Sitting of 4 July 1996

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

    CITY OF WESTMINSTER BILL [Lords]
    Order for consideration read.
    Amendments agreed to.
    To be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Private Finance Initiative
    Mr. Clapham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made as to the extent to which money from the private finance initiative will compensate for the reduction in capital finance originally undertaken for 1996–97. [34517]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Tom Sackville): Private finance initiative replaces public capital where it offers better value and is a useful addition to any public capital provision.
    Mr. Clapham: I am surprised by the Minister's answer because he did not refer to any figures. He must be well aware that the Home Secretary announced with a great fanfare that an extra £20 million would be available in revenue for extra police. By a sleight of hand, there was a £23 million cut in capital provision, compared with the total in the annual report. Can the Minister assure the House that private finance will make up for the £23 million cut in capital provision this year?
    Mr. Sackville: We expect £151 million to be spent on capital contracts, most of them already agreed, in the current year. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that all Home Office funding for specific police building projects is being maintained this year. There have been no enforced cuts in major building programmes, but it is open to police authorities to enter into PFI contracts. I recently visited a police force that is making considerable progress down that road. There is no reason for police building in future not to take advantage of private finance.
    Mr. John Marshall: Has my hon. Friend noticed the vendetta against the private finance initiative launched by Opposition Back Benchers? Is he aware that the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott)
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    claims to have invented the PFI and that the Leader of the Opposition claims to support it? Is not that another example of new Labour being out of touch with 80 per cent. of its Back Benchers?
    Mr. Sackville: It is significant that we have received no complaints about the PFI from Labour Front Benchers recently. Opposition Members who have cast aspersions on the initiative, locally or otherwise, are totally out of touch with their own party.

    Juvenile Crime
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new measures he is planning to tackle juvenile crime; and if he will make a statement. [34518]
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): The Government continue to take firm action to tackle juvenile crime and its causes. In particular, we have strengthened the courts' powers to give young offenders custodial sentences where they commit serious crimes or offend persistently; we have given the police the power to attach stricter conditions to bail; we are proposing to give the police new powers to seize alcohol from young people drinking in public and to destroy it; and we have set up a ministerial group on juveniles, which is working to ensure that all relevant Departments and Government agencies, together with local government and voluntary agencies, co-ordinate their efforts—so as to target children who are at greatest risk of offending and to maximise the efforts made to steer them away from a life of crime.
    Mr. Greenway: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's reply and all the measures that he is taking. Does he agree that if juveniles are set on a life of crime, that will prove disastrous for the rest of their lives and for their families? Does my right hon. and learned Friend further agree that if juveniles receive moral and spiritual teaching, that will assist them to move away from crime? Will my right hon. and learned Friend do all that he can to provide such education, as well as preventing juveniles from reoffending if they commit a crime for any reason?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend, whose points go far beyond the criminal justice system. Greater emphasis must be placed on the part that teachers and parents can play in educating children in the difference between right and wrong. The greater the emphasis placed on that matter in children's formative years, the less prospect there will be of them becoming career criminals later in life.
    Mr. Straw: I entirely endorse what the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) said. But is the Secretary of State aware that, so great has been the Government's failure over 17 years to tackle juvenile crime, there are countless examples across the country of persistent young offenders who wait for months—in some cases for more than a year—before being punished? Meanwhile, they offend again and again before their cases get to court. Why are these delays continually becoming worse? Does not the Government's inability to tackle youth crime contrast starkly with Labour's proposals to

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    reform the youth justice system, and particularly with our pledge to halve the time that it takes to bring serious young criminals to justice?
    Mr. Howard: The pledge might be just a trifle more impressive if the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers gave the slightest indication of how the pledge is to be maintained—but it does not deal with that at all. What we have seen from the Labour party is a series of attempts to undermine all the measures that we have taken. It has attempted to wreck the steps that we have taken to give police the power to attach conditions to bail, and it has sought to make it impossible for secure accommodation to be made available for young offenders, with Labour-controlled local authorities consistently refusing to provide such accommodation. What we get from the hon. Gentleman is a conspicuous example of the new dangers that new Labour brings.

    Drugs (Prisons)
    Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken to combat the use of drugs in prisons. [34519]
    Mr. Howard: Since last April we have introduced mandatory drug testing in all prison establishments. All establishments have also produced local strategies for reducing the supply of and the demand for drugs.
    Mr. Bruce: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. How successful has that policy been? Does he recall that he received no support in voting for those measures from the Labour party or from the Liberal party? They tried to say one thing in the media but failed to support the policies in the House. Will he confirm that it is absolutely essential that we clean out drugs from our prisons, because a prisoner coming out who is dependent on drugs almost certainly will go back to a life of crime?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that it is too early in the mandatory drug testing programme to be definitive about its success, although the latest figures for those testing positive—at 27.6 per cent., which, of course, is still far too high—show a welcome reduction on the 37 per cent. who tested positive in the first month of the introduction of the programme in February last year. Although there is more to be done, the signs are encouraging.
    Mr. Bermingham: Can the Home Secretary please tell me how he can reconcile, first, an expected expansion of 7,000 in the total prison population by April next year; secondly, an expected 1,200 reduction in the number of prison officers because of the 5 per cent. to 13 per cent. cuts; and, thirdly, a total freeze on recruitment in the Prison Service? When he is reducing the numbers of officers and increasing the numbers of prisoners, how can he ever have an effective drug policy—unless he introduces drug-free wings in prisons, and perhaps uses specialists who can begin to educated prisoners away from the drug habit?
    Mr. Howard: We are doing both of the things that the hon. Gentleman suggests. In particular, a significant increase is under way in the number of prisons in which
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    drug treatment programmes are available. The hon. Gentleman is quite right and I entirely accept that, in addition to mandatory drug testing, we need more treatment available in our prisons. That is exactly what we are providing.
    Dame Jill Knight: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend recognise that the largest proportion of drugs going into prisons come from visitors visiting inmates? Does he accept that there is a very real need to stop that, particularly by stopping visitors and inmates touching, which is so often how drugs are passed?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with a good deal of what my hon. Friend says. In particular, we are introducing on a pilot basis closed visits for those who have been found to be in possession of drugs who are suspected of having had those drugs passed to them through visiting, in precisely the way that my hon. Friend has suggests. We are determined to do all that we can to root out the disgraceful state of affairs in which drugs are taken in our prisons, and closed visits may have an important part to play in achieving that objective.

    Drug Trafficking
    Mr. William O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what additional resources he will provide to combat drug trafficking in city and urban areas; and if he will make a statement. [34520]
    Mr. Sackville: The Government are currently spending more than half a billion pounds a year directly on the fight against drugs.
    Mr. O'Brien: Is the Minister aware of the launch of the West Yorkshire police community forum, in which a number of very busy people in West Yorkshire are coming together to try to combat crime, drug and alcohol abuse and the causes of crime? The survey of the regions carried out by the Government revealed that West Yorkshire has real social problems. The launch of the police community trust has been spearheaded by the chief constable of West Yorkshire, Keith Hellawell, who is calling for local business people to provide £1 million to help to resource the forum. Will the Minister press the Home Secretary to make a contribution to that £1 million, or even to fund pound for pound the sum that is being subscribed by local people? We need help with the forum.
    Mr. Sackville: Drugs are a huge and dire problem everywhere in this country, but in West Yorkshire people have the advantage that the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers drug committee, Chief Constable Keith Hellawell, is providing a model for what should happen elsewhere. As for funding, I remind the hon. Gentleman that West Yorkshire police will receive an extra £11 million in available spending this year. How that money is deployed must remain a decision principally for the chief constable and the authority. None the less, I commend the drug forum and Chief Constable Hellawell for what they are doing. It is exactly what is required to back up enforcement with proper drug prevention. In the end, that is the only way in which we shall beat drugs.
    Mr. Elletson: Is my hon. Friend aware of the significant reductions in drug trafficking in the urban council housing estates that are run by the tenants under the Government's right-to-manage scheme? Will he take the opportunity to condemn Labour-controlled local authorities such as Blackpool borough council whichcontinue, by the most underhand means, to deny their tenants the right to manage?
    Mr. Sackville: I accept what my hon. Friend says, because I am very aware that the best way to ruin a council estate, or any other estate, is to allow drug dealers to operate within it. Tenants can take decisions; they know who the drug dealers are and they can bring pressure to bear. That is the best way to protect children on those estates.
    Mr. Flynn: The Home Secretary has just described the situation in our gaols, after 17 years of Conservative Government, as "disgraceful". In the two gaols that serve my area, Cardiff and Swansea, it has been discovered that 50 per cent.—that is, half the prisoners—are on drugs. Drug use is endemic in every prison in Britain, and if we cannot keep drugs out of our prisons, how on earth do we expect to keep them out of schools, clubs, pubs and raves?
    Mr. Sackville: It is a matter of great distress to everyone connected with prisons that many people take up drugs as a result of being in prison. I agree that that is entirely unacceptable. But thanks to my hon. Friend the Minister of State who is responsible for prisons, considerable progress has been made in the past two years. If the hon. Gentleman goes to see some of the prisons with drug-free wings and drug programmes, he will find people who are coming off drugs in prison who would not have had the chance to do that outside. That should be applauded, and the more encouragement that can be given to the Prison Service to allocate resources for more drug-free wings, the better.

    Prisoner Escapes
    Mr. Nicholas Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the incidence of escapes from Her Majesty's prisons and from prison escorts since April 1993. [34521]
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Miss Ann Widdecombe): The percentage reduction from the financial year 1992–93 until the financial year 1995–96 is 79 per cent.
    The number of escapes from establishments has fallen from 232 to 52, and the number of escapes from escort has fallen from 115 to 36 over the same period.
    I congratulate the Prison Service on this considerable achievement.
    Mr. Baker: Will my hon. Friend accept the congratulations of the House for the entire Prison Service? Is it not justification for the policy of contracting out services therein; and is that not yet another way in which prison works, because according to a secret document that has come into my hands, a copy of which should be placed in the Library, new Labour believes that the Tory policy of prison works is an absurdity?
    Miss Widdecombe: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is also right to draw attention to the operation of private escorts. It is a fact that much of the reduction in the rate of escapes from escort is due to the privatisation of escort services. In the first year of operation, in the initial area contracted-out, there was a reduction of 45 per cent.; in the second year, 71 per cent.; and in the third year a further improvement resulted in a final reduction of 82 per cent. My hon. Friend is also quite right to point to the absurdity of the Labour party's position: that prison does not work. If it does not work, at the same time as we have a rise in the prison population, why do we have a fall in the rate of crime? Why is the rate of reconviction better for prisons than it is for community services? Is not it a fact that every single time we have become tough on law and order, that has been opposed by the Labour party? Will it now admit at last that it was wrong?
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Minister tell the House why the Government have been so lacking in openness about the cost and feasibility of implementing the Learmont proposals on prison security? Will she also tell the House how, if the Government are not prepared for that implementation, we can believe anything that they say about paying the price of building new prisons for their sentencing proposals?
    Miss Widdecombe: I made it extremely clear to the hon. and learned Gentleman when he asked me about our response to the Learmont report, in a written answer, which he has now had plenty of time to read and study, that we will, in due course, produce our response to the Learmont report. At such time as we produce that response, I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will have no reason to complain of any lack of openness. All there is at the moment is a lack of patience. I suggest that he learns a bit more patience.
    Mr. John Greenway: Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Baker) about the lack of prison places, would it not be sensible to rethink the £2 billion price tag to implement Learmont—if that is the figure, as has been trailed today—and look at spending capital resources on creating more prison places, and in the process of doing so ensure that we build into those prisons at the design stage all the features that will prevent escapes? As my hon. Friend rightly said, the crisis is likely to be prison places, not escapes, because the Prison Service has, as she has said, reduced the number of escapes from prisons by a very substantial amount.
    Miss Widdecombe: Not only have we reduced the number of escapes, but precisely because we have concentrated on supplying prison places we have rectified much of the abysmal situation that we inherited from the Labour party. The Labour party saw a rise in the prison population of 15 per cent., to which its response was to cut its capital programme by 20 per cent. By contrast, we have built 22 new prisons. We have eliminated the practice of trebling. We have eliminated the use of police cells. We have reduced the percentage of prisoners sharing two to a cell designed for one. We have done all that because of our determination to get the number of prison places right. The Opposition should admire us and congratulate us, but I have a feeling that they will not.
    Mr. Straw: I congratulate the Minister on her preparations for Opposition, but she will have to do rather better than she has in this Question Time.
    On the crisis in the Prison Service, to which the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) referred, can the Minister confirm that, while prison numbers are rising by more than 300 a month, the Secretary of State is cutting the Prison Service budget by more than £6 million a month, every month, for the next three years? Instead of wriggling and prevaricating, will she admit that, in the Home Office annual report, the Secretary of State promised that a report on Learmont's cost implications would be tabled in spring this year? Where is that report? How much will the Learmont recommendations—that will cost new money—come to in total? How many of them will the Secretary of State accept?
    Miss Widdecombe: I can only conclude that the hon. Gentleman was not listening to my previous response to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] Since the Opposition are calling for the answer, they shall have it again. We shall produce our response to the Learmont report in due course. When we produce that response, we shall give no grounds for any complaints about openness. That is what I said and I am sorry that the Opposition could not understand it the first time. Now that I have painstakingly repeated it, I presume that they can understand it the second time.
    There is a very simple answer to hon. Gentleman's question about the rise in the prison population: the reductions are in budget restraints. If he conducts a study, he will find that the prison population has been rising constantly since 1993. He will also find that, during that period, we have reduced the cost per prisoner place, and have managed to combine that rise and that reduction with more purposeful activity, more refurbishment, more high secure places, and all the things that the Opposition do not want to hear. We have managed to do that through efficiency savings, and that is what we shall continue to do—
    Madam Speaker: Order. We must move on.

    Life Sentences
    Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what response he has made to the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Taylor on the imposition of mandatory life sentences on those convicted of a serious sexual or violent offence for a second time; and if he will make a statement. [34523]
    Mr. Howard: Those who repeat serious violent or sexual offences should not be released until it is safe to do so. Our proposals for an automatic life sentence will achieve that objective.
    Mr. Llwyd: I thank the Home Secretary for that reply. When will he start listening to senior members of the judiciary, such as Lord Chief Justice Taylor, Lord Donaldson, Lord Justice Rose, and so on, who take the view that the imposition of a mandatory life sentence on rapists is foolish and very dangerous? It will give the rapist an incentive to kill the victim because, at the end of the day, he will get the same sentence. With respect,
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    I would have thought that, bearing in mind the right hon. and learned Gentleman's appalling record in the courts over the past 12 months, it is high time that he started listening to the judges.
    Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman took that argument to its logical conclusion, he would be against all life sentences of imprisonment. I am not. I think that life sentences of imprisonment have an important part to play because they impose a risk assessment before someone who has committed a serious sexual or violent offence is released to be a danger to the public again. I am not prepared to defend a situation in which 217 offenders committed a second serious sexual or violent offence in 1994. Only 10 of them were given life sentences, which meant that they were subject to a risk assessment before they were released to be a further risk to the public. I put the protection of the public at the top of my agenda. I hope that all of us who are in positions of responsibility accept that.
    Mr. Bellingham: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that one reason why his standing and credibility has gone up is that he has listened not to the judges but to the public and my constituents? Does he agree that people who are convicted of serious sexual offences should be properly monitored after their first offence and when they are released? What steps are being taken?
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the proposals in the White Paper is for extended supervision of sex offenders, and that goes directly to the point that he raised. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) should pay attention to the views of police officers, as well as to those of the public. The police must deal with serious, violent and persistent criminals at the sharp end of life on our streets, day in, day out and night in, night out, and their opinion on the matter is worthy of special respect.
    Mr. Spearing: Is the Home Secretary aware that the two murderers of the late Daniel Handley were second-time offenders? Is he further aware that Daniel Handley and his family were constituents of mine? Can he confirm that his Department is responsible for the national criminal intelligence service? In view of press reports and my correspondence with the Minister of State, will he say categorically whether that service did or did not play an efficient, effective and timely role in the apprehension of those two murderers?
    Mr. Howard: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I had no prior notice of that question and I have not seen the whole of his correspondence with my hon. Friend the Minister of State. I am sure that she has looked into the matter, and has given him as full a response as possible.
    Mr. Allason: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that extended supervision of released violent offenders is long overdue? Does he further agree that the distress and tragedy of a victim of a serious violent and sexual assault is exacerbated by the knowledge that a first offender has been released to commit an identical crime the second time around? Will he please continue to listen to the public and not to the judges?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend about the great distress caused to victims in these circumstances. That is one of the reasons behind my proposals for honest sentencing, and also for extended supervision of sex offenders.

    Prisons (Ministerial Visits)
    Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the purposes of ministerial visits to prisons. [34525]
    Miss Widdecombe: I visit prisons to see for myself what is happening at individual establishments and to talk to staff, to prisoners and to members of boards of visitors about matters of concern to them. It is a particularly important part of my role as Prisons Minister and I have so far visited 70 prisons.
    Dr. Jones: What action did the Minister take following her visit to Holloway prison on 27 July last year? Was not her visit well in advance of the decision in December by the chief inspector of prisons to pull out his team because of the appalling conditions he found there? Does she consider that she misled the House on 28 March this year by denying that she had visited the prison six months before the start of the inspection, while conveniently omitting to mention that she had been there more than four months before?
    Miss Widdecombe: The answer to the second part of the hon. Lady's question is simple. She asked whether I had visited the prison six months earlier, but the hon. Lady could not add up—I therefore pointed out that she had got it wrong. I am sorry that she could not add up. As for what I did when I went to Holloway, it is on the record that I drew my concerns to the attention of the Prison Service, and it is equally on the record that the Prison Service put in an extra £300,000 in October of that year to combat the problems at the prison.
    Mr. Amess: Does my hon. Friend agree that our recent visit to Chelmsford prison was extremely valuable, as we saw at first hand that prison does act as a deterrent and that Chelmsford is an extremely well-run prison?
    Miss Widdecombe: I congratulate Chelmsford prison on its many achievements, and I confirm what my hon. Friend says. It is a well-run prison, and there was much in it that impressed me.
    Mr. George Howarth: On the subject of ministerial visits to prisons, when the Minister visited Parkhurst prison several months ago—as I did yesterday—did she look at the special secure unit on which more than £3 million has been spent? Did she also see the additional security measures installed there that have cost many millions of pounds more? Is she aware that no prisoner has ever spent a night in that special secure unit? Is she further aware that the additional security measures are far in excess of the need for the security classification of the prison, because the Home Office and Ministers reduced its security categorisation from A to B?
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    Is she not ashamed to have wasted so much taxpayers' money on security measures that are no longer necessary for that prison? Why does she not reconsider the matter and raise its classification back up to security A?
    Miss Widdecombe: Just now, the Opposition were complaining that we had not responded to General Learmont's report. We removed Parkhurst from the dispersal system in direct response to a major recommendation in General Learmont's considered report. His reasoning for removing the prison was rather more considered than that just shown by the hon. Gentleman.

    Home Beat Policing (Bromley)
    Sir John Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the current level of home beat policing in the London borough of Bromley. [34526]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Timothy Kirkhope): The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that all areas of Bromley are covered by home beat officers—and that the number of police officers on duty in the borough has been rising since January this year.
    Sir John Hunt: If my hon. Friend agrees, as I hope he does, that a bobby on the beat represents a strong deterrent to crime as well as giving great encouragement to the general public, can he give a firm undertaking that the recent police restructuring in Bromley will not lead to any diminution in home beat cover?
    Mr. Kirkhope: In Bromley, there is great concern that the police presence should be as near the public as possible in the community. That is why there are now 19 home beat officers, plus 25 officers attached to dedicated sector teams in the community and eight attached to the town centre unit. It is the intention in Bromley to meet the target of 481 officers overall long before March 1997, which was the original date intended. The police expect to reach that target by September this year.

    Under-age Drinking
    Mr. Gallie: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what actions he is taking to curb under-age drinking; and if he will make a statement. [34527]
    Mr. Kirkhope: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I believe that more effective measures are needed to prevent under-age drinking in public places. When there is a suitable legislative opportunity, we propose giving the police a new power to confiscate alcohol from under-age people drinking in public. That would give the police the means to deal with the problem immediately and at source.
    Mr. Gallie: I thank my hon. Friend for that commitment. I draw to his attention the fact that it will be warmly welcomed in my constituency, where alcohol

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    abuse by youngsters under the drinking age is a cause of constant aggravation. Can he assure me once again that there will be early legislation on that matter?
    Mr. Kirkhope: I am sure that I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. In doing so, I congratulate him on the way in which he has campaigned vigorously for a change in the law. Only a few days ago, at the Scottish Grand Committee meeting, my hon. Friend once again referred to the matter. We do not quite know the vehicle that could be used—perhaps a private Member's Bill would be the most appropriate—but we are keen to see that change in the law, because it will have an impact on what is undoubtedly a considerable nuisance.
    Mr. Michael: Will the Minister acknowledge that the promise of action to tackle the possession of alcohol by young people follows the initiative taken by Labour-controlled Coventry city council to limit drinking on the streets? Will he also consider stiffer penalties for those who sell alcohol to under-age young people, to ensure that action is taken on the issue and that we do not just have words? Given that the Minister has had legislative opportunities coming out of his ears with the number of Bills that the Home Office has introduced in recent years, does he accept that he would have the co-operation of the Opposition if he were positive about bringing forward legislation at an early date?
    Mr. Kirkhope: I am almost gobsmacked by an offer from the Opposition to support Government measures to bring about greater law enforcement—it is rare for them to do so, but I welcome it. Perhaps in the meantime, I might tell those local authorities that are concerned with the problem, as Conservative Members are, that they now have the ability to take action under byelaws if they so wish. Although prosecutions of those who sell alcohol to underage people continue, the number of such offences, I am glad to say, has been dropping in the past few years.

    Police Information
    12. Mr. Dykes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to hold discussions on sharing of police information with the United States Secretary of the Interior. [34528]
    Mr. Howard: We co-operate closely with the United States in tackling organised and international crime at both governmental and operational levels. Sharing police information on this and wider policing issues will be an important subject of discussion during my visit to the United States later this month when I shall meet the US Attorney-General, who is responsible for policing matters.
    Mr. Dykes: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer and wish him well on his important forthcoming visit. Will he confirm that the experience of senior US officials has been that police intelligence information sharing and anticipatory surveillance are more important than the outward appearances of phenomena such as border guards? Will their interest in Europol be confirmed by his enthusiasm now for the Europol arrangements, after recent hesitations?
    Mr. Howard: There has been no hesitation on our part on Europol. I fully expect that we shall be among the first countries to ratify the Europol convention. On intelligence in relation to border controls, we need the benefits of intelligence but we also need border controls. That is why we have said that we have every intention of maintaining our existing system of frontier controls.
    Mr. Pope: Will the Home Secretary join me in congratulating the News of the World on exposing the growth in Britain of the Ku Klux Klan, which is controlled from bases in the United States? Will he hold urgent talks with his opposite number in the United States to try to eradicate the growth of that evil and odious organisation in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Howard: I am not sure that the United States Attorney-General will be able to assist to any great extent in that matter. The agenda for my discussions with her has not yet been formalised, but I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's comments.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Will my right hon. and learned Friend, in his discussions with his opposite number in the United States, place a high priority on how best we can control child pornography in media such as the Internet? Does he believe that that is a vital subject, that we must protect our children and that ways must be found for our two countries, and other countries, to co-operate to cut the number of paedophiles?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend knows the high importance that I attach to that subject. She also knows that we have already been able to convict people in Britain who have been using the Internet for the transmission of pornography, including child pornography. The police will remain vigilant so that those who use the Internet for that evil purpose can be brought to justice.

    Firefighters (Diabetes)
    Mr. Pickthall: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with the firefighters unions about the regulations regarding diabetes. [34529]
    Mr. Sackville: Guidance to chief fire officers on the employment of diabetics in the fire service was issued in February 1995. There have been no recent discussions with firefighters unions on this issue.
    Mr. Pickthall: Does the Minister think that it is sensible or just that firefighters who become insulin dependent are invariably dismissed from front-line services? Should not such decisions be made on the ground of individuals' medical records, not under a blanket policy that is based on ignorance?
    Mr. Sackville: Perhaps I can correct the hon. Gentleman. Until recently, there was a blanket ban on insulin-dependent diabetics serving in the fire service. Last year, it was decided that each case should be taken on its merits. For that reason, the joint working party on medical and physical standards has ruled that, if people who develop diabetes during their service pass certain standards of

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    fitness and control of their diabetes, they can remain in the service. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been recent judgments by appeal panels to that effect.

    Dorset Police Authority
    Mr. David Atkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the percentage increase in resources to the Dorset police authority for the current year. [34531]
    Mr. Kirkhope: The Dorset police authority's spending power for 1996–97 will be 6.2 per cent. more than last year, an increase well above the national average.
    Mr. Atkinson: On behalf of my constituents, I thank my hon. Friend for that real increase in the resources of the Dorset police this year. Will he confirm that, since 1979, under the Conservatives, spending on Dorset police has increased by 112 per cent. in real terms and that the number of police officers and civilian support staff has increased by 467, as a result of which crime is coming down in Dorset? Can he say by how many he expects the number of police officers in Dorset to increase in the next three years?
    Mr. Kirkhope: I agree entirely with the statistics that my hon. Friend has just put to the House. Crime is coming down in Dorset. Spending is going up in Dorset. Police pay has gone up in Dorset. Indeed, the spending power of Dorset has increased dramatically. On top of that, Dorset is one of the beneficiaries of our closed circuit television challenge competition and has done extremely well out of it. That will help to curb crime even further in the future.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 July. [34546]
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that, in the next two or three days, Members of Parliament and Ministers will be voting to set a new and increased national minimum wage for Members of Parliament and Ministers? If it is good enough for them, why can we not have a national minimum wage for everyone else? If those increases go beyond the pay barrier, will the Government give a guarantee that workers, including nurses and others, and pensioners will all receive the same?
    The Prime Minister: I am not at all sure that the hon. Gentleman carried every Opposition Member with him with that particular remark.
    The point about a minimum wage, of course, is the impact that it would have on the capacity to employ people. That is the point that we have repeatedly made. That is one of the reasons why unemployment is falling
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    in this country, whereas it is rising in other countries. We intend to continue to see a downward trend in unemployment, which is why we do not favour the policies that the hon. Gentleman advocates.
    As for the report that will be published this afternoon, let me say first to the hon. Gentleman that it is worth remembering precisely why the review was set up. It was for two reasons essentially: first, it was necessary to devise a new formula for determining Members' pay as the old one had broken down and, secondly, 300 Members of the House, of whom 200 were Labour Members, had called for such a review—not the hon. Gentleman, I concede that—in a motion before the House.
    Following the consultation that I have had with leaders of other political parties, it is clear that they do not wish to express a view and that they believe that it is a matter for the House as a whole to decide. The Cabinet decided this morning to offer the House an opportunity to vote for the recommendations as they stood, but the Government will be recommending and also voting for restraint.
    Mr. Elletson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that defence exports earn this country billions of pounds every year and guarantee thousands of jobs in Lancashire and elsewhere? Is it not, therefore, an absolute disgrace that Labour Members now oppose the sale of British defence equipment to Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and, some of them, even to the world's largest democracy, India? Does not that show that workers in the defence industry face a real danger from the Labour party?
    The Prime Minister: Defence is a very important industry in this country and one that plays a very important part in our economy, both in export earnings and, of course, in job provision in many parts of the country—the north-west, the west country and many parts of the home counties as well—so it is extremely important. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the policies of the Labour party. It is also right for the House to note that the further defence review promised by the Labour party promises to cut sufficient from the funds to ensure that there would be no money at all for the Royal Navy.
    Mr. Blair: Are this morning's newspaper reports correct that the selective slaughter scheme for beef is now to amount to 120,000 cows, which is a higher figure than previously thought, and that an additional £100 million, £200 million or possibly more will have to be paid in compensation on top of the £2 billion that the Prime Minister has already mentioned? Are those reports correct?
    The Prime Minister: It is not possible to be entirely clear precisely how many animals will be slaughtered. What is clear is what was set out in the 30-months-plus scheme, with which I think the right hon. Gentleman is familiar. Beyond that, we are asked from time to time to make estimates of precisely what the figures are, and an estimate of about 120,000 is the best that we can make—that figure has been around for some considerable time. The cost is the cost that we have set out on previous occasions.
    Mr. Blair: I think it is clear that the number is to be greater than originally anticipated. When the Prime Minister made his statement to the House earlier, he suggested that the reports of additional slaughter schemes

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    were incorrect. Will he confirm whether, as a result of the Florence summit and the statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food last night, the 1989 to 1990 cohort is to be included in the selective slaughter scheme, which will increase the number of cows involved? Last night, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food apparently said that it would take six to nine months for the scheme to be implemented. Does the Prime Minister still hold to November of this year as the date by which the ban will be completely lifted?
    The Prime Minister: Yes; on the information we have, we still hold to the dates that we set out, but, as I said at the time, those dates depend on our meeting the requirements, which I previously set before the House and which we believe we can meet in the time scale that I set out. Long before I went to Florence, there was a lot of discussion about the 1989 to 1990 cohort involving both my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture and me. There is a distinction between the compulsory slaughter and the voluntary scheme that exists for the 1989 to 1990 cohort—it has to be voluntary, because there is no means of determining precisely which animals would qualify for it.
    Mr. Blair: With due respect to the Prime Minister, the Agriculture Minister had said that the 1989 to 1990 cohort was not to be included and it is now clear that it is. The Agriculture Minister now says that the lifting of the ban may or may not take place at the end of the year. As more details emerge, is it not clear that the costs will be greater, the number of cattle slaughtered will be higher and the time scale will be longer—those prices are all to be paid by the British people?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman seems to have lost sight of the two fundamental reasons why the policy is necessary. The first is to ensure public health—a point that has not crossed his lips at any stage of the questions that he has bothered to ask me on the subject. The second reason is to ensure that the British beef industry will be able to recover and recapture the markets around the world for prime British beef. That is the point at stake: the livelihoods of 650,000 people. It would be helpful if, for once, instead of the pedantry that we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman, he acknowledged, first, the need to deal with the matter in the interests of the beef industry and, secondly, the need to deal with it in the interests of public health.
    Mr. Butcher: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he will never introduce a policy which, as the price of a sell-out to Scottish nationalism, would bring in the compulsory dismemberment of England into regions? That latter policy would be purely to justify the continued presence of Scottish Members of Parliament in the House. Does my right hon. Friend further agree that such a policy would set in trend a series of developments that would be bad for the cohesion of England, bad for Scotland and bad for a Union that has served our people so well?
    The Prime Minister: I believe that my hon. Friend speaks for millions of people in every part of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] The dangers that arise from the Opposition's policies are self-evident and many people are beginning to see them. [Interruption.] Why are the significant questions not answered? If Scotland has its
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    own Parliament, why should there be continued over-representation of Scottish Members in the House? What about the position of hon. Members who represent Scotland? If they determine some issues in a Scottish Parliament, by what logic or equity should they vote for those matters as far as they affect England, Wales and Northern Ireland? If the Labour party has no interest in introducing new taxes, as the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) says, why is he having a referendum to try to approve them in Scotland?
    Mr. David Marshall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 July. [34547]
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marshall: Does the Prime Minister fully realise how much the Labour party in Scotland looks forward to his visit? Will he today, or at the Scottish Grand Committee meeting in Dumfries tomorrow, answer my question, which his deputy dodged last Thursday? Why is it all right to offer Northern Ireland devolution, with a Secretary of State in the United Kingdom Cabinet and no reduction in the number of Members of Parliament at Westminster, while denying the same to the people of Scotland? How does he justify treating the two countries so differently?
    The Prime Minister: How does the hon. Gentleman justify tax raising in Scotland and not in Wales? That is the distinction to which the hon. Gentleman must bend his mind. If he cares to read the speech that I made a week ago—I shall send him a copy—he will see in detail a series of reasons why there is a clear distinction between Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The hon. Gentleman had better bend his mind to his own policy: why a tax-raising power in Scotland but a non-tax-raising assembly in Wales? What has he got against the Scots, and why not not he trust the Welsh?
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 July. [34549]
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Amess: Will my right hon. Friend reconfirm his commitment to the assisted places scheme and to doubling it? Does he agree that, if the scheme were abolished, those children would still have to be educated in the state system, thus producing a small net saving? Does not that simple piece of arithmetic demolish the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer's policy to abolish the scheme and spend the money in the primary sector?
    The Prime Minister: I fear that some of the figures issued by the shadow Chancellor this morning are shown to be wholly wrong, even on cursory examination. It was already clear before today that the windfall tax is unravelling before the Opposition's eyes, and it certainly could not pay for the new pledges that they make. Sadly, the shadow Chancellor seems to have got his sums wrong. He has inflated the amount that he hopes to raise by forgetting to include the cost of sending the children who

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    were in assisted places schemes back to the state sector. It can be seen simply from a cursory glance at the Opposition's new plans that the sums do not add up. The new Labour party's policies mean new taxes: taxes in Scotland; taxes on people with children aged between 16 and 18 who would lose child benefit; taxes for living in London; and taxes on jobs, with the social chapter and a minimum wage. That is what is offered by the Labour party. No wonder we talk of new dangers.
    Mr. Hoon: The Prime Minister has rightly condemned those who oppose the rule of law and those who fail to follow the courts' decisions. Will he unequivocally condemn Governments who refuse to implement, or threaten to refuse to implement, the European Court of Justice's decisions?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows that this Government implement the regulations. Where we think they are wrong—in some cases we do—we shall raise the matter at the intergovernmental conference to change the underlying European Community law. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is so keen on ensuring that the law is obeyed. I hope that, in the interests of providing good, strong law enforcement, he will now apologise for the number of occasions on which he and his colleagues voted against law enforcement measures introduced by the Government.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 July. [34550]
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in my Lincolnshire constituency, those who work in the seaside resorts and on the land are in the habit of working far more than 48 hours a week during the summer, although often less in the winter? If the Brussels Commission is to impose its directive limiting the number of working hours to 48 hours a week with effect from 23 November, will that not seriously reduce the standard of living of many of my constituents? If the European Court of Justice seeks to overturn that part of the social chapter from which we have opted out, will my right hon. Friend take steps to reassert it?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has neatly picked up the point to which I alluded in response to the previous question, which was asked by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon). I share my hon. Friend's concern on behalf of his constituents.
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    The European Court has not yet given its final judgment on our challenge to the working time directive—although the Advocate General's opinion was not encouraging. If we lose in that judgment, we shall seek treaty change at the intergovernmental conference to ensure that the social protocol is not undermined by presenting social measures in the guise of health and safety.
    I reached an agreement on ensuring that we were not covered by that at Maastricht, and I intend that that agreement shall be kept. Our colleagues in Europe need not expect that we will reach further agreements at the next intergovernmental conference unless, at that conference, they are prepared to restore the agreement that I reached at Maastricht. It specifically deals with the matter referred to by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Salmond: The Prime Minister is coming to Dumfries tomorrow to speak at the Burns supper and to celebrate the bicentennial of Scotland's national bard. Is he aware that the lines that he has twice quoted in the House from "The Dumfries Volunteers" were written when Burns was under investigation by the Government of one of his predecessors for sedition as a radical and a Scottish nationalist? Will the Prime Minister demonstrate his knowledge of all things Scottish—stretching from stones to poems—and remind the House of the first two lines of Burns' most famous poem "Tam o'Shanter"?
    The Prime Minister: I have no intention of regaling the House with poetry. I enjoyed listening to "Tam o'Shanter" last time I attended a Burns supper—and, with a bit of luck, I will hear it again tomorrow night. Rabbie Burns had a varied political career during his lifetime. As the hon. Gentleman would know, Burns' political career was varied as to where he gave his affections—and they were not affections that the hon. Gentleman would follow.

  Royal Assent
  Madam Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

  Treasure Act 1996

  Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996

  Offensive Weapons Act 1996

  Family Law Act 1996

  Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1996

  Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996

  Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996

  Defamation Act 1996

  Trading Schemes Act 1996

  University College London Act 1996

Business of the House
3.32 pm
Mrs. Ann Taylor: May I ask the Leader of the House for details of future business?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 8 JULY—Remaining stages of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Bill [Lords].
Motions on the Industrial Tribunals (Northern Ireland) Order and the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order.
TUESDAY 9 JULY—Opposition Day [18th allotted day]. Until about seven o'clock, there will be a debate on water metering; followed by a debate on the promotion of family-friendly employment. Both debates will arise on Opposition motions.
Motions relating to the occupational pension schemes regulations. Details will be given in the Official Report.
WEDNESDAY 10 JULY—Until two o'clock, there will be debates on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Remaining stages of the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords].
Remaining stages of the Deer (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill [Lords].
Motions on Members' pay and allowances.
Motion on the Ministerial and Other Salaries Order.
THURSDAY 11 JULY—Until about seven o'clock, there will be a debate on the White Paper on development and training for civil servants, on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Debate on parliamentary procedure, on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY 12 JULY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 15 JULY—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Asylum and Immigration Bill.
Motion on the Education (Assisted Places) (Amendment) Regulations.
Motions on the Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Tax Billing, Collection and Enforcement Functions) Order and the Local Authorities (Contracting out of Investment Functions) Order.
TUESDAY 16 JULY—Opposition Day [19th allotted day]. On a motion yet to be announced.
WEDNESDAY 17 JULY—Until two o'clock, debates on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
In the afternoon, the summer economic debate on a Government motion.
THURSDAY 18 JULY—Estimates Day [3rd Allotted Day]. A debate on British forces in Bosnia, followed by a debate on housing need. Details of the estimates will be given in the Official Report. At 10 o'clock, the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.
FRIDAY 19 JULY—a debate on science policy and human genetics on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The House may also wish to know that it is proposed that on Wednesday 10 July there will be a debate on Maritime Policy in European Standing Committee A and
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a debate on the EC Budget and the financial perspective in European Standing Committee B. On Wednesday 17 July there will be a debate on methods of trapping wild animals in European Standing Committee A. Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.
[Wednesday 10 July: European Standing Committee A—European Community Document: 6813/96; Maritime Policy. Relevant European Legislation Committee Report: HC 51-xxi (1995–96); European Standing Committee B—European Community Documents: (a) COM(96)300; EC Preliminary Draft Budget for 1997, (b) 6431/96 + COR 1; Financial Perspective. Relevant European Committee Reports: a) HC 51-xxiii (1995–96), b) HC 51-xix (1995–96) and HC 51-xxii (1995–96).
Wednesday 17 July: European Standing Committee A—European Community Document: 4198/96; Wild Animals: Trapping Methods. Relevant European Comtnittee Report: HC 51-viii (1995–96) ]
Tuesday 9 July—Occupational pension schemes regulations: the relevant regulations are as follows: Occupational Pension Schemes (Pensions Compensation Board Limit on Borrowing) Regulations 1996; Occupational Pension Schemes (Mixed Benefit Contracted-out Schemes) regulations 1996; Occupational Pension Schemes (Requirement to Obtain Audited Accounts and a Statement from the Auditor) Regulations 1996; Occupational Pension Schemes (Member-Nominated Trustees and Directors) Regulations 1996 (SI No 1216)]
Thursday 18 July—Estimates Day [3rd Allotted Day]: Class 1, vote 1, Defence: Operational and support costs: in so far as it relates to British Forces in Bosnia; relevant report: fifth report from the Defence Committee, Session 1995–96, (HC 423), British Forces in Bosnia; class VI, vote 1, Housing and Construction, England, in so far as it relates to housing need; relevant report: second report from the Environment Committee, Session 1995–96, (HC 22), Housing Need, and the Government's reply (CM 3259)
Mrs. Ann Taylor: I thank the Leader of the House for that information and, in particular, for agreeing to the debate on procedure next Thursday, for which we have been asking for some time. We are near the recess and I do not wish to overburden the Leader of the House with requests for debates, but I shall press him on some significant issues so that the Government can find time for a statement or a debate before the summer recess. One such topic was not covered properly at Home Office questions today. In light of the new information given by the director of the Prison Service today on projected increases in the prison population and the related security implications, which have been highlighted by Learmont, will the House have an opportunity to have a full debate on the issue before the summer recess? We need a proper debate, not just the excited answers that we got from the Minister of State this afternoon.
The Leader of the House will know that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) had an important Adjournment debate on holiday airline safety yesterday. My hon. Friend has received further information, following the speech by the Minister for Transport in London yesterday, which shows that the system of licensing that the Minister said was impossible already exists in some parts of the world—for example,

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Australia. As the Minister may have inadvertently misled the House yesterday and as further concerns about holiday safety have been expressed in a Which? report today, will the Leader of the House arrange a statement or a future debate so that the record can be corrected and the concerns of holidaymakers addressed?
The Leader of the House may recall that the Department of Health announced a consultation exercise last October on the issue of the employment of children. That is a serious problem, especially if any further relaxation of the rules were to be considered. Can the Leader of the House tell us when we can expect an announcement or a debate on that issue and will he undertake to ensure that the submissions that have been made as part of that consultation will be placed in the Library so that hon. Members can have access to that information?
Finally, a Government statement on defence procurement was expected this week by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by the defence industry itself. In view of the fact that such a statement will have implications for billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and tens of thousands of jobs, does the Leader of the House agree that it is unacceptable for the Cabinet, split though it may be on this issue, to play cat and mouse with the livelihoods of tens of thousands of defence workers in that way? When will that announcement be made? Will he give an assurance that any announcement on defence procurement will be made first in the House?
Mr. Newton: On the last point, I obviously do not accept for a moment the hon. Lady's "cat and mouse" reference. As those decisions are very important to many people—including many of my constituents—it is right that they should be considered carefully. I draw attention to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will answer questions in the House next Tuesday. In any event, I shall refer him to the hon. Lady's comments. I shall also draw the attention of my appropriate right hon. Friend to her point about consultation on the employment of children.
As to holiday airlines, I draw attention to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is due to answer questions as early as next Monday. I have noted the hon. Lady's comments—I see that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) is sitting on the edge of her seat. If additional information has been provided to my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London which calls into question the accuracy of any of his remarks yesterday, I am sure that he will consider it and respond appropriately as soon as possible. I shall bring the hon. Lady's remarks to his attention.
As to the prison population and the Learmont issues, I am plainly not in a position to add to what Home Office Ministers said not long ago. No doubt the hon. Lady and others will have further opportunities to raise those points, but I cannot promise to find time for a debate, in light of the pressure of other business between now and the recess.
Lastly—and validating my previous point—I have acceded to the hon. Lady's request for a debate on procedure. She should regard that as a success, and I am grateful for her initial kind words.
Mr. John Redwood: Will the Government make time available before the summer recess to debate our options should the European Court of Justice find against us regarding the 48-hour working week directive? That is the banning or limitation of overtime directive, and we may have to implement it before the intergovernmental conference completes its deliberations. Will the Government make time available to discuss contingency plans?
Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend will have heard the very firm words that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister uttered from this Dispatch Box less than 15 minutes ago, which I am sure he welcomed. I cannot add to them at this stage.
Mr. Robert Hughes: The Prime Minister mentioned during Question Time that the review body report on the pay of Members of Parliament will be published today. Is the Leader of the House aware that the Vote Office is refusing to issue that report, on the grounds that it is not authorised to do so and has not been told when it should be published? As the report has been made available to the press, is it not common courtesy to make it available also to hon. Members?
Mr. Newton: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's comments will have been noted, and that inquiries will be made—I shall investigate the matter as soon as I have an opportunity. I understand that it was intended to make the report available at 4 pm, as is usual with review body reports.
Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Further to the discussion about the European directive on the 48-hour week, will my right hon. Friend confirm that he expects the European Court to give its judgment some time this week? However, it is likely that the deliberations of the IGC will not be concluded for about 18 months. If the European Court attempts to enforce any adverse judgment against Britain, will my hon. Friend confirm that the British Government intend to reactivate their successful policy of non-co-operation, and determinedly uphold the sovereignty of the House?
Mr. Newton: I note the comments of my hon. Friend, following those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), and I must return the same answer.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members in all parts of the House strongly support the amendments to the Immigration and Asylum Bill made recently in the other place? Will the Government make an early statement on whether they intend to reverse those amendments, so that right hon. and hon. Members can prepare better for that Bill's important remaining stages when it returns to this House on 15 July?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman is an old hand, and knows that the Government always undertake to consider changes made in the other place. I could comment on the disadvantages of those changes, but I rest on the remark that they are being examined.
Sir John Cope: Now that my right hon. Friend extends the courtesy of informing the House of Government business two weeks ahead, why is it that the Opposition consistently refuse to do the same, with Supply days for the second week left blank? Is that because the Opposition are indecisive, or because they are secretive?
Mr. Newton: Judging by many of the exchanges in the ranks of the Opposition over the past week or two, that omission is because they do not know what is their policy.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: As the Leader of the House has announced that business for the week after next is provisional, and given that, in the week following, only a few days remain before the summer recess, will the right hon. Gentleman adjust business to allow a debate on the situation in Manchester following the bombing there?
Yesterday, the House spent 17 minutes discussing the Stone of Scone, but it has not spent one minute debating the Manchester bombing in the three weeks since that disaster occurred. We appreciate the letters that the Deputy Prime Minister has been sending to Members of Parliament representing Manchester constituencies and the allocation of money towards rebuilding. However, the city's Members of Parliament are anxious to have the opportunity to raise individual cases on the Floor of the House, such as that of a constituent of mine who was a security guard at the Royal Exchange theatre, but who has been thrown out of his job and had all his employment rights voided.
Mr. Newton: I well understand why the right hon. Gentleman raises such matters on behalf of his constituents, and I respect his efforts. Perhaps I may point the right hon. Gentleman in the direction of the opportunities that can arise on Wednesday mornings. As to his implication that a statement should have been made on the Manchester bombing, it has been established practice for some time not to make statements in the House whenever such an atrocity occurs. The reasons are well understood on both sides of the House.
Mr. John Wilkinson: In view of the European Commission's edict earlier this week that the quota for the herring catch in the North sea should be reduced by 50 per cent., will the Minister of Agriculture make a statement to the House next week on the common fisheries policy? Clearly the CFP is not conserving fish stocks, safeguarding livelihoods or protecting the economies of fishing communities around our coasts.
Mr. Newton: I am sure that my hon. Friend understands the difficult background to that issue, given the need to conserve fish stocks in the interests of the industry's future. I will bring his remarks to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend, who will be answering questions in the House within the period that my business statement covered.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Speaking as chairman both of the managing trustees of the parliamentary contributory pension fund and of the House of Commons Members fund, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for having kept us informed of
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developments in relation to the Government's decision to refer to the Senior Salaries Review Body the questions of right hon. and hon. Members' pay and pensions. I am sure that the Leader of the House will want to respond in the same spirit to the widespread interest in the Prime Minister's response to the question for written answer that appears on the Order Paper the first time today, about the Government's attitude to the review body's report. Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that it would also be helpful to right hon. and hon. Members if he can say anything about the procedure to be followed by the Government in next Wednesday's debate?
Mr. Newton: I am not in a position to pre-empt the written answer that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will give, but of course I shall seek to make the Government's intentions clear to the House as soon as I sensibly can.
Sir Michael Spicer: Further to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's very interesting comments on the 48-hour week, to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred, surely there will be some extremely complex matters to be considered relating to the potential reform of the European Court of Justice? Do not those matters merit further discussion by the House before the House rises?
Mr. Newton: I note my hon. Friend's request, and, as ever, I shall bear it in mind. However, it will be obvious to anyone who has listened to my statements in the past couple of weeks or who has watched the progress of the House's business on Monday or Tuesday of this week, for example, that there is considerable pressure on our time before the recess.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I wonder whether the Leader of the House will have a word with the Home Secretary about a matter that I raised with him, so that he can make a statement at the appropriate time. The firefighters in Derbyshire are engaged in an industrial dispute, and, a few weeks ago, the three Members of Parliament for Derbyshire—myself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes)—requested to meet the Home Secretary to try to resolve the dispute. As yet, we have not had an answer, although I challenged him about it in the House. Will the Leader of the House convey to him the need to resolve this matter, so that we can try to get the show back on the road?
Mr. Newton: I shall, of course, convey the gist of the hon. Gentleman's question to my right hon. and learned Friend.
Sir James Hill: My right hon. Friend will probably know of events in the island of Sri Lanka over the past few months, and that the People's Alliance Government have defeated the Tamil Tigers. Meanwhile, however, the Tamil Tigers have stripped hospitals, schools and every scrap of equipment in the occupied area. A small delegation from the House will go there at the end of this month, and they will be

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questioning us about medical supplies and food. I wonder whether we could have a statement next week, of whatever length, on this very important matter?
Mr. Newton: I cannot promise a statement on the matter next week, but I shall bring my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary, who will be in the House to answer questions next Wednesday.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his kind remarks earlier. While he is talking about aviation, will he have a word with the Foreign Secretary and ask him whether he can explain why, on his last trip, he chartered a plane from a US firm rather than from a British firm? At a time when the US Government are refusing permission to UK charterers to have the same facilities, that is not, to put it at its mildest, very tactful.
Mr. Newton: I can at least bring that prospective question to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend, who, as I have just said, will be in the House next Wednesday.
Sir Irvine Patnick: Will my right hon. Friend allow a debate next week on local authority powers—bearing in mind the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is sitting beside him—so that we can examine what they are? This request arises because Yorkshire and Humberside's regional assembly, which is composed of all the councils in the area, is levying funds and taking over powers, which it has no powers to do. Can local authorities' powers be clearly and properly defined?
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend has kindly already noted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is, in brotherly fashion, sitting by my side. In those circumstances, I shall regard the question as having been transmitted directly.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Will the Leader of the House carefully consider finding time for a general debate on child abuse? I know that a judicial inquiry is about to start; however, over the past few weeks, I have spoken to many victims of sexual abuse and received many telephone calls and moving letters, all of which make the same point—that it is a great relief to be able to talk to a woman.
May I suggest that, during the course of such a debate, we might consider whether a man is the best person to be in charge of a judicial inquiry involving child abuse? All the victims say the same thing: they find it impossible to talk to a man—whether he is a policeman, a judge or someone else in authority—because, by and large, they have been abused by men.
Mr. Newton: I suspect that there would soon be protests of a different kind were the Government to say that a person of one sex or the other was for that reason alone to be excluded from undertaking an inquiry of that or any other nature. On the general question with which the hon. Lady started, I am not sure that it would be right to have a debate
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while the inquiry is in progress. A more appropriate time might be when the inquiry has concluded.
Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the Leader of the House reconsider his decision regarding a debate on the 48-hour-week decision of the Euro-Parliament, bearing in mind the fact that the wording of that decision, which I have read, makes it abundantly clear that virtually the whole social chapter would have to apply to this country? Would not the advantage of such a debate be that Members on both sides of the House, of all views on the European Union, and of all positions, from socialist to Conservative, could at least have the opportunity to express an opinion on the breach of a treaty that a British Government have suffered? Would it not be helpful to have such a debate, as a means of giving the House the opportunity to express an opinion, rather than our having a party slanging match?
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend, whose constituency is in the same county as mine, has now become the fourth Member who, even without our having a debate, has found an opportunity to make his views very clear. I am sure not only that those views will be noted by the Prime Minister, but that my hon. Friend will have welcomed what the Prime Minister said.
Rev. Martin Smyth: The Lord President told us last week that it was hoped that there would be a meeting of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee before the rising of the House. Is he in a position to inform us when that might be, bearing in mind the fact that this week a mischievous article in the Belfast Telegraph spread ignorance by suggesting that that was a new Committee? Others were suggesting that nothing should be done to scrutinise government in this place until people decide what they want over there. Surely it is time that the Grand Committee met to consider the issue.
Mr. Newton: The present position is that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler), hopes to obtain confirmation shortly from all the Northern Ireland parties that they are content for the Committee to meet to debate the reports of the examiner of statutory rules, and also hopes that a suitable date for such a meeting can be found. I shall certainly do all I can to assist.
Mr. Warren Hawksley: Will my right hon. Friend consider arranging a debate before the recess on the allocation of lottery funds? One thinks especially of the allocations made by the charities board. In the most recent round, it gave money to gay organisations and to people fighting asylum deportations, yet refused an application for about £160,000 by Crimestoppers for a campaign called "Say No and Phone", which it had organised before and wished to extend for two years. As youth and the fight against crime were intended to benefit from the allocations, the Crimestoppers campaign should be supported. The House should be able to make its view known on that point.
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend might care to think of that subject as one for a Wednesday morning. No doubt he will recall the observations by the Prime Minister and

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the Secretary of State for National Heritage when the grants that he mentioned were announced, and I am sure that those words are being carefully considered.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will the Leader of the House place on the record whether he expects the code of conduct produced by the Standards and Privileges Committee to be published before the recess?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished member of that Committee, and one who is being most helpful in our deliberations. He will know well, although I appreciate why he wants to get the matter on the record, that the answer to his question is yes, we hope to produce the code before the recess.
Mr. Rupert Allason: My right hon. Friend will know from his fairly recent visit to Torbay about the importance of the Kingskerswell by-pass. Will he find time for the necessary orders relating to the private finance initiative, which we hope will be supported by Devon county council, to be laid before the House, if not before the recess, as soon as possible on our return?
The economic prosperity of Torbay largely depends on eliminating that bottleneck. The PFI is the only solution, so I hope that my right hon. Friend will carefully consider Government business immediately on our return, so as to get the orders through as quickly as possible. They have the support not only of the Department of Transport but of the Minister for the south-west, our right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry).
Mr. Newton: I will, as always, be as helpful as is practicable.
Mr. Paul Flynn: May we have time to debate the splendid report that was published this morning by the Transport Select Committee on casualty reduction, which has great potential to reduce fatal accidents, particularly its recommendation that the Government should advertise, and thus make clear to the public, the destructive, killing nature of bull bars? We need that debate so that the Government cannot repeat their disgraceful behaviour in March, when they talked out the Bill that is being re-presented next Friday.
Mr. Newton: I have an increasingly high regard for the hon. Gentleman's persistence, and I shall bring his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
Mr. David Congdon: Given the disruption and inconvenience experienced by Londoners during the tube strikes, will my right hon. Friend provide an opportunity for an urgent debate on that subject, so that all hon. Members will have an opportunity to discuss it, and perhaps it will give an opportunity for reticent Opposition Members to condemn this unnecessary dispute?
Mr. Newton: That is a very good idea.
Mr. Tony Banks: Why have we not had a ministerial statement on the outcome of the International Whaling Commission meeting that took place last week in Aberdeen? After all, the British Government took a firm stand against any resumption of commercial whaling. However, Norway walked out, and now continues to flout the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling. We really should have a statement on that.
If we cannot, can we please have a debate, so that the anger felt by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and public opinion in this country, can be forcefully expressed to Norway, which goes around the world saying that it upholds international agreements, but clearly only those that happen to be in its interests.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for recognising the firm position taken by the British Government, and I know him well enough to know that he will indeed welcome it. I cannot promise him a debate, but he is another hon. Member whom I might steer in the direction of a possible application for a Wednesday morning debate.
Mr. Edward Garnier: Can my right hon. Friend find time—perhaps it would be a good subject for an Opposition day, since the Opposition do not seem to know what to debate on those days—to debate closed circuit television? That subject would be particularly valuable on an Opposition day, because the Liberal Democrat-controlled Wigston borough council, in my constituency, failed to make an application to the Home Office for funding for CCTV, whereas two grant-maintained schools and a local education authority school that share a campus, supported by Leicestershire constabulary. made a successful bid, and were granted £95,000 to put up CCTV on their campus. Can we please have an early debate on this, because the benefits of CCTV should be better realised by the Liberal Democrat-controlled council in my constituency?
Mr. Newton: That is another attractive idea for a debate, not least because it would give me an opportunity to congratulate my constituents in Witham, Essex, on being successful in the challenge fund.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Going back to the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) about the prison situation, and following answers given to me yesterday afternoon in the Select Committee, and this afternoon by the Home Secretary, it seems that a very serious problem is being missed. So far this year, there have been six serious alerts in the prison system. The number of prison suicides is rising. Yet the number of prison officers employed is decreasing, because of various cuts, and recruitment is frozen.
In the explosive situation that is developing—particularly as the number of prisoners incarcerated will rise by some 7,000 this year, which will be 7,000 over capacity—is it not time that the House debated the Prison Service?
Mr. Newton: I would be more responsive to the hon. Gentleman if he had taken the trouble to mention that escapes were down by 60 per cent. last year, and if he

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had adverted to the fact that, this year, more than £50 million is being spent on security improvements at dispersal prisons, endorsed by Sir John Learmont.
Mr. Christopher Gill: Further to the answers that my right hon. Friend gave my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my hon. Friends the Members for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer), for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), does my right hon. Friend not consider the outcome of the European Court of Justice judgment on the working time directive of such significance politically and constitutionally that the House should be granted a debate on it?
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend is another to whom I must—and indeed, gladly do—pay my warm respects for his persistence. He brings to five the number of those who have raised that point. I shall also draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
Mr. Denis MacShane: Given the extraordinary news that Baroness Thatcher is to go to Hong Kong to oversee the transition from British rule to Chinese-communist rule, will the Leader of the House find time before the recess for a debate on Hong Kong? It is more than a year since we have had a specific debate on Hong Kong, there is a great deal of worry and concern there, and Government interventions are needed in the remaining eleven and a half months to try to improve what will be a fairly chaotic situation as Lady Thatcher waves goodbye to Chris Patten and hands back 5 million Chinese people to communist dictatorship.
Mr. Newton: Some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks did less than justice to his perfectly reasonable emphasis on the importance of some of the problems. However, with that said, I am afraid that I cannot at present undertake to find time for a debate before the recess.
Mr. John Marshall: Will my right hon. Friend arrange an early debate on foreign affairs, so that we can congratulate Mr. Yeltsin on his re-election, which will improve the world's safety and is good news for everyone. Is my right hon. Friend aware that some individuals, who paradoxically supported the Campaign
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for Nuclear Disarmament when there was a communist Government in the USSR, now say that they want to keep the independent deterrent?
Mr. Newton: I should like to wish President Yeltsin, as I am sure would everybody in the House, a speedy return to full vigour after what has clearly been a very gruelling and hard-fought campaign.
Mr. Nick Ainger: The Leader of the House will be aware that, on Tuesday night, the House did not reach the business on the Social Security (Disability Living Allowance and Claims and Payments) Amendment Regulations 1996. In his business statement for the next two weeks, no mention was made of those regulations. Does he intend to provide an opportunity to debate them before the recess?
Mr. Newton: We are obviously considering that matter in the light of what happened on Tuesday evening, which was, of course, as a result of the extensive debate on the Broadcasting Bill.
Mr. Harold Elletson: Will my right hon. Friend be able to find time for a debate on the economy in Lancashire, so that we can examine the danger that two of Lancashire's main industries—defence and tourism—face from the Labour party? Is he aware that the restrictions that Labour Members would place on defence exports would decimate jobs in the defence industry in Lancashire, and that the social chapter and the minimum wage would destroy tourism?
Mr. Newton: Without knowing the full details of my hon. Friend's constituency, that certainly sounds like a very good example of the new dangers that new Labour is bringing forward.
Mr. Jim Dowd: Will the Leader of the House discuss with his colleague the Minister with responsibility for health in Northern Ireland the latest revelations that 6,000 operations and 55,000 out-patient appointments have been cancelled, and operating theatres in many hospitals will be closed throughout the summer because of cash cuts that his right hon. Friend has imposed? Since the Minister said at the time that there would be service reductions as a result of those cuts, will the Leader of the House ask him to explain to the House whether the cuts are running according to target?
Mr. Newton: I have in fact already asked my right hon. Friend and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to be here to answer questions next Thursday.

Points of Order
4.7 pm
Mr. Nick Ainger: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will have heard the Leader of the House tell us that there is a possibility, and only a possibility, that the Social Security (Disability Living Allowance and Claims and Payments) Amendment Regulations 1996 will be debated before the recess.
I have a copy of a leaflet that has been sent to every person who is in receipt of the mobility component of the disability living allowance. It informs them that there is a new law affecting the disability living allowance, and that, from 31 July, the law has changed so that people in hospital might lose the mobility component. Is it in order for the Department of Social Security to issue thousands of leaflets pointing out that the law has changed when it has not? Is that not an abuse of the House?
Madam Speaker: The law has changed and the leaflet is perfectly in order. I have dealt with the matter for other Members who raised it with me through correspondence. The regulations have been laid before Parliament subject to the negative procedure and are therefore in force unless annulled. If he would like to come and see me, I will explain it to him further, but there is no problem about it.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. During the questions raised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister this afternoon, there emanated from the back end of the Chamber the word "boring". We can tolerate that, but a strange mooing sound then emanated from a certain Conservative Member. It may be that the Member who made the noise is ill. Could you use your good offices to indicate to the Serjeant at Arms and the various gentlemen ushers that, if the noise is heard again, assistance should be given to its maker?
Madam Speaker: If I were to hear such a noise, I myself would give assistance, by moving whoever made it out of the Chamber.

