Sitting of 27 February 1998

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

  Day Hospice (Moray)
  9.34 am
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: It is with great honour and humility that I present to the House a petition signed by 8,000 of my constituents, which represents 10 per cent. of the total population of Moray. Those signatures were collected in approximately eight weeks against the difficulties of holiday periods and, indeed, blizzards.
  The petition seeks the establishment of a day hospice in Moray. My constituency is a caring community. In the years since I have been elected to represent the area, I have consistently been impressed by the generosity of the community, which is shown by the fact that we raised money to site a scanner in our area and to establish a central maternity unit for our constituents because, of course, in the highlands of Scotland distance is of great importance.
  In presenting the petition, I am conscious of the fact that people in the areas surrounding Moray are keen for
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  the hospice to be established because it would save journeys to Inverness and Aberdeen. We can all appreciate the importance of ensuring that families are in contact with relatives suffering from terminal illness. We greatly appreciate the work done by our community hospitals and the Macmillan nurses—
  Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is a long-standing Member of the House. She should know that, when presenting a petition, she should confine herself to only a few points to explain what it is about and then present it. The ruling on that is in Standing Order No. 153. Hon. Members who wish to present petitions should look at that Standing Order before so doing. The hon. Lady must now come to an end and present the petition.
  Mrs. Ewing: I appreciate that, Madam Speaker, but you will appreciate the strength of opinion in my area.
  I will read out the petition, which relates to seamless care. It states:
  Unto the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of concerned Citizens of Moray, including the Moray Hospice Steering Committee
  Humbly Sheweth
  That your Petitioners are concerned that the health and wellbeing of those residents of Moray who endure long-term and terminal illness be safeguarded and enhanced by the provision of proper Palliative care in the area;
  That it is acknowledged that such provision can best be made by the speedy establishment of a Day Hospice in Moray to complement Community Hospitals and other existing services;
  Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House Graciously Commend to The Right Honourable the Secretary of State for Scotland to have particular regard for the need for a Day Hospice in Moray during the current review of Health Care provision in the Grampian Health Board area;
  And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

Women (Government Priorities)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
9.37 am
The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): The debate marks an important moment for the Government and for women. We are determined to achieve a real alignment between what women want and what the Government intend. We have a Prime Minister, a Chancellor and a Cabinet who are all committed to putting the concerns of women at the heart of government. That has happened because this Administration understand the central message that women have been trying to get across for years: that, although women and men share the same values and objectives, women's lives are different. They have a different pattern, so we have a different perspective and a different range of needs and interests. Those are not a side issue, but are fundamental to our society and our Government.
These are the things that women say matter to them, or to us, I should say: a better education for our children; better health services; freedom from the fear of crime and violence; security in old age; and the opportunity to work and to go out to work, balancing the responsibilities of work and of the home. This Government are delivering on all those issues, laying the foundations for a better Britain.
In the hearts of all mothers is a burning desire to ensure a good education for their children, and at the heart of the Government is a commitment to a good education for all children. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment is driving down class sizes and driving up school standards.
Women want to be certain that the national health service will be there for their families, and that it will give the care and attention they need, when they need it. Moreover, when women fall ill, they need prompt treatment, but not in mixed-sex wards. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and his team are modernising and investing in the NHS to ensure that it delivers those services.
Women want safety for their families and for themselves; they do not want to fear crime. Violence against women—even in their own homes—remains a blot on our society. It is still largely a hidden crime, which is swept under the carpet. Too many women are afraid of what might happen if they speak up; they are not sure that they will receive the protection that they need. It is estimated that one in three cases of domestic violence go
unreported.
The Government will not tolerate a culture of fear, which leaves women unsupported and the men who abuse them unpunished. That is why, with my colleagues across Government, I have made tackling all forms of violence against women one of my key priorities. That includes violence in public spaces—including buses and trains—and in the home. The Government will work with local government to combat violence, creating a national strategy to tackle violence against women.
The Government's concern is for women throughout their lives, particularly as they grow older. The whole House will agree that it is a scandal that, after a lifetime of work or caring for their families, women in retirement—
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particularly the very old who live on their own—are some of the poorest people in Britain today. When they were of working age, even those who worked were probably low paid and may not have paid national insurance contributions for a pension in their own right. They probably have no savings, no state earnings-related pension and no occupational pension from their employer—nothing. Often, they do not receive the benefits to which they are entitled, because they are too proud to claim them.
We will tackle the poverty of today's women pensioners. We have already given extra help for fuel costs, and are ensuring that they receive the benefits to which they are entitled. To ensure that today's women do not become tomorrow's poorest pensioners, we have set as one of the 10 key targets of the pensions review the narrowing of the pension gap between men and women in retirement.
We will ensure that, on top of the basic state pension, women have access to a good second pension—either an occupational pension or a new stakeholder pension. We will introduce for carers a citizenship pension, which will recognise that, although they may not go out to work, they make a valuable contribution to society through their caring responsibilities, and so should have a second pension in their own right.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: What advice has the right hon. Lady received from the actuaries about the effect on pensions of the difference in life expectancy between men and women? How will pensions be funded equally?
Ms Harman: The hon. Lady raises an important issue, about which the pensions review is liaising with actuaries.
After fewer than 10 months in government, we are already delivering on a range of issues that are of concern to women. One of the most important of those is women's desire to combine their family responsibilities and paid employment on a fair and manageable footing.
Women's lives have changed profoundly. The days are gone when women were as rare a sight in the workplace as men are, even today, in the kitchen. [Interruption.] Not all men, I hasten to add; there are some honourable exceptions on the Labour Back Benches.
Over the past 50 years, the number of women going out to work has greatly increased. They go out to work because they want to and need to, and because we need them to. The nurse, the teacher, the factory worker, is probably someone's mother. Seven out of 10 women now have paid jobs. Two thirds of married mothers go out to work—whether full time or part time, their work is vital to the family income. Britain now depends on women's work as well as men's; our economy depends on women, but so, still, do their families.
Women are redefining their role as mothers. Nowadays, they provide for their children as well as care for them. Women increasingly expect men to redefine their role as fathers in caring for their children, as well as providing for them. Many of us, including many of my hon. Friends who are present today, have campaigned for years for public policy to support women's choices and to recognise that women's lives are changing. We are now in government and doing just that.

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The Government believe that parents should decide what is best for their children. The best thing that we can do is to support parents, by offering them choice backed up with opportunities, and opportunities backed up with real investment. We want to make it easier for all parents to meet their responsibilities in the workplace and in the home.
The previous Government took no action to help women balance the changing demands in their lives. Women have been left to manage their extra responsibilities without access to child care that they can trust and afford, or that matches their working hours. Let us make no mistake: in child care, Britain's children are Europe's poor relation—in most other European countries, high-quality child care is taken for granted. Parents in Britain must have a choice of accessible, affordable and high-quality child care.
That is important for children, for their parents and for the economy. It is important for children, because good child care can give children a head start by offering educational and social opportunities before they start school. There is strong evidence that it improves their chances of doing well as they grow older. It is important for parents, because it is what they want—the waiting lists for nurseries, after-school clubs and child minders are endless—as it helps them to support their families by working, so that they can bring up their children on income from work, not benefits, and so break the cycle of joblessness and social exclusion.
Mr. Michael Fabricant: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Ms Harman: Yes. I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the debate, and I look forward to his intervention.
Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her courtesy. She said—I think that the whole House will agree—that parents are best able to look after their children when they can go to work and find good carers. Will she confirm, however, that, under the new deal, only 6.2 per cent. of parents have been able to return to work? I understand that the figure is even lower for single mothers under 25. What percentage does she think would show that the new deal was a success? What targets will she set?
Ms Harman: The new deal for lone parents, which I shall speak about later, is the subject of an academic evaluation that will cost the best part of £1 million. We shall set targets on the basis of that evaluation. The new deal is a pioneering project—it has never been tried before—so we cannot set targets before we have evaluated what works and how it works.
Child care is also important because Britain's economy depends on women's work, as does the welfare of their families. Ensuring the right child care is crucial to building strong families and communities, and to running a sound and stable economy. The Government will, therefore, as we promised in our manifesto, implement a national child care strategy, which will be set out in a Green Paper to be published after Easter.
The key words of our strategy will be quality, accessibility and affordability. We want to improve the range and choice of child care, but that child care must,
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first and foremost, be of high quality. Parents want to be sure that their children receive the very best child care. That means more and better-trained child care workers, an improved system of regulation and inspection, and a seamless service of education and child care that has the interests of children at heart. To underpin quality—indeed, it is essential for quality—child care must not be a poor service only for poor families, but an excellent service for all families. It must be universal.
Our second watchword is accessibility. Child care must be accessible to all. At the moment, access to child care is a lottery, depending on where one lives. Parents in rural areas especially have little chance of obtaining the type of child care that they want. The 1997 rural services survey—carried out as part of the excellent decade-long attempt by the Rural Development Commission to ensure child care in the country—shows that 93 per cent. of rural parishes have no public nursery, and 92 per cent. have no out-of-school child care groups. Families in rural areas are losing out.
Mr. Damian Green: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Ms Harman: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the debate, and I look forward to his intervention.
Mr. Green: I endorse the Secretary of State's tribute to the Rural Development Commission's important work on child care in rural communities. Will she tell the House why the Government propose to abolish the Rural Development Commission?
Ms Harman: The excellent work of the Rural Development Commission will be developed as part of the regional development agencies. We want to see that work developed and strengthened; that is why I have raised the subject today. It is wrong that families in rural areas should lose out.
To provide choice for all families, we are investing £300 million to expand out-of-school child care provision over the next five years. That will provide places for up to 1 million children. Some £40 million will be available for the first year, starting from April, and we are also developing early excellence centres in all regions.
Our third watchword is affordability. We are already providing extra help to low-income families with the cost of child care, but we want to be certain that more help with the cost of child care is available to those people who need it. The new working families tax credit and extra help through the tax system for the cost of child care will offer the opportunity to ensure that all working parents on low incomes get the help they need with the costs of child care. Help with the cost of child care also helps to underpin the quality of child care, because child care on the cheap is not good child care. Therefore, help for parents to afford child care will help to ensure the right standard of child care.
To give parents a real choice, we will foster a range of different kinds of child care, for non-working mothers as well as working mothers. That means playgroups, mother and toddler clubs and one o'clock clubs, as well as child minders and nurseries; it means breakfast clubs as well as after-school clubs; and it means holiday play schemes during half term and holidays.

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The national child care strategy will build on the effective partnerships that exist between local government and other child care providers in the voluntary, public and private sectors. As we put child care at the centre of the Government's social and economic policies, I pay a warm tribute to all those child care providers and campaigners who, in the long years when child care was not a Government priority, struggled to make the argument and take the issue forward. They have played and will play a crucial role in taking forward our national child care strategy. Local authorities, often without the backing and help of Government, have pioneered excellence on the ground. We look forward to a vibrant partnership with them to deliver the national child care strategy.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn rose—
Ms Harman: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, so I shall not do so again. [Interruption.] I am sorry, he looks exactly like the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green).
Mr. St. Aubyn: I hesitate to accuse the Secretary of State of sexism in her attitude to men. In view of the importance of child benefit in helping families to pay for child care, will she give an absolute assurance that she will not make it harder for women to go out to work and earn a salary by introducing any forms of means testing of the child benefit that is paid to women?
Ms Harman: The Government have already extended help with the cost of child care by extending the child care disregard in family credit. As the Chancellor said in his Green Budget statement in November, we will provide extra help with the cost of child care. Child benefit is the subject of a manifesto promise that we shall keep.
I have mentioned the important and pioneering work of local authorities. I pay tribute also to the voluntary organisations—both local providers and the excellent national organisations such as Kids Club Network and the Daycare Trust—and to those employers who have led the way, such as Midland bank, working through organisations such as Opportunity 2000. I pay tribute also to the women in unions who have pressed for child care to be on the collective bargaining agenda for their members. All those organisations and individuals have struggled to build child care, and now they will have a Government who will back them.
Child care is not the only important aspect. What happens at work is also important. Although women are crucial to today's workplace, there is little recognition of their responsibilities at home. We must have family-friendly working, so that patterns of work reflect the needs of families to a much greater extent. At present, it is too often the other way round.
Last year, we agreed to implement the European Union directive on parental leave and, this year, we are working towards an early extension of the EU directive. We also wish to make work pay for women. Women still lag behind men in the pay stakes.
Miss Julie Kirkbride rose—
Ms Harman: I shall give way to the hon. Lady.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: She looks just like the others.
Miss Kirkbride: But I am still wearing blue. I am curious about something that the Secretary of State said a few moments ago. She claimed that, under the Government's new scheme, non-working mothers would be given state money—up to three quarters of the cost—to help to pay for child care. I can understand why the Government might wish to help mothers go out to work so that the benefit bill is cut, but why should non-working mothers be eligible for state help with child care?
Ms Harman: Because non-working mothers want quality playgroups, mother and toddler groups and one o'clock clubs. The fact that they care for their children at home should not mean that their children should be denied the opportunity of good pre-school education. Those mothers and children will be helped by the development, from the local level, of the national child care strategy.
Women are more likely to be in low-paid or part-time employment than men, and the gap is getting bigger. We are determined to tackle low pay. We shall do it by introducing, for the first time, a national minimum wage. Among the first to benefit will be more than 500,000 women who now—disgracefully—earn less than £2.50 an hour. We shall help make work pay by giving help to low-income families through the tax system—as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out in his Green Budget in November.
The Government are helping women when they are in work, and we are making work pay. The third part of our three-track strategy is to provide active help in getting women into work. Until now, many women—especially lone parents—have wanted to work, but have been denied the opportunity to do so. The facts speak for themselves—more than 1 million lone mothers are bringing up 2 million children on benefits.
Our new deal for lone parents is already showing what can be done. For the first time, specially trained personal advisers are offering help and advice so that lone parents can overcome the barriers to moving into work to make themselves and their children better off. In eight months' time, that service will start to be available to all lone parents across Britain.
Mr. Jenkin: May we take it that, if the figures of 1 million mothers and 2 million children on benefit do not fall, the Secretary of State's policy will have failed?
Ms Harman: I want to see the numbers of lone parents on income support fall. If we get right child care, family-friendly employment and good advice and information to help lone mothers into work, we will see the steady rise in lone mothers on income support start to fall. I am sure that that will be welcomed by the whole House, because those women and children will be better off, and the mounting burden on the taxpayer will start to reduce.
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Lady. Her remarks have

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dealt with women at the bottom of the pay and opportunity scale. Before she finishes, I hope that she will refer to the child care needs of all those outstanding women who make tremendous intellectual contributions to our society, not a few of whom are represented here. They also go to work and have to leave their children. They do not want the state to look after them; they want to use private facilities, for which they need tax relief on the gross cost. Will she consider that, because such women make an important contribution to our modern economy?
Ms Harman: The development of our national child care strategy will help all women, working or not working, by providing a good choice of child care facilities for their children. Of course high-earning women use and need child care. They will benefit from the availability of well-regulated, properly inspected nursery and child care facilities in all areas. They will benefit from the extension of child care and out-of-school clubs through our national child care strategy.
I am sure that the hon. Lady agrees that, in helping to make child care affordable, the Government's priority must be to help those who have the greatest difficulty in paying for it rather than spreading it evenly across the range. Some women can afford child care, but find that it is still a headache because they do not have the right choice or quality. They will benefit from our national child care strategy. Women on lower incomes will be helped in respect of quality and accessibility but also of cost.
The developments are set against a sea change in British politics. There are now 121 women Members. Still too few, I would say, but almost double the number returned at the previous general election. There are five women Cabinet Ministers and 15 women Ministers outside the Cabinet. Still too few, I would say, but still more than at any other time in history. We have a new Cabinet Sub-Committee that draws Ministers from all Departments together to co-ordinate and drive forward policies that will improve the lives of women. We shall soon have a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh assembly that will genuinely represent women as well as men in Scotland and Wales.
Throughout the United Kingdom, we are committed to building a new bond of trust between women and Government, to replace cynicism and detachment by developing and sustaining a genuine dialogue with women, so that women's many voices are heard and heeded. We are strengthening our links with women's organisations and reviewing the Women's National Commission.
At the same time, we will reach out to women who do not join organisations to hear the views of those who do not normally take part in consultative exercises. They are the people who most often feel cut off and alienated from the world of politics and government.
I am pleased to announce today a new initiative that signals our determination into enter a new dialogue with women. We have commissioned two pilot women's juries to be held later this spring. They build on the model of citizens' juries, which have been used successfully by several health authorities and local authorities. In a citizens' jury, a small group of ordinary citizens from the
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population at large is asked to take part in an informed and extended discussion on a policy question. Unlike a focus group—
Mrs. Theresa May: It sounds like a focus group.
Ms Harman: The hon. Lady clearly does not understand. This is not about focus groups but about drawing people together and asking them to go through policy issues. It is a deliberative process. It is not like a focus group, which researches public opinion. The jury model is intended to improve and enrich our democratic practice. [Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh, partly because they have never heard of it and do not understand it; but, in a few years, they will be trying to imply that they invented it.
The proceedings of the jury and the report of its findings will be in the public domain. The jurors must approve the report before its submission to Government. It complements the normal channels of consultation and decision making, adding a distinctive voice that is not usually heard, especially in the House.
For the first time in two decades, Britain has a Government who are listening to women, giving priority to what they say about their lives and families, and bringing their perspectives into all work across all Departments, building it into the routine mechanisms of policy making, not as an add-on but as an essential part of the policy process. We are committed to building and sustaining a new habit of governance that has women's voices and interests at its heart. We are proud to be part of that Government and proud to be part of that change.
10.4 am
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I apologise to the House because constituency commitments made 12 months ago mean that I cannot remain until the end of the debate. I have been in touch with the Minister who is to reply and written to the Speaker. It is not because the Leader of the House did not give us enough notice—she gave us three full weeks—but because my commitments concern an annual general meeting.
I am delighted that the Government have found time for a debate on priorities for women. Some of us were in the Chamber for the very first such debate, which was initiated by the then Member for Derbyshire, South and junior Health Minister on 10 June 1988. It should give pleasure to all, regardless of party affiliation, to see what our predecessors would have rejoiced to behold: a House in which one Member in five is a woman.
I take pleasure in congratulating all the new women Members, all those women who have taken up ministerial office for the first time and those in opposition in positions of authority. Britain has a woman Head of State and has had an outstanding woman Prime Minister. We have a woman Speaker who is known and respected throughout the world. Women in senior positions run the affairs of Whitehall and Parliament. Although there is always more to do, more mountains to scale, this is a day of minor celebration.
I regret that, although this is a good day, the Secretary of State went into her usual tone of carp and scold. I take great encouragement from the words of the Secretary of

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State for International Development, who, in a 1994 publication, "Uphill all the Way", said of the election of more women to this House:
"The quality of debate will be altered … The topics and tone of debates will be changed".
Let us hope that it might be. I am not sure that we could have guessed it from the first contribution, but we have the rest of the day.
The Secretary of State had some interesting things to say. They were leaked, as is the Government's practice, to The Guardian. There were suggestions elsewhere in the press that she leaked them herself ahead of the Budget. One wonders whether The Guardian could become a sort of Hansard in advance; it would save time.
Barbara Follett: I thank the right hon. Lady for her courtesy in giving way. I note that she hopes that the tone of debate will change and that we will move away from carp and scold, but she has almost immediately started carping and scolding.
Mrs. Shephard: Dear, dear; I stand reprimanded.
I have some frank things to say, and I think that Labour Members share my concerns. The Government's handling of benefits for less well-off families and lone parents has been a catalogue of disaster. There have been claims and counter-claims. The Prime Minister gave a straight denial of a change of plan on Wednesday. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's people have been briefing furiously that he intended to announce the proposals as the centrepiece of his Budget. The Secretary of State, sadly, walked out of an interview yesterday. It has been a sorry saga. It is no wonder that the proposals have been slammed by the Government's own supporters, in the meetings that they have held around the country, and by the interest groups.
The Secretary of State has announced a Green Paper. There are some good ideas in what she has outlined. We await it with interest. We also await the plans to be announced in the Budget, which we are told about on another page of The Guardian this morning. We hope that all those things will combine to do what the Secretary of State hopes.
There are a number of issues on which I can agree with the Secretary of State. I certainly wish that we had more women Members on the Conservative Benches. Those we have are deeply committed and very much in demand, which is why not all of them could be here today, much to their regret. We do not have the luxury of one week off in four, which I understand is the arrangement for Labour Members, but, of course, I understand that, too.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: You had better not believe that.
Mrs. Shephard: Well, we know that the hon. Gentleman is always on duty.
The Conservative party wants to see women succeed in traditional roles, in business and in public life. In government, we pioneered many practical measures that have helped women to succeed. I shall detail a few of them later. We created flexible labour markets which have successfully created jobs. We built on education reforms to provide opportunity. However, we recognise as
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Conservatives that we have to do more to help women to succeed in politics. Our party reforms are changing the way in which we do business to encourage more women to take part in the main stream of the party, and there is certainly much to be done.
There is another matter on which I hope that the Secretary of State and Labour Members, and hon. Members of all parties, agree with me. It is a matter of regret that the arrival of so many new women Members in the House has been given less than serious media coverage. This is not an envious snipe, although perhaps it is; hon. Members can judge for themselves. It is true that publicised makeovers in which some women have indulged—perhaps I could have done with one—make for trivial coverage. It is sad that some journalists—some of the worst offenders have been women journalists—have been so gratuitously offensive about women in the House.
The Secretary of State told us of her Government's new deal for women. She has—correctly, I am sure—said little about all that has gone before, but I should like to take a few minutes to set the record straight. The previous Government established women's issues as a Cabinet responsibility and set up a Cabinet Committee chaired by a Minister to deal with women's issues across government. We established a women's issues working group which, among other things, oversaw "New horizons for women"—a series of seminars up and down the country in which we listened to women's views. We also developed the after-school child care initiative, creating 67,000 places at a cost of almost £60 million. A nationwide child care strategy called "Work and family" was developed by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan).
It was the previous Government who established a ministerial responsibility for women's health, screening programmes, well woman clinics and other health care initiatives especially for women. The previous Government, through the economic success that they passed on as a golden legacy to the Labour Government, saw record numbers of women in the workplace, the narrowing of pay differentials to a record low, and a record rise in the number of self-employed women. The previous Government gave help with child care costs, family credit and other benefits. We guaranteed the future of child benefit untaxed and launched fair play for women with the Equal Opportunities Commission. We saw the fastest ever rise in the number of women graduates and we saw girls outstrip boys in almost every measure of academic achievement, although we all know that that creates another problem in its own right.
Mrs. Gorman: Why?
Mrs. Shephard: Did I hear the word "why"? Well, one has to be logical about this. I will explain to my hon. Friend. It is a problem. If, in the past, we regarded it as a problem that girls under-achieved, we must now regard the fact that boys are under-achieving as something which has looked at and solved. Obviously, we want girls and boys to achieve well across the board.
Mrs. Gorman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, with the modern development of our economy thanks to the excellent policies of the Conservative Government, the growth in the labour market will require more highly skilled and highly educated people? The only increasing

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source of labour will be women and young girls coming into the labour market, so it is essential that our girls achieve more than they ever did, and certainly perhaps more than some of the boys.
Mrs. Shephard: My hon. Friend is, as ever, refreshing. She is not wrong. As I said, we want girls and boys, and men and women, to be equipped to compete in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace.
The previous Government ensured an increase in the number of public appointments of women. It was previously 23 per cent. We edged it up to 30 per cent., and we want to see it pushed further still. I hope that the Secretary of State will work on it. We also signed up to the Beijing platform for action. All those are real and measurable achievements. I hope that the Secretary of State will feel that she can accept that we established a good foundation on which she and her colleagues can now build.
Mrs. Lait: In that long catalogue of achievements, which I am grateful that my right hon. Friend has listed, does she include independent taxation of married women?
Mrs. Shephard: I certainly do. I have some questions for the Minister for women, who will reply to the debate, and I shall put them to her at the end of my remarks. Independent taxation was an achievement, and we certainly do not want to see it threatened.
The Secretary of State made some announcements this morning. I welcome them and congratulate her on them, and I wish her well. However, what has been achieved for women in the first nine months of this new Government is not a great deal. Labour promised before the election that there would be a Minister for women with full Cabinet status. What happened? There was rather a long delay and then a rushed announcement, following protests from women's groups, of the appointment of the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), for whom I have great respect. However, she was appointed without Cabinet status and forced to take the job on low pay and now half pay. That is not a good message for women around the country. I understand that she sits on just two Cabinet Sub-Committees. I am sorry to say—I am sure that she will be expecting me to say this—that her sole parliamentary activity since her appointment last June has consisted of giving just five oral answers from the Dispatch Box and 18 written answers.
Ms Margaret Hodge: Does the right hon. Lady consider that it was a good message for women under the previous Government to have a man representing women's issues in the Cabinet?
Mrs. Shephard: I think that the record of the previous Government stands for itself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] For several of the years in which I had these responsibilities, I chaired that Cabinet Sub-Committee. I am sorry to say that we have yet to see any achievement as a result of the hon. Lady's appointment.
Mr. Jenkin: Would we not be going backwards if, while we were trying to abolish woman-free zones in public life, we started to create man-free zones?
Mrs. Shephard: I do not think that that is the Government's intention—it certainly would not have been the previous Government's intention.
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However, it was a considerable disappointment to women's groups around the country that we did not hear from the Minister for women when they protested about the cuts in lone parent benefit; nor, for that matter, did we hear from the majority of women Labour Members. Their curious post-election silence on the matter led to an accusation from their own side that they resembled the Stepford wives. Indeed, the hon. Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths), who is in her place, revealed to the Reading Chronicle of 13 January that she and others have formed a club poetically named—in contradistinction to the Stepford wives, I believe—"the Stroppy Cows". I should make it clear to the House that I am quoting the hon. Lady. Neither description is helpful to the cause of women in the House, and it is a matter of regret that both descriptions originated on the Government Benches.
There have been other broken promises. What about national health service waiting lists? Labour promised women that waiting lists would be cut by treating an extra 100,000 patients, using £100 million saved from NHS red tape. However, recently published figures show that waiting lists had increased by 50,000 at the end of last year.
Ms Julia Drown: Does the right hon. Lady agree that the extra £10 million for breast cancer services is a welcome initiative for women in this country who are worried about breast cancer?
Mrs. Shephard: Any initiative of that sort is very helpful to women, but Government Members have to get it into their heads that, on average, health spending when we were in power rose by more than 3 per cent. each and every year, whereas so far the increase in spending under Labour has amounted to 1 per cent.
The Government's commitment to education, education, education, does not square with the cuts in council funding, mostly in rural areas, which they did not need to make and which, coupled with the huge hikes in petrol prices that have already been imposed, with more to come, mean that rural women and rural families have had their choices appallingly reduced. The Secretary of State's announcement has done little to clear up the muddle that the Government have created in her policy area. I hope that the Minister for women will take the opportunity to clear up some of those points, once and for all.
Does the Minister believe, as did her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State before the election, that lone parents are financially at a disadvantage compared with married couples; or does she agree with the Prime Minister that abolishing lone parent benefit was necessary to stop unfair treatment of married couples? Does she, like her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, refuse to rule out taxing or means-testing child benefit? How would taxing it square with the Government's so-called principles of achieving greater equality or, for that matter, of preserving independent taxation of women?
Will the Minister make the new deal for lone parents compulsory during the life of this Parliament? How does she intend to deal with the unemployment among women that the introduction of a national minimum wage will certainly create? How will she give women a meaningful choice between working and staying at home?

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There is a lot to do, and a lot of confidence for the Government to regain, because—regrettably—there is nothing to show for nine months of work. We have an underpaid Minister whose parliamentary record so far has been well-nigh invisible. We have a string of broken promises. We have utter confusion on the lone parent benefit front. We have real hardship for rural women and their families. We have seen the sort of hostile reaction from the public that one would expect when expectations have been dashed by the reality of Labour in power. They have made a bad beginning; that fact cannot be dispelled by press leaks and a few announcements on a Friday morning.
Labour made many promises before the election, and women deserve more than they have so far received from the Government. Successive Conservative Governments have strengthened the position of women in British society. We and the women of Britain will judge the Labour Government by what they achieve, not by what they tell us they intend to achieve. We want real improvements, real opportunities and real choices for the women of Britain.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. There are many hon. Ladies—and Gentlemen—who want to speak and, obviously, if speeches are kept short, more people will be able to do so. I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind.
10.24 am
Lorna Fitzsimons: I warmly welcome the announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the first momentous debate under our Government celebrating the achievements of women, both inside and outside the House. The £40 million, the Green Paper and women juries are all welcome.
I was going to welcome the statements of the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), having had dealings with her previously when she was a Cabinet Minister. However, I revised that intention after hearing her say that she wanted debate to take a different course now that there were lots of women in the House, but then practise the Conservative historical revisionism we know so well. The reality is that there are millions of women who will benefit from the minimum wage, and the question to be asked is: do the Conservatives support poverty pay and keeping women and therefore children in poverty? Do they support it or not? Over the past nine months, and for the first time in this country's history, women have been taken seriously at the heart of Government, not only in economic policy, but in every other policy area.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: May I correct the hon. Lady? My right hon. Friend was quoting the words of the present Secretary of State for International Development. I hope that that puts both the hon. Lady and the record straight.
Lorna Fitzsimons: In terms of the debate, perhaps it would be more healthy for us to go through the achievements announced in a thorough manner by my
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right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We should be debating what we have managed to achieve for women in a real and meaningful sense, whether our child care strategy, our family-friendly employment policies—policies which were sadly lacking under the previous Government—or our taking seriously the issue of violence against women, one of the most insidious crimes, which the previous Government failed to take seriously.
The Conservatives had 18 years in which to take all those issues seriously and to implement strategies, so their saying that we have done little in nine months will not wash with my constituents. Many women working in their communities suffered as a result of the Conservative Government's policies, from poverty and from the rundown in local services. They had to ensure that, in their work in the communities, they bridged the gap between resources and the reality of their lives.
I am glad that the Labour Government, in the most senior Departments, are taking seriously the issues of women and of children. Those issues are a true economic issue and I welcome the recognition of that fact in our economic policies. We are starting to treat child care as an economic issue— [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are lots of conversations going on in the Chamber. I want to hear what the hon. Lady has to say.
Lorna Fitzsimons: Child care is not only about nurturing children, but about enabling women to participate in society. We have to start at the top and one of the first things we discovered on coming into government was how women were not taken seriously in a systematic fashion across government. Would the House believe that there is no ability to do modelling in terms of the gender impact analysis of Government policies, because the previous Government did not collect statistics that would make it possible to determine the effect of policies on women's lives? That is how much attention the previous Government paid to women.
Mrs. Gillan: Is the hon. Lady aware that I was the Minister who produced the first set of disaggregated statistics based on gender? Has she even bothered to look at them?
Lorna Fitzsimons: Yes, I have. However, does the hon. Lady agree that, although the Fawcett Society and several senior academics have tried to conduct gender impact analysis throughout Government, the previous Government did not set up the necessary data collection procedures to make that possible? That places the Treasury and other Departments in a difficult position; we must start from scratch. One can disaggregate some statistics but, in the absence of the basic information to disaggregate, it is impossible to do so.
We are finding that, to a great extent and in many areas, women have not been taken seriously. The opening remarks of the shadow Leader of the House disappointed me, because I believe that, if we do not put women at the centre of government, throughout Whitehall, we shall be cutting off our nose to spite our face. Some of the least known work of the women's unit and the Ministers for women will have the longest-term impact on the lives of women in this country.

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During the short period of nine months in which I have been a Member of Parliament, I have come to understand that often it is very hard to wade through the bureaucracy of Whitehall and the House to make things transparent to the outside world. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to use this debate to flag up some of the differences between this Government and the previous Government. I hope that women will come to trust and value the features that make us different—not only the fact that we have 101 Labour women Members of Parliament, but the fact that we as a Government, to a man and woman, take women's interests seriously.
On pensions and citizenship pensions, it is important that we are talking about pension sharing. It is important that we are talking about our responsibility for carers, and for women—like my mother—who have been unable to participate in the world of work for any reason, whether it is because they have had child care responsibilities, because they have always done intermittent part-time work or low-paid work or because they carry the burden of looking after families, older people or relatives. It is our responsibility as a Government to cherish them and to ensure that the pension system does not discriminate against them, because they have been doing some of the most crucial and under-acknowledged work, in the unpaid economy.
I very much welcome the work that is being done by the National Audit Office, post-Beijing, to collect data about the value and importance of unpaid work—and paid work—to the economy. These vital planks will allow us to build a far more sophisticated picture of the true economic value of the participation of women in the economy, because there are knock-on costs to women staying at home looking after relatives.
Mr. Denis MacShane: Is my hon. Friend aware of studies by economists at the university of York, which suggest that it can cost as much as £100,000 to bring up a child to university age, and does she agree that that shows the immense contribution that women, mothers and families make to the economy, which should be recognised?
Lorna Fitzsimons: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He notes one study. Non-governmental organisations and women academics are doing a myriad of studies, enabling the new Government to build a picture based on empirical research, instead of starting from scratch. That is of great value to us.
Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that the work that the previous Government did on that issue was reflected, not only in our manifesto commitment to introduce transferable tax allowances, so that women bringing up children and not working could bring the benefit of their tax allowances into their family earnings, but in the introduction of basic pension-plus? That would have meant that the Government would pay amounts from the national insurance fund into the personal pension funds of women who were carers and not working, so that they would benefit from a proper funded pension, instead of depending on the basic state pension, which increases only with the rate of inflation.
Lorna Fitzsimons: The majority of my women and pensioner constituents do not recognise the picture that the hon. Gentleman paints of the past 18 years. They feel sadly betrayed. They feel—
Mr. Jenkin: You do not understand it.
Lorna Fitzsimons: I do understand it. Does the hon. Gentleman support the pension package that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced regarding pension sharing and the stakeholder pension?
Mr. Jenkin: What pension?
Lorna Fitzsimons: The stakeholder pension, as I have patiently outlined and as my right hon. Friend patiently outlined, is a vital plank to help ensure that women who do the unpaid work in society or who cannot, for any reason, participate regularly in the workplace, are not cheated in their pension years. It is a very simple point, but it seems to bypass the hon. Gentleman.
In my constituency of Rochdale, several groups of women work tirelessly in parent-teacher associations, child care groups or housing associations to ensure that the community in which they live and work runs smoothly. I pay tribute to them. Throughout my education as a candidate and as a Member of Parliament, many of them have given me valuable insight into the daily impact on their lives of local government, regional government and national government. Without their work, we should be the poorer, and on this day, when we are celebrating women and the work of women, it is important to recognise that rich tapestry of unacknowledged work.
Many women are involved in mainstream politics—I am glad to see that on 1 May their number hugely increased—but many women's significant political work goes unacknowledged and unaccredited. It is important that, on this day, we acknowledge that from the House. They are fellow politicians. Many Asian women's groups are breaking down the barriers of language and culture in my constituency, tirelessly working against all odds.
Mr. David Rendel: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Lorna Fitzsimons: I am sorry; I should like to, but I must make progress because many hon. Members want to speak.
I welcome the new initiatives that the Ministers for women have put together in only nine months and pay tribute to all the work that non-governmental organisations do, internationally and internationally. Specifically, I pay tribute to the women's organisations, the unsung heroes of our communities; we should be better off if we listened to them. I do not consider that the issue of a women's jury is a laughable commodity. I believe that ensuring that we give a positive platform to a myriad of the rich tapestry of women makes us richer as a Government.
10.36 am
Mrs. Marion Roe: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to you for calling me early in the debate. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), I should like to apologise to

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you, to the Minister and to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) for the fact that I cannot be in the Chamber during the winding-up speeches. I have written to Madam Speaker, explaining that, unfortunately, I was unable to cancel engagements to which I was already committed this afternoon, but I shall, of course, read the Hansard report so that I am aware of the Front-Bench responses to the issues that are raised.
I welcome the debate. Women's role in society has become increasingly complicated. Until recently, the female's role was to produce and care for children. Now, with the greater automation of society and the advances in health, contraception and education, there are choices to be taken in women's life styles. Do women work outside the home? Do they have to have children? Do they look after their children themselves or do they choose another to fulfil that function? Those choices are highly personal and private, and they depend on circumstances—inherited attitudes as well as inclinations. What can be said is that we have arrived at the point where we can no longer stereotype women into convenient packages.
There has been an inclination to label women crudely as either "high fliers" or the "little woman at home". No longer: different women want different things at different times in their lives. In our journey through life, we all fall into various groupings. The movement is greatest among the under-45-year-olds. A woman can be single, childless, a step-parent, a high flier, a mother, a worker, divorced, a lone parent, a young mother or even a grandmother. At each stage of her life, she needs different support. The challenge for us as commentators, legislators and opinion formers is to cater for the greater fluidity in society and respond to it accordingly.
One of the most fundamental changes in the British labour market this century has been the increasing participation of women. We hear a great deal about that, but without much detail. Women make up 45 per cent. of the working population. In 1996, 61 per cent. of mothers worked outside the home, compared with 47 per cent. in 1973. The figures mask some interesting trends. I should like them to be broken down further. I should be interested to know the ages of the children of employed mothers. We know that most women with pre-school-age children work part time, but as children grow older, mothers' participation in the employment market becomes more committed.
There was a significant increase in the number of women in employment between 1973 and 1989, after which participation rates steadied. Although we have to be wary of reading too much into what could be blips, some commentators have detected a shift in attitudes. A recent British social attitudes survey revealed that the absence of good child care provision is not the only factor that prevents mothers from working outside the home. Their outlook is also important. There is a growing belief that mothers question the value of paid employment above child raising when their children are young.
The Office for National Statistics general household survey shows that, rather than women's self-esteem being rooted in the workplace, many found a new sense of confidence from being at home. Some 35 per cent. Of
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mothers with children under 16 care for them at home without external paid employment, while 37 per cent. combine part-time employment with caring at home.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: We have heard a great deal of academic evidence. I should like to add to my hon. Friend's thinking in exploring the reasons for the attitudinal shift. Recent research by a professor of economics at Cambridge university shows that only one woman in 20 with children under 10 wants child care to release her for paid work. The great concern of many of my constituents at the bottom of the pay scale is that, if the new deal is made compulsory, they will be denied the choice of staying at home with their children.
Mrs. Roe: I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention.
Women can have a different approach from men to the value of work. The argument is that women's employment patterns are guided by their home responsibilities, not because they are victims of family ties, but because that is what they choose. Women have their own life goals and are prepared to make positive choices about them.
The issue of working mothers raises important questions. It would be inappropriate to put pressure on them to seek employment if attitude surveys show that mothers do not necessarily want to leave their young children. The proportion of lone mothers in employment has fallen. As the Government progress with their welfare-to-work new deal for lone parents, I advise them to be aware that some women feel that looking after their children is a life goal. A woman staying at home looking after her young children or acting as a carer is working. There is no such thing as being just a housewife. That role should never be undermined or underestimated. To take up a point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons), such women certainly participate in society. Having done the job, I assure the hon. Lady that there is no finer career for a woman than to mould a future generation.
If we accept that women have a variable employment pattern to suit their child-rearing role, we must ensure that our taxation, welfare and employment arrangements respond to today's looser and less formalised working and living patterns. Women who choose to give priority to domestic responsibility should not be discriminated against.
During my time in public life, I have been concerned to ensure a fair tax system. It is not right that tax and benefit arrangements have hit families harder than others. I applaud my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for saying that the Conservatives were wrong to start phasing out the married couple's allowance without seeking some compensation for married families with children. It takes courage to admit mistakes. I am pleased that we can plan afresh.
The Conservatives had positive policies for women, including the introduction of independent taxation for wives. I was pleased that our manifesto pledged to take that reforming spirit further. The tax system should not discriminate against those whose work is equal to formal employment.
Mr. Rendel: Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a further point on the separate taxation of men and women?

