Sitting of 15 May 1997

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

Members Sworn
The following Members took and subscribed the Oath, or made and subscribed the Affirmation required by law:
Right honourable Thomas Clarke, CBE, Coatbridge and Chryston
Teresa Ellen, Mrs. Gorman, Billericay
Right honourable John Selwyn Gummer, Suffolk, Coastal

Business of the House
2.37 pm
Mr. Alastair Goodlad: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the business for next week, please?
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor): Before I give the House details of business for next week, perhaps I could make a few preliminary comments about how I intend to handle business questions in future. I hope that I shall be able to maintain the convention that was started by my predecessor of giving the House as much notice as possible of future business, not just of one week's business. I also hope, when possible, to give early notice of major debates.
In the normal run of business I shall, of course, seek to avoid taking highly contentious matters on a Thursday evening—particularly one preceding a constituency Friday—but that may not always be possible, particularly in the early days of a new Parliament.
Right hon. and hon. Members may also like to be reminded that the ballot for private Members' Bills will take place next Thursday and that hon. Members can enter their name in the ballot while the House is sitting next Tuesday and Wednesday.
May I also say, in anticipation of questions, that we hope to make early progress on the establishment of Select Committees.
As the House is aware, the debate on the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech will be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 20 May. Madam Speaker may select amendments on Monday as well as on Tuesday.
The business following the conclusion of the debate on the Humble Address will be as follows:
WEDNESDAY 21 MAY—Until 2 pm, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House, including the traditional three-hour debate before any recess.
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ON WEDNESDAY AND UNTIL ABOUT 7 PM ON THURSDAY 22 MAY—Second Reading of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill.
Afterwards, there will be a debate on the need for modernisation of House of Commons procedure on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The House will also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, it will be proposed that the House will rise for the spring Adjournment on Thursday 22 May until Monday 2 June. I am unable today to give the House precise details of the business to be taken in the first week back after the recess, but I anticipate that, on Monday 2 June, we shall have the Second Reading of a Government Bill and that other important Government business will be taken during the course of that week.
Mr. Goodlad: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business, I congratulate her most warmly on her appointment and I wish her, on behalf of the Opposition, every success in her new responsibilities.
Will the Leader of the House confirm that the abandonment of the normal convention of two weeks elapsing between the publication of a Bill and its Second Reading, as in the case of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill, will be the exception rather than the rule? Will she also confirm that the Committee stage of that Bill will be taken on the Floor of the House, as will the proposed Bills on the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, if approval is obtained in the referendums, the legislation to incorporate into UK law the main provisions of the European convention on human rights, the legislation to provide for a directly elected strategic authority and a directly elected mayor of London, the Bill, if one is introduced, to amend the European Communities Act 1972, the Bill to change the responsibilities of the Bank of England and any other legislation with constitutional implications?
Will the right hon. Lady tell the House whether she proposes to lay a consultation document before the House before the debate next Thursday on House of Commons procedure?
Will the right hon. Lady guarantee that the Foreign Secretary will make an oral statement to the House at the earliest possible opportunity on the restoration of trade union rights to Government communications headquarters, Cheltenham, which we have learnt about from the media? It is a matter that has serious potential implications for the security of the nation.
Will the right hon. Lady also arrange for the Secretary of State for National Heritage to make a statement on the events leading to Lord MacLaurin's resignation as chairman of the Test and County Cricket Board as a result of the intemperate remarks of the Minister for sport?
Is the Leader of the House aware that, in 1995, the Select Committee on Procedure, including all its Labour members, examined the conduct of Prime Minister's Question Time and opposed switching from two sessions a week to one? Can she explain why the Government have decided to reject that judgment and why they did not consult the House on their decision? Would it not have been more appropriate for the proposed new special Select Committee announced in the Queen's Speech to examine parliamentary procedure and to consider the change? Will

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the Leader of the House now defer implementation of the proposed change until the Committee has been set up and has had time to consider it?
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Speed it up, Duracell.
Mr. Goodlad: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to learn to listen to the Opposition, as the nation has had to suffer listening to him for many years.
Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Government will be prepared to revise the proposed oral question rota for the current Session in the light of the quite extraordinary diminution in the time available for Scottish questions, which is down to 45 minutes; for Northern Ireland questions, which are allocated a mere half an hour; for Welsh questions, again a mere half an hour; for Environment questions, just over half an hour; and for Transport questions, under half an hour? Those erosions of the rights of hon. Members to question Ministers in important Departments appear to represent a serious intention further to diminish the Government's accountability to the House.
Finally, will the Leader of the House arrange for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make an immediate statement to the House as to the arrangements whereby the Bank of England will be accountable to Parliament for the execution of its responsibilities in respect of interest rates? Is she aware that the Government have abandoned a tried and tested monetary policy—the most successful that Britain has had for many years—and substituted a nominated quango, the monetary committee, with decisions taken by a majority vote substituted for proper ministerial accountability to the House on a vital matter? Is she aware that the Government's failure to come to the House with their decision is yet another unfortunate omen for the relationship between the Government and Parliament?
Mrs. Taylor: I begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his comments and his welcome to me as Leader of the House. Let me reciprocate by saying that he is now acting shadow Leader of the House as well as Opposition Chief Whip and, as we all know, Chief Whips are not allowed to make speeches. That may be one reason why the right hon. Gentleman asked so many questions and spoke at such length.
I shall try to deal with all the points that the right hon. Gentleman raised. He asked first about the two weeks that normally elapse between the publication of a Bill and its Second Reading. He will know that the decision to take the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill next week resulted from discussions through the usual channels and I understand that the Opposition are happy with that. It is not a precedent for any other Second Readings. It is a straightforward, simple and short Bill for which the Government have a clear mandate. I can give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that the remaining stages of the Bill will be taken on the Floor of the House.
The other points that the right hon. Gentleman raised about the devolution Bills were answered yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I do not accept that all the Bills that the right hon. Gentleman declared as constitutional fall into that category. However, the way in
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which constitutional Bills are handled in future can fall within the remit of the Select Committee on modernisation of parliamentary procedures that we hope to establish soon.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether a document could be produced before next Thursday's debate on the modernisation of our procedures. I do not intend to issue any document. We have set out in various policy statements in recent months some of the ideas that we should like to consider, but the objective of the debate is to listen to ideas from hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope that hon. Members will contribute to the debate and that we can make progress quite quickly.
The right hon. Gentleman requested an oral statement from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on trade union rights at GCHQ, but I do not think that it is necessary to have one. It is not a change of Government policy, but the implementation of a promise that was made in our manifesto. The right hon. Gentleman's remarks about national security are a dreadful slur on the people who work at GCHQ and he should not be calling their patriotism into question.
I am not sure whether the resignation from, and vacancy on, the Test and County Cricket Board, on which the right hon. Gentleman commented, has implications for national security. The matter is not foremost in the Government's mind, although we can see why it might be of interest to certain Opposition Members, especially the former Prime Minister, who I am sure has been able to find more time for the activity recently.
As to the right hon. Gentleman's comments about my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), my impression is that the nation enjoys listening to my hon. Friend. I am sure that his contributions will be as forceful as ever in this Parliament.
The right hon. Gentleman raised issues about Prime Minister's Question Time and the Question Time rota. I know of no one who thought that the old system of Prime Minister's Question Time was satisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman will know that there was general disagreement about it. Had we not moved quickly to make changes, given the House's habit, there might have been no change at all. We know how the old system worked; we shall see how the new one works. The new Committee will be able to review the system as time progresses.
On Scottish, Northern Ireland and Welsh questions, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales have made it clear that ample time will be provided in other arenas, especially the Scottish Grand Committee, for questions. I absolutely reject the contention that Scottish and Welsh Members can ask questions only during Scottish and Welsh Question Times. The right hon. Gentleman forgot to point out that Treasury, Home Office and Defence Question Times have been extended. In actual fact, the amount of time provided for scrutiny of the Executive is exactly the same as it has always been; there is no difference in time whatever.
The decision by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Bank of England has been widely welcomed. There will be a debate on the economy during the debate on the Queen's Speech, and points can be put to my right hon. Friend at that time.
Mr. Robert Sheldon: I offer my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the

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House, and particularly welcome her continuation of the rule that we shall be given two weeks' notice of business every Thursday. She will of course have read the Liaison Committee's final report of the previous Parliament, in which it called for the early establishment of Select Committees rather than the long, protracted arrangements that have been common in the past. I welcome her assurance that she will set up the Committees quickly. Will she give some idea of the progress of the timetable?
Mrs. Taylor: I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments. I hope that we shall make early progress on establishing Select Committees. We intend to enter very quickly into discussions about that. Some decisions have to be made about the number of Select Committees, especially where Departments have been merged, or indeed separated. I regard Select Committee work as very important to the House and hope that we can make progress in the very near future.
Mr. Paul Tyler: I congratulate, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, the new Leader of the House and welcome her translation from one side of the House to the other. Will she address herself particularly to the difference in arithmetic in the House and use her good offices to ensure that the access gained by those of us in the third party—a major third party—to the business and progress of legislation is commensurate with the size of our party? I welcome her firm statement that she will repeat the practice of her predecessor to give as much advance notice of business as possible. I also welcome the assurance that she has just given the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) about progress on Select Committees.
The question of the Select Committee on the modernisation of the procedures of the House is obviously extremely urgent if we are to approach all the business that the Government have put before us in the Gracious Speech with the greatest speed. If that Select Committee is not made operational speedily, we shall clearly have great difficultly in dealing with all the other business. I also ask whether the right hon. Lady feels that the short debate next week—it might be only two and a half hours—will be adequate to give the new Select Committee guidance on the views of the whole House. Modernisation is one subject on which all Members, new and old, may have a view so that business may be expedited.
Mrs. Taylor: I am grateful for the hon. Member's comments. I appreciate his point about the arithmetic of the House, which will be especially significant in certain areas, such as the Scottish Grand Committee and the Welsh Grand Committee. We accept that the balance has changed and we shall have to consider the implications. I said that I will give two weeks' notice whenever possible, but I hope that the House will accept, as I accepted when in opposition, that on occasions it will not be possible. Two weeks' notice should be our target and endeavour.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Select Committees and I hope that we can move on all of them quickly, especially the Select Committee on modernisation, which should be set up as soon as possible. The debate next Thursday is not intended to be the last opportunity for hon. Members to make an input with their ideas for modernisation.
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I hope that many hon. Members will participate in suggesting changes to improve the workings of Parliament.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I congratulate the new Leader of the House. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, while we were electioneering, civil servants were busily turning out statutory instruments? How many are now waiting to be scrutinised by the House? How quickly does she expect the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments to be set up to start the process of scrutiny?
Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend is well known for his interest in that matter. He has done sterling work on the Joint Committee in the past and perhaps may do so in the future. We inherited 60 statutory instruments and 11 have been tabled in the past two days. The Joint Committee needs to be established as soon as possible to make progress and to ensure that we do not have too great a backlog of statutory instruments piling up.
Sir Peter Emery: I congratulate the right hon. Lady on taking up the office that she shadowed. I have two questions. The first concerns the debate on Thursday. She will recall that the Procedure Committee pressed her for some time to reveal her thoughts on reform so that it could consider them. Nothing came to the Procedure Committee. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad) that some statement from the Government should be put before the House before the debate tomorrow, because we do not know anything about their thinking on the issue of reform. It is most important that a statement should be available before the debate starts.
Secondly, I return to the backdoor introduction of the single day for Prime Minister's questions. May I remind the right hon. Lady of the statement made to the Select Committee about Prime Minister's questions at
"3.15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These sessions are however a fundamental part of our parliamentary democracy and part of that is now familiar to the public"?
That statement did not come from a Conservative politician; it was given to the Procedure Committee by the present Prime Minister. We are moving away from that and, in my judgment, we should have a proper debate on an amendable motion and not an Adjournment debate.
Mrs. Taylor: The right hon. Gentleman knows that the debate on modernisation is not tomorrow, but a week today. I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to produce a paper for that debate, because its purpose is to give me a chance to listen to the ideas that hon. Members might have. It is not the Government's intention to impose change on the House: we want to listen to what is said.
On that issue, the right hon. Gentleman, as Chairman of the Procedure Committee, will know two things. He will know that we stated clearly in the manifesto not that we would reform the entire House of Commons in a particular way, but that we would change Prime Minister's questions. That was made clear in the manifesto. The right hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave evidence to the Procedure Committee suggesting that changes along the lines that we are now introducing should be made.

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Other hon. Members may not have read my right hon. Friend's evidence to the Procedure Committee, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did.
The changes that we are proposing to Prime Minister's Question Time will not reduce, but will slightly increase, the number of questions that my right hon. Friend can deal with, and will improve accountability by making Prime Minister's Question Time a more serious affair.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: As the former Government Chief Whip rather disagreeably raised the Government's welcome decision on GCHQ, and considering that he did so in terms of national security, could my right hon. Friend find out what access Ministers have to the original papers, which led to Mrs. Thatcher and Sir Geoffrey Howe's extraordinary decision—
Mr. John M. Taylor: What about the Belgrano?
Mr. Dalyell: Well, it was about that—the extraordinary decision out of the blue to cast aspersions on loyal people working for the Government? Had that not much more to do with political embarrassment, and not much to do with national security?
Mrs. Taylor: Not for the first time, my hon. Friend is entirely right. All Labour Members deplore any accusation that those who work at GCHQ are less than patriotic.
Mr. Tom King: I welcome the right hon. Lady to her post as Leader of the House—a uniquely different position from that held by any of her colleagues, in that she has a responsibility to all Members of the House, which I am sure that she will seek to discharge. I much prefer her recent remark that the Government would not impose any changes on the House, to her earlier remark when she suggested that nothing could be done in the House if it involved consultation.
May I suggest to the right hon. Lady what will already be apparent to her: that the decisions about a Select Committee and a debate are welcome, and that the best thing that she could do to start her period of office with the good will of the entire House would be to agree to withdraw the proposal for the change in Prime Minister's questions, not to challenge the possible merits, but to ensure that the proper process of consultation is observed? When she sat on the Opposition Benches, she would have insisted on that with all her customary vigour.
Mrs. Taylor: On the last point, there were many occasions when the previous Government did not consult on matters on which we thought that there should be consultation. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Leader of the House has responsibilities to all Members. The Government have accepted certain approaches that will be for the benefit of all Members. For example, we made it clear in the Queen's Speech that we wanted wider consultation on some extremely important policy areas. We have also made it clear that we want to publish some Bills in draft form to permit wide consultation. We have even suggested pre-legislative
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and other Committees to examine proposed legislation in a different way. Those are constructive proposals, which the modernisation Committee can consider. We can make progress on those matters.
As to Prime Minister's questions, I have nothing to add, except to say that I believe that if we had not made the change now, the old processes would have come into play and the change would never have taken place.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: I strongly congratulate my right hon. Friend on her appointment as Leader of the House of Commons, and it gives us great pleasure to see her in her place after all these years. Much of the Hamilton affair remains outstanding. Will she give precedence to setting up the Committee on Standards and Privileges before the other Select Committees so that there will be no delay and to ensure that early justice can be done?
Mrs. Taylor: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely right that to say that it would be for the benefit of the House as a whole to have the Committee on Standards and Privileges established at an early date so that all the outstanding work that that Committee will inherit can be done quickly. I hope that there will be no delay and that we receive co-operation from all parties in establishing that Committee.
Sir Norman Fowler: Does the Leader of the House agree that, at the very least, there should be a debate on Prime Minister's questions before any new system is introduced? Is not the point that this decision has been made entirely without consultation and entirely for the benefit of the Prime Minister so as to protect him from questions? Is not her job to decide what is in the best interests of the House of Commons?
Mrs. Taylor: The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to realise that the previous Government missed an opportunity to debate Prime Minister's questions, which they could have done on the basis of the report from the Procedure Committee which was published last year. The reason he gives for the change is not valid, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is not much in need of protection from Opposition Members.
Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend try to arrange business during the next two or three weeks—before the first leadership ballot for the Tory pretender—so that each of the contestants can get equal time at the Dispatch Box and so, in the interests of fairness and consultation, we allow them all to have an equal say?
Mrs. Taylor: I am certainly willing to receive representations from any Opposition Member who feels that there is any injustice in respect of the balance of time given to the various contenders. Perhaps my hon. Friend could be appointed the referee.
Sir Patrick Cormack: In warmly endorsing the welcome given to the right hon. Lady in her unique role—a role to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) referred—may I ask her to think again about next Thursday's debate? If we are to have procedural reform, should it not be at a measured pace? Should we not have a full day's debate,

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and should not that debate take place after the Government have set out their own general views? In that context, can she clarify some of the rumours in the press about the timing and the length of the forthcoming long recess?
Mrs. Taylor: I would ideally have liked to have given extra time for that debate, but it is important that we get moving as quickly as possible. There will always be claims for extra time. As I have said, this will not be the only opportunity for Members to contribute ideas on how the workings of Parliament might be modernised. I am afraid that, at this stage, I can say nothing about the long recess.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on becoming Leader of the House? It must be pleasing for her, and it follows on from Bolton Wanderers—the football team that she strongly supports—winning promotion to the premiership. As a previous member of the Procedure Committee, I should like to ask her a serious question concerning the Committee's report on the way in which the House deals with European legislation. The Committee produced a unanimous report which recommended improvements to the method we use to deal with European legislation. Will the Government now respond to that report, or will it be looked at—along with other matters—by the new fast-track procedure Committee that she proposes and that I fully support?
Mrs. Taylor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments—especially for being the first to mention Bolton Wanderers in the new Parliament. I congratulate him on his work on the previous Procedure Committee. What he says about European legislation is quite right, and concerns about the way in which we deal with it are shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope that we shall be able to look at that quickly and make progress.
Rev. Martin Smyth: I join others in welcoming the Leader of the House to her new role, which involves protecting the rights of all hon. Members. When she dealt with Question Time, however, she forgot about Northern Ireland, and made no mention of that Secretary of State. Perhaps that was a slip of the tongue. Could the Leader of the House have a chat with you, Madam Speaker? You would then be able to share with her the difficulty of fitting in all the questioners in 45 minutes—and that 45 minutes has now been reduced. I think that the consequential changes to Prime Minister's Question Time cause us the most concern.
Will the Leader of the House also bear it in mind, when thinking of the long recess, that school holidays in Scotland and Northern Ireland are different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom?
Mrs. Taylor: I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's last point, which my colleagues representing Scottish constituencies are not slow to make to me. I can only say that, as we have a new Parliament, this year may not be as easy as other years, but we should always bear such factors in mind when planning future business.
I have made clear my view that the needs of minority parties must be taken into account. The issue of Northern Ireland questions was difficult, because Northern Ireland
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questions preceded Prime Minister's questions on a Thursday: we had to decide whether to switch them to a different day and give them 45 minutes, or to give them the 30-minute slot before Prime Minister's questions. There was a feeling that the high-profile slot before Prime Minister's questions would be preferable, but we are always willing to consider other ideas intended to improve the overall position.
Mr. Harry Barnes: We have all just been through the interesting experience of a general election, which I am sure my right hon. Friend enjoyed. Some may have learnt some lessons from that experience, and some may not; but one of the lessons that many of us learned was that the electoral register was not in a healthy condition. Should we not be able to discuss our experiences in the election in a debate, so that we can consider ways of introducing a decent system?
Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend made his views clear before the election, and I think that some of his concerns were vindicated. I believe that there are problems with the electoral register, and I think that everyone would want to ensure that every person who is entitled to vote is, as far as possible, allowed to exercise that right.
On a personal note, I think that the election produced some other interesting experiences in connection with the design of the ballot paper. I am sure that all of us who were candidates will want to learn from those experiences, and, perhaps, propose changes for the future.
Mr. John MacGregor: I, too, warmly congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment to an important and challenging post.
May I return to the issue of Prime Minister's questions? It is not an issue of prime ministerial diktat; it is an issue of the Prime Minister's accountability to the House. It would have been wise to involve the House in the changes, which are not just about timing. Other issues are involved in the handling of Prime Minister's questions.
Does the right hon. Lady recall that, when we were in government with large majorities, we always made sure that we consulted widely on reforms to the House? For example, when I set up the Jopling Committee, I was anxious to ensure that all quarters in the House were represented, and it was the unanimity on the report's recommendation that enabled it to go through with relative speed. Would the right hon. Lady not be wise to recall that?
Given the right hon. Lady's earlier comment that she wanted to listen to what had been said, has she listened carefully to what has been said about Prime Minister's questions today, and will she incorporate it in Select Committee procedures?
Mrs. Taylor: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening comments. He is, however, the sixth person to raise the issue of Prime Minister's questions, and I do not think that anyone has defended the old procedure. I think that we must all admit that the old system of two 15-minute sessions did not hold the Prime Minister or the Government to account. It may have had entertainment value, but I think that Prime Minister's questions are too important for that.

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I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that other issues surrounding Prime Minister's questions should perhaps be examined in time, such as the notice of questions that is given and the transfer of closed questions.
I believe that the House would want to express a view on those issues, and I hope that that can be done. The right hon. Gentleman says that he consulted widely and that the Jopling proposals were speedily introduced, but I must remind him that it was at least two years before those proposals saw the light of day.
Mr. David Winnick: Does my right hon. Friend accept that if there were to be a statement next week on GCHQ, it would give us an opportunity to praise warmly all those who fought the ban there, refused to be intimidated and gave up their jobs? People such as Mike Grindley should be congratulated, and I hope that he can be given an award.
As regards patriotism, is my right hon. Friend aware that two years before the ban all those at GCHQ were congratulated by the director-general on the way in which they had carried out their duties during the Falklands war? Surely such people, including Mike Grindley, need no lessons in patriotism from the Conservative bunch opposite.
Mrs. Taylor: I agree that the people who work at GCHQ need no lessons in patriotism. They demonstrated their attitude well, and I believe that the Foreign Secretary's announcement will be widely welcomed.
Mr. Edward Gamier: I, too, congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new appointment. Given the shortness of the debate on procedure on Thursday week, would not it be sensible, and a better use of our time, if the Government, or the Labour party, were to crystallise their thoughts on procedural reforms on paper in advance of the debate? Will the Leader of the House or a senior Government Back Bencher chair the proposed Select Committee on procedure, and what will be its political make-up?
Mrs. Taylor: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his opening remarks. I believe that I have answered the question about the wisdom of providing a Government document; I am sure that the various Labour party documents were well scrutinised by the Conservative party during the general election campaign, and they obviously did not include enough clangers to make the Opposition take any notice of them. I do not think that it would be appropriate to have a paper: it will be a listening debate.
The membership, composition and political balance of the modernisation Committee have yet to be decided.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: These are early days, but is my right hon. Friend in a position to say when the first meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee will take place? Will it be in London or in Edinburgh? Does she have any idea who will occupy the Opposition Front Bench—members of the Scottish National party or Scottish Liberal Democrats?
Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend is right to say that there will be different faces, not representatives of the official
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Opposition, on the Opposition Front Bench. That is why I acknowledged earlier, in response to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), that the arithmetic resulting from the general election meant that we would have to review the situation. That review will take place, and we shall hold consultations in the very near future.
Mr. James Wallace: I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment. She will be aware that the previous Government failed to achieve their objective of forming a blocking minority to stop measures that will lead to significant reductions in the British fishing fleet. Will there be an opportunity to discuss the implications of that, preferably before the intergovernmental conference? There is cross-party agreement that the important issues of quota hopping and reform of the common fisheries policy must be tackled.
Mrs. Taylor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. We acknowledge that the fishing industry faces major problems and that action must be taken. Those issues will be discussed at the intergovernmental conference, and we hope to have a debate about the IGC before it takes place.
Mr. Mike Gapes: I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend. May I add my support to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) for the early establishment of Select Committees? May I draw her attention to the final report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament, which emphasised that several important international questions will be coming up in the next few weeks? Early establishment of the Foreign Affairs Committee is especially important so that we can monitor what happens.
Mrs. Taylor: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. I accept his point that we need to get all Select Committees established as quickly as possible. I realise that different hon. Members have different priorities. The only solution is to try to get moving on all the Select Committees as soon as we can.
Mr. Tim Yeo: Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the Prime Minister did not consult any Back-Bench Member before announcing changes to Prime Minister's questions? Will she apologise on behalf of the Prime Minister for that gross discourtesy to the House? Does she agree that the arrogance of the Prime Minister's behaviour in this matter makes a mockery of his reported claim that he wishes his Government to be the servant and not the master?
Mrs. Taylor: I am pretty sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did not consult the hon. Gentleman, but I reject the rest of his remarks.
Mr. Alex Salmond: The Leader of the House said that she might reconsider the cut in time allocated to Northern Irish questions. Is she prepared to extend that reconsideration to the other national Departments? The cut is causing concern and was not in the Labour party manifesto. I welcome the fact that the new Minister for sport is proving as controversial in office as he did on the Back Benches. Will he make a statement

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on his proposal for a single British football side, which is causing consternation north of the border? Cutting Scottish questions is one thing; cutting the national side is quite another. We hope that he had his fingers crossed when he made the statement.
Mrs. Taylor: Scottish Members have an opportunity to ask questions at times other than Scottish questions. Scottish questions will still be 45 minutes. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has made it clear that there will be opportunities to ask questions in the Scottish Grand Committee. I hope that hon. Members will use those opportunities. I have said that we are considering the balance of the Scottish Grand Committee and the problem of the absence of official Opposition Members. On the football team, I have a keen interest but I shall not comment on it now, except to say that it is National Heritage questions next week.
Mr. John Townend: I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment. Further to her reply to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), may I strongly urge her to provide time in the near future for a debate on fishing? There is a great fear in the industry that the Government are about to sell it down the river. They have already abandoned the previous Government's commitment to make the ending of quota hopping a priority at the intergovernmental conference. The Fisheries Minister is talking about reducing our catching capacity by 30 per cent. with no extra money for decommissioning, and is warning the industry that it will have to limit its days at sea. That means that my fishermen's livelihoods are at risk.
Mrs. Taylor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his first comment. His statement that the Government are about to sell fishermen down the river is a bit rich coming from someone who supported the Conservative Government while so much damage was done to the fishing industry. This Government intend to pursue policies to deal with the problems of the fishing industry. We have made it clear that we will play a positive role in negotiating long-overdue improvements to the common fisheries policy.
Mr. Michael Fallon: Will the Leader of the House explain why the Government failed to consult even Madam Speaker before announcing changes to Prime Minister's questions? Was that a deliberate omission or an oversight for which she has apologised?
Mrs. Taylor: There has been significant misinterpretation of what Madam Speaker said yesterday. She made it clear that her consent was not required; she did not say that she was not consulted.
Dr. Liam Fox: I add my congratulations to the right hon. Lady. Given that it is clear that the Government intend to push through changes to Prime Minister's questions without consulting the House, may we have a debate on accountability in government so that we can tell the Prime Minister, while we are still allowed to do so, that Prime Minister's questions is about bringing him to account and is not a gift to be given as part of some personal fiefdom?
Mrs. Taylor: Again, it comes a bit rich from hon. Members who were in the House when the Government
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Benches were occupied by the Conservative party to talk about Government accountability, because that was when the Scott report was published. The amount of time allocated to Prime Minister's questions has not been reduced; the session has been made more sensible and purposeful.
Mr. John M. Taylor: Will the Leader of the House ask the President of the Board of Trade to make an early statement from the Dispatch Box about the guiding principles of the Government's policy on monopolies and mergers, and competition policy? Those are crucial areas of economic superintendence and the President of the Board of Trade should make a statement from the Dispatch Box on the issue at an early date.
Mrs. Taylor: The competition Bill was mentioned in the Queen's Speech and there will be opportunities to discuss the matter on the Floor of the House once the Bill is published.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: May I add my congratulations to the right hon. Lady? Will she join me in paying tribute to her predecessor, who did so much and served that office extremely well on behalf of the whole House? Will she reflect on the fact that, when the previous Parliament expanded the role of the Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees, it was not intended to substitute that scrutiny for scrutiny in the House? The idea that cross-examination by largely friendly Members of Parliament north of the border in the Scottish Grand Committee is a substitute for cross-examination of Ministers by Conservative Members who nevertheless represent the aspirations of 500,000 voters in Scotland emphasises that the Government seek to protect Ministers from proper accountability to the House.
Mrs. Taylor: I am more than happy to join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the work of my predecessor, Tony Newton, as I did at the end of the last Session. His occupancy of my position did great service to the House. We should be grateful for what he did, and I am happy to have that placed on record.
On the hon. Gentleman's comments about affairs in Scotland and Wales, it is extremely difficult for Labour Members to take lessons from Conservative Members about Scotland or Wales.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Will the right hon. Lady ensure that the Deputy Prime Minister, in his capacity as Secretary of State for Transport, comes to the Dispatch Box at an early date to make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's attitude towards the proposed alliance between British and American airlines and on progress between the United States Government and the UK Government on a new air service agreement? Will she confirm that those matters will be decided by the Government, not by Neil Kinnock in Brussels?
Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman makes allegations at the end of his questions which should not have been made, but I shall draw his general comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. I am not sure whether a statement is needed,

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but I shall ensure that my right hon. Friend is aware of those points. He will wind up the Queen's Speech debate next week.
Mr. Nigel Waterson: May I ask the right hon. Lady whether, in her new role, she has made representations to the Chancellor about his hasty and ill-considered decision to abandon direct democratic control of the fixing of interest rates without preceding that by a debate or at least a statement in the House?
Mrs. Taylor: No, I have not.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: May I join in the congratulations to the right hon. Lady on her new appointment but also join calls made by the Scottish National party for the new Minister for sport to make a statement to the House? Does she agree that his short tenure of that position so far has included, first, an obviously insincere taking of the oath and specious excuses—totally unconvincingly made—when he realised that that had been caught on camera and, secondly, the resignation of an extremely distinguished man as chairman of the Sports Council? Coupled with what the leader of the Scottish National party referred to—turning upside down the prospects for football in this country—is it not already clear that the new Sports Minister will have the second shortest tenure of office in the new Government, beaten only by the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster), who could stomach the new Government for only three days before leaving?
Mr. Mike Hall: How long did the hon. Gentleman stay in Blackpool?
Mr. Hawkins: Five years.
Mrs. Taylor: I think that the intervention answers the point rather well. I reject that criticism of my hon. Friend, and I welcome the hon. Member to his new seat.
Mr. David Lidington: Although I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment, does she agree that one consequence of the Government's announcement of changes to Prime Minister's questions is to halve the opportunities available each week for the Leader of the Opposition or, for that matter, the leaders of the other parties in the House, to hold the Prime Minister to account? Surely she accepts that that amounts to a serious diminution in the accountability of the Executive to the legislature.
Mrs. Taylor: That is patent nonsense.
Mr. Nigel Evans: I welcome the right hon. Lady to her position. She said earlier that she did not want to impose any changes on the House, but does she not realise that that is exactly what she has done by changing the format of Prime Minister's Question Time without consultation? She has also said that she is now prepared to consult other hon. Members because of the problems posed by cutting the time available for Scottish and Welsh questions. If she had consulted at the very beginning, such problems would not exist.
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Prime Minister's questions is not only an opportunity for Conservative Back Benchers to question the Prime Minister; it is an opportunity for all Back-Bench Members to question him. Surely, therefore, any changes that take place should involve consultation with the whole House. Is not this one of the first examples of new Labour: big majority; enormous arrogance?
Mrs. Taylor: I think that the hon. Gentleman should learn something about humility in light of the decision by the electorate a fortnight ago. As for the rota for Question Time, perhaps I might remind the House that it has never been fixed in stone. It is not part of the Standing Orders of the House. The rota is always determined by the Government, and it changes when Departments merge or separate.
We are always willing to hear representations about how Question Time generally could be improved, and I hope that the new Select Committee will consider such matters. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we are all very aware that it will not just be Conservative Members who will wish to question the Prime Minister.
Mr. David Trimble: May I, too, also congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new post? May I also welcome the indication that she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) that she is prepared to look again at the time available for questions on the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom?
When can we expect the Northern Ireland Grand Committee to sit? Will it provide other opportunities for us to hold the Government to account through questions because, as I am sure the right hon. Lady knows, there is a greater need for accountability in Northern Ireland because of the much wider range of responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the absence of local government in Northern Ireland and the absence, for the moment, of any proposals by the Government for devolution? Bearing in mind the right hon. Lady's comments on the Scottish Grand Committee, will she look at the arrangements for the Northern Ireland Grand Committee so that it can reflect where those from the largest party of Northern Ireland happen to sit?
Mrs. Taylor: I know that there will always be questions about the balance on the Grand Committees and I know that different hon. Members have different views. It will be difficult to balance all those interests and to satisfy everyone. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that we appreciate the need for proper accountability in Northern Ireland. I hope that he will also acknowledge that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has kept in close touch with everyone about the range of issues involved.
On the specific question about the rota for parliamentary questions, all I would ask the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, everyone else, to bear in mind is that were there to be an increase in the time allocated for questions on one matter, there would have to be a decrease in the time available for questions on another matter.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: May I ask a question relating to Select Committees? Could the right hon. Lady

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advise us on the appointment of the Select Committee on European Legislation, which has the specific function of scrutinising directives and regulations that emerge from Europe? That subject doubtless exercises Conservative Members, but it must exercise Labour Members as well. The matter is particularly important in relation to the common fisheries policy and the common agricultural policy; the common fisheries policy was a major issue during the general election campaign. The Prime Minister refused to sign the pledge committing his party to abolishing quota hopping. What priority will the Government place on the common fisheries policy in the run-up to, and during, the intergovernmental conference?
Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Lady will know that my right hon. Friends have made it clear, and I have repeated today from the Dispatch Box, that fisheries policy is one of our major concerns. I have said that we intend to play a positive role in negotiating improvements to the common fisheries policy, and we stand by that. I acknowledge what she says about the need for the early establishment of a wide range of Committees. We do not want to deny the opportunity for scrutiny where it is required. I think that many hon. Members will be anxious to serve on the Committees and I hope that we can establish them as quickly as possible.
Mr. Edward Leigh: The Government are of course entitled to change policy on GCHQ if that is their wish and if the change is contained in their manifesto. I am sure that it was a slip of the tongue, but the Leader of the House seemed to imply, in reply to an earlier question, that because the matter was contained in the Labour party's manifesto, there was no need for a statement on it. It would be a dangerous precedent to set if we were not to be entitled to debate matters or have a statement on them simply because they were in a party manifesto. I am sure that the right hon. Lady would want to correct that point.
Mrs. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is gracious to say that we are entitled to change policy on GCHQ. Yes, we are—and we have. There is no need for a statement. The debate on the Queen's Speech is wide ranging, and if hon. Members want to raise the issue, they are entitled to do so.

Points of Order
3.37 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Having had the opportunity of reading your statement in the Official Report, I am submitting a memorandum to you on the possible desirability of referring the matter to the Standards and Privileges Committee and I should be grateful if you would consider it and perhaps make a statement at an appropriate moment.
Madam Speaker: I shall certainly look at it when it comes into my Office.
Sir Peter Emery: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry to say that I consider the answer from the Leader of the House to the question about Prime Minister's questions to be entirely inadequate. I shall raise the matter in an Adjournment debate at the earliest possible opportunity.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Following the exchanges in business questions this afternoon, I am greatly concerned that there appears to have been some tutoring of the official Opposition as to what question to ask the Leader of the House. The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Dr. Mawhinney) has clearly been handing round questions because Opposition Members obviously do not have the wit to think of any of their own. I have a serious question for you, Madam Speaker. If hon. Members ask questions of a repetitive nature, surely you have the authority to hold them to account and stop them from doing so. I hope that you will consider doing that in future.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. At times this afternoon, questions became tedious and repetitive, and I have a shrewd idea about what was going on. I am rather tolerant, and it was the first time that the Leader of the House had been at the Dispatch Box, so I thought I would give her a good innings, but I shall watch the matter in future.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I ask you to reflect on the manner in which hon. Members take the oath and the fact that, while we respect republican sentiments among Labour Members, it is possible that the manner in which hon. Members take the oath could bring the House into disrepute? May I ask you to make a statement on the subject?
Madam Speaker: I do not think that a statement is necessary. It may be some years before many hon. Members have to take the oath again, but when new Members come in at a by-election, I shall bear in mind what the hon. Member has said and what I know is the feeling of the House. I shall watch hon. Members very carefully on taking the oath, the hon. Gentleman can be assured of that.

BILL PRESENTED
  REFERENDUMS (SCOTLAND AND WALES)
  The Prime Minister, supported by Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Secretary Dewar, Mr. Secretary Davies, Mr. Secretary Straw, Mrs. Ann Taylor and Mr. Henry McLeish, presented a Bill to make provision for the holding of a referendum in Scotland on the establishment and tax-varying powers of a Scottish Parliament and a referendum in Wales on the establishment of a Welsh Assembly; and for expenditure in preparation for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament or a Welsh Assembly: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 1].
Orders of the Day

  Debate on the Address
  [SECOND DAY]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question, [14 May]
  That an humble Address be presented follows:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament—[Mr. Kaufman.]
  Question again proposed.

  Work, Welfare, Education and Health
  3.39 pm
  The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): Madam Speaker, in opening today's debate on the Queen's Speech, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on what I think you described as a very good innings indeed. I also wish to indicate that, in the spirit of the Jopling Committee recommendations, I shall keep my speech brief—not least so as to ensure that many of the new Members can make their maiden speeches today.
  I have the privilege of being the first Labour Secretary of State for Education and Employment; the first Labour Secretary of State for the past 18 years to stand at this Dispatch Box; and the first shadow Secretary of State for Education since 1929 to make it to the Secretary of State's job. I owe that gem of information to Roy, now Lord, Hattersley and I pay tribute this afternoon to a lifetime's commitment to the education service and to the love of his life.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: That was in The Guardian.
  Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) says that it was in The Guardian. I had better check that, but I checked it with Lord Hattersley and it is bound to be true.
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has placed a particular burden on my shoulders—not the burden of delivering some of the most essential and key pledges of the new Labour Government, but rather that, in a pre-election party political broadcast, my right hon. Friend warned all of the nation's children that I was about to inflict on them a great deal more homework. Children have been coming up to me ever since asking whether that was a threat and what the extent of the homework would be.
  I do not mind being the bogeyman on the Government Benches, as long as I do not have to come across in the night the bogeymen of the Opposition—not least the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) counts himself as a bogeyman—he was certainly wise enough to

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  move from St. Albans. I do not know whether he is here this afternoon, but I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) on achieving that tremendous victory. This is the first time I can remember that anybody standing for the leadership of a political party has appealed to his supporters to stop campaigning for him, on the ground that what they have said about opponents might be embarrassing. That shows the measure of the disarray on the Opposition Benches.
  At last, we have the opportunity of turning words into action and of starting the process of making a difference to the lives of millions of people across this country. We are able to offer a new beginning—a partnership and a consensus within the British nation so that the crusade for standards, the drive for opportunity in work and the chance to be able to earn their own living will at last be a reality for so many people who have waited these long 18 years for a change of Government.
  We have a chance to give young and old alike some hope for the future. We have the opportunity to offer young people the sort of standards that others have taken for granted. We have the ability to give young and old alike the chance to work when, for so long, they have been dependent on others—to translate dependency into independence and to translate welfare into work.[Interruption.] The grumblings of Opposition Members should be mirrored by the reality of the tripling of the number of people over the past 18 years who were made dependent on state benefits—that is a tribute not to independence but to extending the tentacles of the state in a way that Margaret Thatcher could not, presumably, have envisaged when she made her speech on the steps of Downing street in May 1979.
  This time, the pledges are clear; we will deliver on them over the next five years and rebuild trust in politics and democracy and the ability of the Government to work with the people in delivering those pledges.
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Which of the right hon. Gentleman's ministerial colleagues would he congratulate on the latest fall in the unemployment figures?
  Mr. Blunkett: I would give considerable credit to many of my right hon. and hon. Friends for bringing about a new state of unemployment among former colleagues of Opposition Members—that is the only level of unemployment that we are prepared to tolerate over the next five years.
  I am proud of the Government's education and employment team and, working with the people, we will do the job—but the Government do not believe that we can do it alone. We shall be working with those in education—parents, governors, teachers and heads—and with those in the Employment Service, in our jobcentres and in the community who have long awaited an enabling Government who will provide the resources of the state to enable people to determine their own lives and to be given the opportunity and the wherewithal to flourish in a complicated world of new technology and a knowledge-based society in which human capital has replaced the 19th-century investment of fixed capital.
  Above all, we shall give the many what has so often been available only to the few. We shall spread the benefits of smaller class sizes to those who, over the past
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  18 years, have suffered the indignity and difficulty of larger class sizes, thus extending the benefit of lifelong learning to the many.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) spelt out the situation clearly in his elegant and witty speech yesterday. He spoke of three private schools in his constituency and how £2.25 million of state money benefits the privileged few, whereas 14,000 children in his constituency were facing larger class sizes and underfunding. Translating the resources that we have at our disposal into priorities that enable the many to succeed will be a key task for me, my Front-Bench team and the whole Government.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: Is it not true that the money available in the first year from the abolition of assisted places will amount to something like £49 million? The Government cannot deliver on their undertaking. Are they not in fact promoting a deceit on the British people by saying that class sizes will be reduced but without specifying where the money will come from? The abolition of assisted places will not provide it.
  Mr. Blunkett: I am very happy to enlighten the hon. Gentleman, as I was during the general election campaign. I was delighted that the British people believed a party of honesty rather than a party of gross dishonesty.
  By the year 2000, £100 million will have been freed from the assisted places scheme, partly because some youngsters will come off the scheme as they leave school and partly because new money will not be applied to the scheme from next year but will instead be used to aid pupils in state schools.
  Perhaps I can remind the hon. Gentleman of the legacy of the previous Government. Over the past 15 years, there has been a 40 per cent. increase in the number of children in primary education taught in classes of more than 30. How an Opposition Member can raise the issue of class sizes with me, a representative of the new Government, I really do not know. The increase in class sizes and the legacy of neglect will take us years to overcome, but we have been honest; we did not pretend to the electorate that we could do everything in 12 or 18 months. We set out a programme for a five-year Parliament which, the electorate and our success willing, we shall turn into a second and third Labour term to build on the foundations that we are laying so that we can rebuild the trust of the British electorate.
  A reduction in class sizes is just one of our pledges, but I shall spell out in greater detail this afternoon and in the weeks to come the way in which we shall implement our key commitments to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed.
  Mr. Eric Forth: I join others in wishing the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues well, in the hope that they succeed in what they have set out to do.
  Has the Secretary of State yet had time to ponder the rather peculiar fact that some of the local education authorities that deliver the best results in their schools have the largest class sizes; whereas many of the LEAs—mostly controlled by Labour—that produce the worst results have the smallest classes?
  Mr. Blunkett: Until 1 May, of course, the Conservative party controlled only five councils. It now

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  controls the county of Kent, with seven of the worst schools in Britain. I shall be interested to see what dramatic action Kent county council, under the Conservatives, will now take to deal with the five LEA schools and two grant-maintained schools that have worse results than The Ridings school had when the right hon. Gentleman's regime—he was a Minister in it—took action against The Ridings and Calderdale council. We shall see what happens in the weeks and months ahead.
  Whenever action is not taken, whatever the complexion of the local authority, we shall act to ensure that the children in question are not denied a decent education. I just wish that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) had acted decisively when, as a Minister, he had the chance to do so.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Blunkett: I give way to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I hesitate to raise it during the speech of the Secretary of State, for whom I have the highest regard, but it relates to the business of the House.
  As you know, Madam Speaker, the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill was to be published today; it is of great interest to Scottish and Welsh Members. It appears that the Bill was circulating among members of the Welsh press by 12 noon today, yet when I made representations at the Vote Office 10 minutes ago it was not readily available to Members. Does not that show contempt for the rights of hon. Members?
  Madam Speaker: I shall of course have the matter looked at right away. The House is grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State consider one other method of improving equality of access, consistent with what he has said about the abolition of assisted places? There are many good schools, but it is often difficult to get into them. They all have to be applied for separately. Schools in metropolitan areas, for instance, would certainly benefit from a co-ordinated application system at primary and secondary level rather like the system operating for universities and colleges.
  Will the Secretary of State review that matter, including the Greenwich judgment, so that access to schools and quality of teaching can be approached by the Government with a fresh mind, with a view to dealing with some of the injustices and frustrations caused by the current system?
  Mr. Blunkett: For the avoidance of misunderstanding: I believe it unlikely that there will be a change in the Greenwich judgment. The system of children crossing local authority boundaries has become established as part of parental preference, but I can undertake to review the admissions system and the co-ordination that is required. Proposals will be made in the White Paper and consultation will take place on it, so that we can make some sense of what, in certain parts of the country—Bromley,
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  Hertfordshire and elsewhere—is currently nonsensical. We should be very happy to hear from the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues any suggestions that they may have. We would be prepared to listen to them and to consider them.
  I was going to give way next to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South—
  Mr. John Gunnell: I congratulate my right hon. Friend—but I must tell him that I am no longer the Member for Leeds, South. I have been translated to Morley and Rothwell, which does include parts of Leeds, South.
  The former Minister, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), used to make it clear in Committee and in the House that the Government rejected the idea that class size bears any relation to performance. Does my right hon. Friend's experience bear out mine? When I met parents outside schools during the campaign I found that nothing was more important to them than our promises on class size. They knew very well that their children were losing out because they were in classes of more than 30. We shall need time to put that right, but the electorate found our commitment on the issue very important.
  Mr. Blunkett: I am grateful for that comment. Perhaps my hon. Friend will forgive me for getting the name of his constituency wrong. I am struggling with 200 or so new voices to get used to as well, so we may have a little difficulty on that front for a month or two.
  My hon. Friend is right to point out that the issue of class sizes is raised in every school that we visit. Everyone, including those involved in private education, acknowledges that class size matters for delivering the basics. We shall face and overcome the Conservative Government's legacy of 45 per cent. of our youngsters aged 11 being unable to deal with maths adequately and more than 40 per cent. of them not being able to deal with reading and writing at an adequate level. It is crucial that we set targets and work with teachers on methodology. We must have class sizes that make it possible for us to deliver to those young children so that we can do the job satisfactorily.
  Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: May I add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman? I hope that he achieves everything that he has set out in his manifesto. Will he confirm that only a few weeks before the general election he allowed the new assisted places to go ahead from 1 September? Will he also confirm that those places will go ahead from that date and tell us how long they will last? Presumably they will last for at least the next six years.
  Mr. Blunkett: I am delighted to say that Cheltenham Ladies' college is now in a Labour constituency—or was it Roedean that the hon. Lady attended?
  Mrs. Gillan: Cheltenham Ladies' college.
  Mr. Blunkett: That is actually in a Liberal Democrat constituency.
  I am delighted to take questions from the former Ministers at the Department for Education and Employment. It is like déjà uv, only the other way round.

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  I am also delighted to confirm that, on this occasion, the hon. Lady is correct. During the general election campaign, I said that children who have been allocated places will be permitted to take them up. We shall legislate within weeks to ensure that schools do not abuse the licence that was given to them to look after the interests of children by agreeing to places for 1998 or 1999 onwards. The hallmark of this Government will be to put children before dogma. It will be to ensure that the interests of our children come first on every occasion. Our ambition is to ensure that the programme that we are delivering and the targets that we are setting work with the profession to do the job.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I add my words of welcome and wish him success in his important task. He talks about dogma. Does he realise that most damage has been inflicted on education in this country over the past 20 or 30 years by the imposition of socialist dogma by local education authorities?
  Mr. Blunkett: After six and a half weeks of trailing round the country, I had hoped that we had finished with all that. I should like a new beginning from this afternoon, getting rid of the tired rhetoric of the past and instead giving people a sense of purpose and some hope and belief that not only the Government but Parliament might address the real issues that face our country: young people without jobs; the long-term unemployed who want hope; lifelong learning to equip our nation with the tools that it needs to succeed in a new century. Instead, we get the same old questions and the same old dry, doctrinaire dogma from the Conservatives. They have switched seats, but they have not switched the jargon or rhetoric one iota.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Blunkett: No, I am going to make some progress in the spirit that I indicated at the beginning of my speech—setting targets and establishing some momentum for that change. We have already established the standards and effectiveness unit in the Department for Education and Employment under Professor Michael Barber. We have already established a new relationship with schools and colleges. We have already changed the style as well as the substance of the Department's approach.
  We have talked to staff in London and we will be talking to staff in Sheffield, in Runcorn and in Darlington as quickly as possible. I was due to be in Sheffield doing just that now, but this afternoon's debate was arranged.
  We will ensure that, through the White Paper and the legislation we will introduce, there will be a new beginning. There will be a general teaching council, the establishment of advanced skill teacher posts, and a new relationship and a new job description for local education authorities. Parents will work with schools, and schools will work with authorities. We are a Government determined to use the tools available to us to encourage, to support, and to bring pressure and support together to do the job.
  I recall and pay tribute to Laurie Lee, who died yesterday. I knew Laurie Lee and I had the privilege of undertaking a Radio 4 programme about Laurie Lee and
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  the village of Slad. I interviewed him in his home and in The Woolpack. I had the privilege of talking to him about one of my favourite books, "Cider with Rosie". I also talked to him about the golden nails he described when he talked about knocking in the knowledge and information necessary to give children the tools to be able to read, to write, to spell and to do tables—those little golden nails that make the difference to children's lives. The Laurie Lees of this world, who bring alive our literature and give children a love of learning and a love of reading, are the people whom we should hold in high esteem. We should remember them with affection and thank them for their contribution to making learning something which all of us can be proud of and enjoy throughout our lives.
  By working with the professions—working with teachers and heads—we can do the job. I am proud to announce the first steps since the new Government took over. The Teacher Training Agency has put forward a new qualification for headship. Aspiring as well as existing heads will be fast-tracked to take on the new qualifications that will become mandatory under legislation. In time, all heads will have the leadership skills and management qualifications to enable them to do the job. They will not only receive academic qualifications, but gain experience from the new headship qualification. The course will ensure that best practice is established and spread from one school to another so that we can ensure that the crucial task of leadership is available in the 24,000 schools in our country, thereby giving every child a chance.
  We will build on the work of governors throughout the country. There will be new parenting skills in school and there will be the opportunity for lifelong learning from the moment a child is born. That is the task we face. Over the next couple of weeks, I will make announcements about a new beginning for early years education, sweeping away the dogma and the market forces that the previous Government espoused.
  Let us be clear. The agenda of the future is one of equality of opportunity, in terms of gender, race and disability. [HON. MEMBERS: "Clichés."' I do not think that there is anything clichéd about equality of opportunity for women, for ethnic minorities or for disabled people. I pay tribute to the Minister of State, Department of National Heritage, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke), who did such sterling work in opposition in terms of disability rights. With the Minister for Employment and Disability Rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), and the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), he will review the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. They will work with and meet groups representing disabled people to ensure that we carry that work forward in the years ahead.
  So many of our young people who are out of work have special needs of one sort or another. So many of them are in difficulty. It is our task to ensure that, through the new deal, we can enhance the life chances of people who have particular needs or have been out of work for more than six months. We must ensure that their hope is restored and that the cynicism that results from exclusion and alienation from our communities is set aside by the investment of the new deal money from the privatised utilities to give those young people the chance of a life. We must give them the chance to earn, to build their own

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  families and to establish their belief in themselves in the community and help them set aside the desperation that results from feeling that society has rejected them and that they have been spat out by the communities in which they were brought up.
  We must provide hope for a new generation and qualifications that will offer a passport to lifelong learning for all, reducing the divide in our society and removing the stigma of exclusion. That is the task of the new Labour Government working with the people. The Government cannot do it alone. We must work with everyone who is prepared and willing to put our objectives and priorities into practice.
  To deny Government responsibility is to remove our responsibility for ourselves. We have both rights and duties. We need a Government prepared to take responsibility and a nation willing to rise to the challenge of the future. That is what we are talking about in the Queen's Speech. It is what we shall be debating in the months and years ahead. I am proud and privileged to serve in the new Government and I commend to the House the task of implementing our vision for the 21st century.
  4.6 pm
  Mr. Peter Lilley: I begin by conveying the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment who, as she put it, is temporarily suffering from antibiotics. She will shortly be back in the House.
  I convey my sincere congratulations to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), on his appointment to the Cabinet. I am sure that he will fill his post with great distinction. I say that not as a mere formality: before the election, I was asked on a radio programme whom I most admired on the Labour Benches and I immediately mentioned his name. [Interruption.] I will not continue in that vein or he may think that I am soliciting his vote, but I wish him and his team well— and, indeed, the social security team who do not seem to be present in force today.
  I wish the Government team well, despite our party differences, because their responsibilities are of crucial importance. Failure in education would blight the future of a generation and social security exists to help vulnerable people at times of greatest hardship. During my period of office at the Department of Social Security, I always sought to focus help on those who needed it most. If the Government fail, I know that disabled, sick, unemployed and elderly people will suffer most. In opposition, as in government, their interests will be our prime concern.
  The Queen's Speech comes in the wake of a severe defeat for my party. There are crucial lessons that we have to learn from that defeat. I have discussed those issues elsewhere, and they are not the subject of today's debate, but one point is relevant. We have to have the humility to recognise an unpalatable truth about the verdict of the voters. It may even be unpalatable to Labour Members. It was the Conservative party that lost the election, not the Labour party that won it. It was a chastening rejection of a
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  divided Conservative party; it was certainly not a ringing endorsement of the Labour party. Labour Members know only too well that there was little enthusiasm for them on the doorsteps and they ended up with fewer votes than my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) secured in 1992.
  Our failings not only damaged us, but allowed Labour to be elected on a bogus prospectus. Labour was able to raise expectations of what it can deliver way beyond what it can afford if it is to honour our spending and tax plans, which it adopted wholesale. Labour appetites will not be satisfied on a healthy Conservative diet and our task in opposition is to expose the inconsistencies, the shortcomings, the damaging consequences of Labour's programme.
  Nowhere is Labour more vulnerable than in its approach to education, work and welfare, which it has said is the centrepiece of its programme. I am rather disappointed that the Secretary of State for Social Security—my old sparring partner, whom I congratulate on her promotion—is not in her place. Education, work and welfare is apparently the centrepiece of Labour's programme, yet the whole edifice of Labour's education and welfare strategy is built on very flimsy foundations.
  Labour's objectives are fine. It wants to boost spending on education and to finance it by reducing spending on unemployment benefit, and it wants to achieve that by getting people off welfare and into work. Conservatives agree with those objectives. Indeed, that is precisely what the previous Government did. We did boost spending on education, and did so because spending on benefits for unemployed people had been falling steadily for four years as we brought unemployment down. We accomplished that by implementing our policies of reducing burdens on business, increasing incentives and achieving sustainable economic growth. Yet Labour says that it can reduce unemployment further not by encouraging natural economic growth but by job subsidies and artificial make-work schemes.
  Mr. Fabricant: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the people of Lichfield and Burntwood, in whose area in April the unemployment rate was only 2.9 per cent?
  Mr. Lilley: I certainly convey my congratulations to them and to people in many other constituencies where there is low unemployment—far lower than in countries that have adopted the policies that the Labour party wants to inflict on us.
  There may be a social case for make-work schemes. It may be worth spending money on providing training and work experience for young unemployed people as we have done for 16 to 18-year-olds. It is, however, codswallop to say that such schemes can save money. Those schemes cost money. They cost far more than they ever save on benefits. I have studied similar schemes throughout the world and I can tell the Secretary of State for Education and Employment that there is not a single scheme that saves money.
  Labour's schemes will generate no social security savings; there will be no additional money to invest in education. Labour said that when it came to office it would look at the official books. After 10 years in office, I know that the officials will be looking at Labour's books, and I can tell the House what advice Labour will be getting: its sums simply do not add up.

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  The reason why job subsidy schemes cost more than they save is obvious if one bothers to think about it. Most of the subsidy goes to people who would have got jobs anyway, so it is wasted. There is no way of stopping employers replacing existing employees with subsidised workers—more money wasted. Given that under Labour's plans the subsidy will last only six months, many people will find themselves back on the dole in pretty short order. What a cruel deception. If the Secretary of State has hopes of receiving extra money from the social security budget, he is in for a nasty shock, as are any teachers, parents and pupils who have put their faith in Labour's bogus claims.
  Even though the Government's schemes will not save money, they are clearly right to believe that job subsidies might create some extra jobs. That is simple economics. The lower the cost of employing people, the more people will be employed. If the Government believe that, however, they must also accept that increasing the costs of employing people through the national minimum wage and European social costs will destroy jobs. Indeed, the deputy leader of the Labour party, before he was lobotomised by the Minister without Portfolio—or perhaps for every portfolio—admitted as much. He said:
  "A minimum wage will cause a shake-out of jobs. Any fool knows that."
  I do not know whom he had in mind. The jobs destroyed by new Labour's increases in employment costs will far outnumber any jobs created by its subsidies. The overall effect of the Government's policies will be the opposite of what they intend. Their programme is not one of welfare to work, but of work to welfare.
  What is more, the Government's job subsidies will not last: they will end when the windfall tax revenues dry up, and they apply to only a few hundred thousand jobs anyway. The national minimum wage and the European social costs will be permanent increases in the costs of employment and will apply to millions of jobs. Labour proposes a temporary job creation scheme and a permanent job destruction policy: new Labour, new job losses.
  Yesterday afternoon, while the new Prime Minister was delivering his old Opposition speech about 18 years of economic failures, our policies were delivering yet another fall in unemployment. A further 59,000 people came off the dole.
  Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: I ask a simple question. Is there a link between youth unemployment—I am sorry, but I cannot continue.
  Mr. Lilley: I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.
  The welcome fall in unemployment today has brought the rate down to around 6 per cent. on the claimant count and 7.5 per cent. on the labour force survey. Either way, the rate is lower than in any other major country in Europe. Those are the very countries whose social policies are destroying jobs and those are the very policies that Labour wants to adopt here. The Labour party will give power to Brussels to impose those job-destroying policies on us, and we shall fight that tooth and nail.
  In my previous role, I travelled on the continent and visited countries to study their employment policies. When I met business men on the continent they told me how much they envied the low social costs of their British competitors. They said that their ambition was to persuade
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  their Governments to reduce their social costs to Britain's level, but that if they could not achieve that, their second priority was to push Britain's social costs up to their level. They could not do that so long as we were outside the social chapter, but once we are inside they will.
  Labour has long claimed that the unemployment figures are bogus. It asserted that 4 million people are unemployed and that the number has not fallen. When will the Government publish new unemployment figures? Will their new figures show that there are 4 million unemployed people? If so, will the Government pay all of them unemployment benefit? Will they count people on their new make-work schemes and their environmental task force as unemployed? Or are those ways to take people out of the published figures?
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am sorry about my previous intervention. A slight medical difficulty arose. Is there a link between youth unemployment and crime, taking into account answers previously given to me by former Ministers at the Dispatch Box?
  Mr. Lilley: Nobody can define the causes of crime, other than to say that crime is caused by criminals. It is sensible to leave fewer people with idle time, because the devil makes work for idle hands. That is why it has always been our objective to bring unemployment down, and we are proud of our success in doing so. We did it through real measures, but the Government propose bogus make-work measures. I want answers from the Government about whether they will use those measures to manipulate the unemployment figures. Will they count those on temporarily subsidised jobs, for example, as unemployed? Or will those people, too, be taken out of the published figure? Labour's claims, not the official figures, have been bogus.
  The Prime Minister yesterday boasted of an unprecedented welfare shake-up. To listen to him, one might think that Labour had spent the past five years clamouring for reforms that we stolidly resisted. History is a little different: I introduced 12 Bills to focus help on people in need, to improve work incentives, to tackle fraud and to encourage better provision for old age. Almost every Bill that I introduced was opposed and criticised by Labour, and virtually all Labour's proposals involved spending more money. Yet at the end of all its years in opposition the only specific money-saving policy that Labour produced was to abolish child benefit for children staying on in school. Now even that policy proposal seems to have been airbrushed out of the Government's programme. A party that was so vacuous in opposition is unlikely to prove a bold reformer in government.
  When I was Secretary of State for Social Security, nothing mattered more to me than securing the future of pensions in the United Kingdom for present and future generations of pensioners. The Pensions Act 1995, which I introduced, brought equality between men and women, secure funding of occupational pensions and greater choice of methods to provide for retirement. A few weeks ago I unveiled my proposals for basic pension plus. That offered the prospect of higher, secure, funded and guaranteed pensions for the next generation. The proposals were welcomed by virtually every newspaper and by informed commentators across the political spectrum. Even some Labour politicians were forced to recognise the merits of our proposals.