Local Government (Structural Change)
4.10 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer): I beg to move,
That the draft Cambridgeshire (City of Peterborough) (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
I understand that with this, it will be convenient to discuss the following motions:
That the draft Cheshire (Boroughs of Halton and Warrington) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Devon (City of Plymouth and Borough of Torbay) (tructural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Essex (Boroughs of Colchester, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock and District of Tendring) (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Hereford and Worcester (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Nottinghamshire (City of Nottingham) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Shropshire (District of The Wrekin) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Lancashire (Boroughs of Blackburn and Blackpool) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Kent (Borough of Gillingham and City of Rochester upon Medway) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft Berkshire (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 18th June, be approved.
These 10 orders make up the final stage of the local government review. Between them, they will establish 19 unitary authorities in 10 counties. They are—Plymouth, Torbay, Nottingham, Herefordshire, Southend, Thurrock, Gillingham and Rochester combined, Peterborough, Halton, Warrington, Blackburn, Blackpool, The Wrekin, Bracknell Forest, Newbury, Reading, Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham.
In nine of the counties, the changes affect individual districts or combinations of districts, leaving the rest of the county with two-tier local government. In Berkshire, the order will abolish the county council and set up six unitary authorities—one for each of the existing districts. I shall address the position in Berkshire in more detail later.
Some of the changes were recommended as part of the county structure of reviews, and some emerged from the reviews of individual districts that I directed the commission under Sir David Cooksey to carry out last summer. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Sir David and the commission for their work and their prompt completion of the district reviews. Those who have dealt with the commission and Sir David will know the care with which they approached their task. That work has been invaluable in bringing the review to a satisfactory, coherent and, I believe, widely accepted conclusion.
The recommendations that the orders will implement have been fully explained by the commission in its reports. However, there are two orders on which I feel I ought to comment specifically.
Sir Michael Spicer: Why did my right hon. Friend not use the pause created by the

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technical revisions required for the order for Hereford and Worcester and the existence of a new chairman of the commission to introduce unitary authorities for Worcestershire as he has for Herefordshire and the other 17 in the list that he has just read out?
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend will remember that I sought to remove as much of the uncertainty as I could, while seeking greater coherence in the pattern of local government. All parties in the House believe that the previous proposals lacked the universal coherence that we were looking for. I thought that it was wrong to move further than that and to ask for yet more reviews, particularly where there was no significant pressure for a different outcome. While I understand his disappointment, most people in local government felt that we needed to bring the matter to an end as rapidly as possible so that they could get on with the real job of running their localities.
The recommendations that the orders will implement have been fully explained by the commission, but I want to refer first to Kent and the unitary authority that is proposed, joining together the districts of Gillingham and Rochester upon Medway. I made clear at the beginning of the further district reviews the importance that we attach to the economic development of the Thames gateway in Kent and Essex. I asked the commission to consider the ways in which unitary authorities might benefit such development.
Many hon. Members have seen the important example of regeneration in the royal dockyard at Chatham. It is a vital site and yet, almost inconceivably, it is split between Gillingham and Rochester. I was brought up in that part of the country and, like others, I know that one cannot easily tell when one is in Rochester and when one is in Gillingham, but that development is an essential part of the regeneration of both. The commission concluded that the poor relations between the various local authorities could not be in the best interests of local people and that a single authority would have the capacity to overcome such difficulties and bring a common purpose to the area. I agree wholeheartedly.
The second area is Berkshire. Much is made of the fact that it is the only county council of an historic county that is being abolished as a result of the local government review. We are also told that this means the end of the royal county of Berkshire. I want to put an end to that claim immediately. This order means the end of Berkshire county council, but not of the royal county of Berkshire. After all, it is the county that is royal, not the county council. Berkshire itself is not touched. For example, there will still be a Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, and I have no doubt that people who live in the county will refer to themselves as coming from Berkshire.
Some people protest that Berkshire county council has been picked out for special treatment. I can do no more than refer to the submission put to the commission in 1994 by the local authorities in Berkshire, including the county council. Berkshire county council was the only county council to press for its own abolition. The summary of that submission, which is supported by the county council, states:
"All councils, including the county council, recognise that unitary authorities are the best way of delivering services in Berkshire. The two-tier system has caused confusion since its introduction in 1974,
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and there is support for change within the community. Unitary authorities will be closer and more accountable to their communities."
I agree entirely.
What is more, if it was true in 1994 that unitary authorities would be best for service delivery, it must be true now. It is difficult to see what might have happened in those two years to make the county council think differently.
Mr. John Redwood: The current Berkshire county council and Wokingham district council are saying that considerable extra costs will be incurred if the reorganisation goes ahead. That is quite a change of position from the one to which my right hon. Friend referred two or three years ago. Can he offer me any reassurance that he will take a strong personal interest in controlling the reorganisation costs, because Berkshire ratepayers would not want money to be spent unnecessarily on what should be a move to increase efficiency rather than spending?
Mr. Gummer: I will certainly give my right hon. Friend that assurance. After all, it would be fair to say that the Liberals, in particular, in both the county and the district councils have the costs in their own hands. It would be possible for them to attempt to make what could be an uncostly operation very costly indeed—it would be in character. I hope that they will act out of character and do it in the way that their Tory predecessors would have done—with expedition and at little expense. I shall use the powers that I have to ensure that that happens.
Mr. David Rendel: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the change in the expected cost of the transition in Berkshire has been based on figures given by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), in a parliamentary answer last week, in which he indicated that the transitional costs were a great deal higher than they were expected to be when the provisional suggestion was made?
Mr. Gummer: Suggestions are based on the information that the local authorities concerned provide. That is the only way to make such assessments. Many local authorities appear to be making the change much more cheaply than even they had thought possible. I understand that the hon. Gentleman supports unitary status for Newbury, but I have not been able to discover whether he supports it for anywhere else in Berkshire. Many find such a degree of parochialism curious. The Opposition and the Government know well that Liberal policy stretches as far as the ward boundary. To find a policy that reaches over an entire constituency is itself a remarkable fact. We can hardly expect it to reach to every corner of Berkshire because no doubt Liberals have to be counted one by one. I understand that he is looking hard to find a way in which he can support unitary authority status for one bit, oppose it for another and be

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even-handed about it for a third. Those options will be chosen not on the merits of the case but on whether there is an extra vote to be found.
Sir Anthony Durant: On transitional costs, the new unitary authorities will sell county hall. Latest estimates value it at £25 million, although it was a monster in the first place.
Mr. Gummer: I try to be careful about judging the design of buildings. I would not like to reduce the value of county hall by describing it as a monster. I would believe the figure that my hon. Friend mentioned if it was set to be achieved by a local authority skilled in the ways of the world and able to sell effectively in the market, but I have to remember that we are again in the hands of the Liberals.
Mr. Andrew Miller: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's vitriol towards the Liberal party, but why on earth does he countenance the continued partnership between the Liberal and Conservative parties in Cheshire? Would not the administration be more efficient and better serve the interests of local ratepayers if democracy prevailed and the largest party were given control?
Mr. Gummer: A representative of a party that is hand in glove with the Liberals from one end of the country to the other is in no position to lecture me on that. I suffer from a Lib-Lab pact in my constituency. It can make no decisions of benefit to the Suffolk Coastal area because the parties cannot agree on anything except delay. Sometimes, of course, that is an advantage. For the Labour party to tell me that there is something wrong with pacts with the Liberals beggars description. I have never had any close relationships with Liberals and I do not intend to start now.
I decided to modify the commission's recommendations in this case to make each of the six districts of Berkshire a unitary authority because I was not convinced that a merger between Bracknell Forest—I always think that that name has a wonderful Wildean touch—and Windsor and Maidenhead was necessary or desirable. It would be disruptive and increase the transitional costs. Equally important were the representations that I received after the commission's report was published, which persuaded me that a separate council for each district would better reflect community identities.
The fundamental contents of the 10 orders are all the same and they are the same as those of the orders that the House has considered in the past. They all provide for the setting up of unitary authorities from 1 April 1998 and, in all cases, there will be all-out elections for a new council in the May before reorganisation, that is, May 1997. In some cases, the orders provide for redrawing the ward boundaries. It is important that the unitary authorities start life with the most up-to-date electoral arrangements possible. However, the tight timetable for the reviews did not allow full consideration of the electoral arrangements of the unitary authorities which emerged from the further district structure reviews last year. It is for that reason that I have directed the commission to consider the warding
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of those areas. It is due to report its conclusions at the beginning of December. That view is widely supported on both sides of the House.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: Will the Secretary of State make clear what will happen in the county council elections to be held next year in places which will no longer be in the county council area?
Mr. Gummer: We will make it exactly clear on a ward-by-ward basis, because that is what is necessary, in all the cases where changes will take place such as those in Shropshire, where The Wrekin will come out. It will be necessary to show how each of the councils elected will apply in the period that continues. We will make that clear to each of the counties so that there is no doubt in any circumstances.
Mr. Christopher Gill: My right hon. Friend will undoubtedly recall the representations that he has received from Shropshire county councillors about the election. May I seek his assurance that he will further investigate the matter with a view to making fairer and more equitable electoral arrangements for our county?
Mr. Gummer: I will always look again at these issues, but as I have explained to the county councillors who have approached me on the matter, I am bound by statute. It is most important that the Secretary of State is bound by statute, for the electoral arrangements are the basis for democracy. Therefore, it is important that the House should be assured that we proceed in a way which is manifestly fair. So I am glad that my hon. Friend has used the word "fair". The fact of the matter is that the course of action that has been represented to me as beneficial—however admirable it may be—is not open to me under the law. If it were, of course one would consider it in the non-partisan light that the House would expect. However, if one does not have the opportunity, it is difficult to take it further. I will look again at the matter in case there is any point that I have missed. If my hon. Friend wishes to pass any points to me, I shall be happy to consider them.
Mr. David Jamieson: Will the Secretary of State give us the benefit of the thinking behind the electoral arrangements in Plymouth and Torbay? Elections will be held in 1997 and the councillors will take over their full duties in 1998, yet they will have only a two-year term of office because there will be further elections in 2000. There will then be an election in 2003 and every fourth year beyond that. So effectively the councillors will have only two years in office before 2000 yet in the future they will be elected every fourth year. What was the thinking behind that?
Mr. Gummer: We attempted to find a way to meld one set of elections in with other sets of elections. It is hard to do that in a way that will be seen not to be unfair to anyone. So far, I have not received any complaints about the package that has been put together, but if the hon. Gentleman feels that there is a better way of doing it, I shall be happy to listen to him. I am genuinely trying to do what is best in the circumstances. I am not trying to make anything more difficult. I am doing what the law tells me I can do and, within that, what seems to be most

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convenient and, above all, most even-handed. If the hon. Gentleman wants to raise any points with me, I shall be open to it.
Mr. James Couchman: There is some suspicion that a certain amount of asset-stripping may take place between now and when the new unitary authorities take their powers in 1998. What powers will my right hon. Friend take to ensure that that does not happen? It is a particular worry in Gillingham, where there may be a great wastage of assets by the present Liberal Democrat majority.
Mr. Gummer: I am very conscious of this matter. For example, I am conscious of the promises that county councils made about subsidiarity when they seemed to be under threat. I am following up those promises to see whether they were carried through to both district and parish councils. I am also looking at whether district council promises to parish councils were fulfilled. In the same way, we shall look carefully at the way in which the assets are dealt with. Happily, we now have a better form than in the past. We have learnt from the past. I hope very much that we can protect my hon. Friend's constituents. I give a warning to those who think that it is a proper way to deal with public assets to spend them while they have them in their hands rather than conserving them to reduce the transitional costs so that there is more to give back to those who have paid for the assets—the council taxpayers.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: I am almost entirely at one with the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) on the thrust of his point. There must be strict policing to ensure that, in my case, Essex county council does not covet plant and offices currently situated in Southend and Thurrock and bring them into the residual county's area. Such things belong to Thurrock and Southend—I am keen that there should be strict policing and control and that there should be no asset stripping from those two areas by the county council.
Mr. Gummer: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my officials and Ministers—and Ministers do take the subject seriously—will consider those issues. They are not always quite as simple as they are made out to be. County council assets have to be within a district council area—that is one of the characteristics of a two-tier system. If those district councils become unitary authorities there may be some argument as to whether the asset is properly a district area facility that can be reasonably transferred or whether it is part of a wider network and can therefore be treated in a different way. There are difficulties and the matter needs to be carefully watched. I appreciate that it is a non-partisan concern and that we need to watch it on a non-partisan basis.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the position in Lancashire? Whereas the good people of Blackburn and Blackpool can look forward to the benefits of unitary status while remaining in the county of Lancashire, the people of Bolton, who have enjoyed unitary status for 10 years, are still denied their rightful place in the county of Lancashire. The people of Bolton have been in Lancashire for 800 years—it is their overwhelming desire to be in Lancashire: over 99 per cent. were in favour of it
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according to the most recent opinion poll. Will my right hon. Friend ask the commission to look into restoring Bolton to its rightful place in the historic county of Lancashire?
Mr. Gummer: The advantages of moving back into the historic county of Lancashire are enormously increased if one is a unitary authority that can be in the county without being subject to that particular county council. It is for those who live in the county of Lancashire to consider whether they wanted such large sums of their money to be spent by Lancashire county council in a fruitless attempt to try to stop the people of Blackpool and Blackburn having the unitary authorities that they wanted.
I wonder whether it was worth spending any of that money; all that it has done is to ensure that the House has been unable to look at the issues as it should and the county council appeared to try to stop the House holding perfectly reasonable discussions and making a decision on the matter. I therefore have some sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) and will look into the matter as he has asked me to do.
Sir Teddy Taylor: As one of the great admirers of my right hon. Friend's political skills, may I say that he was right to comment that Lib-Lab parties in local government have been all over the place on the subject of unitary authority status—indeed, they have been in Southend, where they were initially against it, then wanted to achieve it more quickly. For the rest of his speech, will my right hon. Friend concentrate on trying to produce unity in the House of Commons? The people of Southend, who are enthusiastic and very much looking forward to the proposals, would be further reassured if those plans were given a welcome and an endorsement from all the Opposition parties. With the great skills that he has, will my right hon. Friend concentrate on achieving unity of purpose in today's debate?
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend may have noticed that even when I have had to criticise the action of a particular county council, I have received wide support of the nodding variety from the Labour party.
Mr. Jack Straw: More than nodding.
Mr. Gummer: I know that a number of hon. Members have given public support. People sometimes confuse what is good for their county with what is to their personal advantage. I fear that that distinction has not always been properly made.
Mr. Frank Dobson: It would be awful if we got into party politics.
Mr. Gummer: It would indeed be awful when we do not need to, except possibly the odd word or two about those who cannot make up their minds.
The orders trigger the extra powers and duties that are placed on all the county and district councils involved in reorganisation. Those are the powers and duties to prepare for the change and to co-operate with each other. In most cases, the powers and duties are contained in separate general regulations, but in a few cases—Herefordshire

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and Gillingham and Rochester—they are included in the order because of the extra details needed when a completely new authority is being created.
Mr. John Butcher: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way so often and so early in the debate.
Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), I declare a non-pecuniary interest as honorary president of the Association of British Counties, which is dedicated to restoring all the old counties for all purposes other than local government. Does my right hon. Friend share my enthusiasm for the news that I received from the Post Office this week that people who live in places like Birmingham, Stafford, Walsall and Coventry can now use in their addresses the ancient pre-1974 counties? Thus for postal purposes, Birmingham can become Warwickshire, Staffordshire can reclaim Walsall and Wolverhampton, and Coventry can use Warwickshire. Does not that help to resolve the question of old loyalties while having new unitary forms of local government? We have the best of both worlds.
Mr. Gummer: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I have lived for some time in Fressingfield, Diss, Norfolk. Fressingfield used to be in Suffolk. Although we join the people of Norfolk when it is a question of arguing with Essex, over the Waveney border, the difference is considerable. I managed to get the Post Office to allow us to become Fressingfield, Eye, Suffolk, which cheered many except those who had bought an engraving block and therefore had to replace it. One or two people with expensive addresses were unhappy about the change, but, in general, people like to keep the ancient link.
The local government review has clearly been controversial in many places and has caused not a little antagonism. However, all the local authorities involved in the 10 orders must now put their differences behind them. Although, as the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" said, it may sometimes feel that one side or other has possession of the place of slaughter, triumphalism or underground resistance can only hold back the return to normality. Once the orders are made, the time for political posturing will be past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) said, it will be time to work responsibly together so that the changes are implemented smoothly and quickly to the benefit of all who live and work in those places.
Local authorities have worked hard to make a success of the reorganisations that have already taken place or will take place next year. I do not often quote Councillor David Rogers, chairman of East Sussex county council's transition committee, but he is reported in the Association of County Councils' newsletter as follows:
"We have started to explore together how we can make local government work better in the future than it has done in the past. This reorganisation represents a real opportunity for local government and our partners in this county to introduce positive changes and serve our local communities better."
I have no doubt that the same will be true for the reorganisations resulting from these 10 orders.
I intend that there will be no more structure reviews for some time. It is right that the unitary authorities should have time to bed down, and the county councils, which
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have been reduced in size, should have the opportunity to adjust to their new circumstances. All local government should now turn its attention from issues of structure to concentrate on improving services in both unitary and two-tier areas. It is always possible for local government to delegate many of its powers to smaller groups and ensure that the money goes with them. So even when there is no unitary authority, that sort of partnership is a way forward. Indeed, it might be the best way forward in many areas.
The commission's priority over the coming years will be to take forward its programme of periodic electoral reviews, a duty placed on it by the 1992 Act. Because the commission has been concentrating on structural issues, there is now a substantial backlog compared with the timetable set down in the Act, as well as significant electoral disparities in many local authorities.
Finally, I should like to refer briefly to the completed picture of the local government review, for which these 10 orders make up the final component. This is not meant as an apologia as I believe that it is clear that the local government review has resulted in, and will continue to lead to, a number of benefits for local government and its customers. In all, 46 unitary authorities will have emerged in shire England as a result of the review. By April 1998—when the last unitary authorities are in place—about 25 million people, or 54 per cent. of the population of England, will be served by unitary local government, including London and the metropolitan authorities.
The Government have never made any secret of their belief that unitary local government holds out many benefits. It does away with the confusion about which council does what which afflicts many people. Ending that confusion can only be good for the accountability of local authorities. Very often, people do not know who does the job, so when it is not done properly they blame someone else or they get so confused that they blame no one at all. This will make for more streamlined local government so that individual functions, such as social services and housing, can be delivered together where circumstances merit such an arrangement. It provides a wonderful opportunity for innovation across the board.
However, it is not only where the review has resulted in new structures that benefits can be obtained—even where there will be no change, there has been the opportunity for authorities to examine how they organise themselves and how they work with others so that they can deliver their services in the most effective and convenient way. During the review, many authorities made promises about the improvements that they would make. I have made it very clear that I expect the authorities to put the flesh on those bones and that I shall take a close interest in their progress. The Audit Commission is now following up the action being taken by authorities, both to put the promises into effect and, more generally, to improve working between the tiers.
I believe that the review has been a positive discipline and challenge, and that the outcome can only be an improvement in the quality of local government offered to the people of England. The picture will not be complete without the 19 unitary authorities that are under consideration today. These orders will bring the whole review to a proper conclusion and I therefore commend them to the House.
4.41 pm
Mr. Frank Dobson: My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) was supposed to lead for the Labour party in this debate but, sadly, her father—the right hon. Ernest Armstrong, a former Deputy Speaker of the House—is seriously ill in hospital and she has had to go to County Durham. I am sure that all hon. Members who know him will wish him well.
Today is American Independence day—and it is independence day for 19 more unitary authorities. Today, the proposition before us is to return duties and powers to authorities that should never have been taken away from them in the first place—they were taken away by a previous Conservative Government. In recent decades, the Conservative party has had some difficulty holding on to the title "Conservative", because it has been the party of constant reorganisation and then re-reorganisation—which is what we are getting today.
We welcome the changes, which are the product of a review that was originally set in train by the right hon. Member for Henley, now the Deputy Prime Minister. At the time, he said:
"We know that most local authorities want unitary status and we believe that such status will provide a better structure for the future in most areas."—[Official Report, 20 January 1992; Vol. 232, c. 37.]
Things have not turned out as the right hon. Member for Henley predicted. Indeed, one of my predecessors pointed out in that debate that it looked as though the commission would roam around the countryside guided by the whim of the Secretary of State, that the recommendations would be subject to the whim of the Secretary of State and that they would leave local government in chaos—and so it has turned out.
In fairness to the Secretary of State, it was not entirely done at his whim—there seemed to be a large amount of whim by the former chairman of the Local Government Commission, Sir John Banham, which is one of the reasons why the Secretary of State and I got together in an unholy partnership to try to put it right again.
We now have 46 new unitary authorities—including Rutland, with a population of 33,000; but it does not include Northampton, with a population of 188,000, Norwich with 128,000, Ipswich with 114,000 or Gloucester and Exeter both with 105,000. It is a bit of a mess. The Secretary of State and I could claim—and we are seldom joined together in anything, other than acrimony—that the situation was improved by our joint effort to refer back some of the proposals to a new commission, led by Sir David Cooksey.
Today we have before us the original proposals from the Banham Local Government Commission—which were held back because parts of the proposals were being referred to the Cooksey commission—and the proposal for Berkshire, where progress was delayed by a legal challenge. This proposition, from the original Local Government Commission, is for independence for the following authorities: Plymouth, which has 256,000 people; Torbay, 123,000; Southend, 170,000; Nottingham, 282,000; Herefordshire, 162,000; West Berkshire, which may pose as Newbury from time to time, 142,000; Reading, 138,000; Slough, 105,000; Windsor and Maidenhead, 138,000; Bracknell Forest, 105,000; and Wokingham, 142,000. We are also dealing with the results of the reference back, which includes independence for
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Peterborough, with 159,000 people; Warrington, 187,000; Halton, 124,000; Thurrock, 131,000; Blackburn, 140,000; Blackpool, 154,000; Wrekin, 143,000; and Medway Towns—a huge new authority—242,000.
I hope that all hon. Members wish the new councils well and that they succeed and prosper. If we are reasonable people, we have to understand he disappointment and heartache that this involves for the county people—both members and staff—who have worked over the years to provide decent services all over the country. This is especially difficult for county people to cope with. For example, Berkshire disappears altogether; Lancashire, Cheshire and Devon will lose two major boroughs; and Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester will lose a large portion of their original county.
I hope that no one will feel that this is a condemnation of what the counties have done—times have changed and, therefore, the structure has to change. This is not necessarily all for the best—we live in a world where all decisions can be taken only on the balance of advantage. On balance, most hon. Members believe that these changes will be for the better. They will help to resolve some of the problems that exist at present, but they may create other problems and difficulties.
As the Secretary of State has said, this is no time for triumphalism by the districts or for a dog-in-the-manger attitude or a scorched-earth policy by the counties. We have to remember that the transitional period and what follows has to serve the interests of local people—their interests must be the top priority. I hope that there will be the fullest co-operation between the new authorities and the existing counties to the benefit of local people—and the Labour party will do whatever it can to ensure that that happens. Much agitation may have been caused in some areas—for example, Lancashire—but whether the campaign for or against was legitimate, it is finished. It must be finished and everyone must work together. In the areas for which the orders have already gone through, the new authorities are working well. I know that arrangements have been made by some of the beneficiaries of today's orders to learn from the experience of areas that are already a year or more ahead. We do not want people to have to reinvent the wheel.
The Government will have to make a contribution in the form of generous settlements to help the process of change. The Secretary of State should carefully consider the standard spending assessments for the successor authorities and try to ensure parity of treatment. In the most recent round of changes, an extraordinary situation arose. In the new districts, the council tax changes in May this year varied from increases of 10 per cent. in Hartlepool, 14 per cent. in Redcar in Cleveland, 13 per cent. in Bristol and 31 per cent. in north Lincolnshire, to reductions of 8 per cent. in north-west Somerset, 10 per cent. in Hove and nearly 16 per cent. in Middlesbrough. The general idea is that the council tax should reflect the responsibilities of the councils, but those increases or decreases did not reflect anything that the councils had done. They were entirely a product of Government decision making and were seen as grossly unfair by some of the authorities that did badly. I hope that the Secretary of State and his officials will try to ensure that that does not happen again.
We have heard various estimates from those in favour of change and those against. Those in favour of change have said that the ultimate cost will be lower and those against have said that the ultimate cost will be higher.

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Frankly, I never believe any of the information that is wheeled out by various outfits in the City, because they will produce the figure that the county or the district employing them wants. We all know that. As far as I know, no organisation that has asked for City or accountants' advice about whether changes will be more expensive has ever been told that they will be cheaper, and vice versa. That shows what weight we can give to such estimates.
Common sense says, and anyone who believes himself to be a philosophical Conservative will surely accept, that—whatever the ultimate savings or costs—the process of change, or the transition, is always costly in both resources and the attention that the senior people involved have to pay to their job to try to provide services. It is difficult for people to do their basic jobs if those jobs will disappear or their organisation will be chopped in half. It is important that the Government ensure that the transition is cushioned by adequate funding, or it will be harmful to local people, local services and also to the staff who provide those services.
The bulk of staff in the districts and the counties are hard-working people who are motivated by the public service ethic, which is sometimes not given the value that it deserves. The staff are entitled to some security or compensation or both and I hope that the Government will provide that. We should thank all those who have provided services.
A curious electoral situation will prevail next May because of the delays. In the elections to the shadow councils for those unitary authorities, it is not intended that there should be any elections to the county council from the new districts, but there will be elections to the county council from all other parts of the county. Great care will have to be taken to ensure that any change—I do not necessarily mean a change of political control, but a change of personalities or an influx of people who have not been involved and are not familiar with the problems and relationships—does not damage the delivery of services.
I am sure that the whole House will wish the successor authorities well. I can tell people in those areas that the incoming Labour Government, which will be elected not long after the council elections, will enable and empower councils to provide the services that people want and will give councils a duty to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas and to provide best value for money. However people vote in the forthcoming elections, it is crucial that everybody who is elected and everybody who works for the new authorities—and for those authorities that feel bereft of the new districts—all remember that their crucial and only role is to serve the people of the area and not their own personal interests or the interests of the institutions that they hold dear.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. Hon. Members should know that, although there is no 10-minute restriction on speeches, the debate must end at 7.10 pm. I appeal for short contributions.
4.55 pm
Mr. Paul Channon: I assure the House that I will be extremely brief. I am afraid that I will make an excessively dull speech, but I hope that the
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House will for give me. It will be dull because I agree with what has already been said, and that is rare. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in particular, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) on about 99 per cent. of his speech. We need not worry about the hon. Gentleman's prophecies about the next election. I congratulate both my right hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman on achieving, if not complete unanimity, a large measure of agreement across the House. My right hon. Friend will recall that the situation was different when the massive local government reorganisation took place some 20 years ago. The current changes have been handled with extreme skill.
It was a great mistake—in retrospect, and some of us thought so at the time—to abolish the county boroughs.
Mr. Mackinlay: Whose fault was it?
Mr. Channon: The hon. Gentleman is right to ask whose fault it was, but no political party in the House can look back at that episode with total happiness. We all got it wrong at various moments. In my constituency, the Liberals got it wrong about three times. They were against the reforms and then they wanted to change back to the county borough and the unitary authority. As soon as that happened, they were against it again, and now, I am reliably informed, they are in favour of a unitary authority and they criticise the Government for not having introduced it more quickly. That said, I must admit that the Conservative party's position has also been slightly difficult.
It was a great mistake to have abolished the county boroughs and I am glad that the unitary authorities—which are, in effect, county boroughs—have been brought back. I am also glad that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said that we should thank the councillors and officials of the old authorities. Those in Essex did much to try to help Southend during the past 20 years. We are not disposed unfavourably towards them, but we are pleased that we will govern our affairs once more. I have had my differences with Essex county council in the past few years—even more so recently—and I do not agree with its social services policy. I do not agree with its education policy and people in Southend are seriously worried about some of its actions, but tonight is not the night to go into those matters in great detail.
I have never before agreed with the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras so often. As he said, today is Independence day—
"High as the flag on the 4th of July!"
The change will be a wonderful moment for those middle-aged and older people who remember when Southend had a county borough before. They now look forward with optimism and hope to a unitary authority that will be able to run its own affairs in the interests of those living in the town and taking an active part in local life. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Government and I congratulate the Opposition, too, on their virtually bipartisan support. This is an important day for Southend and I am happy that, once more, we shall have a unitary authority.
4.59 pm
Mr. Mike Hall: It gives me great pleasure to speak in the debate in support of the structural change orders.
The order for the boroughs of Halton and Warrington affects my constituency. I am delighted with the recommendations, as I am a long-time supporter of unitary local government. In my maiden speech to the House on 6 May 1992, I said that I hoped to see unitary status for Halton and Warrington within the lifetime of this Parliament. That will happen this afternoon when the order is passed.
My support for unitary local government has been fostered over many years. I was first elected to my local council in 1979. At that time, Warrington borough council was Conservative-led and the then Conservative leader, Councillor John Walsh, was a strong advocate of unitary local government. When political control changed, the incoming Labour council adhered to that objective.
I am proud to tell the House that, when I was leader of Warrington borough council between 1985 and 1992, I vigorously pursued the aim of achieving unitary status for my authority. My good friend, Councillor John Gartside, who now leads Warrington borough council, has also pursued the goal of unitary status with single-minded determination and vision. My good friend, Councillor Dave Cargill, and his colleagues on Halton borough council have been tireless in their efforts to bring about local self-government for the people of Halton.
I strongly support unitary local government, because it strengthens the democratic process by bringing local government closer to the people. As we approach the new millennium, we must search for better ways of involving people in the decisions that affect the way in which society is run. I make no apologies for saying that democracy demands that we devolve power, responsibility and decision making from the centre to the smaller units of government. Power should be devolved from Europe down the line, past Whitehall and Westminster, to units of local government that are capable of effective decision making and service delivery. That important role for local government will be achieved through the creation of unitary local government. We are debating the practical application of devolution this afternoon.
Decisions about local government services and their delivery and management in Halton and Warrington should be made by councillors who are elected by, and are accountable to, their local communities. I would like to see an end to the two-tier system which the orders provide in favour of a single tier of local government. That would remove confusion and make councils responsible to the communities that they are elected to serve.
I passionately want to see local government for the people of Halton and Warrington provided by the people of Halton and Warrington. A classic example is the provision of social services and education. Those important local government services are delivered and managed locally and their democratic framework should be as close as possible to the people who use them. Unitary local government will achieve that aim.
Although we are approaching the point when the vision of unitary local government will become a reality in Halton and Warrington, the journey to that destination
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was not all plain sailing. The three main political parties fought the last general election on the promise to introduce unitary local government. That was a central part of my campaign and that of my Liberal Democrat and Conservative opponents at the last general election.
When the Government set up the local government review under the auspices of the Local Government Commission, chaired by Sir John Banham, I had high hopes that a unitary structure of local government would emerge throughout the United Kingdom. I was still more confident that the first review would recommend unitary status for both Halton and Warrington. Both authorities have concentrated areas of population and cover new town areas.
The Runcorn new town and Warrington new town developments have strongly influenced the shape and character of the two boroughs in my constituency. Both boroughs have strong community interests and a sense of place. The current levels of population and population growth show clearly that the boroughs are large enough to take full advantage of unitary status. The geographical location of the two boroughs in the northern part of the county adjacent to the metropolitan unitary authorities of Knowsley, St. Helens, Wigan, Manchester and Trafford is significant in terms of structural planning.
Cheshire county council is preparing to privatise waste disposal operations, which will cause major problems in Warrington and Halton. The council should wait until the orders are passed and we have unitary local government in the two boroughs; the parties could then discuss a way forward that is beneficial to all and that does not put Warrington and Halton in a difficult position in terms of waste disposal.
Halton borough council is different from Warrington, as it has high levels of socio-economic deprivation. It also suffers from a serious labour market imbalance and economic decline. Economic regeneration is the key to a more prosperous future for the borough. I am delighted that the chamber of trade and commerce in Halton and the private sector are behind Halton's move to achieve unitary status. That is an important coalition of the private and public sectors which are working together in the interests of communities in my constituency.
The economic base in Warrington has weathered the recession better than other parts of the north-west. That is due to the success of Warrington and Runcorn development corporation and the economic development activities of Warrington borough council. The challenge for Warrington under unitary authority status is to continue to promote economic development and to expand and diversify the borough's economic base.
A good example of Warrington's proactive association with the private sector is the Business to Business exhibition that is held every year. It is a major event which expands trading links from my local authority into the north-west. I look forward to the unitary authority's achieving great things in the future to enhance the economic base in my constituency.
There was a strong belief that unitary status was tailor-made for the two boroughs as it would reinforce and enhance their development and provide for an exciting and productive future. It was regrettable that the Banham commission failed to recognise the obvious advantages of unitary local government for Halton and Warrington and recommended the status quo.

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At this point, I must pay tribute to the Secretary of State for the Environment, to his right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), his hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). They determined that there should be a second review, which included Halton and Warrington, under the auspices of Sir David Cooksey. If it were not for the assistance of those on the two Front Benches, I am sure that the orders would not be before the House this afternoon. I thank both sides, on behalf of my local authorities, for their intervention.
It is fair to point out that the creation of unitary local authorities in Halton and in Warrington was not universally popular—far from it. It is a matter of public record that the two reviews conducted in Cheshire were not without their trials and tribulations. Cheshire county council fought tooth and nail against the proposal that Halton and Warrington receive unitary status. I shall not dwell on the council's discredited campaign to retain the two-tier system. However, I believe that the extraordinary amount of local taxpayers' money that it spent could and should have been used to improve service delivery.
One of the more bizarre episodes in the council's discredited campaign involved inviting so-called local opinion formers to a dinner held by the chair of the county council at a school in my constituency. The dinner was paid for with local taxpayers' money. I have written to Cheshire county council asking for a list of the people who were invited to the dinner, a list of those who attended and the cost of the dinner to county council tax payers. As Cheshire county council has a stated policy of
"supporting open government and greater accountability in accordance with the Freedom of Information Campaign's objectives",
one would expect my request to receive a positive response. I have written to Cheshire county council six times seeking that information. It has refused to respond on five occasions and my last letter remains unanswered. I do not know what the council has to hide, nor do I know why it has decided to shroud in secrecy a simple matter of who was invited to a dinner and how much it cost. However, it seems to me that the refusal to supply a Member of Parliament—and a Cheshire council tax payer—with information is the action of a remote, unaccountable and undemocratic organisation that is not prepared even to pay lip service to its own policy of open government.
Mr. Miller: Although my constituency of Ellesmere Port and Neston was not granted unitary authority status, we wish both Halton and Warrington well in their endeavours. I am sure that they will succeed. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to my hon. Friend's remarks about a problem with which we are faced time and again when dealing with the county council. My hon. Friend referred to one particular issue, but there are others concerning social services and education. Will he comment on the difficulties that he has faced in those areas?
Mr. Hall: I largely agree with my hon. Friend. Suffice it to say that Cheshire county council's spending on
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special needs is the second lowest in the country. I hope that the two unitary authorities will spend more on that aspect of education.
I have criticised Cheshire county council—now I will praise it, because it has accepted the recommendations and has issued, with Halton and Warrington borough councils, a joint declaration of commitment to a smooth transition of county-run services and to continuing to provide high-quality, cost-effective services to the people of Cheshire before and after the unitary authorities begin operating. That development and the recommendations are welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes). The other Cheshire districts have also accepted that the two local authorities in the north of the county should have unitary status, and they are working together to bring that about.
As we come to the end of this long and winding road, the challenge for Halton and Warrington councils is to meet their promise to the people of those boroughs about the benefits of unitary local government—a concept that I support because I believe in the principles of democracy. Devolution is fundamental to strengthening our democratic processes. Halton and Warrington borough councils should not rest on their laurels on achieving unitary status but must devolve power within their communities. The local government review has aroused in both boroughs tensions and fears that must be addressed speedily and positively. Parish areas south of the Manchester ship canal in Warrington must be included at an early stage of planning for unitary status. Those areas have an important role to play in Warrington's joint future and their inclusion is essential if the best possible future for the borough is to be achieved.
One gesture that the council's ruling Labour group could make in that respect is to offer mayoralty to the opposition groups, which would cost nothing but go a long way towards building bridges in the whole borough—a gesture of political reconciliation which I strongly commend to my local authority.
I look forward to the elections to the shadow authority next May and to the implementation of the unitary authorities on 1 April 1998, and I hope that the Secretary of State will ensure that all three reorganising councils have sufficient resources to enable them to deliver high-quality local government. I thank all the organisations that have supported the campaign in Warrington and Halton, and I reiterate that both councils must provide greater accountability, improve access to local services, and provide more convenient local government that responds better to local needs. Those are the challenges facing my two local authorities.
5.12 pm
Sir Anthony Durant: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, on behalf of Conservative Members who represent Berkshire constituencies. Two of them—my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr. Watts) and for East Berkshire (Mr. MacKay)—are Ministers, so are unable to contribute. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Mr. Trend) is heavily engaged in other duties, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) are in their places.

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I do not know the position of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). I understand that he favours the unitary authority for his constituency, but I am not sure of his attitude towards the county.
I strongly support the proposals before the House. I have always been in favour of unitary authorities, because I started my political life with one. Woking was a big urban district council and we had a lot more power in those days. I was chairman of its education committee, which gave powers to the local districts, and learned a lot from that experience. Reading was an extremely good county borough.
I support the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) that those of us with county boroughs in their constituencies much regretted their abolition. They provided a good service and offered high standards, and it was a pity that they disappeared. I am delighted that they are to return. People need to be near the services that they use. They want to know who is responsible for repairing a hole in the road or for allocating school places. At present, the public are confused.
I thank all those people who have worked in my county council—particularly the county councillors themselves. They have a good record and have worked extremely hard. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that Berkshire will not lose its identity, and it will retain its lord lieutenant. However, Berkshire lost a lot of the county some time ago, including Abingdon. The white horse, which was once the symbol of Berkshire, was also lost in a previous reorganisation. I fought against a white horse candidate in one election, who wanted to return the white horse to Berkshire. He won about 300 votes and it was interesting to have him in the campaign.
A MORI poll found that only 11 per cent. of the people of Berkshire felt that they had any strong connection with the county, which is pretty low. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the county held some odd views. Initially, it joined the district in saying, "Yes, we want unitary authorities—so we will abolish ourselves." It subsequently took a U-turn, but no one has got to the bottom of the reason for that change of mind. Then it started a campaign and wasted a great deal of public money—all of it from council tax payers—going to court, the High Court and the House of Lords. All the letters that I have received about retaining the county council have arrived since that campaign started.
I made some disparaging remarks about county hall. Perhaps I may withdraw them and make it plain that I was expressing a personal view. It did win an architectural prize, which surprised me at the time. I was speaking for myself, not for everybody else in the county, when I said that the county hall was monstrous.
I accept that costs—there will be some—are an issue, but as the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said, one can produce any figures one wants, whatever the starting point. It is up to the unitary authorities to control their costs. It is not a matter of their saying, "We cannot do anything. We need a lot more money." The authorities already run many of the services, so I believe that they can keep costs well under control.
Sir Peter Hordern: Is my hon. Friend aware that, only today, Reading has confirmed that after the transitional period it expects to run the area more economically than at present?
Sir Anthony Durant: I have received the same communication from Reading district council, and we shall keep it to that pledge.
Concern has been expressed about voluntary and similar bodies. Berkshire districts have established liaison committees in advance of reorganisation, to cover planning and technical services, social services, 'the voluntary sector, community cultural services, emergency planning, trading standards, chief executives, finance officers, information technology, land and property, personnel and communications. The sad thing is that the county was originally involved in those liaison committees but withdrew when it started its campaign, which was equally a great pity.
One argument made in the county council's campaign was that the people of Berkshire had not been consulted. A letter from Purley parish council in my constituency states:
"Only an authority that is totally out of touch with the people and unaware of what is going on could make such a statement. The public has been consulted extremely adequately … The Parish Council has no wish for its 'Local Government' to be run by a body that up until the last minute was saying it did not wish to put itself forward as a Unitary Authority, and was proposing its own dissolution. At the eleventh hour they changed their minds, and would not appear to be intent on their survival. This indecisive stance hardly inspires confidence for the future."
That expresses the irritation of one of my parish councils.
Unitary authorities are a sensible solution, and I believe that those in Berkshire will be successful. They already have a good history, and I wish the order well.
5.19 pm
Mr. David Rendel: I regret that some of the speeches made so far in the debate seem to have concentrated on whether unitary authorities are a good thing as an issue of principle. We have had that debate on various occasions in the past; surely it is not the debate that we should be having today. This debate is about 10 orders that affect 10 areas, and whether they meet the requirements of those areas or whether they should be amended in some way and sent back for further consideration. That is what we should be dealing with and, at least for a large part of my speech, I intend to deal with those specific problems.
I realise that the Government and the Labour party are under the impression that they have effectively wrapped up the local government review and that there is little more to discuss. That is a pity, because there are some important points to be made. The fact that the Government and the official Opposition were so eager for 10 of these orders to be swept through the House in only three hours today—originally it was to have happened a week ago—is evidence enough of the low priority that both the Conservative party and the Labour party give local government.
We have three hours, which is only 18 minutes for each of 10 counties.
Mr. Rupert Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rendel: Let me get on a bit with my speech; I have only started.
Mr. Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rendel: No; I am going on with my speech.
That would never be enough time for all the hon. Members whose local authorities are affected to have their say. I understand that many of them do not wish to have a say. That is up to them. I am surprised, however, that sufficient time was not allowed for all hon. Members to have a say if they so wished.
We have 18 minutes to decide on the education of thousands of children. We have 18 minutes to decide about the care of the elderly and about the implications for fire services, the police and all the other local services that will be affected by these orders. We have 18 minutes for, perhaps on average, the eight hon. Members in each of those counties, not including the time required by the Minister to make his proposals and for the Opposition spokespersons to reply. That compares with the full one and a half hours of debate that was allowed for each of the first round of counties that were dealt with two years ago.
Mr. Gummer: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman recalls that he was given 30 minutes in a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration to tell us whether he was in favour of or against unitary authorities for the rest of Berkshire. During all that time, he refused to answer a direct question, which I shall ask him again now: is he or is he not in favour of unitary status for the other districts of Berkshire, or does he have a view only on Newbury?
Mr. Rendel: The Secretary of State is anticipating my speech; I will be dealing with Berkshire in a few moments. I shall of course let him know my views, because he has asked for them. They are in my speech, and I shall provide that information shortly.
Apparently, the Liberal Democrats take local government more seriously than do the Tory party and the Labour party. I make no apology if the Labour party and the Tory party now feel that we are spoiling their party.
The local government review has been a shambles from beginning to end, and today's orders demonstrate how arbitrary the process has been. Some areas have been selected for unitary status against the wishes of the local people, who want to maintain the present structure. Other areas—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Which?"] I shall go through individual areas shortly. Other areas have been left alone, despite local people's clear wish for change.
Running roughshod over local people's views when making what amounts to constitutional change is a recipe for disaster. The main reason for our having yet another review of local government structures is that ignoring local people's wishes did not work in Avon, in Cleveland or in Humberside in the 1970s. It will not work any better now.
Mr. Allason: As the hon. Gentleman is so determined to demonstrate the commitment of the Liberals to local government, would he like to tell the House where is the
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rest of his party? He has been the sole Liberal Democrat in the Chamber for most of this debate, although now there are two.
Hon. Members: Three.
Mr. Rendel: The hon. Gentleman may like to comment on the proportion of hon. Members in my party who are in the Chamber as compared with the proportion of hon. Members in his party who are here.
Because profound changes are being made to the structure of local democracy, and because of the manner in which it is being done, at the very least the Government should have listened to the express views of the general public, but they simply have not listened. They have conducted a prejudiced and sometimes—as has been proved—illegal review.
The Labour party, because of its desire to boost the power of its urban fiefdoms, has colluded with the Government at every step of the way—not, I hasten to add, in an open and co-operative consultation, but behind closed doors and in smoke-filled rooms. Recently, some Labour Members have shown their distaste for Labour Front Benchers—[Interruption.]
Mr. Peter Luff: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you could remind the House whether it is in order for hon. Members to read their speeches?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is not in order to read speeches, but it is in order to use notes copiously.
Mr. Rendel: I am sure that, if the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) would like to see the notes that I am working from and compare them with Hansard, he would find that there are many differences.
Some Labour Members have shown their distaste for Labour Front Benchers bending towards the Conservative agenda in recent days. In this case, of course, the Labour Opposition and the Conservative Government have plotted and schemed together in the most cosy fashion, and yet we have heard nothing from those Labour dissenters. I wonder why not? Surely they have not lost their voices already—or perhaps the Hartlepool cat has cut out their tongues?
The underlying problem that has bedeviled the review from its inception is that no real thought was given to the fundamental role and purpose of local government. That was the problem. How can a serious review of the structure of a tier of local government be held without first deciding what that level should be doing and what its powers and responsibilities should be? The issues have simply not been addressed in this review. Because of that, judging which orders should be supported, which should be opposed and which are so controversial that they should be forced to a Division today has been made much more difficult.
Even determining what local people want has not been an entirely straightforward matter. Much of the public consultation that has taken place occurred some time ago—much of it as long ago as 1994. Even then, there was often a stark difference between the direct responses given to the commission and the results of MORI opinion poll testing.

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Another important consideration in all these matters is the cost of any change. Previous examples of restructuring have shown that costs always seem to be higher than is expected, which must be a further argument against change where it is not properly supported. That is true not only of the changes implemented in the 1970s and 1980s, but—as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) has already pointed out—of the latest round of proposed unitary changes and of the changes that have already been made in this structure review. The case must therefore be very strong for consulting local people again—now that we have the Government's final proposals—in those areas that were originally considered under the first review.
It is a shame that the Government have not felt it necessary to carry out that further consultation. We must make do with the information at our disposal—the analysis of the direct responses by National Opinion Polls, the MORI polls and the range of submissions to our offices by local people and by their elected representatives. On that basis, I shall now make some comments on each of the orders before us. The orders for Hereford and Worcester, for Devon, for Essex and for Lancashire are the least controversial.
Mr. Luff: Will the hon. Gentleman apologise for misleading listeners to BBC radio in Hereford and Worcester last week, when he told them that the local Liberal party had called for unitary authorities in Worcestershire, whereas in fact they fought the idea tooth and nail while the Conservatives, sadly unsuccessfully, argued for them?
Mr. Rendel: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. I would certainly like to apologise if I had said anything wrong on the radio, but I am not aware of having done so, and I would require further particulars first.
As I said, the orders for Hereford and Worcester, for Devon, for Essex and for Lancashire are the least controversial. There is a strong case for separating Herefordshire from Worcestershire. Such a move would be in line with the history of each area, and clearly has the support of local people. The option of no change was not included in the direct consultation that took place at the beginning of the review, but 92 per cent. of respondents supported an option that included a unitary Hereford. The MORI poll found that supporters of a unitary option outnumbered the proponents of the status quo by about two to one.
In Devon, the case for unitary authorities for Plymouth and for Torbay has always received strong support.
Mr. Allason: Then why is the hon. Gentleman proposing to vote against it?
Mr. Rendel: I did not say that I would vote against it.
A unitary Plymouth has near universal support throughout Devon. Plymouth is a large city, with problems and challenges different from those in the rest of the county. However, there must be one concern—that at least as much support was shown for a unitary authority in Exeter as in Torbay.
Mr. Allason: Nonsense.
Mr. Rendel: The people of Torbay have their wish, and the people of Exeter do not.
Mr. Allason: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rendel: Yes, but this is the last time that I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Allason: May I remind the hon. Gentleman—remind him, that is, if he has the slightest knowledge of Devon—that the Torbay consultation had the second highest percentage return in the country? In the first consultation exercise, Exeter demonstrated complete apathy, and no interest whatever in unitary status. Only the second time round was there some local feeling in favour of unitary status. As a result, there was a further review, which decided, rightly, that there was not sufficient local support for unitary status. The fact that the hon. Gentleman puts Torbay and Exeter in the same bag demonstrates his complete ignorance of everything west of Bristol.
Mr. Rendel: I understand that the concern of the Local Government Commission is that Exeter is an important county centre—certainly that is a reasonable argument—but similar arguments could have been, and in some cases were, advanced for other areas, such as Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent and several other cities.
The somewhat arbitrary nature of the review process, and the failure to match the proposals to the public will, is clearly highlighted in the Devon order. The Government have also ignored the fears of the people of South Hams that they will be squeezed between the two unitary authorities of Torbay and Plymouth, which lie on either side of it.
The Essex proposals that I want to discuss relate mainly to Thurrock and Southend. In the direct responses—sadly, those too are old data from 1994—the public in Thurrock supported a unitary authority, not by a huge majority, but by 41 per cent. as opposed to 35 per cent. In Southend, there was a higher level of support for a unitary authority—61 per cent. to 36 per cent. The MORI poll in Thurrock found a small majority in favour—43 per cent. to 39 per cent. That may not be especially significant, but in Southend it found a rather bigger majority—41 per cent. to 24 per cent.—in favour of at least some modified form of two-tier system plus a unitary Southend.
In the rest of the county, support was not good, with 33 per cent., as opposed to 19 per cent., favouring the status quo. I have two further points to make about the order for Essex, because the Government have missed two opportunities. In Southend, the new unitary authority has only 39 councillors, and it is clear that local feeling is that that is not enough to cover all the new functions.
The second point is about Billericay, which has not been formed into a new joint authority with Brentwood, although there is considerable local support for that idea. That is another missed opportunity, which 1 he Government would have done well to seize.
The plans for Berkshire are a tragedy, because there was a really good solution for the county, which was proposed at an early stage and widely supported—by the county council as much as by anybody else, as has already

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been said. That solution would have been supported not only by the county but by all the districts and by the vast majority of the people of Berkshire.
The solution would have been to create four unitary authorities, one each for the districts of Newbury, Slough and Reading, and another to cover the rest of the area. It would have been widely supported, and to my mind was much the best solution. Unfortunately, at that point, the right hon. Member for Wokingham put his oar in and started to insist on a separate unitary authority for Wokingham—an idea that even the recently elected district council there, which is more sensible, has now rejected.
First we moved to five unitary authorities for Berkshire, then, finally, the Secretary of State decided that we should go for all six, and turn all the current district council areas into unitary authorities. That solution has never been put out to proper public consultation. It was never part of the original consultation process.
The direct responses to the original proposals showed little support for the idea of no change. There was considerable support for unitary authorities in Berkshire, and I am sure that there still is. When the MORI poll was taken, there was still strong support for the Newbury area, in particular, to become a unitary authority, and considerable support, although rather less than in Newbury, in some other parts of Berkshire.
The whole thing has become a dreadful mess. For Reading, Slough and Newbury, the solution is much the same as it was always intended to be, apart from minor changes to some of the boundaries. I am sure that we all wish to support those new unitary authorities, but the mess that has been made of the rest of Berkshire as a result of the intervention of some of the Conservative Members involved cannot be supported by the House.
Mr. Gummer: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why it is such a mess to have a unitary authority in Wokingham, but it is not a mess to have a unitary authority in Newbury? If the arrangement is so clearly a mess, will he explain why, during the 30 minutes that he spent with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration, although he was invited every two minutes or so to tell us about it, he did not do so, but has left it until now to come and tell us about it? Why has he been so slow, so trappist, in his views on Berkshire, when he is so ready to judge everywhere else in the country, which he has not visited?
Mr. Rendel: I am delighted to reply to the Secretary of State. On that occasion, I was part of a delegation from the local area and, as Newbury's Member of Parliament, I had come to talk about what should be done for Newbury. That is why I responded as I did.
Mr. Gummer: Why is it a mess to have a single unitary authority for Wokingham, which has 150,000 people, but not a mess to have one for Newbury, which has 141,000 people? Why, when the councillors who came with the hon. Gentleman to the meeting about Newbury urged him to tell my right hon. Friend about his
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views on the rest of the county, did he refuse to do what they wanted? In the end, they were almost as bemused as my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Rendel: I find it quite extraordinary that the Secretary of State should regard the number of people in a particular unitary authority as the relevant criterion, as I understand that a unitary authority of only 30,000 was recently created—very much smaller than Newbury or Wokingham. The point is not the number of people in the area, but whether the area hangs together as a sensible, viable unitary authority area. That is the question to which we must respond. It is quite clear that, whereas Newbury feels strongly that it is part of a whole, the same is not true of Wokingham, which contains large parts of what in effect are the suburbs of Reading, as well as areas that are much more countrified.
Mr. Redwood: I thought that we might hear a fuller explanation of the hon. Gentleman's views on Berkshire, but I see that he does not have any formed views on Berkshire even to this day.
Why does the hon. Gentleman think that Wokingham and Bracknell, with Windsor and Maidenhead, would make a single area that wanted to be governed together? I can tell him that my constituents and those of my hon. Friends in neighbouring constituencies know that that is not the view of our electorate, and we have represented their views.
Mr. Rendel: I am delighted to hear that that is the right hon. Gentleman's view of what his electorate thinks, but he may take a different view when they begin to turn against him, as I am sure they rapidly will if the proposal goes ahead at his behest.
What is wanted in Nottingham—this is the difficulty with this order—is not what is wanted in the rest of the county, which is one of the great problems with the Government's cherry picking solution to the local government review. Nottingham's direct responses to the commission showed that there was no clear call for unitaries, but there was strong support for no change. The MORI opinion poll showed that, in the county as a whole, 20 per cent. supported the unitary city, 35 per cent. supported no change and 45 per cent. supported something else. In the city itself, there was marginal support for a unitary authority to be set up—24 per cent. as against 21 per cent. for no change—but 55 per cent. supported something else. It is significant that, in this case, the further we have gone, and the more time we have taken over the review, the more people seem to have turned against the solution currently proposed by the Government.
For Cambridgeshire, the direct responses from Peterborough showed that only 19 per cent. were in favour of a unitary city, while 71 per cent. were in favour of no change. Even the MORI opinion poll showed that, in the city of Peterborough, only some 40 per cent. were in favour of a unitary city and 40 per cent. were against it, while in the rest of the county it was 40 per cent. to 30 per cent. in favour of the status quo. It is true to say, however, that it would be a viable unitary authority—it hangs together in a way in which the unitary authority of Wokingham does not—and it is not central to Cambridgeshire, which is a further important point.

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Indeed, Peterborough city council fully supports this order, so there are some good reasons for allowing it to go through.
In Cheshire, the direct responses were interesting. Organisations in Halton were some 2:1 in favour of a unitary Halton, but organisations in Warrington were 4:3 against. In the rest of the county, some 7:1 responses from organisations were against—a much stronger feeling. Direct responses from the public in Halton were 2:1 against. In Warrington, they were 3:1 against—getting stronger. In the rest of the county, 95 per cent. were against. The MORI opinion poll shows that, in Halton, there was marginal support for the unitary authority—39 per cent. to 34 per cent. In Warrington, people were against it by a similar majority—41 per cent. to 33 per cent. En the rest of the county, they were 2:1 against.
Sir Gerard Vaughan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When a number of hon. Members who wish to speak have been told that they cannot be included because so many hon. Members have already asked to speak, is it in order for the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) to go on and on, covering the whole country in this rather tedious and irrelevant way?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has been in order so far.
Mr. Rendel: I fear that the hon. Gentleman missed what I said on that very point at the start of my speech: three hours is not sufficient time for adequate debate. If he wished for more, he could have asked for more. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Tedious repetition is not in order.
Mr. Rendel: I am not quite clear what that remark refers to.
In Cheshire, there is clearly no real support for the Government's proposals, and they should therefore be turned down by the House.
Mr. Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in Cheshire, the Liberal Democrats were party to the campaign run by the county council, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Hall) referred, at extraordinary cost to the county ratepayer? How does he justify that expenditure? It makes Lancashire look quite small as far as I am concerned.
Mr. Rendel: If there were not so many interventions, I might be able to finish my speech rather sooner and thus help the hon. Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan).
A number of counties and district authorities throughout the country have felt that, in the best interests of their council tax payers, they should put their point of view as forcefully as they can to encourage a decision that they consider right for their electorates.
Mr. Hall: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rendel: One last time, but then I really must get on.
Mr. Hall: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why the controlling group—Tory and Liberal—on Cheshire county council now supports the orders before us, yet the hon. Gentleman is trying to advise the House to vote against them.
Mr. Rendel: I do not necessarily agree with everything that the Tories or the Liberal Democrats say in different parts of the county about the local government review—[Interruption.]—because all parties are split on this issue. The Labour party is split. The Tory party is split, and. to some extent, our party is also split. [Interruption.] It is not a party political matter; it is a matter for the House to decide, in the best interests of the people of this country. The hon. Gentleman should know that.
Shropshire is a particularly interesting case, because one Conservative Member of Parliament is quite openly against the Government's proposals and has put that on the record. The direct responses from organisations and the public in The Wrekin—not in Shropshire as a whole—were marginally in favour of The Wrekin becoming a unitary authority, but in the rest of the county the figures were some 20:1 against. I notice that the Secretary of State keeps harping on about MORI polls as though they were unimportant. If they are so unimportant, why did he ensure that they were taken in each county?
Mr. Bruce Grocott: The hon. Gentleman really must give way.
Mr. Rendel: I am sorry. I have given way enough.
As far as The Wrekin is concerned, the MORI polls—the House will be pleased to learn—showed that people were in favour, by 45 per cent. to 38 per cent. That is not a huge amount; it is a marginal vote in favour but, once again, in the rest of the county, we see that this proposal is widely disliked.
Mr. Grocott: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on The Wrekin?
Mr. Rendel: Yes.
Mr. Grocott: Having confirmed that the MORI poll in The Wrekin showed that the majority of those who responded were in favour of unitary local government for The Wrekin, will he explain whether is it Liberal policy to support the minority position? We know that the Liberals support an electoral system that would give massively disproportionate power to minorities, but it is their local government policy to listen to the minority and impose a local government structure selected by the minority?
Mr. Rendel: As the hon. Gentleman ought to have realised, in these matters there are always two types of opinion to listen to. One is the opinion from within the area concerned and the other is the opinion of people who live in the rest of the county who are equally affected. If their opinions are to be overridden as a result of an hon. Member's opinion, as we have just heard, taking into account only the district authority that is to be made into a unitary authority, frankly it would not be democratic. It is clear that the effect on the rest of Shropshire will be so damaging that the unitary authority order should not go through.

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I turn finally to Kent. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] The direct responses in Kent showed an enormous abhorrence for what was going on. In Gillingham, just 5 per cent. were in favour, and 76 per cent. wanted no change. In Rochester, the number of those in favour was as high as 7 per cent., but 69 per cent. were in favour of no change. The MORI opinion polls showed that, in Gillingham, 63 per cent. and, in Rochester, 53 per cent. wanted no change. In both areas, a mere 30 per cent. of people were in favour of the Government's proposals. It would be absurd to go ahead with such an order when there is such a huge volume of local opinion against what the Government are proposing.
Finally, I shall return to one or two more general points about the 10 orders. In his response to a statement by the Secretary of State for the Environment in March last year, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said:
"On behalf of the Labour party, I welcome much of the statement, and thank the Secretary of State for the discussions which preceded it. The overall effect of what he has announced should deliver much of what we have been calling for."—[Official Report, 2 March 1995; Vol. 255, c. 1185.]
It has been clear throughout the second tranche of the review that we are facing a Lab-Con pact between the Labour and Conservative parties, which has been stitched up in a back room without anyone else being allowed to have a say. That important point has to be brought out now.
Mr. Dobson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, first, there was nothing secret? Of necessity, the list that was put back before the Local Government Commission was made public. People discussed it, made representations about it, and it was changed as a result of those representations. Secondly, does he recognise that if the Secretary of State and I had not got together, quite a few authorities that are gaining independence as a result of the orders would not have done so? Since the vast majority of people in those areas and their councils want independence, is it not about time that he shut up and let a few hon. Members who represent those areas speak up for them?
Mr. Rendel: It is true that, in some of the areas, there is local support for the proposals, but in other areas, as I have clearly demonstrated, there is no such local support. What is important about my speech is that, sadly, my party is the only one in the House that is prepared to stand up against the Lab-Con pact, which is destroying local government in certain parts of our country.
Mr. Gummer: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that I asked him whether he would explain to my right hon. Friend the Minister his views merely on Berkshire. He could not give any views on Berkshire. A pact with the Liberal party was impossible because it did not know where it was going on Berkshire. He complains that he is not listened to, but when he was asked for his opinion, he did not have one. When the rest of the Liberals were asked for their opinions, they had so many that one could not agree with them on any of them. The only thing that his speech has proved is that if one cannot vote Conservative, for God's sake one should not vote Liberal.
Mr. Rendel rose—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Rendel: You made a remark, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about pointless repetition. I assume that you were referring to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I regret to say that I was referring to the hon. Gentleman, and very specifically at that point.
Mr. Rendel: In local government, as in so many other areas nowadays, what is emerging is not so much new Labour but new Tories. The slogan that the British people should fear is not "New Labour, New Danger", but "Old Tories, Old Danger; New Tories, New Danger". The motive shared by the Labour and Conservative parties is clear for all to see. All they are interested in is dividing the country into what they expect to be one-party fiefdoms—towns and cities set up as unitaries to be controlled by Labour, and the surrounding shire counties to be controlled by the Conservatives. In each they hope that any serious opposition from their traditional opponents will fade.
In fact, Labour and the Conservatives are both making a terrible mistake. They have failed to understand, as have so many in the media, that the traditional division of local authorities between the Tory and Labour parties is no more. Although they are splitting the country into areas that they think are natural Tory and Labour areas, in practice they are simply playing into our hands. What will happen is this: in the new town and city unitaries, the Liberal Democrats, as in so many areas already, will be the only opposition to Labour. We shall be able to concentrate our fire on one front instead of two.
Similarly, in the surrounding shire areas, the Liberal Democrats will be, as so often we are already, the only opponents to the Tories. There, too, we shall be able to concentrate our fire in one direction. In an attempt to improve their own electoral fortunes by carving out local authorities where they feel that they can guarantee to retain control, the Labour and Conservative parties are, in practice, playing into our hands. Their gerrymandering will be to our benefit.
The review is finally coming to a close, which will be a great relief to all those involved in local government. Perhaps now, all local authorities can get on with the business of providing high-quality, value-for-money services, which, after all, is what they are there for. Perhaps now, local authorities can set about rebuilding staff morale, which has been shattered by year after year of uncertainty—sadly nowhere more so than in Berkshire.
Although the end of the review is a relief, it leaves all those who are concerned for local democracy with a profound sense of disappointment. Local democracy needs revitalising and rebuilding. Imaginative proposals for structural change and the devolution of power will, of course, feature in such a process, but the cause has been greatly damaged by the review, which was prejudicial and pursued ideological ends towards limited local government.
The task of making positive changes, improvements and enhancements to local government has been made much more difficult. All future discussion of how such

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structures should be matched to the responsibilities, duties and powers of local authorities will be limited by the bad experience of the review. It leaves a legacy of which the Government should be ashamed. They have set back the cause of local democracy by decades. A number of the orders should certainly be opposed, and I shall be calling on the House to oppose them. I hope that not only the Liberal Democrats support the cause of local democracy in this House.
5.58 pm
Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: In all my 22 years in the House, I have never heard a speech quite like that of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). The House will be relieved to know that I will not trudge relentlessly around the countryside into areas that I do or do not know, making comments that put up hackles in virtually every part of the House. In his peroration—when it finally came—the hon. Gentleman threatened me and my local government colleagues with "concentrated fire", but his speech was an advertisement for the sort of concentrated fire that we can expect. He may regard himself as some kind of weapon of war, but he has a wonderful facility for self-detonation.
In comparison, I wish to pay a compliment to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Sir C. Shepherd) have been pursuing him on this matter for about a year, and he has always been kind and considerate in his responses. I congratulate him on the orders, because he has had to deal with all the uncertainty that existed locally. In reverting finally to the speech of the hon. Member for Newbury, let me say that we saw a method of attacking the political enemy in the principal speech, and subsequent intervention, of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that brought smiles to every face—bar one hon. Member, for whom it was too much of an effort to smile. My right hon. Friend showed an elegance of touch that is all too lacking in the House, and I pay tribute to him.
My main point, on which I shall speak briefly, concerns finance. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford cannot be here because of parliamentary business, but I know that he would wish to join me in my remarks. I shall make many parts of my speech on behalf of us both, as I will address myself to the Hereford and Worcester order. The financing of the new county of Hereford is important, because it relates to the financing of all rural areas under the new arrangements. Although that matter has yet to be touched on directly, I hope that those on both Government and Opposition Front Benches will do so during their winding-up speeches.
It is extremely expensive to deliver local government services in rural areas, and the re-creation of the county of Herefordshire will need funding. The background to this matter is the 1971–72 local government amalgamation of Hereford and Worcester, which was an intensive political issue locally and caused considerable political fall-out. I almost lost my seat as a result of it. The reasons for that fallout—those which were financial—are relevant to the present and to the future. At that time, Herefordshire was not financially viable on its own, and was requiring some 70 per cent. rate support grant. The county did not have a sufficient financial base to deliver services, particularly with the increasing expense of providing services to a very rural county.
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The combination with Worcestershire worked, and I want to put on record the fact that I am the only Hereford and Worcester Member of Parliament in the literal sense—I am the only cross-border Member, whose constituency is in the old counties of Herefordshire and of Worcestershire. I have represented both areas for a considerable number of years, and I know that the financial guardianship of Worcestershire has been useful and beneficial. That leads me to deal with the central point of the debate—the change to unitary status and the problems that could arise. On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford, I must say that the change is welcome, as Herefordshire is a cohesive and natural county. There are no problems, other than financial ones, with the re-creation of Herefordshire.
Delivering services is expensive because the county covers many hundreds of square miles, and is as big as Worcestershire, but with one fifth of the population. We have more roads than Worcestershire and we must pay for them. The cost of delivering social services is enormous by comparison with the more urban counties. I appreciate that I will not get an undertaking at this stage, but I ask that some acknowledgment of those problems be made by those on both the Government and Opposition Front Benches. I speak for wider areas than just Herefordshire and Worcestershire—I am speaking, at least, for the whole of rural England on the future assessment of Government support for rural areas.
Bearing in mind that there is a capping limit to what we can spend, we must remember that services could suffer if we do not have a big financial base and we need to know that those matters will be taken into consideration. After all my time here, I am conscious that a slight twitch on the tiller by the Government can cause a considerable difference to local government.
I had been a Member of the House for only five months when I was in a motor car in Leominster with a placard, shouting at a Government Minister who is now a much-loved Member of the House. For the only time in my life—I had never done it before, nor have I done it since—I was shouting repeatedly, "Oakes out, Oakes out". That was because of the difference in the rate support grant wrought upon the original settlement by the incoming Labour Government. This is not a partisan matter, however, and I welcome the concordat across the Floor of the House on the matter.
The next Government—of whatever colour or formed from whatever party or parties—must look after the county of Herefordshire and the other rural counties, otherwise the change will not work. We say thank you for giving our county back, but without Government support, we cannot afford it.
6.5 pm
Mr. Bruce Grocott: It is an unusual pleasure for me to be able to speak enthusiastically in support of a local government order from this Government. In my case, it is more than 17 years since I stood up in the House to support a Government order affecting local government. I hope that this will be good practice for me, as I look forward to supporting repeatedly local government orders presented by the Government after the next election.