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Women who are abused in the household sometimes find it difficult to get away from the home. Separate taxation helps women to have the courage to move out of an abusive household.
Mrs. Roe: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point.
I looked forward to the introduction of transferable tax allowances. Our manifesto proposal would have given considerable help to 2 million couples who look after dependent children or relatives. I do not know of any indication that the present Government are considering the introduction of transferable tax allowances. I suspect that their hands will be full with their ideas for merging the tax and benefits systems. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk has said, those proposals will be difficult to administer.
For women who work outside the family home, our concern should be how to reconcile paid work with family life. If access to employment provides the means of lifting the poor out of a cycle of dependency, it is illogical to adopt policies that stifle the availability of the jobs that people need. The adoption of the social chapter and the introduction of the minimum wage will stifle enterprise and the creation of fresh opportunities.
Even more important, without further restrictions and conditions on employment, we have been freer to develop working patterns that people want. People want to be able to combine family and work more easily. That freedom is threatened. The main casualties will be women who depend on less formalised working arrangements. We need to encourage greater flexibility and imagination in employment. Employers must put more effort into providing family-friendly working patterns.
Ms Beverley Hughes: Does the hon. Lady accept that, as a majority of women work part time to combine work with child care, the implementation of the part-time workers directive in the social chapter and moves to strengthen the security of part-time workers at work are beneficial to women? Does she agree that increasing flexibility for the employer creates job insecurity for many women, making it difficult for them to combine child care and work?
Mrs. Roe: I am worried that there will be no part-time jobs for women. I shall explain why. I believe that employers may decide to offer full-time jobs and not provide the employment opportunities that allow women to balance work and family life. That is why I am most concerned about the points that the hon. Lady has raised.
Flexible time, term working and annualised working hours should be more commonplace. I commend the system that will be introduced for nurses, which will allow them family-friendly rotas so that they may choose when to be off duty. Job sharing and part-time work are increasing in popularity. Some 44 per cent. of the total female work force work part time. That provides a window of opportunity for many gifted and capable people who want to mix some employment with their family responsibilities. More women and men are becoming self-employed so that they may work from home more easily and choose the hours that suit them. With the help of modern technology, that is becoming a more realistic option.
Entry to the employment market or re-entry after a break for domestic responsibilities can be frightening. I have not had the opportunity to learn about the
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Government's proposals for lifetime learning, but I hope that they will encourage women to learn the necessary skills to help them go back into work. That will be a valuable component of the scheme.
Many women take a break from employment when their children are under school age but return to work when their children start school. For those women, school hours and school holidays present a problem. The previous Government offered assistance through the out-of-school child care initiative, and I am pleased that this Government have expanded the initiative.
If we are to help vast masses of women in this country, we must stop thinking of them in the convenient categories of "economically active" or "inactive". We must acknowledge in our tax, welfare and employment systems that their life cycles are fluid and flexible. In that way, we can help women to fulfil their expectations, both in their careers and within and for their families.
10.51 am
Ms Debra Shipley: I welcome today's statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security about child care, nursery education, employment, health and domestic violence. I was wondering what the Conservative party was afraid of, until I heard the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who has now left the Chamber, mutter from a sedentary position, "Man-free zones." That is really sad.
For me, this debate is about equality and justice—social justice, equality of opportunity, economic equality and equality under the law. After 18 years of rule by a party that has not the slightest notion of what equality means, there is much to be done. I have the honour of serving on the Council of Europe. The United Kingdom delegation to that body is 25 per cent. women—and they are all from the Labour party. There is not a single female delegate from any other political party. How far out of touch the Opposition are with the 40-nation Council was clearly demonstrated when the British Conservative delegates blocked the establishment of a full standing committee on equality.
Mrs. Roe: I assure the hon. Lady that, before she arrived in this place, Conservative women served on the Council of Europe: I was one of them.
Ms Shipley: That is past tense. There are now more women in the United Kingdom delegation to the Council of Europe than ever before.
A month or so ago, the issue of equality was raised again in the Council of Europe and the Tory all-male delegation was almost alone among delegates in voting against the motion to establish a committee. That motion was carried overwhelmingly. The Tories are as out of touch in Europe as they are in Britain. As male and female delegates from eastern and western Europe voted overwhelmingly for equality, many of the Tory delegates—who are led by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson)—kept the company of the extreme right-wing Russian nationalist Zhirinovsky, whose rantings were a disgrace to the Council chamber.
I turn now to legal justice. I have referred previously in this Chamber to the sufferings of rape victims. Instances of victims' sexual histories being circulated in our prisons as pornography are shaming to us all. It is

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also highly debatable whether victims' sexual histories should be used in court—I condemn that practice. It is a disgrace that personal information, including a victim's medical history, should be available to a convicted attacker.
Some issues affecting rape victims were debated in another place during consideration of the Crime and Disorder Bill. Some of our most experienced barristers and judges are intent on maintaining the status quo. They argue that the protection of defendants' rights is paramount. I believe that victims' rights must also be protected. We should be able to look to our finest legal minds not simply to identify legal problems but to use their well-honed skills to find solutions. There is clearly a need for change among those who practice in our legal profession. I hope that many more women will rise to the most senior positions in that profession.
I have heard some Opposition Members comment that there is no such thing as "women's issues"—to be fair, not every Conservative Member who has spoken this morning has said that. They claim that all issues are relevant to everyone, and I agree. However, the fact remains that, after 18 years of Tory rule, women still do not have economic equality, social justice or equality under the law. My Government have demonstrated that they are ready to take up the challenge for change; the Conservatives wish to maintain the status quo. Last year, the people voted to elect more than 100 women Labour Members of Parliament. They demonstrated that they want to see change, and today my right hon. Friend has shown that we are delivering it.
10.56 am
Mrs. Jackie Ballard: I also welcome the opportunity that this debate provides to consider the Government's attitudes and policies towards women. I have read some of the debates on this subject from the last Parliament, and I realise that times have changed for the better in many ways. There have been some welcome announcements today. However, I have several regrets about what the Government have not done—although, to be fair, they have not had much time in which to implement many changes—and a few regrets about the things they have done.
We have heard about the priorities of the Minister for women upon which the Government will take action. They are very welcome. Women do not have an equal place in society, as we have seen from a number of examples, including differentials in wages for men and women and the low female participation in some areas of the work force. I share the views of the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) about the judiciary.
We all agree that the Government should take positive steps to address those inequalities, as society cannot be considered healthy when women still earn, on average, 20 per cent. less than men for doing the same job. We have also heard about women part-time workers, who are in an even worse position. I welcome the provisions in the social chapter that will help to address that problem.
Women are still under-represented in many areas of public life. Although the gender balance in Parliament has improved, it is still 80 per cent. men. All political parties must continue to address that issue. I freely acknowledge
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that the Opposition parties have the biggest problem in that regard. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches—perhaps today I should say "I"—have not found it easy to get female candidates elected, despite the fact that we fielded a high proportion of good women candidates at the last election.
Mrs. Lait: The hon. Lady has fought on the hustings on several occasions. Does she agree that electors do not differentiate between male and female candidates: they vote for a party? The problem is with selection.
Mrs. Ballard: I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. Voters were probably more willing to elect women than men at the last election because they believed that female candidates were free from some of the sleaze that was attached to the previous Government. There is a problem with the selection procedures.
I return to what the Liberal Democrats are doing to increase our female representation. We have adopted zipped lists for the European and Scottish Parliament elections, and we are taking practical measures to help women to gain confidence and experience, such as our recent work-shadowing scheme. However, the problem of women's representation in public life is not just about the number of women Members of Parliament. There are many other areas where women are under-represented.
Those who wield power in Britain are still overwhelmingly male. We have only to look, as has been mentioned, at the number of High Court judges, heads of large companies, newspaper editors and members of powerful quangos to see how far we have yet to go before the glass ceiling is broken; but the ceiling is being cracked, and progress is being made towards equality.
The fact that those who wield power are, by and large, men conditions the way in which decisions are made that affect the lives of all of us. Any decision by Government or anyone who holds power will affect men and women differently. I am pleased that the Government recognise that, and I hope that the Cabinet Sub-Committee is successful in ensuring that the impact of all legislation on women is considered. It is vital that mainstreaming, to use the jargon, goes through all Departments.
Men have been the legislators for centuries, and whatever the Conservative Government thought, legislation is not gender-neutral. However, the claim that the new Government are listening to women's concerns has been contradicted by some of the Government's behaviour. The public have high expectations of the increased number of women Members of Parliament. They hope that that will change the way in which the Government conduct their business.
I thought at the start of this Parliament that the increased number of women Members of Parliament would prevent some of the phenomena which we saw were prejudicial to women in the previous Government, such as the setting up of the Child Support Agency or the campaigns that demonised single mothers. I never thought that I would see women Members of Parliament voting for the Government's cuts in single parent benefit. If the Government want to improve the lives of women, as I believe they genuinely do, that was not a good start.
That cut was defended on the grounds that it was part of a wider welfare reform programme that includes welfare to work. The Government have made clear their aim to get people into work.

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Will the Secretary of State consider the case of a constituent who came to see me recently? She is a single parent on income support, with a six-year-old child. She desperately wants paid work. She found herself a job earning £200 a week, and she has decided to take it because she believes that it has prospects. However, from day one of starting work, she loses her income support, yet she still has housing costs, food costs and all the other expenses, and she now has travel-to-work costs to add, plus child care. How can she exist for a month until she gets her first pay cheque?
The DSS told my constituent to ask her employer for an advance on her salary. It is obviously very difficult for someone starting a new job and feeling vulnerable as a woman and a single parent to go in and ask for an advance on her salary. I hope that the Government will consider back-to-work benefits for the many people in that situation. Those of us who have been single parents on income support know that people do not have savings to fall back on in such situations.
Any welfare system with paid work as its primary goal has serious implications for women and for society. I do not believe that it is in our best interests as a society to force carers out to work. The majority of carers are still, and probably will continue to be, women. The philosophy behind that aim does not value the role of parenting. It rejects the idea, as has been said, that every mother is a working mother, and ignores the role of those carers, predominantly women, who look after elderly relatives.
The belief in welfare to work as a panacea fails to recognise the contribution that women make as members of the unpaid economy, which we heard about earlier from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons). I share her view that women are predominant in the unpaid economy, and that the economic value of their work has not been recognised. The paid and the unpaid economies are interdependent. To remove labour from the unpaid economy will have economic consequences that the experts have probably not fully estimated.
I am worried that Ministers believe that there should be only one role for women to follow. There is a real danger that the only woman who will be respected is the woman who goes out to paid work. Although Labour in opposition rightly rejected the Tories' attacks on single mothers, it could end up condemning those same single mothers not for their morality, but for their failure to follow a new Labour model for women.
Perhaps single parents would be better off if they and their children started a rock band and persuaded the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to allow them to stay on benefit to develop their creativity.
Ms Drown: I want to correct the impression that we are presenting one option to women. We are not doing that. We value the role of women who work at home in unpaid work. Nothing is more valuable, and often more satisfying, than bringing up children. That is important not only to those children, but to society. When we speak to women, many of them say that they want choice. At present there is not enough choice and not enough facilities to enable women to take up those opportunities. We value women working at home, but we also want to give them opportunities for education, training and paid work outside the home, if they want it.
Mrs. Ballard: I am pleased to hear that. I do not want the House to think that I am promoting only one option
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for parents—to stay at home rather than going out to work. I want what the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) says she wants—genuine options for women. Many women cannot have meaningful choices unless the Government take action to remove the barriers to those choices. The barriers are economic, social, political and cultural.
I therefore welcome the Government's national child care strategy. It is a step in the right direction, and long overdue. I recognise that building such a strategy is a difficult task. There are difficult choices about priorities—whether pre-school nursery provision for under-five-year-olds, or after-school care for children who are at school, and so on. Any national child care strategy must address four concerns—I notice that the Secretary of State had three.
Accessibility is certainly one of those concerns, especially in rural areas; the others are affordability, and the quality of child care, to which I shall return; and diversity and choice of provision. For example, some people who work erratic hours would prefer a live-in nanny. It may be the only sensible form of child care available for them. Others who work more settled hours or who have smaller houses would prefer to use a child minder or out-of-school care, or some other arrangement outside their own home.
I welcome the proposals for tax credits for 75 per cent. of child care costs. I hope that the credit will go to the parent who actually pays for child care, not to the higher earner. I do not understand why it is limited to the cost of caring for two children. Many of the women currently in the benefits poverty trap are those with larger families, for whom the economics of paid work simply do not add up.
Single parents with, say, three or four more children may still not find it financially advantageous to go back to work and get the tax credits, if the credits apply only to two children. As the number of children in the family increases, not only does the actual cost of child care increase, but it is more difficult to find free child care from family or friends.
I was fortunate when I went back to work, as I had only one child, who could easily be slipped in unnoticed to a friend's family; but my personal assistant has three children. I do not think that anyone would look after them for nothing. That is a slur on her three children, one of whom is my godson. They are delightful children, but it is much more difficult to incorporate three of someone else's children into one's family, so paid child care is usually the only option for a larger family.
I hope that the problems of accessibility and choice in rural areas will be seriously addressed. The right hon. Lady spoke about that, but she did not suggest that extra funds might be directed at rural areas. This week, I received a letter from Ruishton Rascals, an out-of-school club in my constituency. It is experiencing difficulty in managing the numbers who use the club, and needs funds to enable it to continue providing high quality care in a rural area. It is not enough just to provide start-up costs—there must be continuing financial support, particularly in rural areas, where the numbers may not be as high as they would be in an urban area.
I am concerned about the quality of child care. Many child care workers have had no specialist training. The Government's promotion of paid child care over that of the parent seems highly dubious if they cannot guarantee

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that it will be of a high standard. I recently had an Adjournment debate in which I called for a registration scheme for child care workers. I was disappointed with the Minister's response. He did not recognise the vital need to protect parents and children through a national register of nannies and child minders.
Child care should be available in conjunction with family-friendly policies in employment—I welcome the Government's recognition of that. I hope that businesses will recognise that both fathers and mothers are parents. Mothers will not have freedom until fatherhood is taken seriously by employers.
Families in all forms are the basic structure of society. A healthy and peaceful society needs support from government and from business. I am sure that hon. Members with families will agree that long working hours put a great deal of pressure on families. Functional families need functional parents, who are not tied to the desk or production line. We must get away from the idea that people must prove their commitment to their job by being in the office at 7 am and not leaving until 11 pm.
Mrs. Rosemary McKenna: It sounds like us.
Mrs. Ballard: It sounds very like our job. We must get away from those hours.
Family-friendly policies are also about more adaptable working practices, including part-time work, job sharing and flexible hours. Such policies will help women to return to the work force and parents to accommodate the timetables of their children with their timetables of work.
Ministers have signalled many good intentions, but good intentions alone do not help women in the real world. Women should be able to make choices about how they want to live their lives, and Government should enable and empower them.
There is not time for me to talk about pension provision. We have already heard that many of today's pensioners are among the poorest people in society. I hope that the Government will not only address the problems of tomorrow's pensioners but take on board the problems of women pensioners who are living in poverty now.
I am pleased that the Secretary of State talked about citizenship pensions, which would not be based on contributions—at least, I hope that is what she was talking about. Such pensions will relate especially to carers, who will have a break in their contribution records.
I hope that the Government will tackle also the problems faced by divorced women over their husbands' private pension provision, and the need to split it on divorce. I hope also that they will consider the idea of uni-sex annuities, as proposed by Legal and General, which do not discriminate according to gender.
What all women want is equality, not special treatment. Our daughters are beginning to expect equality as the norm. But equality should be extended to older women as well—those who are on pensions now or are about to retire, those doing the same job as men but still earning less than men, and those who make the choice to look after their children or an elderly relative. They should not have to pay the price of Government cuts in spending or the history of a male-dominated political culture.
11.12 am
Laura Moffatt: It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate on women's priorities, certainly as recognised by the Government. However, I feel ghastly. I feel terrible because I travelled overnight from Washington. As many right hon. and hon. Members will know, it is not a pleasant experience. My eyes are burning, I feel tired, and my legs are like lead. This has reminded me how I felt most of the time when I was bringing up my children.
I had three sons. When they were small children, I did a night duty job as a nurse, and I was a busy borough councillor for 12 years. If I am honest, I felt as I have just described for most of the time. The feeling is nothing new: it has merely served as a slight reminder for me.
With the help of my family, I muddled through. I did not have to make child care arrangements, because I had my family around me to help, in the same way as I helped my sister, who is a lone parent. I helped with her child after she returned to work after six weeks away from it, as a trained nurse.
I survived, and so did my sons—just. It was a valuable experience, because it brought to me, and brings to the House, a new experience. I believe that we as women should share the experience with everyone else.
I travelled to Washington as a member of the Select Committee on Defence. We were discussing issues such as NATO enlargement, the procurement of materials for our armed forces, and many other issues relating to our armed forces. This gave me the opportunity to speak to some interesting people, one of whom was General Lesley Kenne of the United States air force. General Kenne is the highest ranking woman officer in the US armed forces. She is a fantastic women, who is running the joint strike fighter programme that will replace our F16 and F18 aircraft. General Kenne flies those aircraft, too.
I sat next to General Kenne during lunch, and she told me that she had made definite choices about what she wanted. She felt that she should not have had to do that, and she added that it was very difficult.
I met other women, who were also doing valuable work. It is—[Interruption.] It is shame that we giggle about women who are making their way in the world and are an example, such as the two women ships' captains who have recently been promoted. I am sure that the House will join with me in celebrating their success. Those are women who have helped to forge the way ahead.
We know that we are all very different women. I met a woman called Sue, who was a corporal. She joined the marine corps several years ago. Incidentally, I say to the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), the shadow Leader of the House, that, in the passing-out exam for women marines—the right hon. Lady was speaking in a derisory manner about women who involved themselves in life-style articles in the press—they are asked, if they were to have four articles of make-up, what they would be. They are asked what they should wear on the basis that they should always be properly presented. It is not right and proper to make comments of the sort that we heard from the right hon. Lady.
Mrs. Shephard: I shall set the record straight. I think that the hon. Lady will find when she reads Hansard that

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I was getting agreement—from the body language of those on the Government Front Bench and Labour Back Benchers, I believe I got it—that, since new women Members have come into the House, there have been unprecedentedly vicious attacks on them, because they are women, from some members of the press. I think that that is deplorable. I made a light-hearted remark about make-overs, and said that I could do with one. From what the hon. Lady has said this morning, although she does not look as if she needs a make-over, she sounds as if she feels that she could do with one.
Laura Moffatt: I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. I am glad to have her explanation. It is wrong to start pinpointing women and making remarks about the way in which they like to conduct their business. That is not right and proper.
I return to Sue, because her position is crucial to what we, the Labour Government, are trying to do. Sue is able to do the job that she wants to do, and we must ensure that that is made possible for women in this country. Sue is a corporal, and she has decided to have a baby. She will return to the marine corps, and she will have child care when she returns, from six weeks if she so chooses. That child care provision will be commensurate with her wages. The US armed forces ensure that those serving in them do not pay too much for their child care. Sue feels secure as a result.
I was interested to hear the comment that only one in 20 women, if given the choice, would go out to work. I suspect that women will always choose the best for their children. If they believe that child care will not be permanent, not of good quality and not available at a reasonable cost, they will choose to keep them at home. That is what the Government's thrust is all about, and that offers choices to women—in other words, allows them to make an informed choice in deciding what they want.
These are down-to-earth policies. They have not been adopted because they are sexy or interesting. They are designed to elicit the best out of our society, to ensure that everybody is able to play her or his part and to grow and expand, offering all they want in our community.
I joined the Labour party, the day after I gave birth to my second son. Incidentally, it was the day after the Labour party lost the election in 1979. I went to my first meeting when my baby was two weeks old. I now have the great honour to be a Member of this place, and able to share experiences with colleagues. It is crucial to me that we forge ahead with all these issues, including child care.
I have heard it said that we are not taking the issue seriously, but Labour is listening to women. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State held a conference in Southwark on this very issue—getting women to participate and tell us what they want, so that we can respond as we should. There is so much happening on women's issues. People know that. That is why they elected us. We will not let them down. When I went to my first Labour party meeting, I knew that one day we would be here, in power, putting forward the policies that will make a real difference to women's lives.
11.20 am
Mr. Michael Fabricant: I feel privileged to be the first man to take part in the debate on the Government's priorities for women. Although I am
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patently not a woman, some of my best friends are. I tried that out on the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) in the Tea Room, and she thought that it would go down well. Clearly some Members on the Government Benches do not share her sense of humour.
Although I fully support any Government initiative to give equal opportunities, I will never support—I do not think that any Opposition Member will—positive discrimination for women, or, indeed, for any other section of the community. It leads to a lowering of overall standards rather than offering equal opportunities to women, which is what I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will support.
Mrs. Lait: I have a problem with my hon. Friend's use of the words "positive discrimination". There is enormous confusion in people's minds about positive discrimination, which puts in place systems to help women, and quotas, which are positively not helpful to women. Does he agree with me?
Mr. Fabricant: That was a helpful intervention. The point I was making is that I support—as I believe we all support—equal opportunities. What we do not support is positive discrimination and quotas, which tend to lower standards.
Barbara Follett: Positive discrimination is illegal in this country. Positive action is legal, and quotas come under positive action. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman, whom I thank for his courtesy in giving way, that positive discrimination and positive action have acted in favour of men for centuries, and I agree with him that it has lowered standards.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She knows everything about positive discrimination being illegal, as her own party was ruled illegal in positively discriminating for women when it tried to introduce women-only shortlists for Parliamentary candidates.
Lorna Fitzsimons: It has shown to be a success.
Mr. Fabricant: We shall judge from the hon. Lady's speech whether it has, if she catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Ms Drown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: I should like to move on, as I want to give hon. Ladies on the Government Benches a chance to contribute.
I shall first present some of the background to the current position regarding women, and then make a positive—if I can use that word after what I have just said—suggestion about what the Government should be doing, as an additional tranche of their activities, to help women.
The Secretary of State for Social Security, who is no longer present, said that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are committed to women. We observe that neither the Prime Minister nor the Chancellor is a woman. Of course, the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was Mrs. Thatcher, in the 1980s. Unlike Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s, the Secretary of State for

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Social Security is known for turning. She has done one U-turn after another, which is an unfortunate precedent for the Labour Government.
We were told that women are factory workers and teachers. I would add that they are also bank managers, scientists, engineers and doctors. Women are achievers. I remind the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), who has just returned from Washington, that one of the finest Secretaries of State in the United States since the second world war is Madeleine Albright.
I shall now speak about the current position of women, because all is not doom and gloom, although I am the first to admit that women still do not have equal opportunities, for all the reasons that have been discussed.
Women now have more job opportunities than ever before. That is a direct consequence of the Conservative Government's policies on flexible labour markets. [Interruption.] It is true. There are 12.3 million women in our work force. They account for 30 per cent. of the work force, compared with only 8 per cent. in 1984. A study by the Institute of Employment Research shows that, by 2001, 40 per cent. of corporate management jobs—I made the point earlier that we should not say that women work just in blue-collar areas—will be held by women. More than 50 per cent. of employees in the United Kingdom will be women by 2001.
The number of women who are self-employed has risen by 88 per cent. since 1981. Women account for well over one in four of the self-employed. The Government cannot say on the one hand, "We've been in office for only nine months, so don't blame us," and on the other say, "We've been in government for nine months, and look how good we've been at getting women into the work force."
We are talking about positive discrimination for women. I could argue that women have shown themselves superior to men in certain circumstances.
Mrs. Shephard: You should not sound so surprised.
Mr. Fabricant: There are so few men on these Benches—quite rightly, I guess—that I feel that I have to stand up for the minority in the Chamber today.
In 1995–96, 49 per cent. of girls achieved five or more GCSE grades at A starred to C, compared with only 40 per cent. of boys. Girls are doing better than boys at GCSE. Thirty-two per cent. of 17-year-old girls achieved two or more GCE A-levels or AS-levels, compared with 27 per cent. of boys. That is an lead of 5 percentage points over boys.
In higher education, the number of female entrants has risen. Both sexes are virtually equal. I am sure that the whole House will welcome that.
Mrs. May: I apologise to my hon. Friend and to the House that I will not be able to listen to the whole debate, because I have a lunchtime speaking engagement addressing, as it happens, a women's group.
The figures that my hon. Friend just gave were alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard). Does he agree that the paradox is that, now that we have taken positive action—this relates to his point about positive
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discrimination—to improve the achievement of girls in our education system, what is now of concern in the education system is the under-achievement of boys? Equality means enabling both sexes to achieve their best potential.
Mr. Fabricant: I agree. I would go further, and say that equality means that, next Friday, we ought to have a debate on the Government's initiatives for men. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk, who, for a long time, was Secretary of State for Education.
Over the past 10 years, the number of female first-degree graduates has improved: it has risen by 129 per cent., compared with 81 per cent. for men. There is no question that, in education, the better half of society is achieving over men.
Before I make positive suggestions, which I hope the Government will take up, I shall make two points about which the Government have been wrong, in my experience as an employer, before I became a Member of Parliament, and now representing the rural constituency of Lichfield.
First, the Government have been hasty in abolishing nursery vouchers. The vouchers had only just come into existence, and there can be no doubt that the way in which they operated caused some difficulties in the first few months. Nobody would deny that, but we could always have refined the system, and we intended to do so.
Mr. Chris Pond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: In a moment.
The abolition has meant that women living in rural areas with no local schools cannot place their children in nursery classes. Previously, private organisations in the rural areas had been getting nursery vouchers and could offer nursery services. Now those mothers have to take their children—often using their own cars, which means paying a lot more for petrol because the Government's green policies have penalised rural areas—into towns to nursery schools or classes that are part of the state education system.
Now I shall give way to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond)—I was also talking to him in the Tea Room.
Mr. Pond: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that one of the effects of nursery vouchers, especially in rural areas such as that represented by the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), was to destroy many local playgroups? Will he also confirm that the right hon. Lady, to whom he has just paid tribute, was the Minister responsible for the abolition of the wages councils, which both the Equal Opportunities Commission and the TUC considered a discriminatory measure, because the great majority of people covered by the wages councils were women? As a result, many women had their pay cut in absolute terms. Did that assist women?
Mr. Fabricant: The abolition of wages councils meant that fewer women were employed. [Interruption.] At the end of the day, the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members—
Mrs. Shephard: More, not fewer.
Mr. Fabricant: More people were employed. I am sorry; that was a slip of the tongue.
The hon. Gentleman must ask himself whether he wants to see fewer women employed earning a particular wage while the others earn nothing at all. The whole thrust of his Government's policy is to get people back to work, not to put them on benefit.
Let us move to my second point, which the hon. Gentleman almost anticipated. Personally, I do not oppose the minimum wage. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Personally I do not, because I recognise that some people are employed at very low wages in sweatshops, and that is wrong.
However, I certainly oppose the Labour Government's policy on the national minimum wage. Time and time again, the Prime Minister has defended his policy by saying, "Well, they have it in the United States of America." The Prime Minister is mistaken, or is misleading the House. They do not have it in the United States of America.
Barbara Follett: Yes, they do.
Mr. Fabricant: There is no national minimum wage in the United States. The minimum wage there varies from state to state, and there are huge exemptions, such as those for youth and for people working in certain types of employment. If we suggested sensible legislation of that nature, I would be tempted to vote for it, I must tell the Conservative Whip sitting in front of me.
Dr. Rudi Vis: The fact that the hon. Gentleman is using the word "exemptions" means that there is a minimum wage. Otherwise, there could not be exemptions from it.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman is missing the point. I am saying that there is no national minimum wage in the United States, for the very reason—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Although the national minimum wage would affect women's rights and employment, we should not dwell on the case for or against a national minimum wage.
Mr. Fabricant: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your guidance.
My precise point is that the Government's national minimum wage legislation, which, unlike that in the United States, does not have exemptions or regional variations and is not likely to be set at £3.05—the level in the United States—will result in greater unemployment for women. There is an analogy with what the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond) was saying about the result of the abolition of wages councils. The abolition meant that more women were employed. The direct
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consequence of the Labour Government's introduction of a national minimum wage with no exemptions will be greater unemployment for women.
Now I shall make some brief comments about what I think the Government should be doing for women—issues that I believe are not being addressed at present. I look forward to being corrected if I am wrong.
At the moment, there is a thrust towards saying that women should be encouraged to get out and work and use carers for their children. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) rightly said that we should also encourage women, if they wish, to stay at home and look after their children. It should be their choice.
However, there can be a third choice; the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are opportunities for women to look after their children and work at home as well. We are approaching the millennium, a time when teleworking will become more popular and practical.
As a Member of Parliament, I employ a former secretary from my previous job in Brighton. She left my employment and married my business partner while I was on business in Nairobi and Botswana. I came back to a nasty shock. Not only was she getting married, but she was marrying my business partner.
Christine Bowden—I think that I may mention her name—now has two gorgeous children whom she looks after. However, she is now able to look after me and, more importantly, some of my constituents, as well, because she teleworks from home, using her computer to write sensible and sometimes critical letters to Ministers about what they are not doing to help women in my constituency.
Women often want that opportunity to work at home. When children are ill, they often do not want them to be looked after by carers, no matter how caring the carers may be. Modern technology allows that. Using British Telecom's star services, calls can easily be diverted from one building to another. Much can be dealt with from home.
The Government should be looking into all that. Have they considered giving partial grants to provide computer systems for people who have gone on courses and learnt to use computers, but cannot afford to buy their own to work at home? There could be pump-priming opportunities for women, so that they could look after their children and work at home, too. The Government should be addressing that possibility.
The problem with the Government—we have seen it again today—is that they are all soundbites and reviews. Every time anyone asked the Secretary of State a question, she said, "It is under review." I believe that the Government have betrayed the electorate. Indeed, the hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard), representing the Liberals, poignantly described how the Government, including some of the ladies in the Government, had done that. I suspect that they have betrayed their own principles too, which is far worse.
We have a Minister for women who has appeared in the House even less than the Minister without Portfolio—and that is saying something. We have a Government—
Ms Drown rose—
Mr. Fabricant: I am sorry: I am reaching my peroration now.

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We have a Government who have abolished nursery vouchers to put up petrol prices, so putting rural mothers at an even greater disadvantage. We have a Government who have given £10 million for a breast screening programme, but who in nine short months have put up hospital waiting lists by 50,000. We have witnessed the total fiasco of the changes to single parent benefit. As I said, Baroness Thatcher was a lady who was not for turning. The Secretary of State for Social Security has turned, turned and turned again. No doubt we shall witness more U-turns.
I said at the outset that girls are outperforming boys in their GCSEs. The Government have so far failed their GCSEs. I look forward to them doing better in their re-sits.
11.39 am
Mr. Malcolm Chisholm: Many hon. Members want to speak, so I shall briefly counter the Opposition charge that the Government have been inactive on women's issues.
My greatest privilege in government was to be a member of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on women. I know from the inside that both Ministers for women have done a massive amount of work on women's issues, much of it behind the scenes. It is a tragedy, I hope a temporary one, that that work has been overshadowed by the lone parents controversy, but if the stories that I have heard this week are true, great progress has been made, which I welcome.
I shall not become involved in the controversy over how we arrived at this situation, but shall look forward. I particularly want to mention the rapidly evolving national child care strategy. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. More than any hon. Member, she is responsible for the new salience given to child care in the affairs of this country. It has been one of her concerns since the first day she was elected to the House. Although I was not a Member of Parliament at the time, I am reminded that one of her first interventions at Prime Minister's questions was to ask Baroness Thatcher whether she was concerned about the lack of child care in this country. Baroness Thatcher gave the brief and penetrating reply: "No."
Since being elected in 1992, I have observed my right hon. Friend's work on child care. When she was shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, child care became a matter of economic policy for a major political party for the first time in this country's history. The national child care strategy will be a lasting monument to her. I hope that those who have their knives out for my right hon. Friend will put them back in their pockets or, better still, throw them away.
Looking forward, I am not without worries. I await the details and timing of the lone parent proposals in the Budget, and while the working family tax credit has many attractions, I hope that there will be a presumption that it goes to the woman in a couple, as with family credit. The Government have many other exciting initiatives, spearheaded by the women's unit, such as the new deal for lone parents, which has already achieved much. Although training is separate, I hope that it will be given greater salience, because lone parents would benefit from the training options in the mainstream new deal.
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Like other hon. Members, I have learnt from constituents that women—lone parents and others—want to work, and education and training are key parts of that aspiration. On a constituency point, I regret that one of the best projects I have come across that gives opportunities to women, called women and new directions, is closing. I hope that the Government will examine such projects, because they are fundamental to the new deal.
The work of the Ministers for Women has many other aspects, such as the major task of mainstreaming women's issues. We are beginning to do that in the Scottish Office on issues such as transport and best value. I note the answer to a parliamentary question this week given by the Minister for women, who indicated that progress is being made on the issue of family-friendly work practices. There are also initiatives on public appointments: the representation of women is a key policy priority for the Government.
The setting up of the Scottish Parliament is an exciting prospect, and the Scottish Labour party is committed to gender equality. We introduced the mechanism of twinning and believe that through it we shall be able to achieve for the first time in any legislature an equal number of men and women representatives. That may be subject to challenge, like all-women shortlists. I regret that we did not appeal on that, but that is a matter of history. The debate on how to avoid the intentions of the Labour party, and of other parties, being sabotaged by challenge will begin when the Committee further considers the Government of Wales Bill on Monday.
The other priority for the Ministers for women is the development of a strategy against violence against women, which was flagged up earlier. I am an Edinburgh Member of Parliament and was first drawn to this matter because the zero tolerance campaign began in the city. When I spoke about it for the first time five years ago, the Minister for women was on the Opposition Front Bench. She and others value and admire the zero tolerance campaign. I hope that we can liaise with the campaign, particularly on publicity material, which will be part of the general strategy on dealing with violence against women. I also welcome the campaign launched in Scotland involving local authorities that targets young men and boys. Research by the Zero Tolerance Trust has produced disturbing evidence of the tolerance among boys and young men of violence against women.
The strategy for dealing with violence against women depends on three things: prevention, provision and protection. Scottish Office research on the extent of and gaps in current service provision should be published within the next two weeks. It will be the foundation of the strategy in Scotland, which must be cross-cutting, because health, housing and the criminal justice system are all involved.
Referrals to Scottish Women's Aid increased by 16 per cent. in 1996, yet there are threats to the provision of places. There is a shortage of refuge places in Scotland, as, no doubt, there is in England. Rape crisis centres also have funding problems. The Scottish Office must consider central funding for some of those vital services. I hope that the Government will consider the suggestion from the Zero Tolerance Trust that a panel of experts should be set up to advise them on such matters.

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I shall speak briefly about protection, the third aspect of the strategy, and mention two controversies in Scotland. First, there has been controversy about the use of pre-court diversion schemes for perpetrators of violence against women. The Government have inherited that situation, and I hope that the Scottish Office will look into it. It seems to send out the wrong signal if some perpetrators of violence are not taken to court, but put on diversion schemes. There is nothing wrong with post-court diversion schemes, but pre-court schemes should be ruled out as part of the strategy.
Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) is on the Front Bench and was active in securing legislation against stalking, I must refer to an incident that took place in Scotland yesterday and which the Government must consider. Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, a sheriff refused to grant a non-harassment order against a man who had been convicted of five breaches of the peace for stalking against the same woman. The Appeal Court judges argued that previous convictions could not be examined to find out whether the offence was of the same kind and indisputably constituted a course of conduct. The judges argued that they were following the letter of the legislation. I hope that the Government will look into that and, if it is the case, make the appropriate changes.
11.50 am
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I must join my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) in welcoming so many new women's faces to the House. I hope that they will acknowledge that the quality of the women on the Conservative side at least makes up for the lack of numbers.
I went to the Library to find out the age and background of many of the new women Members, and I was surprised that none of them have complimented the former Conservative Government for the opportunity to go to university, which so many of them enjoyed. When we took over from the previous Labour Government, only one in eight young people went to university; now it is one in three. Furthermore, the percentage of women has increased—from less than 20 per cent. under the previous Labour Government to 50 per cent. in 20 years. Most of those women, therefore, owe their opportunity of higher education to the former Conservative Government, and I hope that they will accept that and pay credit to that Government.
The debate is to discuss the Government's policies. We have heard much about women as victims. We have heard an awful lot about single mothers with problems and not nearly enough about women as achievers. We have talked about lone parents, which has come to mean a woman on her own with children, but we have not heard what we should do about our daughters who are at school.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to have one baby is a misfortune but to have two looks like carelessness. We should be teaching our daughters that having children on their own is no prize and no great shakes. In the United States, young women who are struggling to bring up their children go round schools to inform pupils of that. Nowadays, young women do not have to be victims of their biology; they have choices. That is one of the great advances that we have made.
Women have choices not merely in education, but in occupation. As has been pointed out, almost half our work force are women, but they are not all in low-paid jobs
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struggling on a few pounds an hour; there are a great many women of ambition in higher occupations. In the past week, I have visited three institutions in my constituency that prove that. GEC Marconi optics division has an employment roll of 1,200 people and a woman managing director—a highly qualified engineer. Half its work force are women. They have all benefited from the education opportunities provided under the previous Government, which makes one proud of that Government—it certainly makes me proud.
I also visited my local hospital, where the chief executive is a youngish woman, and I went yesterday to the forensic laboratories across the river. I invite every hon. Member to go and see the laboratory, which is astonishing. It carries out all the behind-the-scenes forensic investigations for the police and has several hundred employees—I think that the service as a whole has about 5,000—more than half of whom are young women science graduates and, surprise, surprise, so is the director of the organisation, Janet Thompson.
I point that out because the House often gives the impression that young women are an underclass or an underdog group, who have to be looked after and patronised by their parents. We would do well to teach our young women that a young man in a hurry is likely to leave a young woman with a worry, and to stop patronising them with the idea that having babies out of wedlock or a partnership is all well and good because the state will pick up the bill. We do not do young women any favours by impressing the poverty trap on them. Everyone talks about that and says that we want to get out of it, but the first thing to do is to make our young women realise that they do not have to go down that route.
Laura Moffatt: Does the hon. Lady agree that there has been no suggestion of painting women as victims, as the debate has been wide-ranging—about all sorts of women and the contributions that they make? Does she also agree that many of the women she met were of postgraduate age and that it is a little later, when one has to face child care issues and all that those bring to bear, that women start to run into trouble?
Mrs. Gorman: I hear what the hon. Lady says. I think that women are perfectly capable of making their own arrangements if they want to adopt a dual career. Of course, women are much blessed, as they can have the benefits of both a career in the home and one in the workplace if they so wish. That is a great advance. Our grandmothers did not have much of a choice—it was going out scrubbing or taking in other people's washing. Nowadays, we all enjoy the opportunities we have gained—certainly all the women in the House are enjoying them. I am simply urging that we should look on the bright side.
Bearing in mind a woman's dual opportunities, at home and for a career, I must suggest to the Secretary of State ways in which the Government could help rather than impose the poverty trap on women. First, women in work have told me that they have difficulty with the school system. They have the problem of who will look after the kids during the school holidays—we know that it is likely to be mother and not father. So why can we not have a flexible school timetable? Parents could take their children out of school at different times of the year to tie up with their working lives. Why not? There is no reason

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why we should all be on holiday at the same time. They could take advantage of all the opportunities for cheap winter holidays that we look forward to in our old age. Why not enjoy them while we are younger? Flexible teaching hours and time at school are entirely possible. If we brought more private sector interest into our education system, I am sure that those would come.
The next thing is to make better use of school premises and to make them available for private sector organisations that are happy to run pre-school and after-school clubs and opportunities. I praise the previous Conservative Government, of which I was a part, for introducing the grant-maintained system, which led to many schools opening their doors at other times of the day—not locking their gates at 3 pm—and allowed school managements to use premises flexibly to increase the school's revenue and its usefulness to the community.
Mrs. Ballard: I cannot allow to go unchallenged the hon. Lady's statement that grant-maintained schools were the first to open their premises to the public. I was a member of the local education authority in Somerset, the county council of which pioneered community schools long before grant-maintained schools existed.
Mrs. Gorman: I accept what the hon. Lady says. My point is that state schools usually empty out at 3 or 4 pm and lock the gates. Under the private funding that the Conservative Government introduced, schools were given the opportunity to decide how their premises and resources were used. School buildings are now opening up in all sorts of ways, not least for wedding receptions on Saturdays. They have also taken the opportunity—especially that provided by the voucher scheme, which the Government are foolishly doing away with—to lay on other facilities at other times. The Government can at least recommend that local authorities encourage such activities.
The Secretary of State should have a word with the Chancellor about the taxation system. The women I talk to do not want the state to provide nurseries. Moreover, they usually do not want workplace nurseries, as they do not want to take their children to work. They want to be able to offset the cost of child care, not against their net earnings—when they have already paid their taxes—but against their gross earnings.
That also applies to other care costs, such as those incurred in caring for the elderly. Many women help to support older parents, and if they want to go out to work as well, why should not the costs be offset against tax? If I require a secretary to assist me in my work, the expenses can be tax deductible. If I need care or help with people in my household, however, I have to pay it out of my net income.
The Government can change that. The system that was introduced in France has allegedly created some 40,000 additional jobs, because people can afford to pay for care. In this country, many highly qualified women have to give up work because of the cost of child care. They do not want the state to provide child care; they want to be able to afford to pay for whatever system they require—probably private care. The costs of that care must be treated as part of women's legitimate work expenses.
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We must congratulate the previous Conservative Government on freeing the market, which has provided the jobs at the upper end of the economy that are increasingly available to women.
Mrs. McKenna: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Gorman: Not at the moment; the hon. Lady will have time to make her own speech if I sit down soon.
In the future, women are likely to be our most important economic resource. Short of mass immigration, only those women who are as yet unemployed can be brought back into the labour force to fill the jobs in the new industries. The free market, not the state, provides those jobs. The Government can, at best, ensure that businesses are not overtaxed, that their pension funds are not raided—as they have been by the Government in the short time that they have been in office—and that capital remains in the private sector to be invested in creating opportunities in information technology, science and many other new industries that will undoubtedly emerge.
The Government can adopt policies to help women. The ones that I have suggested would help educated, intelligent and high-achieving women. I urge the Government to stop referring to a large proportion of women as unthinking robots, who are unable to control their instincts and who have to have all sorts of services laid on for them—especially child care.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): I very much admire the hon. Lady, but can she cite any instance of any member of the Government making such a statement?
Mrs. Gorman: I am asking the Government to think about the ways in which they can continue to implement Conservative policies to assist high-achieving women, who do not expect the state to do everything for them. The Government should ask them what they want. I am telling the Minister some of the things that such women have told me. I do not have focus groups or juries, but I have talked to women in the workplace.
When the Minister consults her focus groups, I would like her to remember that a role should be opened up for older women, of whom I am, of course, a perfect example. I did not enter the House until I was over 50. The Government have a huge opportunity to make use of older women coming back into the work force. I want the Government to consider what they can do to assist women, who have had the experience of raising a family and who are wise in the ways of children and men, to adapt those talents to contribute to society.
It concerns me enormously—as I am sure it does every woman and man in the House—that we keep hearing terrible stories of child abuse in state-run homes, although I make no issue of the fact that they are state-run. Most of the abusers are men and I am sure that the men in the House deplore that as much as we all do. I suggest to the Minister that mature women would make excellent directors of those homes and would not be bamboozled in the same way that some of the male directors of such homes seem easily to be. In that way, the children who have the misfortune not to have a stable family, and who have to live in such institutions, would have a woman—a motherly figure—to turn to. That would make good use

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of the background and talents that such women have to offer to our communities, and that is just one example of an imaginative approach to utilising the attributes of older women.
Thanks to improvements in health—the previous Government made a large contribution to improving the services available to women—we all now have the chance of living into our 80s. By the time many women are 50, their families have left home and the women do not want to sit at home making cabbage soups to keep slim on. We should therefore think carefully about the opportunities that the late development of women offers to our society and go out of our way to welcome such women into our ranks, whether in the House, the other professions or other areas of work. In that way, the Government—through their management of many of the services provided in our communities—could make a positive contribution.
12.7 pm
Mrs. Ann Cryer: I apologise in advance for the fact that I will have to leave before the conclusion of the debate. Although I am not speaking at a women's lunch, I have a very appropriate reason for leaving. My three-year-old grandson, Robert, tells me that he is very poorly with chicken pox and I shall have to go home to pick up his two brothers from kids club and nursery. It is also appropriate that I should follow the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), because I entered the House at the age of 57. It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Lady.
I am proud to be here today, with so many women, contributing to our debate on women. We can celebrate in advance international women's day, which takes place next week, when I shall speak at a Wirral trades council women's event. I know that many of my hon. Friends will attend similar meetings.
I wish to start my celebration of international women's day now, by talking about women I have known and admired and what I have learnt from them. I hope that other hon. Members will also learn from them. Yesterday, as I was rapidly going through the mountain of unsolicited mail that we all receive daily, I came across India Perspectives. I always look through it and read bits, and then post it to my daughter-in-law, whose parents were born in India—in fact, they are there now. Yesterday, the journal was celebrating the half century of Indian independence with some potted histories of people who fought and worked for it, including the late Mahatma Gandhi. On the next page, to my amazement, was Annie Besant, a name from my past. I first heard of her as a social reformer and heroine of women's rights in many feminist publications of the 1960s and 1970s when I was taking O-level economic history. Until yesterday, I never knew of her Indian connections.
I have brought the journal and I shall quote some relevant parts of the article, which is headed "Annie Besant The Irish Woman Who Fought for India". Her epitaph was
"She tried to follow Truth".
She fought throughout her life for justice and free thought, from her early days in England when with Charles Bradlaugh, a Bradfordian, she published a pamphlet on family planning to test the right of free discussion on the
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population question—for which she was arrested—down to her work for home rule for India. On her work for India, the article says:
"The women of India owe a special debt of gratitude to her. In 1917, she laid the foundation of the Indian Women's Association. This Association spread its network throughout the country for furthering the progress of women in education, industry, politics and general uplift. Thus the women were banded together for the service of the country. This made it possible for her and Mrs. Sarajini Naidu and others to present a memorandum in favour of women's franchise to Mr. Montague, Secretary of State for India. It is because of the efforts of persons like Annie Besant that on attaining independence, Indian women obtained the right to vote automatically and without further struggle."
I want to talk about another women, who post-dated Annie Besant by 20 or so years. Her name was Dinah Place, known to friends and family as Dainty Dinah. No one here will know of her, but she was one of those brave working-class champions of the women's suffrage movement. She was my grandma, a socialist and a pacifist; but she never allowed fear to get in the way of her convictions, tiny though she was. In 1918, when women over the age of 30 were allowed to vote, she threw her small weight behind the Independent Labour party. She had lost two brothers on the Somme; a third came home physically and mentally broken from gassing, later to take his own life; her husband Tom, with his badly injured leg, was lucky to be alive. Hence her conversion to pacifism.
Without hesitation, Dinah made her terraced house in Waterfoot, in the Rossendale valley, available as a committee room for the ILP, whose candidate was a man aged beyond his years by having spent three years in solitary confinement in Durham gaol for his stand as a conscientious objector. For her trouble, she was left with not a window intact. Despite her loss, the crowd could see her only as the enemy. As with her, my beliefs, my politics, come from the people I have known and my experiences of life—not from student politics, because I left school at 15, or from Marx or Millbank. If experience is the best educator, my education was second to none.
Some hon. Members may think that I am living in a time warp, so I will talk about some of my more recent experiences. For nine years, I served as a member of the social security appeal tribunal. I heard many cases involving women who had worked all their lives in the textile industry. Bradford and Keighley have a long history of wool and, more recently, synthetic textiles. Many women there have suffered much from industrial deafness and should be entitled to industrial injury benefit. To my horror, I found that they were not entitled to it because of the narrow qualifying conditions. Only two descriptions qualify: weaving and high-speed false twisting. Almost every woman who appealed to my tribunal for the benefit was told that her case was outside the rules because of those descriptions.
I started to ask the women questions. I would say, "So you have not been a weaver?" If they said no, I would ask what they did, and they would tell me. I would say, "So you never did anything by the way of high-speed false twisting?" They would say, "I have never heard of it." I think that there is something wrong with the regulation. Perhaps this is not the place to raise it, but I keep asking questions about it and I am not getting anywhere so I thought I would have a go today. Something needs doing to make the regulation wider. Women are suffering and are not getting what they should be getting.

