon. Member.

  (a) the development of artificial reefs has been shown to be feasible. However it has not been demonstrated that the use of artificial reefs necessarily leads to increases in stocks; it rather may lead to the aggregation of existing resources into a smaller, well defined area and make the fish easier to catch;

  (b) I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 15 January 1996, Official Report, column 457.

  (c) there have been various attempts around the world at enhancing marine fish stocks through the release of juveniles but these have so far been largely unsuccessful. A particular problem is that reared fish have generally exhibited high mortality rates once released. The expert view is that overall, artificial additions to fish stocks can at best make only a small contribution to total stocks; and unless great care is taken with preparation and release, the reared fish may provide no more than expensive food for other species.

  Equidae
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) how many organisations have been recognised in Britain to register equidae within the meaning of directive 90/426/EEC; [9349]

  (2) if he will name the organisations in Britain which have been recognised to register equidae within the meaning of directive 90/426/EEC; and if he will make a statement about the welfare implications for equidae of such registration. [9350]

  Mrs. Browning
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: Under EC Council directive 90/426, "registered equidae" means any equidae registered with those organisations or associations maintaining studbooks which have been formally recognised under the terms of EC Council
  626
  directive 90/427. Recognition is voluntary. Thirty seven organisations have so far been recognised in the United Kingdom as follows:

  The National Pony Society

  British Miniature Horse Society

  National Light Horse Breeding Society

  Anglo-European Studbook Ltd.

  British Warm-Blood Society

  British Sports Horse Registry

  Arab Horse Society

  Weatherbys

  British Horse Foundation

  Shire Horse Society

  Suffolk Horse Society

  The British Andalusian Horse Society

  Falabella Horse Breeders Association

  Caspian Pony Society

  Dales Pony Society

  Hackney Horse Society

  Exmoor Pony Society

  Lusitano Breed Society of Great Britain

  British Skewbald and Piebald Association

  New Forest Pony Breeding and Cattle Society

  British Appaloosa Society

  The Spotted Horse and Pony Register

  English Connemara Pony Society

  The Dartmoor Pony Society

  Irish Draught Horse Society

  British Hanoverian Horse Society

  International Miniature Pony Society

  Welsh Pony and Cob Society

  Donkey Breed Society

  British Palomino Society

  Fjord Horse Society of Great Britain

  British Lipizzaner Horse Society

  Shetland Pony Society

  British Quarter Horse Association

  Trakehner Breeders Fraternity

  Eriskay Pony Society

  Highland Pony Society.

  The welfare implications for registered equidae are being considered. We will be discussing this with interested parties as part of our continuing consultations on the implementation of Council Directive 95/29/EC.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Minimum Wage
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the non-European countries which have minimum wage legislation. [7895]

  Mr. Lang
  The Government do not collect details of those countries throughout the world which have minimum wage legislation. However, the majority of research clearly shows that statutory minimum wages destroy jobs.

  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what discussions he has had with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux on changes in the level of its services as a result of the budget he has allocated to it. [7908]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  We have regular discussions with the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux about its funding and performance. I can announce today that the grant-in-aid available to the association for 1996–97 will be increased by £600,000 to a total of £12,516,000.

  SWALEC (Takeover)
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received on the takeover of SWALEC by Dwr Cymru plc. [7909]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  One representation has been received by my Department.

  Landfill Tax
  Mr. Eric Clarke
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the impact of the landfill tax on the future of the coal industry. [7910]

  Mr. Page
  None, but I am aware that representations are being made by the industry. These will, of course, be taken fully into account before decisions are made on relevant aspects of the implementation of the tax.

  Nuclear Waste
  Mr. Purchase
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how much of the current liability for processing nuclear waste it is proposed that the British Energy Company will meet. [7911]

  Mr. Eggar
  The final decisions on the precise split of assets and liabilities between the company remaining in the public sector—Nuclear Electric plc, to be renamed Magnox Electric plc—and the two companies to be privatized—Scottish Nuclear Ltd. and Nuclear Electric Ltd., as subsidies of British Energy plc—have not yet been taken.

  We have established the basic principle that assets will be followed by the associated liabilities.

  Businesses, Suffolk
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what support is being given by his Department to businesses in Suffolk. [7913]

  Mr. Page
  My Department is supporting Business Link Suffolk and Business Link Norfolk and Waveney. Both business links opened recently and are now providing high quality services to local companies.

  Central South Coast Region
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recent representations he has received in support of a new central south coast region. [7914]
  628
  Mr. Eggar
  I have not received any recent representations on this issue.

  Industrial Investment Levels
  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on investment levels in United Kingdom industry(a) from 1974 to 1979 and (b) since 1979. [7915]

  Mr. Eggar
  Between 1974 and 1979, total investment grew on average by 0.75 per cent. in real terms each year. Since 1979, it has grown by 1.75 per cent. on average in real terms each year.

  Competitiveness
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures were proposed by Her Majesty's Government at the Madrid summit to improve the competitiveness of manufacturing and service industries in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) other member states. [7916]

  Mr. Lang
  The Madrid European Council discussed competitiveness on the basis of a report produced by the European Commission's competitiveness advisory group under the chairmanship of Dr. Ciampi. The United Kingdom endorsed, in particular, the emphasis which the report placed on: the need to ensure the effective implementation of the single market, including the introduction of competition into the utilities sector, the need to give effective support to small and medium enterprises, especially through the removal of regulatory obstacles, and the importance of Europe competing effectively with the United States and Asia. The United Kingdom also reiterated its commitment to making progress with trans-European networks.

  Competitiveness (Environmental Appraisal)
  Ms Ruddock
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) how "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead" was modified by the results of any environmental appraisal undertaken by his Department; [8668]

  (2) if "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead" has been subject to an environmental appraisal using the guidance contained in "Policy Appraisal and the Environment"; and if he will publish the appraisal; [8666]

  (3) what procedures have been put in place by his Department to monitor the environmental impacts arising from the implementation of "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead"; [8669]

  (4) what alternative courses of action from those detailed in "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead" were considered in any environmental appraisal undertaken by his Department. [8667]

  Mr. Page
  The 1994 White Paper "Competitiveness: Helping Business to Win" was the first comprehensive audit of the UK's competitive position. The 1995 White Paper "Competitiveness: Forging Ahead" updated the analysis, and it will be reviewed and developed further in the competitiveness White Paper due to be published later this year.
  629
  The White Papers have analysed the main factors influencing competitiveness. They identified the primary responsibility of companies themselves to improve their competitive performance. They also outlined policies and initiatives across the whole of Government to help create the right framework and conditions to foster that improvement.

  Against this background, the White Papers considered the relationship between environmental issues and competitiveness. The 1995 White Paper sets out the implications for business of the Government's commitment to sustainable development. It addresses the way that tax and regulatory policies are used to achieve environmental objectives and identifies the challenges and opportunities for business managers. There was no specific, separate written environmental appraisal of the White Papers themselves. It is a matter for each Government Department and individual company to consider and monitor the environmental implications of their activities in the normal way—including, where appropriate, the need for a written environmental appraisal.

  Responsibility for managing the competitiveness agenda within the Government now lies with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Office of Public Service in the Cabinet Office.

  Business Links
  Mr. Jacques Arnold
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the introduction of business links. [7917]

  Mr. Lang
  Business links are making excellent progress in raising the quality of business support services and simplifying access to them. For the first time, businesses have a simple route to top quality public and price sector support—support delivered by local business for local business and tailored to the customer's individual needs. Across the country, thousands of companies, especially small firms with the desire and potential to grow, are experiencing the tangible benefits which business link offers—a single point of access to a complete range of support, including help with exports, innovation and technology, access to finance, sources of supply and so on.

  The national business link network is nearing completion. With 176 outlets now operational, close to 80 per cent. of VAT registered firms in England can now benefit from the services of their local business link. Complete coverage is expected by April.

  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of his Department's internal audit report into business links. [7902]

  Mr. Page
  This was a valuable report which has helped my Department to improve its management of the business link project. On 6 October 1995, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and Industry wrote to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) as the then Chairman of the Trade and Industry Committee, providing a memorandum which included details of progress and covering key issues identified by the report. I have asked my officials to seek the agreement of the Committee to placing the memorandum in the Library of the House.

  Nuclear Electric
  Mr. Clapham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when it is expected that Nuclear Electric will be able to meet the full cost of its liabilities. [7919]

  Mr. Eggar
  The major part of Nuclear Electric's liabilities are in respect of long-term provisions for nuclear fuel reprocessing, waste management and decommissioning costs, a substantial part of which will not fall due for payment for a considerable number of years. After the privatisation of British Energy, the Government will ensure that Magnox Electric has sufficient assets to meet its liabilities as they fall due.

  Research and Development
  Mr. Clelland
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many people are employed in civil research and development in(a) 1979 and (b) the current year. [7920]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  The information is not available for the years requested; 1993 is the latest year for which information is available and only total research and development figures were collected before 1990.

  The total number of full-time equivalent persons engaged in research and development in the UK in 1978, 1990 and 1993, and the civil component for the latter two years were as follows:

  Total

  Civil

  1978

  262,000

  —

  1990

  280,000

  231,000

  1993

  279,000

  245,000

  Communications Industry
  Mr. Pope
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps his Department is taking to promote the competitiveness of United Kingdom manufacturers and suppliers of communications networks and services. [7921]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  My Department promotes the competitiveness of the communications industry through a series of initiatives, many in close co-operation with trade associations. These initiatives tackle a number of issues such as skill shortages, quality, and the use of new applications of technology to enhance productivity. In addition, we continue to pursue a licensing policy for telecommunications operators which has created one of the most competitive telecom services markets in the world. This has brought benefits both to consumers and to the industry itself since many UK companies which have proved themselves to be competitive here are now taking advantage of opportunities in expanding overseas markets.

  Eurofighter
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what discussions he has had with the aerospace industry in relation to the United kingdom share of work in the Eurofighter project. [7922]
  631
  Mr. Eggar
  My Department is staying in close touch with industry and, with the MOD, it is seeking to ensure a fair and realistic distribution of work in the Eurofighter project. My Department is also seeking to help secure the best conditions for UK industry's participation in Eurofighter through its own contacts with Governments and industry at home and abroad.

  Small Business
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about his plans to promote small businesses. [7923]

  Mr. Page
  The Government are taking a number of measures to promote the interests of small businesses. These include:the establishment of the business link network which will offer advice and help to small and medium companies. By April 1996, every company in England will have access to a business link outlet and the range of services they offer;
  the creation of the small business Ministers forum to ensure that the issues and concerns of small businesses are addressed across Whitehall Departments.
  the current programme of "Your Business Matters" conferences being organised by the small firms' representative organisations is enabling small businesses themselves to have a direct say in the development of future Government policy for the sector. The outcomes of the conferences will be considered in this year's competitiveness White Paper.

  Electricity Generation
  Mr. Chris Davies
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proportion of Britain's electricity is currently generated by power stations using(a) coal, (b) gas and (c) oil. [7889]

  Mr. Eggar
  In 1995, 50 per cent. of electricity in the United Kingdom was generated from coal, 15 per cent. from gas, and 5 per cent. from oil.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Burden
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the impact of the private finance initiative on industrial performance. [7912]

  Mr. Lang
  Although the private finance initiative is expected to have a beneficial effect on the economy by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector procurement, no assessment has been made of its impact on industrial performance.

  Scott Inquiry
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects the results of the Scott inquiry to be published. [8539]

  Mr. Lang
  I expect the report to be published within the next few weeks.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision 632
  of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost of public funds of each agreement; [9728]

  (2) what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts; [9729]

  (3) what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9730]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  Mobile and car phones are purchased locally in accordance with established Government procurement procedures. Although records of the contracts are not held centrally, it is estimated that, excluding next steps agencies, there are currently in the region of 800 mobile phones in use in my Department. These will have come from a variety of suppliers.

  Similarly, there are no central records of costs incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided.

  Japanese Investment
  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many Japanese companies have invested for the first time in the United Kingdom during the period April 1992 to the present; and what were the equivalent figures between(a) 1979 and 1983, (b) 1983 and 1987 and (c) 1987 and 1992. [7900]

  Mr. Oppenheim
  There are around 228 Japanese manufacturing investments in the UK. From April 1992 to the present, 32 Japanese manufacturing companies invested in the UK for the first time. The equivalent figures in the financial years 1979 to 1983, 1983 to 1987 and 1987 to 1992 were 12, 27 and 114 respectively. The UK has succeeded in attracting around 40 per cent. of all Japanese manufacturing investment into the European Union.

  Sales and Auctions
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what discussions he has had with local authority organisations about the establishment of a system of advance notification and appropriate trader identification and record keeping for one-day sales or mock auctions. [9727]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  My officials have periodically discussed the issues raised by particular one-day sales with trading standards officers. My officials will shortly meet the local authorities co-ordinating body on food and trading standards and other representatives of the trading standards service to review the situation. Mock auctions were made illegal by the Mock Auctions Act 1961.

  Training and Enterprise Council
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list for each TEC(a) what grants it currently makes available for people starting up businesses, (b) how long those grants last, (c) what is the

  633
  monetary value of the grants, (d) what restrictions are placed on applying for the grant and (e) if the grant applies across the TEC geographical areas. [9194]

  Mr. Page
  The information requested is not held centrally for each TEC and could be obtained from them individually only at disproportionate cost.

  Research Vessel Services Ltd.
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what consultations he has have with the chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council in relation to the impact of moving Research Vessel Services Ltd., from Barry to Southampton on the costs of oceanographic research. [8733]

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  [holding answer 15 January 1996]: None. The cost in 1996 of operating the research vessel services from Southampton is expected to be less in real terms than the cost of operation from Barry in 1995.

  The transfer to Southampton is an important element in the creation of a world-class centre in deep sea oceanography.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what guidance he intends to issue to(a) Departments, (b) executive agencies, (c) non-departmental public bodies and (d) outside bodies and arms-length organisations which he has responsibility for, or an interest in, regarding the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement. [9234]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  The Department of Social Security is primarily responsible for the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply from my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, 15 January 1996,Official Report, columns 417–18.

  I will ensure that my Department and any bodies for which it is responsible are reminded of their responsibilities under the Act.

  Supermarkets
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has had on(a) profit margins of supermarkets and (b) references to the Office of Fair Trading of pricing policies by the supermarkets; and what studies his officials have made of these matters. [9463]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  I have received several representations concerning the profit margins and pricing policies of supermarkets, notably concerning bread, greengrocery products and turkeys.

  The Office of Fair Trading keeps supermarket behaviour under review and has undertaken several inquiries into the pricing policies of large supermarkets, most recently in 1992. The director general has not concluded that action under the competition legislation was appropriate.

  Part-time Workers
  Mr. Ian McCartney
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what initiatives have been taken, and at what cost, to publicise the changes in qualifying periods for employment rights for part-time workers to(a) employees and (b) employers. [9600]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Employment announced in response to a written parliamentary question on 20 December 1994,Official Report, columns 1100–01 that regulations removing qualifying hours of work thresholds for employment rights would shortly be introduced. On the same day, the former Employment Department issued a detailed press notice about these changes which were widely reported in the press and professional journals. The changes were also covered in the February 1995 issue of the "Employment Gazette". The costs of these publicity items cannot be isolated from normal Departmental running costs.

  Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will estimate the number of people(a) killed and (b) injured as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning in (i) 1993, (ii) 1994, and (iii) 1995. [9618]

  Mr. John M. Taylor
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: The annual totals of people in Great Britain accidentally killed by carbon monoxide from flammable gas, as recorded by the Health and Safety Executive, are:

  Year

  Number of fatalities1

  1993

  31

  1994

  230

  1995

  n/a

  1The totals do not include fatalities from carbon monoxide generated by solid fuel and oil. These figures are not yet available from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys.

  2Provisional.

  n/a = no figures yet available.

  The estimated annual number of people injured in the United Kingdom as a result of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning are as follows:

  Heating-appliance related

  Not heating-appliance related

  Total1

  1993

  105

  42

  147

  1994

  211

  273

  485

  1995

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1Estimates from the DTI Home Accident Surveillance System, which excludes accidents in the work place.

  n/a = no estimates yet available.

  Nuclear Power (Environmental Appraisal)
  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) how "Prospects for Nuclear Power in the UK" (Cm 2860) was modified by the results of any environmental appraisal undertaken by his Department; [8656]
  635
  (2) if "Prospects for Nuclear Power in the UK" (Cm 2860) has been subject to an environmental appraisal using the guidance contained in "Policy Appraisal and the Environment" produced by the Department of the Environment; and if he will publish the appraisal;. [8654]

  (3) what procedures have been put in place by his Department to monitor the environmental impacts arising from the implementation of "Prospects for Nuclear Power in the UK" (Cm 2860);. [8657]

  (4) what alternative courses of action from those detailed in "Prospects for Nuclear Power in the UK" (Cm 2860) were considered in any environmental appraisal undertaken by his Department. [8655]

  Mr. Page
  The environmental implications of the Government's proposals were addressed as part of the nuclear review and details of the conclusions reached were published in the White Paper.

SCOTLAND

  World Heritage Site (Cairngorms)
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to submit the application for the Cairngorms to be designated a world heritage site, and if he will make a statement. [8474]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend has asked the Cairngorms Partnership Board to prepare the case for world heritage site listing for the Cairngorms in 1997, once the agreed management strategy for the area, on which so much rests, has been published in its final form towards the end of this year.

  Mobile Telephones
  Mr. Williams Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many mobile telephones have been contracted to his Department in each of the last eight years; and in each of those years how many different suppliers were involved. [9132]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Four mobile phones were hired from one supplier for periods up to one month in 1995. No phones were hired in the previous seven years.

  Heart Transplants
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the number of heart transplants carried out in 1995. [8942]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The number of heart transplants carried out in Scottish NHS hospitals in 1995 was 32.

  Severe Weather Conditions
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to make additional resources available to Scottish local authorities to tackle the damage caused by the recent severe weather conditions, [8940]
  636
  Mr. Kynoch
  So far as the Bellwin scheme is concerned, I refer the hon. Member to the answer my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) on 10 January,Official Report, columns 235–38.

  The Bellwin scheme does not relate to capital expenditure, but I recognise that local authorities may have to incur additional capital expenditure as a result of the recent severe weather. Any representations from authorities facing serious difficulties in this regard will be sympathetically considered in the light of available resources.

  Central European Time
  Mr. Keith Hill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to publish the preliminary conclusions of his analysis of the introduction of central European time on road accident casualties in Scotland; if he will immediately publish the methodology on which this analysis has been based; and what consultations his officials have had with the Transport Research Laboratory in the course of this study. [9454]

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Scottish Office statisticians have published a report outlining the methodology used in their analysis of the likely effect on road accident casualties in Scotland following the introduction of central European time. Their interim conclusions are that such a change would be broadly neutral in terms of total road accident casualties in Scotland. Copies of the report are being placed in the Libraries of both Houses. My statisticians have met statisticians from the Transport Research Laboratory and the Department of Transport, most recently on 20 December 1995, to discuss the methodologies used for estimating casualty savings from adopting central European time.

  I have arranged for this information to be made available to the Department of Transport and the Transport Research Laboratory.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what guidance he intends to issue to(a) Departments, (b) executive agencies, (c) non-departmental public bodies and (d) outside bodies and arms-length organisations which he has responsibility for, or an interest in, regarding the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement; [9235]

  (2) what guidance he intends to issue to local authorities about the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement; [9244]

  (3) what guidance he intends to issue to health authorities and trusts about the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and if he will make a statement. [9240]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People on 15 January,Official Report, column 417.

  I will ensure that officials in the Scottish Office and all bodies for which it is responsible are made aware of their responsibilities under the Act.

  Scottish Defence Initiative
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made on the Scottish defence initiative; and what proposals he has to extend it. [9406]

  Mr. Kynoch
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: The Scottish defence initiative was introduced by Scottish Enterprise as a fesponse to expected reductions in defence expenditure. Progress on the initiative is consequently a matter for that organisation. I have asked the chairman of Scottish Enterprise to write to the hon. Member.

  Business Purchases (Imports)
  Mr. Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of Scottish business purchases were imported from(a) elsewhere in the United Kingdom and (b) other countries; and if he will provide a breakdown by sector. [9567]

  Mr. Kynoch
  [holding answer 16 January 1996]: The only data source which provides information on Scottish imports by industry is the Scottish input-output tables for 1989. A copy of this publication will shortly be placed in the House of Commons Library. A summary of the imports data contained in these tables is set out in the table:

  Purchases

  Industry

  Percentage rest of UK

  Percentage rest of world

  Agriculture

  17.6

  11.7

  Forestry

  10.6

  2.5

  Fishing

  14.3

  8.5

  Energy and water supply

  25.1

  29.6

  Metal manufacturing

  27.2

  30.8

  Other minerals and mineral production

  26.8

  14.4

  Chemicals and man-made fibres

  38.1

  16.7

  Metal goods

  36.1

  18.0

  Mechanical engineering

  28.5

  21.5

  Electrical and instrument engineering

  50.1

  31.2

  Transport Equipment

  35.2

  25.7

  Food, drink and tobacco

  20.0

  10.4

  Textiles, leather, footwear and clothing

  29.6

  17.3

  Paper, printing and publishing

  25.3

  36.3

  Other manufacturing

  33.9

  19.1

  Construction

  30.4

  8.4

  Distribution

  21.6

  5.5

  Transport and communication

  33.5

  16.3

  Finance and business services

  42.4

  3.3

  Other services

  21.2

  14.4

  Public administration

  —

  —

  Total Scottish industry

  29.7

  18.5

  Source:

  Scottish input-output tables for 1989.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what will be the effect of the change in the estimated level of Government financial support for 1996–97, on(a) local government expenditure and (b) local government taxation. [8889]

  Mr. Kynoch
  This information is not yet available and will depend on decisions still to be taken by individual local authorities regarding their 1996–97 budgets council tax levels.

  Oil Pollution
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the final figures for recovered losses of birds and mammals arising from oil pollution in the Shetland Isles as a result of the MV Braer incident. [8903]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  The information requested is contained in the report of the ecological steering group "The Environmental Impact of the Wreck of the Braer" (The Scottish Office, 1994), a copy of which is in the Library.

  Butterflies and Moths
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what new proposals he has to strengthen and enlarge the work of butterfly conservation through nature reserves and butterfly and moth conservation areas. [9301]

  Mr. Kynoch
  Following publication of the UK biodiversity action plan steering group report last December, my right hon. Friend is currently considering proposals to enhance the conservation of butterfly and moth species occurring in Scotland. Requirements for habitat creation and specific conservation areas will be taken forward in the context of the Government's commitment to the UN convention on biological diversity.

  Cairngorms
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much his Department spent on commissioning the report of the working party on the future of the Cairngorms; and how long it took to produce its report. [9569]

  Mr. Kynoch
  Spending on the Cairngorms working party, including the cost of working party meetings, publication of a consultation paper by the working party in May 1992, all consultancy fees and the costs of producing the working party's final report and associated documents, totalled £127.650. The working party was set up in March 1991 and its report was published on 26 March 1993.

  Irvine Development Corporation
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to announce the names of the landlords who will be allowed onto the ballots for the properties currently owned by Irvine development corporation. [9843]

  Mr. Kynoch
  I refer to the answer given to the hon. Member on 19 December 1995,Official Report, column 1067.

  Housing
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what sums Scottish Homes has spent since its establishment on the development of housing associations; and if he will list those associations which have received funding from Scottish Homes and the amounts paid to each of them; [9844]

  (2) if he will list the result of each ballot undertaken by Scottish Homes as part of its programme of stock transfers; and if he will indicate for each ballot (i) the

  639
  number of tenants voting (a) in favour of and (b) against the stock transfer, (ii) the total number of tenants eligible to vote in each ballot, (iii) the percentage of tenants voting in favour of transferring to another landlord and (iv) the name of the successful bidding organisation in each case. [9846]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  The information requested is a matter for Scottish Homes. I have asked the chairman, Sir James Mellon, to write to the hon. Member with the relevant information.

  Commercial Properties (Revaluations Appeals)
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many appeals were lodged against the recent revaluations of commercial properties by each regional and island council; what was the number and percentage of appeals which have been dealt with; how many and what percentage of appeals have been successful; and what is the average amount of time taken to deal with an appeal. [9845]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The following table gives a provisional count, by assessors, of the number of appeals lodged against the 1995 revaluation of rateable values of all non-domestic subjects throughout Scotland. The information was gathered as at 15 December 1995, the date by which such appeals must be lodged. No information is available on the number of appeals by type of subject.

  It is too early in the process to gather meaningful information about the progress of appeals. Regular, quarterly, information on the number and progress of appeals will be gathered from the end of March 1996.

  Number of appeals1 lodged against the 1995 revaluation

  Scotland

  103,049

  Borders

  1,938

  Central

  5,494

  Dumfries and Galloway

  3,025

  Fife

  6,196

  Grampian

  10,286

  Highland

  5,589

  Lothian

  13,328

  Strathclyde

  48,436

  Tayside

  7,978

  Orkney

  174

  Shetland

  285

  Western Isles

  320

  Note:

  1It is possible for both owner and tenant to appeal in relation to the same property. The analysis shows the total number of appeals. Assessors estimate that these appeals relate to just over 94,000 separate properties.

  Source:

  Information supplied by Assessors.

  Local Government Reform
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the circulars his Department had issued up until 1 January 1996 in respect of current local government reforms in Scotland. [9847]
  640
  Mr. Kynoch
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 23 November 1995,Official Report, columns 68–70. Since then, the following seven circulars related to reorganisation of local government have been issued.
  Local Government Finance
  Finance Circular 24/1995: 1996–97 Capping Regime: Report specifying notional amounts.
  Circular Letter: The Local Government (Application of Enactments) (No. 2) Order 1995.
  Planning
  SODD Circular No. 25/1995: Designation of Structure Plan Areas (Scotland) Order 1995.
  Industry
  SOEID Circular No. 14/1995: Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994—Economic Development Powers.
  Social Work
  SWSG 21/1995: Community Care Planning: Joint Planning Structures.
  Police
  Circular on Police Amalgamation Schemes.
  Fire
  Circular on Fire Administration Schemes.

  Health Boards (Competitive Tendering)
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what safeguards exist to ensure that contracts for goods or services are awarded in a proper way by health boards or NHS trusts in Scotland when these contracts are not awarded by competitive tendering. [9848]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  There is a statutory requirement on all health boards and national health service trusts to undergo an end-year audit by external auditors to ensure that the trust's standing financial instructions, and any other financial instructions determined by the management executive of the natimal health service in Scotland, have been complied with.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland at what level(a) local authorities and (b) health boards and NHS trusts in Scotland are obliged to enter into a competitive tendering exercise before agreeing a contract for goods or services. [9849]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Local authorities make their own standing orders covering financial probity in the handling of contracts and other matters. They are required to submit certain services to compulsory competitive tendering. As a result of local government reform, most of the compulsory competitive tendering requirements have been temporarily suspended, with the exception of construction contracts over £500,000.

  Health boards and NHS trusts are required to include in their standing financial instructions detailed procedures on the procurement of goods, services and works by competitive tendering or other means. These instructions include the setting of locally agreed thresholds above which quotations or formal tenders must be obtained.

  Local authorities and health boards and NHS trusts must also have regard to EC procurement directives, including the thresholds for the advertising of contracts.

  Intensive Care Beds
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what was(a) the number of intensive care beds within each health board area, (b) the number of

  641
  people living within each board area and (c) the ratio of patients to intensive care beds in each financial year since 1979–80; [9841]

  (2) what steps his Department has taken to increase the number of intensive care beds available in Scotland and the effectiveness of the intensive care system with particular reference to rural areas. [9842]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The tables show the number of intensive care beds by health board area of treatment, the estimated population resident in each health board area and the average number of patients discharged per available staffed beds by health board area of treatment.

  NHSiS—Intensive care beds1: by health board area of treatment: Years ending 31 March

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  Scotland

  135

  137

  142

  159

  166

  168

  166

  166

  Argyll and Clyde

  3

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  3

  Ayrshire and Arran

  5

  5

  5

  7

  10

  8

  6

  8

  Borders

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dumfries and Galloway

  —

  —

  2

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  Fife

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Forth Valley

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  Grampian

  6

  6

  6

  6

  10

  11

  11

  11

  Greater Glasgow

  72

  72

  74

  80

  81

  81

  81

  80

  Highland

  5

  5

  5

  5

  5

  5

  5

  6

  Lanarkshire

  15

  15

  16

  19

  19

  20

  19

  18

  Lothian

  12

  12

  12

  12

  11

  12

  12

  14

  Orkney

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Shetland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Tayside

  13

  14

  14

  14

  15

  15

  16

  15

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Scotland

  166

  182

  188

  198

  219

  230

  250

  247

  Argyll and Clyde

  1

  —

  —

  —

  4

  7

  12

  13

  Ayrshire and Arran

  6

  6

  6

  6

  7

  8

  8

  8

  Borders

  —

  2

  2

  2

  2

  2

  2

  2

  Dumfries and Galloway

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  8

  16

  14

  Fife

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  5

  6

  Forth Valley

  4

  4

  9

  9

  9

  9

  9

  9

  Grampian

  11

  10

  10

  10

  10

  11

  10

  11

  Greater Glasgow

  75

  76

  78

  77

  77

  77

  75

  75

  Highland

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  6

  Lanarkshire

  19

  24

  31

  35

  37

  37

  37

  37

  Lothian

  21

  30

  25

  28

  38

  41

  41

  40

  Orkney

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Shetland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Tayside

  15

  15

  15

  15

  20

  24

  28

  25

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Note:

  1Average available staffed beds in the speciality of intensive therapy unit.

  Source:

  ISD(S)1.

  NHSIS—Estimated Population resident in Health boards in Scotland: As at 30 June

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Scotland

  5,167,000

  5,153,300

  5,180,200

  5,166,800

  5,152,600

  5,145,602

  5,136,900

  5,123,000

  Argyll and Clyde

  480,653

  459,282

  455,045

  452,700

  450,700

  448,000

  447,200

  445,300

  Ayrshire and Arran

  376,027

  375,759

  377,854

  377,000

  376,600

  376,700

  376,200

  376,200

  Borders

  99,938

  99,510

  101,256

  101,100

  101,100

  101,300

  101,700

  101,700

  Dumfries and Galloway

  142,547

  142,465

  145,502

  145,400

  145,400

  145,500

  145,600

  145,400

  642
  It is for individual health boards and NHS trusts to ensure an appropriate level of intensive care bed provision to meet the needs of their population. The clinical resource and audit group and the Scottish management efficiency group produced a report in 1991 which made a number of recommendations relating to the effectiveness of adult intensive care such as the staffing of intensive care units and the piloting of guidelines for admission and discharge. A survey of intensive care facilities in all Scottish health board areas, which was carried out by the Scottish Office in August 1995, showed that health boards keep the need for intensive care services in their areas under review. I have asked general managers of health boards to continue to monitor the provision and use of intensive care facilities.
  643

  NHSIS—Estimated Population resident in Health boards in Scotland: As at 30 June

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Fife

  340,170

  340,341

  341,589

  342,500

  344,200

  345,900

  346,200

  346,600

  Forth Valley

  271,177

  271,210

  273,515

  273,300

  273,100

  273,200

  272,900

  272,500

  Grampian

  469,168

  471,944

  464,899

  490,400

  494,500

  498,000

  501,600

  504,500

  Greater Glasgow

  1,023,083

  1,012,041

  1,007,325

  996,700

  986,600

  978,200

  968,600

  960,500

  Highland

  190,507

  191,188

  194,903

  195,000

  195,700

  196,702

  197,800

  199,000

  Lanarkshire

  571,338

  571,737

  574,589

  573,100

  571,800

  570,700

  568,500

  565,300

  Lothian

  750,728

  748,603

  749,591

  749,100

  745,900

  746,400

  745,900

  743,100

  Orkney

  16,134

  18,030

  19,182

  19,100

  19,200

  19,200

  19,200

  19,100

  Shetland

  22,111

  22,309

  26,347

  24,100

  22,300

  22,200

  22,300

  22,400

  Tayside

  401,661

  399,191

  397,055

  395,800

  394,100

  392,400

  392,100

  390,500

  Western Isles

  29,758

  29,681

  31,548

  31,600

  31,400

  31,200

  31,100

  31,000

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  Scotland

  5,112,604

  5,093,414

  5,096,628

  5,102,296

  5,107,000

  5,111,200

  5,120,200

  5,132,400

  Argyll and Clyde

  442,700

  441,300

  440,000

  439,518

  437,400

  434,300

  432,800

  433,000

  Ayrshire and Arran

  376,400

  376,000

  376,400

  376,700

  376,900

  376,600

  376,800

  377,000

  Borders

  102,000

  102,304

  102,810

  103,616

  104,100

  104,800

  105,300

  105,700

  Dumfries and Galloway

  145,504

  145,700

  147,100

  147,630

  147,700

  147,900

  147,900

  147,800

  Fife

  346,700

  346,600

  347,600

  348,800

  349,400

  349,900

  351,200

  352,100

  Forth Valley

  272,800

  272,200

  272,104

  273,020

  272,900

  272,700

  272,900

  273,400

  Grampian

  504,600

  503,500

  507,600

  510,200

  515,600

  522,400

  528,100

  532,500

  Greater Glasgow

  952,200

  940,400

  932,700

  924,500

  922,600

  918,200

  915,700

  916,600

  Highland

  198,700

  199,510

  200,614

  202,612

  204,100

  205,900

  206,900

  207,500

  Lanarkshire

  564,200

  561,900

  562,200

  562,700

  561,300

  561,600

  561,400

  561,200

  Lothian

  744,600

  742,900

  747,100

  750,300

  751,000

  750,600

  753,900

  758,600

  Orkney

  19,100

  19,200

  19,300

  19,400

  19,560

  19,710

  19,760

  19,810

  Shetland

  22,400

  22,300

  22,200

  22,400

  22,540

  22,640

  22,830

  22,880

  Tayside

  390,200

  389,300

  388,900

  391,100

  392,500

  394,600

  395,200

  395,000

  Western Isles

  30,500

  30,300

  30,000

  29,800

  29,400

  29,350

  29,410

  29,310

  Source:

  Registrar General for Scotland.

  NHSIS—Intensive care units1—average number of patients discharged per available staffed bed; By health board area of treatment: Years ending 31 March

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  Scotland

  66

  68

  71

  72

  69

  72

  75

  77

  Argyll and Clyde

  96

  106

  113

  103

  101

  100

  111

  119

  Ayrshire and Arran

  145

  146

  138

  70

  32

  42

  57

  44

  Borders

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dumfries and Galloway

  —

  —

  90

  94

  100

  102

  107

  107

  Fife

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Forth Valley

  122

  116

  116

  113

  115

  127

  116

  128

  Grampian

  13

  12

  18

  7

  28

  28

  31

  32

  Greater Glasgow

  57

  58

  60

  65

  67

  66

  67

  68

  Highland

  88

  92

  100

  97

  93

  94

  100

  102

  Lanarkshire

  57

  62

  65

  62

  64

  64

  67

  73

  Lothian

  92

  104

  107

  117

  101

  111

  123

  123

  Orkney

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Shetland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Tayside

  61

  62

  64

  70

  71

  74

  82

  79

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Scotland

  277

  80

  86

  94

  298

  99

  92

  94

  Argyll and Clyde

  n/s

  —

  —

  —

  n/s

  135

  101

  83

  Ayrshire and Arran

  68

  81

  72

  93

  85

  91

  88

  84

  Borders

  —

  43

  69

  65

  83

  95

  97

  93

  Dumfries and Galloway

  125

  148

  141

  150

  181

  180

  105

  116

  Fife

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  59

  64

  Forth Valley

  129

  115

  82

  97

  97

  97

  85

  81

  Grampian

  29

  42

  57

  66

  72

  65

  44

  43

  Greater Glasgow

  78

  81

  81

  84

  84

  83

  84

  80

  644 645

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993

  1994

  1995

  Highland

  111

  113

  113

  119

  111

  122

  116

  135

  Lanarkshire

  70

  77

  77

  95

  96

  98

  90

  92

  Lothian

  64

  70

  102

  118

  108

  103

  106

  107

  Orkney

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Shetland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Tayside

  82

  82

  88

  97

  128

  119

  112

  112

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Notes:

  1Activity in the speciality of intensive therapy unit.