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There has been a long ride, and a roller-coaster. The original Local Government Commission's proposal for The Wrekin recommended the status quo but finally—after many meetings—we have reached the recommendation that is before us today. I speak as a long and enthusiastic admirer of the traditions of English local government. At various times, I have worked as an officer, a councillor and a committee chairman in local government. I believe strongly that democracy should come from the bottom up, and without strong local democracy, it is unlikely that we can have a healthy national democracy.
I welcome the orders generally, but particularly the order applying to The Wrekin. My reasons for supporting unitary local government have been rehearsed in the House, and I shall mention them briefly. The first and most obvious point is that all local authority services are closely interrelated—most obviously, housing and social services. It does not make sense that housing should be in the hands of one authority while social services are in another. Education is another obvious example that relates to many other local government services.
We all know that, in practice, people look for a solution not to a particular local authority but rather to local government generally. I happen to believe that, in any democracy, local government ought to be intelligible. One of the many tables in the original Local Government Commission report showed the split of functions between district and county councils. For example, county councils' transport functions included public transport; highways and parking; traffic management; footpaths and bridleways; and transport planning. District councils' transport functions included unclassified roads; off-street car parking; footpaths and bridleways; and street lighting. That is unintelligible to most members of the public. Indeed, I heard a member of the original Local Government Commission say at the annual meeting of the Shropshire Association of Town and Parish Councils that he had found in practice that many local government officers did not always understand the distinctions between the different tiers of local government.
I strongly support unitary local government, particularly in my area of The Wrekin. When people come to see me at my advice bureaux—this must be the experience of other Members—they want a solution to the problem. They are often baffled by the boundaries between the two local authorities, but they look for a solution to the most local of the local authorities and are much more likely to hold The Wrekin district council responsible for resolving local problems and providing local services.
Briefly, I shall spell out The Wrekin's case. We now have a population of 145,000 and it is estimated to reach 155,000 by 2001. Between 1971 and 1991, we were the fastest growing district in the west midlands. We are by far the largest district in that area without unitary powers. We are bigger than 13 of the towns that have already been given unitary status.
Just as important as population size, however, is the distinctive character and identity of The Wrekin. It is famous as the birthplace of the industrial revolution. Hon. Members will be relieved to hear that I will not give them a history lesson, but will simply say that few hon.
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Members will not know of the iron bridge and Ironbridge gorge museum, which is known not merely nationally but internationally.
The real growth in the area came in 1968, with the establishment of Telford development corporation, which brought together a number of towns and communities with distinct and rich histories: Madeley, with its record of coal mining going back to the 14th century; Dawley, again with centuries of mining tradition; the ancient market town of Wellington, which has been a market since the 13th century; Oakengates, with its historic base in mining and manufacturing; Hadley, with its manufacturing traditions; and Donnington, with its long experience of employment in the defence industry.
The new town of Telford and the nearby Norman town of Newport, together with the surrounding rural area, comprise The Wrekin local authority, which we are debating. In its draft recommendations, the Local Government Commission spells out our distinctiveness, saying:
"The Wrekin's strong community identity is markedly different from the rest of Shropshire. The urban area of Telford is a major growth area for the West Midlands and its needs, in relation to socio-economic and development criteria, are very different to the needs of rural Shropshire. The Wrekin is largely self-contained for employment and leisure. The rural part of the district is connected strongly to Telford."
The commission continues—and I agree—
"The present structure of local government in Shropshire is inherently unstable, with considerable divergence of interests between The Wrekin and the rest of Shropshire. The Wrekin will continue to grow and would benefit from unitary status in achieving its full identity as a place, whilst Shropshire County Council could focus on the distinctive needs of the rest of the County."
We are in no doubt that our distinctive history and character and the rapid growth of the past 25 years mean that the time is right for us to run our own range of local services.
I must mention the strength of local support and one or two of the organisations that have been particularly helpful in our attainment of unitary status. First, I must emphasise the consistent all-party political support. I have been on several delegations to a range of Ministers, always with the leaders of the main political parties, and I pay tribute to them for the support that they have consistently given. There has also been strong support from industry and commerce. It is not surprising, as the area is a major growth area, not merely for the county but for the west midlands region, that the Shropshire Chamber of Industry and Commerce has said:
"the primary reason for adopting unitary status …is that of economic development".
There has been strong support from business groups and organisations. One local managing director said:
"dealing with one local authority—who will provide the full range of services—will be of significant benefit to local business, this is particularly the case for strategic services which have a very local impact such as planning, minerals extraction and waste disposal".
There has also been tremendous support from religious, voluntary and leisure groups—including the Telford Christian Council; the Telford Community Council; the Telford West Indian Association; the Trades Council; the Oakengates Sikh temple; the citizens advice bureaux; the credit unions; the Punjabi Cultural Society—and pensioners' groups—including the Telford Pensioners Action Group and The Wrekin Pensioners Forum. There

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has also been support from sporting organisations, including Telford United football club, the Telford athletics club and the Lilleshall sports centre.
There has been backing from the health service, which is important. A spokesman for the Princess Royal Hospital trust said that a unitary authority would:
"enhance the integration of all forms of social care locally".
The spokesman also said that a unitary system of local government presents an exciting prospect that will drive local partnerships forward and add value to health service delivery.
We have also had the crucial support of the parish councils. Their involvement and co-operation will be essential in making the new system of local government work, and their support has been overwhelming. There have been many submissions from town and parish councils, but I will mention only that of Oakengates, which said that unitary local government would
"lead to improvement in the quality and co-ordination of services with clear objectives and policies with no competition and overlap".
Mr. Keith Vaz: As my hon. Friend knows, I visited The Wrekin a few weeks ago. He is one of the most modest Members in the House. It would not be right for us to proceed after that long list of organisations and individuals who argued for unitary status for The Wrekin without the House noting his support and hard work and the intelligent way in which he championed The Wrekin's cause, which made the Secretary of State review his decision and allow unitary status to proceed. The House should note his immense contribution to that task.
Mr. Grocott: What a glowing tribute. I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
When a change of this importance is proposed, opposition is inevitable. Not unnaturally, the county council has opposed the change because councillors and officers are rightly proud of the many ways in which they have served the whole community for so many years. I pay tribute to the work of the county council. My support for a unitary Wrekin is not a criticism of that council, but a recognition that time has moved on, The Wrekin has grown and developed and, like all other districts of comparable size and in keeping with the traditions of English local government, we have earned the right to run our own affairs.
I have described unitary status for The Wrekin as a coming of age. There was never a coming of age without an occasional backward glance, but the move is inevitable and right and I am certain that it is in the best interests of The Wrekin and the county of Shropshire. I am also confident—this is important—that now that the debate on reorganisation is coming to a close, the county and the district, both councillors and officers, will work together for a smooth transition and with a determination to make the new system work for the benefit of all of us.
I have been pleased to work with officers of The Wrekin council and councillors of all political parties to achieve the unitary status that is enshrined in the order. I have great confidence that between us we have the skills, commitment and enthusiasm to meet the very exciting challenge and opportunity that are being given to us with the right to run locally the whole range of local
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government services. I am proud to be the Member of Parliament at a time of such significant and important advance in the long, rich history of The Wrekin.
6.17 pm
Mr. Rupert Allason: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to address the House, particularly on the third order on the Order Paper. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) for providing such classic, knockabout cabaret entertainment. Whoever said that local government was boring? His blundering ignorance—wandering around the country, irritating every part of the compass—was breathtakingly astonishing. Even his two colleagues, who, of course, he could not see behind him—the two who came in to support him—were cringing. I am delighted to thank him in one regard. I am fairly confident that he will have organised a defection from his own party. The leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Torbay borough council is in the Gallery and I have no doubt that he will want to make some kind of a declaration—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that the House is what is before us. There is no such thing as a Gallery as far as the Chamber is concerned.
Mr. Allason: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nevertheless, I am confident that, somewhere in the House, there will be a defection based on that performance.
I pay tribute to the principle behind the order. I became convinced of the principle of unitary authorities back in 1977, when I stood for what was then the Greater London council and, having discovered precisely what its responsibilities were, was appalled. I told Conservative central office that the best platform for me to stand on was abolition of the GLC. Clearly, I was prescient because central office said then that that was out of the question because the GLC was essential.
There is a considerable difference between the responsibilities of the two tiers of local government which is often lost on the general public. It is sometimes difficult to explain it. I have always believed, based on my experience in 1977, in one-stop local authorities.
Torbay is a distinctive community, quite separate from the rest of Devon. Curiously, it has relatively few Devonians or born Torquinians and Paigntonians. The editor of the Western Morning News once remarked that he could probably sell more copies of The Birmingham Post in Torbay than he could of his newspaper. That is because it is a delightful part of the country and many people wish to live and retire there; they are very welcome. However, that makes Torbay distinct from the rest of the county—a fact that was not initially acknowledged by the Banham commission.
The public response in the bay to the first three options in the report, which did not give Torbay unitary status, was universal dismay. An impressive campaign was mounted by the people of Torbay. The initiative came not from the local authority but from the business community, from the grass roots, from all three political parties and from numerous other organisations which joined together to form Torbay United.

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The cost to the local authority of the campaign was minimal. I participated in it on the single condition that it would not be a waste of council tax payer's money. It is right that I should pay tribute to the town clerk and chief executive of Torbay borough council. I understand that he is not in the Gallery because there is not one, but I think that he is quite close by.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should be aware that other hon. Members wish to speak on the orders. I would be grateful if he would attend to them and nothing else.
Mr. Allason: I will be as brief as I can, but I must say that time was exhausted by the hon. Member for Newbury.
The issue is the future of Torbay and, in particular, of education there. I do not want its unitary authority to be an exercise in empire building. I want no repetition of what happened in the early 1970s when identical jobs were re-advertised and the same people took the same posts but at greater salaries. That reorganisation is generally regarded as having been a mistake. Local people will be vigilant to ensure that such empire building does not happen again.
The relationship between local schools and their democratically elected representatives has, to some extent, broken down in Torbay. I conducted a survey to establish the depth of the breach, and I am concerned that some schools are not aware of the name of their county councillor. They have not been visited by their borough councillors. According to the Rev. Brian Prothero, his councillor turns up only to vote against any suggestion of grant-maintained status. The future of Torbay's children and their education must be paramount, because that is where the largest amount of money will be spent by the new authority.
I am concerned that the transitional committee that considered education decided on a 32-strong education committee. In its final report, there was no statement to preserve excellence or guarantee the future of the three grammar schools, which are remarkable centres of excellence. There was no commitment to focus resources on children rather than administration. The new authority must concentrate on the delivery of high-quality services. Torbay has been disadvantaged in the past by Devon's education authority. A couple of schools in my constituency bear eloquent testimony to the fact that they have been starved of resources over several years.
Many pledges have been made about what the future holds for the unitary authority in Torbay. I welcome the order; I have worked hard to persuade my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to include Torbay. I, the council tax payers of Torbay, the business community, the borough council and all three local political parties welcome it. I give this warning: the people of Torbay will be vigilant. They know the promises that have been made about future council tax levels. Nevertheless, I urge the House to pass the order.
6.25 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: I am pleased to speak in this debate. I shall be as swift as possible. The Liberal spokesperson showed unprecedented selfishness.
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I regret that the Leader of the House did not meet my request, and that of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), for more time. If we were dealing with Scottish legislation, we would not have had one day but a Bill with a Committee stage. Such treatment makes the House of Commons seem a sham in dealing with the interests of millions of people.
My borough of Thurrock will be proud to have the orders passed: 84 per cent. of its people recognise that they are part of the borough, which is an important part of Essex. It will remain part of the county of Essex, as the Secretary of State said. However, we are keen to have our independence of county hall, Chelmsford for a variety of reasons. We believe that local government services should be locally based. Chelmsford county hall is sometimes a million miles away from the people and interests of Thurrock, although I pay respect to the county officers and county councillors of all political parties who have given good service to the people of Thurrock over many decades. However, the time has come to recognise that our interests will be better served by the all-purpose authority based at the civic offices in New road, Grays.
My borough is part of the Thames gateway initiative, which has played an important part in our campaign for unitary status, as was acknowledged by the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). I place on record my gratitude to them.
The borough owes a great debt of gratitude to Jimmy Aberdein, who was for many years leader of the council and fought hard for unitary status. I thank the existing leader, Andy Smith, who was supported by the Conservative opposition leader Ray Andrews, by Graham Thomas, the secretary of Thurrock Industries Association, and by John Vesey who, in addition to his involvement with the association, is chairman of Thameside Community Healthcare NHS trust. They did much to buttress our campaign for unitary status. There has been a pulling together in Thurrock—a municipal pride—that is reflected in the order. It has been immensely popular and much demanded, despite the claptrap of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel).
My borough has some of the highest indices of deprivation in Essex. Unhappily, its health is among the poorest and there is high unemployment. However, we also have a lot going for us. We are in the Thames gateway and we have the last part of the working port of London, the port of Tilbury. We have a vibrant retail sector, most of which is described as Lakeside, although West Thurrock retail park is much larger than that. We occupy a strategic position on the M25 and on the channel tunnel rail route. In addition to our river frontage, we have an attractive green belt area. That all reflects the corporate identity of our proud borough.
I share my borough with the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who on other occasions has been kind enough to mention my name when I have been unable to attend the Chamber. I want to acknowledge that we share the representation of the borough. She and I have a large, attractive green-belt area in our constituencies, including some very attractive Elizabethan listed buildings and the nice village of Fobbing, with its historical association with Wat Tyler and the peasants' revolt.

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Dickens and Conrad wrote in the borough and the highlanders who suffered immense defeat 250 years ago at Culloden were incarcerated at Tilbury fort. The borough is rich in history. My borough council and the people of Thurrock wish to exploit the great enterprises which are developing on the river frontage and our historical associations and to put the borough very much on the map. We can do that by having unitary status and working with other statutory agencies such as health trusts and health authorities, and with industry, to create a better quality of life in the borough.
Thurrock is a vibrant borough. It has a good record of local government administration, independently audited by the Audit Commission. I know that it is held in high regard by officials within the Department of the Environment. Contrary to his better judgment, even the Secretary of State might give nodding acknowledgment to the great stewardship of Thurrock borough council by councillors of all parties over many years and the vibrant way in which it is run now. It is working with other boroughs along the river frontage and with the Department of the Environment to make a great success of the Thames gateway initiative.
It is a pity that the legislation which gave rise to these orders was flawed. That is not the fault of the current Secretary of State or his deputy. The now Deputy Prime Minister botched the original legislation. One thing on which we are all agreed is that there should have been greater scope for more unitary authorities around the country. As has already been said, it is perverse that Norwich has not been given unitary status. It is a great pity. I look forward to the day when my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras is on the Treasury Bench and gives proud cities and boroughs the opportunity once more to enjoy the unitary status to which they are entitled.
Time is desperately short. It is a great shame that the Government let us down by not making more time available. I conclude by welcoming the orders. I hope that the House will accept them unanimously.
6.32 pm
Mr. James Couchman: I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) in her place. She and I will share the Kent (Borough of Gillingham and City of Rochester upon Medway) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which proposes to dissolve Gillingham borough council and Rochester upon Medway city council and to create a new unitary authority to provide the full range of services presently provided by the two district councils and Kent county council.
This has been a contentious issue in my constituency for far too long. It has been a matter not only of contention but of sadness and bitterness for friends from the same party serving on district and county councils who have found themselves on opposite sides of the argument, and for Members of Parliament such as myself who, having stood up to be counted on one or other side of the argument, have lost friends and supporters who took a contrary view.
Change in the way in which we govern local services is rarely popular; we are all conservative with a small "c". I have been consistent in supporting the proposal to create a single tier of local government for Gillingham,
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Rainham, Chatham, Rochester and Strood, which together have a population of about 250,000. I gave evidence to the first Local Government Commission for England and expressed my support for a unitary authority. That was in line with the support then given to the proposals by both district councils, but against the stance adopted, understandably, by the county council, which was fighting for its survival.
I confirmed to the second Local Government Commission chaired by Sir David Cooksey, which was acting on the Secretary of State's requirement to review some of the final recommendations, that I was consistent in my support for a single authority, despite Gillingham borough council—reflecting the new overall control by Liberal Democrat councillors—having done a complete about-face in its support for such a single authority. Gillingham's Conservative and Labour councillors remain in favour of a unitary authority, as do councillors from all three parties on the city council. The reasons why I expressed support for a single authority to the first commission remain as strong now as they were then.
I served as a councillor on Bexley borough council from 1974 to 1982. The outer London boroughs, despite the unwelcome interference of the then Greater London council, were virtually and are now actually unitary authorities, providing all those services, apart from police and fire services, which are provided by the district and county councils outside London. Bexley was an excellent council in those years, providing first-class schools, social services, housing, roads and civic amenities. It was a viable entity serving the population that it did. It still is viable and is respected for its innovative services. Bexley came out of Kent county council in 1964 and its inheritance from Kent county council was pretty threadbare.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has referred rightly to the geographical integrity of the Medway towns and to the weak nature of the present boundaries between the city council and Gillingham borough council. I believe that a single-tier council serving Gillingham, Rainham, Rochester, Chatham and Strood can be as viable as Bexley borough council, on which I served. Decisions will be taken by people living in those towns rather than people who live from Dartford to Dover and Maidstone to Margate.
The constituent parts of Kent are quite different. The problems and opportunities which confront the Weald or even east Kent are different from those that affect north Kent. Kent in my view is three counties—east Kent, north Kent and what I am pleased to call posh Kent. The council has not always realised that.
Some people have suggested that Gillingham will become submerged in Rochester. I do not believe that for one moment. The pivot for the Medway towns in future is likely to be where it has always been. The former royal naval base and Chatham dockyard, now Chatham Maritime, is where the development is taking place for the towns. Gillingham's business developments, both in Chatham Maritime and the business park, together with its football club, which achieved promotion last year, Hempstead Valley shopping centre and even Gillingham's unique connection with the Japanese mean that Gillingham will remain its own town. However, I believe that Gillingham will remain in Kent for postal purposes

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and for Kent's heritage and sporting traditions, just as 30 years on Bromley and Bexley remain part of Kent, if not of Kent county council.
Dame Peggy Fenner: It is most kind of my hon. Friend to allow me this interjection. I should like to correct the assertion made by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) that the order was not a democratic response to the people of Rochester. Five Liberal members of the local authority joined the members of other parties in support of the proposal for a unitary authority. I am sure that the logic of the rest of his speech, little though it was, would count a population of almost 250,000 as large enough to have one authority.
There is one particular burning issue that I wish to raise and about which I wish to be reassured. Article 7 makes provision in respect of the Medway towns specifically for minerals and waste policies. I should like an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that that includes the minerals and waste policies—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but that was a very long intervention.
Mr. Couchman: I am sure that my hon. Friend has made her point and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has heard her. I agree with her contention about the democratic nature of the arrangements. There is a huge irony about the fact that Gillingham Liberals are now against the proposal. The leader of the Gillingham Liberals proposed to the Association of District Councils in Kent that the whole of Kent should be made into unitary authorities, but of course, like other Liberals, he reserves his right to change his view from time to time. I suspect that he may have realised that a unitary authority for the Medway towns would not be dominated by Liberal councillors. That may explain his change of mind.
My hon. Friend is right about the democratic nature of the proposal. The hon. Member for Newbury made great play of the commission's consultation exercise. The commission sent out 650,000 leaflets detailing four options. One in 13 of those many leaflets was returned to the commission—that is about 50,000, a number not unadjacent to the number of people who work for Kent county council and who would have had a heavy vested interest in its retention and maintaining the status quo.
In Gillingham, fewer than 3,000 leaflets were returned out of a population of 96,000. Some 75 per cent. of those were in favour of retaining the status quo—two thirds of the 96,000. People tend to write in if they are against rather than in favour of something. It could therefore be suggested that almost 94,000 of Gillingham's population supported, or did not mind, the concept of unitary status.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) also made much of the somewhat bizarre MORI poll that was conducted by the commission. I am not going to follow the hon. Gentleman's comments on that subject; I think that we have yet to reach the parlous state where legislation is based on opinion polls.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been criticised for inviting a second commission to review the final recommendations of the first commission. He has
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done so for consistency throughout the country; he made that clear in his statement to the House when he set up the second commission, and I support him in that decision.
Throughout a difficult period of controversy, I have tried to respect the opinions of all those who have taken an opposite view. I have been consistent in my support for the proposal, which I believe will result in the best local governance for Gillingham and Rochester, through a time of great change and regeneration, into the 21st century. As the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) suggested, no one can say whether it will lead to a higher or lower council tax. That will depend on a number of complex resolutions about support grant, standard spending assessment and the residual debt—I mentioned that to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State as we are worried about the possibility of asset stripping by the existing authorities. The council tax level will also depend on those who are elected to the new, single-tier authorities. I shall not add my guesstimate to those of the soothsayers who have been so eloquent in their guesses as to whether it will be an expensive option.
I have read the order carefully and there are some points on which I would like my right hon. Friend's guidance. Article 5 sets up a new county of the Medway towns, but without a county council. I presume that that is to allow the transfer of powers and duties from Kent to the new unitary authority. But flowing from that, what are the ramifications for policing the area of the new county and what implications will article 6 have for fire services? Am I right to assume that the postal address will remain Kent, as it does for Bromley and Bexley some 30 years on? Who will represent Her Majesty as Lord Lieutenant? Will it be Lord Kingsdown, who has done such a splendid job in Kent for so long?
Much of Kent's history, particularly its military history, is bound up with the Medway towns—the royal naval base, formerly the royal marines and, to this day, the Royal School of Military Engineering and the headquarters of the Royal Engineers are in my constituency. The history is inalienable and indivisible, but does my right hon. Friend foresee problems in maintaining Kent, within its present boundaries, as the location of such history when the county of Kent becomes the counties of Kent and the Medway towns? What are the ramifications for sporting qualifications? Those are just some of the questions that suggest themselves to me.
I have spoken for too long. I shall have no difficulty in supporting the Kent (Borough of Gillingham and City of Rochester upon Medway)(Structural Change) Order 1996 for I believe that it will ultimately be in the best interests of my constituents and all those who live in the Medway towns. I hope that all concerned—Members, officers and anyone else who is involved in the transition—will now work to make the new council work.
6.43 pm
Mr. Peter L. Pike: I am one of those who represent a constituency that will not be a unitary authority once the orders have been approved—I speak particularly in relation to the eighth order that involves Lancashire.
I do not enthusiastically welcome the provisions being implemented through the orders. The hybrid solution for Lancashire is not the best or the right one. I have always believed in unitary local government. My hon. Friend the

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Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) was absolutely right when he said that the legislation was flawed as, at the end of the review, not all the country will have unitary local government.
I have been involved in politics and local government in Burnley for well over 30 years. In the old days, Burnley was a county borough; it was extremely successful, although it was one of the smallest in the country at that time. Even now I can still see the historical problems caused by the local government reorganisation of 1973–74. There have been problems with the high school admissions places, particularly at Briercliffe, which had previously been in the county, but was not in the county borough; Padiham was a separate urban district council. As a result of admissions policy and the way in which education systems were developed all those years ago, the schools were not in the right places for the children to attend. Owing to lack of money, those problems have still not been solved, and they cause considerable problems for many people.
When people look at their council tax bill they will see that more than 80 per cent. of it goes to the county council. Six county councillors represent Burnley. Less than 20 per cent. of business is dealt with at borough council level, where we have 48 councillors. We do not believe that that is democratic.
I am not one of those who attack Lancashire county council. I believe that it has done an extremely good job in many ways. But two-tier local government is not the best form of local government. Unitary authorities can better represent people's needs; people understand where to go with their problems. My heart often tells me that Burnley should be a unitary authority in its own right. I recognise that it is probably too small and we need to join with other authorities. I do not blame John Banham alone for the mess that we are in, nor do I solely blame the Secretary of State responsible for the legislation—there were failures on the part of county councils and local people who failed to discuss the matter. However, the current form is not the best one.
If the House divides, I have no intention of voting against any of the orders. Burnley borough council and I share the view that enough time has elapsed: Blackburn and Blackpool should attain unitary status. We wish them well and we hope that the system will succeed. Lancashire county council has a responsibility to ensure that the transmission goes smoothly and that it works. It must recognise that it will bring financial and service problems for the rest of Lancashire. Lancashire and the 12 other districts that will remain as non-unitary authorities should get together to ensure that service is better delivered until, I hope, a further local government reorganisation tackles the problems that remain in Lancashire and other parts of the country without unitary authorities.
6.48 pm
Mr. Christopher Gill: The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) made some wide, inaccurate comments and he has been roundly criticised in the House for the inaccuracy of some of his supposed statistics. He was absolutely wrong when he said that only one Conservative Member of Parliament was opposed to the order. I regret that the other Member who represents Shropshire, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Biffen), who is as opposed to the order
1108
as I am, is not in his place this evening, for family reasons. Although I cannot speak for him, I venture to suggest that he will not disagree with the burden of my argument. I have little doubt that, if the House were to divide on the issue, my right hon. Friend would vote against it, as I would and as would my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley), who was formerly the Member for The Wreckin.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was scathing about those who "cannot make up their minds". It would have been infinitely preferable had he followed the example of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland and acted positively and decisively on local government in England by putting proposals that the House could either vote for or reject, rather than subcontracting consideration of the matter to the local government commission. The first time around, the commission recommended the status quo for Shropshire. That commanded popular support among the majority of my constituents and certainly among my councillors, although I readily concede that it was because they felt that it was the lesser of the two evils on offer.
I support the principle of unitary authorities. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, they end the confusion about who is responsible. I pay tribute to the eloquent defence of that principle made by another Shropshire Member, the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott); but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and it is ironic that I, a great advocate of unitary authorities throughout my career in Parliament, will now have the worst of all worlds.
In the rump of Shropshire, we shall now be the smallest county council with less than half the average population. That tiny population will retain two tiers while supporting a system of local government that we did not seek, and picking up the tab for the cost of a reorganisation that we did not want. We shall be extremely disadvantaged in terms of our standard spending assessment. The Wrekin's share of the county council budget is slightly less than the SSA, but the new Shropshire share will be significantly above the SSA.
I make an impassioned plea to the Secretary of State that, when he calculates the next revenue support grant settlement, he looks seriously at the sparsity factor. Unless it is adjusted to take account of the unique difficulties of sparsely populated areas such as the rump of Shropshire, we shall be in an extremely difficult financial position.
Mr. Gummer: I assure my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) and for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) that I shall look carefully at the sparsity factor in the two counties that they represent and elsewhere.
It was not I who decided that England should be dealt with differently from Wales or Scotland. The House passed legislation, which I have followed. It was not open to me to take the steps that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow wanted.
Mr. Gill: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, not only for that clarification but for his undertaking to look at the sparsity factor.
May I continue the point about the local government review? The local government commission is unelected and unaccountable and does not have the democratic

1109
legitimacy of Members of Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Biffen) and I regret that a greater attempt was not made to consult us on those important matters. I very much regret the decision that has been reached and the manner in which it has been reached. I take this opportunity to repeat the plea that I made to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State a moment ago about the sparsity factor because, unless he can ensure that the financial consequences of the review are fully reflected in future SSA calculations and RSG settlements, there will be great unhappiness in the county of Shropshire.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's assurance. Shropshire Members of Parliament and county councillors will provide him with as much information as possible or necessary to justify the case that we shall undoubtedly present to him.
6.54 pm
Mr. David Jamieson: It is a curious and happy coincidence that, whenever I am fortunate enough to be called to speak on the Floor of the House on issues concerning Plymouth, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are in the Chair. I shall make my comments brief this evening, mainly because the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) took a fifth of the time available. I assure him that he spoke not for the rest of us but instead of the rest of us. He may reflect on why we do not have Liberal Democrats on Plymouth city council.
I am pleased to say a few words in favour of order No. 3 on unitary status for Plymouth and Torbay. The issue has united Plymouth. Plymouth has a proud history of serving its local people and of serving the nation through the Royal Navy. The people of the city have been served since the beginning of the century, when the three towns of Devonport, Stonehouse and Plymouth came together. But in 1974. many people felt extremely bitter that responsibilities, particularly for education and social services, were taken away from Plymouth and moved 40 miles down the road to Exeter, which is half the size of Plymouth. That has had a serious psychological effect on how people regard their city.
I welcome the changes, which present a challenge to Plymouth to do better. It is a testimony to the excellent officers and the councillors of various parties that have served us over the years that Devon has served us well as an education authority, but that lays down a challenge to us to do better in the future. Moreover, it is a testimony to Devon county council that only seven of the 500 schools have gone grant maintained.
I also welcome the order for Torbay. However, it leaves Exeter in an awkward position, as it deserves unitary status. It also leaves the rest of Devon in a difficult position with the two-tier system that remains. Although I am pleased that the decision has been made, many of us in Plymouth were disappointed about the year's delay in putting the order through Parliament. However good local government is, it depends on good local government officers, and their loyalty is not enhanced by uncertainty. The delay in the reorganisation has created uncertainty. People need to know what will happen to their jobs in the future if they are to deliver high-quality local services.
1110
However, I am glad that we have now reached the point at which reorganisation will go ahead. I applaud those officers who have been working hard to prepare for the changes on Devon and Plymouth councils over the past two years while all that uncertainty has existed.
We can now look forward with confidence to the future. Services to the people are best delivered near to the people at the lowest possible level. Education and social services will now be delivered by the city of Plymouth rather than to our neighbour down the road, Exeter. Plymouth has many fine schools, both primary schools and, since reorganisation in the late 1980s, community colleges; indeed, we now have some of the best community colleges in the country.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Gary Streeter): And grammar schools.
Mr. Jamieson: The hon. Gentleman mouthed the words "grammar schools" to me. I remind him that, some years ago, when he was a member of the Tory city council, the Conservative county council closed six grammar schools in Plymouth.
I shall not detain the House, except to say that the city has been served by excellent officers and councillors over the years. In particular, I pay tribute to the current leader of the council, Councillor John Ingham—a local man of understanding and vision. He has the respect of the local community. We can all look forward to the elections next year with confidence. This is truly a challenge for the councillors, for the officers and for the people of Plymouth.
6.59 pm
Mr. Alan Simpson: I did not anticipate that I would speak in this debate whole-heartedly in support of the comments of the Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, and so profoundly in disagreement with the comments of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel)—the House never fails to contribute to my education. In terms of this playing into the hands of the Liberal Democrats and allowing them to concentrate their fire, I wish that the hon. Member for Newbury had asked the two Liberal members of the council in Nottingham what their advice might be. I suggest that it would have been that their Front Benchers could best help if they did not concentrate their fire on their own troops, who support the change.
I welcome this long overdue change. Nottingham is the largest city in England that is currently administered under a two-tier system of local government, and it has been in the pipeline of review and re-review longer than any other city. It would be a travesty if hon. Members did not understand that this change of status is in the interests of a devolved system of local government, and of restoring the credibility and value of local government. Nottingham hopes to lead the way in showing what devolved local government can do.
Yesterday, the House decided to return the stone of destiny to Scotland. It is entirely appropriate that today the House will, I hope, decide to return the seat of authority to a unitary council in Nottingham. In Nottingham, the city council has already established the momentum to provide better co-ordination of its services

1111
and to guarantee local people a more open and accountable system of local government. I hope that the change to unitary status will allow it to deliver that in ways that the public can understand. As someone who served as a county councillor for a city ward for eight years, I know that local people do not understand the difference between the two separate authorities. I hope that the basis of that misunderstanding can be swiftly removed when the change is brought about.
I urge those on the Front Benches—who have co-operated on this issue—to look more widely at the challenge that they are now posing to devolved and unitary local government in the years ahead. I hope that they will listen to the calls of local authorities which have said that it is about time we got rid of the doctrine of ultra vires. I hope that they will also look at local government in other parts of Europe, where local authorities are assumed to have powers of general competence. I hope that they will look at models in Scandinavia, where local authorities are deemed to be able to function as municipal enterprises. These are the challenges that local government will have to face in the decades to come if they are to respond to the demands of their local population.
I pay tribute to the leader of Nottingham council, Graham Chapman, and to the other councillors who have contributed to the pressure for reorganisation and the restoration of unitary status to Nottingham. I also pay tribute to the local authority staff—both the city and the county—for working towards the transfer process. I am sure that all hon. Members would urge the two local authorities involved to work constructively to provide a seamless transfer of front-line public services to that unitary authority—no one will benefit if that does not occur.
This should not be dismissed as an undesirable change; it should be seen as a change that is long overdue. The change will be welcomed by the people in Nottingham, whose arguments were not necessarily about unitary status but about whether the boundaries of a redefined Nottingham should be enlarged—we may or may not return to that issue in the future.
I welcome these changes. If we can get the local authorities to work in harmony with the order—which will, I hope be passed tonight—we will ensure that the city that is the "Queen of the Midlands" then has the rightful throne restored, from which it can reign.
7.5 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) for not being present in the Chamber earlier.
I shall address the concerns of a few of my constituents in relation to motion No. 4 on the Order Paper—the changes to the boundaries between Colchester and Tendring in my constituency. The proposal to move Dene Park in Wythenhoe from the district of Tendring into the borough of Colchester, with the rest of Wythenhoe, is supported in Wythenhoe and in the borough and the district concerned.
The problem concerns two roads—Keeler's lane and Alresford road—which are just outside Wythenhoe. During the consultation, they were considered to be part of Dene Park, so when the residents were asked whether they wanted Dene Park to be transferred they assented
1112
because they did not consider themselves to be in Dene Park. When they were transferred out of the district of Tendring and into the borough of Colchester, they expressed concern. Unfortunately, that concern was expressed to me too late in the process for the boundaries to be altered and for the order to be changed.
I fully understand the restraints that Ministers face in this respect. However, I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to record for posterity that, when these matters are considered again, the residents of these two roads would very much like to be taken back into the Tendring district. The Conservative party believes deeply in there being authorities in which people feel they belong. Although this is a minor matter in the scheme of things, these people feel slighted by what has happened. We must do our best to restore order in this matter next time it is considered.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Cambridgeshire (City of Peterborough) (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
Motion made, and Question put,
That the draft Cheshire (Boroughs of Halton and Warrington) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
The House divided: Ayes 195, Noes 17.

Division No. 170]

[7.07 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Conway, Derek

Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Allen, Graham

Couchman, James

Amess, David

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Devlin, Tim

Arbuthnot, James

Dobson, Frank

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Dover, Den

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Duncan, Alan

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Duncan Smith, Iain

Baldry, Tony

Durant, Sir Anthony

Banks, Matthew (Southport)

Dykes, Hugh

Bates, Michael

Elletson, Harold

Bellingham, Henry

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Bermingham, Gerald

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Booth, Hartley

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Faber, David

Bowis, John

Fabricant, Michael

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Brandreth, Gyles

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Brazier, Julian

Fishburn, Dudley

Bright Sir Graham

Flynn, Paul

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Forman, Nigel

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

Forth, Eric

Browning, Mrs Angela

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Bruce, Ian (South Dorset)

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

Burns, Simon

Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

Burt, Alistair

Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

Butler, Peter

French, Douglas

Butterfill, John

Gallie, Phil

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Gardiner, Sir George

Cash, William

Garnier, Edward

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Gill, Christopher

Chapman, Sir Sydney

Gillan, Cheryl

Clappison, James

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

Gorst, Sir John

Colvin, Michael

Greenway, Harry (Eating N)

Congdon, David

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

1113

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Pickles, Eric

Grocott, Bruce

Pike, Peter L

Grylls, Sir Michael

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Powell, William (Corby)

Hall, Mike

Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

Quin, Ms Joyce

Hampson, Dr Keith

Rathbone, Tim

Hawkins, Nick

Robathan, Andrew

Hawksley, Warren

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'dn S)

Heald, Oliver

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Hendry, Charles

Sackville, Tom

Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Horam, John

Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Shersby, Sir Michael

Hunter, Andrew

Simpson, Alan

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Sims, Sir Roger

Jack, Michael

Speed, Sir Keith

Jamieson, David

Spellar, John

Jenkin, Bernard

Spencer, Sir Derek

Jessel, Toby

Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

Spink, Dr Robert

King, Rt Hon Tom

Sproat, Iain

Kirkhope, Timothy

Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

Knapman, Roger

Steen, Anthony

Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

Straw, Jack

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

Streeter, Gary

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Sweeney, Walter

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Sykes, John

Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Lidington, David

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

Lord, Michael

Temple-Morris, Peter

Luff, Peter

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

MacKay, Andrew

Trend, Michael

Mackinlay, Andrew

Twinn, Dr Ian

Malone, Gerald

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Vaz, Keith

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

Viggers, Peter

Meale, Alan

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Walden, George

Merchant, Piers

Waller, Gary

Mills, Iain

Waterson, Nigel

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Watts, John

Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

Wells, Bowen

Moate, Sir Roger

Whittingdale, John

Nelson, Anthony

Widdecombe, Ann

Neubert, Sir Michael

Willetts, David

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Nicholls, Patrick

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Wood, Timothy

Norris, Steve

Yeo, Tim

Ottaway, Richard

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Page, Richard

Tellers for the Ayes:

Patnick, Sir Irvine

Mr. Sebastian Coe and Mr. Patrick McLoughlin.

Pawsey, James

NOES

Alton, David

Maclennan, Robert

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Rendel, David

Chidgey, David

Skinner, Dennis

Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worth)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Harvey, Nick

Tyler, Paul

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Tellers for the Noes:

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Don Foster.

Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Devon (City of Plymouth and Borough of Torbay) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
Resolved,
That the draft Essex (Boroughs of Colchester, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock and District of Tendring) (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
Resolved,
That the draft Hereford and Worcester (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
Resolved,
That the draft Nottinghamshire (City of Nottingham) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
Motion made, and Question put,
That the draft Shropshire (District of The Wrekin) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
The House divided: Ayes 188, Noes 17.

Division No. 171]

[7.19 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Devlin, Tim

Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

Dewar, Donald

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Dobson, Frank

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Allen, Graham

Dover, Den

Amess, David

Duncan, Alan

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Duncan Smith, Iain

Arbuthnot, James

Durant, Sir Anthony

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Dykes, Hugh

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Elletson, Harold

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Faber, David

Banks, Matthew (Southport)

Fabricant, Michael

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Bates, Michael

Fishburn, Dudley

Bellingham, Henry

Flynn, Paul

Bermingham, Gerald

Forman, Nigel

Booth, Hartley

Forth, Eric

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Bowis, John

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

Brandreth, Gyles

French, Douglas

Brazier, Julian

Gardiner, Sir George

Bright, Sir Graham

Garnier, Edward

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Gillan, Cheryl

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

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Browning, Mrs Angela

Gorst, Sir John

Bruce, Ian (South Dorset)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Burns, Simon

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Burt, Alistair

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Butler, Peter

Grocott, Bruce

Butterfill, John

Grylls, Sir Michael

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Cash, William

Hall, Mike

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

Chapman, Sir Sydney

Hampson, Dr Keith

Clappison, James

Hawkins, Nick

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

Hayes, Jerry

Coe, Sebastian

Heald, Oliver

Colvin, Michael

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Congdon, David

Hendry, Charles

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Horam, John

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

Couchman, James

Hunt Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Hunter, Andrew

1115

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Jack, Michael

Sackville, Tom

Jamieson, David

Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Jenkin, Bernard

Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Jessel, Toby

Shaw, David (Dover)

Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Shersby, Sir Michael

Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

Simpson, Alan

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

Sims, Sir Roger

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Skinner, Dennis

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Speed, Sir Keith

Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

Spellar, John

Lidington, David

Spencer, Sir Derek

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

Lord, Michael

Spink, Dr. Robert

Luff, Peter

Sproat, Iain

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

MacKay, Andrew

Steen, Anthony

Mackinlay, Andrew

Straw, Jack

McLoughlin, Patrick

Streeter, Gary

Malone, Gerald

Sweeney, Walter

Mans, Keith

Sykes, John

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Meale, Alan

Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Temple-Morris, Peter

Merchant Piers

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Mills, Iain

Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Trend, Michael

Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

Twinn, Dr Ian

Moate, Sir Roger

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Nelson, Anthony

Vaz, Keith

Neubert, Sir Michael

Viggers, Peter

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Nicholls, Patrick

Waller, Gary

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Waterson, Nigel

Norris, Steve

Watts, John

Ottaway, Richard

Wells, Bowen

Page, Richard

Whittingdale, John

Patnick, Sir Irvine

Widdecombe, Ann

Pawsey, James

Willetts, David

Pickles, Eric

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Pike, Peter L

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Wood, Timothy

Powell, William (Corby)

Yeo, Tim

Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Rathbone, Tim

Robathan, Andrew

Tellers for the Ayes:

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Mr. Derek Conway and Mr. Roger Knapman.

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

NOES

Alton, David

Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Maclennan, Robert

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Chidgey, David

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worth)

Rendel, David

Foster, Don (Bath)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Gill, Christopher

Tyler, Paul

Harvey, Nick

Tellers for the Noes:

Hawksley, Warren

Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Simon Hughes.

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Lancashire (Boroughs of Blackburn and Blackpool)(Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]
Motion made, and question put,
That the draft Kent (Boroughs of Gillingham and City of Roschester upon Medway)(Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.⁁[Mr. Brandreth.]
The House divided: Ayes 179, Noes 15.

Division No. 172]

[7.30 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

Grocott, Bruce

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Grylls, Sir Michael

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Allen, Graham

Hall, Mike

Amess, David

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Arbuthnot, James

Hawkins, Nick

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Hawksley, Warren

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Hayes, Jerry

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Heald, Oliver

Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Banks, Matthew (Southport)

Hendry, Charles

Bates, Michael

Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

Bellingham, Henry

Horam, John

Bermingham, Gerald

Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

Booth, Hartley

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Hunter, Andrew

Bowis, John

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Jack, Michael

Brazier, Julian

Jenkin, Bernard

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

Jessel, Toby

Browning, Mrs Angela

Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

Bruce, Ian (South Dorset)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Burns, Simon

Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

Burt, Alistair

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

Butler, Peter

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Butterfill, John

Lawrence, Sir Ivan

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

Cash, William

Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Lidington, David

Chapman, Sir Sydney

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Clappison, James

Luff, Peter

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Coe, Sebastian

MacKay, Andrew

Colvin, Michael

Mackinlay, Andrew

Congdon, David

McLoughlin, Patrick

Conway, Derek

Malone, Gerald

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Mans, Keith

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Meale, Alan

Couchman, James

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Devlin, Tim

Merchant, Piers

Dobson, Frank

Mills, Iain

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Dover, Den

Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

Duncan, Alan

Moate, Sir Roger

Duncan Smith, Iain

Nelson, Anthony

Durant, Sir Anthony

Neubert, Sir Michael

Dykes, Hugh

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Elletson, Harold

Nicholls, Patrick

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Norris, Steve

Faber, David

Ottaway, Richard

Fabricant, Michael

Page, Richard

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Patnick, Sir Irvine

Flynn, Paul

Pawsey, James

Forman, Nigel

Pickles, Eric

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Pike, Peter L

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

Powell, William (Corby)

French, Douglas

Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

Galloway, George

Rathbone, Tim

Gardiner, Sir George

Robathan, Andrew

Garnier, Edward

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Gill, Christopher

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Gillan, Cheryl

Sackville, Tom

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Gorst, Sir John

Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Shaw, Sr Giles (Pudsey)

1117

Shersby, Sir Michael

Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

Simpson, Alan

Trend, Michael

Sims, Sir Roger

Twinn, Dr Ian

Skinner, Dennis

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Spearing, Nigel

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Spellar.John

Waller, Gary

Spencer, Sir Derek

Waterson, Nigel

Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

Watts, John

Spink, Dr Robert

Wells, Bowen

Sproat, Iain

Whittingdale, John

Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

Widdecombe, Ann

Steen, Anthony

Willetts, David

Straw, Jack

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Streeter, Gary

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Sweeney, Walter

Wood, Timothy

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Yeo, Tim

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Temple-Morris, Peter

Mr. Roger Knapman and Mr. Gyles Brandreth.

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

NOES

Alton, David

Maclennan, Robert

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Chidgey, David

Rendel, David

Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worth)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Harvey, Nick

Tyler, Paul

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Tellers for the Noes:

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. Don Foster.

Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Berkshire (Structural Change) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 18th June, be approved.—[Mr. Brandreth.]

PETITION

  Central Railway
  7.41 pm
  Mr. David Lidington: I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents, who are objecting to the proposed freight railway system planned by Central Railway. The petition has been signed by constituents living in Bradenham—the boyhood home of my predecessor, Benjamin Disraeli—Bledlow Ridge, Saunderton, Horsenden, Lacey Green, Loosley Row, Princes Risborough, Longwick and Ilmer.
  The petition has my full support, and declares:
  the proposal of Central Railway is unacceptable in that the environmental damage it will cause would far outweigh any claimed benefits.
  The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons rejects the Central Railway Application for an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Roads (West Wiltshire)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Burns.]
  7.42 pm
  Mr. David Faber: I am grateful to have the opportunity today for an Adjournment debate—rather earlier than normal—on the subject of the A36. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) and other hon. Members that I shall not detain the House until 10 o'clock tonight, but I hope that they will forgive me if I take the opportunity to say a few words about the A36 improvement east of Bath to Beckington, which the Government have planned.
  I should say that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Needham)—who, sadly, are unable to be here for this debate—endorse the majority of the views that I shall express. I shall explain why they do so in the course of my remarks.
  The Government's plans to upgrade the A36 from east of Bath to Beckington date back probably to 1976, when a study known as the Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick report first introduced the idea of the A36 corridor. The scheme was entered into the trunk road programme in 1989 and went out to public consultation in 1992, and the preferred route was announced in November 1994.
  In the four years that I have been the Member of Parliament representing my constituency, few issues have so dominated local news as the proposed building of this road. It has drawn almost universal opposition from local residents, from the district council, from myself, from Caroline Jackson—our Member of the European Parliament—and from many others.
  I pay tribute to local groups—rather than to the more national lobby groups, which have sometimes failed to understand the real reasons and principles behind the issue—especially in Bradford-on-Avon. They have expressed their opposition in a sensible and calm manner, often basing it on sound scientific reasoning and on research that they have carried out themselves. At times, they have appeared better informed than some members of the Highways Agency who replied to their letters.
  Initially, support for the road was high in Bradford-on-Avon, as it was perceived as providing a much-needed bypass for the town. It soon became clear, however, that the road's scale would mean that there would be little relief for local traffic, and that it could possibly expose the town to increased traffic noise and traffic pollution. Indeed, the road level would have needed to be raised in one area to cross over the Kennet and Avon canal, which would have made it clearly visible in many parts of the town.
  The route was also opposed on the grounds that it offered little help to business or industry in west Wiltshire, a subject to which I shall return to in rather more detail shortly. The road has been opposed by Bath city council, too, on the grounds that it offers little or no relief to that city.
  The road is fraught with environmental danger. It is all new build to dual carriageway standard, and it will pass through large tracts of unspoiled countryside, most notably the Limpley Stoke and Avon valleys.

  1119
  Last November, my hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads announced that the scheme was to be downgraded in the roads programme, presumably because of the escalating cost of the new road, which is now put at between £80 million and £100 million. That decision has been warmly welcomed by local people.
  I went with our MEP, Caroline Jackson, to see my hon. Friend the Minister, when, as I am sure he will recall, we discussed possible alternatives to the road, including a single-lane carriageway. I should be grateful if he will tell us today a little more about whether that possiblity has been examined further.
  I must tell my hon. Friend that we should like to hear today that a decision has been reached to abandon the road completely. Many local people believe that the A36 could easily be upgraded, in part, on line, and possibly linked to a smaller inner bypass for Bradford-on-Avon itself.
  While I acknowledge that it is now highly unlikely that the road will ever be built as it is currently planned, it is still very much a line on a map. That has great significance for many people, particularly for those along the route who are still suffering the effects of blight on their homes.
  I appreciate that my hon. Friend is not the Minister with specific responsiblity for blight, but he may be aware from his background briefing of the cases of one or two of my constituents. I have been in contact with my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London about the severe diminution in value of one or two of the properties along the route, and I hope that those cases will be dealt with more sympathetically in future.
  Suspicion has also been raised recently by the publication of a preferred route for the small southern section of the road south of Rode. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us a little more about the plans for that tonight.
  Fortunately for the people of west Wiltshire and for the Department of Transport, there is an alternative to building the road. In April 1994, Caroline Jackson and I launched our campaign for upgrading the A350. We have been supported throughout by the district council and by local business, particularly by the West Wiltshire Association of Chambers of Commerce. I pay tribute to the work that the association has put into the project.
  I am delighted to say that the plan has won not only enthusiastic support, but active backing and encouragement from Wiltshire county council.
  Mr. Don Foster: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is well aware of the considerable concerns in my constituency about the many vehicles looking for a north-south route, which currently must come into the centre of Bath and then out, raising pollution and congestion levels. He is right to say that the A36 uprade is not particularly popular. Is he prepared to add to his list of supporters not only myself, but very many of my constituents, who believe that the upgrading of the A350 would provide the much needed relief for the north-south route?
  Mr. Faber: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, first, for the brevity of his intervention in comparison with the earlier intervention of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). Secondly, and more seriously, I am very grateful for his comments.
  1120
  I said that I do not believe that, as currently planned, the A36 would provide relief for Bath. I shall present some specific ideas shortly for upgrading the A350 from the the M4 at Chippenham down to Warminster. I believe that much of the heavy traffic that uses the M4 and currently looks for alternative routes would use that new route. So I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) for his support, and I shall certainly ensure that people in west Wiltshire are aware of his and his constituents' support.
  The A350 runs south from junction 17 of the M4, at Chippenham, through the economic corridor that comprises the towns in north and west Wiltshire in my constituency. For the purpose of the debate, I am specifically interested in the section of road that runs between the M4 and Warminster, where the A36 subsequently joins the A350, and the two roads continue down to the south coast ports.
  For those who live and work in west Wiltshire, the A350 is not just a route running through, as the A36 would do. It is a transport corridor linking towns that already function closely as a single economy. I believe that the case for upgrading the section of road in question can be made on traffic grounds alone.
  Using the junction with the M4, as the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) rightly said, the A350 provides links for west Wiltshire with Swindon and Bristol locally, and further afield with London, south Wales and the west midlands. At present, traffic flows between the M4 and Chippenham run at about 22,000 vehicles a day, and south of Semington, which is just south of Melksham, at 12,000 vehicles a day. North of the M4 and south of Warminster, the flows are only half those levels. For instance, the Warminster bypass takes on average 10,300 vehicles a day.
  I hope that those figures will allay the fears of people who live south of Warminster, especially in north Dorset, who fear that the proposals may be aimed at embracing them, too. It is clear that the need for improvement is on the stretch between the M4 and Warminster, both on traffic grounds and on grounds of economic regeneration. The route is now overloaded, with serious congestion at peak hours and bottlenecks at Chippenham, Melksham, Semington, Yarnbrook and Westbury, to name but a few.
  Traffic growth in Wiltshire has been above the national average for the past 10 years, and is expected to rise further. Indeed, the county council currently forecasts that traffic volumes will have risen by between 77 and 106 per cent. by the year 2025. In the past three years, there have also been more than 300 accidents involving personal injury on that stretch of road. Unfortunately, I witnessed the aftermath of one especially dreadful accident myself, and I have heard about and received letters about many others.
  Given that increase of traffic through our market towns and villages, the case for upgrading can be made on traffic, environmental and safety grounds. In complete contrast to the new-build proposals for the A36, a great deal of the route can be upgraded on line. Where it is necessary to go off line, that will be primarily to build bypasses that go round towns and villages.
  I have no doubt that, by taking traffic, especially heavy goods vehicles, away from town centres, those bypasses will reduce congestion. They will bring about a vast improvement in the environment within the towns, both

  1121
  for residents and for visitors. Congestion, noise and pollution will all be reduced. Above all, there will be fewer appalling accidents on the road.
  I mentioned earlier the support of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Devizes. Although his constituency is east of mine, the traffic that builds up in Devizes, as well as in villages such as Seend and even further afield in places such as Marlborough, is a direct result of the inadequacy of the current A350 running from north to south.
  Nowhere is the need for upgrading more evident than in the town of Westbury. So I was somewhat surprised to read in my local paper last week that the county councillor for Westbury had said:
  "I am concerned that any bypass for Westbury might kill the town.
  Westbury has more than 30 per cent. of its shops empty, business is being lost and unemployment rising. The road may bring success but the chances of failure are there just as evidently."
  I must say that that councillor's experience is totally different from mine. I have been bombarded over the past four years with letters from all parts of the town seeking the long-awaited bypass. Indeed, I rather agree with the comments in a letter that I received yesterday from the chairman of a local parish council:
  "We who live in Westbury and the surrounding villages are fully aware of the traffic problems that plague our lives.
  Westbury town centre is dying. The amount of traffic along the Warminster Road prohibits customers from getting to the shops, and they, like many other shops in the area have closed."
  Not only will the new road bring added investment to the area, but it will boost economic regeneration and enable local people to shop and walk in their town within being knocked over, or even, as in some tragic cases, killed.
  That brings me to the third and most powerful case for upgrading the route—economic regeneration. I have already paid tribute to the work of the West Wiltshire Association of Chambers of Commerce, and to West Wiltshire district council. Those two organisations have produced a joint document and been instrumental in pushing for the upgrading of the route. The title of their document speaks for itself: "A350—Lifeline for local prosperity". Wiltshire county council has also recently added its support, and it produced its own excellent document this week.
  In recent years, the economy of west Wiltshire has been badly affected by recession. In addition, we have seen restructuring in many of our traditional industries, most notably food processing and engineering. Like north Wiltshire, we have also seen contracting affecting some of our important defence and defence-related employment. Historically, some towns may have been over-dependent on one or two large employers, and have suffered accordingly.
  Above all, we have been at a crucial disadvantage in attracting new inward investment to replace the lost jobs. Business men and local government officers have numerous stories of would-be investors who have made the trip, but have given up north of Melksham because they simply have not been able to get into the district. Two years ago, we had to watch as Tesco chose to
  1122
  relocate its Westbury distribution centre in south Wales, largely because of our lack of a road infrastructure—and that is just one example of many.
  The Warminster travel-to-work area has an unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent., and Trowbridge a rate of 6.4 per cent. I welcome the many new jobs that have been created, but those are still among the highest rates in the county. Chippenham, Trowbridge and Warminster each have a daily net outflux of commuters going to work in Swindon, Bath and Bristol, and the trend is increasing. It has increased threefold since 1981, compared with a county increase of only 58 per cent. As Swindon continues to grow, the net out-commuting will continue, unless the increasing inaccessibility of the area is halted.
  In west Wiltshire, we want to enjoy the benefits of economic recovery, as others are doing, so I hope that what I have said about economic regeneration will carry weight with the Minister.
  At the outset I mentioned that I warmly welcomed the shift of emphasis in Wiltshire county council, which is now wholly supportive. The council has identified nine distinct sections along the route that need varying degrees of work, much of which can be done on line. Some of the road already exists to a satisfactory standard, and, as I have already said, when work has to go off line, that will be principally for the purpose of building bypasses.
  Of those nine sectors, I shall concentrate on three priority areas. The first is the Chippenham western bypass, which has already been partially built, although the results of last November's public inquiry are still awaited. As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, a bid was made this year for transport supplementary grant for the road to be completed, but sadly we were unsuccessful. Both my right hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire and I hope that my hon. Friend will look favourably on this year's new bid for 1997–98, so that the important first link of the road can be completed.
  In addition, I understand that the work is to be the subject of a bid to the newly announced capital challenge scheme. I understand too that the Government office for the south-west has encouraged Wiltshire county council to bid. Despite some limitation on the scale of the regional allocation, I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would pass on to our colleagues at the Department of the Environment the message about the support of both my right hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire and myself for the bid.
  Secondly, the Semington-Melksham link, as it has become known, is included in the draft structure plan, and went out to public consultation in March. The results of that consultation are currently being analysed, and that section is regarded as the second most important priority after Chippenham.
  Thirdly, as I have already said, Westbury's traffic problems require long-term solution by means of a bypass. In the longer term, three possible routes are being considered. In the short term, to help with economic regeneration, Wiltshire county council has planned the so-called Hawkeridge link scheme, to provide improved access to the popular and successful west Wiltshire trading estate.
  The Hawkeridge link is the immediate priority for the county council, which is also currently in discussion with the Government office for the south-west in preparation

  1123
  for a bid to the single regeneration fund in an effort to regenerate the town. Again, I put on the record my support for that bid.
  Finally, I shall examine one other possible source of funding—the private finance initiative. In west Wiltshire, we are already beneficiaries of the PFI. We have had much-needed improvements to the A36 south of Warminster, between Heytesbury and Codford, which have been carried out as a DBFO—design, build, finance, operate—initiative. The work will be carried out well ahead of the schedule that was previously hoped for.
  May I push my hon. Friend to say whether, at any time in the near future, we are likely to see a relaxation in the rules governing the PFI and local authorities? I believe that it is time for the Government to give the go-ahead for local authority schemes, as well as trunk road projects, to benefit from the PFI.
  Wiltshire county council's document rightly highlights the possibility of attracting private finance under a DBFO scheme for all or part of the A350. The council has an ambitious proposal for a single PFI scheme to complete the building of the Chippenham bypass, to design and build the Semington-Melksham link, and eventually to design and build the Westbury bypass too. It may sound optimistic to talk about carrying out such an ambitious project all in one go. It may seem a long way away tonight, but we need the go-ahead in due course from my hon. Friend, so that we can consider the possibility.
  The Government have already moved a long way in their reassessment of the A36, and I encourage my hon. Friend to go that little bit further this evening. The economies of north and west Wiltshire need to be encouraged if we are to exploit the many opportunities that are there for us. One of the most important ways of exploiting those opportunities and of attracting the inward investment we need is to improve the current road network. I hope that my hon. Friend will indicate his support this evening for the plans that I have laid out to upgrade the A350 between the M4 and Warminster.
  7.59 pm
  The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) for the opportunity to discuss the important subject of road improvements in Wiltshire, and to have the opportunity to explain my Department's strategy.
  It has long been recognised that the road connections between the south coast ports—principally Southampton and Portsmouth—and the M4 require improvements so that they may cope adequately with the volume of traffic, particularly heavy goods traffic, that use them. Completion of the M4 and M5 motorways in the early 1970s led to a reassessment of the role of the old established trunk roads in the area, and many were de-trunked as a result. However, studies in the 1970s concluded that the most satisfactory way of meeting road transport needs on the north-south axis would be to make improvements along the general line of the A36-A46 corridor.
  The execution of that strategy is already well advanced, with a number of bypasses already built. Beckington, Warminster, Codford and Heytesbury already have bypasses, and I shall have the pleasure of opening the
  1124
  Batheaston and Swainswick bypass next week, which will be a further important step towards achieving our long-term strategy.
  We intend to pursue other schemes to improve further that corridor, including the Salisbury bypass, subject, of course, to completion of its statutory procedures—the inspector's report is currently being considered by my right hon. Friends the Secretarys of State for the Environment and for Transport—and the Codford and Heytesbury Improvement, to which my hon. Friend referred.
  As my hon. Friend pointed out, in the review last year, we placed the east of Bath to Beckington scheme, as well as the Wylye to Codford Improvement, in our longer-term programme. We will bring those schemes forward into the main programme when funding permits.
  The east of Bath to Beckington scheme will bypass Bradford on Avon and link the Batheaston and Beckington bypasses. I note what my hon. Friend said about its cost and environmental effects. Indeed, I looked at the scheme carefully during the review, and clearly there are some difficult environmental issues to be addressed. The problem is that the existing route—the other side of the river valley—also has significant and severe environmental impacts. The current position is that the line of the route is protected. I felt it right to ensure that the preferred route was clear, to minimise the blighting effects that would otherwise arise.
  However, the scale of the road can be considered again before it is brought into the main programme. As I cannot at this stage predict when we will have made enough progress with the existing main programme to consider advancing schemes that are in the long-term programme at present, it would be premature to make any firm decisions on the scale of the road. I know that my hon. Friend has argued persuasively that a smaller scale than that proposed might well reduce some of the environmental concerns that he and others had adduced.
  From time to time, the proposition has been made that the A350 should be designated as the main north-south route in this part of the world for long-distance through traffic, and should therefore be improved instead of the A46 and A36. That was debated most recently at the public inquiry into the Batheaston and Swainswick bypass.
  In his report on that inquiry, the inspector concluded that, since much of the traffic on the A36 and A46 had an origin or destination local to Bath, it could not be expected to use an improved A350. Therefore, north-south traffic capacity on the A36-A46 corridor would have to be increased regardless of what happened to the A350.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has a duty to keep the trunk road network under review, and we look regularly at both the network of trunk roads and motorways and the schemes in the programme to provide improvements. We have looked on a number of occasions at whether the current network is the right one. I have to say that, thus far, we have concluded that the balance remains in favour of the A46-A36 as the trunk road. We therefore have no plans to alter the shape of the trunk road network in Wiltshire at present.
  I now come to my hon. Friend's questions about how the A350 to the north of Warminster might be improved. I have already said that we do not intend to alter the status of the A350 to a trunk road, so plans to improve it will

  1125
  remain a matter for the local highway authority, Wiltshire county council. I recognise, of course, that the improvements of which he has spoken would be expensive, and that the local authority will be looking to central Government to provide at least some of the funding.
  I should also say that the county council is already aware of the importance of obtaining whatever funding might be available from developers that stand to gain from any improvements. That fits in clearly with what my hon. Friend said about the potential of this road to unlock economic regeneration opportunities. That has already been amply demonstrated at Chippenham, where a substantial start has already been made on its bypass, with funding provided by developers.
  The main source of capital funding from central Government for local authority road schemes is, of course, transport supplementary grant. Over the years, a large number of important road improvements throughout England have been funded in this way. Local authorities have been able to construct bypasses and improvements of roads that are of local strategic importance, using TSG funding.
  There are many examples of that in the south-west. My hon. Friend will be aware that TSG has already funded some improvements to the A350—the Biss Bottom bypass north of Warminster, for example, which was opened in 1993, and further south the East Knoyle bypass, which was completed and opened to traffic quite recently. He mentioned a number of other schemes that the county council is planning.
  The Chippenham bypass was the county council's top priority bid for TSG in the last bidding round. However, in view of the fact that the scheme had not completed its statutory planning procedures, and resources for TSG were extremely hard-pressed, we were not able to allocate any of the scarce funds to it on that occasion. The county council may wish to seek TSG funding for the Chippenham bypass again this year, and we will consider any such bid very carefully.
  I should stress, however, that TSG funding is limited, and local authorities must recognise that few schemes will be accepted for expenditure each year. A very expensive strategy to upgrade a substantial length of road such as the A350 must therefore be regarded as a long-term project if it is to be funded solely from TSG.
  My hon. Friend asked about the possibility of funding being secured from alternative sources, such as the capital challenge fund, the single regeneration budget and the private finance initiative. He may be aware that the Government announced on 15 May that we are proceeding with proposals for a pilot capital challenge fund to explore how best the challenge concept can be brought to bear on the determination of the distribution of Government support for local authorities' capital spending.
  1126
  The aim of the pilot scheme is to test the applicability of the challenge approach to any and all aspects of capital spending across all services for which local authorities are responsible. Authorities have been invited to bid for their highest capital spending priorities drawn from their overall capital spending plans. Some £600 million is available to local authorities in England under the pilot scheme.
  It is therefore open to Wiltshire's local authorities to decide whether to submit bids under the capital challenge pilot scheme for capital funding to build improvements to the A350. If they do, Ministers will, of course, consider any such bids very carefully. Local authorities have also been provided with guidance on the submission of bids, and they are encouraged to discuss any prospective bids with officials from the Government office.
  My hon. Friend asked whether the single regeneration budget might be a source from which funding could be sought for improvements to the A350. He will probably be aware that the single regeneration budget provides flexible support for local initiatives by bringing together existing regeneration programmes from five Government Departments.
  That does not, however, include my own, and I can only advise Wiltshire county council to discuss any plans it might have to bid for money from the single regeneration budget challenge fund with officials from the Government office for the south-west as soon as possible. I am aware that the county council has submitted the outline of a bid in respect of Westbury, which includes the construction of a link road to the A350, but not an improvement of the A350 itself.
  Turning to the question of private finance, my hon Friend may already be aware that the Government intend to amend the capital finance regulations to remove obstacles to local authority private finance schemes. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration intends to consult on possible provisions for capital finance regulations, and will lay them before the House in time for them to come into effect in the autumn. It will then be for the county council to consider whether it should seek to use the new powers for its own design, build, finance and operate deal.
  Any local authority seeking to build a road scheme by the private finance route would, of course, still have to obtain the necessary statutory planning and land acquisition powers. My Department is making its considerable expertise in DBFO contracts available to the Department of the Environment to assist in the preparation of any such bids.
  Although my hon. Friend will be disappointed that I have not grabbed with alacrity his initial suggestion that I should drop plans for further improvement on the A36-A46 corridor, and adopt the A350 as a trunk road, I hope that I have given him some pointers to ways in which the local highway authority might be able to take forward the improvements that it and my hon. Friend consider would be of value to that area of Wiltshire.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Eight o'clock.

TRANSPORT

  Railways (Fencing)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what legislative provisions regulate physical access to the permanent way; and what responsibilities Railtrack has to protect the public by ensuring that the railway is adequately fenced; [34736]

  (2) how many miles of unfenced railway line run through urban areas. [34737]

  Mr. Watts
  Under section 16 of the Railway Regulation Act 1840, section 23 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1868, section 55 of the British Transport Commission Act 1949 and railway byelaws, it is an offence to trespass on the railway.

  Railtrack has a statutory duty under section 10 of the Railways Regulation Act 1842 and section 68 of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act 1945 to ensure that fencing is provided and maintained for its railway lines. In certain limited cases, lines may be exempt from the requirement for fencing by the terms of the old private Act or the light railway order which originally authorised their construction. However, I understand that in some of these cases fencing is in fact provided even though the Act or order does not require it.

  Following a review of existing railway safety legislation, the Health and Safety Commission has consulted on new draft regulations, including one which would require infrastructure controllers, so far as is reasonably practicable, to prevent unauthorised access by persons or animals which could endanger health or safety.

  Railtrack is also subject to the same duties and liabilities in respect of persons on its premises as any other public limited company. These duties include the general requirements of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, including the duty to conduct the undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.

  M5 Link Road
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what level of delay in the completion of the M5 link road with the second Severn crossing will trigger penalty clauses against the contractors. [35676]

  Mr. Watts
  Any delay in substantial completion of the M49, which links the M5 to the second Severn crossing, beyond the contract completion date would render the contractor liable for a sum based on liquidated damages.
  490

  Trains (Service Checks)
  Ms Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how often InterCity West Coast trains are given a fall service check; what changes there have been to this maintenance schedule within the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [35033]

  Mr. Watts
  This is a matter for InterCity West Coast, the train operator.

  I understand that a full range of maintenance is undertaken, varying from daily maintenance to complete overhaul. There have been no changes in maintenance schedules within the last 12 months.

  EC Bus and Coach Directive
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to introduce regulations to implement the EC bus and coach directive. [34990]

  Mr. Norris
  The Commission has not yet made a proposal for a European bus and coach directive. The implementation dates of the directive will no doubt be the subject of negotiation after the proposal has been tabled.

  Air Safety
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what date he expects to ratify the joint aviation authorities agreement on joint airworthiness requirements No. 36 on noise. [35510]

  Mr. Norris
  The JAA adopted JAR No. 36 on noise on 24 June 1996. The practice is that new JARS are incorporated into EC legislation.