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one of my constituents, Kathleen Waddington, has been arguing her case for four years through tribunals and is now in the process of appealing to the social security commissioners. I wish her well, but, as the law stands, I do not think that she will have a great deal of success.
I should like to tell the House about another aspect of my life before I came to this place. When, in 1983, I was out of a job, I decided to work with Keighley technical college in its scheme to improve the lot of Asian women living at home with small children. Many of them did not have any English at all. They had come here as spouses and, because they had small children, they could not go to the local centre to learn English. The only way in which they could learn it was for those with a bit of spare time to go to their homes and teach them.
I joined the scheme and went to teach three women, Ruqia, Asiya and Ghanimat Jan. As often happens in this sort of case, I learned a great deal more from them. They are my constituents now. There is another message for the Government here. If we are to improve the lot of Asian women, many of whom do not have any English, we shall have to put more money, perhaps through technical colleges or wherever, into teaching them English so that they can be aware of their rights and of what benefits they should have.
It is fair to say that some of my Asian women constituents are the most deprived. That is largely because they do not have English so they do not know where to turn for help or what help is due to them. I appeal to our Government to look into that.
I am in touch with my constituents week after week in my advice surgeries. I shall refer briefly to a number of concerns that I believe are being tackled by the Government. Many of my women constituents live in rural areas and are appreciative of what we are trying to do for them. We are already starting to address the need for first-class education for our children; for good quality health care, free at point of use, through our national health service; for safety for women and families within and without their homes and freedom from the fear of violence; for a good quality of life for women into retirement with decent pensions and help with fuel costs; for good-quality child care at affordable fees—I know that we are already well on with that—for a good, reliable, safe and cheap public transport system, which can be such an enabling feature in women's lives; for a national minimum wage along with the working time directive and the social contract.
I look forward to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's Budget. I really do not care who leaks what to whom or for any sort of point scoring. I simply look forward to measures that will ensure that the poorest of our poor children are not penalised by our Government but are given financial help. I should like to put on record my appreciation of any part that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has played in that decision.
12.19 pm
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: I much appreciate the opportunity to take part in this wide-ranging debate, in which a huge number of issues have been raised. When we look back and read Hansard, we will see that there has been great agreement on the analysis of the problems.
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Even though the language in which we have discussed them may have differed and our solutions to them will differ, there is a great degree of accord on the issues that face women. I hope that Opposition Members recognise that the Conservatives went a considerable way in successfully tackling the issues that faced us during our 18 years in government; but there will always be other problems that need to be solved, and I am sure that there will be as many contributions toward those solutions from Conservative Members as from Labour Members.
One of the achievements of our 18 years in government of which I am particularly proud is the introduction of independent married women's taxation, which, although hardly mentioned today, freed married women from many of the constraints facing them. I took part in the battle for it for many years: year after year, I turned up to see the assistant secretary to the Treasury and demanded, and put on record the views and arguments for, the independent taxation of married women. Needless to say, given the way in which the Treasury works, every two years there was a different assistant secretary, so often we had to start from the beginning and educate them all over again.
With me in that battle was the Conservative women's national committee, which did a great deal of work in encouraging our Government finally to give us independent taxation, and Women In Media—an organisation with which I was associated for many years—did much of the intellectual analysis of the need for independent taxation. It was not until an occasion at the Conservative women's conference in 1987, when I was able to suggest that it was not the best thing that the most powerful Prime Minister in the world had to have her tax form signed by her husband, that we got the Chancellor of the Exchequer to move. It saddens me that the question has raised its head again and that the Prime Minister may have to be asked whether he would be happy to sign his wife's tax form. The many women Labour Members here today should also consider whether they would be happy to have their husbands sign their tax form.
The issue has raised its head again because of the rumour, which will not go away, that the Government are preparing to tax child benefit. Today, the Secretary of State said that she had no intention whatsoever of taxing child benefit. However, we read in this week's newspapers the conclusions drawn by journalists from the fact that, when the Minister for Welfare Reform appeared before the Select Committee on Social Security, he did not rule out taxing child benefit. Because there is conflicting information coming out of the same Department, we are unable to say that the possibility of taxing child benefit has gone away.
I am sure that there are Labour Members here who, like Conservative Members, fought for a long time to get child benefit. Child benefit is, in effect, a tax relief recognising the cost of raising children that is paid in cash to the carer. It is all too easy to forget that it was and still is, in effect, a tax relief. In the 1970s battle to get child benefit, one of the biggest obstacles was the attitude of the trade unions, which did not want money to be transferred from the wallet to the purse, but I do not think that the trade unions are the problem this time. The problem is that, because we have recognised the cost of raising children—something that any civilised society should do—through the tax relief of child benefit, it appears to cost a huge

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sum of money, and when the Treasury sees a huge sum of money, its first and instinctive reaction is to ask, "How can we reduce it?"
One reason why we wanted child benefit to be a cash benefit was that poorer families could not benefit from the tax relief: by and large, they did not have sufficient income. I suspect that that may still be true. Therefore, if we, a civilised society, intend to recognise through the tax system the cost of raising children, we must maintain child benefit as a benefit to the carer, who should get the money.
None the less, it is argued that the cost of child benefit is so high that the benefit should be taxed. There is logical nonsense in taxing what is, in effect, a tax relief. However, if the Government intend to take that route, I have some questions for them. I should be grateful for answers from the Minister, when she replies to the debate, or the Chancellor, in the Budget. If child benefit is to be taxed, at what level of income will it be taxed, and on whose income will the tax fall? In the case of a married couple, will it fall on the higher of two incomes, or on the joint income? Or will it fall on the carer of the child, who would be taxed with one hand and given benefit with the other?
Those questions must be asked, but there is an overriding question: why tax child benefit? If it costs too much, perhaps it should be reduced; the Government might like to consider that. Perhaps child benefit should go only to poorer people, in which case the Government would introduce a means test and live with the resulting opprobrium.
Perhaps it is the age-old Labour problem of envy; perhaps the Labour Government do not like rich people, in which case, let me help them. If they really want to tax rich people and take their child benefit away, the easiest way to approach the matter may be to stop calling it child benefit, call it "child's benefit" and give every child the benefit. It could be paid to the carer; he or she could pick it up at the post office, if they wish. Children without other income would not need to fill in a tax form, so there would be no extra bureaucracy, but children from families that were rich enough to allow the child to have trust income—investment income—who pay tax, could pay tax on their child benefit. That would be the way to tax child benefit. The Government may wish to consider that.
Child care costs are also a problem. I understand that, following a briefing by the Secretary of State for Social Security, information is starting to emerge from the Government on how the Budget will help with child care costs—many hon. Members have mentioned that. The newspapers tell us how generous the Government are thinking of being.
There will be up to £100 a week tax relief for child care costs for each of the first two children for couples earning under £20,000. That interested me, because in April 1997 average gross earnings were £19,120, so the Government are planning to help couples who have a joint income above national average earnings. If that couple have two children, and they are able to claim child care costs up to £100 each, that gives that couple an untaxed income of £10,400. If that couple are earning between £19,500 and £20,000, that untaxed tax relief will take them into the 40 per cent. tax bracket. That is not quite right; it feels wrong.
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Is that the Government's intention? If it is, what will happen to people who earn slightly more than £20,000 or to those who earn just below that figure and are offered overtime or promotion to take them over the limit? Will they lose the £10,400 immediately? I can think of no bigger poverty trap. The Government must be considering a taper. Will it taper up to the 40 per cent. income tax bracket? Perhaps the Chancellor will increase the level at which the 40 per cent. band kicks in.
Will the £100 a week child care costs be met by the Treasury on the basis of receipts from the carers, as I read in the newspapers, or, as I understand from the pressure groups to which the Government have already spoken, will no proof of payment be needed? If the latter is the case, that £100 a week could be used for child care, granny care or anything else. It would be useful to know whether the Government are planning to give £10,400 to couples earning less than £20,000 with no controls, putting them into the super-tax bracket.
The system will be a disincentive for anyone earning more than £20,000.
Barbara Follett: May I suggest that the hon. Lady's questions might better be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at Treasury questions? They are based on speculation, and might better be asked after 17 March.
Mrs. Lait: I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I have every intention of making a speech on the Budget. I am sorry if I am boring her. However, the subject has come up this week. According to today's newspapers, it was the Secretary of State for Social Security who briefed the papers. As the issue affects women directly, I thought that it might be of interest. The Chancellor may wish to address the fundamental questions about the £10,400 tax-free allowance in his Budget.
Mrs. Gillan: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be surprising if the Minister for women, who has no responsibilities other than for women, had no knowledge of the issues and was unable to respond today?
Mrs. Lait: I have every sympathy with my hon. Friend's point. I have every intention of being here to listen closely to the response. I suspect that we shall be told to wait for the Budget, but at least we are pointing out that such questions will need to be answered then. I see the Minister for women nodding in agreement that they will be. I look forward to hearing the Chancellor going into the issue in great detail in the Budget, because he will be pursued to the bitter end on it.
Anyone earning more than £20,000 will be so "disincentivised"—if I may use the word—that the enterprise economy will never move again. In a sense, I hope that the Chancellor goes ahead, just to show that such a major redistribution of national income may buy short-term popularity, but at the expense of stifling enterprise and enraging married women—all that just to give a few people an unsustainable tax allowance.
I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply. The issues are crucial to the economic well-being of this country and of women. If she cannot answer my questions—I suspect that she cannot—I hope very much that the Chancellor will do so in detail in his Budget.
12.34 pm
Ms Beverley Hughes: I join other hon. Members in welcoming the opportunity to participate in this debate. It is a particularly important occasion, as no such debate took place last year when the Conservatives were in government, despite many requests from Labour Members.
Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Lady is not correct. The last women's debate in this place was held in Government time and was called by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) and me.
Ms Hughes: I shall certainly return to the Official Report to check that. My research this week found that there was no debate on women last year and that the previous two debates occurred in Opposition time. If the hon. Lady is right, I stand corrected.
I shall be brief, as I am aware that many of my colleagues wish to speak in this important debate. I want to focus on one priority that the Secretary of State highlighted this morning: the importance of family-friendly employment policies. In so doing, I shall address the needs of children—which my right hon. Friend also stressed—and the contribution that men can make to the issues facing women and to the well-being of children. I make no apology for placing at the heart of my contribution the needs of children and the contributions of both parents to children's lives.
We have heard about the changed and changing role of women in terms of economic activity in the past 10 years. Female participation in the work force has risen. However, the overall figures disguise the fact that the greatest increase has occurred in the activity of women with children, and particularly among women with children under five, whose participation has risen from about 40 per cent. to 54 per cent. in the past 10 years. That shows that the majority of women with children now work, including the majority of women with very young children.
The fact that that increase occurred at a time when the previous Government were bent on destroying rights at work, increasing job insecurity, abolishing wage councils and encouraging a low-pay, short-term contract culture in employment is testimony to both the need and the wishes of many women to work. The previous Government talked much about family values, but did very little to help parents meet their family responsibilities. I am glad that this Government recognise that fairness and security at work are a woman's issue, and have introduced measures to strike a better balance between flexibility in the workplace on the one hand and security in work on the other.
Despite the fact that many women have had to work for low wages in poor conditions, many women still want to work. We shall not return to the time when most women stayed at home. Work gives women benefits other than finance. Work provides other things that women value which, once experienced, they do not wish to relinquish—on that point, I part company with the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe). The problem which defeats many women, and which many others confront at no small cost to themselves, is the difficulty of combining work and child care in the hostile work environment left to us by the previous Government which makes no concessions for children's needs.
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As women's economic activities have increased, what has been the pattern for working fathers? It is worth noting that it is very difficult to obtain official statistics about working fathers because, in tabulating data, statisticians have not bothered about whether men are fathers. Some recent secondary analysis of the 1994 labour force survey paints a disturbing picture. It shows that not only are fathers more likely to be in work than other men but they are more likely to be in full-time work and to work longer hours—an average of 47 hours a week. The study concluded:
"Over all, the increase in mother's employment has not resulted in any compensating change in father's employment: there is no indication of a substantial shift to a more part-time employment or of a reduction in working hours among those employed full-time. The consequence is an increasing workload on parents, as mothers' employment increases and fathers' high employment rates and long hours remain constant."
If children and the quality and stability of family life are the prime concerns, what should be the response of Government? Good-quality, flexible, affordable child care, as we have heard from many hon. Members today, is rightly a priority. Equally important, and also one of the Government's top three priorities, is the introduction of family-friendly employment policies, not just for mothers, but for fathers too.
There are several reasons why that is important. First, some parents want to look after their own children. Secondly, it is not so bad looking after one child, but when there are two or three children, the difficulty of getting them to different arrangements at different times and juggling child care with work increases exponentially.
Thirdly, and I believe this to be the most important reason, for many children there are advantages in experiencing daily daytime care from their father. Although in practice it is a women's issue, we must try to redefine the issue of who cares for children as an issue for men and women. In demanding an end to the segregation between work and mothering, we must extend the argument to ending the segregation between work and fathering.
My time is drawing to a close, and I wanted to say a great deal more. I conclude with some features of a family-friendly employment policy. It is extremely important that the Government have taken the step of implementing the parental leave directive, which will give all employees rights to unpaid parental leave. Parental leave at the time of birth or adoption is vital for parents at that important stage when a child enters the family.
I hope that, in the longer term, we can move closer to some of the conditions that employees in Scandinavia and other European countries have. In Sweden, for example, parents have the right to share parental leave of up to a year when a child is born or adopted.
Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Lady mentioned adoption. I do not know whether she is aware that, when I was first elected, I tried to introduce a measure in the previous Parliament to ensure that all mothers who were adopting babies could have the same maternity leave as a mother giving birth to a baby. That, unfortunately, is not the case. Will she join me in urging this Government to examine the issue? The matter needs resolving, and I greatly regret the fact that, when my Government were in power, they did not have time in the legislative timetable to fit it in.

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I would commend any Government who introduced that small equalisation, which would make a great difference to women who adopt babies.
Ms Hughes: I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I commiserate with her at the fact that her Government at the time did not support her. The distinction between what parties say and do in relation to women's issues is becoming a defining distinction between the Labour party and the Conservative party. I support what she said, and I expect this Government to take action on the matter.
I return to the flexibility of working patterns. I was disturbed to hear it said earlier that the tensions around work and children could be accommodated by making the school day and the school week more flexible. Clearly, that would have disadvantageous consequences for children. We must make working patterns and work contracts more flexible.
Caroline Flint: I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a wonderful initiative in my constituency by Coats Viyella Clothing Ltd., which in the past week has advertised jobs offering a parent shift. The advertisement referred to a chance to work and put one's kids first. The firm is offering a shift from 9 am to 3 pm, with seven weeks' holiday, covering school patterns. Labour Members will be pushing what employers can do, not what they cannot do.
Ms Hughes: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She has given an example of something that is happening.
I was about to give an example of something that the Government have done in the public sector over the past few months. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has introduced an innovative information technology package as a pilot scheme in hospitals, and it is to be extended. It has allowed nursing staff to create their own working patterns—I do not have time to go into details, but the scheme is extremely innovative—and at the same time it has brought back into nursing women who had to leave, having had expensive training, because previously they could not combine work and child care. The scheme embraces an economic advantage that needs to be taken into account.
I welcome the Government's top priorities. We need to consider how to enable not only mothers but fathers to contribute to resolving some important tensions while retaining the needs of children as a centrepiece of our policy.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I remind the House that, unless hon. Members shorten their speeches, many other hon. Members will be disappointed.
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Mr. Damian Green: I shall heed your remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It is clear that the debate is being conducted, in a way, on two levels. In many practical, detailed ways, little divides the two sides of the House. For example, I was interested to hear of the initiative of Coats Viyella. I join
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the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) in commending it, and urging that sort of initiative on other employers. I am pleased that we have a flexible enough labour market to enable employers to take that sort of approach.
As I said, little divides us on detail, but there is a problem at the higher level of rhetoric. The Government's claims about the way in which they are changing the priorities of government towards women are just incredible. The Secretary of State described the problem well. In particular, the specific policies to which she referred do not necessarily have a separate women's dimension. If they are of benefit to women, or to girls in school, they are also of benefit to men, and boys in school. Attempts to create a corpus of policies called women's issues are doomed to failure. At the same time, they are rather patronising.
The main problem that the Government need to address at the higher level, as it were, is the thought that they will replace, if they are not careful, the old-fashioned male chauvinism, which is that some areas of life and public policy are of no interest to women, with a new form of chauvinism—equally regrettable and reactionary—which is that some areas of life are specially reserved for women.
The right hon. Lady showed that in a small way with her prepared responses to interventions in her speech from any man who dared to intervene. She gave the clear impression that it was somehow improper for men to have views and to express them in the House on these issues. She is dead wrong on that. The important policies—especially the ones that she mentioned on health and education—are of the same importance to both men and women.
The Secretary of State made the extraordinary statement that mothers care passionately about their daughters' education. As the father of two daughters, I can tell the right hon. Lady that fathers care passionately about their daughters' education. Both parents care equally about children's education. I dare say that, when the right hon. Lady took the sensible decision to send her child to a grammar school in Kent, her husband was as involved in that decision as she. Artificial distinctions hamper debate on the practical matters that affect both men and women.
The last vestiges of the old male chauvinism that affect parts of our country should be swept away. They are entirely unacceptable. I regret that one practical measure that I tried to implement myself over the past few weeks has temporarily failed. As a member of the MCC, I voted to allow women members. It is ludicrous that the MCC does not allow women members. I am glad that a majority of MCC members agreed with me. I regret that its rules mean that this cannot be implemented without a two-thirds majority. I hope that the rules are changed so that women can become members of the MCC, and of similar institutions. The day of the single-sex institution trying to keep out the other sex has gone, and that applies across the board.
The idea that there are specific women's issues is in many ways an insult to modern women, as several of my hon. Friends have said. It is more than time for women to break out of any ghetto, whether those are old-fashioned male views or a misinterpretation of feminist views. I hope that the feminist debate has moved beyond the era

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of separatism, and that we can say, particularly in terms of public policy, that there are no longer specific women's issues.
The Secretary of State made the point that we now have a Government who have unique insight into, and unique sympathy with, the needs and aspirations of women. As so often the case with the Government, not only is there a gap between rhetoric and reality, but the truth, as expressed in policy, is the dead opposite of the rhetoric. To illustrate that, I shall deal with issues that are not regarded as traditional women's issues: tax and benefits, which are of importance economically to women as well as men. These are issues that old-fashioned male chauvinists would say women should not discuss, but they are women's issues.
Let us look at the Government's attitude to tax and benefits, and start with the lone-parent premium fiasco. We all know that, when the Secretary of State was in opposition, she said:
Perhaps he"—
the then Secretary of State for Social Security—
"does not realise that, when people move from being in a couple to being a lone mother, they become worse, not better, off."—[Official Report, 28 November 1996; Vol. 286, c. 501.]
I am sure that the right hon. Lady remembers that quote; it has been quoted back at her a lot over the past few months. She said that she would not introduce a cut in the lone parent premium, but in government she did so. I hope that some hon. Members on the Government Benches voted against the Government on this issue. We thought that the policy was worth implementing for reasons of fairness. Labour opposed it in opposition, but implemented it in government.
The story continues, because the right hon. Lady, or one of her hon. Friends, leaked the decision that compensation would be available for lone parents, and that the cut would in some way be reversed. It was a double U-turn. Having U-turned once, she did so again. Then, last Wednesday, the Prime Minister specifically denied in the House that the second U-turn would take place. Now we read in The Guardian some more details that suggest it will.
That leaves many of us in a great dilemma: do we believe the Prime Minister, or do we believe The Guardian? Many of us were brought up to regard neither as a normally reliable source of information. We are in a genuine quandary as to which contradictory story we are supposed to believe. I hope that the Minister who will reply to the debate can put me out of that quandary. Should I, in this instance, believe the Prime Minister, or The Guardian?
The underlying important message to women in this country from the Government's charade and fiasco on the lone parent premium is that women's and lone parents' priorities are the Government's least important priority. The Secretary of State's priority is to keep her job; the Chancellor's priority is to keep public spending down; and the Prime Minister's priority is to ensure that the presentation is done well, and in this instance he has manifestly failed.
Whatever happens, the discussion about what lone parents need has been entirely lost. That sends a much more powerful signal to women of this country than any of the Government's rhetoric about their concerns.
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Another issue of current debate, which was dealt with eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), is the proposal for the working families tax credit. It is a shame that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not here, because she is involved in some of the detailed and difficult work on the subject.
However the Government try to wrap it up, that will mean an attack on the independent taxation and the separation of benefits allowed to women. I have read all the leaks in the papers—not all of them in The Guardian—suggesting that the Treasury has found a magic solution that will allow it to introduce the tax credit without suffering the "purse or wallet" dilemma that was discussed in great detail when the previous Government were considering social security reform.
The previous Government found that that dilemma was not soluble, so they moved towards the system of family credit, which has been successful in many ways, not least because most family credit is paid direct to the mother, and thus directly benefits women in a practical way.
The problem with any kind of earned income tax credit, as the Americans call it, and thus with the working families tax credit, is that, however we wrap it up, if the main earner in the household is a man—statistically, that is the most likely—he will have to give permission for the tax credit to be passed to the woman. There will be no automatic right. There will have to be a family discussion.
Lorna Fitzsimons: I am interested in the thesis that the hon. Gentleman is advancing. As he is so interested in family credit and the change proposed, or floated, in the working families tax credit, is he aware that family credit is currently assessed on joint income, so there would be no difference and no threat to independent taxation? Secondly, is he aware that, of the 750,000 recipients of family credit, in only about 300,000 cases does the woman receive the benefit, because the man is in low-paid work? Would he therefore support the working families tax credit if the money went to the woman unless the man and the woman jointly elected—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. My earlier remarks about the length of speeches apply to interventions, too.
Mr. Green: My attempt to deal with the intervention will be briefer than the intervention itself, Mr. Lord. Where the man is the main earner, it is practically impossible for the woman to be paid the money without a previous family discussion. I therefore assure the hon. Lady that what she suggests would not achieve the effect she desires, and preserve independent payments to women.
I know how many other people wish to speak in the debate, so I shall draw my individual examples to a conclusion. Both examples I have given provide powerful reasons for rejecting the Secretary of State's opening thesis that the Government have a unique sympathy with the priorities of women. Their actions belie their rhetoric; actually, they are treating the women of this country worse than the previous Government did.
12.57 pm
Jane Griffiths: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to participate in this important debate. If I heard the hon. Member for Chesham

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and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) correctly, it is the first such debate since 1988. Perhaps I misheard; I hope I did, because if that is true, it is a great shame.
We have heard a lot about tax and benefits this morning, and of course economic issues are important to women, as they are to everyone. However, other things should also be a priority for women; I know that they will feature among the Government's priorities for women.
One of those is the fact that a whole generation of young women have grown up under a Tory Government. My daughter, who is 21, does not remember the previous Labour Government, because she was a small child at the time. She and all women of her age have grown up under Tory Governments who treated whole groups in society with contempt, effectively excluding them, and saying, "Jobs, opportunities and prosperity are not for you; they are only for the few."
We now live with the consequences of that attitude, and we must ensure that women have high expectations of themselves.
Mr. Robert Syms: Does the hon. Lady not consider that the position of women in society today is better than it ever has been, and is improving? It has certainly improved over the past 20 years, especially under Conservative Governments.
Jane Griffiths: If the hon. Gentleman believes that there is reason for complacency about the position of women, I do not agree with him. We have a great deal to do. Many women do well and are prosperous—the number of women in the House is evidence of that—but many others are not, because of economic, child care and housing problems.
Health must be a priority for women. At times, I have agreed with Conservative Members that there is no such thing as women's issues, as health issues are issues for all of us. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) has left. I was flattered by her commenting on me. The Reading Chronicle is an excellent newspaper, and the editor will be delighted that she reads it so carefully.
Health is an issue for everyone, but certain matters—not just pregnancy and childbirth—are particular to women. The Tory manifesto at the last general election said nothing about osteoporosis, which affects many more women than men, especially older women who make up an increasingly large proportion of the population. It would be relatively inexpensive to make the problem of chlamydia and ectopic pregnancy a Government priority, and the good consequences would far exceed the necessary resources.
Ten women a year die from ectopic pregnancy—that number has not changed—and its incidence is increasing: there are about 10,000 cases a year. Those women are admitted to hospital for emergency surgery without which they would die. Ectopic pregnancy could be much reduced, if not eliminated, if screening for chlamydia was routine. Chlamydia has no symptoms, so young women may not know they have it, and infertility, ectopic pregnancy or both can result. Those issues have been ignored in the past, but I believe that the Government will give them the attention they deserve.
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Mrs. Eleanor Laing: The hon. Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) made some interesting remarks. Perhaps it is a symptom of the debate that, although I could not disagree more with her remark about the way in which women live their lives, I agree 100 per cent. with what she said about health issues. I share her hope that the Government will pay attention to what she said.
The hon. Lady will perhaps disagree with some of my remarks. We have dealt with many issues, but the basic fact that has emerged from the debate is that women need freedom—economic freedom, the freedom that comes from good health, and the freedom to choose their own life style. Women generally have more life style choices than men. We are always asking ourselves why there are not more women at the top of the professions or in power in areas of public life. The answer often is that, because women have more choices, they do not choose the same career pattern as men. [Interruption.] Hon. Ladies on the Labour Benches seem to disagree, but that is exactly what they have argued this morning.
Often, a man will start his career in his early twenties and plod up the promotion ladder until, 30 years later, he reaches the top. Women often take a different course, perhaps taking time out to have children or to travel with their husband, which is why they often take longer than men to reach the top. We all know that they can achieve the same as men.
I mentioned freedom, and economic freedom comes from earning power, which often does not depend merely on child care or women's difficulties in having to look after other family members. We have already discussed those problems to a great extent, so let us not get the balance completely wrong. Child care is important, but it is not the only factor affecting a woman's earning power or her ability to continue with a career. Education is every bit as important—indeed, I would argue that it is more important.
My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) mentioned the obvious and unarguable statistic that, when the previous Conservative Government came to power, which was just after I went to university, approximately one in eight 18-year-olds went on to higher education, whereas now one in three do so. That has nothing to do with the policies of the present Government. It is entirely to do with the policies of the previous Conservative Government, who, over 18 years, steadily increased the numbers going into higher education, and therefore increased opportunities for women in particular, as they were the ones who were often left out of higher education in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The first thing that this new Government did, after saying that they wanted to create opportunities especially for women, was introduce tuition fees for universities. If one policy is designed to give women fewer opportunities than men, it is that. There are still families who will decide, when considering the opportunities for their teenage children, that they can afford to help one child through university but not more than one. Who is likely to get the opportunity? The boy.
That happened for decades, even centuries, and, because the previous Conservative Government gave women the chance to go to university on their own merit and funded them through it, more women have come out

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with higher qualifications. It is sheer hypocrisy on the part of this Government to say that they care about women and talk about all they want to do to help them, when, with that one policy, they have taken away opportunity from women. We will not see the effects for quite a few years, but 1 will not forget what I have said this morning, and I will ask questions about it in years to come.
Mrs. McKenna: Does the hon. Lady agree that, in future, that option will not be available, because all students will be able to apply for properly funded loans, which they will be able to pay back once they are in proper employment? Therefore, they will not have to depend on their families. Only the families of the very well off have that choice at the moment—poor families do not have that choice.
Mrs. Laing: No, I do not agree. I do not want to get off the subject, and I must be brief, but the hon. Lady must recognise the difference between loans for maintenance, which help individual students and which we have supported for many years, and loans for tuition fees. There is no doubt that people will be deterred from going to university if they have to bear the cost of their tuition fees. Also, the policy demonstrates a lack of responsibility on behalf of the Government. Providing university education is good for the whole country, and the country should bear the cost of university tuition.
Mr. Syms: Will my hon. Friend consider the fact that university education is an investment in the future and in people? Through their policies, the Government have diminished opportunities for young people and the future investment in human capital.
Mrs. Laing: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. His remarks are in direct contrast to those of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mrs. McKenna).
This morning, we have heard much about child care and young women's issues, and I am not saying that those are not important—they are very important—but let us not forget our duty also to look after older women. We must give them good pensions. That is especially important in view of the fact that there are more widows than widowers—men tend not to live as long as women. We must make provision for women in their older years. Women who are now of pensionable age had fewer opportunities than our generation has to work, save and build up their own pensions.
We have heard much talk in this debate about what the Government might do about pensions, but they have done nothing. The Conservative Government proposed the excellent basic pension-plus scheme, which was designed precisely to take care of this matter. All that the new Government do, however, is talk and have reviews. People deserve better.
Mrs. Gillan: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have done at least one thing about pensions—they have taken a large amount of money from pension funds, making Robert Maxwell look like an amateur?
Mrs. Laing: I entirely agree. That also affects women more than men, as women retire earlier—their capacity to earn ends earlier. The policy is retrospective and cruel—I use the word advisedly—as it affects people who no longer have the chance to change their economic position.
I am surprised that health matters have not been mentioned more in this long debate. Women need to be free of the fear of health problems. They need the important freedom not to have children, and the freedom to choose when to have children.
I have been disturbed by rumours in the media—although it is now hard to tell whether a rumour in the media has arisen because of a journalist or because the Government are flying another kite to decide whether to do a U-turn before or after they have published their proposals—that, because the Government think that they have to make cuts in the national health service budget, they are considering making women pay for the contraceptive pill on prescription. I am sure that Labour Back Benchers will be just as concerned as Conservative Members about such an extremely dangerous policy.
There is no doubt that the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancies is to prevent them. Along with the automatic washing machine, the free availability of the contraceptive pill is one of the most important factors in gaining freedom for recent generations of women—although I am not suggesting for a moment that the Government should pay for automatic washing machines.
Mrs. Lait: Does my hon. Friend agree that, if the rumours are true that people will not need receipts to claim the child care allowance, they could indeed spend the money on washing machines?
Mrs. Laing: Yes: my hon. Friend makes an excellent point.
I hope that the Minister will assure us that, whatever changes are made in the NHS budget, the contraceptive pill will continue to be free to everyone to whom it is prescribed—I believe that that should include those aged under 16, although that is a complicated matter, which I do not have time to explore now.
Many hon. Members have noted that there are fewer women Conservative Members than women Labour Members. I must point out that most of the Conservatives' female Members have been present this morning, because we care about this issue. Although female Labour Members have managed a reasonable representation, they have not matched the proportion of female Conservative Members who have been present.
I must also point out that the number of women who sit as Conservative Members does not reflect the proportion of women who are active in the Conservative party. [Interruption.] Labour Members have no idea just how many women hold important positions in the Conservative party.
Ms Sandra Osborne: Making the tea.
Mrs. Laing: I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady if she wishes to make her point, but it seems she does not. It is only a matter of time before many more of those active Conservative women join us in the House.

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It has been interesting to hear Labour Members talk about the past 18 years and how Conservative policies affected women. They seem to have forgotten that Baroness Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for 11 years. One would think from listening to Labour Members that she had never existed.
Ms Shipley: Wishful thinking.
Mrs. Laing: Not on my part.
Labour Members like to claim that Baroness Thatcher did nothing for the cause of women, but they completely ignore the fact that, by being Prime Minister, and achieving all that she did in her 11 years in that post, she made it impossible for anyone to say that a woman cannot rise to the top of her profession—and that includes our profession.
Various hon. Members have mentioned positive discrimination and quotas. I am very concerned by the proposals that the Scottish Parliament should be gender-balanced. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm) addressed that point earlier. If that policy becomes part of the operation of the new Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, the women who are elected under it will be damaged in their future political reputations. Women who are selected because men have not been allowed to stand against them are for ever open to the criticism that they would not have succeeded had they been competing against men.
I stress that I intend no personal insult to any hon. Lady opposite who was selected from a woman-only shortlist. My point is that it is the system itself that is insulting—especially to female Labour Members who are of high quality and would have succeeded in any case. However, they will have to go through the rest of their lives—
Ms Julie Morgan: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Laing: I shall give way to the hon. Lady, although I must be brief.
Ms Morgan: Does the hon. Lady not agree that we must overcome centuries of discrimination before women can take their rightful place here and in the new Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly? It is therefore appropriate that efforts are made to ensure that women take their place so that the policies of all those bodies are properly informed and address the needs of the whole community.
Mrs. Laing: I do not agree with the hon. Lady. She suggests that men ignore matters of interest to women. That is nonsense, and is far too great a generalisation. Quotas are dangerous. It is like saying that a man can swim on his own but that a woman always needs to wear water-wings. We know that it is not true, so why have a policy that suggests it is?
We will not improve freedom of choice and opportunity for women by talking about them patronisingly. Women's issues are society's issues. All we have discussed today is important not only to women but to everyone. I hope that, in a few years' time, as we make further progress, there will be no need and no demand for debates such as this.
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Mrs. Rosemary McKenna: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the Government's proposals for women. I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State's announcements on helping women.
Contrary to what the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) said, there is no doubt that the arrival of so many women in Parliament on 1 May last year will have a long-term impact on the life of everyone in the United Kingdom. There is no truth in the rumour that we were elected solely to upset our male colleagues, either in the House or in the media. Far from it; we find some of them quite agreeable, especially those who have been house-trained. Some of us are even married to men and have sons as well as daughters. That may surprise Conservative Members. A colleague compared us to the Sedgemore—sorry the Stepford—wives. I recall that the Stepford wives were pretty, young and slim. Our colleague obviously agrees with me that size is not everything.
After 70 years of votes for women, some tremendous advances have been made, and the Government are making more significant advances, but there is still much to be done. The Government take the problems seriously and this debate is welcome. We should be moving towards the day when women are equally represented in all decision making so that decisions truly reflect the concerns of all. There will be no need for debates such as this when women are at the heart of the decision-making process.
Mrs. Laing: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. McKenna: No.
Local authorities have done some good work since the mid-1980s in setting up women's or equal opportunities committees. I welcome the Secretary of State's recognition of the good work of local authorities and the voluntary sector on child care over the past 18 years, when it was difficult for them to get support for it. Other hon. Members have spoken about those problems, but I want to speak about the process.
One of the great lessons that we have learnt is that to tackle equality issues effectively, we need to regard them not separately but as a key element of policy development. That is why I welcome the Government's recognition that mainstreaming is crucial: putting equality at the heart of policy making with equality issues regarded as integral to every Department and aspect of policy, not kept in a separate little box to be brought out every so often and looked at. Only then will we begin to address inequality in all its aspects.
I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister for women will examine the excellent research being undertaken in Britain under the auspices of the fourth action programme of the European Union. We have learnt from that experience that the most significant impact comes when women are involved in the decision-making process. Women's concerns are the same as those of men: the economy, jobs, health and education. We are not from another planet, but we have not been involved in decisions about our lives, about the life of our country or the lives of our families. We do not want all the power, as the

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hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) suggested. We will settle for half—our fair share. We ask only to be equal partners.
The comment made by the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) about men-free zones clearly demonstrates that Conservative Members do not understand the issues. The real issue is democracy. The House prides itself on being the seat of democracy, yet any elected chamber must reflect the society that it represents. When half the population is excluded from the decision-making process, we get different decisions—some would say bad decisions. I refer to decisions made by Government-appointed bodies. When we exclude half of the population from the business world, we lose the tremendous talents, energy and innovation that we need to succeed in the global economy.
History shows that, unless positive steps are taken, there is no improvement in the representation of women. The fact that there are 101 Labour women in the parliamentary Labour party is entirely due to positive action taken by the Labour party. All the political parties must face that reality.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest, who suggested that women elected to the Scottish Parliament would be damaged, is quite wrong. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already referred to the fact that we shall have a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh assembly. We have in Scotland and Wales an opportunity and the prospect of the first gender-balanced Parliaments in the world. What a start to the millennium if we can produce an equal number of men and women Members.
Labour Members are committed to a process by which we will ensure a list of candidates with equal numbers of men and women of equal ability. Any other party that does not recognise that will suffer the wrath of the electorate. We shall never be forgiven if we wake up on the morning of 7 May 1999 and face the prospect of a small group of women in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh assembly.
I do not want to speak any longer, because I know that some of my colleagues want to contribute. In any case, the microchip implanted in my brain is telling me that it is time to sit down.
1.26 pm
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: I have listened carefully to the debate. I have come to the conclusion that the Government are as stuck in their attitudes to women as they have been slow in their actions to improve the position of women. I hope that, as a result of the positive attitudes and approach of the Opposition today, the Government may think again about their whole policy.
We have seen a lack of vision from the Government and a refusal to acknowledge the many powerful and positive outside forces that have shaped the development and greater role of women in our society. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) for mentioning the role of the dishwasher.
Lorna Fitzsimons: He means the washing machine.
Mrs. Laing: And dishwashers.
Mr. St. Aubyn: Indeed, I could carry on. I am bound to say that, compared to the unimpressive efforts of the Government, washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves and, above all, disposable nappies have had a profound effect on the role of women in society, not to mention that of the men who live with them. I have had five children.
Mrs. McKenna: Do the men who live with the wives who have these children not contribute at all to bringing them up?
Mr. St. Aubyn: I was about to go on to explain how the changes that technology has made in family duties and jobs have played an important part in encouraging men in families to take a bigger role, and have made it much easier for them to cross that threshold.
Rather than focus on the rivalries and differences between men and women, we should focus on the dependency between men and women. There has been too little said in the debate about the fact that we are very much dependent on each other. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) speak about children in care and, having once worked in a children's home, I do not think that we should ignore the important role played by the many excellent men who work in children's homes, including homes for girls. They provide a positive role model for children who have been subjected to abuse and, by doing so, help those children to take an important first step in making their way back to mainstream society.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons) attempted to quantify the input of women who do unpaid work. It is important that we should focus on those who do unpaid work, but the hon. Lady was in danger of falling into the same trap as the Government have. They feel that, if they quantify a problem, they somehow solve it, but the truth is that the contribution of women who stay at home is priceless—it cannot be quantified. Oscar Wilde has already been quoted in the debate and I am reminded of his warning against those who know
"the price of everything and the value of nothing."
We have to recognise that women's domestic role is vital. By doing so, we immediately understand why there will be a natural limit to the participation of women in the work force. There will be those women, however well qualified they are, who decide that they are best qualified in the role of a mother; and, through that role, they will make a tremendous contribution to the development of their children and perhaps as powerful a contribution to society as anyone in a high-powered job.
I went to the House of Commons Library to check my figures and discovered a striking fact about the period of the Conservative Government: as far as I could tell, going back over nearly all of those 18 years, in every year the level of unemployment among women was lower than that among men. I am grateful to the labour force survey for that finding, although I see hon. Members shaking their heads; 1 shall be happy to share the figures with them after the debate.
Those statistics bring us back to the issue of price over value: many of those jobs may be relatively low paid, but the value of having a job goes beyond pay. It contributes to one's sense of independence and pride, and sometimes to the ability to escape an unfortunate family situation.

