Sitting of 5 June 1998

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

  Sport
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
  9.34 am
  The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): It is almost a year since the House last debated sport and just over a year since the Government came into office. In that time, we have achieved a good deal, and I hope to illustrate some of that during my remarks. I am also conscious of something that my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport said, in his own inimitable way, in last year's debate. It was:
  "I have attended many debates on sport—debates that have often consisted mainly of a long speech from the Minister of the day saying how fantastic everything is."—[Official Report, 27 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 1125.]
  I can assure the House that I do not intend to fall into that trap today—well, not entirely.
  The Government have supported sport well during the past year, but much remains to be done, and I will outline some of the challenges ahead. First, I must say a few words of tribute in memory of the man who was the model Sports Minister and who set standards that all subsequent Sports Ministers seek, mainly in vain, as they would be the first to acknowledge, to match. Denis Howell's advocacy of sport was without parallel and he continued to champion the cause of sport to the end. We miss him grievously and we shall carry on missing him.
  Let me also pause to offer congratulations to the England team on the first day at Edgbaston and, in particular, to Mike Atherton on his century—and still, of course, not out.
  So what is the Government's role in sport? I see it as setting the framework for the development of sport, seeking to protect the interests of sport, and modernising sports administration. Too often in the past, the United Kingdom has had no coherent vision for sport. This Government are determined that there should be appropriate and clear structures in sport; in the short time that we have been in office, we have set out our agenda.
  The Government's vision is of sports policy based on two pillars: sport for all and international excellence, and the two are fundamentally interlinked. We cannot have medal winners without a broad base of participation, and we will not get general participation without the inspiration from the best.
  "Sport for All" is an old strapline, but it is a good one. We have looked again at what we mean by it and how to make it relevant to the challenges that sport faces today. We believe that the concept should be wide ranging. It
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  must be a policy capable of delivering benefits to ordinary people, as well as developing excellence among elite sportsmen and women. We want to ensure that sporting enjoyment and opportunities are available and easily accessible to the entire community, regardless of age, gender, social background, location or ability.
  We are taking a close interest in sport for disabled people. My hon. Friend the Minister for Sport has made particular features of his year in office the pursuit of that issue and doing what he can to support it. We are keen to ensure that the special problems that prevent those with disabilities from being able to participate and improve their performance in sport are properly addressed.
  Sport for all is also an ambition we pursue for the benefit that it can bring in terms of national pride and the inspiration it can bring with success, particularly at an international level. We need to develop sport and invest in sporting talent from the grass roots up and to ensure that our elite athletes get all the support that they need to achieve success on the international stage.
  At the international level, Britain has a great tradition in the organisation and running of successful major sporting events: the lawn tennis championships at Wimbledon, the British Open golf and Euro 96. Such events help to raise the nation's international profile and provide a major boost to the tourism and hospitality industries. However, I have some concerns, and I intend to ensure that changes are made.
  We have kicked off on access to football, as football is a national sport and as we promised, and so must deliver, action. The football task force has produced an excellent report on racism in football. The report has been well received, and I am grateful for the constructive input from the football and other relevant authorities—we are, of course, particularly grateful to David Mellor and his colleagues. The report's contents are frankly disturbing in places, demonstrating that change is needed at all levels if the evil of racism, which has blighted the game for so long, is to be eliminated.
  The task force has not been, and must not become, only a talking shop. That is why I am so pleased that the report on racism suggested a series of practical actions, the implementation of which I shall be monitoring closely. I look forward to seeing the next task force report, which is due shortly, and shall consider how access for disabled people to football stadiums can be improved.
  Subsequent reports will examine other important access concerns such as ticketing, where the issue for clubs is how to weigh commercial considerations with community responsibilities. I am sure that the football authorities will be only too aware of public concern over recent price increases and of calls for some form of independent regulator. My hon. Friend the Minister for Sport has rightly challenged football to put its house in order on that issue.
  I hope that the House will not too readily accuse me of hubris if I congratulate Arsenal on winning the double this year. To make matters even with my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport, I also pay tribute to Chelsea for securing the European cup winners cup and the Coca-Cola cup.
  Mr. John Bercow: I am absolutely delighted to learn something what I probably should known already—that the Secretary of State appears to be

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  an Arsenal supporter. In a friendly spirit, may I test the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge of Arsenal's successful past? Can he tell the House who scored the winning goal for Arsenal when it last won the Football Association cup—and, indeed, the double—which was in 1971?
  Mr. Smith: The answer is Charlie George. There is a fine and honourable tradition of Islington people supporting what is undoubtedly the best team in the land.
  We are also reviewing the list of major sporting events for which coverage on terrestrial television is protected. I know that that subject arouses strong feelings and that it is of great interest in both Houses of Parliament. I have received many representations on the matter from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  We do not underestimate the difficulties of balancing the need for public access to the major sports events that have a national resonance with the needs of the sports themselves. For the first time, the list is being reviewed in the light of clear and transparent criteria. I am carefully considering the novel solutions proposed unanimously by Lord Gordon's advisory group, and I have taken full note of comments from hon. Members. I hope to announce my decisions within the next few weeks.
  Sport for all will govern and permeate all that we do in sport, as well as being the badge for specific policies by which we shall seek to widen opportunity and access. A key element to increasing participation and improving performance is the opportunity for people to watch top-level sport, which is why we believe that it is essential that Britain should host major international sporting events. Such events generate enormous enthusiasm, especially when British teams or individuals achieve significant results.
  The Government are fully committed to England's bid to host the 2006 world cup. That excellent bid is backed by the lottery sports fund; it is built on the firmest foundations of Euro 96 and some of the best and safest football stadiums in the world. Government support was a manifesto commitment, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport has made it a personal priority to promote the bid and to join the Football Association team in lobbying FIFA delegates. I commend his unstinting efforts and enthusiasm, which I know are greatly valued by the FA and highly effective in opening doors to key decision makers across the world. The unique team of Bobby Charlton and Tony Banks is proving to be a major international success.
  Our football grounds have been transformed since the Taylor report. Much of the credit for that goes to the clubs and to bodies such as the Football Licensing Authority and the Football Trust. I know that the House will want me to offer our best wishes to my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) in his role as the new chairman of the Football Trust, and also to place on record our appreciation of his predecessor Lord Aberdare.
  One of the Government's earliest acts was to announce a new £55 million funding package for the Football Trust, with contributions from the English Sports Council, the FA and the Premier League. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde has been a leading figure in sport for many years; his experience and personal interest
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  in football will be invaluable in leading the Football Trust forward. I also acknowledge with gratitude the invaluable help that the trust is giving the task force.
  The Government are determined that Britain should be in a position to host the Olympic games at the earliest possible opportunity. We are keeping in close contact with the British Olympic Association to ensure that all practical steps are taken so that all the ingredients are in place for us to mount a winnable bid at the right time.
  Moreover, the United Kingdom Sports Council is advising us on a national strategy to ensure that all future bids for major events are of the highest quality and that there is proper co-ordination. When that strategy is ready, we shall bring together all the interested parties—from the sports governing bodies and from within Government—to ensure that we bring to Britain the best of world events. We are, of course, hosting a number of important events in the near future, including the cricket and rugby world cups in 1999 and the Commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002.
  The Government are committed to the re-emergence of Britain as a leading sporting nation. The lottery sports fund world-class performance programme gives us the opportunity to help our most talented sportsmen and sportswomen to compete successfully across a wide range of sports at international level. Each year, £35 million is available through the programme in England alone. So far, grants totalling more than £24 million have been awarded to more than 25 sports across the United Kingdom to provide support for our elite athletes competing up to Olympic and world championship level.
  The benefits of the programme are already becoming clear. Following Britain's success in last year's rowing world championship, competitors and coaches praised the programme as one of the main reasons for their team's outstanding performance. Praise for the programme has also come from the Squash Rackets Association, which has stated that the funding that it received enabled the England team to prepare properly for the men's world squash championship last year and to retain the world title.
  We must not underestimate the lottery's tremendous impact on sport. The lottery sports fund has now provided more than £800 million to some 4,000 sports projects throughout the United Kingdom. The first phase of monitoring lottery-funded projects found that participation by people under 18 had tripled and that, as a result of improved accessibility, participation by women and the disabled had doubled.
  We have always felt that fair distribution, particularly to areas of social and recreational deprivation, is a crucial aspect of lottery funding; hence the early development of the English Sports Council's successful priority areas initiative. However, we are not standing still. We propose to bring the benefits of the lottery to more people and in more imaginative ways. Our proposals to ensure a more strategic approach for the distribution of lottery funds, outlined in the National Lottery Bill now going through Parliament, will help.
  The national lottery reforms will establish a completely different framework, shifting the focus away from capital funding exclusively to funding people and their activities and access, the developmental needs of children and young people, making partnerships more flexible, and

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  encouraging distributors to consider how their strategies will contribute to regeneration and the reduction of economic and social deprivation.
  I know that there have been some suggestions that the advent of the sixth good cause for the New Opportunities Fund will mean less money for sport. I am pleased yet again to be able to put the record straight. We shall honour the commitment that sport will receive in full the £1.8 billion that it was originally earmarked to receive from the proceeds of the national lottery. In addition, the New Opportunities Fund will provide money for healthy living centres and out-of-school-hours activities. That will enable people to gain greater access to sport, with leisure centres working with healthy living centres, and sport as one of the activities in after-school clubs.
  Sport relies heavily on sponsorship, and I have been encouraged by the increase in commercial sponsorship of sport in recent years. However, there is one form of sponsorship in particular that does not, and should not, mix with sport: tobacco. In the general election and in our manifesto we said that we would ban tobacco advertising. In government, we are doing better than that: our aim is to end tobacco sponsorship as well. We will also seek to ensure that sport is properly safeguarded in the process, but we do not want our young people in particular enticed and encouraged into smoking when they would not otherwise have made that choice.
  Thanks to the tireless of work on my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health and her tough negotiating in Europe, we have negotiated a European Union directive that I believe reflects a fair balance of providing reasonable time for sports to adapt while ending the totally inappropriate link between smoking and sport. The Government are considering several options to help the sports concerned, and they will be announced in the White Paper later this year.
  The Government are determined that everyone should be able to try as many sports as possible so that they can find and pursue the one or ones for them, but I am not so naive as to believe that everyone gets that chance. Certain groups traditionally participate less in sport: women, people with disabilities, people from ethnic minorities, and some young people. Sometimes, we can identify what the problems are, but, in other cases, we need to change perceptions of sport or its participants. We will consider those problems, real or perceived, closely to find how we can remove such barriers.
  I am convinced that sport can be a useful tool in helping us to tackle the problems of social exclusion. Of course, sport cannot be the only solution. Social exclusion occurs where a variety of problems combine to deal some people a poor hand in life, but sport, with its demands for teamwork, discipline, personal application and communication, can teach valuable lessons that can be applied in other situations. Sport has a major role to play in the fight against social exclusion in its many forms. For example, throughout the country, community schemes involving sport have successfully tackled crime and vandalism.
  In Westminster, Crime Concern has managed a project that has enabled 19 young people to complete a sports leaders training course, with 16 going on to find work or register for further study. Half of them were offenders, with 33 arrests or cautions between them. In Bradford, the Bolton Woods community centre has had 18 football
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  teams training at least one day a week, including at-risk young people who are encouraged to develop skills and self-awareness regardless of their ability. According to Crime Concern, the scheme has helped to reduce crime in the areas by more than 50 per cent. over four years.
  On tackling deprivation, the Warwick Park youth centre in north Peckham, funded in part by a Sports Council lottery grant, has sports facilities that serve one of the most deprived parts of London and has been encouraging young adults and helping to generate self-confidence.
  Those projects also send a clear message that the most successful work is done where Government agencies, both from central and local government, and voluntary organisations come together to devise imaginative and flexible solutions to problems. It is such partnerships that I want to encourage, because the winners are the socially excluded in our society.
  Local authorities are by far the single largest provider of sports facilities. Clearly, they are central to the success of our sport for all policy. We recognise their key role in extending opportunities to everyone in the community. We are committed to working in partnership with local government, the governing bodies of sport, the Central Council of Physical Recreation and other agencies to produce an integrated, planned approach to sports provision.
  I was delighted that we were able so quickly to deliver another manifesto commitment to halt the sale of the school playing fields that schools and their communities need. When the Conservative party claims, as it always does, that it is the champion of team sport, let me remind it that it was the unnecessary sale of school playing fields, over which it presided, which set back this nation's future so badly. We hope that the new legislation requiring all state schools to seek ministerial consent for the sale of playing fields will have completed its parliamentary process by July. Alongside that, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is issuing new planning guidelines on playing fields so that both planning procedures and education legislation are brought to bear on the problem—a manifesto commitment delivered.
  Sport will remain a national curriculum subject. Some people have been alarmed by a misunderstanding of the announcements on the curriculum in primary schools by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment a few months ago. Alongside the inclusion of an hour of numeracy and an hour of literacy in the primary school day, we have introduced greater flexibility in how sport and physical recreation are taught, but they must be taught. There is no way that schools can or should stop teaching sport.
  We are encouraging local authorities to develop and publish leisure and cultural strategies to improve planning and policy making, and to ensure that provision is relevant to local needs. Sport will be a major element of that strategy.
  A key element of our national strategy for developing sport and sporting excellence is the creation of the United Kingdom Sports Institute. We have always been committed to the concept of specialist facilities for our elite sportsmen and women so that they have a chance to be properly prepared to compete with the world's best. When we came into office, we found a mess. There was a broad commitment to an institute or academy, but no clear idea of what to put in it. Bids were being invited on

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  a completely unfocused basis. Our preference from the start was for a central site with a regional network built on existing facilities rather than for a huge, centralised institution. We listened to what sportsmen and women had to say, and we know that that is what they wanted. We set about creating the blueprint against which bids could be judged and a proper process for deciding the location of the headquarters. In August, the Prime Minister and I agreed a new vision based on the development of elite athletes, who will have absolute priority for the institute's services. In December, Sheffield was selected as the preferred central site.
  Since that announcement, a lot of hard work has been done to put in place the funding and the structure that will make the institute deliver. This huge and important project will influence British sport for years to come. We must get it right, and we are pressing ahead. Much financing will depend on lottery funding, and detailed arrangements are being developed by the United Kingdom Sports Council. All that is in accordance with the arm's-length conventions in place. I am keeping closely involved, and the council will report to me by the end of June with clear proposals, agreed with the institute consortium, on the management structure, the form of the headquarters and the relationship with the regional network.
  We owe our top athletes the chance to compete on equal terms with the world's best, and they must have access to the latest proven developments in coaching, sports science, medicine and nutrition. We all get pleasure from UK success in international competition, and we want more of it. The institute is primarily a facility for Olympic sports and minority sports that lack a commercial element. However, all sports, including competitive team sports, will be part of the institute and will draw on top-quality central services and expertise. Linked to the national network will be centres of excellence for several individual sports.
  As part of our new approach to sport, my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and I concluded that there was a need to review the way in which the Sports Council structures that we inherited were working and to ensure that they operated effectively for the future in the best interests of sport. In consultation with our home country colleagues, we have been considering the important question of how the Government should provide support to sport at a UK level in future. That has taken longer than we had hoped, but we wanted to get it right. We have made good progress in recent weeks, and I hope that we will soon be able to make a further announcement.
  I was sorry to see Howard Wells go after he had put so much into getting the UK Sports Council off the ground. We wish him the very best in his new position at Watford football club.
  Our review also included the regional structure of the English Sports Council and the relationship between the council and local authorities and sports governing bodies in the regions. Those key partners were first brought together in 1966 at a series of regional conferences convened by the late Denis Howell. Today's descendants of those early conferences are the regional sports forums. I am grateful for the enthusiasm and dedication of forum members, particularly since the previous Administration foolishly abolished the regional councils for sport and recreation.
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  The English Sports Council keeps in close contact with its key partners in the regions, and it is important that arrangements for local liaison and feedback should continue and be enhanced. We will encourage the council to review arrangements with local agencies to ensure that there are appropriate mechanisms for the voice of grass-roots sport to be heard.
  I have outlined the progress we have made in helping sport since last year's debate. Much of what was promised has been delivered, or is well on the way to being delivered, including the UK Sports Institute and the football task force, and reforms on playing fields and tobacco sponsorship. I am delighted with those achievements, but sport for all in its wider sense can become a reality only if all key players work in partnership to get even more people involved in sport, particularly young people, women and those from ethnic communities and with disabilities.
  Sport can motivate and inspire whole communities, and is of vital importance to our society. We in Government recognise that, and I can announce that we propose to develop a comprehensive strategy for sport. It will address many issues of real importance to people who watch and play sport, such as the role of sport in education; the development of sport for all and international excellence for the best; the links between sport and social regeneration; and the importance of sport and recreation for our policies on public health.
  I propose to consult widely over the coming months as we prepare a strategy. We will talk to sports organisations, local authorities, health and education specialists and people in the public and private sector about their contribution to sport. I want to encourage people in the sporting world and beyond to tell us what can be done to motivate people to play sport and to provide sporting opportunities for all. I regard today's debate as a first opportunity to hear views on these matters, and for hon. Members to contribute to the development of our thinking. As I have said, much remains to be done. We are not complacent.
  A great summer of sport is in prospect. Let me offer, on behalf of the whole House, our best wishes to our sportsmen and women, including those competing in the test matches against South Africa and Sri Lanka, those at Wimbledon, those on international rugby tours, and those at the Commonwealth games and the world disability athletics championships. Of course, we wish England and Scotland every success in the world cup finals which start in France next week. The England-Scotland final will be a memorable match indeed.
  10.5 am
  Mr. Richard Spring: Over the next few weeks, the nation will follow a number of sporting events with considerable interest. Millions of our citizens will root for our football players in the world cup, our cricketers who are successfully playing South Africa, our rugby players in the southern hemisphere, our Wimbledon contestants and even, perhaps, the winning horse in the Derby tomorrow. This is an appropriate time to consider the state of sport and how best to support it.
  I apologise to the House for having to leave early to attend a long-standing constituency engagement. I shall leave our case in the capable hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins).

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  I must praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) who was the first Prime Minister clearly to highlight the importance of sport in our national life. That was also done by successive Secretaries of State for National Heritage, and I pay particular tribute to the immense contribution made towards raising the profile of sport by two former parliamentary colleagues—Iain Sproat and Sebastian Coe. I fully endorse the comments that the Secretary of State made about Denis Howell, who is sadly missed.
  I am delighted that so many hon. Members are keen to participate in the debate. We look forward particularly to the contribution of that great parliamentary champion of sport, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry).
  The Minister for Sport knows my firm view that this is not an area for party political rancour. I thank him for always so courteously keeping me informed. However, aspects of Government policy give us genuine concern. Sport is an important part of the national life. There are those who view sport as a peripheral or frivolous activity: Winston Churchill apparently once said that whenever he felt like exercise, he laid down until the feeling went away. I suspect that that is not the view of hon. Members present today.
  Sport enriches the lives of those who enjoy it, and it contributes to our health and well-being. It offers the opportunity to hone our competitive instincts, although, for many, it is simply fun and relaxing. It is also part of our heritage. Britain is the birthplace of many of the world's great sports, and we codified and helped to popularise them throughout the world. Sport is a binding force between regions and generations, and across borders. It is a focus for local and national pride. We cherish it for those reasons, but, above all, it means enjoyment for those who play and watch it. I endorse the sentiments expressed by the Secretary of State about extending the ability to play sport to groups in our society such as the disabled and others who have disadvantages.
  I am in no doubt that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that Government support for sport should begin with a clear emphasis on the importance of sport in schools. While sport can be played by people of all ages, it is by taking up sport when they are young that many people learn to slove it, and then continue to play sport throughout their lives. Primary and secondary school sports education is only the first step in a lifetime's enjoyment of sport. I suggest to the Secretary of State that still more could be done to encourage sport in higher and further education. We need to look to colleges and universities to do more to promote sport among their students. As the previous Government identified, the best means of doing that is by encouraging links between schools, colleges and sports clubs.
  We also want to support, foster and facilitate the talents of our best sportsmen and women. We want to take pride in seeing them beat the world's best. We do not want them to be driven abroad for lack of opportunities. We want a sporting culture that encourages the very best to reach their full potential and inspire others of less ability to do likewise. Those are the targets and priorities of the Opposition. I ask the Government to affirm today their commitment to those goals, and to respond to some of the specific questions about how they expect to achieve them.
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  Hon. Members will recall that a comprehensive framework for the achievement of the goals that I have outlined was established by the previous Government. By the time of the last general election, significant progress had already been made. The present Government said before the election in their policy document "Labour's Sporting Nation" that no White Paper had been published on sport since 1975, but a comprehensive plan was introduced in 1995 and was revisited a year later. The recommendations in the Conservative Government's consultation paper "Raising the Game" were broadly welcomed by the Labour party when it was published.
  Our test of the Government's commitment to sport is simple. How far have they advanced the agenda set out in "Raising the Game"? Some of our initiatives have been taken forward, but I regret that some have not. We do not believe that the Government have materially advanced the agenda for sport in the past year. They have not sufficiently continued on the upward course that we set. Let us now examine their scorecard.
  The previous Government placed great emphasis on the need for a prominent role for competitive sport in schools and on team sport. Conservative Members believe that it is not only participating that is important, but that young people learn critical lessons about winning and losing and how to react maturely. Sport thrives only if both parties play by the rules and accept the results with good grace. I cannot think of a better way of learning how to live alongside others and make a contribution as part of the team.
  Essential to a thriving sporting culture in schools is the provision of adequate facilities, including playing fields. We, therefore support the cross-departmental involvement in preventing the indiscriminate sale of playing fields by local councils. That measure builds on the decision of the previous Government to make the Sports Council a statutory consultee in the sale of playing fields.
  We can arrest the decline of school sport only if it has a secure position within the formal curriculum in every school. That is exactly what the previous Government set out to ensure—that physical education continued to be one of only five subjects that pupils were required to pursue from their entry into school at age five until the end of compulsory schooling at 16. PE in the national curriculum covers a range of activities that pupils pursue at different times, from athletics to outdoor and adventure activities and swimming. We revised the national curriculum with the specific intention of increasing the importance of competitive sport, including team games played in a form appropriate to each age group.
  The Labour party election manifesto said:
  "school sport must be the foundation."
  Despite what the Secretary of State said, it is disappointing that the Government have decided to de-emphasise PE in primary schools, with all the attendant risks. Of course, we support the Government's desire to improve numeracy and literacy, but we believe that it was a mistake to remove the core curriculum status of PE. Its removal sends the wrong signal to teachers, parents and pupils alike. It invites people to conclude that sport is peripheral. The Secretary of State will be aware of the difficulties that so many primary schools already have in attracting PE teachers, of whom there is a considerable shortage.