  Rolling Stock
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to ensure that railway rolling stock destined for repair and maintenance arrives at the depot by rail. [35663]

  Mr. Watts
  Responsibility for deciding how and where passenger rolling stock is transported for repair and maintenance lies with the train operators and the passenger rolling stock leasing companies. In some instances, the nature of the fault renders rolling stock unsafe for transport by rail.

TREASURY

  Customs and Excise
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recommendations contained in Sir Richard Scott's report relating to Customs and Excise legislation and procedures. [35979]

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Sir Richard Scott made a number of recommendations in his report relating to Customs and Excise legislation and procedures. These may be found in chapter K4 of his report. All his recommendations have either been accepted by the Government as they stand or, in a few cases, following detailed consideration by the commissioners of Customs and Excise and their legal advisers, the concerns reflected
  491
  in Sir Richard's recommendations will be met in an alternative manner to that proposed. The Government's detailed response to each recommendation is contained in a paper which I have placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Diplomatic Relations
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when diplomatic relations were(a) suspended and (b) restored between the United Kingdom and (i) Iran, (ii) Iraq and (iii) Syria during the past 15 years. [35316]

  Mr. Hanley
  Relations with Iran were formally broken by Iran on March 1989. We restored relations with Iran in September 1990. Relations with Iraq were suspended in February 1991 and have not been restored. Relations with Syria were suspended in October 1986 and restored in November 1990.

  Missing Personnel
  Mr. Parry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent action the UN has taken in respect of US personnel missing in action in(a) Vietnam and (b) North Korea. [35153]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  We are unaware of any recent UN activity in this area.

HEALTH

  Prescription Charges (Crohn's Disease)
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) for what reasons individuals suffering from Crohn's disease who need medication for life are not exempt from prescription charges; [35096]

  (2) what plans he has to make prescriptions free for people suffering from Crohn's disease. [35106]

  Mr. Malone
  We have no plans to extend the exemption arrangements. In 1996–97, we expect 85 per cent. of prescriptions to be dispensed free, thanks to our extensive exemption arrangements, which are among the most generous in Europe. Many people with Crohn's disease will benefit from these.

  NHS Pension Scheme
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list all categories of staff working in the NHS who are not eligible to join the NHS pension scheme and the number of people currently in each category; what estimate he makes of the extra public expenditure that would be involved in giving full NHS pension scheme eligibility to each of these categories; and if he will make a statement. [35086]

  Mr. Malone
  All staff employed by the national health service are eligible to join the NHS pension scheme. Others who work in the NHS such as chairmen of trusts and health authorities, some self-employed contractors and the staff of contractors are not eligible. The costs for 492
  each group would depend upon take-up, whether this scheme would replace current pension arrangements and the salaries of the staff concerned, as well as the factors set out in my reply to the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) on 26 June at columns 147–48.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS trusts(a) hold public meetings, (b) conduct public consultation exercises, (c) conduct consultation exercises with outside commercial interests, (d) publish a register of members' interests, (e) publish agendas for meetings and (f) publish the minutes of meetings; and if this is in each case (i) under a statutory requirement or (ii) voluntary. [35089]

  Mr. Malone
  All national health service trusts are statutorily required to hold one annual meeting which is open to the public. No information is available centrally on the many NHS trusts which voluntarily admit the public to their board meetings.

  All NHS trusts which are considering dissolution are statutorily required to consult the relevant community health council. No information is available centrally on individual NHS trusts which voluntarily conduct other consultation exercises either with the public or with outside commercial interests.

  There is no statutory requirement for NHS boards to maintain a register of members' interests, but all NHS trusts are required by the codes of conduct and accountability to do so. These registers are available for inspection by the public.

  There is no obligation on NHS trusts to publish the agendas and minutes of their meetings. Information is not available centrally on how many NHS trusts voluntarily do so.

  General Practitioners (Practice Lists)
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients have been removed by general practitioners from their practice lists in England for each of the last five years. [35107]

  Mr. Malone
  The information required is available only from 1992 and is as follows:

  1992–93: 78,993

  1993–94: 70,997

  1994–95: 82,831

  The majority of de-registrations are due to deaths or moving home.

  Tuberculosis
  Dr. Goodson-Wickes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if the interdepartmental working group on tuberculosis has completed its report. [36128]

  Mr. Horam
  Yes. Two reports of the interdepartmental working group on tuberculosis, entitled "Recommendations for the prevention and control of tuberculosis at local level" and "Tuberculosis and homeless people", have been released today. Copies have been placed in the Library.
  493
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has completed his consideration of the advice he has received from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the future of the schools Bacillus Calmette-Guerin immunisation programme. [36105]

  Mr. Horam
  We have accepted fully the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that Bacillus Calmette-Guerin should be routinely offered to all schoolchildren between the ages of 10 and 14. The advice we have received from the JCVI is in line with the current recommendation as set out in the Department of Health's memorandum "Immunisation Against Infectious Disease", copies of which are available in the Library. We would therefore expect all health authorities to offer BCG immunisation routinely to school children.

  Infant Formulae
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will issue guidance on the donation of informational or educational equipment or materials in accordance with section 21(3) of the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula Regulations 1995. [36106]

  Mr. Horam
  Draft guidance was issued for public consultation on 2 July, copies of which have been placed in the Library. It contains:proposed good practice to help ensure that information provided on infant feeding is objective and consistent; and proposed guidelines and criteria on the donation of informational or educational materials by the infant formula industry.
  Comments have been requested by 10 September 1996.

  Medicinal Drugs
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he is taking to reduce the deaths by poisoning attributed to(a) paracetamol, (b) co-proxamol and (c) dotheipin. [35452]

  Mr. Malone
  No immediate measures additional to those already in place are proposed. Paracetamol co-proxamol and dothiepin are effective drugs which are safe at the dosages recommended on the labelling. The Medicines Control Agency evaluates all new information on the safety of medicines carefully, particularly in relation to the controls on their availability.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action is he taking to reduce the incidence of adverse reaction to medicinal drugs. [35456]

  Mr. Malone
  All medicines that are effective have adverse reactions, some minor and some more serious. Effective methods and procedures are in place to reduce the incidence of these in patients taking medicines. Medicines undergo rigorous evaluation of quality, efficacy and safety by the licensing authority, and its expert advisory bodies before being allowed on the market, to ensure that the benefits of medicines outweigh their risks. Product information for doctors and patients give clear instructions on use and provide warnings and precautions on adverse reactions in order to minimise the likelihood and impact of adverse reactions.
  494
  Once marketed, medicines are monitored closely to identify previously unrecognised adverse reactions or changes in their frequency or severity. Effective procedures exist for investigation, expert evaluation and action on identified adverse reactions. Changes are made to a medicine's marketing authorisation and product information to minimise the occurrence and impact of any newly identified adverse reactions. Rarely, when risks are shown to outweigh benefits, a medicine may be withdrawn from the market. Doctors and pharmacists, and patients are informed of the adverse reactions of medicines they use through product information. A bulletin entitled "Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance" is also distributed to doctors and pharmacists quarterly to inform them of new adverse drug reactions and provide advice on the safe use of medicines. For more urgent issues communication by letter and electronic communication network is used.

  Ambulance Services
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 12 June,Official Report, column 89 in which two ambulance services the evaluation was commissioned; and how much is being spent on it. [35453]

  Mr. Horam
  The evaluation was conducted on Derbyshire Ambulance Service NHS trust and Essex Ambulance Service NHS trust.

  The cost of the research was £52,462.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many health service commissioners have market tested the provision of ambulance services; and with what results. [35580]

  Mr. Horam
  South Staffordshire Health Authority has market tested ambulance services for a part of its area which bordered on Greater Birmingham. The contract was retained by the West Midlands ambulance service.

  Addictive Substances
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the relative physically addictive properties of(a) nicotine, (b) alcohol, (c) heroin, (d) cocaine, (e) ecstasy, (f) benzodiazepines, (g) caffeine and (h) cannabis. [35457]

  Mr. Bowis
  There is no scientific scale of "addictiveness" covering all these substances.

  Bandages
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when(a) Biflex Thuasne bandages and (b) Velband bandages were last available on prescription from the national health service; and what alternative bandages are currently available on prescription. [35507]

  Mr. Malone
  Biflex Thuasne and Velband bandages have never been available on general practitioner prescription. A number of bandages are available on GP prescription and these are listed in the drug tariff, copies of which will be placed in the Library.
  495

  Read Codes
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 1 July,Official Report, column 334 if he will place in the Library a copy of the report of the joint computing group of the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners into medical coding and classifications. [35697]

  Mr. Horam
  The report will be placed in the Library.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Producer and Supplier Information
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many new initiatives his Department has taken in the current year to improve the flow of information between producers and their suppliers. [35476]

  Mr. Page
  The development of successful partnerships between customers and suppliers is of great importance in promoting the competitiveness of UK industry. The Department works closely with companies, trade associations and others on a wide range of activities and initiatives to encourage this. However, no central record of such supply chain initiatives is held.

  British Energy
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the cash value of the liabilities of British Energy that will be met by the segregated fund. [35616]

  Mr. Lang
  British Energy's expected future payments in respect of nuclear liabilities covered by the segregated fund were approximately £3.7 billion undiscounted, as at March 1996.

  Terrorist Damage
  Mr. Eastham
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 27 June,Official Report, column 202, in respect of compensation for terrorist damage, for how many years such insurance has not been available in Northern Ireland. [35526]

  Mr. Nelson
  Insurance cover for losses arising from damage to industrial and commercial property caused by terrorist activity has been unavailable in Northern Ireland for 22 years.

  Barmac
  Mr. Charles Kennedy
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 1 July,Official Report, column 262, if he will detail the outcome of the 24 June meeting in respect of the Barmac N166 site objective 1 application; and if he will make a statement. [35618]

  Mr. Eggar
  The meeting between officials of the European Commission and my Department was exploratory and to discuss a draft application; no decisions were made. Commission officials indicated what further information would be needed before they could reach a final conclusion.
  496

  Court Facilities
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many times since 1992 witnesses have given evidence in court(a) behind screens and (b) with the use of voice distorters. [34883]

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

  Letter from Michael Huebner to Mr. Jim Cunningham, dated 4 July 1996:
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, has asked me to reply to your Question about witnesses and the use of screens and voice distorters in court since 1992.
  These figures are not held centrally and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.

  Companies (Payments)
  Mrs. Roche
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what has been the cost to public funds of the consultation that he has undertaken on whether large companies should state their payment practice in their accounts. [35640]

  Mr. Page
  As the consultation was launched only on 27 June, it is impossible to judge at this stage what the total cost to public funds will be. However, the consultative document itself was produced in-house to keep production costs down. We estimate the printing and reprographic costs for the nearly 2,000 copies issued so far to be approximately £1,800. The only other significant item of expenditure to date has been the cost of mailing the document to consultees.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Remand Prisoners
  Ms Corston
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what is the average time that prisoners are held on remand in custody awaiting trial. [34516]

  Mr. Streeter
  For proceedings in the magistrates courts it is possible to give only the average number of whole weeks spent in custody between first listing and completion of the case, which in 1995 was seven weeks. That figure includes those cases which were subsequently committed to the Crown court, where the average waiting time between committal and start of trial in 1995–96 was 11.4 weeks.

  Youth Courts
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the average time an indictable offence took(a) from offence to charge or summons, (b) from charge or summons to first listing, (c) from first listing to completion and (d) from offence to completion for cases proceeding through youth courts for (i) England and Wales, (ii) each region in England and Wales and (iii) each police force area in the latest year for which figures are available. [35622]
  497
  Mr. Streeter
  The latest full year for which figures are available is 1995. The information requested is contained in the table. The table includes information on all indictable offences—both indictable only and triable either way. The source of the figures is the magistrates courts time intervals survey. This survey collects information on all defendants in indictable cases in one sample week of February, June and October each year.

  Average time taken for indicatable offences heard in the youth court by stage of proceedings and by standard region and police force area, 1995, England and Wales

  Average number of days

  Offence to charge or summons

  Charge or summons to first listing

  First listing to completion

  Offence to completion

  England and Wales

  40

  27

  67

  134

  English regions and Wales

  North England

  31

  23

  62

  116

  North West England

  37

  27

  66

  129

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  29

  23

  69

  122

  East Midlands

  31

  25

  60

  116

  West Midlands

  33

  27

  74

  134

  East Anglia

  41

  31

  51

  123

  Sample size less than 100

  Greater London

  58

  27

  74

  160

  South East (except London)

  55

  30

  63

  148

  South West

  41

  29

  59

  129

  Wales

  28

  28

  68

  123

  Police force area

  Avon and Somerset

  61

  24

  48

  134

  Sample size less than 100

  Bedfordshire

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Cambridgeshire

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Cheshire

  39

  28

  69

  135

  Sample size less than 100

  Cleveland

  27

  24

  70

  122

  Sample size less than 100

  Cumbria

  46

  25

  32

  103

  Sample size less than 100

  Derbyshire

  38

  30

  55

  122

  Sample size less than 100

  Devon and Cornwall

  35

  31

  47

  113

  Sample size less than 100

  Dorset

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Durham

  42

  21

  55

  118

  Sample size less than 100

  Dyfed-Powys

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Essex

  39

  30

  44

  114

  Sample size less than 100

  Gloucestershire

  37

  24

  72

  134

  Sample size less than 100

  Greater Manchester

  25

  24

  62

  112

  Gwent

  36

  24

  49

  110

  Sample size less than 100

  Hampshire

  67

  28

  63

  159

  Hertfordshire

  46

  38

  62

  145

  Sample size less than 100

  Humberside

  40

  13

  67

  120

  Sample size less than 100

  Kent

  72

  30

  63

  164

  Sample size less than 100

  Lancashire

  51

  28

  62

  140

  Sample size less than 100

  Leicestershire

  33

  22

  92

  148

  Sample size less than 100

  Lincolnshire

  38

  28

  44

  110

  Sample size less than 100

  Merseyside

  45

  29

  74

  148

  Metropolitan

  58

  27

  74

  160

  Norfolk

  35

  27

  54

  117

  Sample size less than 100

  North Wales

  14

  28

  74

  116

  Sample size less than 100

  North Yorkshire

  46

  27

  40

  113

  Sample size less than 100

  Northamptonshire

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Northumbria

  24

  23

  67

  114

  Nottinghamshire

  21

  23

  53

  97

  South Wales

  30

  27

  70

  127

  South Yorkshire

  35

  28

  66

  129

  Sample size less than 100

  Staffordshire

  36

  27

  71

  134

  Suffolk

  *

  *

  *

  *

  Sample size less than 25

  Surrey

  57

  35

  64

  156

  Sample size less than 100

  Sussex

  45

  28

  81

  154

  Sample size less than 100

  Thames Valley

  40

  27

  62

  129

  Sample size less than 100

  Warwickshire

  29

  22

  55

  106

  Sample size less than 100

  West Mercia

  32

  31

  44

  107

  Sample size less than 100

  West Midlands

  33

  28

  110

  172

  West Yorkshire

  18

  23

  79

  119

  Wiltshire

  29

  35

  57

  122

  Sample size less than 100

  498
  Caution needs to be exercised when comparing figures from different areas because sampling error in the figures could make any conclusions invalid. This is especially true for areas where the sample size was less than 100. The figure for areas with a sample size of less than 25 have been omitted as the level of sampling error makes them unreliable and potentially misleading.
  499

  Crown Courts
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many Crown court centres have(a) separate waiting areas and (b) separate eating facilities for victims and their families; and what plans he has to increase the number of Crown court centres with these facilities. [34880]

  Mr. Streeter
  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 Michael Huebner to Mr. Jim Cunningham, dated 4 July 1996:
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, has asked me to reply to your Question about the provision of separate waiting and eating facilities in Crown Courts for victims and their families.
  Of the 92 Crown Court centres, 79 provide separate witness and/or special witness waiting rooms. These are specifically for the use of victims appearing as prosecution witnesses. No Crown Court has designated eating facilities for victims or their families and there are currently no plans to provide them.
  It would be difficult to increase the number of existing Crown Courts with permanent separate waiting facilities because of the physical constraints of the buildings themselves. However, all new Crown and Combined Courts include an area to give privacy to victims/prosecution witnesses while waiting to give evidence. One waiting area is provided for each criminal courtroom. Where there are no permanent separate waiting areas, special arrangements can be made for victims and their families should the need arise.

  Legal Aid
  Sir Ivan Lawrence
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when the Lord Chancellor intends to publish his conclusions on the reform of the legal aid system in England and Wales. [35650]

  Mr. Streeter
  The Lord Chancellor has today published a White Paper, "Striking the Balance", which sets out the Government's policy for the reform of legal aid in England and Wales. Copies of the White Paper are available in the Vote Office.

ENVIRONMENT

  Council Tax
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of how many local authorities will contract out the administration and enforcement of the council tax, community charge and non-domestic rates in the next two years; and what percentage this represents of the whole. [34857]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  None. Decisions as to whether to contract out council tax, community charge and non-domestic rates work are for individual local authorities.

  Miss Patricia Eaton
  Mr. Raynsford
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the total cost since 1980 of(a) staff time, (b) legal advice and representation and (c) litigation to (i) the Inner London education authority, (ii) the London residuary body and (iii) the London
  500
  Pension Fund Authority of responding to the complaints lodged by Miss Patricia Eaton of Kidbrooke Park road, London SE3, relating to her treatment by the ILEA when she was in its employment. [34890]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  This is a matter for the London Pensions Fund Authority and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should contact the chief executive for the information that he requires.

  Parliamentary Boundary Changes
  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 25 June,Official Report, column 79, what factors led Ordnance Survey not to produce (a) county maps and (b) maps on a larger scale showing the new parliamentary boundaries; what assessment he has made of the legibility of the boundary lines of the maps proposed for issue in respect of the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement. [35100]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Ordnance Survey is responsible for the official, definite mapping of Great Britain; Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland is responsible for the mapping of the Province.

  Ordnance Survey maintains a definitive dataset of electoral boundaries which are offered for sale as a computer-readable digital map product called boundary-line. This product has been well received by the market and reduced the potential market for the traditional paper sheets.

  In reviewing its series of administrative maps, all of which needed revising to take account of parliamentary and local government boundary reviews, Ordnance Survey weighed up the diminished market against the costs of revising and reprinting some 56 map sheets and took an economic decision to discontinue printing the county maps. Parliamentary boundaries are now shown on two sheets, and local authority boundaries on a further nine sheets.

  More detailed versions of the new parliamentary boundaries are in the course of being produced. When complete they will be available as large-scale data.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what fiduciary duties are laid on local authorities in respect of decisions concerning the investment of sums paid into an authority's collection fund which are not immediately required for making payments or transfers. [35315]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  Local authorities are under a general fiduciary duty to their taxpayers to act prudently in investing funds. They should also have regard to the capital finance regulations and professional treasury management codes, as appropriate. In addition, the investment of collection fund money is subject to specific regulations made under section 89(5) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. The following regulations made under the section are still in force: the Local Authorities (Funds) (England) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/2428).
  501

  EC Directives
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 1 April,Official Report, column 14, if he will undertake an immediate review of past EC directives with a view to removing all gold plating. [35046]

  Sir Paul Beresford
  We take every opportunity to review the implementation of existing EC directives when regulations are updated as part of the normal process of regulatory reform. In doing so, we take account of the new "Implementing EC Law Checklist", the publication of which was announced to the House by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on 16 May. This checklist is designed to ensure that no unnecessary additional burdens are placed on business when EC directives are implemented in the UK.

  Health Action Plan
  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he intends to publish the United Kingdom national environmental health action plan. [36107]

  Mr. Gummer
  Together with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Health, for Scotland and for Wales, I shall publish the United Kingdom national environmental health action plan, and an overview of it, on Monday 8 July.

  Copies of the documents will be placed in the Library.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Family Expenditure Survey
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if his Department will reassess its use of the family expenditure survey in the assessment of United Kingdom poverty, so that provision is made in a new survey for the inclusion of homeless people; and if he will make a statement. [33049]

  (2) if his Department will reassess its use of the family expenditure survey in the assessment of United Kingdom poverty, so that provision is made in a new survey for the inclusion of people living in institutions with special reference to hospitals, nursing homes, residential homes and prisons; and if he will make a statement. [33048]

  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply of 21 June to the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Ms Corston),Official Report, column 635.

  Health and Safety
  Mr. Ian McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the cost in each of the past five years of(a) sick pay and (b) compensation paid to employees of his Department or their families, or members of the public, as a result of (i) minor, (ii) major and (iii) fatal injuries related to the work of his Department, detailing incidents involving information technology and those involving expenditure of more than £5,000. [33514]
  502
  Mr. Burt
  Such information as is available is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many(a) minor, (b) major and (c) fatal injuries have been suffered by staff in his Department and its agencies in work-related incidents in each of the past five years, showing in each year how many were related to information technology and giving details of all incidents involving fatalities. [33513]

  Mr. Burt
  Such information as is available is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Funeral Costs
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy to ensure that(a) a higher proportion or (b) all funeral expenses of those receiving social security benefit are met by the state. [34404]

  Mr. Roger Evans
  We have no plans to do so. However, all aspects of the benefits system are kept under review.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment he has made of the effect of the new system of social fund funeral payments on prices and costs in the funeral industry. [34421]

  Mr. Evans
  It is estimated that the social fund funeral payments scheme accounted for 10 per cent. of all funerals in Great Britain in 1995. The restriction in the level of payment made is presumed to have had an effect upon the market.

  Benefits
  Mr. Alan Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of Slate for Social Security if he will list the number and percentage of individuals in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is being received, by net income of the household adjusted for family size, broken down into equivalised income bands before and after housing costs. [35512]

  Mr. Burt
  The information is in the table.

  Number and percentage of individuals in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is being received, by decile of the whole UK income distribution, 1992–93

  Before Housing Costs

  After Housing Costs

  Decile of the whole UK income distribution

  Number of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received (millions)

  Percentage of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received

  Number of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received (millions)

  Percentage of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received

  1

  1.5

  26

  1

  18

  2

  2.2

  38

  2.1

  37

  3

  2.4

  42

  2.6

  46

  4

  2.1

  37

  1.9

  33

  5

  1.6

  28

  1.7

  29

  6

  1.4

  24

  1.3

  23

  503

  Number and percentage of individuals in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is being received, by decile of the whole UK income distribution, 1992–93

  Before Housing Costs

  After Housing Costs

  Decile of the whole UK income distribution

  Number of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received (millions)

  Percentage of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received

  Number of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received (millions)

  Percentage of individuals who are in benefit units where at least one contributory benefit is received

  7

  1.1

  20

  1.2

  21

  8

  0.9

  16

  1.0

  17

  9

  0.8

  13

  0.9

  16

  10

  0.7

  11

  0.8

  15

  Total

  14.6

  26

  14.6

  26

  Notes:

  I. Contributory benefits are unemployment benefit, contributory retirement pension, sickness benefit, invalidity benefit, maternity allowance and widow's benefit.

  2. A benefit unit is defined as a single adult or a couple, together with any dependent children.

  3. Individuals are grouped into deciles using the standard households below average income definition of income—weekly household disposable income adjusted for household size and composition (equivalised). Each decile of the income distribution consists of 5.7 million people.

  4. Figures for number of individuals are shown to the nearest 100,000 people. Columns may therefore not sum due to rounding. Percentages are shown to the nearest whole per cent.

  5. All estimates are subject to sampling error.

  Source:

  Information is derived from the 1992–93 households below average income dataset; 1992–93 is the latest period for which information is available. Figures for 1992–93 are for two calendar years' data combined.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

  Foundation for Sport and the Arts
  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will list the amount of Government funding to the Foundation for Sport and the Arts in each year since its inception. [34745]

  Mr. Sproat
  The Foundation for Sport and the Arts is funded partly by a 2½ per cent. reduction in pool betting duty, and partly by a voluntary contribution of 5p in the pound on pools coupons, both of which are passed on by the football pools companies to the foundation. The total amounts received annually by the foundation, as recorded in its annual reports, is as follows:

  1991–92: £39,568,711

  1992–93: £63,541,000

  1993–94: £67,922,000

  1994–95: £68,245,000

  Dance and Drama Scholarships
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what estimate she has made of the number of students of dance and drama who will benefit from her recent announcement on the use of lottery funds for scholarship purposes. [25247]

  Mr. Sproat
  I regret the delay in replying.
  504
  My hon. Friend's deep interest in the issue of dance and drama training is well known and respected. He set out his views with passion and eloquence in introducing a debate on dance and drama students in the House last week. The announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State directed the Arts Council to take account of the need to develop the skills, talents and creative abilities of young people in particular. It is for the Arts Council—the independent lottery distribution body—to draw up detailed schemes to put this direction into practice. To this end, it has recently issued a consultation document, and is holding a series of consultative meetings.

  The Arts Council has also asked a small group of its members, headed by the chairman of the London arts board, to analyse the current situation facing dance and drama students and to make recommendations on the administration of grants to these students for the future. As part of its work, the group will consider whether lottery money can be used to help with the problems facing dance and drama students in a way which does not substitute for existing public spending. I look forward to hearing the outcome of this work.

  National Lottery
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what has been the total amount available to local projects from national lottery funds in each year since its inception. [34947]

  Mr. Sproat
  The organisations responsible for distributing lottery funds do not subdivide them into amounts available for local, regional or national projects and these figures are not, therefore, available. Since its inception in November 1994, the lottery has raised more than £2 billion for projects of all sizes.

  Individual Sporting Talent
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what plans she has to encourage the development of individual sporting talent. [33670]

  Mr. Sproat
  [holding answer 1 July 1996]: In the sports policy paper "Sport: Raising the Game", we announced our intention to establish a British academy of sport, to provide a coherent and unified programme to allow those with the greatest talent to use that talent to best effect. In addition, on 1 April, the Secretary of State issued new policy directions to allow national lottery money to provide revenue support to develop sporting talents and skills, particularly of young people.

  Royal William Yard, Plymouth
  Mr. Jamieson
  To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what was the total cost to her Department of the inquiry into the type of slate to be used for re-roofing the buildings in the Royal William yard, Plymouth. [34896]

  Mr. Sproat
  [holding answer 1 July 1996]: The total cost of the inquiry has yet to be finalised, but it is estimated to be approximately £16,000.
  505

PRIME MINISTER

  Hafez Dalkamoni
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to the answer of 13 May,Official Report, column 362, about the release of Hafez Dalkamoni, in what circumstances the release by one country of a prisoner who is a national of another country is not solely a matter for the authority of the detaining country; and if he will make a statement. [35824]

  The Prime Minister
  I have nothing to add to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), on 17 January 1996,Official Report, column 590, other than that Mr. Dalkamoni was released on 27 June and deported to Syria.

  Constitution (Referendum)
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Prime Minister what legislative provisions are currently in force which would enable a referendum on the constitution to be held in Scotland; and if he will make a statement. [36108]

  The Prime Minister
  None. Powers previously taken in 1975 and in 1978 to hold referendums have been repealed.

  G7 Summit, Lyons
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Prime Minister what proposals to move the world economy closer to ecological sustainability he made to the Group of Seven summit in Lyons. [34504]

  The Prime Minister
  The subject of ecological sustainability was not discussed at Lyon. I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), on 2 July,Official Report, columns 425–27.

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 July. [34580]

  The Prime Minister
  This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

  Ministers
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the average length of time served by(a) Secretaries of State, (b) Ministers of State and (c) Under-Secretaries in each Government Department since he became Prime Minister. [35908]

  The Prime Minister
  This is a matter of public record.

  Parliamentary Pay and Allowances
  Mr. Dover
  To ask the Prime Minister when the Government plan to publish the report by the Senior Salaries Review Body on parliamentary pay and allowances. [36025]
  506
  The Prime Minister
  The Government have now considered report No. 38 from the Senior Salaries Review Body on parliamentary pay and allowances. The Government are grateful to the review body for undertaking this complex remit so promptly. The report is being published today—as Command Paper 3330—and copies are available from the Vote Office.

  Following representations made during the Government's consultations with other parties on the report, the Government will table motions to allow the House to consider whether it wishes to implement the recommendations of the report in full.

  The Government themselves, however, are clear that the recommended increases for Members' and Ministers' pay are too high and that the motions to give effect to these should not be passed in current circumstances. They will therefore oppose the motions and will table motions to bring into effect an increase in the salary of a Back-Bench Member from £34,085 to £35,108, that is by 3 per cent., with effect from 1 July 1996, and for similar increases in the pay of Ministers and other office holders. The Government will also table motions to implement the report's recommendation that further increases should take effect from 1 April each year and should be linked to movements in senior civil service pay bands.

WALES

  General Practitioner Lists
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many patients have been removed by general practitioners from their practice lists in each of the last five years. [35093]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  Monitoring Officers
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names and status of the monitoring officers, and those who are designated deputies in the absence of the monitoring officers, in each unitary authority in Wales. [35520]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  The information requested is not held centrally.

  Swansea Institute of Higher Education
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has recently received about the Swansea institute of higher education; what meetings relating to that college have been attended by his(a) Ministers and (b) officials; where and when; and if he will make a statement. [35670]

  Mr. Jonathan Evans
  My right hon. Friend and I have not received any recent representations about the Swansea institute of higher education, or attended any meetings relating to the institute.

  Officials attended three meetings towards the end of last month at the Higher Education Quality Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Welsh Office.
  507

  Orimulsion
  Mr. Ainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met Mr. O. J. Williams to discuss the application to build a jetty to import orimulsion into Milford Haven; and if he will make a statement. [35509]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  There is no record of a meeting between my right hon. Friend and a Mr. O. J. Williams.

  Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the number of cases by unitary authority of the various categories of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease for each year since 1985. [35637]

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  Details of suspected cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK have been reported to the national CJD surveillance unit in Edinburgh since May 1990. Cases in Wales, since reporting began, are detailed in the table:

  Definite

  Probable

  Possible

  May 1990 to April 1991

  1

  0

  0

  May 1991 to April 1992

  2

  1

  0

  May 1992 to April 1993

  5

  0

  1

  May 1993 to April 1994

  3

  0

  1

  May 1994 to April 1995

  4

  0

  2

  May 1995 to April 1996

  5

  0

  0

  For reasons of confidentiality, personal details, including authority of residence, are not published.

  University Hospital of Wales (Road Construction)
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairmen of the University Hospital of Wales NHS trust and of the Bro Taf health authority concerning the delayed completion of the phase 1 on-slip road connecting the A48 and the University hospital of Wales site; what plans there are for the on-slip construction project to be carried out by the private finance initiative; what plans there are to re-advertise the scheme via the contracts supplement of the Official Journal of the European Communities; and if he will make a statement. [35677]

  Mr. Hague
  None. The University Hospital of Wales Healthcare NHS trust is currently negotiating contracts with a consortium of private sector companies. There is no reason to re-advertise the scheme.

  Robert Powell (Medical Treatment)
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 17 June,Official Report, column 371, on what date it was determined that the previous Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), would play no part in consideration of the NHS complaint by the family of the late Robert Powell. [35624]

  Mr. Hague
  At no stage was my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West involved in this appeal.

  Children's Services
  Sir Wyn Roberts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his oral statement of 17 June,Official Report, columns 521–35, if he will make a statement on his plans for children's services in Wales. [36129]
  508
  Mr. Hague
  My Department has written today to all the local authorities in Wales enclosing an action plan setting out the timetable for the implementation of those recommendations contained in the Adrianne Jones report addressed to them. I have placed a copy of this letter and the associated action plan in the Library of the House. I have asked the local authorities to advise my Department by 14 October this year of the steps taken to implement the 17 recommendations that I expect to be implemented by 1 October 1996.

  To assist local authorities in their task, and to implement those recommendations addressed to my Department, I have asked the chief inspector of the social services inspectorate for Wales to take immediate steps to recruit three additional inspectors. This will also enable the inspectorate to check that the implementation has been effective and that practice in local authorities continues to conform to the best practice recommended in Miss Jones's report. I have also decided to establish a development fund of £500,000 which will be used to help bring about the required improvements in practice and procedures. The fund will be available for use in this financial year and in 1997£98.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Socrates-Erasmus Programme
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many United Kingdom students benefit from the Socrates-Erasmus programme; and what steps she is taking to increase their number. [35478]

  Mr. Forth
  In the academic year 1994–95, 11,946 UK students studied abroad as part of the Socrates-Erasmus programme. This number is expected to rise for the academic year 1995–96 to nearly 13,000 students. For the past four years, the Department for Education and Employment has published a booklet entitled "The European Choice" which gives information about opportunities to study in higher education in another European country. Flyers advertising the booklet are sent out with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service information pack to students to help inform their choice of higher education courses.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many statutory instruments his Department introduced in(a) 1994, (b) 1995, and (c) between 1 January 1996 and 1 May 1996 which had the effect of repealing one or more previous statutory instruments without replacing them with a new regulation. [35044]

  Mr. Robin Squire
  The number of statutory instruments referred to by the Department or former Departments in the periods in question was as follows:

  1994: 0

  1995: 1

  1996 to 1 May: 0

  509

  School Places
  Mr. Blunket
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to her Department's circular 6/96, annex A, paragraphs 22 to 24, if an oversubscribed school may withhold the offer of a place on the ground that the applicant's parents are unwilling to sign a home-school contract. [35454]

  Mrs. Gillan
  The circular emphasises that school admission authorities should have the maximum flexibility to decide how places will be allocated in the event of oversubscription. Annex A gives advice on the law as it relates to admissions procedures. It does not say that places can be withheld where parents are unwilling to sign a home-school contract, rather that admission authorities may decide that parents willing to sign should be afforded higher priority when there are more applicants than places.

  Training Providers
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what amount due to be paid to training providers in respect of training provided in 1994 and financed by the European social fund will not be paid as a result of exchange rate fluctuations; and if she will list the 50 organisations which have had the largest reductions and the amounts in each case. [35455]

  Mr. Forth
  It is not yet known whether any money due to be paid to training providers in respect of 1994 projects financed by the European social fund will not be paid as a result of exchange rate fluctuations. Training providers have been paid 95 per cent. of the total European social fund money to which they were entitled in their agreed final claim. Revised final claims have been submitted to the Commission for each European social fund programme. It is hoped to pay the remaining 5 per cent. to all applicants, but the precise amount will depend on the exchange rate on the day the money is received from the European Commission. The 50 organisations for whom the largest reductions were made and the amounts concerned are as follows:

  Organisation name

  Amount reduced (£)

  Department for Education and Employment

  8,952,962

  Scottish Enterprise

  1,274,315

  Welsh Office

  707,933

  Employment Service

  566,933

  Government office for Merseyside

  560,157

  Government office for the west midlands

  422,454

  Strathclyde regional council

  416,682

  Government office for Yorkshire and Humberside

  265,955

  City of Liverpool community college

  164,780

  Government office for the north-east

  159,330

  British Coal Enterprise Ltd.

  129,490

  Wirral metropolitan college

  122,483

  Gwent tertiary college

  106,463

  Highlands and Islands Enterprise

  103,140

  Government office for the east midlands

  98,954

  Cardiff institute of higher education

  92,065

  Scottish office for mental health

  90,161

  University college Salford

  85,543

  The Sheffield college

  80,699

  Knowsley community college

  74,723

  Newcastle college

  69,331

  NRITEA

  64,125

  510

  Organisation name

  Amount reduced (£)

  Government office for the south-west

  64,118

  The Wise Group

  63,594

  The British Refugee Council

  62,282

  University of Aberdeen

  59,958

  Bilston community college

  57,663

  City college Manchester

  54,382

  Pontypridd college

  53,920

  Government office for London

  53,783

  The college of north-west London

  51,295

  University of Leicester

  50,849

  Leeds city council

  50,366

  Cleveland county council

  49,737

  Sutton Coldfield college

  48,731

  Hugh Baird college

  47,940

  Southport college

  46,188

  Fife college

  44,835

  Birmingham college of FT and creative studies

  42,725

  Wakefield college

  39,625

  Manchester college of arts and technology

  38,486

  Community Service Volunteers

  38,207

  Blackburn college

  37,776

  ATB-Landbase

  36,765

  Wearside college

  36,628

  University of Dundee

  35,890

  Tameside college technology

  35,840

  University of Wales, Bangor

  35,773

  South Birmingham college

  35,729

  Swansea institute of higher education

  35,598

SCOTLAND

  Cairn Gorm Funicular Railway
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his answer of 14 March,Official Report, column 730, if he will publish the financial and economic assessment of the proposed Cairn Gorm funicular railway provided by Highlands and Islands Enterprise; and if he will make a statement. [35216]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The financial and economic assessment undertaken by Highlands and Islands Enterprise of the proposed funicular railway is subject to commercial confidentiality.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what level of grant aid has been offered, by his Department or its agencies, to the Cairn Gorm Railway Co. to support the construction of a funicular railway on Cairn Gorm. [35217]

  Mr. Kynoch
  None. My right hon. Friend is considering a request from Highlands and Islands Enterprise for his approval to the proposed of financial assistance to the Cairngorm Chairlift Co. for the construction of a funicular railway on Cairn Gorm. No decision on the request has yet been taken.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his answer of 29 April,Official Report, column 375, if he will list the criteria he will use to judge the application for approval to incur expenditure by Highlands and Islands Enterprise on the proposed Cairn Gorm funicular railway. [35215]

  Mr. Kynoch
  In considering the request from Highlands and Islands Enterprise for approval of the proposed financial contribution to the Cairn Gorm
  511
  funicular railway, my right hon. Friend will take into account a range of criteria, including the need to ensure that the proposed contribution represents value for money.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what research has been commissioned by(a) his office and (b) the Highlands and Islands Enterprise to estimate the socio-economic benefits of the proposed Cairn gorm funicular railway; what was the cost of this research; and if he will make the results available to the public. [35213]

  Mr. Kynoch
  No research into such matters has been commissioned by the Scottish Office. The research commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise is an operational matter for the organisation and I have asked the chairman to write to the hon. Member.

  Grampian Structure Plan
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he received the Grampian structure plan for consideration; and if he will make a statement. [35690]

  Mr. Kynoch
  The Grampian structure plan was formally submitted to my right hon. Friend on 13 February 1995.

  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will reach a final decision on the Grampian structure plan. [35678]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend will make a final decision on the Grampian structure plan as soon as possible.

  Nurses' Pay
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many trusts to date have made pay offers to nurses; and what steps he is taking to ensure that the review body recommendations are acted upon. [35111]

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  To date, 17 NHS trusts in Scotland have made formal pay offers to nurses. Trusts have been advised of agreements reached within the nurses national Whitley negotiating council and should be engaged in local negotiations to seek resolution of this year's pay round.

  The timing structure of pay offers is a matter for local management. It is for each trust to decide whether to make public the position it has reached.

  Private Estates (Public Funding)
  Ms Roseanna Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what guidelines he has issued to ensure that grants and loans received by private estates from public funds are adequately monitored; and if he will make a statement; [35675]

  (2) what responsibilities he has for monitoring payments made from public funds to private landed estates; and if he will make a statement. [35693]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  Guidelines on each scheme operated by the Scottish Office Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department are issued to all involved in considering applications or authorising payments. They are designed to ensure achievement of the scheme objectives and fulfilment of scheme conditions. There are no special procedures for 512
  monitoring payments from public funds to particular classes of applicant: standard procedures are applied to all recipients of assistance irrespective of their land tenure status.

  Ms Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will introduce mechanisms to ensure that details of public funds given to landed private estates are readily available to members of the public; [35694]

  (2) if he will list the publicly funded (a) grants and (b) loans received by the Atholl estate in the financial year 1993–94; what mechanisms were adopted to monitor the use of each payment made in this period; and if he will make a statement. [35696]

  Mr. Robertson
  Details of public funds paid are subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1974 and cannot therefore be made available without the express permission of the recipient. I have no plans to introduce mechanisms to ensure that details of public funds given to private estates are available to members of the public. Private estates are subject to the same monitoring conditions as all other applicants for financial assistance.

  Ms Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) of 16 April,Official Report, column 450, if he will list the locations of the information relating to financial assistance given to the Atholl Estate since 1979; and if he will make a statement. [35695]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  Details of any financial assistance given to Atholl estate would be held in several locations. Some scheme details are held in the Scottish Office Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department's local area office and some in the sub-office covering the area where the estate lands lie. The remainder are held in Edinburgh on the computer records appropriate to each scheme. For closed schemes, where all conditions would have been met, information will no longer be available.

  Wheelhouses (Alterations)
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many representations he has received in the last year from the fishing industry in Scotland in connection with the subject of safety improvement grants for wheelhouse alteration; and if he will make a statement on his response to these representations. [35619]

  Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
  I have received no representations on this subject.

  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what alternative eligibility criteria he has evaluated for safety improvement grants for the alteration of wheelhouses on fishing vessels. [34620]

  Mr. Robertson
  The Fishing Vessels (Safety Improvements) (Grants) Scheme 1995 does not provide grants for structural alterations to wheelhouses. However, equipment to enhance wheelhouse visibility is eligible for assistance—for example, the installation of wandering steering leads or the building of a dome—glass bubble—
  513
  on top of the wheelhouse with a raised platform underneath upon which the watchkeeper could safely stand, raising his sight level and increasing visibility.

  Fishing Grants
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he has taken to monitor the setting up by local authorities of recognised grant assistance schemes in respect of applications for Pesca and Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance funds; and if he will make a statement on the results of that monitoring. [35623]

  Mr. Kynoch
  My right hon. Friend does not monitor the details of local authority involvement in Community Initiatives. It is the responsibility of the local authorities concerned to ensure that scheme details comply with the relevant regulations. However, Scottish Office officials have held a number of meetings with officials of local authorities and other bodies to offer advice on proposals for schemes, to help ensure that they are consistent with European Community rules and the Pesca programme.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Police Numbers
  Mr. Purchase
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the ratio of police officers per head of population(a) in Britain and (b) on average in the EU. [34532]

  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the ratio of police officers per head of population in Britain; and what is the current EU average. [34538]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  In England and Wales, the ratio of police officers to population was one to 407 at March 1996. No comprehensive data are available from which an average for European Union countries could be calculated.

  Mr. Mark Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to increase the number of police officers on the beat. [34541]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has promised sufficient resources for 5,000 more officers over the three years to 1998–99, specifically to enhance visible presence on the streets. We have started to give out funding for this. Also, providing high visibility policing so as to reassure the public is one of our key objectives for the police service.

  Mr. David Martin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of police constables over the next three years. [34544]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The Government are providing an additional £180 million in funding to enable chief constables in England and Wales to recruit 5,000 more constables over the three-year period from April 1996.

  Border Controls
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will raise at the next 514
  meeting of the European Council of Ministers the legal status of the declaration attached to the Single European Act which preserves British border controls. [34533]

  Miss Widdecombe
  We have no plans to raise the issue of border controls at the next meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

  Public Houses (Children)
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new obligations have been placed on publicans as a result of the initiating of children's certificates in public houses.[34534]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Licensing justices are required to consider whether premises for which a children's certificate is sought represent a suitable environment for children. Some have exercised their discretion to impose conditions on applicants ranging from no smoking rules to restrictions to one bar per pub.

  Crime Clear-up Rates
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the trend in crime clear-up rates since 1987. [34537]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Although the overall clear-up rate for recorded crime in England and Wales has fluctuated between 33 per cent. in 1987 and 26 per cent. in 1995, the number of offences cleared up has increased during that period from 1,229,000 to 1,270,000 last year. For violence against the person and sexual offences, the clear-up rates has remained fairly consistent at around three quarters of all such recorded crimes.

  Police Advisory Committee for London
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has for widening the representation on the Policy Advisory Committee for London. [34539]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Members of the Metropolitan Police Committee are chosen on individual merit, not as representatives of particular groups or organisations.

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the total number of asylum seekers in custody at the latest available date. [34540]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  At the beginning of June, a total of 751 people who had sought asylum at some stage were detained.

  Prisoners (Education)
  Mr. Rendel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are currently undertaking educational courses. [34542]

  Miss Widdecombe
  This information is not available in the form requested. Prisoners' education is recorded in hours. The total number of prisoner hours spent in education in 1995 was 9.4 million.
  515

  Firearms Certificates
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people under the age of 18 years have been issued with firearms certificates in the last five years. [34543]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  This information is not available centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The grant of a firearm certificate in each case is a matter for the chief officer of police, who must be satisfied that the applicant can be trusted to keep and use firearms safely.

  Young Offenders Institution (Colchester)
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the establishment of a young offenders institution at Colchester. [34545]

  Miss Widdecombe
  On 17 April, I announced our intention to establish a young offender institution at the military corrective training centre at Colchester.

  Preparations are going well and I look forward to announcing the opening of this new institution in the autumn.

  Prisons (Ministerial Visits)
  Mr. Matthew Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many visits to prisons the Minister of State with responsibility for prisons plans in the next three months. [34530]

  Miss Widdecombe
  My plans to date include tours of the north-east and Bristol areas in September. I expect to visit at least a dozen prisons in the two areas. Other visits have yet to be arranged but I will make as many as possible, allowing for my other commitments.

  Security Industry
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to regulate the private security industry; and if he will make a statement. [34524]

  Mr. Sackville
  Our proposals for access to criminal records by employers will go a long way to meeting the need for adequate checks on those who want to work in the security industry. We have to be sure that any further measures—such as those recommended by the Home Affairs Select Committee—are justified and would not place an excessive burden on businesses.

  Overseas Domestic Workers
  Ms Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the immigration status of domestic workers from overseas. [34536]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  Private servants in diplomatic households, and other domestic servants who are allowed to accompany their employers to the United Kingdom, may remain here subject to a condition restricting them to employment with that employer.
  516

  Doncaster Prison
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were detained in Doncaster prison, under Immigration Acts powers in each month since January 1996; what were their nationalities; how many were deported in each month; and to what countries. [34982]

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

  Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 4 July 1996:
  The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking how many people were detained in Doncaster prison, under Immigration Acts powers in each month since January 1996; what were their nationalities; how many people were deported in each month; and to what countries.
  Information on the number of persons detained in HMP Doncaster under Immigration Act powers is shown in the attached table for the last day of each month for the period January to May 1996. Two people were deported after discharge from HMP Doncaster between January and May; one in January and the other in May. Information is not available on the countries to which these persons were deported. Nationality information cannot be given as it would identify individuals.

  Population of Immigration Act detainees in HMP Doncaster since January 1996, by nationality

  Date

  Number

  31 January 1996

  3

  28 February 1996

  2

  31 March 1996

  3

  30 April 1996

  4

  31 May 96

  5

  Applications for Settlement
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the average length of time since 1 January for determining an application for settlement based on marriage to a person already settled in the United Kingdom after the 12 months leave to enter as a spouse has passed. [35124]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The average time to decide all marriage settlement applications during the period 1 January to 14 June was 66 days.

  Ku Klux Klan
  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will initiate inquiries into the(a) recruitment and (b) other activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Great Britain with special reference to the west midlands; if he will call for a report on its activities from the chief constable of the west midlands; and if he will make a statement. [35621]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  The Government totally condemn any organisation which is intent on jeopardising the good race relations which we enjoy in this country. I understand that the West Midlands police are fully aware of the activities of a small group of people associated with the Ku Klux
  517
  Klan. Any evidence that these individuals are engaging in criminal activities will be thoroughly investigated.

  Prison Service
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the progress of the study of the relationship between Ministers and the Prison Service. [35863]

  Miss Widdecombe
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) on 14 March, columns 708–9.

  Immigration
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what date he was asked by the British post in Islamabad to obtain information in the United Kingdom following applications for British passports by Tahihra Jabeen, Fazal ur Rahman Hussain, and Noor ur Rahman Hussain, Ref: Con/5267; on what date information was sent to the post; what recommendations he made on these applications; and if he will make a statement. [35233]

  Mr. Kirkhope
  [holding answer 2 July I996]: A request for information was received on 11 October 1995 and a reply sent on 9 November. No recommendation was made since the consideration of an application for a British passport made abroad is a matter for the British post concerned.

  Mr. Khabra
  To ask the Secretary of State for Home Affairs what assessment his Department has made of the availability of advice to people applying for immigration to the United Kingdom. [34535]

  Mr. Hanley
  I have been asked to reply.

  We publish a comprehensive and instructive series of leaflets for different categories of visa applicant. They are readily available, along with other general advice on request, at all our entry clearance issuing posts in English and foreign language versions.

  Bosnian Eelections
  Mr. Macdonal
  To ask the Secretary of State for Home Affairs what arrangements are being made by Her Majesty's Government to enable Bosnians living in Britain to vote in the forthcoming Bosnian elections. [35081]

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor
  I have been asked to reply.

  We have made available office facilities for a registration and absentee voting centre in the UK to be run under International Organisation for Migration and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe supervision. The centre opened on 24 June. The Government have also assisted with the distribution of information about the registration and voting procedures in Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian to refugee organisations.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Road Schemes (Newtownbreda)
  Mr. Peter Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what representations he has received 518
  suggesting roadworks schemes, in addition to those already planned, for easing the traffic congestion at the Forster Green junction, Newtownbreda; and if he will make a statement. [34583]

  Mr. Moss
  Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Roads Service under its chief executive, Mr. W. McCoubrey. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from V. Crawford to Mr. Peter Robinson, dated 1 July 1996:
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked the Chief Executive to reply to your question about suggestions for easing traffic congestion at the Forster Green junction, Newtownbreda. In his absence I am replying on behalf of the Chief Executive.
  As part of the public consultation process in relation to the Southern Approaches Transportation Strategy Review launched in January 1993, a number of representations were received suggesting the construction of a grade separated junction, ie flyover, at this location. Having considered these representations the Department subsequently concluded that, for the moment, only planned "at grade" improvements should be carried out pending the development of a new transportation strategy for the urban area as a whole.
  I hope this information is helpful.

  Medical Cards
  Dr. Hendron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many new medical cards were issued by the Central Services Agency in each parliamentary constituency in each of the 12 months to June 1996; [35154]

  (2) how many new medical cards were issued by the Central Services Agency in each parliamentary constituency in each of the 12 months to June 1995. [35155]

  Mr. Moss
  Statistics on the number of medical cards issued cannot be broken down by parliamentary constituency and are collected only on a quarterly basis. The table shows the number issued in each quarter between 1 July 1994 and 31 May 1996.

  Medical cards issued by the Central Services Agency

  Quarter ending

  Number issued

  1994–95

  30 September 1994

  67,465

  31 December 1994

  68,866

  31 March 1995

  79,097

  30 June 1995

  74,756

  1995–96

  30 September 1995

  94,016

  31 December 95

  73,213

  31 March 1996

  70,026

  30 June 19961

  144,848

  1 June 1996 statistics are not yet available.

  Dr. Hendron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many medical cards are in existence in West Belfast. [35156]

  Mr. Moss
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Hendron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what procedure is followed by the Central Services Agency when a person reports his medical card as lost or stolen. [35160]
  519
  Mr. Moss
  Where a medical card is reported as lost or stolen, the Central Services Agency requests details of the person's surname, birth surname (where different), forenames, current address, previous address if recently changed, date of birth and the name of the patient's GP. The patient's record is traced on the central health index and at least three of the data items given by the patient must match to confirm that the correct patient record has been traced. If the details match, the central health index is updated, and a new medical card is issued to the patient, normally within five working days.

  Dr. Hendron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what changes are proposed for the amount of information required to be on a medical card. [35242]

  Mr. Moss
  Certain changes are being considered to the medical card:

  (a) to enable patients to register under the national organ donor registration scheme;

  (b) to enable a GP, on accepting a child under five as a new patient, to indicate if child health surveillance services are to be provided; and

  (c) to remove details about dispensing by doctors in the light of a review of dispensing arrangements.

  No other changes are proposed.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are his plans for funding the administration costs arising from the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland. [36126]

  Mr. Moss
  All costs associated with the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland including the administration costs of the Northern Ireland Disability Council, the costs of providing an advice and support service and publicity costs will he borne on the Department of Health and Social Services administration and miscellaneous services vote, DHSS vote 4. Parliamentary approval of this new expenditure will be sought in a supplementary estimate for this vote. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £230,000 will be met by repayable advances from the contingencies fund.

  Compensation Agency
  Dr. Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the Compensation Agency's corporate plan for 1996–97 to 1998–99 and the business plan for 1996–97 will be published.[36127]

  Sir John Wheelar
  The Compensation Agency's corporate and business plans will be published today. The plans explain the agency's business and organisation and set out assumptions about work-loads and resources which underpin the plans and targets.

  Animal Welfare
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list(a) UK legislation, (b) EU legislation and (c) international treaties, conventions or other obligations concerning animal welfare for which his Department has responsibility. [34288]
  520
  Mr. Ancram
  [holding answer 25 June 1996]: The information requested is as follows:

  DOMESTIC LEGISLATION

  Welfare General

  Spring Traps Approval Order (Northern Ireland) 1961 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1961 No. 234)

  Spring Traps Approval (No. 2) Order (Northern Ireland) 1961 (S.R. and O. (NI) No. 235)

  Small Ground Vermin Traps Order (Northern Ireland) 1961 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1961 No. 236)

  Veterinary Surgery (Exemptions) Order 1962 (SI 1962 No. 2557)

  Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (1966 Ch. 36)

  Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 (1972 Ch. 7) (ISBN 337 47207 6)

  Veterinary Surgery (Exemptions) Order 1973 (SI 1973 No. 308)

  Animal Boarding Establishments Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1974 (S.R 1974 No. 303) (ISBN 0 337 84303 1)

  Welfare of Animals (Fees) Order (Northern Ireland) 1979 (S.R. 1979 No. 289 (ISBN 0 337 89789 1)

  Riding Establishments Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1980 (S.R. 1980 No. 121) (ISBN 0 337 80621 7)

  Veterinary Surgery (Exemptions) (Amendment) Order 1982 (SI 1982 No. 1627)

  Welfare of Livestock (Deer) Order (Northern Ireland) 1983 (S.R. 1983 No. 307) (ISBN 0 337 83807 0)

  Welfare of Animals (Scheduled Operations) (Amendment) Order (Northern Ireland) 1983 (S.R. 1983 No. 309) (ISBN 0 337 83809 7)

  Welfare of Livestock (Prohibited Operations) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 (S.R. 1987 No. 415) (ISBN 0 337 87915 X)

  Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (Schedule 3 Amendment) Order 1988 (SI 1988 No. 526)

  Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (Schedule 3 Amendment) Order 1991 (SI 1991 No. 1412)

  Welfare of Livestock Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995 (S.R. 1995 No. 172) (ISBN 0 337 91672 1)

  Welfare of Animals (Scheduled Operations) (Amendment) Order (Northern Ireland) 1995 (S.R. 1995 No. 173) (ISBN 0 337 91673 X)

  Welfare of Animals in Transit

  Animals (Transit and General) Order (Ireland) 1913 (S.R. and O. 1913 No. 604)

  Conveyance of Live Poultry (Ireland) Order 1919 (As Amended) (S.R. and O. No. 1066)

  Transit of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1927 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1927 No. 38)

  Conveyance of Live Poultry (Ireland) Order of 1919 (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1927 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1927 No. 97)

  Transit of Animals (Northern Ireland) (Amendment No. 2) Order 1932 (S.R. and O. 1932 No. 115)

  Horses (Sea Transport) Order (Northern Ireland) 1953 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1953 No. 87)

  Transport by Air Order (Northern Ireland) 1955 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1955 No. 127)

  Animals Sea Transport Order (Northern Ireland) 1958 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1958 No. 5)

  Transit of Animals (General) Order (Northern Ireland) 1973 (S.R. and O. (NI) 1973 No. 300) (ISBN 0 337 83300 1)

  Transit of Animals (General) (Amendment) Order (Northern Ireland) 1989 (S. R. 1989 No. 165) (ISBN 0 337 89165 6)

  Transit of Animals (Road and Rail) Order (Northern Ireland) 1989 (S. R. 1989 No. 166) (ISBN 0 337 89166 4)

  521

  Welfare of Poultry (Transport) Order (Northern Ireland) 1989 (S. R. 1989 No. 167) (ISBN 0 337 89167 2)

  Welfare of Animals during Transport Order (Northern Ireland) 1994 (S. R. 1994 No. 244) (ISBN 0 337 91244 0)

  Welfare of Animals at Market

  Sales, Markets and Lairs Order (Northern Ireland) 1975 (S.R. 1975 No. 294) (ISBN 0 337 85294 4)

  Sales, Markets and Lairs (Amendment) Order Northern Ireland) 1993 (S. R. 1993 No. 371) (ISBN 0 337 90871 0)

  Other Legislation which have Welfare Implications

  Diseases of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 (N. I. 22) (ISBN 0 11 017115 2)

  Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order

  1984 (S. R. 1984 No. 702 (N. I. 2)) (ISBN 0 11 046702 7)

  Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 (S. R. 1994 No. 1891 (N. I. 6) (ISBN 0 11 044891 X)

  EC LEGISLATION

  Council Directive 88/166 Laying Down Minimum Standards for the Protection of Laying Hens kept in Battery Cages (OJ No. L74,19.3.88,p83)

  Council Directive 91/628 on the Protection of Animals During Transport (OJ No. L340,11.12.91, p17)

  Council Directive 91/629 Laying Down Minimum Standards for the Protection of Calves (OJ No. L340,11.12.91, p28)

  Council Directive 91/630 Laying Down Minimum Standards for the Protection of Pigs (OJ No. L340, 11.12.91,p33)

  Council Directive 93/119 on the Protection of Animals at the Time of Slaughter or Killing (OJ No. L340,31.12.93, p21)

  Council Directive 95/29 amending Council Directive 91/628 concerning the Protection of Animals during Transport (OJ No. L148,30.6.95, p52)

  EUROPEAN CONVENTIONS

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals during International Transport

  European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the animal welfare issues for which his Department has responsibility. [34287]

  Mr. Ancram
  [holding answer 25 June 1996]: The Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland is responsible for the welfare of livestock on farm, at market and at slaughter, the welfare of all animals during transport, the welfare of animals kept in pet shops, animal riding, boarding and zoological establishments and the general protection of all animals from acts of cruelty.

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list by group, division or other work unit the number of grades of staff working within his Department on animal welfare issues. [34289]

  Mr. Ancram
  [holding answer 25 June 1996]: The information is not available in the form requested. Welfare policy is directed by headquarters administrative and veterinary staff and implemented through veterinary and support staff engaged in field and slaughterhouse duties who have a welfare role as part of their remit.
  522

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Cattle Records
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will establish a national cattle database as a means to identify, trace and age every bovine animal in the United Kingdom. [30830]

  Mrs. Browning
  We are urgently working on new measures to improve animal identification and traceability. A mandatory cattle passport for animals born after 1 July 1996 is being introduced. We shall also be introducing a system of double ear tagging. Currently, only one official tag is required.

  Cattle Slaughter Scheme
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the estimated cost per head of(a) beef and (b) dairy cattle sent for slaughter in the Untied Kingdom on 1 March. [24493]

  Mr. Baldry
  The average live weight market price in the week ending 3 March was:

  Cull cows: 79.06 per kg

  Clean cows: 119.81 per kg

  Figures on the cost per head are not collected on a weekly basis.

  Dr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cattle were slaughtered in the United Kingdom under the 30-month scheme in the weeks beginning 20 May and 27 May. [35659]

  Mr. Baldry
  A total of 26,129 cattle were slaughtered in the week beginning 20 May and 25,170 were slaughtered in the week beginning 27 May.

  Mr. Jon Owen Jones
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 5 June,Official Report, columns 478–79, if he will list the options currently under review by his Department for the eventual disposal of meat and bonemeal. [32807]

  Mr. Boswell
  [holding answer 13 June 1996]: The options of incineration, use as fuel in power stations and eventual landfill, are currently under review.

  Cattle
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cattle(a) dairy and (b) non-dairy there are in the United Kingdom; and what is their estimated market value. [23213]

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 1 April 1996]: According to the census carried out in June 1995, there were 4.7 million cattle in the dairy herd and nearly 7 million cattle in the beef herd. The farm gate value of total UK beef production for 1995 was £2.8 billion. It is difficult to estimate the market value of a cow in milk production, but based on an average figure of £1,200 per head, the UK dairy herd is worth around £6 billion.

  Beef Imports
  Sir Cranley Onslow
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much beef for
  523
  human consumption has been imported into the United Kingdom from other EC countries in each month since 1 January 1995. [31009]

  Mrs. Browning
  The table shows UK imports of beef from other member states since January 1995. Information concerning trade since the BSE scare will not be available for a few weeks.

  UK imports of beef for human consumption

  UK reported-imports statistics (C and F) tonnes

  UK reported-imports statistics (C and F) £000s

  1995

  January

  7,837

  17,406

  February

  7,721

  19,357

  March

  10,407

  19,854

  April

  6,563

  17,326

  May

  8,303

  18,860

  June

  10,942

  29,730

  July

  8,011

  23,079

  August

  8,484

  26,108

  September

  9,691

  31,660

  October

  9,971

  29,562

  November

  7,009

  17,956

  December

  6,036

  16,374

  1996

  January

  4,879

  13,612

  February

  4.988

  12,848

  Source: MAFF, statistics (commodity and food).

  Unit: as indicated.

  Milk Testing
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the contaminants for which milk is tested before sale; and if he will make a statement. [35057]

  Mrs. Browning
  Under the Dairy Products (Hygiene) Regulations 1995, it is the responsibility of industry to ensure that appropriate tests are carried out on milk to detect any residues of substances having pharmacological or hormonal action or of other substances which are harmful to human health, or which might be harmful to human health if those residues exceeded permitted tolerance limits. The regulations also include microbiological standards for milk. Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the requirements are complied with and that dairy products are safe for human consumption. In addition, as part of its surveillance plan, MAFF carries out surveillance for a range of contaminants in milk. Results of the surveillance are published in annual reports or through the food safety information bulletin. Milk supplies are routinely tested for bacteriological quality and antibiotics, but not for other contaminants.

  Access Agreements
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many access agreements have been concluded with farmers in each of the environmentally sensitive areas in the United Kingdom. [35312]
  524
  Mr. Boswell
  The following number of management agreements in environmentally sensitive areas include land entered into the access tier:

  Number

  Pennine Dales

  2

  South Downs

  2

  Broads

  4

  West Penwith

  1

  Suffolk River Valleys

  6

  South West Peak

  1

  Lake District

  13

  Cotswold Hills

  1

  Dartmoor

  3

  Essex Coast

  1

  Upper Thames Tributaries

  2

  Argyll Islands

  1

  ESAs in Northern Ireland do not provide for public access.

  Mr. Prentice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will review his policy on concluding access agreements in environmentally sensitive areas where access routes traverse permanent grassland only. [35313]

  Mr. Boswell
  The Ministry will review the access provisions of the agri-environment schemes in the next financial year.

  Whaling
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the International Whaling Commission held in Aberdeen on 24 to 28 June. [36109]

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on the use of the electric lance; and will he make a statement. [35469]

  Mr. Baldry
  The International Whaling Commission's 48th annual meeting was held in Aberdeen from 24 to 28 June. The UK delegation was composed of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, assisted by officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Department of the Environment, and representatives of environmental organisations.

  The United Kingdom's principal objective at this meeting was to ensure that the moratorium on commercial whaling, which has been in force since 1986, was not weakened in any way. I am pleased to report that this was achieved. A request by Japan for a quota of 50 minke whales for its coastal communities, which we and many others considered would have breached the moratorium, was once again rejected. The UK's opening statement made it clear that we would continue to oppose all efforts to end the moratorium, for the reasons set out in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) on 8 May.

  The UK and New Zealand put forward a proposal for a ban on the use of the electric lance, which is used to kill whales that are wounded, but not killed, by an explosive harpoon. Although this received a wide measure of support, it did not secure the majority of three quarters of those voting needed for adoption under IWC rules. However, it was clear that our argument that the electric lance is inhumane was widely accepted; even many of

  525
  those who voted against a formal ban did not favour continued use of the electric lance. Japan, while continuing to defend its use of the electric lance, indicated that it planned to undertake research into possible alternatives, and would be reporting the results to the next IWC meeting. The IWC will return to this issue then.

  The United States presented a proposal for an aboriginal subsistence whaling quota of five grey whales for its Makah indian tribe, and the Russian Federation sought a quota of five bowhead whales for indigenous peoples in Siberia. Both proposals aroused a good deal of concern, and as discussions progressed it became evident that neither was likely to obtain the three quarters majority needed for adoption. In those circumstances, both the United States and the Russian Federation withdrew their proposals.

  Little progress was made on developing a revised management scheme, which is being devised to regulate all aspects of any future commercial whaling that might be permitted in the future. The United Kingdom continues to participate constructively in this work, as we believe that if commercial whaling ever did resume it would be essential to have in place tough and enforceable procedures to ensure that whaling took place only on stocks that were at healthy levels and was on a fully sustainable basis. The IWC did, however, endorse new guidelines on carrying out surveys and on calculating estimates of whale numbers; it also agreed new procedures designed to ensure better IWC oversight of these activities.

  At the scientific committee meeting, there was a lengthy discussion of new estimates of minke whale numbers in the north-east Atlantic. The committee eventually agreed that the most recent estimate, derived from a survey carried out in 1995, was adequate for use in the revised management procedure—the part of a future revised management scheme under which catch limits for a particular stock would be calculated—and Norway claimed that this justified its decision to increase the number of whales it is planning to take this year under its commercial whaling operations. Most countries, however, continue to believe that Norway's whaling activities weaken both the moratorium and the authority of the IWC and a resolution was adopted by a large majority calling on Norway to reconsider its objection to the moratorium, under which Norway is legally entitled to continue commercial whaling, and to halt all commercial whaling operations immediately. The UK strongly supported this resolution.