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  How shameful it was, then, that Labour chose to scare pensioners on that issue; how disgraceful it was that Labour chose to attack that policy with a cheap smear. At the very beginning of the election campaign, at a meeting in a school with other candidates, I was asked by one of the sixth-formers whether politicians ever told lies. I could reassure them that in my personal experience I had never known anyone—including all those on the Opposition Benches against whom I had debated and with whom I had often disagreed on points of fact—who had knowingly told a falsehood. If I had to attend that school today and answer that question now, I would have to give a different answer.
  It was the Prime Minister who led the way with that smear in every newspaper and on every broadcast—and that was from the man who said, "Trust me." None the less, according to The Observer, at least one Labour Member of Parliament felt uneasy about such unscrupulous scaremongering. The newspaper reported that
  "a Labour candidate, probably to be made a Minister in a Labour Government, was canvassing an elderly lady who burst into tears out of fear that the Conservatives would abolish the state pension… The candidate, who asked not to be identified, felt moved to explain the Government's Basic Pension Plus proposal, to reassure the old lady."
  Thank heaven that at least one sinner repented.
  Labour lost the 1992 election because it told voters that it would spend more money, so in 1997 new Labour pretended that it would not. New Labour spending plans, it promised, would be the same as Conservative spending plans. That promise was the foundation of its appeal to middle England, but Labour cannot honour that promise, and it knows that it cannot. For Labour cannot stay within our spending plans. To avoid extra spending, Labour does not need just to jettison its own policies, but needs to implement ours. Our reforms of the past five years will save £6 billion by the end of this Parliament, and they were introduced in the teeth of Labour opposition.
  Some of our reforms have been announced, but are still in the pipeline. Our spending plans depend upon them. We planned, for example, to equalise benefits for new lone parents and married couples. The Labour Government have said that they want new lone parents to get more. That will mean spending £120 million more than we had planned to spend next year and an extra £500 million in the long run.
  It is not only our lone parent changes that the Government have said that they will not implement. They also propose to block our changes to housing benefit and to social security administration. In all, that is an extra £ 1 billion a year that the Government will have to find, and they will have to find it from within the social security budget because they have said that they will live within that budget. If the Government want to give priority to benefits for lone parents, will they take that £1 billion from pensioners, from disabled people, from married couples or from childless single people? Who will it be? No doubt the Secretary of State for Health will tell us when he winds up the debate.
  The overall picture is clear: new Labour's claim that it will get money from social security to spend on education is totally flawed. First, its make-work schemes would not
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  save money, but would cost money. Secondly, it has rejected £ 1 billion of savings measures that we have announced. Thirdly, it has no other plans to save money on social security. There cannot be extra money from social security for education.
  The only remaining source of extra money for the education budget comes from the Government's commitment to abolish the assisted places scheme, but the pickings are not so rich there either. The children currently on the assisted places scheme will be an extra burden on the state system and in any case the scheme can only be phased out gradually, so Ministers will have a long wait before they can get their hands on what will be a paltry sum.
  The real reason for Labour's decision to abolish the assisted places scheme has nothing to do with the money that it might save. It has everything to do with the unacceptable face of new Labour—hatred of the independent sector, class envy and a knee-jerk hostility to choice. Choice is something that new Labour does not like and does not understand. Its hostility to choice is the common thread tying together the education measures in the Queen's Speech—the imposition of local authority control on all state schools, the abolition of city technology colleges, the end of grant-maintained status and the end of nursery vouchers. The Government really do believe that the man in Whitehall and county hall knows best. The sheer bossiness of it all is quite extraordinary. Many parents up and down the country are striving to get the best possible education for their children, but they are going to find it much harder if Labour's Bills are passed. They should know that the Opposition will continue to fight on their behalf.
  The Prime Minister chose to send his child to a grant-maintained school, of course, and the Secretary of State for Social Security sends hers to a selective school. Those are precisely the opportunities that they intend to take away from everyone else. Yet the Prime Minister had the extraordinary cheek to write in his manifesto:
  "What I want for my own children, I want for yours".
  The sheer hypocrisy is quite amazing. There is
  "no truck with middle class left-wing parents who preach one thing and send their children to another school outside the area."
  Those are not my words, but the words of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, and we all know which parents he had in mind. It is one thing for their children, another for the rest. It is not just the hypocrisy, but the arrogance that is intolerable.
  Mr. Blunkett: I had not intended to intervene, but I wanted to take the opportunity to welcome the new Deputy Speaker to his first sitting and to offer our congratulations to him. I also want to ask the shadow Secretary of State whether he thinks that wanting the best for all children can be described as hypocrisy.
  Mr. Lilley: When what someone has decided is best for his child is what he refuses to others, I think that there is no other word but "hypocrisy" to describe that decision—although "arrogance" is perhaps the runner-up, given the way in which the Government have handled the issue.
  That is the arrogance of which we have seen so much over the first few days of this Government. First, there was the Bank of England: without having warned the

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  voters, the Chancellor ceded interest rate policy to the Bank. He made what he described as one of the most fundamental changes in the way in which the country is governed without even bothering to make a statement to the House. Then came the issue of Prime Minister's questions. The Prime Minister now tells us that he will answer questions only once a week—and, as though that were not enough, he even wants to be told the questions in advance. That is another change that we now know to have been pushed through without any consultation or agreement with Madam Speaker.
  The Government may be able to steamroller those changes through now. The other side has the votes, but we have the arguments. The numbers may be on the Government's side, but the facts are on ours. The Government may think that they can use their majority to push their measures through the House, but the hard facts will not be so easy for them to push aside. I shall spend the next five years ensuring that the British people learn the truth about new Labour—for when the British people know that truth, they will not give new Labour a second chance.
  4.30 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: I think that we have just heard a leadership bid. It is not for me to intervene in the internal affairs of the Conservative party, but I must say that I heard hon. Friends sitting behind me say that they hoped that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) would win the election for the Leader of the Opposition. I do not wish, however, to declare any preferences.
  Let me be the first Labour Member to congratulate you on your appointment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a very different House of Commons from the one that I last addressed: it is almost impossible to believe how much the House has changed as a result of the electorate's decision on 1 May. Understandably, much attention has been paid to the increase in the number of female Members of Parliament—mainly, of course, on the Labour Benches. That is indeed progress, and I submit that further progress will be made when the number of female Members no longer attracts attention from any quarter. I hope that that day is not too far away.
  I welcomed the mention in the Queen's Speech of prohibiting the private possession of handguns. Like a number of my hon. Friends, I argued in the previous Parliament that after Dunblane we should take drastic action on handguns. The previous Government went so far and no further, and I am pleased to learn that the House will have the opportunity to vote for a total ban on handguns. I take it that it will be a free vote, and I know which way my vote will go.
  If I have any regret, it is that the House did not take the necessary action 10 years ago, following the tragedy at Hungerford. Indeed, in the previous Parliament I criticised the Government, but also criticised Opposition Members such as myself, who should perhaps have been more forthright in demanding the kind of action that was taken, at least in part, after the further and terrible tragedy at Dunblane, which we must never forget. I accept that we might not have succeeded after Hungerford, but nevertheless we should have been more forthright.
  The ban on trade union membership at GCHQ—Government communications headquarters—has now been lifted. As some of my hon. Friends know, during
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  business questions I took the opportunity to welcome the lifting of that ban. If there was ever an illustration of the arbitrary way in which the previous Government acted, it was their decision to impose the ban, without any justification. I reiterate the fact that two years before the ban, after the Falklands war victory, the director-general of GCHQ praised those involved in intelligence gathering.
  We should pay tribute to those who fought the ban year in, year out—people such as Mike Grindley, who must have wondered at times whether he would ever see victory and the lifting of the ban. Those people have a spirit of believing in and fighting for a principle. Mike Grindley was dismissed from GCHQ and refused the compensation because the principle was so important, in fact so sacred, to him that he would never give up the fight. Victory has come to him, and I should like him to be given an award for the fight that he so bravely and heroically put up for an important principle, which is certainly appreciated by the Government if not by the Opposition.
  Mr. Fabricant: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that GCHQ has an important role in the nation's security? Does he advocate trade unions in the armed forces?
  Mr. Winnick: As usual, the hon. Gentleman's intervention is totally irrelevant. When the time comes for a debate on the armed forces, we can express our views.
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman does not know the answer.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman has asked me a question; if he will be good enough to be quiet for a moment, I can give my response. I am speaking about GCHQ. If and when there is a debate on the armed forces, we shall deal with the matter to which the hon. Gentleman alluded.
  I am pleased that the Queen's Speech makes it clear that, after 18 years of Tory rule, local authorities will once again be allowed to start building as well as carrying out essential improvements. I am sure that new Members will find in their constituency surgeries, as I find in mine, that most of the people who come do so because they want to be housed in the first place or because they live in a high-rise block, perhaps with two or more children, and are waiting to be rehoused in a house.
  It is disgraceful that for 18 years local authorities have been denied the means of building rented accommodation. Most people want to buy, but those who are not in a position to do so have been punished by being made to wait so long to be rehoused. It is right that capital receipts should be used in a phased way, as we clearly described in the general election campaign, so that local authorities can once again undertake the work that they did under Governments of whichever party before 1979.
  In 1978, the last full year of a Labour Government, more than 75,000 local authority dwellings and nearly 18,000 housing association dwellings were started in England. In 1996, only 500 local authority dwellings and nearly 22,000 housing association dwellings were started. I am not sure where the 500 were—certainly not in my borough, where no starts have been made since 1979. The 22,000 housing association dwellings in no way compensated for the number of local authority dwellings built previously. No wonder there is so much housing misery and hardship.

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  In the late 1960s, when I was a Member of Parliament, and in the 1970s, when I was outside the House, I never saw the scenes of homelessness that are now so common. I do not drive home; I go to Charing Cross station, and people now are always lying down for the night there and all along the Strand, and many of us see homeless people in our constituencies. That is only one illustration of the current housing shortage and the misery that it causes. There are also the jobs involved in housing construction and in furniture and other related industries that go hand in hand with housing starts.
  There has been much justified concern about poverty and near poverty over the past few years, which, of course, was not mentioned by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden. Much of that poverty has been deliberate Government policy. I want inequality to be narrowed considerably in the next few years. Large-scale unemployment, low wages—often very low wages—short-time working, insecure employment and the abolition of the wages councils have all contributed to poverty and inequality. As we knew during the post-war years, there is no more effective way of ending poverty and near poverty than once again to give unemployed people the chance to earn their living.
  Far too many people in the west midlands are paid very low wages. Some are even paid less than £2 an hour. It is almost impossible to believe, but that is not unknown in the west midlands. I am sure that it is true in other parts of the country. A national minimum wage is needed and justified. I listen carefully to the arguments against it, but I do not accept them. I found it nauseating in the previous Parliament that Conservative Members who were not content with their parliamentary salaries went out of their way—not illegitimately or in a way that would come under the Downey report—to take directorships and consultancies, but lectured us about how terrible a national minimum wage would be, because it would undermine the economy. I used to wonder how they would like to work for such disgraceful wages, when they were not content with their parliamentary salaries or last year's increase.
  There are many changes and reforms that I would like. I do not know whether this is old Labour, new Labour or any other Labour, but I accept that those changes cannot come about overnight or in months. After 18 years, it will take time—more than one Parliament—to bring about many of those changes on a secure footing. In the days after the general election, people felt relieved. Perhaps that feeling was confined to me, although that would surprise me. I am talking not only about Labour activists. People came up to me in the street and at the surgery that I held soon after the election and told me how relieved they were at the change of Government.
  Without wishing to exaggerate, I believe that in some respects it was a bit like the feeling in eastern Europe in 1989. For so long, there was a feeling in Britain that there would never be a change of Government. People felt the arrogance of those in power, the way in which time and again the Conservatives belittled any belief that there would be a change of Government. They gave the strong impression, and I do not believe that they have learned the lesson yet, that they were the masters and had every right to rule. Like the communists in eastern Europe, they
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  believed that they had the historical right to rule this country for ever and a day. The electorate decided otherwise.
  The Prime Minister told the parliamentary Labour party at Church house last week that Labour Members should always remember that we are the servants of the electorate. I believe that we should always bear that in mind. We are indeed the servants of the electorate. We should at all times carry out our duties with modesty and humility, always recognising that in a democracy, it is the electorate who decide at the appropriate time who should be the Government of the day. I hope, and I have every reason to believe, that we shall never show, however long we remain in office, the arrogance of those who ruled the country for the past 18 years.
  I believe that the House of Commons will win back respect, as it has to, because our reputation is not high for all sorts of reasons. Its reputation is nowhere near what we would like it to be. We shall win back the respect of the electorate to the extent that people will see that we are doing the job for which we were elected as Members of Parliament; that we are not in the pay of lobbyists and companies; and that we have not been elected to get second, third and fourth jobs. Our job is here, first and foremost. When people see that over a period, regardless of my party's fortunes in future general elections, it will do much for the House of Commons.
  This is an exciting time in national politics. I am very pleased that I have lived to see such a total transformation. It has been 27 years almost to the day since I last spoke from the Government Benches. I was out of the House for several years. When I came back in 1979, l was of course on the Opposition Benches. There has been a total change. At last, our people have decided that they want a very different sort of Government and a very different approach to politics. There is so much to be done, such as the improvements that I mentioned in jobs, in housing, in the national health service and in dealing with criminality. There may be changes in the welfare state. Nothing is set in concrete, but I am here to defend the welfare state, as I am sure are all my colleagues.
  First and foremost in the welfare state is the national health service, which was brought into being by a Labour Government and which it is our task to defend and improve at every opportunity. If we carry out our task as we have said that we shall, and as the Prime Minister has said that we should, I believe that this Government will be re-elected in five years' time. I doubt whether there will be a general election before then. When people see the result of five years of this Government, they will conclude that we should be re-elected, even more so bearing in mind what happened over the past 18 years.
  4.46 pm
  Mr. James Clappison: It is a great pleasure to address the House on this subject. This is my first opportunity to speak from the Back Benches on constituency matters for several years.
  I was interested in the contribution of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). I may have been one of the people he was getting at when he mentioned the arrogance of former Ministers. I do not feel like a fleeing communist dictator. I have not taken to a helicopter to escape the wrath of the people. I have simply moved from one side of the House to the other and listened to what

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  the electorate had to say to me. Labour Members should remember that all hon. Members are elected by the electorate and held to account by them. None of us should grow too confident or arrogant. All Ministers and the Prime Minister should remember that they, too, can be held to account by the electorate in due course.
  I am pleased to be able to speak on a subject of great importance to my constituents, who will be interested in the contents of the Queen's Speech, especially as regards education. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) on his appointment as Secretary of State for Education and Employment. I recognise and appreciate that he has a deep and sincere interest in education, and especially in improving standards for those in less privileged areas such as the inner cities. I recognise, too, that in framing the legislation in the Queen's Speech, he comes to the House with a mandate for the changes that he is seeking to make.
  Perhaps the centrepiece of the right hon. Gentleman's legislative programme is phasing out the assisted places scheme. I regret that change, but I must frankly recognise that the right hon. Gentleman has a mandate from the electorate for it. That is regrettable, because more than 400 children in my constituency receive a high standard of education at independent schools through the assisted places scheme. The right hon. Gentleman, perhaps in an unguarded moment, referred to them as the privileged few. They may be privileged in the sense that their parents choose to give them a good education, but they are privileged in no other sense.
  The common denominator among those children is that their parents do not have much money. Many receive completely free places because their parents' combined incomes are less than £10,000; the remainder of the parents have combined incomes of between £10,000 and £26,000. I would not describe those people as privileged and I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman, on reflection, would do so either. They are low-income families receiving a good opportunity.
  That does not mean that those children would not have had good opportunities at other schools in my constituency, because Hertsmere is proud of offering high standards in all its state sector secondary schools. Five of the seven secondary schools happen to be grant-maintained. They have achieved many distinctions; one received a special commendation from the schools inspectorate, while others have received national recognition in other ways. However, children on the assisted places scheme have an opportunity to receive education at schools of not just national but international excellence, including Haberdasher's Aske's school. Those schools are much coveted by parents in my constituency as a destination for their children to receive the education of their choice.
  I recognise the fact that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has, through the election, received a mandate for phasing out the assisted places scheme. I welcome what he said in his speech today about the scheme's future. Despite his mandate, we want to ask a number of questions on behalf of parents whose children are on the scheme and who are concerned about its future. I take what the right hon. Gentleman said today as an assurance that children now on the scheme will continue to receive education at those schools throughout their school life. The right hon. Gentleman gave that assurance
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  in response to a question, and I look to him now to deny it, if it is not the case. That is how I interpreted his response, and I welcome it.
  Parents have many other concerns, including about the priority given to the brothers and sisters of those at present on the scheme. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, in other forms of education, brothers and sisters have priority in admission. He will have to address that issue in due course.
  The Government's mandate is interesting, because the Labour party manifesto made a commitment to phase out the assisted places scheme and to use the savings to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. That is the basis on which the Labour party put that pledge to the electorate. Many people feel that the objective of reducing class sizes is desirable in itself. Why the assisted places scheme should be sacrificed in order to achieve that is not entirely clear. Unfortunately for the Secretary of State, the manifesto quotes the cost of the scheme as £180 million a year, but the savings made from phasing out the scheme are different from the cost of the scheme, because they must take into account the cost of educating in the state sector those who would have been on the assisted places scheme.
  Mr. Blunkett: I should not like the hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member to pursue a red herring. The money that the assisted places scheme will yield over the coming years is greater than the amount now being spent on the scheme, because the previous Government, in their public expenditure prediction totals, intended to expand dramatically the assisted places scheme. Indeed, they intended to double it.
  We shall not expand the scheme, but we shall reuse the resources. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that he was not committing new money to the 110,000 youngsters who had entered school in the past two years, on the ground that the marginal cost was so small that they could be absorbed at no extra cost.
  Mr. Clappison: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has raised that matter because, as he will know, independent analysis has been carried out on that basis—the full cost of the assisted places scheme. Before he tries to discredit the source of that analysis, I should say that it comes from the Institute of Public Finance and has been supplied to me by the House of Commons Library. The Institute of Public Finance estimates that the saving from phasing out the assisted places scheme will fall well short of the figure that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, because it has taken into account the cost of providing smaller class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds and set that against the net saving. It estimates that the saving from phasing out the scheme all at once will be £49 million, which is the figure that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) put to the right hon. Gentleman. However, my hon. Friend was being rather generous—that is the amount that would be saved if the scheme were phased out all at once.
  The Secretary of State has just made the commitment that the scheme will be phased out over a number of years, with children at present receiving education under the scheme being allowed to continue to do so. The net savings in the first year, according to the Institute of

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  Public Finance, will be no more than £13 million. Over the full period of the phasing out of the scheme, it estimates that there will be a £250 million black hole between what will be saved from phasing out the scheme and what is needed to reduce class sizes, in terms of both new teachers and capital expenditure.
  The Secretary of State and I will no doubt debate that matter on many occasions in the future, and I shall be interested to see the costings that he makes. What is his view of the net savings to be made and the cost of alternative education for children now on the assisted places scheme, and how does he arrive at his calculation? According to the Institute of Public Finance, there will simply not be enough money to pay for reducing the class sizes of five, six and seven-year-olds. The £180 million mentioned in the manifesto was the cost, not the savings, and the matter was put to the electorate on that basis. Those matters will have to be pursued, and the Secretary of State will have to say a little more about them.
  Grant-maintained schools are also of great interest to my constituents. Five of the seven secondary schools in my constituency are grant-maintained. In each case, a substantial majority of parents voted for grant-maintained status; they want to know the Government's plans for the future of those schools. Given that the schools have made considerable progress as grant-maintained schools, they want to know why the Government are considering changing the structure. One of the points made in the right hon. Gentleman's manifesto, to which I shall return in a moment, was that there should be a greater concentration on standards rather than on structure. That being the case, parents of children at such schools in my constituency will want to know why the Government want to make any changes at all.
  We are all concerned about the important subject of standards in schools. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's serious, sincere concern about it. We shall take a constructive approach towards that matter. We shall want to look constructively and critically—
  Mr. Don Foster: Who is we?
  Mr. Clappison: I hope that concern about standards is shared throughout the House. We want to look constructively and critically at the Labour party's proposals. We shall look at them on the basis of whether those changes are well thought out in detail and are designed to help to improve standards, or whether they are gimmicks.
  Last year, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues made various proposals about, for example, summer literacy camps. They also proposed changes to the amount of time spent on homework by children, which would involve a degree of prescription. The centrepiece of the Labour party's manifesto commitment on standards—the flagship proposal—which was designed to attack underachievement in urban areas, was a new scheme involving the Premier League. It proposed the creation of study support centres at Premier League grounds for the benefit of local children. We have not heard anything about that in the Queen's Speech, but it is something that we shall look at with great interest. We shall be extremely interested to hear about the future of that proposal,
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  because we are concerned with proposals that will deliver real improvements in standards, not with gimmicks and wheezes.
  One of the features of new Labour's election campaign was its specific proposals to the electorate. I congratulate the party on the magnificence of its marketing and public relations campaign, because it set a high standard in the marketing of ideas and suggestions. In the remainder of this Parliament, we shall want to consider the Labour party's proposals in detail. We shall want to see not just gimmicks and photo opportunities, but the real merits of its proposals, which we can examine in detail. It simply will not be good enough to offer a photo opportunity, a wheeze and a gimmick in place of a well-thought-out idea. We will hold the Labour party to account not just on those specific proposals, but on its entire conduct of Government business.
  The Labour party has come into government with what can be described only as a very good inheritance. We have sustained, steady economic growth. Yesterday, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in seven years and is on course to fall to its lowest level for 17 years. We have witnessed particularly large falls in the number of unemployed under-25s, especially those who have been unemployed for more than a year. The new Minister of State, the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), generously described that fall as a bonus. Today, the inflation rate hit its target of 2.5 per cent. Those achievements represent an extremely good economic inheritance.
  We in the Conservative party will hold the Labour party to account not just on the promises that it has made, and which we shall consider in great detail, but on all matters pertaining to government. There is no comparison between the inheritance of the Labour party in 1997 and the inheritance that we had in 1979, when the country was crippled by high inflation, economic stagnation, strikes and a terrible reputation.
  Today the country is well placed. We want to see it succeed. We shall play our part as a constructive and critically aware Opposition in holding the Labour party to account in government.
  5.3 pm
  Mr. Christopher Leslie: I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today, not only as the youngest Member of the Parliament but as the first Labour Member for Shipley since Arthur Creech Jones was elected in 1935.
  I am particularly delighted to represent Shipley, because I have always lived locally. I was brought up and attended school in Bingley, and I currently live in Saltaire. It is a fantastic constituency, and to describe it simply as Shipley obscures the diversity of the area. Shipley town is the largest settlement, but the Aire valley also encompasses Bingley town, which I have represented on the local council for three years, Baildon and other villages such as Denholme, Cullingworth, Harden and Wilsden, and Menston and Burley in the Wharfe valley.
  As tradition holds, I should like to pay tribute briefly to my predecessor, Sir Marcus Fox, who was certainly a high-ranking parliamentarian as chairman of the 1922 Committee. Whatever else may be said, he served his party well and his influence in Government circles was reputedly significant. Today, I read the maiden speech of

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  my predecessor, which was made in January 1971–18 months before I was born. I am sorry that I missed it. He discussed the issue of transport, which is ironic because, 26 years later, it is still a central issue in the economic development and the environmental quality of the Aire valley and the Bradford district. Although the need for the construction of the Bingley relief road in my constituency has been recognised for many years, the previous Conservative Government could never quite complete the scheme. It is now awaiting its fate under the private finance initiative. I will press for its early completion.
  The Gracious Speech contained many proposals which will be of direct benefit to my constituents. It is so refreshing to be able to praise the Government, having all my life known only of the harm and injustice inflicted by Conservative Administrations. I am determined to try my best to ensure that for the rest of my life the Government represent the many, not the few. In particular, I am delighted to hear that immediate action is being taken to create employment for young people, who increasingly leave school and university with no option of stable work or long-term careers. In fact it is a struggle for many young people even to get their foot in the door. Age discrimination can cut both ways, and unless young people can obtain sufficient work experience the quality of their academic ability and skills is almost useless.
  Through the implementation of the windfall levy on the excessive profits of the privatised utilities such as Yorkshire Water, which has paid not one penny in corporation tax since its privatisation, young people of my generation will be given a helping hand into work. They will have the potential of six months' real employment—a move that will dramatically improve the longer-term job prospects of young people.
  For too long, the plight of ordinary working middle-class people has been ignored by the uncaring laissez-faire attitude of the previous Government. The need for a catalyst to spur the job market to move in the right direction has at long last been recognised. I am proud to be playing my part in this historic Parliament, which will benefit so many people by channelling resources from those who have enough already to those who need them most of all.
  The transfer of resources to more productive benefit is the theme of the Queen's Speech. By working to shift the enormous budget spent on welfare costs and to transform it into increased opportunities for work and wealth creation, the emphasis on long-term economic sustainability is clear. It makes good, plain common sense to see public resources used for investment and not for more short-term consumption.
  Investing in education is the key to unlocking the great competitive and inventive capacity that used to be the hallmark of British industry. By pursuing investment in the health service and infrastructure of our country we can not only create work projects in the medium term but upgrade the living standards of all our people so that we enter the new millennium equipped for new challenges, with our heads held high.
  I am pleased to see that the new Government are able actively to promote the proper balance between rights and responsibilities in employment. Giving small firms the statutory right to charge interest on the late payment of debts is a long-overdue initiative, which was welcomed with great acclaim in my constituency. Moreover,
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  the introduction of a national minimum wage will signify the Government's strong commitment to those who are in low-paid employment. That will help to create new jobs not only by boosting spending power but by helping employers to see that long-term profitability is achieved by upgrading production processes and new technology and not by pursuing a policy of short-term asset stripping, redundancies and lower wages.
  When considering the direction of the economy over the long term, the role of new technology cannot be overstated. In an increasingly competitive global market, maintaining flexibility in the production process is achieved by the combination of a highly skilled work force and the capacity to adapt products at speed, retain high quality and meet new demand in new markets. Frequently, that essential adaptability of the production process is aided by new technology, either delivering information, improving design or making efficiencies in the production process. I am therefore extremely glad that the new Labour Government plan, among other things, a university for industry, to help to disseminate the latest technological and vocational training and advice to British firms.
  When, in 1936, the last Labour Member of Parliament for Shipley made his maiden speech, he delivered a remarkably insightful account of the need for improved standards in the workplace. I am enormously proud and honoured to stand here today, continuing that fight for more and better-quality employment, and I shall try my best to deliver on the promises that I have made. I hope that I can live up to the trust in me shown by the people of my constituency. Above all, I am here to shout for the needs of Shipley and to use my position for the betterment of the ordinary working people and families I have the pleasure to represent.
  5.10 pm
  Mr. Don Foster: I am absolutely delighted to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). It is perhaps somewhat appropriate that I do so as, when I entered the House five years ago, I came having defeated a former chairman of the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Shipley enters the House having defeated a former chairman of the 1922 Committee. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Sir Marcus Fox will be a very hard act to follow. However, I think that other hon. Members will acknowledge that the quality of his speech and the confidence of his delivery show that the hon. Member for Shipley will be well up to the task.
  I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) to his new post as Deputy Speaker. I am sure that we can look forward to your wise guidance on many occasions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While on the subject of congratulations, before the new Secretary of State for Education and Employment sneaks out, I wish to give him my best wishes and congratulate him on his appointment. I also congratulate the Government's Front-Bench team on their appointment.
  The Secretary of State knows only too well that he has a difficult task, but many of us believe that, like the hon. Member for Shipley, he is well up to the task. He and his Front-Bench team have made a remarkably rapid start in beginning to undo some of the damage that has been done over 18 years owing to misguided Conservative dogma and misguided Conservative rule.

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  I pay tribute to the new Secretary of State on the tone and substance of the letter that he recently sent to head teachers and governors in our schools. I particularly applaud his desire to
  "work in genuine partnership … With everyone involved in the Education Service to bring about substantial improvements in standards, achievements and equality of opportunity for all."
  We wish him well in achieving that desire. He would do well to listen to the hon. Member for Shipley, who referred specifically to the need for significant investment in education if we are to succeed. I say to the new Secretary of State that we cannot fix a leaking school roof with fine words, fill a child's schoolbag with letters to head teachers or surf the information super-highway on broken desks. Promises without price tags do not mean a thing; there is no bargain basement in education because, as we all know, good-quality education costs money.
  Of course, we all welcome the Government's new commitment to lifetime learning; but, without an additional commitment to increase funding for education, it may take a lifetime to achieve that ambition. If the country is to succeed in the increasingly global market, we must invest in its most important resource and increase funding for the education and training of its people. However, judging by the Queen's Speech, it would appear that the new Government believe that increased funding for education is too high a price to pay for our children's future. We have been told—indeed the country has been warned—that for the next few years at least this Government intend to stick to the previous Government's spending targets.
  I hope that the Secretary of State will intervene in my speech—or perhaps the winding-up speech will provide an answer. The previous Chancellor's Red Book on the Budget in November last year contains figures to which the new Government say they will stick. A table on page 124 shows that in the forthcoming financial year there will be less, not more, money for education. It would be helpful if the Secretary of State would confirm that those are the facts and it is his Government's intention to stick to those figures. It would be even more helpful if the Secretary of State would go a stage further. On many occasions, he has said that it is the Government's intention over time—we acknowledge that it will have to be over time—to increase the percentage of gross domestic product spent on education. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, if there is to be even a modest increase in the percentage of GDP from its current 4.7 per cent. to, let us say, 4.9 per cent., that will require an additional £6 billion a year to be spent on education? It would be helpful to know where the Secretary of State will find that additional money.
  If standards are to rise, as the Secretary of State wants, extra funds are needed and they are needed now. Without the basic tools to do the job—books, equipment and decent classrooms in which to work—raising standards will be an uphill struggle for any teacher. The Secretary of State has said on a number of occasions that it is his intention to raise standards. He also said in an article in The Independent on Sunday on 23 February 1997 that he intends to
  "lay down from the centre exactly how reading should be taught."
  Let me raise a further note of caution with the Secretary of State, for whom I have enormous respect. He should remember that it is not politicians who will raise
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  standards, but the professionals. Politicians can give teachers the framework and the money to do the job, but they cannot take over that job from teachers and do it themselves. We should no more believe the Secretary of State's claim that he will raise standards in education than we should believe him if he offered us a cure for the common cold. There is more than a hint of danger that the Government seem to believe that they know best how teachers should organise their classes and even how teachers should teach. We believe that those are matters best left to the professionals.
  Mr. Blunkett: I reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's words of kindness and, in answer to a number of questions from him I should like to suggest that, in the spirit of wishing to fulfil our agenda, the hon. Gentleman should come and have a cup of tea with me in the next few days so that we may share our views—
  Mr. Stephen Dorrell: Call me David?
  Mr. Blunkett: Yes, he can call me David.
  One way we can stop the common cold from spreading—it is something about which I have a particular obsession—is not to sneeze over each other. In the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman delivered his words, I can say that we need a common cause and a consensus for raising standards and increasing our achievements. I shall work with all those who are prepared to do so.
  Mr. Foster: I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for his offer of tea. I apologise to him publicly—I have already done so privately—for the large number of occasions on which I sat next to him during the election campaign, streaming with cold while he became extremely frightened that I would pass it on to him.
  I shall accept the Secretary of State's offer to join him and his ministerial team for tea. I hope that he will extend his invitation, not only to me but to the whole of my education team, which has now been significantly enlarged. However, I should tell the Secretary of State, in a genuine spirit of co-operation, that although I shall be delighted to have many cups of tea with him in private, it is important that the public debate continues, so I shall continue to challenge him in public. I must say—in a gentle way, because we are all being kind to him—that I was disappointed that he followed the precedent of his predecessor as Secretary of State and, at very short notice, pulled out of a public debate with me on education on television yesterday. I hope that we can have private as well as public debates in future.
  There is, as the new Secretary of State said, much common agreement between his party and mine. For example, we entirely agree on the urgent need to reduce class sizes and we support his pledge and commitment to reduce class sizes for children aged five, six and seven. We would wish him to go further and make that commitment for all primary school children, from the age of five all the way through to 11. We have made it clear how we believe that can be funded. The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), who is no longer in his place, was right to draw attention to his concerns, which I share, that the current proposal for funding the class size reduction—the phasing out of the assisted places scheme—might prove inadequate and that the sums might not add up.

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  The Secretary of State will not agree with me on that point, but even if he does not acknowledge my concerns, he should pay attention to his hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who is now Under-Secretary of State for Wales. He, too, appears to be somewhat concerned about the funding of that commitment. On 7 April, during the election campaign, he was quoted in The Western Mail talking about the class size commitment. He said:
  "Some, if not all, of the money to fund this will come from the assisted places scheme and we will also be talking to Labour's education team in England if extra resources are needed."
  He, at least, is not entirely convinced about the proposed method of funding.
  Although we do not disagree with the proposal that some lottery money should be used for education, we worry that that might be the thin end of the wedge. We all recall that, under the Conservatives, schools became increasingly reliant on supermarket sales promotion gimmicks. It would be a sorry day if, in future, schools had to rely on the uncertain profits of gambling. When we talk of high-quality education for all, we do not want to rely on the lottery slogan "It could be you"—the slogan for every child must be "It will be you". A wiser Britain must not be a lottery. It must be a certainty.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Before my hon. Friend leaves what was obviously the end of a purple passage in his speech, I wish to put a question to him as the chair of the governors of a local primary school. Does he agree that the justification for funding classes of fewer than 30 for all primary school children is that there is no logic in having classes of fewer than 30 up to the age of seven and then suddenly having far less teacher attention per pupil, with no less likelihood of disruption, no less importance or difficulty in the exams and testing and no lesser mix of languages? The logic must be that pupils aged seven to 11 should receive the same level of attention as those aged less than seven.
  Mr. Foster: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, if one can have only one part of the package, it would be far better to have it in the earlier years; but, as my hon. Friend says, it would be better to go the whole hog and ensure that all primary school classes contain no more than 30 pupils.
  We share with the new Government a commitment to home-school partnerships. However, I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), who is now in his place and whom I congratulate on his appointment, will bear in mind our real concern that if we introduce—as seems to be proposed—a requirement for parents to sign a home-school contract before their child has even entered school, that is like asking parties to come together and sign a pre-nuptial agreement before they have even met. It is the policies, the procedure and the working together between parents and school that are critical, not the signing of a contract. Surely such a contract cannot be signed before there has been an opportunity for both sides to work together.
  We share with the new Government a passionate belief in the importance of getting young unemployed people off benefits and into work. For a long time, we too have advocated a benefits transfer scheme. However, we would
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  urge the Government to bear it in mind that it is vital that each part of the proposed package contains a training element. Training will be vital.
  We cannot possibly support the proposed means of funding that programme—the proposed windfall tax. We believe that tax to be retrospective and unfair and one that will hit customers and consumers. It is certainly legally ambiguous and, as has already been pointed out today, it is a short-term tax and there is no Government commitment to long-term funding of these various schemes
  We will go even further than that. The one thing that we shall oppose even more vigorously is any element of compulsion within the Government's proposals. Not every job is suitable for everyone. I was told recently that the youth training service had required a colour-blind person to go on an electrician training course. I certainly hope that that person is not responsible for the wiring in my house. It would not be appropriate to compel Swampy to work as a road builder. We agree with the Churches, which said recently of a compulsory scheme that it
  "would be seen as a scheme to teach the unemployed a lesson, rather than as a means of giving them real assistance. In effect the work is made compulsory for most of the unemployed and that of itself could transform it into a form of servitude."
  Of course the social security budget must come down, but we will not achieve that by punishing the unemployed for the mistakes of Governments, past and present. We need a social security policy that makes it easier to get off benefits, not one like the present system, which traps people on benefits and ensures that they are worse off in work than out of it. Increased support for child care will certainly help; so, too, will a minimum wage—but only if it is set at a realistic level, with an element of flexibility and, we would argue, the possibility of regional variations.
  If I have sounded somewhat critical of some of the proposed new measures, that is because, although we share many of the Government's aspirations, we believe that—at least in some respects—there are more effective means of achieving them. I should say that I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday because of an incident that occurred after the Queen had made the Gracious Speech. I travelled in a lift with the relatives of a new Labour Member of Parliament and, as we exited the lift, one of those relatives sidled up to me and said—out of earshot of the new Member of Parliament—"You're Don Foster, aren't you?" I admitted that I was and he asked, "Why don't you come and join the Labour party?" I asked why I should, to which he answered, "If you became one of us, you would ensure that we took on board your much more sensible education policies."
  Notwithstanding our differences, there is much on which we can agree. We entirely support plans to drop nursery vouchers. However, we wish the Government would go further and introduce early-years education of high quality for three as well as four-year-olds. That would be the best way to start to tackle the problems of illiteracy and innumeracy. We support plans to establish a general teaching council. We are delighted that the Government are getting on with the specialist qualification for head teachers. We are also delighted that they intend—I am sure that they will—to raise morale throughout the teaching profession. We support their proposal to insist that schools set targets, but we must of course make sure that schools are given the support to enable them to reach those targets.

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  The Secretary of State and his team have got off to a good start. Where possible, we will support and work with them, but where we disagree, we will provide constructive opposition. The House will agree that the nation deserves the very best education system, and we, too, were given a mandate to ensure that it has just that. We shall do everything possible to ensure that the Government live up to their promises, and we shall constantly push them to go that little bit further and, in particular, to fill the huge funding hole in their policies.
  5.30 pm
  Mrs. Gisela Stuart: I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on being confirmed in your post yesterday.
  Edgbaston has a long and, indeed, proud tradition of being represented by women. In 1953, Dame Edith Pitt became the first woman Member of Parliament for Edgbaston, a city that she described in her maiden speech as
  "a city … with a great tradition of good local administration and social progress … of hard-working and warm-hearted men and women."—[Official Report, 3 November 1953; Vol. 520, c. 10.]
  She was succeeded in 1966 by Dame Jill Knight, who served the constituency loyally and well for more than 30 years. I am sure that many hon. Members remember her with great fondness. After 43 years of being represented by a woman, the people of Edgbaston, Harborne, Quinton and Bartley Green decided that they wished to continue being represented by a woman, but there was just one change—for the first time ever, it was to be a Labour woman.
  In her maiden speech in 1966, Dame Jill Knight described Edgbaston as having
  "pleasant, spacious lines … judges' lodgings, some very beautiful botanical gardens, a silver sweep of reservoir, a famous hospital, an important university, many excellent schools, a high-powered chamber of commerce and a world-famous cricket ground."—[Official Report, 25 May 1966; Vol. 729, c. 507.]
  All that still holds true. The four city wards of Edgbaston, Harborne, Quinton and Bartley Green make up this diverse constituency, which, like my predecessor, I am proud to represent.
  I entered politics when I became aware of what was happening to our pensioners. For so many of our older people, the past 18 years have been hard—3.5 million pensioners are on income support. Even those who thought that they had provided for their retirement found that they had been let down because some occupational pension schemes did not use their surpluses for the benefit of their members. Also, some workers lost out when their companies were taken over or went bankrupt. Some personal pensions were missold, and thousands of policy holders are still awaiting compensation. There has also been steady erosion in the value of the basic state pension.
  It is important to acknowledge that pensioners are not a homogenous group, and one group of pensioners has suffered more than others—women. Even today, only one woman in five is in receipt of a basic state pension in her own right. Women who spent their working life working hard, either in low-paid and part-time jobs or—this is even worse—caring for their families or dependants, were
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  not able to provide for their retirement. There were no occupational pension schemes for them. They had no way of paying into a personal pension scheme because their income was not high enough. Those who stayed at home fared worst. The system was simple: those who did not earn and did not pay tax could not pay into the system and take advantage of the various insurance policies and pension plans. In addition, married women thought that they were provided for in their old age through their husbands' pensions but, on divorce, they found themselves in dire straits.
  Edgbaston has more than the national average of women over 55, so I am acutely aware of the problems that women face in retirement. My previous work in pension law also raised my awareness. Labour's plans for a stakeholder pension will return dignity and status to those who have worked all their life. They deserve a decent retirement and financial security with a proper pension.
  The Government are committed to saving the basic state pension and to cutting VAT on heating, which will especially benefit those, like pensioners, on fixed incomes. They are committed to reducing national health service waiting lists and stopping the forced sale of care homes. I know that many of my constituents will benefit from these first steps taken by the Labour Government, but I remind hon. Members that we will all, sooner or later, be pensioners, and we will all find that the improvements will be relevant to us.
  I shall do my level best to ensure that future generations of pensioners, and women in particular, will not be caught in a perpetual cycle of low wages during their working life and poverty in old age. As a newcomer to the House, I hope that my colleagues will support me.
  5.35 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: It is my pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Stuart). I hope that she will enjoy representing a Birmingham constituency. I cannot say that I am exactly from the Birmingham area because we in Lichfield consider ourselves to be very different from those in Birmingham.
  I am especially pleased that the hon. Lady has come to the House because, along with the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), I am making a play for the co-chairmanship of the all-party German committee. I was telling him that her arrival would give me an opportunity mein Deutsch zu üben, or to practise my German. Perhaps the hon. Member for Edgbaston and I can get together outside the Chamber to discuss in German matters of mutual interest to our constituents in the west midlands. The hon. Lady will find that while there is sometimes argument in the Chamber, hon. Members co-operate outside. That is not a bad thing. It is a shame that television viewers sometimes do not understand that we co-operate.
  The speech made by the hon. Member for Edgbaston was in marked contrast to what we have heard from Labour Front Benchers, who have offered a strange combination of clichés and wish lists—which we also heard during the general election campaign—but when they were questioned by Conservative Members about how these wish lists were to be paid for, there was no answer, only evasion.

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  I welcome three particular measures announced in the Queen's Speech, and believe it is a shame that they were not introduced by a Conservative Government. The first is a freedom of information Bill. It is a great shame—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. There is far too much conversation on the Government Benches.
  Mr. Fabricant: Thank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I am disappointed that the freedom of information Bill has been relegated to the second or third year of a Labour Administration and in the form of a White Paper—perhaps it will never appear at all. I come from the libertarian right of the Conservative party and, as a libertarian, I think that freedom of information, which has worked perfectly well in the United States, ought to be allowed to work in the United Kingdom. I should have liked such a Bill to have been introduced in tandem with a privacy Bill, but I note that neither the Labour nor the Liberal party has girded its loins and suggested such a possibility. A freedom of information Bill might bring some gentle pressure to bear on the media to concentrate on things that are worth investigating, as opposed to those things that are not worth investigating but which do sell newspapers.
  I have consistently said in the House that I support a ban on tobacco advertising. It is quite fallacious to maintain, as some in the House do, that a Conservative Government would not introduce such a ban—indeed, it is nonsense. We did introduce such a ban—in the two Broadcasting Bills brought to the House by Conservative Administrations. Both Bills contained provisions banning tobacco advertising on radio and television. We did that because tobacco advertising works. It encourages young and old people to smoke, when it is known that smoking is bad for people's health. It is therefore intellectual nonsense to claim that a Government who thought it wrong to advertise tobacco on radio and television would not also think it wrong to advertise tobacco on posters and in newspapers. This, therefore, is the second item of Labour legislation that I welcome.
  The third item refers more to an action than to legislation. I support the appointment as Minister of State of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who will serve in the Department of the Secretary of State for Social Security, whom I see now sitting below the Gangway. The hon. Gentleman used to have an office adjoining mine; on a number of occasions I was able to repair his television set for him. I hope that the Secretary of State for Social Security will support him as much as I do in what he is trying to achieve.
  There are also many items in the Queen's Speech that I do not support. Indeed, I do not support most of it. A great deal of it concerns presentation, not substance. We have heard about the Blair project and about social inclusion. Who can argue against that? What we argue about is how it can be achieved in practice. At the moment, the Government seem to be concentrating on relations with the media. The Foreign Secretary spent an inordinate amount of money putting on a media promotion to explain the mission of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—instead of sending our missions
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  overseas a document explaining that mission. An expensive video was put on in the Locarno room for the benefit of the media, not for our ambassadors and high commissioners overseas. Once again, the media seem to be the message.
  I should like now to comment on some other aspects of the Queen's Speech. I am pleased that we can comment on them, after what we heard from the Leader of the House today. It would seem that anything that appeared in the Labour party manifesto is to be given to the nation, not the House, but by decree—
  Mr. Dorrell:—supported by plebiscite.
  Mr. Fabricant: My right hon. Friend is correct. Having the opportunity to debate anything is becoming a luxury rather than the right of all parliamentarians.
  Education appears at the top of the Queen's Speech. Before the election, education, education, education was the mantra. It was said that it would be the primary concern of the Labour Government to invest in our children's future. No one could argue with that, either. It is of paramount importance to invest in the future of this nation. The question is: how will it be paid for?
  We have heard about the abolition of the assisted places scheme. Some 38,000 children of poor parents, whose average income is £10,800, benefit from the scheme. Missing from the calculation is how children who benefit from the scheme will be funded in the state system, irrespective of whether the abolition will be staggered. Some schools in my constituency will be affected, including S Mary and S Anne in Abbots Bromley. As a result of the change, 38,000 students will flood into the state sector, where of course they will have to be paid for.
  The average cost per pupil in the state system under standard spending assessments is a little more than the cost of an assisted place. I cannot therefore understand how extra money will be generated. I could understand it if those 38,000 students remained in the private sector—but they will not. They will go into the state-run education system, so no extra money will be available. During the election campaign—it was repeated today by the Secretary of State—we heard again and again the Labour promise that class sizes would be reduced by abolishing the assisted places scheme. The figures do not add up, as I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will tell the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in due course.
  The Chancellor has his own problems, of course, not least a £12 billion gap in his spending and income projections. It was calculated by the Treasury only a few weeks ago—by the same officials who serve the Chancellor today—that a £12 billion gap will have to be filled somehow. I trust the Labour Government not to increase income tax rates, because to do so would be too blatant a lie even for a Labour Government. They put up posters promising not to increase income tax rates, but already there have been certain tax increases.
  The first tax increase—it will presumably be debated because it did not appear in the manifesto—is the tax on mobile telephones. Are they really a luxury? Many would argue that, for small businesses particularly, they are far from a luxury. They enable many small businesses to survive.

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  Labour Ministers may claim that the independence of the Bank of England was foreshadowed in the manifesto; others would argue that it was not. Various models have been offered as success stories of independent banks in other countries, yet the most truly successful independent bank, the Federal Reserve in the United States of America, owes its success to the directive issued to Alan Greenspan not just to keep inflation low—that may involve putting up interest rates—but to aim for full employment. The two do not necessarily go together.
  At the moment, the Bank of England has been given only one directive: to keep inflation within the bounds set by the Chancellor. That formula will be bad for small businesses and, more to the point, bad for the future of the United Kingdom.
  Large businesses that are major exporters will be affected as interest rates rise. I remember the Chancellor, when he was still shadow Chancellor, criticising the Government by saying that the pound's value was too high. In the same breath, he claimed that the public finances were weak. How one can have weak public finances yet a strong pound I do not know. The strength of the pound derives not just from interest rates but from confidence in a country's economy. Still, the Bank is now free to raise interest rates in order to curb inflation, as it sees fit, while having no regard to the future of small businesses. If the pound is driven up, small businesses and large exporters alike will be adversely affected.
  We have still not been enlightened about the rate at which the national minimum wage will be set. I remember the Deputy Prime Minister, when still in opposition, discussing that in the House of Commons just a few months ago. When I intervened on him to ask about the effects of the national minimum wage on small businesses, he said, "Well, it works in America, doesn't it?" It works in America because the national minimum wage there is around £2 an hour. Is that to be the national minimum wage in the United Kingdom? If it is, many trade unions will regard it as an insult. If it is not—if the figure is £4 or £4.50 an hour—it will be an insult to people in work.
  Only a few years ago, did not the Foreign Secretary, when he was shadow Secretary of State for Health, say that any sensible minimum wage would result in £500 million-worth of extra costs a year on the national health service? That will affect the health of the nation far more than any of the Labour party's plans—which are bad enough—to abolish fundholding and perhaps trusts.
  I am also concerned about the use of the national lottery to fund health and education projects. The national lottery was introduced on the basis that the principle of additionality would not be broken. It was to be used to fund projects that are not funded by the taxpayer. However, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer walked into the Treasury he found that the estimate of a £12 billion gap in his finances was correct. The civil servants who made that projection are the same ones now telling him that the gap indeed exists, so the shortfall must be made up quickly. The national lottery is now to be used to fund health and education—services that should always be funded by the state. The Labour party may well have introduced
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  the national health service and the welfare state, but time and time again Conservative Governments have shown their worth as stewards of the welfare state.
  I have already said that I support the freedom of information proposals. I am pleased that they might be introduced, although I am disappointed that they will appear in a White Paper rather than a Bill.
  In the latter part of her speech, Her Majesty talked about the European Union—the completion of the single market and the adoption of the social chapter. The Prime Minister said before the election—and he has repeated it since—that he would not adopt any measure that would damage British business and employment prospects. He does not seem to understand—or does not choose to admit—that he cannot cherry-pick. Once he has signed the social chapter, all measures are decided by qualified majority voting. There is no veto. That means that if France and Germany want a point enforced in law, it will be enforced by a directive from Brussels. There will be no cherry-picking.
  I believe that the Prime Minister has misled the nation by saying that we can cherry-pick. If he feels strongly about the measures, why will he not introduce them in the House? If further legislation were introduced in Brussels and he chooses to cherry-pick, the House can cherry-pick. With its large majority, the Labour party can decide whether it wants a particular measure and pass it in the House. By signing up to the social chapter, the right hon. Gentleman takes that power away from Westminster and gives it to Brussels. The Labour party will learn to regret that as unemployment rises.
  I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Social Security that unemployment fell to just 2.9 per cent. in Lichfield last month. I hope that it stays at the level. If it starts to climb, it will only be duplicating what is already happening in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. What is the common denominator in those countries? It is not that they are on continental Europe, but that they have signed up to the social chapter and to state intervention in all things. Although new Labour calls itself new Labour and has all the rhetoric of new Labour, I believe that it still does not understand that Governments cannot make work; private individuals, entrepreneurs, companies, the market and customers make work. Businesses will be damaged by the social chapter and the national minimum wage.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman has attacked the idea of a national minimum wage. Will he give the House an idea of how much he earns—his parliamentary salary plus anything else? Does he not feel some responsibility to do so, when he wants to deny his fellow citizens and many of his constituents a decent minimum wage?
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is renowned in Walsall. If he would like to contact the Fees Office he can find out for himself what he earns. The public are not as ridiculous as the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Winnick: Tell us.
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the figure has been publicised many times and is in the public domain.
  Mr. Winnick: How much?
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman has never done a job in his life, unlike me—I have run a company. I know that the minimum wage will affect not just people who are on minimum wages—
  Mr. Winnick: How much?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) is addressing the House.
  Mr. Fabricant: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman does not realise that a minimum wage will also affect differentials. Of course I want hospital porters in the national health service to earn more, but if they had a wage increase, even the hon. Gentleman should be able to realise that other employees in the NHS would want wage increases, too. It is all very well his grinning idiotically. He is not on the Front Bench and he does not have responsibility for these things. If anyone were stupid enough to put him on the Front Bench, and even more stupid and made him Secretary of State for Health, what would happen when he found that the Foreign Secretary's prediction was right and that the policy would cost the national health service an additional £500 million? Would he like to tell me where the money would come from?
  Mr. Winnick: I would like the hon. Gentleman to answer the question that I put to him. The Fees Office will have no knowledge of his incomes from outside Parliament. He has attacked the concept of a national minimum wage. I am asking him to declare to the House how much he earns.
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman asks an interesting question. I can tell him that I have virtually no income from outside Parliament. He might like to read the Register of Members' Interests. I was fortunate enough to run a corporation before I came to the House. I am proud to say that it did quite well. I am proud to say that I sold it and have no shares in it. I have some savings from selling that company. Apart from the odd fee from Sky, which amounts to about 50 quid, I think, I do not earn anything outside the House. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured that I am a full-time Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Winnick indicated dissent.
  Mr. Fabricant: He is not reassured. Well, I cannot waste the time of the House.
  Another of the Prime Minister's comments on Europe—it sounded sane at the time—was that there is no mutual exclusivity between our involvement with Europe and our association with the United States of America. That is naive in the extreme. There may be no mutual exclusivity at the moment between our membership of the European Union and our continued ties with the United States of America, particularly with regard to trade and commerce, but if the European Union
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  deepens—there is no guarantee that it will—and if the Prime Minister continues not to be the odd man out in Europe, signing up to all sorts of things that ought not to be signed up to because they will damage business and industry in this country, he may well find that there is mutual exclusivity.
  I believe—I speak only for myself now—that it is almost old-fashioned to talk about association with Europe, with the United States or, indeed, with any bloc of countries. The World Trade Organisation is committed to bringing free trade to all developed countries, certainly by 2020; I think that it will happen a lot sooner. Whereas in the 1970s it made sense to go into partnership with countries that were geographically close, it does not make so much sense any more.
  The revolution in containerised shipping has meant that the cost of exporting goods to Australia adds only about 0.25 per cent. to the finished price more than exporting to Germany or to Austria. Nowadays, shipping goods abroad is relatively cheap. Telephoning abroad, sending faxes abroad or e-mailing abroad are instantaneous. The world has become a very small place. I believe that there is mutual exclusivity between deeper involvement in the European Union and our relationship with the United States of America.
  We should not forget that it is not just language that we share with the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; we share a common legal system too, which is important in business. People do not realise that United Kingdom companies—not the Japanese—are the biggest shareholders in American corporations and that American corporations are the biggest shareholders in British companies. That has happened not just for historical reasons, but because we can do business together. We speak the same language in every sense of the word. We share the same legal system and that is something to be proud of.
  The Labour party and the Labour Government will enjoy a honeymoon period for up to a year, or perhaps 18 months, but at the end of the day-that day may be sooner rather than later-they will have to translate all the wish lists into performance, and that means finding the money. It does not mean saying, "We are going to abolish the assisted places scheme simply for the sake of socialist dogma." It means finding the money not only to pay for reduced class sizes, but to pay for the 38,000 pupils currently in the private system who will be forced to enter the state system. The figures do not add up, and the Chancellor knows it.
  Tax rises have already been announced. Heaven knows what will happen in the forthcoming Budget. There is a shortfall of £12 billion over the next two years, and Treasury civil servants say that it has to be made up. We shall begin to see how it will be made up over the next few months. God help the Labour party but, more important, God help this nation.
  6.2 pm
  Audrey Wise: I add my congratulations and pleasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at seeing you in the Chair.
  It has been pleasant to sit through the debate and to hear two maiden speeches. 1 add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). It is especially appropriate to hear from such a young Member of Parliament because for 18 years, we have had

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  a Government who have waged war on young people. My hon. Friend will have a great deal to do in helping the new Government to undo the effects of that disastrous policy.
  It was very nice to hear the maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Stuart), one of the new women Labour Members. I know Edgbaston and its beautiful botanical gardens. Every time I visit it, it will give me additional pleasure to know that it is now represented by a Labour woman. The addition of so many women, of whom my hon. Friend is one, to the House will materially improve the style and content of our debates. She gave some indication of her future contribution.
  I will concentrate my remarks on health. Before moving to the specific issues of the national health service, I point out that other health issues are covered in the Queen's Speech. The food safety agency is a health measure that I greatly welcome. The opportunity for people to have access to purer food, to know what they are eating and to have confidence in it is very much a matter of health. Housing is also a matter of health. Anything that can be done to improve housing, to reduce homelessness and to provide homes that are decent, warm and comfortable is a health measure, as is the reduction of poverty.
  Conservative Members see the national minimum wage simply as a cost. I can tell them that the low-paid see it as a benefit, and it will be a benefit to their health. The more people can be lifted off starvation wages, the healthier the nation will be.
  I warmly welcome the passage in the Queen's Speech that commits the new Government to
  "improve the National Health Service, as a service providing care on the basis of need to the whole population."
  I also particularly welcome the reference to building co-operation within the service because over the past few years, we have seen nothing but fragmentation. Competition can be useful in certain circumstances, but inappropriate competition in the national health service is entirely destructive. One of the things it destroys is rational decision making.
  I draw on my experience of serving on the Health Select Committee, which I have had the honour to do for the past 10 years. The Health Select Committee, like all Select Committees, is an all-party Committee. The great merit of a Select Committee is that if it does its job properly, as our Committee has, it is driven by facts and by evidence. That is why, even with the inclusion of rather more Tory Members than will be the case in future, we produced excellent reports which received scant attention from the Conservative Government and from which they did not learn the proper lessons.
  About three years ago, we produced a report on priority setting in the national health service, which is particularly interesting and useful in the context of a new Government pledged to eliminate the internal market. The Select Committee called for
  "approaches to decision making that: are systematic; are transparent; take full account of the views of the public, health professionals and other interested parties; are based as far as possible on a firm assessment of need—taking full account of epidemiological data; and, where the information is available, make full use of effectiveness and cost effectiveness data."
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  There is no mention in that recommendation of any value in competition. The approach is far more strategic and coherent than the approach we have in the national health service at present with the internal market.
  We also asked for, at national level,
  "the comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of local purchasing and decision making."
  When we abolish the internal market, we shall need to evaluate carefully everything that we put in its place. I believe strongly in the sensible concepts that the Select Committee identified.
  Of course I want a properly resourced national health service. It is, however, possible for money to be spent well or to be spent badly. There are many instances in the national health service of money that could be spent in much better ways. For instance, more alternative complementary therapies could be provided. It has been established that chiropractic is a more effective and cost-effective way of treating back pain than conventional methods. Yet most people who require the services of a chiropractor have to pay for private treatment. Would it not be more sensible for GPs and others to enlist the services of a chiropractor through the national health service? In theory it can be done, but it does not happen very often. That will be one of our yardsticks.
  We should also seek effective treatment. One of the Select Committee reports made the following rather plaintive request:
  "We would urge that consideration is given to highlighting treatments and services which are known to be particularly effective—as well as those which are particularly ineffective."
  That struck me as a modest ambition, yet we know that many treatments carried out in the NHS are not effective. I congratulate the previous Government on taking some steps towards encouraging research and a research-based health service, but the new Government will go much further.
  Other parts of the NHS, such as maternity services, are extremely important to me and most of the population. Five years ago, the Health Committee produced a landmark report which continues to reverberate. It was such a powerful report that even the previous Government had to take some notice of it.
  Many of the issues that the report raised still require attention. For example, we pay twice for some aspects of maternity provision. We pay GPs for examinations that are actually carried out by midwives. I am glad that the British Medical Association has given the health measures in the Queen's Speech a warm welcome. Although I am very much in favour of carrying professionals with us, I believe that GPs have quite enough to do. Payments are being duplicated in the national health service, and I recommend that we look into that matter.
  There is evidence of empire building in the NHS through investments that appear glamorous but are not necessarily the most appropriate. For example, there is heavy investment in monitors, yet the best monitor of a pregnant woman is a midwife who has the time to devote to the mother and has followed her throughout her pregnancy. The Select Committee placed great stress on the importance of continuity of care and carer in the delivery of maternity care.
  That is not about more money, but about money being spent differently and giving professionals such as midwives adequate grading, which they frequently do not

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  have. It is also about more rational staffing, and in maternity, that means "staffing the women", rather than "staffing the ward". There is a great deal of richness in the Select Committee's recommendations which involve changes of attitude and the consequential rearrangement of provision. I strongly support the Government in their desire to look at all those matters.
  There have also been pilot schemes which would have come to an end had the previous Government continued in office, despite the fact that they have proved extremely valuable. One example is the establishment of midwifery partnerships. The new Government should consider midwifery partnerships as a rational way of delivering maternity care.
  Twenty years ago, the then Labour Government instituted an inquiry into children's health, resulting in the Court report. Unfortunately, before it could be implemented, the Government changed and for 18 years we had a Government who gave scant priority to our children's health.
  Mr. Fabricant: What?
  Audrey Wise: Yes. For 18 years, the poor have got poorer and more children are living in poverty to the detriment of their health. There is more homelessness and more people live in rotten housing and suffer from respiratory problems. Little children are bearing the brunt of a Government whose priorities were entirely wrong.
  The Select Committee report referred to the Court report which was produced 20 years ago. It stated:
  "The Court Report contained over 200 recommendations, and though it is not possible to state in bald terms that the report was or was not 'implemented', … it is undeniably the case that some of the Court Report's major recommendations, for instance the proposal that comprehensive community children's nursing services should be provided, have not been implemented. The failure to make progress in providing an adequate number of trained children's nurses, despite recommendations not just by Court but in other official reports dating back to 1959, reinforces our view, which has gained in strength as our inquiry has progressed, that the special needs of children are given insufficient priority by policy-makers, health service professionals and others who in one way or another have a responsibility for children's well-being."
  The neglect of children's needs in respect of health services extends to the entire House. I have quoted from the recent inquiry into children's health by the Select Committee. It was the first ever major parliamentary inquiry into children's health. That demonstrates the need for the 101 women who will be on our side and the need for an injection of human values and human priorities into the business of the House.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I respect the hon. Lady's knowledge and commitment to the subject. If she agrees with me that we need more children's nurses and more school nurses and generally more staff working in the health service, does she believe that it is possible to achieve that without a significant increase in net resources to the health service and, therefore, an increase in the NHS budget?
  Audrey Wise: It is impossible for us to know what the NHS budget should be until we have examined some of the issues that I have mentioned. I have said clearly that I want a properly resourced national health service and
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  I stand by that, as my conduct in the House will demonstrate. However, it is too easy simply to say that we need more money spent. We could spend more money on the present wrong priorities and we still would not have a really good health service.
  The United States Government spend a vast amount of their national income on so-called health care. A great deal is spent in the private sector, but about one third of it comes from the American public purse and they get extremely poor value from a huge amount of spending. So it is not just a matter of how much; it is also a matter of how well it is spent. For example, we need more children's nurses. Only one in 33 nurses have a children's nursing qualification yet more than one fifth of the population are children. That is clearly an inappropriate number, to say the least of it. Even worse, many of those one in 33 nurses with a children's qualification are employed not in children's nursing but in all sorts of other areas. That is nonsense.
  We need a proper evaluation of how resources are spent and a determination to ensure that they are spent properly. Part of that process will come through giving people more chance of knowing how things are run. That is why I am proud to have been a member of the Select Committee that called for transparency and openness in decision making. That is the sort of thing that we need. Although I am very keen to see a transfer of resources to my particular priorities, I am perfectly sensible of the extra need to look very carefully at how money is spent.
  Half the population is not served by a children's community nursing service. As adults, we know that we can be seen and helped by a district nurse if we are ill. For half the children in the country there is no equivalent to the children's nursing service. The new Government have an absolutely enormous task to remedy things that should have started being remedied after the Court report in 1977.
  In evidence to the Select Committee, the previous Government said that everything was all right because if no children's nurse was available to go to somebody's home to nurse a sick child, a district nurse could do the job. That showed their lack of sense of the fact that children's health needs are different from those of adults.
  Children are not simply miniature adults. We will not have a good NHS until that is recognised and children's needs are given proper priority. That change should be made and it should start in the House. All of us who have been Members of Parliament for some time ought to be ashamed of the fact that there was not an inquiry into children's health until last year. I am ashamed—but I am proud that I proposed one and that when it was carried out it produced four extremely useful reports.
  We have to get our priorities right. I and Back Benchers in general, especially the 101 women who sit on the Government Benches, must ensure that we change the priorities of Government and of Parliament for the better. The task is very big, but many people are willing to help. One of the great things about hearing evidence—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Opposition Front Benchers are being far too noisy.
  Audrey Wise: I am not particularly addressing Front Benchers. I am glad that there is quite a healthy attendance of my hon. Friends.