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  The Government's message is not helpful. It undermines the long-term and strategic implementation of Government policy in support of sport. It is a necessary condition of the success of the Government's sports policy that it should he visible and applied to each young generation anew.
  It is not enough simply to point to schools as the cornerstone of Government policy on sport. If young people are truly to learn sporting habits to last a lifetime, we need to look at the quality of sport in schools. That is why the previous Government introduced the sportsmark scheme—a recognition award to schools with effective policies for promoting sport. We also introduced the gold star mark for schools that had made outstanding achievements. After consultation, a set of criteria were introduced which were demanding but well within the reach of schools committed to high-quality sport. It is extraordinary that the Government have declined to implement our intention to extend the initiative from secondary to primary schools. The decision is at variance with the Government's rhetoric that
  "school sport must be the foundation."
  It is of the utmost importance to promote sport at the earliest possible age in order to encourage a lifetime's habit of involvement in sport. The Government's decision not to extend sportsmark to primary schools will have precisely the reverse effect.
  Also important to raising the quality of sport in schools is the attraction of private sector money to local sport in schools and other projects aimed at young people. In assessing the Government's backing for sport, we should look at what is being done to facilitate the flow of private sector sponsorship. We established the sportsmatch scheme, which pledged Government money to match donations of between £1,000 and £75,000 of private money. I applaud the Government's decision to reduce the lower matching limit from £1,000 to £500. Can the Secretary of State or the Minister for Sport announce today how much extra money has been set aside for the scheme to account for the expected increase in private sector support for sportsmatch?
  Many sports now rely on sponsorship to stage events at the highest level and to bring into a sport money that can then trickle downwards. Sponsorship is valuable not only to the high-profile sports that attract large, live television audiences but to less popular sports that might not otherwise be able to stage competitive events. This is not an appropriate time to debate the effects of tobacco advertising on smoking, but the Government's decision to ban tobacco sponsorship of sport was taken without proper consultation with the sports involved or specific information about the cash impact. Formula 1 was exempted on dubious grounds.
  The sports that will be hardest hit by the ban are not the most glamorous or high-profile. Popular sports such as angling, darts, greyhound racing, pool, billiards, snooker and showjumping will be hard hit. They had no exemption. Apparently, only very big fish can secure that. Those sports are not optimistic about finding alternative
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  sources of sponsorship. This is a crucial question for their survival. I hope that the Minister for Sport will be able to offer some clear assurances today. The governing bodies and those involved in such sports are genuinely extremely worried about the future viability of their sports and competition within them.
  It would be difficult to overstate the impact of the national lottery on sport. It has been a catalyst for a renaissance in sporting activity at all levels throughout the country and has spectacularly increased investment in sport. The previous Government began shifting the emphasis of the distribution of lottery money from capital spending to supporting talented individuals. We welcome the Government's decision to continue that policy. However, the Secretary of State is keenly aware of our deep concern about the Government's decision to set up a sixth lottery good cause under his control, which will deprive the existing good causes of money that they were expecting. The Secretary of State is taking £250 million out of sport during the remaining four years of the current lottery licence. That £60 million a year is more than the £50 million that his Department spends on sport each year.
  Like the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, we regret the Government's decision not to include sport centrally in the scope of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The previous Government planned to make lottery money available to fund the development of talented athletes and other sportsmen and women. In its pre-election document "Labour's Sporting Nation", Labour pledged to fund talented sportsmen and women from NESTA. It is a great disappointment that the Government have chosen not to honour that pledge.
  Labour also pledged before the election to make sport a permanent lottery good cause.
  Mr. Chris Smith: I am puzzled by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. His memory cannot be so short that he has forgotten that my hon. Friend the Minister for Arts said on Monday that NESTA would have a role in the development of sports-related invention and innovation. He must also be aware of the world-class performance programme, with sports lottery money going directly into the development of talent for our elite athletes.
  Mr. Spring: I am fully aware of that programme. However, the distributing bodies and those involved in sport clearly want a more specific answer on the role of NESTA in sporting innovation. That is a different question.
  Sports organisations will be disappointed that the Minister for Sport was not able to offer an absolute commitment on funding for sport from the lottery after 2001. The English Sports Council underlined its concern last week in a letter to me about the future of initiatives such as the world-class performance programme for elite sportsmen and women. The programme is funded solely by the lottery and will have to be maintained for at least 12 years to bring about the improvements in international performance that similar long-term investments in Australia, France and Spain have produced.
  The Minister for Sport (Mr. Tony Banks): I would like to listen to the whole of the hon. Gentleman's speech

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  rather than interrupting him, but I must refer him again to the debate on the National Lottery Bill on Monday, when I said that
  "the Government have no plans beyond those which they have announced already … to alter the funding of the existing good causes. That applies both to 2001 and beyond."—[Official Report, 1 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 99.]
  As I said at the time, I cannot make it clearer than that.
  Mr. Spring: I accept that the hon. Gentleman said that. I was here at the time. He has made a commitment and explained the Government's intention. However, he knows that those involved in sport are seeking a cast-iron agreement on that. I hope that he will refer to the issue again when he speaks, because it is a genuine source of concern on which we need tougher reassurances.
  There is a widespread view that there is insufficient strategic co-ordination between the Government, the UK Sports Council and the home countries sports councils. The Secretary of State referred to the recent resignation of the chief executive of the UK Sports Council. He has publicly expressed concern about unnecessary duplication and waste in the administration of sport, and he appealed for more direct Government involvement in trying to cut through the impasse that many believe exists at the top of sport.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman kindly tell us who set up the system?
  Mr. Spring: If the Secretary of State would care to wait, I shall refer to the origins of the situation and how it has evolved. He is clearly impatient for me to get to that point.
  I was about to say that the problem was not new. The former chief executive was clearly frustrated by the lack of direction to find solutions. "Labour's Sporting Nation", which was written some time ago, gave a commitment to a national strategy. The Government have been in office for a year, but today we have heard once again about a further consultation process for the national strategy. Nothing has happened during Labour's first year in office, which is why the gentleman concerned resigned. Perhaps the national strategy is like the Minister without Portfolio's famous millennium sport, surfball—all an illusion. I hope that the Secretary of State will not use the further consultation that he has announced today as another opportunity to delay implementing a strategy that so many in sport have called for.
  I now turn to a matter of considerable current concern. It is perverse that the Government should have made such great play of the need to improve what they term access to sport while preparing plans to introduce VAT on membership fees for health centres run by commercial operations, which will discourage people from taking part in sport. Will the Minister for Sport explain that aspect of Government policy and what representations he has made to the Treasury about it?
  Tomorrow is Derby day; the race will be attended by up to 50,000 people. It is the country's richest racing day, with prize money of £1 million. Incredibly, it is only the sixth richest race in the world, because the prize money pool situation in Great Britain is pathetic by international standards. This chronic situation means that owners and trainers are voting with their feet.
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  The horse racing and betting industries are among the most substantial employers in the country, yet the Government take £350 million in betting taxes and return only £50 million—as, I fully accept, did the previous Government. Discussions are under way between the British Horseracing Board, the Home Office and the Treasury. The industry is hopelessly underfunded, with its global competitive position increasingly under threat. In his discussions with the Chancellor, the Secretary of State should vigorously point out the impending crisis
  Sport provides enjoyment not just for those who play it, but for those who attend sporting events and the millions who enjoy watching it on television. As well as being a form of entertainment, televised sport is an important means of inspiring interest in sport, particularly among young people. We await with interest the Secretary of State's decision on the recommendations of Lord Gordon's advisory group. The right hon. Gentleman said in a written answer:
  "I expect to announce that decision within the next few weeks."—[Official Report, 20 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 760.]
  That was more than two months ago. I welcome the fact that he has said again today that he will make his announcement within the next few weeks. Let us hope that it is a few weeks this time, not a matter of months.
  The pursuit of excellence is essential for a comprehensive strategy for sport. Encouraging excellence affords talented individuals the opportunity to fulfil their potential, and it is an essential means of encouraging wider participation in sport. As we all know, sporting role models can rapidly popularise a sport. Labour made great play of that aspect of their policy in opposition and undertook to implement the previous Government's plans for a British academy of sport. It is disappointing, to say the least, that the Government have made so little practical progress that can be announced and revealed.
  Despite the fact that a shortlist of three sites for the headquarters of the renamed UK Sports Institute had been drawn up several months before the general election, the Government were unable to announce a winning bid until last December. The Minister for Sport revealed in a series of written answers in March that no contracts have been signed for the project and, indeed, none had even been put out to tender. There is no schedule date for the completion of the project. Such is the level of inactivity surrounding the project that hardly any sports have even expressed interest in it. That is not satisfactory.
  Labour's pre-election policy document, "Creating Excellence in British Sport", suggested that the UK Sports Institute could produce results in the 2004 Olympic games. I regret to have to say that, at this rate, it is unlikely to be operational by 2004 and, yet again, our Olympic hopefuls are being short-changed.
  I give the Minister for Sport my unqualified backing for his efforts to bring the world cup here in 2006. The spectacular success of Euro 96 demonstrated that this country has the capability to stage a world-class tournament and it is on that example that a successful world cup bid will be based.
  The Minister for Sport and I were fortunate enough to attend the recent cup final at Wembley. Considering the number of supporters there, the event passed off with good humour and self-control, which was a great tribute to those present. I share the Minister's regret at the way in which one or two isolated instances, long after the

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  game ended, were disproportionately highlighted by the media. The behaviour of supporters has improved dramatically over the past few years, and it is a tribute to them, the sporting bodies, the organisation of stadiums, the clubs and all those who have made an enormous effort towards that.
  Nevertheless, we strongly urge the Home Secretary at an early stage to put in place tough measures against potential misbehaviour by our supporters during the current world cup. We support rigorous action on that. Just as England's success in staging Euro 96 will influence the bidding for the 2006 world cup, so will the conduct of English fans during the forthcoming world cup.
  All hon. Members with English constituencies will undoubtedly give maximum support to the England football team this summer. Its manager, Glenn Hoddle, has an unenviable task, but one which he is well qualified to carry out. I know that all hon. Members will deprecate the intemperate personal attacks on him. We should be totally confident of his integrity of purpose, and I know that everybody present will wish him and the team well in the matches that lie ahead.
  Labour made a manifesto pledge to
  "work to bring the Olympics and other major international sporting events to Britain".
  All hon. Members would accept that staging such events has benefits, not only because of their economic impact but because of the sense of community and well-being that they generate. We trust that the Government will step up their efforts to achieve that pledge and use their influence to build broad support for such bids. We shall certainly support them.
  We note that the Minister has met the British Olympic Association and the UK Sports Council to discuss an Olympic bid. Will he give details of the Government's exact role in that respect? Will he also tell the House how much money he expects to be required to make the Commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002 a success? On 6 April, the Minister for Sport said in a written answer that the level of central Government funding that would be required was under review in his and other Departments. Will the Minister tell the House the results of that review?
  I take this opportunity to applaud a number of local authorities that have put in place comprehensive sport and leisure plans. I pay special tribute to St. Edmundsbury borough council in my constituency.
  The Government's performance on sport in the past year has been something of a curate's egg. There are still many problems that need to be addressed, a number of which I have mentioned this morning. However, I assure the Secretary of State of our support if, in the next 12 months, he energetically seeks to deal with the matters that I have raised.
  10.34 am
  Mr. Tom Pendry: I begin by congratulating the Secretary of State on his fine speech. I thank him and, indeed, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) for their kind remarks about me. I was impressed that the Secretary of State knew about
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  the Charlie George goal. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who tried to catch him out, knows to which club Charlie George went after Arsenal to play some of his best football. I shall give him a hint—it is the best team in the land. He clearly cannot.
  Mr. Ivor Caplin: Derby County.
  Mr. Pendry: Indeed, Derby County.
  I congratulate the Secretary of State also on initiating this debate. Let us hope that it becomes a regular practice, because sport is not discussed enough in the House. That is curious when one considers the interest in sporting issues here, which is reflected in the number of groups that we have. I chair the all-party sports group; the all-party football committee is very large, and there are many other groups, including a boxing group. However, nothing seems to change about Friday morning debates on sport. I hope that, one of these days, the Secretary of State will manage to get a debate on sport in Government time during the week when many of our colleagues who would like to participate can be here—they have constituency engagements on Fridays.

  I have already mentioned my chairmanship of the all-party sports group. I should like to place on record the important role played for sport by my predecessor, Lord Howell, and echo the words of the Secretary of State. I am sure that the whole House recognises the great work that Lord Howell did over the years. He will be sorely missed.
  I am pleased to see in their places the three vice-chairmen of the all-party sports group, although the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who will be winding up for the Opposition, has temporarily left the Chamber. We have here the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones), who will speak for the Liberal Democrats, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen) and the secretary of the group, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas). I hope that they will successfully catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  My hon. Friend the Minister for Sport went on record at the time of his appointment to talk about his job description, which he said was like going to heaven without dying first. I wonder whether he feels the same today. From what he is reported in the Sunday Express as saying, he must feel that he is at least in purgatory and some distance from the pearly gates. He must not despair; he must keep plugging away. I have said many times that sport politics is much more difficult to deal with than the general politics of the House and Whitehall. He was right to point out in that article the limitations of his job. No Government have given adequate recognition to the sports portfolio.
  My hon. Friend has had a busy, action-packed year. On a personal note, he has been able to savour the joy of Chelsea winning not just one, but two cups—an achievement almost as staggering as the size of the Labour victory in the last general election. The whole House will want to congratulate him on the energetic and enthusiastic way in which he is supporting England's bid to host the world cup in 2006, which, hopefully, will be successful. We should be encouraged by the fact that we have the finest stadiums infrastructure in Europe and South Africa, which is bidding to host the finals in four years' time.

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  At this point, I want to declare an interest, as a good deal of the credit for the improvements to our stadiums is due to the Football Trust, which I chair. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to the work of my predecessor, Lord Aberdare, who presided over the trust when the majority of the building of our fine stadiums took place.
  The Minister for Sport recently paid tribute to Lord Aberdare, stating that football was indebted to him for his magnificent contribution to our national game. He went on to speak warmly about the major contribution that the Football Trust has made. The Secretary of State reaffirmed that view this morning. We at the trust welcome those remarks and hope that the trust can fulfil the Government's wish that it remains a UK body. That ambition is not helped by the fact that the trust's income from the reduction in pool betting duty applies only to England and Scotland and, even then, only to perform the essential Taylor work.
  I therefore hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sport will use their good offices to help to extend the life of the reduced pool betting duty, thus ensuring that the trust can continue its essential work for British football at every level.
  Before to the general election—with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who was then the shadow National Heritage spokesman—I launched the Labour party's sports policy document, "Labour's Sporting Nation", which has already been mentioned in this debate and was extremely well received throughout the sporting world. In it, Labour promised to become proactively involved in a number of issues to improve the quality of sports provision for participants, spectators and viewers. I should like briefly to review progress in reaching some of the commitments stated in that manifesto document.
  Our earliest commitment—first made in November 1995—was to establish a football task force to represent the interests of everyone involved in football—administrators, players, spectators and viewers. One of the reasons for that commitment was a fear that the game was developing in a way which would not ensure access and involvement in its future by many of the supporters who had stuck with football during its more difficult years.
  It was encouraging to see that that commitment was made a reality soon after the general election. Although the task force was my idea, I might have constituted it rather differently. Nevertheless, I welcome its efforts.
  As we have heard in this debate, last month, the task force published its first report, on racism in football. I reiterate that it endorsed the Government's official policy—stated in our "Charter for Football"—to amend the flawed legislative provision in the Football (Offences) Act 1991, whereby an individual cannot be charged with a racist or obscene chant if that chant was not in concert with one or more other persons. Hopefully—I understand that the Home Secretary has confirmed that it will be—the provision will soon be redrafted to cover both individuals and groups.
  Like the Secretary of State, I look forward to further reports from the task force. It will be interesting to see how it manages to reconcile the differing views on issues such as ticket prices and pay-per-view television. I am sure that we all await those reports with interest.
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  Another welcome development—congratulations again to my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport—is endorsement of the Brighton declaration on improving sporting opportunities for women. In my capacity as shadow sports Minister, I was able in 1994 to be present at the launch of that international event and gave the official blessing of the then Opposition to its aims.
  The declaration was a statement that struck a chord for all those who support the principle of sport for all. Sadly, the then Conservative Government ridiculed that important statement as mere political correctness, taking a very short-sighted approach. I am glad that our Government have not taken such a view and that the Brighton declaration will be at the heart of all their future sports development policies.
  In only 13 months, the Government have implemented many of our pre-election pledges. Only this week, in the debate on the National Lottery Bill—this is where I take issue with the hon. Member for West Suffolk—the House heard helpful responses, which have already been mentioned today, from both the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Arts. The Minister for Arts assured us that there will be no reason to believe the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts cannot be involved in sports science or sports information technology. The Minister for Sport stated clearly, as he has done again today, that his Department will continue to press for lottery money for sport after 2001.
  During the past year, there have been many positive steps forward, but I have a major concern on an issue that I think the Minister will have to get to grips with and which will certainly be his priority in the next few months—the structural problems, which have already been mentioned today, that face British sport. I had hoped that the Government would make a greater impression on the issue. In our document "Labour's Sporting Nation", the executive summary stated that we were committed to a
  "national strategy for sport dedicated to providing excellence at all levels."
  I welcome the Secretary of State's assurance that, at a macro level, such a strategy is still being developed, but we have lost a good bit of time. Unfortunately, many of the benefits from development of an effective strategy will not materialise for the 2000 Olympics. I am sure that we all hope that we will not miss out again for 2004.
  It is to be greatly regretted also that we do not have more movement on the development of regional academies of sport—or whatever we call them these days; I think that they have a new name now. From the central location in Sheffield, we need now to promote regional developments. Furthermore, there is not enough co-ordination between the United Kingdom Sports Council and the home countries sports councils. Each council needs to have a clearer understanding of its role. I agree with the hon. Member for West Suffolk on that.
  Although I pay tribute to the skills of Sir Rodney Walker in taking on the role of acting chairman of the UK Sports Council, and of being chairman of the English Sports Council, surely it is now time to find a permanent chairman for that body to ensure a longer-term outlook.
  The resignation of Howard Wells, which has been mentioned today, was a further disappointment. Anyone who has followed his career—especially the great work that he did in Hong Kong—will agree that he is sorely missed as a sports administrator in the wider sense of that role.

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  There is not a great deal wrong with the current set-up for sport in the United Kingdom; it is only not being effectively applied. The United Kingdom Sports Council must be allowed to perform its role as the lead strategic body for sport in the United Kingdom, working in partnership with the home countries sports councils, which will be responsible for implementing policy and performing grant distribution work. I firmly believe that they could all work together.
  Parties currently engaged in infighting and introspection have to be encouraged to show the necessary good will in overcoming rather than finding problems within the existing framework. A few heads should be banged together and reminded that it is output—the extension of sporting opportunities—that matters, not internal structures and positions. We have not only to accept the current structure, which regards devolution as the basis for sports policy making, but to appreciate the strength of it. Nowhere can a decentralised approach have a greater impact if correctly applied. Such an approach can be a source of great strength for sport. As we all know, athletes take pride in representing not only their country, but their town and region.
  I should like to offer a practical suggestion on protecting playing fields to my right hon. and hon. Friends. As we know, under the Tories, some 5,000 playing fields were flogged off. After pressure from us—the then Opposition—the Government gave the Sports Council statutory consultee status on sales, but that did not help much in preventing the number of fields being developed as car parks and housing estates. Once lost, those fields will never be recovered.
  I think that I am right in asserting that, at the time of general election, 2,600 playing fields were under threat of development. Thanks to moves introduced by our new Government, which tightened school playing field regulations—as an amendment to the School Standards and Framework Bill—the vast majority of the fields have been saved for the nation and the enjoyment of our school children.
  I believe that we can go further still and protect all open spaces—including those owned by further education colleges, universities, health authorities and the coal boards. Open spaces are the nation's sporting assets and they should remain so. We stated on page 6 of our sports policy document:
  "We will end the policy of selling playing fields."
  We also did not distinguish whether a public body owned the fields.
  I hope that the Minister will pursue that proposal, working in conjunction with his fellow Ministers at both the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
  I must gently chide my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench for removing physical education as a compulsory subject in the national curriculum without consulting sports groups.
  Mr. Chris Smith: I hasten to put my hon. Friend right. Sport and physical recreation remains a compulsory part of the curriculum. It must be taught in schools. That requirement remains firmly in place.
  Mr. Pendry: I was about to say that I want to study the Secretary of State's speech more closely, but I am sure that Ministers will note that academic success is enhanced through physical education. According to a recent study,
  "students who are involved in sport tend to perform as well or better academically than less active students, even though academic curriculum time is reduced".
  Mr. Spring: I want to make this clear. Physical education has been removed as a core curriculum subject. That is a matter of fact: I have read the Secretary of State's statements. The reality is vastly different from what the Secretary of State is trying to tell us, and consequently there is a clear de-emphasis on sport in schools.
  Mr. Pendry: I intend to accept what the Secretary of State is saying. Later, I shall have words with him about how we can get the message across to the many people who remain confused. Previous sports Ministers had difficulty conducting a sensible dialogue on sporting matters with their counterparts in the Department for Education. I hope that my hon. Friends are not experiencing that problem. In my view, we badly need a dedicated Minister in the Department for Education and Employment responsible for ensuring that schools are adequately catered for in physical education. PE should be central to the curriculum.
  Conservative Members should not crow too much. During their reign, the number of PE teachers halved, from about 42,000 to 24,000, and Conservative Governments certainly did not place much emphasis on PE teaching.
  Mr. Banks: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene, because it is important to nail down some of these points before they start to circulate. The Government are convinced of the benefits that physical education in sport gives children of all ages and we are pleased that PE remains a curriculum subject, while increased emphasis is given to the priorities of numeracy and literacy. It is a core curriculum subject. There is no question of primary schools opting out of teaching PE. It will remain a national curriculum subject and will continue to be taught in all schools. The changes will give primary schools new flexibility in how to approach the six non-core subjects, in respect of which teachers will be able to use their professional judgment to decide the right balance for the pupils they teach. PE remains, therefore, an integral part of the curriculum.
  Mr. Pendry: I am grateful, and I am sure that the whole sporting world will be grateful, for those helpful interventions by the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sport. I am sure that everyone in the House will be grateful too, because they have enabled me to throw away five pages of my speech. There will be cheers all round, because time is short and many hon. Members wish to participate in this important debate.
  I had hoped to emphasise the importance of the work of the British Paralympic Association, of which I am a patron. I had the good fortune to go to Atlanta, not only