  We also supported a resolution calling on Japan to stop its scientific whaling and, in particular, to halt all scientific whaling within the southern ocean sanctuary. Again, this was adopted by a very large majority.

  In the scientific committee, the outcome of the recent workshop on the effects of climate change on cetaceans was discussed, and steps were agreed to take forward work on this important issue. These were fully endorsed by the IWC itself through a resolution adopted by consensus. It was agreed, in particular, that the scientific committee would set up a standing working group to co-ordinate its work on environmental change, and that it would seek increased co-operation with other international organisations working on this subject.
  526
  A number of other issues were discussed during the meeting. The UK introduced a resolution on small cetaceans, which was adopted by consensus, drawing attention to earlier resolutions on threatened species of small cetaceans and encouraging the scientific committee to continue to identify species under threat and to advise on possible remedial action. A resolution was adopted on whalewatching. It endorsed guidelines proposed by the scientific committee and drew them to the attention of coastal states responsible for regulating whalewatching. Resolutions were also adopted on improving controls on trade in whalemeat and calling on Canada, which withdrew from the IWC in 1982, to rejoin the IWC if it wishes to authorise aboriginal subsistence whaling.

  Overall, this was a satisfactory meeting for the UK, and we achieved most of our objectives. While we were not successful in securing a ban on the use of the electric lance, we made encouraging progress and are well placed to take the issue up again at the IWC's 49th annual meeting, which will take place in Monaco in October 1997.

  Quarantine
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what quarantine procedures were applied to the dog owned by Irene Sanders and rescued by British Airways on 23 November 1995; and how many representations he has received on this matter.[28145]

  Mrs. Browning
  [holding answer 7 May 1996]: I have received two letters concerning the news item on the independent television 10pm news on 23 November 1995 which showed a dog apparently avoiding the usual quarantine regulations on arrival at Heathrow. In responding to them I have explained that the filming of the meeting of the dog, its owner and the pilot of the aeroplane it arrived on took place after the dog had completed a full six months' quarantine in this country.

  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the representations received by his Department on the subject of quarantine in the last 12 months, indicating those supportive of the present system and those supporting change along the lines proposed by the Agriculture Committee in the fifth report of Session 1993–94 (HC 347). [28121]

  Mrs. Browning
  [holding answer 7 May 1996]: It would not be possible to provide this information in the manner requested without incurring disproportionate costs. However, from 1 January 1995 to 30 April 1996, my Department received 404 letters passed on by hon. Members from their constituents on the subject of quarantine of rabies-susceptible mammals. Of these, 349 supported change along the lines proposed by the Agriculture Committee, 42 supported the present system and 13 were on other quarantine matters.

  A further 1,074 letters on the future of quarantine were received over the period, a large majority seeking change to the current system. Eight petitions supporting change were handed in.

  Senior officials have twice met representatives from the organisation Passport for Pets.
  527
  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to introduce an investigation procedure to pursue complaints made by owners of animals held in quarantine about the conditions in which their animals are being held. [28929]

  Mrs. Browning
  [holding answer 14 May 1996]: There are already a number of procedures for dealing with complaints from owners of animals kept in quarantine premises. My officials investigate all complaints concerned with breaches of the Rabies (Importation of Dogs, Cats and Other Mammals) Order 1974, which covers security and the prevention of the spread of rabies. Complaints about the conditions in which the animals are kept can be referred to the veterinary superintendent appointed to the quarantine premises. Responsibility for investigating problems relating to the contract between the quarantine premises and owners of animals kept there fall to the local trading standards department of the local authority.

  Mr. Byers
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps are taken by his Department to inspect the conditions dogs are kept in at quarantine kennels. [28932]

  Mrs. Browning
  [holding answer 14 May 1996]: It is a requirement under the Rabies (Importation of Dogs, Cats and Other Mammals) Order 1974 that all quarantine premises are under the control of a veterinary superintendent, appointed by agriculture Departments. The conditions of appointment are set out in the form ID51. I have placed a copy of this form in the Library of the House. These conditions state that the veterinary superintendent is responsible for the safe custody and strict isolation of each animal throughout its period of quarantine, and for ensuring that the standard requirements set out on form ID50 are complied with. He/she or his/her deputy, similarly appointed by my Department, must visit the premises daily from Monday to Saturday each week, and on Sundays if necessary. He/she must visually inspect all animals on at least two of these visits each week. He/she must also undertake a further individual examination of any animal which concerns him/her following inspection, or where he/she requested to do so by the kennel management or its owner.

DEFENCE

  Married Quarters
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what representations he has received from representatives of the armed forces concerning the proposed married quarters sale; [35612]

  (2) what representations he has received from the chiefs of staff concerning his Department's proposed married quarters sale. [35614]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  Our proposals have been developed in full consultations with the chiefs of staff. The terms of the sale have been carefully designed to safeguard the 528
  interests of, and produce significant benefits for, the services and service families. The chiefs of staff share the Government's view that we now have the right basis for real improvements in service housing, which are long overdue.

  Dr. Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what alternative proposals to his Department's scheme for the married quarters sale he has evaluated. [35613]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  In recent years, we have considered several different approached to achieving our objective of improving the quality and management of service housing. These included different forms of sale, and retaining ownership. We believe that the proposals we have now put to bidders for the sale of the married quarters estate are the right answer, subject to reaching agreement on terms which satisfy the interests of the services and on a price which properly reflects the public interest.

  Dr. Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement concerning Mr. David Hart's involvement in his Department's married quarters sale. [35615]

  Mr. Arbuthnot
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minster of State for the Armed Forces on 22 March 1995,Official Report, column 218.

  Vehicle Depots
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the investment over the last five years in the vehicle depots at Ashchurch and Ludgershall. [3314]

  Mr. Soames
  [pursuant to his reply, 24 June 1996, c. 37]: I understand that there was an error in the answer sent by the chief executive for the Army Base Storage and Distribution Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write again with the correct information.

  Letter from Kevin Goad to Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, dated 4 July 1996:
  I very much regret that the information I gave recently in my reply of 24 June 96 to your question concerning the investment in the vehicle depots at Ashchurch and Ludgershall (PQ Ref: 1597H) was, in part, incorrect
  It has come to my notice that there has been a basic calculation error involving the transcription of two columns of figures. This error concerns the figures shown against vehicle depot Ludgershall.
  In my reply the figures shown for Ashchurch were correct, but the cost given for Ludgershall was in fact the cumulative total for both sites.
  The corrected figures for Ludgershall are:-
  Financial year

  1991–92: £253,766

  1992–93: £432,556

  1993–94: £709,624

  1994–95: £336,040

  1995–96: £389,833

  I hope this regrettable error has not caused too much inconvenience. I can only ask you, again, to please accept my sincere apologies.
  529

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

  Levene Report
  Ms Emma Nicholson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to publish the Levene report on the privatisation of public sector research establishments; and if he will make it his policy to take an immediate decision on the implementation of its recommendations. [35015]
  530
  Mr. Roger Freeman
  I have been asked to reply. Sir Peter Levene has been invited to provide further advice on certain practical questions which emerged from Ministerial consideration of the first tranche of reviews of public sector research establishments. He has been asked to make an early report to Ministers. Decisions on the establishments will be announced as soon as possible. They will be supported by explanatory memoranda which will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Treasure Act,

Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act,

Offensive Weapons Act,

Family Law Act,

Commonwealth Development Corporation Act,

Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act,

Community Care (Direct Payments) Act,

Defamation Act,

Trading Schemes Act,

University College London Act.

Disability Benefits: Arrears
3.2 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke Lord Ashley of Stoke asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many disabled persons have lost benefits as a result of errors by the Department of Social Security, and how many of this number have died without receiving their entitlements.
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, the Benefits Agency has identified and paid arrears to 24,000 people who had missed receiving the severe disability premium as part of their income support entitlement. It is estimated that a further 11,000 people who are no longer on income support may also be due arrears of the premium. We are currently attempting to identify these cases. It is not known how many people will have died without receiving their full entitlement of benefit.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. Will the Minister confirm that the PAC criticised the Government, and asked why it had taken so long to repay the £90 million underpayment to some of the most disadvantaged people in our society? Will he tell us what was the Government's response? Will he also kindly tell us with regard to those people who have died without receiving the repayments, whether the Government endorse the view of his ministerial colleague Roger Evans who, speaking in another place in December last year, said that he had not asked the Benefits Commission to take any specific action to
1572
identify those people who had died without repayment? The Minister may not like it, but I am asking him a different question. Does not that mean that money owed to those people has been confiscated by the state? The Government should take every step to identify the people who have died and pay the money into their estates.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me five or six questions. If I can remember them all, I shall start with the last one. One of the problems with identifying people who might have died is that we only keep records on the database for six months. We then move them to the archives for a further 18 months, and then they are removed entirely. So it is not possible to trawl back and find them all. It is arguable whether one should pay to the estate (to someone's heirs) benefit which was supposed to allow that person to help themselves during their own lifetime. On the general point, the noble Lord is right. The PAC did criticise my department. We have taken active steps to put the matter right. The noble Lord overstated the case when he talked about the most deprived people, because to be eligible for SDP one must already be eligible and have in payment income support, disability premium, and the disability living allowance, which would come to a total of £116 a week for someone under 60 and £122 a week for someone over 60. In addition, they would receive their SDP. The case is not helped by the noble Lord being extravagant in his language.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, that was a long answer.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, can we press the Minister a little more about payment to the estate of deceased eligible claimants? He suggested that the payments were to enable people to live a decent life. Given that that is the situation, the chances are that those people may have had to borrow money to ensure that they had a satisfactory standard of living. Surely it is only right that money due to them from the Government should be paid to their estate to reconcile the borrowings they may have incurred.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I am not entirely sure that the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, listened to my answer when I said that people over 60 would probably be receiving about £122 a week. They would have to be receiving about that before they would become eligible for SDP. If any deceased person's representative requests it, we will examine claims to establish whether they are justified, and if there are arrears to be paid we will pay them to the estate and therefore to the heirs.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, so that the House may understand the proportion which these claims represent, can my noble friend say what is the total number of these payments which are made, and made without criticism, every year?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, my noble friend asked me about the total number of

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claimants. The number in receipt of SDP at August 1995 was 327,000. My noble friend will recall that I discussed paying arrears to 24,000 claimants, so my noble friend is right to draw attention, as I think he was, to the fact that the great majority of people correctly and rightly received their payments.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, in 10 days' time will not the House be asked to speed up procedures and expedite through the House a DSS Bill to permit fast recovery of overpayment of benefit? Why is it acceptable to speed up the recovery of overpayment while at the same time the department is delaying the paying out of legitimately entitled SDP? Why is it acceptable to claw back and not pay up? Or is it merely that the department is following the guidance of the Deputy Prime Minister with regard to bills and going for delay, delay, delay?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I just wish the noble Baroness had listened to my answer. We have paid back some £90 million to those 24,000 people. That averages out at back payments of £3,500 to each person. If someone had been eligible from 1988 and was only discovered in 1993 not to have been paid it, wrongly, the maximum pay out would be £11,000. We are paying it back as quickly as we can. As to the other matter about the Bill that is coming to us, I understood that it had all-party support. It is to ensure that payments which the department paid out, from the taxpayer, it must be said, which are paid wrongly can be properly recovered.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I understand that it is heartbreakingly difficult for the DSS to avoid errors, but does the Minister think that the projected 25 per cent. cut in his department's administrative budget will make it any easier?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, perhaps I may remind the noble Earl that in order to achieve a 25 per cent. efficiency saving and therefore reduce the money which we take from taxpayers in order to run the system we are looking at the whole process by which we arrive at benefit decisions and at the multiplicity and complexity of the benefits system itself. We believe that in order to achieve the savings that we are looking for we must simplify the processes, the benefits and the rules surrounding them. That would be to the benefit of taxpayers as regards paying the bills, to the benefit of the staff who try to run the system and to the benefit of the claimants who will find it easier to understand.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, the Minister says that it is impossible to identify all those people who have died and I accept that because there are difficulties. However, will he not recognise that they lost money as a result of his department's errors and that they should be identified and the money paid into their estates? That is his responsibility.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says. As I explained, if someone
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comes to us and says, "My parent who is dead ought to have had these benefits. I want you to calculate them and see", we will certainly do that. However, we cannot do a trawl ourselves because we do not hold information on dead people forever. We take their records off the database after six months, quite rightly, put them into the archives, and after 18 months we remove them. If we did not do that we would spend a considerable fortune storing information which is of no further use.

Universities: Income
3.12 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Lord Wallace of Saltaire asked Her Majesty's Government:
How universities now facing a widening gap between income and expenditure can increase their income.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, universities are autonomous bodies and it is for them to decide their own priorities. The Government expect them to manage their affairs to ensure that they remain solvent and that over a period their income from both public and private sources exceeds their expenditure.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. May I ask the House to remember that, nevertheless, universities receive a substantial amount of their income—in most cases more than half—from government funds; that over the past six years the amount per student has fallen by 30 per cent. while the number of students has risen by 45 per cent.; and that in the past year funding has been cut by a further 7 per cent. and capital funding by 30 per cent.?
Is the Minister aware that the general agreement of all university administrators is that that is not sustainable and that the university system cannot wait for Dearing? The idea that you can cut both current expenditure and PFI is simply not acceptable—
Noble Lords: Order! Question!
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, will the Minister say whether the Government accept that universities must now begin to charge fees or must go down the road to further cuts?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we do not see a case for undergraduate contributions to fees in the current funding context. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord, as he reminded the House, that we spend considerable amounts of public money on higher education; some £7 billion, which is 20 per cent. of the total education budget. Difficult decisions have to be made in terms of priorities. I accept that we have reduced the amount available for capital spending in the forthcoming year. I also accept that the universities might find that difficult and we are looking at ways in which the universities can access other funds through the private

1575
finance initiative and so forth. We will look at the evidence from the higher education sector about the impact of levels of public funding on the universities and colleges. Obviously, we will take that into account together with all other considerations relating to education and wider public expenditure in the current public expenditure round.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, are any of the institutions of higher education taking steps to market their post-graduate expertise in the way in which the LSE is now doing very effectively?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend raised an interesting point. I hope that all universities are doing what they can to find other sources of finance in the private sector. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, stressed that in his view many of them are gaining a considerable amount of private finance. I hope that they will continue to do so and and I hope they will consider ideas such as that mentioned by my noble friend.
Lord Winston: My Lords, perhaps I may first present my apologies to the Minister for being present in the House this afternoon. I could have chosen to join some of the members of my rowing team at Henley.
Does the Minister agree that one of the most serious financial crises in the universities is that affecting medical education and that the cuts which are now being faced will affect not only teaching but also our vital research base and clinical services in the National Health Service?
Lord Henley: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the House how pleased I am to see the noble Lord in his place this afternoon and how sorry I am that he has missed his chance to see his rowing colleagues perform at Henley, where I am sure they have performed with distinction.
Obviously, we accept that in all sectors there will be difficulties as a result of the cuts in capital expenditure, which we necessarily had to make. We will look at all the evidence produced by the higher education sector in the current public expenditure round, as I made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. However, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, would not expect me to give any assurances about decisions which are dependent on all other relevant considerations.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that one important possible source of finance for universities is from their contacts with industry? Ought it not to be taken into account that if capital equipment in laboratories is cut, those laboratories look less attractive and many important firms prefer to go to universities in other countries where their research equipment is up to date?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the first part of my noble friend's question made the point that it should be for
1576
the universities themselves to look to the private sector. I hope that they will do that and I believe that there are rich pickings out there which they can pursue.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Minister's department makes careful calculations about the funding of universities before making cuts of the magnitude that have recently been made? In the light of that information, can he tell the House what percentage of the gap in universities' finances the Government believe can be covered by the private finance initiative?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I made clear earlier, we make considerable resources available to the higher education sector. As I said, it is some £7 billion, which is 20 per cent. of the total education budget for the United Kingdom. It is up to the funding councils then to allocate that to universities. I believe that they do a good job in that and it is not for us to interfere with that process.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, am I correct in believing that overseas students pay full fees and that that can be a valuable source of income? Are there any limitations on the number of overseas students who can be accepted by universities?
Lord Henley: My Lords, overseas students pay full fees, which is a useful source of income for universities. We are pleased to see a considerable number of overseas students in this country. The party opposite opposed the move to make them pay full fees and made it clear that they believed that there would be a reduction in the number. I am pleased to tell the party opposite that that is not the case and that during the past few years we have seen an increase in the number of overseas students.
Earl Russell: My Lords, can the Minister explain how the private finance initiative can be used to finance things which do not generate an income?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we have cut capital expenditure for universities; we have not abolished all grants of capital expenditure for universities. There is still a considerable amount of money available for them. One should look at the cut of some £100 million in the context of some £1.6 billion of capital investment which has been financed by the universities in recent years. It is not that large a cut.

British Airways: Proposed Alliance
3.19 p.m.
Lord Berkeley Lord Berkeley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the proposed merger between British Airways and American Airlines will benefit air travellers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen): My Lords, the Director-General of Fair Trading is examining the proposed alliance under the mergers

1577
provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1973 and will be assessing whether it promotes the interests of consumers.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, in thanking the noble Viscount for that Answer, perhaps I may declare an interest as a consultant to Eurotunnel. Is the Minister aware that only three months ago British Airways opposed a Lufthansa/United Airlines merger which would have created a combined share of the UK-Europe market of 14 per cent.? Indeed, BA's chief executive was quoted in the Financial Times of 6th March as saying:
"What Lufthansa wants to do is reduce the level of competition by relaxing the anti-trust laws".
Is the Minister aware that the proposed merger between British Airways and American Airlines would create a combined market share of double that figure; namely, 28 per cent. in UK-Europe and 70 per cent. on London/Kennedy routes? Can we assume that British Airways agrees that that will reduce competition? Will the Minister support a referral of the proposed merger to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the first series of points made by the noble Lord are matters for British Airways. I do not speak for the company. The noble Lord will have to ask the chief executive of British Airways about his views. The noble Lord's second series of remarks are matters which will be taken into consideration in terms of competition by the Director-General of Fair Trading.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, in asking my noble friend the Minister a question, perhaps I may also declare an interest. I am a director of British Airways. Will my noble friend make clear to the House that what we are discussing is not a proposed merger; it is a proposed alliance. There is no change of shareholding; it is only a marketing alliance. Can my noble friend the Minister also confirm that some 50 per cent. of the transatlantic traffic emanating from this country is actually transit traffic to and from Europe for which there is a balance of payments advantage to Britain?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, on my noble friend's first point, I understand that the proposed alliance is indeed just that—an alliance. It does not specifically involve a change in the capital basis of the two companies. There is a great deal of traffic between this country and the United States, some of it transit traffic and some of it direct point-to-point traffic. Our airlines do extremely well. It is a market in which there is a great deal of competition. But that competition is restricted by the Bermuda 2 agreement we have with the United States. We believe that it would be in all our interests to progress liberalisation on that issue.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, technically, an alliance can be a merger under the Fair Trading Act? Therefore, would it not be desirable for his own department, the Department of Transport, to make
1578
representations both to the Office of Fair Trading and, indeed, to DGIV in the European Community that it is likely to be, at the very least, antagonistic to the public interest of this country?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, those are the very matters the Director-General of Fair Trading is considering. He is doing so under the mergers provisions. I have confirmed the basis upon which the proposed alliance is to be taken forward if that is the case. However, it is for the Director-General of Fair Trading to decide on the competitive benefits or disadvantages.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is it not a fact that almost all the airlines are creating alliances with other airlines? Indeed, it is nothing unusual; it is just what everyone else is doing.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it is certainly the case that there has been a global trend towards alliances between airlines. They believe that there are benefits to be achieved by way of code-sharing and in areas such as marketing.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the overriding interest in the matter is that of the travelling public? Does he also agree that we are discussing a very complex issue: first, for the reason that my noble friend Lord Borrie mentioned; and, secondly, for a whole variety of other reasons? It is a very controversial issue. There is opposition to it from a number of smaller airlines in the United Kingdom.
In those circumstances—and, again, for the reasons just cited by my noble friend—is it not right that we should be satisfied that such alliances do not conflict with the competition rules of the European treaties? Surely it is appropriate that not only the Office of Fair Trading and the House of Commons Select Committee, but also the European Commission (operating under Article 89), should investigate such issues and ensure at all times that the public is made privy as far as possible to the evidence which is revealed and which must directly affect their interests above all.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, on the variety of the noble Lord's points, I would certainly accept and agree that the interests of consumers are most important. When negotiating air service agreements with other countries, we take into account the interests of UK consumers, the interests of UK airlines and the interests of the regions, the economy as a whole and UK airports. That is rather different to what is being considered as a commercial arrangement between two companies. I agree that it is highly complex and that it is appropriate for the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the matter. I understand that the Commission has said that it will conduct an investigation into all alliances between Community and US carriers in recent

1579
years. However, I must stress that that is a wider investigation into all the recent alliances that have taken place.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Commission proposes to investigate a number of such alliances and not exclusively this one?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I believe that that is exactly what I said in my response.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, has introduced the role of the European Commission, does my noble friend the Minister feel like suggesting to the Commission that it might be better employed preventing the massive subsidies which are paid by other countries to their state airlines to the detriment of our own?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the issue of state aid is incredibly important when considering the European market in aviation. The Government have made their position very clear indeed with regard to the Air France state aid of some £2.4 billion which was approved. We do not believe that that is appropriate and we are supporting and taking our own legal action in that respect. On the other hand, I understand that the Commission can use the restrictive powers contained in Article 89 of the Treaty.

Poor Countries: Debt Burden
3.26 p.m.
Lord Rea Lord Rea asked Her Majesty's Government:
What decisions, if any, regarding the reduction of the international debt of low income developing countries were made at the recent meeting of the G7 in Lyons.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, I am pleased to report that the summit endorsed further steps to offer a number of highly indebted poor countries an exit from their unsustainable debt burdens. They are set out in the communiqué, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer which was, perhaps, optimistic in tone but a little lacking in immediate substance. Is it not a pity that the Naples terms, which were agreed two years ago, for a reduction of bilateral debt of the most severely indebted countries by two-thirds was not increased to a four-fifths reduction, as was hoped, thus helping those nations to rejoin the world's economy both to our benefit and theirs? Can the Minister say what recommendations the G7 and the Government are making as regards the forthcoming meeting of the Bretton Woods financial institutions in September?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it would be very useful if the noble Lord were to read
1580
paragraphs 46 to 50 of the G7 summit communiqué because it states there quite clearly what is going on. I believe that I am right to be more optimistic than the noble Lord. I say that because the IMF's ESAF (the Enhanced Structure Adjustment Facility) will be on more concessional terms in the future. There is absolutely no doubt that the summit urged the Paris Club of government creditors to improve on the 67 per cent. debt reduction available under the Naples terms, from which 18 countries have already benefited. We shall encourage the Paris Club to offer up to 80 per cent. debt reduction in certain cases. Indeed, we are working on that for the meetings which will take place in the autumn.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that this was a purely British initiative? Does she further agree that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be congratulated?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am extremely pleased to agree with my noble friend. It was indeed a British initiative, taken forward by the Prime Minister and known, first, as the "Trinidad Terms" in 1990. In May of this year, creditors wrote off some 500 million US dollars, which is more than 50 per cent. of Guyana's official bilateral debt. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, who took the matter forward, did not let a single opportunity go by to press the case for debt reduction so that those countries could stand on their own feet again. Britain has taken the lead every time, including action on multilateral debt. We shall continue to do so.
Lord Judd: My Lords, while I commend the Government on their efforts on debt, is it not disappointing that the Lyons meeting still failed to agree arrangements for the sale of IMF gold stocks to fund multilateral debt relief? Does the Minister agree that the proceeds of such gold sales should be invested directly in debt relief and not used simply to replenish the IMF's structural adjustment facility? Given that IMF lending in the past has been part of the cause of the present debt crisis, does the Minister agree that further lending—even on more concessionary terms—is not an adequate response?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, needs to differentiate between what is really happening and the art of the possible in the reduction of multilateral debt. We expect multilateral creditors to maximise the use of their existing resources. As the noble Lord knows, bilateral creditors are already doing this through the Paris Club. This was very much the spirit of last year's G7 summit which encouraged the better use of all existing World Bank and IMF resources. The IMF has moved a long way on this. Not all countries, sadly, have supported the sale of gold as a means to fund reduction of multilateral debt, but we are in a better position now than we were even six months ago. We are continuing to work at it and we are

1581
gradually having more and more success. I am glad that the noble Lord recognised that in his remarks. We shall certainly make sure that we make yet further progress.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the announcement she has made about the remission of debt for Guyana will be particularly welcome in view of the Herculean efforts made by President Jagan to put the economy back on a sound footing and his great successes hitherto which will be materially assisted by this remission? Can she also say something about another country which has been mentioned frequently in your Lordships' House; namely, Uganda? Was anything special done at the summit to remit the debt of that country?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, nothing new was done but of course Uganda is one of the 18 countries which has benefited. In addition to the reduction of 500 million US dollars for Guyana, a further 5.6 billion dollars of debt has been restructured under the Naples terms proposed by the Prime Minister. Progress is being made in this field. Uganda has benefited from that. I hope that Uganda will benefit more when the sales of IMF gold produce the funds to enable multilateral debts to be reduced.

Allied Irish Banks Bill
3.32 p.m.
Read a second time, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

Hong Kong (War Wives and Widows)(No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Stalking (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Prisoners' Earnings Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

The Constitution
3.33 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by the Lord Chancellor—namely, That this House take note of the United Kingdom's existing constitutional settlement, and of the implications of proposals for change.
The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne): My Lords, it is surely right that in two days of debate on the
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constitution a whole day should be devoted to Parliament. Much of our debate will concern itself with the future of your Lordships' House. There will be disagreement about our composition and perhaps even about our powers. However, on one thing I venture to suggest we will all agree; Parliament is and will continue to be the fount of authority and political cockpit of our nation. Of course there can be no doubt whence that authority flows. It flows from the consent of the electorate. Without that consent Parliament's authority would evaporate.
In a Parliament that consists of three parts—Monarch, Peers and Commons—ultimate authority can only rest with an elected chamber. I also suggest that the beauty of our present arrangements lies above all in their clarity—a clarity that arises from their fundamental simplicity. After all, there is but one elected element in Parliament. There can therefore be no doubt about where the victory should be in any dispute between the two Houses. It is a clarity that extends to the way the government themselves are chosen. Our present first-past-the-post electoral system nearly always ensures that the electorate chooses the government, not parliamentary factions hammering out deals in bars or in what has become the cliché of the smoke-filled room. It has ensured that rule by faction has become a folk memory and that governments stay or change as soon as the results of the election become clear.
That clarity is an asset of immense value. It gives our constitution a certainty in the way it works which is a source of political stability. As I shall try to make clear during the course of my remarks, stability is something we should prize above all else.
I do not propose to say much more about another place this afternoon except in so far as it affects your Lordships' House. I shall return to that in a minute. However, I would like, if I may, to draw your Lordships' attention to a passage in a speech made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister last week in which he suggested that Parliament might like to look at ways to improve its scrutiny of legislation. This is a subject that I know is dear to your Lordships' hearts. Indeed, I seem to remember that one of the first debates I answered in this House as Leader considered a recent report on the subject by the Hansard Society. I know many Members of this place, for example, my noble friend Lord Renton, have long advocated a number of the measures trailed by my right honourable friend last week, such as publishing more Bills in draft in advance and greater scrutiny of policy, whether in draft Bills or in White Paper form. I hope that in due course this House will begin to consider how we might build on some of the changes we have introduced of late—thanks to the initiatives of such eminent noble Lords as my noble friends Lord Jellicoe and Lord Rippon—to mirror some of the ideas my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is asking another place to discuss.
My right honourable friend's proposal that Parliament should consider changing the dates of the start of the parliamentary year and that the Government should look forward each year on the occasion of the Queen's Speech to a draft programme for the following year will make introducing these changes, which merely build on

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what is already beginning to happen, much easier. If those proposals were to be introduced and were to prove successful, I hope they would begin to deliver what has proved an elusive prize to date; namely, better prepared, better scrutinised legislation, and less of it. I hope we would as a result focus more attention on Parliament than on the television studio and that we could enhance Parliament's legislative role and the respect in which it is held.
I hope, too, that success would have a beneficial effect on this House's role as a revising chamber. We spend about 30 per cent. of our time revising legislation. It is one of our most important functions, but I wonder whether more careful preparation of legislation would not enable us to spend more of our time on debating important matters like our Select Committee reports, which too often are squeezed out by pressure of other business. Indeed, it seems curious that we should base some of the justification for our existence on the implied weakness of another place in sending us Bills which so often we feel the need to improve, sometimes substantially.
Experience shows that enthusiasm for such changes has up to now been the preserve, if I may put it this way, of the congenital optimist. I hope that this does not prove once again to be the case in the wake of my right honourable friend's proposals. But I make no apology for emphasising this aspect of our aspirations at the outset of my remarks, however unglamorous it may seem to some outside observers.
Like the clarity in our basic constitutional arrangements that I extolled a moment ago, I think that the quality of Parliament's legislative work is a great source of stability in our political system; and like, I think, every other Member of your Lordships' House, I find it distressing that another place seems to have fallen so low in public esteem. Over time the cumulative effects of such measures as my right honourable friend has advocated could make a significant contribution to restoring some of its standing. Indeed, stability—I emphasise that in my view it certainly does not mean rigidity—would be substantially enhanced.
What I am certain will not make such a contribution is a reform of your Lordships' House that undermines the authority of another place. And that, of course, as we all know from experience is the difficulty. By definition every reform of our House short of abolition would give more authority to the second chamber. It is, I seem to remember, what scuppered Mr. Crossman in 1968, and perhaps it will be what scuppers Mr. Blair if he ever wins a general election.
I suppose that one option could be abolition of our House. It is an idea that once enjoyed a certain vogue in the Labour Party. I am interested to see that the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, is so far out of step with his own Front Bench that he approves of the suggestion. I confess—I am sure that your Lordships will not be surprised by this—that I am not attracted by it. It is really because I am persuaded, above all, by the strictures of my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham in his celebrated lecture in which he warned of the dangers of an elective dictatorship.
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It is, I suppose, possible to envisage a constitutional court providing the necessary check on another place. However, like my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I find a Bill of Rights and a constitutional court not only alien to our tradition but less practical, less flexible and, above all, less defensible in democratic terms than a parliamentary check on another place. Like the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg—I hope that I do not misrepresent him; it would be the last thing I wish to do—I feel happier with the idea of Parliament enjoying supreme constitutional and legislative authority rather than the judges, except in so far, of course, as they are Members of your Lordships' House. I am, therefore, relieved that the Labour Party now seems to accept that it is desirable to keep a second chamber.
Nevertheless, I confess to being more than a little mystified about their plans for reform. Of course, the justification for continuing the present arrangements is that they work. Again my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham, if he will allow me to say so, has rested his case on that fact. Despite the ribaldry that I begin to see rising predictably on the Opposition Front Bench, I assert that this House works, and works well. You only have to experience a week in this place to feel that that is so. Our role as a check on another place, as a revising chamber, as the highest court in the land, and as a forum for informed debate is a formidable one, and if any more evidence is needed one has only to turn to the annual report of your Lordships' House to find a comprehensive account of our activities, carried out, I may say, for the modest price to the taxpayer of £24 million per annum.
Indeed, someone the other day told me that this House was,
"the only effective House of Parliament".
Of course I regard that as an outrageous and impertinent slur on another place, and I reject it, as I am sure all noble Lords would. But the underlying compliment to this House is, I feel, richly deserved.
It was not always so. A distinguished former Leader of this House once told me in his old age that before the introduction of life Peers and women this House was, as he put it, "dying on its feet". As a result of the 1958 reforms, no one could say that of your Lordships' House today.
Nevertheless—and this is, I know, where I shall fail to take members of the party opposite with me—the longer I spend here the more I feel that the hereditary element in your Lordships' House is an important ingredient in our success.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I always find it so extraordinarily gratifying that members of the party opposite react in so predictable a way. It is like pressing a button, and they react just as required.
If your Lordships will allow me a little trip into perhaps over-elliptical history, I remember that Mr. Enoch Powell has reminded us in his scholarly study of the medieval House of Lords that it was convenient for the monarch to separate those who

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wielded disproportionate power from the House of Commons. Since power in those days was concentrated in the hands of landowners, it is hardly surprising that the lay members became hereditary and that the other great landowner, the Church, also sent representatives to the House of Lords. Although almost at once other interests began to challenge the power of the landowner, rather sadly some of us might feel, it was not until 1846 and the subsequent agricultural depressions that the power of the landowner was finally broken. Indeed, I suspect that had it still existed in 1911, Mr. Lloyd George would hardly have dared attack it—with the greatest deference to the Liberal Benches.
Now the number of traditional hereditary Peers—I use "traditional" in the nature of hereditary Peers, if my noble friends and others will forgive me for describing them in this way—diminishes year by year. I think that as time goes on the hereditary element of this House has become something rather different and altogether more disparate from what it used to be. It is well on the way to becoming—and will so become if allowed to develop—a cross-section of society chosen by lot.
Of course, the Athenians, I seem to remember, thought that election by lot was the only truly democratic method. It is a tempting thought, and as a potential hereditary Peer, one I find strangely attractive. However, perhaps to apply that argument to the modern age may be going a little too far.
On a more serious note, we should be careful about accepting the myth of the built-in Tory majority in this House, with which I know the noble Lord, Lord Richard, will shortly regale us. My noble friend the Government Chief Whip certainly finds that majority from time to time, and even this week, a depressingly elusive beast. Members of the party opposite have by implication accepted the accuracy of my noble friend's experience and say—I think that we have heard some such talk this week—that it is a lack of majority by absenteeism, and that this is outrageous. But actually self-selection seems to work rather well, like the rest of this House, because of the absence of rules. I know that when my noble friend the Chief Whip winds up, he will address himself in a little more detail to this important question.
In an age when politics have become the preserve of professional politicians, the leavening that the hereditary peerage provides is valuable—so much so, and I say this particularly to hereditary Peers who seem sometimes to feel that they should forsake our Benches for the Cross Benches, that any feelings of guilt seem to me to be dangerously misplaced.
After all, those who demand that all parliamentarians be full-time professionals never explain how hired guns can be true representatives. Every body politic needs its full-time pros—the Tory Party needed Disraeli at one stage—but a parliament entirely composed of hired guns loses an essential citizen element.
There is another reason, too, why the hereditary element is valuable in an era of professional politicians. It underlines the fact that politically at least your
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Lordships' House is essentially an amateur House, even though many of your Lordships are highly professional in your chosen callings.
I believe that that amateur status reflects the national attitude to politics. For the overwhelming majority of the population, politics is only a part-time preoccupation, and I thank God for it. Rightly, people do not choose where they work for political reasons or their companions in their leisure pursuits simply because they agree with them politically. This seems to me a great national strength, a source of stability. It is reflected in the nature of your Lordships' House and the manner in which it conducts its proceedings. If the Labour Party ever succeeds in establishing its devolved assemblies in Wales, Scotland and, on a voluntary basis, in the regions of England, the immediate effect will be a huge increase in the number of professional politicians. Indeed, perhaps under that rule politics will be the only profession where employment will rise, particularly if the Labour Party signs the social chapter and introduces a minimum wage as well.
But perhaps the hereditary Peers' most valuable contribution of all is that a House composed as ours is cannot legitimately challenge the ultimate authority of the elected chamber. Paradoxically, therefore, our very weakness contributes to the organic strength of Parliament.
Now the Labour Party wants to reform the composition, but as I understand it—and I am open to correction—not the powers of this place. Despite what I have said in defence of our present arrangements, I am not in any way in principle opposed to reform, even radical reform, and I assure the party opposite of that. The more frivolous part of me recognises that any reform would increase the authority of this place and therefore welcomes the prospect. More seriously, it seems to me obvious that if anyone can devise a scheme of reform that self-evidently would deliver a more effective second chamber, we would welcome it with open arms.
What mystifies me is, first, why there is such urgency since our House works so well; and, secondly, the nature of the Labour Party's proposals. So urgent is the need for reform, apparently, that it will be one of the first tasks to be undertaken by an incoming Labour government. We constantly hear from noble Lords opposite and their honourable friends in another place that in their view there is an enormous amount wrong with Tory-run Britain (I note the silence from the Benches opposite): unemployment, the health service, no minimum wage, no social chapter, no devolved assemblies to satisfy Brussels' craving for a Europe of the regions and therefore evade the clutches of the only power that controls Brussels, national governments and so on. But all that which, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, they claim to be so urgent must yield its place in the queue to a proposal to remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit in this House. The Labour Party affects at times to be frightened of the power of the House of Lords to derail its legislative programmes in government. Perhaps that is it. Yet this House has never blocked the will of the House of Commons under a Labour government. We may have asked them to think

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again but, since 1950, only a Conservative government, I think I am right in saying, have been obliged to use the Parliament Act in order to secure a piece of legislation.
Where are the examples that will no doubt be trailed for us under a Labour government? Would it be the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill? We stood on the principle of hybridity there. It was not a technical device but a constitutional principle designed to ensure equal treatment for all in the legislative process. Although there were contentious issues in the public part of the Bill the mere existence of the Parliament Act was enough, as it was with the Trades Union and Labour Relations Bill, to secure the Labour Government's business. No, my Lords. Your Lordships' habited deference, if I may call it that, would, I am sure, be even-handed, were Labour to be in power, as it has been in the past.
We must look elsewhere, therefore, for the reason for this headlong rush to reform. So morally outrageous, clearly, is the existence of hereditary Peers that here above all pragmatism must yield to moral imperatives. Here, as so often, sanctimoniousness cloaks party political necessity. The secret, of course, is that the leadership of the Labour Party has slipped a gag into the mouth of its left wing. That gag is beginning to work loose. It needs to find a bit of sticking plaster to slap across its mouth. Reform of this House is, the leadership hopes, that sticking plaster. That is why they are in such a hurry. They are using this House and mucking around with the constitution to keep their own party quiet. I have already said that if we can find a way of reforming this House which we could be reasonably certain would improve our constitutional arrangements, we should and we will welcome it.
I had hoped, when I heard that the party opposite wished to reform this place, that it would at least have found a proposal for reform that, whether one agreed with it or not, had intellectual coherence—a peach of an idea that compelled serious consideration. The party signally failed in all the policy pronouncements to adapt Mr. Blair's memorable phrase in his recent John Smith Memorial Lecture:
"to justify in the thickets of detail".
In this case, Labour Party leaders have gone even further and freely admit that they have not the faintest idea how this House will be composed once they have implemented phase two of their brilliant scheme. We are told that this House will probably contain "an elected element", but that phrase is the only trailer that we have been vouchsafed. I have already suggested that "an elected element" would challenge the supremacy of another place, so even this modest lifting of its skirts by the party opposite is something I greet with modified rapture. Surely a party that aspires to form the next government will have to do better than that if it wants the electorate and other parties to take it seriously.
Nevertheless, it is in the best traditions of this House to be constructive and it is in that spirit that I have a suggestion to make to the party opposite. It seems to me that the decision as to whether and how to reform the House will in the end be taken by another place—and it is right that that should be so. The Labour Party wishes
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to reform us and apparently does not know what it ultimately wants to achieve. So why not, in the unlikely event of its winning the next general election, suggest to another place that it establish a Select Committee to look into the question as to both means and ends? In the end, this really is Parliament's business and not a matter for some committee of the great and good. After all, it is Parliament which must make the judgment as to any scheme's fundamental soundness and as to the practicality of its detail.
I should be happy under those circumstances to recommend to your Lordships that we co-operate fully with another place to the extent necessary to allow the Select Committee to do its work. Any report from such a Select Committee would, I am sure, have benefited from evidence of Members of your Lordships' House and any subsequent legislation would he scrutinised with your Lordships' usual rigour.
Not the least of the advantages that would flow from such a proceeding would be that it would enable the Labour Party to ditch, without too much embarrassment, the rather curious half-way house it has proposed as a way of appeasing the gagged ones on the left of the party—the sticking plaster. It is clearly beginning to embarrass Mr. Blair in the same way as he is embarrassed by his devolution proposals.
I am not surprised that he is embarrassed. I am, of course, flattered that Clause 2 of the draft Bill that he supplied to the Constitution Unit and which it published in an appendix to its report should make an exception in favour of those Peers already sitting by virtue of a writ in acceleration. However, my deep personal gratitude for that kindness is, I fear, tempered by puzzlement as to why Mr. Blair should wish to transform one House of Parliament into the biggest quango in the land.
The device is dangerous. The swings of the political pendulum will ensure that its temporary nature will become permanent, particularly since it is not at all clear that we will ever be able to agree as to what the composition and powers of a fully reformed House of Lords will be. It will meanwhile deliver powers of patronage into the hands of party leaders unprecedented since the days of Newcastle and Rockingham. I have observed that the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in another place rather enjoys stealing other people's political clothes—notably those worn by the increasingly outmoded Social Democrats of continental Europe. Perhaps now he rather fancies himself in a short wig and knee-breeches instead. All he would then lack is a Palladian mansion and a park but I am sure that they will arrive in due course.
I have spoken for long enough and there is a gratifyingly long and distinguished list of speakers who will, I know, make today's proceedings as much of an advertisement for your Lordships' House as did those who spoke yesterday. I believe that our debate over these two days will mark an important stage in the wider public debate over our institutions which has now been joined. If I were asked to give an interim judgment on that debate, I should have to say that so far none of the

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plans for constitutional reform mooted has as much merit as the constitutional settlement that we at present enjoy and that continues to evolve.
The world has always lived in a state of transition, driven above all by technological innovation. The late Lord Stockton once memorably said that Adam observed as much to Eve as they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, today's world is seeing a transformation more radical and more swift than any previous age of change. If we are to survive and prosper in this changing world we cannot ignore its challenges and hope that they will go away. If this country is not to become a poverty-stricken backwater, if we are to deliver the jobs and prosperity we all want, we have no alternative but to build on the economic transformation we have begun to bring about in this country since 1979. Economic change that embraces free trade and the economics of the market is not change driven by ideology, but by necessity and by opportunity.
Nevertheless, much as we may agree with that analysis—and it seems to me that this country as a whole does now agree with it—times of change stir another and conflicting emotion in all our minds. It is an emotion above all born of fear, a feeling of uncertainty, of wondering who we are and where we belong. It is in such times that the virtues of political stability become overwhelmingly apparent. Constitutional evolution, rather than constitutional revolution, becomes as much a necessary prerequisite for economic prosperity as economic change.
Our constitution is not—your Lordships' House is not— some ancient monument. It is a living being which responds to the challenge of changing times.
I look round this House today and see many leaders of change, as well as many whose wisdom is born of long experience. Some are life Peers; some are hereditary Peers. In this House, with its unique tradition of self-government which, I believe, mirrors our wider constitution, we come together to deliberate and advise.
I do not rest my case on raising faces of change. I rest it on the virtues of stability. This Government stand for both those things in tandem: economic change and political stability. The party opposite is offering us exactly the opposite: economic reaction and political revolution.
Our present dangers are the chattering voices who offer the Opposition economic reaction and political revolution. They could undermine irretrievably the settlement which tells our people where they belong and who they are.
4.2 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that I enjoyed about 20 of the last 27 minutes. It is a change for me in the Labour Party to be called a revolutionary. I am very grateful to him indeed. It is not very often that my credentials are so easily established. I hope the noble Viscount will forgive me if I do not follow him through the tortuous path that he seemed to me to be following; namely, that in order to preserve democracy in the other
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House, we have to safeguard the undemocratic element in this House. That seemed somewhat contradictory, and also slightly at variance with his later remarks. I understood him to say that he would co-operate with a Select Committee of the House of Commons in doing what seemed to be necessary to remove the undemocratic element from this House. I shall read his remarks with attention.
I hope that I shall not take as long as the noble Viscount in opening the debate from this side of the House. I regard this debate as an opportunity to do two things: first, to make the position of the Labour Party clear; and, secondly, to listen to the views of Members of the House. Judging by the number of speakers on the list, there will be no shortage of views to be listened to.
However, I cannot help but observe that rarely can a government have tabled a Motion to take note of a series of propositions advanced not by themselves but by the Opposition. Indeed, I congratulate the Government on the care and attention that they have given to this debate so far. It is clear that they are hard at work preparing for opposition. We wish them all success.
The House will, I know, expect me to deal with the proposals for reform of this House which the Labour Party is to put to the people of this country at the next general election. I shall be perfectly, and I hope unmistakably, clear right at the outset. It is our intention, if elected, to remove the right of Peers by succession to sit and vote in this House. That is the proposition. It is clear; it is simple, it is unambiguous; and it will be put to the country.
I start however by paying tribute to the role that the hereditary peerage has played in British history over the years. Some of the noble families of this country represented today in this House have had a major role in British history, government and public life. Some of them go back a very long way. Lord Bryce in his famous report on the House of Lords referred to this House as:
"The oldest and most memorable of all British Institutions reaching back beyond the Norman Conquest and beyond King Alfred into the shadowy regions of teutonic antiquity".
I would not seek to question such a profound historic judgment. But dare I say even in this House that antiquity is not necessarily a justification for continued support?
The noble Lord the Leader of the House has a proud and rightly honoured name. His family has given service to the nation not merely for generations but for centuries. It is right that we should acknowledge that, and I do so willingly and freely.
But at the end of the 20th century the accident of birth on its own cannot justify a legislative seat. And the fact that one particular family, however distinguished, may, over the generations, have produced men of consequence—men of consequence, my Lords, for the lineage has been irredeemably male—does not and cannot justify the existing system. If there are people of exceptional ability, they will no doubt prosper by their own efforts. After all, the rest of us have to try to do that.

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So I do not denigrate the history or the past work of the hereditary peerage. It has had its place. It is part of the rich and continuous history of the United Kingdom. What I do say, however, is that its time is now past.
What can one say of this House as it is at present constituted? There are some very strange, even bizarre, somewhat rosy views. I came across a speech given in 1982 by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, to a conference of European speakers. Dealing with his then fiefdom, he said:
"I have no disciplinary powers at all over my fellow peers: aware of my wolf-like character, they prefer to enforce their rules of order and conduct on one another rather than to submit themselves to my authority. Thus they dwell in a sort of Arcadia, a kind of Quaker meeting in which they speak as the spirit moves them. The result is peculiar".
I would certainly agree with that.
"Instead of producing chaos, our Arcadia is almost perfect order. We treat each other with respect. There is no tumult. There is a complete absence of insult, fisticuffs, and duels. Because there is no one to enforce the law, no gavel or bell to ensure compliance with it, no one dares to disobey it. The House of Lords is the complete denial of the doctrine of original sin".
I am not sure whether I agree with quite such an idealised view of this House. But, speaking for myself, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the absolution contained in the final sentence.
Last week the Prime Minister made a speech, too, in which he meditated aloud about the nature of your Lordships' House. He said:
"If you actually look at what the House of Lords does in its Parliamentary role, it is hard to cast it convincingly as the villain. Has the House of Lords been overstepping the mark with the House of Commons? Of course not. Has it been showing bias over the years, dispensing favour to one political party in Government and refusing it to another?"
Asking the question of himself, he replies:
"Not at all".
One would hardly expect him, or the Leader of the House, to say otherwise. He continued:
"So what precisely is broken, that needs to be fixed? I find no convincing answers to these questions. To people who say that a House of Lords with a strong hereditary element is an anomaly, I say that it works".
A little later he said:
"I don't make an apology for defending what works",
and, with a boldness perhaps uncharacteristic of him recently:
"I'm a Conservative and I reject change for change's sake. That doesn't mean I avoid change when it is needed".
That is the Prime Minister's view of your Lordships' House. He says that all seems to be well and that it works. He wishes to defend the House of Lords and keep it as it is. He is against any proposal to do anything about it.
Whatever else this place is it is not democratic. None of us has been elected. There are at least 372 of us who are here because of what we are supposed to have done, and not because of what an ancestor of ours is supposed to have done or did.
The noble Viscount who opened the debate gave us no figures of any kind, so let us look at the composition of this House. At the end of the 1994–95 Session there were
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1190 eligible Members of the House of Lords. This total includes 755 Peers by succession, 15 hereditary Peers of first creation, 372 life Peers, 24 Lords Spiritual, 24 Law Lords, and of that 1190 only 79 were women. Therefore, 770 Members of your Lordships' House are hereditary Peers.
I ask myself the next question: what is the party affiliation of those Peers? There are 476 who take the Conservative Whip, 109 take the Whip of my party, 52 take the Whip of the Liberal Democrats, and there are 289 Cross-Benchers, 23 Bishops and 88 others.
This House is not only not democratic, it is also overwhelmingly Conservative. Few who approach this problem objectively and dispassionately would dispute that. I shall take three examples which I put before your Lordships' House to illustrate the effect of this imbalance.
In the 1988–89 Session, under a Conservative Government, there were 172 government victories and 12 defeats. If the votes of hereditary Peers had been excluded, and all the other votes had remained the same, there would have been 21 victories for the Government, 159 defeats and a draw on four occasions. In other words, the votes of the hereditary Peers guaranteed 172 victories, and if they had not been present there would have been 159 defeats. In the 15½ years between 1979 and 1995 under a Conservative Government, this House defeated the Government on an average of 10 to 12 times a year. For the five years from 1974 to 1979, under a Labour Government, the figure was not 10 or 12 times a year, but the average was between 70 and 80 times a year. In the vote last Monday on the Asylum and Immigration Bill, the Government won a crucial Division by 153 votes to 140. Without the votes of the hereditary Peers the figures would have been 66 to 108, and the result would have been different.
Let us get away from the idea that the votes of hereditary Peers in this House do not matter when it comes to legislation. They do matter and that can be proved by the figures. We have carried out a detailed analysis of the Division lists of this House and the pattern is the same. This situation repeats itself issue by issue, Session by Session, and year by year. Is it broke? As far as fairness is concerned, in this House it is in fragments.
We then have to ask ourselves the question: does this situation matter? The answer is clearly yes, if we are to take this House seriously. It is meant to be a legislative Chamber, not a club. I do not want to see the Upper House of the British Parliament, my Parliament, reduced to a quaint assembly, eccentric in a rather British way, good for the tourist trade and embodying along with warm beer, village cricket and ladies cycling home from church, the characteristics so beloved of the Prime Minister. The idea that into 21st century Britain should continue to be partly governed by legislators whose sole legitimacy is birth is frankly absurd.
What is the Government's position on this question? It is simple. They do not advocate change. They see no need for change. The Prime Minister's speech set out a very clear and unequivocal position: the Government will go into the next election defending the institution

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of the hereditary peerage. On this side of the House we are grateful for the clarity with which that has recently been expressed. The issue is not even one of gradual change, or evolving change; it is one of no change in relation to the composition of the House of Lords. Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that this is a view which we do not share.
There is no lack of precedent for attempting to do something about this situation. I remind the House that the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 stated:
"And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation".
After 85 years, and heaven knows how many years of Conservative Administration, it still has not been brought into operation. Various attempts have been made since that date. Indeed the noble Viscount's great grandfather in 1934 proposed that the hereditary peerage should be reduced, by election within the hereditary peerage, to 150, and that the House should consist only of 150 hereditary Peers and 150 Lords of Parliament from outside. I presume that the Government and the Prime Minister would oppose this too on the basis of no change.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham—I have not finished with him yet—in the speech from which I have already quoted went on to say:
"Ideally however, I would emphasise the need for a predominantly or complete elected assembly, elected from constituencies geographically different from those in the lower House, and by a method of voting also different to the voting system in operation for the lower House".
That was the then Conservative Lord Chancellor in 1982. Things do seem to have changed rather radically in the past 14 years. I quote also to the House some wise sentences written 20 years ago:
"we feel hound to observe that the House of Lords as now constituted reveals a certain remoteness from the prevailing ideas of our age about the conditions qualifying people to exercise political functions. The majority of the population may express approval of the House in general terms, but they would almost certainly react differently to more specific questions about its present composition and legitimacy. Without doubt few would seriously defend the hereditary principle as a basis for a seat in the legislature; and finally, for all its virtues the House of Lords maintains something of the style and atmosphere of a club for distinguished amateurs, people who intervene in politics occasionally when public duty calls. This reputation is at once endearing and yet a precarious basis for survival in a society facing such problems as beset us today. Thus on balance we feel that to leave the House of Lords unchanged would be to leave it with a composition which, should a political attack on it be mounted, would be virtually impossible to defend".
That was the report of the Conservative Review Committee on the House of Lords chaired by the late Lord Home and dated March 1978. He was quite right. Lord Home recommended a House two-thirds of which should be elected by PR and one-third of which should be nominated. I wonder what happened to those suggestions after 1979. I do not know, but I assume on the basis of what the Prime Minister said last week that he would oppose that too.
Where, then, do we go from here? The noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, and the group that he chaired, took the view—I read his report with great attention and detail—
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that of course the hereditary principle is indefensible and that the group would be quite prepared for that to go provided that a better alternative were proposed. That is not exactly a humble approach, if I may say so respectfully. It is rather like a condemned man saying to his executioner, "Of course I am guilty and of course the sentence is just, but you should carry it out only when I am satisfied that the world without me in it will be an improvement on the present state of affairs."
If the issue is put clearly to the country, as it will be, and if the country accepts it, as I believe it will, is there not perhaps just a tinge of aristocratic superiority in the assumption that he and his group know better than the people? That attitude seems to me to be a recipe for almost indefinite further delay, and I have to say to the House that we shall not accept it.
I agree with the Prime Minister that these are great constitutional issues. That is why the final resolution will take time, as it should. It is precisely for this reason that the Labour Party is proposing reform in two stages: the first is the removal of the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this House; the second is a major exercise in public consultation. We want to ensure that so far as possible the whole country should be involved in the consideration and determination of the precise nature and form that our second Chamber should finally take. That is our long-term aim. That is what we shall put to the country and advocate at the next election.
Let us not forget that from 1911 onwards everyone who has looked at the problem has agreed on one thing; and in 1968 this House by a very large majority agreed on it too: that the right to sit in Parliament by virtue of hereditary advantage has to go. It is time that that was grasped. The time has come to begin the process of bringing this Chamber up to date and that is exactly what we propose to do.
The Earl of Dudley: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down perhaps I may ask him why he believes that a vote won by a majority of life Peers in a House deprived of hereditary Peers would be any more democratic than a vote won by a majority in a House that includes hereditary Peers?
Lord Richard: I have a very basic view about that. If people are elected, on the whole that is a more democratic process than selection by birth.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal for an entertaining though thoroughly reactionary speech. But for the first time I find myself among those whom I believe he described as "hired guns". As a hired gun, which in this case I regard as a compliment, I want to turn shortly to the central question which I know your Lordships wish to debate today; namely, the future of this House. Before doing so, let me say a few words about what I take for granted about our constitution and our system of government; what it is and what it might become.

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First, the distribution of seats in any elected chamber should roughly reflect the division of political opinion in the country. Forty years ago—I take the convenient year of 1955, a year in which there was a General Election—it was possible to argue that it did so, when over 96 per cent. of voters chose either of the two largest parties. But, if it was acceptable then, it is certainly not acceptable today. Taking the last election in 1992, only a little over 76 per cent. of those who voted voted for the two main parties and many fewer would have done so had they not believed that otherwise theirs would be wasted votes. There is an overwhelming case for electoral reform, however much we argue about the most appropriate system. We should bear that in mind, whatever other matters we discuss today.
Secondly, I believe that the long dominance of a single party in Westminster or in local government is not a formula for good government or public faith in our institutions. One noble Lord in yesterday's debate referred to "monolithic, selfish superiority". That is so often the characteristic of any party which becomes so used to power that it becomes indifferent to its wider responsibilities.
Thirdly, there is today an excessive attachment to party, which is inappropriate to the need to find lasting solutions to our economic, social and political problems. It is within the capacity of Parliament to change that if we choose to be less adversarial in our procedures and the government of the day set the tone. On a day-to-day level, there could be fewer whipped votes in either House. There could be a greater willingness of governments to lose with grace and of oppositions to claim that not every vote is a vote of confidence. There could be a larger role for pre-legislative committees, even on controversial Bills. There could be recognition that some matters, apart from matters of conscience, are not party matters at all. Those are all issues which are within the competence of Parliament. Were there to be a change of government after the next election, a new government could set a new tone which could be much less adversarial than we have known in recent years.
I illustrate that point with one matter that is currently before your Lordships' House. Noble Lords will remember that on 8th March the House voted overwhelmingly by 124 votes to 64 votes against the privatisation of the Recruitment and Assessment Services Agency. Subsequently, the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal enabled the House to set up a Select Committee on the matter. But on Tuesday of this week, when the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine, gave evidence before that committee and was asked how that committee's views would be taken account of and whether the Government had in mind to modify their view on privatisation, he said, "We intend to proceed".
That is the kind of contempt of Parliament which is a very serious matter and an illustration of the adversarial nature of so much that we do. The Civil Service is not the property of this Government or of any government; it is the property of all governments, of Parliament and of our very constitution. How much better it would have been had the Government decided to seek agreement across all parties after, say, a proper examination by a Select Committee of both Houses. As I said, that is
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within the competence of government and Parliament to determine. It requires no major constitutional change. It does not require us to upset the stability to which the noble Viscount attaches great importance. It is something which we could do but have not done and which this Government in particular have not led us into.
We have indeed very little on which to congratulate ourselves in the way that Parliament has conducted its affairs in recent years. Reference was made earlier to Bills which were so poorly drafted when brought to your Lordships' Chamber as to suggest that the legislative process was itself deficient. It is not only a matter of Bills brought to this House from another place when the other place may not have given them proper treatment. It applied to the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Bill which was brought direct to this House by Her Majesty's Government in a totally inadequate form for proper discussion and decision.
As for the establishment of executive agencies, there are now 110 of them, employing nearly 300,000 civil servants. Far too little thought has been given to the consequences for accountability and the division of responsibility between Ministers and the agencies in proceeding in that way.
In this House on several occasions we discussed the Prison Service and, for example, the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Mr. Derek Lewis. At every stage, your Lordships on all sides of the House recognised that the present arrangements are too uncertain. They remove accountability and raise a great question about when Ministers can be responsible for policy and at the same time allow officials to be responsible for its execution in the new agencies.
It is sometimes said that the development of Select Committees, particularly in another place, is an exception to the gloomy record. They have certainly worked tolerably well in your Lordships' House. I pay tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, and the noble Lord, St. John of Fawsley, who respectively in 1971 and 10 years later gave them a significant role in another place. But in another place they are often more theatre than substance. The reports are rarely debated on the Floor of the House. For the most part, governments take little notice of their conclusions and too often—this is a very important point—the committees are divided along party lines. So I hope that in any forthcoming debate or in changes that may occur, it is not assumed that the development of Select Committees represents a parallel authority to that of the Chamber and provides an adequate check on the executive and effective parliamentary scrutiny. Whatever their merits, they do not go that far.
I deal next with the reform of your Lordships' House. Whatever may be said in this debate—and despite the entertaining debating speech of the Lord Privy Seal—I do not believe that the present composition of this Chamber can be justified. We would not seek to create it in this way if it did not exist. Reform of the Lords is right and, were there to be a change of government, I hope that it would prove inevitable.

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But there are two hard facts that all reformers—I include myself—must face. The first is that in the short term there is no easy formula by which to create an elected second chamber. We do not have a federal system of government in this country. Whatever the merits of such a system—there is much in the idea—we could hardly create one simply to enable us to have a second chamber elected on a different basis. I would not like to have a kind of bisexual second chamber which was part elected and part appointed. I believe that if there is to be a short-term reform of this place, it must remain a quango of a kind, little as we may like that description.
Secondly, I am in agreement with the Lord Privy Seal and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that, even with reform, your Lordships' House will not be able to take back powers that it has lost to the House of Commons because the latter will not surrender them. Whatever the government of the day may say, the outcome in effect will be a free vote in another place, with no majority for a transfer of power back to your Lordships' Chamber.
I believe that for any future government concerned to reform your Lordships' House the right way to proceed is to announce in the Queen's Speech the principles that they intend to embody in legislation for reform and then allow your Lordships' House, perhaps within a period of three months, to come up with cross-party proposals for implementation through legislation. I do not believe that a Select Committee would be the right way to proceed. A much larger measure of consent would be achieved, and it would be a departure from the adversarial approach to these matters, if the government of the day, having first made up their minds about the principles—one might argue about them or vote upon them but it would be for the government to make their own decision—then allowed this House to reflect upon what best should be done.
As for the principles—noble Lords will have their own views on how to proceed—I believe that, first, there should be a new class of parliamentary Peers, making up a House of perhaps between 450 to 500 Members. All hereditary Members would be eligible to become parliamentary Peers. Secondly, there should be space for Cross-Bench parliamentary Peers roughly in the proportion of active Cross-Bench Peers today, making up perhaps 20 per cent. or a quarter of the new House. I believe that those two essential principles ought to be part of any change.
As to the hitherto unanswered question of political balance and the method of selecting parliamentary Peers, I make the following suggestions for consideration by your Lordships. First, in each Parliament the political allegiance of parliamentary Peers should broadly reflect the proportion of votes cast for each party. In this way, there would be a degree of political legitimacy in the composition of the House because it would be a fair reflection of opinion in the country. However, there would be no challenge of the kind which both sides of the House are anxious to avoid.
Secondly, I believe it is unacceptable that the choice of parliamentary Peers, including parliamentary Peers of other parties, should ultimately be the choice of the
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Prime Minister of the day. It would be far better to establish an independent commission on representation which would, first, decide the balance of the House in the light of the principles embodied in legislation; secondly, receive nominations from party leaders, which would be accepted subject to appropriate scrutiny; and, thirdly, make nominations for Cross-Bench Peers on the basis of openly declared principles which would broadly embody current practice. Since the public are invited to express their views about honours, I see no reason why they should not be invited to express their views about the composition of your Lordships' House. I hope that none of your Lordships rejects such a formula, although I note that noble Lords on both Cross Benches have been shaking their heads in disapproval. Within that framework I believe that there could be room for the Lords Spiritual. I would hope that the Law Lords would remain as well.
I agree with a comment made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft. He was wise to warn the House that constitutional reform was the greatest absorbent of parliamentary time known to man. In that context, constitutional change in the next Parliament must not displace urgent steps to deal with unemployment, poverty, housing, education and health. Nevertheless, it is a central and urgent issue from which much good could flow.
4.36 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, I begin with an apology. I may not be able to stay until the end of the debate. I have to be back in Chichester tonight for an engagement early tomorrow morning. Noble Lords will expect me to speak about the position of the bishops in this House of which they have been an integral part since its origins as the King's Council. I am sure that many bishops who are or have been Members of this House—and a substantial number of other Church members—will affirm the importance of a second House as a valuable chamber of deliberation and revision in our constitution. I hope that its Members will continue to be chosen largely for their personal contributions to the varied aspects of the life of the nation and that a number of bishops will always be found to fall into that category.
We and other representatives of the Church of England have for long welcomed the appointment to this House of prominent members of other Churches and faiths. There are some practical difficulties. For example, most leaders of the Free Churches are elected for one year only. I am sure, however, that those difficulties can be overcome.
The position of the bishops in this House raises the question of the establishment of the Church of England. It is not easy to define simply of what that consists, or what disestablishment would involve. In principle, establishment means that the state looks to a particular Church to act for it in religious matters and on religious occasions. But the terms on which a Church is established vary a great deal in different countries. One has only to look north of the Border to see a Church that is established on very different terms from those which establish the Church of England.