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  I believe that what I am saying will reverberate among the population. A new Government have been elected on the kind of things that I am saying—to change the country's priorities so that children, along with all those who are vulnerable, including the elderly, are properly treated and their needs are understood.
  After a proper examination and a proper transfer of resources from empire building or inappropriate, inefficient and ineffective spending, we will be in a position to say how much extra we need. I am happy to go along with the Government's aspirations to ensure in the first instance value for money, knowing that we have made a commitment in the Queen's Speech, on which we were elected, to protect and improve the NHS. I believe that Labour will do everything that is required to honour that commitment. In five years' time, we will have the thanks of all those people for whom the NHS is a great Labour achievement and a great priority in their lives.
  6.24 pm
  Mr. Charles Clarke: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) on her speech and on the priority she gives to children's health, which is extremely important. I am sure that all Labour Members share her priorities.
  I should like to pay tribute to my predecessor, John Garrett, who was first elected in February 1974. Many hon. Members will know him not only for his contribution to the promotion of good management throughout the public services—and, indeed, the private services—but for being a scourge of complacency in the civil service through his membership of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee and, before he entered the House, for the advice he gave to the Fulton committee. He will be warmly remembered, particularly in Norwich, for the consistently tremendous work he did for the constituents of Norwich, South and in promoting the interests of the city of Norwich.
  It is a tremendous honour to have been elected to represent Norwich, South—the southern part of the great city of Norwich. It is an historic city; the former second city of England. It has an historic cathedral, a Norman castle, a guildhall, monastic buildings in Blackfriars and a mediaeval city centre. It is an educational centre, with the university of East Anglia being one of this country's outstanding universities. It has a city college, which is entering into tremendous new agreements to give the young people of our city, through partnership with Bull Technology, the information technology qualifications that are needed in the modern world.
  Norwich research park has a series of institutions that put Norwich at the forefront of food research in Britain. One of the things about which I am delighted is the commitment in the Queen's Speech to establish an independent food standards agency, which we in Norwich will be urging should be located in our city as a principal researcher into the quality of food.
  The headquarters of The Stationery Office, which publishes Hansard, is located in Norwich. Despite the depredation of the sell-off that the previous Government ordered, The Stationery Office intends to provide the Government with the quality of service that it has historically provided.
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  Norwich is a regional financial centre. The headquarters of Norwich Union and Sedgwicks are located there. There are tremendous resources in the city for all financial services. It is also of course the culture and media capital of the region, producing regional television programmes and being home to the Broads national park authority, which extends within the boundaries of my constituency. There is a theatre and art college, and the city is home to the Canaries, who are hoping to return to the Premier League, although I regret to say not for the coming season.
  I am glad that the people of Norwich strongly support the Queen's Speech and the themes of work, welfare, education and health. They know that youth unemployment must be tackled and that only the Labour party's proposals for a windfall tax to provide jobs, education and training for young people can do so. They know that a minimum wage is needed—specifically in Norwich and Norfolk, where low pay is traditional. Indeed, my predecessor referred to the incidence of low pay in that part of the country in his maiden speech in 1974. The people of Norwich will welcome the commitment to a minimum wage.
  The people of Norwich will also welcome the commitment to minimum class sizes of 30 pupils for five, six and seven-year-olds. Some primary school classes in my constituency have as many as 39 pupils. The people of Norwich know that the changes will make a substantial difference. Norfolk as a whole has been the subject of the previous Government's guinea-pig approach to nursery vouchers, which caused major problems in Norwich. We are delighted that a proper nursery scheme will be established through the state education system and that the nursery voucher scheme will be abolished.
  I should like to focus on a specific, small health measure: the measure to clarify the legal power of national health service trusts to sign private finance initiative contracts. I hope that the Bill to implement that will have a rapid and trouble-free passage through both Houses. It is needed because banks are holding back from signing PFI contracts—public-private partnerships—because they are uncertain about the legal status of NHS trusts. There may be other reasons, but that is one. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday, one of the Labour Government's missions is to remove the red tape that has stopped investment in the health service. By clarifying the legal status of hospital trusts, we will enable the acceleration of public-private partnerships and investment in health and the building of new hospitals and health facilities. I strongly support the measure in the Queen's Speech and the accelerated resources for health that it will offer.
  The issue is especially relevant to Norwich, because a PFI scheme for the Norfolk and Norwich hospital awaits agreement from the banks, having been signed in November. The scheme faces the obstacles that I mentioned earlier. From our experience in Norwich, we welcome the election of a Government who are committed to developing private-public partnerships more successfully than in the past.
  Under the previous arrangements, the people of Norwich were not allowed to know—for reasons of so-called commercial confidentiality—which services, ranging from clinical services to canteen cleaning, would be included in the PFI arrangement. The local people were not permitted to know which specialisms would be

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  available at the new hospital; the prices that would be charged for services; or what guarantees the previous Government had to give to sustain the deal. They were not permitted to know about any future plans for existing hospital sites, even though hospitals had been closed, thus reducing total bed numbers in Norwich. They were not permitted to know what transportation arrangements had been made to ensure that people could use the new hospital on the outskirts of the city at Colney. It would have been better if the new hospital, like the old, had been planned for the city centre—as originally proposed—instead of outside.
  The Labour Government are not responsible for the flawed process that led to the PFI agreement, but they will have to do their best with their inheritance. The Bill that was announced yesterday will accelerate the process and I welcome it. I know that the new Government will use the Bill to build a much more democratic, open and accountable procedure under which people can learn about the investments under the PFI schemes and public-private partnerships. We will encourage more much-needed private resources for, and greater investment in, health, and we will also encourage a system that allows people to participate fully in the discussions, unlike the PFI schemes that the previous Government operated. We will end the unaccountable secrecy of the unelected quangos, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday, and we will establish the necessary public, open discussions and a new flow of investment.
  The people of Norwich, South welcomed the Gracious Speech yesterday. They know that it will make a dramatic difference to the people of the city of Norwich. I have great honour and pride in speaking in the House today and commending the Speech to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  6.33 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), whom I know well, on his maiden speech. I welcome him to the House. I also welcome his contribution to the city of Norwich which, as he said, is one of the great cities of England. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman will be a redoubtable Member of Parliament for his constituents. He used to be the boss of the Cambridge Students Union, well before new Labour. If, when he was CSU president and I was president of my college union, I had predicted that he would be elected to Parliament on a wave of new Labour policies, he would have shown me the door. Even student politics have changed greatly since the 1970s.[Interruption.] Public-private capital in the health service is just another example of this change.
  Not all hon. Members may know that the hon. Member for Norwich, South also did a good job at the right hand of Neil Kinnock when he was leader of the Labour party, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for that—I know that he was hugely important to the success of all that Neil Kinnock sought to do.
  I was serious when I said that I appreciate the commitment and passion of the speech by the hon. Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) on the health service. I am sure that she will be firm and true to her commitment to keep the pressure on what is now her Government to ensure that the health service has the resources that it needs. Of course the Government need to look at the
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  books, but nobody who works in the health service believes that it has enough money. I am sure that the hon. Lady knows that, and I look to her and to people like her to tell the truth about next month's Budget and the funding of the health service. I am sure that many of her voters also look to her to do that.
  The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) is no longer in his place, but I pay tribute to him—the youngest Member of the House. When I was elected, I was the youngest Opposition Member at 31. He has come to the House at the age of 24 and relieves my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor) of a responsibility that he has carried for more than 10 years. That shows how middle-aged we have become. Unless the House continues to become more representative in age, as well as in gender and colour, we shall not be recognised as properly representative at all.
  How we become politically representative is another debate. Suffice it to say that the present Government no more have the support of the majority of the British public than did the previous Government: we are all minorities here and I hope that we shall all have the humility to remember that.
  I also wish to compliment the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Stuart). I welcome her to the House because, among other reasons, she is greatly committed to electoral reform and to positive progress in Europe. Her constituency has much to commend it—not least the fact that my parents, so they told me, met in Edgbaston at the end of the war and I have studied there and stayed with relatives. I welcome the hon. Lady and all the new Members, especially the women; I sincerely hope that one day at least half the Members of Parliament will be women, as befits a nation more than half of whose citizens are women.
  We have a new ministerial team and I welcome them. I wish them well, without qualification. They have a huge responsibility. I should have liked to be in their place because I do not do this job to be in opposition, but I am encouraged by the fact that I now have many more hon. Friends around me and we have made significant progress. The teams with responsibility for health, social security and education have a particular responsibility: they have to build a new welfare state for the next century. That will not be easy and we shall have a great debate about how to fund it. I hope that there will be no no-go areas for that debate. We must open all the doors and consider all the ideas. I welcome the appointment of the Minister for Welfare Reform, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), because he is a thinker and a brave contributor to that debate. I welcome in particular my two parliamentary colleagues, the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Ms Jowell), to their important jobs. The borough of Southwark is well represented on the health and social services agenda on the non-Tory Benches and I am sure that that is what the people of Southwark want.
  Whatever the politicians said—including the three party leaders—I believe that the public felt that health was the most important issue in the election. The party leaders claimed that education came first, but the public chose health. That was the evidence of the opinion polls, nationally, regionally and locally. In London and in my constituency—now called Southwark, North and Bermondsey—health was undoubtedly the main issue.

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  It is therefore a privilege for me to return to Parliament to do the job of health spokesman for my party again, and it is a great privilege now also to have the unsolicited but extremely welcome addition of three colleagues to help me—my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch), who is sitting on the Bench in front of me, and my hon. Friends the Members for Isle of Wight (Dr. Brand) and for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). I know from my experience in the general election campaign that health was a huge issue in each of those seats, too.
  I welcome in addition my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), who is sitting behind me and is one of our three new Liberal Democrat doctor Members. I know that in her constituency, as in almost every other, health was a hugely important issue. Only yesterday, services at Queen Mary's, Roehampton—a hospital serving her constituents—were said to be at risk again.
  None of us will be under more political pressure than when health service reductions are threatened in our constituencies, because the health service is the most valued public service in the United Kingdom: 95 per cent. of our citizens use it and we must do our best to preserve it.
  Let me now sound one note of dissent. I am one of the few Members who was elected by beating Labour. I have done it five times now, so I hope that the Labour party has got the message.
  Mr. Dorrell: I beat Labour, too.
  Mr. Hughes: The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) says that he beat Labour, too. I also beat the Tories, and I beat them down to 6 per cent. They got 10 per cent. of the vote at the last election, and I did not think that I would get them much lower, but I got them down to 6 per cent. this time, so the possibility of squeezing the Tory vote has now really been reduced in my constituency. To his credit, however, the Tory candidate in my constituency managed to elevate his position from being the candidate with the lowest share of the Tory vote in England to the lowest but one—there was an even lower Tory vote in a Liverpool constituency—so he will obviously be promoted to a better seat next time.
  I shall start with a local issue, and then deal with some of the wider issues in the Queen's Speech. The big issue in my constituency in this election was unquestionably the future of Guy's hospital. When I was in the United States for a week last year studying health service matters, people in famous hospitals on the east coast could not believe that the British Government could contemplate running down a hospital like Guy's. They found that inconceivable. During the election campaign, one of the promises made by the Labour candidate in my constituency was that on the first day of a Labour Government Guy's hospital would be saved. A few days passed after the election before the Hampstead and Highgate Express published a conversation with the new Secretary of State confirming that a review of London health services would take place. The test will come over the first year.
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  For Londoners, and for my constituents, the first real test of whether the Government do their job properly on health will be whether the Minister of State sets about his review with no preconditions or prior agenda, conducts the review using up-to-date facts and statistics—unlike the review under Tomlinson, which was out of date, partial and ignored some of the evidence—and delivers a set of proposals for the future of the health service in London which have been the subject and reflect the results of wide consultation. [Interruption.] The former Secretary of State intervenes from a sedentary position, as he always used to do. I will give way, of course, in a moment.
  The intervening period is hugely important. Labour said that in London there would be no rundown or closures of services for the period of the review. That should apply across the country, as we said. We committed the funding for it, unlike Labour. That undertaking must now be carried out. For me and for my constituents, that means the trauma service at Guy's not disappearing before the end of the review and entire departments not being shifted to another hospital. The review must freeze the present position and examine fairly all the services, including casualty, at hospitals such as Guy's.
  Mr. Dorrell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He said that he wanted an open-ended review with no preconceptions and a proper analysis of the evidence. We already know that we shall not get any of that. The Secretary of State has already announced that he is ruling out a possible conclusion of the review when he said that the Government will not end up endorsing the previous Government's policies. That is one conclusion that he has ruled out before the review begins. He has also made it clear that the review has seven months to proceed and complete a process which, when it was initiated by Tomlinson, took three years and engaged a huge consultation exercise leading to the decisions that were announced in April 1995. We already know that the review will take place in a much shorter time scale than last time, and that one possible conclusion—I do not comment on whether it would be the right or the wrong conclusion—has been ruled out by the Secretary of State.
  Mr. Hughes: I have great respect for the former Secretary of State. In many respects I think that he did an extremely good job as a Tory Secretary of State for Health. He was not responsible for the last review, and I acquit him of that. It is reasonable to assume that a new Government would not expect to revisit all the questions. It would not be credible for them to say that a review would take place but that the outcome would be identical. On that point I defend the new Secretary of State for Health.
  I share the concern of the right hon. Member for Charnwood that it may be impractical to think that we can sort out all the problems in a short time, but people do not want to be kept in limbo for months and years. It is a difficult balance to strike. I represent staff at Guy's who want to know their future.
  On this, as on other matters, I hope that we shall perform the task properly and that in this Parliament we do not have arguments over facts. I say that especially to new colleagues. Let us have arguments over funding and policy, but let us not argue over clear and incontrovertible facts. I hope that one of the signs of a new regime in government is that we do not get hundreds of answers on

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  health service questions—for example, how many hospitals have been closed and how many beds there are—all stating that the information is not held centrally. No colleague on either side of the House will be happy if we get a stone wall of silence about what is going on in the health service so that no one can find out what the score is locally, regionally or nationally.
  I shall continue my resistance, should the Government not deliver on these matters adequately. I am still blocking a Bill, which got blocked before the end of the last Parliament, that would bring about a merger of the United Medical and Dental school and King's college London. I shall continue to do so unless we get satisfactory assurances about adequate numbers of beds at my local hospital.
  I wish to make four points about the Queen's Speech. The first was made similarly yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), and my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) made it today in the context of education. I do not think that any objective analyst believes that there is sufficient money in the kitty to sustain the NHS as at present demanded by the citizens of the United Kingdom. I quote from the election briefing of the Institute for Fiscal Studies—not a party organisation—which stated:
  "The real growth in health spending planned over the next three years is well below average spending growth in health over any recent parliament, or indeed over any period of consecutive years …
  The projected growth in health spending over the next three years is far lower than the average growth in health spending since the Conservatives took office in 1979, or at any time over the last thirty-five years…
  Either they"—
  the current spending plans—
  "are unfeasible, and will be broken, or they will mean a much lower injection of new resources into the health service than hitherto experienced. At a time when the public's demand for health care is inevitably rising, this will have serious implications for how well the NHS will be able to continue its role as a comprehensive provider of free health care."
  I say to Members on the Labour Benches that they were timid on health service spending before the election and during the election. It was only the moment before the election that they suddenly announced that they would spend as much as the Tories; previously, they said that they would spend less. That was because the right hon. Member for Charnwood and I had a go at them every Question Time until eventually they decided that it was so embarrassing to be third in the spending league table that they had better do something about it.
  If the Labour Government carry on the synchronised swimming—having the same budget for health as the Tories—they will be in trouble. I say that in the hope and expectation that the wisdom of government will descend on the new Chancellor of the Exchequer and the new Secretary of State for Health and that they will say, as Governments so rarely do, "We are sorry. We were wrong. We need more money. and it is better to tell you that than to pretend otherwise." We look forward to that process beginning in the Budget next month. If that does not take place, we shall vote against the relevant parts of the Budget and we shall table amendments to increase funding for the health service, as we have consistently argued over recent years.
  Secondly, I welcome the Government's stated intention to end the two-tier health service. The great failing of the Tory reforms was that patients received different
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  treatment depending on which doctor they went to or where they lived. It is absolutely true that, as of today, the NHS is still a national health lottery. If we are to put that right and end the difference between fundholders and non-fundholders, we need to do so in a way that receives support from those in the profession and elsewhere. I welcome the fact that there will be consultation, and that it may not be necessary to legislate. If that is the case, we must have consultation about the proposed instructions, guidance and directions as though we were discussing legislation. Having got it so wrong last time, I do not want us—and patients do not want us—to get it wrong again.
  Thirdly, I wish to refer to the private finance initiative. The hon. Member for Norwich, South welcomed the Bill—which I gather is to be published in another place tomorrow—to facilitate private finance coming into the NHS. That is not an uncontroversial matter. The only reason why we are going down that road is that the previous Government slashed capital spending in the NHS. There may be an argument for bringing private money into the capital budget of the health service, but last year the Treasury, the Treasury Select Committee, various financial advisers and certainly the Labour party were not persuaded by it. I do not think that, as of today, the public are persuaded either.
  If we are to build a secure NHS—with the buildings, hospitals and facilities that we want—we must seek agreement about how to bring in private finance. I welcome the fact that, in theory, it is on the agenda. If the Government are seeking to push through a Bill to allow projects that have been in the pipeline for some time to be built—such as the example referred to in Norwich or such as Rochdale—some hard questions will be asked about whether that secures either the best investment of public finances or the best security for the NHS. Effectively leasing hospital buildings that one does not get back in 35 years may not be a good way of spending public money. A lot of people need to be persuaded about that proposal.
  Finally, I wish to refer to public health. I welcome the appointment of a Minister for public health. The hon. Member for Preston is absolutely right in implying that the NHS is a national sickness service—and the more it is such a service, the poorer our public health will be. In most respects, we have not a national health service, but a national sickness service. We are rescuing people whom we have allowed to fall into the river rather than stopping them falling in in the first place.
  The Government are right to single out smoking as one of the most pernicious routes to ill health. Smoking kills 100,000-plus people a year in this country—I am not sure of the arithmetic, but I believe that that works out at 300 people per day dying as a result of tobacco-related diseases. I ask the Government to be as tough as nails on this. There must be no backsliding or equivocation. There must be no tobacco advertising, except at the point of sale, and no tobacco sponsorship of sport—even if that means that sport has difficulties for a short period. The idea that a racing driver—or a snooker player or a darts player—gains success partly by being associated with smoking has to be hit on the head. Smoking kills you, and if it does not kill you, it debilitates you, puts you out of work and gives your family and friends a harder time. We have to be tough on smoking and tough on the causes of smoking. [Interruption.] I mean that. If this House does not deliver, we will betray our responsibility.

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  In addition, we must be tough on alcohol and tough on the causes of alcoholism—particularly among women, where there has been an increase. We must also be tough on drugs and tough on the causes. I do not mean illegal drugs only, but I mean drugs in the NHS which are often given with no proven benefit to the patient. There are far too many drugs given as a quick answer to a difficult question. Alternative remedies and alternative medicines are often a better way forward.
  It is a source of great pride in my party that the plan for the welfare state was devised by a great Liberal who became a Member of the House of Commons and then a peer—William Beveridge. He made it clear when he wrote his report in 1943 that a precondition of a successful welfare state was a successful national health service. I share the view of many hon. Members and many voters that the best test of whether we shall have a successful welfare state for the next century is whether we build a successful health service for the next century that will survive.
  I hope that, as a House, we shall be united in trying to make the national health service stronger, and that we shall spend more time doing that than having a go at other people where there may be differences as to how to achieve it. We have a collective responsibility for the national health service and the welfare state, and a collective duty in this Parliament to do a hell of a lot about it.
  6.56 pm
  Mr. Desmond Turner: It is with great pride that I rise for the first time in this House representing Brighton, Kemptown. I should like to follow the tradition of the House and recognise my predecessor, Sir Andrew Bowden. He was a very hard man to remove, and held on to a marginal seat for 27 years. He did so largely because he was an effective constituency Member of Parliament who was extremely popular with his constituents and worked hard on their behalf. Although he was a Tory, I give him all credit for that. If I can establish an equal reputation to Sir Andrew's with my constituents, I shall be well satisfied.
  I want to refer also to my predecessor's predecessor, the late Dennis Hobden, who was the first Labour Member of Parliament in Sussex. He won in 1964 by seven votes after four recounts and, if the House will bear with me, I shall explain how it was done. Before the election, the Conservative agent spoke to one of our organisers and asked whether he thought it was safe for his man to go on holiday in case the election was called. Our lad said, "You are an agent. You know the last person you want around your feet when an election is called is the candidate. Let him go." Two days later, the election was called, and the banner headline appeared in the local Evening Argus:
  "Tory MP hunts Loch Ness monster".
  He lost by seven votes. That is an election strategy which I should like to commend to Opposition Members for future use.
  My constituency is fascinating. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) yesterday pointed out that the levels of unemployment and
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  social deprivation in his inner-city constituency in Manchester made the Queen's Speech relevant, because it addressed those issues. He added that his constituents would be happy with it. Hon. Members will be familiar with the elegant Regency facades of my constituency, but they hide levels of unemployment and deprivation that are exactly comparable with Gorton. There are areas of my constituency where one household in two has no one working. Our unemployment is double the national average—just about comparable with the unemployment in Gorton.
  It therefore came as no surprise, certainly to me, that as we conducted our triumphal tour of the constituency the day after the election, people were hanging out of office windows shouting and cheering. People were really happy: they were going around the supermarkets with a new spring in their step. It was as if a great black cloud had been lifted from the nation, because we no longer had a Government who told us what could not be done.
  That was the substance of the speech that we heard this afternoon from the former Secretary of State for Social Security, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). It was all about being negative—about saying, "You cannot do this; you have to suffer." Now people feel better, because they know that they have a Government who talk not about what they cannot do but about what they can do, and who will set about doing it. They will not be able to produce miracles at first—no one expects that—but they will make every honest attempt.
  There was so much in the Queen's Speech. It really was radical. One could not imagine the Opposition producing anything as radical in their wildest nightmares.
  There is high unemployment on the estates in one of the wards that I represent. Earlier this afternoon, there was some doubt about where Roedean was; I assure hon. Members that it is in my constituency, right next to—I believe—the third most socially deprived area in the country, where the effects of the windfall tax will really be felt. It will take young people off the dole, and put them into work or training for the first time.
  Yes, we have problems of crime on our estates. That is not surprising: there are young people there who do not know what it means to have a job, because they have never had the opportunity of having one. Many of those young people will now have jobs. They will have a reason for getting up in the morning, and something to look forward to in life.
  Brighton has another distinction—an unfortunate distinction. Along with Manchester, it is in the premier division in many respects, but not the ones that we would like. We would almost prefer the relegation of Brighton and Hove Albion to the levels of unemployment and deprivation that go with being in the premier division, along with some other inner-city constituencies. We have the highest level of homelessness outside certain London boroughs, and that is not funny. Walking around Brighton, we see just as many rough sleepers as can be seen in central London.
  The ability to build again will make a significant contribution. That is only one part of the legislation proposed in the Queen's Speech, but it is a vital part. We must go back to building low-cost accommodation that people can afford. If we are to take people off the streets, we must have somewhere to put them. At present, we simply do not have the places in which to put all the

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  people who come knocking on our doors. It is tragic to have such appalling housing conditions as exist in large parts of my constituency, and the legislation will be devoutly welcomed there.
  My constituents will also devoutly welcome the other main topic covered by the Queen's Speech—improvements in the health service. We have heard considerable debate about the health service this evening. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was right to speak of the difficulty of obtaining an accurate picture of what is happening across the health service, and the real situation bequeathed to us by the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell). At present, we can do that only by collecting anecdotal data. I know the anecdotal data for my constituency, and they do not make pretty reading.
  For instance, the chief executive of our local health care trust—the acute trust—has instructed surgeons not to treat anyone who has not been on the waiting list for at least 15 months for non-urgent surgery, except of course the patients of fundholding practices. In that case, it will depend on how generously funded the fundholding GP happens to feel at the time. It is not even a two-tier health service; it is a multi-tier health service, and "a lottery" is a very accurate description of it. The position is unacceptable, and we will abolish that lottery. Not only do we want equality of opportunity in education; we must have equality of opportunity when it comes to access to health care. That is probably old-fashioned socialism, but it is a principle—
  Mr. Simon Hughes: We shall vote for it.
  Mr. Turner: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he might. I believe that this is an area of common ground, on which we shall be happy to work.
  It does not end there. Our health care trust has just closed a few wards—only a few, but they happen to be very important. They were highly specialist surgical wards dealing with specific types of cancer. The patients will now have to go to general surgical wards. The specialist teams have been broken up, and there is only one possible outcome: people will die, because their cancers—I am talking mainly about cancers of the colon and rectum—will not be diagnosed and treated as early as they might be. Those patients' chances of survival have been seriously impaired.
  Is that the record bequeathed by a Government who proudly proclaimed that the health service was safe in their hands, and that they were continually spending more on the health service year on year? Why, then, are our health trusts in deficit? Why are they having to make damaging, life-threatening cuts? Only now are we able to find out just where the black holes in the health service are, and just what the truth is. It will be some time before we know what is needed for us to be able to deal with those black holes.
  Believe me, it is a sorry inheritance that we have come into; but at least the people of Kemptown, and the people of Britain, now know that they have a Government who are committed to doing something about it. The first evidence is before us in the Queen's Speech—and as for all the doubts that we have heard from Opposition Members this afternoon, let us just wait a year and see what happens. That is the test.
  7.8 pm
  Mr. Piers Merchant: I welcome you to your new elevated role, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do so with great pleasure—and it is also a delight to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Turner), which was of evidently high quality. It was fluent, delivered with the aid of hardly a note and most impressive in content and style. I am sure that the House will enjoy many more speeches from the hon. Gentleman in the not too distant future.
  The hon. Gentleman paid a generous tribute to his predecessor, describing him as a hard act to remove; I am sure that he will also find him a hard act to follow, but his speech gives me confidence that he will succeed, and I wish him the best of luck.
  I did not agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), which was of the highest quality and aptly reflected the views of Conservative Members. The only sadness is that my right hon. Friend is not at present able to sit on the Government Benches, perhaps in a different position from the one that he held before, to continue in the work of fundamental reform that he conducted so ably in his Department over the past five years.
  Several matters referred to in the Gracious Speech are of considerable interest to my constituents and reflect the concern that they expressed during the general election campaign about aspects of Labour party policy. For the sake of brevity, as I know that many hon. Members are waiting to speak, I shall refer to only two such matters.
  The first matter concerns health. The Labour party has, to put it mildly, been difficult to pin down over the past few years on policy for capital provision for the health service, and the private finance initiative in particular. At first, the party appeared to favour the abolition of the PFI; then it moved to advocating a review; and the latest position appears to favour amending the PFI. Perhaps we shall hear later whether the party has decided to support the PFI.
  Certainly, the reference in the Gracious Speech to the Bill that will clarify the legal position of NHS trusts seemed to suggest that the new Government are prepared to run with the PFI. I hope, in the interests of practicality, that that is the case and that there has been a conversion. Clarification on that point would be helpful, not for the purposes of theory—interesting though that is—but for good practical reasons. A great number of major hospital projects that are now on stream were put together under the PFI; many are ready to be signed off and simply await Treasury approval.
  As a matter of simple responsibility, the Government owe it to the health trusts and to the people in those areas to give a clear indication as soon as possible of whether the schemes will survive, because if they are not signed off shortly, they will quickly lose their relevance and become impractical.
  I have a local vested interest, as an excellent package has been put together, based on the PFI, for a new Bromley district general hospital. The project is at the point of being signed off and can go ahead if the Government are prepared to move rapidly; if they are not, the project in its current form will collapse and the people of my area will be deprived, at least for the near future, of a new hospital. That is an important matter for the

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  future of health care in the area that I represent: the quality of that care depends on a new hospital, and there is no other way of overcoming the historical difficulties.
  A tremendous amount of work has been done, and people at all levels—clinical staff, patients, future patients and administrators, who are often castigated but have in this case worked extremely hard to put the project together—need to know whether the project will work and can go ahead. At the very least, they need some assurance about whether the project's general basis, together with a timetable for the next few steps, will be accepted.
  If that is not forthcoming, those in charge of the project will need to know whether the rug is to be pulled from under their feet and they are to be denied their new hospital, because they will then have to consider future plans, square it with the local population and explain that, unfortunately, the serious problems in the local NHS cannot be solved. I hope that the Government will have the sense not to follow that latter course, because if they do so, they will have some severe explaining to do to local people and will undoubtedly be blamed for delays in improving provision. I hope that the Government will respond to that point as early as possible, and preferably tonight.
  The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) in an, as usual, interesting and thorough speech, referred to tobacco advertising and the health problems associated with tobacco. For a long time, I was against further restrictions on tobacco advertising. I formed that view as a result of the time that I spent working in the advertising industry.
  I was not involved in tobacco advertising, but I became aware of the way in which advertising works and formed the view that controlling tobacco advertising has a smaller impact on consumption than is often fondly imagined. I have to an extent changed my position over the years, because I feel so strongly about the health aspects, and I am now more drawn towards an acceptance of a ban on tobacco advertising, as long as it is imposed in the clear understanding that it will not achieve the dramatic effects that many of those who argue in favour of it suggest, and as long as it is accompanied by other, in my view, more meaningful measures to restrict tobacco consumption.
  In other words, if the ban is to be merely a gesture and an attempt to pretend that there is a genuine desire to reduce tobacco consumption, I do not consider it a convincing strategy, but if the Government can show that it is part of a coherent and serious drive to reduce consumption, I shall find it much more palatable. Reduction in consumption is much more important than mere gestures to appease those who argue in favour of a ban.
  The second item that I want to talk about concerns education policy. I hope that the Secretary of State, who has already referred to the Greenwich judgment in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, will be more specific on that subject. He said that he felt that a change in the law—the only way of reversing the Greenwich judgment—was unlikely. I wonder whether I could encourage him or one of the Ministers in his Department to be a little more specific and make it clear whether he is ruling out any primary legislation or is leaving the door
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  open. The judgment cannot be taken any further through the court system, so primary legislation in this place would be needed to overturn it.
  If the Secretary of State is not prepared to do that, is he saying effectively that he is not prepared to do anything to answer the legitimate and deeply felt concerns of my constituents about the fact that, in next year's secondary school admissions, a minimum of 804—that is the present figure—out-of-borough pupils will take school places in the London borough of Bromley, while 600 pupils in the borough do not have places in local schools? It is no longer a small issue. In my borough, it is a major issue that is causing parents severe stress. The problem must be sorted out one way or another. I hope that the Government realise the urgency of the effect of the Greenwich judgment.
  I applaud the Government for their commitment to continue to improve education standards, which was a major element of the previous Government's policy. I welcome that, but I wonder how schools, parents, teachers and pupils will react if the impact of further changes is another major reorganisation that causes tremendous stress, dislocation and problems. There is a limit to the extent to which the structure of any large service, whether health or education, can be reorganised. The costs are not only financial but human and they affect the product—in this case, the quality of education.
  The new Government will no doubt be motivated by zeal and by the desire to do new things and to prove themselves. I hope that they do not fall into the trap, into which Governments of all parties have fallen in the past, of rushing in believing that they have a new radical system that will make everything right. In rushing it into effect, they may find that they produce more problems than they solve. That is a danger for education, because teachers in particular have had to go through so much change in recent years. It was all intended for the best and I believe that most of it has been successful, but some of it has not been. For teachers to have to go through yet another change could prove counter-productive.
  I especially hope that the Government will resist the temptation to use education as a political football and to introduce change for the sake of political dogma. I hope instead that they will err on the side of retaining stability in the system. The Government's approach to the assisted places scheme is a bad sign of what could happen, because I believe that the changes are based on political dogma. The Government will take away an education option from people in lower income brackets by depriving them of the opportunities offered by the scheme, which does not, as they sometimes argue, distort the system. Its abolition will not produce the funds that they pretend that it will. I am afraid that this is a bit of ideological spite, a mean-minded policy. It saddens me that they should want to pursue it, especially with the vigour that they intend. The people who will lose out will not be those whom the Government like to castigate as Tory voters, but will come from among their supporters and the groups that they pretend to champion.
  Labour Members can perhaps be excused at present for feeling self-satisfied or even for gloating. I do not entirely blame them. Much of the thinking behind the Gracious Speech reflects that self-satisfaction. Nevertheless, the Government should even at this stage restrain themselves from thinking that they will have a free run. They should not underestimate the ability of my right hon. and

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  hon. Friends to scrutinise everything that they propose in this Queen's Speech or will propose in subsequent ones, nor the inner resilience that undoubtedly exists in the Conservative party.
  7.23 pm
  Mr. Tom Levitt: Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech. I represent the most beautiful seat in Britain. I was going to claim that it was only the most beautiful seat in England, but I cannot see many Scottish or Welsh Members, so I think that I can claim Britain.
  High Peak is in Derbyshire and takes in most of the Peak district as well as the historic towns of Buxton and Glossop and the land in between. We expected to scrape home in the seat, but having been returned with 51 per cent. of the vote, my belief in electoral reform has been shaken; perhaps it is not as necessary as I once thought. My election on 1 May completed the jigsaw for High Peak. We have a Labour borough council, a Labour county council, a Labour Member of the European Parliament and now a Labour Member of Parliament.
  I mentioned Scotland a moment ago. High Peak has been described as Derbyshire's Scotland. It has hills, it is rather wet, it is in the north of the county and, since the county council elections, it has been a Tory-free zone. From that point of view, we have much to be proud of.
  I am the first Labour Member since Peter Jackson to represent High Peak. He served from 1966 to 1970 and had a reputation in the House for having voted against the Labour Government more often than any other Labour Member in that period. I must tell my Front-Bench colleagues that that is not a reputation that I intend to match or surpass. I was proud to stand on the Labour manifesto. I am proud to have fought on Labour manifestos in three general elections. I will be proud to continue to work for the implementation of that Labour manifesto in the years to come.
  Someone once said that people should not trust politicians with more than three passions. My three chosen passions are all relevant to the Queen's Speech. The first is disability. I have not been able to take up one parliamentary tip which I picked up yesterday by producing my book and saying how I had written it and how excellent it was. Suffice it to say that I hope to make progress on access to services for people with sensory impairments. My second field is local government. I served at parish, district and county level before coming here. Thirdly, there is education. I was a teacher for 17 years and I shall return to that issue.
  There is one aspect of my past that I would like to celebrate. During the 1980s, I was both a parliamentary and European parliamentary candidate in Gloucestershire and actively involved in the campaign for the restoration of trade union rights at GCHQ. It gives me immense pride to make my maiden speech on the day those rights were restored.
  My immediate predecessor in High Peak was Charles Hendry, who was, and may still be, a vice-chair of the Tory party with responsibility for communications. Perhaps the less said about that, the better. He looked after High Peak competently for five years. I congratulate him on not having taken the chicken run, as many of his colleagues did. He spent most of his career in the House, either advising Ministers or working for Tory central
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  office. Having achieved the position of Member of Parliament, to lose it after five years must, I concede, have been a devastating personal blow. My best wishes go to him and his young family in finding another career.
  In Charles's final speech to the House just a few weeks ago, he invited hon. Members to come with him on an imaginary helicopter ride to see some of the examples of Tory success. It was by its nature a brief ride, but I would like to take hon. Members on a similar ride to look at some of the schools in High Peak and ask what we mean by "Tory success".
  Let us start in the village of Tideswell, which has a large primary school where no child is taught in a class of less than 30. If we go to the town of Buxton, we can go one better. There is a reception class with 46 children in it. Still in Buxton, High Peak college is the only provider of further education in the constituency. It has fought hard to stay open recently. It has a purpose-built nursery, which is empty because the college can no longer afford to run it for the benefit of the students for whom it was intended. In the village of Whaley Bridge, an excellent private nursery is in danger of closing because it does not accept vouchers. Because of the short period for which people send their children to the nursery, vouchers are not appropriate for the style of nursery provision that it provides and it fears that it cannot survive.
  A couple of miles away, at Taxal and Fernilee primary school, which was purpose-built by Derbyshire county council and the Church authorities working together just a few years ago, parents launched a £25,000 fund last weekend to build an extension to one of the classrooms because of severe overcrowding. It seems that the days are gone when parents were asked to provide the extras, not the essentials, for our children's education.
  Dinting school in Glossop is an example of a school that is bursting at the seams. It must be impossible to teach there effectively, given the conditions and overcrowding. The fact that Hope valley is the most beautiful part of High Peak does not help Bamford primary school, which must lose one of its five teachers this summer. That will necessitate mixed-age classes and have a devastating effect on the confidence of staff and children in the school. My heart goes out to them.
  As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was visiting the village of Castleton during the election campaign, the local primary school was proud to be opening its first indoor toilet for use. For how many years had it been waiting to do that?
  The final school on my list is Chapel infants school, Chapel-en-le-Frith, which was built in Victorian times. Despite its being a good school, the Victorian buildings are not in good repair. Not only are the classrooms too small, but right next to the school is a busy main road. Some 100 yd down that main road on the opposite side is another playground with the other half of the infant school. In the playground are four "temporary" classrooms—they were temporary when they were put there 45 years ago. Their roofs are held up by pit props, among the 700 pit props holding up roofs in Derbyshire schools. The fabric of that school is a disgrace, while the practice in its classrooms is excellent. The teachers in all the schools that I have mentioned do a wonderful job, given the highly undignified circumstances in which many of them and their pupils work.

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  It is no wonder that we have such problems in Derbyshire schools. Of all the shire counties, Derbyshire had the third lowest standard spending assessment for education under the previous Government. It has a £100 million backlog on capital spending, £10 million of which is urgently required. Last year, the previous Government allowed Derbyshire to spend some £800,000, or 0.8 per cent.—less than 1 per cent.—of the capital building requirement. The authority was asking not for money from the Government but for permission to borrow. Without that, it was impossible for the authority to address even the most serious of the capital and physical problems in the buildings which had to be put right.
  One could guess from my description that Derbyshire has the highest primary class sizes of any shire county in the country. That is the Tory inheritance, in terms of education in Derbyshire and schools in High Peak. That is the legacy that we must turn round and put right, and that is how the last Government failed the people of High Peak.
  During the election campaign, education was one of the major issues raised on every doorstep of every family with children. It is where the last Government failed and where the new Government, uniquely, will succeed. We shall succeed, because our priorities, especially the priority of education, have been set by the people. We have not imposed our agenda from outside; it has come from the doorsteps and classrooms of High Peak and beyond. The education of our children is our first priority. Our children have only one chance and this Government will give that chance to our children.
  7.34 pm
  Mr. Peter Luff: It is my pleasant first obligation to welcome you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the Chair and to congratulate you on your appointment. It is a great pleasure to see a friendly and a skilful face in the Chair and we look forward to your wise counsel prevailing over us for many years to come.
  It is also a privilege to follow yet another fine maiden speech. I may have disagreed with the content and argument put forward in it, but it was another example of an articulate and skilfully argued speech, which put some older hon. Members to shame. I have considerably more notes in my hand than the hon. Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt), and I congratulate him on his fine speech and wish him a successful and happy period in the House. He should not take it personally if I say that I hope that he will not stay too long.
  I am glad that the hon. Gentleman paid a generous tribute to his predecessor, Charles Hendry. This is the sort of debate in which Charles would have wished to speak. He was committed to the welfare of everyone in our country, as all Conservative Members are. His passionate work for the homeless in the all-party homelessness group bears testimony to his sense of compassion and concern. He will be sadly missed in the House for his expression of the authentic voice of one-nation Toryism.
  As far as I could see, the Gracious Speech was a strange mixture of soundbite politics, dogma and a limited dose of common sense. Tonight, I shall concentrate on the dogma that characterised too much of the Queen's Speech. First,
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  I refer to the words of an earlier Member of the House, Mr. Edmund Burke. The Edmund Burke Society kindly sent every Member of the House a copy of his speech to the electors of Bristol of November 1774—more than 200 years ago. It made terrifying reading in terms of the illumination that it offered to the Government's programme and our general political situation because it was so deeply contemporary. I wonder whether Edmund Burke was prophesying the behaviour of the Minister without Portfolio, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), or perhaps the Prime Minister, when he said:
  "To be a good member of parliament, is, let me tell you, no easy task; especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity."
  I wonder whether he was foreseeing the regrettable arrogance that is creeping into the Labour party's treatment of this place and its rush to overpopular legislation when he said:
  "government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide".
  Were you not now on the other side, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would agree that those are strangely prescient words. I am sure that, in your previous incarnation, you would have agreed.
  Unemployment is, rightly, a matter that concerns the new Government. I would have been more appreciative of their concern had they paid fuller tribute to the previous Government's achievements in that regard. After all, this economy has the lowest unemployment of any major European economy. That happened not by accident but as a result of Government policies. I am staggered by the scale of the reduction in my constituency. Library figures show that, over the past year, unemployment in Mid-Worcestershire fell by 34.7 per cent. to 1,240—a reduction of 660 compared with just a year ago. I welcome the huge reductions that have taken place. However, it is staggering that the Government's attachment to a number of dogmatic principles means that they are probably the first in British political history to come to this House with a Gracious Speech that makes pledges to the people of this country that will increase unemployment, for that is the direct effect of three of their pledges.
  The first is the windfall tax, which cannot be paid out of some pot of gold that will do no harm to the rest of the economy. It will be paid for in one of three ways. First, it may be paid for through increased prices for the products of those utilities that must eventually bear that tax. Secondly, it may come out of reduced investment, which will cut employment in the capital goods sector. Thirdly, it may come out of the dividends that would otherwise go to those who hold the shares—the pension funds. In fact, ordinary people will pay the price one way or the other. I suspect that one major impact of that tax will be its effect on unemployment because of the reduction in capital spending by those utilities.
  The windfall tax is but one of three pledges in the Queen's Speech that will increase unemployment. Another is the pledge on the national minimum wage. The Deputy Prime Minister has admitted that any damn fool knows that that will cause some kind of shake-out in employment. There it is—an unemployment-increasing pledge at the heart of the Queen's Speech.

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  The most bizarre and extraordinary pledge is that on the opt-in to the social chapter. We have all the evidence in the world from German and French industrialists and international commentators that our opt-out from the social chapter made us a unique magnet within the European Union for inward investment. It is clear that that opt-out was crucial to maintaining that high investment. We now read a bizarre oxymoron in the Queen's Speech, which promises to "improve competitiveness", yet in the same sentence promises that we will
  "opt into the Social Chapter".
  That is simply untenable. The opt-in to the social chapter will inevitably increase unemployment. It is another example of dogma triumphing over reason.
  I am afraid that the Government have again fallen prey to dogma in relation to the health service. In my county of Worcestershire, 85 per cent. of the county's general practitioners are now fundholders. That offers enormous benefits, not just to the 85 per cent. of patients in those fundholding practices but to the other 15 per cent., because that initiative has improved the quality of health care across the national health service. It has levelled up and not levelled down the quality of health care available to all my constituents. As so often in the past, that difference represents the crucial distinction between the two sides of the House.
  There are two fundholding practices and one non-fundholding practice in the town of Droitwich Spa. Those GPs have adopted imaginative approaches, including taking advantage of improvements in technology, to produce a dramatic improvement in the quality of health care available locally. All that will be put at risk by the Government's dogmatic insistence on overturning fundholding and replacing it with some kind of meddling commissioning group. I do not know what such groups will be like—we may hear about that later today or in the next few weeks. It is clear, however, that they will be quangos—the great enemy that was attacked a little while ago by the Labour party.
  It is obvious that fundholding puts the power where it should be—in the hands of the general practitioner, the man or woman who knows what his or her patients need. Fundholding represents a profoundly democratic approach; by abolishing it, the Government will reduce the level of democracy in the NHS, not increase it.
  I love the story about the old days before our reforms when GPs used to send Christmas cards to the consultants at hospitals because they desperately needed their good favour if they were to get their patients treated. There was a two-tier health service then—whether a GP's patients got on to a consultant's list depended on how well that GP got on with the consultant. It was a matter of who one knew and how one could work the system. That two-tier health service has been swept away by fundholding. Instead, the consultants now send Christmas cards to GPs because they want their custom, favour and patients to treat. That is a wonderful illustration of the reversal of power within the NHS, but the Government are dogmatically seeking to overturn that. Fundholding means decentralising, but the Government are set upon recentralising. That is profoundly regrettable.
  Before I return to my theme about dogma in the Queen's Speech, I must pause to pay tribute to one of the more sensible measures in it. I am absolutely delighted that it includes a commitment to introduce a Bill to clarify
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  the relationship between NHS trusts and the private sector in terms of the provision of capital for new hospital building.
  I have a special relationship with the new Minister of State at the Department of Health, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Ms Jowell), because she is my pair. That relationship was put in some jeopardy when she descended on Worcester unannounced in the run-up to the election. She made certain statements about the local hospital, but I will forgive and forget that particular lapse.
  As the hon. Lady will know, the proposed new hospital in Worcester lies outside my new constituency, but it will serve all my constituents. That building project is at a crucial, advanced stage. The consortium that wants to build that hospital places great importance on the proposed Bill. I thank the Government sincerely for picking up a piece of legislation that was developed by the current Secretary of State's predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), which would have featured in our own Queen's Speech. I am aware that my right hon. Friend, the NHS generally, the health authority and the trust have done a huge amount of work to bring the new hospital building to fruition at last. I am delighted that the final obstacle—the lack of clarity concerning the relationship between the private sector and NHS trusts—will be swept aside.
  I am still concerned that the hon. Lady was unable to answer some of the direct questions that I put to her after her visit about that hospital project. For example, I asked whether she would sweep aside the apparently strong opposition of the union in Worcester to the development of a hospital that used private capital. She failed to say whether the consortium that had been accepted to build the hospital was undoubtedly acceptable to the Labour party.
  I am still unclear about the status of the review of the private finance initiative. Will that review last for days, weeks or months? How will it relate to the Bill referred to in the Queen's Speech? I sincerely hope that all those obstacles are removed. If they are, I shall be the first to express my gratitude to the Labour party for picking up our policy and running with it to ensure that that new hospital is at last delivered to the people of Worcestershire.
  Some of the most worrying dogma in the Queen's Speech relates to education. In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant), I should like to refer particularly to the assisted places scheme. It is right that I should declare a limited interest, because both my children attend schools that award assisted places, although they are not beneficiaries of them.
  When I knocked on doors during the election campaign, I was struck by the extraordinarily large number of people whose children were in receipt of assisted places. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham has said, such parents come from ordinary backgrounds. We are not talking about rich kids getting an unfair subsidy at the expense of poor deprived children in inner-city areas. Those children come from less well-off families who, for one reason or another, have concluded that the education offered at an independent school is appropriate for their children. I see no reason why that perfectly legitimate choice should be denied to those parents.

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  The parrot cry we get from the Labour party is that the assisted places scheme subsidises private schools. That is absolute nonsense. They will survive perfectly comfortably without the assisted places scheme, but they will lose some of that cultural diversity and mix of socio-economic backgrounds that make them more vibrant and less elitist. I bitterly regret the fact that, because of the Labour party's dogmatic assertion that that scheme is equivalent to a subsidy to such schools, we will lose that scheme.
  Four schools in my area of Worcestershire benefit from assisted places. Two of them were state schools—the Worcester Royal grammar school, and King's school, which is direct grant. They became independent because they did not want to go comprehensive. Most of the children at those schools would otherwise have been educated at the state's expense, but many parents have found the resources to send their children to those schools because the schools have maintained their reputation for excellence. The fact that quite a large number of children attend Worcester Royal grammar school on assisted places is something that we should welcome, because the scheme has maintained access to that school for children from less well-off backgrounds. I am absolutely delighted about that, particularly because those four schools are the only ones in that part of Worcestershire that offer sixth forms. Those who live near Worcester who want to send their children to a sixth form must opt for the private independent sector. Under the state system, one is forced into the tertiary sector, which many parents do not like. I, too, prefer sixth forms in schools.
  The assisted places scheme has extended choice and broken down barriers. To me, that is entirely in line with the spirit that the Prime Minister seems to wish to claim that he has set before the British people both in the manifesto on which he won the election and in the Gracious Speech. I am extremely surprised at his insistence on pursuing the dogmatic policy to abolish assisted places.
  As for the arithmetic behind the abolition of the assisted places scheme and the pledge to reduce class sizes in primary schools, I would be tempted to describe that with an unparliamentary word. You would call me to account, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I used the word that I would like to use. I do not know whether you will allow me to say that it is deliberately misleading—that expression may also be a little tendentious and I may have to withdraw it, but that is what I feel about the estimate.
  The abolition of the assisted places scheme will save a pittance. In one respect, I am glad that it is to be phased out over seven years, but that means that the pittance that it does save will become available only very slowly. The estimate that I heard my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition use yesterday was that an extra £250 million would be required to meet the pledge on primary school sizes. That is a huge sum of money over and above the money from the abolition of the assisted places scheme.
  I was intrigued by the arithmetic of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) when he made his remarks yesterday—and Hansard has done him an even greater injustice. According to Hansard, he says that £2,250 million will go to assisted places at three
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  schools in his constituency, benefiting 95 of his constituents. If that were right, it would mean that the figure per child would be £23.7 million, so that is probably not the figure. I think that he said that £2.25 million would benefit 95 children. Unless my calculator has let me down, that means £23,700 per child. I do not believe that figure either, because I am not aware of any schools in the country that charge £23,700 per ear—£13,000 is a pretty healthy whack to pay for a private school, and schools in Worcester charge a fraction of that.
  I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman has got his figures wrong by an order of magnitude and the cost per child of the assisted places scheme in his constituency is in the order of £2,300. That fact is important because, according to figures provided by the Audit Commission, the 1995–96 figure for spending per secondary school pupil in metropolitan council areas averages £2,194—so it will save about £100 per child on average. The figures for expenditure in Manchester show that it spends above the average. It is difficult to tell from the table what the exact amount is, but it is probably about £2,300 or £2,400. Therefore, if the figures are right, the abolition of the assisted places scheme in Manchester could cost the people of Manchester money because the children who would have replaced pupils with assisted places in later years will not be able to afford to go to those independent schools; they will return to the state sector, where they will have to be paid for at that rate. Therefore, the policy could cost money, not save money, in Manchester.
  Savings around the country will be very modest—nugatory even. The average cost of the assisted places scheme, including the most expensive schools, is only £3,800 per pupil. We are therefore looking at small savings to fuel a regrettable sense of dogma on the part of the Labour party.
  That same label of dogma applies to the abolition of the nursery voucher scheme. It is a difficult subject; I fully agree that the policy has not had the effect intended, but that is no fault of the previous Government. It is the fault of county councils up and down the country that have set about amending their entrance policies to schools deliberately to ensure that they can maximise their revenue from the nursery voucher scheme at the cost of the pre-school playgroups and the private nursery schools. They have sought to shuffle off the blame on to the Government in a very skilful public relations exercise mounted by the burgeoning PR departments of Labour and Liberal Democrat-controlled county councils. It will not do.
  I understand that in Wandsworth, where there is a Conservative-controlled local education authority, pre-school playgroup provision has increased since the introduction of nursery vouchers. The authority was determined to use the scheme to produce choice and diversity. Here we see the true Labour colours: an absolute obsession with obtaining a monopoly of state provision for public services. That is what the Labour party wants and that is what it seeks to achieve.
  I fully admit that the Conservative party underestimated the passionate desire of Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians to get their hands on the monopoly of public provision. We underestimated the deviousness that they would use to squeeze the pre-school playgroups out of

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  existence, so perhaps we must bear a share of the blame for the tragedy that is unfolding in too many areas of the country.
  I visited several pre-school playgroups in Mid-Worcestershire and watched the difficulties that they face. But I blame no one but the politicians at county hall: it is they who set out on this mischievous path. I sincerely hope that the Government can be persuaded to think again about nursery vouchers. The Government should not abolish them, but should encourage Labour colleagues who run the local education authorities to use the vouchers constructively to produce the choice and diversity that parents want.
  Yesterday, we heard the Prime Minister's traditional claim that education was his priority. Why has he not been saying that to the Labour local education authorities the length and breadth of the country? It is they who bear the heavy burden of blame for failure, particularly in our inner-city areas. It is no coincidence that Islington comes at the bottom of the pile and is the worst of all the local education authorities. We know the Prime Minister's response to that problem for his own family. I do not blame him for doing what he did; he made the right decision, faced with the appalling disaster that is Islington's education. But it is the Labour party's fault that education is so bad in Islington. It is a cheek for the Labour party, having failed so many generations of children, now to say that education is its priority. I suppose that one should rejoice over a death-bed conversion—that at last the Labour party has seen the light—but it is a bit late when so many children have paid the price for the Labour party's failure.
  Another example of dogma guiding education policy in the Queen's Speech is the effective abolition of grant-maintained schools. There are weasel words about developing
  "a new role for local education authorities and parents"
  and establishing
  "a new framework for the decentralised and equitable organisation of schools".
  Those are wonderful words, but what do they actually mean? They mean taking power away from parents, governors and teachers and giving them to politicians and bureaucrats instead. In the process, funding for grant-maintained schools such as Flyford Flavell first school in my area or Prince Henry's high school will be cut. That is a scandal and I urge the Government to think again.
  I have one final point, on a more optimistic note, to make on education. The Gracious Speech mentions the review of higher education that Sir Ron Dearing has been conducting. I have high hopes for that review in relation to dance and drama students, but I understand from talking to the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), that I may be disappointed. I hope that the Government will look in detail at the Dearing review and consider the future for the funding of higher education, which is a difficult issue for any Government to grapple with. The Labour party has been more honest about the problems that they will face over this issue than it has been over other matters. If the Dearing report does not deal with the problems of dance and drama students who rely on discretionary awards from their local education
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  authorities to receive the training they deserve, I hope that the Government will set up their own review to address the problem.
  Dance and drama students have received a better deal now thanks to lobbying by myself and others. I pay particular tribute to lain Sproat, the former Minister of State at the Department of National Heritage, who did so much work to drive the policy forward. We now have a three-year interim scheme of which some local education authorities are taking advantage. Unless there is a more whole-hearted review of dance and drama training and its funding, I fear that we will lose a generation of dancers and actors; that will have huge implications for our theatrical life, our cultural life and our economy. Dancers and actors make a vital contribution to this country's economy, particularly tourism. I hope that the funding of dance and drama training will feature in the Government's programme if the Dearing report does not deal with the matter effectively.
  I have talked for longer than I intended, for which I apologise, but I feel passionately about the errors, faults and dogma of the Queen's Speech. I am deeply depressed to see the Government pressing ahead in such a mean-minded way on so many fronts. Other issues concern me that are equally dogmatic and worrying, for example the break-up of the United Kingdom, which is threatened by the constitutional measures contained within the Queen's Speech. It is interesting to note that the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has just entered the Chamber—the West Lothian question remains unanswered after all these years. On this subject, the Queen's Speech shows a dogmatic pursuit of something that will damage this country. That is what I see in the Queen's Speech, which is not what I hoped for. It is not a one-nation speech, but a dangerous speech. We Conservatives must fight it all the way.
  7.58 pm
  Mr. Tony McNulty: First, I thank the people of Harrow, East for returning me as their Member of Parliament. I start my first speech in the Chamber with a hint of sadness. I should not be here this evening; I should be in the civic centre in Harrow carrying out the happy task of proposing a fellow Labour councillor to be the first Labour mayor of Harrow for some time. That meeting has, sadly, had to be cancelled because, yesterday morning, the incumbent mayor of Harrow, Councillor Alan Hamlin, an Independent Ratepayer, was found dead. We have therefore had to cancel the annual council meeting as a mark of respect. It is, therefore, with a hint of sadness that I rise to make my maiden speech tonight.
  Councillor Hamlin was a councillor in Harrow—as I said, as an Independent Ratepayer—for close on 20 years and he had a profound interest, both professionally and politically, in education. It is therefore appropriate that that subject will be the dominant theme of my maiden speech. He will be sadly missed, both by my constituents and by his own.
  Not only because it is traditional, but because I would choose to do so anyway, I want to pay some respect to the former Member of Parliament for Harrow, East, my predecessor Mr. Hugh Dykes. He served Harrow, East and its predecessor seats for some 27 years and did so in a hard-working fashion, with the interests of his constituents uppermost in his mind. He put forth his views

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  in a forthright manner and I am bound to say that he was neither the most enthusiastic, nor perhaps the most comfortable, Government Back Bencher over the past 18 years. He probably sees much that he would commend to the House, were he here, in the current Queen's Speech. He probably finds more in it to support than he found in Queen's Speeches during his 18 years as a Government Back Bencher under the Conservatives. I reiterate that I wish him all the best in future and repeat my sincere tribute to him. It is not often that one gets a chance to pay tribute to 27 years of public service. Whether for our party or for other parties, such service is worthy of respect.
  I should also like to pay tribute to Roy Roebuck, who was Member of Parliament for Harrow, East from 1966 to 1970. I hear, although I have not spoken to Roy recently, that he was as surprised to find himself in the 1966 intake as many of the 1997 Labour intake are. A gentleman called Mr. Skinnard represented Labour in Harrow as part of the 1945 landslide, and I want to pay tribute to him as well.
  I am sure the House will understand if I stop paying tribute to my predecessors at that point. One has to go back to 1924 to find the previous Labour Member of Parliament for what was then the urban district of Harrow: that gentleman spent about six months on the Labour Benches before toddling off to found his own various parties. He ended up in the British Union of Fascists, so I shall not pay tribute to Oswald Mosley as one of my predecessors as a Labour Member of Parliament, albeit a temporary one, for the seat of Harrow.
  Harrow, East consists of many areas such as Wealdstone, Harrow Weald, Kenton and Stanmore, as well as Harrow town centre. I shall certainly be reminding the House of those areas in years to come. It contains a rich and diverse ethnic mixture and has significant Asian, Irish and Jewish communities, all of whose vibrancy and social and cultural life I shall seek to enjoy far more in the years to come than I have done until now. The people of those communities will welcome all that is in the Queen's Speech, especially the emphasis on education.
  Harrow has—and this is not a complacent remark—excellent schools. By any criteria, even value-added, Harrow has consistently emerged as one of the most effective and best performing local education authorities in the country. It has that reputation for excellent performance because of a cross-party wedding to the notion and ethos of comprehensive education. Harrow is, without doubt, the best comprehensive local education authority in the country.
  Any authority that has beaten Harrow in any measure of performance has done so with swathes of grant-maintained, independent and other types of school. Harrow has but one small Catholic high school that has opted out; all the rest have stayed within the fold. Harrow has excellent first and middle schools, excellent high schools and a vibrant Catholic sector. Next year, we welcome the first Jewish first and middle school in the area, which reflects the needs of that community. During my time in the House I shall do all I can to represent the interests of all those schools as effectively as possible.
  Sadly, the notion of comprehensive education and the cross-party nature of the support for it ended this year. It takes no skin off my nose to pay tribute to previous
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  Conservative administrations on Harrow council and to the hung council that continued until this year for their cross-party support for education. Indeed, on at least two or three occasions in recent years, councils such as Wandsworth, which are run by groups more right wing than the Conservative group in Harrow ever was, have chastised Harrow council for not pulling its finger out, getting more schools to opt out and going even further down the road of voluntary contracting out and other such policies. I happily pay tribute to Harrow Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour representatives for, until this year, sharing a cross-party vision of education.
  I say until this year because, this year, the Liberal Democrats decided that, whatever noises their party was making nationally about putting a penny on this and a penny on that to pay for education, they thought it appropriate locally to slash some £6 million off the education budget, which was already well overstretched. The consequences are unfolding at this very moment as we approach the end of the school year, with compulsory redundancies among teachers and severe difficulties for all the schools.
  As I said, the people of Harrow, East will welcome the emphasis on education in the Queen's Speech. Although our schools are effective and successful, more than 32 per cent. of our five, six and seven-year-olds are still taught in classes of significantly more than 30. Even if it is dogmatic, we should make no apologies for shifting resources from the privileged few on assisted places to the many. That is especially welcome—it is certainly long overdue.
  Measures to raise standards are also welcome. The education community wants an end to what might be described as the mindless rhetoric of the blame and shame culture that has developed in recent years, whereby children's successes are ridiculed and their failures condemned in hopelessly simplistic terms and our teachers are at best patronised and at worst—and all too often—demonised. The education community in Harrow, East and everywhere else wants to work within a robust, critical but supportive partnership with the new Government in their plan to raise and sustain standards and energise the teaching profession. The education community welcomes an end to the demonisation of the teaching profession and the recognition of its integrity and its will to work with the Government to improve both standards and effectiveness.
  Local education authorities, including Harrow, will be pleased to be afforded a new and stronger role in education. They will also welcome the clarification of their role and the review and development of specific plans and targets. It is absolutely right that the Government look to LEAs as the key agency to secure improvements in the standards and effectiveness of our schools by working with our schools—not, as Conservative Members have said, by unleashing the town or county hall bureaucrats. LEAs, working with the Government and all those involved in education, can sustain the drive for higher targets and achievement in education. LEAs can offer support, challenges and assistance to schools and the Government as all work together in a consensual partnership to secure higher standards.
  However, LEAs will also recognise that, with some enhancement of their power and responsibilities, comes public accountability. It is right that LEAs should be