  2 Excludes Argyll and Clyde.

  n/s = Not shown—the figures for 1988 and 1992 are not shown because of concern over the accuracy of available data.

  Source:

  ISD(S)I.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Roads (Newtownards)
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is his Department's assessment of the bank at 114 Crawfordsburn road, Newtownards. [8526]

  Mr. Moss
  The bank in question reduces the sightlines for vehicles emerging from the private lane serving the property in question.

  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will take steps to level the bank at 114 Crawfordsburn road, Newtownards. [8499]

  Mr. Moss
  The Department does not own the bank in question and has no proposals to level it.

  Multiple Occupancy Property
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) if he will introduce legislation to require the owners or agents responsible for letting a house or property for multiple occupancy to register the property with the local authority and obtain approval for multiple occupancy or group tenancy before letting out the property;. [8468]

  (2) if he will introduce legislation to require that all existing properties leased for multiple occupancy or group tenancy provide adequate safeguards to ensure the safety of occupants as deemed necessary by an expert on fire risk. [8469]

  Mr. Moss
  The housing policy review consultative document "Building on Success", a copy of which is in the Library, confirms that consideration is being given as to how best to bring about improvement in the safety and quality of houses in multiple occupancy in Northern Ireland. When the consultation process is complete, final decisions will then be taken on further legislative provision in this sector.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action has been taken by the Department of the Environment to ensure that adequate fire safety arrangements are now in place in accommodation offered by the private sector for group and multiple occupancy. [8470]

  Mr. Moss
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Under the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1992, the Housing Executive has a responsibility to inspect standards of accommodation and fire safety in 646
  houses in multiple occupation. The chief executive of the Housing Executive has advised me that it maintains a register of HMOs. If on inspection a property does not meet appropriate standards, including adequate fire safety arrangements, the executive is empowered to require the landlord to ensure that (i) the number of persons occupying the premises is appropriate for the facilities (ii) the premises are made fit and (iii) have adequate fire safety arrangements. As required by legislation, the Northern Ireland Fire Authority is consulted about the adequacy of means of escape from fire. The Housing Executive is also the authority to close all or part of the premises if the conditions are not met.

  Housing Benefit (Private Landlords)
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the 10 private landlords who received most in terms of indirect payments of housing benefit last year and the amounts involved. [8498]

  Mr. Moss
  The information is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Butterflies and Moths
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what new proposals he has to strengthen and expand the work of moth and butterfly conservation through nature reserves and conservation areas. [9295]

  Mr. Moss
  Moth and butterfly conservation in Northern Ireland will continue to benefit from the ongoing programme of site protection through the declaration and management of areas of special scientific interest and nature reserves.

  There are now 85 ASSIs covering 75,327 hectares. These already include many of Northern Ireland's most important butterfly and moth sites. The target date for the completion of the declaration of ASSIs throughout Northern Ireland is 2001. Several new nature reserves are also proposed, some of which will be important for moths and butterflies.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what will be the effect of the change in the estimated level of Government financial support for 1996–97 on(a)u local government expenditure and (b) local government taxation. [8892]
  647
  Mr. Moss
  The resources available for general Exchequer grant for 1996–97 are equal to the original provision for 1995–96: £40.226 million. However, in 1995–96 a special once-only allocation of £2 million was provided to district councils to help kick-start the promotion of local economic development.

  Roads Programme
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans his Department has to review its roads programme when road projects have been cancelled; and if the criteria used in re-assessing individual road schemes have been adjusted in concert with those of the Department of Transport. [8497]

  Mr. Moss
  The roads programme is reviewed annually following the outcome of the public expenditure survey and adjustments are made to reflect the funds allocated. The criteria used to re-assess schemes are consistent with those used by the Department of Transport.

  Housing (Heating and Insulation)
  Mr. Robert McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the policy of his Department and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in relation to utilising double glazing in new housing and the installation of oil-fired central heating in both new and existing houses. [8496]

  Mr. Moss
  Energy conservation and the efficient use of energy resources are a Government priority. Since 1 April 1995 it has been the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's policy, approved by the Department, to install double glazing in all its new housing.

  The installation of oil-fired central heating for the executive's existing houses is currently under review. However, with effect from 1 April 1996, its policy, approved by the Department, is to include oil heating as a option for all new-built houses.

  Public Opinion Surveys
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list all qualitative and quantitative research projects and surveys carried out for his Department into aspects of public attitudes and opinions(a) in general and (b) in relation to specific policy proposals in each of the past three years to December 1995, indicating for each project or survey (i) the date on which the research was commissioned, (ii) the amount which his Department spent, (iii) who carried out the research, (iv) the number of people surveyed or taking part, (v) the location and time scale and (vi) which individuals and organisations have been given access to the findings. [5981]

  Sir John Wheeler
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Schools (Parental Choice)
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement 648
  on the role of parental choice in determining the school that a child can attend. [9464]

  Mrs. Gillan
  Parents have the right to express a preference for the school that they wish their child to attend. In most cases, that preference must be met if places are available. As a result of the Government's reforms, parents now have more rights, much better information, and access to many more kinds of schools.

  Pupil Selection
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many schools applied for the right to select up to 10 per cent. of their pupils following the guidelines in her Department's circular 6/93; and what are the criteria under which the right to select was sought. [8969]

  Mrs. Gillan
  Local education authority-maintained schools do not have to seek the Secretary of State's approval to introduce such arrangements.

  Some 43 grant-maintained schools have secured the Secretary of State's agreement to select up to 10 per cent. of their pupils on the basis of aptitude or ability in a particular subject or combination of subjects. Of these, 23 wished to select by reference to aptitude or ability in music alone, 17 by music and one or more other subjects, and three by technology.

  Nottingham Schools (Funding)
  Mr. Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the capital funding allocations to grant-maintained schools and the CTC in Nottingham for 1996–97. [9404]

  Mrs. Gillan
  Decisions on city technology colleges' capital allocations for 1996–97 have not yet been taken. Capital allocations to individual grant-maintained schools are a matter for the Funding Agency for Schools. I have asked the chairman of the agency to write to the hon. Member.

  Sports (Disabled People)
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on her Department's policy in relation to the development of sports for disabled people. [9216]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The revised national curriculum for physical education provides teachers with sufficient flexibility to respond to the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs. It was drafted so that specific interpretation or modification is required for as few pupils with special educational needs as possible. The revised curriculum also enables teaching material to be selected from an earlier or later key stage where a teacher considers it necessary to enable pupils to progress and demonstrate achievement.

  The sport policy statement, "Raising the Game", which was launched in July last year, sets out the Government's proposals for rebuilding the strength of British sport. That statement applies equally to all schools and the Government intend that the measures and

  649
  recommendations set out in it will be interpreted or adapted for all sportsmen and sportswomen, regardless of their individual circumstances.

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Khabra
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will give the Government's estimate of the extra administrative cost to Ealing council and each of the relevant schools within the borough boundary of administering the proposed nursery voucher scheme. [9384]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  An agency will administer the issue and redemption of nursery education vouchers. We are working with the voucher agency in phase one to ensure that the burdens on schools and local authorities are kept to a minimum.

  Bluecoat School, Liverpool
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when she received an application from the Bluecoat school, Liverpool about exchanges in admissions criteria; what length of time it usually takes to determine such applications; when she expects to make a decision; and if she will make a statement. [9674]

  Mrs. Gillan
  The governors' proposals to change the admission criteria for the Bluecoat school, Liverpool, were published on 28 January 1995. We normally aim to take decisions on all statutory proposals within five months of their publication, though in some cases a longer period is needed if full consideration is to be given to all relevant facts. My right hon. Friend will announce a decision on these proposals as soon as possible.

  GEST
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what are the national allocations under the grants for education support and training programme for 1996–97. [9563]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The following table sets out the national allocations under the grants for education support and training programme for 1996–97. Fuller details were set out in the Department's press notice dated 5 January, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.

  Grants for education support and training (GEST) 1996–97 Programme

  1996–97 funding

  Grant number

  Grant title

  £ million

  1(a)

  School Effectiveness

  131.9

  1(b)

  School Improvement Initiative

  1.2

  2(a)

  NC Assessment—Verification

  8.4

  2(b)

  NC Assessment—Supply Cover

  16.8

  3(a)

  Primary Teachers' Subject Knowledge

  16.9

  3(b)

  Assessment Training for Primary School Teachers

  3.0

  4

  Training for Special Educational Needs

  10.4

  5

  Development of School SEN Policies

  10.2

  6

  Development of SEN Parent Partnership Scheme

  4.0

  7

  Licensed and Overseas Trained Teachers

  0.4

  650

  Grants for education support and training (GEST) 1996–97 Programme

  1996–97 funding

  Grant number

  Grant title

  £ million

  8(a)

  Vocational Qualifications—Post 16

  9.7

  Vocational Qualifications—Pre 16

  1.5

  8(b)

  Vocational Qualifications—Pilot Part Ones

  3.5

  9(a) and 9(b)

  Truancy and Disaffected Pupils

  14.0

  9(c)

  Pupil Behaviour and Discipline

  3.0

  10

  Training in Youth and Community Work

  2.2

  11

  Bilingual Pupils

  5.9

  12

  Training for Careers Teachers

  4.1

  13(a)

  Drug Prevention and Schools— (Formula)

  4.5

  13(b)

  Drug Prevention and Schools— (Bid)

  1.4

  141

  Specialist Schools

  5.7

  15(a)1

  Literacy and Numeracy Centres

  3.5

  15(b)

  Literacy and Numeracy (support)

  1.5

  Programme total

  263.7

  1To be funded at 100 per cent., all others at 60 per cent. grant rate.

  Helplines
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list all the helplines, or schemes which include a helpline service, for which her Department provides any funding, stating which are(a) independent organisations, (b) run by her Department or agencies of her Department or (c) of another classification; how many calls each received in each of the last five years; and how much money each received from her Department in each of the last five years. [9799]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Until the merger of July 1995, the Education and the Employment Departments operated independently, and will continue to do so for publicity purposes until the end of this financial year.

  Records are not held centrally of helplines funded by the former Employment Department, including some set up in partnership with the former Department for Education.

  Details of education helplines funded in the last five years are as follows:
  Helplines run by the Department
  Grant-maintained Schools
  A six-week information helpline pilot in 1993, set up by the Department, received 2,500 calls at a cost of £25,000. The service was then provided by the Department's own staff, receiving a further 2,098 calls in 1993, 1,960 calls in 1994, and 1,540 in 1995. As servicing the helpline is part of many other duties, costs for operating this service following the pilot cannot be separated out.
  Nursery Education
  A nursery education helpline was set up by the Department in November 1995. To date, 5,000 calls have been received at an estimated cost of £16,000.
  Helplines run by Agencies for the Department
  The Teacher Training Agency set up a helpline for individuals wishing to go into teaching in August 1995. To date, around 7.980 calls and more than 3,530 letters have been received at a cost of £115,000.
  The Funding Agency for Schools set up a helpline for schools in January 1996, in response to the recent survey of the condition of school buildings. Costs have yet to be finalised.

  Literacy and Numeracy Centres
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will give a breakdown of the costs of the primary literacy and numeracy centres for 1996–97, indicating what amounts will be available for(a) capital and (b) running costs. [9564]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The new grants for education, support and training programme specific grant will provide for £5 million of expenditure in 1996–97. The breakdown between capital and running costs will depend on the nature of successful bids from local education authorities.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what training each TEC makes available for small business start-ups; how many training places for start-ups are currently available; and what were the equivalent figures for each financial year since the TECs began. [9196]

  Mr. Paice
  The single regeneration budget allows training and enterprise councils and their local partners to provide training as part of an integrated programme of support for small business start-ups. In addition, TECs can use training for work budgets to help unemployed people who wish to become self-employed. The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what procedures were used by her Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to her Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9762]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  Contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones for the Department and for the Teachers' Pensions Agency are awarded through value for money comparisons—for low-value orders below £500—and competitive tender for higher value contracts.

  The following companies have tendered:

  BT

  Vodac

  Direct Mobile

  Cellcom

  Peoples Phone

  4U Ltd

  Martin Dawes.

  The Employment Service has had a framework agreement for the supply of mobile and car phones with Vodac for the past four years. Work is currently in hand to run a competition to put in place a single framework agreement which will be used by the Department and its executive agencies.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what agreements her Department and its executive agencies have with 652
  companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement. [9761]

  Mr. Squire
  The information sought is set out in the table, as far as it is readily available, in respect of centrally managed contracts.

  Company

  Number of phones

  Agreement fixed Charges £

  BT

  77

  23,500

  Vodac

  52

  14,200

  Direct Mobile

  1

  300

  Cellcom

  9

  3,000

  Peoples Phone

  29

  15,000

  4U Ltd.

  5

  1,700

  Vodac—employment service framework agreement

  1,129

  297,474

  1. Contracts for mobile and car phones are for a minimum of one years duration.

  2. Details of call charges are not readily available and would involve disproportionate cost to provide.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what costs her Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9763]

  Mr. Squire
  The Department has no record of incurring costs as a result of withdrawing from mobile and car phone contracts, nor have either of its executive agencies—the Employment Service and the Teachers' Pensions Agency.

  Homework Clubs
  Ms Jowell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what representations she has received about the development of homework clubs; and if she will make a statement. [8091]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The Department has received representations about out-of-school activities, including homework centres, from the Prince's Trust and from Education Extra. The Department contributed towards the cost of a conference on study support out-of-school hours organised by the Prince's Trust in November 1995, and is discussing possible further developments with the trust.

  Disability Discrimination
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to her answer of 9 January,Official Report, column 147, when her Department or the then Department of Employment first became aware of the fact that 96 per cent. of employers would not be covered by the employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; what plans she has to amend the Act to involve more employers; and what is her current estimate of unemployment amongst disabled people. [9726]
  653
  Mrs. Gillan
  The Government first consulted on the possible introduction of a new statutory right of non-discrimination against disabled people in the document "A Consultation on Government measures to Tackle Discrimination Against Disabled People", published in July 1994. The document sought views on the exclusion of firms with fewer than 20 employees. In preparing that document, the Government were aware that about 95 per cent. of employers would not be covered by legislation if such small employers were excluded, but that about 80 per cent. of employees work for employers who would be within the legislation.

  The Government have no immediate plans to amend the Disability Discrimination Act to bring more employers within its scope. However, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment is required under the Act to review section 7 of the Act—the small firms exemption—within five years of its coming into force, and to give Parliament the opportunity to debate the issue.

  Estimates from the last labour force survey show that, in the summer of 1995, there were 330,000 unemployed people of working age in Great Britain who said they had a health problem or a disability expected to last for more than one year. The survey does not currently enable us to estimate the number of disabled people, as defined in the Disability Discrimination Act, who are unemployed.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Personal Pensions
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many holders of personal pensions contribute(a) up to 5 per cent.,
  (b) 5.1 to 10 per cent.,

  Recipients of means-tested benefits by type of benefit

  1979–1994

  Year

  Supplementary Benefit/Income Support

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  Family Income Supplement/Family Credit

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  Housing Benefit

  1979

  1,723,000

  15.9

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1980

  1,694,000

  15.4

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1981

  1,738,000

  15.6

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1982

  1,781,000

  15.8

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1983

  1,651,000

  14.6

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1984

  1,683,000

  14.7

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1985

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1986

  1,717,000

  14.9

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1987

  1,727,000

  15.0

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1988

  1,719,000

  14.9

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1989

  1,607,000

  13.8

  1,000

  —

  2,100,000

  1990

  1,675,000

  14.4

  1,000

  —

  2,067,000

  1991

  1,575,000

  13.5

  1,000

  —

  1,957,000

  1992

  1,643,000

  14.0

  1,000

  —

  1,957,000

  1993

  1,736,000

  14.8

  1,000

  —

  1,980,000

  1994

  1,765,000

  15.1

  2,000

  —

  1,944,000

  Year

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  Council Tax Benefit

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  Community Charge Benefit

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  1979

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1980

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1981

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  654
  (c)10.1 to 15 per cent. and (d) more than 15 per cent. of their earnings; and, of each of the above categories, how many receive employer's contributions of (i) up to 5 per cent., (ii) 5.1 to 10 per cent., (iii) 10.1 to 15 per cent. and (iv) above 15 per cent. of earnings.

  Mr. Heald
  Provisional Inland Revenue estimates of the amounts of contributions to personal pensions for 1994–95, are £2,110 million of employees' contributions and £590 million of employers' contributions.

  There are no statistically reliable sources of information on the proportion of earnings contributed to personal pensions.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he intends to publish the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee on his proposals to restrict the entitlement of asylum seekers to benefit. [8979]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The report of the Social Security Advisory Committee was laid before Parliament on Thursday 11 January and was published today in a Command Paper.

  Pensioners (Benefits)
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish for each year since 1979(a) each means-tested benefit applicable to pensioners in that year, (b) the number of claimants of each benefit and (c) their figure as a percentage of the total number of pensioners. [9533]

  Mr. Heald
  The information is in the tables.
  655

  Year

  As a per cent. of the Population aged 60 and over

  Council Tax Benefit

  As a per cent of the population aged 60the and over

  Community Charge Benefit

  As a per cent. of the population aged 60 and over

  1982

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1983

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1984

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1985

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1986

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1987

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1988

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1989

  18.1

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1990

  17.8

  n/a

  n/a

  3,644,000

  31.4

  1991

  16.7

  n/a

  n/a

  3,202,000

  27.4

  1992

  16.7

  n/a

  n/a

  3,057,000

  26.1

  1993

  16.9

  2,820,000

  24.0

  n/a

  n/a

  1994

  16.6

  2,799,000

  23.9

  n/a

  n/a

  Notes:

  1. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand, percentages to one decimal place.

  2. A pensioner has been defined as aged 60 and over.

  3. Community Charge Benefit (CCB) replaced Rent Rebate in Scotland from April 1989 and the rest of Great Britain from April 1990. Figures for Community Charge Benefit in Scotland as at May 1989 are not available. Community Charge Benefit was replaced by Council Tax Benefit (CTB) from April 1993.

  4. The total number of pensioners receiving Housing Benefit or Family Income Supplement is not available prior to 1989.

  5. Income Support replaced Supplementary Benefit in April 1988.

  6. Family Credit replaced Family Income Supplement in April 1988.

  7. Sample Sizes: Income Support and Family Credit 5 per cent. Disability Working Allowance 100 per cent. count of all claims. Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit/Community Charge Benefit 1 per cent.

  8. No figures are available for 1985 for Income Support due to industrial action.

  Source:

  Social Security Statistics 1979–1995.

  1 per cent. Sample of recipients of Housing benefit/council tax benefit.

  Family credit 5 per cent. Sample of awards.

  Disability Working Allowance 100 per cent. Count of awards.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what costs his Department and executive agencies have incurred as a result of withdrawing from contracts under which mobile phones are provided; and if he will list the companies concerned. [9769]

  Mr. Burt
  None.

  Mr. Donohoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what agreements his Department and its executive agencies have with companies for the provision of mobile and car phones; and if he will list the companies having these contracts, the duration of the contracts, the number of phones covered by each agreement and the cost to public funds of each agreement; [9767]

  (2) what procedures were used by his Department in awarding contracts for the supply of mobile and car phones to his Department and its executive agencies; and which companies were involved in tendering for these contracts. [9768]

  Mr. Burt
  The Department does not currently have any agreements for the provision of mobile telephones. Each request for the supply of a mobile telephone is dealt with individually and following established public sector procurement procedures, the order is placed with the supplier that offers the most economically advantageous terms.

  The information relating to the provision of mobile telephones that is readily available is shown in the table. information for earlier years could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  656

  Period

  Total numbers of mobile phones supplied

  Suppliers

  April 1994 to 31 November 1995

  3,013

  Benfells Car Phones ACR Ltd. Car Radios Station Ltd. Cellphones RGS Cellphones ROCOM Ltd. Excell Direct G-Comm Ltd. Hutchison Telecom Martin Dawes Telecommunication Peoples Phone Company plc R.T. Systems Ltd. Sitelink Comms Vodac Government plc

  Pensioners (Incomes)
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the cost in 1996–97 of paying a basic pension supplement to all pensioner units whose total pension income from all sources is less than the level of income support to raise their pension incomes to the income support level; and what would be the annual cost of maintaining pensioners' pension incomes at that level in real terms for each year until 2001–02, assuming the 1996–97 income support regime and giving costs net of any effects on tax and benefit revenues. [6706]

  Mr. Heald
  The estimated cost in 1996–97 of raising the total pension income from all sources of all pensioner units to at least the level of income support is £2.15 billion. It is not possible to give estimates of this
  657
  cost to the year 2001–02 as reliable forecasts of future levels of pensioners' incomes are not available for this period.

  Notes:

  1. It has been assumed that the pensioner supplement would be paid as an increase in income support levels. Maintaining the current income-related benefit system involves aligning the thresholds and income for assessment purposes in the other income-related benefits. As a result, there are increased costs in the housing benefit and council tax benefit included in the total.

  2. To raise pension-only income to the levels specified implies that other income would be disregarded.The costs reflect this assumption also.

  3. No account has been taken of any additional costs that would arise from the abolition of the existing capital limits in the income-related benefits which would be necessary to ensure that those above these limits also received any required increase in pension income.

  4. As income support is not taxable for claimants over 60 years of age, there will be no net tax effects from the increased payments in income support.

  5. The costs have been estimated using data drawn from the May 1994 Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiry and the 1991, 1992 and 1993 Family Expenditure Surveys, uprated to 1996–97 prices and benefits levels and rounded to £50 million.

  Incapacity Benefit
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 12 December,Official Report, column 623, how the throughput of incapacity benefit claims has been controlled; in what respects the cases processed so far are unrepresentative; what effect this is likely to have had on the proportion of successful claims; and when he expects to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the benefit in meeting its objectives. [7926]

  Mr. Burt
  The rate at which pre-April invalidity benefit cases are being scheduled for the all work test is being carefully controlled to ensure that the total work available, including new claims, does not exceed operational capacity. This gradual introduction of pre-April claims into the system means that the greater proportion of cases being processed are new claims which is unrepresentative of the case load as a whole. As it is not possible to estimate accurately the effect that this might have on the proportion of successful claims, it would be unwise to draw any firm conclusions about the effectiveness of the new procedures during this transitional period.

  Detailed arrangements for the monitoring and evaluation of the changes are in place. It is too early to predict when definitive conclusions might be drawn.

  Housing and Council Tax Benefits
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the effect on revenues in(a) 1996–97 and (b) 1997–98 of extending the proposal to give additional help with housing benefit and council tax benefit during the first four weeks of work for unemployed people returning to work, to include a continued entitlement to income support during that time. [8502]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  The cost of extending this proposal to include a continued entitlement to income support—and income-related jobseeker's allowance, where 658
  appropriate—on the same basis, is estimated to be £150 million in 1996–97 and £170 million in 1997–98. This does not include any behavioural effects such as more people returning to work.

  Pensioners (Benefit Take-up)
  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total amount of income-related benefits, in constant prices, that has not been taken up by pensioners in each year since 1990; and what was the average amount of income-related benefits, in constant prices, not taken up per eligible pensioner in each year since 1990. [9050]

  Mr. Heald
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is set out in the table.

  Table 1: Total amount of Housing Benefit and Income Support not taken up by pensioners

  £ million

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993–94

  Estimated money value

  (400:630)

  (370:720)

  (600:910)

  (600:890)

  Constant 1993–94 prices

  (460:720)

  (400:770)

  (620:940)

  (600:890)

  Table 2: Average weekly amount of Housing Benefit and Income Support not taken up

  Pensioners

  1990

  1991

  1992

  1993–94

  Housing Benefit

  Estimated money value

  £11.45

  £13.90

  £16.60

  £17.95

  Constant 1993–94 prices

  £13.05

  £14.90

  £17.10

  £17.95

  Income Support

  Estimated money value

  £8.85

  £13.45

  £13.05

  £14.10

  Constant 1993–94 prices

  £10.05

  £14.40

  £13.45

  £14.10

  1. The constant price figures given above have been deflated using the GDP deflator.

  2. The figures quoted below exclude full-time self-employed cases and those not living in private households.

  3. Pensioner benefit units are defined as: a single person aged 60 years or over, or a couple one of whom is aged 60 years or over.

  4. The most recent information is for 1993–94.

  5. The figures in table 1 are presented as ranges within which it can be assumed that the true amount of benefit not taken up will lie.

  Pensions (Uprating)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will base the calculation of the state retirement pension and public service pension on the formula of the higher of average(a) earnings or (b) prices; and if he will make a statement; [9106]

  (2) to what extent the use of the data derived from the September retail prices index are now estimated by his Department to be pertinent in respect of the uprating of (a) state and (b) public service pensions following the Budget statement; what alternative arrangements he is considering; and if he will make a statement; [9109]

  (3) if he will base the calculation of pension increases on the average earnings index; and if he will make a statement. [9105]

  Mr. Heald
  We have no plans to change the existing arrangements for the uprating of either state retirement pension or public service pensions.

  Cold Weather Payments
  Ms Lynne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many eligible pensioners have not received cold weather payments due to not claiming pensioner or disability premiums with income support, in each year since the introduction of cold weather payments; and what is the total amount of money that would have been paid to such pensioners for cold weather payments, in constant prices, if they had claimed the income support pensioner or disability premiums for which they are entitled; [9048]

  (2) what research his Department has carried out into the monthly death rates faced by pensioners not claiming pensioner or disability premiums with income support and cold weather payments despite being eligible; and what plans he has to investigate whether such pensioners face disproportionate death rates during the winter months. [9049]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  Pensioner and disability premiums are not a separate benefit, but form part of the calculation of income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit and are awarded automatically when the conditions are satisfied. Similarly, cold weather payments are awarded automatically when eligibility conditions are met.

  Housing Benefit (Walthamstow)
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of households in Walthamstow in receipt of housing benefit. [8980]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  Information is not available in the format requested.

  At 31 May 1995, there were 24,1001 recipients of housing benefit in the London borough of Waltham Forest2.

  Notes:

  1The number of recipients relates to benefit units which may be a single person or couple.

  2 Walthamstow is part of the London borough of Waltham Forest.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Recruitment and Assessment Services Agency
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what assessment he has made of the benefits of privatising the Recruitment and Assessment Services, agency. [8328]

  Mr. Willetts
  Privatisation offers the best way to develop the potential of RAS. Freed from public sector constraints, it will be able to compete for business in wider markets, both public and private, offer new opportunities for investment and allow for the introduction of more flexible use of staff resources. Customer departments will benefit from the opportunities for improving performance that privatisation will bring. In reaching these conclusions, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster received advice from financial advisers and customer departments.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if his Department will retain ownership of the tests carried out by the Recruitment and Assessment 660
  Services agency if it is privatised; and if he will make a statement. [8436]

  Mr. Willetts
  The Government will retain ownership of the tests.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if all the functions of the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency are to be sold on its privatisation; and if he will make a statement. [8493]

  Mr. Willetts
  Yes. The services provided by the agency will transfer to the private sector.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what will be the length of the term of contract to the successful bidder of the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency if it is privatised; and if he will make a statement. [8434]

  Mr. Willetts
  This will be decided during the sale process in the light of customers' views and advice from financial and legal advisers.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what value he has set on the skill of Recruitment and Assessment Services agency staff for the purposes of privatisation; and if he will make a statement. [8475]

  Mr. Willetts
  The skills of RAS staff are vital to its business. The valuation placed on the business will recognise this.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if the staff of the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency were consulted in advance prior to the announcement of its privatisation; and if he will make a statement. [8435]

  Mr. Willetts
  No. The decision to privatise the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency reflected the view reached by Ministers that privatisation was the best way to secure the long-term interests of the staff and customers, as well as those of the taxpayer.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what factors led him to set the time scale for privatising the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency; and if he will make a statement. [8527]

  Mr. Willetts
  To keep the period of uncertainty for RAS staff and customers to a minimum.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) what public consultation process has been arranged in respect of privatising the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency; and if he will make a statement; [8327]

  (2) what length of notice customers' organisations of the Recruitment and Assessment Services agency were given regarding its intended privatisation; and if he will make a statement. [8437]

  Mr. Willetts
  Major customers were consulted before the decision to privatise. The consultation provided adequate time for them to express views. There will be continuing close consultation with customers during the privatisation process. The principle of selection on merit by fair and open competition, to which the Government are committed, is not affected by the proposed privatisation.

  Royal Family (Publicity Service Costs)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to publish the 1994–95 costs to the Central Office of Information for publicity services to the royal family. [8904]

  Mr. Willetts
  The COI is responsible for organising television. radio and newspaper attendance at visits by senior members of the royal family while carrying out 662
  their official duties outside London. Some 419 venues were visited in 1994–95. The COI provides appropriate briefing material for such visits and also provides a media summary service for the Queen when on official engagements overseas.

  The cost of these services in 1994–95 was £354,051. These costs normally appear in the royal finance booklet. The 1994–95 costs were not available for the most recent edition of the booklet.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.
The Earl of Oxford and Asquith The Earl of Oxford and Asquith—Took the Oath.

Accountants and Assets Offshore
Lord Haskel Lord Haskel asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will continue to deal with those accountancy firms whose partners are moving their assets offshore.
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mack ay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government will consider whether to continue to deal with an accountancy firm which moves its assets offshore if and when the partners decide to embark on such a course of action and make detailed proposals available for consideration.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, as the Government must be one of the largest clients of those firms, have the firms consulted the Government so that we can be assured that in the event of rightful claims the taxpayers' compensation will be met?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, as I indicated in my original reply, those firms have not consulted the Government. However, if they were to make that move, and we were then to consider employing one of those firms, we should look carefully at the terms of registration in Jersey.
It has to be said that media reports suggest that Jersey is to introduce a limited liability partnership law which, subject to parliamentary and UK Privy Council approval, would come into effect by the end of 1996. United Kingdom audit firms could then register as limited liability partnerships in Jersey. However, we ought to wait to see the print on anything that occurs before we come to a judgment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in declaring a possible personal interest as a practising chartered accountant, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord whether his replies are in any way conditioned by the fact that the Government may be seeking advice on where to put their funds in the light of the forthcoming defeat at the general election?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the latter part of the noble Lord's question represents an amazing amount of conjecture coming, as it does, from such a serious person as an accountant. However, I was relieved that he was not telling me that he was intending to remove himself to Jersey because that would deprive me of many interesting jousts at this Dispatch Box.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, will my noble friend please explain this? As the Government do considerable business with companies that have limited liability, why should they have any problem doing business with firms that have unlimited liability but whose assets are beyond the reach of recompense for UK taxpayers?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, if in the future any of the companies decides to register in Jersey, we would have to examine the terms on which the registration was made. There are other options for the companies: they could establish limited companies rather than partnerships to perform the audits. The Companies Act 1989 permits limited companies to undertake audits of other limited companies. Indeed, one accountancy firm has already taken advantage of that provision. However, reaction to that course of action from other accountancy firms appears to be mixed.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, the Minister mentioned that legal changes in Jersey were subject to Privy Council approval. Can he advise the House whether such Privy Council approval is automatic and also whether there would be an opportunity for this House and the other place to debate such matters before they are approved by the Privy Council?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, not being a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council, I am in some difficulty in answering the noble Lord's question. If he will forgive me, I shall have to write to him.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, will the Government agree that the privilege of operating an accountancy business within the United Kingdom carries with it the responsibility of providing appropriate compensation in the case of unsatisfactory service?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I believe that the existence of the possibility of a firm being sued by its client is a factor that we ought to retain. It concentrates the firm's mind on ensuring that it gets the job right and that it is well done. If and when we come to examine possible changes, we will have to take into account the general good; not just the position of accountancy firms but also that of any other firm involved on the other side of the fence—that is the client.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, my noble friend did not answer the question as to whether the issue would be debatable. Surely any such issue must be debatable, if this House wishes to debate it.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. However, I was asked a specific question about the Privy Council and this House debating proposals to change the law in Jersey. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, I am afraid that I shall have to take advice on that.

International Health Service
2.44 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they would support the creation of an international health service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, although we co-operate through international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, and more informally through professional and other networks, we do not believe it realistic to set up an international health service with every country operating an identical system.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, the object of my Question was to ensure that despite the terrible diseases spreading in many parts of the world, the British people should not be called upon to make any unjust contribution. We are willing to help and to do our best, but we must not be put upon. There must be a fair contribution from all the nations that can afford it. Will the Minister agree that it is vital for the interests of the health organisation that the generosity of the British people should not be exploited?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the purpose behind his Question. Worldwide, we all have a responsibility to ensure that infectious diseases are contained within the countries affected, but we do not believe it appropriate that we should become involved in other countries' health systems.
Lord Winston: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in West London at present there are many patients on waiting lists who cannot get into hospital? Expensive operating theatres are lying idle. Does she agree that it might be more important to concentrate on a national health service rather than an international one?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I believe that we have a remarkable National Health Service; it is a near miracle. It is interesting, when one examines waiting lists, that we have seen tremendous progress in the past two or three years through health reforms. In March 1990, over 200,000 people were waiting over one year for treatment and today it is 28,000.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, does not the British National Health Service have an international dimension in that it provides training for overseas doctors? They go back to their own countries with our expertise. Many patients come from overseas to benefit from the provisions not of the National Health Service but of private medical treatment which they have often heard of through the National Health Service.
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords, the noble Countess is right. The training of doctors in this country is recognised as being among the best in the world. When one travels abroad it is encouraging to see many
592
of the students now taking on positions of clinical responsibility and leading medical practice in their own countries.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the reciprocal arrangements which were concluded by the Council of Europe regarding the interchange of facilities between the European countries affected are still fully in force? Will she ensure that people here are aware of the reciprocal arrangements whereby participants in the National Health Service here are entitled to equivalent treatment in other countries with whom arrangements have been negotiated through the aegis of the Council of Europe?
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, will the Minister advise the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, that when he next goes to Europe he should take with him Form E.111? It gives him the right to treatment in any European Union country.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, far be it from me to give the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, any advice.