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  for the Olympics but for the Paralympics, and see for myself the inspirational work that has been done by the BPA and the athletes who performed on the track and elsewhere. I know that the Minister for Sport greatly admires the BPA's work and that it may count on his continued support.
  I am sure that the House wishes Glenn Hoddle, Craig Brown and their teams good fortune in the world cup finals. Will the Minister for Sport reflect on his decision not to attend the games that our teams play? I know that he took that decision in the best interests of the fans who will be unable to attend due to the scandalous lack of tickets, but I do not believe that any of those who will be deprived would want the Minister for Sport to be anywhere other than with our lads, cheering them on. The fans would wish him to learn from this world cup for 2006, when we host the competition. If that comes about, as we all hope, it will be in no small measure due to the Minister's efforts.
  Mr. David Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is nearly 11 o'clock. Have you received any application from the President of the Board of Trade or the Secretary of State for Scotland to make a statement on the cessation of nuclear fuel reprocessing at Dounreay? A statement was made to the press this morning—again, hon. Members learn about an important Government announcement through the media. A written statement has been made, yet the House does not have the opportunity to ask questions on a matter with important environmental consequences.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I cannot help the hon. Gentleman. A statement in reply to a written question has been made this morning. There has been no application to Madam Speaker to make a statement.
  10.55 am
  Mr. Nigel Jones: I thank the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) for their helpful speeches. The Minister for Sport has temporarily left the Chamber, but it is good to know that, should he be offered the managership of Chelsea, or the England squad, after the world cup, an adequate replacement is waiting in the wings—and I say that not because I am one of his vice-chairmen on the all-party sports group.
  The Secretary of State made a good and wide-ranging speech, and I thank him and the Minister for Sport for increasing interest in sport in the year since Labour came to power. The Minister for Sport once described his remarks on one sporting issue as "pub talk", but he brings welcome enthusiasm to the job.
  I associate my party with the tribute that was paid to Lord Howell. For a short time, I was his vice-chairman on the all-party sports group, and we shall miss him, but I am sure that the new chairman will bring his own special knowledge to the job.
  This is a timely debate, with the world cup about to start next week. However, I am grateful to the Secretary of State for focusing, not only on football—although it is important—but on a wide range of sports that need Government support.
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  On the world cup, there are many concerns about the security in France of fans—not only British ones. I am grateful to the Home Secretary and the Minister for Sport for the work that has been done. I am not sure that the advice to British fans not to go to France unless they have tickets has hit home, and I am worried that many people will go in the hope of obtaining tickets.
  The ticket allocation system has been a fiasco, and some time ago Professor Stephen Weatherill from Oxford university pointed out that the allocation system contravened European competition law. I took that matter up with the Competition Commissioner, Karel van Miert, who said that it was against the rules, but that they were running out of time. We got some more tickets out of that, but I believe that court action is still in progress. I hope that, should we be fortunate enough to host the world cup in 2006, we shall ensure that our ticket allocation system complies with European law.
  I have great respect for Glenn Hoddle. Obviously, I support Cheltenham Town, but Swindon Town is my league side, and Glenn cut his management teeth at Swindon and took the team up to the premiership for one glorious season, so I have much respect for his judgment. I am not sure that he took the right decision about Gazza, but I join other hon. Members in wishing the England team and the Scotland team good luck.
  I congratulate the Secretary of State: for his team to achieve the double after only one year shows the remarkable power of the job. It was also remarkable for the Minister for Sport to bring the European cup winners cup back to Britain.
  We should remember that there is football outside the top level and outside the premiership. It is right and proper in this debate to pay tribute to my side, Cheltenham Town, which, for the first time in its 106-year history, appeared this year at Wembley in the final and carried off the Umbro trophy by beating Southport 1–0.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. When an hon. Member is addressing the House, he should be listened to. If hon. Members wish to conduct conversations, they should go outside the Chamber.
  Mr. Jones: There was some Government support for Cheltenham Town in achieving that Football Association Umbro trophy victory. One of the players—they are still called the YTS boys—Michael Duff, made the first team squad and played a remarkable game at Wembley. I thank the Government for the help that they give to teams in lower divisions. Derek Goddard, the football correspondent of the Gloucestershire Echo, said that he had wonderful memories of Cheltenham Town's first appearance at Wembley. He said that, while he had many great memories of the season, hearing the Cheltenham Town tractor song at Wembley was something special. I will not sing the Cheltenham Town tractor song, but I can give the words to the Minister later if he would like them.
  I thank the Government for setting up the football task force, but I would like the Minister to examine several issues. Will he consider whether it might be possible to extend the play-off system further down the spectrum of football? The play-offs are an incredibly successful phenomenon, which has brought extra interest to the tail end of the season. It has meant that many clubs have

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  retained public interest until the last games of the season. I know that clubs in the GM Conference would like the play-off system to be extended to promotion to division 3—I say that not just because Cheltenham Town was a runner-up this time and narrowly missed out on promotion.
  This year, the division 3 play-off—my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Mr. Russell) and for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) have asked me to raise this issue—was shifted from Saturday to Friday evening, and consequently a very small crowd attended. That game was very important to both clubs and could have been a real money-spinner, which would have assisted the clubs immensely. The clubs feel hard done by and would like some kind of compensation. I do not expect the Government to provide it.
  Mr. Stephen Pound: I think that the hon. Gentleman said that Colchester and Torbay were in the play-offs, but I believe that Colchester and Torquay played the play-off final.
  Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay represents Torquay, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the team was Torquay United. The clubs would like to receive some compensation from somewhere, so perhaps the football task force can examine that matter.
  I congratulate the Government on their action yesterday in closing down Great Portland Entertainments. I must not say too much, as the case is the subject of legal proceedings, but the company appears to have taken £2.4 million as payment for 40,000 World cup tickets that have not materialised.
  The English Sports Council has produced some alarming statistics about general fitness in the United Kingdom. Some 49 per cent. of women and 25 per cent. of men fail basic training to become soldiers. Some 48 per cent. of men and 40 per cent. of women are overweight. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, 70 per cent. of men and 91 per cent. of women are below the activity levels for a fit and healthy life. We are storing up enormous trouble for later life and enormous costs to the health service by having an unfit nation. I am grateful that the Government will conduct a strategy review and draw up a national fitness strategy. The sooner we get on with it, the better.
  Hon. Members have mentioned the connection between crime statistics and sport. The English Sports Council has produced some remarkable statistics in that area. The Commission on Social Justice stated that young men between the ages of 17 and 25 account for 70 per cent. of all adults convicted or cautioned for a criminal offence. Coopers and Lybrand estimates that the benefit to society of preventing a single youth crime would be a cost saving equivalent to at least £2,300. We could save an enormous amount of money by ensuring that young people—particularly those most at risk of falling into crime—have sports facilities available at an affordable price. Such facilities should be free in schools.
  We should make schools more of a community resource. They must be properly staffed by people who have the right qualifications to teach sport and any other leisure pastime outside school time—at evenings,
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  weekends and particularly in school holidays—as well as during normal school hours. Last summer, I was in Hesters Way road in my constituency where I met a group of youngsters who were bored because they had nothing to do, while just across the road there was an empty school playing field where they could have kicked a ball around or played a game of cricket. We must find some way of saving the huge amount of money that we spend on dealing with crime and youngsters who are out of control by diverting it into establishing a system of neighbourhood schools where properly qualified sports coaches can teach sport throughout the year.
  I believe that the national curriculum is too tight in the area of sport. I spoke yesterday to Professor Margaret Talbot, who is the head of sport at Leeds Metropolitan university. She is certainly confused about the announcement by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment about primary education. Professor Talbot is a member of Speednet, the Sports and Physical Education Network, which has a wide range of member organisations, including the British Association of Advisers and Lecturers in Physical Education, the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, the British Universities and Colleges Physical Education Association, the British Universities Sports Association, the Further Education Colleges Network for Sports Education, the Higher Education/Schools Network for Initial Teacher Training in Physical Education, the National Dance Teachers Association, and so on.
  Professor Talbot believes that the Government have de-emphasised sport in primary schools—she uses the word "marginalised". I am grateful to the Minister for his comments today, and I shall ensure that Professor Talbot receives a copy of Hansard for this debate. I hope that it will set her mind at rest. It is at primary school that youngsters learn whether they will be any good at sport and where they get into the habit of keeping fit. I spoke to the head of PE at Bournside school in Cheltenham who told me that he is very concerned that some 11-year-olds cannot run around the pitch—they do 50 yards and are puffed out. That is a serious situation and we must do something about it.
  Trevor Brooking—with whom the Minister will be familiar—has told me that young boys, in particular, learn to kick a ball properly at ages six, seven and eight. He said that, if he is given youngsters at six, seven and eight, he can make them into decent players. I have a lot of respect for Trevor Brooking, and we must ensure that that sort of training is available in primary schools—perhaps through the network of out-of-hours school facilities—so that there may be a spin-off for the national game. We all know that the more people who take up sport, the greater the pool from which representative sides are drawn. It is true that if national sides do well, it adds to the feel-good factor.
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although the success of national teams is important, taking part in sport is central? Does he share my hope that the New Opportunities Fund, which has raided money that would otherwise have gone to sport from the national lottery, will be available to volunteers who organise after-school clubs that involve youngsters not only in traditional sports, but in adventure training? That will help to bring about the personal development and sense of achievement that go with sport, which we

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  want for all our children. Such clubs will enable sport to get a slice of the money that has effectively been taken away from it by the sixth good cause.
  Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman has made his own point, with which I agree. Participation is vital. We must increase the number of people who participate, so that we can reduce health costs by keeping the nation fit, and reduce the number of young people who fall into crime and bad habits, such as drug taking.
  Other hon. Members have spoken about playing fields. It is a disgrace that the previous Government allowed 5,000 school playing fields to be sold off. At my own school, which is grant maintained, the governors want to sell a piece of land in order to build new sports facilities. Everyone wants the new sports facilities, but what people do not want, especially those who live nearby—I live not too far away, so perhaps I ought to declare an interest—is the housing associated with the sell-off. Permission to sell the land has been granted by the Secretary of State, provided that half the money is given to the local education authority. We shall allow the planning process to go on, and I expect that there will be few grounds for refusal.
  It is sad that during the previous Government's tenure of office, schools were so starved of funds and teachers became so alienated because of the run-down in funding that many of them withdrew from out-of-hours support for sport. We depend on teachers, especially PE teachers, to give up their weekends to deal with school teams.
  Athletics, as the Minister knows, is in some difficulty. I met David Moorcroft at the schools national cross-country championships, which were held at a very muddy Cheltenham race course earlier this year. The issue is how we fund athletics properly, especially coaches and the facilities owned by local authorities. Because of the previous short-changing of local authorities by the previous Government, many sports facilities are in desperate need of refurbishment.
  Professor Talbot tells me that the new track in Leeds is to be reopened next Wednesday, following a lottery grant of £1.6 million. Good luck to all the people who will use it. That is a sign that the Government are getting to grips with the rundown of those facilities. In other parts of the country, much smaller sums are needed quickly to maintain athletics tracks.
  In my constituency, the Prince of Wales stadium track is owned by the local council and shared with the local rugby club. All of a sudden, the track has been declared unsafe, so the athletes cannot use it this season. They must go to Worcester, about 30 miles away, to train. It will cost £185,000 to relay the track. The work must be done in the summer, but the news that it was unsafe came too late for the local authority, which has a small budget of £12 million, to deal with a demand for £185,000, so the track is unlikely to be relaid this summer.
  I have a letter from one of the local councillors, Dr. Adrian Jackson, who states that
  "only Central Government can provide the financial clout to pay for this vital part of our recreational fabric."
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  I hope that the Minister will consider that plea. Dr. Jackson says that if the money is not forthcoming from Government, we will need
  "a rich, altruistic entrepreneur with a spare £185,000 to donate to this worthy cause".
  All the sports facilities throughout the country should be reviewed to see what urgent repairs are needed and to have them done quickly.
  I reiterate what others have said about the lottery being a great boost for sport, but I have two questions for the Minister about the lottery. First, the Government take 12p out of every £1 ticket sold, which I consider too much. Will the Minister have a word with his Treasury colleagues and suggest that they reduce the amount that the Government take to 10p or 11p, making the extra money available to good causes? That would enable sport to receive a little more money.
  The second question relates to a situation that was brought to my attention by a small cricket club that received a lottery grant—Overbury cricket club in Worcestershire, where I used to play when I was a boy. It had to raise a large sum in addition to the grant to pay for a new cricket pavilion, but when the bill came in, VAT had been added to it. Will the Minister ask his Treasury colleagues to consider whether sports clubs receiving lottery grants can be exempted from VAT on building bills?
  There are further issues relevant to the financing of sports clubs. At present, rate relief is discretionary. The local authority can grant sports clubs rate relief if they have a suitable youth policy. That should be mandatory. Some local authorities are not granting the rate relief that sports clubs need.
  There should be a tax break for companies that invest in sport. Mergers and takeovers of companies that subsequently move out of the area mean that the development of sports grounds is under threat. Those sports grounds may be used by as many people as school or local authority sports grounds. In my constituency, there is the Dowty sports ground where my son plays cricket, and M and G, which has been taken over by Swiss Re, has a large sports ground in the green belt. The company, which has moved out of Cheltenham, wants to dispose of the land and has granted an option to a building company, although it is not clear whether planning permission will be granted. We must preserve company sports grounds so that those facilities are not lost to local communities if the company relocates.
  The Minister mentioned the Olympic games. I wish him all the best in bringing them to Britain in the not-too-distant future. If we are serious about bidding for the Olympics, we must ensure that we develop facilities for all sports. The Secretary of State mentioned rowing. Our only gold medal at the last Olympics was won by Redgrave and Pinsent.
  My attention has been drawn to a proposal for a south Oxfordshire water park, just north of Reading. I understand that the Minister has also been briefed on that. It seems a wonderful possibility, although it will no doubt be controversial because housing is proposed, which will increase traffic. Local residents will want to have their say on the planning proposals. Such a project would boost our chances of hosting the Olympic games in the future.

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  I welcomed the elite funding last year, and I asked then what was being done about the delay in awarding elite funding to British divers. That still has not been resolved. The British high board champion, Leon Taylor, was at the last Olympics aged 18, having just completed his A-levels. He still has no elite funding, two years towards the next Olympics. I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and it was apparent that the funding problem was really getting to him. He should be concentrating on his training for the next Olympics.
  As for listed events, we know that terrestrial television can demand an audience in excess of 20 million for a key sporting event whereas Sky's largest audience to date has been 4 million. We are all aware of the knock-on effect. If a great sporting event is shown on television, youngsters will be seen shortly thereafter playing on the local field and emulating the players.
  Mr. Derek Wyatt: Would the hon. Gentleman note that with soccer going to Sky, attendances at premier league and all other league games have increased? At the same time, there are more clubs and more people are playing. That has nothing to do with television coverage.
  Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman makes his own point. I think that he comes from live television. We shall weigh things up when we consider what he has had to say.
  I move on to women in sport—
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern at the decision taken this week, as a result of which once again one of the satellite channels has managed to beat off terrestrial competition in relation to Scottish football? Once again, those who cannot receive or cannot afford satellite coverage are being denied access to major sporting events.
  Mr. Jones: I am concerned about that, but I do not accept the point made by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt). The wider the television audience, the greater the knock-on effect is likely to be. As I have said, young people like to emulate the players. It is all very well having the highlights shown on television at 10 o'clock at night, but it is not possible at 10 o'clock to go to a field to kick a ball around. Some key events should be protected so that young people can watch them.
  I move on to women in sport. Girls are just as important as boys. I know Zena Moran, who has proposed a task force for women and girls in sport. I understand that she has received a helpful reply from the Minister for Sport. I do not know whether he has had a meeting with her yet.
  Mr. Banks: I am due to have one.
  Mr. Jones: It is essential that there is a focus on women and girls in sport because there have been one or two extremely disturbing cases recently of discrimination against women in sport. I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to examine the industrial tribunal case involving the England and Wales Cricket Board and Miss Harrild—case No. 2203994/97. I have a
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  copy of the report and it makes pretty awful reading. I am concerned that while some members of the England and Wales Cricket Board behaved disgracefully, no one seems to have been called to account. I accept that compensation has been paid to the applicant. I should like the Minister to examine the case to see what he thinks should happen.
  I am pleased that the Government are to develop a comprehensive strategy for sport. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us about the time scale for the consultation period. Given that sport is so important and crosses so many different Departments, I feel that the Minister for Sport should become a member of the Cabinet. The Minister would receive a pay rise, and health, education, crime prevention and the environmental issues associated with sport could be co-ordinated at the highest level.
  I wish the Minister well in future and invite him, when he has time, to sample Vauxhall conference football with Cheltenham Town at Whaddon road.
  11.23 am
  Mr. Alan Keen: I was delighted to hear what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had to say, along with the responses and interventions of my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport. I am delighted also to see the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on the Opposition Front Bench, especially as we shall be planning the complete destruction of the other place later today—a policy on which we are in complete agreement. Before Opposition Whips dash off to telephone the Leader of the Opposition, I should explain that I am talking about the cricket team and not the other place in terms of its constitutional role.
  We usually start with football and not cricket in these debates. I was beginning to worry about myself as a Middlesbrough supporter a couple of years ago, finding that I was willing on Newcastle to win the premiership and for Sunderland to be promoted to it. This season has been difficult to understand. I have hated Arsenal since I was a young boy. However, I must say that that wonderful manager, Mr. Arsène Wenger, has managed to exorcise that ghost of mine. Arsenal has played such wonderful football that I find it impossible to hate the team any longer.
  Of course, there is still Manchester United. At the same time, look at what Chelsea has done to us in the past two cup finals at Wembley. I still have Chelsea.
  I was in the Library a few weeks ago reading a back-page headline in the Northern Echo about Middlesbrough's most recent defeat by Chelsea. I glanced to my right and found the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) standing next to me. I drew his attention to the headline and he sympathised with me greatly, understanding that I was a Middlesbrough supporter. I said to the right hon. Gentleman, "I knew that you would sympathise with me because I spoke to the Minister for Sport this morning and even he sympathised with me." Obviously that has something to do with new Labour spreading throughout the Government Benches.
  A year ago, I felt slightly guilty when I used the whole of my 10 minutes on the Floor of the House to make an appeal for the restoration of the three points that had been taken from Middlesbrough so unjustly. I wondered whether I was really justified in spending that amount of

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  time making that appeal in a busy House of Commons. However, as I had started with a 90-minute speech but cut it to 10 minutes, I felt quite justified.
  I make no apologies for talking about something that I have mentioned before in these sports debates. However, it provides a wonderful illustration of what sport can do when there are difficulties. The town in which I spent the first 22 years of my life lies halfway between Middlesbrough and Redcar on the Tees. I was brought to tears by a BBC breakfast news in early 1993, which contained a news item about young children in the town who were taking cars and setting them on fire. They were even setting fire to houses. A town that once had a wonderful community—that was the position when I lived there—had been almost destroyed.
  As youngsters, we used to spend almost all our time involved in sport. During the summer, in school holidays, we would go to the local recreation ground. I think that the charge for using a tennis court was 1 shilling and sixpence, for half an hour. We would go at about quarter-past 9 in the morning and ask for half an hour. The charge was ninepence, and eight of us shared the cost. We knew that people would not come to use the other courts until 7 o'clock in the evening, which meant that we could play all day for ninepence. We would play bowls after that. Sport took up almost all of our lives and gave us a real purpose in life.
  I was in tears while watching the breakfast news. I have a particular interest in youth crime because of the Feltham young offenders institution in my constituency.
  Three weeks ago, I was the guest of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I was back again in Grangetown, celebrating the regeneration of the town. Part of that regeneration involved focusing children again on something more sensible than crime, and that was sport. Many people, apart from those involved in sport, did many other good things for the town. However, sport played a part.
  Two of the football coaches who were working with kids that very morning three weeks ago were old friends of mine. One was Jim Platt, the ex-Northern Ireland goalkeeper, who despite the competition from his one-time rival, Pat Jennings, played many games for his country. The other one was Frank Spraggon, a former under-21 England player. In this world cup year, with the team, the squad and the management setting off in just under a week's time—not me personally, unfortunately, like the Minister—it comes to my mind that Frank Spraggon is the son-in-law of Harold Shepherdson, who, as is known throughout the world, was the trainer with England with Walter Winterbottom and then Sir Alf Ramsey. He occupied that position for more than 150 games. He was part of the management team when we last won the world cup in 1966. He worked and played for his own team of Middlesbrough for more than 40 years and he deserves a great deal of praise. Unfortunately, we lost him a couple of years ago. I look forward to entertaining his wife and two daughters next month in the House of Commons.
  Like other hon. Members, I extend my good wishes to the England and Scottish teams. May I add my good wishes to the Jamaican team? Many of our nationals support Jamaica and anyone who saw the Windrush film on television this week will know what a wonderful contribution those who came from the West Indies have
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  made to this nation's wealth over the years. For sheer enjoyment, being among their supporters in Europe will take some beating.
  My constituency needs more sport. We heard this morning how the previous Government's actions have made it more difficult to provide the resources needed to create opportunities for everyone to participate in sport. Even since the general election, pressure on local authorities has continued. It is easier to decide to cut the finance for sport and leisure than for meals on wheels and similar social demands that need to be fulfilled immediately. Sport, however, has long-term health benefits. The Government must get involved through the sports councils and provide the money necessary to ensure that young people have the opportunity to benefit from a lifetime's participation in sport.
  Many groups are able to raise money themselves, but need the extra support which must come from the Sports Council. We need to achieve evenness in the distribution of resources throughout the country. The National Lottery Bill will enable the Sports Council and others to take positive steps in that direction. Many people give a lot of their own time to sport and they need Government-funded agencies to provide the extra push and to reward their efforts. That would give them something to persevere with, especially given that many of them devote numerous hours to sport for the benefit of others.
  This week in Hounslow, I assisted with the launch of an exhibition, which involved "Kick out racism from football", along with Brendan Batson from the Professional Footballers Association. Whatever progress we make, we must persist in our efforts to ensure that racism is thrown out completely from all sport in this country.
  Other hon. Members have mentioned their local football teams. I have already said where my allegiance lies, and I have often regretted it over the decades. We have a saying in the north-east that we would not go to the end of our street to see so-and-so play; I have only to go halfway down our street to watch Brentford play. Brentford has hit hard times recently. I make a serious point when I say that the fans and some of the staff are still in a state of uncertainty nearly halfway through the holiday period because they do not even know who will run or own the club by the time the season starts. It is another case in which those who depend for their livelihood on football, and fans who put much of their own time into it, are being strung along by people with, I fear, financial considerations uppermost in their minds.
  We need to give priority to areas of deprivation when we finance and encourage sport, but it is also important to understand that we want sport to be enjoyed by everybody, whatever their financial standing. We must ensure that everybody has an opportunity to continue participating in sport. I am delighted to hear that it is to be part of the primary school curriculum and that children will get a good start, but I am worried about the missing links. Many people are lost to sport when they leave school because they do not find a club with which to pursue the sport of their choice. The Sports Council can help to resolve that problem. When I think of the House of Commons football or cricket teams I realise that there is scope for people to continue enjoying sport after a certain age—perhaps more slowly. When people leave competitive sport and the league system that is run at all levels in this country, they must be encouraged to