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  reviewed and held to account. Some LEAs already recognise that; others are learning to do so. Work on LEA review has already been carried out in areas such as Kirklees and Staffordshire. Although those attempts are modest and require much more development, they represent steps in the right direction. The Association of Chief Education Officers is developing a framework for external review that should inform the Government's own work on that part of the second education Bill, to the benefit of all concerned.
  At the root of the Queen's Speech is the idea that all the key players should work together with a degree of vision and direction so as to increase effectiveness and improve standards. Let us have a full review of local education authorities and their development plans within a robust, fair and supportive framework. Equally, let us have some clarity about the roles that the Office for Standards in Education and the Audit Commission will play in that review process. I believe that the Audit Commission has far more experience of such review processes, a better track record and perhaps greater integrity. It should lead those processes rather than Ofsted because Ofsted's experience is wholly different.
  We should also evaluate the relationship between externally moderated reviews on a statutory basis and the continuing internal review processes which more advanced local education authorities have already carried out. As public bodies, LEAs can and, I believe, will, in the spirit of partnership, welcome such scrutiny and will, to cite a popular phrase, recognise that with the crown come the thorns—that an enhanced role brings with it enhanced responsibilities for which the LEA will be held to account. If it fails, and thus fails our children, the Government have made it clear that they will not hesitate to intervene directly. I am sure, however, that the Government will spell out clearly what is expected of LEAs and the mechanisms by which they will be held to account before any intervention by hit squads or Government teams. Responsibility is without doubt a two-way street.
  Equally, the education community in Harrow, East will welcome the developing notion of a fresh start for failing schools, but I issue a word of warning—let us assess the current situation and not isolate any school, failing or otherwise, for immediate closure and fresh start treatment. Let us first work with all those in the education community to put in place the criteria for measuring any lack of effectiveness and to establish some clarity in the definition of schools that need fresh starts, of which there are undoubtedly a number.
  The last thing that anyone working in education needs is lack of clarity, hobnail boots and precipitate action born of an absence of criteria and evidence. That was the approach taken by the Conservatives when they were in power. I know that the Government will not introduce any education measures in that way or indulge in cheap political stunts that impinge on children's education, as the previous Government did so readily. This will be a Government for education and we will remember above all that we are here to serve and build consensus among all those involved in the provision of education because we owe our children no less.
  My constituents will also look forward to developing policy on post-16 provision and to a positive response to proposals outlined by Dearing as significant numbers of young people in Harrow, East go on to further and higher
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  education. Education matters to my constituents, and pupils, teachers, head teachers and parents will be delighted that the Government have emphasised from the very start that education is a key priority. Education must matter for all our futures. For this Government, education will matter because pupils matter. The education community will welcome the shift from empty rhetoric to focused action and policies that will work and which involve the professionals who seek to do so much for our children.
  The people of Harrow, East will welcome the commitment to a referendum on a directly elected authority for London. My constituency has a significant Irish population and we shall therefore welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech to finding a real and lasting peace in Northern Ireland. I have family and friends throughout Ireland and roots in County Donegal, so I share that welcome and wish the Government well in their endeavours.
  Finally, I say thank you again to the people of Harrow, East for the privilege of being elected to the august position of their Member of Parliament. I shall represent them as best I can. I shall certainly attempt to be in the House for at least as long as my predecessor and ensure that Harrow, East enjoys all the benefits of a radical, reforming new Labour Government who care for people and put them first. We are indeed the servants, not the masters.
  Although over the past six weeks I have grown to detest the song, I really believe that from now on, things can only get better. I look forward to playing a full role in the Government's legislative programme and fully support the proposals outlined in the Queen's Speech. We shall never become as complacent or detached from people as the previous Government did, or become as bloated with arrogance and indifference as they did over the past 18 years—and, indeed, as they have shown themselves to be in defeat.
  I look forward to serving my constituents well in the next five years. One way to do that is fully to support the education proposals in the Queen's Speech—my constituents will expect no less. I must emphasise what a pleasure it will be to support from the Back Benches a Government who have ensured that politics matter again because, as the Queen's Speech shows, for this Government people matter again.
  8.14 pm
  Mr. Alan Hurst: I believe that it is the tradition to compliment an hon. Member on making his maiden speech. This is in effect a double maiden, but I nevertheless compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) on a speech which is sure to overshadow mine. I studied it with great interest to see whether I could pick up on certain points.
  I am proud to represent the county division of Braintree in Essex. At one time, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) was the sole Labour Member for the county of Essex, but we have multiplied that figure a number of times—I believe that there are now six of us.
  It is not only a matter of tradition but a personal wish that I pay tribute to my predecessor, Tony Newton, the former Leader of the House. Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that he was very highly regarded in the constituency or that the election campaign in Braintree

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  was clean and straightforward. I shall certainly convey to my constituents the fact that Tony Newton was clearly held in high regard in the House. He served the constituency for 23 years. It is some consolation to me that, when he was first elected in 1974, he had a smaller majority than I have. For various reasons, not least his own effort, he increased that majority to 17,000 at one point. I therefore look with hope to the future.
  I must also mention some other previous illustrious representatives of the Braintree division. One who will spring to the mind of older Members is Mr. Tom Driberg, who represented the division between 1942 and 1955 when it was joined with Maldon. Of course, he was first elected in a wartime by-election as an Independent. Come the 1945 election, he was given the choice—in the Maldon Labour hall, I believe—of taking the Labour ticket or not. Tom Driberg took the obvious course. He took the Labour candidature and went on to represent the constituency for a further 10 years. To this day, he is remembered in virtually every small hamlet and nook and cranny of what is a widespread division, even though it is some 42 years since he represented the constituency.
  Another name that I must mention is that of Sir Valentine Crittall, who had the honour of being the first Essex Labour Member of Parliament elected outside the London area since 1923. His name is linked with window frames; his family firm was a major industry in the constituency, especially in the model village of Silver End.
  It may come as a surprise to hon. Members that I mention a Mr. R. A. Butler, who represented two villages in my division, Earls Colne and Gosfield. Conservative Members will remember that he twice failed to become the leader of the Conservative party. I fear that he might have had just as much difficulty in doing so were he here today. However, Mr. Butler is still well regarded by Labour voters in that part of the constituency, even after such a long time.
  For hon. Members who are not familiar with real Essex—central and north Essex—I should point out that the constituency of Braintree includes not only the town of Braintree, which would be good enough in itself, but Witham and Bocking. They are mediaeval wool towns. The area is surrounded by approximately 40 villages and hamlets of various sizes—Kelvedon and Coggeshall are among the larger, while Rotten End is a mere hamlet with only a few residents.
  Industry provided the backbone of the towns of Braintree and Bocking, which were surrounded by agriculture. It is tragic to see the changes that have occurred since 30 or 40 years ago; old photographs show the market squares of those towns full of men and women coming home from work. Full employment was universally understood in those days to be a normal part of our system. In my constituency, we have lost many major employers, some of which will be familiar even to those who do not know my part of Essex well: Coulthard, Lake and Elliott, Hunt and Crittall. All these have either vanished or been reduced to shadows of their former selves. It is easy to imagine the effects on local employment, especially when one bears in mind the fact that employment on the land has also been in decline. Agriculture was still a major employer in the constituency as recently as 25 or 30 years ago.
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  This explains why my constituents are most interested in the new Government's welfare-to-work proposals. Indeed, the logical centrepiece of our whole programme is welfare to work. We have heard Conservative Members today discussing the perceived inequities of taxing the profits of the public utilities, but I can assure them that my constituents will welcome the money being channelled into employment and training—initially for young people, but I trust that in the longer term the programme will generate wider successes.
  I want to end on a local matter. I am sure that my constituents will have been encouraged to hear of the review of hospital provision in London, and to read the report that appeared in The Guardian today which stated that large, centralised hospitals are not necessarily the answer to medical need. It may already be too late; we may have already passed midnight—I make no reference here to darkness—but I would ask those responsible for health to consider Black Notley hospital. It may not be at the forefront of their minds at present, but that hospital outside Braintree has a long history and has been greatly valued in the constituency. The health authority has scheduled it for closure, and planning permission has been obtained, as so often happens I am sorry to say, to redevelop the site for gain. The priority seems to be selling houses as opposed to providing local facilities.
  I hope that, even at this late stage, some consideration may be given to maintaining medical facilities at the site, to serve not just the town of Braintree, but the surrounding villages.
  I know that my constituents will overwhelmingly commend all parts of the Government's programme. I am very proud and pleased to be their Member of Parliament at this great moment in our nation's history, and to serve and support the new Government.
  8.22 pm
  Mr. Stephen Dorrell: I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your election to your post. I look forward to being able to address the House on a number of future occasions under your auspices.
  One thing strikes me immediately as I rise to wind up this debate on education, employment and the national health service. The Prime Minister has made great virtue of the fact that new Labour Members have been sent to this place to work. Quite a few of them seem, however, to have gone home to dinner this evening. I find it surprising on the first main day of the Queen's Speech debate that there should be such difficulty keeping the debate going to fill the allotted time. Clearly, more than 200 new Labour Members this evening have preferred to eat new Labour dinners than to come here and debate education, which the Prime Minister regards as his first priority, and employment, which I would expect to be a major priority in the constituencies of all those absent 200 new Labour Members. There is also the matter of health, my former ministerial responsibility; I would have expected them to want to voice their concerns about the NHS.
  I have also been struck by how much Labour Members have concentrated on the record of the former Government. Almost every Labour speech has mentioned the shortcomings of that Government. If this were really the radical Government that the Prime Minister claims,

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  Labour Members would have risen today to enthuse about a genuinely radical programme, explaining to the House, their constituents and the country how new Labour's ideas will change the lives of their constituents.
  Yet almost all the Labour speeches we have heard today have failed to mention how the Government's ideas will change the country. Instead, they have given us a tired litany of perceived difficulties after 18 years of Conservative government.
  Despite these general criticisms, I do want to congratulate those who have made their maiden speeches on their fluency and presentational skills. Perhaps we should not be surprised by those attributes. New Labour Members have led us to come to expect fluency and presentational skills. Still, almost all of them paid gracious tributes to their predecessors.
  There cannot be many maiden speakers who can refer to two predecessors as distinguished as Tony Newton and Rab Butler, who were mentioned by the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst). Tony Newton was a sad loss to our side. When I was first elected, in 1979, his was the friendly face that met me as the representative of the Whips Office. He was my delegated Whip who tried, not always successfully, to keep me on the straight and narrow. Between 1979 and 1997, he developed a reputation second to none in this House as an effective constituency Member and as a friend of the House of Commons. He loved this place and understood its workings. Every member of the Conservative Government came to respect him as someone who could persuade us that we really did agree even though we usually came to meetings thinking that we did not. We shall be the poorer without him.
  Rab Butler was a key figure in Conservative history—one whom my party would do well to heed as it squares up to the challenges that it faces over the next few years.
  The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) probably imagined that his colleagues would be able to keep this debate going until 9 o'clock—a perfectly reasonable assumption—so I do not criticise him for being absent. He spoke graciously of Sir Marcus Fox, who was a distinguished parliamentarian and another sad loss to the Conservative Benches. I understand that the hon. Member for Shipley is the youngest or almost the youngest Member of the House. In that, he follows in my footsteps—I was the youngest Member in the 1979 Parliament, but I was 27 when elected, so I was an old man compared with the 24-year-old elected in Shipley. He developed his argument clearly and fluently and I am sure that the House will hear more from him in the years ahead.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Stuart) paid a gracious tribute to her predecessor, Dame Jill Knight. All the Conservative Members who heard it will have been grateful for that.
  I enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke). I particularly welcomed his unambiguous support for the private finance initiative and the hospital building project in Norwich. Given his background on a wing of the Labour party that would not in its time have been regarded as new Labour, the hon. Gentleman's endorsement in his maiden speech of an idea that was at the heart of so much of what the previous Government sought to do is a striking testament to the way in which the Conservative party has dominated the intellectual tide of the 1980s and 1990s.
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  The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Turner) also paid a gracious tribute to Sir Andrew Bowden, who was not only a hard-working constituency Member of Parliament, but a man who developed a wide range of friends and admirers among those interested in the affairs of pensioners. He will also be sadly missed in the House of Commons.
  The hon. Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) paid a gracious tribute to Charles Hendry. I have no doubt that Charles will soon be back in this place, resuming a career for which he was clearly well equipped. He served his constituents with distinction and I look forward to his return to this place. He is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) said, a distinguished and articulate representative of one-nation Conservatism.
  The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) paid tribute to his predecessor, Hugh Dykes. Hugh and I go back a long time. Throughout his time in the House of Commons, he remained a friend of mine, even if that was not immediately obvious from some of our public comments on his constituency concerns. I am sure that the new Secretary of State for Health will have further exchanges with his hon. Friends representing Harrow and surrounding constituencies. I look forward to watching the unfolding of that issue and the relationships between the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends.
  I congratulate you, too, Mr. Deputy Speaker—as you have just changed places with another new Deputy Speaker—on your election to an important and distinguished post in our affairs.
  I have told the new Secretary of State for Health privately and I repeat publicly that he comes to one of the best jobs in the Government. Conservative Members will watch with great care the way in which the right hon. Gentleman and his ministerial colleagues discharge their responsibilities. We are as committed as I do not doubt that he is to the principle on which the national health service was founded—that health care should be available to the people of this country on the basis of clinical need without regard to their ability to pay. That is the simple but powerful idea on which the national health service was built. The Conservative party, like the Labour party, is committed to that. We shall watch how he turns that idea into practice. Day by day, week by week, month by month, we shall be watching to see that under his stewardship the national health service delivers on the commitment for which it was established.
  I do not detract from my welcome to the right hon. Gentleman when I observe that his appointment came as a little bit of a surprise. During the general election campaign, when I was debating with the health spokesmen from the other parties, I offered the Liberal Democrat spokesman a small wager on whether the new Secretary of State for National Heritage would assume the health brief if the Labour party won the election. The Liberal Democrat spokesman replied, "No bet." I thought that that was an interesting comment on the way in which the issue of health played out in the dying days of the last Parliament.
  The new Secretary of State is the fourth Labour health spokesman whom I have faced in less than two years as the leader for the Conservatives on health issues. [Laughter.] The leader for the Conservatives on health issues.

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  The first of those spokesmen was the current President of the Board of Trade. In an unguarded remark to a newspaper reporter, she let slip that the traditional national health service was undermanaged.
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): And so it was.
  Mr. Dorrell: That is an interesting recognition from the right hon. Gentleman. On the strength of her piercing insight into the managerial skills of the traditional health service, the right hon. Lady was transferred and given responsibility for the whole of British industry and commerce. It is clearly easy to impress with one's understanding of managerial strength. She departed quite soon after I became Secretary of State for Health.
  The second spokesman whom I faced was the present Secretary of State for Social Security. It is fair to say that she suffered from no such blinding flash of inspiration when she was looking at the history of the national health service. She, after all, was a member of the health team who argued during the 1987 Parliament that the establishment of local management of trusts was "a monumental irrelevance". She said that there was no demand among Britain's general practitioners for the establishment of fundholding—words that she had to eat when it became clear that more than half of them demanded fundholding status. At a meeting that we both attended she proudly described the private finance initiative as the privatisation initiative. We had better introduce her to the hon. Member for Norwich, South, who seems to have disappeared again. I would be pleased to organise a tutorial by the hon. Gentleman, with his old Labour background, so that he can ensure that the Secretary of State for Social Security properly understands the benefits of the private finance initiative and the fact that it has nothing to do with privatisation.
  I remember the right hon. Lady, during her time as health spokesman, being responsible for what was best described as a high-octane whinge. For me, she summed up new Labour. She was dressed by the hon. Member for Stevenage (Ms Follett), coached by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), and educated at the best schools—schools that the Government want to deny to children whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees. She was a new label on an old and bitter vintage.
  The right hon. Lady moved on to apply—[Interruption.] I am waiting for the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) to rise to his feet to defend the new Secretary of State for Social Security.
  Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: I have been very patient and have not intervened yet in this Parliament. It occurs to me to ask what the devil all this claptrap has to do with the Gracious Speech. We should be talking about the Government's programme, not the dress sense and style of people who have served on the Opposition Benches and who now form an important part of the new Government.
  Mr Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman ought to arrange an appointment with the hon. Member for Stevenge. I suspect that not all my hon. Friends are aware that she
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  was responsible for the Follettisation of the Labour party. We shall no doubt hear from her about how the hon. Gentleman can improve his presentation skills.
  The present Secretary of State for Social Security moved on to apply her forensic skills to the problems that had baffled my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), the previous Secretary of State. We look forward to seeing how she finds her way through that particular jungle. She was replaced as Labour's health spokesperson by the present Secretary of State for National Heritage, the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith).
  When the right hon. Gentleman arrived, he announced to the world that he had been tasked with forming a health policy for the Labour party. I thought that that was a trifle ungallant as a way in which to refer to his predecessor. It was, however, perfectly true that his apparent commitment to draw up a health policy for his party was at least novel. I have good news for the new Secretary of State for Health. The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury did not tie his hands with anything that need constrain his options in terms of health policy.
  The present Secretary of State for National Heritage held the health brief for the Labour party for roughly nine months. It is not unfair to say that the future historian of the national health service will not devote a whole chapter to the evolution of health policy under the Secretary of State for Health's predecessor.
  It is more likely that the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury will be remembered for the judgment passed on his efforts by the Health Service Journal. It said:
  "At the last election, the Natural Law Party proposed to improve the health of the nation through yogic flying. Mr. Smith's plan to levitate standards in the NHS by cutting 'bureaucracy and red tape' shows a similar lack of concern for cause and effect wrapped up in mumbo-jumbo … Mr. Smith is too bright, and Mr. Blair too astute, surely, to believe all this."
  The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury came to health to provide a policy and his epitaph is that what he left behind was yogic flying dressed up in mumbo-jumbo. That point brings us to the new Secretary of State.
  The right hon. Gentleman is not an altogether convincing face of new Labour. I do not think that he would present himself as being the authentic voice of the changed Labour party. He comes with attitudes aplenty and prejudices aplenty—all of them on the record. As yet, his hands have not been much tied by policy.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Paul Boateng): Get on with it.
  Mr. Dorrell: I now propose to satisfy the Under-Secretary of State. He is not yet a right hon. Member, but no doubt he will be before long. I propose to move on to deal with some of the aspects of policy to which Labour's health team now have to address their minds.
  Mr. Boateng: It is about time.
  Mr. Dorrell: It is about time that they did so; that is right. They were in opposition for 18 years without a

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  health policy and now they have to develop one. It is about time, to use the words of the Under-Secretary of State. That is absolutely right.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: While the right hon. Gentleman is giving advice to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, what advice would he give on the serious problem of the Human Tissue Act 1961? With his experience as the previous Secretary of State for Health, what advice would he give on a kidney donor and organ opt-out proposal of the kind that I and others were constantly suggesting during the previous Parliament, both to him and to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam)? On reflection, might he not have had a more benign attitude towards the matter?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raises an important point, which reveals the difficulties in each proposed way forward. We sought to ensure that where there was a demand for tissue to be transplanted, there were proper safeguards, but that the tissue was available with those safeguards being observed. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pursue the subject with his Government with the same enthusiasm that he did with my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and me. Frankly, the problems in that area do not get any easier because there has been a change of Government. I would be happy to engage in a detailed discussion on the matter either with the hon. Gentleman or with the Secretary of State for Health.
  I now turn to the health issues that the Government have brought forward in the Queen's Speech. First, they have committed themselves to introducing legislation to allow the private finance initiative to go ahead and to clarify the legal position of trusts entering PFI contracts. I welcome the fact that they are introducing that legislation. I think that the Secretary of State will confirm that there was a Bill in his top left-hand drawer, as it were, when he took office on 2 or 3 May. If the new Bill is essentially the Bill that was agreed before the election, I welcome the fact that he is proceeding apace with that measure.
  I ask the Secretary of State when he addresses the House to clarify what exactly his policy is on the use of private finance projects to deliver clinical support services where there is consent and agreement among the local clinicians about the use of the private sector. There was an article in the Financial Times on 14 May which reported:
  "Radiology and pathology may continue to be open to private finance deals in the National Health Service."
  It said, however, that when a Minister was asked whether that was true or false, he said,
  "'We will have to wait and see … It remained a grey area.
  I think that that is true; it is a grey area.
  It is important that the Government maintain a degree of flexibility on the issue, but that was not the line taken by the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury in the election campaign; nor was it the line taken by the present Prime Minister during the election campaign. Both of them criticised the PFI project at the Sheffield Royal Hallamshire hospital precisely on the ground that it recognised that there was a grey area around some of the clinical support services. It would be nice to hear from the Secretary of State that some of the rhetoric in the election campaign on that issue was wrong. If he
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  will not recognise that, will he disown his unnamed Minister who was talking to Nick Timmins in yesterday's Financial Times?
  While we are talking about the capital programme, I hope that the Secretary of State can clarify another point which relates to the position of London hospitals. Labour has clearly committed itself to a moratorium on the process of change in London's hospitals. I think that that is a step backwards because it will inhibit the process of change and the process of commissioning new facilities within London's health service. More important from the point of view of the House is that we need to know from the Government what kind of review it will be.
  When the previous Government set up a review of London's hospitals, it was headed by Sir Bernard Tomlinson. It was a total review of all the options which looked at bed availability, each specialty in London in detail and the implications of the proposed changes for the research programme of the national health service. It made it clear that it wanted to listen to the views not just of the big battalions within the health service, but of the health authorities and of the general practitioners. It wanted to apply a proper priority to the development of primary care within the health service and it took three years to deliver its conclusions.
  I do not ask the Secretary of State immediately to recognise that all the conclusions of that process were right, but I do ask him to recognise that a review process that took three years to produce its conclusions is unlikely to be supplanted convincingly by a review headed by a Minister of State which has been given seven months to produce the answer. Especially it will not be convincing when the Secretary of State has already ruled out one possible conclusion of the review. He was reported in the Evening Standard as saying:
  "This Government will not end up endorsing the previous Government's policy".
  I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman to endorse the previous Government's policy, but I do ask him not to set up a review and then to rule out potential conclusions before the review has even started.
  Mr. Dobson: Surely there would be no point in having a review if we were satisfied with the lunatic situation in which the previous Government placed the London health service.
  Mr. Dorrell: Surely a review looks at the evidence and comes out with a conclusion based on that evidence. How can the Secretary of State expect us to have confidence in a review when he has already ruled out one of the potential conclusions? That is the question that he must answer. He has in fact obstructed the process of change in London's hospitals and he has set up a half-cocked review which will not carry conviction because it will not have the time to look at the evidence that is necessary to assess the issue in detail.
  Let us go on to the other questions about the Government's health policy that remain unanswered. Do the Government propose a major management upheaval in the national health service? That should not be a difficult question to answer. Does the hon. Member for Thurrock want a major health service management upheaval?

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  [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is the only Labour Member who has been willing to express an opinion, so I am encouraging him to do so again.
  Mr. Mackinlay: I support my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Dorrell: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his capacity to get the line right. He did not even need to look at his teleprompter to work that out. He conducted a review in five minutes and now he supports the right hon. Gentleman.
  For months, the Labour party has spoken with forked tongue on the issue. It says in one breath that it supports the purchaser-provider system and in the next it promises to end the internal market. Last Friday, the right hon. Gentleman went to Leeds to speak to staff at the NHS headquarters there. I applaud him for that. He promised them no major upheaval in the health service. How is that consistent with the abolition of the internal market—a commitment in the Labour manifesto and in the Queen's Speech?
  Either we shall have a fundamental change in the running of the health service, in which case the right hon. Gentleman cannot go to Leeds and say that there will be no upheaval, or we shall not. If there is to be no change, we shall continue with the internal market and the purchaser-provider system—the two phrases have exactly the same meaning—that was established by the previous Government in the 1991 legislation.
  The Secretary of State is unfortunate in that his three predecessors sat firmly on the fence. Within the next few weeks, he will have to come off the fence because he is committed to producing a White Paper. He will have to tell the national health service, the House and the British people what the Labour Government mean. Do they mean fundamental change or do they propose making a few cosmetic changes and changing a few brass plaques, but basically accepting the system that they have inherited?
  An absolutely crucial part of the question whether the Government are going for reform is what they plan to do for GP fundholders. Will they or will they not allow individual primary care practices to continue to operate national health service budgets? Will they continue to allow the system of practice-based budgets to operate? As the Secretary of State will know, I never made it a compulsory system but it was an option available to GPs who felt that it was in the interests of their national health service patients. Will the right hon. Gentleman continue to leave that option available? That is another question that he will not be able to fudge.
  Either the doctors will be able to decide what is best for their patients or they will become mere consultees and the right to decide will be shifted from the doctors to the bureaucrats. The right hon. Gentleman will have to decide whether he wants the doctors to decide or whether he wants another tier of bureaucracy in the health service; commissioning, as his predecessor called it. He will have to decide whether he wants to transfer the power from the doctors to the commissioning bureaucrats.
  The Labour party loves bashing bureaucrats in the health service but the Labour Government will not be able to continue simply bashing bureaucrats. They will have to develop a policy. The acid test will be whether they prefer doctors or bureaucrats to decide.
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  That is one of the much wider questions raised by a number of measures in the Queen's Speech. In the national health service the threat is clear. It is that power will be taken from doctors and given to a new tier of bureaucracy. Incidentally, plenty of people within the Labour party will advise the Secretary of State against that course of action. I quote the most recent article by a Labour supporter endorsing fundholding as a key part of a flexible, patient-led health service. Mr. Dick Sorajbi, who until recently was an adviser to the Home Secretary, wrote:
  "Fundholding has created an explosion of initiatives in health care … This should have been a Labour policy. It puts primary care before secondary care. It is more publicly accountable because citizens can put more pressure on their GP than on a health authority quango."
  That was written by a new Labour adviser. I want to hear whether the right hon. Gentleman accepts that advice from his own party or whether he prefers to put his faith in bureaucrats within the health service. If he prefers to put his faith in bureaucrats, he will be applying the same policy in the health service as the Secretary of State for Education and Employment is applying in the education service. It is a consistent theme there, too. There will be less power for schools, governors, and heads. All the power will be concentrated in the local education authority, which will decide not merely the distribution of schools, but the type of schools, and the distribution of pupils. Management vested in the local education authority is the policy which the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has made it clear that he will pursue.
  That is a key difference between the approach of the new Government and that of the Conservative Opposition. The Government continue to believe that the way to deliver good public services is to empower well-meaning bureaucrats. We have 50 years of experience to demonstrate that that model does not work, but despite all the evidence, they continue to believe that that is how to deliver a well-run public service.
  Our approach in government was different and our approach in opposition will continue to be different. We shall continue to argue that the way to make public services responsible and accountable to the people they serve is to give parents and patients real choice and to give those responsible for managing the services the opportunity and the responsibility to develop those services and to respond to the choice of the people who use them.
  Our policy in education, in health and across the whole public sector was to break up impermeable bureaucracies because they are unresponsive and do not deliver high-quality services to the people who rely on them. We shall fight any plans that the Government introduce to recreate bureaucracies that block progress in the public services.
  That is not the only theme that runs through the Queen's Speech. In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden identified another key theme and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) made much of it in his remarks. The Queen's Speech is full of unexceptional sentiments and fraudulent arithmetic. In the national health service, the Government say that they will deliver shorter waiting lists, but that it will not cost any money. In schools, they promise to deliver smaller classes and say that the money

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  will come from abolishing the assisted places scheme. The fact that no money will come from the assisted places scheme for several years and that all the independent analysis of their proposals says that their arithmetic does not add up continues simply to be brushed aside.
  Sooner or later, the Secretary of State for Health and his right hon. Friends will have to get their calculators out. They will have to work out how much the various commitments that they are making will cost. We are told that the commitment on education will cost £250 million. The growth in resources that the right hon. Gentleman needs simply to meet his commitments to increase costs in the health service—never mind treat more patients—will add several hundred million pounds to his budget.
  Is the Secretary of State still committed to the abolition of compulsory competitive tendering in the NHS? We never got a straight answer to that. Has he calculated—or asked one of his junior Ministers to calculate—how much the minimum wage will cost the NHS? The Labour manifesto commits the Government to the abolition of the efficiency index in the NHS. In the arithmetic of the last public expenditure survey round, that saved us £527 million. Is the right hon. Gentleman going to throw that to the winds? Where is the money going to come from to deliver all the specific and individual spending commitments?
  Worst of all, of course, is Labour's commitment on the assisted places scheme, which is not only bad arithmetic but had social policy. I simply do not understand how a party that seeks to steal the one-nation epithet can move on to seek to close the doors of schools to children of parents who cannot afford to pay the fees. In my former constituency of Loughborough there is a grammar school that was founded during the reign of King Henry VII. Instead of laughing, the Secretary of State should explain to the present generation of Loughburians why, if they cannot afford the fees, he thinks that it is good social policy to deny them the opportunity that has been given to every generation of Loughburians for the past 500 years. Why does he take pride in introducing that new division in our society? Let him explain that.
  Mr. Dobson: If the right hon. Gentleman is so confident that the people of Loughborough object to our policy, why did he go on the chicken run to get away from the constituency? He clearly made the right judgment because Loughborough is now represented by a Labour Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Dorrell: The right hon. Gentleman has no answer to the question.
  The Queen's Speech reflects the Labour party's election campaign. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) made clear, the election campaign was made simply of soundbites. It left all the difficult questions unanswered. Labour held out the promise of smaller classes, shorter waiting lists, lower youth unemployment and welfare to work—all soundbites that we have heard until we have become bored of hearing them. The arithmetic to support those commitments was sketched at best on the back of a matchbox.
  Even worse, Labour made other commitments in the Queen's Speech, such as extra local authority spending, and extra spending on social security because it does not have the guts to reform the social security system in the way in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden planned.
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  The truth is that the Government continue to float glibly over all the real issues that confront them. They have deliberately stoked up expectations that cannot be met. The task of an Opposition is to call them to account as people get angry and become disillusioned when those expectations are not satisfied. The Government come to office uniquely well packaged and uniquely badly prepared. As the gentle mist of early morning gives way to the relentless heat of the midday sun, the carefully worked soundbites will be seen to be thin gruel indeed. To those on the Government Benches I say this: enjoy the cheers while they last because they will turn soon enough to tears. For new Labour it will indeed be never again glad confident morn.
  9.2 pm
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment—or election, I am not quite sure which—as Chairman of Ways and Means. I think that we voted unanimously for you, so if anyone objects to your rulings you should remind them that we did so.
  Many maiden speeches of all shapes and sizes have been made today. It would be worth while if Opposition Members—even those on the Front Bench who assert what they are going to do and tell the House what is going to happen as though they had a majority—would bear in mind the constituencies represented by Labour Members who have made their maiden speeches: such as those of Shipley, of Brighton, Kemptown, of High Peak and of Braintree. Before Opposition Members read us lectures, they might contemplate why maiden speeches have been made by Labour Members who represent such places.
  I shall now refer to some of those speeches. Those people who made maiden speeches displayed awesome confidence and competence. I hope that my new hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) will not follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and become chairman of the Tory 1922 Committee. Whenever there was a crisis in the House, Marcus Fox ran round like the Tory party answer to Jonesy in "Dad's Army" shouting, "Don't panic," although he always appeared to be leading the panic. My hon. Friend is fortunate to become the hon. Member for Shipley, which includes Saltaire, a distinguished place that is good to look at. When people compliment him on his youth, he should remember that at 24 he is still a year older than Pitt was when he became Prime Minister.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Stuart) rightly pointed out that her seat has been represented for 43 years by women, including the redoubtable Jill Knight. My hon. Friend brings to the House a wide knowledge of pensioners' problems and of pension law. I am sure that we shall draw on that knowledge, especially those of us who do not pretend to be on top of the subject of pensions and benefits.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Turner) mentioned the need—in Brighton—for low-cost housing and the promotion of equal opportunities in health. I hope that he will be happy with the Queen's Speech and with what I have to say tonight.
  The next maiden speech was from my hon. and good Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), who succeeded one of my closest friends in the House, John Garrett, who sadly had to retire because of the

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  temporary—I hope—state of his health. My hon. Friend welcomed the private finance initiative partnership and I shall return to that subject. As with so many issues in today's society, the Tories claim credit for an initiative that they originally opposed. Public-private partnerships fall into that category, as I will explain later.
  My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) rightly claimed credit for his work in supporting the restoration of trade union rights at GCHQ. Today's statement and policy change are a credit to the new Government and will restore civil liberties that were roughly and unpleasantly set aside by the present Government—[Interruption.] I mean the previous Government; I will get it right eventually. I confess to the House that when I arrived in the former Secretary of State's office on the Saturday after the election and was given a pile of briefings by the civil servants, I was puzzled by the apparent common sense of what the briefings called "Government policy". It was only after I had read the third one that I realised that "the Government" meant us.
  The next maiden speech was from my new hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). When most people think of Harrow, they think of education or at least of one particular educational institution—Harrow school. My hon. Friend pointed out that whatever the state of that publicly subsidised institution, the state of the schools in the rest of Harrow leaves much to be desired. Something needs to be done.
  My extremely confident new hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) rightly paid tribute to several of his predecessors. I join with others in saying that he was right to pay tribute to his immediate predecessor, Tony Newton, who is a decent man. I have never known whether the following story about Tony is true, but he is such a decent man that it may be. When he discovered that his official driver did not like driving on the motorway, the arrangement was that at the motorway slip road Tony got in the driver's seat and the driver got in the back. Whether it is true or not, the story is entirely in character with that very decent man.
  My hon. Friend referred to a health institution at Black Notley. If anything comes in about it, I shall refer it to one of my hon. Friends to deal with. I happen to know, however, that Black Notley is rather a nice place, so perhaps I could go there.
  There were two other maiden speeches tonight, in a sense. I am making one of them—my first speech from the Government side of the House and from the Government Front Bench. The former Secretary of State made his maiden speech from the Opposition Front Bench. So far as I can make out, he had a reasonable reputation in the Department. I do not think that I am giving away any secrets. At the worst, he was regarded, if I may sloganise, as better than Bottomley, but of course that is not the highest praise in the history of the world.
  I shall not indulge in many reference to points made by the would-be Leader of the Opposition this evening, but in relation to the health service his claim that the Tories were the breakers-up of bureaucracy took the biscuit. We had expected some recantation from those on the Opposition Benches, but they are apparently into denial. That breaker of bureaucracy presided over a health service
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  which ended up with 20,000 extra bureaucrats and 50,000 fewer nurses. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] If that statement is rubbish, it is based on figures supplied by the Department of Health when it was in the control of Tory Ministers. I accept no responsibility for their accuracy or otherwise. [Interruption.] The figures were supplied by the right hon. Gentleman's Department to my predecessors who at the time were leading for Labour on health. If he objects to the use of them, he should have corrected them at the time.
  Labour Members, old and new, will understand my feelings when I say how honoured I am to have been invited by the Prime Minister to become the Labour Secretary of State for Health and so to have ministerial responsibility for the national health service, which was founded by our party in the teeth of opposition from the Conservatives and which has served the British people so well for almost 50 years.
  The NHS was founded on the principle that the best health services should be available to all. That basic principle of fairness explains why the NHS and the dedicated people who work in it are so dear to the hearts of all decent and right-thinking people in our country. The basic fairness of the health service goes with the grain. It matches the basic fairness of our people. They cherish a health system based on the commitment to provide people with top-quality treatment because they need it—not because they are rich or influential, not because they happen to live in a particular place or go to a particular doctor, but because they need it. The best health services should be available to all. Quality and equality have been the slogans of democratic socialists since democratic socialism commenced.
  Those treasured principles of fairness, quality and equality have been breached under the outgoing Government. The changes that they made have created a two-tier system which is unfair to patients and repugnant to doctors who have to impose the unfairness, and is costing a fortune in bureaucracy, invoices and red tape. We will get rid of it. We will get rid of the internal market. That is what we promised the British people at the general election, and we have already made a start at keeping that promise.
  On the Saturday on which the Cabinet was appointed, I set in train arrangements to tackle two-tierism and to make sure that non-fundholder patients do not suffer the disadvantages that they have been suffering up to now. The arrangements will streamline the system, tackle the paperchase and cut the flow of invoices. They will reduce management costs and release money instead for treating patients. As we promised in our manifesto, we shall divert the millions saved on bureaucracy to the treatment of patients and, in particular, to cut waiting times for cancer treatment. That is certainly needed, because at the moment 78,000 people admitted for cancer treatment have waited more than a month for that treatment, and nearly 2,500 have waited more than three months.
  We intend to change the fundholding system, with all its associated unfairness and bureaucracy. We shall replace it with local commissioning, in which general practitioners and other primary care professionals can work together to help plan local services and arrange for local hospitals to meet local needs. Most people working in the NHS share our criticisms of the existing system and our wish to change it for the better. But we must all recognise that after 18 years of Tory government—

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  18 years of almost constant upheaval and 18 years of change for the sake of change—most people in the NHS do not want another round of ill-thought-out, untried and untested reorganisation. They want something better than that, they deserve something better than that, and they will get it from this Government.
  All over the country, forward-looking people in the NHS are trying to develop new and better models than fundholding—modern arrangements, designed to provide top-quality treatment to meet local needs in the real world. Those models are based not on the half-baked theories of overpaid management consultants, but on the principle of fairness and on a commitment to top-quality services. They draw on the day-to-day experience of the real needs of real patients.
  Mr. Dorrell: The Secretary of State has described the development of a wide range of different forms of purchasing in the health service, much of it led by primary care producers. That is fine. But my simple question is whether he will continue to allow those who wish to run budgets at a practice level the option of doing so. Will that option remain available?
  Mr. Dobson: All will become clear as my speech proceeds. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I will answer the question if Opposition Members wait a moment. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) made his speech, and I will make mine—that is the arrangement in this House.
  While we are reducing the excessive costs of the current system, we shall encourage more pilot schemes for local commissioning, building on what is already happening. We shall allow pilot schemes to show what they can and cannot do and we shall then assess which schemes work best. Then, and only then, will we move to change the structure of the NHS to start introducing new arrangements across the country. That will guarantee that our proposals for change will have been literally tried and tested before they are applied generally. They will embody the principles of fairness and equality and will not, as the Tories did, take chances with the lives and health of patients. Nor will they ignore the views, experience and professional knowledge of the dedicated staff of the NHS.
  Mr. Dorrell: I am simply seeking a yes or no answer to this question: will the option of managing a budget at practice level remain? The Secretary of State has said that other options will be developed, and no one could object to that. I simply want to know whether the option of practice-based budgets will remain—yes or no?
  Mr. Dobson: It seems likely—but not certain—that in the light of our experience in assessing the pilot schemes the fundholding basis will disappear because I hope that most doctors—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Charnwood was in charge of the NHS for two or three years. We have inherited a poisoned chalice in which 37 out of 100 health authorities were in deficit at the end of last year and 111 out of 425 trusts were in debt at the end of the year. Waiting lists are going up; waiting times are going up.
  Mr. Dorrell rose—
  Mr. Dobson: No, I will not give way. Waiting times are going up. Doctors tell me that there is a shortage of
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  doctors, and nurses tell me that there is a shortage of nurses. The right hon. Gentleman thinks that it is fine for him to ask questions about what may be happening in 18 months or two years. What I am saying to him, if he will just listen, is that I would expect that fundholding would disappear, but the test must be what works. We shall see whether the pilot schemes work. In the end, we shall have to decide what works and take responsibility for it, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the people whom I have been meeting over the past few days—most of whom he has met—appear to be satisfied with our approach to the future of the health service, because most of them are sick to death of the health service as it is currently being operated.
  Mr. Dorrell: The right hon. Gentleman said that he thought that fundholding would disappear. I then asked him who would decide, and he said that he would decide. Does that mean that, if a doctor believes that it is in the interests of his national health service patients for his practice to continue to run its budget, the right hon. Gentleman will decide that that option is to be removed?
  Mr. Dobson: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am not one of those who try to get out of responsibility, and I do not expect to. I am saying that, ultimately, responsibility for all this will lie with the Secretary of State. The final decisions will have to be made, and I am saying that I expect that in the end that option will disappear. I repeat, however, that we are genuine when we say that we want pilot schemes, and we want to see how those schemes work. We want them to be allowed to run long enough for us to make an evidence-based assessment of how they work; then, in consultation with all concerned, we shall have to make the final decisions. That, as I understand it, is what being in government involves.
  I know that many decisions that should have been made by the former Secretary of State over the past year have been left to us to try to sort out. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned some of them earlier. In the meantime, we shall get on with building more hospitals. The last Government, led in this area by the former Secretary of State, talked a lot about putting private finance into hospital building: they talked a lot, but they did not do a lot. Tonight, the right hon. Gentleman claimed credit for the idea of public-private partnerships.
  My memory goes back sufficiently far for me to remember when those speaking from this Dispatch Box treated with total contempt the proposals for public-private partnerships that my right hon. Friend the present Deputy Prime Minister advanced in relation to transport. After four or five years in which the transport industries were deprived of capital, the Government finally got around to seeing some merit in, at least, the theory of public-private partnerships, but their record in promoting such partnerships is pathetic. They have obstructed more than they have achieved. Compared with the excellent record of many Labour local authorities in promoting public-private partnerships, the Government's record is a disgrace—[Interruption.] I mean the previous Government's record.
  We shall introduce a short Bill to clear up any doubts about the powers of NHS trusts to enter into private finance initiative arrangements to help provide much-needed hospitals. That keeps a promise that we

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  made in the general election campaign. We also promised not to extend private finance to include clinical services, and we shall keep that promise.
  The Queen's Speech fulfils another promise: we shall change the law to prohibit tobacco advertising. Smoking is the largest single preventible killer of people in this country: at least one in every five deaths is caused by smoking. The Tories did nothing about it because they are in the pockets of the tobacco barons, but we are not. We shall publish a White Paper spelling out a concerted programme to reduce tobacco consumption using every possible lever available to the Government: changes in the law, taxation, education and publicity.
  At the same time, we shall publish a draft Bill to ban tobacco advertising. It will cover all forms of tobacco advertising, including sponsorship. We recognise that some sports are heavily dependent on tobacco sponsorship and, as we do not want to harm those sports, we shall give them time and help to reduce their dependency on tobacco and to replace it with sponsorship from more benign sources. We do not want to harm those sports, but they must recognise that by helping to promote tobacco sales they are harming the health of many of their spectators and viewers.
  I hope that during the discussions on the White Paper and on the draft Bill we shall be spared the fatuous claims by the tobacco industry that its advertising is not designed to promote sales. The fact is that the tobacco industry, uniquely among industries, kills about 120,000 of its own customers every year, so it has to recruit another 120,000 new smokers every year to its ranks to make up for that year's casualties. Of course tobacco advertising is intended to promote sales.
  The programme to reduce smoking, and therefore to reduce smoking-related disease and death, is part of our fundamental commitment to improving the nation's health. We have already carried out our manifesto commitment to appoint a Minister with responsibility for public health, but our commitment does not end there. As we all know, some illness is unavoidable: it can strike suddenly out of a blue sky. Some illness is caused by people's life styles—smoking or drinking too much or, as in my case, eating too much—while some is caused by the harmful conditions in which many people are forced to live and work.
  As a society, we must try to help the victims of unavoidable illness. That is what the health service does. We should offer advice, help and inducements to people to choose a healthy life style. We must also act together to combat the innumerable causes of ill health and injury that spring from the conditions in which people are forced to live and work.
  Under Labour, every Government Department will be charged with the task of contributing its share to improving the nation's health. We are committed to a root-and-branch attack on the factors that systematically make our people ill. That includes factors which harm us all, such as air pollution or problems with food—we shall reduce air pollution and introduce a food standards agency—as well as factors which bear down most heavily on the worst-off: homelessness, unemployment, low wages, poverty, crime and disorder.
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  All those things are awful in themselves, but that is not all: they are the main sources of gross inequalities in health. Poor people, homeless people, jobless people and badly paid people are ill more often and die sooner. That is the greatest inequality of them all: there is no greater inequality than the difference between being alive and being dead. We intend to tackle those inequalities.
  Other measures announced in the Queen's Speech will contribute to tackling those inequalities. Homelessness and bad housing produce intolerable conditions. Labour's housing policy is based on the belief that every family should have somewhere decent and affordable to live. A decent, secure home is vital to family life: without it, a family's health suffers, grown-ups find it hard to hold down a job and children find it hard to do well at school. How can they do homework if they have no home to do it in?
  Without a proper home, family relationships are soured and family breakdown becomes more likely. Without a proper home, life is vile. Many of our fellow citizens do not have decent homes. Several thousand families spent last night living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, which does not provide a proper home. Bed-and-breakfast accommodation is vile.
  A medical report on the problems of living in such accommodation states:
  "Even if hotel accommodation is in good order it is rarely appropriate to the needs of young children."
  This is an official report, and therefore has a mastery of understatement. It continues:
  "It is difficult to maintain hygiene while washing, eating and sleeping in one overcrowded room. High levels of gastro-enteritis, skin disorders and chest infections have been reported. Kitchen facilities are often absent or inadequate. So people are forced to rely on food from cafes and take-aways which is expensive and may be nutritionally unsatisfactory. The stress of hotel life undermines parents' relationships with each other and their children. Normal child development is impaired through lack of space for safe play and exploration. High rates of accidents to children have been reported, probably due to a combination of lack of space and hazards such as kettles at floor level"
  in the room where the family are trying to live.
  A further report emphasises the problem, stating:
  "Risk to health in bed and breakfast is well above that of the domiciled population. These risks stem from shared, or lack of, amenities, overcrowding and unsafe properties. Infection, accidents, malnutrition, sleep disturbances, low birth weight babies, eating problems, behavioural problems, depression and even death can result".
  Those circumstances apply tonight to several thousand of our fellow citizens in towns and cities up and down the country. That is a disgrace and we intend to bring it to an end. That is why our manifesto contained the common sense promise to allow councils to invest the takings from the sale of council houses to provide new and improved homes for people with nowhere decent to live.
  Mr. Fabricant: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Dobson: I will if it is necessary.
  Mr. Fabricant: It is always necessary. What will the right hon. Gentleman do about councils, including Labour councils, that posses empty council houses?
  Mr. Dobson: Get them to fill them. That idea works reasonably well.

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  Let us take London as an example. I think that there are 26,000 officially homeless families in London. Last year, under the previous benighted Government, not one council house was built. That had nothing to do with local government; it was because the Government prevented councils from doing it. I am convinced that when we keep our promise it will be good for the families concerned and will improve their health.
  I shall give one example. When improvements were made to the Holly street housing estate in Hackney, there was a 33 per cent. fall in demand for both general practitioner and hospital services. It is good for the people and it pays off.
  Mr. Dorrell: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that Hackney has no capital receipts? His example does not relate to capital receipts at all. Hackney does not have the resources to do what he is talking about.
  Mr. Dobson: My point about Hackney was that it was an example of where improvements to housing had led to an immediate direct fall in the demands that people placed on local health services because their health had improved. The building of new and improved homes all over the country will be of immense benefit. We will make sure that it happens all over the country.
  Mr. Dorrell: The right hon. Gentleman has just made an important commitment. Is he committing the Government to machinery for translating capital receipts from one part of the country to another? If so, what arrangements will be made to compensate authorities that lose their capital receipts? How will the machinery work? The right hon. Gentleman has just made an important announcement. He is Secretary of State now; he cannot stand at the Dispatch Box and commit the Government to machinery when he does not have the vaguest notion of how it will work, especially as it is not in the Department of Health's sphere of responsibility.
  Mr. Dobson: I repeat exactly what I said when I was shadow Secretary of State for the Environment: except in the fantasies of the Tory party, we have never had any proposals to transfer capital receipts from one part of the country to another. [HON. MEMBERS: "You just said it."] I did not say that at all. As the right hon. Member for Charnwood knows, I said that there will be a house-building programme; it will apply in all parts of the country, and in those parts of the country where capital receipts are available it will be financed from the capital receipts. Is that plain, straightforward and simple, or do I need to explain it again? I will explain it again if the right hon. Gentleman wishes.
  Our proposal to get 250,000 young people off the dole queues and into work will improve their health. They certainly need it. That Secretary of State is responsible for all sorts of—[HON. MEMBERS: "You are the Secretary of State."] I got the tense wrong. That ex-Secretary of State was responsible for producing all sorts of statistics. He should have looked at the mortality of young men. Although mortality in general has declined this century, the mortality of young men has risen over the past few years. If people are asked why, they associate it, at least partly, with joblessness and the lack of hope that goes with it, as well as with the problems that follow.
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  That is why it is absolutely right to take money from the privatised utilities and transfer it, to get 250,000 young people back to work. Tory Members bleat on about how difficult it will be for the privatised utilities. Let me remind them of one lot of figures relating to the water industry. Since it was privatised, the water industry has made profits of £10.5 billion. It has distributed dividends of £3.5 billion and, during that time, under the arrangements made by the benighted Government who have just rightly gone out of office, the industry paid not a single penny in mainstream corporation tax. The Government who privatised the water industry gave it huge sums and took no tax from it. The industry is in for a surprise. Actually, it is not in for a surprise because it has known about our windfall tax for the past four years, but it is certainly in for some taxation.
  Many people who are in work are so badly paid that they cannot afford decent shelter, clothes, food or heating, so they are more likely to fall ill. Measures in the Queen's Speech and the forthcoming Budget will help them. We shall introduce a national minimum wage to lift working people out of poverty so that they can afford better clothes, food and heating. We shall also reduce the cost of heating by reducing VAT on fuel. The national minimum wage will help to reduce the £4 billion which taxpayers must contribute towards benefits that make up, at least in part, for the low wages paid by the worst employers. Above all, it will mean that many of the worst-off will be ill less often and will die later in life than they would otherwise have done. I should have hoped that the right hon. Member for Charnwood would wish that to happen.
  Mr. Dorrell: The right hon. Gentleman will be preparing his spending bids for the public expenditure survey. I presume that he will include an estimate for the cost to the national health service of the Government's minimum wage commitment. What will that estimate be? How much does the right hon. Gentleman intend to write into the health service budgets for 1998–99 to cover the cost of the minimum wage?
  Mr. Dobson: I must say that I regard that as an abject plea of guilty. The Secretary of State is saying—[Interruption.] The former Secretary of State is saying that after 18 years of presiding over the health service he is proudly proclaiming that a lot of people working in it are on poverty wages. He is the one who has the explaining to do, not me. All the changes—[HON. MEMBERS: "How much will it cost?"] How many people are on poverty pay in the NHS? I am happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman to hear the answer.
  Mr. Dorrell: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He is the Secretary of State and he has just made a commitment to introduce a minimum wage. Presumably he intends to do that during the course of 1998–99. That will have a cost to taxpayers and I believe that taxpayers are entitled to know how much the right hon. Gentleman's policy will cost them.
  Mr. Dobson: Until the Secretary of State tells me how many people are on—[Interruption.] I will get it right eventually; I understand that the Paymaster General can distinguish between us, and that is quite important to me.
  Mr. Fabricant rose—
  Mr. Dobson: No, I will not give way. I do not think that wigs are available on the NHS yet.

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  All those changes will apply wherever poor housing, high unemployment and low wages occur. As we all know, some parts of our towns and cities—and for that matter some rural areas, which are now represented by Labour Members for the first time in a long while—contain dense concentrations of poor housing, low wages and high unemployment. As a result, those areas have generally poor standards of health. We intend to take concerted action to improve those areas. That will involve partnerships between central and local government, business and voluntary organisations designed, first, to stop the rot and then to start to put things right. The NHS will be at the heart of those efforts to treat ill health and promote good health.
  Our election manifesto also committed us to make sure that the appointed boards that control health authorities and trusts should become more representative of the communities that they serve. I can tell the House that arrangements have already been made to ensure that that change applies to all future appointments, including the round of posts up for renewal from 1 November.
  The new Labour Government intend to tackle the root causes of ill health and inequalities in health. We intend to restore and improve the national health service so that it can provide the best health services to all who need them. We shall therefore do away with the internal market that has proved unfair and wasteful. We shall use pilot schemes to develop alternative means of organising local services which draw on the local knowledge, skills and experience of the staff involved.
  Under Labour the NHS will be a public service which belongs to the people of this country and which commands their support. We want to ensure that the NHS deserves the loyalty and commitment of those who provide the services: the people on whom we all depend—the people whom the Labour Government will allow to get on with their jobs.
  I should like to finish on a personal note. I hope that I shall never find myself at this Dispatch Box claiming personal credit for any improvements or good performance in the NHS. To the best of my knowledge, no Minister of the Crown has ever treated the sick, comforted the dying or tried to comfort grieving relatives: all of that is done on our behalf and on behalf of the people of this country by almost a million dedicated, hard-working people. Whatever arguments we may have across the Floor of the House, I hope that we can agree that we owe it to them to ensure that they can do the jobs which they have set their lives to do and on which we all depend.
  Debate adjourned.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  Hospital Care (Swindon)
  >Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]]
  9.44 pm
  Mr. Michael Wills: I am grateful to Madam Speaker for allowing me the opportunity to introduce this Adjournment debate. I am particularly grateful that I have been able to combine it with making my maiden speech. I understand that most Members of Parliament do not adopt this method of introducing themselves to the House, but the subject is one of deep and immediate concern to my constituents, and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to raise it without delay.
  My constituents, like so many others, have suffered from the operation of a two-tier system in the health service. They will have been delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's plans to replace that system with a fairer and better one. There is a particular crisis with hospital care in the Swindon area and an urgent need for Government action to solve it. It is because of the importance of the issue to the people of Swindon that, with permission, I should like to give up half the time allocated to me in this debate to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown), whose constituents share my constituents' concern and who has worked so tirelessly on their behalf.
  Two weeks ago the voters of North Swindon granted me the privilege of representing them in the House. The new constituency takes in under one parliamentary roof many different communities. It takes in most of the northern area of the town of Swindon itself; it encompasses the historic market towns of Highworth and Cricklade; and it embraces the Wiltshire villages of Castle Eaton, Marston Meysey, Stanton Fitzwarren, Latton, Hannington and Blunsdon.
  In the previous Parliament, the area covered by the constituency was represented by three Members of Parliament, two of whom are no longer in the House. I should like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their work over the years on behalf of the people of North Swindon. Those people know well the extent of the debt that they owe to Simon Coombs, Richard Needham and the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram).
  The Swindon area is known nationally as one of the economic successes of the past two decades, but there has been nothing inevitable about that. It was built on its great railway works; when they declined and were eventually shut down in the 1980s, Swindon could have become a ghost town, but it did not. It reinvented itself. The talents, adaptability and hard work of its people, supported by an active partnership between business and the local Labour authority, have made Swindon one of the fastest growing economies in the country.
  Today, Swindon business represents a cross-section of excellence in our economy. My constituents work in state-of-the-art manufacturing companies such as Rover, Honda and GEC-Plessey. They work in companies at the cutting edge of technology such as Motorola and Intel; they work in prominent financial services firms such as Allied Dunbar and the Nationwide building society; they work in distribution services for high street names such as Woolworths and W. H. Smith; and they work in many other firms that lead their fields.

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  Those firms need a continuing supply of highly skilled and motivated people to build on their successes. They are the firms that will recognise the importance of this Government's commitment to upgrading skills and enabling everyone to continue to upgrade their skills throughout their working lives. My constituents recognise the opportunities that will be offered to them.
  Swindon sets a vibrant and inspiring standard for what working people can achieve for themselves, when given the right support by the community. For all its successes, the Swindon area has been dominated by a problem over the past few months. It is that problem which is the subject of this debate. In other circumstances, I should like to say much more to the House about the remarkable constituency that I am privileged to represent, but I hope that the House will understand if I focus on the subject of the debate: the crisis in hospital care in the Swindon area.
  Economic growth and population growth are often close companions, and Swindon is no exception. Its population is growing three times faster than the national average, and the numbers of the very young and the old are growing at a particularly fast rate. It is those groups which have special recourse to hospital services. Yet as need has grown in the Swindon area, provision has shrunk.
  Last year, the RAF hospital at Wroughton, the much loved Princess Alexandra hospital, where one in 10 of the Swindon population were born, was closed as part of the Conservative Government's defence review. That was a bad decision, taken in haste and repented ever since by the armed services and by Swindon alike. On its own, that would have caused problems enough. Overnight, a valve that relieved the pressure on the national health service at times of peak demand was removed. The closure of that hospital added 6 per cent. to the work load of the NHS Princess Margaret hospital.
  That is not all. Princess Margaret hospital itself desperately needs renewal. There is a £28 million maintenance backlog, which increases with every month that goes by. A full business case for the renewal of the hospital was submitted to the Treasury two years ago, but the Conservative Government's insistence that it should be tested under the private finance initiative has meant that still no decision has been reached. We are told that plans are well advanced and that the trust is close to signing a new deal for a new hospital under the private finance initiative; but what we are not told is when exactly that deal will be closed. No matter how often we ask, we are not told and neither have we been told the details of that imminent deal. Those things are precisely what the people of North Swindon need to be told.
  Delay in providing new hospital facilities has left the area relying on old and increasingly inadequate ones. Since 1994, wards at Princess Margaret hospital have been closed three times because of infections—a problem that could have been avoided had appropriate isolation facilities been available. On one occasion, an operating theatre had to be closed because air conditioning backfired, spraying a sterile theatre with droplets of dirty water. Old and inflexible structures have helped to push up waiting lists for in-patients by up to 40 per cent. in the past two years. Patients have had to be bussed to hospitals as far away as Birmingham and Southampton. Delay increases anxiety among patients and their relatives and in the community at large. Delay demoralises staff; delay is one big problem.
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  Lack of adequate information about the proposed deal under the private finance initiative is another big problem, and we definitely need information in order to feel reassured about the deal in North Swindon. The feeling is spreading that the plans for the new hospital have been driven, not primarily by clinical need, but by the need to meet the commercial objectives of the private sector partners in the private finance initiative. It is feared that, to meet commercially driven targets, patient throughput will be speeded up by up to 10 per cent., even if that is not always clinically appropriate and leaves other health care providers to pick up the pieces.
  There is now growing local concern among professionals and lay people alike that, even if they can be implemented quickly, current plans will not solve the present crisis, but will merely institutionalise it. It is feared that an integrated approach to health provision in the area has been precluded by the priority that has been given under the private finance initiative to commercial, rather than clinical, objectives. To avoid fragmentation of provision, any replacement of Princess Margaret hospital must clearly involve appropriate co-operation between the trust, the health authority, the GPs, the community health council representing the users of the health service and the local authority.
  In January, Princess Margaret hospital had to cancel all non-life-threatening operations. Forty beds have been closed for much of this spring because of the difficulty in recruiting and keeping staff to work in the deteriorating physical environment at Princess Margaret hospital, which the hospital itself acknowledges. All the staff at the hospital have been working to the highest standard of their profession and beyond to cope with the mounting pressures on them. Everyone is grateful to them, but they cannot continue in that fashion indefinitely. They and everyone else in North Swindon need to see some glimmer of hope for the future.
  Of course, the closure of Princess Alexandra RAF hospital, the delays in renewing Princess Margaret hospital and the continuing question mark over the plans for the new hospital are not the only reasons for Swindon's hospital problems. No one in Swindon expects a guarantee that there will never again be any problems with their hospital care, but the people of Swindon do expect some recognition of the seriousness of the problems that they face. They do expect some real and effective action to be taken to tackle the problems. That is precisely what they never got from the previous Government.
  Swindon deserves better, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to reassure the people of North Swindon on three points: first, that if Princess Margaret hospital is renewed under a private-public partnership, the clinical needs of patients will be paramount; secondly, that the decision on any new hospital facilities will be taken in the context of co-operation between primary, secondary and community care providers in the area to ensure the best possible care for patients; and thirdly, that any obstacles to an immediate decision on the renewal of Princess Margaret hospital will be removed.
  During my time in the House, I intend to work to ensure that my constituency continues to prosper and thrive and that there will be fulfilling jobs for all who want them. I shall work to ensure that all my constituents are given an equal opportunity to succeed, to reach for their dreams without being held back by the accident of who they are

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  or where they were born. I shall work to ensure that they all have equal access to the best possible health care and education, because such equality is the hallmark of a decent and civilised society. I want all my constituents to be able to grow old with dignity and all that that entails. However, as vital as those tasks will be during my years in the House, nothing is more immediately pressing for my constituents than the plight of their hospital.
  Since 1 May—Labour day—there has been a new mood in the country, a palpable sense of a fresh start. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can tonight assure us that there will be a fresh start for Swindon's hospital care.
  9.55 pm
  Ms Julia Drown: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) for allowing me to contribute to the debate on Swindon's hospital care. I congratulate him on securing this debate so early in the Session.
  This is my first speech in the House and I should like to say that it is an honour to be the first Member of Parliament to represent the people of South Swindon. The old Swindon constituency has been split in two—my constituency takes part of the former Swindon seat and a small part of the old Devizes constituency.
  I pay tribute to the work of my predecessors. Mr. Simon Coombs greatly enjoyed his 14 years in the House. He answered thousands of letters from his constituents and helped hundreds of people. He was a keen supporter of some of the town's important activities, such as our football team and the local choral society.
  I follow in the footsteps of David Stoddart, who was the Member of Parliament for Swindon from 1970 to 1983 and who is now in the other place. It is an interesting coincidence that he also made his maiden speech within a day of the new Parliament beginning. I am proud to follow him in that respect.
  I am delighted to be the first woman to represent Swindon in Parliament. This election saw a sea-change in the number of women in Parliament, and I am pleased to be part of that change. We will make Parliament a better place. I was a health service professional for 11 years and now bring my skills to the House. I should like to use my experience of health service finance for the good of Swindon's health and for the good of the health service across the nation.
  Swindon is a great town. We have some of the best leisure facilities in the country; we have one of the best local authority collections of modern art; and we have access to wonderful green areas, within the town and in the rural parts of my constituency. We have an active voluntary sector and an active chamber of commerce. Our environmental centre would make most towns green—but only with envy. I am also proud to have the national dance studio in my constituency.
  In Swindon, we are aware of our history as a railway and industrial town, now diversified to include many financial services and communication businesses. In our rural areas, farming remains vital to the economy. We know that the ability to change and diversify is the key to business success and prosperity. We have a higher level
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  of employment than many other areas, but there is still a need for skills training and job opportunities for many. We welcome the firms that have made their home in Swindon, attracted by our facilities, our work force and our excellent communications with the rest of the country.
  Swindon's borough council has done much for the town. It has this year become a unitary authority and looks forward optimistically to the revival of local government.
  The town of Swindon has grown quickly, and facilities such as the health service have been under huge pressure to keep up with demand. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon raised a number of concerns that my constituents share. I should like to pay special tribute to the many staff of all trades and professions in Swindon's health services who have worked tirelessly for patients in what have been, over the past 18 years, increasingly difficult circumstances.
  Princess Margaret hospital has experienced large increases in patient work loads, partly because of the increasing population of the town, but partly also because of the closure of Princess Alexandra hospital in Wroughton, which is also in my constituency. It was a services hospital, but it treated thousands of NHS patients. It was highly valued by local people and is much missed. Millions of pounds were spent on new theatres and a scanner for the hospital only a few years before its closure—
  It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pope.]
  Ms Drown: South Swindon finds it difficult to understand why a much valued hospital with all that recent investment was closed. Princess Margaret hospital was built using state-of-the-art designs and building materials of the 1960s and 1970s. The buildings are now out of date; the Health and Safety Executive and the fire service are concerned about our buildings. We must meet those concerns and ensure that the facilities are updated to modern standards.
  Not only did we face a number of weeks last winter when the hospital could accept only patients with life-threatening conditions, but the number of patients waiting more than 12 months is now significantly higher than it was last year. Because the urology waiting list is already 18 months long, GPs are not putting any more patients on the list. That means patients waiting until they become emergency cases to get treatment.
  There are genuine problems with recruiting nurses. Many people feel that the training courses are too academic and may put off recruits who would do the profession proud. Mental health facilities also need upgrading, and plans for that are progressing well. Support for our community facilities is also vital.
  In all parts of the NHS, more managers are in place and there is increased bureaucracy. Our health region spends £320,000 on bureaucrats every day: that cannot be right. Swindon wants money spent on patients, not paperwork. Yesterday's Gracious Speech outlined how the Government will do just that.
  The most pressing need, however, is for a decision on the future of Princess Margaret hospital. The business case was approved some years ago in principle. It then had to be tested under the Government of the day's private finance initiative. That process caused delays.