Unemployment
2.48 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect unemployment to fall to 1 million people.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, the Government do not make forecasts of unemployment. Falling unemployment depends on sustainable economic growth. The prospects for that are better than they have been for many years.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, to clarify the situation, is the Minister aware that we on these Benches welcome every reduction in unemployment? However, we do not welcome the continuing complacency which the Government show on a matter which devastates so many lives. Should we not compare the present total of 2.3 million unemployed with the 1.3 million unemployed when the Government came to power? Will the Minister confirm two important statistics; first, that the average monthly fall in unemployment over the past six months is 15,000–0.5 per cent.—which is hardly an impressive figure, and, secondly, that there are almost four times as many unemployed as there are vacancies?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord welcomes the 28th successive fall in the unemployment statistics. I rather resent the fact that we are accused of complacency when the noble Lord himself, who claims that he welcomes the figure, stopped tabling his regular questions on the unemployment figures just at the moment when they

593
started to fall some 28 months ago. They have been falling steadily since then. I also reject and regret the accusations of complacency from a party opposite which does its damnedest, by advocating that we sign up to the social chapter and bring in the minimum wage, to put up unemployment.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that it is illogical for noble Lords in the Labour Party to criticise the fall in unemployment that has now been going on for nearly two years under the economic programme of this Government? Will he also agree that, again, it is illogical for criticism to be levelled at this Government when the avowed policy of the Labour Party is not only to introduce a minimum wage, which would increase unemployment, but also to sign up to the social chapter, which would be disastrous for the economy?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. As I made clear in my previous answer, unemployment has now been falling for 28 months consecutively. It is now well below the level in all the major countries in Europe. Further, the percentage of long-term unemployed has been falling and is now lower than the European average. Our rate of youth unemployment is lower than the average in Europe. I could continue.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the Minister has said that it is the Government's responsibility to create the right economic climate as regards employment. Is he aware that under the premiership of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, unemployment in this country rose to an all-time high? Am I to take it that the Government have now officially dished her policies?
Lord Henley: My Lords, unemployment did rise to an all-time high. It came down quite dramatically in the early 1980s. It then went up again, but did not reach the same peak. That was the first time in any cycle that it peaked at a lower level than the previous peak. We are now seeing a very welcome change in the circumstances. The economic policies that the Government have been pursuing are very much responsible for that decline. As I said to the noble Lord's noble friend, those policies have now given us 28 consecutive months of falling unemployment.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm what I understood him to say in his main Answer; namely, that the level of unemployment depends on sustainable economic growth or otherwise? Does he therefore agree that it is wholly out of place to turn the issue into a party political controversy?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am not the one who wants to create party political controversy. I do want to make clear that Her Majesty's Government are committed, as my noble and learned friend said, to sustainable economic growth. It is sustainable economic growth that will create the jobs. Also, I can assure noble Lords opposite that Britain now has the second highest
594
employment rate of any European country as well as a falling unemployment rate. We will continue to pursue the policies that produce those figures.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, in order to pursue the non-party approach of the noble Lord opposite, may I ask whether the Government still adhere to the "one nation" policy of the coalition government during the war when they set out as an objective a rate of unemployment of 3 per cent?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we have no specific rate of unemployment that we seek. We want to see unemployment as low as possible. That will be achieved, as the noble Lord well knows, by pursuing appropriate and right economic policies.
Lord Alport: My Lords, does my noble friend have any statistics in regard to unemployment among the managerial and executive class?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I cannot at this Dispatch Box give a breakdown of the figures for which my noble friend asks. I can certainly give him a great many statistics on levels of unemployment and employment in this country. I was trying to assure the House that the figures are not nearly as bad as the party opposite seem to imply. In fact, they are far better than those of most of our colleagues in the European Community.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, unemployment is a tragedy for anyone. I should like to direct one particular question to the Minister about the figures. Does he agree that the rate of unemployment among black workers in some areas of this country is double that of white workers and that the gap is larger today than it was a decade ago? Does the Minister accept that ethnic minority workers in Britain are more likely to be among the long-term unemployed than are their white citizen counterparts? Does the Minister further accept that this does nothing for social cohesion? It is not one nation politics and whatever measures the Government have taken are clearly failing.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to draw attention to variations in levels of unemployment in different groups and in different areas. I cannot confirm or deny the figures that she quotes about different rates of unemployment among certain ethnic minorities. I can tell her that within the regional variations in this country, the gap between the best and the worst region is now only 7.2 per cent. That compares very well indeed with the percentages of our European colleagues. In Italy, for example, the gap between the best region and the worst is something of the order of 17 per cent. Even in Germany, there is a gap of some 14 per cent. The more we can narrow the gap the more we can look to the social cohesion that the noble Baroness seeks.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is it not the case that the falling figure to which the Minister attaches great importance, as do we all, does not include people actively seeking work who are not entitled to claim benefit? I could he wrong. Will the Minister confirm

595
that that is the position? How can the Government properly judge the economic health of society if they do not know that particular figure?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know, we have two measures for counting unemployment. The first is the count itself, which appears once a month. It is an accurate count of exactly what it claims to measure; namely, those out of work and in receipt of benefit. There is also the Labour Force Survey, a survey of a certain number of people which takes place once every three months and provides a figure that is broadly the same. Both figures show a very consistent decline in unemployment, a decline which, as I made clear, has now continued for some 28 months consecutively.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, the Minister's figures are incomplete. He did not mention the third survey from the Central Statistical Office of the Workforce in Employment. What does the Minister have to say in regard to the discrepancy between the figures produced by the Labour Force Survey and the Workforce in Employment survey? To be fair to the Minister, the Labour Force Survey shows that there are more people in employment, but the Workforce in Employment survey shows fewer people in employment. Indeed, the Minister's department has now set up an inquiry to see how the discrepancy arose.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think the noble Lord will find that all the surveys show very broadly the same trends. Obviously, from one month to another figures may diverge to some extent. I recommend that the noble Lord examines the figures in the long term; he will then notice exactly the same trends applying to both surveys.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, is it not significant that the Minister does not deal with the main point that I raised? I repeat that we welcome the fall that has been going on for some time now. But the level is going down very slowly indeed. That is why I used the figure of 1 million in my Question. It will be many, many years—if ever—before the figure falls to 1 million, which after all is pretty high. Will the Minister deal specifically with the two questions that I asked?
Lord Henley: My Lords, in the noble Lord's first supplementary, he posed quite a large number of questions. In line with the guidance in the Companion to the Standing Orders, I believe I answered the noble Lord's first two points. I am so advised. I can confirm that unemployment is coming down by some 10,000 to 15,000 a month. That is a good, steady figure. If we could see an employment figure that was higher, that would be wonderful. But we are not going to try to create a figure by artificial means. We will continue to pursue the policy of creating jobs by means of pursuing appropriate economic policies.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the level of unemployment among the unskilled, which is where unemployment primarily exists, is due
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to the failure not only of this Government but also of previous governments of another complexion to provide adequate training?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we do provide adequate training. The Employment Service provides something of the order of 1½ million opportunities of one sort or another and will be doing so in the coming year. Obviously, the noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the need for training. The more qualifications and the more training any individual can take up, the greater are his or her chances of finding a job.

Television Licence Evasion: Penalties
3 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland The Viscount of Falkland asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many people are presently serving terms of imprisonment for failure to pay fines imposed for not having a current television licence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of National Heritage (Lord Inglewood): My Lords, on 30th November 1995, the most recent date for which figures are available, there were 16 people in England and Wales serving terms of imprisonment for non-payment of fines imposed for television licence evasion.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, does he not agree that any reasonable person may take the view that to send someone to prison for non-payment of a fine resulting from the failure to pay a current television licence fee is a harsh penalty? Is not there another way of dealing with such offenders? Surely it is not beyond the means of man's technical ingenuity these days to find another way to deal with such cases; perhaps depriving viewers of their sets rather than sending them to prison.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I should emphasise that imprisonment for non-payment of a fine imposed for the non-payment of a television licence fee is very much a last resort. It takes place only after wilful refusal or culpable neglect on the part of the person concerned. The inability to disconnect television sets plays a large part in the thinking behind this matter. Were technology to be introduced to enable disconnection, that would be a major factor in our thinking. The Broadcasting Bill considers the advent of digital television and that technology may have a bearing on the point.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, how many of the 16 are women? And are figures available for Scotland?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I do not have the figures as at 30th November. However, in 1994 a total of 730 people were imprisoned under this heading, of whom 487 were male and 243 female. Figures are available for Scotland, but I am afraid I do not have them at the moment.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, is it not the case that there are other and larger classes of non-payers finding

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themselves in prison? For example, there are non-payers of poll tax, council tax and ordinary fines in prison. What steps are the Government taking to ensure the maximum possible use of non-custodial sentences for such offenders?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, the noble Lord's question goes beyond that on the Order Paper. However, as a matter of policy prison is a last resort.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, I acknowledge that this is not an entirely original question, but can my noble friend give thought again to the sellers of television sets being obliged to sell licences with those television sets, thereby greatly reducing the number of people failing to pay licence fees?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, that matter bears consideration. But if, for example, a television set has a life of 20 years and if, as is the case for next year, the cost of a colour TV licence is £89.50, it follows that the price of a television set, in order to recover a licence fee in respect of its economic life, would be hugely prohibitive.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is not there another reason why the question of the Minister's noble friend is irrelevant? I refer to the fact that most people who buy television sets already own one and already possess a licence which is transferable. More seriously, the Minister gave an Answer in respect of England and Wales. Is it the case, as I believe it is, that in Scotland there are no cases of imprisonment for non-payment of fines of this kind? Though the Minister's answers have been extremely reassuring, would it not be desirable to follow the Scottish practice?
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I understand that the procedures in this regard are different in Scotland and that distress is levied in a manner which is different from England and Wales. That is a step which automatically precedes the possibility of imprisonment. It follows therefore that more distress orders—or their Scottish equivalent—are served in Scotland, which can in turn have extremely serious consequences, particularly for those living with the person whose goods may be distrained and who may be dependent on the goods for their ordinary day-to-day lives. I understand that after that people may be imprisoned for non-payment, and it does happen.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, surely if one has a licence, one can be obliged to take it along when purchasing a new set. If one does not have a licence, then one may be compelled to buy one when purchasing the television set.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, under the current arrangements the person from whom one buys a new set is different from the person from whom one acquires the licence. In any event, it would have ramifications for the second-hand market.

Business
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, with leave I should like to say a word about today's debates standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Morris of Castle Morris and Lord Carter. Other than the movers, the Front Bench spokesmen and the Ministers replying, other speakers will be limited to eight minutes in the case of the first debate and seven minutes in the case of the second. I should remind your Lordships that if any noble Lord were to speak at greater length, he would be doing so at the expense of subsequent speakers in the debate. I also remind your Lordships that when the digital clock shows seven minutes, the full seven minutes have elapsed and the speaker is already trespassing on the time of others.

Education
3.6 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris rose to call attention to the need of children aged three to 19 years for high quality education, with especial reference to the responsibilities of local authorities in their areas; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as your Lordships will recall most readily, the patron saint of teachers is St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, who insisted that all teaching should be received by pupils sitting perfectly still and in complete silence—small chance of that in today's schools or, come to that, in your Lordships' House this afternoon!
In introducing today's debate I shall not comment on the Government's proposed legislation because that would constitute an unwarrantable intrusion into private grief. I shall say nothing about student loans and their postponement due to the sad reluctance of banks and building societies to join in the game, hardly a word shall escape my lips about nursery vouchers, which only four authorities could be cajoled even to pilot; and I shall be silent about fast-tracks to GMS for church schools, which the Government unfortunately forgot to ask the Bishops about. It could have happened to anyone. Let us look, rather, at the roots of the matter; at the quality of the education that the Government permit our young people to enjoy.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that young persons between the ages of three and 19 must be in need of a high quality education. That is because, first, future citizens must be enabled to live fulfilling lives; and, secondly, because the nation needs a skilled, highly trained workforce with which to compete in the world economy of the 21st century.
It is equally true that they are not getting high quality education. At last week's North of England education conference, Mr. Geoffrey Holland, formerly the Permanent Secretary at the DFE, reported that the World Economic Forum rated the UK 24th in the world in terms of workforce skills, down from 21st place a year earlier. The forum described the UK as having an "inadequate educational system" and ranked it 35th in

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the world, despite it being at the mid-table point in terms of funding and class size in schools. So much for training our skilled workforce.
Then the day before yesterday the Government's chief curriculum adviser, Dr. Nick Tate, in an amazing speech, told us that many teenagers now leave school believing that morality is just a matter of "what is right for me". He told teachers that they must find practical ways of teaching morality, spirituality and universal human values. We know that schools are legally required to provide religious education for all pupils up to the age of 16. But school inspections found that one-third of schools failed to devote the minimum 5 per cent. of their lesson time to the subject. The best that the Government can offer is two new GCSE mini-courses from next September. I suspect that the mini-course will cover about as much as the mini-skirt, and be very much less attractive. So much for the fulfilled lives of our future citizens.
The Government, of course, will blame everyone but themselves for that dismal lack of quality. They blame the parents. They blame the Churches. They blame the trendy left-wing teachers and their Marxist masters in the training colleges. That cock will not fight. This Government have been in power for nearly 17 years, with majorities which enabled them to do anything they liked. No, the buck stops on the desk of the right honourable Mr. John Major and nowhere else.
Above all, the Government cannot pin blame on the local authorities this time. Things have changed in half a century since the Education Act 1944, but the LEAs have stood the test of time remarkably well. Gone are the days when all the detailed decisions about premises and purchases had to be taken in county or town halls. So let us hear no nonsense today suggesting that local government wishes to re-acquire "control" over schools. LEAs support schools and provide those general educational services which have to be organised on a wider basis, as, for example, provision for special educational needs. The LEA is essentially now a guardian and raiser of standards rather than a chain of command.
The LEAs now provide rapid response and organisational support when disaster unpredictably befalls any particular school. One thinks of the Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy, when it was reported that the Devon school concerned asked publicly where it would have been without the immediate aid of Devon County Council's Education Committee and its officers; and the recent tragic death of the London headteacher Mr. Philip Lawrence, when it was the LEA which provided immediate counselling and immediate help in dealing with the media. There are thousands of lesser examples every year.
Local education authorities also provide essential professional support for schools. The development of a national curriculum now commands general support, but its perpetual rejigging and its sempiternal bureaucracy does not. The years of bitter and wasteful wrangling with the teachers over its implementation were sorted out not by the Government but by the advisers and
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inspectors at LEA level; and what a nonsense it is to dismantle that professional LEA infrastructure and separate the functions of inspection and advice.
Among others, Sir Roy Harding, vice-chairman of the Royal Society Education Committee, voiced his concern recently about the decline in specialist support. Between 1992–93 and 1994–95, LEA advisory and inspector posts fell by about one quarter. Over the same period, advisory teacher posts fell by about one third. Approximately half the LEAs in his survey had fewer than 17 advisers or inspectors, the number which the Audit Commission considered an appropriate minimum in 1989. The decline in advisory teachers was across all subject areas, with the main national curriculum subjects mostly in the range of a 35 per cent. to 40 per cent. drop. Further reductions in specialist support are anticipated.
No LEA willingly makes those cuts; they are forced by underfunding. If LEAs cannot provide that support, who can do so? If no one can, is it not inevitable that the quality of education must be lowered?
Budget pressures also account for similar reductions in other front-line staff, such as education welfare officers, who are responsible for dealing with truancy problems—and truants in all our schools are arrogantly aware that they can seldom be brought to book: they can walk in in the morning, sign in, walk out and not appear again; or educational psychologists, who are not headshrinkers but experts in dealing with those disruptive pupils, who, as we well know, can wreck any school, however good, and who deal also with children with special educational needs. This afternoon, your Lordships will hear a great deal more about special educational needs, not least from my noble friend Lord Haskel. Those services cannot possibly be provided at school level. They demand the existence of an LEA acting in the general interest of the schools and children of its area.
When we turn to the problems of children with special educational needs, we see the Government's casuistry at its most blatant. It is now LEAs which must identify children with problems, assess their needs and, in severe cases—there are many of them—issue a statement of special educational requirements. How splendid! But as soon as a statement is issued, the LEA becomes legally liable for the cost of its recommendations. The new tribunal system looks likely to generate more expensive outcomes than hitherto and thousands of teachers report that their LEAs are desperately reluctant to "statement" a child, even when the need to do so is glaringly obvious, because they know that they cannot afford the expenditure that it will involve.
Yet perhaps the most telling example of the disdain of this Government for the vital work of LEAs is in the matter of school admissions. LEAs are the admission authorities for maintained and controlled schools. That is a sensitive and complex requirement. However, the Government's ewe lambs, the grant-maintained schools, are their own admission authorities, and so they can admit pupils of their choice. Since the 8th January they may even increase the proportion of pupils admitted by reference to

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general ability from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., and interview parents to help them make their choice. Is it any wonder that LEAs feel themselves threatened, harassed, undervalued and arrogantly ignored by this Government?
Apart from fulfilling their statutory requirements to the highest standards, the LEAs have shown themselves vigorously active and inventive over and above their legal duties. Perhaps I may give, briefly, two examples.
First, in Leeds they have developed a "Family of Schools" initiative, to attract additional finance into primary and secondary schools, to improve the co-ordination and effectiveness of council services, and to enhance the learning opportunities for children and young people within the FE community services—all that and much more. There is already evidence of considerable success, especially in generating a new and powerful community feeling in that part of Leeds. The Leeds initiative could be paralleled in dozens of other local authorities. It is evidence of the vital work being done by co-operation—not competition—at the local community level, organised by democratically elected authorities responsible to the communities which voted them into power.
Secondly, the work of the National Music Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in its local education authority music awards scheme reveals the astonishing depth and range of LEA provision for music in and beyond their schools. Croydon Music Teaching Agency has established a most exciting involvement with the London Mozart Players—I wish that I could do so; Cornwall, through Performing Arts Cornwall, has secured a three-year contract with substantial sponsorship from Classic FM to be a training centre for curriculum and instrumental music in the West Country. Shropshire developed INSET courses comparing Elgar with L.S. Lowry, Hockriey with the Beatles and Turner with Beethoven. The list is endless. Every initiative is local. Nothing like it could have emanated from Whitehall. It is a triumph for the LEAs.
Yet instead of recognising all that and encouraging it with the allocation of appropriate resources, the Government have ignored or disparaged the LEAs, and concentrated all their attention on forcing grant-maintained status on people who do not want it and waving those silly little vouchers for nursery education to tempt gullible or greedy parents.
The two central problems which the Government must tackle are underfunding and undermining. In 1995–96 local authorities are already budgeting to spend £18,076 million on the education service. In 1996–97 the Government think that this should be £17,962 million—the gross total standard spending for education. That is a reduction of £114 million.
Add to this the underfunding on school buildings and it is clear that the Government are not investing in the education of young people sufficiently to make the improvements we all want.
Far more damaging in the long run is the relentless undermining of LEAs by the Government. The responsibility of LEAs for higher and further education has been removed in the past seven years. So, partly,
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has the careers service and the school inspection service. LEAs have shown their flexibility by managing these changes, but perhaps what has been most damaging has been the constant undermining of LEAs by government Ministers and paid government officials.
I give one example. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools wrote a booklet published by a Right-wing think tank just before Christmas entitled A Question of Standards: Finding the Balance. He used the opportunity to undermine LEAs by questioning the continuing LEA role in providing professional support for schools. One would have hoped that he, above all, would have been supportive of the LEA role. But no.
Local education authorities are doing an excellent job, and contributing powerfully to the quality of education. I hope the Minister, when he replies, will not say, "We value the LEA contribution very highly. We can't see why they are worried". He may think that; he may believe that. The point is, they don't.
If tomorrow he and all his officials can go out to mend fences with the LEAs, fund them more effectively and stop publicly demeaning them and sneering at them, we shall not have wasted our time today. I beg to move for Papers.
3.21 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for introducing the debate and I should very much like to give a word of welcome to the two maiden speakers, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. We shall much look forward to hearing what they have to say.
All of us taking part in the debate will be in agreement about the importance of education for all those aged three to 19—those are the terms of the debate—and, indeed, beyond, although I think that that is not within the terms of the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, was right to call attention to the need for high quality education. We all agree with him on that. It was also very brave of him from the Labour Benches to put his head over the parapet and offer observations on any subject at all. We are so used to the Labour Benches being completely silent now that they obviously have a three-line Whip of silence on every subject. So perhaps we may turn to the question before us this afternoon.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: The noble Baroness can do better than that.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can do much better than that if I am given the opportunity. Noble Lords opposite should fasten their seat belts.
Since 1979 we have had a series of major educational reforms—and very remarkable reforms—which have been intended to raise standards in education. Perhaps I may say to the party opposite that every single one of those reforms was fought line by line by it in order to prevent them taking place. We have had the national curriculum, with core subjects of English, maths and science now obligatory for all children aged between

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five and 16. There is much greater emphasis on the three Rs in primary schools. We have regular testing and assessment.
I well recall the debates on the establishment of Ofsted. I was sorry to hear the noble Lord, Lord Morris, criticising Chris Woodhead over what he had said. Every school is now inspected every four years. The Ofsted reports not only have pointed up success but have identified failure, which is what one needs to do if one is to raise standards. The last report showed that 30 per cent. of lessons were deemed to he unsatisfactory. No one can be pleased with that, but at least we have identified the problem that needs to be put right.
Parents have been given a much greater say in the choice of their child's school. Nine out of 10 of them now get their first choice of school. There are elected parent governors and there is open enrolment. Bringing parents into the education service is one of the most important aspects of our reforms. I hope very much that my noble friend the Minister will say something about the very interesting development of compact schemes, whereby children at school and their parents make a commitment and if they succeed in keeping it the children get the offer of a job at the end. I have been involved with one such scheme. This is a particularly interesting development, especially for the average and less than average child.
Our reforms have helped popular schools to expand. If one wants to raise educational standards one needs to identify the schools which set those standards and then encourage others to come up to them. We have introduced grant maintained schools, which are immensely successful and, as we all know very well, very popular with those who choose to send their children to them. They are frequently pace setters.
All these policies have been opposed by the Labour Party. Yet all these policies are gradually having the effect of levering up educational standards. It is most encouraging of all that in the past five years the number of 16 year-olds staying on in education has increased from 48 per cent. to 71 per cent. We must all welcome that very much indeed.
I agree that more needs to be done. One never raises standards anywhere unless one is constantly on the watch for improvement. Nowhere is that more true than in the education service, as anyone knows who has had any involvement with teaching. I welcome the fact that more educational reforms are to come. I do not write off the nursery voucher scheme. How many times in your Lordships' House have I heard the demand for more nursery education? Now we are going to get it with the voucher scheme. It will give an opportunity to parents to have the school of their choice for their child if they wish their child to attend a nursery school. Not only does that help education but it encourages parental responsibility. That is much to be welcomed.
We are to have further reforms of grant maintained schools, giving them greater freedom. The recent announcement of my right honourable friend Mrs. Shephard that there will be 20 centres to raise the
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standard of literacy and numeracy in primary schools is also much to be welcomed. I am particularly pleased that we are to have a new professional qualification for head teachers. I gather that the pilot scheme will come into effect in September. That is a key recommendation because at the end of the day the raising of standards depends particularly on the head teacher as well as on the other teachers. That is more important than any of the other aspects that have been touched on. On the question of truancy, the publication of league tables has had quite a salutary effect on schools and again is much to be welcomed. The greater availability of information on schools, with the publication of performance tables in the past few years, has been very effective.
I was a member of a local authority for 15 years. During most of that time I served on an education committee. I do not recollect ever discussing the content of education. That was left to teachers and advisers. We dealt with other matters. But local authorities bear a responsibility for what has happened in the education service. I am not here to apportion blame, but the tragedy of falling standards must be shared by all those involved, including local education authorities. Our reforms have shown that where responsibility is handed back to the schools, which have elected teacher governors, and to the parents, and there is encouragement by testing, assessment and inspection to deliver a given curriculum, we can gradually lever up the standards. I hope very much that when my noble friend the Minister comes to reply he will be able to comment in more detail than I have been able to do in the time we are allowed in this debate.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I am glad that education has now risen to the top of our domestic national agenda. Education is, after all, one of the central functions of the democratic state. It is not something that should be left primarily to private choice. The education of all our citizens is, as 19th century Tories and Liberals alike recognised, a prime national responsibility. It is not a matter for privatisation, it is a public function and not a private affair. There have been some extraordinary ideas of the free market right in recent years, that picking a school is rather like picking a packet off the supermarket shelf—entirely a matter of private choice.
Education is about shaping the national community; building one nation; building the nation. That is why I, together with my colleagues on these Benches, regard education as the single largest priority for any future government. There has been a half-recognition of that in recent weeks by Ministers and their advisers in calls for schools to "teach morality", but that message is not connected to any wider concept of the role of high quality education in shaping society and citizens as a whole.
I would like to make several brief points. First, if education is something which should serve the community together, locally and nationally, it has to represent the community and it has to be tied to the community. That means that local government has a

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continuing part to play in organising our schools. It also means that schools should draw on our communities. I am happy that my children have been through the comprehensive system in a community school. It gave them a very good education; it taught them about the sort of society in which they are going to have to live. It also, incidentally, gave them a good quality education.
I regret very much the divide which we have, most of all in London, between private education for the wealthy and state education for those who, on the whole, cannot afford it. That is not the way to build an integrated national society, the one nation for which some of those even on the opposite Benches have reminded us we should all stand.
Secondly, we need a climate of opinion which values education and educators highly. It has become popular again in recent months to refer to the Asian model and how Britain should follow the Asian example. One of the most essential features of countries like Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and Japan is the respect given to education and to teachers. I very much regret that over the past 20 years it has been popular not only in the right wing press, but also among successive Ministers of Education, to denigrate teachers as failing in their job, as having easy jobs with long holidays and short evenings and as failing the country and even occasionally all necessarily being left wing. I recall a survey of university teachers which demonstrated that the large majority voted Conservative in the 1979 election. I suspect that a survey of secondary school teachers would have shown the same. I suspect of course that that is no longer true, but that is partly a response of my profession to the experience of the past few years. It has been a mistake of the Government to see teachers as a profession which one should criticise and not praise.
My third point is that high quality education cannot be achieved on the cheap. It represents a long-term public investment with a 40-year payoff. The quality of British education has deteriorated over the past 20 years, partly because too little has been spent on it. If we want to have good quality teachers then they deserve good salaries and secure jobs. The experience of the past few years—and I speak from my observation of education at secondary schools in Wandsworth and West Yorkshire—has been of successive cuts in staffing and in real spending, which means an unavoidable reduction in quality, in the diversity of courses offered and in the ability to cope with special needs, both of those with learning difficulties and of the brightest children in the school. My party has committed itself clearly and openly to telling the British public that one cannot have education on the cheap and that good quality education requires adequate public funding.
Declining standards in education and low morale among teachers will bring a long-term deterioration in our society, in our social cohesion, as well as in our economy. That is also true about school buildings. If one wants teachers to teach about responsibility to others, about the role which students should play in society, the buildings themselves will give a clear indication of how much society cares about those children who grow up within them.
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My fourth point is that secondary education is too specialised. There has been a consensus in this country for many years that we should move away from A-levels towards a broader secondary system. That has been blocked for political reasons, with calls for the "Gold standard" of A-levels to be restored. As a university teacher I find myself time and time again offering remedial education to my students in languages, history, a sense of the role of technology, politics and international relations because they did not learn those things in school.
We have to move towards a more general secondary education and, my last point, that means that we have to face up to the implications of all of this for the higher education system. We cannot allow Oxford, Cambridge and other universities, my own included, to say, "We require a level of specialised knowledge before you enter", which forces A-levels on the schools. We need to have to move towards a four-year undergraduate level of education. Again, that has been the consensus of many educators for a long period. We shall have to move towards higher spending on education by those who are taking it. I feel firmly that high quality education, properly funded, is the basic function of any government.
I regret that in many ways we have failed our students. We have failed to invest in our students who are this country's future.
3.37 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, on behalf of the whole House I would like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on a maiden speech of high quality and stimulating content. I was particularly interested in his comments on the relationship between community and education, on which I shall be building later in my contribution. The noble Lord is a distinguished teacher of international affairs and international relations and that was evident in his contribution this afternoon. He brings wide and deep experience to your Lordships' House and we look forward with pleasure and interest to his future contributions.
I would also like to offer my good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, as she follows me in making her maiden speech in your Lordships' House this afternoon.
I offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for instigating this debate and particularly for his comments on the need for spiritual and moral education, with which I concur. I wish to speak now as chairman of the Church of England Board of Education and to begin by responding to the Government's announcement that the proposals for fast-track arrangements for Church schools to achieve grant-maintained status have been dropped.
As the announcement made clear, the Department for Education and Employment consulted widely not only with central bodies such as the one I chair but also with regional bodies and with schools. The overwhelming consensus of the responses was opposition to these arrangements on two grounds. First, the Church schools

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did not wish to be treated differently in this matter from all other maintained schools. Secondly, the Church schools valued the part played by parents in the life of their schools and did not wish to end the parental ballot.
Speaking on behalf of the Church of England, of the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations, I would like to welcome the decision not to proceed. Perhaps if consultation had taken place with the Churches at an earlier stage the Government would not have had to make an about-turn on this issue. We remain committed to working in partnership with the government of the day in the provision of high quality education for our nation.
The evidence both from that particular incident and more widely from Church schools is that the vast majority of them are for the moment content to stay with their local authority. Of the 4,160 Church-aided schools, only 276 have moved to grant-maintained status. Often particular circumstances have brought about that decision. In my own diocese, one Leeds Church of England high school took the decision because its governors were faced with finding £0.5 million for capital expenditure. By going grant-maintained, they ensured that that sum would have to be provided from government funds. A group of Roman Catholic schools in Kent took the decision because of a fear that the local authority would move towards a selective basis for admission.
The majority of schools value their links with the LEAs. There are sometimes considerable tensions between Church schools and local authorities over funding issues, but those tensions have not driven Church schools down the route to grant-maintained status. For Church of England schools—and, I think, for schools of other denominations also—that state of affairs is due to the decisions taken by Church school governors and parents. My own board has remained neutral on this matter, confining its role to offering advice on the issues which need to be taken into account when reaching a decision.
The vast majority of Church schools feel that they already enjoy self-government. They believe that they are offering that positive and good education of which the Motion before us speaks, and the numbers applying to Church-aided schools indicate that many parents share that view.
Although the picture that I have just painted indicates a degree of satisfaction with local authorities, it is clear that local educational structures need to change in shape and function. Here I speak not as chairman of the board of education, but as one with an interest in education generally, as a trustee of Education 2000 and as chairman of its Leeds initiative.
Education 2000 is putting forward broad proposals for the future of education. I am glad to say that those proposals are being considered by the three major political parties. Those proposals include a recognition that learning, not teaching, is the significant activity within education; that learning is a lifelong activity within which parents are the first educators but within which many people, in and out of school and college,
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will also act as educators; that it is the whole community of a given neighbourhood which is the learning community and which has to support learning in its many forms; that new forms of information technology are giving to learners powers to have access to information unparalleled since the invention of printing; and, above all, that learning is a natural creative activity of the human mind and person.
The proposals for change therefore include a high level of hardware and software to be available in schools and elsewhere; staff development in order to enable teachers to recover their proper role of inspirers and enablers rather than imparters of information; and curriculum development in order to make available new ways of learning and community-school development in order to involve parents, the local community and business leaders with one another. Those proposals are already being implemented to a considerable extent in Leeds Education 2000 with the help of additional financing provided by the Department of Trade and Industry and by business institutions both national and regional.
The reason that I speak of those proposals in this debate is that the community to which I refer is often a smaller neighbourhood than that covered by the local authority. In Leeds Education 2000 the neighbourhood is that of Chapeltown, Harehills and Burmantofts, an inner-city area with a high proportion of ethnic minority families, a population of about 80,000 and two high schools, one county, one Church, together with their feeder primary schools. Leeds Education 2000 has already brought about a change in that neighbourhood. It has involved both elected members and officers of the Leeds education authority in its management.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Leeds Education 2000 should be flattered since the local authority has now introduced the notion of the "family of schools" to which the noble Lord, Lord Morris, referred. The idea of the family of schools began with Leeds Education 2000 and has received mention in the Labour Party's document Excellence for Everyone. That document contains a specific reference to Leeds and it is gratifying that some of Education 2000's ideas are taking hold, but it would have been even more gratifying if Leeds education authority and the Labour Party had acknowledged their source. It is also gratifying that in a personal letter to the national chairman of Education 2000, David Peake, a former chairman of Kleinwort Benson, the Prime Minister asked that his office he kept in touch with developments in Education 2000 and with the Leeds initiative.
If ideas similar to those of Education 2000 are to progress, we need a unit which is smaller than a local authority but larger than a single school. It is only in that way that the sense of a community as a learning organism can grow and that schools can be available and accountable within their communities as one set of institutions within which learning is fostered.
Excellence in education is a matter of each young person growing to be the best of which he or she is capable. If that is to happen, education must cease to be a political football and must become a community

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concern, a concern for all of us collectively and each one of us individually, for each one of us is both learner and educator.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I rise to make my maiden speech in your Lordships' House some 17 years after I made my last contribution in another place and began a rather extended career break, precipitated by the result of the 1979 general election. In the Labour Party that phenomenon is somewhat unkindly known as being a "retread". The labour market speaks rather more officially about the phenomenon of the "married woman returner". It is as a married woman returner to political life that I speak today in your Lordships' House.
Since 1979 I have been lucky enough to be involved with a variety of activities and organisations in both the public and the voluntary sector, but my main preoccupation has been with raising my own family. Perhaps I may say on a personal note how very proud I am that that experience has been considered of value and relevance to considerations in this House, despite the effect that it has had on my own curriculum vitae in making it slightly less conventional than those of people who have had full-time careers.
That makes it particularly apt that my first contribution in your Lordships' House should be on the subject of education, because for those 17 years I have seen children through nursery, primary and secondary schools and I am awaiting with interest the phenomenon of having a child at university. I still have three children who are pupils in state primary and secondary schools. During that time I have also been a school governor almost continuously.
Every maiden speaker is anxious—not only about the content of his or her speech, but about the formalities of your Lordships' House and the conventions that we should obey. I am not sure whether the Addison rules apply to being a school governor. I certainly have no financial interest to declare, but I have the deepest and most personal interest possible in the quality of the education that is provided in our country's state schools—that of a parent who, like any other parent, is concerned that their child's future is dependent on the quality of the education that is provided by those schools.
However, I believe that we in this House should be concerned not simply as parents who are concerned for their individual children but because the quality of the education that we provide to our children aged 3 to 19 years is of national interest. I firmly believe that, if we look to the next millennium, the future of this country economically and socially will be dependent on the investment that we make in education and training now. If we are to face the generations to come with a workforce at all levels that is skilled and qualified, we have to be prepared properly to resource the educational needs of that workforce. What we do in education and training will determine whether in the future we compete as a high wage, high skill, high-tech economy in the year 2000 or relegate ourselves to competition as
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a declining economy with a low wage workforce. That is of crucial importance and it makes the debate about education of crucial importance to the nation.
We should he concerned about another national interest—I refer to the social fabric of the nation. There is a risk, which we all see and about which I think we are all concerned, of the alienation of groups of young people: often they are out of school, they are without qualifications and without any hope of getting a job and they pose a real threat to themselves, to their families and to the community as a result of that. alienation.
The schools have a tremendously important role to play as regards children whose lives have often been damaged elsewhere. However, we ask schools to care for such children, to contain them and to reverse much of what has happened in their lives without ever giving the schools the resources to do the job properly. It is easy to criticise the school for suspending those pupils. That is much more difficult if, like me, one has heard appeals against suspension and has tried to weigh the responsibility for caring for the individual child against the responsibility for the institution as a whole and for the child's classmates. We cannot ask our schools to do that job without giving the teachers the resources that they need to do it properly.
The other injunction of your Lordships' House upon maiden speakers is to be uncontentious. That too is difficult as regards this subject and I hope that your Lordships will understand anything I say now will be in the nature of a comment on our national performance in education rather than making specific criticisms of the current administration. That I trust I shall have the opportunity to do in the future on a number of subjects and at some length.
I believe that the educational debate in this country and our performance in education have been bedevilled by two phenomena. One is the divisiveness for a nation of a system in which a significant proportion of its children are educated outwith the state system and in which, because they do not use it, a significant number of parents who are often influential have no personal stake in the quality of the education service that is provided by the local authorities.
Within the state system we have been bedevilled by an overwhelming concern about the interests of perhaps 20 or 25 per cent. of the most academically able but we have not been equally concerned about the interests of the remaining 75 per cent. of pupils, and our nation cannot afford to take that view. There has been much debate recently about the possible neglect of the interests of the middle classes. I suggest that if one looks at our performance in education one sees that we should have been looking at quite the reverse phenomenon.
I am straying into areas of contentiousness and in doing so I shall stray into the area of speaking for too long and overstaying my welcome. I hope that on other occasions I shall be able to discuss in this House how to promote and monitor quality within our schools, the value of setting by ability and by subject within the comprehensive system and the need to reform A-levels.