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  participate in veteran sport. Team sports need organisation. We can all jog round the streets—I was horrified to hear the other day that my son has entered me for the Great North Run this October, so I shall have to continue to plod round the streets of Brentford every morning.
  I am particularly keen that the Sports Council should get involved with the social exclusion unit, because sport has a big part to play, in every sense, in giving people's lives a purpose.
  I hope that the healthy living centres will pay attention to diet. I was appalled by a recent advertisement, probably by the British Meat Federation, which showed a picture of a beautiful piece of meat and two vegetables, described as "Vitamins and two veg". That was misleading because it could make people believe that meat is the only food to contain the goodness that we need. I hope that the healthy living centres will concentrate on improving people's diet.
  My main concern is that we should keep people participating in sport throughout their lives. If we can do that, we shall save a tremendous sum of money for the national health service over the next 10 or 15 years, which can be used for people who, because of illness, cannot enjoy sport.
  11.37 am
  Mr. Archie Norman: I welcomed much of what the Secretary of State said, particularly his high aspirations for sport in this country. He discussed many of the high-profile matters, such as our application to host the Olympics, the world cup, and so forth. Naturally, those are welcome, but, listening to the debate, it is hard to avoid the impression that we have missed the point: while sport for all is a nice strapline, at present that is all it is. Sport in this country is in decline at the grass roots—in schools and among young people—and has been for a long time, and precious little is being done to deal with that fact in practice.
  The Secretary of State said that the Government had achieved a great deal in the past year. It is extremely difficult to understand what he means by "a great deal" because there is no evidence whatever of a turnround in the fundamental problem of lack of participation in sport in schools and provision of sports facilities.
  Sport is in crisis, and has been for many years. There has been a continuous decline in participation and provision in schools. Arguably, our level of achievement nationally has declined, but that is primarily a reflection not of lack of provision or Government support for major national initiatives, but of provision of facilities and encouragement for kids in schools.
  School sports activity is poorly measured, so it is extremely difficult to tell what is happening, but the anecdotal evidence is of continuing decline. In 1995, the previous Government published as good a strategy for sport as there has been for many years, but it is unclear whether it has been followed up. It outlined the sorry state of participation in schools sport. The figures suggest that, in 1987, 72 per cent. of 14 to 16-year-olds did at least two hours of physical education a week; by 1994, fewer than 25 per cent. did so. Does the Minister have evidence that the figure has increased?
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  There are strong arguments, to which Labour Members have referred, for investing in sport, not only on education grounds, but on health grounds. Obesity in this country is increasing. "Health of the Nation", published by the Department of Health in 1997, found that, in 1980, 6 per cent. of men had a body mass index greater than 30; by 1995, the figure was 15 per cent. To cut a long story short, that means that the nation is growing fatter. On all the evidence, young people are growing more obese, which is a reflection not only of dietary habits, but of failure to exercise.
  Hon. Members have discussed the national curriculum and the failure to provide children with a curriculum requirement for sport of two hours a week. That is the essence of the point and, at the very least, there is widespread confusion about the Government's real intentions. That was well illustrated by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones), who quoted Professor Talbot of Leeds Metropolitan university. I received an honorary degree from it, in the distinguished company of Jack Charlton—not, I believe, on account of my footballing skills.
  Fewer than 50 per cent. of children in this country do two hours of physical education a week. Instead of worrying, perhaps too much, about core curriculum and non-core curriculum activity, we should be concerned that the Government have sent out a confusing message on this issue. On the ground, the core curriculum requirement is not being delivered. We are falling behind by the standards of our past—the situation is getting worse, not better—and by international standards.
  Britain came 13th out of 25 countries in a recent survey on physical education carried out by Exeter university. In France, the average number of children receiving more than two hours of physical education a week is approximately twice that in this country. In Germany, schoolchildren are expected to receive, on average, three and a half hours' sport a week, which is greatly in excess of any requirement to which we even aspire and currently fail to deliver.
  British secondary schools spend less time doing sport than those of almost every other EU nation. The average 14-year-old spends an hour a week playing sport and 25 hours a week watching television. That is not a happy situation. My point is not political: hon. Members on both sides of the House should recognise it as a cause for urgent and robust action. Far from spending all our time worrying about flashy events to be held on the world stage, we should worry about the real future of sport—grass roots participation by ordinary working people and children across the country.
  Children are taking less exercise than at any time during the past 20 years. It is hard to understand how the Government can claim that a great deal has been achieved in the past year if that is still the case. If it is not, and if there is a shred of evidence that the trend has been turned, let us hear that evidence—and figures should be published on exactly what progress has been made in schools in terms of substantive achievement.
  I welcome the Government initiative on selling-off playing fields, although many playing fields have historically suffered not from underprovision but from underutilisation. Sporting activity is not only a function of having playing fields, but of having good and worthwhile facilities with the back-up and support, especially from

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  schools, to make use of them. In the past, playing fields have been redeployed not only into uses such as supermarkets, which is not always unwelcome, but into better sporting facilities, which makes for better land usage.
  The other point to bear in mind is that an enormous determinant of the extent to which people and children participate in sport is funding of local authorities. As we cut back on and constrain it, sporting provision will inevitably be reduced. The same applies in schools. No hon. Member regrets the focus on the reduction of class sizes—we all support that—but singular focus on it acts to the cost of other school activities, and resources will inevitably be diverted from physical education.
  Much physical education is provided from discretionary time available to schools and voluntary activity and support provided by teachers. As teachers are redeployed in the cause of reducing class sizes, worthy as that is, we must recognise that school activity in and support for physical education will further decline.
  School sport depends substantially on volunteers and on shoestring budgets, which is not a happy state of affairs. The Government must address that question. We did not hear a word from the Secretary of State about a single practical measure for addressing resources and facilities, and for encouraging and measuring school activity in sport. That has been further exacerbated by steps that the Government have taken. For example, the sportsmark scheme, introduced by the previous Government, was perhaps not a fundamentally important initiative, but it was useful and was welcomed by the education and sports industries. It has not been extended to primary schools or expanded and built on by the Government. Perhaps the Minister will tell us his intentions for its future.
  Under the previous Government, the publication of "Sport: Raising the Game" was a major breakthrough. It is a source of regret to all hon. Members that, as a nation, we did not fundamentally address the issue earlier. At that stage, the facts were on the table, and the crisis in sport was visible. It is not clear that serious progress is being made to address the problem. In the past year, the situation has, if anything, slipped backwards.
  The Minister must address measurement of achievement. It is one thing to have nice straplines such as sport for all, and to claim that we have achieved a lot, but in the business world, where I come from, there is an old saying, "If you don't measure it, you won't do it." Conservative Members want the Minister to state his measures in sport for all, his measures of participation by children in sport in schools, and his measure of resources allocated to sport in schools. Has there been progress on any such measures, if there are any? The evidence is that there are not.
  We are addressing not the past few months, but a trend of the past two decades which is fundamentally important to health, education and social policy. On that issue, it is hard to avoid the impression that political correctness and fashionable ideas of what is and what is not sport colour the Government's attitude. On the Conservative side of the House, our interest is in sport as it is capable of producing a productive result in terms of learning about
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  behaviour, team work, co-operation and competitiveness in schools and among the youth of today, as well as in the health implications.
  Mr. Wyatt: The hon. Gentleman has just defined what he thinks sport is. Where does horse racing figure in that?
  Mr. Norman: I have not defined what sport is and I have no objection to horse racing. I am an absolute supporter of the horse racing industry, both personally and publicly. I do not know whether the hon. Member is suggesting that we should introduce horse racing to schools or that it would have a beneficial social effect if we were to do so—I rather doubt it.
  I am prepared to be plain about this. I do not believe that individual participation in individual sports such as horse racing, has anything like the beneficial effect for the education of children and their preparation for working life as team sports, particularly competitive team sports. Government policy should be explicitly biased in favour of furthering and promoting team sports in schools and among the youth of today, in preparation for future employment.
  As someone with some experience of employing people, I would far rather recruit a youngster with some achievement in team and competitive sports, who provides clear evidence of experience of working with others, team work, hard work and commitment, delivering results and competing with others, than a youngster with scholastic achievement of one sort of another. In many walks of life, once a basic level of academic achievement has been delivered, sporting achievement is an effective preparation for work and encourages morale and self-confidence. Those of us who have experience of business would in many cases far rather recruit great sportsmen than great scholars. We would rather have team players from a class of 31 than people with no experience of team work from a class of 29.
  To sum up, my purpose is to bring back attention in the debate to the fundamental issue. I am not here to make cheap points about the football team that I or anyone else happens to support. That is all very well and the idea that we should bid for the world cup or whatever is not a matter of contention, but we have a crisis in sport in this country and we are facing long-term decline. That is not a matter for hilarity or good humour on either side of the House, or it certainly should not be.
  The time has come to address the problem fundamentally. It will not be tackled unless resources are put into it, unless there is a real and explicit commitment to sport in the core curriculum and unless we set out to measure the progress instead of congratulating ourselves on having achieved a lot when there is no evidence that the Government have achieved anything in the past year.
  11.53 am
  Mr. Derek Wyatt: Before I start I must inform the House that I hold a single share in Richmond football club, which despite its name is a rugby union club—the second oldest in the world—and, on behalf of my son, shares in Charlton Athletic football club. May I take this opportunity to congratulate both Sunderland and Charlton on their amazing play-off game last week and the fans on their exemplary behaviour, especially after the game. I am pleased to report that Charlton is once again a happy Valley.

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  The most important area of sport and the one that has a deep and lasting impact is what our children do at school in their physical education and games lessons. That is a matter not for the current Minister for Sport, but for the Minister for School Standards. If we are to give sport a chance, we have to look again at how strategy is made in the Government. The Cabinet is structured on a 19th century model and bears no relationship whatsoever to how modern states make decisions. If we are seriously to modernise our country, we must look first at our own back garden. No FTSE 100 company has 22 board directors, as the Cabinet does.
  We have one example of how we might go forward with the new Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. That should be our starter for 10. The Cabinet should comprise only eight members and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should be part of a brand new Department that embraces education, training, employment, tourism, sport, heritage and the creative arts.
  Once again, I shall remind the House how important sport is in our culture. FIFA—the governing body of soccer—has more members, with 191, than the United Nations, with 125. If we preclude the death of Diana, Princess of Wales last year, the highest ever television audience was for sport, when NBC transmitted the superbowl in January 1996 to an audience of 138.5 million viewers. That is how important sport is in our global culture.
  We shall celebrate two world cups in the United Kingdom next year—cricket and rugby union, always assuming that the Cardiff stadium is ready. In Manchester in 2002, provided we get the funding together, we will host the Commonwealth games. We may also just nick the world cup for 2006, thanks to the amazing work of our present Minister for Sport. We ought to be laying down the plans to win the 2008 or 2012 Olympics by putting in a joint bid. I propose a joint bid between London and Paris, rather like the world cup in 2002, which is to be shared between Japan and South Korea. That would ensure the regeneration of the whole of east London and would finally resolve the channel tunnel rail link. It would also create a London-Paris software corridor to rival Silicon valley. That is what sport can do in our culture.
  The Olympic movement is bereft of leadership and needs our presence. After all, it was an early form of entente cordiale that created the modern Olympic movement. The United Kingdom working party for the Olympics should already be working alongside the new millennium experience to ensure its future use is compatible with our joint bid.
  The Minister for Sport said last week in The Observer:
  "We have to accommodate the political reality, but that doesn't mean we can't produce a"—
  sports—
  "strategy for the UK".
  On strategy, perhaps I may give my hon. Friend seven suggestions. First, can we ensure that he sits as the chief executive of sport and chairperson of the new United Kingdom Sports Institute? Secondly, the institute should become the overall strategy-making body for UK sport
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  and the chief executives of the national sports councils, who will be the sports Ministers for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Minister responsible for the regional development agencies in England, should sit on its board. To save us from too many members of the blazer brigade, those members would be matched by an equal number of sports academicians, who, by their nature, would be former Olympic gold medallists elected by their own members.
  Thirdly, dare I suggest it, but as regards the lottery, could we reconsider the concept of additionality, especially with respect to sport? Fourthly, if it is possible, could a new Select Committee for sport be established in the House so that the world's most popular activity is given its proper political focus? Fifthly, could the UK Sports Institute be allowed to create a new public service sports channel, funded by the lottery in the digital terrestrial environment, serving schools, coaches and all sports, including women's and disabled sports? Our most successful sport in the past 12 years has been rowing—six medals in the Olympics and 17 medals in the world championships—and it received a derisory 11 hours last year on BBC sport. Why has not the BBC announced plans for a digital sports channel and a sports website?
  Sixthly, given that more than 1,000 overseas coaches from 19 countries have undertaken the internationally famous Football Association courses, we should bolster that great strength by appointing someone as a full-time worker for the British Council who could be shared with the United Kingdom Sports Institute.
  Seventhly, we should take a leaf out of the sport that I know best—rugby union. I mention a club that is not often referred to in dispatches, the Penguins international rugby club, which is now in its 40th year; it is run by the same two old stalwarts, Alan Wright and Tony Mason, who ran it when it was founded in 1959. For most of its history, the team has been run on a shoestring budget; it has survived the professional era thanks to the generous sponsorship of HSBC investment bank. It has just come back from Croatia, where it beat the national side by 60 points to 24, despite the fact that Croatia is about to qualify for the rugby world cup.
  When it was not deemed politic, the Penguins toured on behalf of the Rugby Football Union places such as the Soviet Union, in 1977. They have played in or against teams from no fewer than 53 countries and have helped countless young people to further their international careers. They have been our greatest international sporting ambassadors, but few know anything about them.
  To show how sport can be used, I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that we create an overseas system for sport on the lines of Voluntary Service Overseas. We should create, through the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, 1,000 sports scholarships a year for all our sports teams to play, coach, lecture and referee overseas.
  It would be remiss of me not to mention sport on television, especially what I believe to be the role of a public service—rather than a publicly funded—broadcaster. A decade ago, the BBC stood back from becoming a core member of the first digital television experiment, British Satellite Broadcasting, which had a dedicated sports channel. When BSB merged with Sky, the BBC lost its greatest opportunity to develop sports

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  programming. The BBC has never understood how, as a member of the European Broadcasting Union, it could make its share in Eurosport work.
  In Japan, the NHK—the Japanese equivalent of the BBC, which, ironically, the BBC helped to set up in 1945—saw its future as a public broadcasting service when, in 1987, it asked the Japanese Liberal Democrat Government for two additional satellite channels, one for education and one, hon. Members will have guessed, for sport. Has anyone at the BBC really understood sport in the past decade?
  We need to come clean about listed sport on terrestrial television. Although the world cup and the Olympics have been listed, we do not have not legal rights over them—they are not owned by a United Kingdom entity. Indeed, the EBU, which holds the soccer and Olympic rights, is one of the worst cartels; it acts against the spirit of the Rome treaty, which states:
  "It shall be incompatible with the common market and prohibited in so far as trade between Member States is liable to be affected by it, for one or more undertakings to exploit in an improper manner a dominant position within the common market or within a substantial part of it."
  The EBU case is now on appeal at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg; should it fail, the rights to both the soccer world cup and the Olympics will not necessarily be returned to the EBU. It would be in everyone's interests if the Olympics were shared out among all UK broadcasters, just as has been tried with Wimbledon, which has had coverage on two UK cable television channels—first Wire television and then Channel One.
  As we are not giving the England and Wales Cricket Board a special grant of £50 million to develop excellence, we shall handicap the sport for ever. I do not want England to fall further behind other cricketing nations and I do not want Kent county cricket club to be unable to continue its youth policy because it does not receive enough money from its parent body.
  The future of sport lies always with its youth policy; if we do not want to fund that, we must allow the market to do so. To retain the Test matches as listed events is nonsense. The BBC—a publicly funded broadcaster—refused to broadcast our overseas Tests. It is unfair to continue to handicap cricket. Listed events should cover one-off events and finals, such as the FA cup and the Grand National—it should not cover series that stretch over three months. If the Government decide to continue to maintain the list, I hope that the England and Wales Cricket Board will be persuaded to take its case to Luxembourg, where it will win, as the list represents a restraint of trade.
  I hope that, when we have our third debate on sport in a year's time, we shall be able to celebrate the fact that the Taylor report's work has been extended to cover cricket, rugby union and rugby league grounds and that a national audit of sports facilities in the United Kingdom will have been instigated and completed.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, I remind the House that, although we have some time left, it would be helpful if hon. Members bore in mind the fact that if their speeches are long, other hon. Members will be squeezed out. I want to be able to call everyone who wants to be called, especially as this is a Friday.
  12.3 pm
  Mr. Shaun Woodward: Over the next few weeks, much of the nation's attention will rightly be focused on matters in France and the world cup, the excitement of which all hon. Members feel. Some 2.5 million to 3 million seats will be available and, undoubtedly, many British fans will want to be present at the matches or to watch them on television. Unfortunately, as the Government know, the tickets for most of those seats were sold by 7 May, and a number of British fans feel that the allocation of tickets was gravely unfair.
  Hon. Members may have read in The Daily Telegraph today reports about how the 3 million seats are being distributed. Of those 3 million seats, some 382,000 have not been allocated. That number is significant because it is more than twice the number of seats that were to have been made available on the hotline in April. The Minister for Sport aptly described the hotline as a bad situation made considerably worse by a telephone fiasco.
  The significance of all this is that, as The Daily Telegraph has shown, the 382,000 unallocated tickets are going to two groups of people: to the press and to Ministers and visiting officials from all over the world. When there has been such a poor allocation of tickets, it is pertinent for The Daily Telegraph to ask who of the 382,000 will get tickets because they are, for example, members of the British Government. That need not have been the case if the British Government had done more, earlier to ensure that good information was available to British fans on how to get hold of tickets.
  There is a Government campaign which says, "If you haven't got a ticket, don't go." On that basis, few British fans will make the trip across the channel. Some would say that they will probably be outnumbered by the Ministers who we hear are planning to go, in some cases more than once.
  Mr. Banks: The hon. Gentleman can be assured that I shall not be using any tickets in France. He is right that the British Government might have taken more of a lead, but he is talking about the wrong British Government. He should be talking about our predecessors because the ticketing arrangements were put in place some years ago. It is easy to blame the French, but some blame must be extended to FIFA as well as to the current French organisers. To be fair, he should make that clear.
  Mr. Woodward: I am grateful to the Minister, who makes a proper point. Undoubtedly even we, when we were in government, could have done more. Sadly, we have not been in government for the past 13 months whereas he has. Much more could have been done in those 13 months to ensure that the information was available to British football fans to allow them to have more than the official 15,000 ticket allocation.
  The Minister also knows that, sadly, it was not the British Government, in any shape or form, who decided to press for action against the French officials who carried out their own allocation that meant that more than 40 per cent. of available tickets went to French fans.
  Mr. Banks: Sixty per cent.
  Mr. Woodward: I am grateful for the correction; 60 per cent. of seats are going to French fans. The

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  Minister knows that we await today a judgment against the French that has been brought by 25 Members of the European Parliament that will argue that, under the rules of the single market, there should have been more open competition for the tickets.
  It is a sad day when it is not the British Government but a group of 25 MEPs, only five of whom are British, that is fighting for the ticket allocation of British fans and for the rights of soccer fans all over the world. British fans are being told not to go. We should welcome the example set by the Minister for Sport, who will not be among the Ministers who take up seats being given away to visiting officials. However, will he tell us whether that self-imposed stricture applies to, for example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer? On 1 June, The Mirror carried a story saying,
  "Brown: Tony won't stop my cup trip."
  It adds:
  "The soccer-mad Chancellor will defy Premier Tony Blair's 'one minister per match' order and be at the Scotland-Brazil opener in Paris on June 10."
  I do not doubt that the Chancellor, who has a generous salary, will offer to pay his way. That is not the point. The opportunity to pay their way is not being extended to most British fans.
  I pay tribute again to the Minister for Sport for choosing not to take any tickets, either for free or by paying. It is a noble example, but will it be followed by the Secretary of State for Scotland? I hear that he plans to visit the world cup, although British fans cannot go. I also hear, and was pleased to hear, that the Prime Minister will, as it happens, make a trip to Paris—I cannot, of course, see any connection—on the day before the Scotland-Brazil match. Perhaps the Minister for Sport can tell us whether the Prime Minister is arranging for his diary to be a little empty the following day so that he can go to the match.
  We are all delighted that the Prime Minister stands up for British sport; we would be delighted if he felt it would be right to be there. I do not criticise a wish to be there, but British fans will not be able to join him. There will certainly be criticism of the Government if it is found that any Minister is not paying his or her way or is taking more than one ticket, free or not, for the world cup. That privilege is not being extended to most British fans.
  We all know where this will lead. British fans will go to France, whatever Government advertising says. There will be problems when they cannot get tickets. They will be exploited and will have to pay ludicrous amounts of money for a poor ticket, yet British Ministers and officials will not, unless the Minister can tell us otherwise, have to deal with touts who want to exploit them, and they will take some of the best seats.
  The Secretary of State talked about the importance of access for all. The only all who have access to the world cup are British Ministers. All does not include British football fans. I accept that the Conservative Government could have done more to ensure that information was disseminated, but we have been out of power for 13 months now. A great deal that could have been done has not been done. Few British fans have tickets and, far worse, many will go in the hope of getting one. Either they will not get one or they will be exploited.
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  Access to sport is crucial. No one—great sports enthusiast or not—should underestimate the importance of access, whether it is for the elderly, children, disabled people or anyone else. Access for all is the right motto for the House.
  We must consider carefully the long-term interests of sport and access to it through television. That is a difficult subject, and it excites prejudice and hot emotion. It is in the long-term interests of sport that the right decision is made about listed events.
  Nothing could bring home the danger of continuing to prosecute the present policy better than the BBC's current problems of industrial disruption caused by the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union. Most hon. Members will have seen reports in the newspapers this morning that the BBC has admitted that coverage of the world cup is under threat from strike action by the technicians. BECTU believes that it can win the support of French workers in the media industry to prevent pictures of matches being transmitted to Britain. As BECTU's broadcasting official said this morning:
  "There is no question that we can take these matches off the air with French support. We could also stop the Radio 5 Live coverage of all the matches without outside help."
  What a great thing that would be. British fans are being discouraged by the Government from going to France. If they go and try to get a ticket they will probably not succeed unless they are prepared to pay several hundred pounds, and now fans face the prospect of the BBC technicians union blacking the screens for them.
  It will be possible to switch channels to see matches, especially the earlier ones, but the problem is significant and it should be a warning to the Government when they think about coverage of listed events in the future. They must think hard about whether it is sensible and in the long-term interests of sport to continue to pursue a policy that is effectively a very closed shop.
  At the beginning, it was right that only the BBC and ITV showed sporting events such as the world cup because they were the only two channels that could do so, but that situation has changed dramatically. We now have Eurosport, Sky Sports, Channel Five, BBC Five Live, Live TV—the list is endless and it will grow because extraordinary changes are taking place in television technology with the advent of digital and cable, for example. The Government must bear that in mind when they think about future access to sport for all.
  At present, most people feel that the BBC and ITV should hold onto major events because watching them is effectively free. People have access for the modest amount that they pay for the licence fee. Set against that is the horror of the suggested £10 per match to watch football on Sky. I accept that, at first sight, that is a horrible prospect, but the reality is that the BBC and ITV show matches, games and other events on a highly subsidised basis. Sadly, events are not subsidised by the Government.
  The Government are not handing out money to football clubs, tennis clubs or whatever else—lottery money is a separate discussion. Events are being subsidised at the expense of the sports themselves. Many sporting clubs and fixtures want wider competition for their events because they know that in those circumstances they would be paid more. They want to be paid more because they want to invest in their sport.