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  In April of last year, Swindon was told that it would have a completely new hospital; we were told to expect work to commence soon after September 1996—yet not even a planning application has been lodged. The new hospital proposal is with the Treasury as we speak. It is regrettable that many details of the scheme have not been available to patient groups or the general public. Less has been available in Swindon than has been provided to groups concerned with projects elsewhere in the country. The people of South Swindon have a right to know what is planned for their health care provision. I hope that the Minister will ensure that more information is made available to the people of Swindon.
  We have lived with the uncertainty over our hospital for long enough. Swindon needs to know that its hospital will be modernised. It needs to know that the proposed privately financed scheme will provide value for money for generations to come. It is no good having a more expensive big shiny hospital if we find in future that we do not have the money to send patients to it.
  Swindon needs to know that a modernised hospital will be run by the NHS in the interests of Swindon patients. That is of particular concern to the hospital's hard-working staff. Many of them have put in years of dedicated service to the NHS because they wanted to work for the NHS. They are now threatened with forcible transfer to private companies. I urge the Minister to find ways to allow those who wish to remain part of NHS teams to continue their valued service as part of the NHS.
  Having pointed out the difficulties, I want to record my optimism about the future of the NHS in Swindon. Morale has been low, but health service workers are enthusiastic about the new Labour Government. If we can harness the enthusiasm and initiative of health workers and learn from their experience, I am confident that the NHS will once again be the envy of the rest of the world.
  The NHS is a great institution. The society in which we and our fellow citizens will be looked after when we are ill, however rich or poor we are, is a civilised and great society. I ask the Minister to work with Members of this House to ensure that we deliver what the people of Swindon need—a modernised hospital service giving quality health care to those who need it.
  10.4 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): It is a special honour to be able to respond to this Adjournment debate—first to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker; secondly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) on securing this debate so early in his parliamentary career; and thirdly to congratulate him and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) on making such impressive maiden speeches. They have argued their case forcefully, sincerely and, if I may say so, with some expertise.
  I have had the opportunity to speak to both my hon. Friends since their election and I can confirm that they are health service experts. I value that greatly as an incoming Health Minister. I shall be relying on some of the expertise that they have to offer, not just on issues relating to Swindon, but on more general issues.
  I am, of course, sympathetic to the concerns that my hon. Friends have expressed about the state of the national health service in the town. I pay tribute in particular to all
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  those who in recent years have worked so hard in difficult circumstances to cope with the pressures that the local health service has had to face, particularly during the winter months.
  There are obviously no quick and easy solutions to the problems in the NHS that the outgoing Government have bequeathed to this Government, but I can assure my hon. Friends that we are already taking action to tackle bureaucracy in the national health service and we are taking the first steps towards replacing the absurd internal market, which is the cause of so much of that excessive bureaucracy. Our ambition for the national health service is no less than to modernise it and equip it properly for the challenges of not just the next few years but the next century.
  The Swindon and Marlborough trust faces particular pressures, as my hon. Friends said, because of anticipated high population growth in the area and the recent closure of the hospital at RAF Wroughton. As my hon. Friends have made clear, there is pressing local concern about the facilities from which care is currently delivered and about the delays that there have been in replacing those facilities under the private finance initiative.
  Proposals for a new Princess Margaret hospital were first put forward for approval in 1994. Since then, they have been subject to delay after delay. It has become clear that the initial proposal fell short of the demanding standards required to secure clear approval.
  I understand that the trust has now submitted the final details of its revised proposal for consideration. Whatever the outcome of that deliberation, I assure my hon. Friends that clinical considerations and service needs will in no way be overlooked. They will be central to an assessment of the proposal. I am pleased that a Swindon forum has been established, meeting regularly and chaired jointly by the trust and the health authority. I hope that it will ensure that local decisions are taken not in isolation but with proper regard to the views of all interested parties.
  It is clearly important that such a major proposal secures the confidence of the local people. As far as possible, open details should be made available to people in the area about the nature of the proposal. It is not the consortium's national health service; it is not even the trust's national health service; and it is not mine. It is the people's national health service, and we should never ever forget that.
  Schemes such as the one in Swindon have been in the PFI procurement process for too long and I believe that that cannot continue. In such cases, a decision needs to be made, which confirms either that the project is suitable for agreement with the private sector partner, or that it is not. Both public and private sector participants must not be left indefinitely wrestling with schemes, trying to satisfy ill-defined rules, only to find that there is a finishing line that moves forward continually.
  Unlike our predecessors, this Government are committed to developing public-private partnerships in the national health service which actually work and do the business of getting new hospitals off the ground. They should lay the bricks and the mortar. The time for talking on these issues has come to an end. This Government want to be remembered as a Government who built hospitals rather than as a Government who promised the building of hospitals. We are determined to rejuvenate the private finance initiative and to get it working.

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  It is precisely to deal with problems such as those faced by Swindon that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General announced on 8 May a major review of the PFI across government. His aim is to remove the obstacles in the way of bringing projects to fruition and to find ways in which to streamline the whole process. At the same time, I can announce this evening that I have asked my officials to carry out an urgent review of the PFI process in the national health service. I will listen to the views of those closely involved with the PFI from both the public and private sectors. The objective will be to identify how the current gridlock can be eliminated and to ensure that much needed schemes are completed quickly, making best use of the skills and expertise of both the public and private sectors to achieve best value for money.
  I know that all talk of a review inevitably leads to some concern about the potential for delay, so I shall try to pre-empt my hon. Friends' concerns on that point. Perhaps I can best point to the progress that we seek to make on the PFI by reference to the proceedings today in another place. The Government introduced a new Bill in the other place to speed progress on the PFI. The Bill will clarify the powers of NHS trusts to enter into PFI-type agreements and it will remove one roadblock that has caused considerable frustration and delay for some of the
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  most advanced schemes. It signals the Government's absolute determination to speed up the process of attracting private capital into the national health service and our commitment to make sure that public-private partnerships actually deliver the goods.
  I very much hope that a PFI solution can be found for the redevelopment in Swindon. I share the desire of people in the town to see their NHS facilities improved. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friends for making their case so eloquently. I can tell them that today, I have instructed the NHS executive to agree with the trust a clear way forward for the project and for other schemes that have already been approved, but which have not made the progress expected of them. I shall also ask the trust's chief executive to make himself available to meet my hon. Friends to explain the PFI proposal in more detail, so that they and their constituents are clear about it.
  I offer my hon. Friends an open invitation. I am happy at whatever point to meet them to give them the opportunity further to press their case on this very important proposal. The way in which they have rationally and cogently argued their case this evening is important and it speaks volumes for the Swindon team that we can expect in this House for many years to come.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes past Ten o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Prison Service (Parliamentary Questions)
  Mr. Patrick Hall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his proposals to reply to parliamentary questions about Her Majesty's Prison Service. [118]

  Mr. Straw
  Our Manifesto commits us to take proper Ministerial responsibility for the Prison Service. As an early step, I propose that in future all Questions about the Prison Service for England and Wales should be answered by a Home Office Minister, and not by the Director General or other senior Prison Service officials.

  This change will put right what many in Parliament have long regarded as a bad practice. I regard it as essential that Ministers should answer personally to Parliament for what is done in our prisons and not leave it to their civil servants.

  This is no reflection on the Director General, Mr. Richard Tilt, who has my full support. It has no implications for the Prison Service's status as an executive agency of the Home Office or for other agencies, including the Scottish and Northern Ireland Prison Services which are the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Overseas Development Administration
  Mr. Dennis Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the departmental minute that the Overseas Development Administration laid before the House on 3 April 1997. [134]

  Clare Short
  The Departmental Minute reported that the Department had entered into a contingent liability arising from a tax indemnity given to the commercial banks which are financing the Jiangyin Suspension Bridge Project in China. The estimated maximum liability is US$9,740,290 (approximately £6,087,680).

  The Minute was placed in the Libraries of both Houses and copies were sent, under cover of explanatory letters, to the Chairman of the Public Accounts and Foreign Affairs Committees.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Argentina (Arms Sales)
  Mr. Dennis Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what exceptions Her Majesty's Government have permitted to the embargo on the sale of arms to Argentina for the supply of equipment to Argentine UN peacekeeping forces. [567]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  The Government have agreed exceptionally to allow the limited supply of nine anti-riot vehicles for use by the Argentine contingent of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. The Argentine Army have given assurances that the vehicles will not be used for other purposes. This is an exception to, but not a change of, policy on the supply of military-related equipment to Argentina.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Charles Leslie Falconer, Esquire, QC, having been created Baron Falconer of Thoroton, of Thoroton in the County of Nottinghamshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Mackenzie-Stuart and the Lord Browne-Wilkinson.

Lord Hoyle
Eric Douglas Harvey Hoyle, Esquire, having been created Baron Hoyle, of Warrington, in the County of Cheshire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Turner of Camden and the Lord Dormand of Easington.
Several Lords—Took the Oath or Affirmed.

Tributes to the late Lady Seear
3.36 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard): My Lords, it is my sad duty this afternoon as Leader of the House to rise at the start of our first day of substantive debate this Session to lead tributes to Lady Seear who died on 23rd April during the Dissolution. Nancy (as everyone knew her) had been a Member of this House since 1971. It is for her service as leader of the Liberal Peers from 1984 to 1988 that we are officially paying tribute to her today. Whatever the official reason, she was a great figure in this House and outside. I cannot possibly hope to do her justice in the time available.
Educated at Croydon High School—that proving ground for so many determined ladies of Newnham, Cambridge—Nancy Seear had a remarkable career in industry, academia, public service, including the TSRB, and this House. Others will no doubt dwell on her career in the Liberal Party and its successors, including her valiant service in elections over many years. Perhaps I may set the scene by recording that she first joined that movement before the war just as Hitler was rising to power in Germany. But it is for her performance in debates that your Lordships will probably best remember her. She was a regular attender in this House and could often be seen here working late at night. Her contributions were always serious and stimulating. She excelled not only in set-piece debates but in impromptu and off-the-cuff interventions. I am sure that many of your Lordships will recall that hers was the first speech in this House to be broadcast on television. She then gave the public an excellent introduction to the fine traditions of oratory in your Lordships' House by speaking, as she always did, entirely without notes.
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Lady Seear was particularly active in the promotion of women's rights—a subject that she approached not from any narrow or trendy ideological base but from her deeply held and driving principles of fairness, equality and natural justice. I do not believe that it is an overstatement to say that the eventual passage of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was in large part due to her drive and determination. She introduced the predecessor Bill in this House in March 1972, served on your Lordships' Select Committee on that Bill and worked tirelessly for the passage of the final Act. Your Lordships will know that she had been ill for some time before her death. During that period she continued to exhibit her customary virtues of bravery and strength of character. I am sure that all of your Lordships will miss, as I will, the hardworking, no-nonsense style of a lady for whom the word "indomitable" was probably coined.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I rise to associate myself with the sentiments just expressed by the Leader of the House in his tribute to Lady Seear. When I come to look back at my career in your Lordships' House I shall count it as one of the privileges of my time here that for a brief period I served while she was still active in this Chamber. With my relatively inexperienced eye, she appeared to me to be a model Member of your Lordships' House. She was wise, humorous, independent-minded and inspired affection and respect in all quarters. She combined all those qualities with a formidable intellect. This combination made her one of the most effective, if not the most effective, debaters in this Chamber as the noble Lord has observed.
I for one shall always picture her in her characteristic pose, often with her hands clasped behind her back, delivering pithy, witty speeches without a note seemingly effortlessly, yet without a word or argument out of place. She was a delight to listen to as a result. Her addiction to brevity made her a rare bird even in your Lordships' House—someone who almost invariably left one wanting more.
Perhaps the quality that attracted me most was Lady Seear's robustness and willingness to express an unfashionable view. I wonder, for instance, whether any of your Lordships remember a debate in this Chamber on 5th July last to which she made, as was her wont, a distinguished contribution. Part of what she said about the importance of symbolism may have some relevance today. With your Lordships' permission, perhaps I may quote a short part of it. Lady Seear said:
"Symbolism has fallen away in human personal relationships. The use of the christian name used to mean something; it meant friendship, responsibility and commitment. Today, it normally means that people cannot remember what your surname is—or, in my case, can never aspire to spell it. I suppose that is supported by some extraordinary idea that if we all call each other by our christian names, we are all equal. The nonsense is that the great joy of human relationships is that they are all different; they are all unique and none is exclusive. But calling people by their christian names does not enhance that in any way whatsoever. A kiss used to mean something. There could he arguments about what it meant, but it was meant to mean something. Today, it is just an insanitary habit"—[Official Report, 5/7/96; col. 1706.]

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I cannot in any way hope to emulate the diction and the force of the noble Baroness's delivery. However, I hope that I have, in some way, served to remind your Lordships of what this House will miss from now on.
In mourning Lady Seear's passing, I am left with just two regrets: first, that I was not here to see her as her party's leader in this place; and, secondly, that she can no longer speak here as was her wont so often. I nearly added a third—that she was not a Tory—but I fear that with her strong Liberal Party instincts that would not have been in her nature.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends I thank the Leader of the House and the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, for the exceptionally warm words—and in the noble Viscount's case, the exceptionally appropriate quotation of Lady Seear's witty words—that they have spoken. Nancy Seear was a very remarkable woman. I shall make three brief points about her: first, her generosity, and I, above all people, have reason to know and to appreciate that.
In 1988 Lady Seear insisted that she should step down and that I should become Leader of the Liberal Democrats. In a long life during which people have, on the whole, treated me better than I deserve—very few the other way around—I have never known such an act of selfless generosity. It was the more remarkable because she herself had so many of the qualities of leadership. She had worked away in the Liberal Party for decades, through thirsty years, but despite that she had great perspective so that no one was more in favour and no one a more persuasive, constructive advocate of, first, the alliance and then the merger with the Social Democrats.
Lady Seear was, as has been brought to your Lordships' attention, a very impressive speaker who at least appeared to have the gift of speaking totally effortlessly. At the drop of a hat she could produce very sound sense in a beautifully structured form. The sentences were always complete, and you could almost hear the beginnings and the ends of the paragraphs. She could do that on nearly every subject of serious political import. Yet none of her political dedication took the edge off her sense of fun. She was a wonderful companion with whom to share this Bench and to ease the sometimes slow passage of time with semi-sotto voce comments on the practices of this House and the eccentricities of some of its Members. Our exchanges sometimes provoked, I thought, a dignified smile on the face of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for it is one of the characteristics of this House that whoever sits on the Woolsack can hear every word which is exchanged on the Liberal Benches, and perhaps on the Bishops' Benches too. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, will not be so lucky. We shall all be greatly deprived by the absence of one of the most notable and lovable persons in your Lordships' House.
Lord Weatherill: My Lords, I rise on behalf of the Cross-Bench Peers to express our admiration and affection for Lady Seear. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, has spoken about her parliamentary achievements, as
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have other noble Lords, and the fact that she spoke without notes. As the Speaker in the other place that was something which always terrified me, because I was concerned that one brilliant thought would tend to lead to another.
I once asked Lady Seear the key to that. She replied—I always remember it—"Careful preparation". It is of course the mark of a brilliant mind to make very complicated issues understood by those of us who are less well endowed. Lady Seear had that great ability. I am not surprised, because I am delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that she was educated at that fine school in my former constituency—Croydon High School.
Lady Seear's parliamentary achievements have been well rehearsed and I shall not dwell upon them. Long before I entered your Lordships' House I was involved, as I still am, with the Industry and Parliament Trust. For some 10 years Lady Seear was one of our trustees. Indeed, she was the senior trustee. Because of her background in personnel management in the early 1930s with C & J Clark, a shoe manufacturer, and the fact that she subsequently lectured on personnel management in the LSE and the London City University, her commercial and parliamentary experience made her invaluable to the trust. She will be greatly missed by us there.
All of us on the Cross-Benches will remember Lady Seear for her robust common sense, the quality of her mind, her kindness, her quiet sense of humour and as a delightful companion at the Long Table. The whole House will remember her with great respect and with great affection.
The Lord Bishop of Carlisle: My Lords, it is an honour to associate the Bench of Bishops with these tributes to Lady Seear. We did indeed have an unrivalled view of her across the Chamber on the Front Bench opposite. She was a model Member because she spoke authoritatively, fluently and with great wisdom. She had that particular skill, not unknown in this House, of perhaps appearing not wholly to concentrate fully all the time and yet being immediately up with the debate when she made any remark, openly or sotto voce. She was obviously fully alert and with it.
I should like to say one brief word on behalf of the general public. She was also that rare being, a model political television panellist—quick to spot cant and to challenge evasion, and full of robust common sense. Lady Seear was a supportive member of the Church, but I mean it as a tribute when I say that she was not in the least churchy. She expressed her beliefs and her values in the way that she lived, in her public and political life and in the many causes which she espoused.
I can only claim one brief personal encounter with Lady Seear, at a meeting of the Ecclesiastical Committee, before I became a Member of your Lordships' House. The subject under discussion was that delicate matter of the removal of a clergyman from office in certain circumstances. Such matters are difficult to deal with; indeed, some of the questioning became rather obscure and the replies, as a consequence,

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somewhat Delphic. I was asked a certain question and was gathering my thoughts together in order to reply when Lady Seear intervened to say, "What the Bishop is trying to say is that clergymen occasionally go batty and we need to find a way of removing them without actually saying that they have gone batty". My Lords, I rest my case.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships to know that the House will sit at 11 a.m. on Thursday 22nd May. At its rising on that day, the House will adjourn until Tuesday 3rd June, when the House will sit at the usual time of 2.30 p.m.

National Health Service (Private Finance) Bill [H.L.]
3.51 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about the powers of National Health Service trusts to enter into agreements. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Jay of Paddington.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Coordinated Universal Time Bill [H.L.]
Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Interpretation Act 1978 to make provision for the use of coordinated universal time. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Tanlaw.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by the Lord Merlyn-Rees—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament".
3.53 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, it is a great honour to open your Lordships' debate on the gracious Speech this afternoon. Perhaps I may say at the outset that I very much look forward to hearing the maiden speech
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today of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and later in the debate, those of the noble Earls, Lord Derby and Lord Cork and Orrery.
When the debate opened last year, my noble friend Lady Blackstone observed that, for the fourth year in succession, she was opening the foreign affairs and defence debate on the Queen's Speech for the Opposition. She expressed the hope that it would be the last time for some years that she did so for the Opposition and that we on that side of the House would be introducing the debate the next year from this side of the House—and so it has come to pass. It is therefore a particular privilege to be opening the debate this year.
The electorate has just voted for change in a most dramatic and almost unprecedented fashion. This new Government are humbly aware of the hopes and expectations which the electorate has placed in them. Not everything can be achieved at once, impatient though many will be. But the gracious Speech outlines a comprehensive programme for the forthcoming Session which marks at the outset the range of our ambitions as a reforming government.
The mandate given to us by the British people is indeed awesome. It is the biggest majority ever for the Labour Party and, I think, the smallest number of Conservative seats in the House of Commons since 1832. I believe that two things follow from that result: the first is a responsibility for the Government; and, secondly, if I may say so, a responsibility has also been placed on the Opposition.
As a government with such a massive majority in another place, we are, I believe, under a duty to use that power sensibly and wisely in the execution of our mandate. As an Opposition, I think that it behoves the party opposite to recognise the strength of public feeling that was shown for the changes outlined in our manifesto. Of course, one does not want to press the mandate argument too far, and I hope that I do not, but there is no doubt that certain issues, particularly perhaps the constitutional ones, were put fairly and squarely to the people and were resoundingly approved, even to the extent of there now being no Conservative representation in either Scotland or Wales. Whatever else we have, we do have the clear and unmistakable consent of the British people for our proposals for devolution and, dare I say it, for reform of your Lordships' House.
Among those proposals was that we hold referendums in Scotland and Wales, a subject to which I should like to return a little later. However, perhaps I may first say a few words about what is not in this gracious Speech. On careful reading of the gracious Speech, your Lordships may have observed that reform of the composition of this House does not figure among the measures presaged in the gracious Speech. I hasten to reassure the House that that is not omission by inadvertence. The proposal, of course, remains part of the Labour Party's programme for this Parliament. Quite when it will be introduced remains to be seen, but that it is there, there should be no doubt.
Today's debate focuses on foreign affairs, international development and defence and will be wound up by my noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean. On Monday

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the debate will concentrate on constitutional affairs, home affairs, health and social affairs. The Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill will provide for referendums on whether there should be a Scottish Parliament, and whether this should have tax raising powers; it will also provide for a referendum on whether there should be a Welsh Assembly. In the event of a positive outcome of those referenda, a Bill to establish a Scottish Parliament and a Bill to establish a Welsh Assembly will then come before Parliament.
Home affairs legislation set out in the gracious Speech includes a Bill to incorporate the main provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom law. That will enable people to enforce their rights under the convention before our courts. I know that this Bill will be of particular interest in your Lordships' House. There will be a Bill to introduce measures to combat crime, including streamlining the youth justice system. There will also be a Firearms (Amendment) Bill which will allow a free vote on prohibiting the private possession of handguns.
There will be two Bills relating to Northern Ireland. One of these will renew the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act to help combat terrorism. The other, the Northern Ireland (Parades and Marches) Bill, is introduced in response to the North Report and will implement many of its recommendations, thus helping to reduce tension over parades, in particular through the establishment of a parades commission. Monday's debate will also encompass health matters, including the National Health (Private Finance) Bill which will clarify the powers of NHS trusts to enter into partnerships with the private sector. The National Lottery (Amendment) Bill will enable funds from the National Lottery to be used in particular for education and health projects.
Tuesday's debate will concentrate on education and employment, the environment, transport, agriculture and local government. The legislation to be covered in that day's debate includes an education Bill to implement the Government's manifesto commitments on standards in schools, school structure and further education and higher education. It will be a wide-ranging and important Bill, about which more discussion will no doubt take place on Tuesday. The Government will also soon introduce an Education (Assisted Places) Bill which will abolish the assisted places schemes so that money saved can be used to cut class sizes for five to seven year-olds. Again, that was a commitment in our party's manifesto.
Among the measures that Tuesday's debate will also cover are the National Minimum Wage Bill; the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill which will enable a referendum to be held on the introduction of a directly-elected strategic authority and mayor for London; the Local Authority (Capital Receipts) Bill which will enable capital receipts from the sale of council houses to be invested in house building and renovation; and a Bill to establish regional development agencies for England, outside London, to promote economic development in the regions.
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The final day of debate on Wednesday will concentrate on industry and economic affairs. A competition Bill will be introduced to reform and strengthen competition law; a data protection Bill to strengthen data protection controls and simplify the existing registration scheme; and a Bill which will provide a statutory right to interest on late payment of debts, as part of the approach to backing small business. A Bill will also be introduced to give the Bank of England operational responsibility for setting interest rates. We believe that that will help to deliver price stability and to support the Government's overall economic policy within a framework of enhanced accountability. Whatever else one can say, we shall be busy. This is a formidable and wide-ranging legislative programme, about which your Lordships will hear more in the next four days of debate, and of course during the passage of each Bill.
I turn now to today's area of interest, foreign affairs, international development and defence. I am a little surprised, but I understand that there will not be a debate on foreign affairs and defence on the gracious Speech in another place. Although I do not intend this to be a speech covering the whole range of foreign affairs, in those circumstances there are perhaps one or two matters which the House might wish me to deal with. I think it might be helpful if I were now to state the Government's approach to the problems and opportunities raised by our membership of the European Union and of NATO. These are, after all, probably the most important areas in which far-reaching decisions affecting our prosperity and well-being will have to be made.
The first priority of this Government is to restore to Britain the role that she deserves, helping to lead the way in the creation of a European Union of independent nation states. The Government are already taking, and will continue to take, a positive approach in discussion and negotiation with our European partners. I am confident that this positive approach will bring us success. It is certainly refreshing.
One of our first priorities therefore is to complete the single market, so that British companies can exploit their competitiveness to the full. We shall seek the early and successful enlargement of the European Union to include countries of central and eastern Europe and Cyprus. We look forward to welcoming new members to the European family, spreading the benefits of the European Union—prosperity, security and solidarity—more widely. I think it is common ground in this House that the common agricultural policy is costly, vulnerable to fraud and not geared to environmental protection. We shall vigorously seek its reform.
The intergovernmental conference will take key decisions on preparing the Union's institutions for enlargement. We share the goal of completing the intergovernmental conference at Amsterdam. Within the IGC, we shall firmly but politely defend our vital national interest. We shall, for example, insist that Britain retains control of its own frontiers. We shall work in the IGC to help improve the European Union's ability to protect the European environment, to fight

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fraud, to protect the rights of European citizens and to improve co-operation between member states in the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
The European Union must find ways to increase understanding among the peoples of Europe of how the Union works, and how it works on their behalf and for their benefit. We shall work to make the Union more transparent in its workings, more democratic and more accountable. We believe, however, that the Union must do more to tackle unemployment and promote flexible labour markets. We support an employment chapter in the new treaty under negotiation at the IGC. But the true test of whether the Union can promote employment for its citizens will not lie in treaty declarations but in real jobs. We have already announced our intention to join the social chapter. We shall use our membership to boost jobs and to make Europe's companies more competitive.
I wish now to say a few words about defence. I fear I shall be brief but—I say this with respect—I do not wish this to be a Foreign Office speech, which is a catalogue of different parts of the world comprising two sentences on each. This Government are committed to a strong defence for these islands. We are determined that our Armed Forces will remain strong to defend Britain and that they will be given solid political support, leadership and direction. Our Armed Forces are a unique asset to the nation. Their courage, professionalism and commitment are rightly admired around the world. Our Armed Forces personnel in Northern Ireland, for example, provide invaluable support to the RUC in countering terrorism. As I speak, over 40,000 servicemen and women are deployed overseas on a range of missions and tasks. They are serving in Bosnia, Cyprus, Africa, the Gulf, the Falkland Islands and in the Pacific. In the Asia-Pacific region, we have the OCEAN WAVE 97 Task Group which is the largest Royal Navy deployment since the Gulf War.
Since the end of the Cold War, the security risks to the United Kingdom and our allies have changed fundamentally. New security challenges confront us: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, aggressive nationalisms and international terrorism. We must ensure that our forces are matched not only to today's but also to tomorrow's challenges and have a clear sense of purpose. Therefore, this Government have decided to hold a strategic defence and security review. Again, that was something that was presaged when we were in Opposition. Our country's security needs and foreign policy objectives must be fully reflected in the roles, missions and tasks of our Armed Forces. I assure the House that that review will be foreign policy-led, identifying our interests and commitments and deciding how our Armed Forces should be structured, equipped and deployed to meet them. All this will enable us to provide the clearest direction for strong defence into the next century.
In Europe our security has been provided and guaranteed by our membership of NATO which will remain the key framework for our common defence. NATO is undergoing a great process of change to reflect the changed strategic environment. We intend to play a full and active part in NATO's future development. It is
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taking on new tasks; it is adapting its internal structures; it is building new relationships with former enemies; and it is preparing for enlargement. At the Madrid Summit we expect the first candidates for membership to be invited to begin negotiations for accession. The enlargement of NATO and enhanced co-operation with countries which are not invited, or do not wish to join, will in our view increase security across the whole of Europe. It will extend across the Continent the peace, stability and habits of close co-operation that NATO embodies. We must at the same time reach a satisfactory agreement with Russia so that she too can play her full part in ensuring Europe's security in partnership with NATO. We welcome greatly the agreement reached yesterday between the Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Solana, and the Foreign Minister of Russia, Mr. Primakov, on the text of a joint NATO/Russia document. We hope that it will now be endorsed by NATO members and Russia for signature at a summit in Paris on 27th May.
Enlargement of NATO must not and will not create new dividing lines in Europe. The Government strongly support building the European security and defence identity within the Alliance. This will allow European countries to do more for their own defence and security, including through the Western European Union. The Government are committed to achieving that aim and to increasing the practical co-operation between the WEU and the European Union. However, we do not agree with those who advocate merging the two organisations.
It is true that the threats to peace in Europe have receded, although they have not vanished. However, conflict still continues in many other parts of the world. In too many regions, international relationships are soured by enmity and mistrust. Great challenges remain in working for peace and security around the world. Working with the United Nations, with other international organisations and with our partners and allies we shall be firm in seeking to secure lasting peace and reconciliation.
I said at the beginning of my speech that it was an honour to be opening the debate. I have felt it so. It is indeed an honour for my party to find itself, after 18 years in Opposition, now back again in Government. We shall enjoy it. We shall do our best to serve the British nation; and I hope that the British nation will feel that peace and security are safe in our hands.
4.11 p.m.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, perhaps I may say at the outset how much I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Moynihan later today. The House has listened with, I think, considerable interest to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. Understandably in the circumstances some of his speech was not concerned primarily with the main subjects for debate today—defence and foreign policy. I hope that I did not misunderstand the noble Lord. I thought I detected a mild threat—what I might call the sword of Damocles argument hanging over your Lordships' House—in some of what he said. I am delighted to see

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the noble Lord shake his head. In that case I withdraw what was clearly an over-sensitive interpretation on my part.
However, let me reiterate what I intimated yesterday. The Official Opposition in your Lordships' House will not in any way be deflected from what they see to be their duty: to exercise their judgment, to improve, to amend and to scrutinise legislation. They will attempt to be a constructive and vigorous Opposition. They will treat each Bill on its merits with no thought for their own future or indeed the future of your Lordships' House. I hope that your Lordships will feel that that pledge is honoured in the light of experience.
I can readily understand why the noble Lord the Leader of the House chose to open the Queen's Speech debate today both for the reasons which he charmingly laid out and in view of his considerable experience in foreign affairs. As a European Commissioner and a former permanent representative at the United Nations, he is eminently qualified by experience to speak on foreign policy including our relationship with the European Union. Perhaps I may also warmly welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, to her new position. We much look forward to hearing her when she embarks later on her maiden voyage at the Dispatch Box. For myself, with the House's permission, I shall concentrate on foreign affairs, including European affairs, and rely on my noble friend Lord Howe to speak on the subject of defence.
I think I said yesterday that there are some familiar phrases in the gracious Speech. Some of them, in particular the aspirations expressed, do not conflict in any way with the objectives of my party. We certainly applaud the Government's aspirations on NATO enlargement and on United Nations reform. Equally, the Government do not seem to differ from us in their desire to place high on their agenda peace in former Yugoslavia, a settlement in Cyprus, and peace in the Middle East. And we share the same aspirations for Hong Kong's future and the desire to promote open markets around the world. As in everything else, we shall watch the Government's efforts in all these areas with close attention and we shall do our best to support them if their plans to transform aspirations into reality seem well founded and practical.
However, to the outside observer there seems an interesting contrast in style between the foreign policy sections of the gracious Speech and the mission paper launched with so much glitz this week by the Foreign Secretary. The first is sober—dare I say, almost dull—in style; the second is directed by one of the leading Labour "luvvies", Sir David Putnam. I have always entertained the greatest respect for the right honourable gentleman the Foreign Secretary, in particular for his formidable debating skills in another place. However, I have never seen him as the Cecil B. de Mille of British foreign policy. Indeed, I am surprised that the Foreign Secretary should have succumbed to the temptation of adopting the Hollywood approach. The record of success of glitzy foreign policy initiatives, if my memory serves me right, has not been inspiring from the Field of the Cloth of Gold onwards. They tend to
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raise expectations. When the protagonists fail to meet them, the disappointment is all the greater. The Foreign Secretary's glitz masks what I think amounts to remarkably little that is either new or original despite the grandiloquent language with which the document begins and ends. I shall come to the Foreign Secretary's aspirations, and those of Mr. Henderson for the European Union, later in my remarks.
Reform of the United Nations was high on the last Government's agenda. I wonder whether rejoining UNESCO at this time gives quite the right signal. I am far from convinced that UNESCO has sufficiently mended its ways to warrant such a step. Perhaps, when the noble Baroness replies, she can confirm that rejoining would cost about £11 million in subscription. Can she tell the House how many more small posts in developing countries could be run for the cost of that subscription? And while she is at it, can the Minister also say what future she sees for our permanent seat on the Security Council in view of European aspirations to take it over or see it merged with the French seat?
Equally, there is nothing new in making export promotion a Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget priority. I hope that I do not burden the Minister too much. But am I right in thinking that commercial work is already the largest activity of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, accounting, I understand, for about 25 per cent. of its spending? If so, how much more of the existing budget does the noble Baroness expect to spend under this head? Or does she expect to increase the budget for this purpose? And, if so, by how much? How does she square that with the promise by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to keep within the last Government's spending plans overall? I could ask the same questions about virtually every other aspiration in the Foreign Secretary's position paper.
The last Government spent large sums on improving the audibility of the BBC World Service on the understandable ground that there is little sense in pumping out large quantities of broadcast material if not many people can receive it clearly. I yield to no one in my admiration for the World Service. I have listened to it, if I may venture to say so with great boldness and without too much presumption, probably in least as many distant countries as anyone in this House. I know what a lifeline of truth and sanity it is to millions of people all over the world. Can the noble Baroness give any indication of how much more money she and her colleagues intend to spend on the World Service? If she cannot increase its budget, how does she intend to squeeze more out of the existing one?
I shall not weary the House with more examples. I have perhaps said enough to suggest that this parcel has more wrapping than content. Nevertheless, there is a "but", and it is substantial. One element, one sentence, of the position paper almost took my breath away. I hope that neither the noble Lord the Leader of the House nor the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, will take this personally because I except them from the accusation. But for sheer sanctimonious humbug it beats even the high standards set in less than two short weeks by what is already too clearly—despite what the noble Lord said—an embarrassingly arrogant Government.

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The Foreign Secretary concludes by saying that he is launching a,
"project to make Britain once again a force for good in the world".
Pray note the phrase, "once again". Does the Foreign Secretary mean to imply that over the past 18 years the people of this country elected Conservative governments that were not a force for good? Perhaps noble Lords opposite who so readily assent to that proposition will tell me whether they believe that the foreign policy of this country over the past 18 years has been a force for evil. I wholly accept that the result on 1st May made very clear, as the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, that the electorate thought it high time for a change of government. However, it is extraordinarily difficult to argue that they voted for the present Government with any great sense of enthusiasm. After all, fewer voted for Mr. Blair in 1997 than voted for Mr. Major in 1992. I certainly do not remember any popular clamour for a change of government because of the "evil" that Conservative government policy was wreaking world wide. Indeed, as we see from the rather more sober tone of the gracious Speech, this Government and the last share a number of foreign and defence policy objectives of a strategic nature—for example, dependence on NATO; NATO and European Union enlargement; and keeping separate (I was very pleased to hear the remarks of the noble Lord the Leader of the House on this matter) the Western European Union and the European Union. I am delighted to hear that the Government, like us, also wish to promote open markets world wide, a point to which I shall return.
The implication of that last sentence, to which obviously in the view of noble Lords opposite I took such unwarranted exception, must be rather narrower. Perhaps, although in view of the fact that it was no doubt drafted by the Foreign Office it is unlikely, the drafting is sloppy. The implication is that this Labour Government's foreign policy will be morally superior to that of the last Government. They have clearly forgotten the efforts of the last Chancellor of the Exchequer to encourage swapping loans for equity in developing countries and how we increased, contrary to popular view, our aid budget, if we add together multilateral and bilateral elements, at a time of great financial stringency. They have clearly forgotten the success of my noble friend Lady Chalker in concentrating our bilateral aid budget on the poorest nations; our success in arms control; and, not least, the great contributions of my right honourable friend Mr. Gummer to improvements to the environment internationally. We really need no lessons in ethics from the Foreign Secretary, and we will watch with some interest the Government's efforts to translate their moral strictures into foreign policy decisions. To take a topical example, how will the Foreign Secretary's stance stand up in reacting to the developing crisis in Zaire? Does he envisage sending troops if asked to do so? Sending troops will cost money. Would he be prepared to spend it? Indeed, would the Chancellor of the Exchequer let him do so?
Noble Lords may deduce that I find Mr. Cook's position paper less than convincing. That would be entirely right. I would have been more impressed had the Foreign Secretary addressed far more fundamental
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questions. Perhaps I may give just two rather outlandish examples. He might, for instance, have shared with us his analysis of where, overall, Britain's interests lie. What, for instance, is his view of the future relationship between the European Union and the United States? Does he think that if Europe becomes more protectionist the consequent tensions between the two blocs, which between them account for 50 per cent. of world trade and 75 per cent. of all overseas investment, could drive them apart? What are the risks of that happening? Does he think that Mr. Rifkind's idea of a transatlantic free trade area could reduce those inherent tensions? What views does he have on the political stability of the Far East and in particular the ambitions of China to exert influence on the region? What influence does he feel the mineral riches of the Russian Far East will have on the geo-politics of the same region? The last Government felt that those questions were important to this country. That is one of the reasons I am glad that the noble Lord the Leader of the House referred to our deployment of over 20 ships in Ocean Wave '97 to the Far East this year. Also, in reference to that part of the world, will the noble Baroness give some idea of her ethical position on the present situation of the people of Tibet and what representations the Government will make to the Chinese Government in that regard?
In short, Mr. Cook is big on self-righteousness but is a little short on geo-politics. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Government's attitude to the European Union. The last Government were often accused by their critics, of whom the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, may have been one, of being Little Englanders. I find that charge an extraordinarily interesting one and I should like briefly to examine it.
Let me try to explain my interest. I have no doubt that the European Union could, and should, prove to be of the most enormous benefit to this country. It could and should create among member states new jobs and an unparalleled level of prosperity and do so in a framework of peace and stability. Those objectives are an enormous prize. It is well worth our while striving to attain them. However, as the Foreign Secretary says in his paper,
"The global economy is stimulating growth in trade between nations at double the rate of growth in output within their economies. The information revolution has produced satellites and fibre-optic cables that enable us to communicate with other continents as rapidly as with the next room".
I entirely agree. So perhaps we should ask ourselves one fundamental question. How do we create jobs and prosperity in this fast-moving world that the Foreign Secretary so neatly describes?
The Labour Party's answer is a remarkable one. It is to rush to sign up to those very aspects of European policy that have proved over the past few years to have destroyed jobs rather than create them. Ask any German industrialist or French businessman why unemployment is so high and rising in their countries. Almost to a man and woman they will answer that over-regulation of labour markets and high non-wage labour costs act as a barrier to employment and investment. They envy us the reforms that successive Tory governments have introduced since 1979, which this month again reduced

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our unemployment by an enormous number, which enabled us to meet our inflation target of 2.5 per cent. by the end of the last Parliament, and which have indeed begun to deliver 3 per cent. growth rates allied to low inflation. Yet the Government promise with glee to sign us up to the very measures that will kill jobs and investment just when our policies are beginning to work.
To digress for a moment, I understood the present Prime Minister to say before the election that he proposed to implement only those provisions of the social chapter that suited him. Will the noble Baroness confirm that he can pick and choose in that way only by preserving the opt-out we negotiated at Maastricht and introducing those provisions that suit him in parallel in the British Parliament? If that proposition is true, and if memory serves me right that was the received advice, will the noble Baroness further explain why the Government propose to surrender our opt-out on the social chapter at all? I admit that that is a digression and I shall return to the interesting question of Little Englanders. The effect of those European policies is clearly to make the European Union uncompetitive with the growing economies of America and Asia. In the world of swift communication described by the Foreign Secretary, old-fashioned protectionism is difficult to enforce and is in any case self-defeating, if only because of the extreme mobility of capital in today's world.
The last Government had a vision for the European Union designed to make Europe competitive so that it would create jobs and attract capital. Many of our European partners disagreed with our analysis or, if they agreed, found it expedient not to say so. However, we at least had the courage to fight for our view and to fight for our interests, especially our capacity to create jobs. We felt then, and still feel, that the only way to control the ambitions of those who wish to impose reactionary ideas upon us is to maintain the power and cohesion of the nation state. In spite of what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said about his desire to establish a Europe of nation states—a desire which I entirely applaud—that is something to which Mr. Blair clearly does not wholly subscribe as he proposes to deliver the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, bound and gagged, into the hands of super-federalists as mere regions in a united states of Europe.
The Government take a diametrically opposite view from us. All their instincts are to agree with the corporatist views of the Rhineland model economies. Some of my colleagues call their proposed actions surrender. And, from the point of view of this country, that is what it is. But to the Government it is not surrender at all; it is a fusion of ideas with which they feel entirely at home and they are happy to concede without asking for anything in exchange.
What are they signing up to? It is a Europe of Little Europeans, an inward-looking Europe afraid to take the measures necessary to compete in the Foreign Secretary's new world of communication. To cover their own position, they are all too prone to call the rest of us who have perhaps a slightly broader view Little Englanders. It is not the world of free trade that we have to fear, the world of flexible labour markets: it is the
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Little Europeans whose instincts are to close the frontiers of the European Union to foreign trade and to try to reduce the unemployment created with the solutions of big government that failed us 20-odd years ago. That will help to drive the world economy into protectionist regional groupings. That will be bad for jobs, bad for prosperity and above all bad for stability, particularly for stable relations between Europe and the United States of America.
Of course I wish the Government well. After all, the electorate has entrusted the welfare of all of us to their care. I can only hope that where there is glitz they will eventually put substance and where their policies of substance are mistaken they will eventually see the error of their ways.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I greatly dislike troubling your Lordships' House with my third speech within the first 25 hours of the Sitting of this House in the new Parliament, but I can assure noble Lords both that I shall on that account be brief and that thereafter, to recall Lord Attlee's famous rebuke of Professor Laski, not only will a period of silence from me be most welcome, it will actually occur.
In the few brief remarks I wish to make, I shall apply myself almost as a text to the remarks of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal to the effect that the primary object of the Government's foreign policy is to restore to Britain the role which it deserves in the development of the European Union. That should mean—and probably that is what the Government have at the back of their minds—trying to achieve a position, which has signally disappeared recently, for Britain of joint leadership with France and Germany in the European Union. There has been recently an almost exclusively Franco-German axis of leadership. It is about the only thing which has moved the European Union forward. Nobody with any sense of history—or any sense at all—could possibly believe that that partnership is not a vast improvement upon the enmity between those two countries which so disfigured Europe and the world for nearly a century before. Therefore no sane British government could wish to break up that partnership and to drive it asunder.
Nonetheless it would, in the interests of this country, certainly be more desirable if we could achieve not an exclusive leadership role—that would be extremely foolish and Utopian—but a position as the third point in a triangle of leadership. In many ways that could be a better and more fructuous arrangement for the other countries of the Union because a triangle is a rather more friendly geometrical concept within which to cluster than a straight line or an axis.
What are the chances of achieving that? The Government have, in my view, made a very good start. They have made very good noises towards Europe, and that has been greatly welcomed. I welcome—though I do not think it is of vast importance except symbolically—the acceptance of the social chapter. If I may say so with the greatest respect, and even affection, I have never heard more of a farrago of nonsense than what the noble Viscount put to the House

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this afternoon. He said that, if you ask any French or German industrialist what he thinks is damaging his country, he will reply that it is the social chapter. I would say to him that, if he asks the head of any multinational company operating in Britain and in Europe what he thinks about the social chapter, he will say that it is of very little importance one way or the other. That is absolutely the fact.
As a matter of fact, the social chapter has been a greatly exaggerated King Charles's head: it does not do all that much for welfare, but nor does it do all that much damage to enterprise. The social chapter performed a totally exaggerated role in the stale election propaganda of the Conservative Party. One can see when one looks at the shape of the House of Commons today exactly how effective that stale election propaganda was. My advice to the noble Viscount would be: forget it; move a little forward from those stale electoral platitudes which so signally failed.
There have been other good moves. However, there are hard issues that the Government have to face. If a triangle of leadership is to be achieved, it means full British participation in all the main initiatives and institutions of the Community. It does not just mean expressions of good will, though those are desirable and have in a sense already reaped a certain reward. Consider the reception which Mr. Gordon Brown received in Brussels when he said he wanted to reduce VAT on fuel. I am not all that enthusiastic about reducing VAT on fuel; I think there are environmental disadvantages. Nonetheless it was in the Government's manifesto and, if they want to do it, I am in favour of their being allowed by Europe to do it. With a little good will, Mr. Brown received a good reception. Contrast that with the way the previous Government handled the BSE issue, first of all their battling view and then the complete collapse of their position. A little good will works a good deal of benefit on peripheral issues but not in itself on establishing a triangle of leadership.
While I welcome what has happened so far, I remember at least three disappointments in the past. First, I remember how, after the 1975 referendum, there was great hope that the British Government, having a two-to-one mandate behind it, would play a really constructive role in Europe. That was followed by considerable disappointment, which was epitomised by Britain being the only country of the nine which stood out from the effective part of the European monetary system in 1978–79.
Then, when the new Conservative Government came in, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made a great effort in his early days—I observed it from my position as president—in the Council of Ministers and elsewhere to establish a new atmosphere of good will for Britain's European policy. That was swept aside by the swings of Mrs. Thatcher's handbag over the budgetary question when, though she was right on the substance of the issue, she created a vast amount of ill will for a marginal amount of money at the end of that bitter dispute.
Then in 1990 Mr. Major began by saying that it was his aim to put Britain at the heart of Europe and there were the disappointments which followed from that.
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The fundamental contradiction was that, in so far as Mr. Major's European policy achieved any triumphs, they were the triumphs of opt-outs. Leadership cannot be built on opt-outs. I hope that the present Government will learn that lesson.
I do not know for certain whether the single European currency will come into being on the accepted date. I believe that it is still highly probable that it will do so. But in any event, the British record under governments of different parties has been consistently that of being over-sceptical about what would happen in Europe. Right from the beginning they have been saying that it will not work and will never happen—and they have always been wrong—and then joining late. In my view we should be extremely well advised to assume the reverse: to assume that it will happen—even if there is still a possibility that it does not happen—and to adjust to that.
It is simply not possible—this really should be taken into account—to exercise a role as one of a triangle of leadership if one is outside a European development as major as that of the single currency. That hard fact must be faced. It is possible to decide for other reasons that one would prefer perhaps to have a peripheral role in Europe or even to come out of Europe altogether. That might be the logical consequence. But it is not possible to believe that one can exercise a role outside the major development of the next few years, which is absolutely crucial to the future development of the whole European community. If, at this stage, a single currency were to fail or be postponed—to founder—it would be exactly like being in an aeroplane in which at the very last moment the captain decided to reverse his engines and abort take-off, bringing the plane to a stop before going into the sea or whatever. The passengers might survive but they would be very shaken and would not be very keen on new ventures for a long time to come.
If that foundering were to occur, I do not believe that substantial enlargement would take place. There would then be a very inward-looking perspective. If that happened I think that the French would veto major enlargement. So let us have some realism about what are the possibilities. The Government have made a good start but I hope very much that they will understand the hard choices in Europe, learn from the many lessons of the past and proceed accordingly.
In my view, it is also absolutely vital that the Government, if they wish to pursue a sensible and constructive European policy, should begin some firm persuasion and education of public opinion. Of course, I do not believe that one can go beyond a certain distance against public opinion and certainly the superficial, surface currents of public opinion are Euro-sceptic and hostile to Europe at the present time. Sometimes it amazes me that people are not more hostile than they are, when one remembers that for years past there has never been a word of positive enthusiasm or positive Euro-propaganda from the late Government. As a great part of the press is now trans-oceanically owned by proprietors who are very hostile to the concept of Europe, it is surprising that there is as much pro-European opinion as there is.

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I believe that the surface current is superficial. I remember that there was a very hostile position to Europe in the polls six months before the 1975 referendum. Opinion can be turned round. There is a great duty on the Government to do it. If they wish to operate in a decisively better climate. They have to a substantial extent to make the weather of public opinion for themselves. It has been let go for too many years. This is the time to start. I have great hopes of the Government. I hope that they will not be disappointed.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, we have heard two powerful defences of the European Union from the noble Lord the Leader of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. I want to ask them whether perhaps they have left anything out of their speeches. They are both former commissioners of the European Union and one is a former president. Were the whole edifice to collapse, as some of us believe it could, I ask them and indeed other noble Lords who may be in that category—looking down the list of speakers perhaps I should mention my noble friend Lord Cockfield—whether, in view of the new regulations which apply to your Lordships' debate, they do not have some interest to declare.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his most elegant and gracious suggestion. Perhaps I may say to him that, if I were in his position of having reduced his own party by his destructive activities to the state in which it is today, a period of silence from him would now be most welcome.
4.45 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, in welcoming the gracious Speech, I must express my regret to the House that, owing to a long-standing speaking engagement in Oxford, I shall not be able to stay to the end of the debate. But I shall certainly read the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, with great care. Together with other noble Lords, perhaps I may say how much I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan.
The first theme in the gracious Speech that I particularly welcome is the Government's stated commitment to tackling global poverty and promoting sustainable development. In this House in recent years we have been very blessed to have in our midst the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, whose personal dedication to alleviating poverty in the world has been so marked. But the problem, sadly, is as acute as ever.
Your Lordships will understand that this is a concern particularly felt by all the Christian Churches. Especially at the moment the Churches are concerned about the burden of debt on the poorest countries of the world. Next year, all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion will gather for the Lambeth Conference—a meeting which takes place once every 10 years. Already, it has become obvious that the international debt crisis—it is a crisis, my Lords—will be the major theme of the Anglican Bishops' meeting in Canterbury.
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Furthermore, a new strong movement has begun in Britain, called Jubilee 2000, which calls for remission on a one-off basis of the unpayable debts of the countries of the poorest 1 billion people on earth. Many of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. Christians and church people of all kind believe without any kind of exaggeration that that movement is comparable to the campaign against slavery in the 19th century. People are literally dying by the minute because of those unsustainable debts, which always, of course, bear hardest upon the poor.
Aid agencies such as CAFOD, the Roman Catholic relief organisation, Tear Fund and Christian Aid (of which I am a board member) have indicated strong support for Jubilee 2000 and we look to Her Majesty's Government to play a leading role in this field. However, the recent highly indebted poor countries initiative is proving something of a disappointment. The Ugandan Government in particular now face the agonizing prospect of removing from their budget the sums allocated for increasing educational opportunities for an estimated 2 million to 2½ million children of primary school age in order to make interest-free payments to the international financial institutions. Surely, no government should be forced to make such choices.
The new millennium will begin during the anticipated term of office of this Government. The possibility of a significant remission of the unpayable debts of governments whose citizens are among the poorest members of the human race would mean that the new millennium was genuinely something to celebrate and an occasion of which the British people could justly be proud.
The second aspect of the gracious Speech to which I should like to draw attention is the commitment there to:
"the promotion of human rights",
which will be a priority. This is a complex area where hard choices will have to be made. Her Majesty's Government deserve every encouragement in making human rights a central concern, but when this conflicts with the imperatives of trade and investment—as it may well do in many instances, even with countries the size of China—hard choices will have to be faced. The case of Nigeria and the position to be adopted by Her Majesty's Government at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh this autumn could well be a test case. The case of Nigeria is the most serious test of the cohesion and determination of the Commonwealth since apartheid in South Africa.
Conflicts of interest are inescapable. The human rights element of government policy must be more than a moral gesture. The effectiveness of steps proposed must also be weighed. I believe, however, that the citizens of this country will welcome a foreign policy which embraces human rights concerns in genuinely good faith.
The third and last aspect of this speech to which I wish particularly to draw attention is one which at least hints at the question of the arms trade and arms transfer of policy. In view of the Government's

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commitment to human rights, it is something of a disappointment that that is not more explicit in the gracious Speech. But there are certainly points to welcome in the recent statements of the Foreign Secretary.
Many non-governmental organisations, aid agencies and refugee organisations have highlighted the scourge of landmines as a key obstacle to development and one of the factors which prevent civilians returning home after wars have been resolved. The Churches have joined in this condemnation. So we welcome the Government's early statement of support for the international campaign to outlaw landmines and we look for real progress on the elimination of landmines of all kinds, including the so-called "self-destruct" ones.
As regards the conventional arms trade more generally, in November 1994 the General Synod of the Church of England unanimously approved a report entitled Responsibility in Arms Transfer Policy. This called for a reassessment of government policy so that arms transfers would be made only in accordance with a policy which is,
"generally acknowledged as being ethically responsible, transparent, publicly accountable and consistent".
Such a call is close to the formulation used by the Foreign Secretary in outlining the approach to be adopted by Her Majesty's Government. The findings of the Scott Report and steps already taken indicate that a thorough reconsideration is well overdue.
The difficulty, of course, will be getting beyond verbal agreement on a respectable formula to a practical policy. One case which has exercised Churches worldwide has been continued arms sales to Indonesia—a country which has illegally occupied East Timor for over 20 years in clear contravention of international law and United Nations resolutions. Will the Government now show their resolve to live up to the stated criteria by preventing arms sales to Indonesia? Other key countries where the Government could make a decisive difference include Burma, Colombia and Kenya.
There is a great deal to welcome in the gracious Speech. The good will and, if I may say so, the prayers of millions of people, not only in this country but perhaps especially abroad, will be directed towards the achievement of those goals. There are millions of people who are literally dying of starvation, people whose human rights are being violated week by week, people who are being killed or wounded by weapons which should never have been sold to the contending parties in their country. Solving some of those problems is urgent and the good will and prayers of millions will be directed towards achieving those extremely worthwhile goals.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, perhaps not surprisingly, I wish to concentrate briefly on one sentence in the gracious Speech:
"To ensure that the United Kingdom's defence capabilities are matched to the changing strategic setting, my Government will reassess our essential security interests and defence needs".
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The noble Lord the Leader of the House has already referred to that part of the gracious Speech. He has said that the Government are in favour of strong Armed Forces with strong political support and that defence policy will be foreign policy-led. I am sure that the Leader of the House will be the first to recognise that the translation of admirable sentiments into a practical policy is one of the most difficult tricks in the whole of the political repertoire. I wish the Government every success in bringing it off.
However, I have to say that the very phrase "reassess our essential security interests" has a fearful resonance for anyone who has been involved for long in defence matters. It means that another defence review is on the way. Almost every defence review for the past 40 years has turned out to be no more than a pretext for a reduction in defence expenditure and for cuts across the board in the strength of our Armed Forces or the procurement of military equipment, or both. I hope that when the noble Baroness replies to the debate she can give the House a firm assurance that this defence review will not be yet another smoke-screen for an assault on the defence budget, which always seems to be the favourite public expenditure target of governments looking for economies.
Of course, no defence review can or should be carried out in an economic vacuum. Perhaps it might be relevant to mention that there have been times in the past when critics of government defence policy, both inside and outside the Armed Forces, have condemned defence reviews and defence policy as being "Treasury-driven". But all public expenditure policy in some sense has to be Treasury-driven. A more valid criticism, I think, is that, in my experience, in the past the Treasury, in addition to influencing the amount of money and resources allocated to defence—which is its proper function—has also tried to influence how that money is spent, what kind of defence we have. That is not its business. It is the business of those who are responsible for external policies. Just as defence expenditure and defence policy cannot be determined in an economic vacuum, so, perhaps more importantly, it cannot be done in a political and strategic vacuum. Any serious strategic review of defence policy must be approached in the context of the aims of foreign policy.
It is true that not all military policy is the handmaiden of foreign policy. One of the functions of our military establishment is to ensure, in its narrowest sense, the defence of the realm—that is to say, the ability to deter any potential aggressor from mounting an attack on the United Kingdom and, if deterrence should fail, the ability to defend the country against such an attack. However, it is fair to say that, in the current strategic political environment, that is a remote contingency, although it will always be necessary to guard against it. There is one other point that we must never forget and which has already been mentioned in the debate today: it is also essential to provide armed forces to support the civil power in circumstances of terrorist attack or any other form of violent threat to law and order.
In all other respects, defence, or, to be more precise, military policy is an instrument of foreign policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard has already said. In that sense,

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many elements of our defence arrangements sometimes taken for granted—such as the possession of armoured and amphibious forces and the capacity for the distant projection of military force—will depend upon the country's chosen role on the international scene. Here perhaps I may be allowed to sound a mild note of alarm and echo something that was said in a different way by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne. We have heard a certain amount recently about placing matters such as human rights and arms control at the top of our foreign policy agenda. Of course human rights are of concern to all of us, although anyone who believes that the rights of man are absolute and self-evident should perhaps go back and study Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. But this is not the occasion for a discussion of what Burke called real rights and pretended rights. As the right reverend Prelate has said, this is a very complicated matter.
As for arms control and the control of arms transfers, these are aspects of foreign policy in which this country has always had a respectable record. British negotiators have played a leading part in achieving international agreements such as the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Government have never been lazy or ineffective in their contribution to negotiations on arms control and disarmament.
It is important to be clear that when we are talking about these things we are talking about the machinery of foreign policy, not its purpose. Anyone who believes that foreign policy can be conducted on strictly ethical principles should study the history of diplomacy leading up to the Second World War. Maintaining the reputation of this country in the international community is, as other noble Lords have said, an important element of external relations. But it is not an end in itself. It cannot be said too often that the purpose of an effective foreign policy is to protect the interests of the nation and, in doing so, to ensure its security and prosperity. Anything which weakens or compromises that purpose should be regarded with great reserve and suspicion.
Time is going on and I must hasten to end my remarks. Anyone embarking upon a defence review of the kind adumbrated in the gracious Speech should be quite clear about how the Government see the role of this country in the world. A number of questions—at present without any clear answers—have to be confronted. Let me mention two of the most obvious, which have already been mentioned in your Lordships' House today and will possibly be mentioned again by the noble Lord, Lord Healey, when he comes to speak. What is to be our attitude to NATO and its future role, composition and organisation? As I have said, from those decisions will flow decisions about the need for armoured forces and mechanised infantry, for example.
What about events affecting national interests outside the NATO area? To what extent may they require military action? What sort of military action? Are we to contemplate more peacekeeping as in Bosnia; protection of humanitarian aid operations as in Africa; conventional military combat as in the Falklands? Until such long-term policy decisions have been resolved, we
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cannot make intelligent decisions about military resources such as aircraft carriers, logistic support or the appropriate mix in our armed forces of artillery, engineers and communications troops.
Without a clear understanding of foreign policy assumptions, it is impossible even to begin considering the shape and size of our Armed Forces and the kinds of arms and equipment they will need to discharge their commitments.
On present evidence, it seems that the instincts of the Government in their world view are very little different—except in certain specific instances—from those of the previous government. But the matter of the role of Britain in the world has to be crystallised and clarified if our military affairs are to be conducted in a manner which provides security for Britain, reassurance to our allies and strong support for our foreign policy.
As a final word, there are two other essential functions of a serious review of defence policy. One is to achieve some kind of national consensus about the kind of armed forces which we need and the proportion of our national wealth we are prepared to spend upon them. Unless that national consensus is achieved, no effective defence review can seriously be contemplated.
The other, and final, point I wish to make about any defence review upon which the Government decide to embark, is that it must provide motivation and a measure of stability for our Armed Forces. They must have proper equipment and adequate training resources for the tasks they are called upon to perform, and they must not be subject to unnecessary and obsessive tinkering with their strength, structure and organisation. There has been far too much of that in the past. If we are to have a defence review, let it be one which recognises that the Armed Forces are a vitally important part of the role which I hope this country will continue to play in the world.
5.5 p.m.
Lord Healey: My Lords, I shall resist the temptation to deal at length with the speech of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, except to remark that so far as Europe is concerned, splendid isolation seems to run in his family. I suppose that is an inevitable handicap of being a hereditary Peer.
I cannot resist reminding the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that I carried out a defence review just over 30 years ago and I cut our commitments far more than I cut our forces. I got rid of all our bases and commitments east of Suez in the teeth of fierce opposition from the Foreign Office, in which the noble Lord was then a Minister—although he was, to be fair, the Minister of Disarmament at the time.
I shall concentrate on an issue which urgently needs consideration by the House and by the Government, and that is the proposal to enlarge NATO. It is still very unclear from the press—which is all I have to go on because the Government have resisted discussing this with the country or Parliament—whether NATO is to be enlarged to include only Poland, Hungary and

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Czechoslovakia or, as my noble friend who opened the debate suggested, all the countries of eastern Europe except Russia.
One of the great problems is that it has not been thought through at all. Only a few days ago Mr. Yeltsin was predicting that the enlargement of NATO as proposed would lead to the worst crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the Cuban missile crisis. He appears to have taken a different line at a meeting with Secretary Solana yesterday, although he seems to disagree totally with President Clinton as to what was agreed at that meeting. Mr. Yeltsin said that the meeting ensured that NATO could never take another decision without the consent of the Russian Government. President Clinton insisted that Russia would have no veto on future decisions. It is very difficult for the laity like us to know who is telling the truth because they will not publish the text of what they agreed. If, and when, it will ever be published remains to be seen.
What we do know is that this proposal is opposed by the two main architects of American foreign policy since the Second World War—George Kennan and Henry Kissinger. It is opposed by two recent British ambassadors to Moscow—Sir Brian Fall and Sir John Killick. Sir John Killick was also ambassador to NATO. It is opposed by Admiral Sir James Eberle, who was a British commander in NATO and later served as a distinguished head of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. It is opposed by a very large number of experts on foreign policy such as Sir Michael Howard and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who opened the debate on this subject a few weeks ago. We have not been told why this proposal is being made.
We welcome the proposal to include the east European countries and Russia in the Partnership for Peace project. They are already members of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. But this new proposal seems to envisage excluding the Ukraine, the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria, although they all served with NATO forces, and are still serving with NATO forces, in Bosnia with the stability force, as indeed are Russian troops. Deep concern has been expressed by the governments which do not seem to have been invited to join NATO, such as the Estonian Government. Its foreign secretary complained yesterday that it would expose the Baltic states to new threats.
There is an interesting article in today's Herald Tribune by President Havel of Czechoslovakia pointing out that it will be a disaster unless it includes all the countries which have recently escaped from communist leadership. It threatens the existing treaty on conventional forces in Europe, which is already having trouble. I noticed that the other day they had to redraw the line affecting the Ukraine and Russia. It is difficult to understand quite why it has been put forward at all. I dare say it is not totally irrelevant that the American Secretary of State, who is its strongest supporter in the American Administration, is Czech by origin, and one of the administration's main advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is a Pole. Those countries have large and influential minorities in the United States which exert pressure on that administration.
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However, I suspect that the real reason for the proposal is that which is put forward in an interesting article in the current number of the official NATO review by Mr. Christoph Bertram, who was once head of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London. He makes it clear that he believes in it because the end of the Cold War has robbed NATO of its role. In fact, NATO is that biological monstrosity, an organ without a function. Bertram suggests that the only way of giving NATO what he calls an "existential function" is as a centre of stability in Europe, taking in some of the countries which used to be members of the Warsaw Pact. But I would suggest to your Lordships that this proposal will mean new instability in Europe and new divisions in Europe, as the Baltic governments and the Czech Government are already fearing. There is no doubt that this proposal, especially Yeltsin's obscure reaction towards it, could well lead to the replacement of Yeltsin as leader of Russia by a far more nationalistic government, whether communist or militarist. In that case there is little doubt that Russia would meet an expansion of NATO to the east by expanding its own forces to the west. That is why the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, are deeply disturbed by the proposal.
The proposal will also be immensely costly. The Pentagon claims that it will cost between 27 billion and 35 billion dollars over the next 13 years. The Congressional Office of the Budget says that it will cost nearly three times as much as that—between 61 billion and 125 billion dollars. A third of that cost will fall on the new entrants from eastern Europe, which certainly cannot afford to pay the cost. According to the Pentagon, it will also involve doubling the number of civilian staff working for NATO in Brussels. There are at present 3,000. Under the new proposal that would rise to 6,000. One or two of my noble friends were with me in the dining room the other day when I asked a very bright young officer from SHAPE how many people were at present working at NATO. He said, "I think about 20 per cent". The idea that one should double the civilian staff of NATO and involve the NATO countries and the new members in this enormous increase in cost is very difficult to understand.
In fact the proposal makes a total shambles of the western policy on dealing with the former communist countries. It is difficult to see how it will be reconciled with the Partnership for Peace and the OSCE. I appeal to my Government to see to it that this proposal is dropped as soon as possible. Only a few weeks are left before the meeting which is supposed to make it formal. It is far more important and more useful and better for world peace as well as for democracy to concentrate instead on getting the east European countries—those which are fit to do so—to join the European Union. That will be an expensive business but it will be worth spending money on it. Spending money on the enlargement of NATO will be totally counter-productive. I appeal to my noble friend who is to reply to put some of these points to her friends in the Cabinet to see whether we cannot take a lead on this matter. It is quite important for the future security of Britain and indeed for peace in the world.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, when I had the honour to make my maiden speech in another place 14 years ago, I did so against the backdrop of a world facing stark ideological division. I argued in that speech that we must be prepared fully to understand the nature of systems which are inimical to the principles of freedom and democracy; that we must not allow individual voices to be muffled or public opinion to be suppressed; that we must counter the possibility of communism creating a world where individual liberty extends no further than thought and where freedom of thought is exorcised by political indoctrination.
Even the most seasoned and perspicacious analysts would have been challenged to predict the far-reaching changes which have taken place, fundamentally altering the global political geography: the end of the cold war; the ebbing of communist influence in many states; the ending of apartheid in South Africa; the emergence of liberal democracy as the most successful model for modern society; the rise and strength of Islam and its subsequent impact on relations with the West; the advent of new global communications technology, fuelled by the spectacular rise of the Internet and the information superhighway; and the mounting ascendancy of environmental issues on the international political agenda. The old challenges have been replaced by a new set of no less complex challenges.
There is a growing consensus that without appropriate action the social price of environmentally unfriendly policies may ultimately bankrupt us. But this road is mined with moral ambiguities. Who indeed will pay to bear the brunt of the environmental burden in the next century? Will it be those northern hemisphere countries which rose to prosperity while abusing the environment, often in ignorance, or will it be those poorer states, increasingly prevented by today's dogma from exploiting their natural raw materials, often their main resource, which could net them similar achievement and prosperity? There are no easy answers and I hope that international solutions, including the trading of international pollution permits, will figure among the policy initiatives surrounding this important issue.
As we meet the new millennium there is a sense of great uncertainty about the future that we face. For me, this future is tinged with hope, but a sense of faltering hesitancy is somewhat cloaking the achievements and advances that have been made. I believe that it would be a mistake to think that in shaping tomorrow's political landscape we need to reinvent the wheel. We have the right tools within our grasp. Over the past decade we have been attempting to learn how to use them to their best advantage. I contend that we must not allow them to become rusty or blunt through neglect and lack of use.
The first of these tools is the importance of competition in the global market upon which our future economic prosperity depends. Everyone is familiar with the maps of the world produced by the newly-favoured UNESCO which show the countries sized proportionately to their GDP. Those maps show North America, Japan and Europe dominating the globe. If we
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imagine another map where the countries are drawn in proportion to their average economic growth rates for the past 10 years, we see a very different world. The Pacific Rim dominates that map. Taking a 10-year period, the mature economies of Europe and North America may well be dwarfed by the giants of Latin America, South East Asia and, thereafter, by China and India.
I believe that current GDP figures tell us where we are now. Growth rates tell us where the world is going. Throughout history, economic power changes have been a leading indicator of political and strategic power changes. The key to our European role in this equation is the recognition, accurately articulated by Sir Ronald Hempel, in his outstanding paper Beyond the Millennium, that,
"we face social and political pressures which our major competitors in other parts of the world do not."
He added,
"Conquer inflation and create jobs, they say, and all will be well. But behind these worthy ideals lurks an even more serious imperative: competitiveness, or rather the lack of it. Unless we solve the problem of European competitiveness, industry will continue to decline, imports will rise and unemployment will continue to be the spectre at the feast".
In the gracious Speech, the Government are committed to taking,
"a leading role in the European Union".
I believe that we have a duty on this side of the House to apply the competitive test to every directive, Bill and regulation we consider, for, if we impose measures which lessen our competitive edge, we actively create unemployment, the damaging social ills of which are recognised on all sides of the House.
The next tool available to us in foreign policy is the support for privatisation, which goes hand-in-hand with competition. While out of politics for five years, I had the honour of witnessing the impetus of privatisation which has taken hold globally since the collapse of the Berlin Wall; particularly in the growing central Asian and South American markets. The impact of privatisation has been of enormous importance to UK industry since it became our leading export during the 1980s.
Now I believe that we need to move forward, with a new approach to privatisation. In Bolivia, for example, I had the privilege to work with the exceptional President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to develop the imaginative capitalisation programme. The social objectives of winning popular approval and establishing a universal pension programme were directly linked with the urgent need to attract foreign capital investment into the once state-owned enterprises. This social dimension, directly linked to classical privatisation, was a fundamental ingredient in the success of Bolivia's capitalisation programme.
The point behind this is that the key issue for the future is that, if commercial success is to be achieved, investors and companies must work alongside governments as partners; must develop new and imaginative models for co-operation and must remain sensitive to the socio-political priorities of governments around the world.