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I conclude by urging your Lordships to adopt a passion, perhaps not as parents but as grandparents. However, when I arrived in this House I was surprised at the relative youth of those on the Government Front Bench and I exempt them. Some of them look so young that perhaps they will have the passion as pupils. I ask your Lordships to adopt a passion about the quality of education in our schools and thereby to become stakeholders in the future of our nation.
3.54 p.m.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, on behalf of the whole House, it is my pleasant duty to congratulate with ease and sincerity the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on her maiden speech. By happy serendipity, she and I are old girls of the same school as well as being graduates of the same university. Furthermore, we both share the experience of having spent many years raising children rather than being active in paid employment. I am inclined to remember a remark made by one of my Canadian contemporaries who was raising her children at the same time as I was raising mine. She said to me, "We should never complain of these years out of paid employment. They are our fallow years and in these fallow years we do grow rich". Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, it is obvious that she has indeed grown rich in her fallow years.
There is total agreement on all Benches that we aim overall to have good quality education for our young people. Perhaps it would be churlish of me to say that the Benches opposite have little to celebrate in the performance of schools during the 1960s and 70s when the Labour Government was in power for much of the time. Then the majority of our young people were sent out with inadequate skills for adult life and almost half of them were sent out with nothing of any coinage to show for their 10 years of schooling. I am happy to be a member of a party which since taking power has done much to remedy the state of our abysmal education system.
I am not sure that we entirely agree on the definition of a good education. For me, and I think for the Government, the definition of a good education is one which enables young people to achieve. I was interested to see that recently in this House noble and learned Lords gave judgment that it was the duty of a school overridingly to assume responsibility for the educational needs of every child. They added:
"If it comes to the attention of the headmaster that a pupil is under-performing, he does owe a duty to take such steps as a reasonable teacher would consider appropriate to try to deal with such under- performance".
Allowing the underperformance of our young people is the greatest crime of any school. Allowing a child to leave with less than the achievements of which he or she is capable is the most abysmal failure of a society. I do not blame teachers or schools; I say simply that the aim of all government policy must be to increase the achievements of our young people and to provide good quality education and teaching appropriate to the child's
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particular needs, enabling him or her to take a place in adult life. The way in which one achieves that is constantly debated and is a matter of concern to us all.
I shall take up only two issues in the debate today. The first is parents, and I start deliberately with them. A school or an education system by itself cannot achieve success. There must be a partnership with the parents and the home and there must be a sense of sharing of aims and goals. That is why in recent years the Government have increased parental involvement. First, by increasing parental choice: parents have now a much greater diversity of schools and therefore greater freedom of choice. The Parent's Charter promises not only that parents will have a free choice as regards their child's school but also that they will have a right of appeal if they do not get their choice. Much more important than choice at the beginning is their right throughout their child's schooling to appeal to the school for information and better understanding and for the school to give them a full explanation of everything that goes on. I wish that had been the case when my own children were going through state schools. The reality was often far from that.
In recent weeks we have heard much about how the ability of G.M. schools to increase their range of selection somehow denies parental choice, as if the parental choice and school choice were mutually exclusive. I find that most odd. I work in the higher education system where we find it most comfortable, indeed an expected matter of course, that while students select a university to which they wish to apply, the university then selects the students who are best suited to succeed within its particular aims, ethos and standards. Why should we deny that particular right to schools? I very much welcome the extension of school selection. I believe that selection is the real route to long-term quality within schools. For example, 15 per cent. selection within one of the inner city GM schools—and there are many, many GM schools in inner cities—will enable it to ensure that it has a better balance and mix of pupils.
Why is there an almost religious belief in the power of the LEAs to put everything right? I am sorry to say that the LEAs did not always put everything right. There are good, wonderful, excellent LEAs and there are poor LEAs, as in most other walks of life. But no one should, or I think would, claim that LEAs alone are the single answer to improving standards.
I am afraid that to the ordinary parent, city hall or county hall is as remote as Whitehall. If the party opposite is serious about its stakeholder society, it should give parents within a particular school a real stake in the running, management and decision-making of the school. That is what the Government have done in grant-maintained schools because parents and children in those schools have a real stake in their day-to-day performance.
Secondly, I turn to teachers. Yes, 70 per cent. of lessons seen by Ofsted were satisfactory. That is not good enough but, nevertheless, it is a very large number. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research report tells us that the reason for the poor performance

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of many of our children is because teachers have too low expectations. I believe that this Government have conveyed in a clear and unequivocal measure to teachers that their job is not to be social workers, not to create social engineering and not to create educational experiments but that it is to help pupils achieve and perform. By doing that, they have begun to turn round the clock. It is astonishing that through the publication of performance tables, through the laying down of a national curriculum entitlement for every child and through regular national testing, pupil achievement in this country has been raised and I believe will continue so to be.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, to whom we are indebted for this debate, has been—like me—a professor of English and we must not ignore the responsibility that university professors bear at all levels of education.
So far as our schools are concerned, much perhaps of what is needed to raise our deplorable standards is already in the pipeline. It will not be long before all school leavers will have had their entire education enlightened by a national curriculum. We are already feeling the benefits of a vigorous Office for Standards in Education and a watchful curriculum authority. We see a growing acceptance of the need for regular periodic testing; acceptance too that competition between schools is as healthy in classroom achievement as it is on the sports field; acceptance that individual success is far better than collective failure, and that we should pursue quality ahead of equality to get a measure of the sort of equality we should be seeking. Not least, there is a new consensus to reassert the primacy of the three Rs, whether or not buzzily disguised as "core skills".
Now, two of the three Rs fall squarely within what most of us (and especially, one would hope, professors of English) would recognise as English. But in numerous universities what we used to call the discipline of English is itself opaquely recoded in buzzwords like media studies, communicative arts, cultural studies and so on. But however styled, the university departments concerned tend to favour cultural relativism, and since it is from among their graduates that our schools recruit their teachers, it is hardly surprising that the new consensus that I have been optimistically rehearsing is by no means complete among schoolteachers themselves.
An element—a minority element I profoundly hope, but certainly an influential and articulate element—is engaged in highly audible dissent. It is the element that impressed on Sir John Kingman during his 1988 inquiry how widespread is the view that,
"any notion of correct or incorrect use of language is an affront to personal liberty".
Such views did not evolve from the teachers' own experience of teaching in school. They brought them, ready made, from universities which promoted these ideas and which promote them still.
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I quote from a very new hook (1996) by a very distinguished professor of English,
"as teachers of English … our ultimate aim … should be social revolution, since unjust privilege in a destructive system will not willingly be surrendered".
The author is a learned Oxford graduate and Rhodes scholar who happens to be an American. But his doctrines are easy to match among many British academics. A current professor of English at Oxford is on record at saying that for a department to teach English literature is to make it,
"part of the ideological apparatus of the capitalist state",
while another current Oxford professor of English sought to destroy the other main plank of the English curriculum in addressing a month or so ago the theme:
"Does Standard English exist and should we teach it?"
Logic surely entails that the second part remains non-vacuous only if the answer to the first part is "Yes" but this professor contrived to give a defiant "No" to both parts.
Writing in a recent issue of the official voice of University English, a professor al Loughborough University claims that the new school attainment targets "reveal dangerously reactionary influences", and a professor at Sheffield Hallam University has, in another teachers' journal, attacked this same national curriculum because it,
"smacks of a right-wing witch hunt against so-called 'slovenly' speech, spelling and punctuation".
Mark that "so-called", my Lords.
Mark also, come to that, marking itself. From a sample inquiry last year, it appears that an alarming number of university teachers of English in this country (but not of course in Germany or Japan) firmly decline to correct the written or spoken English of their students: not, they say, because such pedantry is beneath them, but because correction inhibits the creative flow, grossly intrudes upon a student's "space" and personal values, and unwarrantably implies that language can be reduced to crude judgments of good and bad. No wonder professors of physics, engineering, medicine ask themselves what on earth their colleagues in English are supposed to be doing.
We often speak of this irresponsible if not subversive mindlessness as though it flourished 30 years ago and then vanished. But how could it vanish? A good few youngsters who imbibed such pseudo-idealism in the 1960s are now senior university professors themselves, often with their own pupils already in chairs too, the more creative of them adding their own refinements by way of cultural relativism and political correctness.
Well, crackpot enough at the point of delivery, what about the receiving end? What about the mere shards that splinter 20 year-old minds, patchily attending, half comprehending? Do they form an intellectual basis for graduates to go out and start teaching in school? How are such ideas put to actual classroom use even by teachers with a first from Oxford, let alone the far greater numbers with lower seconds from universities lower down the pecking order?

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We depend on schoolteachers for the quality of schooling that this debate rightly calls for, but it is on university teachers that we depend for the quality of ideas that get into the schools. I commend those professors of English who raise their voices to urge a greater sense of public responsibility in the exercise of their academic freedom; for example, Sir Frank Kermode, in his Maccabean Lecture at University College London last November.
Finally, let me quote from the recent words of that eminent American critic and professor of English, George Levine, who has called on all professors of English (well, he makes honourable exemptions no doubt, and maybe even some noble exceptions) to plead collective guilt for the students we ill-direct and for the taxpayers who are unable to understand why we teach their sons and daughters,
"to believe that their values (which sent the children to college in the first place) are wrong".
4.10 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I have always had a great interest in children with special needs and, in particular, what happens to them at 16, when official schooling ends. They have often had a raw deal then. The LEA retains the key responsibility for these children. Today I want to talk about the current developments in education for 14 to 19 year-olds, with special reference to those pupils, and particularly in my own county of Cambridgeshire which is planning to tackle the problem with its New Agenda.
The project aim is to realise the maximum potential of all young people by providing an accreditation and learning framework which values, records and accredits the vocational and academic achievements of those who are unlikely to attain the equivalent of NVQ1 by the age of 16. This accreditation will enable those young people to progress more easily into further education, training or employment. The target group for the three year project will this year be those in year 10.
The national targets for education and training were based on the CBI's world class targets in, Towards a Skills Revolution which stated:
"Those with special needs have been excluded from the targets in the time scale envisaged".
Thus a set of national targets was established which from the outset excluded a significant minority. All students need the satisfaction of achievement recorded and progress measured. There is a continuum of need, and an accreditation system is required which reflects that.
The Chief Inspector's annual report into standards in education noted of the provision for students with learning difficulties that,
"too often students repeat courses or modules, and there is little evidence of progress: when students are given an opportunity to work towards recognised qualifications this generally improves their level of attainment".
So the gap and the need is fully recognised. A recent project funded by the Greater Peterborough TEC's special needs group into attitudes of employers and
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special needs students indicated an urgent need for a clear, coherent and recognised record of core and vocational skills, to give students self-esteem and credibility with potential employers. And that is precisely what Cambridgeshire is intending to do with its new project.
The fact that there are 16 special schools in the county and altogether 2,109 statemented children, with 246 of them in year 10, is some demonstration of the need. As well as those, there are the increasing numbers of disaffected pupils in special units: 55 in 1992–93, 102 in 1993–94. No doubt there are more now. And of course there are many others without statements who will have no hope of reaching Grades A to C in GCSE, which is what employers look for in taking on young people.
What Cambridgeshire wants to give young people is a certificate which they can show and which will have credence and carry weight with either employers or those involved in any further training. This certificate will record the core skills—pace the noble Lord, Lord Quirk—that they have managed to acquire: communication, numeracy, information technology, personal and social skills, to name a few. Special schools in the county are currently seeking accreditation for their students in various ways which include: RSA practical skills, the Youth Award Scheme, the Vocational Access Certificate and various G/NVQ units at level 1. Now all these could be registered on the accreditation certificate and be part of their record of achievement. What is needed is that there should be a national recognition of such a certificate, so that young people moving around the country could carry it with them and it will have meaning wherever they may be. They need this for their future livelihood and for their own self-esteem.
The current developments in the 14 to 19 curriculum stem from three main sources: the TVEI which pioneered the new approaches which revolutionised education for so many pupils; the Dearing reports on the national curriculum and post-16 education and the national training and education targets. What I believe from Sir Ron's agenda for the 14 to 19 study is that he wants to improve the qualifications and accreditation of the low achievers. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, will agree. The quality of their educational experience would thus be enhanced.
The way forward is through local partnerships and this is what is happening in my own LEA, with the co-operation of the two TECs—Camtec and Greater Peterborough TEC, with, of course, input from the Careers Service which, although now privatised, works very closely with the authority. The LEA needs, indeed, to work with the FE colleges, the GM schools and a range of voluntary and private sector interests. Much time and effort is put into liaison and co-ordination. The "enabling" LEA needs to have this co-ordinating function properly recognised. It is the LEA that has to provide the overview.
Increased staying on rates and increasing examination successes build on the work of LEA institutions and the trends established before the current fashion for

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removing functions from them. The next more difficult bit of progress is doing what I have been trying to outline today—to attract the disaffected and disadvantaged, those who have failed or been failed by the system, and to encourage them to continue their education and help them to achieve a measure of success, with something to show that they have achieved that success. The education and training opportunities must be attractive and relevant. And that requires local effort in partnership, rather than further central directives or administrative changes.
4.16 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for giving the House the opportunity to discuss what is probably the most important domestic topic facing this country. I should also like to give a very warm welcome to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.
I have known the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for a long time and I am sure that he will prove a doughty fighter for liberal causes. As he referred to the Pacific Rim, I think that I should mention that about 30 per cent. of its educational spending comes from private sources: mainly from parents' fees—an innovation which I hope that the noble Lord's party will support if it is ever put forward from these Benches.
I do not agree that it is a consensus view that A-levels should be scrapped. It is certainly not my view; and, indeed, it is certainly not the view of many university people. Many of us fear that it would lead to a lowering of standards rather than a raising of them.
The propositions of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, are worded so amiably that it would seem churlish to criticise any of them. Yet there are some peculiarities in the wording that point to deeper problems. I doubt whether most 19 year-olds would appreciate being called "children" as they are in the Motion. I detect the whiff of Nanny here. So far as I am concerned, by the time they are 17 or 18, most young people are perfectly capable of making up their own minds as between the labour market and further education. The state's role, in my view, should be limited to providing means-tested tuition fees and other maintenance support for all those accepted by accredited educational institutions to continue with their eduction. I do not believe that the state should be in the business of telling 19 year-olds how they should proceed with their lives. They are no longer children. I know that that is not what the noble Lord intends, but the Motion is worded in that way.
If we turn to the other end of the age group—the children of three—I am not at all sure that we should he in the business of encouraging state baby snatching. Wresting children from the control of their parents has always been a favourite aim of collectivists and we should not lower our guard against that simply because it is dressed up in well meaning language of nursery education. The case for starting on state education at the age of three has to be made much more powerfully than it was today and than I have seen it made. I have always
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had serious doubts about the Government's nursery voucher scheme which creates a general entitlement to pre-school education for all four year-olds, not least because it will kill off the largely voluntary play groups which now provide for a quarter of four year-olds in this country.
It has always struck me as extremely odd that a party which believes in family values and in the voluntary sector should have taken a giant step towards nationalising pre-school education, because that is what it is; it is not there at the start but that is what it will lead to. With the extension of state funding will come the extension of the domain of the Secretary of State. Thus it always was and thus it will be. I know this extension is based on the well meaning idea that it will improve school standards, improve morals and prevent social problems later on.
Obviously I would agree that children from what are curiously called disaffected backgrounds may benefit from pre-schooling experience, but even here we should at least be sceptical. A major 1985 study by the US Department of Health and Human Services of the Headstart programme, which has been running since 1965 and was designed precisely to provide experience of pre-schooling for disaffected families, concluded that by the time children reached the age of eight:
"There are no educationally meaningful differences on any of the measures between poor children who went through Headstart and those who did not".
The programme currently costs nearly 5 billion dollars.
Yet, if I understand the Motion, supporters of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, want the entitlement for four year-olds to be extended to three year-olds and the whole entitlement to be funded more lavishly than is now proposed. If this is done, the extra cost will certainly run into the low billions in the full maturity of the scheme. If we believe that education is being underfunded, is this where we should be putting the money? Surely the priority should be to reduce class size in the first years of primary education. The recent Ofsted report Class Size and the Quality of Education shows clearly that while in general class size has little effect on educational standards, it does in Key Stage 1 where the smaller the class, the higher the percentage of good lessons.
Let me conclude by saying a few words on the role of local authorities. I do not want, any more than anyone else on this side of the House, to knock them. When they are good they are very good and when they are bad they can be extremely bad. I wish to make two constructive suggestions. First, LEAs are not currently obliged to publish the results of standard reading tests which most eight year-olds take. Therefore they do not do so. Only the Secretary of State can force them to do so and she has not yet done so. Nor are local education authorities obliged to publish the results of Key Stage 1 tests. Parents are thus being deprived of essential information about the quality of schools in their areas and there is a seven-year gap in the national monitoring of school standards. I believe LEAs should be obliged to publish, school by school, the results of all standardised tests taken in primary schools.

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Secondly, I should like to see established in each educational area an education information centre in attractive premises in which parents can find out what they want to know about the schools in their area and be offered help and guidance in selecting schools to fit the needs of their children. If the LEAs took these two steps to disseminate information to parents, I believe they would find both a good use for the funds they now hold back from schools and would do much to fulfil the role which the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, wants of them—that of "guardian and raiser of standards".
4.25 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I shall speak wholly and entirely about the City of Birmingham. That is a local authority which the Government do not like much. Any brickbats they can aim at the City of Birmingham, they do so. It was two years ago that Birmingham received a highly critical report on educational performance as its schools did badly in league tables. That report failed to take into consideration the fact that the school population scored significantly higher than the national average on all the main poverty indicators.
One-third of the city's pupils are registered for free school meals; that is, one-third of 170,000 pupils are registered for free school meals. In some schools as many as 90 per cent. of the pupils receive free school meals. That shows the level of poverty in the area, and poverty obviously is related to educational standards. Nevertheless, the city recognised that there was an urgent need to raise standards. A new director, Professor Brighouse, was appointed, together with a new chairman. The new chairman is Andy Howell, the son of my noble friend Lord Howell who is not in the Chamber at the moment. They and the education committee laid overall plans for the 500 schools in the city. The plans involved a partnership with parents—many noble Lords have referred to that partnership—and a Home-School PACT with parents was asked for. Specialist advisers were employed by the local authority and outside education professionals offered advice. A teachers' training centre was opened; all the schools in the area could send teachers there. The teachers would then put into being what is called an assessment on pupils entering school. That is not a test of pupils entering school but an assessment. That assessment had to be varied to make it suitable for a large percentage of the children in the schools in the area who do not have English as their first language. Obviously those children have to be assessed in different ways.
The assessment starts in the primary schools and is carried out progressively until the children pass into the senior schools. This progressive assessment seeks to match the children's original assessment or to improve on it. Where it is noted that an assessment is going backwards as it were, strong steps have to be taken by the school concerned to find out why that occurred. We now have in the schools in the area Home-School PACTs. These have now become common in the
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schools, especially in those schools which need it more than others. Many parents cannot he helpful when their child asks for assistance with homework or regarding some discussion at school because they themselves are not particularly well educated. Many schools use the Home-School PACT programme. Many schools have a room which parents can use. Parents are not stopped at the school gates. They come in and use the room with teachers who seek to be helpful, and volunteers—often parents who have had children at the school—who come in to assist parents who cannot help their children. While the parent role may be defined as co-educational. many parents become co-learners.
Noble Lords have spoken about neighbourhood schools. In Birmingham we have neighbourhood schools, but these are governed by the main A-roads through the city. A district becomes an area formed by those main roads which contain the neighbourhood schools. Those schools concentrate on events in their neighbourhoods. They work with factories, firms, banks and other organisations in their own neighbourhood, and with the fire brigade, the police, and so on. The neighbourhood school becomes a living entity. There may be three or four schools in the neighbourhood.
Many departments of the city council are behind this thrust to give greater opportunities to the pupils in schools. In Birmingham the central library has the first child learning centre. It is available at all times that the library is open. Parents take their children to the centre and educated staff advise. It is a learning centre for children as regards the way in which one uses hooks. It is quite unusual and does not occur in any other part of the country.
Staff are now employed in the museum and art gallery. When schools visit, those staff have been told what a school wishes the children to see in the museum and art gallery following what has taken place in school. Special staff have taken on that role in the art gallery and museum.
Around the City of Birmingham we have a green belt. In many of those areas we have what are called country parks, with buildings that the general public can use in which there is a learning area. Rangers employed by the country parks give nature talks. All those people have an input into the system.
The Royal Ballet in Birmingham goes into schools and demonstrates forms of dance. There is also the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The enthusiasm, the commitment and the new initiatives from head teachers, all members of staff, and from parents, continue. The Government need to recognise that the situation on the ground must be considered differently in different localities. One must ensure that financial cuts do not harm the most vulnerable children.
4.33 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, it is good that your Lordships' House should devote time to debate this subject in a space not dedicated to a Second Reading debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for instituting the debate.

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On first consideration it may seem strange that I felt that I should like to take part in the debate. I have no children and indeed I have no direct experience of the education system in this country having been educated in what has sometimes been called John Bull's other island. I have no experience other than as an "end user" of the product of the education system—an employer. However, I feel that that qualifies me to make some observations and even some suggestions.
More important, I think, is the deep concern that I feel for the future of this country as a whole, not just the labour force. I believe that education—the standards, the system, and the results—are all of vital importance to the future of this country.
The subject for debate is in two distinct, although linked, parts. I intend to speak only to the first part, namely,
"The need of children aged 3–19 years for high quality education".
As a bald statement there can be no disagreement with that. I defy anyone to state that there is no need for education for children aged 3–19 years. Where the disagreement is likely to occur is in the analysis and recommendations of the means by which to achieve the objective.
In preparation for the debate I have been looking at data concerning developments in the recent past in the provision of such education. I deliberately took the period from the beginning of the 1980s. That was to ensure continuity in my knowledge base from the data I had been aware of during the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 1960s and 1970s something seemed to be woefully awry with the education system in this country. This is not the place to develop an analysis of why. Suffice it to say that the end product of British schools—or should I say English schools?—was certainly substandard in the knowledge of the basics of the three Rs; in powers of analysis; and, frankly, in not being "up to it" in the competitive world of international business. That is the personal observation of an erstwhile employer who was constantly amazed at the inability to spell, to construct sentences in letters, and to do simple mental arithmetic. But probably even worse was the complete disinterest in the love of learning and pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Time does not permit me to give example after example drawn from my personal experience. It was just a huge, sad eye-opener to me.
I believe that this has changed. More than that, I know that it has changed. It has changed because of a much more focused attitude to the sector. I shall not repeat, almost word for word, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, at this point. I agree with everything he said about the great improvement. The more focused attitude has, in addition, resulted in good husbandry of the huge expenditure on education and has had the result of making our young people more confident of their achievements, thereby ensuring that they can play the essential role in the increase in wealth and competitiveness of the economy.
The national curriculum indicates a return to a more formal education programme. Gone forever I hope are the days when pupils were encouraged to be "creative"
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and "project involved" to the detriment of the learning of the basic skills of the three Rs, the knowledge of history and the inculcation of a love of learning and thirst for knowledge.
However, I have two concerns. The first is that I believe that we as a society are in danger of overloading the teachers. The second concerns the current perceived vacuum in the teaching of values which are so essential for each and every child.
Education in my time as a three to 19 year-old was seen as a partnership. I was interested to hear my noble friend Lady Perry use that word also. I saw it as a partnership between three distinct groups: parents and the extended family, the schools, and the Church. Sadly, that three-legged stool looks decidedly lopsided now. It does not require me to tell your Lordships that the family is no longer an area where children can be assured of education—using the word in its broadest sense. The prospects are that some 40 per cent. of our children will be brought up by a divorced parent or a single unmarried parent. Economic pressures lead to an ever-increasing number of latch-key children where the adult with responsibility for the child is so worn out at the end of the day or week that sitting the child in front of the television seems to be the only way of coping.
The Church no longer seems relevant to many people in the field of education. Of course it is relevant to the 11.7 per cent. of the population who regularly attend church. My figures are from Social Trends, the 1995 edition.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, stated firmly that all problems besetting education are the fault of the Government, with the,
"buck stopping on the desk of the right honourable Mr. John Major".
I trust that he would accept my partnership analysis that parents are stakeholders in education. Is my right honourable friend the Prime Minister responsible for the high divorce rate, the high incidence of single parents, or the rejection of the Church by some 88.3 per cent. of the population? No, of course not.
Although I am by nature an optimist, I cannot see the pattern changing. On a practical level, the family just cannot fulfil the responsibility. The dispersal of the family, as opposed to the breakdown of the family, is seldom mentioned. No longer can parents rely on the influence and encouragement of grandparents, aunts and uncles. How many of us live in the same place or town, surrounded by the same relatives or friends as when we were born? The erstwhile support structures are no longer in place. Sadly, most children find themselves as "islands"—John Donne's poem is difficult to equate with today's situation.
My concern has in part been addressed by the measures relating to nursery education. Indeed, it has also been addressed by the greater involvement in education of parents. But teachers are increasingly the beasts of burden. Some are cracking up; some do not care. Some, however, are tackling the problem head-on and shaming the rest of us with their dedication.
Last year I was involved, at the behest of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in a quite amazing project run by a teacher in the London borough of Southwark. My role

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was to try to help with advice on fund raising for the project. Briefly, the project involved a partnership between the schools in Southwark and Dulwich College. Children from schools in that deprived area living in substandard housing were bussed to Dulwich College every Saturday morning. The teachers at the college gave up their time to teach the children who had a thirst for knowledge. The project is organised by a teacher and last year the drop-out rate was 5 per cent. The children and teachers voluntarily give up their Saturdays. After a bit of arm-twisting, local business is giving money for the project. The teachers are wonderful. They should be much more valued than they are, not necessarily in financial terms but in the respect we should all show for what is a truly worth while vocation.
My second concern is the perceived vacuum in the teaching of values. As a Christian I look for the values I was taught, constantly referring to the Bible—both the Old and the New Testament. Who teaches our children, as Isaiah states, to
"know enough to reject the wrong and use the right"?
Or in New Testament terms, are we ensuring that our children will,
"grow in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men"?
Again, values were to a great extent a partnership between home, the church and school. The same problems of reduced influence of the first two partners exists. But in this case, if children are not taught values, they will make up their own framework of values anyway. The question is: what framework? Where does the ultimate responsibility end up? With the school, for the most part, I fear. But if we have teachers who openly state that "values are subjective and are, therefore, no part of the school's responsibility", as I heard on the radio on Monday, we have a problem. Yet more demands are being put on the educational system—overload, I fear.
We seem to have reached the answer for conventional education but not yet for what I would call "education in the round"; namely, educating our young people to take their rightful place in society. It would be wonderful if the issue could be approached on a bipartisan basis, with the best brains marshalled to try to help the teachers. A debate like today's is useful in drawing attention to such issues. Let us hope we can come up with some answers.
4.42 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I shall devote my few minutes to discussing the need for nursery education. I declare myself to be one of the happy band, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, and my noble friend Lady Hayman, whose career—if it can be described as such—was interrupted in order to bring up three children. For about 16 years I devoted myself to them entirely. But even with my undivided attention, it was obvious that they would have benefited from an expansion of their horizons with nursery education from certainly the age of four. However, it was not available to us since my husband was living on a scientific
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research grant, we could not afford private education and no state places were available. Thus, even so long ago, I became aware of the need for nursery education.
Then for some years I was governor of a primary school in a rather deprived area. The reception class teacher—there was usually just one—had to spend part of his or her time in teaching some of the children how to speak to each other. They were English-speaking children, at that point none came from ethnic minorities. But they had not enjoyed any kind of what we would describe as "social contact" and they were quite unable to communicate with each other in what we would consider a normal way. Not the whole class but one element—perhaps a third of the children—was in that category. So a good part of the first year in the reception class was wasted in terms of normal primary education. There was a knock-on effect because the rest of the children in that class were deprived of the attention which otherwise the teacher would have given them. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, mentioned that class size was important in primary schools and I agree. It is particularly important in the reception class.
It is ridiculous to suggest that equality of educational opportunity exists in those circumstances. The children fall behind at the very beginning of their school career and some of them can never catch up. The feelings of frustration and failure which result are at the root of much of the trouble with disruptive children later on because they never feel that they are equal partners in their class. Later still I believe that the disruptive children go on to have less regard for the laws of a society in which they have never felt properly at home.
Even when the home background is good, many children need to gain confidence in mixing with their peers. All children benefit from the mental stimulation which a good nursery class provides. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, quoted, I think, an American experiment, but results are available for experiments in this country which prove beyond doubt that at least a year of nursery education benefits children and brings them on at a much more satisfactory rate so that they benefit from their primary education.
If the Government are serious in their stated commitment to a classless society, then they must start at this point. It will be difficult enough for the children anyway, but without the benefit of their year of nursery education it is hopeless.
So what is the position? There is a shortage of nursery places; everyone agrees on that. The Government have proposed a voucher scheme with which I gather the present Secretary of State is not entirely happy. However, we will let that pass for the moment. It is said that it will enable parents to buy places for their offspring in the establishment of their choice:
"putting power in the hands of the people",
according to the Secretary of State for Education in her original statement. The difficulty from the point of view of the parents is that places in some urban areas are scarce and in some rural areas non-existent. As for choice, it seldom exists in practical terms. Even if the voucher scheme works and becomes more widespread than it looks like being at present, the time lag between

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the demand for places and the supply will mean that whole generations of children are still deprived of the nursery education they need. Why must the voucher scheme be handled by a private sector company? How many companies have expertise in the field—apart, possibly, from Camelot in that context? Will there he a ceiling on their profit margins or is that something which the taxpayers will also have to fund?
If, as is feared, the voucher system undermines the existing provision, then in the short and medium term the situation will become even worse. The Government pin their hopes on market forces yet again. In any case, the private sector provision, if started in haste in response to a perceived market opportunity, may not achieve the standards that we all have a right to expect. The Secretary of State for Education said that there would be,
"a light touch inspection framework".
That promise does not sound much of a deterrent to the unscrupulous provider. Even at the moment those schools that are subject to inspection are not inspected often enough. What is meant by "a light touch", I simply do not know.
I suggest that the best way to achieve the result that we all want quickly and effectively is, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said, to enable the local education authorities to do the things that they are best at. They understand the needs of their area. They have knowledge of the local population and they have the expertise to use that knowledge effectively. My noble friend said that they were noted for their vigorous and inventive action; and so they are. They are also—and this is very important—accountable to local voters for their actions. If at the end of the day the provision that they make is not adequate, they will pay the price. Therefore I hope that we shall press on with general provision of nursery education, and that it will at least be in the control of the local education authority.
4.50 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for initiating this debate. I also offer my fullest congratulations to both Members who made their maiden speeches. They were of the most interesting and fascinating kind. Despite what seemed at one time an endless succession of education Acts, we are, all the same, in danger of letting pass huge revolutions in the education system of this country without much notice. I do not mean in this House, because here we do notice them, but in society at large: amazing changes have taken place without very much comment, and rather fast. Let us take, for example, as an analogy the humiliating shambles into which our universities have descended over the past decade. They were a part of our education system which, though certainly not perfect, represented a jewel in the crown.
I am afraid that, if we are not careful, another huge revolution will have taken place and we shall notice it only afterwards—the demise of the local authorities. It would be a revolution of an extremely sad and destructive kind. I hope that there may he time for us to
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bring all our influence to bear to prevent that happening. It is certainly not happening quite so soon as perhaps the Government at one time wanted; that is to say. the rush on the part of schools to become grant-maintained has not gone through all the schools. But I fear, as do others, that sooner or later all schools may become grant-maintained, whether as the result of parental choice or not. All funding will therefore be controlled centrally, and the LEA will be left to wither away.
Yet in all services—perhaps excluding transport—"localness" should be absolutely intrinsic to the provision of education in schools. A proper service can be provided only if the providing authority knows its schools, knows its teachers and knows its parents and children.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in the case of children with special educational needs. As noble Lords will know, at the moment local authorities are responsible for the provision of education and extra educational support for those with special educational needs. It is often the basis on which people say that the local authorities are doing a splendid job.
Such children come into the hands of the local authority only after all identification of their needs has passed through three out of the five stages recommended in the 1994 code of practice that followed the 1993 Act. Until that stage, by which it will have been clear for a considerable time that a particular child is in trouble, the local education authority need not be involved. LEA experts may be consulted at the stage before, but whoever is consulted does not have to come from the local authority.
Some children with special needs will be identified easily and uncontroversially—for example, the profoundly deaf, the blind, those with manifest severe physical disabilities or those with profound learning difficulties. Such children will be known already outside the context of school. But there is a vastly greater number of children whose difficulties become clear only at school, and who may gradually fall further and further behind the rest of their class. The cause of their problems may not be apparent and they may have no particular medical or social problems to be dealt with. I refer to those who have specific learning difficulties, perhaps connected with spelling or reading—dyslexic children in fact—or those through whose behaviour psychiatric problems become gradually more apparent in the school context.
These are children of whom the LEA will have no knowledge whatsoever until matters have come to a crisis. No LEA adviser may have seen the child until this stage, and the parents will have no familiar access to the LEA. There is a void of ignorance, in fact, where there used to be a genuine continuity of responsibility.
Nobody, certainly not I, claims that LEAs will cure everything. All I argue is that nothing can be cured without them. As we all know, some are good and some are bad. Nevertheless, their role is absolutely essential in dealing with the increasing problem of this large number of children for whom, without early intervention and early knowledge of their increasing predicament, there cannot be intervention and the provision of extra help.