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  We all know that the Minister for Sport genuinely believes in investing in sport. There are few people in the House who have been more passionate and have more conviction about the importance of investment in sport than the Minister, but the truth is that unless that investment is made, sport will not develop or flourish in Britain.
  The Government must separate the short-term interest in keeping things as they are, and perhaps playing to current prejudices, and the long-term interests of sport, which may require some unpleasant and difficult decisions. Taking such decisions is one of the tasks that Governments have to face. They sometimes have to make unpopular decisions in the long-term interests of the subjects that they are required to deal with. I believe that it is important to open up many events to greater competition. If the Government decide in the next few weeks not to do so, I beg the Minister for Sport to do the responsible thing: if the Government want to prevent fair, open competition, which means a proper sum of money going to those sporting fixtures, they must acknowledge that they should adequately compensate the sports that will lose money from that decision—which would be a Government decision—because they will still receive only limited sums from the BBC and ITV.
  I totally endorse the Government's policy of access for all. It is a shame that, for the world cup, access for all means access for all the Cabinet, but not for all of Britain. I hope that, in addressing the long-term questions of television access, the Minister for Sport will take the brave decision and recognise the importance of greater competition. If, regrettably, he does not take that decision, there must be far better subsidy for the sports that cannot get increased money through open competition.
  12.20 pm
  Mr. Andrew Reed: We have heard many hon. Members mention their local football team. One of the great delights of representing Loughborough is that the university is well known for its sporting interest and the excellent sportspeople who have come from it. The previous hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne, Mr. Seb Coe, came from Loughborough. I am sure that we taught him a lot.
  I agree with some of the earlier comments about ensuring that sport for all becomes a reality at an early age. The structures for sport for all during the week exist at all levels from primary school to college. I am pleased that there is a sports college in my constituency—Burleigh college. However, when people leave school, where the structure to participate in sport is around them, and go to work, it is much more difficult for them to participate, especially in team sports.
  Mr. Spring: We all understand that the hon. Gentleman has a genuine interest in and love of sport. He has mentioned sport in schools. We have had a lack of clarity from Ministers on that important issue, so I should like to read him the definition of the role of sport in school. The Secretary of State for Education and Employment has said that
  "primary schools will however not be required to follow the current prescribed programme of study in the six non-core National Curriculum subjects of design and technology, history, geography, music, art and physical education."
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  He repeated that by saying:
  "The detailed statutory requirements of six non-core subjects will be lifted."
  That is at the heart of our objection to what has happened. I very much regret that both Ministers here today did not seem to understand the impact on sport of that change.
  Mr. Reed: I am glad to have given way to that intervention, which adds to the confusion of the quotes that have gone backwards and forwards this morning. I have asked written questions on the issue in the past few months to discover the number of hours that pupils, particularly in primary schools, spend on physical education. I have visited each of the 36 schools in my constituency in the past year and I am keen to ensure that they all provide adequate physical education. I shall not comment on what the hon. Gentleman has just said before weighing it against all the other quotes that have been chucked backwards and forwards this morning. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to clarify the matter later.
  There are other developments in primary schools, and I am proud that Loughborough is involved. The Youth Sports Trust receives more than £7 million of lottery support and private sector money from British Telecom. The Tops programme in primary schools has been an enormous success for an organisation that has been running for only a couple of years. It will go from strength to strength. Its annual report from last year shows that more than 2,500 primary schools had already benefited in the first 18 months, and 10,000 teachers had received additional training in how to teach sport in schools. One of the fundamental problems is that a very limited amount of initial teacher training relates to sport, and that problem is then passed on to primary schools.
  I am keen to ensure that, whatever wording we use, we send a strong message that physical education and team sport plays a vital role in primary schools from the start of education. I hope that the importance of that will be clarified today, because I want to send that message.
  As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) rightly says when we pass each other in Westminster gym—not many of the hon. Members here this morning regularly join us, which is a shame—sport plays a vital role, even in the House. This is a good opportunity, with my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin) sitting in front of me, to mention the wonderful goal scored in the recent England v. Scotland game at Upton park.
  Mr. Bercow: I accept the importance of the House of Commons gym. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Living Well health club—which is, as he will know, part of a chain—at 4 Millbank, is used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and, much less importantly, by me, not for its gym, but for its swimming pool? I go four times a week and swim 40 lengths, which is all I can manage.
  Mr. Reed: I am pleased that the Chancellor and the hon. Gentleman are taking part in that activity. I am sure that many other hon. Members do so. I know that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) will race off this afternoon to play in a cricket team. The opportunity to participate in such activities is important not only for the sporting life and health of veterans in the House, but for younger Members.

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  However, there is a crucial difficulty. In my constituency, I play rugby every Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, my team has experienced difficulties this season because sport has not been played in schools for a decade or so. At the grand old age of 33, I am one of the youngest players in the team. I broke my shoulder playing rugby just before Christmas and I was unable to participate until March or April. I could talk the House through my injury. It is significant that there is a 10 or 15-year gap between us and those who are starting to play rugby at local schools. There is a generation of people who will not join the club, and so it is likely that it will fold in the next two or three years, which is a great shame.
  As I said before, the problem is that pupils leave the structure of the school environment and need the structure of local clubs to pick them up. I worry that, if that structure is missing, a whole generation will be lost to competitive and team sports.
  The social exclusion unit will work to include sport in economic regeneration, and the health benefits will be felt among school pupils and older people. Hon. Members who participate in football games have been mentioned. The oldest player in the House of Commons and House of Lords rugby team is 65, and I have to admit that he is one of our better players. He has obviously lost nothing over the years.
  There is a difficult legacy. I started my political career on Birstall parish council. I was one of two Labour members, and there were 20 Conservative members, who graciously elected me chair of the playing fields committee, at the grand old age of 22. The legacy that we had been left meant that we had great difficulties in ensuring that existing facilities remained available. That was a very small local authority, with a healthy budget of £75,000 for playing fields alone. However, facilities that had been built in the 1960s were in decline. For example, the tennis courts that had been free and open to the local community were lost to individual use, which was a great shame. That process has been going on ever since.
  If people travel to France in the next few weeks and stay in small towns, they will see that those towns have a municipal stadium. In Germany, towns have municipal stadiums that allow one to participate in many team sports.
  A few elements are key to the future of sport. We must first ensure that we get school sports up and running again. The work of the Youth Sports Trust will be crucial in achieving that objective. I know that the Minister is aware of the trust's work, and that he has already praised its work. I hope that it will receive even greater support.
  Secondly, we must also ensure not only that time for sport is made available for teachers in initial teacher training but that the importance of school sport is emphasised.
  Finally, we have to build a partnership in sport between central and local government, and the private and voluntary sectors. I was pleased to hear today that there will be a strategy on building such a partnership. We have to be able to pull together, to fill all the gaps that I have described in the individual's move from school to club, and, later in life, from the first, competitive team to veteran sports—which should be emphasised.
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  As we have heard, there has been decline in sport. But there has been some very good news, too. In my own area, in 1995, Labour took control of Charnwood borough council. Although, nationally, local government spends about £1 billion on sport—which is about £19.50 per head—in Charnwood we inherited a situation in which the previous Conservative administration spent only £2.45 per head on sporting facilities. Pulling up our local authority to match other authorities, even in our own county, was therefore very difficult. We had much further to go to meet the national average. However, the appointment of a sports development officer has started to make a significant difference. There is also now a feeling that we can deliver decent sports facilities and coaching in Charnwood.
  I welcome the provision in the National Lottery Bill that allows us to take a strategic view of the type of sports facilities required across the country. Loughborough is endowed with some great facilities, which are unfortunately on the university's campus and—despite the university's best efforts—not readily accessible to the community. For large parts of the year, those excellent facilities are not made available to the community. We have to ensure that when that national strategy is developed and deprived areas are identified, areas such as Loughborough are not excluded. Although some places have excellent facilities on their doorstep, they are nevertheless disadvantaged if the facilities are not accessible.
  On a genuinely private point, I welcome the announcement on the institute of sport, as it is currently called. I am sure that the Minister will welcome my comments urging that the move to regional centres should happen as quickly as possible. On Monday, I met the vice-chancellor of Loughborough university, who is very pleased with some of the progress that has been made. However, I should dearly love the facilities to be developed on the university's campus, because we could really deliver. It is a pity that we did not get the headquarters—I still think that Loughborough is the best place for it—but I accept that the decision has already been made. Nevertheless, we may come out of it much better, because we will have the regional centre, and will get a lot more money out of it.
  I hope that the Minister will take on board those comments on the centres.
  12.32 pm
  Mr. Robert Syms: It can be profoundly shocking for most hon. Members—who are very politically inclined—to discover that most of our constituents think that sport is far more important than politics. I am sure that we have all spent Saturday afternoons regretting that we are knocking on doors at a particular point in the calendar. However, most of my constituents who watch Question Time in this place consider it a form of sport, and rather enjoy the spectacle of events in the Chamber.
  Sport is an important subject, and it is a pity that we do not debate it more often. It is vital to the health of our nation that we engage in sport. On 27 June 1997, the Secretary of State stated that 48 per cent. of men and 40 per cent. of women are overweight. That cannot be a good thing. Sport is vital to the morale not only of our nation—to the various nations of the United Kingdom

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  —but also of our communities. It builds teamwork, discipline and confidence, which lead to better performance in other pursuits.
  I have always been struck that, sometimes, people at school who are not the most academically inclined have good confidence when leaving school and going into work—throughout life—if they find a sport in which they excel.
  The previous Government's record on sport was pretty good because the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), took sport very seriously. I am glad that sport has moved up the political agenda on both sides of the Chamber. In his years on the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) did much to promote sport. I also associate myself with the comments about Denis Howell, who was an excellent Sports Minister—and is fondly remembered as the Minister for rain. He is the only person who could be appointed one week and have it rain the next. He was a substantial character in the House.
  In 1995, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon promoted "Raising the Game", with its 15-point plan. It made an important proposal that Ofsted should look into what happens in sport and ensure that governing bodies report on sport in their annual reports. The national lottery was one of the most important aspects of what the previous Government did. It is fashionable to kick Camelot and the national lottery, but the lottery is extremely successful—the most successful in the world. It was up and running quicker than anyone expected, raising far more money than anyone expected for a range of good causes, including sport.
  Mr. Spring: Did my hon. Friend notice that the Minister for Sport made an intervention on financing of sport by the lottery, repeating what he had said during consideration of the National Lottery Bill? On Report, the Minister said that
  "the Government have no plans beyond those which they have announced already … to alter the funding of the existing good causes"—[Official Report, 1 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 99.].
  Does my hon. Friend agree that Sir Humphrey Appleby is alive and well? Is this not in contrast to the firm pledge in "Labour's Sporting Nation" that sport would be a permanent good cause? He has reneged on that.
  Mr. Syms: I noticed the Minister's comments, and I agree with my hon. Friend's telling point.
  Of course, with all these things one has a debate and double counting, but it is a pity that, as I believe, the Government have started to move funds away from sport through the lottery, because they are rifling the lottery and directing money into many other areas.
  Mr. Spring: In that vein, the Secretary of State made an interesting comment about the role of NESTA being paid for from the lottery. NESTA may indeed provide some money for work on sports science and sports medicine, but the Secretary of State did not say that this was a matter of discretion for NESTA's chairman and board. That is obviously at odds with the Labour party's
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  commitment, made before the general election, that it would not fund the development of athletes in that way. That is another broken pledge.
  Mr. Syms: I am glad that my hon. Friend brought that important point to my notice, because it had escaped my attention. He made a telling point, and I hope that the Minister will make a detailed response to it.
  It is a pity that the new Government dropped the sportsmark for primary schools. We had some debate about the impact of the proposals by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment regarding PE as a core curriculum element in primary schools. To enable me to know the exact position when I attack the Government next week, perhaps the Minister will circulate us with a letter of what he considers to be the exact position on PE in primary schools.
  Mr. Bercow: A signed confession.
  Mr. Syms: Indeed. I believe that the Government have promoted things in that area as well as they could.
  Playing fields were mentioned. It is right and proper that we do our best to maintain playing fields. However, as I served on a county council for several years, I know that, in many instances, playing fields are badly drained and can be used for only part of the year. I know of many schemes whereby part of a playing field has been sold, and the money spent on all-weather pitches, which are used much more intensively by children in the school. It is not necessarily accurate just to quote the number of playing fields that have gone. In many instances, local authorities have done their best to get the best value that they can and the best sporting facilities for their children.
  I welcome the establishment of the United Kingdom Sports Institute, but I think that progress has been far too slow. It was originally intended to be a springboard for the Sydney Olympics, and I hope that the Government will speed up progress not only in Sheffield but on the regional centres. I hope also that team sports will retain an important place within the institute. Small and minor sports are important, but the process should pay due regard to team sports such as rugby, cricket and football.
  It is important to promote sport in education. We are all aware of the recruitment problems facing the Army because of the general standard of physical education among school leavers. We must substantially improve sport provision in the early years. Sponsorship is very important. Last year, £320 million in sponsorship went into sport, so it is a vital area. As a member of the Health Committee, I think that it is sensible to move away from tobacco sponsorship, over time. However, we should remember that formula one—which is a sport—is a £1 billion industry which employs many people. The sport is very successful in the United Kingdom and we should not take it for granted. Many people throughout the world follow formula one and it makes a tremendous impact.
  Horse racing was mentioned earlier in the debate, and it is also widely supported. I think that one can underestimate the value to the British economy of investment by foreign owners of horses. They create employment, and their investment is vital to this nation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) referred to the crown jewels and listings. It is important that those sports that do not have the ability to sell to the highest bidder are compensated so that they may have seedcorn money for development.

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  We have a tremendous record in the disabled Olympics. I think it is a great pity that, in the past 12 months, the House voted to prevent disabled. 22 calibre pistol shooters from continuing their sport. I remember clearly the Division on that issue.
  I shall not speak for too much longer as many hon. Members wish to participate in the debate. In his speech on 27 June 1997, the Minister for Sport said:
  "My role is to serve as the long-stop, for those who are cricketers, or as the sweeper, for those interested in soccer. I see myself as perhaps the Ruud Gullit of the Government team".—[Official Report, 27 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 1125.]
  I hope that, when there is a reshuffle and the Minister renegotiates his contract, he will not pitch too high as I would be delighted to see him on the Front Bench replying to sports debates for the foreseeable future—at least until the next general election.
  12.42 pm
  Mr. Ivor Caplin: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) on scoring the first goal in our game against Scotland. I am disappointed that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) is not present today. I specifically asked him to join us for the sports debate so that I could once again talk him through my winning goal for England in the Members of Parliament game against Scotland.
  Mr. Pound: It was you.
  Mr. Caplin: Yes. That game proved that people of a more senior age can play a little football occasionally.
  I have served on Committees with the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) and I thought that he was a reasonable man, but I am afraid that I found his speech today carping and unnecessary. It did not address the question of sport, but was more about whether Ministers will go to the world cup. This is a Government debate on sport as a whole, and I am afraid that his speech today rather let the side down.
  Mr. Woodward: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so ungracious in his remarks—that is uncharacteristic behaviour. Does he genuinely believe that several hundred thousand British fans wanting to see football matches in France is of no significance when the Government are trying to promote a policy of access for all?
  Mr. Caplin: The hon. Gentleman should have waited, as I shall speak briefly about the forthcoming world cup. The ticket allocation has been a scandal, but that is partly down to the role of FIFA and the French organisers. The hon. Gentleman's attacks on the Government were unnecessary. The Government are rightly telling people to stay at home, so that the world cup is peaceful and successful. I hope that that is what all hon. Members want.
  When the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) gets together with my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen) to discuss the House of Commons cricket team, I hope that, notwithstanding the England game that afternoon, I will
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  get the chance to bash the Lords around the Oval. I can think of nothing more enjoyable to do for a whole Monday.
  Mr. Hawkins: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we have had our meeting and he need have no worries.
  Mr. Caplin: There is nothing like selection from the Dispatch Box.
  To return to the world cup, this has been a delightful debate, because for three hours and 10 minutes we have not mentioned those five letters. I am sure that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) will be delighted to say more about Gazza, who I believe lives in his area.
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that observation, but as far as I am aware, Gazza is not one of my constituents. If I am blissfully ignorant of his presence, I apologise to the House and to Gazza.
  Mr. Banks: The hon. Gentleman cannot remember.
  Mr. Caplin: I agree. I believe that Glenn Hoddle made exactly the right decision on the England team, and I hope that it goes on to win the world cup on 12 July. I disagree with the views expressed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State this morning in only one respect: I do not extend the same strong good wishes to Scotland as I do to England.
  I shall deal with an important issue that has impacted on many thousands of my constituents over past years, and has recently resulted in my local authority receiving more than 42,000 representations on the matter of Brighton and Hove Albion football club. Many of my hon. Friends in particular will be aware of the problems that the club has had since its ground was unceremoniously sold by a former chairman and, I regret to say, the Liberal Democrat Member for Eastbourne in a previous Parliament, who tore the ground away from the supporters and left the club homeless. That meant that we had to play in Gillingham this year, a 150-mile round trip for supporters.
  Recently, the local authority approved a planning application for the club to return to Brighton, so we hope that this autumn Brighton and Hove Albion will be coming home. The planning application has been approved for the sharing of an athletics stadium north of Brighton. Last September, many of my hon. Friends joined me in playing at that stadium, when unfortunately we lost to the national press by seven goals to four in an enjoyable game before the Labour party conference.
  It will be an important event when the local authority meets a week today to finalise a decision on Brighton and Hove Albion. Those few NIMBYs who live around the area of the stadium have objected and made representations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I am confident that he will find no grounds to call the matter in, but perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will deal later with the question whether there should be special regulations for football clubs, notwithstanding the work done by the previous Government on PPG17.
  The task force could look into the possibility of a more sympathetic planning process for football, cricket and rugby union clubs that want to develop better facilities in their communities. Had that existed, the Secretary of State

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  would not even have entertained the suggestions made by some local residents. I hope that, in the next few weeks, my right hon. Friend will support the many, not the few, in Brighton and Hove.
  I wish to talk about sport generally, but particularly about the 2006 bid, which is important to England especially. The bid is widely supported by the Government and all parties, especially the English Sports Council, which contributes a significant sum from the lottery to the Football Association's fighting fund.
  Over the past year, I have enjoyed the work of the all-party football group, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), who is not in the Chamber. My hon. Friend has kept the group very much at the forefront of the agenda for world cup 2006, culminating a month or so ago—my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport was present—with a presentation to Members of the bid by Geoff Hurst and Garth Crooks. It is important to recognise the role that we as Members can play in delivering that bid for England in 2006.
  The partnership goes much wider than Members. Some major British companies are now onside, including British Airways, Marks and Spencer, the Nationwide building society and Umbro. They are supporting the 2006 bid. I take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) said about next year's world cups in the United Kingdom in both cricket and rugby union. We hope that those events will be a successful way forward to the football world cup in 2006.
  I welcome, as I am sure do many of my hon. Friends, the conversion on the road to Damascus of the Conservatives on school playing fields. Never has there been quite as much hypocrisy as we heard this morning from the Conservative party. The Conservatives sold playing field after playing field for 18 years. The Labour Government have introduced new regulations. I am delighted to receive the support of Conservatives, but we cannot forget what happened during their 18 years in office.
  Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman will know that a number of Conservative Members spent many years, both before and since coming into the House, campaigning to keep school playing fields. Will he recognise that many of the sales of school playing fields were carried out by Labour local authorities? The Labour party does not have a monopoly of virtue on this matter.
  Mr. Caplin: I am grateful for that intervention. However, it is a Labour Government who have introduced new regulations that will make it that much more difficult for playing fields to be sold. I recognise that there are Conservative Members who campaigned long and hard, as the hon. Gentleman said, and I recognise his particular contribution.
  I wanted to comment to my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport, who has changed his persona briefly, about the possibility of regulating football. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State touched on the matter this morning. We must recognise, however, that if football cannot regulate itself through the Football Association and/or through the Football League, it will need some Government intervention to stop, for example, the disgraceful hikes in ticket prices that we are seeing in the premier league. I hope that the FA will take on board what is being said about that issue and the various reports that it has commissioned, and start the proper regulation of football.
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  I welcome the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about a sports strategy. I think that that will provide a good debate for the House and I look forward to contributing to it. I hope that we shall have a wide-ranging debate that will impact on women in sport. It is rather disappointing that, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), who has just arrived in the Chamber, no women Members have contributed to the debate.
  I tabled an early-day motion on the MCC vote and its refusal to admit women. Women have an important role to play. As sports lovers, we all have an important role in trying to develop the role of women in sport. Conservative Members, many of whom may be MCC members, might like to tell us how they voted on women membership. I am especially disappointed that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), only five days into his appointment, has chosen not to be with us today. If he had been present, I could have asked him directly how he voted in the MCC ballot. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Surrey Heath can answer that when he makes his speech. The 1994 Brighton declaration on women in sport has played a crucial part in taking sport forward for all. That is the Government's aim, and I very much welcome it.
  12.54 pm
  Mr. John Bercow: I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate. First, I declare an interest—I am an amateur enthusiast for sport. I recognise and respect the distinguished sporting record of the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt). I do not suggest for a moment that I could compete with it, and I am conscious that other right hon. and hon. Members, whether present today or not, can boast of great sporting accomplishments. My background in sport is threefold: I have been a fan of Arsenal football club since January 1971; I am a keen swimmer, and swim four times a week at the Living Well health club, where 40 lengths is as much as I can manage; and, for the past 15 years, I have been a qualified tennis instructor.
  I respect the enthusiasm and commitment of the Minister for Sport. Nobody doubts that; indeed, it is widely acknowledged. The debate between us is not about objectives; it is about outcomes. I wish to focus on four particular concerns. The first is that of the effective abolition of physical education as part of the core curriculum in primary schools. There has been an attempt to misrepresent the truth of what has transpired in recent times. That misrepresentation was eloquently exposed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring), but it is important to be specific about what happened.
  On 13 January this year, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment declared that physical education would no longer be part of the core curriculum in primary schools. That physical education should still be taught is a quite different point. There has been a change—the Government's intention now is, supposedly, to concentrate on what are considered to be core subjects and not on physical education.
  I happen to believe—I think that the view is widely shared by people of all political persuasions and of none—that, however well intentioned, that judgment is

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  mistaken and short sighted, for the simple reason that if children play less sport in schools, they are likely to have less incentive to play much sport outside schools. As the late Enoch Powell would have said, that is so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever person could fail to see it. That is what will result from the change that has taken place. Moreover, it is out of kilter with the Labour party's position in opposition.
  Labour's document, "Labour's Sporting Nation", published on 24 April 1997—precisely a week before the general election—said that the national curriculum made inadequate provision for physical education. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that that statement was made on page 8 of that document. Even given the fondness for misrepresentation that has come to characterise those who specialise in spin on the Government Benches, the Minister is not in a position to dispute the argument. That is the evidence of the change in position—a change for the worse—undertaken by the Government since they came to office.
  Most people think that it is a change for the worse. The Central Council of Physical Recreation and the National Association of Head Teachers, to name just two organisations, are united in recommending that children in primary schools should undertake at least two hours of physical education a week.
  Mr. Caplin: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the CCPR. Under the heading "Labour's Manifesto Commitments", it has stated:
  "The government is to be congratulated on its endeavours so far."
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made that point this morning.
  Mr. Bercow: I am interested that the hon. Gentleman should intervene on that point, though it is supremely unwise of him, first, because the CCPR and the NAHT have recommended a minimum time to be spent on physical education, and it is a minimum which is not being met by the Government, and, secondly, because the need is extremely pressing—primary schoolchildren in Germany spend three and a half hours a week on physical education and in France the figure is three hours. Until recently, the figure in the United Kingdom was one and a half hours. As a specific consequence of the change of stance undertaken by the Government, the hon. Gentleman cannot gainsay that there is no minimum time requirement for primary school children to spend on physical education.
  As the hon. Gentleman has chosen, rather unwisely, to invoke the CCPR in support of his argument, I must indulge myself a little further and quote Mr. David Oxley, the chairman of its executive committee—I recognise the hon. Gentleman's pain, but he must reckon with it. It is documented world wide that young people of primary school age who receive regular physical exercise perform better in key subject areas such as reading and arithmetic. If he will forgive me, it is game, set and match to the Opposition on this point. The Government stand exposed as having broken their promise and betrayed trust. They are letting down the children of this country. I hope, even at this stage, that they will reconsider their position.
  My second point, which, regrettably, is also critical of the Government, follows that of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) and relates to the previous
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  Government's sportsmark scheme, introduced in secondary schools in October 1996. Its objective was to ensure recognition for schools that provided high-quality physical education and sports programmes. As the Minister will doubtless acknowledge, the enthusiasm that schools showed for the scheme is reflected in the fact that, within two months, 471 had applied for sportsmarks, which were organised and administered by the English Sports Council. There were 133 applications for the sportsmark gold award.
  The idea that there was no take-up, little enthusiasm and disaffection with what the previous Government were doing simply does not hold water, and I hope that the Minister will not attempt to argue such a case. The scheme was good; doubtless, it could have been improved, but surely, in the light of the enthusiasm expressed for it, it would have been sensible for the Government to consider its extension to primary schools. It is regrettable that they have failed to do so, and I ask him, with all the politeness at my command, to reconsider his decision.
  The third area of concern, especially for Conservative Members, is the lamentably slow progress on the United Kingdom Sports Institute. There is cross-party agreement that it is a good idea, and I do not doubt the Minister's commitment to it, but the Government cannot, in all seriousness, be congratulated on their record, which is deficient.
  Mr. Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the delays caused before the general election by the previous Government, even in shortlisting the three bids? They left the Government with the mess of a British academy of sport that no one knew what to do with.
  Mr. Bercow: I accept part of the hon. Gentleman's criticism, but not all of it. If he is saying that there was too much delay before the election, I readily concede that. I was frustrated by the delay, but I do not accept the charge that a great mess was left. Certainly, we were too slow; it should have been dealt with, and it is regrettable that it was not attended to properly. The difference is that we Conservatives have no difficulty in acknowledging that mistakes were made. The lickspittles on the Government Back Benches are interested only in always, everywhere and without exception slavishly adhering to the Government's official line.
  The truth is that, in February 1997, the previous Government drew up a shortlist of three contenders for the British academy of sport. When the new Government came into office, they indicated that a decision would be made soon. Indeed, on 27 June last year, the Minister for Sport said, in column 1126 of Hansard if I remember rightly, that he hoped a decision would be reached soon—I hope the hon. Gentleman enjoys having his words quoted at him. He hoped that it would certainly be by the end of "August or September".
  Mr. Wyatt rest—
  Mr. Bercow: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman with great pleasure, if he wishes to intervene.
  Mr. Pound: What is his home phone number?
  Mr. Wyatt: Ex-directory. Will the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) note that the delay was caused