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The third essential tool I would like to focus on is the importance of global communications and the exchange of knowledge. Open and easily accessible channels of communication promote the growth of democracy, for democracy has deep and strong roots. Its fruits may be delicate, but they are well worth protecting because they feed all people with hope and opportunity. They are the fruits of representation, liberty and the rule of law. They nurture freedom for the individual. They protect the inalienable rights of all of us and they must be defended against external aggression as against internal subversion and anarchy.
In harmony with my noble friend Lord Cranborne, I hope that the House will forgive me for highlighting one particular area of foreign policy in which immediate action can be taken; an area where a traditional form of communication is internationally acclaimed as an upholder and promoter of democracy. Indeed, this is an issue which in the past led me to abstain on a vote in another place for the only time during my career, not without considerable cost. I sincerely hope that in the many parts of the world, including those where democracy and market economies are emerging from the ashes of the communist world, strong and enduring support will be given to the BBC World Service. For millions of people the World Service has provided a beacon of fair and respected news coverage in parts of the globe which have been dominated by half-truths and state influence, if not control, over the media. It is trusted as a voice more than any of its free world rivals, but it needs fulsome support. We have a duty to support it vigorously. I welcome the recognition that, in this maiden speech, that may no longer be regarded as a controversial request.
The Government can, and I hope will, do much to help in all these areas. I stand before your Lordships genuinely cognisant of the duty placed on me as a Member of your Lordships' House; a duty and an honour which I will never be able to match in kind, but one which I will undertake to the best of my abilities.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am inclined to start by saying, "Well, follow that!". That was as good a maiden speech as I have heard in the 16 years or so I have been in your Lordships' House. This is the first time that I have had the honour and pleasure immediately to follow a maiden speaker. I could not have picked a better occasion. It was timely, well thought through and wonderfully well delivered. It is certainly my wish, and I am sure that it is also the wish of the whole House, that the noble Lord will attend the House frequently and expand on what he has been saying today.
It is customary on these occasions to make reference to the noble Lord's predecessor. I have difficulty with that. I knew his predecessor when he sat on the Liberal Benches. Unfortunately, he took his liberalism a little too far, with the result that the noble Lord had to dig his way through a difficult tangle. But we are glad that that is behind him and he is with us today. He has a strong Liberal ancestry. His father was a predecessor of mine as Liberal Chief Whip in 1950 and before that as the chairman of the Liberal Party Executive.
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Unfortunately, in those dark days for the Liberal Party, he decided that there were other places he wished to go. If he had seen the result of the last election perhaps he would have been more content to stay where he was.
But we welcome the noble Lord here. I spent some time with him in Kenya when we were together looking at the elections in that torn country. I was struck then by his clarity of thought. His summary, which could well have made the whole of our report, was very brief indeed. He said, "If someone asks you whether these elections were free and fair, I would say that they were not quite not".
I must now thank your Lordships for my reappointment yesterday as Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees and therefore as the Chairman of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities. As far as I can see, it was a close-run thing between me and a chap called "nemine dissentiente", but I think that I won in the end!
The IGC approaches. The Government do not have much time in which to get involved in the process and perhaps to shift the emphasis of this country's approach to the IGC. However, today I should like to raise a matter which has been discussed widely at various meetings throughout Europe during the past six months or more. I refer to the question of the democratic deficit, about which everybody talks but nobody knows what to do, and to the role of parliaments, both national parliaments and the European Parliament. This House has now scrutinised European documents and European directives effectively over a long period, although we may not be at the top of the pecking order in that regard these days. The Danes and the Finns have slightly overtaken us in terms of dealing with legislation because they mandate their Ministers before sending them to the European Councils. I beg leave to doubt whether anything would ever happen in those European Councils if everybody did that, but those countries seem to find it appropriate. Indeed, they seem to find it easier because they have coalition governments and in that way they know that they are carrying their parliaments behind them.
This House has an enviable reputation of researching issues in depth and then producing reports which are widely read and digested on all sides of Europe. Our work fits extremely well with that of the Commons. I should now like to pay tribute to Mr. Jimmy Hood, who was the chairman of the Select Committee on European Legislation in another place throughout my earlier period of tenure. That has now changed with the change of government. It is unfortunate that it appears that the Commons will now take quite some time to reconstitute that Select Committee. Indeed, it may not be reconstituted before the IGC meeting in Amsterdam, although I hope that I am wrong on that.
Together, both Select Committees have made a strong plea about the importance of getting information from Brussels to our national parliaments and our scrutiny committees in good time. I believe that I have said previously in your Lordships' House that many of the documents seem to be sent from Brussels by a man with a forked stick. Things are improving, but we are still

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not in the position that we should like to be in because electronic media cannot yet be used. Apparently, there is some incompatibility between what happens in Brussels and what happens in various European capitals. However, until such documents can be transmitted quickly, we cannot properly do our job of scrutinising European legislation on behalf of the citizens.
In a report last year—it was followed by a report from this House—the other place said that there should be at least a month from the delivery of documents before a Council decision has to be made. I am glad that that has now been included in a draft from the Dublin Summit and that a new protocol is to be added to the text of the treaty, stating that a four-week period shall elapse between a legislative proposal, as defined in Article 151 of the treaty establishing the European Community, being made available in all languages to the European Parliament and the Council. That is all right as far as it goes, but there is still the question of when the clock starts ticking. We have suggested—this seems to be gaining wide support in the Conference of European Advisory Committees—that that four-week period should start when all the translations are in the hands of the national representatives in Brussels. In other words, the clock should start ticking only when all the documents reach UKREP. I believe that we could then do our job much better.
The position with regard to first-pillar documents has improved in recent years. Unfortunately, that is not true of second and third-pillar documents. We have had hardly any second-pillar documents. That is perhaps more understandable with regard to foreign and security affairs because this House and another place are bound by the Ponsonby Rules in relation to our own foreign policy. However, it is important that we begin to open up what happens in the Council with regard to third-pillar matters. The Council deals with important matters such as human rights and other matters affecting everybody's daily life, yet there is a disturbing pattern of secrecy. We have no clear idea of what is on the Council's agenda. There are no detailed reports of what has been agreed and we do not know how our Ministers have voted on the issues before the Council. That seems to me to he the negation of democracy. If we are here as a parliament to check the Executive, we have a right to have such information. I hope that this Government will begin to blow such secrecy wide open.
Many of us have been surprised that there is no freedom of information Bill in the gracious Speech. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, who is to reply to the debate, is a great supporter of the Freedom of Information Campaign and I hope that she will continue to be so now that she is in office. I welcome the noble Baroness to the Dispatch Box and do not want to load her with too many questions, given the number that have already been put to her. Nevertheless, the Government's attitude towards secrecy in the Council must improve. We thought that the judgment of the European Court of Justice in the Carvel case (when Mr. John Carvel of the Guardian was refused documents by the Council Secretariat) had started that process, but it seems that the Council
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Secretariat is trying to avoid the consequences of that judgment to the best of its ability. Sub-committee F is conducting an investigation into the affairs of the third pillar and will start to do so again once the Select Committee is reconstituted.
That committee received some interesting evidence from Mr. Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, from which I discovered to my surprise that once documents which are secret have been passed to me and I have put them to my sub-committees and my sub-committees have invited people to give evidence on them, those documents are secret no longer. I seem to have extraordinary powers which I did not previously know were available to me. I shall certainly use them to the best of my ability. Despite the Carvel judgment, Mr. Tony Bunyan has had enormous difficulties in getting documents from the Council. He has been to the ombudsman, who has told the Council to come up with the goods, but the Council has said, "It's none of your business". It seems astonishing that the Council Secretariat—and the Council itself—is prepared to say to the European ombudsman, "This has nothing at all to do with you; it is entirely a matter for the Council because it is a third pillar matter".
I believe that the British Government voted in favour of that proposition. A number of other delegations gave an explanation of their vote in the other direction. I refer to the delegations of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, so we are not speaking about a small number. Their explanation stated:
"While the Ombudsman is not competent to deal with matters falling under Titles V and VI of the TUE, these Delegations consider that this case concerns an inquiry of alleged maladministration in the application of Council Decision … for which the Ombudsman is competent".
I hope that the British Government will join those other governments in supporting the competence of the ombudsman to break open the great wall of secrecy which surrounds the Council and its activities.
I should like to mention just one other matter—and this comes from me personally rather than from me in my role as chairman of your Lordships' Select Committee. Another subject which has been discussed with me in a number of meetings this year is the question of a uniform electoral system for the European Parliament. This causes considerable perturbation in Europe because the way in which the electoral system in this country works and the distortion in numbers that it creates has unbalanced the European Parliament. The Socialist Group in the European Parliament is significantly greater than it should be because of the large number of Labour Members in that group. I hope that the fact that the electoral system causes that to happen will not deter the Foreign Secretary from pursuing the initiatives that he has already taken by saying at the recent publication of a book by the noble Lord, Lord Plant, and Mr. Michael Steed that it is the intention of the Government to proceed to a uniform proportional system for European Parliament elections in 1999. I should like some reassurance from the Government Front Bench that that still remains the position.

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Your Lordships' Select Committee will continue to scrutinise to the best of its ability (which I believe is quite high) European matters, but it can do better if it has access to documents which at the moment are regarded as far too secret by the Council and its secretariat.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I also thoroughly enjoyed the excellent maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I follow the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, by saying that I also care a great deal about the Government's pledge on a uniform electoral system not only as a matter of principle but, in the best spirit of constructive opposition, to suggest that it is in the Government's self-interest. Two years into a Labour Government when the honeymoon has worn off the voters will have the opportunity to punish the Labour Party in the European elections in 1999 by voting for whoever else they wish. I suggest in all humility that in those circumstances it is in the interests of the Government, as well as a matter of their previous pledge, to make sure that a proper and democratic electoral system is by then introduced.
In contrast to the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, I welcome the new Government's mission statement. I look forward to the Government carrying out the Labour Party's pledge to introduce a White Paper on foreign policy. I remember well the Statement by the Labour Foreign Secretary in, I believe, March or April 1974, that he would take steps to introduce a White Paper on foreign policy to ensure that the public were properly educated on these matters. Somehow or other it got lost then. I recommend that the new Government pull out the files on James Callaghan's Statement and reconsider how much more useful it is to be open.
The one part of the mission statement that left me rather queasy was the pledge to make the United Kingdom a leading player in a Europe of independent nation states. Last night I was in the Foreign Office listening to an excellent annual lecture by Professor Keith Robbins on the United Kingdom as a multinational state and its implications for foreign policy. After all, the United Kingdom is not a single nation state. Devolution, to which the new Government are committed, emphasises the extent to which we are a multinational state and raises the question of how far a Scottish parliament, and for that matter a Welsh assembly, will have their own interests to represent in Brussels and elsewhere. This rather Gaullist language redolent of sovereignty and nationalism of independent nation states fits rather uneasily with a stronger commitment to international co-operation which occurs elsewhere in the Statement.
Having sat for an hour or more in the Locarno Room last night and looked at the backdrop to the presentation of the mission statement of the Foreign Office, I ask the noble Baroness who is to wind up why it is that Iceland is portrayed on that backdrop as twice as large as the United Kingdom.
In the spirit of constructive opposition, I should also like to comment on the defence by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, of the record of the previous
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Government. He spoke about the past 18 years. I should like to speak about the past eight years. It seems to me that the previous Government went most wrong in its failure to adjust to the end of the Cold War, to think through the implications and to explain them to the British people. During the election campaign I read the excellent book on how we managed the unification of Germany written by Condoleeza Rice and Philip Zelikow, who were members of the National Security Council under President Bush. In that book the closeness of German-American co-operation in the process of German unification is detailed and the obstructiveness of the British Prime Minister and the unhelpfulness of the British Government are painfully set out. The slow move from resistance to German unification to a general cultivation of anti-Germanism, and from there to transatlantic nostalgia, was very much part of what went wrong in the atmosphere in which the previous Government made foreign policy. My criticism then and since of Douglas Hurd as Foreign Secretary was that he was always prepared to argue that very little had changed rather than try to explain to people how rapidly and radically the international context was changing. Malcolm Rifkind went further in his transatlantic nostalgia, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, has suggested, by promoting the totally illusory and unsaleable idea of a transatlantic free trade area which would never have a chance of passing the US Congress. Of course, from this I exempt the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, who in that Government played an extremely valuable role in emphasising the importance of the third world and defending a shrinking development budget from those who wished to attack it.
Following the recent decisive election result self-righteous Euro-phobia has come to an end. I spent much of the election in the south west of England where the Referendum Party mounted an extremely strong campaign in a number of constituencies, including Yeovil. There were as many Referendum Party posters visible as there were Conservative Party posters. The outcome of the campaign was, as many noble Lords will recall, that Liberal Democrats won a great many of those constituencies and the Referendum Party failed to save many deposits. As a result, I hope that the rather puritanical comments about some being saved and the rest being sinners that we have heard from various Benches and seen in the columns of The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, so clearly rejected by the British people and compounded by the disappearance of Sir James Goldsmith to foreign parts again, will be replaced by a little more humility and readiness to admit that they may be mistaken and they are perhaps not saved.
I should like to say a word about the Conservatives' record on defence and what we may hope for on that subject from the new Government. A couple of weeks ago a German official remarked to me that the biggest paradox of the Conservative Government was that under Michael Portillo as Minister of Defence the British defence commitment had moved closer towards European integration than ever before, that we had taken part in the Rapid Reaction Force with a multinational division, that we had formed a Franco-British air wing

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but that, at the same time, the Government had been doing their best to hide that from the British people. I urge the new Government, as one of their first actions in relation to defence, to make it clearer to the British people just how closely integrated with our European allies our defence has already become.
There is much one can do to symbolise defence. Mrs. Thatcher always symbolised defence when she went to Germany by standing with our boys in tanks without a single German in sight. President Mitterrand always had the sense to ensure that when he went to Germany he stood together with the German Chancellor to watch German and French troops marching together. The Franco-British air wing was allowed to fly under the Arc de Triomphe on 14th July last year. I am not aware that it has yet flown in public on any ceremonial occasions in Britain. Perhaps the next Queen's birthday may provide an occasion.
With the next 14th July, we shall be approaching the 50th anniversary of the occasion on 14th July 1948 when the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards, with the Scots Guards' band, marched down the Champs Elyseés as part of the 14th July parade. It would be welcome were the new Government to suggest to the French that we might mark that by doing the same again, and then perhaps even have the unit which has always seemed to be the most under-appreciated and the most militarily integrated in Europe (the British-Dutch Marine Amphibious Force) holding the guard outside Buckingham Palace. A little bit of symbolism in the right direction would help get rid of all the old symbolism in the wrong direction from which we have suffered.
However, I was a little worried by the tone of the new Foreign Secretary's remarks the day before yesterday on the WEU. It seemed to me that the old Atlanticist nostalgia was still almost there. Stronger European co-operation is the only way forward for British defence within NATO, but within a European pillar for NATO. That is what the new Foreign Secretary should be saying rather than sounding as though he is deeply cautious, like his predecessor, about any closer engagement with those dangerous continentals.
I welcome the defence review. European and NATO integration, efficiency gains from further integration and a degree of specialisation are what one needs to pursue.
I shall end by talking about EU enlargement, which the noble Lord, Lord Healey, appeared to suggest was a new idea which we could clearly throw out of the window. We have, after all, as a country been committed to that since the NATO council of January 1994. Many people did not fully recognise that, and of course the Government did not do very much to explain to the public that that would lead to enlargement. But all of those countries which had formerly been Socialist had asked for NATO membership from 1990 onwards, and we had done our best, in a rather inadequate way, to respond.
Clearly what we need here from the Government is an open explanation of what is going on and why, and a number of speeches, preferably in Britain—
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Malcolm Rifkind made just one speech on NATO enlargement of which I am aware, and that was in Washington—on the underlying purpose of the expansion of NATO. We are, after all, approaching a key point in both NATO and EU enlargement in July this year when, first, the NATO council will announce which countries will join; and, secondly, the European Commission will publish its opinion on those countries which it regards as ready to negotiate for full EU membership.
The importance of giving messages to Slovenia, Romania and Estonia which do not leave them outside, and which do not just accept that we are interested in three countries and we shall stop there, both in the EU and NATO, is important for the long-term security of Europe.
We then go on from the 1997 IGC. We face a large number of changes in NATO and the EU. Indeed, enlargement is not possible without substantial changes in NATO or the EU. The Treaty of Amsterdam will clearly be a modest affair. Nothing in the election campaign was more absurd than Michael Howard's suggestion that the Treaty of Amsterdam would end the sovereignty of the British Parliament. The one thing we can be certain will be in the Treaty of Amsterdam is an agreement that there will be another IGC in four or five years' time. The Government will need to start educating the public about what they have in mind. Any British foreign policy and any British defence policy has to start in Europe with a proper partnership with France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain, conducted bilaterally and multilaterally through NATO, its European pillar and the EU. If the Government pursue that type of foreign policy we will do our best to support them, and when the Government fall short of that we shall oppose them constructively.
5.55 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, this year's gracious Speech has received a better press than any of those annual occasions that I can recall. I say that at the beginning, because my contribution to the debate will point to a serious flaw in the speech. I should like to make it clear that in other respects I am as enthusiastic as some of the newspapers almost seemed to try to be. It had a splendid reception, which it deserved.
I can deal with the one point only in the time that I shall allow myself. In the penultimate paragraph of the penultimate page of the speech the Government say:
"My Government will retain strong armed forces, including the nuclear deterrent".
That is the bold war-like note of firm military government. Then we come to a quieter sentence which strikes a different note. It continues:
"Preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will be a priority".
Which is the priority? There are two there. That is the only thing that the Government say about this awesome weapon: that they are going to keep it. On the other hand, they are going to advise everyone else not to have it. That is the confused message which comes across here, which is why it seemed to me to be worth while

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to point it out, in the hope that the Government were merely cramming it in the space and that they will have something more satisfactory to say about it when they look into it.
We are inclined to forget the awesome nature of what is called here the "nuclear deterrent". We are also inclined to forget the change that has taken place. When I served in the forces in the last war, the civilian was sacrosanct. I have mentioned the book I have once before in the House. I hope your Lordships will not mind if I repeat the reference. It was a small document issued to all commissioned members of the forces in 1940 to tell them what they could and could not do in war. It was called What Acts of War are Justifiable. It was written by the formidable and famous Professor A. L. Goodhart. It was to tell you what you could do and what you simply must not do if you proposed to be a civilised combatant. I shall not give the details, but Goodhart finishes by saying:
"The separation of armies and peaceful inhabitants into two distinct classes is perhaps the greatest triumph of international law. The effect in mitigating the evils of war has been incalculable".
He finishes his last sentence:
"It is to re-establish these in a world threatened with barbarism that this war is being fought".
If that is all it was fought for, it was fought in vain, because at the time that that was being circulated the situation was gradually getting out of control. The civilian, instead of being sacrosanct, was becoming more and more the target. Coventry, Rotterdam and, gradually, the blockbuster which killed whoever was in its path—women and children—meant that the citizen was not sacrosanct. The citizen was sacrosanct in the earlier years, because then, if our bombers could not be sure that they were on the military target, they were under instructions to bring hack their bombs. Indeed, many of them did so and dropped them in the sea.
It was not long before we were blockbusting ourselves. That eventually finished up with Hamburg and finally with the horror of Hiroshima, where hundreds and thousands of civilians were killed. So instead of the sacrosanctness of civilians, we have barbarism, as Goodhart called it, which is now accepted as a common occurrence. All we have to say about it is to call it the nuclear deterrent and say that we are going to keep it. We are going to keep a weapon which cannot possibly avoid killing civilians if it is ever used at all. If it is used, civilians will suffer as a result more than those in the Armed Forces. That is due to the very nature of the thing; it cannot be used otherwise.
That is why there is a rebellion against it among the Armed Forces who would have to use such weapons. One of the most remarkable developments in recent times is that of the Washington generals—that is, generals from all over the world, including Russia and America—who got together and said that this was a weapon which must be got rid of because it was not a legitimate weapon of war. As a matter of fact, that sentiment was uttered many years ago by Lord Louis Mountbatten. He said that it was not a weapon of war, it was a weapon of mass destruction.
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We pay lip service to the idea that weapons of mass destruction should not be used but we harbour one. We apparently imagine that it is all right to continue saying, "We are just going to keep this one but you must not have it; we do not want proliferation". That simply has not worked and it will not work. We tell the other non-nuclear nations that they must not have nuclear weapons. However, in the General Assembly of the United Nations it was made clear that those others are unimpressed with the nuclear powers who advise them to have nothing whatever to do with mass-murdering weapons while themselves spending vast sums of money on keeping their own civilisation smashers in good condition so that they will be ready to carry out their terminal job.
I believe that the situation deserves more than a single contradictory paragraph. What, then, should the Government have been saying rather than these two conflicting sentences? The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, is due to speak after me in today's debate. Strictly speaking, I ought to have been following him but I am sure that he will be able to tell the House more than I can about the Canberra Commission, of which he was a member.
The Canberra Commission, including the noble and gallant Lord, is saying what the General Assembly of the United Nations has accepted by a massive majority. Indeed, it is what the Washington generals have also been saying but in slightly different words. The message varies in detail but basically they seem to be saying the same. I believe that that is an interesting development in the anti-nuclear struggle. Initially it started out on a national basis. I myself marched to Aldermaston. However, the emphasis has now changed. When we are talking in international terms, it is no use talking about unilateralism, and so on. When we were trying to set an example in this country in that respect, it was reasonable to talk about unilateralism. But, nowadays, that is old hat. Today the decisions must be taken on an international basis. That is what the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Canberra Commission and so on, are attempting to do.
As I said, they are all saying that nuclear states should get together and, gradually and certainly, reach agreement on a target for eliminating the nuclear weapon. It has been suggested that, if necessary, it should he done over a period of several years. I believe that to be a most encouraging development and one which deserves something more; indeed, it deserves at least a mention in the White Paper. The shared aim of those organisations from Australia, the United States and so on, is the aim of a world free from nuclear weapons. That should be our aim. It should be the aim of this Labour Government, and we should state that aim. There is nothing unilateral about it. The more it is studied, the more it will be seen to be plain common sense and the way to an objective that we all share, irrespective of our political positions. That objective is the very survival of our civilisation. With all its faults, it is the only one we have.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Carver: My Lords, I propose to limit my remarks, as I did in the debate on the Address last October, to the related issues of the expansion of NATO and the elimination of nuclear weapons. There is no more important responsibility for the Government than that of doing their best to ensure the future peace of Europe on which our security depends. I believe that the thoughtless and irresponsible way in which the North Atlantic Alliance, with the full backing of the previous Government, has embarked on its expansion threatens that peace and therefore our future security. I most warmly welcome every single word spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Healey, on the subject.
It is of vital importance to ensure that Europe is not again divided into two potentially hostile alliances, armed to the teeth against each other. To ensure that that does not happen, the first priority is to reach an agreement with Russia, if necessary formalised by a treaty, that relieves her of fears for her security and accords her a responsible place in arrangements to preserve peace in Europe. That is the first priority, and the Government must do all they can to see that the agreement between the alliance and Russia, due to be signed in Paris on 27th May, succeeds and is built upon. Of course, we welcome the agreement reached yesterday between Mr. Primakov and Se or Javier Solana. We do not know the detail but I cannot believe that it is enough to serve as a permanent foundation for permanent peace in Europe.
I fully appreciate the motives which lie behind the keen desire of countries of central and eastern Europe to join the alliance. They were forced to be members of a nasty left-handed club, dominated by their oppressor. That club has now collapsed, for which they can claim much credit. They now wish to join the respectable right-thinking club on the opposite side of the street, dominated by a country which they see as in some ways their liberator and of which many of their former countrymen have become citizens. I have no objection to their joining the alliance provided that it is transformed in a way that does not appear to pose a potential threat to those who are not members.
If that transformation does not take place, and new members are admitted and incorporated into the alliance's military organisation—because that is officially what NATO means—as that organisation now exists, and on the sort of conditions which are now being suggested, that will inevitably be regarded as posing a potential threat to countries to the east of the alliance. That is the case, first, because their forces will be incorporated into a military structure dominated by the Americans which is dedicated to reliance on nuclear weapons, and also because they will be encouraged—indeed it will be demanded of them, I understand, as a condition of membership—to organise, equip and train their forces on a model designed for high intensity warfare. That is bound to appear threatening to their neighbours and to provoke them to develop similar forces of their own.
The key to this problem is to dismantle NATO's integrated military structure and to take a new look at the aims of the alliance, including the stark commitment of Article V. Both were designed to counter the real
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threat posed by large and efficient Soviet forces, based in the centre of Europe, cutting Germany in half. That strategic situation, which arose from the way the Second World War ended, has been fundamentally changed by the break-up of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of those forces, not just back to the frontiers of the old Soviet Union but right back to Russia. It is quite unrealistic to imagine that being reversed.
The alliance should be conceived not as a means to defend western Europe against an overwhelming military threat from the east—as it originally was—but as a means of facilitating political and military co-operation between North America and Europe in the promotion and defence of their mutual interests worldwide. The automatic commitment of Article V should not be insisted on. Within this concept NATO's large and expensive integrated military headquarters are not needed. They were always in any case—as I know from having served in them—a fig leaf of internationalism to conceal the reality that overall command was in the hands of the Americans. That was the American condition for committing its forces. I believe that that reality should be accepted, as it was in Korea and the Gulf, and is in fact today in Bosnia. We and our partners in the alliance should accept openly that in any major operations in which the United States participates, our forces should operate under its command. In place of the NATO military structure we should make a reality of the European defence identity within the alliance. I stress the words "within the alliance". There should be a more or less integrated European military structure which must include at least ourselves, France and Germany. Other members of the alliance could join to the extent that they wished, their forces, when not engaged in operations, remaining under national command, as the United States forces in Europe always have been, and indeed all the forces of members of NATO have been.
I see no reason why such an alliance could not suit all concerned. It should not pose a threat to countries which are not members. It should satisfy the United States in ensuring retention of command of its own forces, including the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, which is now the subject of argument with France. It should satisfy France and Germany. It should satisfy new applicants for all members would be on the same basis, and it would open the doors for more. I can see no objection to it from our point of view or the point of view of other members of the alliance. When contributions of armed forces are needed for an international force of any kind, it would be a matter for decision at the time—as indeed it is now—whether we made our contribution on a national, a European or an alliance basis.
That is the immediately urgent problem. In slower time the Government must face up to examining their policy on nuclear weapons, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, said. There was no mention at all of them in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I urge the Government to take seriously the recommendations of the Canberra Commission for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons of which I was a

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member and of which I spoke in October. They should commit themselves, and urge the other nuclear powers to commit themselves, in the words of the report,
"unequivocally to the elimination of nuclear weapons, and agree to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for its achievement".
Those steps were set out in the report.
Our critics make much of the risks involved in total elimination. Of course there are risks but, to repeat what I said in the previous debate, we must compare the risks between, on the one hand, the present situation and how it is likely to develop—that is, with a large number of weapons in existence and the possibilities of proliferation, lack of control and accident, the fear of which unites those on both sides of the argument—and, on the other hand, a situation in which there has been a progressive, step by step reduction, verified at every stage, until all concerned conclude that the risks of proceeding to the final step of total elimination are less than those entailed in keeping such weapons. There can surely be no doubt that the latter would involve less risk and that it would be a safer world for us all.
Finally, in their projected defence review, the Government must ask if we are getting value for money from our own nuclear weapons. The answer is that we are not. They are of no value as military weapons. They cannot be used. "But we do not intend to use them," say the nuclear enthusiasts—of whom there are one or two about here—"we only threaten to do so." If you are one of those people who believe that nuclear weapons are a valid deterrent against anything, we are fully covered by the American nuclear capability. It has always been inconceivable that any British government would use our weapons when the Americans had decided not to use theirs. It would be both unnecessary and undesirable for us to duplicate their use. The concept of being weapons of last resort is absolutely meaningless. What could that last resort be and how would it be in our interest to use nuclear weapons if whatever fantasy it was came to pass? They are not suitable weapons of war for us; they are merely status symbols preventing us from feeling inferior to the French, as we might if we did not have them and they did. Do this Government really believe that that is a valid reason for spending some £1,500 million a year, for that is the full annual cost of maintaining the whole nuclear weapon capability? The cost of buying, operating and maintaining four submarines is only part of that; in fact, it is less than half. If the French want to waste their money, let them. Can the noble Baroness who is to reply say with a good conscience and with hand on heart that she believes that that is good value for money?
Let me reiterate what I believe the Government should do. They should first give priority to an effective agreement with Russia. Secondly, they should transform the North Atlantic Alliance before, or at the same time as, admitting new members. Thirdly, they should co-operate with France and Germany in establishing an effective European defence identity within the North Atlantic Alliance. Fourthly,
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they should make a clear commitment to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. Finally, they should get rid of our own. This new Government have taken pride in claiming that they will adopt radical measures. However, they have given no sign of that in defence. I have offered them such a policy. I hope they will think again and adopt it.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver. In the words of Professor A.L. Goodhart—as recalled by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney—both of us, I hope, were civilised combatants in some of the same operations in World War II.
Turning to the recent past, history may well record that one of the main achievements of the Conservative Government during the past 18 years has been that the Labour Party has jettisoned many of its policies, for example on Clause 4, on nationalisation and on allowing council houses to be sold. I welcome the change. I am reminded sharply by the recent announcement concerning the Bank of England that in 1945 the Bank was at, or near the top, of the list for nationalisation by the Labour Government of that time, who were also sustained by a massive majority. That is a tangible sign of the times and of the change.
I personally wish the new Government formed by New Labour well. In foreign affairs and defence I trust that on most occasions a bilateral approach will prevail. I speak from some personal experience. Having entered the Foreign Service after World War II, I worked personally at times for Ernest Bevin, for Christopher Mayhew and, later at the United Nations in New York, for Hector McNeil. I have admiration for all the three Foreign Office Ministers of that time. I was very much aware of the joint approach to external problems and the support from the Conservative Opposition.
I was very close to one significant occasion. I was a member of the very small British permanent mission at the UN in New York. I attended the emergency meeting of the Security Council at Lake Success on the Sunday morning in June 1950, the day after North Korea had attacked South Korea. The Attlee Government immediately responded and joined the United States in urgent military action under the United Nations flag. While there was some dissent within the United Kingdom, as there was recently in the Gulf War, the Government of the day and the Opposition were together in that historic decision. I hope that there will be similar concord in major external affairs affecting British interests.
I turn to a subject referred to in the gracious Speech and by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, the Leader of the House in his opening speech today. The Government have this afternoon published their Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill referred to in the gracious Speech. I have managed to obtain a copy. It had not yet been distributed by the Printed Paper Office when the debate started, but I was sent a copy during the debate. During a four-day debate I can speak only once. Therefore the best service that I can perform at present

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is to make some immediate comment on that subject, the first very early manifestation of the contents of the gracious Speech.
In 1976–77, opinion polls in Scotland regularly indicated that 70 per cent. or more of the population appeared to be in favour of the vague concept of devolution, or some form of assembly. They were in favour of decentralisation; and that has been the case for the past 40 years. In the referendum on the Scotland Act in March 1979 only 33 per cent. supported the scheme. That was a particular scheme which the Scottish electorate clearly had not visualised or anticipated. There is a danger that if a referendum is taken first, popular support will be indicated for an idea—but an idea which means different things to many people. It is what comes out of the parliamentary process at the end that will affect Scotland.
Had the Labour Government in 1976 arranged a referendum before producing a Bill, as now intended, I would have expected about 60 per cent. to have been in favour of the concept, the vague principle of devolution. As regards the Scotland Act, at the end it was only 33 per cent. The main question in Schedule 1 to this very new Bill is simply this:
"I agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament".
That is short and clear but it begs the question, what kind of parliament? Is it to be any kind of parliament?
In contrast, in 1976, 21 years ago, at this stage of the previous exercise, a Statement was made by the Leader of the House in another place and repeated here by the then distinguished Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. It indicated that there would be one Bill for Scotland and Wales and no referendum. I quote from that statement:
"We have decided against holding a referendum on our devolution proposals. There have been wide opportunities … for public discussion of them".
I was the first in this House to respond from the Opposition Front Bench to the Statement, insisting that there should be a separate Bill for Scotland—which later occurred. In the event, after the Scotland and Wales Bill had been introduced it was withdrawn; and there was a referendum even though at that stage that had been discounted.
This time the Government propose a referendum first on a White Paper before the Bill on a Scottish parliament is published. Unless there is also a referendum after the parent Bill is passed, there will later be disillusion and much dissent in Scotland.
In 1976, there was in general a willingness to consider devolutionary ways forward. The Royal Commission chaired by Lord Kilbrandon had reported at the end of 1974, after four-and-a-half years of deliberations. Although there was a memorandum of dissent, the majority suggested that an assembly with limited powers was a practicable possibility but would probably have to be accompanied by a substantial reduction in Scottish MPs at Westminster. This of course was their way of suggesting how the West Lothian question could be dealt with following the precedent in Northern Ireland in the early 1920s. The political parties were reluctant
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at that time to accept this proposed reduction of Scottish representatives at Westminster whose presence was considered to be too valuable.
I believe that the situation is different today. First, the Conservative Party has no MPs representing Scotland. Secondly, the Labour Party now has so many MPs in the United Kingdom that it no longer depends so much on those from Scotland. This is a serious matter, but there is a lighter and ironic side to it. A twist of fate has caused that. Could there be a small gleam of light at the end of this particular tunnel? The West Lothian question is probably the most intractable of the problems. A reduction in representation at Westminster might placate non-Scottish MPs, especially those from northern England who were very dissatisfied on the last occasion 20 years ago. There are many other difficulties and problems with any scheme put forward and we shall be looking into those later.
A referendum records the views of the electorate in Scotland at a given time. It is inaccurate to equate that with "the Scottish people" and to make statements about the "settled will" of the Scottish people. Many Scots at any particular time are resident outside Scotland for a variety of reasons. They are British subjects entitled to vote and most of them are in England. There were many complaints in 1979 that they had no say, and that they, as Scots, regarded themselves as part of the Scottish people.
There are also a number of non-Scots on the electoral rolls in Scotland. While recording views in a referendum can be a helpful way of recording the wishes of the electorate in Scotland, we must remember that that is not the same as "the Scottish people".
I end with another point affecting this House. It is the suggestion that this House might unnecessarily delay the passage of devolution legislation. I remind noble Lords that in 1976–78 that did not happen. The Bill was debated and examined in Committee in a normal way, by no means in a dilatory manner. Because guillotines fell in the other place so as to prevent examination of parts of the Scotland Act 1978, it was only in this House that the whole of the Bill was fully examined. I can testify to that; I think I was here on the Opposition Front Bench for every minute of the debates examining every part of the Bill during its passage through this House. I urge government Ministers to ask for the Hansard records of that time with a view to being reminded of the lessons learnt then and to avoiding the pitfalls that await them.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Gillmore of Thamesfield: My Lords, first I join with other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, to her seat on the Front Bench. In common with other noble Lords I look forward to hearing her summing up later this evening. She will, I am certain, derive great satisfaction from working within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where I know she will enjoy the full support of a dedicated and loyal public service.
I also welcome the new tone—new noises, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead—in the Government's approach to foreign affairs. If this

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change of tone heralds a new practice of co-operation, a readiness to work constructively with partners, particularly in Europe, then it is doubly welcome. We must hope that this co-operative spirit will deliver us from the kind of vacant xenophobia which all too often has the pretension of defending British interests but which in fact only damages them. That is not to say that we should not be tough in our defence of British interests and hard-headed when they are threatened. But in such conditions what is important is that our voice should be listened to and should command respect.
That means that in Europe we can no longer afford to be the systemic nay-sayer, whose voice, usually grumbling moodily from where we skulk behind the political arras, is unheard or, if dimly heard, ignored. That is surely no way to defend our national interests. Last week a senior German politician remarked that Britain had after all important ideas to offer to Europe and should be listened to. It is a measure of the sorry position that we have reached that he should have spoken in terms which revealed that the idea was entirely novel to him.
If, for example, we agree with the Government (as I would) that it is crucially important that the European agenda should include concrete steps to embrace the newly liberated countries of central Europe (indeed that it should have done so long ago before we moved to the enlargement of NATO) let us hope that our representatives will in future be able to argue the case without being immediately suspected of some perfidious device to sabotage efforts towards closer union. There are many imaginative ways in which this process can be engaged upon; for example, by finding means to bring those countries at an early stage within the ambit of pillars two and three. It is a process that is in our interests and in the interests of all of Europe.
Similar considerations apply to the proposals for reform of the common agricultural policy. Enlargement of the Union will perforce, and not before time, require substantial CAP reform. That is well known and the Government's welcome intentions are set out in the gracious Speech. In this process Britain will have an important stake. But our chances of arguing successfully for a sensible and sustainable agricultural policy will not be improved if at the same time on BSE we are using the megaphone of abuse to the point where it sometimes appears that we hold all the responsibility to lie not in our own farms and abattoirs but somewhere else, probably on the Continent.
Your Lordships will have other occasions to debate economic and monetary union. Let me say just this. Too much of the debate in this country has been marked by hysteria and hyperbole, too little by rational and sensible thought. Nonetheless, serious discussions are taking place away from the tabloid headlines that are certainly as thoughtful and sensible as anywhere else in the Union and arguably just as constructive. I, for one, hope that Britain will be able to join economic and monetary union. What is clear beyond doubt is that, whether or not we join in the first round, whether we join in the second, British interests will be vitally affected by what happens and we cannot afford to be sulkingly absent from the debate.
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Perhaps I may say a brief word on the moral dimension to foreign policy, if only because the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, somewhat obliquely, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford more directly, referred to it earlier. I am bound to say that there is nothing new in morality in foreign policy. I remind the House that it was in these Houses of Parliament that Charles James Fox and his colleagues brought to an end slavery in this country, an event which led to a long campaign in Parliament for the abolition of slavery worldwide. Gladstone fought his last and most famous election, the so-called Midlothian campaign, to protect a minority victimised by the government of Turkey. To take a strong moral position is therefore not a novelty in the conduct of British foreign policy. However, far more difficult are the detailed moral judgments, case by case, when the balance between good sense and practicality on the one hand and the occupation of moral high ground on the other is so difficult to strike. The test will come in the application of policy, not in the formulation of principle.
If the new tone of which I have spoken also heralds an end to a peculiarly British form of debilitating self-doubt—sometimes bordering on paranoia and paradoxically a frequent sick bedfellow of xenophobia—then we shall have turned a significant page. Until recently it was fashionable to talk of Britain's decline and to contrast the so-called realities with what are alleged to be high-flown pretensions. We must have no truck with pretensions. But equally we must live with the facts.
The first of these is that our decline is only relative. Since 1945, admittedly with some ups and downs, our wealth has grown at an annual average of about 2 per cent.—a rate not spectacular by comparison with some, but wholly respectable. In that time our standard of living has more than doubled and in the course of this century the real wages of manual workers have doubled every 30 years.
The second point is that we are a global player. I should not wish that statement to be misunderstood. No one who has been involved in British foreign policy over the past 30 years or more can be unaware of the limitations of British power. However, it is not of power that I speak. The simple truth is that as a player, an actor, Britain is global because we cannot be otherwise, and that for a very simple reason: our wealth and prosperity depend on the outside world to a greater extent than any other country of roughly similar size.
In the brief period that I have been a Member of your Lordships' House I have learned that I must not bore noble Lords with statistics, but perhaps I may recall one or two facts. Britain is the third largest investor in the world, and the largest in the United States, with total net assets of £1.4 trillion; we provide the third largest source of private capital to the developing world; over 8.5 million Britons live and work overseas; over 40 per cent. of foreign investment into the European Union comes to Britain; 187 of the 500 largest European firms are British compared to a figure of 77 for our nearest rival, France; the City of London hosts the largest number of foreign banks of any city in the world, with the London Stock Exchange, by far the largest in

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Europe, handling 27 per cent. of the world's foreign exchange dealing, and 17 per cent. of the world's external bank lending.
In short, Britain is unique for a country of its size. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer perhaps, our economic interests give us a huge stake in the future of the European Union, in international stability and in the rules-based disciplines of the world trading system. For us, therefore, an active and constructive foreign policy is no luxury but a keen and present necessity.
To this task we bring considerable assets. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for saying that our diplomatic service is skilled, professional and widely admired and comes at a cost to our resources of about half that devoted by the French to their diplomatic effort. We belong to more international organisations than practically any other country so we do not lack for fora in which to exercise productive influence. It is gratifying to note that the gracious Speech referred specifically to NATO, the cornerstone of security, and to the Commonwealth, a unique but undervalued institution which brings benefit to all its members, including the United Kingdom. The BBC World Service reaches an audience larger by far than that reached by any rival; and the British Council is the envy of all our competitors.
As the noble Lord the Leader of the House pointed out earlier in the debate, our Armed Forces are a crucial part of our assets. Their professionalism is second to none and they are widely deployed, not only in NATO and Europe but beyond. I will not rehearse again the long list of areas in which our forces are active but they make a vital contribution to peacekeeping and humanitarian operations under United Nations or NATO auspices. These and other deployments derive not from some post-imperial hangover but from Britain's global interests and the fact that we are one of only two European powers with the will and the professional skills to undertake them.
Let us hope that the new Government, building on our assets, will ensure that Britain remains wholly engaged in international affairs, not out of foolishly romantic nostalgia for a role which is no longer appropriate but out of a clear-sighted understanding of the facts of British interests and the sources of our wealth; not because events crowd in and force a reaction but because we want to be there at the beginning to shape events; not because the European Union is some awkward and regrettable affliction of history, like the bubonic plague perhaps, but because we are full-blooded members of a partnership in which all our destinies are linked, a partnership to which we have much to offer, not least in helping Europe to look outwards to build its role in the wider world. If these are indeed the intentions of the Government, then they will enjoy the fullest support.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, my first task is to congratulate the Government on a number of actions. It is quite rare to be able to congratulate a government
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almost before the gracious Speech is pronounced. The speed with which they moved surprised me. Their first move, promised in the manifesto, was to change the Overseas Development Administration into the Department for International Development, thus giving it a Cabinet position and putting it in the mainstream of decision-making, which must be a good thing. Over the last few years international development has definitely suffered from being pushed further and further down the list of political priorities. It was a bold move to bring it back into the mainstream. It is rather unfortunate that there is no position on the Front Bench in this House for a government spokesman from the new department. In saying that I intend no offence to the Minister.
The Government's next action, which was a real delight to me and which caught me completely unawares, was the commitment made by the Foreign Secretary on his "glitzy" tour to Bonn on 7th May—a commitment of real substance which I do not believe can be called glitzy—to sign an international, legally-binding agreement at the earliest opportunity to ban the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. Such a commitment has been supported by these Benches. I am overjoyed that the Government have acted so promptly.
One matter left out of the gracious Speech is the environment. I feel that tackling what is basically a form of human pollution—namely, anti-personnel mines—means that it is being addressed to some degree. I realise that the Government will face opposition from the military who believe that such mines are a useful weapon which, if used responsibly, can help to defend British personnel. Against that argument one needs to examine at the figures of British personnel killed in Bosnia and elsewhere by these weapons.
It is only possible to combat anti-personnel mines effectively by treating them in the same way as chemical weapons and make them morally repugnant to the international community. That is the only way to stop countries producing them. In the first five years after the Second World War 147 British personnel were killed while clearing landmines around the British coast. Those minefields were clearly marked, so the danger posed in the third world cannot be too strongly stated.
The Government have made a commitment to re-enter UNESCO. I understand the reasons why we withdrew. However, I find it rather ironic that the former heritage Minister put forward Greenwich as a UNESCO site of world heritage at a time while Britain was not a member of UNESCO. I sound a note of caution, however. On carefully reading the Labour Party manifesto, I note that it contains the ominous words that the £11 million annual commitment to UNESCO would be funded by savings from elsewhere. I find that very distressing. I do not know—perhaps the Minister can put me right—whether the funding from elsewhere would come from the DID budget or from other government spending. As the Minister will be only too aware, and as has been pointed out in many debates in your Lordships' House over the past few years, the ODA budget suffered unbelievably under the last Government, falling in percentage terms.

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Indeed, the budget is set to fall this year under present expenditure plans. I realise that the Government have a stated aim to reaffirm our commitment to the 0.7 per cent. UN aid target and also to start to reverse the decline in UK aid spending. But I feel that that will be extremely difficult. Now that we have a Minister on our side, we can go to the Treasury and say, "This is a very important commitment." I firmly believe that the Government have a commitment to that, but it will have to be fought for. The £11 million saving on spending from other departments will, if new money is not found, not be savings but cuts in their budget.
Following the points made about UNESCO, I hoped to take the opportunity to find out the Government's plans relating to UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. I believe that that organisation has merit. It has a small contribution of £4 million a year and plays a very worthy role in industrial development in the third world to make sure that the problems faced by developing countries have minimum effect on the environment. I believe that UNIDO was the victim of pressure for UN reform. I should hate to see it axed now that the UN is undertaking the necessary reforms.
Like other noble Lords, I have a great shopping list of requests. I promise to limit myself today as I am sure that there will be many more opportunities in debates over the next few months. However, I should like the Government to give a firm commitment to support the BBC World Service and, I hope, the British Council.
I turn briefly to the subject of defence. I have only two simple points to make. The first concerns the strategic White Paper. The defence review that has been promised will, I believe, mark one of the most fundamental changes in the way in which defence is organised in this country. We have quite simply to decide what the British Army is for. It has been spread so thinly over the past few years that we have a small amount of everything but lack the capability to do a great deal. Having said that, I do not believe that the defence review should mean a cut in the Armed Forces. Basically, the review looks at what we have and how to reorganise it. It may cost some more money in the defence budget to make those changes.
I offer a personal point of view, having spoken to members of the Army. The defence review is having a profound effect on the morale of soldiers. They have gone through Options for Change. Many are worried about their career prospects and indeed about what will happen to the British Army. One of the great strengths of the Army is that it is a volunteer army and a very committed army. But there is a problem. Unless the aims of the defence review are made clear and members of the Army are informed at all stages of what is expected of them and what will happen to them, there will be a very real deterioration in morale. Options for Change had a real effect on recruitment. I believe that the 10,000 under-recruitment in the British Army is a result of the image projected; namely, that the Army did not produce job security. Having said that, I believe that the defence review is a very necessary reform. I wish the Government all success with it.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I am sorry that we have lost the presence of the Leader of the House. His massive presence always adds great weight to our deliberations. I am equally sorry that we have lost, temporarily, the Leader of the Opposition, because some of the things that I propose to say he may find unpalatable. But there is nothing like the unpalatable truth to force people to reconsider their preconceived ideas. That does not mean that I do not value the presence on the Government Front Bench of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, whom I am sure we all welcome to that position. I welcome also the presence of my noble friend Lord Howe to answer on behalf of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, as we now have to express it.
Yesterday was a day of ceremony and courtesy, where compliments were exchanged between the two Front Benches. We hope that they were sincere, although one might doubt it. Today, of course, we have to face the harsh realities of the real world in which we have to live. I shall start with a comment. Too often, it is argued that the Labour Party won this election by a massive majority and we equally lost it because people felt that it was time for a change. That is far too superficial an explanation. It gives no credit to the intelligence of the British electorate. What has happened in fact is far more important and serious.
Going back to 1945—there have been references to it in the speeches yesterday and some passing reference made today—that Government entered office with high hopes. After all, their watchword was, "We are the masters now"; that is what was meant by governing in the interests of all the people. It ended in anger, bitterness, recriminations and utter defeat. I knew that Government well and many of its leading members. The almost 50 years which have passed since then, from 1951 to 1997, have been a period occupied almost entirely by Conservative Governments. There were two brief periods in which we had the penalty of Labour Governments, under, first, Mr. Harold Wilson and then Mr. Callaghan, although Mr. Callaghan survived only because he was propped up by the remnants of the Liberal Party, as it then was. But the rest of the time was a time of Conservative government.
How was that done? It was because after every electoral defeat—in 1945, 1964 and 1979—the party's philosophy, the party's approach, was completely and thoroughly reviewed under three great statesmen: Rab Butler—I knew him well; he was my senior supporter when I came into your Lordships' House; Edward Heath; and Margaret Thatcher. On all three occasions they brought the party firmly into the centre ground and in control of that centre ground. It may be thought remarkable that I refer to Margaret Thatcher as having brought the country into the centre ground, but that is what she did. What had happened was that the centre ground had moved. She was one of the few people who realised the enormous importance of that shift to the centre ground and the importance of the party occupying that centre ground. That is the explanation of why the Conservative Party remained in power and in control for the greater part of 46 years.