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Having a job is far more important than the precise level of pay for that job. None of us wants to see women or men exploited by being underpaid, but we should be wary of introducing policies that put the principle of price before the value of having a job at all.
The fact that we have debates about women has been remarked on and there has been discussion about when we last had one; but there can be no doubt that we have never had a debate on men. There is clearly a disparity between our attitudes to men and to women. That disparity was displayed in the Select Committee on Education, on which I am glad to serve. A few months ago, we decided to carry out a study into disaffected boys, but, between formulating the study and the start of our hearings, it became a study into disaffected children.
None of us would deny that there are problems with disaffected girls, but disaffection is predominantly a problem among teenage boys. That, too, goes back to the role of the mother and the fact that boys, even more than girls, find that her support plays a vital role in their development. From evidence given to us, our Committee has found that families with disaffected children are often those where parental support is noticeably lacking. In such families, the detrimental effect on boys of the lack of parental support is even more marked than the effect on girls.
Not only should we perhaps pay more tribute to the vital role of mothers—unpaid, unquantified, but invaluable—but perhaps we should pay tribute, and give our good wishes, to the most famous unpaid worker of all: the Minister for women.
We have been told many times that those who are underpaid find that it undermines their motivation. We are told that they tend to lose their self-respect and that some even withdraw from society. In the six months since the Minister for women was put into her post without being paid for it, she has had found it difficult to answer more than a smattering of questions in the House, and to find time to make more than a smattering of contributions.
I believe, as one of those who argued strongly in the House, when the Minister was appointed, that she should be dignified by being paid a decent wage for the job that she was undertaking, that that lack of pay is all the more to be objected to when one contrasts it with the extravagance of the men in the Government. The Lord Chancellor is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on his furnishings and carpets, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer just throws his carpets away. Given the threadbare treatment of the Minister, Labour men should be hanging their heads in shame.
Today is the Minister's chance. It is her chance to stand at the Dispatch Box—something that we see as often as a male Member of the House standing at an ironing board—
Mr. Syms: Does my hon. Friend consider that, as the excellent results that women are now achieving are a good thing, we should bring men up to their standard?
Mr. St. Aubyn: That is a good point, but I shall finish with my suggestion to the Minister. When she stands at the Dispatch Box, she has a chance to strike a blow for women by resigning her post, explaining why she is doing so and suggesting that no one else should take it until they are paid a decent wage.
1.36 pm
Ms Julie Morgan: I am pleased to have the chance to speak in the first women's debate since the Labour Government came to power in May 1997. I believe that I am the only woman Member of Parliament from Wales who could stay up in London today, although I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) was present earlier.
There are only four woman Members of Parliament from Wales—four out of 40. The fact that there have been only seven woman Members of Parliament for Wales since women gained the vote 80 years ago tells us that there is something wrong with the system. That record stands despite a long history of radical women from Wales. Some hon. Members may have heard of Jemima Nicholas, who, 200 years ago, stopped the French invading Fishguard. More recently, there have been the women in the miners' support groups in the South Wales valleys. I am proud that the Minister for women is from Wales; she is another radical woman from Wales.
I pay tribute to all the women from Wales who work tirelessly, often behind the scenes, keeping everything going and keeping the wheels turning as women have always done—keeping playgroups going, looking after elderly people, rushing to get the kids from school. It is really important that we make certain that those women also have the opportunity to come to the House, or to the Scottish Parliament, or to the National Assembly of Wales, and make their voices heard.
Many more women in Wales work than they did 20 years ago. Then, they made up a third of the work force; now, they make up nearly a half. The increase in women's employment has coincided with a decrease in male employment. That has resulted from savage changes in the patterns of male working in Wales because of the rundown of heavy industry.
Although more women are working in Wales, that increase has come largely from part-time jobs in the service sector. During the 1980s, the number of women in Wales employed full time fell, while part-time employment grew.
Chwarae Teg—which means "fair play" in English—is an organisation which promotes equal opportunities in the work force. Its surveys show that women are more likely to have short-term contracts or no contracts, to be employed part time or to work at home, whereas men are more likely to have full-time jobs with proper contracts, holidays, sick pay, occupational pensions and—importantly—more training opportunities.
Mrs. Gillan: I am pleased that the hon. Lady praises the work of Chwarae Teg, on which the fair play for women exercise was built by the previous Conservative Government. Does she share my hope that the Government will continue to support fair play for women in Wales and the rest of the country? We want a firm commitment from the Minister to back that.
Ms Morgan: The Government have already shown their commitment to Chwarae Teg and increased the range of its work enormously since coming to power last May.
Women in Wales earn three quarters of what men earn—even though men in Wales are among the lowest paid in Britain. Women in Wales are concentrated in certain sectors of employment, such as clerical,

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secretarial, sales, personal and protective services. There is a lack of women in top jobs. Unlike the Conservatives, I think that that is a great shame. The situation is worse in Wales than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Local government reorganisation made matters worse. There are no women leaders, and fewer women in chief positions. Only 24 per cent. of those on public bodies in Wales are women, compared with 33 per cent. in Britain as a whole. There are very few role models for women and girls in such jobs in Wales.
There is a huge untapped potential of women's skills and abilities in Wales, which the Government will release. The two most important ways to help do so are education and training and child care. There are already more women than men involved in further education in Wales. The same is happening in higher education. Many of those going into higher and further education are mature women with children. At the moment, relatives and friends care and provide for many of those children, but more women would be able to follow courses if there were child care facilities. The national trend for girls to achieve better results than boys at GCSE and A-level also applies in Wales, but the picture is different at NVQ level 3, which 32 per cent. of women are achieving, compared with 43 per cent. of men.
There has been an increase in child care facilities through Government initiatives such as the training and enterprise councils' out-of-school initiative. Such opportunities must be affordable for women to be able to take proper advantage of them. All the research shows that the majority of women who use the facilities—which have increased recently—have qualifications. The opportunities have not reached lower-paid women or lone parents. The funding has been used to pump-prime initiatives, which has meant that they have often not been sustainable. In areas of low income, longer-term funding is essential, going beyond the initial pump priming. I hope that the Government's money for child care will keep some such initiatives going, rather than just concentrating on new places.
Provision of pre-school child care is also important. The lone parents initiative, for which Cardiff is a pilot area, has shown that one of the barriers for women trying to gain work is the lack of child care facilities for pre-school children.
I have to wind up now because there is not much time left. Now is the time to recognise that child care is an integral and essential part of economic activity. We have one of the worst child care records in Europe. It is significant that no country with low child care costs has a low level of lone parent employment. Lone parents want to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves. I think that we shall tackle these issues in Wales and in Britain as a whole. This is an historic moment, as child care, the family and women form an essential part of the new Government's policies.
1.45 pm
Mr. Robert Syms: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), who is no longer in the Chamber, that it is important to conduct this debate in broad terms and not turn women's issues into a cul de sac. We can exclude no topic—not defence, foreign
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affairs or anything else—from a discussion of women's issues. All issues affect women, and it is important that we tackle those issues across Government. The previous Government recognised that fact by ensuring that a range of Ministers understood the needs of women, and I believe that this Government are doing the same. I think that that is a positive step forward.
Women have come a long way this century. As I said in my intervention during the speech of the hon. Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths), the general material well-being of this nation—and of women within it—has improved considerably in the past 20 years. At the beginning of the century, we debated whether women should have the vote, which was, rightly, conceded. We are now considering what role women should play in terms of combat and the armed services. Mention was made of the fact that women are playing a successful role in the United States armed forces. They have moved up the ranks and enjoy a high level of importance and responsibility within American society. I look forward to seeing more women playing an active role in our armed services in future.
The Conservative party has a good reputation in terms of female representation in this place: the first female Member of Parliament was Lady Astor, and Margaret Thatcher did an excellent job while serving for 11 years as our first woman Prime Minister. When I take tours around this splendid building, I am disappointed that most of the statues are of men.
Mrs. Gorman: All of them.
Mr. Syms: My hon. Friend may be correct, although there are some portraits of royal women. I look forward to the day when there will be statues of women as well and when the plinth in the Members' Lobby has a statue of Margaret Thatcher so that we may polish her foot before entering the Chamber.
Mr. Fabricant: Kiss her foot.
Mr. Syms: That is a good point.
Mrs. Gorman: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is time that we erected some memorial in this place to the suffragette movement? It is a disgrace that the only statue honouring that movement is parked in the gardens next door.
Mr. Syms: My hon. Friend makes a good point: I know that she is a doughty fighter for the rights of women. Women have had the vote for many years and I believe that the suffragettes should be honoured with a statue in this building—perhaps it could be erected next to the statue of Baroness Thatcher.
As to economic opportunities, women comprise 30 per cent. of the work force, and 12.3 million women are in work. Those figures are likely to increase substantially in future. In the early years of the next century, it is estimated that more than 50 per cent. of the work force will be women. Some 40 per cent. of corporate managers are likely to be women, as women are moving up the structures of many organisations and bodies. I recently visited Barclays International in Poole, which is a major centre. Although only one of the six managers

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there is a woman, most of those who will assume future top management posts within that organisation are women.
I believe that the previous Government's policies assisted the general position of women in this nation. However, I shall not provoke Labour Members by pursuing that point any further, as time is restricted.
I turn to several key subjects. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) mentioned independent taxation for married women, which was introduced by the previous Government. I hope that the Budget and the benefits review will not alter that important provision. We shall look carefully at the benefits review on 26 March and at the Budget on 17 March to see what changes have been made. It is important that the Government do not interfere with independent taxation for married women.
The Conservative party and many of us as Members with postbags are concerned about child benefit. It should not be means-tested or taxed. I receive many letters from constituents who are worried about what the Government have in mind. I hope that their fears are largely unfounded. The Government would be ill advised to change policy on child benefit.
On pensions, it has always been my view, even when my own Government were in office, that the state's contribution to widows' pensions is paltry. I hope that, in the benefit review, the Government consider a better standard of living to women who are left, sometimes at an early age, to be supported by the state because of inadequate provision.
On the broader issue of pensions, the Government's policies in the last Budget have not been helpful. The change in advance corporation tax regulations that will take £5 billion a year out of pension funds will make a considerable difference.
A matter of great current debate for women is the splitting of pensions on divorce which, as we all know, is all too prevalent. It is inevitable that, if the pool of pensions is diminished by changes to ACT policy, the sum will be smaller, however it is split. The Government's policy will make a substantial difference to people if they are unfortunate enough to get divorced, and pensions can be disaggregated.
University fees are another important aspect which has been mentioned. Many women have found opportunities through education, which has enabled them to find jobs and get on, sometimes better than men. The Government's policy on student fees is ill advised and will reduce the future investment of human capital. In deference to other hon. Members who wish to speak, I shall conclude with that.
1.50 pm
Mrs. Eileen Gordon: I am pleased to speak in the debate and to be the first woman Member of Parliament for Romford.
I congratulate the Government on the initiatives that they have already taken to put women at the heart of the Government's agenda. I particularly welcome the child care initiatives.
I went back to part-time teaching when my children went to school, and it was difficult to find facilities for the gap between the time that they finished school and the
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time that I finished work and could get home. Luckily, I had a good neighbour who helped me out, but the national child care strategy with its £300 million out-of-school initiative should make it much easier to find support of an excellent standard.
One of my other interests is the health service. I welcome the £50 million increase in staff training budgets. Many of the shortages of staff in the health service could be addressed by higher-quality training for nurses, who are quite capable of taking on much more responsibility, but have suffered from the attitude of some doctors and consultants and the "them and us" syndrome: "We are the doctors; you are only the nurses."
I welcome the boost of £2.15 million to nurse and midwife recruitment, and the reform of breast and cervical cancer screening to build and restore confidence in those services.
We are doing so much, and we have achieved a great deal, but there is still a long way to go, not only for the Government, but for society. For example, the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) mentioned the fact that Marylebone cricket club still excludes women from membership. I have been in the Long Room at Lord's. Of course it was a concession and it was on a ladies' cricket day, but one day, women will be there as a right, not as a concession. As one MCC member—not the hon. Gentleman—put it:
"I can't stand the thought of women putting up curtains in the pavilion and worrying about things like the wallpaper and colour schemes."
I am sure that, when women members get there, they will have much more important things on their mind, but I must say that it could do with a lick of paint.
This week, I spoke at a Rotary club meeting in Romford. I agreed to speak there only because the club has recently accepted its first woman member and has assured me that it is actively seeking more women members. Rotary has realised what the MCC has not—that, unless it adapts, it will die.
The constant drip over the centuries of being treated as second-class citizens has knocked women's confidence. In their minds, many women feel unequal and accept the limitations placed on them by men. Their work status has suffered because of the need to fit their activities around their children's lives. They have tended to take part-time, poorly paid, insecure work, and have been penalised for putting their children first. That must change, and it will change under this Government.
My sisters used to take the most awful jobs towards the end of the year because they wanted to buy their children something special for Christmas. One year—quite a while ago—they took a job in a bubble gum factory. The white coating on the bubble gum also coated them. The workers at the factory looked like demented snow women. They worked at a conveyor belt, which moved rather quickly. Their job—especially my sister Vera' s—was to sellotape the tops of the boxes as they came down the conveyor belt.
As I have said, the conveyor belt moved rather quickly. One of the workers fainted. She was dragged outside on to the grass and left there. The boxes were falling all around her and, as an act of protest, she taped herself to her machine, yelling for freedom. She soon got it, by mutual consent, I believe. For too long, women have had to put up with such conditions. Many of them had no choice and no voice.

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I believe that women took a giant step forward on 1 May 1997. That is because so many were elected to the House and because the vast majority were Labour. To me, a shared philosophy is even stronger than shared gender. I have not joined cross-party women's groups because, with due respect to women Conservative Members, I have never been interested in seeing more Tory or Liberal Democrat women elected to this place. That is something for their own parties to sort out.
We have our beliefs, and I believe that we can be good role models for women throughout the country. That is a great responsibility. Historically, women have had to fight to achieve equality. However, it is so annoying to most of us to have to make a point that is self-evident.
Mention has been made of the suffragette movement, and I hope that all women Members have made a pilgrimage to the store cupboard in the Chapel, where in 1911 Emily Davison hid away to try to get her name on the electoral register at this place. She later died under the hooves of the King's horse at the Derby, giving her life for her beliefs. We should remember those who went before us, who fought for rights that we now take for granted.
One of the biggest influences on my life was my father, who never patronised his three daughters. He always taught us to think that we were never better than anyone else, or worse. I have always tried to live by that and not make judgments about others because of gender, race or religion. I am saddened when people pass judgments about my views or appearance simply because I am a woman. Those who criticise or patronise because of gender should reflect on their own motivation and insecurity. If they would not make the same remarks about a man, their behaviour is unacceptable.
There is a great deal of hope in the young girls of today. My daughter and her female friends are confident, strong, and leading their own lives and making decisions for themselves. They are not dependent on men in their lives. Partnership, yes, but not patronage. Education, example and support are the ways forward.
The Government are determined to make women feel that they and their views are important. At the same time, the Government want to give women a support network that will enable them to make genuine choices about their lives. I am convinced that, as a result of the debate and the Government's future actions, women will feel that their interests are at the heart of the Government's concerns.
1.57 pm
Caroline Flint: In the three minutes allowed to me, I shall make a couple of brief points. Some of the male commentators are prone to make head counts of female Members, as did, sadly, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing). That being so, I declare a job share. My colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), is addressing a conference that I was to address, organised by the Doncaster domestic violence working party. Our mutual priorities are the same; we have divided our presence so that we may share the two opportunities to talk about domestic violence.
The Doncaster domestic violence working party plays a vital and largely unseen role, as do many agencies at local level, in supporting and protecting women and
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children who experience domestic violence. No reasons can excuse the hidden brutality of domestic violence. We know that insecurity at work, debt at home, poverty, alcohol and drug abuse and family histories of abuse all contribute to the risk of abusive behaviour developing and ruining the lives of too many women and their children.
In the past two years, the number of calls to the Doncaster Women's Aid advice line has risen fourfold, to 598 calls last year. The number of women and children who went to the Doncaster refuge is small compared to the number of families who do not manage to reach out and seek help.
It is easy to forget that the impact of violence and abuse on the woman is not just physical and psychological, but damages the children, who may carry the pattern of that abuse into other relationships in adulthood.
I commend the Minister on her bravery in giving priority to this area and on recognising that a cross-departmental approach at national level reflects the multi-agency approach which is required on the ground.
The Family Law Act 1996, which enables the removal of perpetrators of violence in the home, will, I hope, be complemented by greater powers to ensure that the police and the criminal justice system show greater sensitivity in their treatment of victims and vulnerable witnesses. Likewise, opportunities must be seized to identify and provide support to families where parents are experiencing stress.
Domestic violence has not been ignored, but there is much to be done. Too many women suffer in silence. I think that in this respect this Government will achieve what other Governments have not.
2 pm
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: I congratulate all the hon. Members who have spoken today. We have, I believe, managed to squeeze in 21 speeches from Back Benchers. The House will be interested to know that, by my reckoning, we have heard from a nurse, an educationist and lecturer, a radio station owner, two social workers, a lobbyist, two lawyers, a public relations consultant, two bankers, three teachers, a university lecturer and two journalists—
Mrs. Gorman: And an entrepreneur!
Mrs. Gillan: I am sorry; would my hon. Friend like to intervene?
We heard from a wide range of experience. I was surprised that, despite the wide-ranging debate, subjects that I thought would be raised were not. I was surprised not to hear comments from Labour Members about personal equity plans and tax-exempt special savings accounts. I am surprised that nobody mentioned the fact that, when the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill was brought before the House the other day—a Bill of particular interest to women—Government Whips had it talked out.
I am surprised that we did not talk about the plight of women in other countries, particularly "Platform for Action"; that there was little, if any, mention of pornography and, indeed, the high rate of teenage pregnancies. However, I am delighted that the Government found time for this debate, even though it

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has been relegated to a Friday, when some Labour Members were not able to attend. I am truly sorry that we did not hear from them.
Today may be a parliamentary first. While this debate is taking place, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare is promoting his Bill on succession to the Crown, which seeks to remove any distinction between the sexes in determining succession. This could be the first time that women have been the focus of simultaneous debates in both Houses. I hope that the Government will support my noble Friend's Bill.
I echo the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) when she welcomed hon. Ladies to the House. I, too, am pleased to see the greater participation of women from all walks of life, and all trades and professions, not least in the House. I hope that, despite the political divide that is obvious between the Front Benches, hon. Ladies on the Government Benches will take my welcome in the spirit in which it is meant.
There was a contrast between the Secretary of State's opening speech for the Government—which I thought was trivial, containing only one announcement of yet another talking shop—and the excellent speeches that we heard from the Back Benches.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons) is a great campaigner in her own right, but she started badly by completely misunderstanding a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk. I hope that she is now more enlightened about disaggregated statistics.
One of the hon. Lady's own points was totally wrong, too. I should have thought that she would at least acknowledge the fact that my right hon. Friend and I started mainstreaming and had it cleared at Cabinet level. Mainstreaming passed into every Government Department, so that every piece of legislation was scrutinised for gender impact. I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not acknowledge the work that was done, especially by my right hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) made a statesmanlike speech, skilfully outlining the variety of opportunities open to women today. She reminded us of the arrogance that working women sometimes have, and the way in which they sometimes look down on women who just stay at home. I believe, as she does, that women who stay at home provide a valuable service both to their children and families and to life in this country.
My hon. Friend echoed my view—a view held by many of my hon. Friends and also, I believe, by many Labour Members—that flexible working arrangements are essential if women are to get on. Term-time mums, home working, teleworking and part-time work were all part of the theme of her contribution.
The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) sought to criticise the Conservative party for its record of female participation in Europe. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne rightly said in an intervention, she has played a role herself, on the Council of Europe—and the hon. Member for Stourbridge had better not repeat her accusation in the hearing of Dame Jill Knight or Dame Peggy Fenner, lately of this House, both of whom have provided the House and the country with great service.
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The hon. Lady also spoke about the problems involved in rape cases, and I am sure that many of her words on that subject would be echoed by my hon. Friends.
The hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) spoke about mainstreaming. Sadly, I felt that she was another hon. Member who was not entirely familiar with the previous Government's provisions in that area. I hope that, after my speech, people will at least know that mainstreaming was indeed a main theme of the Conservative Government's policies towards women.
The hon. Lady struck a chord with me when she spoke of the plight of women who work from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. She reminded me that we should all take our hats off to those of the women who serve in this place who have young families. I do not have a family myself, but there is no doubt that those people make a valuable contribution, and have an awful lot of work on their hands.
The hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) said that she was jet-lagged, so I am glad to see her still in her place, although we would have understood if she had gone home. She reminded us that being a night nurse, a mother and a councillor is a bit like feeling jet-lagged, and there was great sympathy with what she said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), who was the first Conservative male to make a contribution, made a valiant attempt to strike the gender balance. He drew our attention to the worrying statistics on the performance of boys at school, especially in GCSE and A-level results. Those should concern the Government, as they concerned my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk and me when we were both at the Department for Education and Employment.
My hon. Friend also spoke about teleworking, something on which I am keen, especially since a delegation came to see me. I believe that that form of working will grow dramatically and benefit men and women.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm) spoke about child care and lone parent benefits. He resigned from the Government over the issue of lone parent benefit, and I take my hat off to him for sticking to his principles. It is a pity that his colleagues do not follow his lead.
My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) always talks a great deal of common sense. Not a sound was heard when she gave us her views on education and working women, and there was not a dry eye in the House when she reminded us of the plight of older women. I hope that she will not mind my saying that she is for ever young in this House. When my hon. Friend urged us to consider older women, she was derided by Labour Members. I hope that that was just fun and games, because older women deserve sincere consideration from both sides of the House.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) made an excellent contribution on the problems of her Asian women constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) spoke fluently about independent taxation. The doubts over Government policies that she raised should be carefully examined by the Ministers for women.
When the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes) said that work was perhaps the only way in which a woman could prove herself, I began to listen to

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her speech more carefully. I advise her to talk to Full Time Mothers, an organisation that believes that the Government are putting tremendous pressure on women to go out to work. It has made valid points that merit examination. However, I am grateful for her support on adoption measures, and I should be happy for them to be pursued.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) made an excellent speech that put the gender balance fairly and squarely back in the middle. He expressed great regret about the MCC decision not to admit women members, but the Royal Automobile Club, of which I am a family member, has just voted to allow women members.
My hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) and for Poole (Mr. Syms) made sterling contributions. We also heard from the hon. Members for Romford (Mrs. Gordon), for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan), for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mrs. McKenna) and for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths). I hope that they will forgive me for not commenting on their speeches in detail. I am sure that the Minister for women will refer to them.
I feel rather sorry for the Minister for women. Like many other hopefuls, on 2 May last year she would have been waiting for the famous call from Downing street asking her to be a junior Minister. But that call did not come until six weeks later, on 11 June, because women were certainly not the Government's priority. The call was an afterthought, made when the Prime Minister remembered, or was reminded, that the Labour party had made so many promises to women that it had better find someone to do the job.
The hon. Lady is doing a ministerial job without ministerial pay. What on earth does that say about the Government's priorities for women? It sends out the wrong signal: a woman can be appointed at a rate below that of her male colleagues. The Government appear willing to spend more on the Lord Chancellor's wallpaper than on a Minister for women.
The hon. Lady has said that her pay is a technical matter. I invite her to take her case to the employment appeals tribunal. If her pay is a technical matter, what signal is going out to women who go to the tribunal over pay discrimination in the workplace? Will they be told that the Prime Minister thinks that pay is a technical matter and that even the Minister for women is paid less than male Ministers?
To say the least, the Government's arrangements for ministerial responsibility got off to a rocky start. For years, the Labour party told us that there would be not only a Minister for women in the Cabinet, but a Ministry for women. That proposal was watered down so much that today we have a Secretary of State with full responsibility and a Minister for women without pay.
The Secretary of State has made much of the fresh approach to women. That is totally inaccurate and I must put the record right. The right hon. Lady says that she has announced a new Cabinet Sub-Committee and a new women's unit and that she is producing a new child care strategy. There is nothing new about child care strategy.
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I have here the paper, "Work and Family: Ideas and Options for Child Care", which the Conservative Government issued nearly two years ago.
In her reply, will the Minister for women confirm that this Government's child care strategy paper has been delayed from October to November to February and, now, until after the Budget and that it is merely a consultation paper, which will look similar to that produced by the previous Government? Will she also confirm that tax breaks for employers will continue and will not be attacked by the Chancellor in the next Budget? Will she confirm that she has looked into the Kids Club Network and the Child Care Voucher Ltd.'s scheme—the out-of-school voucher? Will she confirm that the Inland Revenue will be taxing that under this Government?
This has been a good debate, but it raises serious doubts over the Government's priorities for women, which they so loudly espouse. Women are not pleased with this Government's performance. Like many hon. Members, in recent months I have been flooded with letters from women concerned about taxes on private pensions, personal equity plans and tax-exempt special savings accounts, mortgage rises, student fees and the rises in hospital waiting lists. Indeed, I have even received a letter from the Women's National Commission, which represents 50 non-governmental organisations. It is deeply disappointed in the Government's performance and says:
"We looked to this Government to deliver a great deal for women. Our expectations have not yet been fulfilled."
That is an indictment of this Government and I hope that, when the Minister stands at the Dispatch Box, she will feel ashamed that the Women's National Commission has already condemned the Government's performance.
2.16 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): This has been an excellent debate—I am tempted to add, without the speech we have just heard, but there we are—which has clearly shown that the interests of women are being brought to the heart of Government. We have heard passionate arguments, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons), who made a case for testing all policies against the gender impact and the centrality of women's contributions to our economy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) mentioned the treatment of rape victims. The House should be aware of the work being done in the Home Office on vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, and the concern about the falling conviction rate for those charged with rape.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) mentioned the important question of the difficulties experienced by Asian women, and the need for special awareness. We acknowledge the double disadvantage that comes of both gender and race, and I meet many ethnic minority groups to hear their case.
We have heard strong arguments in support of women's advancement and opportunity. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) mentioned women in the armed forces, particularly in the United States. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has already decided to widen the opportunities for women in our armed forces.

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The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who is always great value in this House, talked of many things, including the serious matter of unwanted teenage pregnancies. My hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health has set up a task group and is studying that issue seriously, as it is of great concern to this Government, and we intend to tackle it.
From many women Members we heard the woman's perspective on key areas of Government policy, including a speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes) on the important contribution of family friendly employment strategies to the needs of women. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) gave an example of good practice in her constituency. The Government are taking forward all those concerns about balancing work and parenting in our dialogue with women and, indeed, with employers.
Our male colleagues expressed their concern about continuing inequalities, although the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) seemed to have great difficulty understanding how inequality should be addressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm) paid fulsome tribute to the work of the Ministers for women, clearly understanding the way in which we work across Government and, indeed, often behind the scenes. He spoke about violence against women, which we shall tackle in the national strategy that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced. I can assure him that, in putting together that strategy, we shall consult organisations such as the Zero Tolerance Trust.
The fact has clearly come across that, although women and men may share the same values and objectives, women's lives have a different pattern from men's. That was graphically illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan), whom I join in seeking improvements for women in Wales.
In her opening remarks, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for women demonstrated the breadth of Government policy where women's interests are clearly to the fore. From education to health, and from employment to child care, she outlined our strategy for fulfilling the promises that we made to the women of this country. Questions have been raised on a number of those issues, to which I shall respond in due course.
First, I shall give a brief account of how the priorities for women that we have established in our domestic agenda relate to our international obligations. Under Britain's presidency of the European Union, the Government have a unique opportunity to bring women's perspectives to the heart of Europe. Our various initiatives are designed not as one-off meetings, but as a means of driving forward the women's agenda throughout the European Union.
In Glasgow in April, our conference theme will be the organisation of work. Employers, trade unions and Governments will be able to share best practice and consider how they can facilitate and foster a better balance between work and family life. In Belfast in May, the theme will be employability and the importance of child care. Ministers for women across member states will be able to examine progress on this most fundamental issue for women.
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Not only are we putting women's priorities on the European agenda, but, for the first time, we will be able to say with pride in Europe that we have a Green Paper on a national child care strategy.
Mrs. Gillan: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Ruddock: No. The hon. Lady took some of my time—she cannot have more.
Although the United Kingdom has lagged behind in the child care league tables, the Government are taking the lead in developing the employment action plans that were discussed in the Luxembourg summit. Here, too, we are ensuring that equal opportunities feature strongly, and we are making up for lost time.
Mrs. Gillan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I ask your advice. I believe that I heard the Minister say that, for the first time, there would be a Green Paper on child care. The previous Conservative Government produced a Green Paper—a consultation paper. Is it in order for the hon. Lady to mislead the House in this fashion?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair.
Ms Ruddock: It is clearly the first time for us. The Government have a Green Paper, and the difference between the Government and the previous Conservative Government is that we intend to have a national strategy.
By incorporating the social chapter, we are making up for lost time. As many hon. Members have noted, the long-hours culture is endemic in Britain: a quarter of all fathers work more than 50 hours a week. That is why the working time directive will be important to British families and why we are consulting on its implementation.
The part-time work and parental leave directive will also benefit women, by raising the standard of part-time work and encouraging the development of good part-time opportunities. The directive will also give women and their partners the right to three months' unpaid leave when their child is born or adopted. For the first time, women and men will be able to take time off for urgent family reasons without the threat of losing their jobs.
In these and other ways, the Government are ensuring that Europe delivers for the women of Britain. In seeking to improve our lives in this country and throughout the rest of Europe, we must not lose sight of the condition of the majority of the women in the world.
International Women's Day on 8 March has always been a time both to celebrate women's achievements and to mark women's oppression in those countries where women's human rights continue to be violated. This year, the European Parliament has called on the international community to make an appeal on behalf of the women of Afghanistan. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has signed that appeal on behalf of our Government.
Next week, I shall lead, with pride, the United Kingdom delegation to the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and I will speak for the European Union. We will follow up the global platform for action to which the hon. Member

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for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) referred, and will try to give momentum to the painstaking process of advancing women's rights throughout the world.
One topic to be followed up is violence against women. I shall say that the European Union believes that violence against women is an obstacle to equality and development, and that it should be recognised for the crime it is. Today's debate makes it clear that, in taking that message to New York, I shall have the support of the House. I shall also be able to tell participants that we are using our presidency of the European Union to begin planning for a Europewide consciousness-raising programme on violence against women for the latter part of next year.
I turn now to some of the questions raised in the debate. The hon. Members for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) and for Billericay, among others, asked about tax reliefs for child care. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already indicated the direction of his thinking, and, through the working family tax credit, he will provide help for all working families on low incomes. The hon. Member for Taunton also asked whether the working family tax credit would be payable to the person who pays for child care rather than the highest wage earner. When the working family tax credit is introduced, families will be able to elect to whom the credit is paid.
The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), in a serious contribution, raised many taxation issues. I can tell her that there will be no return to the world in which women were treated as men's chattels in tax law. However, she will be aware that most of the other matters she raised are all speculation and she will not seriously expect me to respond to them today. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) raised the question of payment for the contraceptive pill. No such proposal is currently under consideration.
The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) and the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) raised questions about accountability and representation. I wish to make it clear that I have answered more questions on women's issues in the nine months that I have been Minister for women than she and her colleagues answered in the whole of the time that they were in government. I note also that the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk, who made so much of the point, has never tabled a question on women to myself or to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security.
As for representation, although we acknowledge the previous Government's attempts to improve the representation of women, only one third of public appointments go to women. Therefore, we know that there
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is much to be done. We intend to do it, and our women's unit is working with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments to devise a joint strategy. I endorse everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mrs. McKenna) about the representation of women in the Scottish Parliament.
Many of my hon. Friends here today will be disappointed that they have been unable to contribute to the debate. It is a testament to the fact that we consider the issues of such great importance that so many of my hon. Friends have made the time to be here on a Friday and to seek to contribute.
Mrs. Gillan: The Minister has been passed a note to say that she is running out of time.
Ms Ruddock: It says, "Keep going," and I intend to do so.
The richness and variety of this debate are testimony of the importance that the Government and the House give to women.
In the past 10 months, we have come a long way in addressing our priorities. The Green Paper on child care, the national strategy on violence against women and the proposals for women's juries show how much can be done by taking a cross-Government approach to issues of concern to women in a new and innovative way. We plan to do much more, as we continue to tackle women's inequality and develop policies that will improve all our lives.
The shadow Leader of the House said that we should be judged by what we achieve, not what we intend. We are happy to be so judged. That is why we are reaching out to all policy makers through mainstreaming to ensure that they take account of the needs and views of women. Only in that way can we move away from the idea that women's concerns are secondary or separate, as some hon. Members have suggested. As the debate showed, women's concerns are wide-ranging and a part of the mainstream debate and of the policies of this Government. In celebrating international women's day—
It being half-past Two o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at the sitting on Thursday 5th March, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Community documents), the Speaker shall put the Question on the Motion in the name of Mr. Secretary Straw relating to the Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism not later than three hours after the start of proceedings thereon; and the said Motion may be proceeded with, though opposed, after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]

Housing Subsidy
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
2.30 pm
Mr. Austin Mitchell: This is an exciting moment for the really important debate. I am grateful that it has such a peak-time slot.
I begin with an apology. I do not regard myself as an expert on housing matters or council housing. I stand in awe of the Minister for London and Construction, who has made a formidable contribution on those matters, both in opposition and now in government. It is always better to begin by buttering up Ministers as a path to power: new Labour, new unctuousness.
I feel inadequate to deal with the issue but it is right to raise it, because I know a real injustice when I see one and this is one. The system was introduced by the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Once a council housing account is in surplus—and more and more of them are as rents go up and the debt burden is paid off—housing benefit, or rent rebate as it is known to council tenants, is paid out of the housing revenue pool. That is monstrous, because it does not apply to private or housing association tenants. Their housing benefit, known to them as rent allowance, is paid by the Treasury.
How is it right to maintain a distinction between council tenants, who carry each other's burdens, and other tenants? It is an iniquitous principle because it means that council house tenants are taxed twice. They are taxed once for national revenue to make their contribution to the housing benefit of private tenants, and taxed again through the rates to contribute to the housing benefit of council house tenants under the same local authority. That is double taxation, and it is not a small amount.
The following calculations are from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy's housing revenue statistics for 1997. In North-East Lincolnshire, every tenant pays £2.91 a week on their rent to pay the housing benefit of other council tenants. That is the smallest contribution in Humberside. In North Lincolnshire, our neighbouring authority, the weekly amount paid for housing benefit for other tenants is £6.58. In the East Riding of Yorkshire, double taxation of council tenants is £13.89 a week.
We cannot fairly maintain such an iniquitous burden. It encourages hatred and antagonism between tenants; it is divisive. Why should tenants pay it? Whatever Conservatives have claimed in the past, when they portrayed council tenants as rolling in money, council tenants' wages are about half the average wage. They are the poor of this society, and the gap is widening. We are effectively asking the poor to subsidise the poorest—council tenants in receipt of housing benefit. How can the Minister justify that? How can I? How can the Labour party? The simple answer which I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give us today is that none of us can.
The measure was introduced in 1989 by that beneficent force for social advance and promotion of council housing and local government known as the Conservative Government. We opposed it then. My right hon. Friend
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the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), then the shadow spokesman for the environment, now the Minister of Agriculture, said when the Bill was introduced:
"I have made the point once, but I make it again, that we fundamentally oppose the new housing finance proposals which will require council house tenants effectively to pay an additional tax to subsidise the poll tax and housing benefit. That is a major departure from the policy followed by all previous Governments."—[Official Report, 14 February 1989; Vol. 147, c. 186.]
An abuse then is an abuse now. I realise that we opposed many abuses in our time when the Conservative Government were in power, but they have to be put right. I accept that it is a staged process and one cannot do it all at once, but we have to commit ourselves to the principle of putting right those abuses. It is necessary, especially as the abuse has grown since 1990.
Since 1990, council tenants have been bilked of £6 billion to pay the housing benefit of other council tenants. This year, it amounts to £1,000 a year on the rent of each working council house tenant. It applies to more and more authorities. My hon. Friend the Minister gave me some statistics in a parliamentary answer. It now applies to 80 per cent. of authorities and is more and more a cross-subsidy. I calculate it at £1.3 billion. In an answer to me, my hon. Friend the Minister put it at £1.22 billion, but that is still a huge figure.
In North Lincolnshire, my local authority, the cross-subsidy is £1.5 million this year, and it estimates that it will be £2.4 million next year. Rents have been pushed up since the measure was introduced in 1990. The cross-subsidy is the major reason why council rents have been pushed up. They have gone up 50 per cent. in real terms in the past 10 years. In London they have gone up by 70 per cent. The main reason for that is the need to subsidise the housing benefit of the poorest tenants.
I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to comment on a problem area. Council housing is surely social housing allocated according to need, yet there seems to be constant pressure in the Department—it was certainly strong when the Conservatives were in power—to gear it to the market. There is an argument in the Department as to whether affordability is a relevant concept in setting rents in the social housing sector, or whether rent setting is about providing price signals to encourage the efficient allocation of resources.
I hope that the Minister will tell us about that argument in his Department, because I think that it is a real one. It looks as though senior people in the Department want to price council housing at economic rents so that market forces will operate, and so that old ladies who occupy too much space will be forced out into smaller accommodation.
Mrs. Jackie Ballard: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the policy was introduced by a Government who were antagonistic to local authority housing and that their intention was deliberately to push up rents to persuade council tenants that they would be better off agreeing to large-scale voluntary transfer of the housing stock or moving into housing association or other housing? One of the Conservative Government's weapons in their effort to destroy local authorities was getting rid of housing stock. That is what drove the policy. Does the

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hon. Gentleman agree that the new Government have a different attitude to local authorities—I hope—and will take the first opportunity to reverse the policy?
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Lady is absolutely right—I agree with her 100 per cent. That was done by a Government who wanted to make council housing odious and unpopular and to force people out.
That is not the attitude of the current Government, which is why we should try to reverse the policies resulting from that attitude. In particular, we should get rid of the notion that there should an economic pricing mechanism for council housing and that it is legitimate to keep pushing council rents to the market level. My hon. Friend the Minister hinted that he was thinking along those lines in his letter to me on 4 February and I hope that he will disavow any such intention today, because it is absolutely wrong. Council housing is about social need, and we cannot continue to push up rents.
Council housing is efficiently allocated in the light of the responsibility to meet needs, and it is efficiently used. The nature of the private housing market is boom or bust: there can be huge backlogs of empty properties and of people who want to move. Council housing allocation is extremely efficient by comparison. We cannot keep pushing council rents up to market levels, as the guidelines imposed by the Department have so consistently done. In my view, it costs to do so, because each time prices are raised, it costs more in subsidies and support.
If that burden of rent rebates to council house tenants were to be taken on by the Government and paid for out of public finance—as it should be—it would serve as a deterrent to the Department's activities in raising rents. That is another reason why we should do it. In answer to a written question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin), the Minister wrote that reducing the guideline rents by 10 per cent. would cost about £5.8 billion, but save £4.4 billion in rebates and £1.3 billion in retail prices index-related public expenditure. In other words, the net public expenditure cost of reducing council rents by 10 per cent. would be £100 million. If that is all it would cost, why on earth does the Minister not do it?
That would tie in beautifully with the Government's welfare-to-work proposals by removing a poverty trap at one fell swoop. It would encourage people to go out to work and make them less dependent on benefit. The briefing report by the London Housing Unit makes the point succinctly:
"A gearing effect means that a given level of rent reduction has a disproportionate impact on the amount of gross income needed for people to get out of benefit. For example, a tenant household paying a rent of £41 a week (the average rent for council tenants in England in 1997/8) would need to earn about £30 gross less per week in order to avoid the poverty trap if their rent was reduced by just £4 per week."
Those are compelling statistics. I hope that the Minister can confirm them and tell us why we do not go down that road and remove the disincentive to work. If the Minister listens to me as assiduously as he attends to his departmental work—he is a most assiduous and hard-working Minister—I could boost his career prospects at one fell swoop by this major contribution to the new deal and welfare to work.
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What should we do about the system? We should scrap it and pay the £1.3 billion or the £1.22 billion from the Exchequer. At present, the Government are actually making a profit on council housing. As the stock deteriorates, the Government are milking the assets, but they are making a profit of about £700 million, and that is iniquitous.
Benefits would flow from scrapping the system, paying to reduce council house rents out of national revenues, and giving the councils extra money in their housing accounts to spend on reducing the huge—£19 billion—backlog of repairs. That figure comes from a housing conditions survey some years ago. Councils cannot do those repairs because they lack the money—and we are taking money to pay benefits.
We are creating council house ghettos. People from North East Lincolnshire write to me and say, "Our estate is a ghetto." That letter came from Yarborough. I have had similar accusations from The Grange—yet North East Lincolnshire is a very good authority. All over the country there are ghettos—which the social exclusion unit should pay prime attention to—which need the money that could be made available.
Enormous economic benefits would result from an expansion of house building and improvements to council house stock—things which must be done. Increased economic activity would result.
The Minister is a very sensible man—I am pursuing the Hartlepool path to progress—and I hope that he will take up my idea. Sadly, it is not in the nature of Adjournment debates that he will say, "My God—you are right. Why didn't I think of this? We shall do it as soon as I get back across the road to my Department." However, I hope that he will say that this is a temporary situation, which is imposed on us by the commitment to the Clarke spending totals for two years, but that, after that, something will be done about it.
The answers that the Minister gave me in the letter of 4 February were the kind of stock holding replies that are sent out by any Department on any question. If there was a proposal to raze all council housing to the ground, departmental officials could put up a good case for it. They might say that it would remove at a stroke all unfairness of allocation because there would be no council houses to allocate, and that there would be many other side benefits. The arguments in that letter were of that ilk. It was a "Yes, Minister" type of letter.
The Minister is an honest Minister, and I hope that he takes note of my arguments. I hope that he will answer a central question, which I want to ask him in conclusion—I apologise to him for having gone on slightly too long. My question is: is this fair?
2.46 pm
Mr. Kerry Pollard: I shall be very brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) painted a national picture. I agree with everything that he said. I promise that I shall take only two minutes to draw attention to the fact that even in my constituency, St. Albans—a shire city, one of the wealthiest cities in the land—we have a housing benefit problem.
This morning, I received some figures from the housing office. I calculate that in St. Albans we have lost £40 million in rent subsidy since the present policy