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  during the previous Government because the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) was the only person left in that Government who wanted a single national United Kingdom institute for sport? The then Minister for sport did not. That is why there was the delay. The whole of the sporting world wanted what we have delivered.
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening, but, unfortunately, once again he makes a poor point, for two reasons. The first is that if it was not going to be feasible to have a decision until December 1997, why did the Minister for Sport, whose words we should be able to take as an indication of what the Government would do, say that it would be reached by the end of August or September? That was utterly misleading, although I do not suggest for one moment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it was deliberately so. The Government simply failed to deliver. They were feeble and incompetent. They beat about the bush and they did not get things done. That is why we say, "Stop messing around and get on with the job."
  The second reason why the hon. Gentleman's intervention was unfortunate is that he referred to the Government's objective of having regional centres. In view of the alleged centrality to the Government's whole thinking on the subject of regional centres as opposed to a centralised mass, why is it that, after all these months, we have still not had an announcement of the sites for the regional centres? Believe it or not, it is now 5 June 1998 and it is six months since the announcement, but the Minister for Sport is sitting there apparently without embarrassment at the continued delay.
  There is a third objection to the Government's position. Despite the mealy-mouthed rhetoric that they deploy in self-defence, they do not intend that competitive team sports will have a big role to play in the new UK Sports Institute. Many people in the sporting community believe that that is wrong. I simply invite the Minister in all humility to reflect on the possibility that he has got it wrong. There is no shame in the Minister making a mistake, but only in failing to recognise the possibility—the mere possibility—of having done so.
  Mr. Banks: I am more than ready to apologise if I think that I have made a mistake. On this occasion, I have not. It is a matter for consultation and we are listening. We believe, as do the sports bodies, that team sports such as football, rugby and cricket should have their own sport-dedicated academies and that is something that the Government are supporting them in establishing.
  Mr. Bercow: Unfortunately, there comes a point when the listening has to stop and the decision making has to start. As far as this Government are concerned and reaching the destination of establishing regional centres, the analogy has to be with Kafka and "The Castle", where for every step that the main character thinks he is taking towards it, he seems in the end to be going one step further away.
  The Minister is right to say that listening has to take place and I do not cavil at that. Ultimately, however, decisions must be made and announcements given, and progress must take place. None of those things has happened since the election and that is a source of regret. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) is
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  chuntering from a sedentary position for all the world as though he were the village idiot, but I shall seek not to be distracted by his burblings.
  Mr. Pendry: My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) was right on both counts. Many months before the general election, we were urging the then Minister for sport to discuss the institute across the party divide—he refused to do so until the very morning that the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) went to Buckingham palace to ask that Parliament be dissolved. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport was left with such a great mess to clear up—no doubt very early on he believed that it could be cleared up.
  Mr. Bercow: I have the highest respect for the hon. Gentleman, but that is not my recollection. Before I was selected as the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Buckingham, I briefly served as special adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage and worked regularly with the former Minister for Sport, Iain Sproat, who has immense regard for the hon. Gentleman's integrity and judgment, as he probably already knows.
  Mr. Pendry rest—
  Mr. Bercow: I shall give way once more before I make my final point.
  Mr. Pendry: For the record, I have the same feeling for the former Minister for sport. However, he admitted on Radio 5 that my account of events was correct.
  Mr. Bercow: I shall not comment on a radio interview that I did not hear, especially as I am coming to the conclusion of my speech. Suffice it to say that the Government have had 13 months in which to make progress—it simply will not wash for the hon. Gentleman to try to extricate them from their difficulties by praying in aid a radio debate that he had with the former Minister for sport. The Government have the power, they have the limousines, they are drawing the salaries, so theirs is the responsibility, which the Minister for Sport must now discharge.
  Mr. Pound: I was waiting for this little volley across the net to end before I responded to the hon. Gentleman's untypically ungracious comment about village idiots. In the village where my ancestors lived, the third most stupid person was undoubtedly the village idiot. The second most stupid person was the poundkeeper, who had to lock up the pigs that strayed from the common ground—that was an honourable job, and I accept the title. The most stupid person was known as a Bercow, a word that was usually abbreviated to its first four letters.
  Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman has a well-established and well-deserved reputation for wit and invective but, whereas the first two parts of his story were good, the conclusion was lamentably predictable and unoriginal. I am disappointed with him, but I hope that, in the future, he can improve on his sporting performance.
  A number of people have expressed concern to me about sailing. The Secretary of State has tried to reassure the House that lottery funding for sport would be

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  maintained and that previous commitments would be kept—we wait to see whether that will be the case. I invite the Minister to acknowledge that there is real concern that lottery funding for some sports could go into decline.
  Sports clubs are deserving recipients of lottery funding for two reasons: first, they are good at providing the matching funds that are required, and, secondly, they are effective in raising funds to meet their running costs. The main problem that they face is that too few of their applications are accepted. The Royal Yachting Association is concerned that funds could be cut and that, if they are, many recreational sailors will suffer. Edmund Whelan, the association's legal and Government affairs manager, wrote in a letter dated yesterday, of which I have a copy, that top-class competitors are worried about world-class performance funding. Such competitors contend, and I think that the Minister will agree, that that funding has given a tremendous boost to our top sailors. It delivers excellent value for money. I would welcome a reassurance from the Minister for Sport today that they have no reason whatever to fear that that funding will either cease or be reduced.
  The serious concerns that I have expressed are widely shared and were highlighted by other hon. Members. I ask the Minister for Sport to respect the fact that those concerns exist, to listen to them and to seek in his policies to address them. If he does, I for one, in the spirit that should characterise debate on this vital subject, will say, "Well done and three cheers"—but he has a long way to go.
  1.14 pm
  Mr. Graham Stringer: I declare an interest as a non-fee-earning director of the committee that will organise the Commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002. I shall return to that project.
  I welcome the Secretary of State's comprehensive speech, which rested on three legs. He said that grass-roots sport would be supported, that elite competitive sport would be supported and—importantly, because it is often forgotten—that our country's ambition to host major international sporting events would be supported. Many hon. Members have said, in many different ways, that sport is important to people's individual development, to health and to the economy. Sport has for too long played the Cinderella role.
  Many people have been looking back to 1966, which is becoming a date better known by schoolchildren than 1066. The Government's financial commitment to the world cup then was a mere £800,000. Taking away the money distributed via the Sports Council, that was the only major Government support for sport until Manchester's 1992 bid to host the Olympic games in 2000. The then Prime Minister announced £55 million for that bid, and I pay tribute to him for putting sport further up the agenda.
  During that time, a bid for the Commonwealth games by Leeds, bids for the Olympics by Birmingham and Manchester and bids to host many prestigious world championships and major events had gone without Government support. It is important to acknowledge that that has changed and to welcome the Secretary of State's statement.
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  I should like to take issue with the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman). I do not deny the first part of what he said. There are no longer the facilities for sport for young people that used to exist. Like many Conservative Members, he has forgotten the reason. As someone who had some influence in running a local authority, I know that sports facilities are not as they used to be because the people responsible for local authorities were faced with grants being cut viciously year after year. We were left with a straight choice: to close a swimming pool and save £500,000 or to take money from children in care or the elderly. Most reasonable people took the decision to protect the most vulnerable members of society. That is why the sporting facilities provided by local authorities, which are still the main providers of such facilities, are not what they should be.
  There is a second point on which I take issue with the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, who is not in his place. Having noted that sports facilities are not as good, without acknowledging why, he argued that while we all want to bring major events to this country, it is not the main issue. He said that we must get grass-roots provision right and get all people fitter and healthier through participation in sport.
  I agree with the hon. Gentleman's objectives, but I do not agree that there is any contradiction in the three strands of policy announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, as each supports the others. If we are successful in international competition, either by hosting major events or by having great athletes and successful teams, we will encourage grass-roots support. If more young people participate in sport as a result, we will be more likely to be successful at international events.
  The Commonwealth games will be held in Manchester, and England, in 2002. I want to explain what will happen and to talk about the Commonwealth games in general. This year's games will take place in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in September, and they will change the nature of the Commonwealth games. The Malaysian Government have declared their intention to use the games to say that their nation has come of age and is moving out of the third world and into a richer economy. That statement has plainly been affected by what has happened to the ringgit in recent months, but the intention remains the same. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on creating the best ever facilities for the Commonwealth games.
  The Malaysian intention is clear. The games are not just about prestige, but about telling the English-speaking world and south-east Asia that Kuala Lumpur is a good place for sport, that the area is increasingly affluent and that it is a good place to do business. We neglect at our peril the side of sport that allows us to project our country's image. We have not done that enough in the past, and we must do more. Our economy, as well as our national spirit, will get better if we do.
  We intend to put on an extremely good Commonwealth games in Manchester. The Government talk a lot about changing the image of England and Britain abroad, and about giving us a younger look and a more modern appeal. I agree with that. I have represented Britain abroad and have often found that people view us as stodgy old colonials. Sometimes they enjoy turning us down when we apply for business. We should use the Manchester games to change that image.

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  We have already put together important facilities, and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport for coming to Manchester to see them. I was pleased to show him round, but did not expect him to respond as he did. When we showed him the velodrome, which has the world's fastest track, he said, "We don't have one of those in London." So we showed him the indoor arena, which is the largest in Europe, and he said, "We could do with one of those in London." Then we showed him the concert hall that we have opened recently, and he said, "We don't have anything this good in London." I am glad that he showed so much admiration; what we need now is a stadium that he can envy from his seat in London.
  The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) asked about the financing of the games. We have a balanced budget, which partly depends on a grant of £113 million from the Sports Council. With sponsorship and television rights, which will improve considerably after the Kuala Lumpur games, we will be able to put on a games in the tradition, if not of Kuala Lumpur, of previous games such as the 1994 Victoria games.
  Frankly, I do not think that that is good enough if we want to project this country. We are in discussions with the Government and we have met various Ministers. I believe that we should hold the games in a state-of-the-art stadium, not a temporary one. They should show our country off to the best and show the best in current English architecture. If we are to do that, there will have to be some extra funding. When asked by Ministers how much, we say that that depends on what quality of Commonwealth games the Government and the Prime Minister want. I believe that the country and the House should want to see the very best Commonwealth games that we can possibly put on.
  It is interesting to note how the Commonwealth games are being used to bring people forward. One aspect of games that is not often talked about but is relevant to getting people into jobs is the extraordinary number of volunteers required to help run a Commonwealth games—up to 30,000. It is possible, with the right scheme, to integrate some of that voluntary work into the new deal. We could use young people's enthusiasm to be involved in a major sporting event—they may have been socially excluded—to enable them to obtain qualifications such as national vocational qualifications at levels 2 or 3. That is one way in which a major sporting event can dig right down to people who have been socially excluded.
  The local authority and the Sports Council have also ensured that in key sporting areas trainers and courses have been put together so that people not only in Manchester but in the whole of the north-west can participate in the sports that we have opened up. We do not want the facilities to go to waste once the games are over. We have talked to the Sports Council about putting together a critical mass of elite sports facilities that will have a spin-off for jobs, health and sports medicine. The facilities that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech have been run down. We should refurbish them so that they can be used by the local community and people benefit from the games.
  We estimate that a successful Commonwealth games will create 2,500 or so local jobs if we put together that critical mass of facilities. We hope to be a regional centre of the UK Sports Institute. That is just one example of how we hope to ensure that English and local people in Manchester and the north-west participate in the games.
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  My final set of points is in support of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's statement about his desire to bring the world cup to Britain in 2006 and to bring the Olympics here. I have tried as hard as it is possible to try to bring all the major sporting events to this country, but I caution against one thing—perhaps two things. First, there is an assumption—it is not stated publicly but people talk about it in private—that if Britain is to host the Olympics or the world athletics championship it will have to be in London. I do not agree. When London has competed before, the sports bodies that nominate cities to be the Olympic or Commonwealth games host city have, by and large, chosen Birmingham or Manchester.
  Mr. Banks: One of the problems that London has experienced when making a bid and competing against Manchester and other cities is that there were two London bids because there was no single local authority for London to represent the city. That was the fundamental objection that flawed our bids. That problem will be resolved by the setting up of the new Greater London authority.
  It is not my partiality that is involved: the International Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Association have made it clear that the only city that they are prepared to nominate for an Olympic bid is London. As my hon. Friend must know, that is not my decision but the decision of the BOA and IOC.
  Mr. Stringer: I am partially grateful for that intervention. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Balkanisation of London by the abolition of the Greater London council put London at a disadvantage and other cities made hay at London's expense during that time. The answer is to have elected mayors in other big cities as well.
  I also agree that the choice is a matter for the BOA and the IOC. I am not aware that those decisions have been taken finally. They should be subject to influence so that there is proper competition and consideration when the decision is taken.
  I add my tribute to Lord Howell. I competed with Denis Howell for the right to represent Britain in the bid to host the Olympic games—I represented Manchester when he represented Birmingham. He was a tough competitor and did not like Manchester getting the nomination because he had put a lot of effort into Birmingham's very good bid. Anyone who tries to bring the Olympic games or the world cup to this country should bear in mind his comment that we shall have the most immense difficulty until there are some British people involved at the highest level of international sport. We are almost devoid of representatives in all the world federations. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will say how he will encourage our sports administrators and politicians to get involved at that level. We all want to bring those events here, but until our people are involved at the highest level, we shall not do so.
  1.31 pm
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer). I acknowledge the great contribution that he has made to his city and our country in championing the Manchester Olympic bids, which have resulted in a successful

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  Commonwealth games bid. That is a good example of how sport can bring a community together around an objective in a wider political arena.
  I declare an interest as an honorary vice-president of Raleigh International, because I want to widen our debate on sport to include adventure training and recreation, which, like sport, does much to develop an individual's sense of purpose and achievement. Our central objective as politicians is what sport can do for individuals.
  When I was the organiser of a sports team in the Army, some people thought that I had become a professional cricket organiser, perhaps to the exclusion of the more military parts of my responsibilities. Much of taking part in sport depends on the enthusiasm, energy and drive of the enablers—the people who give their time voluntarily to organise sport and make it happen for others.
  I should like to indulge myself a little with the Minister for Sport. I am sure that he will talk on the phone to Glenn Hoddle before England begin their world cup campaign. If I remember rightly, Germany have not lost a game of football on penalties since being beaten by Czechoslovakia in the European championship final in 1976. England have not won a game on penalties since before Italia 90. Having seen the lackadaisical performance in the recent penalty shoot-out against Belgium, I am horrified that our footballers will not have the skill of burying the ball in the corner of the net at 80 mph honed to perfection, given the likelihood that some of our games will have to be resolved in that way. I should therefore like the Minister for Sport to ask Glenn Hoddle to make sure that those skills are honed to perfection.
  Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Blackley in his speech about the Commonwealth games, have talked about the necessity for international success, which is one of the twin pillars of the Government's policy, which I welcome. However, I hope that we recognise that, in a sense, that aim is subsidiary. We need international success to draw people into sport by example, but our aim as policymakers should be to enable people to take part. A sense of achievement, self-confidence, pride and leadership comes from taking part in sports, particularly team sports.
  There has already been much discussion about the changes to the national curriculum, which are unfortunate. I would rather view the discussion in an international context. My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) said that in Germany the school curriculum contains three hours of sport a week. We should aim to do better than that. People who take part in sport and adventurous training activities develop themselves and that helps them achieve success in other areas, including academic subjects.
  I accept that the Conservatives' record on playing fields was lamentable and that we should have protected them when we were in government. The blame, as my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said, should be shared because it was in the main Labour-controlled authorities that were selling off playing fields. Let us put that behind us and make it clear that from now on we want to increase resources for playing
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  fields, the curriculum and teachers to be used in the organised life of schoolchildren. We should give teachers physical and monetary resources—
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: And recognition.
  Mr. Blunt: Indeed. That would give them the enthusiasm to take part and enable children to participate in those activities.
  I want to concentrate on the contribution of volunteers, which has not been mentioned. It is they who work, outside the hours of schools and sports clubs—which are, by and large, voluntary—to enable sports and adventure training to take place. I hope that the money that we are taking out of sport by creating a sixth good cause will be replaced by allowing after-school clubs to get money for sport from the New Opportunities Fund.
  My great worry is that we have already imposed on people who voluntarily organise activities for young people and others a level of regulation about how to conduct those activities—particularly in adventure training—that is driving many of them simply to give up. Last night, I attended the annual general meeting of Reigate and Banstead district scouts, where I was told that it is becoming more difficult for the scouts to organise outdoor activities, particularly at the more challenging end of the spectrum, for venture scouts. That is true not only for all adventure training pursuits but for sporting pursuits.
  People will be killed playing sport and taking part in adventurous training. People will be killed on the rugby field. There will be accidents. What frightens me is that when deaths occur there is a reaction of shock and horror, and the temptation for politicians is to impose a disproportionate level of regulation. By loading that layer of regulation on to people who are giving up their time to organise activities, we make it too difficult for them to bother.
  I ask the Minister to review those burdensome regulations and to be sympathetic when he is approached by sports organisations and sports organisers to do so.
  Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend has raised an important point. However, for balance, does he agree that schemes of organisations, such as the Royal Yachting Association, to develop proficiency and train instructors—and to encourage younger people who are good at what they do themselves to become instructors—is a good way of raising standards and participation without imposing the burden of regulation? If he agrees with that, I should like to ask him whether, if he is a dinghy sailor, he would like next Thursday to join the House of Commons team at Westminster boating base? We are still short of one or two crew.
  Mr. Blunt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention.
  My request to re-examine regulation is not a cry for bad practice. Good practice should be led by volunteers themselves, who organise the organisations. It is in their own interests that their sports and recreations should be well organised and safe. Neither the organisers, nor hon. Members nor our joint objectives will be well served if the House tries to legislate, to regulate or to cover every

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  contingency because hon. Members do not want the embarrassment of having to say, "We could have prevented it had we passed legislation or regulations." We have to be prepared to stand up for those people, to enable them to make the fantastic contribution that they do in enabling young people to participate in their sport.
  I hope that the interests of volunteers, as the enablers of so much United Kingdom sporting activity, will be at the forefront of the Minister's mind during his tenure in office.
  1.41 pm
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: It is perhaps appropriate that this debate should be held on the same day as that classic sporting event, the Oaks, at Epsom. Although I cannot give any guide to this afternoon's form, I know some men and women who can. I am delighted to have within my constituency the headquarters of Ladbroke Racing Ltd., which is playing a crucial role in ensuring that horse racing enthusiasts have high-quality races to enjoy daily.
  I draw the House's attention to the United Kingdom's Olympic performance in the past 20 years. In 1980, we finished ninth at the Moscow Olympic games. Five Olympic games on, in 1996, we had plummeted to 36th place. Our decline in medals has been even more dramatic, with the British team winning only one gold medal in Atlanta, compared with five such medals won four years earlier at Barcelona. We won 34 medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic games; in 1992, at Barcelona, we managed to win only 20. By 1996, at Atlanta, our total medal haul had dropped to only 15.
  Against that background—and after listening to what athletes wanted us to provide—the decision to establish the United Kingdom Sports Institute, and the excellent world-class performance programme, offer hope that our decline as a sporting nation will be reversed. Funding of our bobsleigh team undoubtedly helped to provide the right training environment for it to achieve its excellent bronze medal at Nagano.
  I pay tribute to the work of Sir Rodney Walker in the past three years at the English Sports Council. The council's funding of the world-class performance programme is helping to provide much-needed support to governing bodies in modernising their infrastructure, systems and services, and in helping them to focus on achieving the international success that we all desire.
  I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on the need to develop sports administration. We have to continue modernising and professionalising our approach in working with elite sportsmen and sportswomen. I hope that the Minister will keep up the pressure on sports governing bodies, to encourage high standards not only in sporting performance and coaching but in management and administration.
  I seek specific assurances that my hon. Friend the Minister is monitoring the issues raised by the trial of the former general secretary of the Central Council of Physical Recreation and the collapse of the British Athletics Federation. We need to ensure that sports bodies that receive grant in aid money in addition to lottery money use their moneys wisely and are properly financially accountable.
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  The world-class performance programme is extending opportunities to the most talented sportsmen and sportswomen, identified by sporting bodies, so that we do not rely only on those who, as well as being talented, can afford to compete. I look forward to the development of the programme. Further schemes for supporting talented young people are in the pipeline. We urgently need a talent development system that identifies future medal-winners.
  Harrow School of Gymnastics, in my borough, is in an excellent position to help in such a system; in the past 10 years, it has been an excellent nursery for much of British gymnastic talent. It currently has two Olympic prospects in Kanukai Jackson and Paul Morris. Recently, British Gymnastics awarded the school's head coach, Carol Ford, the status of elite coach of the year.
  As many of my hon. Friends have said, in the approach to the general election we knew that grass-roots sport in communities and schools was under considerable pressure. In schools, extra-curricular sporting activities had declined by more than three quarters under the Conservatives and, thanks to the previous Government's now notorious policy on playing fields, more than 5,000 fields had been lost. I commend the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) for having the courage to take responsibility for that failure.
  I welcome the plans of the Minister for Sport, in conjunction with the Department for Education and Employment, to develop proposals for community sports co-ordinators, to build and support links between schools and sports clubs. I hope that, in his speech, he will detail the progress of those plans.
  It is essential that local authorities produce a leisure strategy, setting out their plans to encourage and facilitate sport in their area. Sadly, not every local authority does so. I hope that the Minister will take action to encourage local authorities to develop their sport strategies as a matter of urgency.
  Encouraging young people to take up sport is always made easier when high-profile sporting events take place in our country. I commend the Minister for Sport on the excellent campaign that he is waging to host the 2006 world cup. It holds out real hope that, at long last, the world cup will return to Britain.
  I support the case for a British Olympic bid. That bid should be for the 2012 games, and should be London based. I urge the Minister, while he is campaigning for the world cup bid, to consider the need now to start actively planning an Olympic bid. Long lead times to develop the sporting stadiums and the Olympic village, and to confront the considerable logistical challenges that such a bid would pose, need to start now. As the Minister said, we have taken a key step along the Olympic route by winning the referendum on the London mayor and Greater London authority. At last, we shall have the political structures to facilitate an effective bid.
  We also need to get right the structure of our sports bodies in this country. A strong United Kingdom Sports Council is essential to ensure effective support for our international teams. Such a United Kingdom Sports Council must reflect our commitment to devolving powers to communities where appropriate. A strong UK Sports Council—working by partnership, not diktat—will be crucial in supporting an Olympic bid.