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What has happened recently? About seven years ago, first under the influence of Mr. Neil Kinnock and finally under the influence of Mr. Tony Blair, the Labour Party moved massively into that centre ground. It has moved away from the arid desert of the far left back into the centre ground. It was the reaction of the Conservative Party to that which was the cause of our present failure. We talked of leaving "clear blue water". Well, if the enemy invades your territory, what do you do? Do you retreat to leave clear blue water? What you do is to stand up and fight. We ought never to have abandoned the centre ground and left it to be occupied by the Labour Party. After all, this country is ultimately a country of the centre ground. We are a decent and honourable people. We have many defects, I know, but basically we are a moderate people, a people of the centre. That is where our strength lies and it is what we have to recover.
That has enormous importance in relation to the European Union, because precisely the same happened there. The policy which has been adopted by the Labour Party is the original policy of the Conservative Party, forged by Harold Macmillan, Ted Heath and, indeed, by Margaret Thatcher in her earlier and more constructive years. It is the policy that the Labour Party has taken over.
What have we done? We have moved to the extreme right. We have become, if not overtly at least covertly, sceptical about Europe. Until we realise that our place is and must be in Europe we shall never regain the confidence of the people of this country.
My noble friend the Leader of the Opposition rightly condemned the phrase "Little Englanders", but I seriously wonder whether he knows how little England now is. In the latest OECD report, over 30 per cent. of the total output—the GNP or the GDP, I do not know which and it does not matter—of the whole of the OECD belongs to the United States of America. More than 20 per cent. is generated by Japan. Over 50 per cent. of the total wealth and output of the OECD is generated by two countries: the United States and Japan. Our contribution is about 6 per cent.
My right honourable friend Mr. Douglas Hurd has commonly spoken about this country punching above its weight. But if your opponent is 10 times as big as you are, you will not get far punching above your weight if your weight is only that amount. Our influence in this world, our economic position and our prosperity can only exist if we are an active member of the European Union. The Union accounts for 38 per cent. of the GNP of the whole of the OECD countries, more than the United States. That is the power and weight which is at our disposal if we only play our cards right.
Of course, many things are wrong with the European Union, but many things are right. We in this country have pioneered many policies which are enormously to the benefit of Europe. We were responsible for the initiative of the single market; we pioneered privatisation; we have always been at the forefront of competition policy; we were the first country to try to clamp down on state aid. We have innumerable
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strengths to bring to the European Union. It is all very well criticising the Union for the things in which it is wrong. Of course it is not as competitive as we are. Of course many of its policies will damage competitiveness, but it is in our interest to get Europe to change because Europe is our market.
We cannot get Europe to change if we stand on the perimeter merely criticising, still less can we get Europe to change if we opt out. It is an incredibly difficult job. I know that because I have had to fight it on the ground. How do you make your influence felt among 15 member states who may have very different priorities and very different ambitions from those you hold yourself? Under no circumstances would I go along with the proposition we heard from the Liberal Democrat Benches of creating a kind of triumvirate of Germany, France and the United Kingdom to rule the European Union. Along that route disaster lies. There are 15 member states which must work together: they must learn to work together and to advance in that way, not divide into big and powerful states and those who have to take whatever is offered to them.
The Labour Government come in with great rhetoric, great promises and high ambitions. I am not all that certain that I trust them. They are full of good words and good promises, but what will matter is what happens on the ground. Listening to Mr. Cook, for example, on television during the election campaign, it seemed to me that he was consistently what I would call "off-loading". He was moving more and more in the direction of the Euro-sceptic line. I am not saying that he got as far as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, or even the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. Fortunately, in the past day or two he has seemed intent on restructuring the Foreign Office as some kind of international welfare organisation. I wish him well, as long as he keeps his hands off the European Union.
Still, we shall watch what the Labour Party does. We have goodwill towards it, but in the end we shall judge it on what it produces. But one thing must never be forgotten: our place in the world, our economic strength, our political strength rest upon our successful membership of the European Union.
7.7 p.m.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, it will not have escaped the attention of noble Lords that throughout the recent election hardly a single candidate of any party even mentioned the subject of defence. That is sad because, after all, the defence of the realm and the protection of our national interests should rate—must rate—as one of the first responsibilities of government. That is why I think that the time spent and the emphasis placed by the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal in his opening speech on the subject of defence and our influence abroad was of considerable comfort.
Moreover, in congratulating the Government on an impressive victory, and also, more personally, Dr. Gilbert both on his impending elevation to your Lordships' House and his appointment as a Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence—in his case coming home to the department in which he served with

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distinction 18 years ago—I take heart from and have confidence in the team which now presides there. However, I hope that they will give consideration to designating a Minister having overall responsibility for veteran affairs, as happens in many other countries. Such an appointment would give great confidence to all those in the services, particularly to those who in the past have served and suffered in the service of their country.
Whenever in the past few months anyone has opined to me that, yes, perhaps the government (that is the last government, not this one) have not always handled defence as well as they should have done, but you just wait and see what infinitely worse things will happen to defence if the Government change, I have agreed with the first premise—which is of course true if you consider, for example, the parlous state of Army manpower, the Armed Forces medical services and military sustainability generally, the fairly inept handling of the so-called Gulf War syndrome and the botched-up and expensive introduction of joint staff training, much of which can be placed at their door. But I was always able to say with a clear conscience that the second prognosis did not conform to my experience, an experience in Whitehall—with, happily, frequent escapes from it—spanning nearly 50 years and up to a dozen Secretaries of State. And all for the simple reason that under Labour there always seemed to be a better attempt to match resources to commitments or vice versa.
Moreover, many would agree that of those numerous Secretaries of State I have mentioned, the noble Lord, Lord Healey—who this House will have listened to with respect and great interest—was the best because he did exactly that, as well as overseeing an extremely economical and successful campaign in South-East Asia. I only hope that this compliment to him from an old soldier will not destroy his political credibility. I remember with affection too that the late Lord Mulley had a greater feel for and rapport with those serving in the Armed Forces than some others I can think of.
I take further encouragement from what appeared in print in last summer's Labour manifesto, as well as briefly in the gracious Speech, about the importance attached to Britain's role in promoting a wider international peace and security; to strengthening particularly the military staff and readiness forces of the United Nations; and to an enhanced role for a European pillar of a strong defence based on NATO—with all of which I agree, although it will still require wise and original thought and energetic and dynamic action to implement these aspects properly. A change of government provides a good opportunity to look at many of the key defence issues such as nuclear weapons and the whole future direction and structure of NATO, which has been mentioned by many noble Lords, with a fresh mind, which is badly needed.
I should perhaps sound a note of caution at this point. With all the understandable emphasis on keeping the peace, it must never be forgotten that if you train for war you can keep the peace effectively. But it does not work the other way round should the need ever arise, as history has shown it so easily might, quite unexpectedly.
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Troops who are trained and equipped only for peace-keeping soon lose their capability to do even that. If any noble Lords doubt that they have only to speak to those who have commanded in Bosnia and seen the enormous differences in the various national contingents. So there is much to be thought deeply and wisely about.
I end with two further points. First, the greatly reduced financial resources available for defence—a reduction of over 20 per cent. in real terms since 1991 when Options for Change was announced; a drop from 4 per cent. of GDP to under 3 per cent.—should not he eroded still further until the results of the reassessment mentioned in the gracious Speech are known and decisions have been taken on them at the proper level and the roles and capabilities of the Armed Forces have been properly defined.
I say this particularly at this time when, with the last government having indulged in a riot of private finance initiatives, more and more of the annual budget is now tied up irrevocably in five-year contracts with civilian firms. If the Treasury continues to demand—as surely it will unless checked—another 2 or 2½ per cent. reduction in the coming year, there is nowhere that that can come from other than from those things which impinge most directly on the ordinary serviceman's and service woman's morale and esprit de corps, such as training activity and everyday service life. This would exacerbate still further already serious recruiting and retention problems and mean that, far from retaining strong Armed Forces as promised, in certain areas the effectiveness of those Armed Forces may become so eroded and undermined that the damage will be irrevocable. That is no starting point for a comprehensive review.
Secondly and finally, a point I have made before in your Lordships' House, as have other noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Chalfont, but one which should be repeated as a rightly critical Opposition become the Government, if the review the Government appear to have in mind is to be truly a strategic review, set and decided upon at Cabinet Committee level, with full input from the Foreign Office (which I hope will make its requirements forcibly known early on, in the same tone used by my noble friend Lord Gillmore in your Lordships' House, and not just when recommending the dispatch of a gunboat or whatever) with also the Department of Trade and Industry considering the widest aspects of British interests, as a continuing member perhaps of the Security Council, and with a proper input from the chiefs of staff, then this should be warmly welcomed as a sensible way of matching resources to commitments, something we have lacked for the past few years.
I would welcome any assurances the noble Baroness can give about the tenor of that review. If the review, by any chance, is confined to the Ministry of Defence, it will become a repetition of the endless, debilitating studies which have monopolised the department since 1989—no fewer than 34 in the last three to four years—and have caused such damaging uncertainty and upheaval. The Treasury will at the outset establish cash limits and percentage reductions on every nook and

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cranny of the Budget so that yet again the review will start from the bottom upwards and become in effect an exercise in how to cut down to an arbitrary financial figure. I am confident that that is not the Government's intention, but it will need extremely careful watching if it is not to happen.
7.18 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I must declare an interest. For much of my life outside Westminster I have worked professionally and voluntarily with organisations involved in international and humanitarian affairs, currently including work with the think tank charity Saferworld and with International Alert.
From those involved in such work there is widespread goodwill towards the new Government. This is reflected in what we hear from our colleagues across the world. Indeed, there is a feeling that the UK has at last rejoined the world; and that is altogether good because there are few strategic issues facing us as a nation which can be resolved by the UK alone.
It is cheering to see my noble friend the Leader of the House, with his extensive UN and European Commission experience, at the Dispatch Box for today's debate, and it is clear that my noble friend, Baroness Symons, will bring invaluable experience of Whitehall to help to turn aspirations into practical achievements. I join all those who wish them and their ministerial colleagues well.
My noble friend has indicated the challenges and priorities accepted and established in the gracious Speech. They are impressive.
Let me join with those who have expressed delight at the firm decision to rejoin the significantly reformed UNESCO. We have a lot to contribute and to gain from practical international co-operation on culture, education and science. This, like the determination to make human rights central to our foreign policy—underlined at home by the welcome decision on GCHQ—is the kind of civilised commitment which it is heartening to see.
In Europe—the most immediate of the Government's priorities—we face up not only to the IGC and monetary union, with its far-reaching economic significance and, of course, its constitutional implications but, as my noble friends Lord Richard and Lord Healey and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, have emphasised, the complex issue of NATO enlargement and the imperative to avoid provoking dangerous nationalism in Russia. There is an absolute requirement, if enlargement is really to go ahead, for parallel initiatives to build on the encouraging developments this week with not just better formal but enhanced substantive, dynamic and altogether positive relations with Russia.
In the follow-up meetings—which I understand the Prime Minister will attend—to review what has already been achieved since the Rio Earth Summit and what must now be done, there will inevitably be a recognition that we are already beginning to experience the far-reaching adverse consequences of the abuse of our environmental inheritance—not least climate change—consequences which may well dwarf some of our
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current economic and social preoccupations, especially through their impact on water management and agriculture.
It is therefore essential to understand the importance of international policies which fully take into account the large technological and resource transfers which will simply have to be made from north to south if the developing countries are to be enabled to adopt critically needed environmentally friendly, sustainable development policies.
In the UN we have inherited our special responsibility, as a permanent member of the Security Council, for global stewardship and global security, a continuing responsibility which we cannot simply pick up and put down at our own convenience. There must therefore be support for the Secretary General in weeding out the self seekers and the dead wood, in building an effective professional secretariat based on merit alone, in rationalisation of the specialised agencies into a cohesive network with the winding down of those which have fulfilled their usefulness: in short a United Nations which is tasked, not institutionally orientated, which takes a proactive role as peacemaker and preventer of armed conflict, a UN with a regenerated General Assembly and a restructured Security Council and, underlying everything, with a sound financial basis.
In the international financial institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, there is much room for still more openness and accountability and for a strengthened agenda to fight world poverty and deprivation. This agenda must include an accelerated programme for multilateral debt relief as part of an overall commitment by the industrialised world to reduce the still crippling debt burdens of the poorest countries, like those in sub-Saharan Africa, debts which crush their prospects for development and undermine their stability.
As for the Commonwealth, it really is exciting to see the refreshing recognition by the Government of the very considerable economic, trading and political potential of this multicultural free association of nations.
As the Government take all this and more on board, it is good to see the Department for International Development, with its own Secretary of State in the Cabinet, poised to act as a powerhouse for practical commitment. But this department must be about more than aid alone: it must be closely involved in the necessarily interdepartmental economic, trade, environmental, defence and human rights policies without which the fight for a fairer, sustainable world will never be won.
We eagerly await the White Paper—the first in this sphere of policy for some 22 years—promised in the gracious Speech and in which the Government are to set out their strategic plans. Europe and the future of the Lomé Convention must obviously be an essential part of these plans. I hope that the futile confrontation between the cases for bilateral programmes and multilateral programmes will once and for all be buried. Both have their part to play. The challenge is to ensure that they are mutually supportive.

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The beginning of the whole European Union story after the Second World War was an imaginative determination to banish by means of building practical interests in common the prospect of war between the nations of western Europe. This determination has proved itself. We have enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. But, sadly, the same is not true of the world as a whole. Since 1945 over 50 million people have lost their lives in warfare and millions more have been rendered destitute. In our highly interdependent world, history will certainly judge the European Union not just by its own material success but by its contribution to the wellbeing of global society as a whole.
The moral imperative is undeniable. But the economic case is also compelling. The nations of Europe repeatedly face unnecessary bills for failing to act in time. In the past two years the European Union has already spent well over £450 million on humanitarian assistance to the Great Lakes region alone and those costs will continue to escalate as we respond to the human nightmare of Zaire. The aggregated costs of refugee flows, peacekeeping, reconstruction and lost trade and investment opportunities are formidable.
As the Government take their seat in the IGC there will surely be an opportunity to persuade our European colleagues to seize the potential for working together to prevent violent conflict. We have an unparalleled inheritance of historic and cultural ties, representation at the top tables of diplomacy and economic planning and access to more than 600,000 professional soldiers. There is no doubt that we could assemble—if only the will were there—an array of carrots and sticks which, if well targeted, could help to relieve the tensions which lead to violent conflict.
Take the Great Lakes. Before the genocide of 1995 there was, among people who knew the region well, no shortage of argument for timely intervention. However, their message was not convenient and they were not heard. What should have been happening was a mitigation of the negative effects of structural adjustment and failing commodity prices coupled with effective action to stem the arms flow to such an explosive region. Instead, in the end, the world opted only for the essential sticking plaster of short-term relief. This is a failing which must be taken seriously in our approach to the Lom½ Convention and its future. But what the European Union has badly lacked is a process for shared analysis to provide early warning of potential armed conflict, a quasi-independent unit which can develop analysis free from the pressures of vested national interest. There is the prospect that the IGC could deliver this. I hope we will support it strongly. It is almost unbelievable that when Ministers met in March to discuss the European Union's response to the Albanian crisis they had no common brief on what was happening on the ground.
All this, however, will be to little effect unless, as the Foreign Secretary advocates, the European Union takes a collective lead in controlling arms exports. The responsible British arms industry is an important part of our economy. It has played an invaluable role in the effectiveness of NATO and in our national defence. It
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will continue to do so. The Government's planned security review is important, not least in providing, it is to be hoped, a context within which the defence industry can plan with confidence for the future.
But we have to face the fact that in 1995 the European Union accounted for 30 per cent. of all weapons sales to the developing world, exports which too often exacerbated conflict, fuelled human rights abuses and increased instability. And that 30 per cent. did not include the black and grey arms trade of the arms already there and constantly recycled. There is a desperate need to strengthen the vague existing European Union criteria relating to arms exports and to introduce, as called for in the carefully worded Labour Party election manifesto, a European Union code of conduct to establish clear common rules for weapons transfers for the European Union as a whole. In the meantime, the proposals being put forward by the Dutch Government for stamping out illicit arms sales, especially in the sphere of small arms, must surely be supported.
The Prime Minister has referred to the strong internationalist tradition of the Labour Party. The first two weeks of his Government have illustrated that it is a tradition which is as alive today as it has ever been. I wish the Government "God speed" in the foreign, defence and international development priorities they have so clearly identified.
7.29 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition, is not in his place because I found his speech at the beginning of this debate embarrassingly arrogant while I thought the presentation of the Foreign Secretary in the Locarno Room of the Foreign Office was admirable. If Ministers are not entitled to use multi-media and other modern technologies in their presentations, that is a contradiction of the declared policy of the Conservatives when they were in power to use those technologies to convey government policies to the public and to those who have to know about them. So I believe that not only the style of the presentation by the Foreign Secretary was excellent, but much of the content as well.
It was clear from the titter of disbelief that went round the Tory Benches when the Leader of the Opposition said, at the conclusion of his remarks, that he wished the Government well that the mask had slipped a bit and that the general good humour of the Tories' handover of power was not shared universally or, in this particular case, by the Leader of the Opposition. So it was with some relief that I listened to the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, who described the way in which the Tory Party recovered from three previous defeats. He said that every time great statesmen had come to the rescue by revamping their policies, but since they do not have any great statesmen in the party at the moment I am sure that the Tories will be in opposition for a very long time.
I particularly welcomed in the presentation by the Foreign Secretary and in the gracious Speech the commitment to human rights. I include also the remarks

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made by the Foreign Secretary at his press conference on this subject. The proposal to publish an annual report on the Government's work in promoting human rights abroad is excellent. I hope also that Parliament will be able to make a contribution of its own. The Parliamentary Human Rights Group, of which I have the honour to be chairman, already publishes analyses of human rights problems which we always send to Ministers. We also draw the attention of Ministers to much of the information that we receive from sources which they may not always tap themselves.
I was particularly glad to see that Mr. Tony Lloyd, who is a former vice-chairman of the group, has been given responsibility in the Government for human rights. Perhaps the Government will consider ways of involving Parliament more formally in the examination of human rights policy. For example, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in another place could have a sub-committee on human rights. If it does not choose to do that, we could revive the idea, which I put to the former Leader of the House, that we should have our own Select Committee on human rights here because it is a subject which would admirably suit your Lordships' talents.
The Foreign Secretary mentioned that we must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. In spite of the progress made towards democratic pluralism in eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and southern Africa, there are still very many parts of the world where dictatorship and repression still prevail. The question is how we can reconcile stronger action by the United Kingdom, either alone or as part of EU initiatives, with our perceived economic and commercial interests. The case arose only last week where Ministers, in the last phases of the previous administration, had been disposed to take new measures in the wake of the finding by the German Federal Court that the Iranian Government had masterminded the killing of four leading Kurdish dissidents in Berlin. That case shows how difficult it is to get 15 states to agree on these matters. After two days of deliberation, the European Foreign Ministers decided only to suspend official bilateral visits and to co-operate to ensure that visas were not granted to Iranian secret agents. That was rather a mouse to come out of two days of deliberations by the Foreign Ministers of 15 states. Only yesterday there was news of an oil swap deal under which Iran would process 250,000 barrels a day of Caspian Sea oil at the Tabriz refinery and export a similar quantity from its south-western fields via the Persian Gulf. So immediately the ink is dry on a little agreement by European Foreign Ministers there is a huge breach in our economic armoury against the mullahs' regime.
The Americans at least would like to see Europe taking much stronger economic measures against Iran. I do not believe that there is very much chance of that by the look of things. The Gulf states are friends of both London and Washington. Does the Government's new policy mean that we will try to persuade the absolute rulers of Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that they should hold elections and grant their citizens
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freedom of expression? The London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Aalam, in its Tuesday edition, referring to remarks made on Monday, quoted Mr. Cook as saying that Britain would,
"support the movements that demand democratic rights of the kind taken for granted by the British".
The people of Bahrain are demanding the restoration of their 1973 constitution and the partly-elected assembly which was dissolved in 1975. Therefore, will the Foreign Office, as part of its new dispensation, seek to persuade the ruler to free the leaders of the constitutional movement who are detained without trial and engage in dialogue with them? That would be a big shift in policy because in the previous administration Ministers, including Mr. Hogg and Mr. Hanley, always said that they would encourage dialogue, but they refrained from saying that it should be with the genuine leaders of the opposition, all of whom happened to be locked up in prison without trial. So it is a good test of the Government's intentions to see whether they will now speak to the Emir of Bahrain and ask him to release the political prisoners and to take them into dialogue which will lead to the restoration of the rather modest constitution which they had over 20 years ago.
Moving closer to home, I shall be very interested to know what the Foreign Secretary said at his lunchtime meeting with Mrs. Tansu Ciller, the Turkish Foreign Minister, in Paris on Tuesday. After all, we do have some leverage over Turkey because she is a member of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and her entry to the European Customs Union was conditional on general assurances of human rights improvements.
The problem with the OSCE is that the declarations that it has promulgated are politically but not legally binding. The Copenhagen Declaration, for instance, contains an admirable codification of the rights of minorities, but it has no mechanism contained within it, or anywhere else, for the scrutiny of alleged violations. There are periodic human dimension review meetings where the performance of states could be examined, but there is nothing analogous to the UN's Human Rights Commission where NGOs present evidence in a public forum and governments feel that they are obliged to account for their actions.
The Turkish authorities have removed some 3 million people belonging to the Kurdish minority from their homes in the south-east and destroyed the 3,000 villages which they inhabited, in gross violation of the OSCE's Budapest Declaration as well as the Geneva Conventions. But in Turkey they simply deny the existence of a Kurdish minority and say that the internal armed conflict in the region is not one to which common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions apply.
The Turkish armed forces have crossed the frontier into northern Iraq in great strength, accompanied by large quantities of armour and artillery, violating Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. This is not the first time that they have done it. It is a repeated violation of the charter, which has always been allowed tacitly by the international community because it does not protest. On this occasion Mr. Doug Henderson issued a statement urging the Turks not to exceed the measures necessary to protect their legitimate security interests

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and asserting that the problem in south-east Turkey is not one that can be solved by military means alone. That is an advance on the policies of the previous government, who were always silent on these occasions. Is it not apparent that the military force that Turkey uses in such circumstances is always grossly disproportionate to the security objectives sought, and that no care has been taken in any of those military operations, contrary to the code of conduct on politico-military aspects of security of the OSCE, to ensure that no harm comes to civilians or their property?
Therefore, I wonder whether Ministers will consider—not today, but in due course as they come to develop their human rights policies—whether the OSCE could develop means of evaluating internal armed conflicts and deciding in each case to which of them common Article 3 applies. If they did that and if there was an official declaration by the chairman-in-office or by the Council of Ministers that Article 3 applied in a particular case, that would add force to the requests made by the ICRC to be allowed to deliver its humanitarian and compliance services in such conflicts, and it would then be more difficult for, in this case, Turkey to resist those demands.
The OSCE does have the power to take initiatives through its chairman-in-office, and the previous occupant of the chair, Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti, worked hard to achieve a solution of the Chechnya conflict. Nothing similar has been attempted in the case of Turkey because Ankara has always been adamant that it does not want the OSCE to advise it or to make any recommendations with regard to the conflict in its south-east region. How can we get round the problem? The UK should give notice that at the next periodic human dimension review meeting, which is to take place at the end of this year, we shall concentrate exclusively on better enforcement of the OSCE's declarations, including particularly those dealing with internal armed conflicts and minorities.
One of the best of the OSCE's documents is the Principles Governing Conventional Arms Transfers of November 1993. It is a difficult area for the Government because we are one of the world's biggest arms suppliers, and some of our economic prosperity has been achieved on the back of sales which are challenged by some NGOs. The sale of Hawks and of armoured cars to Indonesia has already been mentioned by the right reverend Prelate. The Principles oblige states to avoid transfers which would be likely to be used for the violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms, to prolong or aggravate an existing armed conflict or to be used for internal repression. I believe that that applies in the case of Indonesia. The previous government relied on assurances given by Jakarta that it would not use in East Timor the Hawk jets supplied by British Aerospace.
I was very glad that Mr. Cook received Mr. Jose Ramos Horta, the Nobel prize winner and external representative of the East Timorese resistance, during the election campaign. Mr. Cook actually interrupted his campaigning to see Jose Ramos Horta. I hope that Britain will review the sales of aircraft to Indonesia, as well as its sales of the water cannon which have been
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used against peaceful demonstrators elsewhere in Indonesia. I hope that Britain will consult Portugal to see what additional help we can give towards bringing about a political solution to the question of East Timor, in accordance with the wishes of the people.
One essential component of that strategy must be to encourage the development of democracy and human rights in Indonesia. Rather than inviting military officers to come here for training, I suggest that we should invite democratic activists, journalists and human rights campaigners to visit Britain. To some extent, the FCO already has a human rights dimension to its programme of visits. We have had recent visits from, for example, the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights from Russia, and from the Presidential Adviser on Human Rights from Uganda. We welcome those opportunities for discussion, but it would be good to have more opposition activists from countries where human rights are at risk. Nigeria has already been mentioned. Why could we not invite Mr. Ayo Obe or Mr. Abdul Oroh, the President and Executive Director of the Civil Liberties organisation, or Mrs. Ladi Olorunyomi, a journalist on the executive of the Lagos chapter of the journalists' union who was detained for several weeks and released only last Friday?
The question of Nigeria will be at the top of the agenda for the CHOGM in Edinburgh in October. That meeting should consider the confirmation of Nigeria's suspension from Commonwealth membership. It should also consider the situation in Cameroon, which was admitted to membership of the Commonwealth on condition that steps would be taken to comply with the Harare Declaration. Although local elections were held there and parliamentary elections are due, which are to be observed by a delegation from the Commonwealth Secretariat, I believe that it will be found that Cameroon is not complying with the Harare Declaration or with the declaration that was made recently in Gaborone at the meeting of Commonwealth African countries.
The Commonwealth has had important discussions on human rights, but it would be useful if the commitment to transparency and accountability of government, made by the Heads of Government in Gaborone, could be extended to the Commonwealth as a whole when it meets in Edinburgh, and if Commonwealth governments could set a good example in that regard by inviting the thematic rapporteurs and working groups of the UN Human Rights Centre to visit their countries when asked, and by replying promptly and fully to inquiries made by those rapporteurs.
Finally, with regard to the work of the UN Human Rights Centre, which must obviously be important in the Foreign Secretary's strategy, that organisation must be enabled to do its work properly. We are already helping by providing a research assistant to Dr. Nigel Rodley, the UN Rapporteur on Torture, and I believe that we pay for the services of Price Waterhouse, which is advising on the restructuring of the centre. However, we could do more by following the example of the Netherlands and providing associate experts to help with the work. We also need to adjust the UN's priorities as a whole to give greater emphasis to human rights; otherwise the centre will be constrained by the zero

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growth which applies to the rest of the organisation. The limits on the capacity of the centre to keep pace with the demands made on it by the Commission are already severe, and every year new functions are added.
The promotion of human rights and pluralist democracy makes the world a safer and happier place for all humankind. I congratulate the Government on having made a very good start, and I wish them every success in the tasks they have set themselves. I hope that in the course of this Parliament we shall begin to see results in the influence that we can bring to bear in our bilateral relationships, and through our membership of the EU, the OSCE, the Commonwealth and the United Nations.
7.47 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, those of us who have sat through this extremely interesting debate have heard some most important speeches. We have heard from two sometime Chiefs of the Defence Staff as well as from my noble friend Lord Chalfont, all of whom articulated extremely eloquently the needs of the armed services in the future.
A sometime head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the noble Lord, Lord Gillmore of Thamesfield, spoke most convincingly and powerfully about the interrelationship which this country still has—limited though it may be in power—with the rest of the world. In his admirable maiden speech, my noble friend Lord Moynihan gave a full justification for the hereditary peerage when drawing our attention to the fact that no country is so remote that its concerns could not be of interest to us.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in a speech of great interest, drew attention to the desirability of considering defence in the European context and, by implication, I thought, reproached the new Secretary of State for Defence for rejecting so quickly the idea of collaborating with the French and German defence initiative. The noble Lord, Lord Healey, delivered a most powerful and convincing criticism of the extension of NATO, which I hope the noble Baroness who is to reply for the Government will take seriously.
But for those of us who have for a long time supported the idea of the European Union, this debate gives us an opportunity to express our great satisfaction about the way in which the Government approach, in a quiet and positive manner, their relations with the Union. It gives me particular satisfaction since 21 years ago I left the Labour Party, largely on the grounds that at that time the party seemed to be anti-European. It is a source of great satisfaction to me that the Government have taken up a position that I strongly support in relation to the European Union. For example, in today's Le Monde I read a repetition of the confirmation that should the European single currency go ahead and be a success, the Foreign Secretary would regard it as inevitable that Britain should join it. That is not exactly leadership since it is an idea that depends on how it all turns out. Nevertheless, it is better than nothing. There
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are other ways in which the Government have shown their desire to have positive relations with the European Union.
Mr. Santer, President of the European Commission, in an article in last week's Economist explained what in his view were the most important issues confronting the European Union. Those who read the article probably noted that he thought that expansion of the Union was even more important than preparing the way for a European currency. However, I believe that both the Government and the Commission should pay attention to the fact that, for the benefit of those fearful of the implications of the European Union, Mr. Santer, did not refer to what he, the European Commission or the Government hoped the Union would turn out to be in the end. If one does not know what will happen it is easy to misrepresent the European Union as a continental land monster whose chief pleasure is to eat up freedom-loving offshore islands for breakfast. It is sometimes difficult for those of us who support the European Union to say that that is wrong and that the aim is such and such. I believe that it is a concern to which the Government should pay attention.
Shortly after leaving the Labour Party 20 years ago I was invited by the then Foreign Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, to meet the new Spanish Foreign Minister. Sitting on my right at lunch was a Spanish diplomat who asked me what the British Government had in mind when they used the expression "European Union". As I had no clear idea of what the then Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson, or Jim Callaghan had in mind when they used that expression, I turned to my neighbour who at that time was a political adviser at No. 10 Downing Street. He replied that Mr. Wilson believed that British foreign policy was like the journey of an old stage-coach. It might not always know what its destination was but it always reached that point in the end. After some thought my Spanish colleague replied, "Maybe I am a Latin, but when I set off on a journey I want to know where it will end."
I suspect that in a sense we are now all Latins. We all want to know what the conclusion of the European Union is to be. Some noble Lords may say that the subject has already been decided and that the word "subsidiarity" sums up the conclusion. I do not believe that that is an adequate answer. Others may say that it is perfectly plain that what is wanted is a Europe of nation states. Here in this particular zone of foreign affairs it seems, if words mean anything, that the present Government are in complete agreement with the Opposition, since the Leader of the House today repeated that as his definition of what he wants the European Union to be. That was certainly the phrase which appeared in the Conservative Party manifesto.
The difficulty is that most of our continental partners reject the idea of a Europe of nation states on the assumption that the nation state was responsible for most of the wars that have wrecked European lives on such a large scale this century. Further, as a matter of fact even now we are not a Europe of nation states but are in some ways a confederation. Even the word "confederation" is unsatisfactory. After all, we have something that is very close to federal agriculture

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policy, federal fisheries policy and federal trade policy. We have European law enshrined in British law and all our partners have European law enshrined in their laws. I do not believe that that expression is satisfactory. So I suggest that the Government propose to the European Commission that there should be something in the nature of a new Durham report to discuss how these issues are to be satisfactorily resolved. Noble Lords will recall that after the revolt of Canada in the 1830s Lord Melbourne's Government asked Lord Durham, a member of that government, to write a report as to how Canadian self-government could be managed in the context of Canada remaining part of the British empire. That report led to the idea of dominion status. We need something very similar now.
I believe that I have time to make two further points. First, as one who was in favour of the withdrawal of Britain from UNESCO, I support the Government's proposal to return to that organisation. I know personally the present director-general, Frederico Mayor, and I am aware of some of the changes he has been able to introduce. Secondly, I should like to ask the Government whether, if they are looking for a new zone in which to introduce a breath of fresh air—which they are anxious to blow in the dustiest corners—they will look again at the issue of Gibraltar where the idea of two-flag status is now far more likely to be entertained by the Spanish Government. I believe that that would lead to a lasting solution to that thorny problem.
7.59 p.m.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, I should like to join with those who have focused on NATO in their remarks. Summits with the Russians in Paris the week after next and without the Russians in Madrid in July are fast approaching. Decisions about enlargement, how best to deal with the Russians and further restructuring of the military organisation and posture are anticipated. Before this Government adopt all of these proposals I hope that they will give the arguments which underpin them very careful consideration, in particular their attitude to the growing involvement with Russia.
Media reports of NATO concessions in order to keep the Russians sweet are worrying. The gracious Speech devotes a mere four lines to NATO. The WEU is not even mentioned. The other place, we hear, is not even debating those issues. The comments made by the noble Lord the Leader of the House in his opening remarks were helpful and useful, but they were inevitably brief. All that is pretty thin gruel upon which to feed a debate on those important issues.
The political thrust for NATO enlargement, even by two or three newcomers, has gathered speed. A point of no return has been passed. New members will join. But linked with that are the increasingly enthusiastic efforts made by the Secretary General of NATO and the USA to bring the Russians on side. There is a danger that the price NATO will pay to keep the Russians sweet may be too great. Today's Telegraph says that Mr. Primakov hailed yesterday's agreement with Mr. Solana on a NATO-Russia founding act as "a victory for Russia".
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For 40 years NATO'S existence was predicated upon providing a credible defence of members' territories against a Russian-dominated Warsaw Pact threat. The death of the Warsaw Pact and the victory of the Cold War for the West left NATO with an uncertain future. In the changed strategic setting a new vision and a new vitality were called for.
But with the disappearance of the threat, the military rationale for NATO has been sidelined, apart from Bosnia. Today it is a politico/diplomatic imperative to find a new purpose, sometimes described by that tortuous phrase beloved of diplomats, if not the military,
"a defence and security identity",
for Europe. More precisely, it is to encourage continuing Euro-Atlantic co-operation and security and to bring together a wider and ever widening community across Europe. Fine words, but do they spell out a new way forward for NATO's military forces?
The whole military structure, and the forces which the member states provided for their common defence, were driven in the past by the Cold War threat. Since the end of the Cold War the previous Government spent considerable time and effort on adjustments to our Armed Forces. What will the new Government now give the military as planning assumptions against the background of the new, enlarging NATO and no doubt UN calls for support? Let me guess at a couple.
With a doubtful and distant threat, and one unlikely to endanger the UK or our vital interests, will they say that our overall contribution need be no greater than the average of the other major alliance nations (excluding the USA)? On top of that there will, will there not, they will say, be scope for new MoD economies. That particular orange never runs out of juice. More can always be squeezed out. Will that approach appeal to the new Ministers and their Treasury officials? Will it be dressed, in the words of the gracious Speech, as reassessing,
"our essential security and defence needs"?
Will the Government go down that path or will Ministers recognise that the Armed Forces have had a bellyful of cuts, reorganisations and major redundancies? The previous Chief of the Defence Staff stressed repeatedly the importance of a period of stability—stability to rebuild morale and allow all the changes introduced to be seen through to a sensible conclusion. I am saddened that the Government are to embark upon a further major size and shape defence review, albeit, as they claim, foreign policy led. Past defence reviews failed so often to deliver what their authors expected because a new review had been put in hand before the previous one had been properly implemented and seen through to a successful conclusion.
The services are stretched—indeed, undermanned—to carry out all their commitments today. If cuts there must be, let them be in the area of commitments. In a burgeoning economy of good job opportunities, the services will remain hard-pressed to keep up their numbers unless those commitments are eased.

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Let me return for a moment to the Government's military planning assumptions. Will they direct that we must continue to play a key military role in support of NATO and UN out-of-area operations? I hope so. Our all-regular Armed Forces are very good at that. Our seat on the UN Security Council probably depends in part upon our special ability to deploy military power and its support worldwide. But do not over-commit or be tempted to over-commit our stretched forces.
Finally, let me return for a moment to the drive to formalise a close relationship with Russia. The Helsinki discussions between President Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin verged on giving the Russians a say in NATO's future, not just in relation to the immediate problems of enlargement but in any matter which might concern them. That could even involve the security of NATO territory—historically the raison d'être of the alliance. Today's media reports talk of further concessions by NATO's Secretary General. What steps have the Government in mind to ensure that the Russian presence within and alongside NATO does not become a blocking mechanism—a blocking mechanism which could spay NATO as a security and defence shield for its original members?
The Russians could not achieve their objective of dismembering NATO throughout all the years of the Cold War. Goodness knows they tried to do so. It would be a tragic fate for NATO if the Russians were able to neutralise the alliance from within and achieve what they never managed to do through the 40 years of the Cold War.
We seem to be taking it for granted that Mr. Yeltsin, let alone his successors, or those in the Ukraine who come to power, are now attuned to NATO's new aspirations, are henceforth willing to participate as collaborators in ensuring our territorial security and that of our NATO allies (old and new). That is taking a mighty gamble. Russian expansionism has a long, long history. It goes back not just years but centuries.
I hope that the Government will urge restraint on the US and others who seem to be willing to take so much on trust. While we await developments, this is not the time to be rushing into yet further cuts and reorganisations within the alliance's headquarters and command structures. The current arrangements are only just beginning to settle down and show their paces. It seems to be too early to start over again on reorganisations.
No doubt if asked the military authorities will deliver. They are expected to do that. They will rise to any challenge. But those who set them the mission should be aware that there is much to lose—in motivation, in efficiency and in morale—from over-frequent changes to military tasks and dispositions. Now is not the time to be going down that path. Are not the new Government committed to their predecessor's spending plans for defence over the next three years? That leaves little scope for major change.
I look forward to strong words of reassurance from the Government on those vital issues for our peace and security, on their vision for the future of NATO and our
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Armed Forces. Ministers have yet to show the understanding, enthusiasm and early commitment in those fields that they have so commendably shown over the plight of sick veterans of the Gulf War.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, the difficulty about this debate is that there are a number of quite separate themes which do not necessarily overlap. I listened with great fascination to many most instructive and wide-ranging speeches about the future of our defence and NATO, like that just given by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. However, I shall be speaking about our relations with Europe. The future of our relations with Europe are absolutely crucial to the future of this country as a whole.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, who is no longer in the Chamber, I am delighted by the first moves that the Government have made, especially as, like the noble Lord, one of the bones of contention between myself and the Labour Party when I left it was its attitude towards Europe. Although there have been some very encouraging moves to start with, the real test will come with the decision over monetary union. There are many people who are genuinely very much pro-European but who declare themselves sceptical about monetary union. In the long run, those two opinions will be incompatible. I say that because if we do not take part in monetary union, which is the direction that the others will take, we will be isolated and unable to be at the heart of Europe. The Government seem to recognise that fact and have certainly declared themselves in favour of monetary union in principle. However, their present stand is, "Yes, but not yet"; or at least, "It is unlikely that we will join in the first wave but we may well join in the second wave, say, in the year 2002".
On the face of it that seems to be a reasonable attitude and a sensible one, but the reasons for it are questionable. It should be recognised that the dangers of that attitude are very real. The first is the argument of, "Let's see if it works". That is not a very effective argument because it is unlikely that we shall know any more about the workings of monetary union by the year 2002 than we do now. In fact, the first years of a monetary union are likely to he the most turbulent.
Secondly, there is the argument which states, "Well, we may not qualify". If we do not qualify, we do not qualify. But if we wish to join the first wave, there is very little doubt that we can qualify if we wish to. Indeed, we are as likely to qualify as Germany or France. The third argument is that we are not ready. That is partly true. The City has certainly made considerable preparations for monetary union because it realises that, whether we are in or out, it has to live in the Euro-world. On the whole, multinationals have prepared carefully for monetary union. However, no work of any kind seems to have been done in the public sector. If the Government are genuine in the desire of at least maintaining the option on joining in the first wave, that work must start at once; otherwise we shall be ruled out for reasons which will be totally indefensible.

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I shall not go through all the reasons but a fourth one, and one which to my mind is the most important one for caution, is that sterling is at present too high. It would be an error to lock in at the present rate of sterling. Although stability of currency is one of the greatest advantages of a monetary union, it seems dangerous for us to lock in at the present high rate of sterling. That is a problem which is not easy to solve. In my view what we should do before we face the decision about monetary union—indeed, what I hope Mr. Brown will do when he has to face such a decision—is to join the European exchange rate mechanism at a central rate of 2.50 DM. That means that our present rate would be within the 15 per cent. limit which is now allowed with the ERM and which of course makes it a much easier mechanism to join than when we were in before at much too high a rate. When the actual decision comes to lock the currencies in, we could then argue that we should lock in at the central rate. That is certainly the argument that the French are advancing. If we locked in at the central rate of 2.50 DM, that certainly should give us the stability that we seek. In itself, joining the ERM should have a downward pressure on sterling and a downward pressure on long-term interest rates; and, indeed, might well achieve the kind of objective which much of our industry wishes to see.
However, the main point that I wish to make is that the policy of, "Yes, but not yet"—the policy of saying, "We will join in the year 2002"—is fraught with danger. It is perhaps a danger that our partners do not truly appreciate. It is a political danger. Many of our partners appear to be saying to the present Government, "As long as you commit yourselves you can join in the second wave. We do not mind". But let us look at the politics of it. What would be likely to happen? The Conservatives, as an Opposition, would almost certainly strongly oppose such a move. I am not speaking of Mr. Clarke, but the rest of the Conservatives. All the other leadership candidates who are at present on parade are strongly opposed to monetary union (certainly to joining in the first wave).
The press would continue strongly to oppose our membership of monetary union. Indeed, every trouble that we faced would be blamed on the decision to give up the pound. Ministers would be obsessed and absorbed by their own affairs. It is extremely unlikely that Ministers would actually be campaigning and giving a strong political lead in favour of the principle of joining monetary union. That is what life is like. Ministers concentrate on their immediate tasks. What would be needed to offset the pressure of the Opposition and the pressure of the press would be a strong political lead, backing the view of the trade unions—the TUC, for example, is in favour—and backing the view of industry, which has become increasingly committed to our joining and will become increasingly scared about being left out of a monetary union when that union looms immediately ahead.
We would then have a position in which public opinion would continue to be hostile because there was no political lead; indeed, it might even harden against. Then, when the next election loomed, the Government would get cold feet and say, "No, we can't join in
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2002". One could see that happening in the last election. As the election process went on, scared about the new found support from the Sun slipping away and scared about the hostility which they detected among the public against the principle of closer integration with Europe, the Opposition (the Labour Party)—the present Government—became more sceptical as the campaign went on. The result could well be that, against their better judgment, they would rule out joining even in the second wave. If we do not join in the second wave, there must be doubts as to whether we will ever join at all. As a result, Britain would be isolated in Europe.
We need more than fine words; we need a boldness of decision. When that decision comes to be taken, which I suspect will be in the autumn at the latest, I hope that Mr. Brown for one will be as bold as he was in deciding to opt for the independence of the Bank of England. If the Government were bold, they might well be favourably surprised by the amount of support that that decision would receive.
8.18 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I begin my speech by warmly congratulating my noble friend Lord Moynihan on his outstanding, wide-ranging and stimulating maiden speech. I warmly welcome the Government's commitment in the gracious Speech to make the,
"promotion of human rights worldwide … a priority".—[Official Report, 14/5/97; col. 8].
I also welcome the Foreign Secretary's claim that we have a moral responsibility to provide help when confronted with evidence of disasters and atrocities.
I therefore take this opportunity to raise some urgent issues based on first-hand evidence of violations of human rights in two of the countries where I am currently working: Sudan and Burma. I appreciate that the noble Baroness opposite, to whom I offer my congratulations on her appointment, may not be able to answer such questions this evening. However, I know that the people who are suffering so greatly in those countries will be hoping for a positive response in due course, as their expectations have been raised by the principled commitments which the Government have given.
I was in Burma with the Karen and the Kareni people at the end of last year. I have been to Sudan three times this year, to southern Blue Nile and eastern Upper Nile, to the Beja people of eastern Sudan, to Bahr-El-Ghazal in southern Sudan and to the Nuba Mountains. I went with Christian Solidarity International (CSI), a human rights organisation working for victims of repression, regardless of their creed, colour or nationality. Our priority is to reach those people who cannot be reached by other aid organisations.
Many major aid organisations such as United Nations organisations and the International Committee of the Red Cross can only visit people with the permission of a sovereign government. This limitation creates serious ethical and political problems because governments victimising people within their own borders often do not give this permission and their victims are therefore denied both aid and advocacy. Often in war zones,

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deprived of essential medical and food supplies, these people are thus among the most destitute and neglected people in the world.
My two examples illustrate this problem. CSI has chosen these areas, inter alia, because their people are suffering massive human rights violations perpetrated by regimes which simultaneously impose a "no go" policy for major aid organisations. First, I shall discuss Sudan. In the cruel calculus of man's inhumanity to man, Sudan ranks as one of the greatest tragedies in the world today. The civil war waged by the fundamentalist, totalitarian National Islamic Front regime has caused the death and displacement of millions of its own people. The toll is rising. In southern Blue Nile and eastern Upper Nile, where Christians, Moslems and Animists live together, the Government have recently adopted a scorched earth policy. Villages are bombed by Antonov aircraft and helicopters. Ground forces then attack, systematically burning all homes and crops, and stealing or slaughtering livestock. We walked for mile after mile through the charred remains of deserted villages. This policy has this year alone created at least 50,000 more displaced civilians living without shelter, scavenging for roots and nuts. Many are dying. They are now facing an increasingly severe famine and are denied help from UN Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS).
The Beja Moslem people in Kassala region are suffering from a similar crisis created by their own government. They are being deported from their villages and are trying to scratch a living in harsh desert conditions with no access to their homes, crops or water supplies and no shelter in the cold desert nights. Only a few weeks ago we were in the Nuba Mountains, where government forces are attacking civilians with low flying helicopter gunships, flying at 50 to 100 feet, mowing down women and children. There, too, government troops burn homes, crops, churches and mosques, forcing people to flee to the mountains, often with no access to water supplies. Many have no clothes in the cold rainy season.
The government of Sudan have also encouraged the enslavement of black Africans. In Bahr-El-Ghazal we visited many areas which had suffered from slave raids by militia armed by the Sudanese Government and encouraged to fight against the African communities. It may seem unreal to talk about slavery in May 1997 but there is no doubt about its existence in Sudan. We have taken many independent witnesses and journalists who have produced detailed and graphic reports. We estimate that tens of thousands of African Sudanese are now enslaved.
However, I leave Sudan on a slightly happier note. CSI has adopted a twin track policy in response to slavery in Sudan. First, we led a peace and reconciliation mission to the north-south borderlands, with Arab Moslem political and religious leaders from the north, including Mubarak El Mandi, together with elders from Bahr-El-Ghazal. They held historic talks with local Arabs, encouraging them to spread the message that this war is not a legitimate jihad and that it would be better for all, both African and Arab, to live in peace. I am pleased to say that when we were last in
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the region a few weeks ago we were told that there have been no further slave raids. We also assisted local communities to redeem over 300 women and children who had been enslaved and we witnessed their joyful reunions with their families.
However, there are still far too many people enslaved and far too many people in Sudan, not only Christians but also Moslems and Animists, who are suffering and dying at the hands of the totalitarian regime in Khartoum. Many Arab Moslems are suffering in the north, with arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and extrajudicial executions. Also many men and boys have been abducted and forced to serve in the government army, often to fight against their own people. Their families rarely see them again as they are typically put in the front line where they are the first to be killed.
I hope I may ask the noble Baroness two questions with regard to Sudan. First, will the Government do everything possible to put pressure on the Sudanese Government to desist from these violations of human rights and to open up all of Sudan to aid organisations and to human rights monitors? Secondly, in the meantime, will the Government consider helping aid organisations which are prepared to take supplies essential for survival to those people who cannot currently be served by organisations such as UNOLS or ICRC? One such organisation is CSI. Here I must declare an interest as president of CSI-UK and as a CSI volunteer who has been working with people in Sudan suffering at the hands of their government.
If our Government continue their present policy of limiting their aid to UNOLS, many thousands more Sudanese civilians will perish in the coming weeks. We know that now in southern Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains people suffering from famine are receiving no food. They are dying from disease and receiving no medicine; they are suffering from cold and have no clothes or blankets. I hope very much that this Government will be more flexible in their aid policy and give some resources to organisations which are able to reach innocent civilians who will otherwise die of avoidable starvation and disease in the weeks ahead.
I turn briefly to Burma, where the Karen and other ethnic minorities, as well as political opposition groups, are suffering at the hands of the SLORC regime. In December we visited the Karenni and Karen peoples. Government troops have been systematically deporting Karenni civilians from their villages, compelling them to go to relocation camps which are virtually concentration camps. Foreign NGOs are not allowed access. Some of the Karenni who had escaped described conditions in the camps. Many people are dying; food is inadequate, there is widespread disease and no medical care. Those who flee cannot return to their villages because SLORC troops have mined their homes. They are therefore forced to live in the jungle, which is a harsh environment, especially in the rainy season. A few have managed to cross into Thailand, where they join the thousands of other refugees, including tens of thousands of Karen people, who have had to flee across the border to avoid capture by SLORC troops within Burma. Many Karen who have been captured have been tortured, murdered or forced into

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slavery. Recently the SLORC regime has also stepped up its military offensives against the Karen. Those offensives have been so successful that by the end of March the Karen KNU forces retained little of their own territory.
These military successes by SLORC troops have forced 20,000 more Karen to flee to Thailand. But even across the border they are not safe. Their camps have been attacked and people have been killed, injured and terrorised. Their homes and food supplies have been burnt. There is also widespread fear that the Thai authorities may repatriate them to Burma, where they are likely to suffer again at the hands of the SLORC regime. I therefore hope I may ask the noble Baroness questions which are rather similar to those I have already raised with regard to Sudan. First, will the Government join the United States and other nations in applying political and economic pressure on the SLORC regime to comply with international human rights conventions, to desist from its brutal violations of human rights of its ethnic minorities and from its repressive policies against political opposition groups and individuals such as the courageous Aung San Suu Kyi?
Secondly, will the Government do something to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian aid reaches those most in need in Burma? Aid organisations working with the Burma Border Consortium are doing valiant work with refugees in the camps on the Thai-Burmese border. But many Karen and Karenni trapped inside Burma are in desperate need of aid and are currently beyond the reach of agencies working in the borderlands. Will the Government press the SLORC regime to open up all of Burma to aid workers and human rights monitors? Until it does so, will the Government provide some resources for organisations to reach those in need who are at present unreached? Finally, will the Government request the Thai authorities to provide more effective security for the camps along their border and allow UNHCR to maintain a presence there to monitor the situation and to provide necessary assistance for the vulnerable people now living in those camps?
I am aware that many siren voices representing trade interests counsel against any measures which might risk damaging diplomatic or trade relations with regimes such as those in Burma or Sudan. However, I take hope from the Foreign Secretary's commitment to an ethical stand on human rights. I realise that there are many complex political, economic and ethical issues involved in achieving an appropriate and principled balance in policies which reflect inherent tensions between the protection of human rights and perceptions of the "national interest". But I do not think that it is in the long-term interest of any nation to allow commercial interests completely to override concern for human rights.
In so far as the Government fulfil their commitments to promote human rights, they will earn the gratitude of many people who are currently suffering severely and the respect of all concerned with peace and justice. Although these may seem intangible rewards, they are priceless and, I believe, will ultimately serve the
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"national interest" more powerfully than short-term diplomatic expediency or economic gain if it is bought at the expense of human rights.
I conclude by wishing the Government success in their endeavours concerning human rights indicated in the gracious Speech, and by promising my support for any measure which will help to alleviate the agony of the repressed people of Sudan, Burma or other parts of the world who are suffering so grievously from these violations of human rights.
8.31 p.m.
Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, proposes to wind up at the end of today's debate. I join with others in congratulating her on her ministerial appointment. I hope that she will not take it as a reflection on her earlier service in government when I wish her every success in now finding herself in the best department in Whitehall. My noble friend Lord Gillmore has rightly drawn attention to the loyalty which the noble Baroness can expect from the Diplomatic Service. Given her past experience, she will know better than anyone the importance that Ministers should from time to time publicly recognise and be seen to reciprocate that loyalty.
I should also like to congratulate the Government on the welcome and positive start which they have made in the European debate. If we are to wield our influence and promote our interests effectively, both within the European Union and more widely, it is vital that we should not only work and co-operate closely with our European partners but that we should be seen as co-operative and fully committed Europeans. No doubt there will continue to be important differences between ourselves and other members of the European Union, as there are between even the most committed federalists among our partners. No doubt there will continue to be from time to time unwelcome activity by the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament. But I hope that the leading role which has been signalled in the gracious Speech will lead to a change of tone and attitude, and indeed substance, in the public perception of Europe. We are part of Europe. Our strategic, economic and commercial interests are now so vitally involved in Europe that it is high time that we came to regard our European partners as partners and not as some threat—like those swastikas which push across our television screens in the replays of "Dad's Army".
But it is not only on European questions that a new attitude will promote our interests. The former United States ambassador in London, Mr. Raymond Seitz, has I think been quoted in this House before as saying that Britain's role in the European Union is indispensable to our relationship with the United States. I do not myself doubt that Japanese and other foreign investment in this country is closely related to the commitment of our membership of the single market, even though other factors of course play a part. And speaking as a former ambassador in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, I can assure your Lordships that our influence with host governments, when we speak as one of 15 members of

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the European Union, is much the greater for being seen to be a joint and co-operative effort. If we are constantly seen to be out of step, or standing on the perimeter, as the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, put it, as has happened too often in the past, our influence and interests in the rest of the world, including the Commonwealth, will be significantly reduced.
In speaking about our worldwide interests, I appeal to the Government to make the best possible use of the unique and cost-effective resource which they have available to them in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service. I hope that the noble Baroness, as a former colleague in the Home Civil Service, will need no persuading of the role which diplomatic posts, including the home civil servants who serve in them, can play and are keen to play in promoting our commercial, political and strategic interests round the world. I hope that the Government, who have emphasised the importance of investment, will accept that continued investment in what has been acknowledged even by a former French Foreign Minister to be the best diplomatic service in the world is a global asset of crucial importance to the continuing security and prosperity of this country.
Since my retirement six years ago, I have been lucky to have had the opportunity to see from the perspective of the private sector the benefits of a continuing global foreign policy and the role which our diplomatic posts and departments in London can play in promoting both visible and invisible exports and in encouraging inward investment. There has rightly been much emphasis in recent years on the growing importance of commercial work in the Diplomatic Service, on which some 34 per cent. of all Diplomatic Service staff abroad are directly engaged. But I hope that the Government will not forget that the effectiveness of diplomatic staff abroad ultimately depends on their political and personal contacts with and understanding of their host governments and the people of influence in the countries in which they are serving; and their consequent ability as resident representatives to give our businessmen and investors the political advice which they need from our missions abroad, in both identifying business opportunities and in concluding commercial and economic agreements.
Many people derive their impressions of British embassies abroad from visits to the big capitals—Paris, Washington, Rome, and so on. They are accustomed to a certain style of diplomatic representation. It is less well known that over a hundred of our posts now have four or fewer UK-based staff, and some only two or one. Indeed, a few have none and are solely staffed by locally engaged personnel. I would certainly pay a warm tribute from my experience as Head of the Diplomatic Service to the work which those locally engaged staff do. But I believe that a decent face of Britain to the world needs to be properly equipped to look after our interests, to assist Britain abroad and to promote our trade. I fear that we may have reached the point where in many countries the job cannot be properly done.
The gracious Speech has emphasised the priority which the Government propose to give to the promotion of human rights and to the fight against terrorism. The
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gracious Speech also contains a welcome undertaking that the Government will promote efforts for a durable peace in the Middle East. In this connection, there is one aspect of human rights which I should like to draw to the Government's attention; namely, the continued construction of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories. Your Lordships will be well aware of the deplorable decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu's Government to proceed with the illegal construction of the Har Homa settlement in Jerusalem, in spite of strong protests by others and expressions of disapproval from many Israelis and from Jewish and other friends of Israel in this country. The Israeli Government were nevertheless reported at the end of last week to have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Not only do these illegal settlements constitute a serious breach of Palestinian rights; they are also putting at risk the whole Arab-Israeli peace process.
When I raised this issue with a group of American congressmen recently they argued that we should be paying more attention to Palestinian extremism and terrorism rather than to the construction of, as they put it, a few Jewish homes in Israel's own capital. They also showed no sign of grasping the serious and dangerous implications of the congressional resolution to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. These attitudes not only beg important questions about the status of Jerusalem, which remains to be settled at a later stage of the peace process; they also ignore the fact that there can be no greater encouragement of terrorism and extremism than a continuation of Israel's present settlement policies both in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank. I hope that the closer co-operation with our European partners which appears to be a very welcome part of the Government's foreign policy will increase our effectiveness in dissuading the Israeli Government, both directly and via the United States Administration, from pursuing their present, highly provocative settlement policies. I should add an important point. I believe personally that in the longer term these policies are not in the interests of the Israelis themselves.
Finally, I should like to refer to the proposal that has been attributed to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in various press interviews; namely, to set up a foreign policy forum which would bring together academics, outside specialists and commentators to provide alternative policy advice. If I may declare an interest as chairman of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the resources available to Chatham House are, in my view, well placed to contribute to, if not to provide, just such a source of independent advice. While Chatham House as an institution is bound by its charter to take an independent and non-political line on international affairs, the human resources on which it can draw, both from this country and from abroad, cover the widest spectrum of background analysis and viewpoints. As I have said in a personal letter to the Prime Minister, Chatham House is ready to collaborate with this Government, as it has done on a non-partisan basis with all governments since its foundation in the early 1920s, and to put its considerable, and internationally respected, intellectual resources at the disposal of the Foreign

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Secretary and his Ministers and officials, with whom we already enjoy a close and productive co-operation, in a very full and exciting programme of research, publications, meetings and conferences.
In conclusion, I return briefly to the question of Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to the need to make Europe better understood. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, echoed that sentiment when he talked of the "education of public opinion". The noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, said that "the European Union could and should be of enormous benefit to this country". I urge the Government, who have already demonstrated a certain flair for public relations, to take positive steps to persuade public opinion that this is indeed the case.
8.44 p.m.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, my noble friend the Leader of the House reminded us that the gracious Speech declares:
"My Government will work for the early and successful enlargement of the European Union".
With all due respect to the desire of Cyprus to join the European Union, the term "enlargement" refers predominantly to the 10 central and eastern European countries formerly oppressed by communist dictatorships that have applied for membership; namely, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Enlarging the Union to the east is a desirable, indeed, noble project. It echoes the role that the European Union played in making democracy secure in Greece, Spain and Portugal after those countries had thrown off the dictatorships that oppressed them. Enlargement is an important component in reshaping European security from Ireland to the Urals and beyond.
Yet the policies of the member states of the European Union, including, I regret to say, the policies of the United Kingdom, at least up until 1st May, suggest that enlargement will be neither early nor successful. On the contrary, current policies towards enlargement are likely to produce delay, division and disillusionment—a dangerous cocktail for countries just now consolidating their market economies and fledgling democracies.
The problem is that the predominance of the political motivation for enlargement in West and East has tended to downgrade vital economic issues. The economic debate, such as it is, is dominated by the portrayal of enlargement as an expensive challenge to the West, demanding reform of the CAP and the structural funds so that EU budget constraints are not breached. So far as the economic impact on the East is concerned, enlargement has been described to me by the senior responsible official in Brussels as "just another accession fundamentally indistinguishable from the earlier accessions of Greece, Spain and Portugal".
That approach is a serious economic error, which in turn threatens severe political dangers which could easily de-rail the positive political goals of governments in East and West. The rapid enlargement of the European Union is not just another accession proceeding along well-worn paths. The early enlargement called for
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in the gracious Speech poses enormous, unique economic challenges to the applicants, challenges which must be overcome if there is to be the successful enlargement that the gracious Speech desires.
Enlargement is not just another accession for four major reasons. First, unlike all earlier applicants to join the European Union, the central and eastern European countries are today conducting a unique transformation from over-industrialised state-directed economies to newly industrialised, newly service-providing market economies. They are attempting that wholesale economic transformation in a highly competitive global market-place that is quite different from the cosy, protected markets which cushioned western European reconstruction after the war. They are also very poor. If Poland, one of the most likely countries to join, were to grow at a steady 5 per cent. a year, it would take that country nearly 20 years to reach the same income per head as Greece, the poorest member of the EU today. Indeed, all the applicants are poorer than Greece.
Secondly, unlike all earlier applicants, the central and east European economies have very limited experience of competing in international markets, poorly developed and inexperienced legal and commercial infrastructure, a small and inexperienced entrepreneurial class, and ill-defined labour market institutions.
Thirdly, unlike all earlier accessions, the new applicants face a European Union which is itself going through a period of dramatic institutional change. New applicants must accept a degree of economic integration, including monetary integration, which is far greater than anything experienced by previous applicants.
Fourthly, unlike all earlier accessions, the distinction between those who join and those who do not join could create a serious new economic and political divide in Europe. The rejection of a membership application may have very damaging consequences for the economic and political development of the country concerned. The very people who have campaigned for democracy and the free market will have been rebuffed and may be seriously weakened at home. It is therefore vital that rejected applicants have a place in European structures that minimises the risks of political backlash.
Enlargement will shape the future of the entire continent. It is therefore vital that, instead of treating the applicants as supplicants, we should recognise that the European Union and the 10 applicants are partners in that historic task.
The omens are not good. In May 1996 the applicant countries all received an enormous questionnaire, divided into 23 chapters corresponding to the Commission directorates, which had to be returned three months later. This was supposed to give the Commission enough information to offer an opinion about which of the applicants was qualified for membership. The questionnaire was a dismal portent for the conduct of enlargement negotiations. Not only were many of the questions absurd, and the time given to answer them much too short, but also the questionnaire embodied the dominant theme of a one-sided relationship between the European Union and the applicants. There is also good reason to believe that

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those preparing the Commission's opinions have become mired in detail and are losing sight of the Continent-wide interest in enlargement.
If the goals of the gracious Speech of early and successful enlargement are to be achieved, that one-sided approach must be replaced by a political and economic partnership between members and applicants dedicated to building a successful social market economy throughout Europe.
As far as successful applicants are concerned, that requires a concerted strategy to build economies capable of competing in the single market. That strategy must define entirely new transition arrangements in trade, investment and the development of industrial and financial infrastructure appropriate to the peculiar economic and institutional problems of central and eastern European countries.
As far as the unsuccessful applicants are concerned, there should be a redefinition of the concept of the European Economic Area or, rather, the creation of a new version of the economic area appropriate to central and eastern Europe. As noble Lords will know, the current economic area encompasses the prosperous mature democracies of Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway as well as all the EU members. The creation of something like the EEA to involve non-Union members in central and eastern Europe will require a new definition of economic and political obligations both between the non-EU members and the Union and between the non-EU members themselves.
Successful enlargement also requires that the present members of the European Union commit themselves to a timetable of prior reform, notably to the CAP, the structural funds and the political organisation of the Union. It is no good, after all, entering into detailed negotiations with potential members if there is no clear idea of what they are being offered and to what they are committing themselves.
The wide variety of enormously difficult issues involved in enlargement suggests that the pursuit of that goal by traditional diplomatic means may prove to be a trap, heralding the possibility of indefinite delay. By its very nature diplomacy requires the detailed negotiation of a myriad of potentially contentious issues. There are an extraordinary number of vested interests in both current member states and applicant countries which will, under current arrangements, be given ample opportunity to derail the negotiations and undermine the policy of Her Majesty's Government as expressed in the gracious Speech.
A device is therefore required which will avoid this diplomatic trap while dealing with all the complex issues involved. In fact, the European Union has two time-honoured devices for making progress on major questions: reports and timetables. The Treaty of Rome was itself based on the Spaak Committee report. Similarly the 1985 Commission-wide paper on the completion of the internal market, the report which bears the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, led to the Single European Act and the 1992 deadline for the completion of the single market. The Delors report
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on economic and monetary union provided the three-stage programme which was embodied in the Maastricht Treaty.
A timetable similar to those which had been used so effectively by the Union in the past is therefore required to provide momentum to the process of enlargement. The timetable will essentially be a statement of the issues which are to be faced and the means by which they are to be overcome.
Next month the Commission will present its response to the 10 applicants from central and eastern Europe and Cyprus. The present members have promised to start negotiations with the applicants after the end of the IGC, most likely sometime during the first half of 1998. The period between the response and the opening of the negotiations is vital. It provides the opportunity for implementing the approach via a report which has historically been so effective in the development of the European Union.
I therefore wish to propose that an ad hoc committee be established, drawn from member states and applicants and chaired by a suitably distinguished person, charged with preparing within a year a report to the 25 governments of the present EU members and the applicant states. The report should deal with, among other things, pan-European infrastructure and communications; money, banking and payments relationships, including the relationships of non-members with the euro zone; energy and power; environment; competition policy; agriculture, and so on. The report should also consider the dynamics of the enlargement process and how countries move from one stage to another.
The timetable in the report should specify what steps must be taken by existing members and applicants prior to the commencement of full entry negotiations and how those steps are to be co-ordinated. This will necessarily include a timetable for the completion of national internal reforms, economic and political, required before meaningful negotiations can commence. The committee should also consider what should be the new relationship with unsuccessful applicants and how candidates which are unsuccessful in the first round can be prepared for later success.
It may seem rather odd to be suggesting a new report at this stage when negotiations are likely to begin in 1998. In particular, it might be feared that a new report would be a means of delaying European enlargement. In fact, I believe that a new report is necessary: first, to confront the wide range of economic and political issues that I have outlined, which far transcend the needs of just another accession; and, secondly, to avoid the delay which is inherent in the trap of diplomacy. Most important of all, the new report should be the means of building the mutual confidence and respect necessary for the early and successful enlargement of the European Union.
8.58 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in saluting the noble Baroness in her new