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The English establishment has developed over many centuries; no one Act has brought it about. In recent years it has been modified by the passing of the Worship and Doctrine Measure, which gives the Church greater flexibility in the control of worship, and the setting up of the Crown Appointments Commission, following an agreement with the leaders of the three political parties during the premiership of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan. It could continue to be modified in various other ways. The presence of the bishops in this House is not a necessary part of the establishment. But the removal of the bishops from the House would certainly be seen by many as a step towards the dissociation of the state from its present recognition of the Christian religion. Many temporal Peers have expressed the view that this House might be the poorer without the distinctive experience, moral and spiritual contribution of the bishops however far that contribution may fall short of what we ourselves would wish it to be.
The bishops are the top of a pyramid of service of which the bottom is the parish. The parish clergy have responsibilities to all who live in their parish and all parishioners have certain legal rights in relation to the parish church. That is an expression of the commitment of the Church of England to the people of England as a whole and the presence of the bishops here is a sign of it.
We welcome our role in this House and would not welcome its substantial reduction or removal. But if the size of the membership of the House as a whole were to be reduced, we would expect to take our share. I repeat that we are not exclusive; we would welcome a more broadly representative spread of spiritual Peers through the creation of appropriate life Peers and indeed of more Peers from other faiths.
During the 17 years I have been a Member of this House I have valued especially two things about it. The first is the breadth of knowledge and experience represented here. I know of no other institution in which, whatever subject may arise, there will be one or more persons who can speak with knowledge and authority. The second is the atmosphere of mutual respect, good temper and friendship which prevails despite the rare occasions on which the style of the other place begins to intrude. Although there are obviously many differences of belief in the House, I believe that there is basically a truly Christian atmosphere here. I hope that whatever changes may take place, that will not be lost. In the way in which it behaves the House sets an example of right conduct to the nation; of proper relationships and behaviour to one another. That is an example which is never more needed than at the present time. I would regret any changes that made a profound alteration to that.
4.43 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal very much not only for his most interesting and important speech this afternoon, but for giving us two days to debate these constitutional issues.
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It is almost 25 years to the day since I made my maiden speech in your Lordships' House. On that occasion a constitutional issue was for debate; namely, the principle of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community, which I supported. Today we are in the midst of another constitutional debate. Its importance is that, when all the debating points have been aired, should the proposed constitutional changes take place they will to a very large extent be irreversible. We can no more renege on our international treaty obligations freely entered into than chop and change about the constitution. The issues are not those of nationalisation or privatisation; armament or disarmament; high or low taxes; selective or non-selective education. They affect the balance of our constitution and the relationship of this House with the House of Commons. Any proposed reform must satisfy the test that it will be an improvement on what we have at the present time.
As the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, said in his report, the House of Lords represents several hundred years of development. Indeed, the same might he said of the House of Commons. I was interested in the remarks of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal on what further constitutional developments are proposed for that House. In our House we have seen continuous developments. When I look back on the 25 years I have been in this House, I see, first, the enormous increase in the number of women Peers and the enormous increase in the number of life Peers, so that the balance between hereditary Peers and life Peers has altered. There has been a great increase in the number of Cross-Benchers. There has been the development of the Select Committees, arising out of our membership of the European Union, whose reports are now widely read outside your Lordships' House and, I believe, are widely respected.
We have the expertise of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, based very largely on the extensive experience of a number of your Lordships. Those of us who regularly take part in legislative debates—I believe that this must be true of Members in all parts of your Lordships' House—have noticed a growing interest and, dare I say it, respect from professional organisations of one sort or another which seek to amend legislation. Outsiders recognise that it is frequently in the House of Lords that changes can be made. The House as a revising Chamber is effective.
Perhaps I may give three illustrations. I believe it to be true that we would not have achieved split pensions on divorce but for the House of Lords. In the great educational debates the issue of academic freedom was upheld by the House of Lords; and there are many in the university world who share that opinion.
If the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and his colleagues really believe that Conservative Governments think that the House of Lords is a push-over, let me tell them of my experience in achieving the largest ever defeat for the Government when I was in the Department of Education and Science. The issue before the House was to give a power, not a duty, to local authorities—which is something that I am sure New Labour would support—to allow them, if they so wished, to charge for

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school transport. When the matter came to your Lordships' House, it was defeated by an unexpected combination of the Roman Catholic Church and the National Farmers Union. What academic would ever assume that that could happen? When I come to write my memoirs I shall go into it in some detail.
Perhaps on a more serious note, what Chamber in the world would have a debate such as we are to have tomorrow, introduced by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on morality? No one has suggested so far in the course of this debate that these functions—revising legislation, the work of expert committees and the judicial function of the House as the supreme court of the United Kingdom—should in any way be changed.
I listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, but I do not entirely follow his argument. He said that the criticism of the House of Lords is that it is not democratic and that therefore the hereditary Peers should go. He and I share the distinction—if that is the word to use—of both being life Peers, but are we democratic? The short answer is no, we are not. If we want a democratic House we should have an all-elected Chamber. That is the logical consequence. We should have either an all-elected Chamber or we should be abolished. That is the logic of the argument. It has been suggested that it should be an all-nominated Chamber, which is very strange, particularly in the light of the remark made by his noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg in yesterday's debate. He said at col. 1461 of Hansard,
"Quangos are a travesty of democracy".
Perhaps that is his considered opinion.
But let us consider a nominated Chamber. It would give unbelievable powers to political parties. For the first time in this country we shall have a party list system, and what a lot of competition there will be to get on that. Anybody who has been in politics knows the difficulties. I believe that I quote the noble Lord, Lord Richard, correctly. He said that once we have an all-nominated Chamber, we should then have a major exercise of public consultation. But I am afraid that I do not understand on what precisely we would be consulting. Would we be consulting on having an elected Chamber; would we be consulting on ending the House of Lords; or would we be consulting on a mixture of all sorts of things? I do not think that that is quite good enough to put before the public.
There have been a great many suggestions about reforms of the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to the working party under the late Lord Home. I must say at once that I was a member of it. I have looked carefully at the question of reforming your Lordships' House. Indeed, when I was Leader of your Lordships' House I made a number of suggestions which I put to the Cabinet, but I came to the conclusion—this is a serious point—that a major reform of the House of Lords would not be possible and would not work. If it strengthened the House of Lords, it would inevitably weaken the House of Commons—and that would not be acceptable in another place. I do not
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believe that it would be acceptable irrespective of whether the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservative Party formed the majority. And if such a reform weakened the House of Lords, what purpose would it serve?
In fact, if one looks at the history of reforms of the House of Lords since 1945, one sees that they were all regarded as relatively small reforms. I refer to the reform of 1949 which shortened the time for delay and to the reform of life peerages, which at the time was introduced as a small reform but which has had a profound effect on the House. That reform has been very effective. Of course, a great many other reforms could be considered and if the time were available today, I would make a number of suggestions. However, from my own experience I suggest that real consideration should be given to both Houses of Parliament having the opportunity to meet together on certain occasions. I have never forgotten the special summoning of both Houses of Parliament on a Saturday at the outbreak of the conflict over the Falklands. There was no possibility of us discussing things together and it was very difficult for my noble friend Lord Carrington, who was then the Foreign Secretary, to make his position clear to another place.
We do things in a rather curious way in this country. I believe that there are many small reforms worth considering which would make this House still more effective than it is. Will a nominated Chamber perform better? I do not believe that it would; nor do I think that it would have the effect which has been suggested. Anybody who has been a government Minister knows that once people are Members of your Lordships' House, they are very unreliable. If it is any consolation, the figures that have been given about defeats and other votes do not take account of the many instances when settlements are made outside the House and when amendments are agreed to because the Government have accepted the point and because they have listened. It is quite wrong to suggest that the Government do not listen.
I was interested to see a number of criticisms of nominated Chambers in the report from the Constitution Unit, including of the Canadian Senate, which, after all, is an example of a nominated Chamber. I shall not go into all of that this afternoon, but before we change anything it is necessary to consider all the arguments.
No one who has been a Member of your Lordships' House can possibly believe that it is somehow perfect. Like any human institution, it is not. However, I believe that it works well and gives an opportunity for revision and consideration. It allows one to hear experts in a Chamber the like of which one would not find anywhere else. It is perfectly true that if we were starting all over again we would not make a House of Lords; but if we were starting all over again, would we have a Commonwealth—that too is a rather curious institution—or a great many other British institutions which I could name but shall not? I have seen some constitutional changes in the past 25 years and I cannot say that I think that they have all been

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for the best. Before we attempt any more, we should carefully consider what the end result may be and whether it will be better than what we have now.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I am sure that the Leader of the House will confirm that tomorrow's business could well be lost if we do not complete today's debate by 11 o'clock this evening and I shall therefore deny myself the joy of speaking to the amusing and highly provocative speech that he delivered. It had very much the hallmarks of the press conference on Wednesday, but I presume that that is why we have had two days for debate, Wednesday and today.
I should like to explain to the House. my experiences as Government Chief Whip in 1964 and as Leader of the House in 1974. They were periods of very great anxiety. I felt anxiety about the burdens that I could place upon the Back Benchers in my own party who were small in number and, in many cases, quite elderly; yet a quorum was necessary if the House was to complete its business. Equally, I was frustrated because I was highly conscious that I had survived in both capacities by grace and favour. It was only with the agreement and the consent of the Conservative Party that I could get agreement to any business procedures. Those circumstances still dwell with me.
I freely acknowledge the co-operation and agreement that I enjoyed with the then Leader of the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and particularly with the late Lord St. Aldwyn, because, once made, promises of consent and agreement were fulfilled impeccably. However, there was always the potential threat that some Members of the House might not follow the advice or the leadership of the Conservative Party.
As a consequence of that, in 1968 we had informal discussions about the possible reform of our composition. We began on the basis of an agreed statement by the three major political parties in 1948. I shall read it to your Lordships because it shows that the question of hereditary Peers and their place in the constitution is not new today; it has been around for a long time. Those who took part in the conference stated:
"The revised constitution of the House … should be such as to secure as far as practicable that a permanent majority is not assured for any one political party".
If we retain the present situation that will continue. The statement added:
"The present right to attend and vote based solely on heredity should not by itself constitute a qualification for admission to a reformed second chamber".
That is 1948 agreed policy—an agreed statement by the three political parties.
In 1968 we had informal discussions among the party leaders here and made sufficient progress to be able to inform Dick Crossman, then Leader of the House of Commons, of what we had achieved. As a consequence we were able to have a more formal all-party discussion and a White Paper was issued in 1968. It was agreed that there would be a House of about 250 voting Peers. Hereditary Peers within the House could attend, could speak and could even move amendments; the one thing
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they would not have was the right to vote. Those having the right to vote would be agreed on the basis of nominations by the respective parties. The fundamental thing was this: the government of the day—not the Conservative Party or the Labour Party—should have a bare majority over the other two political parties, and all three parties, if necessary, would have to fight for the Cross-Bench vote. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the wonderful defeats she achieved. But she knows that that would not have happened without the votes of some dissidents and a large number of Cross-Benchers who had been influenced by the argument. We have to take that into account.
We reached that agreement and it was brought to the House. It produced one of the largest majorities that this House had ever seen up to that moment; it was supported in the Division Lobby by the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Labour Party and the Cross-Benchers. There were some dissidents but the leadership of the Conservative Party was in support.
The year 1968 is a long time ago. I have to say to my noble friend that, in the practicalities, I still support those proposals. They suggest ways whereby one can overcome some of the potential constitutional difficulties. However, times have changed. The pressures within our composition have altered quite dramatically. In 1968 the number of Members of this House was 1,062, of whom 373 never showed any interest in attending. Approximately 291 failed to get expenses because they did not fulfil the 33 per cent. requirement. In those days, the Conservative Party had 351 Members. Today it has 477, an increase of 126. The Labour Party had 116; today it has 114, a fall of two. The Liberals—the Liberal Democrats, as I must now call them—had a membership of 41. The number is now 55, an increase of 14. Therefore, the disparity between the parties has increased and, I suspect, is still increasing, despite what the parties agreed to in 1948.
A reason will no doubt be supplied as to why that has happened. But we have to envisage—do we not?—that if there is a Labour Government next Session, our composition in the very early days will be broadly what it is today. The Conservative Party will be in a position to dominate, whatever the government of the day, elected by the people, may have decided in respect of our proceedings.
I now feel, regrettably, that the hereditary right to attend and speak is perhaps no longer tenable. I recognise, as all of us do, the major contribution that certain hereditary Members make. This House would indeed be poorer as a consequence of their loss. But that does not necessarily cover the entirety of the hereditary membership. The matter could well be resolved by the abolition of the hereditary principle from this House while retaining, through the Life Peerage Act and by agreement among the parties, those hereditary Peers of value whose presence would be missed in this place.
I accept that there is one slight difficulty to be overcome. That difficulty exists not so much within the parties—it is the parties, in a sense, who would be nominating their life Peers—but in the element from the Cross-Benchers. Their role is of great importance. We

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shall have to devise ways and means by which the Cross-Bench element could make its contribution. I do not believe that that could not be achieved.
To revert to what was agreed in 1968, I suggest that this House would be richer, would have more influence and would be more respected if its composition were to be as I described earlier, with the government of the day having to fight for votes and unable to depend upon its bare majority over the two organised political parties. I believe that would be right. We need to agree on the number of Members of the House, but, again, that can be done through all-party discussions. Those proposals, until such time as we get a full reform—perhaps at present a bridge too far in terms of an elected second Chamber—would, I believe, achieve what is our objective; namely, greater respect from the Commons, greater understanding by the Commons of what we do and, perhaps, greater credibility among the general public. Above all, I believe that we could perform the role of a revising Chamber and, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the House said, perform a greater service in the fields both of scrutiny and of being complementary to the House of Commons.
Lord Elton: Can the noble Lord clarify what he would do about securing an element from the hereditary peerage when the first batch of hereditaries who had been made life Peers had to be replaced?
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I suggest that until there is a major reform, that would be a matter for consultation between the party leaders here.
5.9 p.m.
Lord Weatherill: My Lords, when I succeeded to the speakership from the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, the very first thing I did was to send for the biographies of all my predecessors in the expectation that what had happened to them might well happen to me. One of them was Mr. Speaker Brand. His portrait is in the Dining Room and some of your Lordships may have seen it. In the coercion Bill in the 1880s, when the House was in absolute uproar—and I should say to your Lordships that the behaviour in those days was infinitely worse than it is today—he just had time to lean forward and whisper to his learned Clerk: "What do I do next?" The learned Clerk gave him some very wise advice, which was: "Sir, I should be very cautious". It is in that spirit that I approach this debate.
In my 28 years in the other place, I was for 12 years in the Whips Office—for six of them, the Deputy Chief Whip. I had a great deal to do with the usual channels. They are one of the most precious of our parliamentary traditions, because without them the place would grind to a halt. I believe in consensus. For four years I was Chairman of Ways and Means and had a great deal to do with Private Bills; and for 10 years I was the Speaker. In all those years I saw a great many "reforms". Every one of them cured one problem and created others, frequently worse. I came to call that the law of unintended consequences.
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In view of the constraints on time, I shall not go into too many examples. I shall mention just two: first, the so-called "St. John-Stevas reforms"—the setting up of the departmental committees. In themselves they were undoubtedly good. I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, had to say yesterday about the importance of the Chairmen of the Select Committees. The role of chairman should be an important one.
What was the unintended consequence of those reforms? They absolutely emptied the Chamber. Members would come to me in the Chair inquiring when I was going to call them. What it came down to was: do they give precedence to their Select Committee or a debate in the Chamber? The average Member of Parliament will be called four times a year to speak in a major debate. They have no choice. Of course they should go to their Select Committees, put questions to the witnesses and be televised doing so. So there is no wonder that the Chamber these days is empty. It is an embarrassment when we turn on the television to find so few Members there.
Then there are the so-called "Jopling reforms". They have undoubtedly made life much more tolerable for Members of the other place, but the unintended consequence of that has been to add to our workload in this House through the number of Bills with which we have to deal and the increasingly late hours that we have to sit. We sit frequently up to midnight, and regularly now on Fridays.
When John Adams arrived in London as the first American ambassador to the Court of St. James, he went to the other place to hear Dunning move his famous Motion:
"That the influence of the Crown has increased—is increasing and ought to be diminished".
That is the Motion that we should debate in terms of the role and structure of Parliament.
During my time in Parliament there has been a steady—I would even say dangerous—concentration of power in Whitehall. The powers of local government have been virtually neutered. How can local government really be called "local" when about 82 per cent. of its finance is controlled by Whitehall? The payroll vote in the other place has become, in my judgment, almost a scandal. When I first entered the other place—the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and I were talking about this earlier today—only very senior Ministers had PPSs; today very, very junior Ministers have PPSs. The payroll is used to secure a majority in the Division Lobbies.
So there is no wonder that with the neutering of local government, Members of Parliament have virtually become welfare officers. They all have surgeries. I had a surgery. I began increasingly to wonder whether it was the job of a Member of Parliament to deal with those matters. I well remember when I sought to explain to one of my constituents who wanted a council house that I was not a councillor, he said that he knew that I was not. I said, "If it were called parliamentary housing, I would be able to help you. But actually it is called council housing, and in the next room there is a councillor and if you go to see her, I am sure that she

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will do what she can to help you". He looked at me as if I were absolutely mad and said, "Look here, mate, you are paid to do it". I am afraid that we are.
There is no country in the world where people are more personally represented than by the dedicated Members of Parliament in the other place. They sit in their offices dealing with all these problems which are not really their responsibility. I checked again with the Postmaster about the post coming in here. When I arrived in 1964, there were about 7,000 letters in and out a week. Today he confirmed that 40,000 letters come every day into the parliamentary building, and 20,000 letters go out. Is it small wonder now that with the feed from the Chamber into offices that Members of Parliament will sit there getting on with their constituency workload?
So the first reform that I should like to see is the repatriation of powers back to local authorities. That would, to a large extent, free Members of Parliament to get on with their proper job, which is to hold the Government to account. It was, I think, Mr. Gladstone who said to his own supporters:
"It is not your job to run the country. It is your duty to hold to account those who do".
In carrying out those responsibilities, I should like to see much more detailed scrutiny of legislation. We have already had mentioned the pre-legislation committees—the use of the Special Standing Committee procedure (half Select Committee and half Standing Committee)—and they would achieve better legislation.
I again did a check today. Since 1979 we have had 21 local government Acts, 16 education Acts, and one recent example from your Lordships' House: during Committee stage of the Reserve Forces Bill, the Government withdrew six clauses, replaced them with three more, and then added three further clauses. Such a row then ensued that the Bill was recommitted in its entirety. That is a terrible, terrible waste of time.
What I am trying to say in respect of reform of this place is that I think that the reform of the whole parliamentary system needs to be looked at, not least the European directives. I lost count of the number of times that Members would come to me when I was in the Chair saying, "What is the point of discussing this at this time of night? It has already been decided in Brussels. We cannot influence it in any way". I am afraid that that is the truth. In a world in which we are part of Europe, we must take account of that.
I should like to see the Chamber once again become, as it traditionally was, the forum of the nation. I should like to see the tradition that ministerial Statements are made to Members of Parliament and not to that nice Mr. Naughtie on his "Today" programme. I do not think that the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, will ever forgive me for insisting that she come to the Chamber one day and repeat a Statement that I had heard on the "News" earlier in the day. The proper place to make Statements is to Parliament and not to the unelected press.
Then there is the parliamentary year. If, as it seems, Members of Parliament are to be properly paid they should be properly paid in my judgment and become
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full-time MPs. There is not much case for having a summer holiday of two and a half months. Parliament could well reconvene, say, at the beginning of September and spread the workload.
I have not had time to mention the reform of your Lordships' House. I shall leave that to others who know very much more about it than I do. But I confess that I am a convert to this place, and converts are always stronger in their faith.
I believe that the hereditary principle is difficult to defend. Nevertheless, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, reminded us, it works very well and very cheaply too. For the benefit of those who may read the debate in Hansard, it is worth repeating the figures. They were elucidated from the Government by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. Every MEP costs this country £919,000 per member; every Member of the other place, £261,000; and every active Peer in the House of Lords, £38,000. That is very cheap. Under the reforms about which we are hearing, will it be more expensive and will it be better done?
A fortnight ago the Cross-Bench Peers invited Mr. Robert Hazell and Miss Nicole Smith of the Constitution Unit to speak to us about the reform of your Lordships' House. I will not go into that in detail, other than to say that I wholly agree with their analysis that before dealing with the composition of this House it will be necessary to decide whether its membership should constitute a job or an honour. Unless that issue is addressed, the law of unintended consequences will come into operation in a major way in terms of powers, costs and accommodation.
I am in favour of parliamentary reform and I am in favour of changes in this House too. Above all, I am in favour of freeing Members of the other place to carry out their proper responsibility, their historic role, in holding the Government to account. I believe that membership of your Lordships' should be an honour and not a job. My perception is that because we are able to go into the real world we are rather more in touch than would be the case with so-called full-time politicians.
I hope that in approaching these matters we shall be able to do so by consensus. I agree with the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal on the question of a Select Committee. I know no one who did not disagree that the old rating system had virtually had it. Instead of imposing the poll tax, which cost thousands of millions of pounds in the end, how sensible it would have been to have sent the problem to a Select Committee. We had all the information and it could have designed a fair local taxation system and put it to Parliament. I believe that that would have been the right way to proceed and I believe that it is the right way to proceed in dealing with the reform of the House of Lords. I very much hope that it will be done in the true spirit of the usual channels by consensus and not imposed upon us.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I believe that the motivation behind the proposals of noble Lords opposite is that they have genuine fears as to how the present House would behave when there is next a Labour

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Government. That was apparent in the speech of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. That is perhaps understandable, because after 17 years no member of their Front Bench has had practical experience of it. But I also believe that such fears are unjustified.
One of the principal obligations for an Opposition in this House is to enable the Government to get their programme through. That in my time has always been adhered to, even on the occasion when five major Bills were brought up from another place after the Spring Bank Holiday Recess. That, incidentally, resulted in a Select Committee of the House imposing minimum intervals between stages of Bills so that your Lordships should never be put under such pressure again. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that a Conservative Government Chief Whip in this House must also rely on the good will of his opposite number to get his business through.
Also in opposition we gave considerable thought as to just how many government defeats in this House the market could properly bear, in view of the relative compositions of the two Houses. In fact, while a Conservative Government usually suffer between 15 and 25 defeats a year, a Labour Government might have two or three times that number. But a significantly higher proportion of those are reversed in another place and the net result on the Act as it appears in the statute book is about the same. And, in any case, it is not amendments won by a vote in the Division Lobby that are important; it is the many times that number that are won by argument on the Floor of the House. And the two are linked. Ministers and civil servants alike have lived with their Bill for years before it gets here and are reluctant to see a single word of it altered. Without the threat of a Division in the background, far fewer amendments would be accepted from the Dispatch Box and the Government's legislation would undoubtedly be the poorer for it.
There is one other factor that noble Lords opposite have not perhaps taken into account and that is the role of the Cross-Benchers. It is my experience that when they are undecided over any particular issue they are inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the government of the day and that not even a Conservative Opposition can rely on their support to defeat them.
While I would defend the existing House and the way in which it carries out the role that has evolved for it to the utmost, I would not stand blindly against any reform. If, for example—and here I differ slightly with my noble friend the Leader of the House—another place were prepared to accept an all-elected second Chamber, I would not feel able to oppose it, and it is my belief that, provided it were given adequate functions and powers to carry them out, your Lordships would pass it, perhaps without a Division.
But what I cannot accept is the proposal for a two-phase reform. To pass the first phase, eliminating the hereditary element from your Lordships' House, and only then to set up some form of inquiry as to what the second phase should be, would be to deprive that inquiry of one of the options available; that of retaining the status quo. I am not naïve enough to think that a Royal
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Commission or a Speaker's Conference would find the present House so perfect that they would call for no change in it whatever. But what they might well do is to make a recommendation, or possibly alternative recommendations, for reform, adding the rider that if Parliament were not prepared to accept that, or one of those, it would do better to leave things as they are.
Two questions need to be answered about the two-phase plan. The first is, if we pass the first phase, will we ever get the substantive reform that is promised for the second? It is not the abolition of hereditary Peers that has been holding up the reform of the House for 85 years. That was implicit in the 1911 Parliament Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said. It is what to put in their place. Why then should the absence of hereditary Peers bring us any nearer to solving the main problem now?
The second is rather more important. Just how effective will the interim caretaker House be in the meantime, for however long that may, in the event, turn out to be? Since 1958 Life Peers have been selected for three reasons: for their general quality; for a particular expertise that fills a gap in the corporate knowledge of the House as a whole or of the party they belong to; and not least because their circumstances are such as to enable them to attend a part-time, unpaid House. How then can they be expected to become the sole ingredient of the full-time professional House that the semi-reformed Chamber will inevitably be?
What about the relative numbers between the various parties and the Cross-Benchers in the interim House? Will they be frozen for all time at whatever figures happen to exist at the moment the hereditary element is removed; or will they be added to in some way? If so, who is to decide the appropriate balance between the various sections of the House? The Prime Minister of the day? What if he gets it wrong and finds himself being defeated even more often than he would have been in the existing House? Would he feel free to adjust those numbers with yet more creations; or, if it goes the other way and he gets no defeats at all, would he adjust the numbers then?
The relative numbers do not matter so much in the existing House because they are so far apart anyway that the House has adapted to them with irregular attendance and cross-party voting. It always amazed me since I first became a Whip that, although the total attendance, as well as the personnel involved, vary according to the day of the week and the importance of the business, the mix between each of the political parties and those of no party remains broadly the same. But the closer the numbers between the Government and their Opposition are, the more party political the House will become and, for it to be effective as a revising Chamber, the more scrupulously fair will the balance have to be.
And what about those life Peers who for reasons of age or infirmity, or because their outside duties—which will often have been the reason for their selection in the first place—keep them elsewhere, are able to attend only at rare intervals? How will they fit into the equation? There are always plenty of them and they will still be Members of the House. Will they count towards their

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party's allocation—that seems hardly fair to the party—or will they be left free-ranging as a new breed of backwoodsmen, to be the last resort of some desperate Chief Whip?
Whenever there is a landslide victory of one party or the other in another place, your Lordships' House provides the only effective opposition. I am not suggesting that the next Labour victory, whenever that may be, is likely to be of such proportions, but when the electorate want a change they sometimes do not do things by halves. Just how effective as a sole opposition to what my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham referred to as an "elective dictatorship" is this interim House likely to be? Even if all those questions can be satisfactorily answered, by replacing heredity with yet more patronage, will we not just be changing from one form of unacceptability to another?
I believe that when the Writ of Summons calls on your Lordships,
"to be personally present at our aforesaid Parliament, to treat and give your counsel",
it is imposing a duty rather than granting a right. I have done my best to live my parliamentary life in accordance with that belief, as I know have most other noble Lords in all parts of the House. But I believe further that I would be failing to comply with that writ were I to stand idly by and watch the House vote itself out of existence in its present form without knowing what is to be put in its place, and that it would be wholly wrong for one political party, acting on its own and without consultation, to ask your Lordships to do so.
In a similar debate to this one back in 1968, I told a probably apocryphal story about Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical bridge at Cambridge. At the risk of wearying your Lordships by repetition, I am going to tell it now. Newton, so the fable goes, designed his wooden bridge with such ingenuity and mathematical precision that its component parts held together without the aid of nails, bolts or any other form of fastening. This confounded all the greatest intellects in the Cambridge of the day. They could think of no reason why it should work. Constructed as it was, they could think of any number of reasons why it should not work. But the one thing that was clear for everyone to see was that it did work—and admirably carried out the functions for which it was intended.
Such was Newton's prestige that, while he lived, no one dared tamper with his bridge. But as soon as the old man died, their curiosity got the better of them and they took it to pieces to find out how it worked. From this piece of vandalism they learnt only two things. The first was that they were no further forward in finding out how the bridge had worked. The second was—they could not put it together again!
5.33 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, can one follow that?
The major problem with reforming your Lordships' House is not this House but the other place. That has become quite clear right from the start with the speech of the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal and the much quoted remarks from the noble and learned Lord,
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Lord Hailsham. The problem of reforming the House of Lords is that any reform which would make this Chamber effective would not be tolerated by another place. Therefore, we can reform this Chamber only to the extent that we do not improve its efficiency. Any reform of the House of Lords must have the supreme objective of making it either less effective or no more effective than it is already.
Given that premise, I should like to spend a little time challenging a major proposition. That major proposition is that another place, by virtue of its election, must be sovereign in all matters. It is not so much the fact that it is an elected Chamber and that it is representative and democratic, but that the peculiar constitution and the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament have meant, as has been pointed out, that we have lost the separation of powers.
The Executive, which commands a majority in the House of Commons, has powers which exceed those of any comparable executive in any other constitution. To the extent that the majority party in the other place commands that majority, it can put through its legislation and, given the 1911 and 1949 Acts, there is nothing that we can do which would ever be effective no matter what our composition should be. If noble Lords consider, as I do, that that is a more major problem with our constitution than the composition of this Chamber, they must ask the question: how do we correct it? If one wants to correct that situation, the only way to do so is to have a second Chamber which has power; in other words, we would have to change the composition in such a way that it would have legitimate power.
That point leads me not to the abolition of the House of Lords and leaving just one Chamber—indeed, that would only compound the difficulty; I am not a unicameralist in that respect—but to the fact that we must have a Chamber which would have legitimacy from another source. There is not just one way of having democratic electability as per the territorial principle. There are other ways of being representative. I would say that one only needs to study previous reform proposals on how to give legitimacy to a second Chamber.
However, as that is not going to happen—as an academic I may as well put it forward as my prime proposal—I believe that we should have a second Chamber which is indirectly elected by having one person from each local authority. Indeed, the poll tax would never have been introduced if that system had been in place. I have in mind a ready system of elected people who could then indirectly elect one of their members to this Chamber. Those people would be temporary and representative, but in a different way. The party composition would be different in the two Chambers.
We must come to terms with the fact that in the nation opinion differs and does not reflect the opinion of the party which happens to have the majority, not just in one election but in successive elections. It is the diversity of opinion that we have not been able to capture. That is why I believe that the reputation of Parliament has gone down. Although elections are won, they do not always reflect that diversity.

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I have put that forward as my first proposition because I believe that it would be most difficult to accomplish; and, indeed, it would not happen so easily. However, if we were to reform the constitution and not just the House of Lords, that would be a better way to go forward. Then, whether or not we add to that an appointed element is a matter of secondary importance. In that case, I believe that we could have a second elected Chamber.
However, as that is not going to happen, I shall move on to slightly more feasible issues. One very interesting fact which has emerged in our debate is the dominance of one party in this House. That is something which has been accepted for a long time by previous Conservative party leaders; and, indeed, it is a matter of fact. As my noble friend Lord Shepherd pointed out, it is interesting to note that in the past 17 years it has become worse, not better. That could easily be corrected without any reform. Those numbers can be corrected, but they are not corrected because it is a matter of convention. The question is: how much accommodation should be given to other parties?
We have not done justice to the Opposition parties as regards the creation of Peers. Therefore the Conservatives' strength has become greater but the strength of Labour and the Liberals has become less. Even if all the hereditary Peers were to be abolished, the Conservative Peers would still have a majority over the combined numbers of Labour and Liberal Peers. That is the situation. The mere abolition of hereditary Peers will not give the Labour Party a majority in this Chamber. It will have to resort to the creation of additional Peers.
One of the matters that we should agree while we are looking for an appropriate scheme for reform—which will no doubt take a long time, as all these things do—is a measure which will correct that anomaly. We do not even need to wait for a general election to do that; it simply requires all-party agreement as regards the creation of additional Peers to correct the imbalance. That would be a good step towards correcting one of the major anomalies of the constitution. I urge that step upon the usual channels.
Given that we are in this situation, I believe that the proposals put forward by my party need careful consideration. I say to my leader that if we are to have reform in two stages, we ought to make the second stage clear when the first stage is proposed, perhaps through a White Paper. I speak only for myself but I would not regard a solely appointed Chamber as any more democratic than the present Chamber. It would certainly be less independent, if anything. Unless one is sure that either the appointed element will be removed in the second stage or will be overwhelmed by an elective element, it would be difficult for me to support a reform of this House. I have always believed that this House should be replaced by a Chamber which is substantially elective. Despite coming to this House, I have not been converted, as the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, has been.
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We need to make clear the outlines of the full proposals. If this is to be solely an appointed Chamber—I agree in this respect with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, said—it will be a quango. I do not think it does any good to say that appointments will be made by a neutral, all-party, official or non-official body. The principle in the constitution is that the Prime Minister has to recommend to the Monarch who comes to this place. There is no other way to create Peers under this constitution. Therefore, no matter how many appointed, neutral bodies one has, the Prime Minister will be the filter. No one's neutrality can be guaranteed if the Prime Minister proposes that those on the lavender list be appointed. I do not think that any neutral body could disagree with that; and why should it? The Prime Minister represents the legitimate fount of power in our constitution.
There are many obstacles to be overcome. However, if previous experience is anything to go by, the reform of the House of Lords may yet be blocked in another place. This House has never been an obstacle to its own reform. I turn therefore to the reform of parliamentary procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, referred to that. I have always thought that if our votes on matters are not to count because they can be reversed in another place—much heartache is caused as a result of the disproportionality of party representation—it is not so important that we divide on issues.
However, our most valuable procedure is the consideration of the Committee stage of Bills. I suggest that we should become, as it were, the Committee of both Houses of Parliament. I suggest that all Bills should only be considered in Committee in this House. Those in another place have no time to consider Bills in detail, whereas we have. Our votes do not count, but theirs do. Therefore, let us have a division of labour. We should only debate amendments and recommend them to another place. We should tell them that X is good and Y is bad. They will not take any account of our votes, but they may take account of our advice. If we followed that procedure, it would save time in both Houses and improve efficiency. If we are to retain the Chamber as it is at present, we should at least reform procedure.
5.44 p.m.
The Earl of Carnarvon: My Lords, I welcome this debate and in particular the fact that the question of parliamentary reform—and therefore reform of the House of Lords—is being seen as part of the wider picture, as it has to be. I am aware that the structure of our debate means that this day of our two-day debate concerns parliamentary matters. However, because of that wider picture, I hope that noble Lords will forgive one or two references to other topics.
When, over 18 months ago, I convened an informal group to look at the future of the Lords, it was not with any intention of finding the perfect solution. It would have been good if we had, but I think all your Lordships will agree that it is not as easy as that. The intention of my colleagues was to inform and stimulate debate. I like to think that we succeeded in a small way. Since then

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the Constitutional Unit established by the Nuffield Foundation under Robert Hazell has published a further study reviewing much of the literature. The director has been so kind as to say our work was useful in that study. Indeed I was interested to note that a quotation from the second Chamber was used as an epigraph to one of the chapters. I hope noble Lords will allow me to quote it accurately. It states:
"Hereditary members of the present House of Lords—who are well aware of its shortcomings—would vote themselves into history with barely a backward glance in favour of a reformed House which was more effective, and whose composition commended wider acceptance, than the present one".
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in pointing a finger at me, was indicating that that was an arrogant statement. I think it is a humble one. I am aware that this statement—with which some of your Lordships may disagree—begs more questions than it answers. Nevertheless, I venture to say that it identifies the right questions. First, it is the hereditary Peers who are the single big issue. Secondly, the House as a whole, and the hereditary Peers in particular, wish to find a solution based on public acceptance and political effectiveness. Here I think the Cross-Benchers have a significant contribution to make to the debate.
Many of those involved in the debate outside this place have said that they value the independent Peers. The Leader of the Opposition in another place said as much himself when addressing us. Yet, in a reconstituted House, how is that contribution to be maintained? Any form of election would involve party political considerations. That is my principal misgiving about a wholly elected chamber. It is also, I believe, a compelling reason why the idea of a system of representative hereditary Peers simply will not work. If hereditary Peers of other parties were to vote for an independent, how, after a few years, would an independent hereditary Peer show his worthiness to be elected? He or she would have no forum in which to do so.
Here a parallel with local government occurs to me. I have, as an Independent, had the honour to be the chairman of Hampshire County Council and of its Policy and Resources Committee from 1974 to 1977. When I first joined Hampshire in 1954 many people stood as Independents. Many noble Lords may agree that one of the effects of the 1972 Act, although unintended I am sure, was to make local government a matter of party politics to a far greater extent. I do not think that that improved it. I believe that that will happen with any reform of the House of Lords, be it elected or appointed.
I hope that noble Lords will allow me to make another point about local government. Something else has occurred in recent years. As we have heard, local government is now 82 per cent. funded by central government. Again, that has led to a deterioration in public confidence and local government's independence. I believe that people must take responsibility for raising the money they spend. More than anything else, I want to see the business rate returned to local government.
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In this House we do not raise money, but we have responsibility for our actions, however we come to sit here. I know that many noble Lords who sit as members of a political party do not always conceive of themselves primarily as party politicians. We Peers, and not only the Cross-Benchers, feel free to vote according to our consciences and sometimes even listen to debates. I recall a distinguished former Leader of the House agreeing with a distinguished former Chief Whip that one of the biggest problems they faced as business managers was when members of their parties listened to a debate before voting. It is that independence that I would wish to preserve.
We all know that the question will be decided ultimately in another place. However, I hope that before political parties become too entrenched in their positions, we can go on debating and enlightening the general public as to what we do and do not do. We do not thwart the House of Commons. We act as a check on government, not by exercising naked power but by wielding influence which is beyond the grip of party managers. As a Cross-Bencher, and having seen what has happened in local government, I believe that that is almost beyond price. I do not, therefore, have any answer as to how the House might be improved or how the "problem" of the hereditary Peers is to be "solved". Clearly, if there is to be reform, the debate must result in proposals from the Government in a Parliament Bill. Working back from that, we need some consultative process which will involve all sides, including the Cross-Benches. Might a party leaders' conference fit this bill?
I have a great belief in the value to the nation of what we now have. If that is to be changed, then we must all work together until we find a solution for a second Chamber which is better than the present one.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I welcome the proposal of the noble Earl that there should be full consultation before any change is made in the composition of your Lordships' House. I hope that my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal—whose speech we all so much admired and enjoyed this afternoon—will feel that that would not be inconsistent with the views that he put forward about possible future changes.
The noble Earl referred to the need for political effectiveness. Therefore, I wonder whether I may stress the quality and achievements of your Lordships' House, and then consider whether any changes in its composition should be made in the light of them. Before I go any further, I should say that I have been a life Peer for 17 years, and before that was MP for Huntingdonshire. Then we got a much better Member, who became Prime Minister within 12 years, and that is a record in this century.
Your Lordships' qualifications are very considerable and could never be found in any kind of elected Chamber. Besides the Lord Bishops, the Law Lords, Cabinet Ministers and two former Speakers of the House of Commons, we have Peers who have risen to the top of almost every profession, of the Armed Forces, the

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public service, including the foreign service, commerce and industry, the trade unions, broadcasting and the academic world. We have among us landowners, farmers, explorers and others who have much to contribute. All that experience, expertise and talent are reflected, I suggest, in the quality of our debates, the work of our committees and the results of our efforts. No democratically-elected second Chamber could possibly produce such a highly efficient gathering as your Lordships. If we had an elected Chamber, I am afraid that it would become a mere microcosm of another place; and it is arguable that we would become its lackeys.
Having helped to pilot the Life Peerages Act 1958, when I was just Under-Secretary at the Home Office, with my late friend Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, I am glad to say that since that Act was passed 701 life peerages have been created, of whom 378 life Peers and Peeresses are still with us. Of those, 66 are Peeresses and they play a great part. Only about half of the life Peers attend fairly regularly. Clearly we could not now do without them.
The hereditary Peers too make a valuable contribution to our work. Many of them have to exercise responsibility in the world outside. They cannot always be here. But they have responsibility and experience, not only in the management of estates but in many other ways. Some of them inherited their peerages at an early age; and so we also have the advantage of youth among us, as was mentioned yesterday by a noble Lord. I venture to suggest that there is such a thing as inherited ability. Indeed, we see that every day in their work among us.
So much for your Lordships' qualities, my Lords. What about your achievements? Our necessary work as a revising Chamber has been mentioned. We make a vast number of amendments to government Bills which come to us from the Commons, often in a somewhat undigested state, as we all know. But it might interest your Lordships to know that in the last Session we made 1,291 amendments to government Bills alone. To those and other Bills we made altogether about 1,500 amendments. A much stronger effort is made in your Lordships' House to improve drafting than there is these days in another place. That is partly because in another place—I have some responsibility because I was acting chairman of the Select Committee which suggested it to the then Mr. St. John Stevas and others—Members' time is very much taken up in departmentally related Select Committees, as the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, mentioned; and because the Members have such a vast amount of correspondence. My successor, the Prime Minister, receives 200 letters a week from his constituents, in addition to a far greater number which he receives as Prime Minister. I used to receive about 50 constituency letters a week and felt myself hard done by. Things have changed and perhaps that is why Members of the other place are not able to give the attention to legislation that they should and why it is a necessary task for your Lordships.
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I was glad that my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal referred to the Prime Minister's efforts to get drafting improved. I hope I may be allowed to mention that 23 years ago I was appointed chairman of the first committee for 100 years for examining our methods of legislation. Our report has been quoted more often than any other official report in both Houses in the past 21 years. But alas, although our report has been mentioned so often, in Whitehall our recommendations have not been as well accepted as is usual with official reports. They have been accepted in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other parts of the Commonwealth, and in parts of the European Community. The report was translated into Italian. I wish that it could have been implemented more in Whitehall and perhaps now, with the Prime Minister's help, it will be.
I turn to another great achievement of your Lordships' House. That is our European Communities Committee and its specialist sub-committees. They do extremely valuable work in examining the whole range of activities of the European Union. The committee is unique in that there is no other parliament chamber in the whole of Europe which does work like that of your Lordships' committee. Our Science and Technology Committee has been mentioned. It does valuable work, as do many other worthwhile committees, including the consolidation Committee.
So much for some of your Lordships' achievements. What about our composition? If no changes at all were made, we would simply continue to do well the vital work that we carry out, whatever party is in power. It has been said that perhaps there are more hereditary Peers than are needed. It is a fair comment on their part when noble Lords opposite say that, although on paper the Government do not have an overall majority, from their point of view there are too many Conservatives among us in this Chamber. We are the largest party, but we have no overall majority. However, of course, in this House we do not play the party game to the same extent as it is played elsewhere. I speak from experience. It is interesting to note that since the 1979 election our Conservative Governments have been defeated only 228 times. That is over a period of 17 years, but it shows a degree of independence by your Lordships. I sometimes think that public opinion is sometimes rather more on our side than it is with the other place. It was certainly the case over the War Crimes Act when the other place had to use the Parliament Act. It was entitled to do so. But there have been other occasions when we have been more on the side of public opinion, paradoxical though that may seem in our democracy. It can happen, particularly in local government matters to which the noble Earl. Lord Carnarvon, referred.
I believe that having so large a number of Conservative Peers makes little difference. However, perhaps I should borrow the analogy of the old tag used in the courts: it is important not only that justice should be done but that it should manifestly be seen to be done. Therefore, this House should not only work but should appear to be composed in the right way, without great advantage to any party.

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If we are to consider what might be done, there is an argument for having an electoral college to choose, say, 150 or 200 hereditary Peers from all parties and from the Cross Benches. Those noble Lords who have considered the possibility of an electoral college must have realised that it is full of snags, whichever solution is put forward. It would not be easy to make it work and it might be better to leave well alone.
I conclude by repeating the suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, that early in the next Parliament there should be consultation between the three parties and the Cross Benches. But let us not throw away the well-established advantages which this House provides for our constitution.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I wish to advocate reform of the present structure of your Lordships' House in an evolutionary way. I hope your Lordships will understand if, as a hereditary Peer, I deal with the matter subjectively to start with. I speak only for myself and not for my party, but it seems to me that that must apply to many contributions in this afternoon's debate.
When, on 1st January 1931, my father told me that he had been created a Peer in the New Year Honours List, my first reaction was to burst into tears as I realised that one day I might have to succeed to the title. That is what happened when he died in 1955 since it was not then possible for me to renounce the peerage, had I wished.
The change in status was a pretty traumatic experience for me, though it had its lighter side. I went home to comfort my mother and to start winding up my father's affairs. At the time I was personnel manager in a large factory in one of ICI's major divisions. I wrote to my boss to say that it would help me if he would arrange for a note to be circulated to works managers and heads of departments stating: "On the death of his father, Mr. Foster Lamb will in future be known as Lord Rochester". Unfortunately, the message did not in every case reach the shopfloor. I had determined that from the start I would make use of my new name. Among other things, I was responsible to my works manager for the arrangements in connection with consulting employees. The first person to telephone me was an employee representative on the works council. We knew each other very well. I picked up the phone and said: "Rochester here"; he said: "Who?" I replied: "Lord Rochester". There was a pause and then he said: "If you are Lord Rochester, I am Lord Nelson".
The opportunity to renounce my peerage arose in 1963. I thought hard as to whether I should take it, but I had already changed my name once and was reluctant to do so again. In the end, I concluded that there were already more than enough Conservative hereditary Peers and it would do no harm if there continued to be a Liberal one. Besides, by then I had acquired considerable experience of manufacturing industry, particularly in the field of industrial relations. I thought that when the time came for me to retire I might be able to contribute more frequently to parliamentary debate on such matters. For the past 23 years I have had the great privilege of doing so in this House.
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Many people think that reform of the composition of the House of Lords should take place only as part of a wider parliamentary settlement. That view was expressed today. I do not agree. I see no chance of such an accommodation being reached with a sufficient measure of agreement in the near future. However, I do think that speedy reform of the composition of the House is a realistic proposition.
As a Liberal MP, my father voted for the Parliament Act of 1911. The provisions were obviously meant only as a temporary expedient and, as already stated, the preamble to that Act made clear the intention that a thorough reform of the second Chamber should take place before long. I see no reason why I should be here simply because I was born the son of my father. Eighty-five years since 1911 seems quite long enough to wait for the more comprehensive reform of the House that was then envisaged. I do not wish to be party to its postponement into the next century.
I therefore find myself in agreement in principle with the intention of the Labour Party, if it is in a position to command an overall majority in another place after the forthcoming general election, to eliminate the right of hereditary Peers to vote and sit in this House.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, I should very much like to see that done so far as possible on the basis of consent. I hope I am right in thinking that Members on the Labour Front Bench feel the same. If that is so, I trust that in winding up, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, will make that plain.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I have been a Member of this place long enough to recall the acute disappointment I felt when the proposals of the Labour Government in 1968 to reform the House were endorsed by the Front Benches of all three parties in both Houses but frustrated by a combination of extreme Right and Left led by Enoch Powell and Michael Foot in another place. As my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead reminded us yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, were then respectively Leader and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Opposition. What was good enough for them, and indeed for my own leader then, the late Lord Byers, is good enough for me now. In my view, the Government formed after the next general election, whatever their political complexion, should immediately try to take forward what was so nearly achieved in 1968 by convening a conference of representatives of the three main parties with the aim of seeking a solution to the problem of the composition of the House on the lines proposed in 1968.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, he is no doubt aware that in 1968 the proposal was that hereditary Peers should be allowed to speak here but not to vote.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I was coming to that point. I have been re-reading the White Paper outlining the proposals at that time, and I take leave to commend it to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred to this point earlier but perhaps it bears repetition. Basically the idea was that existing hereditary Peers

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would immediately lose their right to vote, but retain the right to sit and to speak in this House. Their successors would lose the right to sit. Voting Members would be exclusively created Peers; but some of the most active and experienced of the Peers by succession would be created life Peers and would therefore be qualified to vote. Change would thus be gradual and contain an element of continuity. The voting House was to consist of some 230 Peers—I fancy it would have to be more now—distributed between the parties in such a way that the Government of the day would have a small majority over the Opposition parties, but not a majority over the House as a whole when those without party allegiance, the Cross-Benchers and others, were included. Among other proposals, there was to be a place for the Law Lords and the Bishops. I will not weary the House by rehearsing the detail now.
I very much hope that as an interim measure a solution can be found with all-party agreement on some such basis. In my experience, in general problems are best solved by building constructively on what is already there rather than tearing things up by the roots and starting again.
I refrain from expressing any view on how the role, functions and powers of the House should be reviewed and reformed in the longer term, save to say that I welcome the assurance given earlier this afternoon by the Leader of the Labour Peers that there would be full consultation on these matters.
In the same subjective way as I began, I end by saying that my own son and heir fully supports the view that, when I die, he should not have a seat in this House; and his heir, my grandson, now old enough at 25 to know his own mind, agrees.
6.19 p.m.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, first, I declare an interest in the subject of this debate in so far as it relates to this place. The admission of such an interest is perhaps not entirely unexpected in someone of my particular background. I must also say that I had the privilege of serving on the small informal group already referred to, established by my noble friend Lord Carnarvon during the first half of 1995, to study the problem of reform. May I atone for my part in the arrogance with which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, so entertainingly charged me by saying that when we started the process I was sure I knew the answer; after six months of listening to evidence from constitutionalists and politicians of every colour and hue, I was sure I did not.
The subject of the debate specifically relates to the role and structure of Parliament. However, it would be presumptuous, and again probably arrogant, for an amateur like myself to refer at length to another place, save to make two general observations and to say how very much I agree with the sage remarks of my noble friend Lord Weatherill, who speaks with unparalleled experience of that place.
First, it seems to me that Members are becoming increasingly like super welfare officers and, as a result, tend to be submerged in a welter of constituency
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minutiae. The second point is the decline of the Chamber itself as a debating forum, with Members in their rooms looking, via closed circuit television, at the handful of Ministers engaged in the immediate business in the Chamber. This, I should add, is a phenomenon not entirely unknown to this place. But if Parliament is to survive and thrive, it is a process which surely needs to be arrested and reversed.
It is, however, reform of this place which understandably preoccupies most speakers today, and not to accept the need to seek reform is, in my view, not an option. The fact that this House works well and more often than not compares favourably with another place, the fact that there would appear to be a sizeable body of opinion either indifferent to the idea of reform or even opposed to it and the fact that the present set-up costs the taxpayer considerably less than any other second chamber in the Western world, I would suggest, are irrelevant to resisting change. Whether we like it or not, any opposition party gaining power will seek to make such changes, irrespective of the many skeletons littering the past roads to reform. I shall not go over again the voting patterns, the inherent inequality to one side which the hereditary peerage makes inevitable, despite the presence of Cross-Benchers, because these facts have emerged and will emerge again and again during this debate.
In thinking about change, however, we ought surely to ask ourselves: what is the purpose of a second Chamber? Are we in existence to compensate for the inadequacies of another place or to complement it? This House is an amending Chamber or it is nothing. Does its importance, therefore, rise in direct relation to weaker and more ill-conceived legislation coming to it from another place? These are the kind of questions, I venture to suggest, that we should be asking ourselves. This self-examination is crucial. It is quite simply unrealistic and negative to contemplate the reform of the Lords in isolation. It must be part of a package of constitutional reform—the Commons, regional assemblies and so on.
To remove a tyre and repair a puncture you must first unscrew all the studs on the wheel. You will not get very far by unscrewing only one. Even I know that, and I am not very good at that sort of thing. An inability to grasp this point, fed perhaps by an understandable but overriding passion to right what is conceived of as a past democratic affront, will most certainly end in an unsatisfactory and piecemeal solution. I need hardly add, too, that if there is uncertainty about the role of the Lords, it is difficult to evaluate whether it is discharging its duties effectively or not.
As the publication Second Chamber has it:
"It would be futile to attempt to defend the hereditary principle rationally".
It seems to me that the watering-down of that principle, say, by reducing the numbers involved by way of an electoral college or some other device, would weaken the body while retaining the primary infection. That is not to say that as an interim measure it might not be appropriate for an incoming

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government which had abolished the voting rights of hereditary peers to allot some places to hereditary peers selected by their own political groupings, thereby ensuring the retention of expertise useful to the House in the proper execution of its business.
Of course, politicians and constitutionalists have sought the removal of hereditary Peers for very many years, and it is interesting to recall, as someone has already mentioned, that the preamble to the Parliamentary Bill of 1911 gave as its objective:
"a Second Chamber constituted on a popular, instead of hereditary, basis".
Now, some 85 years later, we are still debating that objective. In Britain constitutional matters are seldom resolved precipitately, and nor should they be.
The Labour Party has said that if successful at the next election it proposes to bring in a short Bill at the beginning of the Session to remove the voting rights of hereditary Peers and that, thereafter, widespread consultations will take place to complete the second stage of the reform. There are probably three main candidates for that reform, most of which have been mentioned already: nomination only, an all-elected Chamber and a mixture of the two. We are now talking about the difficult bit of the operation and I fear that other priorities will intervene, as they invariably do where necessarily long drawn-out consultations are concerned. Inevitably, other competing demands will be made on any incoming government of whatever complexion, so we will be left, for who knows how long, with a purely nominated Chamber, carrying very little more democratic legitimacy than it has today.
May I briefly deal with the three options already mentioned, the first of which is an all-nominated Chamber. Though not entirely appropriate today, I cannot resist quoting Bagehot because there is some relevance in what he says and, delightfully, some provocation too:
"It is true that a completely new House of Lords, mainly composed of men of ability selected because they were able might very likely…attempt to rival if not conquer the House of Commons where the standard is not much above the common English average. But in the present English world such a House of Lords would soon lose all influence. People would say it was too clever by half"—
I have often wondered where that quotation came from—
"and in an Englishman's mouth that means a very severe censure".
I am not sure that that constitutes an overriding objection to nomination. Nomination would ensure retention of that widespread expertise for which this House is so renowned and, provided the selection authority was appointed from as eclectic a field as possible and somehow freed itself, at least partially, from ever-present political considerations, it could be made to work effectively. It should certainly guarantee the continued presence of a substantial body of independent Peers, which must be of prime importance in any revised House. I think we are all clear on that point. But, of course, such a second Chamber would again raise the ogre of democratic legitimacy.
An all-elected second Chamber, as favoured by both Opposition parties and many other noble Lords, certainly will have legitimacy.However,its
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unimpeachable descent will make it readier to square up to the other place. After all, if its election cycle does not coincide with the other place, it could frequently claim a better, and more recent, mandate from the electorate. Furthermore, it would almost certainly need to be paid in recognition of its greater commitment to full-time attendance. How the independent element would he retained would undoubtedly present problems, as would ensuring that the new Chamber would not be creating a whip-wielding mirror image of the other place.
All this disposes me to towards a judicious mixture of the two, a British compromise if you like, and what better place to celebrate and embody such a typical feature of British life than in the House of Lords.
It is interesting to note that the two leading statesmen of this century, Lloyd George and Churchill, both spoke of this place in highly inflammatory terms some 85 years ago. Neither entered the House as Members, although the former could have done so. Were they alive today it is doubtful whether they would have taken the same tone. Their reservations about the composition of this House would almost certainly have remained, but its decreased powers, coupled with its record over recent years of dedicated and knowledgeable debate, amendment to legislation and committee work, would certainly have made the criticism milder. Of course, there would not have been the political urgency with which they were confronted in 1911.
I submit we are not faced with such urgency today. Long-lived democratic wrongs have to he righted, it is true, but such a need, however compelling, cannot justify hasty and ill-considered change. If we are to dismantle what we have now, may I say with the greatest possible emphasis, let it be for something demonstrably better in every conceivable way.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, it is a real privilege to follow the noble Viscount, who epitomises in one speech the whole value of the Cross Benches in your Lordships' House. How right the noble Viscount is when he says that we have to know the purpose of the second Chamber and we have to consider, in detail, the proposed consequences of reform before we can start to take any steps. I wonder if the noble Viscount would agree with the conclusion at paragraph 260 of the Constitution Unit's report on the House of Lords. That independent organisation concludes that,
""Whether one, two or more stages are involved in reform is less important than establishing a clear set of goals at the outset and ensuring that each stage of reform is directed towards achieving them. In developing reform proposals for the House of Lords that will secure parliamentary support, more traditional consultation fora may not be appropriate. In particular, a Royal Commission is unlikely to prove an effective mechanism for resolving the tension between political and constitutional goals that is implicit in finding a long term solution for the House of Lords. A conference of party leaders would he a more effective way to give detailed consideration to specific aspects of a reform plan; or to establish the principles of further reform where no blueprint exists and political consensus building is considered desirable".
That is very much my approach.
My approach is also that our constitutional settlement is unique. It works well enough. It represents our indigenous concept of democracy under an unwritten

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constitution, flexible in the sense that separation of the powers is achieved by mutual respect for the boundaries. It is a constitutional monarchy of a kingdom united—"Our glory and our strength", as was said yesterday by the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy—not only in times of war or in national emergency but at all times under the Queen in Parliament at Westminster.
So why is there this sudden, volcanic urge to devolve, disunite, codify and dismember your Lordships' House and to destroy the existing structure? I have not been in the House for all that long, but your Lordships' House, as constituted as an integral element of Parliament, appears to me to be wholly defensible as an institution, not only by the manner in which it has discharged its functions and will continue to do so without confrontation with another place but also by the manner in which it is able to introduce reforms, has introduced them and constantly does so. It is unnecessary to add to the masterly exposition of my noble friend Lord Renton in defence of the value of our institutions.
On these Benches we are committed to conserving our ancient institutions by a consensual, evolutionary process of practical change as distinct from any imposed legislative reform. We welcome the creation of the intermediate institutions of democracy, such as the Grand Committees. The proposals of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to improve the quality of legislation, which is a by-product, will tend to ease the tension between the judiciary and government over judicial review, a process which it is not always appreciated is in no way properly concerned with either morality or the merits of ministerial decisions.
As to the imposition of legislative reform, the lid of the fateful box was lifted by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, on 22nd November in his speech in the debate on the Address. Accept—they say—that by instant legislation the hereditary entitlement to sit and vote shall be abolished and accept that they will split up central government into a series of regional assemblies and create a new form of federal structure. If either of those proposals were to be implemented, they would invoke the ancient ill omens of disaster and a swarm of evils and be a prolific source of troubles.
I have attended the House throughout today and read everything that was said yesterday in the debate. As yet, I have not heard any justification for the proposed change. Of course, I accept that change must always be made. I only deal with the change proposed by the Labour Party: just to abolish the entitlement to sit and vote.
I share the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, that this debate on the abolition of the hereditary entitlement is essentially political and polemic, and is a constitutional matter on which consensus should be sought. I may have misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, but I do not think that he took quite the same approach.
Inevitably, at some time in the debate, someone had to say that Mr. Balfour's poodle had to become Mr. Major's poodle. But surely the worst of all worlds
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would be to become Mr. Blair's poodle, on a short leash, cropped short of the Parliament Acts and relegated to the doghouse. In a powerful speech, which at times bamboozled the tannoy, as certainly it seemed on these Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead sounded a note of measured critical caution, with the wisdom of an elder statesman, not only on the proposal to abolish the hereditary entitlement but also on devolution. The noble Lord also accepted that blank resistance to all constitutional change had never been the hallmark of a Conservative administration.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, fails to appreciate today, as he failed to appreciate on 22nd November, that in the wake of the conflict between the two Houses reflected by the Parliament Act a working relationship evolved, which established an entirely new dimension of constitutional amity. Your Lordships' House has introduced measures of self-restraint to curb the exercise of its powers and also abuse of the hereditary entitlement to sit and vote by a non-attender. If leave of absence had been more widely used as originally intended—there is to be a Question on this matter on 18th July—voting by non-attenders would not have afforded any pretended or legitimate concern. But this is essentially a matter for discussion, compromise and consensus on an all-party basis, not for imposed reform by legislation at the behest of any political party. In this I am in entire agreement with my noble friends Lord Cranborne and Lord Denham.
Your Lordships may think that it is in the interests of good government, the well being of the people and the avoidance of conflict with another place that such hereditary entitlement should remain in some effective form. The destruction of the identity, ethos and independence of your Lordships' House, referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, would be nothing short of incalculable folly and ill-conceived as pre-empting the working relationship. A particular concern arises lest the wealth of reason on the Cross Benches, with over 180 Peers by succession, is jettisoned and the second Chamber becomes an exclusive party political institution, save perhaps for the Spiritual Benches and the Law Lords.
The proposal to dismember your Lordships' House was first envisaged in the preamble to the Act of 1911, but it was a transitional measure pending the setting up of an appointed second Chamber. Since 1919 it has been the manifesto pledge of the Labour Party, and part and parcel of its policy, to establish unicameral government in one form or another. Lloyd George went to the country on this issue. A referendum was not needed, as would have been the case with a written constitution, since under our unwritten constitution Members of another place are elected representatives, not delegates. In a situation of conflict between the Houses Lloyd George acted constitutionally, but that battle was won and finished with some 85 years ago. Since then there has been a working relationship between the two Houses that has rendered abolition of the hereditary entitlement not only inappropriate but obsolete.
There is today no cause for conflict between the two Houses. The authority of another place is no longer in question. The elected Chamber can always have its

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business under the Parliament Acts and under convention, as my noble friend Lord Denham, so clearly explained. Today business is despatched by your Lordships with promptitude, efficiency and restraint. There is respect and amity as between the two Houses. Your Lordships seldom seek to insist. Another place accepts the vast majority of your Lordships' amendments.
There is no justification whatever for the abolition of the hereditary entitlement, least of all during an interim period pending establishment of a second chamber under a system, be it appointment or election, as yet unknown. Is it appropriate to embark upon a piecemeal means to an end without any assurance as to whether that end may be achieved and, if so, in what form? If, as the Labour Party suggest, it is proposed to establish an appointed or elected second chamber, why should an interim paving Bill be relevant? Why has the abolition of the hereditary entitlement become an early election pledge? Why is the identity, ethos and independence of your Lordships' House to be destroyed forthwith on a new government taking office? This is being done to ensure, without due consideration or discussion, that the proposed constitutional changes are introduced with immediate effect. The broomhead of old Labour is to be fitted with a new handle to sweep clear the path for instant and effective unicameral government free of the incidence of the Parliament Acts. This is a constitutional outrage which infects the quality of government and is worthy of your Lordships' condemnation.
The pretended justification to redress voting imbalance is but a contrived nonsense. The Government shall continue to have their business without resort to the Parliament Acts. As my noble friend Lord Denham has explained, any voting imbalance before a change of government will require further correction after a change of government. This occurs under any system, whether elected or appointed. There will always be a voting imbalance. There is no evidence of abuse on the part of hereditary Peers as compared with life Peers. This discrimination is not well conceived. The study of the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, Second Chamber, rightly finds (in paragraphs 63 and 66) that the backwoodsman of mythology is largely mythological and that the work of the House of Lords cannot be maintained at its present level without Peers by succession.
By what curious process are some 200 Peers by succession to be selected to serve only for life, or to volunteer for life Peerages, as part of a proposed process of protracted euthanasia? It is a wholly unacceptable resolution which ignores the unique value of dedicated service of hereditary Peers.
I conclude with a question: on the basis of the evidence and the speeches that we have heard over the past two days, why should we, as an interim measure with no certain end, disown our heritage, disturb the patents, sever our bond of allegiance, rubbish the Writ of Summons, disband the ceremonial and symbolism and dissipate the disciplines of convention and tradition? If these be but the trappings
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and the symbolism so be it, but what about the substance—the constitutional monarchy and our unwritten constitution?
6.50 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, there is no more thought-provoking a speaker in the House than the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. If I may say so, he reminds me of a passionate novice. I do not believe that he was present at the time—if he had been, I am sure he would have made it known—but in about 1968 his own leaders agreed with those on this side of the House about a Settlement. When the noble Lord has studied what happened in those years, he may speak to us in a way which to us makes a great deal more sense than the party tirade that he has just delivered. I hope that he will not mind my saying that. I have great respect for him.
I shall speak more briefly than some other speakers. I shall speak dispassionately, up to a point. I am a created Peer and inherited a Peerage. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, might argue the point, but in my eyes I am the only person in the House who possesses that combination. I am not sure that my position is absolutely safe. There may be some rule which disqualifies a person of 90 years of age but if it were an elected Chamber, such a person might not dare face the electorate. I am not absolutely secure, but more secure than some noble Lords who have spoken.
I shall speak to three propositions very briefly. We have in this House the best debates in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, is a great authority on such matters and I am sure that he will agree. We have the best debates in the world, but the worst voting system. We have the best staff in the world, and I am sure that no one is going to disagree with that last statement.
Noble Lords opposite are of course at least as intelligent as I am and maybe even more so. They are younger and fresher, although they do not always appear to be so. I am surprised that people cannot see that the present voting system is ludicrous. It is incredible that any objective inquiry could arrive at a conclusion other than that it is a fantastic arrangement. There are more than 750 Peers who have inherited their titles. Of that number, I am told that 16 take the Labour Whip. I did not know that so many did, but we have had some very valuable recruits recently. How can anyone believe that such a system would be accepted in any chamber in the world which had been constituted on rational grounds? It is a ludicrous arrangement, but it has grown up and we must take things as we find them to a certain extent before we try to improve them.
I have said that our debates are the best in the world. We think they are and there is no reason to believe otherwise. No one has ever come forward and told me about debates that are better elsewhere. Therefore, I assume that our debates are the best in the world.
I pay one compliment to hereditary Peers, not in intellectual terms, but as regards civilisation. In terms of kindness and courtesy this House ranks very high indeed. That owes an incalculable amount to the hereditary position. So hereditary Peers are a very valuable element, apart from any oratorical gifts they may possess.