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When the 1993 Act passed through Parliament, we heard a great deal about the advantages for schools of becoming independent, free from the "shackles" of local authority rule. But the up-shot has been—and this is my main point—a fragmentation of the system. Schools are isolated one from another, and from any local source of help and advice. The advisory role of the LEAs was of enormous importance and was often very much appreciated by schools.
Those who will suffer particularly from this fragmentation will be those who are most vulnerable and whom the schools themselves, in their isolation, are most likely to fail. They will fail them either by overlooking their existence altogether or even, I fear, by deciding that they are not the children on whom money ought to be spent. Those are the children whose education from three to 19 is most likely to be harmed by the combination of central funding and fragmented independence which seems at the moment to be the goal of government.
4.58 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I want to examine some of the problems to be faced in providing high quality education and the role of local education authorities in that provision. I am sure we all agree that in providing high quality education many factors have to be taken into account, including the academic abilities of children and the disabilities of some children; the different rate of development of children; their social and environmental background and the expectation that parents and teachers have of them. As the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, indicated, low expectations encourage low achievements. Account must be taken of the role of teachers, and in particular that of the head teacher, whose leadership is crucial; the availability of adequate school buildings; and the different needs of different schools, whatever school system operates in a locality. LEAs have a responsibility to ensure that all these factors, and many more, are taken into account in the school system in their area.
Like schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, indicated, LEAs face different problems. Those problems are sometimes historical, sometimes cultural and sometimes managerial. For example, historically, West Yorkshire has a low participation rate in higher and further education. That is no doubt connected with the language problem, in the sense that dialect and poor language construction have impeded the correct use and understanding of English, which in turn can affect learning generally.
In the Bradford metropolitan district, which I want to use as an illustration, the problem is compounded by the high number of children for whom English is not their first language. Moreover, I understand that Bradford is the only local authority in the country with a rising population. It is predicted that there will be a rise of 9 per cent. in the number of schoolchildren over the next 15 years and because there is a disproportionate number of women of child-bearing age among the ethnic community, where there is a tendency to have larger
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families, there will be a shift in the proportion of white pupils to ethnic pupils from 70 per cent. to 60 per cent. That is a rise of from 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. of pupils from the ethnic groups.
That trend will increase the demand for extra language tuition and will have implications for the level of capital required for the schoolbuilding programme. Bradford already has a problem with school buildings, as over one-third of its schools were built before the end of the First World War and over 40 per cent. of the inner city primary schools are Victorian schools in every sense of that word.
That combination of problems requires a strategic approach from the local education authority itself, irrespective of the type of schools operating. Other LEAs will have different problems requiring different strategies, although there are some common problems among urban and inner city areas, as we heard this afternoon.
Bradford's strategy is based on high concentration on language development and achievement, bearing in mind that language competence affects the ability to learn across the whole curriculum. That strategy involves leadership and support to schools in promoting effective teaching based on relevant research and good practice; in-service training and development work; expansion of nursery education and early intervention in language learning; taking advantage of the reading recovery programme and the GEST projects; promoting better language competence generally, through community-based programmes and the training and use of adult support staff throughout the whole range of initiatives; and working with the local TEC, City Challenge and other community-based organisations to improve levels of training and competence.
Such a policy has resource implications, which, I suggest, are not adequately built into the national resource criteria. But Bradford's major resource problem lies in the capital grants area, where priority needs alone amount to over £200 million. If the replacement of temporary classrooms is included, which it is not at the moment, an extra £40 million has to be added, making a total of £240 million in all. That is not surprising when one notes that some inner city schools need as much as £2 million spending on the individual school and that 70 schools have outstanding bills of between £50,000 and £100,000. Yet Bradford is the 36th in the annual capital grants league, with a grant of barely over £4 million. The top grant in the league is £23.25 million; the 117th grant in the league is £41,000; and the last two of the 119 authorities have a nil grant.
I offer no comment on the comparative merits of those awards in the 119 authorities. But, knowing the dire needs of the Bradford local education authority, it seems that the funding of school buildings, let alone the ongoing costs of the education content within the schools, has reached crisis level. If we are to achieve the objectives of this debate, an urgent review followed by urgent action on the funding of education is called for.
5.5 p.m.
Baroness Brigstocke: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for initiating this important debate. There is no doubt that on all sides of the House there is the unanimous desire to improve the quality of education for all our children from the earliest years to at least the age of 19. Our ideas may differ as to how best that can be achieved.
Let us he thankful for the good things that there are in our education system at the present day. This afternoon we have already been given several examples and some very fine ones. Let us determine to bring all our schools up to the highest standard.
Although I was a school principal, or should I say a head teacher, for 25 years, I shall not speak about that experience, for it was in the academically selective independent sector. Today, I am concerned with state education and some examples of good practice. In this context I speak as a founding trustee for the City Technology Colleges Trust and as chairman since 1992 of the Landau Forte College in Derby, a school built on what is still a bit of an industrial wasteland. But who cares? The building is purpose built and good, well kept and clean, although the games facilities are restricted through lack of space.
Landau Forte, which is now in its fourth year of operation, has 750 pupils. We estimate that it will eventually have an enrolment of more than 1,000 students aged 11 to 18. The two founding sponsors, Martin Landau and Forte plc, have invested millions in the school and it is now attracting investment from the business community around and in Derby. One could say that it is enlightened self-interest, for Derby companies will benefit from the well trained and well educated workforce which Landau Forte is already providing. For example, one of our BTEC students (I remind noble Lords that BTEC stands for the Business and Technology Education Council qualification, which is taken either instead of or side by side with A-levels) in the two-year post-16 course was one of only 17 to be accepted on the Marks & Spencer management training course out of a field of 2,000—and that was straight from school.
That school, which is beginning to do well, is not academically selective. However, because of the large numbers of applicants, there needs to be some form of selection procedure. Selection is on two criteria: first, a simple test of technological aptitude—some sense of space, of manual dexterity; secondly, the commitment of the parents, who are: expected to support their child in full-time education until the age of 18—the emphasis is on co-operation and mutual support. The intake is representative of the whole population of Derby and, through the curriculum and most of all through the ethos of the school, all the sixth-form leavers are going on to further education or training. Their courses include medicine, physics, biochemistry, building, surveying, accountancy and aero-engineering. We have our share of children who are in need of extra help: 18 per cent. of students are of different ethnic origin—8.3 per cent. Indian, 4.4 per cent. Pakistani and the rest include
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Afro-Caribbean and Chinese. As for pupil support, 14.83 per cent. of the school qualified for free school meals and 20.33 per cent. for uniform allowance.
The special needs situation is unsatisfactory because there is such a delay in obtaining statements for those who need them. We have 45 students at one or other of the five stages which could lead to statementing. Our budget from the DFEE is based on the average school budget of all those local authorities in which the CTCs are situated. The difference is that the annual unit allowance for each CTC student is uplifted by £165—£50 to cover special inner city status; £100 to cover "CTCness"; and the other £15 is to pay VAT.
What is "CTCness"? I speak of Landau Forte because it is the college that I have come to know best. Altogether, across the country, there are now 15 of the original CTCs, 127 technology colleges, 16 language colleges and 115 affiliated schools; the number is mounting. Through that network of schools the CTC Trust is working not only to raise standards in technology, maths, science and modern languages in the case of specialist schools, but also to ensure that there is an effective partnership with industry to secure the appropriate skills for the future needs of this country.
The schools in the network are linked by the Internet and there is an exciting project with headteachers on "headnet"; a pilot for head teachers in developing their expertise using the Internet and electronic mail. Other projects of the trust which may be helpful to all schools include publications such as Adding Value and Improving Performance, Working with Parents and English for Technology. Those all address areas of concern in schools today.
Two colleges in particular have had outstanding success this year. Harris City Technology College in South London raised its pass rate per pupil to 4.25 per cent. for those taking GCSEs, with 43 per cent. of pupils gaining five or more at grades A to C. The Thomas Telford School had such a successful Ofsted result that it appears as though the figures on achievement, quality of learning and quality of teaching, are among the highest ever recorded by Ofsted.
I wish to make two final points. The first concerns statementing and the local authority whose responsibilities are highlighted today. Our Derbyshire authority has a statutory authority to deal with special needs provision. We would like to be able to call in the education psychology service to help with our assessment of pupils with special needs at the first required stages. But Derbyshire refuses to sell us its services.
Finally, the first thing we notice when entering Landau Forte is a board. On it is written,
"Emphasis will be given to equipping students with the qualifications, personal skills and attitudes required for successful adult life and creating an environment in which all people are valued and respected".
I believe that is better than giving specific commandments. We have already heard of the overburdening of teachers. I should like to finish with a quotation from Montesquieu:

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"We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our teachers and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us".
5.15 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, it is a special pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. My wife and I had seven grandchildren educated by her. We are very proud of them and grateful to her for the way in which she brought them up.
I shall use my few minutes to discuss a question which has cropped up occasionally, although it has not been the main topic today. We are told in the newspapers, if we read them—one can hardly have missed this over the past few days—that what schools must now do is teach children the difference between right and wrong. I want to dwell on that question for a few moments.
I speak with diffidence in the presence of a distinguished modern philosopher like the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. She must be the only distinguished philosopher who is married to another distinguished philosopher, very much lamented. I therefore speak with diffidence in her presence. However, I do not think that she would suggest that moral philosophy is something that schools should have to teach our children.
A philosopher who frightened generations of graduates in my time as an undergraduate and Don was Professor Joseph. He used to put the question, "What do you mean by that?" That foxed everybody until a student called Lindermann came along—later Viscount Charwell—and pulled him up by asking "What do you mean by 'mean'"? That stopped the professor in his tracks.
That was one philosopher. Then of course there was the philosopher criticised by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and her husband, the late Professor Ayer, who taught us that moral sense was just an emotive affair and therefore there was no right or wrong in anything. That was very palatable to many young undergraduates and had a disastrous effect.
Then, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, was asked to write an introduction—a great compliment to an undergraduate—to Five Types of Ethical Theory by Professor Broad. I do not believe the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, would tell us that that is the way to teach students.
So what must we teach them? How do we teach them the difference between right and wrong? First, we must decide the code that we want to teach them. If they are talking about right and wrong in the abstract, we have to tell them that some things are right and some things are wrong. I suppose we could make a start with the Ten Commandments, which would carry us a certain distance but not all the way. However, there are aspects of the Ten Commandments on which I am sure the right reverend Prelates and some of our other religious leaders will wish to dwell. One of the Ten Commandments is to forbid adultery. Do we hear much about that?
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One may say that to teach small children about adultery is hardly relevant. Nevertheless, I venture to repeat what I have said in this House many times before. Fornication—that is, sex before marriage—leads to adultery afterwards; adultery afterwards leads to broken homes, which in turn leads to crime. Many of the troubles of the age go back to that fact. Living in sin, as the Archbishop of Canterbury recently described it—living together before marriage—is quite fashionable. Surely therefore if we are to teach young people anything of what is right and wrong, we must teach them sexual morals.
There is a difficulty in that regard because so many people we love and admire have been guilty of breaking the sexual rules. People we would never dream of associating with dishonesty, cruelty or any of what are ordinarily considered to be human weaknesses, have fallen down in that respect. It is therefore always harder for people, especially those who may themselves not be impeccable in that respect, to preach that message. Nevertheless, if we are to talk about teaching people right and wrong, we must include sexual morals and I make no bones about saying that.
My main point is that if we are to teach people ethics, in a country which is overwhelmingly Christian—all this nonsense about multi-faith makes me, as Goering would say, reach for my gun, if I had one—the ethics taught should be Christian ethics. If anyone can find me a book on ethics which is not Christian, I should he glad to be told afterwards.
If we start with Christian ethics, that means the Gospels. If one specific sentence is to be taken from the Gospels and one sentence only, it should be,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'.
That comes from Leviticus in the Old Testament. Christ carried it very much further and told us that it includes everybody, not just a specific race or community. I need hardly say that it includes humanists, of whom there are quite a few distinguished Members in this House. It includes criminals, whom people sometimes find rather hard to love. Nevertheless,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"
includes everyone. So, if I am asked where we should start with children, where we should start to teach them morals, I say that we should get them to read the Gospels. They will never regret it and nor will the country.
5.19 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, some 10 or 12 years ago I recall being invited to address a local management school on the management problems of large organisations. I spent my allotted time discussing management in human terms, particularly how different groups of people led by different individuals might follow almost diametrically opposed paths and both would produce very successful results. I did not know, because I had not been told, that the school taught management as a precise science. I might add that I was not asked again. I feel perhaps slightly in that position today.

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I have long experience of management in education in one sense. I was a member of a local education authority—it was a county council and not an education committee—for nearly 30 years. I go back to two notorious circulars—1065 and 1066—which we would all do well to remember. I go back that far because the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in an excellent maiden speech, talked about an investment in education for 40 years and for generations to come. He is right. I remember saying, a few years after those notorious circulars, when we were working together in Essex on the revolution that the circulars induced or, if one likes, compelled, that if we were wrong we would bear a dreadful burden for which future generations would not thank us. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, indicate how pervasive some of the perverse ideas of those times still are. They are still very strongly within our education system.
One of the great problems which I was never able to solve concerns the diversity of performance of similar institutions. If we had ever been able to raise the performance of schools which were similar from the level of the average to the level of the good, or, better still, from the level of the poor performer to the level of the good performer, many of our educational problems would have disappeared. In that sense I think we must welcome the great initiative to give head teachers proper training.
There is little doubt that success in an educational institution depends crucially on the skill, initiative and drive—it is drive—of the man who heads the institution. One can only observe this as a result of empirical observation, but empirical observation from going round many establishments gives a clear indication of what I have said. One will find successful, highly motivated schools with successful, highly motivated children, with parents participating and keen for success, only where there is a head teacher who is capable of inspiring all those diverse groups and interests to come together for a common good. If we can achieve a greater level of success—in saying that I am making no criticism of existing head teachers because many of them face very difficult problems and there is a great diversity across all their schools—we can begin to achieve much higher standards in education.
Quality in education is not a question of money. It never has been. With all the thrust that there has been from what I would call the "Oliver syndrome"—the temptation to demand more—we have always had the paradox of success mixed with relative lack of success. If only we could do more in that field, we could do better.
There is another indicator at the present time on the financial front which perhaps I should not mention, but I shall. Nowadays, under local management schemes, schools manage their own budgets and keep their own funds. They carry forward any balances from one financial year to the next. I do not know the situation in every local education authority. I can quote only the one I know best. But with all the talk that we hear of squeezes on expenditure and cuts, the fact remains that in the previous financial year the balances held by Essex schools increased by more than £1 million. They
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increased from £25 million to £26 million. That is a considerable chunk of the public's money which was raised to pay for education but is sitting in banks on deposit because of the perhaps prudent—or perhaps not prudent—decisions of school governing bodies. They are entitled to take those decisions and they are entitled to save for a rainy day. But one has to ask whether having a large sum of money gradually building up is necessarily correct.
There is nothing else I wish to add except that these points apply equally in the primary sector. It is in that sector that the foundations of education are laid. It at any time there are more resources—I note the discrepancy between the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, of cuts, which implies underresourcing, and the rather different attitude one would hear if one were speaking to the Leader of the Opposition in another place, or indeed the Shadow Chancellor, where they are quite clear that they do not wish to increase the expenditure—it is quite clear in my mind that they should go into the primary sector.
5.28 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris for giving us the opportunity to debate education. We would all agree that teaching is a tough and demanding job. I sometimes feel that we expect too much of our teachers. What they need above all at the present time is stability and no more drastic changes in the way they do their work.
No area is more demanding than that of special needs. I should like to say a little about special needs teaching. When children fall behind, when they cannot keep up, particularly with literacy, it poses an enormous problem and cost to schools. Later in life, alas, a minority of children who have not achieved normal standards of literacy tend to become involved in anti-social behaviour and some of them even in crime. I do not believe there are any easy answers to this problem but we have some evidence that there are ways forward. One approach has apparently worked., and I say that based on evidence. I refer to the reading recovery programme which was developed in New Zealand and has been used since 1983. It has also been put into practice in Australia, Canada and the United States.
In 1992 the Government made some funds available through the grant for education support and training under the theme Raising Standards in Inner City Schools. There was a national pilot scheme and 20 LEAs bid successfully for £40 million spread over a three-year period. In September 1993 a team of national co-ordinators was appointed to monitor and support national implementation. Unfortunately, at the end of the three-year pilot scheme, the Government declined to make further funds available, arguing that it was up to the LEAs.
What is reading recovery, which I believe has the potential to make a significant difference? It is not essentially a classroom literacy programme; it is an early intervention programme which targets six year-olds, before statementing in most cases, who after a year at school have made a slow start and are at risk of falling

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further behind, especially in literacy. The concept is that a specially trained teacher gives intensive daily tutorials to enable the children to catch up after, say, six months and not to need further support. That is the success of the programme. The cost to an average primary school is about half a teacher's salary.
The question is this: does it work and does it work well enough? There is evidence from the United States and Australia. In this country, given the pilot scheme, an evaluation commissioned by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority showed that the programme was more successful than alternative approaches and also better than the usual form of remedial help offered by schools. Although the programme was expensive—and I certainly concede that—its greater effectiveness indicated that it was in effect cost-effective. Providing ordinary in-school support over a four-year period would have cost the same but with less tangible improvement in the literacy attainment of the children.
What is the position in the United Kingdom today? Twenty-six LEAs in England, two in Wales and two in Northern Ireland have now set up reading recovery centres where tutors train teachers to develop the programme. It is estimated that about 5,000 six year-olds benefited last year. By July last year we had 900 teachers working in that area, but today that figure has fallen to 750 because of the lack of funds.
I believe that early intervention requires special funding. I should like to quote from what the HMI said in its evaluation of Raising Standards in Inner City Schools projects, which included reading recovery. It said,
"What has worked has been early intervention … a programme of professional development for teachers which provides specific skills and knowledge to address, for example, pupils' poor standards of reading … and the effective use of data to establish base-line indicators and measure pupil progress … detailed pupil assessment and carefully targeted programmes of remediation … embedding elements of projects in the school's policies and practice".
The HMI went on to say,
"LEAs with reading recovery were able from the start to collect detailed information about the day-to-day progress of pupils".
Therefore, we have something which I believe has been proved to be effective. I believe that the Government's argument will be based on cost. I concede that £10,000 for half a teacher in every primary school comes to a large sum of money. The scheme would cost £75 million if it were introduced immediately. But we can offset that against, first, the savings in long-term remedial support and, secondly, the more substantial, but difficult to quantify, savings which result from eliminating the difficulties of a lifetime of illiteracy and under-achievement for any individual.
The Government have made some more money available. They have recently announced plans to set up a national network of 10 primary literacy centres. I am not quite clear what these are intended to do, but I wish that the money for those centres had been used for the reading recovery programme. We have a situation where in Nottingham and Wolverhampton projects that were set up with government support have had to be abandoned. Authorities in places like Doncaster,
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Rotherham, Islington and Wandsworth cannot afford to allow tutors to train any more teachers this year. So the schemes are coming to a halt.
There are other benefits in the reading recovery programme. Although it is not intended to be a classroom literacy programme, as I have said, nevertheless teachers trained in its use acquire wider skills which they can use in the classroom because they will have a more thorough understanding of the reading process; they will have an ability to monitor children's progress effectively and help them build on their existing knowledge; and they will acquire skills which will enable them to match the level of texts in schools with the needs of the children who are learning literacy. So these skills will benefit many children in the primary classroom and not just those who have been selected for early intervention.
Before I conclude, perhaps I may say that, as an adjunct to this, it is important to mobilise parents. The majority of them are anxious to support their children and, if they are given help by the schools in pointing in the right direction, they can make a very rewarding and helpful contribution to children's education, not least in the area of children who are lacking in the right attainment in literacy. As I have said, many schools are doing that already. However, there is the difficulty that a very small minority of parents are not all that committed and there is a need to motivate them.
I believe that the reading recovery programme—I repeat that I do not believe that there are easy fixes in this area—has shown evidence that it can be a useful way of tackling an enormous difficulty. Without it, I fear that many more children will fall behind, at great cost to the rest of the educational system and subsequently to the country.
5.35 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, and welcome our two maiden speakers. I speak on the relationship between the education service and juvenile and youth crime. The Home Office alone cannot deal with the prevention of juvenile crime. I believe that the education service needs to be supported and there needs to be co-operation with parents, the social services and with the community at large. The Secretary of State has responsibility for education and employment and that I welcome. I believe that education could contribute very much more than it does at the moment to the prevention of juvenile and youth crime, but it needs help and co-operation.
Some months ago I visited an area of serious unemployment, particularly among the men and boys. I visited a school and found that there was a high rate of absenteeism among the boys two years prior to leaving school. I then saw a club leader in the area who said that the boys in particular believed that when they left school there would be no work, so they saw no reason to go to school. I talked to many of these boys who were totally unskilled. Would it not be possible, during the last two years of schooling, for each boy or girl to receive training in a skill in which they are interested?

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They may wish to train as a mechanic, carpenter or builder, or in cookery, and so forth. Perhaps attending a place of work for one day a week during the last years at school would help them to realise how important it is to have a skill and to be educated. Furthermore—and I find this difficult to say—it might even help if they were paid a minimal amount for the one day.
I submit that there are jobs available if a young person has a skill to offer. I am told that there is a shortage of mechanics in certain areas of the country. I am also told that the building trade is in need of skilled bricklayers, decorators and so forth. I know of three Australian boys who arrived in this country and within a week they each had a job: as a baker, as a driver of a delivery van and as a motor mechanic. I believe that if our children were given work training during the last two years of school and were given the hope of getting a job when they left school, we would greatly reduce the rate of juvenile crime.
I come now to the concerns about the relationship between juvenile crime and education as regards the younger child. Has the Department for Education sought the experience, for instance, of the Dartington research unit on exclusions from school and absenteeism, which have reached alarming figures? Has guidance been given to the education officers and head teachers as to how these matters can be dealt with?
Perhaps I may cite an example of a juvenile crime. I visited a boy of 12 in a local authority secure unit. I played Monopoly with him and he won. I am not very good at Monopoly; he was a lot better. That child, aged 12, had done 45 "jobs". I asked him how he had got caught on the 46th. He said, "I made a mistake. I cut myself on the window and the blood on my sleeve was the same as the blood on the window, so they caught me". I asked, "What did you do on those 45 jobs?" He then obviously regarded me as a fellow delinquent—he might be right—and said, "Miss, let me warn you: always steal small things. Silver is the best". I asked when he did that and he said, "Miss, you must get yourself excluded from school". I said, "What have you been doing for the past two years?" He said, "I have made a lot of money. Would you like me to tell you where to sell the silver?". Well, I found out. He then said, "Would you like to know what I do with the money?" I said, "Yes" and he said, "I buy Ecstasy". I did not ask him where he got the Ecstasy because I would have been honour-bound to tell the police and I felt that that might break his confidence in me.
I then asked him, "How is it that you are so well educated?" He said, "Miss, don't you know your Education Act? Don't you know that you must go to school and that you have to have education for five hours a week? I go to a church hall on Mondays where I have a teacher to myself for three hours in English, history and geography and then I go to a church hall on Thursdays and have a teacher to myself in maths". He added, "Miss, I am far better educated than the children at school".
I have great sympathy with teachers who have to deal with disruptive children who disrupt a whole class. I contend that those children need for a time—but not
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for long—to he educated, helped and encouraged quite separately from the school. When I was with Barnardos I remember a local authority and Barnardos co-operating to set up a house for 35 children with special teachers. It opened at weekends as well as during the week. I shall not go into the technique that it used—there is not the time—but within a year all those children returned to their normal schools. There was no longer any absenteeism from them and they had ceased to he disruptive in the classroom.
I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the Department for Education and Employment has sought any research into how such children will be dealt with. Have the success stories in dealing with such children been looked at? Until we really look at the problem and find a way out of it—we shall only find it by really good research—I contend that our juvenile crime figures will not drop.
5.43 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, in this debate my noble friend Lord Morris rightly wishes to draw our attention to the need for all children to have high quality education, including children with special needs. I too would like to speak about those particular children and I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris for providing this opportunity.
Since the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, it has been acknowledged that special needs children are best taught by integrating them into mainstream schools. That gives them a greater breadth of curriculum and intellectual stimulation and enables each child to reach his or her full potential.
However, that laudable aim is hindered by the Government in two ways. First, the Government give the problem to the local authorities without giving them the money to solve it. I refer secondly to the present operation of the school league tables. The Government's policies of encouraging schools to become grant-maintained and the proposed increase in a school's ability to select pupils are aimed at further undermining local authorities.
My noble friend Lord Morris, the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and my noble friend Lord Dubs told us how special needs children are dealt with. They reminded us that by law the burden falls squarely on the local authority, which is responsible for categorising the degree of special educational need of those children and for providing the appropriate learning support. As we have been told, that procedure is called "statementing". The process is rigorous and expensive and it is tempting to procrastinate and delay, because once a child is statemented, a further set of costs are incurred, straining yet further the inadequate funding which the local authorities receive for that purpose. Perhaps that explains the experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke. As a result, those vulnerable children and young people suffer and become the disaffected young people about whom my noble friend Lady David spoke.
There are rumours that the system of funding is to be changed. Can the Minister tell us whether there are any changes which will relieve the burden on local

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authorities with large numbers of special needs children? In his response I hope that the Minister will not refer to the £878 million of extra spending for schools that was announced in the Budget. I am sure that he will be aware that on Monday the all-party Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, on which the Government have a majority, stated:
"some schools may neither perceive or receive any increase in resources".
The committee said that there was "little doubt" that some local authorities would be unable to pass on the funds because their own reserves had been eroded by £850 million in 1994–95 and by £930 million in 1995–96.
"This increase in spending does not … have quite the substance the Chancellor claimed for it",
the committee said.
The second barrier to statemented children receiving high quality education is the present operation of the league tables. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, praised those tables but did not tell us that no account is taken of the value added by successfully integrating and educating a special needs child. Therefore, there is every incentive not to have special needs children in a school. The number of special needs children in a school does appear on the league table and from this we learn that grant-maintained secondary schools take far fewer special needs children than local education authority schools. The London Research Centre noted in October 1995 that local education authority secondary schools had 2 per cent. of statemented children, compared with 1.1 per cent. in grant-maintained schools.
In November 1995 we were told that there was a review planned for the league tables to include those added values. Can the Minister say whether the review will include the value added by integrating and educating special needs children, and how that will be done? At present the league table gives value only for exams passed. Some special needs children will never take exams. How do the Government intend to value the progress and effort made by those children?
The local authorities do address the needs of special needs children, and so the present system is rigorous and educationally sound. The individual educational plans could enable maximum development for the child, but that is undermined by the present system of funding, the league tables and the Government's wish to reduce the influence of local authorities over schools through their policies of opting out and selection. If the present systems were allowed to operate as intended, we could ensure that the local authority could deliver the high quality education to all children called for by my noble friend Lord Morris.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Tope: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for initiating the debate. Even by your Lordships' standards, it has been an exceptionally well informed, thoughtful and thought-provoking debate which I have enjoyed very much. It was characterised by two outstanding maiden
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speeches. They were outstanding in both content and delivery. It came as something of a relief to find that I agreed with everything said by my new noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in particular about education on the cheap and its impossibility. It came as not too much of a surprise to find that I agreed with virtually everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, although I think she went a little over the top in her reference to the extreme youth of the Government Front Bench.
At this stage I should, as I always do, declare an interest. I am still the leader of a London borough council, which is a local education authority, and the governor of an LEA-maintained school in the ward that I represent on that council. For good measure, my wife is a teacher. In spite of all those handicaps, I was pleased with the way in which we have debated the role of the LEAs. I was pleased that there was specific mention of them in the Motion before us and I was even more pleased by the generally constructive references that have been made to them today. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, was right to say that there are good and bad LEAs. The good ones vastly outnumber the bad, although inevitably one tends to hear more about the minority of bad ones than the great majority of good ones. I am pleased that that has not been the case today.
It is also true to say that the role of LEAs has changed enormously, certainly in the 10 years that I have been leading the council. When my party first came into control of the London borough of Sutton the previous Conservative Administration—it is not only Labour administrations that are bad—insisted on appointing a majority of school governors, insisted on having its own appointees as chairmen of governing bodies and all but one of the vice-chairmen had to be Conservative appointees. That has changed, as it had to, not least by Government legislation. It was something that we were keen to change. The interventionist days of the old-style LEA are gone for good, which is a thoroughly good thing.
Today local education authorities work very much in partnership with locally managed schools. They do not control them, they do not seek to control them and they do not wish to control them. They work in partnership with the schools, the staff, the parents, the local community and the pupils. There is a positive involvement of parents and the local community in their schools. I believe that that is the principal reason why the grant-maintained initiative has been such a failure.
When Conservative politicians speak of throwing off the shackles of the local education authority it is language that the local community does not recognise. It is not the reality that they know. That involvement led to protests such as we had last year, and may well have this year, about the funding cuts. Because of the involvement of parents and the local community in the running of their schools they knew where the blame lay. The suggestion that it lay principally with local education authorities did not wash with them. Funding is very much on the minds of all local education authorities at this time and of schools and parents too. Reference has already been made to the impression that the Government wish to create, and which some Tory

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MPs are gullible enough to believe, that the current settlement has brought no real additional resources to most LEAs. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, used exactly the quote that I was going to use from the Treasury Select Committee. That body has a Conservative majority and it made it quite clear, as did the Education Select Committee which reported before the Budget, that the picture is nowhere near as rosy as the Government would wish us to believe. I have spoken many times about the Government's underfunding and under-recognition of education. But as this Government daily demonstrate that they are nearing the end of their life, they become less relevant to the future. I wish today to turn to the issues of the future.
In an excellent opening speech with which I agree in large part, the noble Lord, Lord Morris, referred to the Government needing to tackle the undermining and underfunding of local education authorities. How right that is. None of us expects the present Government in their dying days to do that. Indeed, it would scarcely be credible for them to do so.
I listened to hear what new Labour is proposing. Presumably it has aspirations to government in 12 months or so. How is it proposing to tackle these urgent needs? I turn, first, to the point about undermining. I have no doubt about the commitment of new and old Labour to local education authorities. However, the party's proposals to allow grant-maintained schools, which it still denigrates, to remain outside the LEA framework must be undermining to those LEAs. The creation of so-called "foundation schools" is a fudge designed for no better purpose than to avoid upsetting the demonstrably small number of people who still believe that GM schools are a good idea.
GM schools were another of the Prime Minister's big ideas. In spite of all the bribes and the very unlevel playing field, very few schools have chosen to opt-out. That shows that another big idea has failed. Even the announcement of the Labour Party's fudge on foundation schools did not lead to an increase in opting out. In fact, quite the reverse.
The Prime Minister's flagship has sunk but what beats me is why the Labour Party should so want to cling to the wreckage as to compromise its commitment to the LEAs. The Liberal Democrat Party is the only party able to give a clear and unequivocal commitment to strategic, light touch LEAs working in partnership with all the locally managed maintained schools in their areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, also referred to underfunding. Carefully though I have listened to all the speakers from the Labour Benches, there has been a deafening silence about what the Labour Party will do about that underfunding. All of us are committed to improving quality and standards in education, albeit, we have different ideas about how that should be done. None of us believes that more resources is all that is needed, but we recognise that improvements will not he made without more resources. The Liberal Democrats have been honest enough to recognise that, and our commitment to provide increased resources for
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education is well known. That is real, new money and not existing resources recycled from other much needed and underfunded public services.
I do not doubt for one moment the sincerity of many in the Labour Party, particularly some of my colleagues in local government, in their very real commitment to education. But where is the commitment of new Labour actually to fund the improvements it calls for? So far it seems to extend only to the resources which will become available from the phasing out of the assisted places scheme. That, it seems, will pay for everything from nursery places for three year-olds to better teacher training.
Welcome though the phasing out of the assisted places scheme will be in itself, nobody believes that the resources so released will be more than a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed. As a pragmatic politician, I can well understand new Labour's reluctance to give any hostages to fortune too long before a general election. I look forward to a detailed and costed manifesto which I am sure it will produce at the time of the election. Then perhaps we will get the real measure of its commitment to education.
However, it has an opportunity well before then at least to show some commitment to the priority it says it gives to education. If that is a real commitment, at least it can show that it comes higher in the party's priorities than its commitment to tax cuts. New Labour will show its real priorities by how it votes on tax cuts proposed in the Finance Bill currently before the other place, as all but a handful of "old Labour" MPs failed to do on the Budget debate.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, will not be in a position to commit Labour Members of Parliament in the other place. I do not expect that. However, if new Labour wants the country seriously to believe that it really does give top priority to education, as I know it does, I hope that it will use this important debate to urge its colleagues in the other place to demonstrate that in the vote that will come on the tax cuts. If it does, I know from my own experience, as does the noble Baroness, that it will receive the very full support of its party colleagues throughout the country, colleagues who are struggling to run LEAs with ever-diminishing resources.
As I said before, this debate has been characterised not only by its high quality but also by the deafening silence from those on the Labour Benches as to what they propose to do about the issues which they have rightly raised. Talk of underfunding of education but silence today on proposed tax cuts will speak volumes.
6 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, it is for me a particular pleasure to thank my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris for initiating and introducing this very important debate. It is a debate which I agree has been excellent, even by the standards set normally by your Lordships' House, and it has certainly been enhanced by the contributions of both the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and my noble friend Lady Hayman. Like my noble friend Lady

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Hayman, I too have spent much of my life in the category of a married woman about to return. My noble friend's speech demonstrated that this is a serious opportunity for people to enhance their knowledge, experience and skills. I look forward to future contributions from both maiden speakers.
As my noble friend Lord Morris said in opening the debate, it is about quality in education. As he stressed, it is about quality for all children in all schools in all places at all times. This is an extremely important issue and the role, powers and duties of LEAs in the contribution which they make towards high quality education provision for all pupils have been referred to on many occasions by noble Lords.
I do not intend to speak for my colleagues in another place on this occasion. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, knows me too well as a colleague in local government to expect me to do so. However, I refer the noble Lord to the fact that we have a commitment to phase in nursery education for all three and four year-olds whose parents wish them to have it. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, referred to that. I should declare an interest because I am still a member of a county council and was chair of education for 10 years. While a few parents do not wish their children to have the advantage of nursery education, the overwhelming majority do wish their children to have the benefit of appropriate nursery education. The Labour Party commitment in that regard is quite clear, as is its commitment to five, six and seven year-olds being taught in classes of not more than 30 pupils.
This debate provides us with a timely opportunity to discuss the future relationship between government and education. It is erroneous to refer constantly to grant-maintained schools as somehow escaping a relationship with government. The relationship changes from that with the LEA to that with central government and with a quango of appointed people.
The Labour Party's commitment is that the organisation of schooling does, and should, recognise that schools are responsible for managing themselves and that accountability must exist to parents and to the community as a whole within that locality. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon made a point about the importance of the relationship between the community and the schools serving that community.
The Labour Party is committed also to fair and open funding and admission procedures which must be against the reintroduction or maintenance of 11-plus selection and unfair advantage. I understand and respect the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brigstocke, through the work of a city technology college. But I do not believe that it is fair to make a comparison between a school where the method of selection for pupils' admission is commitment of parents and a school which cannot choose to refuse to take children where there is a lack of parental support, for whatever reason.
In this debate there have been numerous references to the excellent work of LEAs. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to a variety of issues which have
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been taken up at national level. I wish to make plain that many of those issues and initiatives came from local education authorities in the first place. The national curriculum was pressed for by local education authorities with the support of their Church representatives. The prescriptive nature of the Government's initial introduction has been recognised by them in the changes that they have sought to make. Moreover, local management of schools was initiated originally by LEAs, including Cambridgeshire.
Local education authorities have powers and duties. My noble friends Lord Haskel and Lord Dubs referred to special educational needs, as did my noble friend Lady David and the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, with her distinguished knowledge in that field. That is one role which LEAs fulfil well. There is even greater difficulty as regards meeting the needs of statemented pupils compared with non-statemented pupils. I believe that 18 per cent. of pupils with special educational needs are non-statemented and are to be found in a preponderance of schools serving disadvantaged communities. That is another argument for not making crude comparisons between the performance of one school and another.
The initiatives taken by local education authorities are to be welcomed. The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, referred to parental involvement initiatives in Birmingham. There are other initiatives under way. I hope that in his response the Minister will wish well the Hackney authority's parent support service which is in its infancy. It is supported by a generous donation from the Carlton Television Trust. A good feature of that parent support project is that the booklet for parents is written by a group of parents who have been able to communicate with other parents.
The issues which have been raised highlight the need for local education authorities to have resources not only to transfer to school budgets—a very important feature of LEAs—but also for two other vital functions. One is to rectify what must, with the best will in the world, be a crude national formulae method for funding individual schools and LEAs. It is critically important that funds allow problems which arise through the national formulae to be tackled where the local community knows and believes that that needs to be done.
Secondly, there is the important issue of the powers of LEAs. I refer to the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in relation to the prevention of juvenile crime. That work may be done by special educational needs staff and also by the youth and community service. Again, that is an area which is vulnerable if LEAs do not have funds for such projects and do not have the power to raise funds.
Throughout the debate about the role of local education authorities runs a very troubling thread. I refer to people who take examples of local government not working in an acceptable way and use them as an argument against the contribution of local democracy. Even central governments may make mistakes. One thinks perhaps of the community charge. But that is not an argument against democratic accountability.