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started, in 1990–91. Even in wealthy St. Albans, where house building and land are expensive, we could have used that money to build 1,000 new homes, which would have reduced our waiting list by half.
We have 6,000 tenancies, and 3,571 of those tenants are currently on housing benefit, which means that 45 per cent. are subsidising 55 per cent. A smaller number is subsidising a larger number—this year, to the tune of more than £7 million.
Dignity is an important aspect of this. People should not have to go begging by application form. There is a need for dignity and fairness. The poorest should not be subsidising the very poor.
2.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on securing the debate and using it to raise a matter of real importance, which I know is of concern to many hon. Members and to local authorities and tenants throughout the country. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about this issue. He has been diligent in ensuring that it receives the attention that it deserves, and his early-day motion on the issue has attracted significant support. I thank him for his kind comments about me. I also noted the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard), who made an important and short contribution to the debate.
We have received a large volume of correspondence on this issue from hon. Members and individual council tenants. In replying to the debate, I want to shine some light on the Government's policy in this area. I intend to show that the Government's policy and our approach are entirely correct and proper. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby will accept that.
It may help if I explain briefly the system for subsidising council housing in England. The present system was established in 1990, by the previous Government. It pays subsidy to housing authorities to help them meet the costs of repairing and maintaining their housing stock, and it helps them meet the costs of their tenants' rebates. The calculation of that subsidy takes into account the costs of financing capital investment in the housing revenue account and notional rental income.
Under the present system, an authority's entitlement to subsidy is based on the housing element and the rebate element added together. Under the previous system, rent rebate subsidy was almost entirely funded by the Exchequer and was paid solely to meet the cost of housing benefit for council tenants. It may help if I briefly explain the system of housing subsidy before 1990, when the current system was introduced.
In the 1980s, the housing subsidy system involved assumptions about the level of rent income and the costs of managing, maintaining and servicing debt. The aim of the system was to estimate the subsidy that each council required if rent income fell short of reasonable costs. The system introduced the notional subsidy calculation for each authority. It used assumptions about rent levels and costs rather than using the real figures from the authorities' accounts.
It became apparent that many authorities no longer required the subsidy, because notional rents covered all the eligible costs. At the end of the 1980s, only around
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100 councils were still in subsidy, with their housing costs, net of notional rent income, met by the Exchequer. The rest, who were in surplus, were able to keep their surpluses and could transfer them out of the housing revenue account to spend on other services, which was not fair to tenants.
It has always been difficult for the Government to control surpluses in housing subsidy and ensure that they are channelled to meet pressing housing needs. In pursuit of that aim—although they also had other motives—the previous Government introduced measures in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to bring rent rebates into the HRA and the subsidy calculation. Under the Act, any surplus from the basic notional calculation of rents, minus landlord costs, could be set against the Exchequer cost of rent rebates. The previous Government argued that the saving to the Exchequer could be diverted to other housing uses. However, that was not reflected in increased investment. In 1993–94, total public expenditure on housing in England was around £5 billion. In the current financial year, it is only £3.3 billion. The capital receipts initiative had started to redress that decline in planned spending.
The policy of netting off landlord surpluses against rent rebates has, not surprisingly, been unpopular with authorities, which regard it as depriving them of a valuable source of funds. The policy is often considered to result in those tenants not on rebates having to pay part of the rents of poorer tenants who are granted rebates.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and the hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) said, it was unquestionably an objective of the previous Tory Government to force council rents up towards market levels. That policy was abandoned in 1995, because even the Conservatives recognised the consequences of the huge increase in the cost of housing benefit that flowed from it. My hon. Friend quoted the figures showing the small cost difference between what is produced by an increase or reduction in rent and the net effect to the Exchequer, because so much is offset by housing benefit. That clearly shows the mess that the previous Government got into with their policy of trying to force council tenants to pay market rents.
We have a different approach. We have no intention of forcing council rents up to market levels. That would be wrong and inconsistent with our policy of work incentives, because it would create problems of increased dependence on benefit and increased poverty traps. We are considering rent structures and the different subsidy systems that operate in different sectors.
We should not forget that average rents for local authority housing are £41 a week. That is lower than the figure for any other housing sector. While there is no similar subsidy arrangement for housing association or private tenants to that which takes back some of the cost of rent rebate subsidy for council tenants, the average rent levels paid by housing association and private tenants are significantly higher than those paid by council tenants.
Mr. Mitchell: This is the old silly argument. Council tenants are poorer: they receive half the average wage. There is more need, and the housing is allocated for social purposes.
Mr. Raynsford: At present, the average person who is allocated housing by a housing association or registered

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social landlord has economic and social characteristics similar to those who are allocated council housing. That is not surprising, because the vast majority of nominations must come from the council waiting list, so we are talking about people in similar circumstances.
In my hon. Friend's local authority area of North East Lincolnshire, council tenants pay an average weekly rent of £33.73 this year. People with new housing association assured tenancies pay an average of £48.70 a week. So there is a considerable difference between housing association rents and council rents. Private tenants in my hon. Friend's area do even worse: they pay an average of £55.51 each week. The pattern of rents nationally is much the same.
The level of Government subsidy that council tenants benefit from is understated. Although rent income within an authority's housing revenue account is shown at current value, a large element of expenditure—including interest charges on housing debt—reflects only the historic value of the debt. The interest charges, and consequently tenants' rents, do not fully reflect the current replacement value of the housing stock, let alone a market level of return on capital. In this respect, council tenants have a significant advantage compared with housing association or private tenants whose rents must reflect the market levels.
It is very difficult to draw simple comparisons between the different subsidy regimes that apply to council tenants as against housing association and private tenants receiving rent allowances. The common factor between rent rebates and rent allowances is that both are designed to protect those least able to pay. The tenant's entitlement to benefit is the same whether that tenant lives in a council house or a housing association property. Therefore, council tenants do not get a raw deal compared with housing association tenants. They receive substantial help with their housing costs from central Government, totalling some £3.8 billion in 1997–98.
Another argument often advanced—my hon. Friend alluded to it—by local authorities that are unhappy about the present regime is that it limits their ability to invest some of the surpluses from housing on maintaining or improving their housing stock. We recognise that there has been under-investment in housing stock in the past. That is why one of the first moves the new Government made was to make available through the capital receipts initiative nearly £750 million pounds of additional resources for investment in housing and housing-related regeneration in England this year and next.
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From this total, North East Lincolnshire—covering my hon. Friend's constituency—will receive £324,000 this year and just over £1 million next year. Those sums are in addition to other allocations in respect of the authority's housing investment programme. I am sure that my hon. Friend, like many other Members whose authorities benefit from the capital receipts initiative, welcomes this initiative, which will help us to fulfil our manifesto commitment to reverse the serious problem of under-investment.
The argument that a change to the current arrangements for housing revenue account subsidy will release additional funds for investment has one fundamental flaw: the cost. It would have a price tag of about £1.3 billion. The Government's ability to target resources for housing investment would be reduced because that £1.3 billion would have to be compensated by savings elsewhere, given our commitment—which my hon. Friend recognised—to living within the inherited financial framework. That is the position we have adopted, and that is why we cannot reverse this decision in the immediate future.
However, I put it to my hon. Friend that we are aware of the many anomalies that exist within the framework for housing subsidies and that affect rent levels, and, in the context of our comprehensive spending review, we are making a careful study of all the implications of those different subsidy arrangements. We hope to draw some conclusions by the summer, and we shall publish proposals at that stage. We shall aim to ensure that there is a more coherent pattern of rents for those renting from landlords in the public and social housing sectors, and that those rents relate to people's ability to pay.
The Government are very concerned to avoid the problems of poverty traps and work disincentives that impact adversely on many low-income householders who rent their homes from local authorities, housing associations and private landlords. It is important that we have a rent and subsidy system that addresses the problems of benefit dependency and disincentives to work, as well as creating a framework for genuine fairness between tenants.
I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that these issues are not easily addressed. We shall consider them carefully before we reach firm conclusions about taking forward the arrangements. As I have said, we shall make our proposals clear in the context of conclusions from the comprehensive spending review later this year.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Three o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Modification) Order 1998
Lord Hoyle Lord Hoyle rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 15th January be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The purpose of this order is to bring under the controls of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 six previously uncontrolled substances—namely, aminorex, brotizolam, etryptamine, mesocarb, methcathinone and zipeprol.
The order is necessary to enable the United Kingdom to comply with a decision made by the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs to control the six substances under the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
Four of the substances—aminorex, brotizolam, mesocarb and zipeprol—have medicinal uses. They are used as medicines in other countries but are not currently licensed for use as medicines in the United Kingdom. The other two substances—etryptamine and methcathinone—have no recognised medicinal uses.
All six substances have abuse liability and are potentially attractive to drug misusers. There have been a few reports of the misuse of methcathinone in the United Kingdom, but no evidence that any of the other five substances is currently misused here.
Before an order of this kind is brought before Parliament for approval, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 requires that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the expert body which advises the Government on drugs issues, is consulted. The council has been consulted and has advised on the measure.
The order proposes that etryptamine be added to the list of controlled drugs specified as Class A in Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act; that methcathinone and zipeprol be added to the list of controlled drugs specified as Class B; and that aminorex, brotizolam and mesocarb be added to the list of substances specified as Class C.
Subject to the order being approved, the Government would then intend to lay before the House amendment regulations to bring the six drugs under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1985. These regulations will provide the regime of control over them. Here again, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has given its advice, which the Government have followed. The changes would, as your Lordships will have seen from the draft order, take effect from 1st May.
The amendment regulations to which I have just referred will also increase the regime of control on the drug flunitrazepam, or Rohypnol, the drug which has
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been referred to in the press as the "date rape drug". I am glad to be able to tell the House that, notwithstanding that appellation, the Forensic Science Service has found very little evidence of its use in that way. It is already controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act and as a result is not covered in the modification order which is before the House.
The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs decided—at the same time as it made recommendations relating to the six substances which are the subject of the modification order—that flunitrazepam should be subject to a stricter regime of control under the UN convention. The amendment regulations which the Government propose to lay shortly will provide for the drug to be transferred from Schedule 4 to Schedule 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1985, imposing stricter controls on the drug in compliance with those now required by the UN convention. The effect will be to make it an offence to possess the drug without lawful authority, apply import and export controls, and require the drug to be stored securely in warehouses and pharmacies.
So far as the United Kingdom is concerned the order is essentially a pre-emptive measure enabling us to comply with our international obligations. It will help to protect the United Kingdom from the misuse of these drugs. I commend the order to the House.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 15th January be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Hoyle.)
Baroness Anelay of St. Johns: My Lords, as the Minister said, the order adds six substances to Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 which specifies drugs which are subject to control under that Act. I am more than usually grateful to the noble Lord for rehearsing the pronunciation of all those drugs. As a result—thank goodness!—I shall not even attempt to do so.
We on these Benches support every effort of the Government to prevent, and to prosecute, the abuse and misuse of drugs. I say straightaway that we shall not oppose the making of the order but, as I was reminded in another discussion with regard to the Social Security Bill, where there is consensus between the main parties it is sometimes all the more important that we test the reasons why we are making changes and the necessity for adding to regulations.
It was in that spirit that I gave notice to the Minister before today that I would raise a question about the relevance of the Medicines Act in relation to just three of the drugs, which he expertly pronounced, to be added under the order as Class C drugs. I did so simply to give the Government the opportunity to say whether they had considered whether these three drugs were already sufficiently covered by the provisions of the Medicines Act and therefore did not need to be included in the Order. I assume from the fact that the three drugs are associated with Class C drugs in the order that they give rise to a very low level of risk of criminal misuse or abuse and that the Medicines Act may be an appropriate vehicle for prosecuting their misuse. That Act provides that one must not sell or supply certain medicines off

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prescription, even if they are not named in the Misuse of Drugs Act as Class C drugs. They are already covered. The Act provides that,
"no person shall sell by retail, or supply in circumstances corresponding to retail sale, a medicinal product of a description, or falling within a class … [except] in accordance with the directions of an appropriate practitioner".
It gives Ministers the opportunity to specify what kinds of medicinal products are covered by the regulations.
I understand that the underlying intention of the Medicines Act is to prevent the off-prescription sales or supply of particular drugs by certain less scrupulous medical practitioners. But the definitions in the Act of "retail" and "supply in circumstances corresponding to retail sale" make clear that the Act includes the wider activities of those who indulge in, or benefit from, the promotion of the illegal sale of drugs.
Have the Government considered whether these three Class C drugs can be more appropriately dealt with under the Medicines Act and, if so, why have they decided against doing so? I suspect that the Minister gave the major part of the answer but I should like to know the criteria that are used to determine whether a prosecution should be brought under the Medicines Act or the Misuse of Drugs Act. It may well be that the Government do not believe that the penalties available in a magistrates' court are sufficient. However, magistrates are allowed to pass a maximum sentence of six months on each individual offence and on two offences they may pass a consecutive sentence of six months, raising their maximum sentencing power to 12 months. I should be grateful if the Minister would address those points. However, we have no intention of opposing the making of the order.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, it goes without saying that we too welcome any attempt to clamp down on the misuse of narcotic drugs that is drawn to our attention by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. I wish to ask the Minister just one question having listened carefully to everything he said about these particular drugs. I echo the congratulations expressed by the noble Baroness on the Minister's pronunciation. I shall not attempt to emulate it except for one drug that the Minister said had been the subject of a few reports of misuse: Methcathinone. Can the Minister inform the House what reports have been made to the Government about the misuse of this particular drug? I believe that it is the only drug mentioned in the order which has been the subject of such reports. I believe the Minister said that the others were referred to in the order by way of pre-emptive action to stop any possible future misuse whereas in the case of Methcathinone there had already been some reports of its misuse. Perhaps the Minister can describe the nature of the reports and how extensive the misuse has been.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I am very pleased that I am a qualified engineer rather than a pharmacist or medical practitioner and I do not have to pronounce the names of these drugs all the time. I deal first with the point raised by the noble Baroness. While some of the drugs
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mentioned today are in Class C, all of the Class C drugs in the Misuse of Drugs Act are also covered by the Medicines Act 1968. But the latter Act does not contain the same teeth or clout as the Misuse of Drugs Act.
The primary purpose of the Medicines Act is to regulate medicines in normal usage. While it makes unauthorised sales an offence, it does not cover the wider concept of the supply of drugs; nor does it make an offence to possess with intent to supply. In addition, the use of the Medicines Act would not fulfil our obligations under the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The Misuse of Drugs Act and its accompanying regulations ensure that we fulfil those obligations. Referring to Methcathinone, there have been reports of its misuse in the United Kingdom. All we have at the moment is a small number of reports by the police. They are very few.
The order will enable the United Kingdom to fulfil its international obligation as a party to the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, while we in the United Kingdom are fortunate that we have not suffered any significant degree of misuse of the six substances, there is appreciable misuse of the substances worldwide. Approval of the order will help to ensure that, should any unlawful activities involving these drugs reach the United Kingdom, the necessary controls are in place to deal with them. I commend the order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Exclusion Order 1998
Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998
Construction Contracts (Scotland) Exclusion Order 1998
Scheme for Construction Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 1998
11.20 a.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft orders and regulations laid before the House on 18th December 1997 and 12th and 19th January 1998 be approved [18th and 20th Reports from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move en bloc the four draft orders and regulations standing in my name on the Order Paper. I understand that that is acceptable to those of your Lordships who take part in such debates.
Part II of the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 deals with construction contracts. Section 108 requires that all construction contracts provide parties with the right unilaterally to

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refer disputes arising under the contract to adjudication. Sections 109 to 111 require construction contracts to provide certain payment mechanisms and notice provisions, and Section 113 prevents "pay-when-paid" clauses operating in most circumstances.
Where a construction contract does not comply with these sections of the Act, the relevant provisions of the Scheme for Construction Contracts take effect. In other words, the scheme is intended to be imported as implied terms into contracts which do not comply with the Act.
Part II of the Act was intended to cover a wide range of construction contracts. However, there are certain types of contract and agreement which, although connected in some way with construction operations, were never intended to be caught by the provisions of the Act. The exclusion orders are intended to ensure that such contracts and agreements do not fall within the scope of the Act. They cover certain agreements made under statutory provisions; head contracts under the private finance initiative; finance agreements, and development agreements.
Both sets of regulations have been subject to a great deal of consultation. It has not been possible to please all parts of the industry over their every detail. But it is quite clear that there is an overriding desire across the industry for the regulations to be put in place as soon as possible so that the industry can at least begin to benefit from Part II of the Act. I therefore commend these orders to the House.
Moved, That the draft orders and regulations laid before the House on 18th December 1997 and 12th and 19th January 1998 be approved [18th and 20th Reports from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I welcome the orders and regulations and wish to raise three brief points. I apologise to the House and to the Minister for being unable to give detailed notice of them. With regard to the two draft regulations, the first point relates to paragraph 20(a) dealing with the adjudicator's decision. It allows the adjudicator to revise certificates and decisions unless they are expressed in the contract with which he is dealing to be final and conclusive. The prospect is that the statutory right to refer disputes to adjudication could be undermined. Contracts could provide for adjudication provisions to apply but that all decisions and certificates would be final and conclusive; in other words, equivalent to contracting out of the adjudication provisions. Can the Minister comment on that? If not, perhaps she can write to me.
Paragraph 24 of the regulations relates to enforcement by the court. The enforcement provisions are those which will apply to the adjudication. The scheme amends the Arbitration Act 1996 and in consequence gives the courts the power to enforce the adjudicator's decisions. The scheme does not amend Section 42(1) of the Act, which provides that unless otherwise agreed by the parties the court may make an order. I am not sure whether that is an oversight or whether deliberate action has been taken in leaving Section 42 as it stands.
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I appreciate that the orders are not amendable and that I have not given the Minister notice of those points. However, I understand that in response to representations her honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the Minister for London and Construction, has indicated to the industry that if there is evidence of abuse the regulations can be revisited. Can the Minister confirm that? If not, can she write to me?
Finally, do the Government intend to introduce rules of court to facilitate an application under paragraph 24 to enforce the adjudicator's decision? If they intend to introduce rules of court, which it appears are required, when are they likely to emerge?
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, the orders arise from Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, about which we had considerable detailed discussion in this House when my party was in opposition. The view which it then took on the matter is not the view which it appears to be taking now.
The problem was that the Government totally confused the ideas of adjudication and arbitration. Our debates were largely guided towards teaching the Government and their advisers the distinction between those two aspects of civil engineering contracts. The House will be aware of my long-standing relationship with the construction industry.
The Construction Industry Council reminded the Government that Part II of the Act was intended to implement certain aspects of the report made by Sir Michael Latham several years ago. It did so only in a partial manner and pointed out (I quote from the CIC's information):
"In view of the quick fix, rough justice nature" —
that was Sir Michael Latham's description of adjudication—
"the CIC believe that there are no circumstances in which the adjudicator's decision can be final".
However, it was agreed that it could be binding until the end of the contract, at which point the participants in a dispute or disagreement would then go to arbitration; arbitration being binding and final, but adjudication being temporary. It is a quick fix, rough justice solution to an interim problem. It was the kind of thing which consulting engineers used to do without adjudication.
I endorse the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to paragraph 20. It has the effect of making adjudication arbitration. I sincerely hope that the Government will grasp hold of that idea because we have a new Government with clear eyes and clear minds. However, they seem to have taken this particular piece of legislation out of a pigeon hole to which it was consigned some time ago. I ask the Minister to realise that that part of the regulation is in error.
I have only one other point to make in relation to the regulations. I draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 2(3) which states that,
"an 'adjudicator nominating body' shall mean a body … which holds itself out publicly as a body which will select an adjudicator when requested to do so by a referring party".

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I know that quite recently an Institute of Adjudicators has been established. I am sure that it is a worthy body. In fact, I know it is because I gave out some certificates for it a few months ago and saw those people in the flesh. They are very proper people. But that provision permits just about anyone to set up as an adjudicating body. My noble friend who sits here could set up an organisation and purport to be an adjudicating body. I believe that it would be a good idea for adjudicating bodies to be monitored or registered by the department in some way so that those bodies would have real authority.
Lastly, I endorse again the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to my honourable friend Mr. Raynsford who has suggested that the Government will keep this matter under review for a time and, if it proves to be unsatisfactory, will look at it again. Instead of having that "if', it would be better for my honourable friend to review the workings of the Act and undertake to bring in new housing legislation which will not only correct the errors in the regulations but will also implement the rest of the recommendations of Sir Michael Latham which are not as yet in legislation.
11.30 a.m.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, with the leave of my noble friends on the Front Bench, perhaps I may express a few views from these Benches on the regulations.
I believe that we have every reason to be proud of our construction industry, our construction companies, our consulting engineers, in many disciplines, our architects and many others, as we look worldwide and see the achievements of our construction industry.
But our construction industry has also been subject to diverse problems. The difficulty—and I recognise it immediately—for government, whichever government are in power, is that they are not assisted by unity of views from the construction industry. Indeed, they suffer from the expression of diverse views arising out of the diverse problems of the construction industry. I well remember over 10 years ago, with the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, when taking through this House the Latent Damage Bill the many diverse views from the industry which were then presented to the government of the day. Therefore, my colleagues on the Front Bench, remembering their days in government, will have sympathy for the Minister over the diverse views that are represented from the industry.
However, I should like to record that the industry is making good progress in consolidating its voice. For example, there is now a greater unity in contracts which are used in the construction industry. There are now more joint bodies which are able to represent the views of the industry to government. A particular achievement which I mention as a lawyer is that construction lawyers, with support throughout the industry, have managed to introduce and publish the Construction Industry Model Arbitration Rules.
One of the critical problems in the construction industry has been the problem of payment. As it happens, throughout this week I have been attending an
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arbitration and the critical dispute between the parties in this arbitration concerns the matter of payment. Therefore, it is reasonable and helpful to have the new provisions of this Act which are in Sections 109 to 113. They address the problems of payment. Section 109 gives entitlement to staged payments and Section 110 specifies that there should be a mechanism for determining what payments become due under the contract. Section 111 prohibits a party to a construction contract from withholding payment after the final date for payment unless an effective notice has been given. Section 112 gives the right to a party to suspend performance on the contract when that party has not been paid. In Section 113 there is a prohibition on entering into an agreement not to pay another party until the first party has been paid. That has been one of the serious problems, particularly for sub-contractors, when the main contractor refuses to pay the sub-contractors until he has been paid by the employer.
Therefore, we should welcome these provisions for the reasons I have sought to identify. It seems that they have a sound basis. The problem is that this scheme goes a great deal further. It does not just deal with payment disputes but with all disputes which arise in the construction industry. Also under Section 108(2)(a), it permits adjudication "at any time" relating to any dispute which might arise during the construction process.
Thus there is a wedge being driven into the inalienable right of parties to reach a contract on a consensual basis. The effect of the scheme is to apply obligatorily statutory terms of contract into all contracts that are negotiated within the industry. That goes against established party autonomy—for example, in the Arbitration Act 1996—and ignores the powers available, for example, under Section 39 of the Arbitration Act where parties can go for provisional relief during the course of the performance of the contract.
As a result of those concerns, strong views have been represented, as the Minister knows, from certain sections of the industry, particularly the construction lawyers. Far from reducing the number of disputes, there is a real danger that the floodgates could be opened and abuse perpetrated. For example, it will enable a contractor who is determined to pursue an unmeritorious claim to cause maximum disruption to the dispute resolution process or even to the proper administration of the contract. There is not even a provision whereby the right to adjudication terminates upon notice of arbitration being given or upon the commencement of legal proceedings. That is unique. Thus, a party which is dissatisfied with the rate of progress or even the likely outcome of arbitration proceedings appears still to have the right to refer the same dispute, or even part of it, to adjudication leading to a decision which will be binding until the dispute is determined finally by the arbitrator.
It also does not deal with the problem of the multi-party dispute which is a well known problem in industry disputes.
So strongly were the views held by a number of experienced practitioners in the construction industry that a collection of papers was drawn together by

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Professor John Uff and presented in printed form to the Government at the end of last year. It has the rather stinging title of, Construction Contract Reform: A plea for sanity. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to consider most carefully where we go from here. I accept that these regulations today should receive the approval of the House. Indeed, I am not asking for them to be withdrawn.
However, it may have been more sensible for the Government to go forward in steps and not in leaps. It may have been more sensible for them, for example, to bring in these new adjudication proceedings just in relation to payment disputes and not in relation to all disputes. Therefore, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Howie, and I believe also with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in asking the Government to monitor the process of the scheme and to keep it under review. If it should be shown that there is abuse and the number of disputes are multiplied rather than reduced, I hope that the Minister will be able to undertake to bring the matter swiftly back to Parliament.
The other matter that I should like to ask the Minister to consider now is the phrase of, "any time", in Section 108(2)(a) of the Act. It would not be a difficult matter and I believe that it could possibly be dealt with by secondary legislation. While I hesitate a little on that proposition, this is surely a matter which should be addressed. There should be a time limit because otherwise people will abuse the scheme. I hope that those observations have been helpful to the Minister and that she will, therefore, be able to bring some comfort to what I have said.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, there is little that I can add to the expert words that have already been spoken this morning. However, there is one part of the regulations on which I should like to ask the Minister to address the House when she responds. I refer to Regulation 25 which deals with the adjudicator's fees. It says:
"The adjudicator shall be entitled to payment of such reasonable amount as he may determine by way of fees and expenses reasonably incurred by him. The parties shall be jointly and severally liable for any sum which remains outstanding following the making of any determination on how the payment shall be apportioned".
As a solicitor in private practice, I am bound to point out to the House that I view with envy the idea that one can be the sole determinator of what is reasonable as regards one's fees.
However, on a rather more serious note, we are very often talking in construction contracts about small businessmen in contract with very large firms. While I appreciate that this is a fast track, and while I accept that when the matter was discussed in the other place it was said that it was unlikely that large fees would be incurred, nevertheless, the size of the fee very often depends on the ability of the person to pay. Indeed, that decides whether or not the amount is viewed as large or small.
I am somewhat unhappy that there appears to be nothing in the regulations to resolve a dispute about fees. Mr. Raynsford, the Minister's honourable friend,
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said that the adjudicator would have recourse to the courts for enforcement of payment if the parties fail to meet the fees that were provided for and that provision has to be made through the courts for enforcement in that respect. Likewise, it appeared to be suggested in another place that the parties could have recourse to the nominating body if they felt that the adjudicator had demanded unreasonable fees and expenses.
Nevertheless, that all seems to me to be rather complicated and potentially expensive for what is supposed to be an inexpensive and fast-track procedure. I hope that the Minister will be able to address that point when she replies. I apologise for the fact that I was not able to give her prior notice of that question.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, to be asked to approach this matter with clear eyes and a clear mind is quite difficult. As all noble Lords who have spoken today have acknowledged, we are dealing with quite a complex matter. The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, was certainly right when he referred to the diverse views expressed within the industry. I listened to the comments made during the debate with great interest. There is clearly strong support in principle for the scheme and the principles behind it.
However, before I turn in detail to the points raised in the debate, I should like to make one or two brief general comments about the orders before the House. I believe that that will help to put the points raised into context and will show that the Government intend to make absolutely sure that the industry benefits from Part H of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and benefits from it as soon as possible.
The construction industry is a complex operation. It often involves a number of different processes carried out by different contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, professionals and specialists. These players may have different interests. A complex network of construction contracts normally sets the ground rules by which they act and interact. However, things do sometimes go wrong and disputes arise. There are often disputes about what has or has not been paid and those disputes often drag on, costing time and money.
Part II of the Act is introduced with cross-party support and with the support of the construction industry. Its principal aims are, first, to ensure that disputes over payments become rarer because construction contracts are clearer over what is to be paid and when; and, secondly, to provide a straightforward and speedy means of resolving disputes through adjudication.
I turn now to some of the detailed points that were raised during the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the issue of paragraph 20(a) of the scheme. This paragraph gives the adjudicator the power to open up any decision or certificate unless the contract states that it is final and conclusive.
I am aware that this issue has caused concern to some parts of the industry. The Government took advice on that point and views were not unanimous. However, we accepted the argument that the "final and conclusive" proviso was important in order that the contracting

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parties should be able to agree whether certain certificates and decisions should be opened up. It is only common sense that there are some decisions—and we are thinking of technical and professional matters—which parties will be prepared to have "signed off" and not reopened. However, I know that there are anxieties about the misuse of the paragraph 20(a) provision. I believe that they are misplaced, but, nevertheless, we will keep an eye on the workings of the scheme. If abuses of that provision become apparent once the legislation has been in operation for a while, we are prepared to act.
A further point was raised concerning enforcement of the adjudicator's decision under paragraph 24 of the scheme, in particular the importing of Section 42 of the Arbitration Act. For adjudication to work, it is vital that the adjudicator's decision is complied with by both parties. That will only happen in practice if there is a quick, unambiguous and practical route to the courts in cases of non-compliance.
The England and Wales scheme adopts a mechanism based on Section 42 of the Arbitration Act 1996. The function of Section 42 in the context of arbitration proceedings is to ensure that any procedural order made by the arbitration tribunal may be enforced in the courts. Adjudication decisions are of course not mere procedural orders. They are quick, practical decisions which are intended to be enforced without challenge until a final decision or agreement is achieved. The use of Section 42, suitably amended, is quite fitted to the type of enforcement required under adjudication. It seems unlikely that the words,
"unless the parties agree otherwise",
in Section 42 of the Arbitration Act will cause problems. A person who goes to the trouble of specifically excluding a reference to Section 42 of the Arbitration Act from his contract is unlikely to be relying on the scheme in the first place. Such a person is more likely to use adjudication provisions which are more suited to his circumstances. However, I know that there are those in the industry who are concerned about the application of Section 42. I can assure noble Lords that we shall consider whether this causes significant problems in practice. If it does, we are prepared to consider changes to the scheme.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to Section 42. I hope I can offer some clarification. Section 42 was brought into force on 31st January 1997. The procedure is covered by the rules of the Supreme Court amendment order 1996, which also came into force on 31st January 1997. Section 42 is not given a particular mention and is therefore covered by the general provision of the rules. The "white book" which contains the rules of the Supreme Court is published biennially. The latest edition does not include the 1996 orders.
My noble friend Lord Howie mentioned adjudicator nominating bodies. I should perhaps run through the background to the current provision at paragraph 2(3) of the scheme. The original intention, as set out in the consultation paper issued in November 1996, was that the scheme itself would list adjudicator appointing or
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nominating bodies. This was intended to provide a straightforward fallback for obtaining an adjudicator if the contract did not make provision for this, or if the contractual provision had failed. The problem is that it would have required an amended affirmative order every time a nominating body wanted to be added to or removed from the list. That would not have been a good use of Parliament's time. Therefore Ministers decided that there should be no statutory list. That this was the correct decision is borne out by the fact that one of the potential adjudicator nominating bodies has already withdrawn.
The scheme now provides more flexibility for referring parties who wish to find an adjudicator quickly. It does not set strict criteria for adjudicator nominating bodies as to do so would immediately create scope to challenge the whole adjudication process. It does, however, place a clear and unambiguous duty on the adjudicator to act impartially, and includes various other checks aimed at ensuring that the adjudication is carried out in accordance with the Act. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Scottish Office will initially make available lists of organisations which offer their services as ANBs. The kinds of bodies which will be included on these lists will be professional bodies, legal bodies and industry umbrella bodies which have indicated their willingness and ability to offer an adjudicator nominating service.
The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, raised a point concerning the payment provisions in the scheme. They are based on lengthy and detailed consultation with the industry. The department took on board many comments made by the industry following informal consultation with the industry in the summer. I do not for one moment pretend that the provisions will be the ideal solution for every contract, but they provide a workable menu of clauses which can be imported as and when they are needed.
The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, commented on Section 108 of the Act. I hear what he says but I am afraid that I am unable to comment today on the wording of the Act. Adjudication was requested by the construction industry. It is still awaited with some enthusiasm by the industry. The Minister for London and Construction has said that the Government will monitor progress. The Government want this legislation to work for the construction industry and will do their best to ensure that it does so. The industry has waited a long time for Part II to be brought into effect. I fully expect the orders which we have debated to allow that to happen. With such a diverse industry it has been impossible to obtain a consensus. However, we have tried to listen to all the arguments which have been put to us and have come up with a scheme which reflects the interests of the industry as a whole.
The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, asked what controls there are as regards the levels of fees which an adjudicator may charge. Paragraph 12(b) of the scheme places a clear duty on the adjudicator to avoid unnecessary expense. The Government have not introduced any further requirements in the scheme on the level of fees or expenses. I do not think, for example, that it would be appropriate to list fee scales in the

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scheme. Every increase would require the affirmative resolution of the House. I hope that the industry will use this as it is intended; namely, as a way of minimising the cost and disruption which have hampered many construction operations. But, as I said, if any aspects of it cause problems, we are prepared to make changes.
The type of matter covered in the legislation is untested and it clearly makes sense to keep a careful watch that it is benefiting the industry in the way intended. There are a number of ways in which monitoring can be carried out. What is vital is that the experiences of the adjudicator nominating bodies, professional institutions, industry bodies and, above all, those in the industry who use the legislation form part of the overview of how the legislation is working in practice. We shall be prepared to revisit the scheme if there are significant problems. I commend the orders and regulations to the House.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I hope that she can help me. In response to comments that I and, I believe, other noble Lords made, she said more than once—this was most welcome—that it is the intention of the Government to monitor the scheme. She also said, helpfully, that if problems arise changes will be made. Can she help the House a little further? Can she make available the results of the monitoring so that we can see how the scheme is working and possibly make helpful suggestions to the Government?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am sure that the Government will welcome informed comment from all those with an interest in this scheme as part of the monitoring process. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord. If that is not the case, I shall write to him.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, will the results of the monitoring be made public? That is what I am anxious to obtain.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I do not feel able to give a commitment because of the detail that may be contained in individual contracts that form part of the monitoring and the assessment. However, within reason and within those constraints, I am sure that it will be possible.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business Improvement Districts Bill [H.L.]
11.58 a.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Jenkin of Roding.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Business Improvement District (Election) Orders]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 11, after ("authority") insert (", or in relation to which the authority is discharging the functions of another local authority as respects the establishment of a business improvement district").
The noble Lord said: I am aware that there is other business to follow this Committee stage that was put down after this Bill was scheduled to be heard today. At the same time I have to say that if there is to be any chance of this Bill reaching the statute book in this Session we need to examine it properly in this House because of the well-known, well understood problems that may exist in another place.
In moving Amendment No. 1, I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I also speak to Amendment No. 28. The amendments go together. They are intended to deal with the situation where a local authority wishes to arrange to discharge its functions through another local authority. At Second Reading I gave the example of the Park Royal industrial estate where the boundaries of three local authorities impinge on that estate. It would be awkward if there had to be three separate procedures with three separate local authorities. It would add considerably to the complications of a business improvement district in those circumstances.
At present the Bill requires an area which is the subject of an election order to be wholly comprised within the area of the authority to which the application has been made. But it should be possible for authorities in those circumstances to make arrangements for one of the other authorities to discharge its functions with respect to the administration of the application so that where a bid area covers two or more authorities one authority would act on behalf of them all. There is no such provision in the Bill as drafted. Amendments Nos. 1 and 28 enable that to be done. I hope that it strikes the Committee as a sensible improvement. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Before commenting on the amendments, I hope that the Committee will be indulgent if I make comments about the Bill as a whole. The Bill before us today provides a useful opportunity to consider how local services are provided to ratepayers and how that service is funded and accounted for. In that respect, it is an important contribution to the wider debate now going on about the renewal of local government. We believe that the needs of local people are best served by locally elected councils. We want to establish a framework for a modern, relevant local government; one in which local councils lead their local communities and work in partnership with businesses, the voluntary sector and local people to deliver quality services and improve their areas.
The modernisation of local government will demand a radical programme of democratic renewal. It will challenge authorities to deliver services at best value. It

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will also require changes to the local government finance system to reflect the need for authorities to have greater local discretion and be more accountable to their communities.
Over the past six months, we have been discussing the finance issues with local government, with the representative business organisations and other interested parties. Nearly three weeks ago we published a consultation paper entitled Local Democracy and Community Leadership. Over the next month or so, we shall be publishing further consultation papers on the local government finance system, including a paper on the options for business rates.
The concerns which have prompted the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, to bring forward this Bill are shared by the Government. We are addressing them in the series of consultation papers which we have issued, or are about to issue. Today's proceedings therefore are an important part of the debate about the future shape of local government. I shall listen with interest to the Committee's deliberations.
With the full consultation process that is being, and will be, undertaken on the financing of local government, it seems to be premature to be considering the implementation of a compulsory mechanism as provided for in the Bill. If the Bill makes progress, there are a number of detailed issues that the House would wish to consider—for example, how such a scheme would tie in with the non-domestic rating system under the 1988 Act, and what form of enforcement mechanism might be appropriate.
However, I recognise that the Bill provides a very useful opportunity to discuss the principles. I should like to raise two specific points of concern which noble Lords will wish to consider as background to the debate. First, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, said in his contribution to the Second Reading of the Bill that he had been advised that the money raised and spent by the BID company would not be treated as a tax and would not therefore be considered public expenditure.
This is an important point and the Committee will understand that I too have taken advice. It is clear that under the provisions of the Bill, businesses in an area will have to pay a certain amount if there has been a local vote to that effect. Although individual businesses will have the opportunity to vote, they will not have a choice on payment of the charge if the decision is taken to implement the draft scheme. As I am sure the Committee will recognise, this is exactly analogous to the taxation system in any democratic country. We can influence the level of income tax via the ballot, but there is no choice on whether or not to pay. This is, by definition, a tax and and spending of the income received would count as public expenditure. Section 2.68 of the European System of
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Accounts, used by the Office for National Statistics, makes it clear that expenditure of this type by BID companies would count as public expenditure. The Committee may well reflect on the Bill in the light of this advice.
I am also concerned about the issue of accountability. The Bill makes provision for the charging, on a compulsory basis, of all businesses within the BID area. This being the case, it would be important for all those businesses to have a clear idea of how their money is being spent and accounted for. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, intends that this should be the case. However, it appears to me that the Bill as presently drafted does not provide any details on how the BID company will specifically account to the providers of its income. Where a local authority raises money and spends it, there is a framework of legislation and audit—it is not perfect, I am sure—which ensures financial probity and accountability to protect the interests of the ratepayers. There does not appear to be any provision made in the Bill for representation of the scheme chargepayers, and neither does there appear to be any supervision, reporting back or audit provision over and above what might be available through the Companies Acts to members of the company. Bearing in mind the compulsory nature of the contributions that would fund the company, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, might wish to consider whether such mechanisms might be appropriate.
I turn now to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord. This provides for an election order to be made in a situation where one local authority was discharging the functions of another local authority. This seems to be a worthwhile clarification of a potential scenario. If the Bill progresses, then noble Lords will wish to consider the detailed wording of the clause to ensure that it works as they would wish.
Amendment No. 28 makes a useful point. If a local authority wishes to arrange for the discharge of its functions as respects the establishment of a business improvement district by another local authority, then no doubt this should not be discouraged.
I apologise for the length of this intervention. It was felt that it would be helpful to place on record the Government's position.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: That has somewhat taken me by surprise. I hope that the noble Baroness will not take it amiss if I say that we have had, as it were, a mini-Second Reading speech at the beginning of this Committee stage. The noble Baroness raised several points of considerable importance. We shall need to bear that in mind. We must deal with the amendments before us at Committee stage now, but at later stages of the Bill, we shall need to see to what extent we can take account of those important points.
The noble Baroness, on advice, seems to have arrived at a clear position on whether the charges made by a BID company are taxation and whether the expenditure is to be regarded as public expenditure. That has wide ramifications. There are

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many forms of partnership arrangement. If that doctrine is to be extended more widely, there may be some anxiety about the future of other schemes.
I read the consultation paper with some interest. No doubt in due course we shall have an opportunity to discuss that and other local government consultation papers foreshadowed in it. One point struck me. The published paper, Local Democracy and Community Leadership, gives notice that,
"the Government intend to replace section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 due to concern over 'ultra Vires' which may inhibit partnership activities including participation in companies".
It seems to me that we are in danger of getting two messages: one that the Government actually want to give encouragement—indeed, I welcome the opening remarks of the noble Baroness—while at the same time there appear to be new restrictions, or at least a clarification, that contrary to the view I expressed at Second Reading, to which the noble Baroness made reference, such activity may become more difficult as it will have to come firmly within the system of public expenditure control and charges amounting to taxation. We shall need to examine the noble Baroness's remarks with some care.
The question of auditing and so on can be dealt with effectively by further amendments at a later stage although, once again, it would have been helpful to have heard comments at an earlier stage of the Bill. One could have taken account of them and there would have been more than one opportunity to get the drafting right.
The general tenor of the noble Baroness's remarks was one of welcome. She indicated that she is looking forward to the discussion; we can all approach it in that sense.
As for this amendment, we will examine the drafting in regard to this matter. However, I hope that the House will be able to accept Amendment No. I now, and, when we come to it, Amendment No. 28. Then, if necessary, we can examine the matter again between now and Report to make sure we get the drafting right.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Application for election order]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 14, at end insert—
("() state whether a financial contribution or other assistance is anticipated from the local authority and if so, the extent of that contribution or the nature of the assistance;").
The noble Lord said: It would be helpful to discuss Amendment No. 9 with this amendment. Their purpose is to make absolutely clear that a BID scheme can include a partnership with a local authority. When the Bill was originally drafted we had assumed that that would be possible. However, this pair of amendments puts the matter beyond doubt. The reasons for wanting to make it clear are that a number of local authorities would very much like to feel that they are part of a BID scheme and, secondly, that although it would be possible under the Bill for a business improvement district to be initiated from scratch it is much more probable that a BID will develop from existing collaborative
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arrangements. At Second Reading I gave a number of examples. Since then, I have heard of a good many others which are currently operating and where those working them would welcome the provision which is the central purpose of this Bill to avoid the problem of free riders.
Many of these arrangements involve local authorities. It is not the Bill's intention that the process of partnership between the public and private sectors should be in any way discouraged. I have always been very strongly in favour of that partnership and the Bill is intended to reflect that. These two amendments put the point beyond doubt. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee: The noble Lord introduces these two amendments with a reference to partnership with local authorities. The obverse of that coin is the question of additionality, referred to by a number of noble Lords at Second Reading. In other words, BID schemes should not replace the projects that are properly a matter for the local authority. As I read these amendments, that point does not seem to be affected either way. However, if the noble Lord could confirm that, I should be grateful.
12.15 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I may respond to the noble Baroness. The amendment is certainly in no way intended to change the intention of the Bill that the expenditure by a BID should be additional to that which a local authority is undertaking. It may well be that local authorities would welcome sub-contracting some of their services to a BID company. We shall come to that provision in a later amendment. One can imagine, for instance, that it would be very awkward if one had two different groups of street cleaners, one working for the local authority and the other topping up the work, as it were, by the BID. The sensible course would be for the BID to contract with the local authority and then contract under the contracting out procedures for its share of that to be done by the BID, and of course paying for it.
The additionality point is important. I am aware of anxieties expressed by some ratepayers. I wish to state clearly that it is the intention of the Bill that the expenditure by a BID should be additional.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Bill requires applicants to prepare a detailed package of information to be submitted to the local authority. That will be of great assistance to the authority in deciding whether it would be appropriate to issue an election order. The purpose of Amendments Nos. 2 and 9 is to ensure that as part of that process a local authority can take account of the role that it might want, or be expected, to play. We recognise that a local authority may wish to assist a BID company. I am pleased that these amendments make any contribution that is anticipated from a local authority explicit from the outset, so that local taxpayers' money is accountable.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Consideration of application]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 33, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) In considering a draft scheme a local authority shall have regard to such representations as may be made by—

(a) any ratepayer in respect of a hereditament within the area specified in the draft scheme;

(b) any other person in respect of such a hereditament, being a person having an interest in that hereditament in any capacity;

(c) any person who is either resident within the area specified in the draft scheme, or is not so resident but is affected by the improvements which are proposed by it.").