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responsibilities. She will be of great assistance to her new department, with her intimate knowledge of the workings of Whitehall.
The gracious Speech declares the intention of the Government to seize the opportunity of the Edinburgh meeting of the heads of Commonwealth governments to increase co-operation with other Commonwealth governments. For 30 years our relationship with other Commonwealth governments at these meetings has been clouded by controversies, mainly over southern Africa, which generated personal bitterness and certainly negative feelings among our Ministers towards what had become for many years an embarrassing biennial occasion. These difficulties have now passed and there is a new atmosphere at Commonwealth heads of government meetings, which gives the Government, with its declared intentions to make the most of close co-operation, a great opportunity.
The Government have a long tradition of close ties with Commonwealth leaders. Going down memory lane, I recall coming every afternoon to this House in 1949 as Secretary to the Leader of the House, who was also Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, when this country and India together formed the Commonwealth in its present pattern.
The main vehicle for collective co-operation, co-operative projects, within the Commonwealth is the Commonwealth Secretariat. Most of the daily work of the office in dealing with Commonwealth countries, of course, is bilateral, but the collective projects are the responsibility of the Commonwealth Secretariat to organise and execute, carrying out the policies set at the biennial meetings of heads of government.
Over the 30 years of its life, the Commonwealth Secretariat has built up an extremely effective organism and cost-effective administration for a very wide and varied range of services capable of responding rapidly and flexibly to new and urgent demands. But the secretariat can no longer meet the demands on it as its resources are fully employed. Indeed, it is over-extended. In recent years, it has had greatly to reduce its staff. I daresay a shake-up is a good thing in any organisation every now and then. But the time has now come to move forward again and the secretariat simply has no means by which it can accommodate any new demands that the heads of government at Edinburgh may wish to place on it.
I suggest that there is a rising recognition in public opinion that our historic Commonwealth links add up to a national asset that holds out great opportunities and should be cherished and developed. As the noble Lord, Lord Gillmore, said, it represents a unique and undervalued institution. That more positive public attitude is reinforced by the shift of economic gravity towards Asia and the Pacific Rim, with all the enormous growth potential of its huge growing market. We tend to forget that in India alone the prosperous middle class represents a consumer population of some 250 million people. So, let us maintain and give new energy to our Commonwealth links and acknowledge that the Commonwealth Secretariat is the main mechanism for co-operation in collective projects.
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But it is constrained in its limited resources. It receives demands in the fields of peacekeeping, monitoring of elections and providing training and experts to reinforce new democracies, demands that it can no longer meet. There are also new areas of opportunity opening up the whole time, opportunities to provide invaluable help to other developing countries. For example, in the increasingly sensitive field of the environment, the Commonwealth has for seven years successfully established an infrastructure in the Caribbean for management of the marine environment. Effective control of ocean resources is now recognised as necessary and there is a pressing need for similar arrangements to those in the Caribbean in the Indian Ocean. Seven countries around the Indian Ocean, including India and South Africa, need help to monitor their ocean resources. But if that is to be met, it requires new resources for the secretariat far beyond the existing budget capacity.
Again, the secretariat has become a kind of respected, trusted and friendly aunt for small states. One of the phenomena of the past 20 years has been the tremendous proliferation of very small states on the international scene. Vulnerable and ill equipped for external relations, they enormously value the help that the Commonwealth Secretariat gives to them in many directions. Let us take the problem of money laundering, which is of great importance to us all. Some of the small states are trying to cope with extremely difficult pressures in the money laundering field and need the kind of advice that the secretariat can arrange.
I could go on quoting examples such as the training of officials, self-help schemes for the poor, youth schemes, help to promote women's activities in public life, schemes in the health field, the training of professionals, student exchanges. In all those fields, nothing more can be undertaken without more resources. What value for money we get from those funds that are allocated to the secretariat! Let us take the comparison between the monitoring team that the Commonwealth sent to Bangladesh, which cost £150,000, and the team that the United Nations sent for the same purpose, which cost £6.5 million. Not only is the work done very efficiently and economically, but from the point of view of this country there is a multiplier effect. We contribute to core activities 30 per cent. of the secretariat's budget. That means that for every £1 that we contribute, £2 are put up by our Commonwealth partners.
Therefore, I trust that at Edinburgh the Government will give a lead in proposing a very substantial increase of resources, to enable the secretariat to respond to the growing demands and thereby move forward as a vibrant, flexible and cost-effective means of the closer co-operation that the gracious Speech envisages.
9.11 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Richard, Leader of the House and Lord Privy Seal, on his new appointments. I am sorry to see that he is not in his place since I also wished to congratulate him on his strong stance on defence. I wish too to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean,

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Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, on her new appointment and on the new location in this House.
It has not been so much a landslide as an avalanche and I think Members in both Houses are still trying to find out where they are, where they sit and who is who in the new hierarchy. For the Back Benchers in this House, except for the ever present sword of Damocles poised over us hereditary Peers—of which the noble Lord the Leader of the House reminded us today so courteously and chillingly—it is much easier because all Peers are noble and, although we are not supposed to say this publicly, we are all friends, on whichever Benches we sit.
Noble Lords will be aware that I never speak for very long, for various reasons, two predominating. The first is that I am always shy and nervous and my knees shake, and the second is that I do not wish to take up too much of your Lordships' valuable time and well-known patience. Noble Lords will also know that ever since I have sat in your Lordships' House I have always been saying the same things on defence, first, reiterating the importance of defence to our nation and people as a whole; and, secondly, emphasising the very high calibre, dedication and professionalism of all Her Majesty's Armed Forces, many of whom I have been privileged to meet under the aegis of the Defence Study Group.
Like the noble Lords, Lord Chalfont and Lord Redesdale and the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Bramall and Lord Craig of Radley, I too have reservations about defence reviews, which, in my experience, are a euphemism for cuts. I am delighted that the gracious Speech said we,
"will retain strong armed forces, including the nuclear deterrent".
It is the first part of the sentence on which I shall speak.
Defence, my Lords, is about people. We are defending the people of Britain against any outside attacks which may ensue. We are also using our forces to defend the peace of the world, both in Northern Ireland and Bosnia Herzegovina and in many other places. And, however well supplied with weapons and back-up teams and finance, our Armed Forces consist of splendid and highly-dedicated people, whose interests with us must always be paramount.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, will, I know, have plenty to say on the actions of the new Government in looking into the Gulf War Syndrome, and I support her thoroughly. This is very good news, which delights us all and augurs well for the new Administration. I hope they will also bear in mind what we have been saying for the last 10 years, that the Armed Forces of this country are undermanned for the amount of tasks which we require of them and that they do not need further cutbacks.
As 1997 is the year of the seafarer, the War Widows Association of Great Britain is holding a service at Greenwich. I would like to quote a reading from St. Augustine, read by the widow of an Ordinary Seaman:
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"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."
I have been talking about the importance of the people in our Armed Forces; I think St. Augustine is talking about the importance of the people in God's world.
9.16 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness the Minister on her appointment and offer my best wishes for her work here.
I return to the subject I addressed on the occasion of the previous Queen's Speech debate on foreign affairs on 28th October 1996 and look again at the increasingly harsh discrimination and persecution being experienced by a wide spectrum of ethnic and religious minorities in Germany. In doing so I hope that the new Government will be prepared to look harder and more clear sightedly at the human rights situation in Germany, more so than the previous Government, who apparently preferred to sweep these matters under the carpet. I am pleased to see the emphasis on human rights in the gracious Speech, and I hope this emphasis will also be present in negotiations with our European partners.
I will not detain the House with a restatement of what I said on that occasion. But I will say, for the benefit of the noble Baroness who is to reply to this debate that I formed what we called an ad hoc committee to investigate discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities in Germany. I was joined by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and by a professor of philosophy, a senior lecturer in the sociology of education and a writer and lecturer on religious affairs.
We were in Germany at the end of September/beginning of October 1996. We interviewed representatives of 14 different religious and ethnic minorities and one group based on educational and family principles. The Germans use the word "Weltanschauung," meaning "world view", to describe such groups which are afforded the same protection as religions under the German constitution.
Our findings make disturbing reading. We were very disappointed with the reaction to them of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, and the former British Ambassador to Bonn, who I believe is now retired. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, who replied to the debate for the Foreign Office on that occasion was disturbed by our report and puzzled by the response of his colleagues. I hope I am not misinterpreting his feelings.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, referred to the "democratic deficit" in Europe. The words could equally be applied to German political and social life. I do not want anyone to think that I am criticising Germans as people. The problem is that despite Germany's comprehensive and well thought out democratic constitution, there are considerable blind spots, and it is to those blind spots that the ad hoc committee directed its attention.
We also discussed the situation there with two very experienced academics, one of whom was involved in political re-education after the war. I know that the

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phrase "political re-education" has unfortunate connotations, historically speaking, but in this case it was Professor Krumholz who was re-educating young Germans who had grown up during the war from the Nazi ideology in which they had been indoctrinated to more democratic ideas. Over the past 20 years or so he has become increasingly disillusioned and even bitter at what he sees as the betrayal of those ideals and ideas and of the German people by the political and religious establishments in Germany. This sense of betrayal has increased since reunification. The human rights NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch/Helsinki have also done some excellent work on the plight of ethnic minorities. In that context we have seen the repatriation of Vietnamese and Bosnians from Germany.
There has until recently been a dearth of material which examines the discrimination and persecution by state and church authorities. The 1995 report by the Churches Human Rights Forum, written by Suzanne Gee, has been very helpful. The two-and-a-half pages devoted to Germany are a useful introduction and the whole report also puts the situation in Germany in its European context. As far as I know, the ad hoc committee's report is the most comprehensive and detailed look at the problems facing religious minorities in Germany that has ever been carried out.
Noble Lords will recall that since we reported on our visit to Germany last year there have been incidents which made the newspapers here and one indeed assumed the status of a minor international incident. I am referring to the report in a leading German newspaper which made a rather unfortunate reference to the former Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind. Anyone who thought indulgently that this was an unfortunate but insignificant journalistic slip is very wide of the mark.
The point of the remark and of the article was that the journalist thought it was amusing and odd that someone of Jewish background should quote the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, an example of intellectual apartheid which makes sense to a certain kind of German but not to anyone else. This was in fact a small seismic crack in the crust of respectability that holds back the emotional and political pressure against minorities. Noble Lords may also recall that the German tennis player Boris Becker has left Germany for good because he and his family suffered intense harassment because his wife is a black woman.
I recently spoke to a representative of the Bruderhof, a Christian agricultural community, which left Germany in 1937 to escape persecution by the authorities. They re-established their community in Germany in, I think, the 1980s. Within the past few years they have again felt the need to leave Germany because of bureaucratic harassment and have settled on a farm in southern England.
The noble Baroness the Minister, once she has had time to study the papers and the report, whose second edition will be published in a few days' time, will not be surprised by my disappointment with the reply I received from the previous Administration. I am pleased that the new Government intend to strengthen
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the laws on data protection and access by individuals to information held about themselves. This is admirable and contrasts starkly with recent legislation in the German Land of Schleswig-Holstein.
Under this law members of as yet unnamed religious minorities may be targeted for removal of the data protection safeguards. The new law further provides for a documentation centre to disseminate personal information—precisely that information which the new British Government intend to make less accessible to others—to government—national, state and local—to the mainstream churches, to public bodies and to private businesses. Any democratically minded person would be disturbed by this, and especially if their government are bent on economic and political union with the Federal Republic of Germany.
In fact, several of the laudable policies outlined in the Queen's Speech run directly counter to the active and determined policy and legislation of the German Government. Your Lordships may be moved to speculate at the future course of harmonisation. Will these policies—I am talking about the human rights policies—be sufficiently important for the new Foreign Office team to champion them in the face of German hostility to them? Does the principle of subsidiarity obtain in the field of human rights?
There is one debate to which the publication of the ad hoc committee's report has made quite a contribution. This is the question of whether there are parallels between the self-evident persecution in today's Germany and the persecution of Jews and other minorities in the early 1930s. We have been criticised for making such comparisons. I will not rehearse the arguments for and against, but I would like to make one point. There are those who seem to believe that history stopped at a certain point in the 1940s and that no comparison could possibly be justified. Nobody except the Holocaust revisionists (whose views are unfortunately becoming more and more respectable in Germany), would wish for an instant to detract from the suffering of the Jewish people. Perhaps I may put it this way: history is more of a river than a snapshot. History rolls on as a succession of moments in the present. We need to detect the direction in which it is flowing and seek to direct that flow along democratic channels. We can be sure that the enemies of democracy are assiduously working in the opposite direction.
9.25 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I would like to invite your Lordships on an imaginary European tour. We might start through Warsaw, St. Petersburg, Kiev, before crossing the Caucasus mountains and visiting Tiflis and Yerevan. We might return through Sarajevo and Tirana, ending perhaps with Budapest. During a journey of this kind, would your Lordships feel that you were in Europe? Where else would we be, or have the wounds of Stalinism and the Cold War detached us from the eastern half of our heritage? Have we got a vision for the reintegration and reconciliation of the eastern and western parts of our continent?
I suggest that there is a key idea which should guide the reconstruction of Europe. That is the idea of the open society or, as some would describe it, the civil society. It

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is open because it does not reject new ideas. It allows the peaceful expression of religious, political and scientific views. It welcomes minorities of many cultures and allows no individual or ideology to monopolise the truth. Such a society is civil because it makes possible the building of civilisation and the development of cultures based on freedom of association and expression. Whether it is called open or civil does not matter a very great deal. What I am talking about is a state of affairs which is inescapably plural. It is committed to the methods of democracy in order to make possible the fullest civil participation and to prevent aggression, war and oppression.
What Eurosceptic, or even Europhobe, can object to peace and democracy from the Atlantic to the Urals? Is it not rather an ideal to which all can subscribe? This ideal has of course been expressed in many documents such as the United Nations Declarations on Human Rights and the European Convention. Such documents are of great importance, but they need institutions to monitor, protect and uphold their provisions. The machinery in the form of institutions is largely already in existence. I believe that it is up to us to ensure that the machinery is fully effective throughout Europe. If genocide and ethnic clearances take place in our continent, how can we reasonably condemn them when they occur in Africa or Asia? It must surely be our priority to put the European house in order before we start to preach to others.
I shall just briefly name the key European institutions. They are NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Much has been said about them tonight. No doubt I could say a good deal more, but I shall refrain. I simply say this: I would like to see all the European institutions becoming inspired by the vision of open, civil and democratic societies. I wish that the institutions would specialise and concentrate their efforts on those subjects wherein each is strongest and best equipped.
I ask Her Majesty's Government how they view such a harmonisation of effort towards a common goal. Will they seek to make open societies the aim of the European institutions both in Europe and in the countries coming into association, such as Turkey and the Middle Eastern and North African states? Will they seek effective penalties for failures in upholding human rights?
I warmly welcome Her Majesty's Government's support for the enlargement of both NATO and the European Union. I support the Foreign Secretary's search for an ethical dimension in foreign policy. What could be more ethical than open and democratic societies throughout Europe? If the common good of the whole people is the proper object of domestic policy, open societies throughout Europe are the proper aim of foreign policy. It is clear, I think, that free parliaments are not enough in themselves; we also need free media, independent judges and the rule of law.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Grenfell: My Lords, it was a great pleasure to listen to the eloquent and authoritative maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I look forward to hearing from him in the future. It is a great delight to congratulate
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my noble friend Lady Symons on taking up her new functions on the Front Bench. I am sure that she will serve us all very well.
I was moved to intervene in this debate on the gracious Speech by a profound sense of relief that we now have a government who are committed to a policy of active co-operation with the rest of Europe.
"A fresh start, with a fair wind".
as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary characterised it, is certainly long overdue. The new Government are to be congratulated on taking immediate, concrete and positive steps to begin to set right our relationship with our European partners. The signing up to the Social Chapter closes a period when the irrational fears of a few frustrated the reasonable interests of the many. The Government's quick action bodes well for progress in creating a Europe in which the optimum well-being of the citizen becomes the yardstick by which we measure the Union's performance.
Perhaps I may be permitted also to congratulate my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his historic decision to give the Bank of England operational responsibility for setting interest rates. He has made it clear that the decision was taken on grounds of domestic policy and increased credibility in the financial markets—and quite rightly so. While that move falls short of meeting the requirement in the Maastricht Treaty relating to central bank independence as a condition of participation in EMU, it cannot but reinforce our message to our European partners that the option to join at any time does, indeed, remain open, even if participation in the first wave remains unlikely, as the Chancellor again stated on Monday in Brussels.
I also very much welcome the assurance given in Paris this week by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary that the Government, holding the Presidency of the Union in the first half of 1998, will do everything in their power to make sure that the single currency gets off to a good start whether or not we are part of it.
I am sure that in the course of this Session there will be welcome opportunities to discuss once again the pros and cons of British participation in monetary union. Today I shall confine myself to a single but, I think, significant aspect of the issue. It is not a matter of the single currency's intrinsic merits, of which I have long been persuaded; it is rather more the manner in which we shall seek to arrive at the ultimate in or out decision. It is the Government's policy that any decision about Britain joining the single currency would be determined,
"by a hard-headed assessment of Britain's economic interests".
This wait-and-see policy is founded on the venerable axiom that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but with a slight variation in meaning if we are not in the first wave, namely, that other countries who are in the first wave will be putting their spoons to the pudding first while we await their verdict on taste, texture and digestibility, which we hope to find instructive. While that is a perfectly acceptable practice, we need to be aware that a substantial quantity of pudding may have to be consumed before the proof emerges. As the noble

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Lord, Lord Taverne, has already noted, conventional wisdom is that it will take quite a while, measured in years, before the full beneficial effects of monetary union on participating countries' jobs, inflation, exports, investment and other economic activities can be meaningfully quantified.
In the early stages experience will likely differ from one country to another. Teething problems in the system, which it would be unreasonable to exclude as a possibility, will make early accurate assessments difficult. If it takes time for those countries undergoing the experience to arrive at a meaningful measurement of the impact on their economies, how much longer will it take, and how much harder will it be, for a country outside the Euro zone to arrive at its own necessarily speculative conclusions? We know enough already about EMU to be able to grasp the mechanics of its operation and to list the planned and expected benefits in broad terms, but to know more we will have to wait. The wait will not be short. We need to be very careful that any benefits foregone in waiting are not so great that they cannot later be retrieved on joining. I pray that the Government will take that into account when considering the optimum moment to seek the people's consent.
Therefore, the question that arises is whether it best helps the Government, the Parliament and the people—the three indispensable pillars of our process of decision-making on monetary union—if the decision is to be based upon the sole criterion of economic self-interest. Economic self-interest is a crucial test but it cannot and should not be the only one. To enter monetary union will to a large degree be an act of faith, especially on the part of those in the first wave. But that faith should be rooted in the expectation of sustained political stability in Europe derived from increased prosperity in a well-functioning single market facilitated by a strong and effective single currency; in other words, while looking to our economic self-interest in assessing the merits of EMU we need also to look beyond it to the broader political benefits.
When my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary told his French and German partners last week that he wanted Britain to be a leader in Europe, it struck me, gratifyingly so, as another clear confirmation of this Government's intention to play a full role in the construction of a strong union of closely co-operating independent states. Perhaps from now on Britain will no longer be seen as the member who mostly asks what the European Union can do for it but as the member who more often asks what it can do to help promote the common interests of all the people of Europe. If that spirit can also inform our national debate as we move towards a decision on monetary union, I believe that the issues will become clearer and the decision easier to make.
It is as well that the new Government will be representing Britain in what it is hoped will be the closing stages of the intergovernmental conference. Many of the issues to be resolved both in the IGC and afterwards, such as the reform of decision-making procedures, the powers of the Parliament, the reform of the CAP and the structural funds and the completion of
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the single market, will be crucial to the successful and timely enlargement of the Union. I do not wish to address those issues now, but on four other issues I offer the following brief comments.
First, I fully support the Government's insistence, along with Ireland, on a permanent opt-out for the abolition of border controls. These two island nations have no choice. Secondly, I am happy that the Government will look constructively at ways of improving co-operation in matters of common interest in the area of justice and home affairs—the third pillar. There seems to me to be ample scope within the present architecture to enhance and broaden co-operation without changing the intergovernmental character of the pillar. Broadening and enhancing co-operation is one sure way of reducing divisive pressures to communitize.
Thirdly, I am delighted that a Bill will be introduced to incorporate the main provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. That well becomes a government deeply committed to citizens' rights.
Fourthly, on the matter of defence arrangements, I support the Government's position, which was also the position of the previous government, concerning the relationship of the WEU to the EU and to NATO. Britain is in good company with the neutral nations of the union in resisting pressure to integrate the WEU into the EU as its military arm. But the Government's argument, I hope, presupposes a strong WEU as well as a strong NATO. Here I wish to leave the precincts of the EU and enter for a moment the transatlantic area. This is my final point.
I was sorry not to be able to participate in the debate on NATO enlargement initiated by my noble friend Lord Kennet on 14th March last. I shall not try your Lordships' patience by saying now what I would have said then. Suffice it to state that I have never been more than lukewarm about NATO enlargement, and while I must accept the fact that it will go ahead, I have grave doubts about the timing and the manner in which it is being pursued. It is not enough to claim that an enlarged NATO will stand us in better stead if Cold War tensions between Russia and NATO states should be revived. We should not be risking creating the conditions for that revival in the first place.
There is however one aspect of NATO enlargement which my noble friend Lord Healey raised, which has been receiving less attention but which, if I may seek to persuade noble Lords of it, requires very careful consideration; that is, the question of how the costs are to be met and shared. Independent estimates by respected analysts of the likely costs over the next 12 years vary widely, as my noble friend Lord Healey observed, but Survival, the journal of the Institute for Strategic Studies, has argued convincingly that an estimate of 27 billion to 35 billion dollars over the next 12 years is a reasonable one. That is one of the lowest independent estimates, but it is still a lot of money.
There is much hostility in both Houses of the US Congress towards NATO enlargement and the vote in the Senate will be crucial. The odds nonetheless appear to favour President Clinton having his way in the

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end, but the price may very likely be a minimising of the American contribution to the cost. According to the Institute for Strategic Studies, the US would expect to pick up some 15 per cent. of the estimated 9 billion to 12 billion dollar cost over the next 12 years in ensuring that new members could work with existing members. But the US sees also the new members and the European allies bearing almost the entire 18 billion to 23 billion dollar cost of restructuring and modernising the new members' forces and strengthening current members' ability to project military force abroad. Thus, the current and new European members would be expected to pick up some 90 per cent. of the total cost of enlargement, with new members as a group putting up 800 million to 1 billion dollars a year and current European members as a group over 1 billion dollars.
The US has a point when it reminds us that it already spends 4 per cent. of its GDP on defence while Europe spends only 2.4 per cent. Some may say that it is only fair that Europe should bear the bigger burden for enlargement. But can it, and will it? I know of few, if any, European governments who will be happy to have to find several extra hundreds of millions of dollars equivalent per year in their defence budgets, especially among those worrying about budget deficits as monetary union approaches. But my bigger worry is for the new members. Among the likely first entrants progress is being made in reducing the share of public expenditures in GDP, but it has been a long and hard-fought battle to deal with the terrible fiscal legacies of the communist past, and it is far from over, as the struggle to meet the costs of providing social protection for vulnerable groups, to cite just one example, amply demonstrates.
Is all this to be thrown into jeopardy by the costs that they must bear for entry into NATO? Is this what they need at a time when they are facing up to the measures required of them for membership in the European Union? Indeed, my noble friend Lord Eatwell spoke forcefully of that challenge. Are larger arms-buying programmes to put at risk the financing of schools and hospitals, social security and environmental protection? These are serious questions that we, as well as they, have to face. It is simply not acceptable to dismiss the enlargement costs as marginal. In central and eastern Europe reversing the process of reducing fiscal aggregates is a recipe for disaster. I humbly urge Her Majesty's Government not to let this issue of burden-sharing be shunted off onto the sidelines in the euphoria of the Madrid Summit this July. It must be grasped now. I make that plea as one who believes firmly that instability in eastern and central Europe is far more likely to follow from dashed economic and social expectations than from fears of a return to Russian hegemony.
This Government have a formidable series of challenges to square up to in the global arena, but the gracious Speech has reinforced my conviction that Britain's foreign relations and security concerns are in excellent hands.
9.46 p.m.
Lord Vivian: My Lords, I was somewhat disappointed that no mention of our national security and defence was made until towards the end of the third page of the gracious Speech. I was even more disappointed that the other place has decided not to debate foreign affairs and defence matters at all in its Address on the gracious Speech. Nevertheless, I welcome the statements that the Government will ensure a strong defence based on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and promote international peace and security; and that strong armed forces, including the nuclear deterrent, will be retained.
However, I am concerned that the Government are intending to carry out a long and involved defence review to reassess our essential security interests and defence needs. With all the time that such reviews take, with all the additional expense involved and with all the uncertainty and demoralising effects that these reviews bring to service personnel, I wonder whether that is the best approach. It is this subject that I wish to bring to your Lordships' attention this evening.
Since 1990, the whole spectrum of defence management and the long-term costing programme has in effect imposed an annual running review on defence requirements. The Armed Forces have been submitted to Options for Change and the defence costs study and they now need a period of stability, combined with commitments from the Government, to dispense with a very prevalent feeling among servicemen and women that their futures are so uncertain that they should leave and take up other careers in civilian life. The country cannot afford the loss of any more of these highly trained and professional service personnel—any further reductions will decrease efficiency standards in the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force and the overall defence of the United Kingdom and our associated interests will be placed in jeopardy.
If this review is to go ahead, the Labour Party manifesto states that it will consider how the roles, missions and capabilities of our Armed Forces should be adjusted to meet the new strategic realities. It proposes that the review should be foreign-policy led, first assessing our likely overseas interests and commitments and then determining how our forces should be deployed to meet them. The annual running review since 1990 has covered these matters and has made changes where and when it has been necessary. The existing defence policy relates to the protection and security of the United Kingdom and the 14 dependent territories; the insurance against a major external threat to the United Kingdom and her allies; and our contribution to promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests through the maintenance of international peace and stability under the auspices of the United Nations. This would appear to cover the new Government's manifesto commitments too. The defence roles defined in the Labour Party manifesto are a repeat of existing defence policy, albeit worded in a different way. So, what are these new strategic realities and why the need for yet another review causing turmoil to our

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Armed Forces when it is difficult to see what new strategic realities will emerge from a Foreign Office reassessment?
Any defence reassessment should be commitment and capability driven. However, there has been and there continues to be a trend in Europe and elsewhere to reduce defence expenditure. I hope that the proposed review will not provide the excuse for us to reduce our expenditure to show alignment with other European countries. I am tired of hearing that if Europe can reduce its defence expenditure we should follow it. Surely we should be setting an example to these countries, showing them how concerned we are about defence matters. Although it is unlikely that we shall increase our defence expenditure, at least we can keep it in real terms at its present levels.
I remind your Lordships that last year the Select Committee on Defence was so concerned about the defence budget that it first refused to recommend the 1996 White Paper on the defence estimates unless Ministers guaranteed that there would be no further reductions. Secondly, in a more recent report, it stated that any further reduction would place the defence of the realm in jeopardy. There can be no further reduction in personnel nor in the training and equipment programmes if we are to retain our Armed Forces at high efficiency and expect them to win battles in the future. Already the Army is suffering a degree of skill fade from its Priority 1 role as a result of having frequently to undertake a number of other important tasks such as Northern Ireland, Bosnia and United Nations peacekeeping duties, which will continue to erupt in this volatile world.
What are the threats and risks that face us against which we should construct our defence policy? The likelihood of conflict in the world is increasing and there is no reason to believe that territorial or ethnic disputes are on the decline. The reverse is true. There are many examples throughout the world which support this. In the future it is likely that more conflicts will take place over natural resources such as minerals, water and oil. Our planning must continue to assess the likely flashpoints in the world. At a recent assessment there were 53 potential crisis points, 17 of which are within 200 miles of NATO's borders. There are 20 countries outside NATO which already possess ballistic missiles and today parts of NATO territory are within the range of some of them. Over a dozen countries have either the capability to deploy chemical or biological weapons or have development programmes which are at an advanced stage. There are about 35 countries outside NATO which are equipped with up-to-date, modern and sophisticated tanks and artillery. Some 40 countries have air forces with modern offensive aircraft and 30 countries have submarine forces outside NATO. The current phase of peacekeeping operations must not take our eye away from the vital and most important role for our Armed Forces, that of training for and being equipped for high intensity combat.
We should remind ourselves that only six years ago in 1991 we were fighting in high intensity operations against Iraq with large numbers of tanks, artillery, ships and aircraft. In the future if United Kingdom and
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NATO's interests are threatened, it is more likely that that will lead to high intensity operations. It is relatively simple to adjust to internal security and peacekeeping roles if our Armed Forces are trained for high intensity conflict. It is impossible to construct a force for those sorts of operation if it has been trained only for internal security and peacekeeping roles. It is therefore vital that we retain our high intensity fighting capability, show a lead to other NATO countries, and ensure that NATO keeps its military deterrent capability through its commitment to hard defence. It is against these real and existing threats to our security that we operate our defence plans.
So what sort of defence policy should the country adopt? We are an island nation depending on free global trade, worldwide investment and international commerce, with an essential requirement to keep our sea lanes open and free from interference. We have internal security problems in Northern Ireland and we have committed responsibilities to our dependent territories spread around the world, some of which are in, or close to, turbulent areas. We also have our UN peace-keeping responsibilities. There should be no change to our policies regarding the protection and security of the United Kingdom and dependent territories; the insurance against a major external threat to the United Kingdom and our allies; and the promotion of the United Kingdom's wider security interests.
Any change to these policies puts at risk the agreed conclusion that our security can best he guaranteed through collective defence measures. If we wish to remain a leading force in Europe and a well respected member of NATO, we must retain the Army in Germany. If we wish to continue to have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council we must go on providing troops for peacekeeping duties. If we wish to continue to be a leading member of the European Union, the Commonwealth and the Group of Seven, our defence policies must remain as they are. These fundamental current policies can always be adjusted as situations evolve in the future.
In conclusion, we do not need some long and cumbersome defence review involving all departments of the Ministry of Defence and all three armed services which will inevitably be damaging to service morale and provide more uncertainty for serving personnel. Currently disturbance, turbulence and conflict occur so fast in this volatile world that our policies and capabilities must be designed for our forces to react rapidly to any situation. I should have thought that the Foreign Office would be constantly reviewing the likely world flashpoints with our commitments to which the Ministry of Defence reacts. If this is not the case, then let the Foreign Office in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence carry out a study to reassess future policy and commitments. But at this stage it should not become a full-scale defence review.
The most appropriate defence and security policy in these uncertain times should be broad in scope, evolving and changing on an annual basis in accordance with world affairs. I see no need to dispense with our current policies and commitments. Our Armed Forces are structured for flexible response, with the capability of

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being quickly "tailored" to meet any specific operation. There can be no further reductions to our personnel, equipment and training if the Government wish to ensure the security of the realm. As a nation we are justly proud of the members of our Armed Forces and the upright way in which they conduct themselves. I pay a great tribute to all our servicemen and women who have implemented our defence policy in a most efficient and successful manner. Their superb level of training, professionalism and team spirit makes them the envy of the world.
9.59 p.m.
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, I should like to apologise for having missed the earlier part of the debate, and sadly, the maiden speech due to having returned from abroad only a few hours ago. Since the election I have had the opportunity of visiting the United States and several European capitals and of sampling comments and reactions to the political changes in Britain. Those reactions confirm my long-held belief that a new tone and style in our European policy, a convincingly co-operative yet firm and reasonable attitude in our dealings with our neighbours, might represent a quantum change and induce more understanding and sympathy.
Indeed the first policy statements in interviews given by the Foreign Secretary have been well received, not only by old friends but even by those European Anglo-sceptics and Anglophobes who, though fewer in number and less abrasive than our more extreme native equivalent, would concede that there may be a real chance of progress. At the same time nobody has illusions that the right honourable gentleman and his ministerial team will not robustly fight their corner.
It was gratifying to hear Robin Cook, in Herr Kinkel's presence, talk so warmly of the British Government's resolve to make a trilateral cordial alliance between Britain, France and Germany a cornerstone of his foreign policy. Perhaps I may be permitted to recall the interventions of various noble Lords, including my own, in the debate on the Address last October, which dealt with the central role that a new relationship with Germany and France must play in future foreign policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, rejects that idea, and there are of course many problems to be faced when conceiving of the formula postulated by such a policy. A great deal of backlog has to be cleared away. The partly understandable but largely inexcusable election hysteria in some of the media and on the hustings in dealing with the institutions and leading statesmen of our European neighbours is, we hope, now behind us. There is no vindictiveness left abroad. Chancellor Kohl's remark that "a Europe without Britain is a mere torso" reflects the genuinely held convictions of the German political class.
Of course, the trilateral idea must inevitably raise eyebrows. Italy, a country comparable in size and living standards to our own on the one hand, and the chorus of the smaller countries in Europe on the other, would raise objections. It would therefore be a tremendous
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challenge for our foreign policy makers to convince on the one hand France and Germany to perceive the great advantages of such a closer link while at the same time making it clear to all that what is intended is not a high-handed executive directorate but a continuous, consultative forum harmonising the views of those three powers which demonstrably have political, strategic, moral and material assets of towering importance—assets that could be fully employed for the benefit of all European partners. That will become perhaps even more plausible and necessary as we enlarge Europe and want to make the European Union at once more governable and less bureaucratic.
The Government's strong emphasis on human rights, on a humanist ethos, has already found a very positive resonance across the Channel, particularly in Germany. The Germans are now intent on defining for themselves their own future role as their federal capital is moving actually and symbolically from the Rhine to the Spree, a 50-minute car ride from the Polish frontier. What, politicians and think tanks ask themselves, will be the mission of the "Berlin Republic"? The Kohl Government's answer is that Germany must remain a functioning democracy, a standard-bearer of the pragmatic humanism and bridge-building between political and cultural communities in Europe and in its eastern and southern hinterland. Those aspirations converge with the stated aspirations of the new British Government.
In this context I wish to take issue with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McNair. I share his horror at any form of ethnic or racial aberration and transgression and endorse the activities of the committee responsible for ongoing monitoring. However, when it comes to a summary condemnation of the Germany of today, the Germany of the Kohl era, I must strongly contradict him.
It so happens that this morning I had the privilege of delivering an oration as a guest of the Central Council of German Jewry presenting the Leo Baeck prize in honour and commemoration of one of the great, saintly German Jewish religious leaders who spent years in a death camp. The prize was given to Chancellor Kohl for his unrivalled contribution to ethnic, racial and religious peace. I have for six years worked with Chancellor Kohl and through the good offices of the Bertelsmann Foundation on a German-Jewish dialogue. The energy, involvement and commitment which the German Government—whether it be the President of the Republic, the head of the Bundestag or members of the government, mainly Chancellor Kohl—devote to this task is remarkable and is recognised by German Jewry and leaders of committed Jews all over the world, including Israel. I would go further and say that this has a bearing on our European policy. We can say quite openly that today the Federal Republic is one of the greatest flag bearers of applied humanism and a country that is the largest single absorber of immigrants and the second largest payer of foreign aid. Let us have a sense

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of perspective and realise that, unlike other European countries, there is not a single extremist leader of the racist right in the German Federal Parliament.
Lord McNair: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene since he referred to my speech? I am very grateful to him. As far as individual transgressions are concerned, I would agree. Unfortunately, this is not a question of individual transgressions. We are talking about a wide range of groups and a wide range of social and political pressure. I was very grateful for the noble Lord's support when he read our report. I did not make a blanket condemnation of Germany, I simply said that there were things to criticise and things which the new Government might like to take up with the German Government. Nevertheless, I respect the noble Lord's views.
Lord Weidenfeld: My Lords, Britain's firm stand on border control and defence policy is to be welcomed and, I believe, will also be understood abroad. As for the common foreign policy, I hope that this Government will, on the question of majority voting, make it plain that on the whole voting should be restricted, and remain restricted for a long time, to issues concerned with implementation of joint action. Great Britain has still a host of traditional relationships with certain countries and attitudes to various contentious issues that still differ from the one or other European partner. Those traditional relationships must not be unduly interfered with or jeopardised. There is still much to be done before we can talk of a truly common foreign policy in every nuance of the word. Even to someone who might consider himself a Euro-maximalist rather than a Euro-minimalist, a cautious step-by-step progress in the so desirable ultimate integration of Europe is more prudent than a plunge into uncharted terrain.
I will say a last word on the encouraging remarks about the important role of the British Council and the BBC World Service within the framework of a new British foreign policy. These are among Britain's most undervalued assets. They are not only time-honoured projectors of British culture, standards, values and proven objectivity; they are also indispensable channels through which we can recover lost ground. The secret of the success, for instance, behind the close Franco-German friendship is not just the political will in the Elysée Palace and the Federal Chancellory but the result of systematic and costly cultural programmes of youth exchanges and deep interpenetration of the two countries' educational systems. This pays its dividends. I believe we should heed this lesson and use and develop our existing strengths and tools so that we may reap the benefits and allow them to contribute to making Britain a really leading and important factor in Europe.
10.09 p.m.
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: Like others, I should like to begin by offering my warm congratulations to the new Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. It is a formidable task to have to answer the first major debate of a new Parliament under a new Government. I well remember when I became a new Minister at the
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Foreign Office after 13 years in opposition the feeling of excitement and, I am bound to say, trepidation that I had at that time. I do not believe for a moment that the noble Baroness suffers from trepidation at all because, after all, she was the leader of the First Division Association, where her membership were nothing but Whitehall mandarins. I hope that she enjoys her service in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is a very great department of state, as much as I did in my time.
I should also like to congratulate the Government very warmly on the gracious Speech and the mission statement of the Foreign Secretary, as well as on the immediate actions that they have taken to transform the climate of relations between Britain and the outside world, particularly with our European partners. Their whole approach has met such a positive response from other members of the European Union that it proves beyond doubt how much the previous government had run down our pool of good will and equally how much the rest of the European Union wants to have a British Government that is playing a strong and positive part in the work of the European Union.
But honeymoons do not last very long. It has been one of the most remarkable features of this debate and an achievement of the Government that the voice of the Euro-sceptic, often so loud in your Lordships' House, has not been heard at all tonight. But, as I said, one cannot rely on honeymoons lasting for too long.
I myself want immediately to express some of my feelings about the limitations of the Government's policy towards Europe. I am disappointed that they take such a very old-fashioned and vigorous view about frontier controls. I know that we are an island. I remember one French politician who came from the island of Corsica and in the French Assembly referred with passion to the fact that Corsica was an island and moreover an island entirely surrounded by water. We are in that situation but we now have a Channel tunnel. I still regard as my favourite definition of British foreign policy Ernie Bevin's description of being able to go down to Victoria Station without a passport and buy a ticket to where the hell you liked.
The other day, despite the Government's reticence in these matters, I had the experience of going down to my local international station in Kent, buying a ticket to the middle of France and travelling to the middle of France without at any time showing anybody a passport. So there is hope. But I hope that the Government will be a little more adventurous there, as I hope they might be on matters such as foreign policy and defence co-operation. These are difficult matters and there has to be gradual progress, but I hope that they will be imaginative about them.
But, of course, economic and monetary union is the big test. As has been said in this debate, Britain has for too long had a reputation for sometimes being sympathetic in principle to developments in the European Union but always saying that it prefers to wait and see and join later. If the Government are serious about wanting to be one of the leading players in the

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European Union on level pegging with France, Germany and other active members of the Union, then in my view to wait and see simply will not do.
Economic and monetary union decisions must finally be taken on an economically sound basis without any fudging of the economic criteria that have been set up. I think I will carry the noble Lord the Leader of the House with me, in view of his long experience, like mine, in Brussels, in saying that in the European Union, although it is important to get the economic foundations right, it is political will that gets things moving. Economic and monetary union is as much a matter of political will as it is of getting the economics right. The Government say they are serious about wanting to take their place among the ranks of leaders of the European Union. If the criteria are observed, the other major players go ahead on the basis of those criteria and the United Kingdom Government feel that they can conform to those criteria, then it is vitally important, if they want to remain a leader, that they join in the first wave.
In the election, the Labour Party manifesto put the matter clearly, stating that there are three options for Britain in relation to Europe. One would be to try to withdraw; the second is to be on the sidelines; and the third, which the Government now say they firmly espouse, is to be one of the leading players. I believe profoundly that it is possible for us to be in with the first wave, and if we decline to do so and prefer to wait and see we shall find ourselves on the sidelines.
Apart from economic and monetary union, the two other major issues are the enlargement of the European Union and the associated issue of the enlargement of NATO. It is taken too simplistically for granted in the Western world that the enlargement of either the European Union or of NATO is a good thing and we do not need to do much more about it. I was interested in the serious speeches made about the policy and cost issues associated with the enlargement of either NATO or the European Union. I listened carefully to what my noble friend Lord Wallace said about that to my noble friend Lord Healey and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver. I have listened to the latter on the subject over the years with a particular degree of respect. There are serious issues to be thought through in relation to the enlargement of NATO which I do not believe have begun to he thought through adequately.
Equally, on the European Union, I understand from the figures I have seen that if, for example, merely the Visegrad countries were to join the European Union at the turn of the century, by itself that would mean an increase of 70 per cent., within the present framework, in the budget of the European Union. When we look at the effect on the structural funds, I notice that in May last year the Economic and Social Committee considered the consequences. It said that one effect would be that:
"some regions that presently qualify for [structural support under] Objective I will find themselves ineligible… At the same time, some countries, presently recipients of cohesion support from the EU budget, may find themselves net contributors".
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The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is not in his place but he was right in saying that a fresh approach needs to be made to some of the problems if we are to have effective enlargement in circumstances in which the costs are tolerable.
So far, some simple questions which apply to both NATO and the European Union are unanswered. They are these: what contributions could the applicants make? What changes are required to accommodate them and at what cost? Serious work needs to be done on that and I hope that the Government will take the lead there.
The Government have ahead of them during their first year of office two major opportunities for showing leadership in world affairs. One is the presidency of the European Union in the first half of next year, and the other, earlier, opportunity was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and others, namely, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Edinburgh. I make only one reference to the content of that meeting. I hope that the Government will take a lead in trying to ensure that really effective action is taken by heads of government on the situation in Nigeria. There is what is called a Commonwealth Action Group, which has been around for a long time. It has earned itself a reputation as the "Commonwealth Inaction Group". I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to get matters moving there.
The general point I wish to make is that there will be one common aim at both the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and during the European Union presidency. The aim is to have a British initiative to try to get the maximum co-operation in various international fields. I think particularly of what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said in his excellent speech about reform of the United Nations. Both the European Union collectively and the Commonwealth collectively could play a role in bringing about a more effective reform of the United Nations under its new Secretary General.
On these Benches, we particularly welcome the emphasis on human rights and the environmental aspects of foreign policy. My noble friend Lord Avebury mentioned many details concerning that aspect. He believes that perpetual pressure is the only way to get results and the Minister can look forward to much more of it from the very expert background he has on these matters.
I am as aware as anybody who has had responsibilities in the past for foreign affairs that the Government face the difficulty of balancing the inevitable realities of competing national interests, competition in the export field, including arms exports, and concern about human liberty within various national regimes. All those have to be balanced one against the other.
The best way forward for a British Government that aspires to play a positive and constructive role in these matters—as I am sure the new Government do—is to try to do so in co-operation with other nations, in co-operation with our partners in the European Union, in co-operation with our partners in the Commonwealth and through the United Nations. On these Benches—and I am sure much more widely throughout the

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country—hope will be high that the aspirations of the mission statement of the new Government on foreign affairs can he achieved without too much dilution in the face of the harsh realities of the international world.
10.21 p.m.
Earl Howe: My Lords, in common with other noble Lords, this is the first opportunity that I have had to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, to their respective positions on the Government Front Bench.
The Leader of the House comes to his new appointment after an immensely distinguished career at the Bar, in government, at the United Nations and as a European Commissioner. I fear he may think me a little presumptuous in congratulating him on reaching this new high water mark in his life. Nevertheless I do so most warmly. I am sure he will discharge the duties of his office, both in this House and outside, with the fair-mindedness and breadth of vision which we know him to possess.
The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, takes up her appointment after a relatively short time in your Lordships' House. That in itself speaks volumes for her abilities. We know her to be a highly capable and professionally-minded person, and I congratulate her on obtaining an office of state which she will undoubtedly occupy with distinction.
I join other speakers in congratulating my noble friend Lord Moynihan on his excellent, lucid and persuasive maiden speech. It is splendid that he is amongst us and I hope that we shall see him in our midst frequently.
I was struck yesterday by how often the mention of the nation's interests featured in the gracious Speech, almost as though there were a point to prove. I am not cavilling at that in the least, but if there is one debate where this Palmerstonian theme must be ever present it is surely a debate on foreign affairs and defence. What divides or unites us is the way in which each of us defines what British interests actually consist of—whether the issue is the single European currency, UNESCO, the UK presence in Bosnia or the overseas aid budget.
I confess to being disappointed that, with the exception of some European Union issues, foreign and defence policy hardly featured at all in the recent general election campaign. Had it done so, more people might have shared the perception of many of us on this side of the House that there are more questions than answers posed by the Labour Party policy pronouncements. Our first task of the new parliament, in this and subsequent debates, must be to seek out and obtain those answers.
Nowhere is the lacuna in our knowledge of government policy more apparent or more serious than in the area of defence. Some of the pronouncements that the Government have made are encouraging as far as they go. They have restated our commitment to the NATO alliance, to maintaining the Trident nuclear deterrent and, before the general election, to ordering the Eurofighter as the next generation of combat aircraft
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for the RAF. But alongside all that is a pledge which can only cause those on these Benches to worry acutely. That is the pledge—a long-standing one it has to be said—to carry out an immediate defence review. We are told next to nothing about the scope and scale of the review except that it will be foreign policy-led with, if press reports are correct, active Treasury involvement.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he was Opposition defence spokesman, predicted that the review would have painful consequences. I do not believe I can be alone among your Lordships in reacting to these messages with a shiver down the spine. I do not dispute the right of any government to modify the size and shape of our Armed Forces in the light of changes to the security environment. That is a perfectly responsible approach and it is one which we in the last government adopted with notable success and notable balance following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We now have Armed Forces that are structured and configured to meet the tasks that may and indeed do face them in the very altered and uncertain world in which we now live. They are equipped with some of the world's finest military hardware to tackle anything from a major coalition operation, as in the Gulf, to localised humanitarian aid. They are trained to undertake high intensity conflict, because it is only that standard of training that will see them through all types of possible military tasks.
The annual Statement on the Defence Estimates has in recent years gone into detail to demonstrate how each of the elements of our Armed Forces can be matched to the tasks we require them to carry out. The question on which there has been a deafening silence is: which of these tasks do the Government think needs reviewing? Indeed, to echo my noble friend Lord Vivian, what are the changes to the international environment which lead the Government to believe that "our essential security interests", to quote the gracious Speech, should be defined differently?
The silence on this was palpable until two days ago, when the Secretary of State for Defence indicated on the radio that a general war in Europe was no longer a task that the Armed Forces needed to prepare for. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Secretary of State has pre-empted the findings of his own review. But what is he saying? If he is saying that Russia is no longer a military threat to Western Europe, that is patently true. If, however, he is saying that Britain no longer has a role in the defence of Western Europe and need not train for it, I find that deeply disturbing and fundamentally wrong. For a start, where in all this is a sense of responsibility to our allies in NATO? What does it say about our command of the allied Rapid Reaction Corps?
The worry that we on these Benches have always had and will continue to have is that the defence review will not be so much about revalidating or altering foreign policy as finding ways in which to make substantial cuts in the defence budget, an objective overtly espoused by large sections of the wider Labour Party? It cannot be stressed too strongly how misconceived and damaging such cuts would be.

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Whatever the Secretary of State may have done, I do not wish or expect the noble Baroness to pre-empt the conclusions of the defence review in any reply that she may give today. However, can she tell the House a little more about the review's terms of reference? Can she say what will happen to current defence procurement projects, such as Challenger 2, as well as pending procurement decisions while the review is in progress? Most importantly, what message can she give to the men and women of our Armed Forces to reassure them about their future?
The reduction in the size of all three services that has taken place over the past few years has been a necessary process, necessary as a consequence of a greatly altered strategic environment. Great credit attached to the Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF for the way in which in human and logistical terms those changes were managed so successfully. But it was inevitable that, while that downsizing process was going on, it brought with it uncertainty and a measure of insecurity for servicemen and women. That in turn, as has already been said in this debate, had a negative impact on recruitment. Do the Government recognise how undesirable for service morale it would be to raise the spectre of further cuts either in manpower or in equipment just when the services need a period of stability?
Perhaps I may revert briefly to the international dimensions of this issue. How will the review hope to take account of the future shape of the NATO alliance? In a few weeks' time the Madrid Summit will take some far-reaching decisions about the enlargement of NATO. Decisions about who among the applicant countries should join are quite properly ones for the alliance as a whole to take. We are likely, however, to see invitations issued to a small number of countries to become new members with formal entry dates pencilled in for 1999 or shortly thereafter. Importantly, the military cost implications of the accession of new members have yet to be worked out. If NATO is to remain, as it surely must, the bedrock of our security and if fundamental questions on the future shape of the alliance and the contribution of its members remain in the air, what hope have the Government got of reaching definitive conclusions about UK defence needs without extending the timescale of the review to one of years rather than months?
I ask these questions half rhetorically because I simply do not think that it will be possible to conduct a root and branch evaluation of our defence needs between now and the end of the year and come to neat, clear-cut conclusions which take account of NATO enlargement. Indeed, that point underlines the basic flaw of having a review of this kind at all. Defence planning is something that evolves constantly; it is long term in its focus. It takes account of hypotheses, possibilities and uncertainties. Its gaze is always on a moving target. Its horizons are not always identical to those which help to crystallise our foreign policy.
A review of foreign policy is something which any new government are entitled to undertake, but I urge the Government to pause, and to pause long, before they
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alter any of the fundamental building blocks of our defence capability. Our duty to provide sound defences for our country and our duty to our allies need no restating, but any assessment of our defence needs must also recognise Britain's global economic interests and in particular our heavy dependence on trade and investment overseas. It must also recognise our responsibilities towards our dependent territories and towards the large number of UK nationals living around the world. It is for those reasons that the furtherance of our interests depends critically on maintaining a world that is stable, humane and law-abiding. Because of that, our foreign policy must remain global. It is therefore self interest as much as moral duty which demands that our Armed Forces retain a global reach.
The Armed Forces that this Government inherit have never been better equipped nor better trained. Having had the honour of serving as a defence Minister for the better part of two years, I am absolutely convinced that in this country we can boast of armed services which for quality are second to none in the world. The Royal Navy has the newest and most capable fleet that it has had for 100 years. The Army and the RAF too have benefited from a continuous programme of modernisation, all of which we have been able to afford as a result of the Front Line First initiative, which rationalised the support elements of the forces and redirected the money saved towards equipment programmes.
The new Government talk in terms of maintaining strong Armed Forces but give us cause to fear that radical—indeed damaging—changes may be on the agenda. I hope that they can live up to the aims they have publicly aspired to in the gracious Speech and prove the doubters wrong. The interests of this country demand no less.
10.35 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, it is a privilege for me to close this foreign affairs, international development and defence debate on the gracious Speech. The past few hours of debate have been fascinating. Many subjects have been raised and I apologise in advance if I do not manage to answer all of the points made and questions raised by noble Lords. Where I have not managed to do so, I assure the House that either I or the Minister for Defence Procurement will write separately where appropriate.
I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his maiden speech. It was, indeed, a distinguished maiden speech which was elegant, well argued and beautifully delivered. I am sure that we shall have some fun in the future discussing the noble Lord's views on competition and privatisation. However, I noted with pleasure that the noble Lord could support virtually all the points in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's mission statement about interdependence, the environment and democracy. I congratulate the noble Lord warmly on his maiden speech. I am sure that we all look forward to his contributions to our debates in the future.

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Opening the debate, my noble friend Lord Richard described this Government's policies on the European Union, defence and the North Atlantic Alliance. Many noble Lords subsequently raised those and other issues of importance. I shall outline the principles which form the basis of the Government's approach to foreign development co-operation and defence policy. The priorities include providing security for Britain based on the North Atlantic Alliance and giving new impetus to arms control and disarmament; making Britain a leading player in a Europe of independent nation states; working for Britain's prosperity, making maximum use of Britain's embassies and High Commissions to promote British exports and boost British jobs; pushing the environment up the international agenda; fighting poverty around the world, and securing the respect of other nations for Britain's contribution to keeping the peace and promoting democracy around the world. Our policy must have an ethical dimension, with human rights at its heart.
I make no apologies for repeating that point, despite what the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, said earlier. The noble Viscount was in slight danger of re-rehearsing a whole range of election arguments—possibly to see whether they would work better a second time around. Sadly for the noble Viscount, if the reaction of the House was anything to go by, they will not. Most breathtaking of all was the noble Viscount's argument that the current Government somehow evinced what he described as "embarrassing arrogance". I found that a bit rich from a member of the previous Government when a Minister in that administration said on 28th February 1996 to the Select Committee on the Public Service in another place that accountability for some public services was "paraphernalia".
Perhaps the noble Viscount would like to think again about some of the points he made in relation to a view which is, I know, widely held in the backwaters of his party about the effect on jobs of signing the social chapter. The noble Viscount's views are not shared by all sorts of companies which have decided to come to Britain, for example, Nissan, Sony, and Siemens, the chief executive of which specifically stated that he did not think that the social chapter was a threat to the thousands of high tech jobs which are coming to the north-east of England. Nonetheless, I thank the noble Viscount for his contribution which served to remind us of why so few people voted Conservative at the last election.
I turn now to the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford who gave us a timely reminder of the fate of so many poor people throughout the world. The Government have immediately introduced a clear change by giving development the high priority it deserves. I join the tribute paid by the right reverend Prelate to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, for her tireless work for poverty-stricken people throughout the world. The present level of global poverty and under-development is unacceptable: 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty. The Government are committed to combating global poverty and working for a safer, decent and environmentally stable world.
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The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said that development issues entered into the mainstream of this Government's decision-making. He was right. My right honourable friend Claire Short has been appointed Secretary of State for International Development. A separate department has been established. Work will begin immediately on a White Paper that sets out how through more coherent policies we will tackle global poverty and promote sustainable development. We shall consult widely. At the same time, we shall review the existing programme to ensure that the resources available for development are used most effectively and are targeted on our central objectives. We must and shall make measurable progress. We will deliver real benefits to the poorest people in the poorest countries. To this end we shall engage positively with all our development partners and the international community. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has already announced this week that the UK will rejoin UNESCO. The costs of rejoining will be met from the contingency reserve in the development budget. Future plans will be considered at the time of the next resources round.
The gracious Speech also referred to our aim of achieving a successful transition of Hong Kong. This is among the heaviest and most immediate overseas responsibilities placed upon the Government and it is one that we intend to fulfil to the best of our ability. The Government are committed to working for the well-being of Hong Kong in accordance with the Joint Declaration, not just in the next six weeks but in the months and years to come. Our engagement in Hong Kong—its success, liberties, lifestyle, 3.5 million British passport holders and huge range of other British connections—will matter greatly to us. So, too, will China as a country of great and growing importance. We will speak up when we should in areas such as human rights, but that should be in the context of a much more wide-ranging and constructive relationship than has so far been achieved.
The United Kingdom continues to invest a huge amount in Bosnia both in manpower and resources. We shall continue to play a leading role in the international effort to build a just and lasting peace based on the Dayton Agreement. The Government are committed to the goals of a multi-ethnic, democratic and united Bosnia and Herzegovina. In particular, we will insist on compliance by the authorities in the region with their obligations to surrender to the tribunal in The Hague persons indicted on charges of war crimes. That many of those accused are still at large is a matter of great regret.
My noble friend Lord Judd referred to the Great Lakes region of Africa which has been the subject of a complex and appalling tragedy. Britain will seek to play a constructive role. Our immediate concern is the plight of the refugees.
The noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, referred to the situation in the Middle East. The Government give wholehearted support to the peace process. No lasting peace is possible without respect for international legality and the Palestinian need for justice, self-determination and economic well-being as well as Israel's need for security. The Oslo process based on the formula of land for peace offers a realistic way forward,

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as its originators so boldly realised. With our EU partners we shall do what we can to help break through the current deadlock, complementing the efforts of the United States.
The United Kingdom will be active in the search for peace, reconciliation and human rights in many other regions. In doing so we shall work not just with international organisations such as the UN but within those organisations to help them become more effective in their tasks. We shall work to enhance the UN's ability on peacekeeping, conflict prevention and poverty reduction. We shall push for early resolution of the UN's financial problems and play a full part in the debate on its reform. We shall be active in other international fora. As the gracious Speech indicated, the UK will be host to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the G7 Summit and the Second Asia-Europe meeting. All are organisations to which we attach great importance. All are opportunities for Britain.
I shall address a couple of further points before I turn to the matters raised during the debate. First, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has asked me to give a high priority to equal opportunities in the FCO, both in respect of women and ethnic minorities. Some people see the FCO as hidebound and old fashioned. I and my ministerial colleagues know of course that it is not, but we want to accelerate the process of change in the office so that its staffing better reflects the make-up of modern British society.
It gave me great pleasure when my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary announced earlier today that normal trade union rights would be restored at GCHQ. He announced that the conditions of service of staff at GCHQ have today been changed. They once again have the freedom that they previously enjoyed to join a trade union of their choice. It gives me pleasure to welcome his action to right a very long-standing wrong.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, raised the issue of landmines. The Red Cross estimates that there are 120 million such mines laid across the world and that they kill or maim someone about every 20 minutes. Often the someone is an innocent child at play. The Government are determined to do all that they can to rid the world of those ghastly weapons. We shall seek to win agreement to an effective legally binding international agreement to ban their use, stockpiling, production and transfer worldwide. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary announced last week that he will begin work with French and German colleagues and with other interested countries to achieve a total and effective ban on landmines.
My noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, also raised issues relating to weapons of mass destruction. The Government will be resolute in seeking to reduce the threat from weapons of mass destruction. We have as a goal the global elimination of nuclear weapons. We shall press for multilateral negotiations towards mutual, balanced and
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verifiable reductions in such weapons. When satisfied with the verified progress, we will include British nuclear weapons in multilateral negotiations.
The noble Lords, Lord Chalfont and Lord Redesdale, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Bramall and Lord Craig, the noble Lord, Lord Vivian and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked about our plans for re-assessing our essential security interests and defence needs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, said, our forces are among the best in the world and have performed with great success in difficult operations in recent years. The Government are committed to a strong defence, but it needs to be relevant to Britain's requirements in a changing world.
Ministers have made it clear that the strategic defence and security review will be foreign policy led. We intend to give the Armed Forces a stronger sense of direction and to ensure that they match the challenges of the 21st century. I hope that noble Lords will give their support to that process, because the Government do not need any lecture upon the importance of morale for their public servants, including the Armed Forces.
We welcome the agreement reached yesterday between the NATO Secretary-General, Señor Solana, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Primakov, on the text of a joint NATO/Russia document to which reference was made by the noble Lords, Lord Healey and Lord Wallace of Saltaire. We hope that it will now be endorsed by NATO members and Russia and lead to a summit in Paris on 27th May at which the text will be signed by President Yeltsin, the heads of state together with the governments of NATO countries and Senor Solana. I also hope that the first priority cited by the noble Lord, Lord Carver, will be met shortly. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to intervene. I should like to ask a question of which I gave my noble friend advance warning. When may we hope to know what is in that agreement?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as soon as that agreement is available it will of course be available for public consumption. However, I cannot at present give my noble friend an exact answer about when it will be so available. I shall write to him as soon as I have that information.
I can further assure the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, that this Government will play a full and responsible part in the process of change that NATO is currently undergoing. We welcome the new task that NATO is taking on, exemplified by the successful NATO-led operation in Bosnia, where 5,000 British troops are playing a vital and respected role. We are looking forward to the Madrid summit, where we expect the first candidates for membership to be invited to begin negotiations for accession. We believe that enlargement of NATO and enhanced co-operation with countries which are not invited or which do not wish to join will deepen security in all of Europe, extending across the continent the peace, stability and habits of close co-operation that NATO embodies.

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The noble Lords, Lord Grenfell, Lord Taverne and Lord Weidenfeld, concentrated upon European issues. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, does not really expect me to be quite so bold as he urged me to be in his speech. I believe that we shall have the opportunity for the debate that the noble Lord suggests in due course. However, I can say that this Government have shown their determination to improve competitiveness and to promote employment across Europe by the establishment of a competitiveness task force led by Sir David Simon which will seek to break down the remaining barriers to business in the single market. As the noble Lords, Lord Wright of Richmond and Lord Gillmore, said, he will be ably supported by the FCO diplomats and staff, whose commitment and dedication is already evident to my ministerial colleagues and myself.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, raised questions about information from European colleagues. We have made it clear that we have the determination to make the EU more democratic, transparent and relevant to ordinary people. This means facilitating the scrutiny of EU legislation by national Parliaments. It also means that the activities and operation of the EU must be made more accessible and comprehensible to its citizens. We will be supporting proposals in the IGC in both those areas. We are also looking at further initiatives that we might take to achieve greater openness in the EU.
Several noble Lords raised the question of the BBC World Service; they included the noble Lords, Lord Gillmore, Lord Redesdale and Lord Weidenfeld. The World Service has a vital role in increasing the respect and goodwill that there is towards the United Kingdom. We shall examine very carefully the future funding requirements of the World Service. We intend to ensure that the reorganisation of the BBC has no adverse effects on the service's output. The British Council is the UK's principal agency for cultural relations and an integral part of our overseas efforts. It is a first class organisation which is making a huge contribution to the respect in which this country is held.
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The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised a number of questions on human rights. My colleague, Mr. Henderson, has already issued the statement in relation to Turkey to which he referred. The noble Lord has written to my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary with a number of suggestions concerning the Harare Declaration and CHOGM. We are currently studying the papers that he has sent and will send him a detailed reply shortly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, raised questions in relation to Burma and the Sudan. I listened carefully to her knowledgeable and moving contribution. I shall read it again in Hansard and write to the noble Baroness. I thank her for the manner in which she put forward her case.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, was warm in his appreciation of current government policy and action in Europe. In view of the sharp contrast he may find with the policy of his own party, perhaps I might go so far as to invite him to consider whether he might like to cross the Floor of the House again.
In closing, I wish to say that in this debate the Government have set before your Lordships their vision of Britain's new foreign policy. We have today described some of the ways we intend to achieve our goals. This is a Government who believe in taking a lead to secure our objectives. Our aims are clear, coherent and achievable. Our foreign policy will be active, dynamic and resolute. We shall be active in taking a leading role in Europe to get the best possible deal for the British people. We shall be dynamic in working for peace and to prevent future conflicts and we shall be resolute in working around the world for human rights and for sustainable development.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned until Monday next.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until Monday next.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until Monday next.
House adjourned at four minutes before eleven o'clock.

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