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  I welcome the Secretary of State's confirmation today that he will consult on a sporting strategy for Britain. I make a special plea to him to consider adventurous outdoor sports as part of that programme. Again, I commend the hon. Member for Reigate for raising that issue. Ofsted's 1996–97 report, published earlier this year, identified continuing weaknesses in provision for outdoor and adventurous activities. For example, according to the British Canoe Union, canoeists continue to be denied access to the overwhelming proportion of waters in Britain.
  I commend the Ministers for the excellent start that they have made in the past 12 months. There is much work to be done, but it is in safe hands.
  1.49 pm
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: It is a great pleasure to speak at the Dispatch Box when you are in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know of your strong enthusiasm and support for sport. Your son—who is a successful sportsman—and I attended the same school at different times, and it is good to know that you have sporting connections.
  I join the tributes rightly paid from both sides of the House to the late Lord Howell. I got to know Denis Howell over the past six years, and particularly well in the past 12 months when I became one of the three deputy chairmen of the all-party sports group. He was a great man and a great sportsman, and I am sure that he would have been pleased by the high calibre of today's debate. The Minister may be interested to know that, on the day that Lord Howell's death was announced, I was on my way to Stamford bridge with my two sons to watch Chelsea beat Sheffield Wednesday. The car radio was tuned in to BBC Radio 4 and at the beginning of the one o'clock news it was announced that Denis Howell had collapsed. The programme was then interrupted to announce that Lord Howell had died, and many tributes were paid to him.
  All who knew Denis Howell will acknowledge that we must carry on his work in the House. It is good to see that every member of the all-party sports group has participated in today's debate. I know that Denis Howell would have approved of that. My last memory of him is from just before the Easter recess when he left me a message saying that he agreed with a letter that I had drafted jointly with the hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) and for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) to the Secretary of State on the important subject of listed sporting events. Lord Howell said that he was looking forward to seeing us again shortly after Easter, but, sadly, we did not have that meeting.
  I must send a message of congratulations to another great sports personality. Hon. Members may have noticed in yesterday's papers that our great Olympian, Sally Gunnell, has had a baby. I gather from the press reports that mother and baby are doing extremely well, and I am sure that all hon. Members send their best wishes to Sally, her husband and their baby.
  I turn to the important subjects that have been raised in this debate, and in particular to the concerns expressed on this side of the House. I shall expand upon the remarks of my hon. Friends, and in particular on the speech of my
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  hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) in opening the debate for the Opposition. We believe that the structure of sport in Britain needs further attention. The Secretary of State referred to the recent rather sudden departure of Howard Wells and wished him well in the future. We also send those good wishes, but wonder whether the Minister and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that the proposed review of the current administrative arrangements requires a radical overhaul of the sports councils so that the governing bodies, member clubs and local authorities can work more efficiently. The Secretary of State and the Minister will be aware that that is the view of the Central Council of Physical Recreation. I am sure that the Minister shares my view that David Oxley and his colleagues at the CCPR, such as Nigel Hook, do a terrific job promoting important issues in sport and furthering the debate.
  It is a pleasure to look across the Dispatch Box at the Minister. I do not know whether he remembers, but he followed my maiden speech in the House in 1992 and he will now follow my second appearance at the Dispatch Box. So there is a certain accidental continuity at work. Even though the Minister and I disagree slightly about some issues, as my colleagues said earlier, he is genuinely committed to sport. He is probably the best known football fan in the country and he has carried on the important work of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde to whom I pay tribute and with whom I always enjoy working. It is fair to say that there is much common ground on these issues, but I hope that the Minister will consider the concerns raised by hon. Members, including many Labour Members, in the debate. In particular, at a time when the national governing bodies of sport are being asked to devote more of their energies to developing programmes for youth sport, the sports councils have reduced the levels of grant in aid. Does the Minister agree that the governing bodies of sport deserve that grants be maintained, at least in line with inflation?
  I am especially concerned about the position of the British Olympic Association. Unlike most other countries, our Olympic association receives no Government funding and must therefore raise its own funds. It does a fantastic job, raising funds primarily through sponsorship. In addition to the representation of Britain at the Olympic games, the BOA has an extensive education programme in schools, in which I take a particular interest, and uses most of its income to provide services to governing bodies' elite squads.
  As the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) rightly said, we are all concerned about the reduction in the number of medals that we have won at recent Olympics. There must come a time when the BOA plays a more central part in the Government's thinking and perhaps in Government funding. I hope that the Minister will deal with that. If we are to bid successfully for a future Olympics and for the world cup, the BOA will as has rightly been said, play a key role.
  I echo the comments of several hon. Members about the importance of Paralympic sport. In recent years, there has been widespread support, including support from all parties in the House, for our Paralympic athletes. The Minister is well aware from conversations that we have had on the subject that I have been involved in fund raising for our Paralympic fencers and swimmers. My contact with Paralympic athletes has reinforced my view

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  that we must continuously improve facilities. I know that the current Government are committed to that, as were the previous Government.
  I am particularly concerned that all our sporting arenas should be made accessible to Paralympic athletes and spectators. We heard earlier about the importance of ensuring access for the disabled at all our sporting venues. I hope that the Minister will comment on progress in that regard.
  I hope that we can continue to improve facilities for sport for all. I agreed with the remarks of the Secretary of State, but it is clear from subsequent interventions and speeches, while he was understandably absent from the Chamber, that there has been a reduction in the Government's commitment to sport in schools. Whatever the Secretary of State, the Minister and Labour Members may say, the decision by the Secretary of State for Education to remove compulsory PE from the core curriculum—the crucial word is core—was a step in the wrong direction.
  Chairmen and deputy chairmen of local authority education committees will pay close attention to this debate and will want to know that PE is valued as much by this Government as it was by the previous Government.
  Mr. Chris Smith: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me the chance to clarify the matter once and for all. The distinction that the Opposition are trying to draw between a core curriculum and a non-core curriculum with regard to physical education is fallacious. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced that there will be one specified hour of literacy and one specified hour of numeracy in the school day every day in primary schools. There will be flexibility for the school in determining when during the school week the other subjects, including PE, are taught, but there remains a clear requirement for schools to teach it.
  Mr. Hawkins: I hear what the Secretary of State says, but it does not wash. None of the sporting bodies accept what he has just said. He does not have to take that from me. He has only to consider all the concerns that have been expressed by all the national sporting bodies about the decision announced by the Secretary of State for Education. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk said, it sends all the wrong signals. It says that this Government, unlike the previous Government, no longer regard PE as fundamental and compulsory. It makes sport discretionary, rather than compulsory.
  Mr. Chris Smith indicated dissent.
  Mr. Hawkins: The Secretary of State may shake his head, but he should look at the reaction of the sporting bodies. We know that the Secretary of State lost the battle to the educationists in the Department for Education and Employment. That is what really happened. The Secretary of State's weasel words will not get him out of that.
  I turn to a subject on which I agree with the Secretary of State. In this instance, I accept that the right hon. Gentleman and I are singing from the same hymn sheet. The right hon. Gentleman sent his congratulations on the successful first day and best wishes for continuing
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  progress for the England team in the test match. Earlier in the debate there was news from the front—[Interruption.] I gather from the Minister for Sport that the score, when he last received news, was 326 for four.
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth: It has gone up.
  Mr. Hawkins: I understand that it is now 344 for five. As usual, the Conservatives are first with the news and more accurate than Labour.
  In getting the score brought to them, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sport are following in a great tradition set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). I remember vividly when I happened to be in the House for a meeting in the Committee Room Corridor, long before I was lucky enough to be elected to this place. My right hon. Friend had just become Chief Secretary to the Treasury and was taking his first Finance Bill through Committee in that role. I saw large numbers of civil servants rushing in and out of the Committee Room, and wondered what dramatic developments were taking place.
  It happened that one of the civil servants had been a university friend and contemporary. I asked her what all the rushing backwards and forwards was about. She replied, "It's all right. The Chief Secretary just wants to make sure he knows exactly what the current test score is every five minutes." I am sure that the Secretary of State and the Minister will continue to recognise, as was said earlier in the debate, that far more people in this country are interested in sport than in politics. That is something which no politician should ever forget.
  It is important that we have these debates, and this has been a good, well-attended debate. The debates show that we as Members take an interest in the interests of those we represent.
  I recognise that we need to consider carefully some of the issues that will be of great interest to voters in future. One of those issues is undoubtedly the continuing debate about our national sporting events on television. I think that the Secretary of State would accept that he has delayed his decision on more than one occasion. I was told only a few weeks ago by the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), who cannot be in the Chamber today, that he had been promised by the Secretary of State that the final decision—the right hon. Gentleman's response to his own advisory panel—would be taken by mid to late May. We understand that, yet again, the decision will be delayed for a few weeks. I hope that the decision, when it comes, will be in the interests of all sports enthusiasts.
  I say to the Secretary of State that the concern of many Labour Members and that of Members on the Opposition Benches was that the chairman of the advisory panel, Lord Gordon, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and the distinguished athlete Steve Cram were all saying that they felt constrained in coming to a particular recommendation by the very tight wording of their remit. They expressed concern that they might have come to different recommendations if the wording of their remit had been different. The Secretary of State may be needing to reflect for longer partly because of that wording and what was said publicly by the three individuals to whom

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  I have referred. I see the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry). He was present at the all-party sports group meeting.
  Mr. Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hawkins: I certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Reed: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the wording meant that for test cricket, for example, the decision that would be made was inevitable because of the criteria? Does the hon. Gentleman agree also that, especially for rugby, the idea that next year's rugby world cup at Cardiff, if we had an England-New Zealand final or even an England-Wales final, would have no "national resonance", as the report states, is plainly ridiculous?
  Mr. Hawkins: I know that the hon. Gentleman has forcefully made those comments to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sport. We shall hear in due course when the Secretary of State finally makes up his mind.
  The constant delay in making important decisions is starting to become rather typical of the Secretary of State's stewardship of his current responsibilities. We had exactly the same thing with the UK Sports Institute. The Minister for Sport, within a couple of months of his appointment was saying, "It will not take too long to reach a decision." He was giving answers in the House stating that a decision would be made in August of last year. August went by, followed by September, October and November, and no decision was made. Finally, in December, we got the decision.
  Those of us with long memories, who remember the disaster and cost overruns of the world student games in Sheffield, might be slightly concerned that history is repeating itself. However, we all want a national centre of sporting excellence. Conservative Members have repeatedly expressed concerns that too little prominence was being given to team sports and that the Secretary of State was perhaps reducing the importance of involving team sports like cricket and rugby union in the new national centre of excellence. We want it to succeed—make no bones about that.
  We are extremely concerned, however, that since the decision was made there has been little further progress. Written answers that my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk received recently have made it clear that no contracts have been put out to tender. Nothing has been done except an announcement that the main academy would be in Sheffield and that there would then be some regional ones. It is taking far too long. The Secretary of State has continued to suggest that the academy will have a positive effect on the performance of our Olympic team in Sydney in 2000, but it will now not even open until 2000.
  The Government must therefore recognise that sporting bodies, as well as hon. Members on both sides of the House interested in sport, want much more progress made more quickly. I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister want to attract major sporting events to this country. The Secretary of State referred to the team of Bobby Charlton and Tony Banks getting the world cup
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  for Britain—[Interruption.] As the Minister says, it might have been a better team had it consisted of Bobby Charlton and Gordon Banks, but I was quoting the Secretary of State. It causes me grave concern to read in the press that the way in which the decision for the venue of the World cup in 2006 will be reached is by the different candidates for the presidency of FIFA trading off different countries' support, with candidates saying, "We shall definitely give it to Africa" to ensure that they get the African nations' support for their candidacy.
  I am sure that the Minister will reflect that grave concern in his campaign. We do not want such horse trading. Everyone knows that that often happens in major international events, given their commercial significance, but I am sure that the Minister and the Secretary of State share our grave concern about it.
  I wanted to take up some of the other points made in the debate because we have heard some good speeches. Many sporting bodies have expressed the concern about sponsorship. We all understand that the Government have their views on tobacco sponsorship, but, in a debate on sport we should ensure that the sporting bodies whom the Government say will have their main source of sponsorship taken away—sports as diverse as snooker and showjumping—will have a proper replacement. In the past, the Secretary of State promised a task force. The sporting bodies need to know when that task force will meet to help sports that were previously supported by tobacco sponsorship find alternative non-tobacco sponsors. They are concerned that, once again, little progress seems to have been made. Like so many announcements from the Government, there are many fine words but no progress follows.
  Concern has also been expressed about the decision to chip away at the additionality principle of funding from the lottery. The Secretary of State said today that the sporting bodies would get what they thought they would get. However, the sporting bodies legitimately expected that, given that the national lottery introduced by the previous Government was more successful than anybody anticipated, they would benefit from the extra money raised. Instead, the Government have decided to take away that extra money to subsidise core Government programmes, thus undermining the additionality principle. Submission after submission from sporting bodies has stressed that continuing concern.
  In the few remaining minutes, I wish to reinforce one or two concerns that were expressed by other speakers. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) spoke about the importance of continuing to provide opportunities for minor sporting clubs to take advantage of funding. He rightly referred to his pleasure at seeing his team, Cheltenham Town, appear at Wembley. The opportunity for smaller clubs to appear in the play-offs has been a great success. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen), whose kind words I appreciated, and I were lucky enough to see the wonderful first division play-off game between Charlton and Sunderland, which was probably the finest football match that I have ever seen. It ended in a four-all draw with the first 12 penalties all being scored. Everyone contributed to the great success of that game, but we want small sporting clubs around the country to be supported, whether through their own success or by their success in obtaining lottery grants.

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  We want school sport to continue to be supported, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) rightly made clear, and we want the concerns of the fans to be responded to, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) said. We must ensure that sport is considered as part of the health strategy in this nation: as my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) rightly made clear, people are coming out of 10 or more years of compulsory state education far less fit than people in the 1950s and 1960s. The Army has to provide remedial training for recruits, because they simply are not fit enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poole rightly said, 48 per cent. of men and 40 per cent. of women are regarded as overweight. In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate mentioned the importance of widening the debate to include adventure training in sport.
  This has been an excellent debate. I look forward to the Minister's response to our concerns, and to his reflecting on the fact that there must be more action, not only words.
  2.10 pm
  The Minister for Sport (Mr. Tony Banks): May I say straight away that the score is 333 for five? No doubt it will change as I make my speech.
  I thank the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) for his kind words and constructive approach, which has characterised the debate. Of course there are differences of opinion between us, and some things have been said that we may find a little harsh, but, as debates in this place go, the sports debate is one of the better ones.
  Yet again, I have been given an impossible task in my winding-up speech: I have to try to cover all points in 19 minutes. Hon. Members whose points I do not address can be assured that I shall write to them to answer as far as I can.
  I join the tribute paid to the late Lord Howell by hon. Members on both sides of the House. He is an impossible act to follow.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) reminded me that I said on my appointment that becoming the Minister for Sport was like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying. I have discovered that there is more than a little bit of hell involved in the job and there are a considerable number of frustrations. First, I am not in a position to take the executive action that hon. Members continually demand that I should, because I simply do not have the power. I do not like delays any more than any hon. Member, but there are a lot of frustrations in this job: For aspiring candidates, I shall quickly run through the litany.
  First, about £50 million comes into the Department for sport, and £49 million goes out immediately to the Sports Councils, which operate an arm's-length policy and carry out the fun decisions that we spend our time winning elections to achieve. I am the Minister for Sport, but sports policy and activities are involved in the following Departments: Education and Employment—crucially, as we have heard so often in the debate; Environment, Transport and the Regions; Defence; the Foreign Office; the Home Office; Trade and Industry; International Development; and Health. Add to that 112 recognised
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  sports, 413 governing bodies, five Sports Councils and four Ministers with sports responsibilities, and I hope that my hon. Friends will appreciate the complexity.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said that the politics of sport are more complicated and dangerous than Westminster politics. I appreciate that, probably more than anyone. Enough elephant traps are being dug for even the most careful of Ministers to avoid. I certainly could not be accused of being especially careful.
  Sports politics presents a byzantine complexity that would have made Machiavelli take up macramé. I should dearly love to knock heads together, and I can assure hon. Members that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are determined to do what we can to secure greater coherence in sport in this country and to secure a strategic plan for United Kingdom sport—but the obstacles are enormous.
  I see no reason why I should use honeyed words, so I shall be honest with the House. One of the reasons is that I am the political equivalent of a tea boy. It is an honourable task, but it is not an overpowerful situation. It is a job which is heavy on influence, I accept, but light on executive authority. Essentially, I see my job as being an advocate for sport inside and outside Government, with the greater emphasis being on the internal aspects of the job.
  The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring), who has gone to his constituency—we accept that—referred to the problems of horse racing. That is a matter for the Home Office, not for the Minister for Sport, although I clearly have an interest. I certainly have an interest in the Derby. The hon. Gentleman wanted a tip and I will give him one: Second Empire; put a few quid on it.
  Other hon. Members referred to the imposition of value added tax on a number of sports-related activities. We all know that that is a matter for the Treasury. On the 12.5 per cent. take from the lottery by the Treasury, I now know what,"It's you!" means. As far as I can work out it means, "It's you, Chancellor of the Exchequer", every single week. However, that was a decision that the Conservative party made when in government, so there is not much point Conservative Members whingeing about it now. I can assure the House that my Department has made, and will continue to make, representations to the Chancellor on sport. Personally, I believe that we should devote more of our national resources to sport. It is one of the finest investments that we can make because it is an investment in youth, fitness, health, education and achievement.
  The vital element of my job is to campaign for more resources. As we all know, the Chancellor is notoriously tight with our national resources. I often get the feeling that he sits in the Treasury at night counting the money himself, and a very good job he is making of it. If we are to get more resources for sport, we need to make a case in the House for sport. Through debates such as this, which show the all-party consensus that exists throughout so much of sport policy, we can win politically the case for sport, pushing it higher up the agenda and, therefore, enabling us to get greater resources.
  I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), who said that sport was in crisis in this country. Frankly, that is nonsense. The lottery has transformed sport at all levels since its

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  inception. To date, some £812 million has been spent or pledged to more than 4,000 projects in the United Kingdom. That is money that would have been undreamt of four years ago. If one had said then that in four years' time sport would have had £812 million handed out to it, people would have thought that one had escaped from a lunatic asylum. Now, that money has been discounted, as often happens; I understand that. People say, "Yes, fine, we know all about that, but what about some more?" and I understand that as well. With all that money going into sport now, it is bordering on the grotesque to describe sport as being in crisis. That money is making a fundamental difference to sport in this country and I am pleased to acknowledge the role of the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) in getting the lottery up and running, supported by many Labour Members when we were in opposition.
  A number of hon. Members mentioned giving an undertaking on sport continuing to be one of the good causes in the lottery. All that I can do is to repeat my assurance that the Government have no plans to alter funding of existing good causes before 2001 or, indeed, beyond it. I must tell the House—I want hon. Members to listen carefully to this—that if there were any proposals to remove sport as a lottery good cause, I would stand down as Minister for Sport. Indeed, under those circumstances there would be precious little need for such a Minister. What more can I say to try to reassure Conservative Members?
  The hon. Member for West Suffolk mentioned the bipartisan approach in sport, and I welcome that. Of course, we have differences, but we all share a common concern for the good and the advancement of sport, which is something that sport should welcome. That shows the House at its most constructive and best. We all want sports activities to flourish at all levels of our society, from primary schools right through to the Olympic podium. Indeed, if sport is not flourishing in the primary schools, we can forget any achievement at the Olympic podium. We will get one or two geniuses coming through, but we will not get the consistent success rate that the House and the country demand.
  Mr. Bercow: In the light of those remarks, does the Minister believe that there should be an irreducible minimum number of hours available to primary school children for sport?
  Mr. Banks: An irreducible minimum is an interesting concept. Three hours seems to be the norm—it is consistent with what applies in those countries that we regard as our sporting competitors—and that is the figure that I would have in mind. That is only a minimum, however. I should like to see far more.
  I hope that the House has been reassured by what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the national curriculum. We are making it absolutely clear that sport remains compulsory in the curriculum. The national curriculum for primary schoolchildren has been relaxed to ensure that our numeracy and literacy targets can be met, but there is no way that primary schools should stop teaching all the other subjects. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is advising us on
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  how we can maintain a curriculum that not only is broad and balanced, but allows us to meet our important numeracy and literacy targets.
  On the UK Sports Institute—I apologise to the House for gabbling through my speech—yes, there has been delay, but we make no apologies for that. We have waited for years—indeed, for generations—for a proper focus for elite sport, and the Government are determined to get it right. When I was advancing various dates, I said that they would move if we believed that the proposals were not right.
  I do not want delay as a matter of course, but I am not prepared to rush the decision, which must be right. We have set dates, however. We said that, by 30 June, the corporate structure for the ownership and management of the UK Sports Institute headquarters would be agreed; we said that we would progress to interim lottery application by 31 May—that has been done—and to full application by 31 October. We also said that, by 30 September, we would commence implementation of the UK Sports Institute programme of support for selected athletes.
  Progress is being made, much of which involves negotiation of contractual arrangements. If one is not always saying that progress is being made, the House should not assume that nothing is being done. If nothing is being done, I wonder why I am working so damned hard running around all over the place.
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth: So do we.
  Mr. Banks: The hon. Gentleman says, "So do we." He is a latecomer to our feast, but his presence is none the less welcome. In fact, much is being done. Conservative Members should not assume that, in the absence of announcements, there is a lack of activity.
  Much is going on in our schools, particularly our junior schools. I pay tribute to the Youth Sports Trust for all its Tops initiatives in providing equipment to primary schools. It needs more resources, and we are trying to find ways in which to give them more, but I pay great tribute to Sue Campbell, the director, and to John Beckwith, the chairman, who is putting a lot of his personal money into the trust—such people are doing much for sport in this country, and we pay due tribute to them. However, we must always acknowledge the vital role that the Government have to play.
  The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) made a robust, eloquent and, I thought, dangerous speech about world cup tickets. I mean that it was dangerous for me, as I should not get involved in the subject—I know a poisoned chalice when I am offered one, and I do not intend to sup from it this afternoon. The Government have been making representations to the French authorities about ticket allocation since we first learned about it only in February. The Football Association, backed by the Government, pressed for an increase in Britain's original allocation of 9,128 tickets for the first three matches—I accept that that figure was ridiculous and pathetic. I spoke to the French Minister Mrs. Buffet on a number of occasions and registered the Government's strongest feelings about the problem. As hon. Members will know, the allocation was increased to 14,800. That is a 60 per cent. increase, which sounds like a lot, but 14,800 does not even begin to match the demand in this country, especially as the official FA travelling club has 32,000 members.