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In line with our policy to seek to identify and disseminate good practice through our Quality For All initiative, the approach of those on this side of the House is to use LEAs as a source of knowledge and build on their experience. The Government now appear to be listening to the voices of those in the community. I hope that the Minister in his reply will listen to the voices of so many in this debate and reassure us that a partnership between central and local government in the provision of good education will be the hallmark of the Government's future response to this subject.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I start by offering my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, on what I think is the first debate that she has wound up from the Dispatch Box. I very much look forward to hearing her on many subsequent occasions on the subject of education, together with her noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris. I also offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, on what I believe has been a very interesting debate of the highest quality. Speaking on behalf of myself and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that may be because we speak as mere men in a debate in which over half the speakers are noble Baronesses. I believe that that has added a great deal to the debate and reflects well on this House.
I also offer my congratulations to both maiden speakers—first, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I am glad she recognises that neither I nor my noble friend Lord Lucas is a grandparent. Like her, we are mere parents, but no doubt in due course we may join that probably larger majority of grandparents in this House. We welcome her back to political life after 17 years in which, as my noble friend Baroness Perry put it, she probably learned a great deal more and served a more useful role than we could ever do. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness on many occasions.
I also appreciated the opportunity to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, from the Liberal Benches. I look forward to further contributions in which he will bring to bear his expertise on the subject of higher education. This is not a subject in which we are notably lacking in expertise in this House, as I have learned to my cost and will no doubt learn to my cost on many occasions.
I should like to pick up one point that he made. To some extent I reject and have been saddened by his allegation that I and my ministerial colleagues wish to denigrate teachers. Obviously, there are bad teachers. There always have been bad teachers, and it is quite likely that there always will be. What I and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State have done is to make clear that we believe that the majority of teachers do a very good job. That was something that I tried to make absolutely clear in the summer when, in the absence of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, I announced the A-level and GCSE results, both of which showed an improvement. The point that I wished to get over then, as now, was that obviously I wished to praise pupils and parents,
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but those to whom I first offered praise were their teachers who were mostly responsible for that particular achievement.
As always in a debate of this kind, a great many subjects have been raised. Noble Lords would not expect me to answer all of the points put this evening, but they can rest assured that where specific questions have been asked of me I will, where appropriate, reply to them. I should like to deal briefly with two or three points before I get onto the substance of my speech. The noble Baroness, Lady David, spoke with some expertise on special needs and a project in Cambridge. The noble Baroness will know that that is one of my responsibilities within the newly merged Department for Education and Employment. It is within the special needs and disabled field generally that we hope to see some added strength as a result of the merger. I would be interested to hear more about the subject that she mentioned. If on this occasion she would care to write to me, I would be more than happy to receive her letter.
We also heard somewhat different views on the question whether A-levels should or should not be scrapped. I believe that my noble friend Lord Skidelsky and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, carne at this from very different points of view. As many noble Lords will be aware, this is something that Sir Ron Dearing is examining in detail at the moment in Ins whole review of the 16 to 19 qualifications. He produced his interim report last summer, and he is preparing to produce his final report around about Easter. I hope that that will very much inform the further debate that we can all have on that occasion about how to develop the qualifications for 16 to 19 year-olds.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for his remarks and the issues that he addressed. Those issues were raised by the chief executive of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Dr. Nicholas Tate, in the SCAA conference that he organised on Monday. That debate will not only be very useful, but I believe that it is absolutely fundamental to our future—to how schools operate and to how we see the development of our children. I am grateful to the noble Earl for that.
My noble friend Baroness Faithfull put forward some very interesting ideas, in particular on the subject of work experience for 14 to 16 year-olds. This is something about which I and my right honourable friend are very concerned. It is a matter that needs to be addressed. My noble friend is right to refer to the fact that some 14 to 16 year-olds need more than the basic work experience that we make available at that age; that something more may be appropriate, particularly for those who have been alienated from the educational system. That is a debate in which we can all usefully engage.
The noble Lord's Motion deals with the need for high quality education. Obviously, I am grateful to the noble Lord for providing the House with the opportunity to debate these matters, but I believe that in general it is not something that needs to be drawn to the attention of the Government. On the contrary, over the past 16 to 17 years our policies and initiatives have done more than anything to put the

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spotlight on quality. That emphasis on quality has been central to our educational policy. Throughout our term of office we have striven to ensure high standards and to promote diversity and enhance choice. I believe that all of those play their part in raising standards. To set clear standards and make sure that they are met is central to all that we do. That was why we first introduced and developed the national curriculum. As I understood it, at the time that was opposed by the Party opposite. It now accepts it.
Baroness David: My Lords, I was on the Front Bench at that time. What we opposed was the prescriptive nature of the national curriculum.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for correcting me on that particular matter, but I did not notice the sort of support that we should have been getting on the general subject of a national curriculum. I accept that the precise design of the national curriculum was not as it might be at the beginning. That was why we asked Sir Ron Dearing to review it, and that was why we came forward with further changes to the national curriculum late last year. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, spoke about the need for stability. I should like to make quite clear that there is now a moratorium on any further substantial changes in the national curriculum. That moratorium will last for some five years and, I believe, will allow schools the stability that they feel they require.
As noble Lords opposite will be aware—and, again, as opposed by them—we introduced the regular assessment of children at the ages of seven, 11 and 14 that is now in place. Last year we had a more or less complete operation of those tests. Again, I believe that that was opposed by the party opposite, but I hope that it is now accepted.
Performance tables were published last year. They are now well bedded in and have proved to be extraordinarily popular. Indeed, one only has to look at the amount of coverage that they receive in newspapers to realise just how effective they have been and how popular they are. Again, they were opposed by the party opposite but now, I hope, are accepted. I believe it was a Mr. John Rae, not a noted supporter of this Government, who said that he believed that the performance tables had probably done more than anything—more than any other reform—to improve standards in our schools.
Perhaps I may touch on a few points relating to performance tables. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, asked about the inclusion of added value and whether a review was under way to look into added value in the performance tables. I can tell the House that it is not a review as such, but we have asked some academics at Newcastle University to conduct research into possible ways in which added value might be included. I would only be happy to go down the line of including added value in the performance tables if I felt that they would still maintain their simplicity; that they would still be user friendly; and that they would still serve their purpose of encouraging schools to improve their standards. Moreover, we have seen yet further
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improvement through the creation of the Office for Standards in Education. I believe that we now have very effective measures for dealing with the failing or poorly performing schools.
I believe that wider diversity and choice—and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Perry for stressing the importance of wider choice in terms of improving and increasing parental involvement—are surely desirable in their own right. However, I also believe that they have a beneficial effect on quality. Education cannot reach the highest quality unless it caters for special needs and talents.
I turn now to our steps to increase diversity of provision; for example, by encouraging the formation of city technology colleges. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Brigstocke for bringing to the debate her expertise on the matter. The formation of city technology colleges and the other specialist schools have helped children with certain special talents or aptitudes to get the best education for themselves as individuals.
Enhancing choice also plays its part in raising standards. Where there is choice, there is competition. A monopoly of supply in any service presents a threat to efficiency and to standards. I do not believe that education is exempt from that general rule. There is also the widening of choice, for example, through the expansion of the grant-maintained provision—again, that was opposed by the party opposite; but I dare say that now, with increasing numbers of Members opposite making use of grant-maintained schools, we shall see a change of policy on that front in due course—and through the assisted places scheme. We believe that that helps to stimulate yet higher standards in schools generally.
Similarly, we have not neglected further education and the vocational training for those who leave school at the age of 16. Again, that has been very much strengthened by the merger of the two departments into the Department for Education and Employment. I believe that it brings a new rigour to all the post-16 qualifications and, in particular, it brings a greater comparability and a shared status between the two—that is, the vocational and the academic strands. That is what we seek to achieve.
Perhaps I may briefly say a few words about the role of local authorities. I was saddened by the somewhat negative approach of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, to our attitudes to all local education authorities. Like many other speakers, I have served in my time as a member of an LEA. We accept that LEAs have an important role to play, even in the areas where there are grant-maintained schools. We accept that they have a role in planning the supply of school places, either alone or in areas where there are significant numbers of grant-maintained schools, in conjunction with the Funding Agency for Schools.
We also accept that local authorities help to promote higher standards in those schools that they continue to maintain. We also accept that they provide a number of services for pupils in both LEA schools and grant-maintained schools—such as educational

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psychology, educational welfare services and the home-school transport. Further, they provide education, as has been referred to, for pupils not in schools for one reason or another.
Clearly the role of the LEAs has already changed over time. No doubt it will continue to change with changing circumstances. It would not be useful to speculate on that aspect. However, I can assure the noble Lord—and, indeed, the LEAs—that they do have an important role to play and that we and Ofsted are helping them to play that role effectively. I certainly reject the implied criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Morris.
I turn briefly to the question of funding and the levels of funding. First, I should like to refer back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, in an earlier debate last year. Although I was unable to respond to the debate on that occasion—my noble friend Lady Miller did so—as I remember it, the noble Lord made it quite clear that merely pouring more money into education was not necessarily the solution and that, if there was a solution whereby one merely poured more money into it, the problems that there are or might be in education would have been solved many years ago.
However, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that we have spent a great deal on education and have not under-resourced it, as he would put it, over the past few years. Indeed, we see an extra £878 million going to schools in 1996–97. I reject the allegations from the noble Lord, Lord Tope, that that is not a real increase. That is a 4.5 per cent. increase in funds available from the taxpayer to the LEAs. How the LEAs manage their own budgets in such a way that the increase reaches the schools is obviously a matter for them. But I am sure that some will manage to do so.
We have also seen spending per pupil in the primary and secondary schools increase since 1979 by some 48 per cent. Spending per pupil on equipment rose by 55 per cent.; spending per pupil on repairs and maintenance rose by 15 per cent.; and spending per pupil on support staff rose by about 138 per cent. Therefore, I believe that one can say that the allegations that we have seriously underfunded education over the years are simply not true.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, also based many of his arguments on a somewhat odd report from the World Economic Forum, The World Competitiveness Report, that tried to imply that the United Kingdom was way at the bottom of the pile in terms of educational achievement. I have to tell the noble Lord that the method adopted by that report is not exactly the best way to compare the supply of skills across countries. It is based on incomplete and disparate statistics and arrives at some pretty curious results. Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example. I should point out to the noble Lord that the top two countries on availability of skilled people in the 1995 report turned out to be the Republic of Ireland and the Philippines. That almost certainly reflects the poor demand for skilled people in those economies, rather than an inherently better education and training system.
It is also noteworthy that Japan stands in 22nd place, some two places below the United Kingdom. As part of the commitment that we made in the competitiveness
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White Paper, I can say that the skills audit is currently carrying out a more detailed and robust examination of how the skills of the UK workforce compare with those of our colleagues and competitors in France, Germany, the United States and Singapore.
I see that my time is rapidly drawing to an end. However, there are just one or two points that I wish to address briefly. I was somewhat alarmed by the sceptical approach taken by my noble friend Lord Skidelsky on nursery education. That is certainly something that I hope to discuss with him in due course. I trust that my noble friend will take part in the proceedings on the Bill when I have the pleasure to introduce it to your Lordships' House. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, attacked the proposal from the other side. That probably means that I am somewhere in the middle and, as a result, I hope that we have got it about right. But those arguments are best left for the Second Reading and Committee stage of the Bill.
The last principal point I wish to address is on the question of voluntary-aided schools, the opt-out and the proposals that the Government put out for consultation. We are accused by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, of ignoring the advice of bishops. I have heard worse sins in my time but no doubt ignoring the advice of bishops is a pretty major one. I assure the noble Lord that we did not ignore the advice of the bishops. We issued that paper for consultation. The noble Lord knows exactly what consultation is. As the right reverend Prelate made absolutely clear, we then did consult. We consulted the bishops. There was no U-turn. We took account of what they said and acted accordingly.
I have to say in passing that I was somewhat surprised by the comments of one of the bishops. I have to say to the right reverend Prelate that I do not think it was a bishop from the established Church of this country hut another bishop who made it clear that, in his words, grant-maintained schools were contrary to the teachings of Christ. Obviously my knowledge of Biblical matters is not as great as that of some right reverend Prelates but I am certainly not aware of that passage in the Gospels. But if someone can bring it to my attention I should be more than happy.
As I hope I have made clear, high quality education is crucial to both individual and national interests for all of us. But we need to be quite clear on just how high quality education is to be achieved or, more specifically, who is going to achieve it. The answer must he those closest to the point of delivery—the staff and governors of individual schools, colleges and universities. External agencies like funding bodies, local authorities and my department can obviously help, but the key responsibilities must lie with the institutions themselves. We believe in giving institutions power to match those particular responsibilities. That is why increasing institutional autonomy has been such an important part of our education reforms, and that is why we believe that the grant-maintained sector has given so much to so many and now covers something of the order of 20 per cent. of all secondary children.

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I fear that I am beginning to trespass on the time of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. Let me briefly end. Education policy is attracting more attention, within this House, within Parliament as a whole and within the country at large, than it has done for many years. Whatever the reasons for that, I very much welcome it. We need debate and we have had a jolly good debate this afternoon. We need constructive discussion of how best to meet the needs of children and young people. We need information and evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches. This Government have absolutely no reason to fear such discussion—least of all the focus it brings to the issue of quality in education. Quality has been the touchstone of our policies throughout the last 16 years and it will continue to be so for the next 16 years.
6.33 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, slightly to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this debate. I am most grateful to all noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have taken part. I specially enjoyed the distinguished maiden speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire—though from a fellow member of the professoriate I would have expected no less—and from my noble friend Lady Hayman. If she is a retread, who wants a new tyre? I even enjoyed the characteristically clear and courteous speech of the Minister. I did not agree with much of it of course, but it was informative, helpful and thoughtful and I am grateful to him for it. All of us want high quality education for all our children and that is the heart of the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Co-operatives
6.34 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter rose to call attention to the benefits of co-operative action in the provision of social policy and in business, and the case for a new co-operatives Act to assist in such provision; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in introducing this debate I should declare an interest as the chairman of the United Kingdom Co-operative Council which is the single representative body for the whole co-operative movement in the UK. It has in its membership representation of consumer co-operatives, insurance, banking, agriculture, housing, credit unions, worker co-operatives and the co-operative development organisations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I should also say that I have been a secretary and director of a major agricultural co-operative for nearly 30 years. There are many speakers in this debate who have had great experience of co-operation in all its forms. I know that we are all looking forward very much to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Sewel.
The purpose of this debate is to draw attention to the relevance of the co-operative model in both social and economic organisation and the need for a new
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Co-operatives Act to secure a modern and effective legal framework for co-operation. I am sure that different speakers will describe a wide range of co-operative activity. In opening the debate I shall try to set out a general overview, to give some examples and to conclude with the case for a new Co-operatives Act.
The topic of co-operation is particularly relevant to the current discussion of, to coin a phrase, the "stakeholder society". The debate will, I am sure, demonstrate that the co-operative model is an excellent example of stakeholding in practice. On the subject of stakeholding I was a little surprised to note that Mr. Michael Heseltine recently included co-operatives in his faintly ridiculous fulminations against "corporatism". I could not help wondering whether this was the same Mr. Heseltine who, as President of the Board of Trade, sanctioned a substantial grant to the UK Co-operative Council to produce a resource pack showing how to set up and run a co-operative. The resource packs are now in every DTI and Business Link office and have received a wide circulation beyond the Business Links. To be charitable one must assume that Mr. Heseltine was suffering from pre-election amnesia.
This is neither the time nor the place for a detailed history of the co-operative movement in all its forms. However, it is worth pointing out that the co-operative model is older than either the capitalist or the public ownership models. The earliest traces of a modern type of co-operation occur in Britain in the 1700s. There were 500 co-operative associations already in existence when 28 Rochdale weavers formed the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844, which eventually became the major consumer co-operative grouping that we know today. Of course we also know that co-operation was not purely a British phenomenon. There were many examples of co-operatives in Europe and in America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
To bring matters right up to date, it has been estimated that nearly half the world's population is now involved in some way in co-operative activity either as members, customers or suppliers. So what is the relevance of the co-operative model to social and economic organisation today? Is it a way—not the only way but one way—to achieve the inclusion and empowerment of individuals so that they truly feel they have a stake in society? All of us involved in co-operative activity would argue that it is, and today's debate will, I hope, show there is a solid basis for our belief. However, this belief is not only held on the Left. The Daily Telegraph of 12th January published, for the first time, the last article written by the late Lord Joseph before he died in 1994. The article included praise for the concept of mutuality in delivering pensions and other social services. Lord Joseph stated in the article,
"I believe the small mutual status of friendly societies keeps the quality of co-operative intimacy".
Mutuality goes to the heart of co-operative activity. A recent report on the mutual status of building societies remarked that mutuality is an attitude of mind as much as an institutional form. What has happened recently in a number of building societies might be taken as a warning by the co-operative movement. The decision to

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relinquish mutuality and to seek the status of a bank or a public limited company illustrates graphically what happens when large organisations lose touch with their members and their original objectives and the executive management becomes very powerful in relation to those individual members.
The sheer diversity of co-operative organisation beyond the traditional consumer and agricultural co-operative is perhaps not recognised widely enough. I shall give some examples of that. Taxi drivers, actors' agencies, market traders, the Wine Society and some symphony orchestras are just a few of the many activities and organisations organised on a co-operative basis. There are some recent examples of co-operation which underline its relevance to modern problems. The recent success of the Tower Colliery in South Wales shows what can be done when a group of workers band together for their mutual good. Tower Colliery is, I believe, the only coalmine in Europe which is run entirely by the miners who work in it and also own it. Even Mr. Michael Heseltine described it as "a model of common ownership"; or, as one of the miners put it rather well, it is "ownership by the commoners".
Credit unions are another example of co-operation. Formerly seen as relevant only to small groups of relatively poor people. they are now expanding rapidly. British Airways' employees now have a credit union, as do a number of other large organisations in, for example, local authorities, the police and transport services.
Another growing and interesting field of co-operative activity is in the delivery of health and community care. GP co-operatives, co-operatives of nurses and care workers and other groups involved in the delivery of healthcare, are springing up. One particular initiative in this field which actually resulted from a debate in this House, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, is a research study by the Department of Health involving the UK Co-operative Council into the relevance of community well-being centres to the objectives in Health of the Nation. Community well-being centres are, in effect, if not in legal form, community health co-operatives offering a holistic rather than a treatment-based approach to good health. I should pay tribute to the assistance of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in achieving that research study.
However, an important area of economic activity where I believe the co-operative movement has missed an opportunity is that of the public utilities. Even the most vehement defender of the privatised utilities cannot argue that they have yet found the right form of organisation fully to serve the public interest. Indeed, I would define them as public interest corporations which have much wider responsibilities than those set out in the Companies Act. There is increasing interest in the possibility of some form of mutual status, or for some other quasi co-operative structure which would better reflect the public interest than do the present organisations. I know that my noble friend Lord Haskel has some interesting ideas on the subject. As a recent article in the Guardian pointed out regarding the water companies,
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"Any manager of a mutual will tell you that he does not have to worry only about the people who provide the capital, the shareholders. He has to worry about the customers or 'members' too. Indeed, they may he the same people. The same two-handed approach should be used in the water industry".
There are some who would argue that that should also apply to the other utilities where there is a public monopoly.
The Coin Street housing and development programme on the South Bank has been aptly described as a,
"not-for-profit project … advanced by means of a balanced and mutually supportive programme of commercial and community developments whose first objective is to serve the public good".
As a tenant of one of the housing co-operatives in the development put it, "It really is like making a whole new start". Similar imaginative co-operative projects are developing in Manchester and elsewhere.
With the advent of Milk Marque the total turnover of agriculture co-operatives is now approaching that of the consumer co-operative movement. It is fair to say that farmers in the UK have traditionally been rather more reluctant to join co-operatives than their counterparts in Europe and America, but I suspect that this may well change as new systems of agricultural support make farmers increasingly dependent on the market place for their returns.
This very rapid over-view of a huge and diverse field of both social and economic activity has shown, I hope, that co-operation is much more than the Co-op shop or the Co-op funeral parlour—although the Co-operative Wholesale Society is the largest undertaker in the country, conducting one in four funerals.
There is a growing demand for people who are seeking to take a greater control of their lives in organisations which are better able to respond to their needs. Inclusion and empowerment are the terms which express that ambition. There is dissatisfaction with many aspects of the investor society. Public ownership structures in this country and abroad have been, or are being, dismantled. The co-operative model in a modern form could meet many of the objectives and aspirations of those who seek a better organisation of society, both socially and economically. But how should that be expressed in terms of legislation?
Some four years ago, when the United Kingdom Co-operative Council was founded, to succeed in some part the old Co-operative Development Agency, one of its first decisions was to set up a legal working group which is representative of all economic sectors of the co-operative movement. Some extremely useful work has been done by the legal working group with the Registry of Friendly Societies on the European co-operative statute but its main activity has been the drafting of a new Co-operatives Act. The work was completed last autumn and a very substantial piece of work it is. The UKCC is a representative and not a political organisation. As chairman I submitted the proposal for a Co-operatives Act for the United Kingdom to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr. Ian Lang. We know that both departments have overlapping responsibilities for co-operative matters. I am sorry to say that I have not

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even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement of receipt of the document. It seems that old-fashioned good manners are singularly lacking nowadays in government circles. However, I have made sure that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, who will respond to the debate, has a copy. Courteous as he always is, I am sure that he will be able to give the Government's considered response.
Time does not allow me to go through the proposal in detail but it covers all those aspects where we feel that co-operative law needs to be brought up to date fully to reflect the role that co-operatives can play in both social and economic organisation. The sections of the proposal follow the form of an Act of Parliament and cover the following: a Co-operative Commissioner to succeed the Registrar of Friendly Societies, being responsible for the registration and supervision of co-operatives; the rules for forming a co-operative; its legal capacity; the membership; the rules; the shares and the capital; the management and administration; accounts and audit; supervision and disputes; conversion, amalgamation and transfers of engagements; insolvency and dissolution; and offences and proceedings to enforce the Act.
As I said earlier, it is a substantial and responsible piece of work. It was conducted by a group expert in co-operative law, and fully endorsed and supported by all the representative organisations in the co-operative movement in the UK. It deserves better than to be ignored by the Government. I look forward to the Minister's response.
In essence, the proposal sets out the arguments for a new Co-operatives Act to replace the Industrial and Provident Societies Act as the basis for the registration and supervision of co-operatives. It goes into great detail about what should go into the new Act.
I am glad to say that the Labour Party has accepted in principle the need for a new Act to provide co-operatives with a modern and effective legal framework, without necessarily endorsing all the detail in the United Kingdom Co-operative Council proposal. But work is continuing on that.
I hope that I have said enough to show that co-operation, far from being a relic of the 19th century, is still a vibrant form of organisation, well suited to the social and economic demands of a modern society. It was G.K. Chesterton who observed,
"Let us look to the future because that is where we are going to he".
I am confident that co-operation has a significant role to play in developing a society where ordinary people feel that they have a genuine stake in the social and economic prosperity of that society. I beg to move for Papers.
6.48 p.m.
Lord Sewel: My Lords, some 20 years ago, when I was vainly attempting to become a semi-respectable academic—that is before being seduced by the delights and subtle nuances of the Scottish Rate Support Grant Order—I was a member of something rather exotically
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called the Institute for the Study of Sparsely Populated Areas. I am afraid that that is why my speech will he somewhat off-centre this evening.
At that time one of the issues that most interested me was community development policy, in particular in relation to the more remote and so-called peripheral areas of northern Scotland. Many of the communities of north and north-west Scotland are economically and demographically among the most fragile in Britain. They are communities which have historically experienced high levels of out-migration, especially among young people entering the labour market, high levels of unemployment, a distorted age structure, and, regrettably they have too often exhibited the more depressing features of a dependency culture.
In 1976, the then Highlands and Islands Development Board, under the leadership of Sir Kenneth Alexander and with the inspiration of Mr. Robert Storey, introduced into British rural development policy the innovative idea of multi-purpose community co-operatives. There is some truth in the claim that previous conventional approaches to rural development have been excessively top-down, where development was something that was done to you, not always a painless experience. This had led in some communities to local cynicism, passivity and low morale.
Perhaps for the first time in rural development policy, the community co-operative approach allowed local people to be the active subjects of their own development. They were encouraged to have a stake in the future well-being of their own communities. I do not wish to overstate the case: there were failures and disappointments. Rural development is not an area in which prizes come easily. In total, I believe that somewhere around 30 community co-ops have at one time or another operated, engaged in a wide range of activities from running community and mobile shops to craft marketing and from tourism to knitting. By about 1990 there were in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland 24 community co-ops employing 375 people with an annual turnover of £3.5 million; and, perhaps more importantly, with 3,500 local shareholder members who on average had invested £100 each. This had been achieved in some of the most remote, most peripheral and most fragile rural communities in our country.
Creditable though those achievements were, I am convinced that the major contribution of the community co-ops has been in the way they changed the communities themselves, and above all in the growth of community self-confidence and self-belief. It is not coincidental that many of the communities that have subsequently benefited from the EU's LEADER rural development programme are communities that had the previous experience of community co-ops. That is at least in part because community co-ops, often for the first time, successfully developed enterprise skills. I had better confess that LEADER is a particularly difficult French acronym and I trust that on this occasion I may be excused from attempting a full pronunciation.
It is a delight to read in the White Paper, Rural Scotland: People, Prosperity and Partnership, the approving reference to the Laggan Community Co-op.

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The White Paper itself places considerable emphasis on partnerships, and partnerships are a good thing so long as they actually mean something and are not just formal and bureaucratic. I very much hope that the emphasis will be on creating partnerships which will provide a framework within which local activity, locally determined activity can flourish.
Rural development will not be achieved through sterile partnerships between the formal agencies, important as it is for those agencies to work together. It will not come through opening up our most fragile communities to the harsh winds of the market place. The best bet for strong, active, vital communities—especially in our more remote and peripheral areas—is through nurturing the social and human capital of those communities through co-operation and mutuality.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, it falls to me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, on his maiden speech. We have listened to an interesting and informative speech, buttressed by the noble Lord's interest in community development. He also has experience of university teaching and administration and, I believe, of local government. With that background, I am sure that all noble Lords will agree with me that we look forward very much to further contributions from him to our proceedings.
For my part, I wish first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for having given us the opportunity to debate this important subject. I am especially glad that he has framed his Motion concerning co-operative action so widely. I propose to call on my industrial experience to speak mainly on the benefits of co-operative action in business.
It was in 1978 that the Co-operative Development Agency was established under the last Labour Government by the Bill passed that year. Its aims were to advise and encourage the development of co-operatives and to co-ordinate their activities. Speaking from these Benches at that time, I welcomed the Bill at its Second Reading. One of those taking part in the debate was Lord Jacques, a lifelong battler for the co-operative movement, whom I greatly admired. I know that all noble Lords will join me in taking this opportunity to pay tribute to his memory. In 1984 the Co-operative Development Agency and Industrial Development Bill provided further funding for the agency. At its Second Reading, Lord Grimond said that he attached the greatest importance to the furthering of the co-operative movement in all its forms. He considered that industrial organisation was one of the most serious problems facing the country. He did not accept that the only alternatives were state socialism or the creation of large conglomerates in the private sector: he believed that a third and very important method was to involve the workforce in the ownership and running of businesses.
Jo Grimond's last public affirmation of that belief came in a debate in this House on employee share ownership, in which I took part, only a few days before his death two years ago. I was much struck by
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something he then said: that we were watching an immense change in the balance of power between capital and labour. In the old days, mass labour, organised through its unions, exercised considerable influence; but now the way to get on in the world was to have some access to capital or to own capital. That being so, he thought it essential that the nation as a whole should have a share in the capital it possessed and that capital should not be confined to a small elite. He felt—and this is highly relevant to the Motion we are now debating—that this now permeates everything, not only businesses but also the social services, in which the clients are clearly distinguished from those who actually dish out the money. So he hoped that employee participation would also be considered possible in the running of the social services. Otherwise, in his view we would have a highly divisive structure and an extremely inefficient one. Coming from such a wise and far-seeing man, that certainly bears more thinking about.
The other day the Leader of the Labour Party came out in favour of what he called the "stakeholder society". Some of the media have fastened on that phrase as a new and exciting idea. It is nothing of the sort. I should remind your Lordships that ever since the publication of the Liberal Yellow Book in 1928 decentralisation of the structure of industry has been a major theme in my party's policy. The most significant advance in encouraging employee share ownership came from our initiative during the Lib-Lab pact when the 1978 Finance Act introduced tax relief for approved schemes. However, this form of ownership does not necessarily lead in reality to an increase in employee participation. Management has sometimes seen it merely as a means of bolstering incentives. In my view, therefore, measures to increase employee shareholdings should go hand in hand with action to develop employee involvement more widely.
In that connection I take pride in having "fathered"—if I may so put it—in 1982 the statutory requirement which now forms part of the Companies Act 1985 and prescribes that directors of large companies should include in the reports accompanying their annual accounts a statement describing the action taken during the preceding year to develop employee involvement in a number of specific ways. I am sorry that there is not time for me to enumerate those now.
In welcoming the Government's decision to continue and provide further funding for the Co-operative Development Agency in the 1984 Act, we nevertheless expressed scepticism about the way in which the Government then took power to wind up the agency by order. That of course is just what happened six years later. I therefore fully understand how it came about that as chairman of the UK Co-operative Council, which superseded the development agency, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, this evening put the case for a new co-operatives Act.
I appreciate that in introducing the debate today the noble Lord approached the subject from an angle differing from that which I have taken. Even so, I confess that I was surprised and a little disappointed that, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Carter, this evening, in giving the background to the project the UK

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Co-operative Council's legal working group made no mention of the excellent work done earlier by the Co-operative Development Agency. That is not to disparage the proposals of the working group—far from it.
I hope indeed that I have said enough to demonstrate that in earlier supporting the establishment of the Co-operative Development Agency and encouraging through suitable legislation the development of employee share ownership schemes and employee involvement generally, my noble friends and I have done all in our power, where appropriate by statutory means, to further co-operative action in the provision of social policy and in business.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, will not, however, expect me at this preliminary stage to commit myself and my party to supporting the kind of co-operatives Bill for which, as chairman of the UK council, he canvassed this evening. If and when such a Bill is introduced, however, it will be plain from what I said that on these Benches we shall give it sympathetic consideration.
7.1 p.m.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, the ending of mutuality by large building societies places co-operatives in an even more important social position. The Building Societies Act 1986 gave societies most of what they asked for. Yet in under 10 years major societies seek banking status. They will doubtless say that they must compete with banks and other financial institutions. Mutual insurance societies also seek to change.
Parts of the co-operative sector may be small by comparison with building societies. But, in total, co-operatives constitute a very large movement, with several growth areas and international status.
Her Majesty's Government seem to leave growth of the co-operative sector to mainly voluntary bodies. That may not be enough in certain cases. Agricultural co-ops were once promoted by a government funded central council. The council's functions were subsumed into the Food From Britain organisation, but have since been dropped. Preference appears to be for non-co-operative agricultural organisations. Is that a long-term prospect, and how does it compare with structures in other European Union countries?
The Housing Corporation is a major public and promotional body, and is much used by Her Majesty's Government. Par value management co-operatives are in evidence, as is the transfer of housing functions from local authorities to housing associations. Equity housing co-operatives, owned collectively by members who share in the equity, have diminished since the 1980 Housing Act enabled members to buy their homes at their outstanding debt. The co-operatives are usually registered under the I&P laws and are not in general grant aided. The Housing Corporation seems passive in its attitude to equity co-ops. Yet there must be a role for them, even in today's climate of negative equity. Cannot the Housing Corporation be encouraged to become more active in this area?
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The Labour Government that ended in 1979 had two significant co-operative achievements to their credit: the creation of the Co-operative Development Agency, which operated from 1978 to 1990; and the passing of the Credit Unions Act 1979. The Co-operative Development Agency tackled the re-establishment of workers' co-operatives in Britain and, although modestly funded and devoid of either loan or guarantee facilities, it succeeded in resurrecting the self-employed concept which inspired the 19th century Christian Socialist Movement. Though individually small, workers' co-ops are large in total. It was a harsh decision by the present Administration to wind up the CDA, but growth continues and local authorities in particular have been very helpful with promotion and in other ways.
Credit unions were about the last legislative creation of the Labour Government. Based on Northern Ireland law, the 1979 Act was geared to small sized credit unions. Recent changes should allow larger unions to be formed. The World Council of Credit Unions is a major body, making significant social and economic contributions in both developed and emerging countries. It is to be hoped that growth in the United Kingdom will soon compensate for our late start in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, spoke eloquently about community co-operatives. These co-operatives can take almost any form their members desire, whether in urban or rural areas. In a debate in this House on rural policy on 10th May last, I suggested that there was scope in rural areas for all-purpose community co-operatives. These could embrace a shop, pharmacy, sub-post office, pub, health centre, and even a village hall. A successful rural community co-operative would be able to cross-subsidise different enterprises, provided there was viability overall. Retail co-operatives have operated in this way for a century. The Rural Development Commission has shown commendable interest in village shops and has given grants to village halls. Her Majesty's Government recently expressed willingness to follow the Norwegian example by abating rates liability on village shops. That opens up co-operative possibilities which did not exist when I spoke in May.
In addition, the December issue of the newsletter issued by the National Lottery Charities Board includes in grants programmes for 1996–97 two themes which are an open door for an experiment in rural community co-operatives. These are concerned with improving people's living environment and community involvement. I suggest that the Rural Development Commission and the United Kingdom Co-operative Council might jointly and usefully encourage a village to apply for a national lottery grant with the object of establishing a community co-operative on a trial basis. We may not achieve what has been accomplished in the Highlands and Islands, but the opportunity is there.
So far as a new co-operatives Act is concerned, I prefer to see a draft Bill to give effect to the wide-ranging proposals that the United Kingdom Co-operative Council put forward following extensive consultations with representative bodies and persons.