The noble Lord said: It will be within the recollection of noble Lords that at Second Reading a good deal was said about the need for wide consultation on a proposed BID and that the local authority which has to make the decision as to whether to make an order for an election must take account of a wide measure of representations. I gave an indication on that occasion that ordinary residential council tax payers would clearly have an interest in the establishment of a BID if it was to cover the area where they lived or even where they were accustomed to doing their shopping and so on. I quoted the example of the Fitzrovia proposals for the area between Oxford Street and Euston Road in London. Others have said that their views should be taken into account. One such group is obviously the owners of buildings. The charges, indeed the whole provision, are based on occupiers, who in many cases will be tenants. But the owners of buildings may well have views which they want to put. Amendment No. 3 therefore includes the reference in paragraph (b):
"being a person having an interest in that hereditament in any capacity".
There may well also be ratepayers, paying the national non-domestic rate or whatever may take its place, who, though not liable to pay under the scheme because it may be proposed that they be exempted or excluded under the provisions of the Bill, may nevertheless have a view. All those people are entitled to be heard. This amendment ensures that the local authority shall have regard to such representation. It will have to listen to them and take them into account. The amendment therefore meets the anxieties expressed from all parts of the House at Second Reading. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Amendment No. 3 recognises that the establishment of the BID may impact upon parties other than those listed on the draft bid charge list. I fully support the principle of ensuring that consideration is given to representations received in response to a draft scheme.
However, it is important that in making representations interested parties have access to the relevant information. It is not clear from the Bill what information would be made available to those parties. At present Clause 2(5)(a) requires that the application is advertised in a local newspaper in the area to which the application applies. However, there is no indication given to the applicant as to what information should be incorporated within the advertisement. I am sure that the
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noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, will wish to consider whether further provision could be included to address this issue.
The amendment to Clause 3 will extend the scope of representations to enable persons from outside the area but with an interest in it—for example, those working in shops or offices—to submit their views on the scheme. In view of this, the Committee may wish to consider whether there is a need to advertise the BID application outside the area to which the application relates.
Finally, as representations will be taken into account in the local authority's consideration of the application, Members of the Committee may wish to give thought to whether such representations should be made available to the BID applicant.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: The Minister has made an extremely helpful point. I wish to give careful consideration to the further detailed changes which she suggested. I believe that she indicated that this amendment is acceptable so far as it goes and perhaps the Committee may therefore be able to agree to its incorporation in the Bill. I give a clear undertaking that we shall look carefully at the other points which the Minister made.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 37, leave out ("28") and insert ("42").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment is grouped with Amendment No. 5, which I do not intend to move. Amendment No. 4 proposes that representations received within 42 days—rather than 28 days—after the date of the first advertisement should be considered by the local authority. Six weeks is not a very long period: it seems to me a more suitable period than 28 days. The local chamber of commerce, for example—which I hope would be involved in the drawing up of the scheme, but may not be—should perhaps have an opportunity to consult its members and put considered comments to the local authority; or perhaps individual businesses might need that longer period in order to consult other local businesses and generally to consider the matter.
The period runs from the date of the first advertisement. Clause 2(5) requires both an advertisement and the service of a copy of the application on individual ratepayers included in the list. I believe that six weeks would be a more useful period. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I am pleased to note Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to Clause 3(2) and the intention to have a clear time-frame within which interested people could submit their comments. I note that the noble Baroness does not intend to move Amendment No. 5. As originally drafted, there would have been a degree of uncertainty as to when the last date for representations to the draft scheme should be submitted, depending on the date the scheme was advertised under the provisions of Clause 2(5)(b). This

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meant that there was some degree of latitude as to when the advertisement could be submitted. This amendment reinforces the importance of full consultation.
Lord Jenkin of Boding: I am happy to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that we are willing to accept this amendment. I am glad that she has decided not to move Amendment No. 5 because I could not have been so forthcoming on that; I believe that in certain circumstances it might have had a rather perverse effect. Amendment No. 4 seems to me to be a considerable improvement to the Bill and I hope that she will press it.
Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that. I came to the same conclusion with regard to Amendment No. 5 a couple of minutes before I rose to speak to Amendment No. 4.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Making of election order]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 3, line 4, leave out ("subsection (2)") and insert ("subsections (2) and (5)").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6 and hope that the Committee will agree to discuss with it Amendment No. 15. These amendments concern the case where a local authority, having received an application and considered it, is prepared to embark on the procedure but wishes to see modifications to the application. New subsection (5) is intended to provide that, where a scheme has been modified, the local authority shall inform the applicant of the modifications. I am advised that it is necessary to include that provision in order to make absolutely clear that the applicant should know of the modifications. It seems unlikely that the local authority would make modifications and the applicant not know about it, but modifications may affect an applicant's decision as to whether to go forward. The modifications may be substantial and significantly change the nature of the scheme originally submitted. The applicant may therefore decide in the light of the modification that it would not be appropriate to go forward at that stage without more consultation. Therefore, the application can be withdrawn, consideration can take place and, if thought proper, another application can be submitted. It is for that reason that applicants must be told of any modifications. That is what these amendments are intended to provide, and I hope that the Committee will accept them.
Lord Bowness: Perhaps I may ask my noble friend how that provision would affect the other interested parties whom we talked about under the amendment to Clause 3. Will there be an obligation on the local
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authority, if it makes the substantial modifications to which my noble friend referred, to re-consult those who have to be consulted under the amended Clause 3?
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My noble friend has raised a very good point, which we should like to consider. A further amendment may be required.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: This seems a sensible requirement that should be included within the Bill. The noble Lord may also wish to consider whether in such a situation provision should be made to establish whether the applicant would want to proceed with the application, with the local authority's modifications, prior to the local authority making an election order.
Lord Jenkin of Boding: I hoped I had covered that point. I am not sure that it would require a provision in the Bill. Taking the point made by my noble friend Lord Bowness, perhaps we need to look at the procedure as a whole. As the noble Baroness indicated, this amendment seems to be a good one, and perhaps the Committee can accept it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 3, line 5, after ("may") insert ("at its discretion").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 7, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 10, which is grouped with it. Also in this group is Amendment No. 8 standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Boding, which is, I believe, a drafting amendment.
Amendment No. 7 proposes that in Clause 4(1)(b) it be made clear that the local authority has complete discretion as to whether it can refuse to make an election order. I assume that that is the case but believe it may be helpful to have confirmation of that.
Amendment No. 10 proposes that under Clause 4 (3) a local authority should be able to make modifications which it not only thinks are necessary but which are also reasonable. I tabled the amendment because the term "necessary" seems to me to be an extremely narrow one, even though I note that the modifications would be those that the authority "thinks" are necessary rather than, more objectively, "are" necessary. Nevertheless, to allow it to take account of what it considers to be "reasonable" would allow it to assist in the creation of a better scheme. I beg to move.
12.30 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: It might be helpful to the Committee if I say a brief word about Amendment No. 8. The Minister may then like to express a view on the whole group and I could then respond.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested, Amendment No. 8 is a drafting amendment. It is technical and intended to make clear that local authorities should not make an election order where the scheme does not appear to be to the benefit of all the scheme chargepayers, as opposed to all the

895
ratepayers in the area, some of whom may not be included because they have been exempted under, for instance, Clause 2(4)(j).
The reason for the amendment is that there has been some concern by small businesses that large occupiers might dominate bids and result in skewed projects which leave the small occupiers on the sidelines. The amendment is intended to reassure people that the local authority has to take account of whether the scheme will benefit all chargepayers.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Amendments Nos. 7 and 10 appear to be sensible clarifications of Clause 4(1)(b) and (3). The amendments improve the Bill, which otherwise might not make clear what scope local authorities have in considering applications.
We fully support the principle behind Clause 4(2) in ensuring that the local authority takes into account the impact of the draft BID scheme. However, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, may wish to consider the effect of Amendment No. 8, especially when seen in conjunction with Amendments Nos. 11 and 16 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. It seems to me that the local authority would not be required to take account of the impact that the proposed BID might have on those ratepayers who would not be scheme chargepayers under the draft scheme.
While all businesses within the proposed BID can make representations to the local authority, the noble Lord may wish to consider whether it is desirable for the local authority, in assessing the potential impact of the draft scheme, to exclude from its consideration the impact it might have on those businesses within the BID boundary which the local authority has decided will not be scheme chargepayers by virtue of the level of the NDR that they pay.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Once again the noble Baroness raises some points of importance at which we will need to look carefully. I was a little surprised that she was ready to accept Amendment No. 7 and the insertion of the words "at its discretion". My advice was that I would be able to give to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, an assurance that the use of the word "may" implied discretion and therefore the additional words would be unnecessary. That is not a particularly good reason for excluding the amendment altogether, but normally draftsmen are quite particular, especially when government Bills come forward, and one of the most frequent reasons for asking people to withdraw an amendment is that the words are unnecessary. I confess therefore that I am a little puzzled by that.
We entirely take the point in relation to Amendment No. 10. My only comment is that I believe that the word "reasonable" is now in the wrong place. I do not believe that the intention of the noble Baroness was that the thing should be either reasonable or necessary. If that amendment is withdrawn, I shall undertake to bring forward at a later stage in the Bill
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an amendment introducing the concept of a "reasonable" modification in line 3 of subsection (3), which would then read,
"Before making an election order a local authority may, having regard to the grounds for the refusal under subsection (2) above, require such [reasonable] modifications to be made to the draft scheme as the local authority thinks necessary".
That may reflect the intentions of the noble Baroness more clearly. If she will withdraw the amendment I shall give an undertaking to accept such an alternative at a later stage.
I am grateful for the Minister's view on Amendment No. 10. We will need to consider what was said. However, I am concerned as to whether the words, "at its discretion", are necessary. I would not be too worried if they were to go in, but I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, may be prepared not to move that amendment. However, I hope that we can deal with Amendment No. 10 in the way I suggested.
Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that response. I will of course not move Amendment No. 10. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for proposing to come back with an alternative amendment. Whether that other amendment should be worded,
"require such [reasonable] modifications … as the local authority thinks necessary",
I am not sure. It may not be the right combination of terms. However, that is perhaps a matter for another stage.
The noble Lord's response to Amendment No. 7 was rather more what I expected than the response from the Government Front Bench. I was seeking an assurance that discretion was the order of the day within Clause 4(1)(b). On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 9, leave out from beginning to ("or") in line 10 and insert ("scheme chargepayers;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 3, line 12, after ("application,") insert ("and having regard to any contribution which the local authority proposes to make or other assistance the authority proposes to give,").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 3, line 23, at end insert—
("() for the exclusion from the provisional BID charge list of hereditaments whose valuation for the purpose of non-domestic rates is of an amount determined by the local authority or below that amount:").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 11, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 16. There was some talk at Second Reading of concern for small businesses which, through these proposals, may have a charge—a tax—levied on them which

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could be disproportionately difficult for small businesses to bear. I understand that the scheme could contain the exclusion of certain hereditaments. Amendment No. 11 seeks to allow the local authority to exclude from the charge list hereditaments whose valuation it believes is below a level which seems appropriate in the circumstances.
I appreciate that that is a broad brush approach to the issue, but I felt that some attempt to deal with the point was required. Amendment No. 16 is a consequential amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I might respond before the Minister replies, simply to say that this is an issue on which we are still consulting. It was raised at Second Reading. If I give an undertaking that the consideration is continuing, and if I perhaps have an opportunity to discuss the matter with the noble Baroness at a later stage, she may feel able not to press the amendment.
The points I make are twofold. First, there is already provision under Clause 2(4)(j) to,
"describe any ratepayer or class of ratepayer who is proposed to be excluded from paying",
and therefore the scheme could properly make provision for doing that. Secondly, there is no intention that BIDs should be drawn in straight lines and sweep up everybody in them. I had the experience of introducing enterprise zones. It may be within the recollection of noble Lords that some of the enterprise zones looked like pieces of jig-saw puzzles. They were quite clearly intended to take in particular buildings and pieces of land and to exclude others. When one saw them on a map, one thought that it was dotty; but, on the contrary, it was in fact extremely good common sense. There was no point in conferring the benefits of being an enterprise zone on owners and occupiers where it was completely unintentional.
I have been discussing, in relation to a proposed BID which might run along part of Oxford Street on both sides, exactly how the line might be drawn so as to leave out small shops in the side streets which might derive only marginal benefits from the kind of improvements which I know the City of Westminster has in mind with a number of its major ratepayers in the area. One could draw the line very carefully so as to exclude the small shops.
Thirdly, there is the idea that the little kiosk might be excluded. I am told that some of these small kiosks are real money-spinners. Their overheads are extremely low but they are able to trade very profitably. If there were an increased footfall as a result of a BID scheme it would be absurd that they should not be contributing to that because they would benefit very directly.
There are a number of provisions in the Bill and a number of other considerations which might make it difficult to embody an exclusion simply based on the amount of the non-domestic rate that small traders may pay. Having said that, I am well aware that a number of small retailers are trading on narrow margins and that any additional charge would be a considerable burden to them. We are trying to consider this with
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representatives of retail trades, chambers of commerce and so on to see whether we can find something that will reflect the clear intention which the amendments have in mind.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: In the light of the points that have been raised and the position that is being taken, it may be helpful if I comment on the amendments, which seek to exclude from the BID charge list those businesses where the NDR valuation is below an amount determined by the local authority. We would support the view that in setting a compulsory charge we need to make provision for those businesses which may be unable to absorb the additional cost that the BID would introduce. I think, in particular, about small businesses which may already be operating against very tight margins. For this reason we support the principle of the amendments. However, there are a couple of points which the noble Lord may wish to consider and reflect on in the light of the amendments not being moved today.
First, there needs to be consistency in the application of the clause. It is not clear from the provisions of the Bill how the NDR figure below which businesses would be excluded from the payment of the BID charge will be arrived at. There could be considerable disparities between different areas. Is it the intention that there should be this much flexibility?
Secondly, the exclusion of the business from a BID charge list on the basis of its NDR would mean that it was excluded from the vote procedure and a say in the activities of the BID. While I accept that those not paying may not have as much right as, say, those who are paying, noble Lords may want to consider whether it is right that small businesses should be fully prevented from having some voice in the BID when they are likely to be affected by its activities.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I may respond to that. On the noble Baroness's final point, the amendment which we have already accepted on the question of representations specifically included people on the representations who might be excluded from the scheme. So I think we have now taken account of that point.
On the question of consistency as against flexibility, we would like to reflect on that. It is envisaged that this procedure may be applicable in a wide variety of circumstances. Certainly if the experience in other countries is any guide, they can be very large schemes or quite small schemes. They can be in potentially very prosperous areas of town centres; they can sometimes be in very deprived areas where a little extra help can stop the process of further dereliction. So I think it would be quite difficult to provide a single measure of what might be an exclusion on the basis of NDR.
However, we shall look at what she said and see whether there is some way in which that can be dealt with. My view is that flexibility in this is likely to be more valuable than uniformity or consistency. However, if the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, will withdraw the

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amendment, I undertake that we will be discussing further how we can achieve what I believe is the same purpose.
Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that. As I indicated, I did not feel that my amendment was necessarily the right amendment. However, I felt it was appropriate at this stage of the Bill to get the matter within your Lordships' consciousness as one that perhaps needs to be pursued. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.45 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 26, leave out from ("determined") to end of line 31 and insert ("in accordance with section 7(2); and").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment we are discussing Amendments Nos. 13, 14, 17, 18, 19 and 20. They all bear on the same point: what is the majority that should be necessary to activate a scheme? The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I have come up with exactly the same answer, which is that it should be two-thirds. The Bill originally provided for more than half. We are providing two-thirds or more—at least, my amendments are providing two-thirds or more: I am not sure that that is necessarily implied by the noble Baroness's amendments. However, if my amendment is accepted, it will not then be possible to put the noble Baroness's amendments as they will have been pre-empted. I believe that my amendments will achieve the purpose of establishing a two-thirds majority as the threshold for the approval of a scheme. I hope that has the approval of the Committee. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): I have to tell the Committee that if Amendment No. 12 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 13 or 14.
Baroness Hamwee: I am happy to be pre-empted on this and support the noble Lord's amendment.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We welcome the amendments. The proposal to increase the proportion of votes needed to establish a BID from a majority to two-thirds will ensure that any BID established has the clear support of businesses in the area.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am grateful for that support. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 not moved.]
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 3, line 34, at end insert—
("(5) Where a draft scheme has been modified pursuant to subsection (3) above, the local authority shall inform the applicant of the modification before making an election order.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 6. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 [Provisional BID charge list]:
[Amendment No. 16 not moved.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Elections]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: In calling Amendment No. 17, I should point out that if it is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 18 and 20.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 4, line 32, leave out ("a majority") and insert ("two-thirds or more").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 18 not moved.]
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 4, line 34, leave out ("more than halt") and insert ("two-thirds or more of").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 20 not moved.]
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Services etc provided by local authority]:
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 5, line 15, after ("section") insert ("4(1) or").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 22 and 23. Amendment No. 21 queries why in Clause 9(1)(a) as regards a local authority and the reference to,
"in coming to an opinion as to the making of an election order"
Clause 4(1) is not mentioned, but Clause 4(2) is. However, I am beginning to be even more confused than I was when I tabled the amendment because I am now wondering whether it is correct to mention Clause 4(2) at all. That subsection refers to not making an election order. Whether it is right in Clause 9(1)(a) to speak about,
"coming to an opinion as to the making of an election order under section 4(2)"
when that subsection speaks about not making an election order, I am not sure. However, that amendment is not down for consideration. I am probably taking the Committee around hoops that may be unnecessary. My query is as to why Clause 4(1) is not mentioned.
Amendment No. 22 deals with the local authority's assumption about existing provisions. That takes us back to the point made earlier today. I have suggested wording which I am not wedded to. I do not believe that it is perfect. The local authority may make an assumption. I am proposing that it has a report on the issue. Although not every local authority proceeds with the speed at which the last few minutes of this Committee stage have progressed—that is in no way a criticism of the Deputy Chairman of Committees because I see him looking at me—it is nevertheless

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sometimes the case that local authorities do not give public consideration to matters in a desirable way. Having reports on paper which are then available to the public is often useful. I am proposing that a report should be considered and not simply a move direct to the assumption. Amendment No. 23 is consequential to this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I may be able to relieve the noble Baroness of some of her anxieties. I share the view that the drafting of these amendments is not in a form appropriate for entry into the Bill. The noble Baroness has raised some important points on Clause 9. With my advisers, we are continuing to examine what is the best way of dealing with the matter. Amendment No. 21 seeks to relate the opinion of the local authority about making an order to Clause 4(1). That subsection confers the power on the local authority to make, or to refuse to make, an order: it does not refer to the opinion of the local authority in coming to that decision. Clause 4 is silent on the way in which local authorities exercise their judgment generally. It is assumed that, as a matter of law, that will be done reasonably. If a local authority makes a decision which is unreasonable, as I know to my cost, one may find that it is open to review in the courts. We see the point that the noble Baroness is getting at, but I do not believe she has succeeded—and we have not succeeded—in tabling an amendment which addresses the issue in a watertight fashion. I can assure the noble Baroness that work is continuing on it.
As regards Amendments Nos. 22 and 23, the point that the noble Baroness made is accepted. This returns to the matter of additionality. I am equally clear that this is not the way to deal with it. So on the undertaking that we are looking carefully at these matters and still consulting—and I certainly undertake to have a word with the noble Baroness—it may be helpful if she does not press these amendments.
Lord Bowness: My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding said that the matter is still under consideration. I believe that at Second Reading I raised a point about the wording of,
"not in substitution for the existing provision",
and attempted to make the point that an "existing provision" is easier to determine when one is looking at revenue. It seems to me that one of the things that a BID company might wish to do is to bring forward capital improvements. It can be argued that staged capital improvements across an authority were its "existing provision". I would not want the wording,
"not in substitution for the existing provision"
to prevent the BID company making an application which involved what otherwise would have been done by a local authority at some time in the future being done at an earlier date. When we discussed that at Second Reading the point may well have been taken. I hope that the question of capital expenditure is still part of the ongoing consideration.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The debate on Amendment No. 21 has been interesting. The advice that
902
I have received is that the amendment is not necessary to achieve the objective. I believe that it would be helpful for discussions to take place between now and the next stage of the Bill.
Amendment No. 22, requiring local authorities to consider a report of existing provision, is attempting to ensure that the improvements from the BID scheme are in addition to those delivered by the local authority. We can certainly support the thrust of these amendments which is to ensure that where businesses put in extra money they receive extra services rather than providing an excuse for the local authority to withdraw its own spending.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said, although the amendments try to deal with this risk, I am sure that the Committee will recognise the difficulty of fixing a level of service and assessing how it can be sensibly measured and maintained over a number of years. The noble Lord referred to what may be a capital programme that is intended to take place over a period of years. While Clause 9 is directed towards the idea that a BID's provision should be additional to existing levels of service, I am sure that the Committee would wish to consider whether it is really effective in proposing a way of measuring that or of enforcing the intention.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am very grateful for the Minister's remarks. The growing use of service level agreements is one way in which it is becoming easier to measure the given level of service, particularly as increasing numbers of services are provided under such agreements with private contractors.
As regards capital, that is an issue we still wish to consider. My noble friend rightly said that it could be a considerable advantage to ratepayers in a particular area that a much-needed capital improvement, perhaps embodying a traffic scheme or something of that sort, could be advanced and brought into operation earlier than it would have been possible for the local authority to achieve under its capital programme.
So it is clearly envisaged that there could be one-off capital schemes of that kind as part of the BID. Similarly, as regards the addition of amenities—whether tree planting, providing tubs or whatever—that could be advanced and brought in earlier. That would be an undoubted improvement. It is not just relieving the local authority of expenditure. The scheme will have to ensure that the local authority is involved and makes an appropriate contribution. The Bill makes provision for that, and is strengthened by some of the amendments already passed. Everybody agrees with the principle; we simply have to find the best way of doing it.
Baroness Hamwee: This has been an interesting exchange and we shall take these matters further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 not moved.]
1 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 5, line 18, at end insert—
("() Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to such provision as would otherwise be made by a local authority in the discharge of their functions which is, pursuant to an order made under section 70 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (functions of local authorities) made through the exercise of those functions by a BID company authorised by the local authority in that behalf.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is intended to deal with a situation where a local authority and a BID company agree that the company should undertake specified functions on behalf of the local authority. I referred to this in a debate on an earlier amendment. It can be achieved by making an order under Section 70 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. I said that it would be silly to have two cleaning companies charging round the streets and that the local authority should be able to delegate that function to a BID. On the Park Royal Estate, to which I referred earlier, there is already considerable evidence that the local authorities would be happy to contract with the new BID company for quite a lot of the services on the estate. There are no council tax payers on that estate. It comprises entirely commercial ratepayers. This seems a sensible way of developing and improving the services for the benefit of the occupiers. This amendment is intended to make that possible. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I note this new provision which helpfully distinguishes when a BID scheme is acting on behalf of a local authority and when it is acting on its own account. In this way, it would avoid Clause 9 having the, I am sure, unintended effect of overburdening local authorities in circumstances where activities had been contracted out following an order made under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I commend the amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Formation and functions of BID company]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 25:
Page 5, line 35, at end insert—
("(No BID company shall be constituted so as to be a company to which the provisions of Part V of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (companies in which local authorities have interests) apply, by reason of being a company under the control of, or subject to the influence of, a local authority within the meaning of that Part.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment was drafted before we had the introductory remarks made by the Minister at the beginning of this Committee stage. The amendment as drafted was designed to ensure that the expenditure of a BID is not imputed to the local authority. That would arise if the BID company were construed so as to fall within Part V of the Local
904
Government Housing Act 1989. That would clearly be a substantial constraint and a disincentive to setting up a BID. The consequence of the amendment would be that local authority participation in a BID and in the company would be limited. However, it does not preclude the involvement of local authorities and existing partnership arrangements under, for instance, town centre management schemes which often mirror the minority interest which is required to avoid the operation of Part V.
However, I think that we shall need to reconsider the provisions in the light of the advice that the Minister has clearly received from her officials and no doubt from other departments, including the Treasury. We shall have to explore the best way of making sure that that advice is correct. I am apprehensive that if that view is upheld we shall find ourselves in some difficulty. It may well be that the provision would become inappropriate in those circumstances. It is intended to deal with a particular problem. I would be happy to know whether, in the light of the circumstances which the noble Baroness has disclosed today, it would still be appropriate to go ahead with this amendment.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I apologise if the timing of the views expressed at the opening of this Committee stage has been inappropriate and thus unhelpful to the noble Lord. I offer him an opportunity to discuss the issue between now and Report stage. I note that this amendment is intended to ensure that the BID company will not be under the control of the local authority, and that the business community will be very much in the lead. This matches the aim of a BID, but perhaps the Committee might want to give some thought to the issue of accountability which was raised in the debate on Clause 1, and whether the clause would meet its aim at all times after the company has been launched.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am grateful for that. However, in the light of the anxieties that I expressed and what the Minister has said, I do not believe that it would be right to press the amendment, so I do not intend to move it.
[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clauses 12 and 13 agreed to.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 26:
After Clause 13, insert the following new clause
LEASES
(".—(1) This subsection applies where—

(a) premises are let to a person ("the tenant") who by reason of his occupation of those premises is, or becomes liable to, a business improvement district charge; and

(b) that person alleges that, having regard to the nature of the improvements proposed by the business improvement district scheme to which the charge relates, the whole or part of the charge ought to be borne by the person from whom the premises are let ("the owner").

(2) Where subsection (1) applies—

(a) the tenant may, in the absence of agreement as to the part of the charge to be paid by the owner, apply to the county court, and the court, after hearing the parties and any

905
witnesses they desire to call, may make such an order as the court considers just and equitable in the circumstances of the case, regard being had to the terms of any contract between the parties; or

(b) the court may, at the request of the owner or tenant, determine the lease.").

The noble Lord said: This new clause raises a point which has caused those who are advising me and myself considerable anxieties. It is not in doubt that we shall have to deal with the issue of people other than the occupier or the tenant of shop premises. There may be superior lessees and there will certainly be owners. If there is a short lease and there are to be significant improvements, much of the improvement will accrue to the benefit of the owners with regard to the value of their property, and it might be argued that the owners should therefore have to contribute by paying part of the charge. If it is a very long lease or if the improvements are relatively transitory, it may be that they will inure entirely to the benefit of the current occupiers, with very little impact on the value of the property.
It has become clear that there is a problem to be addressed. Discussions with bodies such as the British Retail Consortium, the British Property Federation and chambers of commerce have convinced us that that is the case. An amendment is clearly necessary because under the original Bill there was no provision for involving owners. We have already passed an amendment that owners will be entitled to make representations and will have to be consulted, and the local authority will have to take their views into account. The purpose of the amendment is to provide that, in the absence of agreement between the leaseholder (the occupier) and the freeholder, there is a procedure for application to the courts for a fair decision to take account of the respective interests and benefits. Essentially, we are seeking to provide such a mechanism.
Happily, there is a good statutory precedent because exactly the same situation arises under Section 170 of the Factories Act 1961 where a county court can apportion the cost of structural alterations between an owner and a tenant. The circumstances are different, but one can well imagine that the Factories Act might require structural changes that will enhance the value of a building and that the owner should pay part of that. Under that 1961 Act, where there is no agreement, a simple county court procedure is provided. That is the solution that we are proposing here.
That Act refers to the terms of a contract in deciding apportionment, but in their wisdom—I think it is entirely right—the courts have made it clear in case law that a court does not regard itself as bound by the terms of the tenancy alone. If it were so bound, the provision would be unnecessary and otiose. The courts have been able to resolve differences by taking account of all the circumstances and making a fair division. It may be suggested that recourse to the courts means that the problems of litigation and the costs involved are a considerable burden. However, one needs a fallback provision. It is envisaged that in most cases it would be perfectly possible to reach a solution. The knowledge that it would be open to one or other party to go to the courts would be a powerful incentive to agree.
I believe that this offers a more satisfactory route than the one considered earlier which involved the deployment of a disregard in assessing rental values where improvements were effected by a BID scheme and paid for by tenants through BID charges. The disregard route might be taken by analogy to the Landlord and Tenant Act but, having considered the matter and discussed it at some length with the representative bodies involved, we believe that the precedent of the Factories Act 1961 offers a better procedure. I hope the Committee agrees that that is a reasonable solution to a very real problem. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Bill envisages that it is the business ratepayers, normally the tenants, who will participate and pay charges. However, one of the possible consequences of a successful BID scheme would be to push up capital and rental values. Some tenants might feel that this was unfair. Amendment No. 26 enables a business tenant who thinks that the owner should bear part or whole of the scheme charge to apply to the county court. The court would then have discretion to apportion the charge between landlord and tenant or, at the request of either party, determine the lease.
I fully endorse the efforts made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, to draw up a provision aimed at producing a greater degree of equity between landlord and tenant. However, I wonder whether the amendment as drafted is necessarily the most appropriate way to address the point. In particular, the noble Lord will want to consider whether court proceedings are the most effective means of determining these matters. I have two particular concerns. First, the court would have the quite draconian power to determine the lease on the request of either party. It is not clear why it should have the power to terminate a private contract, especially in view of its wide discretion to apportion charges between landlord and tenant. Secondly, there is potential for a large number of cases. It is quite likely that many tenants will wish their landlords to make some contribution to the cost of the BID. It is equally likely that landlords will wish to resist. This would add significantly to the burden on the courts. I note that in this regard the Bill provides little guidance on how to determine cases.
The noble Lord has identified a particularly important point about balancing the responsibility between tenants and landlords within the area of a BID. However, bearing in mind these concerns, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment and consider in due course a more appropriate mechanism for finding the right balance.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am not altogether surprised by the line that the Minister has taken. I hope that there was a note of tentativeness in the way that I moved the amendment. This is certainly not the only possible solution. As to the possible burden on the courts, it is my understanding that the comparable provision in the Factories Act has given rise to very few cases, and that knowledge of the fact that there is power to apply leads the parties to reach

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an agreement. There are a number of trip wires at earlier stages in the process—consultation and so on—which would enable owners to make known their views very forcefully. I take the Minister's point that to terminate the lease would be a draconian measure. I believe that that is drawn directly from Section 170. That may not be appropriate in these circumstances.
I am happy to accede to the Minister's request. I do not press this amendment. I am equally convinced that we must find a solution to the problem, and in the end that may have to be done by the courts by one procedure or another. If there is no agreement it must be resolved by someone. We will take account of the important points that the Minister has made. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1.15 p.m.
Clause 14 [Alteration of business improvement district charges]:
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 6, line 5, leave out ("all") and insert ("three-quarters of").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 27 which is another probing amendment. Clause 14 provides that the level of the charge can be increased if all the ratepayers who are liable to pay it agree to that increase in writing. I am by no means convinced that the agreement of three-quarters of the ratepayers to an increase is the right number, but rather than be tedious and specify 99 per cent. or some other such figure I simply look for a device to query the practicality of the provision. As drafted, one chargepayer can block what may be a small sensible increase. I shall be grateful to receive any clarification that the noble Baroness may be able to provide.
Lord Bowness: I support an investigation or further discussion of how the Bill can be amended to avoid the requirement that all ratepayers should agree. That may bring to an end something that is very worth while. I am sure that the appropriate figure can be reached in discussion.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am glad that the noble Baroness has moved this as a probing amendment. I do not feel able to accept it as it stands. I believe that if ratepayers have decided to go ahead with a scheme on a certain basis and are already coercing the minority—whether it be one-third or less who are against the scheme—this will add additional burdens. They might find it extremely difficult if they were to be coerced still further. It was for that reason that originally we inserted "all" so that all of them would have to agree if the figure was to be raised.
I accept my noble friend's point that it would be rather silly if 1 per cent. suddenly dug in their toes. Perhaps we can consider it. I would lean toward making it all, but I would certainly not want a scheme to be frustrated because one or two very unreasonable people who represented a very small share dug in
908
their toes and said, "If you want us to agree, ante up". That would be the wrong spirit in which to approach the matter. Maybe we require some kind of de minimus disregard. We shall think about it. I do not think that the figure of three-quarters is right.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We support the principle behind Amendment No. 27 moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and look forward to hearing the outcome of discussions as to whether three-quarters is the precise figure.
Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for the indication that further consideration will be given to this matter. As the noble Lord was speaking, it occurred to me that the right balance might be a given proportion but also with reference to a proportion of the charge. As the noble Lord put it, there should be a de minimus provision. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clauses 15 to 28 agreed to.
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 28:
After Clause 28, insert the following new clause
LOCAL AUTHORITY DISCHARGE OF FUNCTIONS
(" . Nothing in this Act shall be interpreted as constituting an express provision within the meaning of subsection (1) of section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972 (arrangements for discharge of functions by local authorities); and accordingly, a local authority may arrange for the discharge of their functions as respects the establishment of a business improvement district by any other local authority.").
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment earlier. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 29 [Interpretation]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 8, line 45, at end insert—
(""proper officer" means an officer appointed by a local authority for the purposes of Part III of this Act;").
The noble Lord said: The definition needs to be inserted into the Bill. "Proper officer" must be defined because reference is made to it in earlier parts of the Bill. Perhaps I may assure noble Lords who are anxious to debate the Crown or the countryside that we covered the legislation as quickly as we could. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: This is a sensible clarifying amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Succession to the Crown Bill [H.L.]
1.22 p.m.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
I should like to make it clear at the outset that I am a supporter of the Royal Family and a believer in this country having a monarch. There are no conditions in which I would favour a president for Britain. However, that does not mean that as we approach the 21st century we should not consider any changes to a system that has served us so well for centuries. So I ask the House to approach my Bill in a positive way. With that in mind, I will put forward my reasons for why I believe this piece of legislation deserves the support of your Lordships' House.
First, it is important to place on the record that this Bill will have little or no effect for at least two generations—in real terms, probably around 60 or 70 years. Therefore, there is unlikely to be a single Member of this House alive to see the results of the Bill. Her Majesty the Queen, if her mother is anything to go by, will surely continue to be our monarch for many years to come. In the fullness of time, she will be succeeded by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, her first born, who in turn will be succeeded by his first born, His Royal Highness Prince William, who is only 15 years old. So the earliest the Bill could take effect would be if Prince William's first born was to be a girl. Indeed, if it were a boy the Bill would not be enacted until the 22nd century.
The Bill would have no effect on the present Royal Family, making no difference to the status of the Princess Royal, so it could hardly be described as a revolutionary concept. While I am on the subject of the Princess Royal, I would suggest that had she been the first born, this debate would not be taking place in a half empty House of Lords on a Friday afternoon, but in every household in the country. Although I am delighted by the prospect of King Charles III, I am not fearful of Queen Anne II. I might add that it was on the advice of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, that I decided to ensure that the Bill would not take immediate effect.
I suspect that our great grandchildren will find it difficult to believe that this subject was even considered worthy of debate. I feel confident that the House has noted that since the publication of my Bill, it has been met with overwhelming public support and been welcomed by the press. Indeed, a leader in The Times went so far as to say that it was surprised that the then Conservative Government had not come up with the idea themselves, or at least it should have been suggested by the then Opposition rather than a Conservative Back-Bencher in the House of Lords.
During the past months, my letter bag has been equally supportive, with only two letters opposing the Bill. The first suggested at great length and in considerable detail that God had put men on earth because he intended them to be superior to women. If that is the case, I am bound on this occasion to think that God got it wrong. How many men in this House
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would dare to suggest that they are superior to their wives? And in that I include Members of the Cabinet and shadow Cabinet. In my own case, the subject is not even worthy of discussion.
Who among us would say that on balance our kings have more impressive records than our queens? I will happily be a standard bearer for Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II against any three kings my opponents might care to select. More important, history has shown us that more often than not queens have the advantage of longevity. That has made it possible for our present monarch to be able to advise nine Prime Ministers since Winston Churchill. Queen Elizabeth II is respected and admired from one side of the globe to the other. The idea that her great granddaughter should not be allowed to take the throne ahead of a younger brother is not only farcical, but insulting to half the population of this country.
The second letter that I received opposing the Bill I took far more seriously. The writer put forward the argument that it was dangerous to tinker with the constitution. But if that argument had great validity, this House would never have passed the great Reform Bill of 1842 or agreed to women's suffrage in 1928. Mind you, it was extremely difficult to get either of those Bills through this House because many of your Lordships' ancestors voted against them, so I shall not be surprised to face some opposition today.
Some of your Lordships have put to me the thin edge of the wedge argument; namely, that if the Bill became law, hereditary Peers would be the next in line. I know that many of your Lordships feel strongly about that. I shall not dwell on the subject long because I know that my noble friend Lord Gainford will concentrate on that aspect of the argument. However, I would not wish to be accused of avoiding the issue so I shall say only that if it is good enough for the Royal Family, I do not see why it should not be good enough for the rest of us.
Others in your Lordships' House have suggested to me that perhaps this is not the appropriate time to be discussing this particular subject, while our Royal Family is facing its present difficulties. To them I am bound to say perhaps they would be kind enough to let me know when it is the appropriate time because with the present tabloid press, I cannot see that being in the foreseeable future. I repeat that that same press would make much more of a meal of it if Prince William's first born were to be a girl.
As I walk around the corridors of your Lordships' House, I am told time and time again that often it is the Peers who, because of their independence of mind, are more in touch with the views of the people. If that is the case, then those same Peers will have been left in no doubt how the people feel and will accept this Bill as no more than a tiny and common sense step forward in our constitution.
Therefore, I ask the House to support this small step forward so that it never crosses the minds of our yet unborn great grandchildren that we were either out of touch or that we considered that men were naturally superior to women. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken on the flood, leads on to fortune. Let this