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How do we solve the problem? How do we maintain these debates which are the best in the world and provide a rational voting system? An answer has been alluded to more than once today. A plan was originated by one of the Clerks. A certain Henry Burrows, an assistant Clerk at the Table, invented a system he called the two-Writ plan. When we played golf together at Rye every weekend he used to come up to me when I had just missed a putt at the seventh green and ask, "You do believe in the two-Writ plan, don't you?". So I was thoroughly indoctrinated with the plan. When I became Leader of the House I brought it forward.
If one looks at the diaries of the late Mr. Richard Crossman, one sees that the plan was derided by him when he was the housing Minister. When he became Leader of the House of Commons he took to it vehemently and he was its most eloquent exponent. That plan would allow hereditary Peers to sit in this House and speak but not vote. That plan was agreed by the leaders of the parties of both Houses. The two-Writ plan was sabotaged by an unholy alliance between a distinguished Labour Member and a Tory Back-Bencher in another place.
The truth is simple enough. There was a solution then. I am not saying that nothing has changed since. It is slightly more awkward now because in the interval the Tory Government have increased the disparity between the number of life Peers on each side of the House. However, the principle is still there. That plan was accepted by all responsible leaders on both sides in 1968. Today I am simply saying that what was right in 1968 is right today.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, but, of course, what is proposed today by the Opposition Front Bench and the Front Bench on the other side in another place, is not what the noble Earl, Lord Longford, argued so cogently a moment ago. I remind your Lordships that what precipitated this debate, whatever its terms, was a bald statement by the party opposite that it would abolish the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote. We heard the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition in this House say so in terms again this afternoon. It is an extraordinary proposition for all the reasons which my noble friend Lord Denham mentioned a moment ago. I remind noble Lords that it is all to be done in the name of democracy.
This House is a vehicle with four wheels. It has life Peers, Law Lords, Lords Spiritual and hereditary Peers. The proposal made in all seriousness an hour or two ago—it seems rather more now—is to remove one of the wheels. The moment the party opposite has been put behind the driving wheel it will stop the vehicle, remove one of the wheels and then summon a massive public consultation in order to decide what to do next. I do not know what is to be done with the travelling public in the interim. Are they to continue on three wheels in a House which is entirely produced by non-democratic means in the name of democracy, as the noble Lord has
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said with such cogent force, or are they to sit still in the dust arguing until the problem is resolved? I believe that we are to have the answer.
Lord Richard: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that if the car is to run on four wheels, they have to be of the same size?
Lord Elton: My Lords, that weakness in my analogy had occurred to me. But I have only to ask the noble Lord to look in the driving mirror to see what a long way we have come in directions which either his party or my party desired in the past 50 years. This proposition is a ludicrous way of proceeding, however wrong one believes the present system to be. To ask the electorate after an election what it believes a government should do is itself making a mockery of election and democracy. Electorates return parties to control the other place in order to answer these questions for them. Quite clearly, the proper approach is that suggested by my noble friend the Leader of the House that if we are to broach this issue at all, which I believe to be unnecessary at this stage, then we should put it to a Select Committee of the other place which, after its deliberations, can put its report before both Houses for consideration.
Anything else that I say on this issue is by way of a preliminary to the evidence that I would give to such a committee because I am not advocating change (for reasons which have been fully given by others who can speak better and more briefly than I). I would remind that committee that two elements of your Lordships' House ought to be preserved: the breadth of its diversity and its independence. The diversity flows from number. The right reverend Prelate referred eloquently to that earlier. If you simply and crudely sweep all hereditary Peers into the dustbin of history, it may give a frisson de grandeur but it will, in fact, enormously reduce the value of this place.
It is possible to retain that value and yet at the same time address the question of imbalance which is at the heart of concerns about this place either by the method suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, or by an electoral college as suggested by my noble friend Lord Renton. However, I add the proviso that having given hereditary Peers the right to elect from their number a particular contingent of this House, it should be possible to have a rule of substitution where the expertise that is required is present within the hereditary peerage but not among the elected hereditary Peers, so that the numbers available to speak and vote in that interest would not change but the expertise would remain as broad as ever.
The independence of this House is important at all times, but it is most important when a government attempt to extend the duration of their control of another place by postponing a general election. That is something that is not too evident for most of the time, but it would become very evident if it were made easy as a result of abolition of the principal independent element of this House (because it is the largest number and is not chosen by any government). I am not

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beholden to any Prime Minister, dead or alive, for my seat in this House and I can vote as I wish. I vote against my party when I think I should. The Chief Whip is sometimes forgiving, but is more often angry. If one throws out that entire contingent, one vastly reduces the independence of this House. If one replaces it, as it is rumoured that those opposite would replace it, with placemen appointed by politicians, one enormously reduces its independence further.
Therefore, I suggest that in addition to the dual Writ—to the two Writ system as it may be called—the electoral college or whatever other device is chosen, if ever a Bill is introduced to amend the Parliament Act 1911, in which I believe that the five-year life of a Parliament is enshrined, at First Reading the bar against the attendance, speaking and voting of otherwise excluded hereditary Peers should be lifted and at least 14 days' notice of the intention to hold that debate should be given to Peers by succession. I believe that that would restore some of the vital independence of this House at the point where it is most needed.
However, all of those points are for the Select Committee, before the establishment of which nothing should be done. I ask your Lordships not to countenance a three-wheel buggy on the Blair model, if it can be avoided.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, I rise to speak on only one topic—reform of this House. The question is: how can we make it more respectable and influential and give it a more appropriate role in the constitution? I believe that reform can be done only in stages. If we try to solve all problems at once in a Speaker's Conference or in some other assembly set up ad hoc for the purpose, we shall get submerged in a Serbonian Bog, in which, as Milton reminds us, "Armies whole have sunk". All that I am concerned with today is the first stage.
The Constitution Unit said that a key question about reform was whether membership of the second chamber should be a job or an honour. The antithesis is false. It will always be an honour to be a Member of this House, but it should also be a job—although not necessarily a full-time job. Some, as now, should undoubtedly be expected to attend each day, but for others it should be a part-time affair.
I do not believe that it is credible to have even part of the House composed of hereditary Peers. Like everyone else, I have deep respect for the abilities of many of the hereditary Peers. They should be entitled, as is everyone else, to be considered for nomination to this House. Every subject of the Crown should have the right to stand for election or, in this case, for nomination to one or other of the Houses of Parliament. But if the hereditary Peers were excluded by right, they should be entitled to stand for election to the House of Commons, as many eldest sons of Peers did in the past and were successful in being elected.
I do not consider that the present nomenclature of Peers should continue. I believe that all Members of the House of Lords should be nominated and that they should be called "Lords of Parliament". I do not
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consider that commoners such as myself should be raised to the peerage, introduced by heralds and bear the title "Lord". Hereditary Peers should, of course, be at liberty to use their title, but for the rest of us to have the letters "L.P." after our name is surely sufficient honour and will enable us to avoid ridicule by our fellow countrymen. It could be said, of course, that there may be some ridicule at being called "L.P." because, as everybody knows, long-playing records were called "LP records". That is perhaps indicative of some Members of your Lordships' House. Nevertheless, I believe that such a reform would be a token of the fact that when we are made life Peers we do not want to have our name changed or, at any rate, to have to change the signature on our cheques. I am bound to say that the whole system makes us hostages to snobbery. Members of the House of Lords who are not of noble birth should be content to remain "Mr.".
It is essential that the present imbalance in voting be redressed. The Leader of the Opposition gave some astounding figures. However, it is also essential that a comprehensible balance be maintained between the parties. I therefore advocate that after a general election as a first stage each party which has representation in the House of Commons should be granted in the House of Lords the same proportion of seats it has in the House of Commons. The leaders of each party would nominate their members and it is certain that hereditary Peers would be among them. As has been said, the House would be much poorer if Peers such as the present Leader of the House, or the late Lord Shackleton, or the noble Earl, Lord Russell, could not be nominated. Those members would be working members, expected to attend most days. They would be the effective core of the Government and Opposition. They might number some 150 to 200 in total. The remaining members would be the present Cross Bench Peers.
I hope that in any reform the same practice would be followed whereby the Prime Minister, as advised—I am sure he would wish to consult the leaders of the opposition parties—would nominate men and women in various walks of life who could make a contribution to the affairs of the House. It is perhaps ill-becoming for a Cross-Bencher to say so, but it is something I have been told often—indeed, it was borne out by what the Leader of the House said in his opening speech—and that is that the appearance of life Peers changed this House for the better in that it brought to our debates people with experience in many spheres of life. I do not consider that this type of nominated Member of the House should be under an obligation to attend every day of a Session unless the Cross Benches are to become an institute for geriatrics. Members should be permitted to accept nomination while doing a full-time job elsewhere. I could never have guaranteed to be in my place even for a stated number of sittings when I was a member of the vice-chancellors' committee or even when I was Provost of King's. How much more so, then, for those in more exacting professions in business or in the law.
I would, however, add one important proviso to the appointment of nominated Cross-Benchers. They should not be appointed for life. The term "life Peer" should

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disappear. There should be a retiring age and under no circumstances should it be beyond the age of 75. Of course, we can all think of dozens of Members of the House well into their 80s who make memorable contributions. Indeed, some would say the same of nonagenarians like the late Lord Houghton. Only a moment ago we listened to another nonagenarian, the noble Earl, Lord Longford. When he rises to speak I always enjoy it because I never know what he is going to say or how far he is going to go. However, as a general rule, a decade or more after most of us retire from the position we held in our career, the law of diminishing returns sets in. We cannot be as conversant as we should be with the problems facing a new generation. If there is a retiring age for judges and a retiring age for bishops, I see no reason why there should not be a retiring age for nominated Members of this House. I add a proviso. If, at some later stage, Members of the House were to be elected, then by all means let the electorate decide. If they decide to return a man or woman aged 80, that is their choice. So long as Members are nominated, however, they should abide by a retiring age.
What of the Bishops? As long as the Church of England is the established Church by law and is subject to the Crown in Parliament, the Bishops should surely have a place in the House, although any government would be wise, I believe, to see that there was representation in the House from time to time of those belonging to other bodies of faith which have substantial numbers of adherents.
There remain the Law Lords. I say only this. I certainly wish the Law Lords to remain in the House, but I wish they could be called the Supreme Court. Members of the House of Lords are only too well aware of the difference between the Law Lords when sitting in judgment and when the House is legislating. But the general public do not understand the distinction. People imagine that when a judgment is made by a controversial judge such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, it is in some way the whole House of Lords speaking. It may sound ludicrous to those of us who work here, but I assure the House that that is the perception when one talks to ordinary members of the public.
I do not agree, of course, that there should be any separation of powers. I follow the judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, that much nonsense is talked of the separation of powers. But it should be evident to the public that the final court of appeal in the land is totally distinct from the House of Lords as the legislature.
I assume that the present power of the second chamber to delay legislation for no longer than one year continues to obtain. I also assume that the House of Commons will be jealous of the power of this House and would not consent to any increase in our powers or any delegation of powers to a second chamber, certainly one which contains nominated members. However, I also assume—of course, I may be wrong—that there will be no recrudescence of the ditchers party of 1910–11. If a number of Peers decided to disrupt the
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business of the House because it was proposed to abolish the right of hereditary Peers to sit, there would be bound to be savage repercussions. However, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, I am sure that that would not happen. I listened with great pleasure to his speech, which seemed as good a defence of the present position as could possibly be made. I listened with pride because I remember the time when I held the post of moral tutor to the noble Lord. It was not a very distinguished post, but it was certainly no sinecure.
Should a second Chamber be elected? Certainly not in the first stage of reform. If proportional representation or some form of regional or—in the case of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—national devolution were to be adopted, then it might well be that the powers of the second chamber would change. Some believe that election to a second chamber is almost a sine qua non of its continued existence.
There is this problem, however: we already have many elections in this country, and may have more if national assemblies are to be established. It is not as if the turn-out in local government is all that high. It is not as if the turn-out for membership of the European Parliament is all that high. If we are adding to them assemblies and regional bodies which are also to be elected, I suspect that the electorate will become very tired of the process. It would, of course, be possible at a general election to combine the elections for both Houses. But what if the party forming the government in the House of Commons found itself in a minority in the second Chamber? Moreover, if the second Chamber is to be entirely elected, it will certainly lose such prestige as it has as a well-informed and, if I may say so, a very well-mannered institution.
I beg the political parties to consider that in any reform of the second Chamber a measure of nominated members should still play a part, although, having said that, I am only too well aware that I speak from exactly the same position as the hereditary Peers in the Cross-Bench interest. But I must add in my defence that it is not in self-interest. I am past the age of retirement.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I propose to be brief. As some of your Lordships will be aware, I have always had a strong affection for the Clock in your Lordships' House.
It may come as no surprise that I am a supporter of the status quo. "As an ex-Chief Whip, he would say that, wouldn't he?" I am not opposed to reform or to change. I am a supporter of the existing state and shape of your Lordships' House on the basis that it works better than any alternative I have seen proposed to date.
I have to say that I would not oppose anything which was an honourable Bill that came before this House and would see your Lordships' House acting in the historical manner: in a responsible and honourable way towards that Bill from whichever party held the majority in another place. But I have to say that today and over the past few weeks I have detected the possibility that I never envisaged of the Labour Party making the case for the hereditary Peerage.

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The noble Lord, Lord Richard, this afternoon made a remark which made me believe that I detected the shadow of Robespierre's ghost flickering across the top of your Lordships' Chamber. So interesting was his remark, that I wrote it down. He referred to,
"the undemocratic element in this House".
When I entered this House, the first thing that I was told in the Chief Whip's Office was that life Peers, Lords Spiritual, Law Lords and hereditary Peers were equal, and equal between and among each other as a seamless robe.
Today, the opposition Benches have defined a new form of democracy. Whether or not I am going to be one of those who is led willingly or unwillingly to the undemocratic tumbrel, I do not know, but what I must say is that if I were a life Peer or a Lord Spiritual or a Law Lord in this House, I would not sleep happy with the definition that was laid before your Lordships' House under the rather bogus guise of democracy. I do not see where the definition can enter the Oxford English Dictionary in an honourable way.
My second great concern is that we face the proposal, should a Labour government come into office, that your Lordships' House will be confronted by a three-clause Bill which will remove the hereditary Peerage and do, not only little else, but nothing else. If the hereditary Peers of this House have one duty to their fellow countrymen and countrywomen, it is that whatever Bill changes or reforms your Lordships' House, it must be one which leaves this House as an honourable estate. The proposal is a wholly dishonourable proposal.
The reason it is dishonourable is easily demonstrated by the events of the past seven days. On constitutional matters, the Labour Party has been foolhardy, and certain, for a very long time, that it had a policy for the devolution of Scotland. Convenience resulted in a U-turn. It would be for the hereditary Peerage of this House a day of shame and dishonour to walk into the corridor of history having left their fellow countrymen with no choice of knowing whether that promise would be given and carried out by a Labour government. It is worth recalling that the last time a Labour government entered a horse in the eight furlong constitutional selling plate, which was called devolution, it lost its jockey and left us all in a pretty mess.
7.22 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the subject of today's debate is the role and structure of Parliament. Understandably and properly, the House has interested itself largely in the role and structure of this House. I should say at the outset that there is virtually nothing new to say on the subject. From the late 19th century, through the 1911 proposals, through the 1930s, in 1948, and in 1968, right down until today and the work of the Constitution Unit, the arguments, the principles, the possible methods of reform and the problems have been explored exhaustively. Therefore I do not propose to go over that ground again.
There is of course a view on the constitution generally and the role and performance of this House—a view expressed by the Prime Minister, and by virtually all the
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speakers from the Conservative Benches both yesterday and today—that apart from shipping some masonry back to Scotland, little needs to be done. Indeed, listening to noble Lords opposite, I had the feeling that Dr. Pangloss in Candide, who believed,
"That all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds",
was alive and well and a paid-up member of the Conservative Party.
The Conservative view of the House, which has been variously expressed—the noble Viscount the Leader of the House waxed lyrical on the subject—is that the House of Lords works; or, curious institution that it is, with its manifest incongruities and eccentricities, it mysteriously provides a check and balance on the workings of government; or in some unexplained way it calls the Executive to account and stops its worst excesses.
That is all very fine and well if one sits on the Conservative Benches and there is a Conservative Government. Indeed, the Leader of the House again referred to the beauty of our constitution, and particularly of this House. In this case beauty is definitely in the eye of the Conservative beholder. The true answer was of course given by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, in his interesting article in The Times yesterday.
I do not apologise for repeating the figures quoted earlier by my noble friend Lord Richard. During the 1974–79 Labour Government—some five years—the House of Lords defeated the Government on 355 occasions. That is about 70 times a year. That compares with 156 defeats in the 11 years from 1979 to 1990, which is about 14 times a year. It seems that the vigilance of the House of Lords over the Executive mysteriously increases some five times when Labour is in power. The noble Lord, Lord Denham, referred to the fact that defeats by the Lords are always reversed in the Commons and the Government always get through their business. It has been calculated that defeats by the House of Lords between 1974 and 1979 effectively lost that government about a year of their legislative time.
It is interesting to note that the last Labour Government, with at first a tiny majority and then no majority, were in a position similar to that of the present Government, with their current nominal majority of one. Somehow I do not believe that the House will be defeating the Conservative Government 70 times this Session.
We hear a great deal about the effectiveness of the House as a working House. I thought that I would take a slightly different approach from that which is normally adopted. That view prompted me to analyse the overall attendance record in the 1994–95 Session—the previous Session. I took as a marker an attendance of 50 per cent. or more of the maximum possible 142 attendances in that Session. It is pretty reasonable to attend for half the number of Sittings. The proportion of noble Lords in each group who attended for more than half the maximum attendance figure was as follows: Conservative life Peers 47 per cent.; Liberal Democrat life Peers 66 per cent.; Labour life Peers 70 per cent.; and the Cross-Bench life Peers 27 per cent. On the same

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basis—that is, attending for more than half the maximum attendance figure—the attendance figures were: Conservative hereditary Peers 37 per cent.; Liberal Democrat hereditary Peers 50 per cent.; Labour hereditary Peers 57 per cent.; and Cross-Bench hereditary Peers 21 per cent. If we put the figures together, the overall result is Conservatives 41 per cent.; Liberal Democrats 59 per cent.; Labour 68 per cent.; and the Cross Benches 23 per cent.
I am the first to recognise that attendance can be variously interpreted. As a former Whip, and Deputy Chief Whip, I recognise that being here for Questions and a companionable cup of tea is by no means the same as staying here and slogging through amendments until 11 p.m. or midnight. However, we have to face the curious fact that if we take a 50 per cent. attendance as a reasonable norm for a working House, the largest numerical group—that is, Conservative Peers—has the lowest proportional attendance rate of the three parties in the House, but somehow it wins virtually all the Divisions. Indeed, we know that it is the Conservative hereditary vote which sees the Government home every time. There is again no need to labour that point. The figures were given most effectively by my noble friend Lord Richard.
The answer of course lies in the actual active numerical strengths on the 50 per cent. basis—Conservatives 184; Liberal Democrats 32; Labour 73; and the Cross Benches 59, making a total of 348. In other words, the numerical preponderance of the Conservative vote far outweighs their much lower proportionate attendance figure.
If we approach the figures in that way, they reveal something of a weakness in the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the academic theorists in the Constitution Unit, who base their proposals for reform on the nominal strengths in the House and not the active strengths of the three main parties and the Cross-Benchers. The figures suggest also that a reformed House could work quite well with a total membership of about 350, excluding the Law Lords and the Bishops.
In passing, I should pay tribute to my Labour colleagues—both life Peers and Peers by succession—who have the best proportional attendance figures of any group in the House, despite their much higher average age. The effect of all that can he seen if we take just one Division at random: the important vote on Monday on the asylum Bill where the Government had a majority of 13. The voting did not depend merely on the votes of hereditary Peers; it depended upon the votes of 19 hereditary Peers who did not reach the 50 per cent. attendance mark in the past Session. That would apply to almost every Division, if one analysed them. I shall spare the blushes of the Benches opposite by forbearing to analyse the notorious vote on the poll tax. But having said all that, I recognise the valuable part that is played in the work of the House by hereditary Peers on all sides. Any practical reform of this House will have to take that into account in some way. After all, the Association of Conservative Peers will have to man the Opposition Front Bench somehow.
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I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, replies to the debate he will give us the Government's considered view on the obvious and glaring inequity that I have described and say whether they have any plans to deal with it. I hope that in reply he will not follow the noble Viscount the Leader of the House by quoting the random selection argument which is sometimes used to justify the present situation. It is true that, if one were selecting a group which was white, male, public-school educated, with an above-average involvement in field sports and the patronage of charities, the hereditary peerage would represent a statistically valid sample.
But I am sure that there are thoughtful Peers in all parts of the House who recognise that the present situation is indefensible. Equally, as a lifelong member of the Fabian Society, I am a great believer in federalism. An important question should be asked, and it has not been put today. There was a story in the weekend press that some of the wilder spirits on the Conservative Benches have indicated that they would not regard themselves as bound by the Salisbury Convention in the case of a Bill to reform the House of Lords brought in by a Labour Government. Will the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, say whether, if a manifesto commitment to introduce a Bill to abolish the hereditary right to sit and vote is legitimised by an election victory and such a Bill is passed in another place, the Conservative Party will observe the Salisbury Convention and not use its in-built majority in this House to kill such a Bill?
Clearly, my party has thrown down a challenge with its proposals for reform of the House of Lords. It proposes a short Bill, with wider consultation to follow. I happen to believe that there is a will to change this House for the better. There is a will to produce a House which is a genuine revising Chamber, with the power to warn and inform the Executive, whichever party is in government, which is established on a defensible and equitable basis, balancing the many interests involved, and which does not threaten the powers of the elected Chamber. We must hope that today's debate will be the beginning of that process.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, I am glad that the debate extends to the role and structure of Parliament and is not confined merely to the future reform of this House. Any decision as regards the reform of this House will depend completely on how it is met by Members of another place. Any reform of this House proposed by the Labour Party must involve the transfer of authority and power from the other place to this House. The other place would not like that and would not agree. It would never consent to transfer any of its powers to this place. The noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Annan, referred to that today.
I urge those on the Labour Front Bench, and Mr. Blair in particular, to read with care the debates in 1968 when Michael Foot and Enoch Powell combined the same objective with different arguments to destroy the agreement made between both Front Benches in both Houses for the reform of the House of Lords. Anyone

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thinking of reform today and reading those speeches will understand the difficulties which face them from the other place.
Throughout the centuries massive changes have been made in Parliament. The House of Commons has increased its powers and this House has adapted to his present role. One could properly describe this House as a forum for high quality debate on national issues. It has the role of scrutinising, amending and improving legislation. It also has the important role, which we sometimes overlook, of ensuring that Parliament does not extend its life over five years. Another important role is securing the independence of the judges—I am tempted to say judges to interpret the law and not to make it, but perhaps that strays too far.
I believe that this House carries out all its roles very well. It has in its membership experts in all aspects of life. It is something of an elder statesman or father figure. I hope that when I use the term "father figure" noble Baronesses will not think that I am in any way trying to play down their great contribution to this House. It is full of wisdom and experience which are drawn from a very wide circle. Its young hereditary Peers bring in a freshness perhaps to offset to some extent the more mature former leaders of government, the Armed Forces, industry, the Bishops and the judges who otherwise make up the majority of the membership.
The onus is upon those who want to change the House to justify doing so. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others, the difficulty is that we have a greater number of Conservative Peers than there are Peers of the other parties. We do not have a majority but we have a larger number. They may feel that it might be right to reaffirm the Salisbury rules and perhaps to extend them in order to assure the electorate that the Conservative Party in this House would not block any measure for which they clearly voted. That would be right, and I believe that if we were not prepared to do so, the electorate would be suspicious of the role that we might otherwise exercise.
Any reform of this House would require the agreement of the other place in transferring its power. I ask Members of the Labour Party to consider making it clear in their manifesto—I have not yet had the pleasure of reading today's draft manifesto—that in fulfilling its promises it will warn Members of the other place that they will have to surrender part of their powers. They will have to transfer a part of their powers to Scotland, a part to the European Parliament or Community and a part to the reformed House of Lords. Members of the other place will not like it and I should be surprised if they agreed to it. One must anticipate that the other place will have strong views about the transfer of their powers or any reduction in them.
Finally, I was privileged to be a Member of the other place some time ago. I believe that there are now too many Members. Constituencies and membership were built up in the days when one depended on horses to get around. With modern transport and communications, I believe that we have a great surplus of Members. The result is that Members tend to get loaded with matters which are properly the responsibility of district or parish
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councils. Indeed, noble Lords who have served in that place, like my noble friend Lord Renton and the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, have referred to the extent to which present day Members in the other place are bogged down with matters which are really the responsibility of the other tier of government—namely, district or parish councils, or whatever. As I said, there are too many Members of the House of Commons. A reduction there would be a good thing.
Members of the other place are also under severe restraint as regards their outside occupations; indeed, that pressure has been increased. I fear that there are now many frustrated Members who feel that they are underpaid and required to work unsocial hours. Those noble Lords who have visited the other place will know that the Chamber there is nearly always empty, except for Prime Minister's Question Time. I find it a very great contrast to the House of Commons that I knew only a relatively few years ago.
Anyone who is seriously looking for reform of Parliament should, instead of concentrating on the reform of this Chamber, which would be very difficult to achieve, look at the effectiveness of both Chambers. However, in the meantime I would urge those concerned not to seek the reform of this House—certainly not in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, with a two-phased arrangement taking away the right of hereditary Peers to vote and to turn up here—but while they scratch their heads, to decide what alternative they might suggest. I urge those anxious for reform to look right across the board and consider the attitude that Members of the House of Commons would take to any such changes. They should think most carefully before they try to implement any change.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I must respond to the noble Lord before he sits down. I cannot allow what he said to appear in the Hansard report unchallenged, so to speak. The noble Lord firmly said that the Conservative Party did not have a majority in this House. However, 476 Peers take the Tory Whip. There are 286 Cross-Benchers; 109 take the Labour Whip; and 52 take the Liberal Whip. If one adds up 286, 109 and 52, one gets a total of 447. Therefore, the Conservatives do have a majority of the people who come to this House. In addition, there are approximately 150 or 160 Peers who do not come to this House. I think it is a fair bet to say that they are not natural Labour voters.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, I will not try to cross-check the arithmetic. However, if the other Members of this House, other than those who take the Conservative Whip, turn up to vote, I think we would find that they would always beat the Conservatives. In that I include those on the Cross Benches. I am not sure whether the noble Lord did so.
7.43 p.m.
Lord McConnell: My Lords, I should like to comment briefly on some of the suggestions that have been made for the reform of this House. First, there is the suggestion that we should have an elected second chamber. If that were to be done in the normal

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democratic way, it would be done on universal franchise. That would result in people being elected on party lines. There would be no possibility to have Cross-Benchers and the House would be divided into parties, with no one of independent background being able to lend a bit of levelling sometimes to the arguments, as I hope we do on the Cross Benches. It would also mean that the party Whips would have a great deal more power because the elected Members would be looking forward to being re-elected at the next election, and, if they defied their party Whips too much they might put in jeopardy their chances of being re-selected.
A mere duplication of the House of Commons would not be accepted by the other place. Moreover, it would produce conflict and would lower the standard of this House. Have we such an admiration for the other Chamber that we want to have a duplicate of Prime Minister's Question Time in this House, with Front-Benchers snarling at each other across the Dispatch Boxes? I feel that we can offer something better.
If Members of such a chamber were elected by other means—like, for example, from local authorities—again, I do not believe that that would produce a better House than the one we have at present. Indeed, my fear is that it would be much worse. If such people were nominated by professional bodies, such as trade unions and so on, that would be undemocratic. The nomination of life Peers is a much more efficient way of representing specialist interests. I am also very much against the blanket abolition of the hereditary Members of this House. We have some very good young and able hereditary Members—and, indeed, even some older and able hereditary Members—who give considerable service to the House. It would be a great loss to do away with them.
However, it might be possible to get rid of some of the dead wood. The figures available give rather a false impression of the situation. Indeed, I looked through the attendance records for the 1994–95 Session and found that nearly 350 noble Lords never attended during that time. That included 68 Peers with leave of absence, which should only be granted for a good reason—and I am not sure how good a reason one has to give in that respect. Moreover, there were over 200 Peers who had never taken the oath. Therefore, to have those people listed as Members of this House gives a false impression and does little good.
I believe that there should be some method of dealing with that situation. For example, I suggest that if a noble Lord does not attend a certain number of times during a Session he should not be entitled to attend, vote or speak in the subsequent Session. Alternatively, the suggestion has been made that hereditary Peers might do as was done with the Scottish representative Peers—and the Irish representative Peers before them—and select a goodly number of their Members who were fit to attend and anxious to do so.
One could make a similar criticism of some of the hereditary Peers. I say that because the list of Peers who do not attend to which I referred contains a number of
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hereditary Peers. It is an honour to be given the responsibility of becoming a Member of this House. But it is not an empty honour: it is not something that one takes just to give a handle to one's name without undertaking any responsibilities.
I believe it is wrong to have two lists: there is the Honours List and there is the list of working Peers. I consider that all people appointed as life Peers should be working Peers and that no distinction should be made between one or the other. I feel it is irresponsible to accept the honour and not carry out the responsibilities.
The great thing is that the House of Lords works. That is an important consideration without going into a lot of theory as to what is good and conforms with political theory. We should preserve what we have. There are minor amendments to be made, such as I have mentioned, which probably would improve this assembly. However, I do not think we need any root and branch amendments to this House. I support what has been said; namely, that there should be full consultation. I think that any alteration of the composition of the powers of this House should, as far as possible, be done by agreement between the different parties. One side should not impose its will on the other side. I commend to noble Lords the few matters that I have mentioned.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, has had a distinguished career in Northern Ireland. Although he was too modest to say so, he came here through the Honours List and not through the working list, although he has shown since he has been here that he is also a working Peer. We are glad to see him and to hear his speech today.
I wish to say at the outset that I support my party's policy of curtailing the hereditary right to a seat in this House. This hereditary right is surely difficult to defend today and, as my noble friend Lord Carter said, it is absolutely indefensible. I accept, however, that many Peers by succession have made distinctive contributions. However, the wholesale removal of all the hereditary Peers by succession who attend regularly would not only deprive the House of many senior and distinguished Peers, but it would mean considerable disruption to parliamentary business, and a notable loss to Lords' debates.
The Labour Party, I think, recognises this problem and proposes that a number of hereditary Peers should be granted life peerages, as my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition in another place has said. I think that is absolutely essential, frankly, if the Chamber and the work of the Chamber are not to collapse.
But who is to decide on the quota for each party, and who are the chosen Peers to be? This will surely not be an easy task. I understand Labour says it can be left to the parties. But who is to decide among the large group of independent Cross-Benchers who are not organised in this way? Who among the parties are to decide? Will it be based on the number of useful and hard-working Peers who have made a contribution over the years? Is it to be based on party numbers so that the

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government of the day have a majority in the House? How is it to be done? It is an unenviable task and will lead, I am afraid, to a good deal of nepotism and unfairness. I think it is absolutely unworkable.
It is also proposed, I believe—although not by my party—as a way round this dilemma to allow the Peers by succession to elect a certain number to represent them for the duration of a Parliament. I do not think that such a solution would be acceptable in the country, which I am sure would not tolerate an aristocratic electoral college of this kind. Even if we could reach agreement on the quota system for the transfer to life peerages, the way there will not be easy. There will be a long interval between losing the right to a Writ of Summons, after the Bill has received Royal Assent, and the reintroduction to the House as a life Peer, presumably with a new title and the usual elaborate ceremony if the College of Arms has anything to do with it! Will the hereditary Peer have to give up his hereditary title if he takes a life peerage? These are all details which will have to be addressed and which I do not think have been thought through, as far as I can see. All that is said is, "Oh, well, some of the hereditaries —a good number of them—will be given life peerages". It is not made clear how this will be done and how long the interval will be after the Bill receives Royal Assent and their reintroduction under their new titles. That could take a great many months. During that time the House will he deprived of many of its key Members, who will be in temporary exile. They will indeed be some distinguished people.
I believe the best way to solve this problem with the least disruption is for the hereditary right to a seat to cease with the death of the present holder, although of course the title could continue. As about 25 hereditary Peers die every year, there would be a fairly rapid reduction in just two parliaments. If such a provision had been included in the 1958 Life Peerages Act, there would be hardly any hereditaries left in the House today, and time would have brought its own solution. It seems to have been forgotten sometimes—I think this has been so during this debate—that your Lordships' House nearly 30 years ago rejected the hereditary principle as a basis for membership. The 1968 Government White Paper stated amongst other proposals that succession to a peerage was no longer to carry the right to a seat. That proposal was approved by this House by the large majority of 251 votes to 56.
What I am suggesting therefore is not new. It is just one of the reforms that could be brought in as part of a gradual process that I have seen over the past 40 years since I have had the privilege of being a Member of this House. The House now is absolutely unrecognisable as the one that I first knew when I took my seat in 1954. It was then an all-male, all-hereditary and much smaller House. There have therefore been a good many reforms in the past 40 years. What I have suggested tonight would be a further extension of that. I am sure it is the right way to proceed and would cause the minimum of disruption, until we are ready to move to Labour's long-term proposal—as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Richard—for consultations to take place to decide the form a second Chamber should take.
7.57 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I am glad that we have had this fascinating two-day debate. It is rather fascinating that the reform of the House of Lords has such a high profile since Mr. Blair became Leader of the Labour Party. However, I suppose it is not really surprising as he became Leader rather unexpectedly and in sad circumstances. He wanted to produce a fairly safe and radical-sounding policy. The Labour Party—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, has it occurred to the noble Lord that it has become an issue not because Mr. Blair wanted it to have a high profile but rather because people think that the Labour Party will win?
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, with great respect, I do not think that is the case. For quite a long time when people asked what Mr. Blair believed in, one of the few things one could think of was that he had referred on numerous occasions to the abolition of the House of Lords. I am not criticising that in the least; it is a fact. The Labour Party rightly jettisoned many policies which have kept it out of office, and of course it takes a little time to find something to take their place. It seems to me relevant to the whole function of the House of Lords that Britain has, since the early 1980s, moved away from the socialist consensus—which dominated this country for four decades—to a capitalist consensus.
As Mr. Tony Benn rightly reminds us, in many ways we now live in a one party state. However, as my noble friend Lady Young pointed out, the Members of this House are remarkably independent and unpolitical in many ways. If, after 17 years of opposition, the Labour leadership is seeking a means of filling up the parliamentary timetable, constitutional reform is a most inspired choice. But politically it is a rather bizarre choice. After the first year or so, if most of the parliamentary time has been taken up with constitutional matters, what will the electorate think of it? It is not always easy to make the electorate appreciate matters. I remember that Mr. Harold Lever once pointed out to his party that it might be a little difficult to persuade the electorate that the Co-op could be made as efficient as Marks & Spencer simply by nationalising it. That was a long time ago. But I am not sure that constitutional matters have this tremendous political sex appeal.
I greatly admire Mr. Blair for his courage and the way that he gets things done. On the other hand, I am not sure that he is a good general. A good general does not select a bog or quicksand for his army. I hope that the Opposition have thought carefully about the issue. The speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, yesterday, spelt out the dangers of how easily parliamentary time—it is the fuel and ammunition of the political battle—can be dissipated in matters connected with the constitution. This issue was signalled early in the new leadership. It is clear that the plans have not really been worked out in detail. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, produced a large number of important questions that have to be settled.

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However, there are two important issues. I hope that the Labour Party will take careful account of them. First, let us decide whether we are aiming at a directly elected chamber in the foreseeable future, or are thinking purely in terms of limited reform. The timescale was not clear to me from the opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. We reform local government at least every 20 years, and that is probably too often. It would be intolerable if we were now to make fairly radical changes to the composition of the Chamber with the idea of moving to an elected Chamber within the next 10 to 15 years. It would be an awful waste of the country's parliamentary time.
Secondly, the Labour Party has to decide whether it wishes to proceed by confrontation or consensus. I have spent long enough as a lobby correspondent at the other end to realise that there is no limit to the period by which a parliamentary timetable can be upset if there is a confrontation on constitutional matters. I ask the noble Lord who will reply for the Opposition whether it is right to assume that the Labour Party would not propose to discuss any constitutional change off the Floor of the House in another place. I assume that, but it would be helpful to have it confirmed.
Although there is not much wrong with this House in practice, there is in perception. I am lucky enough to have been attending for five years. I am convinced that the House performs functions which have to be performed but which, for reasons of lack of expertise and pressures of time, could not be fulfilled by Members of another place. With the intrusion of the Nolan reforms, I fear there is a real danger that the quality of people in another place may well deteriorate. One of the problems in this House is that although we behave relatively well and perform useful functions, we receive little media coverage. That may be cause and effect.
I believe in reform. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, reminded us, my party has advocated reform of this Chamber on a number of occasions. We would be wise to face up to the issue again. My approach is to modify and build on the assets that we already have. Let me at this point comment on the repeated assertion that it is profoundly undemocratic for hereditary Peers to be allowed to be legislators but that in some way appointed Peers have a greater legitimacy. The position is no more undemocratic than that judges should be appointed from those who have been called to the Bar, or that generals are appointed from those who have joined the army. That does not mean that all lawyers are capable of being judges or that all soldiers are capable of being generals. Nor, of course, should all Peers by succession be allowed to be legislators; but some are. Any unelected legislature is undemocratic, but it is not necessarily anti-democratic. Therefore, I favour a reform which would include representative hereditary Peers as one of its components.
The theoretical membership of this House at 1,200 is much too large. There are people who consider that membership of the other place is too large. For the purpose of discussion, let us assume that the minimum number required should be 600. All these figures can be argued. If we add together the life Peers, the Law Lords,
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the bishops and the 11 hereditary Peers of first creation, the figure is 439. In addition, there are 19 hereditary Peers by succession who have become Privy Counsellors. I cannot believe that anyone would feel that someone who has reached that eminence should not by right have a seat in this House. Taking the figure of 600, that leaves space for 140 hereditary Peers out of 737 who are at present Members by succession; and with the Privy Counsellors that makes a total of 160. That is just over one in five.
If we consider the differential attendance figures, that is a reasonable allocation. In the last Session approximately 30 per cent. of Peers by succession attended occasionally—for between one and 39 days. A further 30 per cent. attended for more than 40 days out of 142 days. About 20 per cent. attended on more than half the number of days. Of those, about 100 can be regarded as full-time, attending more than 85 per cent. of days. I refer to the attendance of hereditary Peers.
The hereditary Peers would elect themselves. I do not believe that that can be done with any formal regard to party affiliation.
Lord Winston: My Lords, of those noble Lords recorded as attending, can the noble Lord tell us how long they spent in the Chamber?
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I cannot, and I do not think that anyone else can. I made the point that mere attendance does not necessarily mean that people contribute. That applies to everyone. I do not believe that one can use that judgment; it is a rough and ready judgment. However, as I said, I propose that only a proportion of those who attend should be selected to be Members of the House from the peerage by succession contingent. I suggest that Peers selected by Peers would ensure that the best was achieved. The public object to the belief that there are people who do not take the place seriously, or for some reason are quite unsuited to be here. I accept and respect that point of view. It is precisely to remove that criticism that I suggest that there should be a more limited number of hereditary Peers and that they should be selected in the way that I suggest.
There would have to be space for creations during a parliament. The reaper would provide some spaces. When I arrived here I was told rather comfortingly that Members of your Lordships' House live on average a decade longer than other mortals. I was told today that the average age at death of Members of the House of Lords during 1995 was 79. Let us hope that 1996 is an even better year. The last 10 Prime Ministers on death had reached an average age of 82. They are pretty tough at the top!
The maximum size of the House could be allowed to rise to 650 during a parliament. The following parliament could then revert to the figure of 600. That could be achieved by reducing the number of hereditary Peers by 50. Thus my scheme could eliminate the hereditary component of the House at the end of three parliaments. Actually I suspect that long before that wiser thoughts might have decided otherwise.

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I hope very much that the Labour Party will take heed of this debate. Otherwise, if it rushes into ill-considered changes, some of us will be reminded of a remark made nearly 30 years ago by the late lain Macleod. Referring to the Labour Party of those days, he told a Tory Party conference,
"Let them dream their dreams. Let them scheme their schemes. We have work to do".
8.10 p.m.
Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that regular membership of your Lordships' House can be a recipe for longevity. I hope that it will be true in my family; very few of us have passed the age of 60.
Today's debate has posed a personal dilemma for me, not because of my obvious concerns for the future of hereditary Peers, but because I had tickets for the Centre Court at Wimbledon today. It was difficult to give them up when I knew that I would be the 25th speaker and that whatever I had to say would have been already ably said by many noble Lords before me.
With the general election looming, it is perhaps opportune that your Lordships have spent the past two days debating key constitutional issues. My hope is that it has been an opportunity for rational discussion rather than an exercise in merely winning political brownie points. I say that, of course, as a committed Cross-Bencher. I hope that having allocated two days to constitutional issues, the Leader of the House will also allocate a full day before the Summer Recess, should time allow, for your Lordships to debate the report of EC Select Committee A, of which I am a member—I see that other members of the committee are here today—on the merits of being in or out of the European monetary union.
As a hereditary Peer and the 21st St. John of Bletso —a title which was created in 1558—can I justify my existence in your Lordships' House by birthright? Certainly, in a parliamentary democracy I cannot, nor would I wish to, attempt rationally to defend my privileged position. However, although it is an anachronism, the raw reality is that, despite its many flaws, the system has worked for many generations. It has unique qualities, with many talents. It represents all age groups and, for that matter, all interest groups. Most important, it is highly effective in many of its functions and roles.
I welcome the report of the Constitution Unit on the reform of the House of Lords and the informal study of my noble friend the Earl of Carnarvon and others on possible reforms of the second chamber. I sincerely believe that it is both instructive and essential at this time that the debate should be, and I am sure will be, fully thrashed out in the run-up to the general election.
However, what I believe falls to the root of the debate is that it should not centre entirely around the possible reform of the composition of your Lordships' House, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. A constructive reform must start by defining the House's functions, powers and the relationships with the other place and be directed at a clear set of final goals.
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The briefing summary of the Constitution Unit's report aptly defined your Lordships' House as,
"a constitutional protector, legislative reviser, and a source of independent counsel and expertise".
An additional important function is the work of Select Committees in your Lordships' House, a subject which I note was not touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. The committee reports are generally accepted as being of an extremely high quality, with a number of reports making a considerable impact outside the immediate parliamentary, European or legal areas to which they are addressed. Many committees are chaired by hereditary Peers who also make up a good number of the overall membership. Here it is worthwhile also to commend the work of the Government's Front Bench, most of whom I believe are hereditary Peers. I have had a problem as a so-called working hereditary Peer since I got married as my wife feels that being here is a complete and utter waste of time. But perhaps that is for another discussion.
While the overall figure of eligible hereditary Peers to life Peers makes startling reading, the reality is that of the 580 Peers who sat for more than 20 days last year—and I cannot answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, as to how long they sat for—49 per cent. were life Peers and the remainder hereditary.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his criticism of the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in your Lordships' House, pointed out the large percentage of Conservative hereditary Peers. He explained how the results of Labour Government defeats in the Lords between 1974 and 1979 and the far fewer defeats of the Conservative Government since they have been in office could have been dramatically reversed if there were no hereditary Peers voting. Apart from the fact that defeats in your Lordships' House serve merely to persuade rather than to direct the other place, the Salisbury/Addison doctrine established the convention of restricting a party in majority in your Lordships' House from blocking manifesto commitments by a government of a different party in the other place. That is an important point in the argument.
As a committed Cross-Bencher, I also agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, that in many cases Divisions in your Lordships' House are regularly won by the arguments on the Floor of the House rather than purely by party loyalty. It is interesting to note the point raised by many noble Lords that the Cross-Benchers make up the second largest group in your Lordships' House.
Constitutional reform has among its many objectives the reduction of the power of the Executive. I was interested to read in a recent letter that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, wrote to The Times that he believes that,
"the hereditary peers in a small, illogical and anomalous way do check the power of the Executive."
With most speakers focusing on possible reforms of this House, it was refreshing to hear my noble friend Lord Weatherill call for more reforms to the other place. The noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal argued that your Lordships' House was an "amateur" House yet had

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enormous depth of experience and expertise and was extremely cost effective vis-à-vis the other place and the European Parliament. The fact that the costs of your Lordships' House, including the costs of running the judicial office, amount to less than 25 per cent. of the cost of running the other place and a staggering 8 per cent. of the overall costs of the European Parliament needs to be made more public to general voters when assessing the role and usefulness of your Lordships' House.
Traditionally, your Lordships' House has never been a party political chamber, nor do I believe it should ever become one. There has been a wide-ranging assortment of suggestions for possible gradual or sometimes more radical reform of the House: from the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that hereditary rights should cease on the death of the present holder, to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, in The Times yesterday for reducing the number of hereditary Conservative Peers, particularly the backwoodsmen, and increasing the number of Labour and Liberal Democrat life Peers.
While I agree with the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I do believe that there should be some reform of this House. However, I do not take the purist line of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, of a democratically elected chamber. That option would mean vesting far greater power in this House and would be a recipe for disaster. I do not believe that the majority of voters in Britain consider reform of this House to be a high priority.
Finally, I am of the opinion that, while there should be reform, it should be minimalist. I hope that it will be evolutionary, with as much consensus as possible between all parties.
8.20 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. I can tell him at the outset that my wife thinks exactly as his wife does. Although I have been in this House for 30 years, she still thinks it is a waste of everybody's time. Be that as it may, I do not.
Somewhat surprisingly, I propose to concentrate on the contribution of the hereditary peerage to Parliament. Before doing so, I wish to make brief reference to the subject of yesterday's debate. My father, 100 years ago, was a Liberal Unionist. He was half Welsh and half English by birth. My mother was almost wholly Scottish, though there was a bit of French in her family back in the eighteenth century. I am married to a girl from Northern Ireland. Like very many other British citizens I am therefore a Unionist to my backbone and believe that the strength of this Kingdom rests wholly in the Union in its present form. Any plans to dilute the Union should be resisted as strongly as any of us knows how.
As to creating regions of England to compensate somehow for any other changes to the Union, I resist that equally strongly. Having lived in three counties of England as well as in the Isle of Wight, I find no wish for regions locally and I have a positive dislike for the
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current regions of the pompous central government departments. The smaller the population of a county, the more it resists regionalisation.
Turning to the future of hereditary Peers, in 1977 as a contribution to the committee of my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, which was then examining the subject, I wrote what service staff officers call an "appreciation", selecting as its aim:
"To examine the membership and powers of the House of Lords with a view to seeing how it could contribute better to government in the United Kingdom".
In considering the subject now, I still believe that any change should be made only if it ensures a better—I underline the word "better"—contribution to government by this House.
Let us look briefly at the contribution of hereditary Peers. After succeeding to the title, they can if they wish attend spasmodically as an apprenticeship. I did so for my first eight years, when earning my living was a high priority. For example, in Opposition and in supporting the Government, I learnt then, among many other things, that one can influence government spokesmen better by persuasion than by bullying. That is an understanding from which some noble Lords opposite might benefit.
Because of the uncertainties of succession, hereditary Peers provide a large proportion of the younger Members. Youth is very important in a non-elected Chamber. I emphasise, as other noble Lords have done, that any non-elected chamber is as undemocratic as any other non-elected chamber, if that is the point that is being made. In the nature of things Life Peers tend to be (not all of them) rather old, because they have to prove themselves before being selected.
The Canadian Senate, whose influence, as I discovered when serving in the UK High Commission in the 1960s, is minimal, is one example. It is significant that in the year that I spent on the staff of the High Commission, never once did I see the Senate mentioned in the newspapers; never once did I meet a senator at a diplomatic party. It would be quite remarkable in this country if Members of this House were not either quoted in the newspapers or seen at such parties.
The uncertainties of succession also make hereditary Peers a form of random selection, as my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal mentioned in his opening speech. That makes them much more representative of the country at large than is an appointed quango. The selection is also much more genuinely random these days than it was in 1911, since so many more of us have to struggle to earn a living. I have certainly had to. Hereditary Peers owe no allegiance to anyone, and attend only if they think that they can genuinely help the government of the country. If that leads to any of them acting with self-interest, the House quickly detects and squashes such a tendency. The House is good at that sort of thing.
In 1977, I also discovered that only about 300 of all Peers (about a quarter of those entitled) attend really regularly—I emphasise the word "really". Only about 250 of them usually attend on a normal day, even if both the major parties have a two-line Whip. That is supplemented by the balance of power being held by the

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Cross-Benchers, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Denham. Periodical checks on that balance since have shown the numbers and the balance of political power to be remarkably consistent. Remarkably, when Peers of all sorts cease to attend very regularly they seem to be automatically replaced by others of a similar persuasion. That goes for all parties and Cross-Benchers. Perhaps it has something to do with a form of random selection. It is very mysterious.
I prepared this speech on Sunday. On Monday we had a classic example of the Cross-Benches winning Divisions, and then not doing so when they wished because the Cross-Benches wanted it that way, regardless of what either of the major parties thought.
In 1977, my appreciation led me to recommend that if hereditary Peers were to be swept away they should be replaced by elected persons to balance the Life Peers—in what proportion would be for discussion: 50:50 might be one possibility, although at that stage I supported a proposal for two-thirds elected and one-third Life Peers. I saw that as the only conceivable alternative which might (though even that is rather doubtful) achieve the aim of my appreciation, for this House to contribute better (again I emphasise "better") to government.
Happily, Lord Home's committee put forward a very similar proposal. It is well worth reading for those who have not done so. Unless we can be sure that the other place would accept such a solution—and I do not believe that is as difficult as some people have suggested—I believe that, as things stand, hereditary Peers are far too valuable an element of this House for them to be deprived of any of their present rights.
As other noble Lords said, there can be no question of hereditary Peers being deprived of those rights as a first stage, with a vague promise of something better to follow. Any overall change must be considered comprehensively by the House in one stage only. It seems to me almost inevitable that, were we all persuaded to go away—and I do not believe that we should go easily—it would become too difficult to do anything more positive, and along the lines I have suggested because of the problems caused by the shortness of Parliamentary time. Therefore, matters would just drift on, to the end of the Parliament in question, then the response would be: "Oh, well we won't bother about it until the next time". And we should have a body similar to the Senate in Canada trying to help govern this country. God help us if we do.
If the noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench are determined to sweep us away without some replacement because of the irritation that we cause mainly to them and certainly to Prime Ministers of both major parties, I hope most fervently that every effort will be made by the country to ensure that their party will never again form a government.
8.32 p.m.
Lord Winston: My Lords, I was deeply sorry to hear that Lady St. John of Bletso felt that her husband was wasting his time. My wife, at least, knows where I am, and Hansard provides a written check of that. It is the best possible evidence.
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I must apologise for my brief absences during a short part of this debate. I hope I do not repeat anything that has been said before but, of course, in a sense this is one of the conflicts of being both a working doctor and a working life Peer. Indeed, this paradox is quite important in this debate because I believe I would he much less valuable as a Member of this House if I were not a working doctor, an academic and a scientist.
My only excuse for speaking at all in this very lengthy debate is that I am one of the most junior Members, almost the most junior Member, of this House and possibly some observations from a very green newcomer would be appropriate.
When the news of my appointment to this House was leaked to a newspaper my teenage daughter ran home to her mother in tears, saying, "Does that mean that Daddy is so old?" That is a view which is relevant because it is a view which is shared, to some extent, by the general public. Even intelligent people regard this place as outmoded, peopled, dare I say it, by a number of geriatrics or effete aristocrats who argue about hunting. There is nothing like joining a body for changing one's opinion.
Within two days, I became immensely impressed by this House as a revising chamber. That great impression has continued with me and is augmented all the time. As most people of my party would, particularly in the other place, without knowledge I had discounted the contribution and the stature of many of the hereditary Peers. I see now that that was a completely mistaken impression. One only has to look, for example, at the Government Front Bench to see the remarkable work that they do, with the great altruism and the time that they put in.
I rapidly recognised that it was rather difficult to distinguish between the hereditary Peers and the life Peers. The only evidence I could see was that the hereditary Peers were definitely fitter, in some cases younger, usually taller, and in the case of the Lord Privy Seal—who unfortunately is not in his seat at the moment—more handsome. Although, I have to say that my red carnation is bigger than his red carnation. I wonder whether I put more muck on mine.
Notwithstanding all the rather curious views represented by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, yesterday, this observation about the hereditary peerage has done something to restore my diminishing professional impression of the usefulness of genetics. Nevertheless, I have to agree with my noble friend and leader that the position of the hereditary peerage is hardly tenable in a modern legislative chamber. In spite of that tribute which we all feel, and that work which is in the greatest tradition of British freedoms, we have to accept that the precedence of the hereditary peerage, as constituted, is very difficult to defend.
The question is how should they be replaced? I am a life Peer. I am very well aware of the privilege of being here. I find that difficult to justify. I did when I heard that I might be appointed here and I still find it difficult to justify because I know that there are hundreds of doctors who are better qualified as doctors, and who are

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much more experienced in medicine than I am. Similarly, if you take scientists, which, I suppose, is my other line, there are so many scientists who have contributed so much more at my age and are far more innovative than I am, who could just as easily and ably sit in my place.
If we put our hands on our hearts as life Peers, many of us would have to say that there are many colleagues who could do the job which we are currently performing in this House.
Another problem of the life peerage, as it is currently constituted, is that it clearly does not reflect our society. In this House it is obvious. There are still very few women in this House as life Peers, and there are almost no Members from the ethnic minorities. The Bishops are all Anglican; there are very few Catholic of Jewish Ministers, and I believe I am right in saying that there is no Moslem cleric in the House. From direct experience the House cannot generally express the views of the more disadvantaged members of our society, and this can only be done from our indirect experience, and by the public service that so many of your Lordships carry out so well in various aspects of public life.
What about an elected chamber? I have to say that I am very fearful of that alternative. We already have an elected chamber whose decisions should remain paramount, but it has the problems of being extremely political in flavour. I cannot see that we would benefit from another chamber of that sort. This Chamber is at its best, as I have seen, and at its most effective when it is not being political.
A few months ago I went into the other place in the Peers' Gallery to listen to the opening of the Scott debate. It was remarkable and wonderful. I do not think one would have to be unpartisan, listening to Mr. Robin Cook and hearing him taunting the row of limpets stuck to the Treasury Front Bench, to recognise a great parliamentary performance. It was a truly entertaining experience. I then returned to this Chamber and heard a reasoned and carefully argued debate in all the traditions of this House.
That is a vital tradition that we have to protect because we do that so well. As we have seen in the last two days of this debate, there is an astonishingly high degree of communication, which we must maintain. We have seen it during the conduct of the Asylum and Immigration Bill when the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, was forced to stick to the Front Bench for nine hours during one of the Committee stages. I took pity on her and bought her a packet of Polos. Two hours later, she sent me, across the Chamber, a chocolate biscuit—and we are not even good friends.
What was remarkable about that debate during the Committee stage was the level of the discussion, and it was only at one o'clock in the morning when everybody was tired and starting to get angry that we fell into the trap of being political. Then the debate petered out and we saw very clearly what can happen when we get too political.
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There are other problems in this House. How can we justify Peers who come into the Chamber, make a speech and leave, which is against the conventions of this House? That has happened, even during this debate. Of course it must happen during a long debate but sometimes it seems not to be necessary. I find it difficult to accept that, in a Chamber which is not primarily a legislating Chamber but a revising Chamber which listens to arguments before making decisions, people can walk through a voting Lobby without having heard any part of the debate and therefore weigh in against carefully considered and important arguments. That is a great weakness of our system. It is one of the matters that we need to address.
Another problem can be well seen during Question Time. I quite understand that it is not the fault of Ministers, but very often they make little or no attempt to answer the Question which is to be addressed. The problem is that they do not have a mandate to do so. It is only Secretaries of State in the other place who can make policy on the hoof (even in the case of BSE, dare I say?) and make comments which might be contentious and which might have to be justified afterwards to their Ministry.
As the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, said, holding the Government to account is very difficult when Ministers may not have the authority to answer to us. I hope that the Questions and the Answers to them which are put in this House are listened to by the Government in the other place. Many of us wonder whether that in fact happens. It seems to me to be a very important part of the process in this Chamber.
We have to be very careful indeed to recognise on all sides of the House that in all our deliberations we must not bring Parliament lower in the estimation of the public. I am concerned that reform must therefore be taken extremely carefully and with proper consensus. We certainly need reforms, but they must not just be for political expediency. I have learnt that as a junior Member of this House. This Chamber is a vital checkpoint in our democratic processes.
With all the paradoxes that I see in the possible recomposition of this House, it worries me that we might make changes too quickly without looking carefully at alternative solutions, solutions which might, for example, include their slower evolution. It amuses me that nearly all Peers opposite say that they want to reform the House but none of them seems to want to change it. We must change but we must be sure to protect this great legislative Chamber.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Hindlip: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, "Et in Arcadia ego". I should like to speak very briefly in defence of the hereditary peerage and its place in the constitution. I support almost everything that my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal said.
It is easy to dismiss a socially unacceptable relic of the past and consign hereditary Peers to the waste paper basket of history or to the pages of some

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Wodehousian novel. New political thought would like to do that. It is ironic that at the same time new research, to which the noble Lord, Lord Winston, alluded, in his witty and amusing speech, suggests that heredity has something to offer. It would seem, therefore, an odd moment to choose to dismiss for ever from your Lordships' House the descendants of the country's greatest political and military heroes. I am too sentimental and would find it sad if there were never more a Cecil or a Cavendish in this House.
But there is a simple and more immediate reason for keeping the hereditary element of your Lordships' House. Strangely, perhaps, it is about independence and freedom from patronage. In a speech on the constitution on 7th May 1782, in the other place, Edmund Burke said:
"To those who say it is a bad one, I answer, look to its effects. In all moral machinery the moral results are its test".
With its hereditary element, this House provides an enviable way for unbiased and independent thought to go into the drafting and scrutiny of legislation.
The reason that I, one of my noble friend Lord Monson's apprentices, wish to speak in this debate is to recall a conversation that I had, shortly before I left the Army and joined the auction house whose name my noble friend Lord Gowrie forgets, with a wise and experienced Member of the other place and later of your Lordships' House, Lord Margadale of Islay, who was chairman for many years of the Conservative 1922 Committee. I asked his advice about a career in politics. "Ask me again," he said, "in 25 years' time when you have done something. Politics is becoming full of people who have done nothing else. It is bad for Parliament and sad for the country."
That conversation took place 35 years ago. The trend visible then has become the norm today. The other place is full of career politicians, reliant for their advancement on the patronage of the Prime Minister of the day and the approval of the Whips' Office. Step out of line and you will be de-selected. Many people must wonder why the target for reform is your Lordships' House. Does career politics, with jobs for life its inevitable aim, make for good government? To quote Burke again:
"Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it".
The need to be reselected and then re-elected becomes paramount and although logic suggests that in a democracy the will of the people is where true patronage lies, the experience of press, polls and spin doctors suggests that that is not always totally true. The danger to independent thought and unbiased action becomes all the greater with the convergence of the major political parties. That may be an excellent development, suggesting that reason prevails everywhere and, as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said in another context, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. But woe betide all those who disagree. They will have nowhere to turn to.
They will not find what they want here if any of the currently proposed alternatives to this House, with its splendid diversity, width of experience and
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independence, are adopted. An elected second chamber? There would be the same press, the same polls, the same spin doctors and, I fear, public apathy to non-general elections: a selected House. Even to your Lordships I do not suggest that independence and intelligence lie only with hereditary Peers. Of course they do not. But selection still places power ultimately with the party in power. It is the same old patronage.
Reform—yes; let in some fresh air and by all means some change—the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, made some excellent points—but do not destroy the basic fabric of this House and the constitution. Do not take away the experience of generations and, more importantly, independent minds. Make it possible that decisions can still be taken with no debts to outside interests, no regard to advancement or to financial reward, only a conscience and listening to the strength of the arguments. We have a good constitution in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Bletso, said, "If it ain't bust, don't fix it."
8.48 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I shall confine my remarks to the future of this House and in particular the future of the hereditary Peers, in which naturally I declare an interest. Many people, including the much quoted noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, writing in yesterday's Times, have pointed out the inappropriateness of an elected second chamber for a non-federal nation such as ours.
Perhaps I may suggest two further disadvantages, among many, not so far mentioned. First, an elected Peer sitting for a marginal constituency, however that constituency happens to be made up, would almost certainly feel just as inhibited in expressing his true feelings about such contentious issues as capital punishment or foxhunting as would his counterparts in the other place instead of being able to tell the truth as he sees it and as Peers are able to do today in a non-elected chamber. That would be a pity.
The second, and perhaps less important, disadvantage is that elected Peers, with the enormous and growing constituency obligations referred to by my noble friend Lord Weatherill, would require massive and fairly expensive secretarial assistance. That would have to be paid for by the taxpayer.
Other noble Lords—notably the Leader of the House—and some outside this House shudder at the "quango-ish" implications of an all-nominated second chamber: I shall not go further into the matter. I must be about the tenth speaker today who, with hereditary Peers in mind, has used the maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, New Labour maintains that it is indeed broken, as opposed to slightly maladjusted, and therefore requires drastic and extensive fixing. Whether New Labour genuinely believes this or simply says it as a sop to its left wing to compensate the latter for the abandonment of red-blooded socialism is hard to say. Let us assume charitably that its concern is genuine. In his article in The Times yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, like the noble Lord, Lord Carter, today, reminded us that since 1974 Labour governments have

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been defeated in this House on average five times as often per annum as Conservative governments. Lack of space prevented him from breaking down those figures into temporary and permanent defeats. I would guess that when Labour was in office most of the defeats were quickly and painlessly reversed in the other place, except when drafting improvements were involved. If the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, were still in the Chamber, I am sure that he would confirm that. In contrast, a considerable proportion of the defeats suffered by Conservative governments in this House have ultimately, if reluctantly, been accepted by them. It seems that defeat in this House when Labour has been in power is more a minor irritation than a serious challenge to its legislative programme.
A minor irritation is none the less an irritation. The longer it remains unsoothed the more irritating it becomes. But why throw the baby out with the bath water? Why indulge in overkill and provoke constitutional upheaval when the problem can be dealt with in a much less radical fashion? The proposal that parties, or the Cross-Benches, should elect a small proportion of hereditary Peers to become life, or quasi-life, Peers is not a good one. The party whips would always press for regular attenders to be elected. Viewed objectively, they might not always be the best people. For example, it would exclude busy people such as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, a most eminent biologist and chairman of English Nature. His commitments are such that he cannot attend very often, but when he does his contributions are extremely valuable.
A far better solution would be to adopt a modified version of the 1968 proposals whereby all Back Bench hereditary Peers would become non-voting Peers. Surely, that would take care of all the grumbles voiced by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his opening speech. Non-voting Peers would still be able to ask Starred Questions, table Questions for Written Answer and speak in Second Reading debates and what might be termed Wednesday debates, timed or otherwise. They would be able to table and speak to amendments in Committee, at Report stage and on Third Reading with a view to influencing voting Peers to vote for those amendments, provided they persuaded at least two such Peers to act as tellers. They could also serve on Select Committees. Various noble Lords have pointed out that they already serve on such committees, in particular the Select Committee on the European Communities, where their expertise is often invaluable. One has in mind hereditary Peers such as the noble Lord, Lord Kilbracken, who served on a Select Committee concerned with reform of the betting laws and provided expertise which would not otherwise have been available.
I suggest that most non-voting Peers would eventually become, almost by default, independents since there would be no point in the whips trying to persuade noble Lords who were unable to vote. That would be no bad thing, because it would allow an even wider variety of opinions to be expressed. If it were argued that non-voting Peers would have fewer obligations than
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voting Peers—for example, not having to hang around for late business—and that a small proportion of them might simply come along for the ride, as it were, that problem could be countered by requiring non-voting Peers to shoulder the first 25 or 30 per cent. of their travel and other expenses, thereby weeding out the very few who might not be seriously committed.
It would be unseemly to single out individuals on my own Benches. But unless the 1968 proposals, or some modification of them, were adopted, the House would risk losing not only the constant rejuvenating influx of younger hereditary Peers but the invaluable knowledge and experience of, for example, the noble Lords, Lord Kennet, Lord Kilbracken and Lord Strabolgi among others on the Labour Benches, and possibly the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who did not seem entirely sure of his status in this regard. I instance also the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, on the Liberal Democrat Benches, and, if he ever returned to the Back Bench, the noble Earl, Lord Russell. It would also debar former Ministers of the Crown like the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Windlesham and other Conservative Back Benchers. I take three at random who happen to have great expertise in particular fields: the noble Lords, Lord Selsdon, Lord Stanley of Alderley and Lord Swinfen. This House would be a very much less effective place without them and other hereditary Peers too numerous to mention.
To the extent that they exist, unfair voting patterns can easily be tackled without physically removing such individuals and casting them politically into outer darkness and, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, undermining the heritage, ethos and symbolism of this House.
8.58 p.m.
Baroness Flather: My Lords, I once described the House of Lords to someone who happened to be English. After a few moments he said to me that in England nothing was ever as it seemed. I believe that that was a very telling statement. Certainly the House of Lords is not as it seems. I am an outsider. I have no emotional attachment to hereditary Peers, although I have formed attachments to individual ones. All of my views are based upon observations over the past six years. I have great sympathy with the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the noble Lord, Lord Monson. This is one of the most remarkable places of which I have had the privilege of being a part. It is warm, friendly and, most remarkably, non-sexist. As a woman, I do not believe that I have ever been treated anywhere else as well as I have been in this place, as a colleague and valued friend, not as someone to be competed with, put up with or patronised. I am a great expert at being patronised by all kinds of people.
I was interested in the description of a Christian House given by the right reverend Prelate. It was a good description. There is a good, benign feeling about this place. Having extolled the virtues of this place, naturally I would be very sad to lose the best of it in any changes that took place. I should like to list some of the matters that I believe to be the greatest virtues of this House.