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While co-operatives, irrespective of type, have a common idea, their diversity is astounding. Legislative harmony in these circumstances may not be easily achieved. The Credit Unions Act 1979 sits well with the main Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1965. This fact may not escape the draftsmen when they begin their task of drafting a new law to take account of modern co-operative requirements. That law is due. I hope that, in the light of what my noble friend Lord Carter had to say this evening, consultation upon it will not he unduly delayed by the present Government, who profess sympathy for and interest in the co-operative idea.
7.7 p.m.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, it is natural when speaking on a subject such as this and looking for an example of co-operation that one looks to home. People who visit Liverpool, especially by sea, will remember the Liver Building. It is the headquarters of one of the largest friendly societies in the world. The theme to which I address myself is the effect that mutual societies and friendly societies have on community, and the opposite—how, if one moves away from mutual aid and co-operation in society, one gets a different attitude entirely. Therefore I start with the Royal Liver Friendly Society. I am quite certain that if there is any attempt to convert the RLFS into a plc it will be resisted strongly, mainly because of the underlying belief in the idea of mutual aid that exists at its very heart.
The society started after the Irish famine, when members of the Catholic Church, who of course have a very keen interest in how children are treated after death, were appalled by the fact that small babies were being buried in margarine boxes with hardly any ceremony at all. They started a burial society. It became the largest friendly society in the world. That ethos is still there; the community is still there; and it still believes implicitly that that is the way to move forward. I do not think anybody, even given all the persuasive powers possible, can convince its members to become a plc.
That is the important point when debating co-operation. Like others, no doubt, I had a list of points but they have already been disposed of in the speech of my noble friend Lord Carter. I have no intention of going through them again except to mention once again the Tower Colliery, the National Freight Corporation and the Co-operative Retail Societies. Those are all examples of co-operation. As I said before, they lead to a belief in activity in the society for the society's benefit.
There were other forms of co-operation. They were called public utilities. The co-operation which existed in setting up the water supply for all the major cities in this country was a tremendous form of co-operation. Not only did they co-operate within their own boundaries; they co-operated beyond them. Liverpool in particular had to go to Wales because geographically that was where the water was found. Liverpool had to convince the people of Wales that they should have a partnership
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and should co-operate, which they did. Now there are two very strong communities in North Wales which owe their very existence to Liverpool Corporation.
Then there is the electricity board in Merseyside. I have spoken about it before and I shall do so again in this House. If we ignore what it did, we shall pay a very heavy price indeed. Mutual aid and reliance on one's neighbour to create a better society are on the run. They are on the run because some people believe that money is the one essential. If one has a lot of money in the bank one is called successful. We have now reached the stage where money has replaced any desire to do good. Nowadays we hear footballers who have been brought forward on a little football team and grown big on football say that they are very keen on football and like British football. When they are offered millions of pounds to go to Japan or somewhere else, they say that they are not going for the money but because they are facing a challenge. That is tripe. They are going there for the money.
One sees in the press and on television that such and such a mutual society has decided to become a plc. Has it? I do not think so. The society has not consulted the members. The bosses at the top—the £4 million men, like the man who, it was reported in today's Guardian, earned in the City of London £11 million in one year (it was thought fantastic to have a lottery prize of £11 million but think of being paid £l1 million in a year)—decided that it would be better to have a plc instead of a mutual society, because that would leave them free to do whatever they wanted with it. What is the net result? The net result is that all kinds of glorious offers are made to the members, offers such as, "If you vote as we want you to vote, we shall give you £500". That has become so rooted in our society that some of those members do not even realise what they are doing. They are being bribed with their own wealth to move the society into the ownership of a few individuals. That is the net result when the operation is carried through.
Only today I picked up a box of matches and read on it "England's glory". They once said that once matches were manufactured in Liverpool. The box says "England's glory" and in the small print "Made in Sweden". In this country today one cannot buy a match made in England. Guest, Keen & Nettlefold does not make screws any more in this country. Rover cars are made in Germany. I could continue with a long list.
In conclusion, it has now been established that 80 per cent. of our manufacturing industry is to be found in a colony—a colony controlled by foreigners. There is a hard fight in front of us to reconvert this country to the principles that we held dear, to return to the principle that we in this country should be the ones who control the country. Let us look after our own affairs.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, until a moment ago I thought that I would have the unique experience of addressing completely empty Conservative Benches, apart from the Minister and his Whip. I am very glad to see that a couple of noble Lords have now arrived.

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I too was interested to learn from the deputy Prime Minister last Thursday that co-operatives have now joined the Conservative Party's hate list. He said:
"The stakeholders that the Labour party would bring back are all our old familiar Labour friends—the unions, the single-issue pressure groups, the local authorities and the co-operatives".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/1 /96; cols. 328–329.]
He then listed those who enjoyed the support of his party—a list which, needless to say, did not include the co-operatives or the local authorities.
I am aware that the Conservatives have never been very keen on co-operatives, except at one point when they decided that co-operation did not involve the unions and therefore it could be a good thing in certain circumstances. But I have not before heard quite such a bald statement of opposition from a senior member of the Government. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister feels that that is Conservative policy.
There are many reasons why any government of the United Kingdom should give positive encouragement to the formation of co-operatives. The attitude of the Conservative Party, if it is as expressed by the Deputy Prime Minister, is hard to understand. My noble friend Lord Carter has given us the history of the movement and I shall not go over it again. But I understand that there has been a marked growth in the number and variety of worker and other co-operatives in the past decade or so.
Worker co-ops are formed for many different reasons. Sometimes it is because those involved have found difficulty in breaking into the labour market, for reasons of race or disability. However often we may say otherwise, it remains true that people of different race or those who have disabilities do not find work so easily as their white or able-bodied counterparts, especially in the present situation of high unemployment. There are also those who, as my noble friend Lord Sefton of Garston, indicated, prefer the ethics of co-operation and are not happy with the increasingly competitive and selfish society in which we are now obliged to live. Yet they have skills to offer and they have the will to work. Worker co-ops can give them opportunities to use those skills and retain their independence; and, incidentally, they can also remove them from the unemployment register, which I am sure is attractive to the party opposite.
However, there are other benefits. Worker co-operatives are usually local enterprises which remain local. They bring stability to the community in a way that outside business investment does not always do. We are all familiar with the factory built on the greenfield site which flourishes for a couple of years and then is left derelict and empty. That does not happen with most local co-ops. Stable local communities must in the end help to bring a nationally stable society. A population on the move is destructive of social cohesion and is a factor in the weakening of so many family ties.
Farmers and fishermen are increasingly discovering the advantages of co-operation in marketing their products and in many other ways appropriate to their industries. Farmers find that it pays to apply the
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principle to the purchase of feed and fertilizer and to the acquisition of expensive machinery which otherwise would be beyond the reach of many smaller farms. In mainland Europe, that particular movement in co-operation has progressed very much further than Ours.
There are many different ways of organising co-operatives, and they provide a wide diversity of products and services. But the golden thread uniting them all is that they are run by and for those who do the work rather than for investors and shareholders. And because the employees own the business, they can and do take pride in their work. Many of them give a service which could not be provided in any other way.
Not all co-operatives are small. For example, Heathrow Airport Licensed Taxis has 2,500 members. There are numerous examples of co-operatives which can wield considerable buying power. One of my noble friends mentioned the Wine Society, which brings comfort to many thousands of people, not all of them realising that they are supporting a co-operative.
I am delighted to learn that in Boston in the United States co-operatives have been formed via the Internet. That provides interesting possibilities. If that takes off worldwide, who knows how powerful the co-operative movement will become? An idea which is 150 years old in this country since it began in Rochdale may become the way of business for tomorrow worldwide.
I hope therefore that the utterance last Thursday was evidence that the Deputy Prime Minister was again carried away by his own rhetoric and was not suggesting a Conservative Party policy to oppose co-operation in all its forms. Such a policy will fall foul of many prospective Conservative voters and, though I might welcome their disillusion from a political point of view, I would not welcome attempts to make life more difficult for existing co-operatives or to discourage the establishment of new ones. The co-operative way of doing things is a valuable part of our lives; it should be encouraged and not denigrated.
7.21 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, we all owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Carter for introducing this debate and for so effectively explaining the background and the current reality of the co-operative movement. When I saw the terms of the debate I immediately felt that I had to contribute to it. As a member of the co-op party, a supporter of the co-op movement and a practical co-operator, I felt honour bound to take part.
I planned to speak on three main themes. The first was the result of competition as opposed to co-operation when military action is undertaken. A prime example of that was the lack of planning and co-operative action between different elements of military forces in the Dardanelles campaign, which resulted in the horrors and agonies of Gallipoli in the First World War. The benefits of combined co-operative action were demonstrated in the Normandy landings on D-Day. Of course, we must recognise that the ultimate result of competition rather than co-operation is war itself.

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I also intended to talk about the problems for society, the individuals in society and the relationships between individuals when men and women are pitted against each other in competition instead of realising that they are different and are designed to complement each other and to work and live in co-operation with each other. However, this is a time-limited debate and it will come as no surprise that I do not intend to elaborate on those matters. I felt that it may be useful for me to concentrate my remarks on the situation and the need for co-operative action in the field of industry and commerce.
One of the most salutary aspects that we need to appreciate is the purpose of enterprise. We have been led to believe—I feel erroneously—that the object of a company is to maximise returns for its shareholders. That is wrong. To understand an enterprise, whether it be a school, a hospital, a railway or an industrial company, we need to look at what it is doing. The object of a school is the education of children, not the return on capital investment; the object of a hospital is the care of the sick; the object of a railway is to move people and goods in trains between A and B. The object of a water undertaking is to supply water. We can see that recently, with the changes that the Government have engendered in the water industry. The water companies seem to have lost track of that requirement and to be concerned only with dispensing money to shareholders, senior managers and directors of the companies. The object of an industrial company is to produce the goods.
Perhaps I can take an example from my own experience. For 20 years I worked for Massey Ferguson, the largest tractor manufacturer in the western world—that may be familiar to my noble friend Lord Carter. When I joined the company in 1969 I was told by members of the company that they were proud to be involved in an enterprise that produced the best tractors in the world; in fact, some described it as the "Rolls Royce" of tractors, though I am not sure that that was a good allusion. However, I had a strong feeling that people involved in the enterprise were proud of building tractors and mechanising agriculture. The company was working with its suppliers, its distributors and customers in a kind of gigantic co-operative enterprise through co-operative action to produce the goods to mechanise agriculture.
For the first 10 years with that company I saw it grow and expand. We opened new factories; we took over other companies; we expanded production. We were not only supplying machinery to mechanise and improve the mechanisation of agriculture in this country, but we were also exporting around 80 or 90 per cent. of our product overseas, much of it to developing countries to improve their agricultural standards. We employed thousands of people in a number of factories in this country and thousands of people around the world in different factories.
One of the sad things that happened with the election of the Tory Government in 1979—it was immensely shocking to me—was that the reaction of management was to turn round to the unions, their suppliers and customers and say, "It is our job to manage and we shall run it all ourselves. We shall tell you what to do". The
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concept of co-operation that had existed in the 10 years previously completely went out of the window. From that point on the company deteriorated. When I left the company 10 years later we were producing one-third of the product that we had produced in 1979 and the number of employees in the company was reduced commensurate with that. We closed factories not only in this country, but throughout the world.
It is a salutary lesson that when that industrial enterprise lost track of the need, first, to produce the goods and, secondly, to work co-operatively with suppliers, distributors, customers and its workforce, it went downhill.
7.29 p.m.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylcle: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Carter for initiating this debate. Co-operatives arc little discussed and it is true that the public perception and the reality are miles apart. Quite often people think about co-operatives as the co-operative movement which has affected many of the lives of British citizens with the growth of the movement itself.
My noble friend Lord Carter called for a new law, and he is right. This is a growing area which needs to be more clearly defined and needs to have a better structure in law than it has at the moment. My short contribution to the debate will be based upon my experience in the employment field. Traditionally, co-operatives have grown up in small communities, in urban and rural areas. That has been my practical experience. Many people become co-operators not for any ideological reasons or because it was ever their intention, but quite often because the organisation in which they worked has closed down. They had a choice between dependency on unemployment benefit or trying to do something for themselves by forming a co-operative. That often happened with small numbers of people. Indeed, the developments in new technology, particularly in the publishing area, have encouraged that. Extremely far flung communities join together in co-operatives to create employment which otherwise would not exist.
One area of success has been women returners. One can see examples of women who have perhaps married and have young children. They cannot get a job but want to be independent; they may not have transport and there is no work in their area. Such women join together and start to become independent. That should be encouraged. In my experience, many of the people working in co-operatives would otherwise be dependent on the taxpayer. But they are not.
As co-operatives have grown they have gone out and created jobs and have in many areas become part of what I would loosely call the establishment. The Wales Co-operative Development and Training Centre has support from the Welsh Development Agency, the Development Board for Rural Wales, the European Union and local authorities. It has created 450 jobs. I should like to give another example, one from which the Minister will take great satisfaction if he does not approach this topic with a closed ideology. I am sure

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the noble Lord does not. The employee ownership scheme in Scotland, which was formed in 1977, is the largest in Europe. Until recently all the co-operatives in Scotland had a combined turnover of £40 million. The sum now is £200 million.
I raise that point particularly because of an interesting development in Scotland. One of my roles as a trade union officer was to represent people working in the paper-making industry. Paper mills need to be near water. Quite often one would find that a paper mill was of' itself an identifiable village. There would be no other work in the area. Indeed, it was one of the last industries to have tied cottages. The Minister will know that there is lots of water in Scotland and so there are lots of paper mills in Scotland. There are also in the water lots of salmon which go by paper mills. In Scotland there is a paper mill called Tullis Russell. It was a very successful family company which employed hundreds of people in a large acreage of plant. When the company, through hereditary means, was taken over by the grandson of the original owner, he decided that although it was a successful company the way forward was to hand it back to the workforce. It was not done as cleanly or as straightforwardly as that but, in effect, that is what has happened. The company today is part of the Employee Ownership of Scotland. It has a £200 million a year turnover and maintains its independence, but it uses all the values of the co-operative movement.
Large organisations like that are not the norm in the co-operative movement outside of—my noble friend Lord Graham may correct me later on this—the Co-operative Society itself, which is an enormous organisation. Small businesses need business skills. That is where the structure of the co-operatives comes in. They often need training. That is another area where the structure of the co-operatives comes in. They need financial advice. That is a further area where the structure of the co-operatives comes in. As employment and work structures in Britain are changing, and will continue to change, as people look for different ways of working and living, we will find that co-operatives increase in number. I believe that the call by my noble friend Lord Carter is timely and I hope that the changes in law which he proposed will gather wide support.
7.34 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I, too, must declare an interest. I am a member of the co-operative party and I am a member of a co-operative society. The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who is sitting in front of me, and I started as boys in the co-operative movement. My original commercial and industrial experience was gained as a member and as an employee of the Co-op.
In those days it was a considerable organisation in Scotland. Co-operative trade at the moment is around 6 per cent. of national trade. It was not uncommon in Scotland to have more than 20 per cent. of the national trade in co-operative hands. In fact, the co-ops preceded some of the modern industrialists. We took two items, bread and tea, and said that they were the basic items. We established a vertical integration, bringing wheat
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from the co-operative wheatfields of Manitoba, milling it in co-operative mills here, baking it into co-operative bread in co-operative bakeries and putting it on the counter of the co-operative housewife. They preceded the modern industrialist by many years. They did the same with tea. It was a delight to go out to Sri Lanka to see the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society tea plantations. Such was the power and authority of co-ops in those days.
I regret to say that co-ops—everyone will admit this—were a little reluctant to adapt to change. As co-operatives, we have to confess our weaknesses in that regard. It is a sad sight to travel around Scotland and see the familiar co-operative premises now closed or being taken over for other purposes. But that should not minimise the considerable contribution which co-ops have made, and will make, to our social well-being.
I congratulate the CWS on taking the initiative in consumer protection by insisting on the honest labelling of products. I pay tribute also to the vast and powerful Co-operative Bank which has initiated a policy of ethical investment of Co-operative Wholesale Society or Co-operative Bank funds. Those two institutions are certainly maintaining the traditions and some of the ideals for which the co-operative movement was established.
It would be wrong to discuss the weaknesses and strengths, the difficulties and the past of the co-op at this stage. I am concerned about supporting the Motion of my noble friend Lord Carter. I believe that the co-op idea is appropriate for the present. We are facing a situation in our society of power becoming increasingly centralised—in government, in industry, in communications and so on. This means that citizens feel powerless and alienated. Democracy is suffering from the size of institutions and organisations. I very much regret that some of the mutual organisations, like the building societies and the insurance societies, are now finding their way into being limited liability companies at a moment when the need to involve people is more and more necessary.
I remember that we debated in this House the Trustee Savings Bank, which was taken over and is now part of one of the leading clearing banks. We were given certain assurances about retaining the integrity of a mutual organisation. That has since disappeared. Society will he poorer if one has a continuing decline of the mutual organisations like the co-operative societies in all their varieties, in agriculture, in retailing and in credit unions. Society will be poorer if these institutions decline. So it is important that this debate today should concentrate on that problem. We should give full support to the work of the agency over which the noble Lord presides and get increased support for the co-operative idea.
7.40 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I shall speak for a very few minutes only about the scope for co-operative action in community care. As a general practitioner, I was not actually involved in the setting up and running of care services provided by social services departments—the home help services, meals on wheels, residential

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accommodation, sheltered employment or social care for mentally ill and mentally handicapped people in the community—but I frequently called on those services for my patients.
However, even in the London boroughs of Camden and Islington, which used to have a good reputation for care services, these services have become less adequate in recent years. The result is that elderly or mentally ill patients discharged from hospital are not getting the package of home or community care that they need. Too often they have to he readmitted as emergency cases. That is not the entire reason, but it is part of it, why the proportion of emergency admissions is increasing, since Camden and Islington are not isolated examples.
The social services are now required to purchase—which is the term usually used—rather than themselves provide, most of their community care services. The debate about whether that was a correct part of the community care Act continues. However, on the principle that if you can't beat them, join them—referring to my Unstarred Question of last night, that is something which the Chechens seem not to be very willing to do—there are big opportunities not simply for the private sector but also for the voluntary and co-operative non-profit-making sector, as my noble friend Lord Carter and other noble Lords have pointed out.
The co-operative sector has the added advantage of including the carers and the clients, when they are able, as part of the caring service. In his maiden speech, the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, pointed out how communities grow in stature when they are involved in their own development. At present the Community Care (Direct Payments) Bill is passing through your Lordships' House. In answering this debate I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, can tell us whether the direct payments envisaged could, with the carer's or client's permission, be channelled into co-operative schemes as outlined by my noble friend, to provide care in the community for disabled or elderly patients. These are developing in various parts of the country, particularly in Scotland, and they are also common in Scandinavia and particularly in Italy.
I suggest that non-profit or shared profit community care schemes not only have the advantage of involving the clients and the carers, but they have the potential for providing better value for money than the private sector, where the profits of shareholders or owners tend to take top priority. Co-operative schemes will make the welfare of the patient in the community their top priority because patients and their relatives will themselves be directly involved in running them.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Carter for giving us this opportunity to debate co-operatives. I should like to speak on how they measure up to modern business pressures and I hope that I shall do so in a more balanced way than the Deputy Prime Minister did last Thursday.
Business is rediscovering the co-operative ideal in new forms and new ways. Stakeholder economics go back to the roots of co-operation. Some of the modern
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ideas in management are returning to the basic principles of the co-operative. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, told us, what we used to call "co-operation" we now call "empowerment". As my noble friend Baroness Nicol said, that motivates both management and work people to rise above themselves to produce extraordinary results.
Nobody can disagree that over the years co-operatives have been wonderful for motivating people and providing incentives. But, sadly, motivation does not ensure success. One of the greatest fallacies in modern business is the idea that motivation and incentives ensure competence. This is proven by the large number of co-operative companies which have failed, and the large number of businesses run by highly motivated and dedicated families which fail every year.
That is because, like all businesses, co-operatives have to ensure that the essential competences of a business are maintained at all levels. Often that must be done by bringing in outsiders and relegating many of the originators of the co-operative to a subsidiary role. The notion that ownership should entitle members to a management role is as flawed in a co-operative as in a traditional family business.
Then there are the practical difficulties regarding the supply of sufficient capital. Some enterprises require little capital to start up and can operate as co-operatives on the savings of its members, but a co-operative soon runs into difficulties when more capital is required. If a co-operative has to seek loans or external equity, the full notion of the co-operative will be undermined unless it can come to some special arrangement.
Perhaps the John Lewis Partnership is a case in point. It has not issued equity for many years; nor has it gone in for excessive borrowing. The result is a well-run business with a sound but unspectacular rate of growth, which satisfies the customers, satisfies the partners, but would not perhaps satisfy the City.
Here we have the crux of the matter in business terms. The City's current obsession with shareholder value as a first priority is in stark contrast to the best management practice in a co-operative, which is first and foremost to look after one's customers and market. As Professor John Kay has pointed out, there is no clear link between shareholder value and customer satisfaction. Clearly, then, British industry has a lot to learn from the co-operative movement about shared risk and reward, and about incentives and motivation. But, equally, co-operatives have a lot to learn from other sectors of industry about capital flexibility.
Nevertheless, the question of the distribution of earnings can also be a tricky problem for co-operatives. In any business in the early stages there is generally little room for distribution as earnings must be retained. Co-operatives are no exception. The members have to be patient and this can be either a happy or unhappy experience. For some of the founder members of the National Freight Corporation, it was clearly an unhappy experience. The survival of the enterprise required that some of the founder members be made redundant. Certainly working in a co-operative gives you a say in your destiny at work, but the pressures of the market

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nowadays are inexorable, and the say you have in controlling your destiny may be to make yourself redundant or, indeed, to close down the enterprise.
Yet, although co-operatives must compete in the market and get all the dynamics of management right in order to succeed, they have two great advantages over their competitors. The first is the spirit and commitment of the members. The fruits of co-operation from the greater involvement and participation of the members, the consultation which takes place, and the broadly based remuneration schemes which spread the fruits of success throughout the enterprise, all have a significant effect on the business.
The second advantage is quite simply that the business is owned by customers or employees and there is one stakeholder fewer to satisfy. This means that the others can have better returns or that more money can be retained in the business.
I agree with my noble friends Lord Gallacher and Lord Monkswell that perhaps the local electricity and water companies should have become co-operatives. They are natural monopolies and would perhaps operate with more concern for the consumer as consumer co-operatives and thereby require less regulation than PLCs. Having missed the opportunity in past privatisations, perhaps the Government will consider that alternative in the future.
As many noble Lords have said, co-operatives have performed well as local enterprises. That is why they should be encouraged by the local development agencies. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the business links and DTI agencies are fully briefed on the advantages of co-operatives and will encourage them. After all, the prime determinants of any business enterprise are the competence and vision of all those working in the business, the adequacy of finance, luck and good motivation. Without doubt a co-operative ethos wins every time as far as motivation is concerned.
7.52 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I begin by saying that my noble friend Lord Peston would very much have liked to participate in this debate, but I am glad that he asked me to do so on his behalf.
We have had a valuable short debate which was clearly needed not least by those who claim to assert that the co-operative idea is a good one and can be extended into many fields of economic and social activity.
My noble friend Lord Carter got us off to a splendid start with his tour d'horizon touching on significant areas of co-operative enterprise. His prime credential as the chairman of the United Kingdom Co-operative Council equips him to lead this debate and we are indebted to him for that. His call for a future Government to assist the co-operative sector by legislating for a Co-operative Act is soundly based, well argued and deserves to be taken seriously.
Alas, this debate was cruelly deprived of a certain participant with the death of our parliamentary colleague, the late Lord Jacques of Portsea Island. The
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reference to him by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, was deeply appreciated and very touching to many like myself. For much of his life, Lord Jacques was "Mr. Co-op", especially in his fiefdom, the Portsea Island Co-operative Society. There are too few genuine original thinkers in business or in community affairs today. Just such a man was John Jacques. He personified the good qualities outlined by many speakers in this debate as epitomising sound co-operative practice and principles. His death has robbed the nation of a great public servant and the co-operative movement of a true co-operator and a leader of exceptional worth. We shall miss him greatly.
This debate has helped to underline that co-operative action has been, is, and will continue to be, the way out of many social and economic problems facing, in the main, the poorer sections of society. The idea of mutuality is not new, nor is it revolutionary. It is plain common sense that those in need should have access to a source of help in one of many ways. We have heard tonight of the wide spread of co-operative ideas, the application of co-operative methods, the easy adaptability of the co-operative ethic to many of the problems facing the world. This debate seeks no more than to bring to the attention of a wider audience the fact that by itself the existing co-operative movement can do, and is doing, much but, with a little help from its friends, can do a great deal more.
I am so glad that through the medium of this debate it has been shown that co-operatives are not exclusively "the Co-op shop on the corner". In the aftermath of the celebration of being in the high streets of the nation for more than 150 years now no one can take away from the consumer movement the fact that it has made and is making a tremendous contribution to the economic and social fabric of life—not only here in Britain, but throughout the world. The idea that it need not be capital, not employees, not government but consumers who are in the driving seat is a concept given to the world stemming from those same Rochdale pioneers—a concept that can never be erased. But it is high time that the contribution made by the co-operative principle in many other spheres of human activity was properly highlighted.
One thing is for sure: the amateur, sincere, but often inexperienced trading concepts displayed by those early pioneers have no place in modern society. That which we know as "the Co-op" may have, more painfully than others, come to accept that in the 21st century there is no place for the second best. That point was made effectively by my noble friend Lord Taylor. To strive for the very best practice must be the guiding light in all forms of co-operative.
In Britain today such elements of the British co-operative movement will not survive unless the consumer chooses the co-operative alternative in preference to any other. The days of absolute loyalty or devotion are in the past and, although every company yearns for that support, it has to be won, kept and nurtured. Again, that point was underlined by my noble friend Lord Taylor. To have that loyalty expressed in cash to the value of £14 billion in trade per year is no mean achievement, but in today's markets no one rides

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on the back of others. That is why those like myself who are intimately associated with current co-operative practice accept their responsibility for making what we have as efficient as can be, and accept our role as proselytisers the better to widen the co-operative net. And why not?
The Minister may support a thesis which asserts that there are only two ways of organising life—by the state or by capital. We say that there is a middle way, where the individual need not be a slave to either, but can enjoy the benefits of both and forge an even better alternative.
What a joy it was to listen to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Sewel. His decision to dive in at the deep end a week after his introduction took courage, and to have done so with the style and authority that he displayed encourages us to believe that he will speak here often. We all look forward to that.
My noble friend Lord Gallacher stressed the wide application of the co-operative idea in many spheres of non-retailing activity, housing, credit and rural life being but a few. My noble friend Lord Sefton showed his deep understanding of human needs and his feel for what makes Liverpudlians tick. Mutuality was the talisman which he proudly held aloft. My noble friend Lady Nicol reminded us of the value of worker co-ops and gave many interesting illustrations, relating not only to Britain but to countries throughout the world. My noble friend Lord Monkswell effectively gave us practical examples of co-operation. My noble friend Lady Dean brought her industrial experience before the House and told us how co-operatives had served many workers and communities. My noble friend Lord Taylor strongly pledged his continuing support for the co-operative idea after his lifetime of association with the co-op. My noble friend Lord Rea gave us yet another dimension of co-operative practice when he referred to its application in health provision and my noble friend Lord Haskel talked of the powerful force of co-operation in motivating business and people at work.
More than one speaker referred to the fact that in a parliamentary exchange last week the deputy Prime Minister saw fit to take a swipe at co-operatives. On 11th January, at col. 328, he sought to denigrate them, listing them as one of the usual suspects, the "old familiar Labour friends". The bile of the deputy Prime Minister notwithstanding, the co-operatives were in very good company; the unions, the single issue pressure groups, the local authorities and the co-operatives.
The House will know that, besides being friends of Labour, they also have in common the fact that they represent many, many disadvantaged people and communities, all of whom have learnt to regret the fact that we do not have a Labour Government and will be grateful to the deputy Prime Minister for grouping them together as "familiar Labour friends".
The deputy Prime Minister compounded his ignorance as well as his prejudice when he went on to say:
"A stakeholder society in a Conservative world … is all about home owners, share owners, pension owners, choice, freedom and a competitive society".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/1/96; col. 3291
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That is what co-operatives are all about too. Thanks to the deputy Prime Minister, we know not only where our friends are but where they are not. Stakeholding is as old as—well, at least as old as the principles of the Rochdale pioneers in 1844. Co-operatives are proud, as are co-operators, to be stakeholders. The case for a greater public awareness of the value of the co-operative tool should not be in dispute. This debate has clearly demonstrated that the co-op is alive and thriving and can be even more so in the years that lie ahead.
8.2 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my first task is to undertake two pleasant duties. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carter, not so much on having this debate but on his birthday today and on sharing at least a small part of this evening with us. Whether his belief in mutual co-operation will extend further than the debate to an invitation to help him celebrate his birthday remains to be seen.
My second pleasant task is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, on his maiden speech. When he mentioned the rate support grant at the beginning of his speech there was a small hint of a connection with local authorities. In making that one small mention he slightly underplayed his important role in Scottish local government for many years. He was the leader of Aberdeen District Council. Unfortunately, the Labour group tends to run Aberdeen District Council more often than not. That does not prevent me from saying that Aberdeen is one of my favourite cities in the United Kingdom and, despite its administration, it is always a joy to visit the city.
The noble Lord was also the president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I suppose that that is where his knowledge of the rate support grant comes from. During my time in the Scottish Office it was said—I cannot quite remember the precise phrase—that only two men understood the rate support grant. I certainly was not one of them and I cannot recall the noble Lord being one of them either. However, his interest in the remoter communities in Scotland and in the co-operative movement there brought him to make his maiden speech in this debate. Coming as I do from the West Highlands, I can certainly echo the importance there of community co-operatives of various kinds. Perhaps the reason why the noble Lord made little mention of local government was that sometimes there is little co-operation there.
This week I have been privileged to hear three maiden speakers. I was not present during the earlier debate today, otherwise I should have heard five. All three have been Scots, which has given me particular pleasure. Indeed, one was my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, who joins the Government. Some of your Lordships may be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that one has to be a Scot to join the Government and that it certainly helps if one's name is Mackay. After the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, it may look as though one has to be a Scot to get to the House of Lords too.

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That leads me to the inevitable conclusion, which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, will also come to quickly, that with such strong Scots representation in this House and down the Corridor there is no need to go down the dangerous road of devolution and remove the Scottish influence from this Chamber and from the other place. However, that is a debate for another day.
Perhaps I may say on a serious note that, although I did not know Lord Jacques, I understand the affection in which he was held by many Members of your Lordships' House. I looked quickly at Dod, and it is sad that he is not present for a debate such as this which would have been very close to his heart.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Hear, hear!
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my right honourable friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade are sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, feels slighted by their not having replied to him. I cannot speak for the President of the Board of Trade because I am not responsible for that department. However, from time to time I come before your Lordships wearing a Treasury hat and I can assure the noble Lord that eventually the document reached the Treasury. I believe that it was lost somewhere in the postal services of the House of Commons. The noble Lord should not be too upset because my Christmas cards, which I ordered some time in November, arrived yesterday. I assure him that the two departments involved are studying the document most carefully. Indeed, they will soon begin to discuss the details of the proposals in the document, largely via the Registry of Friendly Societies, in order to allow us to come to a detailed conclusion. I shall return to the document and make a few comments about it.
The co-operatives have a valuable role to play in our modern economy. As I mentioned when I referred to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, I appreciate their importance in many rural areas of the country where, for example, the village shop may no longer be the kind of economic proposition that would encourage someone to try to make a living out of it. We have heard examples of large and small co-operatives meeting a wide range of needs; for instance, social needs and economic needs. At the risk of going over some of the ground again, perhaps I may point to some excellent examples.
In many ways the biggest is the Co-operative Retail Society, which for many years has had considerable links with the party opposite. It is the biggest in the retail sector, which I suppose goes all the way down to many small shops. Indeed, I can think of at least one village pub which is a co-operative. The last time I visited it it appeared to be quite successful. Obviously it depends heavily on the owners taking a fair share of the space at the bar and a few visitors passing by. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, asked whether I got a dividend. I did not notice that drink was any cheaper in the co-operative but the surroundings were most pleasant—the geographical surroundings certainly were.
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Many organisations such as the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery, the Co-operative Press and even the Morning Star newspaper—I notice that no one on the Benches opposite mentioned that, and I am not surprised—are part of the co-operative movement. There is a wide range of co-operatives in agriculture and fisheries. There are co-operatives which provide goods and services to farmers and large co-operatives such as Milk Marque, the former Milk Marketing Board. There are also co-operatives such as the Rabbit Clearance Society and the like.
I know a little about the fishing societies from my former position as chairman of the Seafish Industry Authority. Up and down the country and in the ports there are co-operatives which supply gear and various equipment to the fishing industry. The largest society is the Shetland Salmon Group which has a turnover of £14 million. I hope that occasionally some of your Lordships help in the consumption of its product.
There are many other clubs. Indeed, I am surprised that the party opposite did not pull my leg by reminding me that the Association of Conservative Clubs is a co-operative, as indeed is Surrey County Cricket Club, and there are the credit unions, which play an important role in many parts of our country.
Most co-operatives in Great Britain chose to register under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965. There are more than 11,000 industrial and provident societies. They have a total membership of 10 million and their assets are in excess of £30 billion. Retail societies provide services to almost 7 million members.
One of the important proposals made in the document referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and other noble Lords is that there should be new co-operatives' legislation. Noble Lords put the case for primary legislation for co-operatives. The UKCC has worked hard to produce a considered report as regards which new provisions would serve the societies that they represent. I understand fully the thinking behind that approach and I appreciate the amount of effort that has gone into formulating the report. However, as noble Lords will know, the Government have no proposals to introduce such primary legislation. But we shall consider very carefully indeed the contents of the council's proposals.
Perhaps I may address two particular issues that arise from the report. The first is the idea of a co-operatives commissioner. The UKCC has proposed the establishment of a co-operatives commissioner—originally as the head of a new statutory body but now, it seems, as someone who would continue to be served by the staff of the Registry of Friendly Societies. This commissioner would have one role supervising co-operative societies and another as the Government's chief source of advice on the sector.
It appears to the Government that the co-operatives sector already has such a figure in the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies. The registry is itself a statutory body, with a registration and limited regulatory role

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which it exercises independently. It is also a department of government, advising my right honourable friend the Chancellor.
Since the UKCC published its proposals it has become clear that there is not a consensus within the sector on what new powers or responsibilities the commissioner should have. Until one has emerged it will be difficult for the Government to form a view on how to respond to the sector's concerns. For the moment, our attitude remains, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Much has been made of the principle of mutuality in co-operatives. When people decide to set up a co-operative, or to join one, they have made a deliberate choice that this is the appropriate structure for the business they want to be in. Co-operatives are run for the mutual benefit of their members, who have a direct and equal say in decisions.
The UKCC has proposed making it possible for members setting up a co-operative to direct, in the society's rules, that the co-operative should never change its original, mutual form. This contrasts with current legislation which allows a society to convert into a company should 75 per cent. of members voting at a general meeting support such a change.
That is relevant to the regrets expressed by, for example, the noble Lords, Lord Carter, Lord Gallacher and Lord Sefton, regarding building societies and some of the "demutualisation" that has taken place. I believe that, as those changes can proceed under the law only if a substantial majority of members support them, that is mutuality—that people have reached a decision that they wish to change the form of a society. We are, of course, willing to consider detailed proposals for societies' constitutions, but there are difficulties in principle with allowing current members to limit so fundamentally the democratic rights of their successors.
There may be times when a co-operative structure, because of a changed local business climate or a reduction in the number of members, ceases to be the best option for meeting the needs of its members. In such a case a significant majority of members may consider that putting the business on a different footing is essential if it is to adapt effectively to the new environment.
In more extreme circumstances it may be that the natural life of an enterprise has expired. In these cases, the best course for the current members may be to wind up the co-operative before its business difficulties erode its asset base to the detriment of everyone involved. It would be most regrettable if the co-operative were bound by statute to continue into insolvency, so wiping out the worth it had built up over the years and to which current members had contributed.
Therefore, while the Government are willing to consider whether a co-operative might place limits on its eventual destiny, there are strong reasons for not trammelling unduly the freedom of current members. The rights of members is, after all, itself at the heart of mutuality. Future members, as much as present ones,
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should be free to exercise their democratic vote as the owners and ultimate custodians of the co-operative's identity.
But, although the Government have no plans for new primary legislation, much can be achieved by other means. The Deregulation and Contracting Out Act allows us to remove burdensome rules and regulations which stifle enterprise and initiative, provided we maintain necessary protection. We intend to make full use of this order-making power to improve the regulatory environment for co-operatives. Last year we completed a consultation exercise on proposed amendments to the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts 1965 and 1967. The measures will reduce the legislative burden on co-operatives registered under the 1965 Act, enabling them to make meaningful administrative savings. For example, the audit thresholds for non-deposit-taking societies will be raised in line with those for companies, easing the burden on societies with an annual turnover of less than £350,000.
The consultation period has been useful and constructive, and we will do what we can to accommodate the views of those who responded. We will announce our revised proposals when we bring a draft deregulation order before the House, which we intend to do shortly.
I know also that the comments of the UKCC and a number of organisations have been extremely helpful in formulating other proposals. Among the other proposals which have been suggested or supported by the co-operative movement is a proposal to reduce from seven to three the number of members needed to set up an industrial and provident society. We very much hope that that will be of assistance to the movement.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked me about the scope for shared-profit community care schemes in a co-operative structure. One of the strengths of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act is its ability to encompass a wide variety of different types of organisations, as we have heard in all the speeches this evening. I do not wish to commit myself too far without checking, but I can see no reason why a number of people should not come together to do what the noble Lord suggests.
Secondly, he asked me whether such a body would be in a position to take payments under the Community Care (Direct Payments) Bill. The best person to ask may be my noble friend Lady Cumberlege during the next stage of the Bill. But I shall try to find out and write to the noble Lord with the answer to that question.
I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, who urged encouragement of credit unions in order to facilitate their growth. Measures for the encouragement of the growth of the credit union movement are included in the draft Deregulation (Credit Unions) Order, which is another deregulation initiative. That was laid before the Parliamentary Deregulation Committee in July of last year and the committee reported on it in December last. That measure is expected to make further progress through the various deregulation procedures in the near future.