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be a time in the affairs of women when, in your Lordships' House, not in the Commons, we are seen to be bold, progressive and in touch. My Lords, God Save the Queen. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—
(Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare.)
1.32 p.m.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the admirable speech with which he introduced the Bill and I rise to speak in support of it. There seem to be three powerful reasons which coincide in its favour. The first is that the reasons for the present rules of succession are long passed. There is a Latin tag which, since your Lordships do not favour the way in which lawyers pronounce Latin, I shall translate. It really means that where the reason for a legal rule has ceased, let the rule itself be brought to an end.
As I say, the reasons for the present rules of royal succession are long past. They reflect the rules by which real property—that is, land—descended before the reforms of 1925. Those rules in turn depended on the feudal law. The feudal law itself presupposed that the feudal inferior had to produce himself as an armed horseman or a body of armed horsemen and together they constituted the royal army with the monarch himself at the head. But it was considered for a number of reasons that that role of armed chivalry was not suitable for a woman and hence the rule of male primogeniture. Sometimes, as your Lordships know, if only from Shakespeare, some monarchies went much further. The French took over the rule of the Salian Franks whereby the Crown could not merely not descend to women but could not descend through a woman. It was because our system was different that the English kings maintained their claim to the French crown throughout the middle ages.
The Salic rule or anything like it was never applied in this country. On the contrary, a woman might inherit but she was postponed in her inheritance to her male siblings. When one looks at it like that, that is surely even more derogatory to the female sex than a total exclusion, because it is invidious. One is bound to ask in these days—and as the noble Lord said so resonantly—why should a woman be postponed in her moral right to her male siblings?
It is because our rule is particularly derogatory to women, as well as being quite out of date, that I come to the next reason which was indeed adumbrated by the noble Lord in moving the Bill. In a word, that is feminism. I confess to being a card-carrying feminist, although not, I hasten to add, of the bra-burning wing of that sorority. However, I do rather favour not mere egalitarianism but the way it was considered by Burke when he spoke of that generous loyalty to rank and sex. It is for the reasons that the noble Lord gave when we compare ourselves to our wives and mothers that we feel a humility which also speaks very strongly in favour of this Bill.
But even when strong reason and decency of feeling speak in favour of a measure, in this country we still tend to look at the matter pragmatically, in the light of
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experience. But experience too reinforces the two considerations which I venture to put before your Lordships. It was only a few years ago that we had a female monarch, a female Prime Minister, a female Leader of your Lordships' House and a female Lord Mayor of London, all highly admired in their achievements. Perhaps I may add how delighted we are and how suitable it is that the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, is to speak in this debate.
But it is not only those women. We have had experience of women monarchs. I believe that we have had six female monarchs since the Tudors inaugurated the modern monarchy. I suppose that the role, position and status of Queen Mary I is controversial by reason of religious differences and no doubt we must wait for the biography by Lady Russell to form a just and balanced view.
The second Queen Mary shared her throne. Of the remaining female monarch one has only to think of Elizabeth I. One thinks of Queen Anne. She was perhaps not a charismatic figure but she presided over some of the great victories of the British army, which stood against, not for the first nor for the last time, continental hegemony. After Queen Anne, there was Queen Victoria and our present Monarch. In view of those sole monarchs—Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and our present monarch—who can say that experience, too, does not speak strongly in favour of this Bill?
There are two other matters with which I shall venture to deal. The first has already been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Archer; namely, the view that your Lordships took on a Bill that was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, a few Sessions ago to alter the rules of succession of the hereditary peerage. I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, is to say something in that respect.
I can only say that I see no reason why this Bill's principles should be more widely applied. I hope that we shall not hear any talk of the thin end of the wedge. A great Conservative political thinker and active statesman said that the British Constitution is full of wedges which the good sense of the community refrains from driving home. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will not be deterred, if they think that the Bill is right on its merits, from acclaiming it.
I turn now to the final matter. It relates to subsection (2). I venture to doubt whether the noble Lord, Lord Archer, is entirely right in his reading of that. I would not have thought in any case that it is necessary, because this is not a procedural Bill, but one that affects substantive rights, so it would not in any case be read retrospectively. However, its incidence falls on the passing of this measure. One can envisage melancholy circumstances which might cause its provisions to be called into action in that event. We would very much welcome the views of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, on the matter. I venture to think that it is a matter of such importance that the Law Officers should be asked to advise on it.
I cannot speak categorically in view of the fact that the noble Lord himself is so certain of the effect of the Bill but I crave to venture a tentative doubt. Subject to that, I wholly support the Bill.
1.43 p.m.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, first, I should like to crave your Lordships' indulgence. As some noble Lords know, I had a bit of bad luck recently, although things are improving. The result of what happened is that my face and voice are not now my fortune, if indeed they ever were before. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships can hear me. I speak in support of my noble friend's Bill. I first showed that support by acting as Teller on 9th December 1996, when the opinion of the House was sought as to whether my noble friend might present his humble Address to Her Majesty concerning his proposed Bill. Since then, I have been very much looking forward to this occasion.
This century has seen a revolution in the status of women. A hundred years ago most women were virtually powerless unless they had men to speak or act for them. I can remember my late mother recalling her own grandfather saying, "No woman must be allowed to handle her own affairs". Many women were quite prepared to accept that situation, even to the extent of being shocked by, or even despising, members of their own sex who attempted to break out into independence or enter various professions such as that of a doctor.
Since that time women have advanced rapidly. No doubt two world wars in which women showed how they could do men's work were an influence. They are now in almost every profession, even the priesthood. Indeed, their presence in your Lordships' House is one proof of that progress. We have had a lady Prime Minister and also in another place we now have a lady Speaker of the House. It may not be long before we have a noble and learned Baroness sitting on the Woolsack.
Such a thing was foreseen way back in 1934. The late A. P. Herbert was the brains behind a brilliant review titled "Streamline" which was produced by the late Charles B. Cochrane. Florence Desmond was among the performers. One item on the programme was a musical sketch entitled, "Perseverance", which was a take-off of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Gondoliers". There was a singing entrance line for a lady. She who came in singing:
"I am the Lady Chancellor, I am;
But once I was a nurse and pushed a pram".
It was a good joke and audiences loved it. However, looking back, I wonder whether it might just have been a tiny bit prophetic.
With the advance in the status of women there must come an eventual change in hereditary laws, which even royalty may have to consider. In supporting this Bill, just like my noble friend I declare my total support for the Monarchy. I am an ardent monarchist. The last thing that I would want to see is anything that would diminish the influence of our Royal Family and the respect that the public has for it. That applies particularly at present, because it has recently had to take some rather hard knocks.
There are some who think that the male prerogative in inheritance is the status quo which must be preserved, almost as if it is a case of divine right. Of course, chauvinism will raise its head. We all get it in certain ways, and I am not excluded. Mine could be summed
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up in something that my elder daughter said to me. She is someone—and the noble and learned Lord. Lord Simon, mentioned this—in whom I have a particular interest, and I was really speaking on her behalf when the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, attempted to bring in a Bill to enable daughters, especially those of a Peer like myself who has no son, to inherit peerages. I can just about remember her words. She said, "Dad, you are loyal to Her Majesty. You were loyal to Lady Thatcher when she was Prime Minister. You supported women seeking ordination. You struggled in the House of Lords for daughters to be able to inherit Peerages: why do you still object to ladies coming into the Pavilion at Lord's?" That matter is, of course, now a subject of news reports.
Whatever progress is made and whatever heights women rise to in the future, we men trust that one privilege will not be taken away from us: namely, the right to court the lady of our choice, win her heart. marry her and provide for her, even if she is much more skilled at earning a higher income. Women are beautiful and wonderful creatures. I enjoy their company. Someone once suggested that I was a dirty old man. I retorted: "I am not a dirty old man: I am a very sexy senior citizen". Yes, my Lords, they are lovely creatures. They can drive a man up the proverbial wall, across the ceiling and down the other side. But we love them.
I recall again 9th December 1996. I remember that some newspaper reports showed interest in what had happened in this House. One headline read: "Judging Jeffrey's Bill". That is what we are doing today in this Second Reading debate. Let us grant it a satisfactory and just verdict.
1.49 p.m.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, this little Bill is an extraordinary piece of machinery for constitutional change with wide ramifications. To have it before the House on a Friday afternoon when the House is three-quarters empty does no credit to the procedures of the House or the arrangements for our business. It is a bad Bill and when the Question is put I shall shout, "Not content".
1.50 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I apologise for appearing in the anonymity of the gap in the speakers' list. I express no view on the merits or demerits of this Bill but, as I said on an earlier occasion in your Lordships' House when talking about the proposal by the Government to deprive hereditary peers of their rights, I object to constitutional change taking place by the method of a thousand cuts. For good or ill we now live in a different world from the one we inhabited less than 12 months ago. It is in particular a world in which there is great constitutional change beginning to occur. The Government have been playing this by playing one card and putting the rest of their hand under the table—not even against their chest—where no one knows precisely what will happen to the cards.
This is another example of trying to deal with important matters separately without looking at the whole. I very much regret to say that my noble friend

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Lord Archer destroyed his own case almost in his first sentence—I am sorry that he did not get someone to vet his speech, even if it was a lady—by saying that it would be 60 or 70 years before his Bill took effect. It seems to me that before that period of 60 or 70 years has expired we ought to look at the question of major constitutional change. I deliberately do not use the word "reform" because that has certain implications. But we ought to look at major constitutional change as a whole because we in this generation, or indeed in the next few years, may take decisions which will be of major importance so far as the future of this country is concerned.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I merely wish to correct some arithmetic by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. The Chamber is not three-quarters empty; it is over 90 per cent. empty.
1.52 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I have known, admired and considered a friend over a long period of time my noble friend Lord Archer. On the subject of this Bill my noble friend has been consistent, persevering and tenacious. I know that he feels deeply that there should be no sexual discrimination when determining the line of succession to the Crown. I hope therefore that my noble friend will respect the way in which I intend to respond to this Bill because I, too, do not wish to argue the merits or demerits of the Bill. I cannot, however, support addressing a subject of such profound constitutional significance on the basis of what may be passing mores that insist on placing a strict sexual egalitarianism above custom and tradition by way of a Private Member's Bill. There are certain institutions, of which the monarchy is most emphatically one—I would argue that the House of Lords is another—that should be beyond revision and reformation by Private Members' Bills or narrow sectional interests. Such proposed constitutional change, I believe, should be subject to a long period of reflection, deeper analysis which takes into account the historical perspective and contemporary thinking and should consider the consequences and impact of any changes for the future of the nation. If, following such a prolonged and in-depth consideration, reform is proposed, I hope that a much wider consensus across the political and social spectrum could be secured.
Under the present system of succession our country has had the good fortune to be ruled exceptionally wisely by women for 109 of the past 161 years. I, for one, am content to be guided by divine providence that under the tradition of centuries has given us remarkable sovereign queens, rather than to set aside our ancient customs using this parliamentary device which ignores possible constitutional ramifications.
We read in the newspapers—I know that we should not believe all that we read in the newspapers—that the Government wish to see this Bill, or such a Bill as this, enacted. It will therefore be interesting to hear from the Minister on this point when he replies to the debate. If, however, reports are correct, I hope the Government will
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not follow the example they have set on other constitutional changes, for example devolution for England and Wales, the removal of hereditary peers from this House; and indeed the future of this House, which is being proceeded with with indecent haste, is ill thought through and is totally lacking in any period of reflection and intellectual analysis. Nor are such constitutional matters being considered in their proper historical context and with all the constitutional knock-on effects being taken into account. Indeed my noble friend has conceded the thin end of the wedge argument by indicating in his speech today that there is a real probability that legislation affecting all hereditary peers would follow this Bill.
I know my noble friend will be disappointed in my response to this Bill. I do not wish in any way to argue with my noble friend that this is not a serious issue, nor that it is not an issue which has its devotees. I make only two points. First, I point out to my noble friend with some diffidence that my influence in this Parliament under a Labour Government is not great. Therefore the responsibility for the progress and survival of this Bill, or any other such Bill on this issue, is a matter for the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, and his colleagues in another place.
Secondly, I feel very strongly indeed that constitutional changes should not be made lightly. They should be the subject of wider, deeper, thoughtful and intellectual consideration. It is therefore the means by which we are being asked to consider succession arrangements to the Crown, taken together with the plethora of legislation which is dismantling centuries of tradition, which I find deeply disturbing. I will, however, honour the convention of this House by not opposing the Bill's Second Reading.
1.57 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. Noble Lords have raised issues which are related to the subject of the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, but which are not covered specifically by its provisions. I do not propose to deal with those now. I want simply to explain to the House what view the Government take about the noble Lord's Bill.
I should make it clear straight away that before reaching a view the Government of course consulted the Queen. Her Majesty had no objection to the Government's view that in determining the line of succession to the throne daughters and sons should be treated in the same way. There can be no real reason for not giving equal treatment to men and women in this respect.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, on a point of order, I had always understood that in this House it was not normal to make known the views of the monarch on legislation before the House. I thought that was a pretty fundamental precept.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, if I may be allowed to respond, this text has been specifically

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cleared with those to whom reference has been made. I therefore resent any suggestion that I have done anything improper. I therefore continue. There can be no real reason for not giving equal treatment to men and women in this respect.
We do not think that, whatever its merits, a Private Peer's Bill is an appropriate vehicle for so important a change as the one we have been debating. A major constitutional measure of this sort ought properly to be the subject of a government Bill. We shall be considering how best to carry this forward within government and in consultation with the Royal Family.
Under the Statute of Westminster 1931, before any alteration in the law touching the succession to the Throne can take effect the assent of all those countries of which Her Majesty is Queen is required. The United Kingdom cannot act unilaterally. That is another good reason for introducing a government measure. It would seem very odd to the legislatures of the 15 Realms to be invited to consider assenting to legislation instigated by an individual Member of your Lordships' House.
I cannot tell noble Lords today precisely how we shall be taking this forward. A number of suggestions have been made today for further changes in the law governing succession to the Throne. We shall of course look at these—in consultation of course with the Royal Family— but the only issue on which a decision has been taken is that which is the subject of the noble Lord's Bill: equality of treatment for men and women in relation to the succession to the Throne.
I do not think that I need say more at this stage. We have had our debate and I am grateful to all those noble Lords who have participated in it. I welcome the support which has been expressed for the principle behind the noble Lord's Bill and I trust that he will understand why we cannot support the Bill itself.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, before my noble friend rises, perhaps I may put a question on the record. Perhaps the noble Lord will write to me and other Members of the House. Is there any precedent whatsoever in the life of Parliament in this country for the definitive view of the Sovereign on the outcome of any Bill being announced to this House in advance of the Bill being considered by both Houses of Parliament?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I shall write to the noble Baroness and ensure that a copy of such letter, after appropriate consultations with those affected, is placed in the Library.
2.2 p.m.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: My Lords, perhaps I may say at the outset that I, too, was surprised by the statement. I shall be interested to read the letter.
I thank the Minister for taking the Bill so seriously. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, for supporting me on this occasion. He is a man with a distinguished record in the constitution. For the noble and learned Lord to have backed the Bill was pleasing.
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I understand fully the position of my noble friend Lady Blatch. Indeed, she was kind enough to say that we had been friends for many years and have supported many causes together. I understand fully her reasons for the conduct of the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Lauderdale said that he would be shouting "Not-Content". Perhaps in passing I may say how much I admired the excellent role my noble friend's daughter played in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament.
I have listened carefully to what the Minister said. I hear that the Government take the issue very seriously. I take the point of the noble Lord who said that it was too big an issue to be debated in this way. Indeed some noble Lords suggested that the matter should be given more thought. I take that on board.
I hope that those Members who have for a long time opposed me on the Bill will not doubt my sincerity or my hope that I shall live to see such legislation as part of the law of this land. However, I hear clearly what the Minister said. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Second Reading.
Motion for Second Reading, by leave, withdrawn.

Countryside Policy
2.4 p.m.
Lord Patten Lord Patten rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that their policies work to the benefit of people who live and work in the countryside.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to ask this Question. I am glad that Members of all major political parties, the Cross-Benches, and the Bench of Bishops are present to speak today. Perhaps I may begin by saying how much we look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury, a notably rural diocese. I understand that beacons and bonfires were to be seen last night from north to south and east to west of his bishopric.
I am also extremely glad that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will answer the debate. I understand that he knows a great deal about agriculture and the countryside. Like all chief whips he is known for his great subtlety, and for his absolute forthrightness in speaking, and in answering questions. I know that he will seek to answer in a straightforward way what seems to be the most important question to be asked today in your Lordships' House. If all is well in the countryside why do we have tens of thousands of discontented people in the countryside? We have the promise of I know not how many people marching for the first time ever in an unprecedented gathering in the streets of the capital. They are not just from rural areas but from the cities. They are unhappy with the way in which countryside matters are being handled. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will be able to answer that question head-on in his normal much appreciated way. In the closing moments of my speech, I shall have a helpful suggestion for him.
Rural discontent is not a matter of hunting, fishing or shooting. It is not all about farming. It is not about beef bones. For the avoidance of doubt, I have no interest to declare today in respect of any of those matters. The issues go far wider. I know that others, on all Benches in this House, will pick on particular issues during the course of this brief debate.
Perhaps I may illustrate my argument from three areas where there is widespread concern, above and beyond the burning issues of hunting, shooting, fishing, farming, beef bones and related matters. I take those matters seriously, and share the concern of those of your Lordships who, in turn, share the concern of country people in relation to them. However, I leave those points to be debated by later speakers. I prefer to turn first to the obvious concern that exists in the countryside as to the rate, nature and pace of the building of roads and homes.
Country people are very sensible. They want to get from A to B, so they do not mind new roads and by-passes being built from time to time. They know that their sons and daughters will have to live in houses, and therefore fully understand that homes should be built in the countryside as much as in the town. But it is the nature and scale of much of the development that has happened in the past and is feared for the future, and its disruptive effect on sometimes fragile communities, that causes so much concern in so many rural areas. That is one theme that unites many in the countryside—and many in the towns, who wish to go out from the towns to "recreate" themselves, to enjoy the countryside and meet with country people. Townspeople and country people should not be part of two nations. They need each other, and should learn more about each other.
Secondly, there is the issue of the right to roam, which seems very much to have crystallised rural discontent. It causes concern because country people think that it is a one-way street—perhaps one might call it a one-way lane, or a one-way bridle-path. I recently asked Her Majesty's Government whether they had any intention of being even-handed on the issue of the right to roam, and whether they would provide that right for rural people in urban areas as they propose to for urban people in rural areas. I received an ever helpful reply from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which I have taken the precaution of bringing with me. It states that the Government do not have any intention of extending the right to roam into urban areas. One cannot therefore blame country people for feeling that the very symbol, the icon, of the right to roam shows that the Government have less than even-handed intentions towards country people.
Thirdly, there is the matter of the preservation of village life in this country. The decline of the English village goes back many decades. However, it is clear that in rural areas there is severe deprivation among a small number of not very vocal people who cannot sometimes, for example, easily get to a doctor or a shop. They cannot take for granted the privilege of easy access to services which people in towns, and increasingly in suburban areas, experience. I suppose that in this country we are mostly suburban now; that is where the
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majority of people live. That is why so many villages seem to be dying on their feet. It is peculiarly poignant that the model of the self-supporting, self-sustaining English village community, for so long prayed in aid by observers of social policy, and indeed by the Church of England in some of its important reports in the 1980s, as the very way in which the inner city might be revitalised, should itself be slowly dying—it is death by a thousand cuts. Those are three examples of how the issue of the countryside and the fate of those who live and work there is very much more than hunting, shooting, fishing, farming, beef bones and all the rest—although I have very deep sympathy with those who are concerned about those issues.
I would say to country people that their organising of themselves has begun to produce results. We have had three important government Statements within the past week of which noble Lords are well aware. They are announcements which, had I still been in another place and full of the bad habits of another place, I should have referred to as U-turns. But I have learnt the more polite parlance of this House, and therefore say that these are welcome re-evaluations of government policy and revisions of pre-existing of government Statements in order to clarify the situation.
I shall not say that the countryside has tasted blood. That would be inappropriate. But now that the Countryside Alliance and the countryside movement generally has seen that well-organised pressure, and the careful and moderate arguing of the countryside's case, can produce these results, I hope that the countryside will continue to organise itself in the way that it has done. I believe that the manifestation of the Countryside Alliance's march this Sunday will be repeated in future years and I hope that at long last we shall see the Government take seriously rural problems.
It is on that point that I conclude, for I wish, as I promised the noble Lord, Lord Carter, at the beginning of my remarks, to be constructive. It is a matter of fact that approximately 150 different government working parties and working groups have been set up since the present Government assumed office on 1st May last year. I believe that the last body count was 147; others may have been created since that I have missed. Not one of those working parties or working groups is concerned specifically with rural matters. That seems to me an extraordinary reflection on the Government's attitude towards the countryside. I am sure that it is an oversight; it needs to be put right. It is clear that there is no one in charge of rural policy in Her Majesty's Government.
The turf wars between different ministries over rural matters have been endemic over many decades. We have the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. There is, however, no one to take charge of rural matters. That must be put right. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that he should pass on to his right honourable friend the Prime Minister the suggestion that, following the good example of the Social Exclusion Unit, the Government should immediately set up a rural exclusion unit, located in 10 Downing Street, to begin to look across government at the problems facing rural areas. I hope that the noble

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Lord, Lord Carter, will pass on that suggestion to his right honourable friend in the constructive spirit in which it is meant.
Unless something is done, we are in grave danger of having two nations in this country: an overweening, overwhelming, over-mighty, un-understanding urban majority and a small, fragile and increasingly threatened and excluded rural minority. That would be a tragedy. We must not allow an iron curtain of misunderstanding to come down permanently between town and country.
2.15 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for initiating this more than timely debate. I too am particularly glad that the response for the Government is to come from my noble friend Lord Carter, who, I think it is fair to say, is in a very real sense acknowledged to be a true friend of the countryside.
We have five minutes in which to speak, but five hours would not be sufficient. Last night's beacons and next Sunday's march are the public displays of a crisis in our land which no one in Parliament should overlook, underestimate or try to belittle. I have never known such fear, such anger, such sadness and such frustration as I have encountered over the past year almost wherever country people are gathered together. "We feel totally disenfranchised", are words which I have heard from Wales to Scotland, from Somerset to Yorkshire, from everywhere.
The problems stem from long before the general election. This is not simply a financial crisis in agriculture, although when farming is in crisis so is much of the rest of the rural economy. There is a deeper and even more difficult crisis for the Government to face. It is one caused by pressure of population from urban Britain. It comes from those who wish to use the countryside as a recreation area, those who wish to use it as a dormitory for the town, those who wish to retire there and those who seek to change its ways to suit different urban tastes. It is that pressure, sometimes combined with intolerance, which has made those who live and work in rural Britain feel under threat as never before.
Of course, country people want many of the same things from their government as do those in the town: they want affordable houses, jobs, good education, good healthcare and security from crime. In short, they want the opportunity to enjoy their lives to the full. Policies and attitudes to meet those requirements which are appropriate for the town may often be harmful when applied in the same way to the countryside. To give one example, measures to limit car use may be good for the town but may result in there being no affordable means of transport and loss of jobs in the countryside.
This debate is about government policies. As the noble Lord fairly conceded in asking his Question, three major steps forward for the countryside were taken last week. The Deputy Prime Minister's announcement on housing development on Monday, the Minister for the Environment's announcement on access on Wednesday and the new package of assistance for the very
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hardest-hit livestock farmers announced by the Minister of Agriculture deserve universal acknowledgement and the gratitude of rural Britain. The Government have clearly begun to listen and respond to those worries. So far, so good. But I echo what the noble Lord opposite said. What is needed is one government department to speak for the rural minority and to ensure that all government policy takes account of their very different needs and problems.
On Sunday country people, frightened for their future, will come to London in their thousands. There will be many different priorities, many different reasons for their being there, but they will be united by one thing—their opposition to the current Bill to ban hunting which is before Parliament in another place.
A vast amount of money—an estimated £2.5 million—has so far been spent by supporters of that Bill in mounting an advertising campaign, political lobbying and public relations designed to whip up hatred in our largely urban population against a rural minority in the name of animal welfare. Ironically, those on the receiving end of the abuse and vilification are those who own and care for most of the animals and look after the countryside and its wildlife for all to enjoy.
The feeling of unity, anticipation and hope which was felt throughout our country in May this year when many rural areas elected Labour MPs was severely damaged by the vote at the Second Reading of the Bill. Our Government—I pay tribute to them—have not given support to that measure which many of us believe would be bad for animals, bad for people, had for freedom and in the long term disastrous for our countryside. Let those who disagree try to persuade others by force of argument. But do not try to pass legislation to send those to prison whom you fail to convince.
The very diversity of our nation is its strength and richness. We ask our Government to protect that diversity and lead the way in tolerance of minorities, of which rural people are perhaps the largest in our land. Tolerance means tolerating things we may not like. Give us, both town and country people, the chance to do more with our lives. Do not spend your precious time in government passing legislation to restrict, control and ban. The countryside wants you to succeed; let us work with you.
2.21 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, I am glad of the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate and am grateful to the noble Lord who introduced it for weaving into his remarks a reference to Salisbury. He will understand if I speak from experience of that rural part of the world which is the southern part of Wiltshire and Dorset, but I speak also out of the Church's commitment, which it shares with government, to build strong communities.
In my part of the world rural communities feel under threat. Their integrated way of life, with its close links between land use, housing, schools, shops and transport, does not feel understood or appreciated for the contribution it wants to make. Let me rehearse one or two of those concerns.

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First, there is real poverty and deprivation in many of our rural areas. The picture of the countryside as a rural playground protected for the wealthy is unreal. In real life it is the smell of slurry that competes with the roses over the cottage door. There is a village in our diocese, which is not untypical, where one-third of the population earn over £40,000 per annum but another third earn less than £6,000. The average income figures paint a rosy picture but conceal a real poverty. To build strong rural communities in England, we need a realistic picture of our rural and social economy.
Secondly, the question of housing arises. Some recent government changes seem welcome—the recent announcement of the reduction in the total number of houses to be built and the shift in the balance towards building on brownfield sites. But in our diocese there is an enormous lack of brownfield sites and those that exist are often expensive to develop. Recently a village in Wiltshire wanted to build just 12 houses on one of those sites. It had been used for waste infill. It cost more than £250,000 to prepare the site for building and that put the cost of each house up to a level beyond the reach of many of those in the local community. Where there is no brownfield site available, the imposition of VAT on greenfield sites will make village development much more expensive.
What makes this worse is that regulations prevent district councils from specifying a proportion of affordable houses on small scale developments. But it is this small-scale development that we most need in our village communities—affordable houses that could be bought or rented by the young first-time house owners or by people in later life coming back to their rural roots, not the executive-style properties that are so often built and sold to wealthy weekenders or commuters. That is why our diocese has a policy of releasing glebe land for social housing. We have housing developments in villages, mostly with houses or flats to rent or for equity sharing, most of which are only six or at the most eight houses. All tenancies are made to local people and it is part of the scheme that covenants on those houses can control their future use.
If there is no affordable housing, young families on low incomes cannot get into the villages and school numbers fall. Pride in your local school is an important factor in generating a sense of being part of a community that has a future. With so many signals of uncertainty about the future of the farming industry, institutions that represent a commitment to the future are immensely important for morale.
The issue of rural transport is key. Both the young and the old are particularly hard hit by a lack of it. It also affects who can shop where. A recent report showed that 83 per cent. of villages in Wiltshire and an astonishing 88 per cent. in Dorset have no bus service at all. But where there is a bus service, it is very important that it is integrated and is one that meets the needs of local people. I came across a village near Devizes where the locals could get into town by bus on market day but could not get back in time to meet their children out of school. It is a question of co-ordination. Without incentives like this, people will continue to use
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their cars. I know that many are concerned about the reported intention of the Government to raise petrol prices by a substantial amount. That may help control urban pollution but it does a grave disservice to the country.
I am telling your Lordships what it feels like to work in a largely rural area where we want to encourage the Government to appreciate the distinctive contribution which the rural way of life offers. In the countryside our lives are constrained by a variety of natural factors, from the seasons of the year to the vagaries of the climate, from the geophysical structure to the inherited patterns of land use and management. We in the countryside need the chance to develop our distinctive contribution and then to contribute to the national agenda on the crucial question of what makes strong community.
A major part of the Church's task is to create community, models of people in relationship with one another. We are willing partners with a government who seek to build community at all levels. But strong community needs social policies to back it. What the life of the countryside reveals is that such social policies need to be integrated, not contrived piecemeal and developed unrelated to one another; and to have integrated social and economic policies, you need a vision of what community means. That vision springs out of the conviction, which I believe the Church shares with the Government, that neither dependence nor independence is the key, but interdependence. Interdependence is what life in the countryside models. So I hope we will cherish that vision which the countryside offers as its contribution to our common life.
2.28 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury. Time will not allow me to pay as much care and attention to his many attributes as I would like, but certainly the feelings he expressed for his community are well appreciated by your Lordships. We look forward very much indeed to hearing the right reverend Prelate again in the future.
I thank my noble friend Lord Patten for initiating this debate. I think it is too early to tell whether the Government's policies are having an adverse effect on those who live and work in the countryside, with the exception perhaps of beef on the bone, which was quite frankly a bad mistake. I think the Government now appreciate that. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, indicated, there is real hostility building in the countryside. People do not like what they see. They do not like the pointers that are coming from the Government on rural issues.
In new Labour we have a government who appear—for the time being at any rate—to have shed the profligate images of their predecessors. But one cannot help feeling that in their attempt to placate their Left wing the Government are eyeing up the countryside as what they see as the soft belly of privilege and traditionalism, which is there to be dismembered purely

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on the back of political dogma. I believe that that would be dangerous and foolish. I hope that those prognostications do not turn out to be true.
New Labour has few rural roots. That is not a criticism, but simply a fact. There are, of course, exceptions and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, is a very good exception. We all know that his rural credentials are as good as anybody's. But it is for that very reason that I believe that this Government should listen and learn from the countryside if we are to have a government, as the Prime Minister has said, that is going to govern for everybody and not just for their chosen few or chosen many, as the case may be.
As someone who lives, works and owns land in the countryside, I appreciate the wonders of the countryside, but I also understand the difficulties, such as poverty, crime and—something which I feel strongly about—the imbalance that exists at the moment between agriculture and the environment. But whether we like it or not, the countryside has been, and will continue to be, shaped by those who live, work and invest there. The Government must work with those people if they are to gain their confidence.
I believe that what those whose responsibility it is to manage the countryside object to most is the criticism that comes from those who have no practical experience of rural matters. They are what one might term the armchair critics; those who venture out from time to time and then try to tell us how we should run our affairs. Every sector of society has its ways and traditions and some of those associated with the countryside may indeed seem strange. But, generally speaking, there are very good reasons for these traditions. They have been born out of trial, error and practice by good, honest citizens and not simply devised on the back of some whim or by some spin doctor. So what we seek is tolerance and understanding. We expect people to find out about things before they start condemning the countryside.
An example of that is that it is no coincidence that two of the recent chief executives of the League Against Cruel Sports have changed their attitude towards hunting having separated the emotional from the practical, the fact from the fiction. Hypocrisy, too, clouds our thinking and I suppose it is fair to say that we are all guilty of that to a greater or lesser extent. I find it difficult to understand, for example, those who condemn field sports, but at the same time keep cats. Killing is part of the field sports ethos for there is a net gain for the countryside through habitat management, employment, and so on. Yet in a recent report by Mick Fox, I see that there are 9 million cats in this country which account for the indiscriminate death of at least 88 million birds and 164 million mammals annually. Many of those deaths are hardly instantaneous: I suspect that they are rather cruel and lengthy. But we do not ban cats for the simple reason that we are tolerant towards those who get pleasure from them.
In conclusion, Sunday's March—which, I suspect, is really why we are discussing these issues at the moment—is not anti-Government: it is pro-countryside. But it is not the sanitised theme park-type countryside
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that some would envisage. We are talking about the real, living countryside. The march is about jobs and communities' traditions, which many of us feel very strongly and passionately about. It is about farming, forestry and field sports, but above all it is about freedom and liberty.
Let us not forget one thing. Perhaps not all those marching on Sunday—however many they be—participate in hunting. But they will be there because there is an anti-hunting Bill in the other place at the moment, and all of those people marching on Sunday see hunting as part of the fabric of the British countryside which they wish to preserve.
2.35 p.m.
Lord Dulverton: My Lords, it is with much trepidation that I rise to address this august House and I must ask your Lordships' indulgence for my maiden speech. I was intrigued when I learned that I was to speak after the noble Earl, Lord Peel. I do not know whether he knows that my grandfather succeeded to his seat in Parliament when his grandfather was elevated to this House.
I started farming on my own account 25 years ago, having first attended agriculture college, and then spent a year and a half in a City merchant bank to broaden my perspective. It is poignant with regard to today's debate that the ex-farm price of corn is now the same as it was then, 25 years ago. How many people and their products could compete on the basis of such prices?
I am now more involved with industry than agriculture, and my remaining farming interests are run by professional advisers who farm on their own account. I am chairman of a Warwickshire-based firm of leading manufacturers to the construction industry.
Today, those who live and work in the countryside make up less than 10 per cent. of the population. Those in agriculture make up 2 per cent. of the workforce in employment. Against that background there has to be, by definition, far fewer people who can understand the predicament of farmers today. Theirs is indeed a perilous one. Out of a total of about 200,000 farmers, nearly 30 per cent.—or 60,000—face the possibility of losing their livelihood; of those, half are at risk from the borrowings that they undertook in order to better their farms; the others are at risk from the fact that their farm is of an uneconomic size.
Perhaps I may take a local farmer as an example. His 300-acre farm used to support three families, yet his son now wonders whether the farm will be viable in the future for his family alone. No grass has been ploughed for 50 years. The farm uses little chemicals. The farmer works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and he last left his farm for a holiday 24 years ago. In the past 12 months he has seen his income fall by 50 per cent. He wants no sympathy. He merely wonders whether, when his time is up, anyone will be willing or able to take on that land.
That farmer is based in the more prosperous Midlands. How much more serious must the situation be for those hardy folk, the upland farmers? Do we want those farms turned into a wilderness area? They look

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as they do today because they have been cared for by succeeding generations for hundreds of years. Many upland farmers must be wondering how long they can carry on.
In the past few days, we have heard of the new initiatives being implemented by the Government pledging £85 million to aid livestock farmers. I fear that more will be required.
The situation in the countryside today is very serious. Sadly, with fewer than one person in 10 now living in a non-urban environment, few people can comprehend that fact. Let us hope that a caring government will be able to resolve the situation by their initiatives. It occurred to me as an afterthought that perhaps the £800 million Dome should contain a model of a real hill farm, which will perhaps one day have a tomb on it with "RIP hill farmers" engraved upon it.
2.40 p.m.
Lord Annaly: My Lords, it falls upon my shoulders to congratulate on behalf of the whole House—I do it with pleasure—the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, on his maiden speech. In the few minutes allowed to him the noble Lord displayed his knowledge and depth of experience of the countryside. I hope that in the months and years ahead we in this House can put the noble Lord's experience to great benefit, if we are still here.
This is a timely debate, for which I thank my noble friend Lord Patten. It follows a night when over 5,500 bonfires were lit across the full length and breadth of the country and before the countryside march in London to be held the day after tomorrow. It is very likely that the numbers of people who descend upon London on Sunday will exceed the 120,000 who attended the countryside rally in Hyde Park on 10th July. Surely, this carries a strong message to the Government from many who live and work in the countryside. It is simply: listen to us, listen to us.
There is growing concern among many thousands of people, albeit a minority in national terms, that their way of life and in many cases their livelihoods are under threat. While there are many issues of concern to people who live and work in the country—to farmers it is the strength of the pound and the fall in their incomes, but there are also issues such as transport, education, housing and development in the countryside, all of which are areas of great importance—it is the Foster anti-hunting Bill which is about to reach its Report stage in another place that has been the catalyst to bring together country sportsmen, farmers and others who feel threatened and frustrated by the Government's attitude to them.
After the Hyde Park rally last July the Government indicated that they might include an anti-hunting amendment as part of a government Bill at a future stage. Britain has always prided itself on its freedom of speech and tolerance of minority groups and interests. Surely that is something for which some of your Lordships, and for some of us our fathers, fought and won the last war. There are at last some encouraging signs that the Government are beginning to listen to
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some of the concerns of the country dweller and worker. In their recent consultation document Access to the Countryside the Government have stepped back from legislation on the right to roam in favour of voluntary agreements. This must be the preferable route to go down. It would be quite wrong to enforce public access. If the Labour Party truly believes in voluntary access, it should drop the threat of coercion. Voluntary agreements between landowners and government agencies have been responsible for creating new opportunities for access to over 250,000 acres of land since 1990, according to the Countryside Commission survey. A recent Gallup poll of 5th February published by the CLA showed that, while a large percentage of the public would prefer to see greater access to the countryside, nearly two-thirds preferred to follow way-marked paths rather than choose their own route.
Another issue of concern to many people living in the country is the threat of development in the countryside seemingly at an ever-increasing pace. The countryside is a scarce resource and once it has been developed we cannot get it back. This is why I am concerned by several recent decisions by the Government, one of them being the development of up to 10,000 homes on the green belt between Hitchin and Stevenage. The new measures announced by the Government on 23rd February regarding 60 per cent. of new development in the countryside being on brownfield sites are certainly a step in the right direction, for which they should have full credit. I would, however, like to see the 60 per cent. increased to at least 66 per cent. Some so-called brownfield sites might be set in unspoilt countryside. If they were to be developed all the upgrading to the roads in the area and the increase in traffic, not to mention the light pollution, would totally change the character of the area for the worse. Can the Minister confirm that there will be a halt to the adoption of further county structure plans until the Government's new policies have been clarified?
2.45 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, in joining noble Lords who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing the debate, I should declare an interest. I live in a national park; indeed, I own all of two-thirds or three-quarters of an acre. I also join noble Lords who have expressed reassurance that my noble friend Lord Carter is replying to the debate. It is difficult to think of anyone with a more convincing commitment to and knowledge of the countryside and its needs.
Reference has been made to the forthcoming demonstration this weekend. I am afraid that one characteristic of the demonstration which concerns me is the confusion, manipulation and emotionalism which surrounds it. I believe that the Ministers who are preparing to identify themselves with the demonstration need to be very careful. They need to be careful about what they are standing for in going to the demonstration lest they end up being associated with things in which they have no interest whatever.
With characteristic candour, my noble friend Lady Mallalieu referred to hunting. We all know that concerns about hunting have been central to the motivation for

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the demonstration. But I must say to my noble friend that there has been too much confusion about the issue. Many are, like me, totally convinced that wildlife must be managed. The argument as we see it is about what is the most decent. humane and civilised way to achieve that without pandering to baser and on occasions sick elements in human character, not least among morbid, bloodthirsty spectators.
Another characteristic of the demonstration which concerns me is its social divisiveness. I ask myself where was the concern of those involved when the technological revolution, asset stripping and the de-industrialisation of Britain were decimating living urban communities and causing grave physical and mental health problems for hundreds of thousands of displaced workers and management and their families? All that change was justified in the name of economic progress from which many landowners were able to benefit and upon which many farming communities depended for their subsidies.
The truth is that there is a complex inter-relationship between urban and rural life. I think also of the nightmare of accumulating waste and its disposal, or of pollution and its implication for the climate. It is clear to me that the market alone will never find the solutions. Government, as always, is about intervention for the common good; establishing the central strategic balance between market forces and the long-term benefit of sustainability for society as a whole.
I will have good friends and neighbours participating in the demonstration, but there are very many rural dwellers who will not be there. I refer to the rural poor and underpaid; the frail and elderly in their isolation; the rural unemployed, not least the young; and the rural homeless. I hope that my noble friend will have something convincing to say about them. There are other urgent needs—
Earl Peel: My Lords, what makes the noble Lord believe that the rural underpaid will not be at the march on Sunday?
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Earl will agree that even more rural underpaid people will not be participating in the demonstration on Sunday.
I think also of the need for reliable—and it is even more important than frequent—public transport and of housing for indigenous rural populations as distinct from overspill housing for people from the cities, which leads to the continuing decline of urban communities. We are glad to see that the Government are now tackling that.
There is the whole issue of the nonsensical counter-productive subsidies with their emphasis on set-aside and all the resentment that causes, and in relation to stock there is the consequent over-grazing, particularly in marginal hilly areas, which results in serious degradation of the environment.
If there is one justification for the emotional outburst this weekend, I believe it to be the absence of a convincing, positive, integrated strategy for the countryside; a strategy which recognises both the countryside's interdependence with urban society and
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the needs of people who live and work in the countryside; a strategy which sees the countryside as literally the indispensable lungs of the nation as a whole, hence, incidentally, the crucial importance of the integrity of remaining open spaces; a strategy which establishes the priority of resources and subsidies for the qualitative and positive management of that precious national asset—for example, by the redevelopment of skills like dry-stone walling, hedging, ditching, coppicing, thatching and managing moorland and by the preservation of pathways and the prevention of erosion.
I, for one, hope that we can celebrate the new millennium by the imaginative reassertion of the priceless significance of the countryside as a vital part of the nation as a whole. It is an asset which all can enjoy and in which all can take pride. It is by the generation of a sense of involvement and responsibility in the nation as a whole that the wellbeing of the countryside will best be protected.
2.50 p.m.
Viscount Addison: My Lords, I should declare an interest as a vice-president of the Council for National Parks. The high environmental quality of the national parks is dependent on the nature of human interaction with them. People have lived in the areas now designated for thousands of years. Successive governments have made it clear that there is no incompatibility between conserving and enhancing our national parks and their remaining as living and working communities. For example, Circular 12/96 says that:
"the qualities for which the Parks have been designated are as much the products of man's hand as of nature. It is in the interests of the conservation of those qualities that the National Park Authorities now have a duty to work with and for their local communities".
Data collected by the Council for National Parks during its major National Parks for Life project on the sustainable use of national parks shows that across the parks the percentage of the male population of working age which is economically active is 79 per cent. The research project showed that the employment structure of national parks, perhaps not surprisingly, showed a great reliance on the tourism, service and agriculture industries. This reliance strongly suggests that protecting the environment of national parks may be significant in protecting the social and economic well-being of park communities.
Good quality countryside also attracts inward investment by way of high technology industry. Development of modern communication systems has enabled individuals and small companies to set up new computer-led business opportunities in several national parks. Location in such an environmentally attractive area is undoubtedly a factor in attracting customers.
Agri-environment schemes provide an important boost to the local economy. This is clearly demonstrated by the Tir Cymen scheme in Wales. A socio-economic evaluation of Tir Cymen, undertaken by ADAS in 1995, revealed that the scheme supports not only farm incomes and employment but the wider rural economy with benefits to contractors, suppliers and new enterprises. The ADAS study showed that Tir Cymen had generated about 200 casual jobs within the three pilot areas.