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We all know that the House is effective and that it works. We scrutinise Bills better than anyone would expect us to do. We make changes by agreement. It is very important to remember that those of us who sit on the Government Benches do our bit to make changes to Bills. We do not always divide the House, but we try, by agreement, to make changes.
This House is the cheapest, and some of us know it! The only people who do not know that and who do not care are the taxpayers. None of them ever believes me when I say that we are not paid, so we might as well be paid. This Chamber has been described as a treasure house of experience and expertise, and no one can gainsay that. The House is also independent and I rate that as one of its highest qualities. Even those who are not politically affiliated are of independent mind. That is because we are unelected Peers and here for life, which no one can take away from us. We can do what we like and we can, and do, say things to our Whips which are unrepeatable in this Chamber.
We are not in competition with the other place. That is a virtue and how it should be. Once we send a piece of legislation back to the other place and it returns to this House, not having been accepted, it is only right and proper that we should accept that.
For the sake of convenience I shall call the next section of my speech "vices". They are not exactly vices, but I use that expression for convenience only. The present composition of the House is a contradiction of democratic values. That applies equally to life Peers. Noble Lords have been talking about hereditary Peers, but it is not only they who form a contradiction to democratic values. I do, too. All life Peers form that same contradiction. If we go, then we should all go and the House of Lords should go. We cannot be the House of Lords without hereditary Peers being here.
There is a built-in Tory majority in this House. Whatever we heard from my noble friend the Leader of the House and others on the Government Front Bench, that cannot be put aside. We are delighted that so many more hereditary Peers support us than any other party. Whether all hereditary Peers come to vote, they have the right to do so. I consider that a vice as well. The reason is that so many of them come very rarely. They walk into the Lobby when they may not only be unfamiliar with what is going on in the Chamber at the time but they may not even be familiar with what goes on there, and that really worries me.
The House is too amorphous. I heard earlier that there are 755 hereditary Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, said that we all speak about change, but that we do not want it. My noble friend the Leader of the House said that change should be evolutionary and not revolutionary. I entirely agree with him. Unfortunately, he went on to defend the status quo. Some evolutionary change has to take place and we must not fear it. We must retain the qualities of this House, but make certain perhaps administrative changes, not constitutional ones, to make it a better working House in order to remove this very large in-built Tory majority. If roles were reversed and the party opposite had a huge in-built majority, I am sure that I would be saying this much more loudly than I do at the moment.
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We have heard a great deal about service by hereditary Peers in the House through the generations. That is wonderful. I am glad that they gave service, but I believe they got something from it as well. It is always a two-way process. We must not think that the hereditary Peers who come to the House come out of a sense of altruism. They come because they like it, it is interesting and it is something that they want to do.
I feel extremely proud, for many other reasons which are obvious to everyone. We all give service here. As we all know, we do not get paid so we cannot be accused of attending the House for the money alone because the money is not there. Many noble Lords would be much better off working in their professions and jobs rather than coming to the House. We come here because we feel that we are contributing something to national life, and that applies to all of us.
I do not know whether any other Member of this House has noticed an interesting fact. On the Government Front Bench all the males are hereditary Peers; all the females on the Front Bench are life Peers. I wonder whether it is unfair to male life Peers that none of them can ever aspire to serve on the Front Bench. That is an aside.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will allow me to protest in the politest possible terms. I shall not enumerate the number of life Peers who make such an extraordinary contribution to the Government Front Bench. I hope that she will agree with me that she has just indulged in a gross exaggeration.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, there are the three brothers Mackay.
Baroness Flather: My Lords, I stand corrected. Perhaps I may change that to the majority. I personally subscribe to the Scottish model of representative Peers because I believe that that would tighten up the work of the House and encourage the hereditary Peers to take more interest in the work of the House. That would only be for the life of each Parliament so that others would have the opportunity of standing again for the next Parliament.
I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said, about the likelihood of excluding some special categories of Peers from speaking. I would meet that problem differently. I would suggest that, with the leave of the House, any Member should be able to speak in the Chamber. I too wondered how we could avoid excluding some of those hereditary Peers with the finest minds who might not be elected. I first read about that solution in the House Magazine in an article by my noble friend Lord Whitelaw. I was delighted to hear today that the grandfather of my noble friend the Leader of the House made that suggestion in the year of my birth. I am sure that that is significant. That solution would also deal with the criticism that too many people use this place as a club. I do not think that present hereditary Members of the House should be excluded from using it as a club

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if that is what they want to do. Perhaps such solutions should become effective with the next generation so that there is not a direct cut-off point.
Change will come one way or another. I just hope that change will not mean the complete disappearance of the most wonderful place that I have ever had the privilege of joining. I hope that the change will be gradual and gentle and will allow us to keep this unique and wonderful House.
9.10 p.m.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, with her direct and refreshing common sense. Perhaps I may say to console her that I had been a Member of this House for a full year before I realised that the noble Baroness who is just leaving the Government Front Bench was not at least the 15th holder of the proud title of "Trumpington"—
Noble Lords: Hear, hear
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: Straight out of the pages of Evelyn Waugh!
Everything that has been said about the House of Lords in the past few hours of debate leaves me feeling inadequate about being able to contribute anything further to the discussion on the composition, role and structure of your Lordships' House. It has got to a point rather like that which Senator Mo Udall once identified at an American Democratic Convention after two days when he said, "Everything that can be said has been said", and then he paused and said, "But not everybody has yet said it".
I thought that I would talk about something completely different—the basis on which we might think about these difficult matters of constitutional reform. The issue is not really constitutional conservatism versus constitutional reform, which was the great defining issue of Victorian politics. Paradoxically, there was one notion which united both Victorian reformers and Victorian constitutionalists and that was the central idea of the fundamental importance of the constitution. I refer to the debate which the noble Viscount's ancestry recalls. It gripped Victorian politics. It took place between people who felt intensely about the intrinsic importance of the constitution, whether they were for change or for maintenance. Once again, and in my view rather belatedly, there is a new debate on constitutional reform which will clearly figure largely in the coming general election. Superficially, some of the arguments advanced against change are traditionally those of conservatism (with a small "c")—and very ancestral voices sound again in the land.
The analogy with the Victorian constitutional reform debate is in some senses rather misleading. The real argument now is not between tradition and reform, between continuity and change, but between those who find themselves willy-nilly constitutional iconoclasts, indifferent to constitutional values but actually changing the constitution, and those who are in favour of rational
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reform of our arrangements—in other words, between those who are engaged in piecemeal change and those of us who are in favour of a new constitutional settlement.
The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, in his most interesting speech, referred to the Government's decimation of local government. He could have mentioned the abolition of London's government; he could have mentioned the Single European Act; he could have mentioned the fundamental restructuring of the Civil Service. He did mention the failed experiment of the poll tax. The point of these references is not to get into a familiar political debate on their merits or their demerits, but to say that they all are or were constitutionally significant. Let us make no mistake: constitutional change is not something that is unfamiliar to this Government. They have been changing our arrangements in what I have referred to as a piecemeal way. In a fast changing world, I suppose that institutional change is necessary and inevitable.
The question is what principles underlie it and what values it represents. In other words, what is the whole, of which any particular institutional change is only an expression? The noble Viscount, in his very spirited introduction, advanced two propositions with which he said we would all agree. The first was that Parliament is the fount of all authority; the second was that Parliament crucially depended on the consent of the electorate. Although I do not want to be too provocative this late in the evening, let me say that I am not sure that I agree with him.
I would like to advance an alternative proposition. My assumption is a different one. It is a democratic assumption, and it is that it is the people of this country who are the fount of all authority. It is the citizens of this country who are the basic source of legitimacy in our constitutional arrangements. Sovereignty—that much abused and overused word—actually lies in the people of Britain, who choose to delegate their power upwards to various levels of government, including crucially Parliament.
Interestingly, in recent years there has begun to be discussion of this point. If one reads Article 1 of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, with which the noble Viscount is very familiar, for the first time in British constitutional arrangements it makes it quite explicit that it is for the people of Northern Ireland to decide their own future. In other words, we have begun to change the terms of the debate. This is also the case with Scotland. There are many Scots; and this was reflected in the constitutional convention that came out a year ago. The Claim of Right that preceded it was on the assumption that Scotland's future lies in the hands of the people of Scotland. These are deep waters in a constitution as old as ours which, as the Government would say, has evolved over the years.
However, I believe that the principle of the democratic primacy of the people of this country begins to make sense of several of the apparently disparate proposals for constitutional reform to which, on the whole, the Government are opposed. For instance, a Bill of Rights is not so much important because Parliament does or does not will it, but because, in the words of

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the Declaration of Independence 220 years ago today, individuals are endowed with inalienable rights and the rights rest in and belong to each individual person. They are rights which should be inviolable against the state which the state, in the form of a temporary parliamentary majority, should not be able to encroach upon.
On the same assumption, freedom of information is important because the information of government belongs not to the state but to the citizen. It is the right of every citizen to own the information on which governments conduct policy on matters such as devolution and stronger local government, because the more frequently decisions are made closer to the citizen, the better.
There was then a further reference, if I may just come back to it, that the noble Viscount made to the consent of the electorate and to voters choosing the government. It is interesting to reflect that the majority of voters in Britain get neither the Member of Parliament nor the Government that they personally want, so there is some dislocation there in terms of people feeling that they own their system.
Your Lordships will have remarked that yesterday in Russia—and I for one am very glad about it—the Communist Party was very heavily defeated and humiliated. Some of the newspapers today are saying that it is a broken force. People have their own views on that. I believe that it is a very happy thing for the Russian people. But it is interesting to reflect on what proportion of the vote this "broken force", humiliated at the polls, achieved in Russia. It was 42 or 43 per cent.—about the same percentage on the basis of which this Government exercise what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, described as elected dictatorship, the total powers of the state.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He feels that the Russian communists are broken and defeated as a result of achieving only 42 per cent. in the polls. Would he say the same of the Liberal Democrats as a result of achieving only 18 or 19 per cent. in the polls?
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, it is very nice of the noble Lord to give us 18 or 19 per cent. I believe that the current polls are slightly lower than that. But I appreciate his intervention. We shall struggle on in our own small way, trying to advance arguments in the public interest and not simply making partisan points.
It is interesting to think that in one country 42 per cent. equals humiliation and in another it gives you the levers of power in the fairly total way that the British system works.
The point I am trying to make is this: when thinking about measures of constitutional change, what is the issue of principle? This applies particularly to electoral reform. Some noble Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, and I dare say some members of the public, will think that the Liberal Democrats want electoral reform because it will advantage their party. It
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would advantage a party that receives 18 or 19 per cent. of the votes but only 4 per cent. of the seats. It would make that a fairer outcome.
I wish to advance a different argument: it would make every voter equal and ensure that every vote counted equally towards the result. It would mean that people began to own the House of Commons rather than feel, as we all know, rather alienated from it; in other words, although I accept the noble Viscount's definition of consent, I do not believe that consent is enough. If we want to bridge the gap between Parliament and the people, we need participation and an equal stake in the system for everyone. We might then begin to shrink the distance between the people and their political leadership.
I shall finish by saying that the noble Viscount ended with a little summary of economic change and political stability. I dare say that that prefigures part of the basis of the election campaign. It is an interesting way of expressing it. I should like to advance a different proposition: if we want to be truly economically successful in this country, we would do better to open up our system, to treat people as having a full stake in their system of government, to think about enablement and empowerment, in every way that we can.
Looking at modern business it is interesting to discover that the very ideas which our best companies use—which do not seem to creep into the British system of government: ideas of open information, shared decision-making, participation and finding common ground—are still alien to the political process. Although on all sides of the House we would share the view that economic change is essential in an intensely competitive world, we would do a great deal better by trying to create an open system—a system of genuine political stakeholding and not just economic stakeholding; a system in which information is shared and power comes from the grass roots. Let us not be too proud to learn from business and other societies, then we might begin to make the transition, which I believe is essential, from a culture of dependence, where people are still subjects, to one in which they are fully citizens.
9.22 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, as a hereditary Peer, I consider that I am here foremost to serve the interests of the people of this nation and not just my party. I am not opposed to reform. Indeed I welcome the suggestion of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal for a Select Committee. I would be happy to give up my place in this House, but only if I were certain that the daunting task of unravelling parts of it would not destabilise an interim chamber before the next stage of reform.
I am concerned however that with no clearly identified timetable that may never happen. We have the duty to consider alternatives to the status quo, but we are entitled to have those alternatives clarified. That leads me to ask a number of questions of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. I do not expect him to

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answer them all tonight, but I hope that he will undertake to respond by letter at a later date. They are all questions that will inevitably have to be addressed.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I hope that he will appreciate that the Top Salaries Review Body has just reported, and that in its report it has considered whether Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen in this House should receive extra secretarial and office assistance to enable them to perform their duties. Unfortunately it has decided that they should not. On that basis, it is rather unfortunate for a Back-Bencher on the government side to raise the question of opposition Front-Benchers writing to them in the way that Back-Benchers from this side—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Monkswell:—ask government Ministers to write to them when government Ministers have the full panoply of the Civil Service to support them.
Lord Denham: Order!
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, with the greatest respect, these are policies which the Opposition are putting forward and we are entitled to know what they are about.
After the first stage of reform, will there be changes to the system of nomination and who will make the appointments? Will the Prime Minister, as Head of the Executive, claim the right to choose one branch of the legislature? Who will decide the party balance? What will be the revised chamber's powers and functions? How many Peers will there be and will they be able to maintain the necessary levels of activity with a reduced membership? If there are to be many newly-appointed Life Peers how will they be formally introduced into the House? Is the Opposition Front Bench concerned that when the Tories are inevitably returned to power they will swamp the Labour majority with new creations in their term, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, suggested in a recent letter to The Times?
I turn to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill. Will membership be an honour, with no requirements to attend, or a job? If the latter is the case, will there be some form of compulsion to attend? If so will Members receive salaries, expenses and research services comparable to MPs? Would an incoming Labour Chancellor wishing to maintain tight control of public expenditure accept the increased parliamentary cost of that? What role will there be for the Cross-Benchers? What will be the voting rights of the Law Lords and Bishops? What will happen to the three Royal Peers—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: At dictation speed, please!
Lord Astor of Hever: What will happen to the three Royal Peers: the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
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Edinburgh and the Duke of York? Are they to remain Members of the House of Lords? Most important, are proposals for reforming the Lords one step away from creating a republic, which many Labour MPs would like to see? It is true. Are Labour business managers concerned about the fate of their legislative programme at the hands of a House with increased political authority? Would an appointed House stick to the Salisbury Convention? Are the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, happy defending an appointed Chamber, having waged such a fierce campaign against appointed quangos under the Tories?
Mr. Blair, in his speech on 7th February, admitted that some hereditary Peers participate regularly and make positive contributions and as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, also said, they could be made Life Peers. But how many and how would they be chosen? Would a new government ensure that the Opposition are involved in preliminary discussions as to the nature of the proposals?
Moving on to stage two, and Labour's goal of an elected Chamber, how and when will that be fulfilled?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is the noble Lord going to make a speech? He has not started making a speech so far!
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am asking some very pertinent questions. Would the lower House cede real power to an elected body? Many in the House of Commons resent the growing powers of the European Parliament and could have Scottish and Welsh Assemblies to contend with. When would elections take place? Would they take place at the same time as general elections? What would happen if the second Chamber were of a political colour different from the Commons? Democratically elected Opposition Members would surely have no hesitation in throwing out government legislation at every turn.
Further, under what electoral system would Members be elected and for what term? Should Members represent something? If so, would the powers of the House of Commons be reduced? All those questions must be addressed. Unless they are, I cannot see how such reforms would succeed. Constitutional questions are complex and politicians take them up at their peril.
Noble Lords: Answer!
9.30 p.m.
The Earl of Kintore: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for introducing today's debate. I fear that there may be a lack of Scottish Peers taking part, not from lack of interest but because many will be doing duty at the Royal Garden Party in Edinburgh.
I declare an interest as an hereditary Peer. The Earldom of Kintore was granted to my family by Charles II in 1677 in recognition of our role in preserving the Regalia of Scotland from falling into the hands of Oliver Cromwell. Of course, since 1707, the honours of Scotland are part of the United Kingdom's

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Regalia and, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor mentioned in his opening speech yesterday, Europe's oldest Crown Jewels.
If hereditary Peers are to lose their right to sit, speak and vote in this House, I, for one, would miss my time and work here, but would hope that my experience gathered over the past five or six years could be used on Select Committees or other committees off the Floor of the House, or as a Commissioner in Scotland on inquiries under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936.
I hope to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, that I have something new to say. There is a much more urgent reform to which I hope whichever party wins the next election will attend; namely, the matter of pay. I am not thinking of the amounts that are being recommended today for the other place. I propose that the Front Bench spokesmen of all parties in this House should be paid an amount to reflect their considerable input in getting business through the House. I also propose a modest stipend for the Convenor of the Cross Bench Peers and, if it is not too administratively difficult, pay for Back-Benchers when they are speaking in a Front Bench role or in strong support of their Front-Benchers. I do not propose payment for any other Peers and hope that the attraction of membership of this House will continue to be the ability to perform public service.
However, if, at some time in the future, it is decided that all Peers should be paid, there would also have to be a compulsory retirement age which would probably be 75 as for Lord Lieutenants and, I believe, High Court judges.
9.33 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on making the shortest speech today.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: Indeed, my Lords; it somewhat took me by surprise.
In my speech, I shall take your Lordships back in time a little. I should like to begin at a point shortly before the outbreak of the civil war in 1642 when your Lordships' House was surrounded by a mob which was shouting, "No Bishops, no Popish Lords". The mob was successful and the Bishops and Popish Lords were effectively kept out. I believe that 12 or 13 Bishops—I am not quite sure how many—ended up in the Tower for sending a petition protesting against their exclusion.
Those were times of great turbulence. I do not imagine that we shall have a repetition of such furious passions—at least, I very much hope not. I do not foresee the probability of a mob surrounding this House shouting, "No hereditary Peers!" There is currently no passionate demand for our exclusion. Our constitution is flexible and yields to popular demand, but in our case there certainly does not seem to be any.
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This House is, I believe, the oldest parliamentary assembly in the world. It has, over the centuries, adapted itself well to current trends of opinion and political philosophy. It is still adapting and changing. Indeed it has changed a great deal since I first came here in 1964. However, I can see no obvious reason for the revolutionary changes which are at present advocated by the parties opposite, and many reasons against them. At all events it is evident to me that all the proposed alternatives are worse than the present parliamentary arrangement. As I understand it, the present Opposition policy is to get rid of the hereditary element as a first step to an elective upper House, or conference, or whatever it is. I am a little confused about that. I understood that it was a first step to an elected upper House. That would mean that at the end of the day we would have got rid of all the Bishops, the judges, and all the people here who have distinguished themselves in public life other than in politics. Also, we would no longer have the advantage of listening to former Prime Ministers, Foreign Secretaries and so on. That would include my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy who spoke so convincingly yesterday as a former Secretary of State for Scotland. Among the hereditary Peers it would exclude my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and a former Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi.
The hereditary peerage gives to this House a large number of Members whose interests are only secondarily political and whose presence is a symbol of the continuity of our national institutions. All that would go, along with the capacity for objective judgment which this House uniquely possesses. An elected upper House would be subjected to the same pressures as the other place. I wonder whether that is what we want. However, I am not saying that this House is perfect. Of course it is not. I have criticisms of the way in which our affairs are conducted but I believe those faults could be corrected.
There must be some way in which very occasional attenders could be prevented from coming here from God knows where and voting. We have all been here on certain days and seen many unfamiliar faces. In spite of all that has been said, those people do not come only from this side of the House. I, and certain noble friends on this side of the House, and noble Lords on the other side of the House, have been victims of those voters. That occurred three years ago at the time of the discussion on the referendum on Maastricht. On an ordinary day those of us who supported a referendum might just have won, but the voters came in from the highways and hedges and effectively prevented us from even looking like winning. Of course we had the three parties against us.
I believe my other criticism has already been voiced today; namely, that the Labour Party has been the other party of government for most of this century and I do not think it is sufficiently represented here. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, made that point. Most life Peers are of necessity of a certain age before they come here and cannot be expected to soldier on on the Front Bench into extreme old age. However, at present I do not see any noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench

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who are of an extreme old age, but that could happen. The Labour Party ought to have more people in this House on whom it can call. That said, I believe that we have in this country the best constitution in the world. We avoid the extremes of patronage and corruption which deface most other democracies, even the most admirable such as that of the United States.
In both Houses we represent a broad spectrum of history. As has been said frequently today, it is a constitution in which reform has always succeeded in running ahead of revolution. It has its roots in the past giving us a stability which is lacking in less fortunate lands, including nearly all our European partners. I regret that we have surrendered many of our powers—I speak of Parliament as a whole—to the European Union, but that is another story. However, in my opinion it would be a catastrophe if, by destroying the balance of our Parliament, we also destroyed the sense of permanence and stability which has stood us in such good stead over many centuries.
This House and the Union of Scotland and England are under threat if the Labour Party carries out its present proposals. If we give half our powers to regional assemblies and the other half to Europe, and go further by emasculating this House, our descendants, I believe—I do not refer only to the descendants of the hereditary Peers of this House—will not thank us for it.
Mr. Attlee long ago was able to bring his very far-reaching proposals to the statute book, despite the existence of this House. I hope that in his quieter moments Mr. Blair will consider that he might be able to do the same. If the party opposite believes that we on this side have gone too far in matters like privatisation, and so on, if it is elected, it will have the power to remedy what it sees as defects in the way in which this country is currently governed.
I wish that the party opposite would concentrate on these issues rather than on destroying the constitution, for which, so far as I can see, there is no popular demand except possibly in Scotland; and I believe that my fellow Scots might change their minds when the full implications of devolution sink in.
The exclusion of all hereditary Peers would make this House almost entirely subject to political patronage. This could not be a good thing and it would go a long way towards destroying the independence of Peers to vote and speak as they please, as we have heard today.
If we exclude only some hereditary Peers, as has been suggested, and allow, or introduce, a system whereby others are chosen by self-election, as has been suggested, or by some other form of selection, we shall be guilty of the sophistry of introducing patronage by other means. I believe that any far-reaching methods of revolutionising this House will inevitably result in its destruction; and we would be doing a fatal disservice to the future of our nation if we pursue the policies at present being put forward by the parties opposite. I would ask them seriously to reconsider what they propose to do.
9.41 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I am in full agreement with the principle enunciated by the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, and his fellow authors at the beginning of their paper on the second chamber. He read it to us earlier, and I hope that I reproduce it correctly. The principle is that,
"hereditary members of the present House of Lords—who are well aware of its shortcomings—would vote themselves into history with barely a backward glance in favour of a reformed House which was more effective, and whose composition commanded wider acceptance, than the present one".
I believe that those are the correct words.
The problem is that that does not appear to be on offer. I do not make a mere debating point to get us—the hereditary peerage—off the hook. I am prepared to vote for my extinction as a political animal as of right, but not until I have a much clearer vision of what is to replace the Chamber to which I have been privileged to belong for 20 years.
Since the Home Report of 1978, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was quietly shelved, which proposed a mixed elected and appointed House with the eventual elimination of the hereditary element, the government side have shown little interest in the matter until a recent flurry of activity in the face of the Labour threat. One manifestation of that was the article in The Times yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, to which various noble Lords have referred, advocating that Conservative Peers should elect 100 from among their number in order to redress the large balance in their favour vis-à-vis the other political party. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to the possibilities of an electoral college. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, pointed to some of the difficulties.
I do not think that this is the way ahead. These watered down versions of the hereditary principle have one severe defect. Hereditary Peers (or Peers by succession, as I believe we should call ourselves) have survived as an estate of the realm, albeit with diminished powers, largely through lethargy and lack of consensus for reform. It is quite a different matter to reaffirm by Act of Parliament in 1998 or 1999 the right of the hereditary peerage to a stake in the legislature by awarding it an electoral college, or party colleges, through which it will continue to send some of its members to Parliament. There is the further anomaly that all Labour and Liberal Democrat Peers by succession would qualify automatically and have to be topped up by additional life creations. So I do not believe that that is the way ahead. The analogy which was drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, with the 16 representative Scottish Peers who sat from 1707 to 1963 does not seem to me to be apt either. That arrangement was part of the Act of Union settlement and they were representing a territorial and not a party political interest. Those are some suggestions which have come from the Government's side and I do not wish to dwell on them further.

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I wish to turn to the Labour Party's proposal which we all know has triggered the debate and which is much more open to criticism, of which it has received quite a lot. It is a half-cock reform which could well become permanent. It would be a cheap and simple piece of legislation for the first 100 days, with possibly some populist appeal, but we do not know that yet. But there is one huge flaw in the scheme. According to Mr. Blair's speech of 7th February 1996, the debate on,
"how we incorporate democratic accountability",
would be postponed until after the following election. There is no update or advance on that in the Labour Party's paper issued today: The Road to the Manifesto. The situation appears to be exactly the same as stated there. That would leave us, as many noble Lords have pointed out, with a wholly nominated second chamber appointed, however distinguished and meritorious its members, entirely through political patronage. That period could last for decades, if Labour failed to achieve a second term of office or for some other reason failed to achieve its long-term objective, whatever that may be.
As the Constitutional Unit pointed out in paragraph 232 of its recent publication to which noble Lords referred,
"The great danger of multi-stage reform is of losing momentum, or being overtaken by events that push the later stages down the list of political priorities. The conservatism of British politics is such that a second or a third stage of a reform programme may never happen".
That is also endorsed by the paper of the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, which suggested, on the analogy of the Preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 (which was committed to a comprehensive reform that has yet to be implemented), that Labour's half-way house might endure for 80 years.
The problem is that if the Labour Party comes to power, we are to be confronted with a two-phase reform, of which the second stage is unknown in any detail and may never take place. This is a danger which has been adverted to by a number of noble Lords: the noble Lords, Lord Denham, Lord Desai, Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Mottistone. Paragraph 109 of the report of the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, states that,
"public attitudes will ultimately determine the future of the Lords".
Paragraph 136 states that,
"the basic choice is simple".
There I am afraid I beg to differ on one point from the noble Earl and his colleagues. I cannot see how the electorate can make up its mind until the Labour Party's whole proposal, including its preferred model of an elected chamber, is on the table. Without that, the public and your Lordships will be asked to buy a pig in a poke.
It seems to me that there are only two respectable ways of going forward. The first has been advocated by a number of noble Lords. It is to defer a reform Bill until after a party leaders' conference—I discard the alternative of a Royal Commission as too time-consuming—in an attempt to establish a
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consensus. If that is not reached within three or six months, the party or parties in government could then go ahead unilaterally and strive to get their Bill through Parliament.
The other way is for the Bill to be brought forward immediately covering both phases within a strict time-frame so that we can all see what is on offer from the outset. The noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, might then recognise it as an honourable Bill. The Labour Party should have the courage to unfold its whole vision to the people and seek to implement it within one Parliament.
I am not saying any of that out of veiled obstructionism or prevarication. My personal vision is clear. It is my belief that the honours system and the political system should be separated. It is the entwined and luxuriant growth of the two together that has led to the large over-supply of under-attending Peers which is simply not compatible with a modern political democracy. It came as something of a shock to learn from the 1968 White Paper that the total membership of the House was 590 in 1900. Today, just under a century later, it is almost exactly double that figure. Whatever winnowing process is adopted to sift the chaff from the grain, it is bound to be arbitrary and unsatisfactory. Therefore I support a predominantly elected chamber. However, that does not mean that I am prepared to sign up to botched surgery by the Labour Party.
One should not talk of composition without relating it to powers and functions. However, it is very late and I shall not go into that in any detail. I believe that the powers are broadly right, but need to be somewhat redesigned with particular reference to the growing volume of subordinate legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, had an interesting proposal in that regard which we should perhaps explore further.
The main point I want to make is that I strongly believe that it is incumbent on the Labour Party, if it comes to power, either to try for all-party agreement, which it achieved between the Front Benches in 1968, or to present us with a Bill that not only extinguishes hereditary rights but also maps out the further stages of reform that Labour wishes to achieve. I am reliably informed that there is no reason why such a Bill should not incorporate requirements for orders to be laid, making provision for elections and appointments to this House under certain conditions and for certain tenures of office which could be spelt out in the Bill. One Parliament cannot bind its successor; but there is no inherent reason why a government with a working majority and the prospect of four or five years in office should not carry out the whole of their reform programme for this House, and for the joint working of both Houses, within that period.
The Labour Party, as the prospective party of government and the promoter of reform, owes us a comprehensive statement—I believe that was the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone—of its ultimate intent, which we have not had and does not appear in its publication issued today. Therefore, one might be tempted to say: either put up, or shut up.

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If the Labour Party wins the next general election and produces nothing better and nothing more than a short Bill to abolish hereditary Peers, it will be doing less than justice to itself, to Parliament and to the country. I very much look forward to hearing the response of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, to that charge.
9.53 p.m.
Viscount Mountgarret: My Lords, I am very grateful that my name was last on the list of general speakers. At the beginning of the debate one had certain ideas as to what one might contribute to it. But having had the opportunity of listening to nearly all the contributions, I find that a few points have become abundantly clear and perhaps need reiterating.
Some noble Lords may be surprised to hear that I am in favour of reform. Unless this House reforms itself or is reformed, I do not see with any great clarity what its future will be in the next century.
Having said that, this House works, not in spite of the hereditary element but, I venture to suggest, because of it. Those of us who are hereditary Peers, although we may attach to ourselves the label of Conservative, Labour or Liberal, have a freedom of mind and greater freedom of speech and thought than those who have been elected or appointed. That is common sense. The point has been mentioned already in this debate.
One area concerns me enormously. It is the nub of the argument. It was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his opening remarks. It is perceived, not only by noble Lords opposite but by a great many people outside this House, that from time to time we could be accused of abusing the privileges that we enjoy; namely, by being able to call upon, if so required, the inevitable large, in-built majority of Conservative Peers. That gives me concern.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred to the proposals in 1968 which went a long way to meet this problem. I should have liked to see something develop along those lines whereby those Peers who for whatever reason find that they are unable to attend your Lordships' House on a reasonably regular basis might be expected not to exercise their vote on the few occasions on which they are called to give their support.
I recognise at once that there are a number of Peers—and the noble Lord referred to his distinguished position earlier in the debate—who are extremely expert in their field but because of their commitments find it very difficult, in fact impossible, to attend your Lordships' House regularly, but without their wisdom and guidance this House would be the poorer. That is an aspect that would have to be addressed, and I am sure that it would be.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, will correct me if I am wrong, but I was amused to hear my noble friend referring to a revolution taking place in the matter of our constitution. I feel that your Lordships' House is not dissimilar to a perfectly well patient but one who needs a very delicate and gentle operation. This matter needs the delicate handling of a surgeon's scalpel and not the
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heavy-handed action of the woodman's axe. The definitive way in which the noble Lord stated that the abolition of the hereditary element in this House would be in the Labour Party's manifesto, suggests to me I greatly fear, that that is the operation of the woodman's axe; and, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, I do not believe that that is the right way to approach the matter.
Reference has been made to the fact that we have evolved; we have a firm basis in evolution. Revolution is its opposite. There have been few revolutions in the world in past years which have succeeded or had any basis of strength for long periods, certainly not for 700 years or for however long your Lordships' House has been in existence. Therefore, it is vital that this matter is addressed carefully and deliberately, with a great deal of thought.
The essence of the situation has emerged in the observations made by many of your Lordships this evening. We are an endangered species. The evolution is already taking place. Hereditary Peers are no longer created. The custom of former Prime Ministers being offered earldoms has ceased. The Speakers of another place were traditionally offered a Viscountcy—the last was the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy—but that has gone. I suspect that it will not re-emerge. Therefore, the change in composition will evolve naturally. The hereditary element eventually will disappear. However, there are those who might think that that will take too long, as many of us have descendants, grandchildren and others.
Perhaps I may make what I hope is a constructive suggestion. Consideration might be given to the way in which the Irish Peers were treated in 1922, when it was painfully obvious that the position of the Irish Peers was such that they did not have standing in your Lordships' House at Westminster, for every obvious reason under the sun. But it was said to those 24 elected Peers, "Well, this is rather bad luck on you. But fine, you have been elected to be at Westminster. We will let you stay for the rest of your life but when you die you will not be replaced". I just wonder whether there is an element of sense in thinking that the same might apply to the existing hereditary Peers.
Finally, I refer to the extremely amusing and touching story told by my noble friend Lord Denham at the end of his speech. It reminds me of something which might be put to good use when this matter will be, as I sincerely hope, very carefully discussed in all sorts of places—in Parliament, outside Parliament, in Select Committees, in Royal Commissions and so on. I hope that all those who take part in that discussion will always bear in mind Hilaire Belloc's lines:
"And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse".
10.2 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, this has not only been a good debate; we also face the prospect of getting home a little earlier than some of us thought at half past three this afternoon. I rise with a good deal of hesitation as a very junior and new Member of the House. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Winston, in saying

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how much I have been impressed, in the relatively short time I have been here, by the style and character of this House. The extent to which there is quality debate, a willingness to listen to argument and a genuine sense that argument changes people's opinions is extremely valuable. Last Monday I was amused, as we came back into the Chamber after a vote, to hear two Conservative Members talking. One said to the other, "A blasted Labour amendment" and the other replied, "No, it is those blasted Cross-Benchers." It is, of course, those "blasted Cross Benchers" who carry out such an important role in this House.
This House is less partisan than the other place. It is more open to reasoned persuasion. I am conscious that there are those, some on my own Benches, who fear that any major reform will risk losing that precious quality. To follow from what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, I recognise in addition that those of us who also struggle to earn our living outside and who operate as part timers here sometimes find the task extremely difficult and our children regard it as an odd way to spend one's evenings.
But, even here, we should not be too congratulatory or complacent. The best debate in which I have taken part was on the proposal to privatise the recruitment and assessment services. The debate was very well attended. I think there were between 150 and 200 Members present for most of it. If I remember accurately, two Members rose in the gap to say that in view of what they had heard they would change the way in which they had intended to vote; and there was a very clear majority against the proposals.
It concerns me that the Government are still pushing on with that proposal. It does not seem to me to augur well for the future of this House if that kind of behaviour continues. I have also been worried, like many other noble Lords on this side, during discussions on the Asylum and Immigration Bill, by the sense that there were those on the Government Front Bench who sometimes were more resistant to reasoned persuasion than the traditions of this House would consider appropriate. So we should not congratulate ourselves too happily on our current state.
I suspect that the Government Front Bench has been surprised and disappointed by the tone and tenor of this debate. If I understand it correctly, the intention of the Motion that this House take note of the United Kingdom's existing constitutional settlement and of the implications of proposals for change was to assert, as the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal said in his opening speech, that what we want is political stability and that we are happy with the current constitutional settlement even though we accept the need for economic change.
The majority of speakers yesterday and today have accepted that we no longer have a stable constitutional settlement and that the choice is between piecemeal and ill-thought out change and carefully considered reform. As the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, said yesterday, there is no status quo. The Government's preferred position is as set out in the Prime Minister's speech last week to the Centre for Policy Studies: that the British
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constitution is a precious antique, carefully preserved and repaired over the past 700 or 1,000 years—one chooses one's Saxon origins or Simon de Montfort, depending on which English myth one prefers—which will break into pieces if it is handled too roughly. A number of the contributors to the debate have made clear that the piecemeal constitutional changes over the past 20 years have been radical in their impact. Many Members have referred to the radical reduction in the authority of local government and the amazing centralisation of power in the Executive.
I understand that a number of the members of the Select Committee on the Public Service have been shocked to learn of the radical reduction in the independence of the public service in the past 20 years. My noble friend Lord Rodgers reminded us that we have created 110 executive agencies whose relations with Ministers and accountability to Parliament are extremely unclear. There has been dispute between the Prison Service and the Home Secretary over the past few months. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility has become unclear, even if it still exists. The reaction to the Scott Report took the whole idea of ministerial responsibility further than many of us, who learned about the British constitution from the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and others, would have believed.
The degree of Executive dominance in the other place, and over government as a whole, is acute. The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, quoted Dunning's Resolution. The number of King's friends (as Dunning would have put it) in the other place has risen to an absurd degree. We have a situation in which government responsibilities have been reduced, executive agencies have been created and the number of Ministers has risen rather than shrunk. We have had minority government resting on a vote of 42 per cent. in successive general elections. For most of the past two years the Government have enjoyed a steady 30 per cent. or less public opinion support. Nevertheless, the Government have pushed through changes, many of which were not in the manifesto, do not command public support and have not been adequately explained to the public. I read in this week's Economist—a good Conservative journal—a couple of articles which state that yet again the Government have voted to change part of the British Constitution, revoking some aspects of the Bill of Rights of 1688 and casually tossing aside in the Security Service Bill individual freedoms for which Britons have fought for centuries.
I have been struck by how few noble Lords have referred to the growing level of public disillusionment with Parliament and politics as a whole. I have just been asked to write a book for Penguin on the subject "Why vote Liberal Democrat?" I was told by a senior editor that Penguin had seriously discussed whether on this occasion there should be four volumes rather than three and that the title of the fourth volume should be "Why vote at all?" since that is a question that a large number of people and the younger generation are asking. When it is possible, with modern techniques, to focus on 100,000 voters who are the ones who matter

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in the key constituencies, that increases the disillusionment of the mass of the public with our electoral system and institutions as a whole.
The Leader of the House focused his attack on the Labour Party proposals and rather passed over the Liberal commitment to constitutional reform, which is a good deal older and more cut out of whole cloth than that of the Labour Party. It is a commitment to liberal democracy and citizenship rather than to subject-hood, which dates back to John Stuart Mill and W. E. Gladstone. One of the ways in which I came into politics as a student historian was by reading the debates on the Irish Home Rule Bill in the 1880s and 1890s in which the Lord Privy Seal's ancestor spoke vigorously about the qualities of the English versus the Irish and the desirability of maintaining the privileges of the imperial Parliament over those of lesser races.
The Lord Privy Seal said today that these sorts of changes were alien to our tradition and to the constitutional settlement which we enjoy. I was thinking of the echoes of those early debates because the constitutional settlement which we are thought to enjoy does indeed date from those home rule debates. A. V. Dicey gave his lectures on the constitution in the context of Irish home rule, to which he was bitterly opposed. Indeed, he ended up as a member of the Ulster Volunteers. The whole strengthening of the myth of parliamentary sovereignty, which the late Victorian English wished to stress, had very much an anti-Irish and, to a lesser extent, an anti-Scottish dimension. There is a real problem in constitutional debate of conservatives finding themselves again as the "English Party" sounding more and more anti-Scots and anti-Welsh.
As regards reform of the House of Lords, I believe that we have all accepted that there has been a great change since the Life Peerages Act; that the House has evolved over the past 40 years; and that it could not now operate without its nominated Members. What the Labour Party is proposing is the most modest further reform possible. It is a mouse; even Saatchi and Saatchi could not persuade the public that it is a tiger. It is the first step towards reform, though not a stable step in reform.
There seem to me to be three alternative models if one is looking a long way ahead. The first is an appointed House—in effect, a senate. I was very puzzled to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Young, call that absurd. There are a number of appointed senates in other democratic countries. If we were to move in that direction we would clearly need an appointment process that was a good deal more transparent than the very secretive processes whereby myself and the other life Members of this House came to join this Chamber. An appointed senate seems to me an option which would indeed preserve many of the specific characteristics of this House which we so value.
A second alternative is an elected chamber. That is not totally beyond the bounds of possibility. There are many different forms for electing a second chamber which would not interfere with the first chamber. For example, we could elect it one-third at a time every
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three years. After all, staggered elections are the way in which local councils are elected in this country—one-third each year. Therefore, that is not entirely foreign to the British way of life. We might wish to hold elections on a regional basis. I would be very happy to try to stand to be elected for Yorkshire under those proposals.
Thirdly, we could go for an indirectly elected chamber. I was struck by the fact that only the noble Lord, Lord Desai, proposed that today. If we were to reconstruct local government and go for the construction of regional government, indirect election is also a possibility. I suspect that the least satisfactory outcome would be a partly elected, partly appointed House in which there would be two halves who would fail to agree with each other.
It is clear, however, that the constitution must be seen as a whole and that piecemeal changes in some parts impact on others. The remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, about piecemeal reform are extremely apposite. Reform of this Chamber interacts with whatever changes are made in the other place. The reform of local government will change the way in which both Houses of Parliament operate. So we need an overall approach, a new constitutional settlement. I hope that that will move us towards a different style of government, a less adversarial style of government, in which the complexities of modern politics and the extent to which we are talking about "less and more" and not about "all or nothing" would be built into the system. That is part of the attraction of special standing committees—we need more emphasis on Select Committees and less on the Chamber—and that is part of the attraction of having a different electoral system.
If the Government's hope in launching this debate was to find an issue on which to frighten the electors and embarrass the Opposition, it has not worked so far. I hope that this is the opening of a broader constitutional debate, not just about the future of this House but about the structure of the British constitution as a whole. I look forward to that debate widening, and I am confident that the arguments for change will gain support as the debate proceeds.
10.16 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I start by expressing the heartfelt thanks of the Labour Party to the Leader of the House and to the Chief Whip for finding the time for this debate. I do not say that because of the quality of the debate. We have had some of the best speeches that I have ever heard in this House—and some of the worst. I shall not cause offence by particularising. I express my thanks particularly for the Government's enormous act of sacrifice in providing two days of prime time during the high legislative season which is timed beautifully to coincide with the launch of the Labour Party's new pre-manifesto document, in order to provide assistance with that launch; to help the Labour Party to promote its ideas; and at the same time to expose the reactionary nature—"reactionary" in the full sense of that word—of the Conservative Party's attitudes towards constitutional reform. We have heard some of the classic statements

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of reaction in the past two days to which I shall refer later, and they have been enormously valuable to our coming election campaign. I thank both noble Lords.
Today's debate was supposed to be about Parliament, but really only the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, and to a lesser extent the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, and another Liberal Democrat, spoke about the reform of the House of Commons. It is understandable that Conservatives would not speak about the House of Commons. I too attended the Prime Minister's speech at the Centre for Policy Studies last week. He was billed as being about to make significant statements on the reform of the House of Commons. We were told that he would introduce two-year Sessions to facilitate better debate on legislation. Alas, that did not happen. Instead we had the timid mouse of the proposal that draft Bills should be published somewhat earlier and that there should be a draft Queen's Speech for the second year. In every other respect, however, the Conservative Party is clearly planning no significant reform of the work of the House of Commons.
In contrast, the Labour Party's document published today contains specific proposals about ministerial accountability, about increasing the work of Special Standing Committees and about providing fully in legislation for the Nolan recommendations, not just for MPs, but also for quangos; and the welcome indication that at last the House of Commons is to participate in the examination of European Union legislation, which has been left to us until now.
It is also significant that nobody except the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, paid any serious attention to proportional representation or to voting reform, although I should have thought that was a significant element in the consideration of the role of Parliament. I do not suppose that the noble Lord will be at all reassured to have it reaffirmed that we are proposing a referendum on voting reform. Your Lordships chose to concentrate almost entirely on the role of the House of Lords.
In asking ourselves whether any change in the role or the membership of the House of Lords is called for, perhaps I may put just one proposition to your Lordships. If we had in this Chamber 476 Labour Peers, whether they were hereditary or life Peers, and 109 Conservative Peers, do your Lordships think that the ranks of the Conservative Peers, who have been defending the current situation for the last seven hours, would have been quite so vociferous in their defence? I suspect not. I do not believe that if we had 476 Labour Peers and 109 Conservative Peers that this would have been exactly the dictatorship of the proletariat. New Labour has probably moved on in some ways—in some ways, regrettably.
Noble Lords: Ah!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in terms of its representation of the whole range of occupations and classes in this country, yes, I do believe it is regrettable that we have become so much more a middle-class party than we were, and I believe that that is generally felt not just throughout the Labour Party but in politics generally.
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I come back to my question. If there had been 476 Labour Peers and 109 Conservative Peers, would the noble Lord, Lord Boardman, have argued that there was no in-built majority for the Labour Party, as he argued that there was no in-built majority for the Conservative Party? The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said in his article yesterday—I am very sorry that he was not able to take part in the debate today—that the nub of the practical argument for reform is that the House is dominated by Conservatives and that that has enormous effects on the representative character of this House, or the lack of representative character of this House. If there were as many miners as there are lawyers in this House, if there were as many farmworkers as there are landowners in this House, if there were as many primary schoolteachers as there are vice-chancellors in this House, then perhaps we might start to think that there was an element of representativeness.
I have always argued—not in this House—that the tenants of the allotment gardens where my wife has an allotment in Highgate are at least as well qualified as the Members of this House to carry out the functions of a second Chamber. In that allotment society there are not only doctors, publishers and lecturers, but also railwaymen, council drivers and car mechanics—people whose contribution to society is very significant and who are completely unrepresented in this House. The argument that this is in any way a representative House, whose independence reflects the views of the country as opposed to those of any political party, will not stand up for a single moment.
The sad thing is that the Conservative Party was not always like that. I have been reading with great pleasure the debates in 1910 in this House after the first 1910 election. Lord Rosebery, who was not a Conservative, but who was becoming increasingly conservative and sat on the Cross Benches, moved:
"(1) That a strong and efficient Second Chamber is not merely an integral part of the British Constitution, but is necessary to the well-being of the State and to the balance of Parliament.
(2) That such a chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstitution of the House of Lords.
(3) That a necessary preliminary of such reform and reconstitution is the acceptance of the principle that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords".
The first two resolutions were carried without a vote. The third was carried by 125 votes to 17, with the Conservative Front Bench being part of the majority. There were some lovely speeches in that debate. Lord Sheffield, who was the ancestor of our dear noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, said:
"I feel perfectly certain that when the Labour Party and the Socialists constitute the Government … they will make very short work of your Lordships".
He further said:
"You will not prevent this coming into power by assuming to yourselves arrogant pretensions which have not belonged to you in the past, or posing as bulwarks of society against their inroads".
Lord Halsbury—I can understand that the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is not with us at this hour—said:

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"I do not believe that it is possible to make an institution more consonant with our habits and more practically useful than the House of Lords as at present constituted".
Have we not heard that repeated on many occasions in the course of this afternoon and this evening, 85 years later? Yet the Conservative Party was not always so conservative—if I may put it that way. In 1907, Lord Newton proposed to remove the voting rights of 75 per cent. of hereditaries; in 1910, the Tories voted for Lord Rosebery's resolution; in 1911, Lord Lansdowne, the Conservative Leader, proposed that there should be only 150 hereditaries in a House of 350; and Lord Salisbury, as my noble friend Lord Richard reminded us, said the same thing in 1933.
The Parliament Act 1911 referred to a second Chamber on a popular instead of a hereditary basis. In 1967–68, the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Jellicoe, as my noble friend Lord Shepherd reminded us, took part in an agreement on a radical reform of the House of Lords, to which I shall have to return in a minute. There was then the Home Report in 1978, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, played such a distinguished part. Finally, yesterday, there was the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, recommending that reform should take the form of reducing the number of Conservative hereditary Peers and increasing the number Labour and Liberal Democrat life Peers in order to provide:
"a rough balance between Tories and the two other parties".
I assume that the noble Lord would agree that if there were a Labour Government, it would have to be a rough balance between the Labour Party and the two other parties. There is no other sense in what he is saying.
I have very little confidence in the consistency or continuity of thinking on those matters within the Conservative Party, but I have some confidence in now answering a considerable number of the questions put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever. What we say in our document published today is:
"We will reform the House of Lords. We will remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords as a first step towards a more democratic and representative chamber. We will consult widely on the further reforms necessary. We will open up the appointments process. One proposal we can consider is that the House of Lords has some places reserved by appointment for those who have an outstanding contribution to make".
I say that with particular reference to the number of distinguished Cross-Benchers who have been seeking reassurance on that point. The document continues:
"The legislative powers of the House of Lords will remain unaltered. Its function will remain that of a revising chamber".
I do not claim to have yet answered all the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, but I have a moment or two left to me. In order to achieve all those objectives there are alternative routes. One, which has been recommended by a number of noble Lords and most recently by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, is an all-in-one Bill—"Do it all in one go, and get it over with". The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, and the noble Lord, Lord Denham, said that that would be hasty and ill-considered change. I rather suspect that they are right. If I have misrepresented the noble Lord, Lord Denham, I apologise to him.
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To do that—this is where we return to 1968—would be possible, because there are plenty of well-considered and well-documented ways of achieving it. But would it achieve what we would want, and would it achieve the consent of the British people? Would it in the end pass through the House of Commons? Although an all-in-one Bill is possible, I believe that the Labour Party is wise to do what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, described as a mouse, but I believe that it is a mouse with descendants. At the moment, we are proposing the absolute minimum required to deal with the nonsense of the hereditary peerage, but then we have a firm commitment to later action.
The second alternative, which has been recommended by a number of noble Lords—notably the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill—is to have full consultation and consensus before proceeding to the first stage of any reform. What is the point of having a general election? A general election manifesto will clearly state that the rights of hereditary Peers to sit and vote will be removed. If I understand the Salisbury doctrine correctly, that is a proposition which, if it has achieved the support of the British people at a general election, will not be opposed by the Conservative Party in this House. For us to give up and to let down the people to whom we have committed ourselves in a general election would simply be cowardly. On the part of those who propose it, it would obviously be a delaying tactic.
The third alternative is a two-stage reform. In my view, that is right not only practically, because it is the only way of seeing that it achieves the consent of both Houses of Parliament, but it is right in principle. It is right in principle that we should be consulting through the form of a Royal Commission or a party leaders' conference or whatever; I do not believe that the detail matters that much. We should be consulting thoroughly on what form of second Chamber is acceptable in this country. I agree with those who say that it is not easy. We are not naturally a federal state. We are not like the United States of America or Germany, where Lander or states form a natural constituency. I do not find it very attractive to have a different electoral system which might result in a different balance of parties and yet give no indication of which is to be given precedence.
There is no lack of difficulty in achieving that. I am convinced that the people of this country do want a second Chamber which has a significant elected element—probably a majority elected element—but it is also likely that they will want to preserve some of the virtues of the Honours List and of the distinguished people who serve in this House. Whether they are life Peers or hereditary Peers, we will want to keep a significant number of them as Members of a second Chamber as a supplement to the elected element.
Although it is true that 85 years ago this was stated as an objective but has never been done, it is worth emphasising that the interim stage of a House which consists only of the life Peers rather than having hereditary Peers is inherently unstable. A number of noble Lords who are not sympathetic to our ideas have pointed out that, if the balance between the parties were to be corrected at each election, the numbers in the House would explode. That is absolutely true and it is

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a strong argument against continuing with the interim provisions. So there must be, there is and there will be a firm commitment to future change and to, as we say, a more democratic and representative Chamber.
We end up with a three-stage approach. The first is to deal with the hereditary peerage, the second is extensive and fundamental consultation and the third is with the mandate of the people, and only with the mandate of the people, to proceed to the final composition of this House. Anybody who believes that it might be better to leave the House of Lords as it is rather than have an interim Chamber really ought to think again. Yes, of course, there are some good hereditary Peers in this House. I look around me and see that there are many good hereditary Peers in this House. I look up in order not to look at anybody in particular. But we can create life Peers from the hereditary Peers. I have just worked out that my noble friend Lord Longford does not have to be created because he is already a life Peer too. Therefore, his hereditary peerage can go and he will stay in the House. Yes, of course it is true that there are a number of distinguished independent Peers, mainly on the Cross Benches. But most of them are life Peers, very few of whom would be removed by this reform. However, there could be a mechanism for replacing the more distinguished of them from the Cross Benches. But, above all, I really must resist the idea that there is something inherently offensive about the interim change of an unelected House.
The choice is between a House which is composed on the basis of merit and that which is composed on the basis of birth. Merit is a more difficult concept to assess and it is much more difficult to find ways of achieving effective choice on the basis of merit; but can there be any doubt that it is better than the basis of birth?
It is not for me to prejudge the result of the extensive consultation period. To that extent, I cannot possibly answer some of the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Astor. However, surely a more democratic and representative Chamber which recognised the outstanding contribution of many hereditary Peers and which contained elected Members as well as others, including Cross Benchers, is an objective worth aiming for.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, can the noble Lord assure me that all life Peers have a merit which exceeds that of all hereditary Peers?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I would not dream of assuring the noble Lord in that respect. Indeed, he knows that I would not do so. On what basis could it possibly be the case that all life Peers exceed the merits of all hereditary Peers?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, on the basis that the noble Lord just said it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, well, for example, the Government are determined to make destitute genuine asylum seekers by making it more difficult for some of them to apply for asylum in this country.
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Of course, there are good hereditary Peers and there will be means of ensuring that some of them stay in the House. Indeed, the report of the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, said that the hereditary Peers would move over in favour of an effective second chamber. I do not believe it can be argued that a 100 per cent. change in the composition of the House could provide an effective second chamber. Therefore, those Peers would have to remain for the time being. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am much obliged. The noble Lord referred to good hereditary Peers, presumably differentiating from the bad and indifferent; but who is to choose? Who is to decide who is a good hereditary Peer? Further, once that has been decided, how many of them will there be? What is to be done? Surely this is all pie in the sky.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the questions are accumulating. The Conservative Party decides who is good in its party: and the Labour Party decides who is good in its party. As to how many there would be, that is a matter for negotiation. There is plenty to negotiate; and, indeed, we must not forget the Cross Benchers. They are perfectly capable of making choices from among their colleagues.
This debate has had the huge benefit of adding to the anthology of reactionary prose which I have been collecting for a number of years. We have a number of real jewels of reactionary prose. We have been told that this would be incalculable folly; a constitutional outrage; a hasty and ill-considered change; that it will bring shame and dishonour; and that it will destroy the constitution. In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies: "They would say that, wouldn't they?"
I conclude by expressing the wish, if my noble friend Lord Richard will forgive me, that we had had a vote on the Motion. It would have been valuable to flush out those who, in the end, would be prepared to give way to instinctive reaction rather than to constructive thought about the future of our constitution and of our country.
It is quite clear that the Conservative Party no longer has the thrust and impetus of being the radical right, as it was a few years ago. All the enthusiasm has gone; all idea of constructive contribution to politics has gone; all we have are tired reaction and tired ideas, and this debate has shown that.
10.40 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, there falls to me this evening the task of making the final speech of a debate which, over two days, I believe has been of unrivalled quality. I suggest that it has shown your Lordships' House at its senatorial best—deliberative, informed, good humoured and, for the most part, non-partisan. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, questioned yesterday whether it was desirable that such a debate should be held. He said it was an unasked for debate. All I can say is that if the noble Lord had sat through as much of the proceedings as I have done he might think otherwise by now.

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We have had over 80 speakers and many more would have spoken but they imposed a self-denying ordinance. I submit that we are all grateful to them for doing so. I, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, accept the thanks of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, for holding this debate. I am also delighted that the timing of the debate pleased the Labour Party. Its pre-election document is so thin it needs all the help it can get.
I am not sure that I have been listening to the same debate as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Of course many noble Lords are interested in constitutional reform—so are the Government. What has been so interesting about the past few days is not your Lordships' dissatisfaction with the Government but the wholesale incredulity at the proposals emanating from the Labour Party.
As a Scot and a hereditary Peer, it would be all too easy for me to take personally some of the proposals for constitutional change which we have been debating. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, observed, I am insecure in my position here. After all, the party opposite plans, if it wins the next general election, to take away my right to vote in your Lordships' House and to condemn me to live in possibly the most highly taxed part of the United Kingdom. But, self-justification is rarely convincing or attractive, and I shall do my best, as other noble Lords have done, to rise above the purely personal.
It seems to me that there is a common thread running through the fabric of all the constitutional reforms which are at present a matter for debate not only in your Lordships' House but more widely also. That thread is the undermining of the power of Parliament, and in particular of the elected Chamber that is another place. As a Conservative and Unionist, I believe in the supremacy of Parliament, and that within Parliament the House of Commons is pre-eminent because of the authority granted to it by the electorate. I do not think I differ in that belief from anything the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, said.
Parliamentary supremacy is a simple concept, readily understood, and the one from which most of our other constitutional arrangements flow. My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal spoke earlier today about the clarity of our constitutional arrangements, and that is something to be treasured. Yet look what the party opposite would offer us in its place: a muddled constitutional brew which threatens the authority of Parliament, regional assemblies in England, a parliament in Scotland (with or without the tartan tax), and assembly in Wales and a Bill of Rights to be interpreted by the courts. All these would tend to reduce the authority of the House of Commons. They would conflict and compete in their exercise of power, and how would the citizen know where he stood? How would we maintain a strong voice in our international relationships if Parliament were being undermined at home by a plethora of new bodies each seeking to justify its own existence?
I should now like to turn specifically to proposed reforms of your Lordships' House. Noble Lords opposite are fervent in their desire for reform of the
1686
House. Only today—as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, reminded us—in its pre-manifesto document the Labour Party has made reform of this House a significant item. I respect the sincerity with which noble Lords opposite say what they say, but I have to confess that I am at a loss to understand it. Every day we see the Opposition operate effectively in this living, working political Chamber, criticising the Government, gaining concessions and holding Ministers to account.
As my noble friend Lady Young so rightly said, many outside organisations regard this House with increasing respect and make full use of the opportunities which its proceedings present to put forward their own points of view.
And what do noble Lords want to end up with as a second chamber? There is a dilemma at the heart of their proposals. Do they want this House to exercise more or less power? Their pre-manifesto document says that,
"the legislative powers of the House of Lords will remain unaltered".
But that will not wash. You cannot tinker with the composition of an organism as subtle as Parliament without affecting, however unintentionally, the way in which it operates. Unless the Opposition can say what they want the second chamber to do, how do they know how it should be constituted?
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said more than once today that the proposal of the party opposite to remove the right of hereditary Peers to speak and to vote will be put to the country. I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord meant something more than that in his speech this afternoon. Is he saying that this is a question which will be put in the same way as questions on devolution for Scotland? Is the noble Lord promising us another referendum? Is there some U-turn to which we can look forward from the Labour Party?
Advocates of change generally advance one or more of four familiar reasons.
Lord Richard: My Lords, the noble Lord could have seen in the document today—it is the basis for the manifesto—what we say about this issue. It is there. It will be put to the country at the next general election, as I said about six times today.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is interesting that different constitutional proposals will be dealt with in different ways: on Scotland and Wales they will go to a referendum; electoral reform will go to a referendum; but not, I point out to your Lordships, reform of Parliament.
As I said earlier, advocates of change generally advance one or more of four familiar reasons. The first is that the House favours Conservative governments and frustrates Labour ones. The second is that the House is an insufficient check on the elected Chamber and on the intentions of government. The third is that the hereditary peerage is out of date. The fourth is that the hereditary element of Parliament is "just not fair". I intend to deal with each of those reasons in turn.

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The first reason, that the House is biased against Labour governments, is the one on which noble Lords opposite have concentrated today, and indeed on previous occasions. They make much of the fact that the Labour Government in the 1970s was defeated in Divisions in your Lordships' House on many more occasions than was the Conservative Government in the 1980s and 1990s. That is indeed so, but it is not the whole picture. A more thoughtful reading of the relationship between the two Houses in the past 25 years indicates that the times when your Lordships have been most ready to invite another place to "think again" have been the times when the House of Commons has itself lacked the authority to act decisively. It is worth noting, for example, that in the Parliament of 1974 to 1979 when noble Lords opposite complain that this House was showing unreasonable bias against the Labour Government, that Government was defeated on no fewer than 42 occasions in the House of Commons.
In any case, numbers of government defeats are a very blunt instrument to use in interpreting the relationship between the elected and unelected Chambers of our Parliament. I entirely agree with the points that my noble friend Lord Denham made. A glance at the number of disagreements between the two Houses shows that there is no significant difference under one government or another. It is clear, therefore, that whatever the number of defeats your Lordships may initially inflict on a government, this House does not seriously seek to frustrate the will of the elected House any more often under a Labour government than a Conservative one. Ultimately, your Lordships recognise that the government of the day have a mandate from the people and must be allowed to "get their business".
That point is the second reason often put forward for reform of the House. Some people complain that the very fact that your Lordships allow the Government to get their business demonstrates the inadequacy of the House as an effective second Chamber. But surely that is seeking to have the cake and eat it too. No less distinguished a parliamentarian than Mr. Enoch Powell said in 1968 that it was,
"neither desirable nor tolerable that much more than the present degree of check upon the decisions",
of the first House should be exercised by the second. I entirely agree, and I think it likely that many of the current Members of another place would do so too when it came to the crunch. A more powerful second Chamber, however constituted, would detract from the authority of the House of Commons and make decisive government more difficult. Perhaps that is the Opposition's real motive.
The third reason was plainly put by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, today. He said that the hereditary peerage was past its time and could not continue in Parliament into the 21st century. The fact that it has survived so long is one of its strengths. The fact that it has survived through the social upheavals that we have witnessed in this century suggests to me that it has considerable strengths still.
The fourth reason often advanced for the reform of your Lordships' House is that it is not fair that there should be any hereditary element in Parliament. But the
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essence of heredity is that it is not fair. It embodies the basic human wish to ensure the well-being of future generations. In parliament the hereditary element enriches our constitution with some of the unpredictable and random nature of real life, in complement to other aspects of our institutions.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and his colleagues may mock now, but he himself said how very impressed he was by so many hereditary Peers in this House. I can say to the Opposition Chief Whip that one of the first things I learnt is that life is not fair. The noble Lord sometimes makes that plain to me when he wins a Division.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Opposition Chief Whip is dedicated to ensuring that what the noble Lord has learnt will continue.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not pretend for one moment that what I have said is any justification for perpetuating a real injustice; rather, that the inherent unfairness of life is something to be acknowledged. But unfairness is not in itself a reason for precipitating change without good grounds for believing that the alternative proposed would be better. I am not persuaded that the alternative, so far as your Lordships' House is concerned, would be better.
Let us look then at what the Opposition propose. The first phase of their proposal would result in a House comprised entirely of appointed Members. Where is the improvement in that? It has been said before that it would result in the biggest quango in the country. Like my noble friend Lady Young, I was interested yesterday to hear the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, say that,
"quangos are a travesty of democracy"
But the Opposition are keen on placemen. As my noble friend Lady Blatch noted yesterday, their proposed Scottish parliament would have nearly half its members appointed not by the electorate but from party lists—the friends of Walworth Road. Is that the future for the House of Lords? How does that square with the criticism by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that the House of Lords is not itself democratic?
My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal spoke earlier today about how interim solutions have a tendency to become permanent. I agree that there is a danger of that happening in this case. But quite apart from that, what form would the second phase of the Opposition's proposed reform take? An elected second chamber, other than in a federal nation, would be a nonsense. I am glad to be able to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, on that point. I am sorry to quote Mr. Enoch Powell again, but he is a great authority on the subject. He said that:
"there is only one electorate which can be represented by an elective system",
and,
"we would never escape from this dilemma: how can the same electorate he represented in two ways so that the two sets of representatives can conflict and disagree with one another?".

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Even if that question could be satisfactorily answered, and I have not yet seen an answer which I find convincing—even among those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire—what would be the result?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us whether he thinks that the constitution of the United States is a nonsense from start to finish? It rests utterly on the principle that the Senate and the House of Representatives are both elected.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I made the point about any federal system. There could, of course, be different arrangements. As the noble Lord himself and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, pointed out, we do not have such a system. There is no demand for it. There are substantial problems in having two elected Houses in this Parliament, not least the unlikelihood of another place voting for it.
What would be the result? My noble friends Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Hindlip gave the answer. It would be a second chamber of professional politicians. Is that really what is wanted in a world where so many people already feel that public affairs are over-politicised? The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, reminded us of the dangers of simply following the practices of the House of Commons.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester observed that your Lordships set an example of right conduct and proper relationships and behaviour to one another. How unusual that is in public life, and how much it would be undermined by greater politicisation of this House.
And for how long would such a second chamber be content with the limited powers of advice and delay which your Lordships exercise? There would no longer be justification for the constraints embodied in the Parliament Acts, and I doubt that an elected second chamber would observe the self-denying ordinances of your Lordships' House. Such a chamber would be hungry for more power. Do we really wish to set up such a rival to another place? That is what the Opposition seem to want. Would they not have confidence in their majority in the House of Commons? Seemingly not.
Some noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Richard, suggested that the fundamental flaw of this House is its lack of democratic legitimacy. To them I say that our parliamentary system is firmly rooted in democratic principles. Power is concentrated in the House of Commons; an election must take place no later than five years after the last; and governments can be,
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and are, removed. Democracy in the United Kingdom is alive and well without the need to tinker with the House of Lords to no clear advantage.
I make no apology for quoting once again from Mr. Enoch Powell. He said of the House of Lords:
"Once we depart from the present basis of prescription, no scheme will have more authority than the authority of its makers, and its makers … will claim to unmake it and remake it and remake it again, until in the end we shall come … to single chamber government".
Even the party opposite no longer holds that to be desirable.
In conclusion, one striking aspect of this two-day debate is the number of questions that have been raised and the number of questions that have been unanswered. Many of those questions were posed to the party opposite. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, did his best to answer some of them. If I may say so, impertinently, he did so with a great deal of skill. But I could not help wondering while he was making his speech whether the Opposition's original, clear plan was becoming increasingly muddled. The noble Lord raised a number of new questions that remain unanswered. Before the next general election the Labour Party will have to answer them.
Our debate has shown that our living constitution is a subject which commands passion on all sides of the House. I speak from the heart when I say that it is something too precious to be tampered with lightly.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Social Security (Overpayments) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Statutory Instruments (Production and Sale) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Henry Johnson, Sons & Co., Limited Bill
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee without amendment.

Broadcasting Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments and with a privilege amendment; the Commons amendments ordered to be printed.
House adjourned at eleven o'clock.

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  Tuberculosis: Reports
  BCG Immunisation
  BCG Immunisation
  Bioethics: Council of Europe Convention
  Bioethics: Council of Europe Convention
  The Infant Formula Industry: Guidance on Donations
  The Infant Formula Industry: Guidance on Donations
  Scotland: Power to Hold Referenda
  Scotland: Power to Hold Referenda
  Parliamentary Pay: SSRB Report
  Parliamentary Pay: SSRB Report
  Sports Council: Services to Angling
  Sports Council: Services to Angling
  Recombinant Factor VIII: VAT
  Recombinant Factor VIII: VAT
  Abortion Statistics
  Abortion Statistics