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I enjoyed many of the speeches. For a few moments, when the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, mentioned Boston, I thought that she was going to claim that the Boston Tea Party had been a co-operative venture. But tea was not left out of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: He was stirring it!
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the noble Lord must not accuse the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, of stirring. I would never accuse him of that. But I know that in addition to an illustrious career in both the public and private forestry sectors, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had his roots in the co-operative movement. I listened with great interest to what he had to say.
I intended to resist the temptation to join in some of the slightly more controversial points put by noble Lords opposite. However, those noble Lords who have had occasion to hear me perhaps will know that I am not very good at resisting those temptations. Your Lordships will he familiar with the game in which one sits down and writes down those words that come into one's mind when a word is heard. I played that game with the interesting word "stakeholders". The first word I thought of was "vampires". I wrote down "dinner", because my spellcheck was not on. I then wrote down "betting", "horses" and "lottery". I also wrote down "fencing". We do quite a lot of that both in this House and in the other place. I believe that in today's papers Mr. John Monks let the cat out of the bag when he said that one of the major stakeholders would be the TUC. That took me back—as the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, had already taken me back—to 1978 and 1979 when we saw that particular stakeholder co-operate so successfully with the last Labour Government.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I also heard that interview. My recollection is that the General Secretary did not claim that the TUC was a stakeholder but that individual employees of companies, who might also be trade union members, were stakeholders.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I did not hear the interview. I believe that I read a press report of it. The noble Baroness makes a fine distinction. I suspect that the TUC jolly well do believe that they are stakeholders. Of course, the real stakeholders are the people of this country. When I look back to the 1978 Parliament and the huge opposition of the party opposite to giving the people of this country the right to buy their own homes, and therefore to be stakeholders in a property-owning democracy, I wonder whether we do not have a Johnny-come-lately in this matter. I also have in mind the privatisations that the party opposite have opposed in every case. They always said at the time that they would be reversed, but now they will not reverse any of them, as I understand it. That extended shareholding to vast numbers of people, both directly and indirectly, through the major stakes which many people had in shares.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, would not "Tony come tardily" be better?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness has intervened to help me. The expression "Tony come tardily" will do very well indeed. If the noble Baroness had heard her noble friend Lord Rochester, he claimed that the whole idea was a Liberal idea which went back to the 1920s. I suspect that the parentage of this idea will be claimed by almost everybody by the time we are finished. Essentially, I believe it to be a neat buzz word.
Having not resisted the temptation to have a little knock about, I should like to conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and other noble Lords for their interesting and valuable contributions to the debate. The co-operative sector in the United Kingdom is varied and thriving. Co-operative arrangements continue to appeal to all kinds of people with many different objectives. They provide a way of organising business for mutual benefit. The Government are committed to preserving and promoting an environment in which co-operatives can flourish and prosper. Through deregulation and all our other work, informed by the contributions of the UKCC and debates such as this, we aim to ensure that this friendly environment remains one that is fully alive to changing trends in our society and economy in which co-operatives and all United Kingdom businesses have to operate.
8.24 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everybody who has spoken in the debate. We have had some excellent speeches, but none better than the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Sewel. We all look forward to hearing from him on many occasions in the future.
I will not attempt to summarise the many strands of thought that have characterised a very good debate. I am a little disappointed that the Benches opposite have not provided a single speaker for the debate, other than the Minister, which is perhaps indicative of a failure to understand the importance of the co-operative movement. I am grateful to the Minister for his reply to the debate and his kind reference to my birthday, although I have reached the age where repeated references to the event are unnecessary. He had to have a go on stakeholders. I am delighted that the Tory Party is now debating our agenda. I believe that the matter can be summarised in a few words. The party opposite see it only in terms of the ownership of property, whereas we see it in terms of the community.
This is not the place to deal in detail with the Government's response to proposals for a co-operatives Act, but the Minister is correct that discussions are planned with the Registry of Friendly Societies, who have been extremely helpful in the matter. I repeat my thanks to all who have spoken in the debate, and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.26 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a. second time.
In introducing this Bill to ban bull bars from our roads, I think it is worth briefly recalling their origin. They originated in Australia in the form of 'roo bars to protect vehicles against kangaroos, which were a genuine hazard, just as cow-catchers were fitted to trains in mid-America 100 years ago. The same genuine reason cannot be ascribed to bull bars in Britain. We have no need to brush mad bulls or cows from our motorways; nor are they seen in leafy Fulham. Their occasional use in some distant farm or forest was never the purpose in the minds of the manufacturers. They were seen as a clever fashion accessory—perhaps as a form of body language or to give vehicles a macho image. In the early 1990s they proved to have enormous appeal, coupled with four-wheel drive vehicles. By last year the number of such private licensed vehicles was over 500,000. That figure did not include many transit vans.
This has become fashion design with a vengeance. Not only are bull bars without doubt a dangerous menace to pedestrians and cyclists on our roads, but in a perverse way the Government Research Establishment (TRL) has concluded that they are a hazard to the occupants of vehicles. Often, the very fitment of bull bars markedly reduces the safety design of the vehicle; that is, the crumple zone.
The Bill has not come out of the blue. There has been an active campaign to rid bull bars from our roads for over three years. They have caused many fatalities and serious injuries. One accident that I believe caught the public conscience occurred six months ago. It involved the tragic death of a 10 year-old girl. Both the surgeon who tried desperately to save her and the coroner came to the same view and publicly called for a legal ban. Perhaps when the law changes and bull bars become illegal her family will have some comfort that her innocent death has led to a change that may save others.
I believe that public awareness of the dangers of bull bars over the past three years has been immeasurably helped by both the honourable Member for Newport West, Mr. Paul Flynn, and the RAC. The skilful stream of debates and Questions put down by that honourable Member and his commitment is a demonstration of parliamentary skill at its best. I salute him. Equally, the RAC has fired up all kinds of responsible organisations and carried with them their 6 million members. Their efforts were particularly valuable in lobbying the European Parliament, which formally backed a motion in support of a ban.
One motor insurance company has bravely decided not to insure any vehicle with bull bars. I wish that others would follow suit because then there would be no need for legislation. That company has conducted a survey which was published today. Ninety-six per cent. of the motorists to whom they wrote supported a ban. There is a long list of influential bodies which support the ban, including of course the police forces and
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ambulance services which are at the sharp end. In fact, it is difficult to find who is against the ban, except, naturally, the manufacturers of the accessories. I hope that they realise by now that the product has no future.
If one looks beyond Britain, it is interesting to note that, in Australia, bull bars arc in the process of being banned from urban areas. In future, if the owners of such vehicles wish to visit a town, they must first remove their bars before entering the area. These demountable bars are a new design. Perhaps one should follow suit as regards that excellent example.
One might ask: what have the Government been doing over the past three years? Without wishing to trespass on my noble friend's reply, I believe that a fair summary would be that they have been researching the facts with the help of the TRL and the police forces which were asked to monitor the accidents. The TRL has publicly stated that its best estimate is that something like 35 deaths per year and 350 serious injuries are caused directly by bull bars. I am sure that my noble friend agrees that no further dry statistics arc necessary. Common sense tells us vvhat to do. The Government have also been examining ways of imposing a legal ban with the Commission to amend Directive 74/483 by a shortened procedure known, as I understand it, as the "technical adaption". That would effectively meet the objective.
There is another point which is most important to me. My honourable friend the Minister has publicly committed his determination to see that bull bars are banned. That is a most encouraging advance, because I have a high regard for his political skill and, indeed, his sincerity on the issue. But I am unhappy and disturbed that the advice he is receiving is, "Leave it to the Commission".
The Commission, with all its wisdom, cannot commit other member states. Who knows, in 12 months' time, we may find that the issue is still in the slow lane and unresolved with more promises and more deaths and injuries. To give the Commission its due, it has recommended three courses of action that Britain could take unilaterally. First, there is the temporary ban for six months, although whether it can be renewed after that period if the Commission has not brought in its amendment, I know not. Secondly, one could ban the bull bars that are not type approved, but, of course, that applies to only a small percentage of the market. Thirdly, one could play the safeguard card. Where there is determination, I have no doubt that lawyers will find a way. Of course, there is no room for timidity. Safeguard cards look to be the most promising option.
I turn now to the Bill. It is very simple in concept. It simply adds bull bars to a long list of permissive powers under Section 41(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. It is an illustrative list, not exclusive. It spells out specifically without peradventure the power to ban bull bars. Although there may be a general power under that section of the Act, I commend the Bill as a piece of vital and overdue legislation which, perhaps, has as an added benefit its simplicity and clarity.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
8.33 p.m.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has introduced this important Bill. Some may not see it as being important, yet road vehicles affect all of us and we are all, therefore, subject to the way in which they are driven and constructed. There are a number of angles concerning bull bars which need to be looked at, but I shall confine my comments to safety. I should add that, having lived in Australia in the 1960s, I have in fact seen the result of a vehicle having been in collision with a kangaroo. It was not a good sight to see.
Bull bars have spread to vehicles which will never need them. Confining bull bars to, perhaps, farm vehicles and police riot vehicles may be acceptable. But when they are used purely for cosmetic and macho reasons on vehicles which do not need them, it is not acceptable. A few people say that they have bull bars to protect their lights, unaware, I assume, that contoured plastic covers are available. They are very good and I have used them for some years.
Bull bars are dangerous to children, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and to other vehicles to the extent that 87 per cent. of motorists, questioned in a survey by Auto Express and RoSPA, said that they should be banned. Research done in this country, in Germany, in New Zealand and in Australia concludes that bull bars turn slight injury accidents into serious ones, and serious accidents into fatalities. Not one researcher, interestingly, concluded that they add anything to safety. A TRL report states that,
"the potential to improve energy absorbing characteristics of crash bars made from bent and welded tubes is very limited due to their high mass and inertia".
While some people are trying to design pedestrian friendly bull bars, it has already been shown that even a soft one fitted to a vehicle is more dangerous than where none is involved. Much development has taken place in recent years to ensure that the fronts of cars crumple progressively in an accident. In another place on 19th April 1995, Mr. Peter Bottomley asked:
"Can my hon. Friend also tell us why, although cars are usually constructed so that they collapse to protect those inside, idiots put hard objects on cars that will kill those outside?".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/95; co1.190.]
I heartily agree with him. The front of vans, off-road vehicles and people carriers are unfriendly enough without adding what I tend to think of as either a cheese or egg slicer, a potentially lethal weapon for protection.
One driver interviewed by Auto Express said:
"In a van like this, with nothing between you and the traffic, keeping them on is a question of self-preservation".
I am sure that that attitude sums up the opinion of many drivers who have them fitted. They do not realise that the fitting of bull bars not only effectively eliminates the crumple zone but also stiffens the vehicle which means that, in an accident, there is faster deceleration, thereby causing more severe injury than in one not so equipped. Further, any other vehicle involved will have to absorb up to twice the energy that it was designed for, with the result that damage is worse. So bull bars are thoroughly dangerous on the public highway.
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I seem to recall a newspaper report saying that France and Germany will not, in all probability, be banning bull bars: I may he wrong. While the figures that I have been given by RoSPA for pedestrian deaths are very similar for each country, those for road deaths give 6.8 deaths per 100,000 population in the United Kingdom, 17 for France and 12 for Germany. This, perhaps, could indicate that we take road safety seriously and heed advice given. Perhaps France and Germany should follow us with the elimination of bull bars. It is unfortunate, though, that the figures for pedestrians do not separate bull bar fatalities: perhaps another noble Lord has managed to do so.
Bull bars should be banned and should be removed from road-going vehicles which already have them fitted—as some people, companies and police forces, have already done. I support the Bill.
8.37 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I should, first, declare an interest as deputy president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. The society has been leading road safety campaigns for nearly 80 years and has been at the forefront of the movement to end the fitting of metal bull bars to road-going motor vehicles. I support the Bill and commend my noble friend for introducing it.
My concern is that vehicles fitted with bull bars inflict serious injuries on the most vulnerable road users—pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motor cyclists—when they are involved in accidents. Bull bars stay rigid and do not crumple on impact like bumpers. People are being killed or badly hurt because motorists have been encouraged to drive in vehicles fitted with equipment which is totally unnecessary and inappropriate to their use.
The sad thing about this fashion—for that is what it is—is that it flies in the face of well-known good practice in the motor industry. A great deal of research, time and money have been expended to identify the aspects of design which can help to minimise injury, yet for the sake of a chance to develop a fashionable sales gimmick some within the industry appear to have been happy to close their eyes to known good practice.
As my noble friend said, bull bars were introduced to protect a vehicle's bodywork in off-road situations in Australia as a defence against collision damage from kangaroos which were mainly attracted by headlights. I am not aware of kangaroos roaming the roads of Britain, but this is a serious point and vehicles should not be allowed on our roads fitted with bars that can kill or maim if those bars serve no purpose. They are most commonly fitted to four-wheel drive vehicles and vans. The bars are often at the head height of a child and the vulnerable abdominal area of many adults. A child's life is a high price to pay for the sake of fashion. Research supports my arguments. As my noble friend said, the presence of bull bars is estimated by the Transport Research Laboratory to result in 35 deaths, including 15 child deaths, and 350 serious injuries to vulnerable road users each year.

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Studies in Germany indicate that whereas most children would survive an impact with a vehicle at 20 miles an hour, life threatening injuries are sustained at just 12 miles an hour when bull bars are fitted. Those are shocking figures and such bare statistics do not of course show the pain of the victims and the grief and misery of their families. That pain and misery could be ended if we could remove the threat of bull bars on our roads. I believe steps must be taken to stop manufacturers fitting metal bull bars to new road-going vehicles. In addition the public must also be prevented from buying and fitting them after manufacture. Finally, motorists with vehicles already equipped with bull bars should be required to have them removed.
The only exceptions which I believe could be justified are for vehicles used entirely off-road and which clearly need the protection of bull bars from rough terrain and animals. Manufacturers who are well aware of the risks of such designs should be looking at ways of making their vehicles more pedestrian friendly. In that way they will he helping to reduce the carnage on our roads—something with which everyone should be concerned.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said, there have been reports recently of resistance in France and Germany to moves to outlaw bull bars. I urge this House to do everything in its power to persuade such opponents to think again so that legislation banning bull bars can be introduced speedily throughout Europe. After all, ceasing to fit bull bars should not increase the cost of vehicles. In the meantime I urge motor manufacturers to make a positive move for safety by voluntarily ceasing to fit these bull bars to their vehicles. Individuals should also play their part in making our roads safer by having these potentially lethal bars removed from their vehicles now.
8.44 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for introducing this Bill. When I first saw the Bill I had a quick look at it and went straight to the Long Title to see whether it could be a good vehicle for dealing with other problems such as the impounding of goods vehicles. Unfortunately, the Long Title was so well written that the only matter the Bill could address was the problem of bull bars.
Most speakers have discussed this problem in great detail. I am convinced that there is a problem. Bull bars are not good accessories to fit to vehicles. I believe that in any legislation there will be a problem in defining what exactly is a bull bar. The noble Earl mentioned difficulties as regards loopholes. There will be a problem as regards covering the need for light guards. All speakers referred to the bad design of vehicles which results in those vehicles becoming deformed as a result of an accident. I support those sentiments.
I believe that many speakers have underestimated the necessity of avoiding damage to vehicles which genuinely have to travel cross-country and go down difficult tracks. Much damage is sustained to the lights and bodywork of those vehicles. The solution to that is a detachable bull bar or light guard, or whatever one wants to call it, that can be fitted in certain
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circumstances in the country but which cannot be used when the vehicle is in town. If we decide to adopt a construction and use regulation I fear that we may still have problems as regards vehicles that originate from and are registered in Europe. We may not he able to prevent them from entering this country.
Another problem concerns EU approval. If a bull bar is type-approved in Europe, can we prohibit their use on vehicles here? Bull bars arc fitted to off-road recreational vehicles. It is worth considering what they are used for. They are used for sport vehicles. People drive down rough tracks in these vehicles and that is enjoyable. However, unfortunately, those vehicles are causing much damage to ancient tracks in the country. Perhaps at some stage we need to consider that matter too. Perhaps we need to build suitable adult playgrounds. In conclusion, I would say that the Bill addresses an important problem. I support the objectives of the Bill. However, I am not sure that the Bill will he quite the right way of addressing this matter and I look forward to hearing how the noble Viscount intends to address the problem.
8.48 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for allowing me to speak before him, and also to everyone else who has enabled me to do so. I shall speak briefly. We all now know—if we did not before—of the problems of bull bars. The three tragic cases of the 10 year-old Helen Baggs, of the pensioner Ivy Hamnett and of the 17 year-old Victoria Moull, who received severe injuries, indicate exactly how bull bars function. If the straight part of a bull bar hits one, it inflicts appalling damages, wherever it hits one. If one is six years old, bull bars hit one's head, and if one is 10 years old—as in the case of Helen Baggs—they hit one in the chest. As people grow taller they are hit in the pelvic area and on the legs. However, wherever bull bars make contact, they cause horrendous damage. When I was researching this matter someone told me that if a bull bar was thrown at me it would break my legs. It is the rigidity of the bar itself that does the damage.
I support absolutely the extremely good work which is being done by RoSPA and many other organisations to bring this matter to the attention of the public. I believe, as do others, that bull bars have been treated in a rather lighthearted fashion as amusing accessories. Because statistics are not kept on the number of accidents caused by bull bars, it has been difficult to bring the matter into the public eye. Therefore this debate and the work of RoSPA and of motoring and other organisations is extremely useful in that respect.
The TRL has been involved in the creation of tests and test tools required to implement a new directive to improve the safety of cars which may come in contact with pedestrians, particularly when that involves frontal contact. The results of its work support the findings that these bull bars are extremely dangerous, even when vehicles are driven at low speed. I support the objective of the noble Earl. However, I am worried as to how he thinks that the Bill will fit into the European context.

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We have already had reference to vehicle type approval, and so on. I have my doubts as to whether he can achieve what he seeks.
Meanwhile there are some actions that people can take. Local authorities, for example Kent, Hampshire and Surrey, have already reduced or forbidden the use of the bull bars except where vehicles go across country. I believe that RoSPA and motoring organisations are doing an excellent job in seeking to persuade motorists to remove the bull bars already on their vehicles, and not to fit bull bars or to buy new vehicles with them. However, the noble Earl must explain how he sees the Bill fitting in with European matters.
8.50 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, perhaps I may say that in winding up from this side, I do so in a personal capacity. I do not speak for the Labour Party. However, speaking for myself, I congratulate the noble Earl on introducing the Bill, and pursuing a campaign. I thank him for offering the generous tribute to my honourable friend Mr. Paul Flynn in another place. Certainly the two of them have worked in a helpful combination, and hopefully their endeavours will elicit a positive response tonight from the Minister.
I thought that the valuable intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, was characteristically useful. I would underline the fact that she now "owes me one". In what capacity she will honour the obligation I do not know.
I believe that an overwhelming case has been made for action on the part of the Government, independently of action that might be taken at European Union level. I concede that that would be the best solution but I fear that it will take rather a long time. I shall come to that in a moment.
In articulating his case, the noble Earl brought in aid, quite rightly, the work of the RAC. The noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, referred to the support which RoSPA gives to the proposals. In all fairness, it is right also to pay tribute to another authoritative organisation, the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport Safety (better known as PACTS), and the Automobile Association and the Transport Research Laboratory—about which, I gather, we may be hearing something positive tomorrow. All have expressed real concern about vehicles equipped with bull bars essentially, I think, to provide a rather cosmetic, perhaps macho, form of self indulgence, but which also constitute a real danger to other road users, as has been explained in the debate.
I do not know what useful purpose bull bars serve in our towns and cities. Not too many kangaroos are observed, as the noble Lord said. There are not a lot of cattle in Hackney, so far as I see. When I was a boy, cows were used by a dairy at Clapton Common. However, I did not see any bull bars in operation at that stage! Whether or not they apply to cows is a moot point.
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Very little has been said about the background in terms of the European Union's legislation. A Framework Directive (74/4/483 EEC) sets out the requirements for external projections of motor vehicles; and there are a number of European Union directives based on the Framework Directive dealing with the type approval of motor vehicles.
A relevant directive bans sharp edges on the exterior of vehicles and "ornaments". It requires,
"the external surface of vehicles not to exhibit or direct outwards any pointed or sharp edges or any projections of such shape, dimensions, directions or hardness as to be likely to increase the risk of seriousness of bodily injury to a person hit by the external surface or brushing against it in the event of a collision".
This question arises. If there is compelling evidence that the application of bull bars to vehicles constitutes a hazard to pedestrians or other road users, are the Government entitled to take unilateral legislative action to deal with the situation? It does not matter whether it is in the form of this Bill or the construction and use regulations. It is legislation. Alternatively, should the Government leave the issue to the development of legislation within the European Union?
When the issue was first promoted, it seemed that the Government were sheltering entirely behind the assertion that they were impotent to do anything about the problem: that they had to leave it to the European Union to deal with the situation. With respect, I do not believe that that view is entirely accurate by any manner of means. First, where bull bars are not fitted when the vehicle was originally type-approved, as an after-market extra, or where the bull bars in question are different from those fitted at type approval, then an individual member state can undoubtedly ban them. That is what the Commission stated. Commissioner Kinnock made that clear; and it is obviously the view of Commissioner Bangemann. I submit that bull bars can also be prohibited, albeit for only six months—that is, on a temporary basis—pursuant to the "safeguard" clause in the framework directive which allows member states to refuse registration or sale of vehicles type-approved with bull bars where there is a legitimate concern over safety.
In many respects the most important provision is under Article 36 of the treaty. I shall not go through it now. It is clear that the application of Article 36 is available. The member state could outlaw the fitting of bull bars on vehicles with national type approval where, and only where, the bull bars comply with national requirements rather than the European Union directive on external projections. Of course, the provision must not be used as a form of arbitrary discrimination. It must not be used as an artificial barrier to trade. That is set out in Article 36.
One must ask the Government—I hope that the Minister will reply—about the possibility of further European Union legislation on the issue. It is right and fair to say that the Commission has paid tribute to the Government. It supports the Government in their commitment to make vehicles "pedestrian friendly", to use a term utilised by the Minister at Question time last

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June, if I recall aright. It is a term which he did not regard as particularly happy. Nevertheless, let us assume that we all understand what it means.
The Commission has drafted a directive to amend the provisions relating to sharp edges to include hard surfaces. I believe that that would include bull bars. I do not agree altogether with the criticism made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I believe that bull bars, as we understand them, would be caught by the new proposals. Unhappily, there appears not to be a qualified majority for the proposal to be written into international law, although the Commission has said that it is convinced, like all the other non-governmental organisations, that it is essential for the safety of vehicles and for pedestrians. So the Commission requires no further commitment in that regard and it proposes to pursue the issue vigorously. I am delighted to know that.
Like all the other organisations the Commission clearly understands and is convinced that it is a safety problem which needs to be tackled. It does not seem to me to require the reassurance, therefore, of the further investigation that we know the Government have undertaken. I said that last June and I was rebuked by the Minister in, as always, the friendliest possible way. But I do not understand why we need all the extra research into a problem which is self-evidently serious. It may not be on the scale of all the problems of road accidents, but it only needs a few children, as in the cases cited by the noble Baroness and the noble Earl in introducing the Bill, to convince me that the tragedy that befalls not only the victim but also the relatives is such that the issue ought to be met urgently. I hope that the Minister will accept that there is a strong, convincing case for adopting the legislation.
Perhaps I may ask the Minister this. If he says that he would still rather see it applied on a European Union scale, what prospect does he have that the Commission's proposal will be adopted within a reasonable time? I fear that it will not, but the Minister may give evidence to the contrary to the House. I believe that the case for the Bill is substantial but the Minister ought also to make plain whether he accepts the case factually and statistically. Alternatively, do we have to wait for the end of the period of research? When will the research come to an end?
In answer to a Question posed last June by the noble Earl, the Minister said that the report would be published at the end of last year. We have reached that time and I wish the Minister a very happy new year. However, when shall we have a happy report? This month, next month, the month after? Will he explain to the House when it will happen? We ought not to wait so long. I believe that the case for unilateral action of one kind or another is made out. I do not propose to go over the evidence adduced by the Transport Research Laboratory, which, in my view, is utterly compelling.
The Government place their faith in other matters as well. They say that voluntary action would render a mandatory approach unnecessary. I believe that there is something in that. For example, some effective response has been elicited from manufacturers to the anxieties about safety with the introduction of softer metals as
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a substitute for aggressive metal bull bars. That is an encouraging response. I am also pleased that the insurance company, CGA Direct Line Insurance, has responded in an effective way, as the noble Earl pointed out at the beginning of his speech. It did not need any additional evidence to convince that company that that was an appropriate line to take. The problem is that, if it turns down an insurance, it is possible that the person involved will move to another insurer, albeit paying an additional premium for the privilege, and that will not solve the problem.
I ask the Minister what evidence there is that other insurers are prepared to fall in line with the perfectly sensible initiative taken by CGA. Is there any truth in the suggestion that, if the company takes that action, it will expose itself to litigation, as has been reported in the press?
By amending the Road Traffic Act 1988, the Bill would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations prohibiting the use on the road of vehicles fitted with bull bars. It may be, as the RAC has advised, that a better route would be to amend the Construction and Use Regulations of 1986. One needs to examine that position, and perhaps the noble Earl will do that at Committee stage when he has reflected on the matter. I hope that the Bill will receive a Second Reading tonight.
However, if—contrary to my expectations—the Commission's proposal makes progress in the near future, then the Secretary of State would not he required to take action under the enabling Bill. That is the essence of the matter. It would not prejudice the position of the Secretary of State in the least, indeed, it would strengthen it in negotiations in the Transport Council. I speak from experience in this regard: often a commissioner can be enormously assisted by national proposals, either in embryonic or enabling form, which are adduced within national parliaments and which have the support of the parliament. I do not believe that the Minister would be in the least prejudiced by that. No harm would be done.
Equally, if the permissive actions which the Government have encouraged with some success with manufacturers and insurers are not so successful as the Government hope, the Minister would be armed with the potential to take real and decisive action.
I welcome the Bill which has been eloquently moved by the noble Earl. I thank him for doing so, I have supported him in the campaign. I wish him well and hope that the Bill receives a fair wind.
9.5 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen): My Lords, I welcome the fact that my noble friend Lord Kinnoull has raised the profile of this important road safety issue and I commend his motives in bringing the Bill forward. We have had a good discussion around road safety issues involving bull bars this evening and there seems to have been a consensus in the House on the dangers arising from the use of those devices.

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The Government are committed to improving all aspects of road and vehicle safety to reduce the toll of deaths and injuries on our roads. We have been concerned for some time that the fitment of bull bars might hinder this objective, particularly in the case mentioned by my noble friend Lord Astor of the especially vulnerable categories of road users: pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists.
Bull bars have been an increasing trend over the past few years. It is true that some can be quite crude in nature and design. It seems to be the case that many are fitted simply as macho fashion accessories, with little worth-while benefits to the vehicles while being driven on the road. On the other hand, some are fitted by people who feel that they have a proper use for them.
Previous reports by the Transport Research Laboratory had estimated that an extra 35 deaths per annum could occur as a result of bull bars. That was not based on actual accidents but on predictions on testing. We have taken steps, in conjunction with the police, to try to quantify this by examining accident reports for vehicles fitted with bull bars. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that, despite my aspiration earlier last year that the work would be finished by this time, I am afraid we must wait a little longer for the results of the exercise. I anticipate that they will be available soon. I regret that I cannot be any more specific at the moment.
Preventing the use of bull bars on all vehicles would be difficult to achieve at the present time. Popular models with bull bars fitted as original equipment by the manufacturers are likely to have been granted European type approval in respect of external projections. The free circulation of such vehicles cannot be impeded. That point was taken up by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas.
The external projections directive was agreed in 1974, and simply calls for projections at the front of a car to be rounded to a radius of at least 2.5 millimetres. Bull bar designs meet, or could readily be modified to meet, that requirement. But they would still be unsatisfactory in safety terms.
Such European considerations, and the fact that as yet there is no specific hard evidence as to the effect of bull bars on injuries to people, are partly why we have held back from proposing national action. We hope that when we have the results of the work that has been undertaken, we shall be in a much better position to judge the issues empirically.
The important point in considering my noble friend's Bill this evening is that it will not add to the national powers that already exist in legislation. And it would not resolve the complications that we have in relation to European law. As I suggested, the Government take the view that the only effective way of dealing with the bull bar issue lies with European action. Mr. Neil Kinnock, the Transport Commissioner, recently met my honourable friend the Minister for local transport and road safety, Mr. Steven Norris. The commissioner agreed that the best way forward in the short-term is for
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the Commission to bring forward an amendment to the external projections directive to introduce specific proposals on bull bars.
The initiative now rests with the Commission, and the Government will be urging it to announce its plans as soon as possible. If necessary, we may draft an initial proposal so that the matter can he speedily discussed.
This short-term action does not affect the Government's strong support for action on a proposed European directive to improve the pedestrian protection offered by all car fronts—
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, my noble friend just said that his department might draft a proposal for the Commission. Is that in the process of being done at the moment and, if so, how soon will it be available to the Commission? It would be very helpful to the Commission.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the point that I was trying to make is that we have offered our help because of work done within the United Kingdom. I trust that if the Commission feels that in gaining our assistance the process would be speeded up, then we should be very pleased to help in so far as we can.
Returning to the issue of the pedestrian protection effected by all car fronts, a lot of work has been done in this field. The proposed European directive to improve pedestrian protection, as I mentioned, would prohibit the fitting of aggressive bull bars but is a broader issue that will take much longer to agree with our European partners.
The aggressive nature of car fronts is more of a danger than bull bars. Some 1,200 pedestrians per annum are killed in the UK. That is more than the number of car driver fatalities. A large proportion are struck by the front face of cars. We should not lose sight of the magnitude of this wider problem. Research has established that a significant reduction in such casualties could be achieved by cars having softer fronts.
Not all bull bars need be dangerous. Bars designed to use soft materials could actually make a vehicle safer while still offering some protection to its bodywork and lights from parking damage. A few manufacturers are experimenting with softer versions in order to help meet the proposals for making all car fronts pedestrian friendly. It is the hard, rigid and aggressive steel bull bars so well explained and described by the noble Baroness about which we are concerned.
We understand and sympathise with the reasons behind my noble friend's motives but, as I said, the Bill will not add to the powers that we already have. The field of vehicle legislation is occupied by European directives. The Bill will not change that fact.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister for giving way. What the Minister seems to argue is, in a way, contradictory. First, he mentioned the scale of the problem in general, which is quite true, and this legislation falls into a very small sector. However, it seems to me that, although one cannot achieve everything that one wants, one nonetheless does something. There is no reason for not doing something.

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This is a situation in which the Minister has the powers. Therefore, if he has the powers, why not be prepared to adopt them on the basis that there is no likelihood of early agreement within the European Union (notwithstanding the offer of help that he has given, I believe that the Commission could probably do the job itself). In fact, why not say very clearly that, if we are not satisfied that the situation will be resolved within the European Union within the course of the next 12 months, we shall have no hesitation in utilising the legislative powers that the Minister says are available.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I feel that the noble Lord has slightly though not entirely misunderstood the message that I was trying to put over. On the European front there are two strings to this bow. One is the broader approach to softer car fronts. That is very much the longer term objective. I believe that there will be considerable benefits from making good progress on that but we are some way off that. The other approach on the European basis, as agreed by Mr. Kinnock, is for the Commission to bring forward an amendment to the external projections directive. That is a separate measure from the general measure concerning softer car fronts. That could be achieved very much more quickly.
Why do we not take unilateral action? I have explained that in a field that is so heavily governed by European directives on type approval, we feel that we would be in a position where we could very well be challenged in the courts because of the considerable body of legislation on type approval. That, and for the reason that I have given of ongoing research, is why we consider that getting speedy European action is very much more satisfactory and legally defensible than taking the national action that is proposed. Also, in terms of the national action available to us, the Bill does not add anything to the powers that we already have.
In conclusion, we believe that the path forward to achieve some proper progress on this issue is through European action. As I said, we are urging the Commission to announce its proposals for amending the
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external projections directive. Once finalised, they will remove a significant obstacle to national action on bull bars.
9.17 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. There was unanimous support for the Bill, except, sadly, for my noble friend who, towards the end of his speech in reply, seemed to emphasise that the Government already have the power and therefore there was no purpose in the Bill going forward. I disagree for the reason that the core issue is to ban bull bars. If we have a Committee, we can again examine the issues and press for further information.
I believe that there is a will and determination not only in Parliament but outside it to ensure that bull bars are banned. My honourable friend the Minister is publicly committed to banning the bull bars. I cannot believe that he would just allow this issue to drift on. That is what may happen. He said to many Members in a recent speech that he would he prepared to examine any way in which the Government could go forward. Allowing this Bill to go through is, I suggest, a very good way forward.
It is late at night. I shall resist the temptation to answer any of the detailed points that have been made. I am extremely grateful to all those who have spoken and to the noble Baroness for her late entry. I was not quite sure whether or not the reference made by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, to "she owes me one" was part of the bull bar structure. However, I am very grateful to all noble Lords. It has been a valuable debate on a vital subject. I hope that the House will accept that the Bill should he read a second time. I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at nineteen minutes past nine o'clock.

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