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Twenty-nine out of the 35 businesses surveyed reported an increase in demand for their businesses as a result of Tir Cymen. We hope that this success will be repeated when the all-Wales agri-environment scheme comes on line in the summer.
The relationship between environmental quality and social and economic well-being is recognised by the Government. For example, PPG 7 states that,
"wealth creation and environmental quality are increasingly interconnected. The appeal of the countryside is central to its economic prosperity, and healthy economic activity in rural areas facilitates investment to protect and improve the countryside".
The consultation processes that underpin planning in the parks also help to ensure local participation. National Park local plans and the new tranche of management plans are all subject to extensive and open consultation with local people. For example, the Planning for Real exercise in the Brecon Beacons National Park saw officers hold local workshops all over the park to gauge the views of local people.
Section 62 of the 1995 Environment Act places a duty on national park authorities to seek to foster the social and economic well-being of their local communities in ways that are compatible with their pursuit of national park purposes. That new duty reinforces the need for the authorities to take a positive view of the well-being of their local communities.
National park authorities have made a clear commitment to working with people through the Local Agenda 21 process. For example, in 1995 the Peak District National Park Authority agreed to set up a Local Agenda 21 project at Tideswell village. The project is a partnership of county and district councils, the Rural Development Commission, East Midlands Electricity and North Derbyshire Health Authority. By kick-starting this Local Agenda 21 initiative, the Peak Park Authority has demonstrated a key role for national part authorities in working towards a more sustainable development.
The Government recognise the important role that national parks play as test beds for the sustainable management of whole countryside. How wonderful it would be if this could be even more widely applied. But application needs funding. I was interested to note the Prime Minister's commitment to increased funding for the shires, as expressed in Country Life magazine on 26th February. On 5th November last, during a debate on environmental protection and enhancement, I informed the House that in 1996 national parks received funding of 16p. per acre, compared with the figure of £137 per acre for arable area or set-aside payments. I should welcome the Minister's assurance that the funding of the jewels in countryside's crown will receive as much attention as the financial needs of the shires in order that they will be adequately protected and meet sustainability objectives.
2.56 p.m.
Viscount Allenby of Megiddo: My Lords, I, too, join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing this important topic at a crucial time for the countryside: just 48 hours before
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hundreds of thousands of people will be expressing their concerns here in the capital in the clearest and most forthright way to the Government:
"Stop attacking the countryside. Take the trouble to understand. Listen to us!".
Nothing could be clearer than that.
The elected Members of the other place have overwhelmingly voted to ban hunting with dogs, but they have failed to recognise the crucial service that is given to the care of the countryside by the landowners, the farmers and the rural communities themselves. If we are not very careful,
"England's green and pleasant land",
to quote William Blake, will become a concrete jungle and an ecological wasteland.
Many figures and statistics have been widely misleading and misquoted. I should like briefly to put the figures into perspective by looking at a typical part of our countryside—the Border area. In particular, I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to a recently completed study undertaken for the Borders Foundation for Rural Sustainability. The report, which is entitled The Economic Contribution of Hunting within the Scottish and Northumberland Borders, covers an area hunted by seven packs of foxhounds. The gross contribution to the economy of this very rural region is about £3.5 million; £1.3 million is specific to hunting, while a further £1.2 million is spent on other goods and services such as farriers, veterinarians, maintenance, welfare and horse livery, to quote just a few of the things upon which the money is spent.
The total employment deriving from the Borders hunting is nearly equivalent to 350 full-time jobs, which will go if hunting is banned. Rural businesses are run on small profit margins. For example, if this step is taken, 10 out of the 11 farriers in the Borders would lose their business and the remaining farrier would lose his apprentice—a loss of some 11 jobs.
A traditional service provided by hunts to farmers in their hunting country has been the collection of fallen stock. This may be humane slaughter and collection of sick or injured animals or just the disposal of dead animals delivered to them. In the past a service was offered by local "knackermen" who would similarly collect fallen stock. However, recent government legislation has effectively closed the knacker trade as the cost of offal disposal soars. The whole of the Border region has now only one knacker business left.
Within the past 12 months the seven hunts to which I have referred handled over 6,000 head of stock. Added to this, from 1st April knackermen will be subjected to a further cost rise as a result of skip cost increases. The problems of fallen stock are numerous and could lead to illegal burying of dead animals. Will the Minister give us some indication what plans there are as regards the disposal of fallen stock when he replies to the debate?
The Borders Foundation report on rural sustainability concludes,
"That the abolition of hunting would have economic and social implications way beyond the approximate 350 jobs it currently generates".

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Country sports, particularly hunting, provide a focus of interest for rural communities which both enriches and enlivens them and provides the basis for cultural and traditional practices.
The Rio declaration on the environment and development in 1992—having been formulated at the United Nations conference on the environment and development—proclaims a key principle (known as principle 22) that
"local communities have a vital role to environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognise and duly support their identity, culture and interest and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development".
Do the Government accept this principle, and do they intend to keep to it in the future?
The consultation paper, Access to the Open Countryside, is clearly giving this Government a breathing space and is a concealed attempt to force landowners to open up their property to society generally, to enable people to do whatever they want and to go wherever they want. If landowners do not comply with the Government's wishes, the paper contains clear threats of legislation to open up the countryside. This threat has already caused deep concern among those who live in and depend on the countryside for their livelihood. The very realistic fear among country folk is that if the right to roam is imposed, their rights as owners and managers will be trampled underfoot. I am concerned about the welfare of animals, which could well be affected by those who will roam by right in the future.
I note the list of consultees at annex 1 of the consultation paper which at first glance looks impressive. However, when you look more closely you can see there are many important bodies of opinion which do not appear to have been consulted. I ask the Government whether animals will be protected, and in particular breeding animals. I take two examples. As regards horse stud farms, I note that neither the British Racing Board nor the British Thoroughbred Breeders' Association appear on the list. I refer to pig breeding on open ground, which I know is a matter which interests the noble Lord, Lord Carter. What do the British pig breeders have to say? There are many questions to be answered, but it would be helpful if the Minister in his reply could give us some assurance that the welfare of animals will be properly catered for in the future.
I have highlighted just two areas in an attempt to show that the countryside is under severe threat at the present time. The Government have great responsibility not to fritter away the country's assets in high profile projects to retain public popularity. As we have heard so clearly, farmers are in desperate need of help and those in the countryside need the assurance that their livelihood and way of life are secure in this Government's hands.
3.4 p.m.
Lord Luke: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Patten for tabling this Question. As many noble Lords have said, he could not have chosen a better day for it. I add my congratulations—however improper it
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is for me to do so—to the right reverend Prelate and to the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, on their excellent maiden speeches.
I have to declare an interest. I live in the countryside. I used to work in the countryside; I do not do so now. We on these Benches have a great regard for the expertise, fairmindedness and good nature of the noble Lord the Chief Whip. I feel rather sorry for him in having to reply to the debate. I wish to ask him this question. When the countryside and those who live and work there are occupying such a prominent place in the media and will be, shortly, on the streets, why have they failed totally to attract the attention of those planning the contents of the Millennium Dome? As it is clear that urban dwellers are failing entirely to understand rural affairs, why not use that opportunity to try to change the situation?
Ten months ago the single overwhelming reason that the Labour Party gained such a massive majority in another place was its success in winning a large number of seats in rural areas. In my opinion, voters fell hook, line and sinker for a brilliantly executed ploy that Labour was not dangerous, it would be more efficient, and it would be fairer generally. Let us consider what has happened.
I have not heard of any of those ladies and gentlemen who so unexpectedly won those old Tory strongholds. Have they contributed to debates on rural affairs in another place? I do not know.
A noble Lord: My Lords, last week one of them did so.
Lord Luke: My Lords, I am glad that one of them has contributed.
Beef exports were mentioned by many noble Lords in the debate. They were the subject of absolute derision by the former Opposition. They derided the former government's handling of that difficult issue. They said, "Put us into power. We will soon speak to our friends in Europe and clear it up". Have they, my Lords? Is there any progress in 10 months? There is little progress. We are still in the same position as we were then.
Farmers are going through one of the worst depressions of this century. What do farmers of beef or dairy herds, sheep and others gain? They receive crumbs, talk, and some rather nasty leaked information, or speculation, on increases in petrol duty in the next Budget. That will hit those in the countryside more than anyone in the towns.
No wonder farmers are desperate. They are also furious that the Government for whom so many of them voted are dithering and ducking, and trying to sound caring at the same time.
The right to roam is supposed to have been toned down. I am not sure whether it has. I think that it is one more effort to get over this coming weekend. In answer, after her apology for the leak last Wednesday by the right honourable gentleman the Minister of State, Mr. Michael Meacher, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, twice mentioned the right to explore. What does that mean? I have read the consultation document.

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Footpaths and bridlepaths are hardly mentioned. All that has changed from the Labour Party's aggressive attacks on the rights of property owners is a short delay for what I think is cosmetic political expediency. Compulsion is the core socialist word. Socialists will always come back to it in the end. Let us beware—"Mischief thou art afoot". In the meantime, 200,000 people will be afoot on Sunday demonstrating how they feel about their lives in the country.
Hunting has been mentioned. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, described me as a bloodthirsty spectator. I am sure that in his reply the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will say that hunting is the main issue of this march. While I agree that it is the spring from which the march arose, it is not the main issue. With the little pourboires from here and there, the Government are showing all the symptoms of running scared. For once, they are not doing a very good job as regards their PR. I suggest that they make a genuine U-turn—or what was described earlier as a re-evaluation of government policy—and take the concerns of those who live and work in the countryside to heart.
3.10 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, today's short debate, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lord Patten, comes at a most opportune time, just prior to Sunday's countryside march. The farming community, landowners and people who live in rural areas will be coming together to express their concern about this Government's approach to rural matters. My noble friend asks the Government,
"whether they are satisfied that their policies work to the benefit of people who live and work in the countryside".
One sometimes wonders what those policies are. During these past few months, policies have been stated and changed; consultation has been instigated; there has been review upon review—all resulting in total confusion with regard to policies for the countryside. Farmers wish only for a fair deal, and long-term policies on which to plan their business future. They cannot do that when such a degree of uncertainty exists. They wish to be allowed to get on with running their own lives, providing food for us to eat while at the same time looking after the countryside which we all enjoy today.
That countryside is a living environment. It is not a picture postcard or a museum, but a working environment for many thousands of people. The Government must accept responsibility for the confusion that has grown up in recent months and which has brought great anxiety to many farmers and people who live and work in rural areas.
The green belt was to be protected. But in three areas recently, that has not been the case, the Environment Minister overriding the wishes of local people by granting permission for new houses on three large greenfield sites. The rebuilding of our rural services is promised. But are the Government not concerned that the proposed minimum wage could hit rural areas—as would any increase in tax on petrol? Banning beef on the bone, plus the continuation of the strong pound, all add to the difficulties faced today by farmers. Those,
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plus the proposed right to roam and the threat to countryside pursuits, highlight just how out of touch this Government are at times with rural communities. If fox hunting is to be banned, jobs will be lost and whole communities will be put at risk. If hunting is banned, what will come next? Perhaps fishing; maybe shooting?
As I have implied, confusion abounds, and no more so than this week when the Government launched Access to the Open Countryside. They say it is a consultation document. But is it just that? The Environment Minister, Mr. Meacher, said in a recent interview on the "Today" programme that the Government were going to increase the right to roam as set down in the consultation paper, and added:
"If we can achieve it by voluntary means that is by far the best way to proceed in this as in other areas, but if we cannot, then we will bring in legislation".
As my noble friend Lord Inglewood remarked at the time, that is not consultation: it is an ultimatum.
Should there be any doubt, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in repeating the Statement in this House on 25th February, went on to say:
"We made it quite clear in our manifesto that our policies included greater freedom for people to explore our open countryside. We intend to keep to that commitment. In a sense that commitment is not open to consultation".—[Official Report, 25/2/98; col. 725]
Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord, Carter, will clarify the position.
One person's rights are another's restrictions. Many smaller farmers—I declare that I was one in the past—who work land near to urban areas know only too well of the difficulties caused by those who do not respect our property. Vandalism and damage are routine problems. Gates are left open and animals are deliberately let out without regard for their safety. Trespass is a regular occurrence, litter is dumped and barns are set on fire.
While I appreciate that many members of the Ramblers' Association do not fall into that category, not everybody who walks in the countryside observes the country code and keeps to the prescribed paths and refrains from damaging property. The Deputy Prime Minister recently said that the rural environment was safe in his hands. Can he be so sure that it will be safe in the hands of the members of the general public?
The countryside march on Sunday will bring together farmers, landowners and those who work and live in the countryside, along with many city dwellers who already enjoy country life. The march will highlight their concerns, to which many noble Lords have referred today. I hope that the Government will stop and listen, have respect for the traditions of rural life and work towards restoring confidence, which has been so badly damaged over recent months. We could not have a better person to respond to the debate than the noble Lord, Lord Carter.
3.15 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on having asked this Question today. From these Benches, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the

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Bishop of Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton. Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, says is all right by me because he is one of my clients at Champneys!
Reflecting on the subject of this short debate, I kept returning to the central question of why there is such dissatisfaction and disquiet among country dwellers. I therefore wish to dwell on that central question.
Although the drift from the country to the major cities has been going on ever since the Industrial Revolution, I believe that until quite recently most people would have regarded this country as essentially rural. However, at some point over the past quarter of a century that has ceased to be the case and we are now clearly an urban society. Country dwellers have become a distinct minority and have taken on the characteristics of a minority. They feel resentful, fearful, hurt and powerless in the face of what they perceive to be the superior force of the urban dweller. The result is that, whether real or perceived, a huge tension now exists between the country dweller and the town dweller. I wonder how this has come to pass.
I have no doubt that it is a problem of the '80s. I believe that the single most destructive force ever let loose to wreak havoc on the countryside was Thatcherism. The vast majority of the problems facing those who live and work in the country today are a direct result of the social, economic and environmental policies which the previous government pursued through the '80s. In 1979 most rural villages still had a shop, a post office, a pub, a cottage hospital nearby, a school, a police house with a local policeman and a daily bus service. Today in many parishes throughout the land those are a distant memory.
The policies of the uniform business rate, deregulation of buses, local authority capping, reform of the NHS and pressure on budgets for health, police and education, to name but a few measures, have been a disaster for the countryside. The relentless drive to measure life purely by the two-dimensional means of the balance sheet, without any regard for the social dimension, has ripped apart the community feeling that was such an essential part of rural life. I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, to those noble Lords on the Conservative Benches who supported that government: you sowed the breeze, you now reap the whirlwind.
The noble Lord's Question today asks the Government whether they are satisfied that their policies work. I suspect that, given that the vast majority of the electorate live, work and vote in urban communities, the majority of the policies which the current Government put forth in its manifesto have never been considered in the light of the needs of country dwellers.
However, I believe that there is hope, since we are in the early stages of the Parliament and the Government are reviewing many of their policies. They have a chance to frame their policies with a proper regard for the impact they will have on those who dwell in the country, who may well be a minority but are nonetheless vitally important to the fabric of our society. Above all, like the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I plead with the
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Government to take an overall and integrated approach to the formulation of policy for the countryside. Economic, environmental and social policies have to be considered together; they cannot be taken piecemeal. At the centre of that integrated approach must be a recognition of the need to preserve rural communities as communities.
One of the key issues is housing. We need to ensure that there is affordable housing for local people, particularly the young. We need to ensure that villagers are linked by an adequate transport system, bearing in mind that a high percentage of rural workers are on low wages and 20 per cent. of rural dwellers have no car. Another key issue is local democracy and participation. We need to reverse the feeling of powerlessness in rural communities following local government reorganisation and we need employment to replace the loss of traditional employment. I echo the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu: we need a central department to look after those issues, perhaps even a Minister for the Countryside. If London can have one, why not the countryside?
There are a huge range of other issues affecting the countryside, but I do not have time to go into them today. Recognising from the list of speakers that there would undoubtedly be those who would refer to the march and to hunting, I used my time to speak of the central issues. But on hunting I say this. We regard it on these Benches as a matter of personal conscience and therefore my remarks are my own and not those of my party.
I have never hunted and have no idea what it is like, but I make two points. First, the issue is not of itself the most important issue that will come before Parliament. But, taken in the light of the tension of which I spoke, it is a match that could well inflame the countryside. Secondly—an old Liberal view for which I make no apology—it is the prime duty of the state to look after the interests of the individual, even in a perceived minority. It is not good enough simply to say that we do not like something and therefore must get rid of it, particularly when, for the vast majority, it has no effect on them one way or the other.
I conclude by returning to my central theme. This Government have an opportunity genuinely to reflect on the social, economic and environmental needs of the country and frame their policies with a true regard for its wellbeing. I sincerely hope that they will do that. Above all, I urge them not to make the mistake of the last government and treat the countryside with complacent laissez-faire, but instead to develop a genuine and integrated approach.
3.22 p.m.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Patten for asking this Question and I offer the congratulations of these Benches to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, on their maiden speeches.
The danger is that our attitude to the countryside is seen through the eyes of town dwellers. My noble friend Lord Marlesford reminded us on 11th February that

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90 per cent. of the population live in urban areas. The challenge for the Government—I am not certain that they are yet rising to it—is to ensure that urban views do not prevail over the traditional lifestyles and values of the countryside. Of course I acknowledge the steps that have been taken, and referred to this afternoon, which have improved the situation. But it is important that urban and rural people live together easily so that each can—it is necessary for them to be able to—enjoy each other's habitat.
Of course, the countryside is not set in stone; it is a living, evolving entity. There is plenty of evidence to show that people in the countryside accept that. Rural tourism is but an example. My noble friend Lord Addison gave others. But it is important that that evolution is not to the detriment of the countryside itself and rural life. We need to remember that people live and work there. The countryside is not just a recreational resource for town dwellers, though it is valuable for that purpose.
I must declare, possibly uniquely among the speakers this afternoon, that I am an urban animal. I therefore understand the urban view. But I hope that I appreciate, by virtue of that, that I am not the best judge of what is right for the countryside. I have not been born to it, I have not worked in it and I live only on the edge of it. No doubt like many townspeople I have an idealised view of the countryside and it seems to me that we urban beings have a lot to learn about how we live our own lives before we start imposing our will on the countryside. Can we wonder at the fears of country people and landowners at what will happen to some of the most valuable parts of our heritage if rights to roam are imposed? My noble friend Lady Byford referred to that.
If we looked around our towns and cities this afternoon for a moment instead of the countryside, we would see graffiti in some of the most inaccessible places; open spaces in streets deposited with litter; vandalism and a lack of respect for property. I understand the worry of country people and the argument that has gone on about the development of greenfield or brownfield sites—or recycled land, as we are urged by the Deputy Prime Minister now to call it. That argument raged for some time. Happily, the case for brownfield sites seems to be succeeding. But it is not just because it is a victory for the countryside that that is welcome; it is also a victory for the towns. Far from being seen as depriving town dwellers of the opportunity to escape into the countryside, it should be seen as giving them the opportunity to stay within the towns where the facilities and employment are and where communications are good or at least better than in many rural areas.
It does not surprise me that in the debate this afternoon the question of hunting has been raised. As I said, I am an urban being. I have never hunted. I was once taken hare shooting by a friend. I confess that I aimed deliberately high. I do not fish, and many of your Lordships will say what a dull person he is, and not just in his speeches. But like many townsmen and women, and indeed those who live in the countryside, I am full
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of contradictions. I have taken my children to see the spectacle of a hunt meet on Boxing Day. I enjoy eating game and fish, but with the comfort of distance. I do not see how it gets to my plate. I do not know whether the creature died instantly or slowly. I find it difficult to contemplate tending animals in the knowledge that they are being bred for slaughter. But I buy and eat the meat and I am happy for farmers to perform that service for me. Who am I and other townsmen to sit in judgment on people who know and understand that way of life?
I understand that hunting is part of rural life. I know it is both a sport and has a purpose. Therefore, any suffering that there is is not gratuitously inflicted. And because I do not do it and I do not wholly understand it, I am not prepared to join the ranks of those who would ban it. Indeed, I use the word "gratuitously" quite carefully, because gratuitous cruelty towards animals surrounds us on a major scale, which I suspect exceeds anything in the hunting field—the wanton cruelty that any animal charity will give examples of. The abandoning of animals, be they dogs or cats, and the lack of controls on the sale of pets are a far greater blot on our civilisation than the pursuit of a fox by other animals and its subsequent death.
What is needed is a tolerance of different ways of life within our country. I cannot accept the strictures of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, who blames the previous government. The volcano we are seeing exploding this weekend has occurred as a consequence of many of the doubts that have arisen over the past few months. However, I say to your Lordships that just as we preach tolerance for different cultures and peoples within and outside our country, we should preach tolerance if there is not to be a great divide within this country. The Government must act with greater care and respect for the countryside and country people than they have perhaps hitherto done.
3.29 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, like other noble Lords, perhaps I may begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for tabling this Question and thank him and other noble Lords for their kind words about me. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, referred to me as a good-natured Chief Whip. That is a classic oxymoron, if ever I heard one.
We have heard a great deal about the countryside march, which will be taking place on Sunday. Owing to a longstanding family engagement I shall not be able to take part in the march. Early on Sunday morning I shall be driving many miles and making a considerable effort to attend a pre-march function which, I understand, takes the form of breakfast at the Savoy, which is a suitably un-rural venue and not exactly redolent of penury.
We have had some excellent speeches in this debate and none better or more notable than the maiden speeches of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton. I know that I speak for the whole House when I say that we enjoyed their speeches and wish to hear from them again. There is genuine concern about the problems of

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the countryside. But they have not all suddenly come about since 1st May last year. When I listened to some of the speeches I began to think that we did not have a general election last year, but a cross between Armageddon and The Flood.
The noble Lord, Lord Patten, asked me why I thought there would be so many people taking part in the march in London on Sunday. Far be it from me to speculate on the reasons and the pressures that bring people to London. But I cannot help reflecting that with the advent of a Labour Government after a long period in opposition, it brings on an urge among farmers and others to take some healthy exercise and carry banners. When Labour won the general election in October 1964 with a majority of three, it was in very difficult economic circumstances. By early 1965, after the annual price review, the farming organisations and others had organised a "fair deal" campaign and they marched down Whitehall.
I begin with two simple propositions. Opposition to field sports does not equate to opposition to the countryside, its problems and those who live and work there. In addition, country people have just the same needs and rights as those who live in urban areas to good schools, housing, transport and health care. In my own view, it is a great shame that the field sports argument has somehow become a symbol of the many and genuine concerns that exist about the countryside. We know that opinion in the countryside itself is divided about hunting.
In turning to the Question, it is fair to remind the House that it was ACRE (Action for Communities in Rural England) which described the record of the last government on countryside matters by saying,
"Our main perception is one of neglect".
Also, as the Opposition spokesman on agriculture and countryside matters for 10 years, I am entitled to point out that in opposition we campaigned vigorously—sometimes successfully—against, for example, the deregulation of the bus industry; the neglect and closure of rural railways; the proposals to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board; and the sale of housing association homes in small villages. As we were entitled to do, we also drew attention to the mishandling of the whole sorry BSE saga. It is estimated that about 10,000 jobs were lost as a result of BSE, and most in the spring of 1996. That is a fact which puts the beef-on-the-bone debate into some sort of perspective.
In our manifesto we made the following pledges: to recognise the special needs of rural areas and communities; not to allow public and transport services in rural areas to deteriorate; to give greater protection to wildlife and to give greater freedom to people to explore the open countryside. As your Lordships know, we received massive electoral support for that manifesto.
The rural dimension is an important consideration for all government policies. Jobs, transport, housing and services in rural areas are closely linked and need considering in the round. The protection of, and access to, the countryside are equally important for the people who live there and for those who visit it. The Government's policies take full account of these needs. The article in Country Life by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made that clear.
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New jobs are being created in the countryside. In recent years the growth in employment has been slightly higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The registered unemployment in rural areas is 3.9 per cent. as opposed to 5.7 per cent. in England as a whole. We recognise that within this overall picture there are obviously particular communities suffering acutely from the effects of economic change. We point out that the new deal for the young unemployed is just as relevant to the countryside as to urban areas. Its design and delivery will be sensitive to rural circumstances, the needs of rural businesses and communities and unemployed young people living in the countryside.
We shall have the obvious support of the farming organisations in our proposals on the national minimum wage, because there has been a national minimum wage in agriculture for 50 years. Low wages remain a problem in many rural communities, particularly for those employed in agriculture and tourism. They lead to pockets of deprivation and social exclusion in the countryside which are often overlooked. The agriculture minimum wage applies only to agricultural workers, so not all workers in rural areas benefit from that underpinning. The national minimum wage will provide a floor for all employees. It will help to remove the excesses of low pay and should help to tackle deprivation.
I turn to housing. Strong feelings have been aroused by the debate about national household growth and where to build the new homes that we need. As my noble friend Lady Hayman said in her Statement on Monday, we are determined to build as many new homes as possible in urban areas and to prevent, wherever possible, urban sprawl and the loss of greenfield sites. We have set a new higher target of building 60 per cent. of new homes on previously developed land. That compares with the achievement of 42 per cent. under the previous government. Our target includes providing new housing on existing brownfield sites in the countryside.
We must remember that much of the demand for new housing in the countryside is local. We need to look closely at the housing needs of rural people. That point was extremely well made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury in his maiden speech. Rural areas need much more affordable housing. I said in opposition, and I say now, that the biggest social problem in the countryside is the lack of affordable homes to rent or buy. However, we are addressing that problem by releasing £900 million of local authority capital receipts—the money that they received from selling council housing in the past—to help to provide homes in which rural families and their children can afford to live. Specific support is provided for rural areas by the Housing Corporation's rural programme. That funds social housing in small villages. The target for this year is to provide between 1,000 and 1,500 new homes. I speak as a former trustee of the Rural Housing Trust.
Turning to education, the Government are conscious of the importance of the local school to rural communities. The policies which were designed to raise standards in all schools will also apply to rural schools. The decision to create education action zones will help schools in

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deprived and rural areas. We have allocated £477 million extra to the shire counties to help them to raise standards, and for repairs.
A great deal has been said about access to the countryside. The consultation paper on access to open countryside was published on Wednesday. Irrespective of whether people choose to make their home in urban or rural areas, the countryside should be an asset to be enjoyed by all. We are determined to secure the objective of increased access for all those who enjoy walking and relaxing in Britain's beautiful landscape. The proposals demonstrate that we are determined to ensure that increased access goes hand in hand with respect for the countryside and those whose livelihoods may depend on it. We are proposing a new code of practice for walkers to encourage respect for the countryside.
Countryside interests have been given the opportunity to prove that their oft-repeated arguments for voluntary agreements can now deliver. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, made a neat debating point about the right to roam in urban areas. However, if the noble Lord cannot tell the difference between the Elephant and Castle (where I was born) and open moorland, I am afraid that I cannot help him.
The Government fully understand that farmers and others who care about our rural areas are anxious about what the future may hold. I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Luke, who referred to the worst recession this century. I thought that that was perhaps a little over the top. It has been calculated that in the 1990s the total transferred to agriculture from taxpayers and consumers as a result of the CAP is of the order of £92 billion. In 1998 it will be £11 billion. Between 1990 and 1995 farmers incomes rose by over 70 per cent. in real terms. However, we are of course aware of the problems in the last season.
The £85 million already committed to assist livestock farmers is a large sum of money. It is made available to livestock farmers in recognition of the particularly severe economic pressures they are facing at the moment. Farmers have immediate concerns that the Government are prepared to address. I am sure that noble Lords are aware that the Government have decided that the charges for implementing the SRM controls on cattle, sheep and goats will not be recovered from industry from I st April as previously planned. The value of that decision to the farming industry throughout the United Kingdom will be some £35 million. We have also decided that we will meet the costs of setting up the new computerised cattle tracing system and running it and enforcing it in its first full year. That is worth another £35 million.
In addition to relieving charges, the Government are conscious of the financial position of livestock producers. As well as providing agri-monetary compensation, the Government will shortly be completing the redistribution exercise arising from the special aid schemes for livestock producers introduced in 1996. The net effect of this is that we shall be redistributing some £9 million which will go mostly to some categories of beef special premium producers but also to some suckler cow producers. That is a total of £164 million in a very tight public expenditure situation.
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We all know the problems of the strong pound. The freezing of the green rates is worth £400 million to farming in the next two years. We know that many beef and sheep producers face some very difficult economic conditions at the present time and want to be able to review their options for the future. We are therefore launching a wide-ranging consultation in the very near future in order to gauge farmers' interest in early retirement and other options. We hope that the results will be available by late April.
Perhaps I may turn to a few of the points made in the debate. If I do not deal with all of them I shall certainly write to noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred to the 150 government working parties. He said that not one concentrated specifically on rural matters. That appears to me to be a failure to understand the central point that rural problems should be taken into account in all relevant areas of government policy. The DETR and MAFF are currently conducting a joint review of countryside policy as part of a comprehensive spending review, including a review of institutional structures. The Social Exclusion Unit is looking at rural as well as urban areas.
A number of noble Lords referred, not surprisingly, to hunting. In our manifesto we said that we would allow a free vote on hunting with hounds. That was our only commitment, and we delivered it last November with the Second Reading of the Foster Bill. The Bill is starting its Report stage in another place. The Government remain neutral on the issue of hunting. Speaking as Chief Whip in the Lords, of course I agree with the Government.
My noble friend Lord Judd made a powerful speech. We can all agree that rural poverty is real and pressing. I hope that my earlier remarks about what we hope to do by way of welfare-to-work, the New Deal, education, healthcare and the rest show that the Government take this problem seriously. Reference was made by my noble friend Lord Dulverton and the noble Viscount, Lord Allenby, to the problems faced by hill farmers in the uplands. The total direct livestock subsidies to all farmers in the UK's less favoured areas are estimated to be worth about £530 million in 1998.
In only 10 months the Government have set in train action to ensure that their policies work for the benefit of people who live and work in the countryside: in planning, the green belt, housing, healthcare in rural areas, rural education, welfare-to-work, the New Deal for 18 to 24 year-olds, the national minimum wage, regional development, proposals for an integrated transport review and extra money for farmers in a very tight public expenditure situation. That has taken place in only 10 months. We want a healthy dialogue with all those who have interests in rural areas, both representative organisations and the rural people themselves. We shall continue to listen to a wide range of views as we develop our policies. We are confident that the integrated approach to rural policy that we are developing is for the benefit of those who live and work in rural areas and all those who value the British countryside.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before four o'clock.

  Overseas Development Minister: New Statesman Interview
  Baroness Miller of Hendon
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether the statement made in the New Statesman on 24 February by the Secretary of State for Overseas Development regarding single mothers working whilst on benefit was passed by the Strategic Communications Unit. [HL721]

  Lord Whitty
  The Secretary of State for International Development gave a wide ranging interview to the political editor of the New Statesman, which was published in its 20 February edition. I recommend that the noble Baroness read the interview. She may find it interesting to compare its content with some of the news reports of the interview.

  Press Activity: Effect on Court Cases
  Lord Williams of Elvel
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they have accepted the recommendations of the National Heritage Committee in their report of press activity affecting court cases. [HL747]

  The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg)
  The Government is committed to obtaining an appropriate balance between the due administration of justice on the one hand and freedom of speech on the other. It has concluded that the committee's recommendations maintain that balance and has therefore accepted them in principle.

  The Report recommended (i) that there should be legislation forbidding payments to witnesses, and (ii) that Section 2 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 should be strengthened so that it covers the collective or cumulative effect of pre-trial publicity in risking prejudicing a trial, as well as the effect of individual articles. This means that newspapers could not escape liability, as one case held they could, because a number of them had acted in a similar way and together had caused the prejudice.

  Work is proceeding on the form which the necessary legislation should take. It will be brought forward when a suitable opportunity is found.

  International Criminal Court: Sixth Preparatory Meeting
  Lord Avebury
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they will place in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament copies of documents to be considered at the Sixth Session of the Preparatory
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  Committee on the International Criminal Court, which meets from 16 March to 3 April; and whether they will publish a paper summarising the main issues still to be decided and the position of the United Kingdom on each of them. [HL638]

  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean)
  The only document to be considered at the Sixth Session of the Preparatory Committee which we have yet received is the report of the intersessional meeting from 19 to 30 January 1998 in Zutphen, The Netherlands. This report contains the draft Statute for the International Criminal Court. It is available on the Internet at http://www.igc.apc.org/icc. We placed a statement of Her Majesty's Government's policy on the International Criminal Court in the Libraries of the House on 24 February.

  Algeria
  Lord Avebury
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they have studied the evidence of state—sponsored disappearances in Algeria presented in the Human Rights Watch report Algeria: neither among the living nor the dead; and whether they will take any of the actions recommended in this report. [HL639]

  Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
  We continue to be concerned about allegations of human rights violations in Algeria, including those contained in the latest Human Rights Watch report, and raise these concerns as part of our ongoing dialogue with the Algerian Government.

  Iraq: Oil-for-Food Programme
  The Earl of Sandwich
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they are satisfied with the United Nations' report on the implementation of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq; and whether they have made any independent assessment. [HL705]

  Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
  We welcome the Secretary-General's report on the implementation of oil-for-food. His recommendations to improve and enhance the oil-for-food arrangements were embodied in Security Council Resolution 1153, adopted on 20 February, which was drafted by the UK.

  The UK has been at the forefront of provisions to help the Iraqi people. We have consistently co-sponsored oil-for-food resolutions.

  We have also provided £94 million in humanitarian aid since 1991, making us the second largest donor country.

  General Medical Services Funding
  Lord Rea
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  On what basis resources for general medical services (formerly administered by Family Health Service Authorities) are allocated to health authorities at present; and whether changes are contemplated that will more accurately reflect and cater for the increased needs of deprived populations than the current system of deprivation payments to general practitioners, based on Under-Privileged Area (Jarman) scores. [HL728]

  The Minister of State, Department of Health (Baroness Jay of Paddington)
  At present most general medical services expenditure is non cash-limited or demand-led and is funded nationally rather than from moneys allocated to health authorities. Cash-limited funds are allocated to health authorities according to a weighted capitation formula. Deprivation payments are made from non cash-limited funds and the Government are considering ways in which a more effective use of deprivation payments can be achieved.

  Abortion Policy
  Lord Braine of Wheatley
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Further to the Written Answer by the Baroness Jay of Paddington on 16 February (WA 6–7), what is the total amount given to each of the organisations listed in that Answer since 1968. [HL709]

  Baroness Jay of Paddington
  I regret that this information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  Brook Advisory Centres
  Lord Braine of Wheatley
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  What role they envisage for the Brook Advisory Centres in delivering their target for reducing the rate of conceptions for girls below the age of 16 as outlined in The New NHS: Modern and Dependable. [HL724]

  Baroness Jay of Paddington
  In November 1997 the Government announced the development of a national programme to tackle the high rate of teenage conceptions in England. The principal aim of this programme is to reduce the number of teenage conceptions by supporting young people in deferring sexual activity and improving access to advice and counselling services, including contraception for those who are sexually active.

  A consultation exercise on the national programme is currently under way. A wide range of organisations and individuals have been and will continue to be involved. These include professionals in primary and community health, education and social services as well as
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  representatives of voluntary, community and user groups.

  Local Brook Advisory Centres, along with other local services, can play a significant role in providing services for young people.

  Zyloric Acid Tablets
  Lord Jacobs
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether doctors are entitled to prescribe 100mg and 200mg Zyloric acid tablets to National Health Service patients; how many such tablets were prescribed in 1996 and 1997; and what is the price per 100 tablets that the National Health Service pays the manufacturer. [HL720]

  Baroness Jay of Paddington
  Doctors may prescribe Zyloric tablets on the National Health Service, but there is no 200mg preparation in tablet form. In 1996, 1.7 million 100mg Zyloric acid tablets and 3.3 million 300mg tablets were dispensed in the community in England. The net ingredient cost of 100 tablets was £10.96 for 100mg tablets and £28.07 for the 300mg tablets.

  Information for the whole of 1997 is not yet available.

  Reproductive Health Funding
  Lord Braine of Wheatley
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they are satisfied that the funds they provide to organisations involved in the provisions of services, advice and information on reproductive health are not used by those organisations to campaign for the liberalisation of the abortion laws in Great Britain or abroad. [HL711]

  Baroness Jay of Paddington
  The Government do not fund any organisation to campaign for or against abortion. Funding, via the Section 64 schemes and equivalent Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish schemes, is provided to assist national voluntary organisations with their central administrative costs. A number of grants are also awarded for projects which are innovative and of potential national significance, or which further the department's policy objectives by developing a particular pattern of service.

  The Department for International Development funds a number of organisations involved in the provision of services, advice and information on reproductive health in poorer countries, including the United Nations Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. These organisations are opposed to the promotion of abortion as a method of family planning.

  We are not aware of any organisation receiving funding using it to campaign for the liberalisation of abortion laws in Great Britain or abroad.

  Government Defeats in the House of Lords
  Lord Braine of Wheatley
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  Whether they will publish in the Official Report a table showing the occasions for each of Sessions 1979–80; 1984–85; 1987–88; 1992–93; and to date in 1997–98, when the Government were defeated in a Division on the floor of the House; and whether the decision was:

  (a) accepted or

  (b) overturned by the House of Commons. [HL625]

  The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard)
  The information requested is not available for Session 1979–80. For the remaining Sessions, the information requested is as follows. I should say, however, that this procedural record of the outcome in each case might not give the whole picture. It would not, however, be appropriate for me to seek to interpret these results.

  Session 1984–85

  Date

  Stage of Bill

  Decision reached

  24/01/85

  Prosecution of Offences Bill (HL)—Committee

  Accepted

  29/01/85

  Insolvency Bill (HL)— Committee

  Accepted after further amendments made in both Houses

  19/03/85

  Administration of Justice Bill (HL)—Report

  Accepted

  28/03/85

  Representation of the People Bill—Committee

  Further amended but then overturned

  01/04/85

  Insolvency Bill (HL)— Report

  Overturned

  04/04/85

  Films Bill—Third Reading

  Overturned

  16/04/85

  Insolvency Bill (HL)— Third Reading

  Accepted

  16/04/85

  Trustee Savings Banks Bill—Report

  Overturned with amendments in lieu

  16/04/85

  Trustee Savings Banks Bill—Report

  Subsequent amendment accepted

  07/05/85

  Local Government Bill— Committee

  Accepted with amendments

  07/08/85

  Local Government Bill— Committee

  Overturned

  09/05/85

  Local Government Bill— Committee

  Overturned but further amendments made

  13/05/85

  Local Government Bill— Committee

  Accepted with further amendments

  04/07/85

  Education (Corporal Punishment) Bill— Report

  Bill withdrawn

  16/07/85

  Transport Bill— Committee

  Accepted

  22/10/85

  Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill—Third Reading

  Accepted with consequential amendments

  In addition, the Government were defeated on a Motion on 29 July. It was not for the Commons to consider this Motion.
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  Session 1987–88

  Date

  Stage of Bill

  Decision reached

  18/01/88

  Legal Aid Bill (HL)— Committee

  Agreed with further Lords amendments

  16/02/88

  Local Government Bill—Report

  Overturned

  18/02/88

  Local Government Bill—Report

  Accepted

  03/03/88

  Social Security Bill— Report

  Accepted

  31/03/88

  Licensing Bill—Report

  Accepted with an amendment

  12/05/88

  Education Reform Bill—Committee

  Accepted

  19/05/88

  Education Reform Bill—Committee

  Accepted

  28/06/88

  Education Reform Bill—Report

  Amendment offered in lieu

  28/06/88

  Education Reform Bill—Report

  Amendment offered in lieu

  30/06/88

  Local Government Finance Bill—Report

  Overturned

  05/07/88

  Local Government Finance Bill—Report

  Overturned

  08/07/88

  Education Reform Bill—Third Reading

  Accepted

  08/07/88

  Education Reform Bill—Third Reading

  Accepted

  19/07/88

  Health and Medicines Bill—Committee

  Overturned

  19/07/88

  Health and Medicines Bill—Committee

  Overturned but consequential amendments made

  20/07/88

  Firearms (Amendment) Bill—Committee

  Accepted after further Lords amendments

  28/07/88

  Housing Bill— Committee

  Amendment offered in lieu

  Session 1992–93

  Date

  Stage of Bill

  Decision reached

  04/06/92

  Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Bill—Committee

  Overturned

  24/11/92

  Sea Fish (Conservation) Bill—Report

  Accepted

  02/02/93

  Agriculture Bill—Third Reading

  Accepted

  02/02/93

  Agriculture Bill—Third Reading

  Accepted

  02/03/93

  Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill—Report

  Overturned

  20/04/93

  Education Bill— Committee

  Overturned

  11/05/93

  Housing and Urban Development Bill— Report

  Accepted

  25/05/93

  Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Bill— Third Reading

  Accepted

  14/06/93

  Education Bill—Report

  Overturned

  14/06/93

  Education Bill—Report

  Overturned

  05/07/93

  Railways Bill— Committee

  Accepted but modified by amendments

  20/10/93

  Railways Bill—Report

  Overturned

  03/11/93

  Railways Bill—Consideration of Commons Amendments (three separate defeats)

  Overturned (all 3 defeats)

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  In addition, the Government were defeated on Motions on four occasions (6 July and 20 October 1992; and 15 July and 18 October 1993). It was not for the Commons to consider these Motions.

  Session 1997–98 (up to and including 25 February 1998)

  Date

  Stage of Bill

  Decision reached

  3/07/97

  Referendums (Scotland and Wales)— Committee

  Overturned

  17/07/97

  Education (Schools) Bill—Report

  Overturned

  21/07/97

  Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill—Report

  Overturned

  16/10/97

  Firearms Bill—Report

  Overturned

  16/10/97

  Firearms Bill—Report

  Overturned

  13/01/98

  Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill—Committee

  Overturned

  29/01/98

  Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill—Report

  Overturned

  05/02/98

  Human Rights Bill— Third Reading

  The Commons are still considering the Bill

  09/02/98

  Competition Bill—Report

  The Bill is still in the Lords

  In addition, the Government were defeated on a Motion on the Beef Bones Regulations on 27 January 1998. It is not for the Commons to consider this vote.

  Military and Police Assistance to Foreign Governments
  Lord Gladwin of Clee
  asked Her Majesty's Government:

  What is their policy towards disclosure of details of military and related police assistance provided to foreign governments. [HL861]

  The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Gilbert)
  Military and related police assistance is provided in support of a range of foreign and defence policy aims. It can be an important factor in the development of the United Kingdom's relations with countries in all parts of the world, and can make a significant contribution to regional stability by promoting military effectiveness, which helps to deter aggression. This assistance is a key element of defence diplomacy. All requests for military assistance are considered in the light of the Government's wider foreign policy.

  Many foreign governments regard such assistance as contributing to their national security and are thus
  WA 124
  sensitive about public disclosure of information about it. As a result of this sensitivity, it has been the practice of Ministers to decline to answer questions concerning the detail and nature of training assistance. This convention has continued to apply since the introduction of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, which recognises defence, security and international relations as reasons for withholding information.

  The Government have been considering this practice against our commitment to openness. As a result, we have decided that the public interest would be served by greater disclosure of the details of military and related police assistance provided to foreign governments. In future, details of the amount of assistance provided by our Armed Forces will be produced annually and published in the Ministry of Defence's Performance Report, starting with that to be produced following the end of this financial year. These details will include the numbers of overseas personnel trained, by country, the numbers of United Kingdom personnel involved in providing training or assistance overseas, again by country, and levels of any subsidies provided by the MoD. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will publish details of the training subsidy programme funded by them. This information will also be made available to the public on request.

  All other requests for information in relation to training and assistance provided will, with immediate effect, be considered on their individual merits, but with a presumption towards disclosure unless this would be against the public interest as governed by the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. In practice, it is possible that information may need to be withheld where foreign countries have legitimate security concerns, where our bilateral relations might be damaged or significantly weakened by disclosure, or where disclosure would harm our own national security. We would also not normally intend to make available personal details of students or training personnel, for reasons of personnel privacy, or provide information which might threaten the safety of individuals. Where a contractor could demonstrate that his sales prospects could suffer specific harm as a result of releasing information on military assistance, this would be weighed against the public interest in deciding to what extent disclosure should proceed, but the amount of information withheld will be kept to the minimum

  The new practice represents an appropriate balance between the need to ensure that genuine defence and foreign policy interests are protected, and legitimate parliamentary and public interest is these matters. It will ensure that significantly more information is available than has previously been the case.