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  There were never going to be enough tickets to go round, but it would be wrong to blame only the French, as some of our newspapers have. FIFA, the national football associations, Governments and agents must all take a share of the blame. Ticket allocation is a mess, and one larded with injustice. Hon. Members who saw the recent Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme will realise how alarming the situation is if only half the programme was true. It probably was only half. The Government have acted quickly. Yesterday, my colleagues in the DTI moved against Great Portland Entertainments which had to tried to sell tickets that it did not have and which it was not authorised to sell.
  It is no consolation to me to say that the problem is essentially out of my hands. We are determined to use our influence to ensure that it does not happen again. If we secure the 2006 world cup, I assure the House that it will not. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and to hon. Members for the nice things that they said about my involvement in the 2006 campaign. It is a relatively easy part of my job because it has a clear objective. It is well focused and well funded.
  Mr. Chris Smith: It is all over the world.
  Mr. Banks: As my right hon. Friend says, it is all over the world. That is the way it goes. Even my colleagues are cynical. I pay tribute to Alec McGivan, the director of the 2006 campaign, and his staff, and to our three football ambassadors, especially to my good friend Sir Bobby Charlton. I also pay tribute to the chairman of the FA, Keith Wiseman, and Graham Kelly, its chief executive.
  Mr. Stringer: Does my hon. Friend agree that the expectation, and reality, of a successful Commonwealth games will only add to a successful bid for the 2006 world cup?
  Mr. Banks: I could not agree more. If I get the time, I hope to say a few words on the Commonwealth games in Manchester, which we all want to be a great success. We must ensure that they are, for the city and, more importantly, the country.
  Our campaign for 2006 is going well; we are in front. I have great pleasure in telling the House that this morning the English FA publicly endorsed Sepp Blatter as our candidate for the presidency of FIFA. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath asked about the 24 members of FIFA. The crucial vote is on Monday. Keep an eye on it, because we believe that Mr. Blatter would be more impartial on our bid than Mr. Johansson.
  The UK Sports Council was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) and for Stalybridge and Hyde. I also pay tribute to Howard Wells, who is standing down as chief executive, and to Sir Rodney Walker for standing in so well as acting chair. Howard is a friend. We see eye to eye on the problems of British sport. The council's future structure has taxed me greatly. The Secretary of State and I advanced a proposal to our ministerial colleagues in the other home countries. In the light of their opinions, we have amended our proposals and will submit them.
  All that has to be done by negotiation and agreement. It is time consuming, but, again, we are again determined to get it right. Subject to no sudden, unexpected
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  difficulties, we are optimistic that a full statement on the future structure and funding of the UKSC, and the announcement of a new chairman and pro-tern chief executive will be made this month. It will be responsible for giving our fragmented sports structure a UK dimension and for the world-class performance programme on which we depend so much for future medal success. However, the programme will have to be in place for at least 10 years for us to see the continuing benefit that it will produce. The UKSC will be responsible, as at present, for the overall policy direction of the UK Sports Institute. It will be our main vehicle for attracting major international sports events.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) mentioned the Commonwealth games in 2002. The English Sports Council has committed, I think, £113 million so far. We will continue to discuss and monitor outstanding problems as they arise. The games must succeed. We all understand their importance.
  On the Olympic games, it is the British Olympic Association which will make the bid. The Government want it to make a bid. Opinion seems to be coalescing around a date of 2012. The location is for the BOA and the International Olympic Committee. Ultimately, I get the impression that the BOA is only prepared to nominate London. We have to accept that, because the IOC has made it clear as well.
  My final point, although there are many that I want to raise, is about medal success in the Olympic games. The one area in which we remain successful is the Paralympics, and we are doing tremendously well. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde rightly, and generously, pointed out that that is a passion of mine. I maintain close contact with the British Paralympic Association, which will be an integral part of the UK Sports Institute.
  Yesterday, I helped launch a campaign by Scope, the organisation for people with cerebral palsy. Their survey, "Shouting from the sidelines: disabled children on sport", is a poignant record of what the kids say. A kid with physical disabilities said that his best day was when he scored a goal. In other months, his worst days were when he had to watch other boys at school play football and he could not join in although he wanted to. Whatever one's disability, sport offers liberation. The Government, supported by the Opposition and by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, will make sure that disabled sport gets the resources it richly deserves.
  It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

  FINANCE AND SERVICES
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Peter Ainsworth be discharged from the Finance and Services Committee and Mr. Patrick McLoughlin be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Dowd.]

  MODERNISATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
  Ordered,
  That Mrs. Gillian Shephard be discharged from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and Sir George Young be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Dowd.]

  Knoydart Estate
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]
  2.30 pm
  Mr. David Stewart: This debate is about not just a 16,500 acre estate on a west highland peninsula, but the future of a community. There are important wider questions too, about land management, ownership and control. I aim to outline the background problems and the history of the estate, and to consider the way ahead. The hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) may also wish to contribute to the debate. My hon. Friend the Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office has a fine track record on the subject, and I look forward to hearing his reply.
  The 2.30 slot on a Friday afternoon is not one which encourages hon. Members to flock into the Chamber. It is very much the graveyard slot. However, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the matter. As a highlander, I have had an interest in the land debate for many years, ever since I was old enough to hold up my first copy of the West Highland Free Press.
  The Knoydart peninsula has had a chequered history. Following the highland clearances, more than 500 people were forcibly evicted from the estate, and were shipped to America and Australia. Sixteen brave families stayed on, fleeing to the hills until they were tracked down by the factor and removed to America. In those days, economics dictated that sheep were more important than people.
  In 1948, seven men from Knoydart staked out 65 acres of arable land, in defiance of the hated landlord, a millionaire brewer named Lord Brocket. He was a Nazi sympathiser who had met Hitler, and who hosted dinners at Knoydart for senior Nazis, including von Ribbentrop. The land raid was unsuccessful, but the incident has been immortalised in song and verse, and it has become a symbol of the highland land question.
  In 1985, Surrey property dealer Philip Rhodes bought the original 58,000 acre estate for £1.2 million. In 1993, he sold the last 16,500 acres—the estate we are debating today—to the jute company Titaghur. The owner, Reg Brealey, was the first person ever charged with insider dealing, although his trial collapsed. He recently sold the estate to the current director, Stephen Hinchliffe. Bizarrely, the two of them were directors of Sheffield United football club, which follows on the sporting theme of the day.
  Mr. Hinchliffe was the chairman of the Facia retailing empire, which collapsed in 1996 with alleged debts of more than £100 million. The Serious Fraud Office is investigating, and the Department of Trade and Industry has made one referral to the High Court. The disqualification of directors is possible. Two other referrals are in the pipeline.
  I contacted Mr. Hinchliffe at his golfing holiday hotel in Portugal this week. He made it clear that he wants to develop, and stay on, the estate. However, if the community is not behind him, he will consider selling it. For that, he deserves considerable credit. In fairness to him, he has agreed to meet representatives of the local foundation at Knoydart to discuss their fears about a history of failed directorships and his long-term
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  commitment to maintain and improve the estate. They worry about his lack of communication. They worry about the sacking of the estate manager, Mr. Ian Robertson, who was allegedly not paid for more than two and a half years.
  Which way forward? Where do we go from here? I believe that the community can control its own future by purchasing the estate. Mr. Hinchliffe has agreed to negotiate the sale if all else fails. My vision for the estate is not as a sterile zone, but as a thriving, dynamic, innovative community that keeps its isolated charm and protects its natural assets.
  I visited the Knoydart estate during the recess, accompanied by the impressive local councillor Charlie King. I met Eilidh Klemm, the head teacher of Inverie primary school—the most remote school on mainland Britain. It nestles in a bay overlooking Loch Nevis and relies on hydro-electricity and generation power for fuel. I met the class of five pupils and was struck by the commitment of the teacher and the animation of the children. I believe that they deserve a fresh start. I met Bernie Evemy, the local postmaster and chairman of the Knoydart community association. He has worked tirelessly for the cause of the local community and for land reform. I believe that he deserves a fresh start. I met Ian Robertson, the ex-estate manager and the owner of the Old Forge pub. He has the respect of the local community and he is a man of energy and expertise. I believe that he deserves a fresh start.
  I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to visit Knoydart, to add his strength and contribution to the work of the John Muir Trust, the Highland council and the community land unit. I believe that, together, we can create an environment in which a development plan can be created and a bid to buy the estate can be made possible.
  Finally, simply and passionately, I make a plea for the owner to sell, for the Royal Bank of Scotland—the main creditor—to sell and for the Government to support the community in any and every way that they can to follow in the footsteps of the Stornaway trust, the Assynt crofters and the islanders of Eigg, who have created benchmarks for good community land management practice. By working together, we can create new opportunities for the dream of the Knoydart community to be realised.
  2.37 pm
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I am grateful to my neighbouring parliamentary colleague, the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart), for giving me the opportunity to contribute a few words in support of what he has said this afternoon. A small part of the Knoydart peninsula falls within my constituency boundaries and I participated in the visit that the hon. Gentleman convened in the parliamentary recess, by coincidence rather than by design. If I did not gatecrash it, I suppose that I "boatcrashed" it because I was visiting the area in a private rather than a parliamentary capacity. I was fortunate in being able to attend the public meeting that the hon. Gentleman convened along with Councillor King, the chief executive of Highland council and other relevant representatives of public bodies and statutory authorities. Very impressive it was, too.
  The sheer complexity of the difficulties that face so many local people on the estate is daunting, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say, and I wish to underscore, that

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  there is no doubt about the calibre of personnel involved and the genuine commitment of those people, if they are given the proper opportunity to have more of the future of the estate in their own hands and to plan on a more rational basis with a view to the future.
  Knoydart is just one of a litany of names and locations in the west highlands that have become synonymous over the years with the most gratuitous difficulties of landlordism when it appears in its least reputable fashion. The Isle of Raasay is one, the Isle of Eigg is another. We have seen commendable breakthroughs in Assynt more recently and Orbost on Skye in terms of community ownership and crofting trusts. That is something which I very much support.
  It will not be easy, as the hon. Gentleman made clear, to resolve the myriad financial and legal complexities. I do not doubt that that in itself is an inhibition for any Minister. I hope that, in having rightly raised the debate, the hon. Gentleman will have given further profile and impetus to a worthy and long overdue cause.
  2.38 pm
  The Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office (Mr. Brian Wilson): I am delighted that we have a little time this afternoon to discuss this subject. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) on securing the debate and on his choice of youthful reading. He has raised a case study that symbolises the land issue in the highlands, which has been such a long-running sore and source of offence to many. The matters that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Ross and, er—
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: Whatever it is now called.
  Mr. Wilson: Whatever it is now called, but it includes a bit of Knoydart. The matters that they have raised are crucial to the community of Knoydart, but they also have a resonance that stretches further afield. From the days of the MacDonnell clearances, through the era when ex-service men returned from the second world war to find themselves denied land by the pro-Nazi Lord Brocket, down to the more recent speculative activities, Knoydart has come to represent the unacceptable face of highland land ownership. Like Raasay, Eigg and many other communities in recent decades, Knoydart's fate has acquired symbolic importance as well as immediate relevance to the future of the people who live there.
  My hon. Friend has done well in promoting not only the interests of his constituents but the more general case for land reform in Scotland—a policy on which the Government are already engaged on several fronts and to which I have a long-standing attachment.
  Formally, that part of Knoydart on which today's debate is centred is no longer on the market. That creates a difficult dimension to the debate, but I am very interested in what my hon. Friend has said about his recent contact with Mr. Hinchliffe, one of the key figures in the current ownership structure. If the consortium recognises that ownership that nobody living in the place wants or has confidence in is unacceptable, that is a step forward. Let us see what progress can be made from there. I join my hon. Friend in recognising the importance of securing a future ownership of the estate that best ensures that local interests are not overlooked or overridden.
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  My hon. Friend visited the estate and met the current principals and local people last week in the company of Highland council and Highlands and Islands Enterprise representatives. A range of organisations, including the Highland council and the community land unit of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, have a continuing commitment to supporting the interests of the community of Knoydart. The community land unit has established close links with the Knoydart Foundation. It is my sincere hope that those continuing efforts by all concerned about the interests of the people of Knoydart will lead to the future that we all wish for the estate, which has been too long delayed.
  My request to Highlands and Islands Enterprise last year to establish a dedicated unit to give advice and support on community land purchases was a key immediate measure to tackle land problems in the area. Already a number of significant community purchases have been supported, such as those on Eigg and at Abriachan, with which my hon. Friend will be familiar. HIE has purchased the estate of Orbost on Skye to promote a range of developments with and for the community. The enterprise agencies have an important role in applying their resources and expertise in support of development opportunities following any successful land acquisition on behalf of the community. On Eigg and at Orbost the local enterprise companies are working in partnership with the communities on framing and implementing sustainable development measures. That is the way ahead for many other parts of the highlands and islands.
  On the more general issue of land reform, last October we set up the land reform policy group, chaired by my noble Friend Lord Sewel. He and other members of the group are delighted at the strong response to its first consultation paper. More than 360 written responses have been received from across the country. It is the most comprehensive and significant review of land ownership and use in Scotland this century. I am proud of the Government's prompt establishment of the group with such a radical remit, as well as our other measures on land.
  Among the many dimensions of the land issue, Lord Sewel's group is considering the need to tackle existing barriers to community involvement in ownership and management. Even where there are willing sellers, it is clear that such barriers exist—for example, the lack of access to capital and scarcity of management experience.
  The group is also reviewing the existing powers of compulsory purchase and whether they are in need of amendment or replacement. The events at Knoydart represent precisely the kind of situation that the land reform policy group is examining closely to find out what lessons can be learned.
  The group is also analysing carefully all the responses to the questions asked in its consultation and the issues raised by respondents. It will consult again in the late summer. The group intends to issue its final report by the end of 1998. The aim is to complete the work in time for its conclusions to inform the elections to the Scottish Parliament, but it is possible that further actions may be taken sooner. Either way, that work will provide the Scottish Parliament with a vital thought-through agenda for early action on land reform.

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  I am well aware of the strong arguments that have been advanced in support of the suggestion that greater use might be made of heritage lottery funding to support community bids. In fact, I have been known to advance them myself. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is here to listen to the debate.
  As I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber will appreciate, Ministers are not in a position to influence formally the consideration of particular applications by lottery distributing bodies. Nevertheless, policy directions issued to the UK distributing bodies by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport are able to suggest the broad approach that the bodies should take in considering applications, subject to the overall legal constraints on their scope for giving grants. That matter is under active consideration within the context of this debate. After devolution, the Government intend that it should be possible for Scottish Ministers to give separate policy directions covering the involvement of UK distributing bodies in devolved matters in Scotland.
  I also advise my hon. Friend that the national heritage memorial fund has decided to set up a separate Scottish committee to advise on applications from Scotland. The levels of delegation to that committee are likely initially to cover only small grants, but that development reveals a growing sensitivity within the national heritage memorial fund to distinctive Scottish needs.
  It is, perhaps, appropriate to remind all concerned on an occasion such as this that the memorial fund started life as the national land fund, established by Hugh Dalton in his post-war Budget as a memorial finer than anything hewn from stone or cast in bronze to those who had fallen. Many of the properties and areas throughout the United Kingdom to which public access is enjoyed today were obtained for the social interest during the brief operation of the national land fund. That is a magnificent illustration of what can be done if resources are available.
  The national land fund was hated by the Tories and they eventually got rid of it, but the land acquired under the fund was not for the state to own. The state was the conduit through which the land passed to organisations such as the National Trust, the Youth Hostels Association and the Ramblers Association. They preserved and developed those areas, to which the public still have access. The national heritage memorial fund therefore has a strong pedigree that should never be forgotten. It goes back to Dalton's great visionary act in the post-war Labour Budget of putting aside £50 million—an astonishing sum at that time—for the national land fund.
  I am putting in hand today arrangements for Highlands and Islands Enterprise to establish a land purchase fund with access to appropriate resources. Its purpose will be to provide a source of funds to support community-based land purchases or purchases by the highlands and islands network. There is already close collaboration with other bodies, such as Highland council, that have a close interest in community land purchase and may also be able to provide financial support. There is clearly scope to develop co-operation and joint approaches in appropriate cases.
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  In announcing the proposal to establish a land purchase fund, I must make it absolutely clear that the fund will be used to support the last brick in the wall approach that has been developed by the community land unit. There are no blank cheques and I have given a very strong direction that the fund should not be used at all where exorbitant price demands are insisted on by current owners.
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I do not wish to overintrude in another hon. Member's debate, but on the interesting new development that the Minister is describing, I should like to know whether decisions made under the final brick in the wall approach will be full-board ones at Highlands and Islands Enterprise level, with Highlands and Islands Enterprise acting as ultimate arbiter, or whether the Minister will make the final decision? How will the decision-making work?
  Mr. Wilson: As I said, I am initiating today the fund's detailed arrangements and foresee no practical difficulties in the decision-making process. The community land unit is firmly within Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which is answerable to me and to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Highlands and Islands Enterprise has great autonomy within certain spending limits and I do not expect money allocated under the programme to exceed those limits. Equally, however, in cases in which there is sensitivity or public interest, I should expect that there will be consultation on recommendations of the community land unit, as routinely happens between Highlands and Islands Enterprise and me.
  As I said, there will be no blank cheques, and the fund will be used only on the basis of a fair price. It will not meet exorbitant price demands by owners. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber will agree that that measure represents another valuable step forward. However, I should also like to make absolutely clear that all such measures should be regarded as complementary to the far more fundamental work of the land reform working group under Lord Sewel.
  I should like now to mention the possible use of compulsory purchase powers by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to acquire land where there is evidence that its current ownership presents a barrier to economic development or frustrates the well-being of communities. As everyone involved in the debate will realise, in such circumstances there are considerable doubts about whether Highlands and Islands Enterprise's current compulsory purchase powers would enable acquisition of extensive areas of land for the local community—which has been the problem for the past 35 years since the legislation creating the Highlands and Islands development board bestowed rather less radical acquisition powers than had been popularly supposed.
  Consequently, there must be some uncertainty about whether use of a compulsory purchase order would be possible in the case of the Knoydart estate, even if such a step otherwise commended itself. Moreover, as with the compulsory purchase powers of Highland council, use of CPOs in individual cases must, in the first instance, be a matter for the organisation concerned. Regardless, use of CPO powers in that context would involve a major policy change.

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  Although I am not unsympathetic to such a policy change—I do not imagine that anyone would expect me to be—the matter is being considered by Lord Sewel's group as part of a wider land reform package. The Government's view is that it will be necessary to consider a range of measures rather than use compulsory purchase powers in isolation.
  Even when the use of CPOs is intra vires, exercise of such powers can take many months, particularly if contested. I think that we would have to conclude that there must be doubts about whether CPOs present an immediate answer to the problems of Knoydart. I should say that, in certain circumstances, Scottish Natural Heritage's powers also include the compulsory purchase of land.
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport may know better than anyone else in the Chamber, Knoydart is one of the wildest and most beautiful areas in Scotland. It is also one of the best remaining examples of wild land in both the British Isles and Europe. For those reasons, it has been designated a national scenic area. Scottish Natural Heritage is charged with protecting the natural heritage of Scotland. If the natural heritage value of Knoydart were to become threatened, I have no doubt that SNH would have to consider taking appropriate action.
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  I again pay tribute to the commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber in securing a sustainable and productive future for the Knoydart estate that takes account of the interests and aspirations of the local community. I am grateful for the thoughtful and helpful way in which he has raised these matters today and for the supportive comments of the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy).
  I take this opportunity to restate the Government's commitment to the principle of supporting communities that are committed to securing their future by taking responsibility for local land. A key factor in delivering on our commitment is the strategic priority that we have asked Highlands and Islands Enterprise to attach to assisting initiatives that aim to bring development opportunities. Its community land unit and the new land purchase fund that will now back it up are important instruments of that policy.
  Although it is for Highlands and Islands Enterprise in the first instance to consider the precise supports that might be available in individual cases, I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that both we and HIE will continue to look closely at the prospects for assisting the Knoydart community and other similar cases.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Three o'clock.

PRIME MINISTER

  Older People
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has to co-ordinate Government policy for older people. [44582]

  The Prime Minister
  I have established a Ministerial Group which will be chaired by the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). The terms of reference for the group are as set out:

  1. To ensure that Government strategy and policy affecting older people is effectively co-ordinated, avoids duplication, and takes account of the needs of older people;

  2. To develop a better understanding of the lives and aspirations of older people and how they are affected by Government policy by:

  undertaking an audit of cross-Government initiatives to
  identify all those that may affect older people;

  working with non-governmental groups representing older
  people's interests, to gain a better understanding of their
  lives and the implications of an ageing population; and

  developing a statement of values and principles which
  reflect the findings of the audit and wider discussions.

  3. To co-ordinate the presentation and promotion of Government policy affecting older people.

  Membership of the group will comprise Ministers who have particular responsibilities for policy areas which affect older people. It will include the Minister without Portfolio, the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Ministers from the Department of Health, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Cabinet Office (Office of Public Service), the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the Department for Education and Employment, the Home Office, HM Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Scottish Office, the Welsh Office and the Northern Ireland Office.

  The group will make its first report to me before the Summer Recess.

  Northern Ireland Assembly Elections
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will issue guidance on the conduct of Government business during the election campaign for the Northern Ireland Assembly. [44924]

  The Prime Minister
  The business of Government must, of course, continue during the election campaign period, including the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement now endorsed in the referendums. Nevertheless, it is important that the Government conduct business in a way which does not interfere with the electoral contest between the participating candidates and parties.
  370
  With that in mind, I have endorsed the issue of guidance to Government Ministers and Departments in Northern Ireland and I am arranging for copies to be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Indebted Countries
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Prime Minister what plans he has for future relations with poor indebted countries following the G8 summit. [43468]

  The Prime Minister
  Debt was one of the main themes at Birmingham. The conclusions of the discussions mark a significant step forward, both in recognising the need for progress in debt relief by the year 2000, and in endorsing proposals put forward by the UK for faster debt relief to post conflict countries.

  The British Government will be pressing for this work to be advanced urgently amongst other creditors and in the international financial institutions. The Department for International Development will also continue to build partnerships with developing countries as set out in its recent white paper.

  Sierra Leone
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 1 June 1998,Official Report, column 92, when the workshop and seminar were held in the United Kingdom to help President Kabbah restore the legitimate Government of Sierra Leone; and what assessment he has made of the contributions of the workshop and seminar. [44346]

  The Prime Minister
  The workshop took place from 5 to 12 October 1997 and the seminar on 20 October 1997. The workshop produced a 90-day programme for implementation by President Kabbah' s government on their return to Sierra Leone.

  The plan was presented by President Kabbah at the seminar, attended by representatives from the United Nations, the Organisation for African Unity, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission, the US Embassy in Sierra Leone, and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  The plan has provided the basis for immediate actions now being taken by the Government as they re-establish their functions and services in Sierra Leone.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the number of sites of special scientific interest in the area covered by the Lancashire (Wigan) local team office of English Nature; how many new sites were(a) added and (b) removed in each of the last five years; how many of the sites were damaged in the last 12 months; how many of the sites were subject to meetings with the Environment Agency concerning (a) pollution, (b) coastal defences and (c) water table levels in the last year; and what steps are

  371
  being taken in the area to identify new sites of special scientific interest in industrial and urban areas by the local team. [44114]

  Angela Eagle
  English Nature's Lancashire Team, based in Wigan, is responsible for 107 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSIs).

  Twelve new sites were added in the last five years, none were removed.

  In the last 12 months, nine sites suffered some damage by activities such as costal defence works, agricultural operations and emergency works. The Team maintains frequent contact with the Environment Agency over a range of site-specific issues where a number of topics may be discussed. It is not possible to specify each meeting where pollution, coastal defences and water table levels were specifically discussed.

  No specific steps are taken by the Team to identify new sites in industrial and urban areas. However, if they become aware of the special interest of a site during the normal course of business these would be considered for notification.

  Number

  Location by name

  Discharge area

  Grid reference

  1

  Delph New Road/Station

  River Tame

  SD 9873 0743

  2

  Dob Cross New Road

  River Tame

  SD 9903 0632

  3

  Clifton Holmes, Delph

  River Tame

  SD 9818 0804

  4

  Chew Valley Road

  River Tame

  SD 9935 0435

  5

  Royal George Pumping Station

  River Tame

  SD 9802 0385

  6

  Armit Road, (Grasscroft sewage scheme)

  River Tame

  SD 9802 0393

  7

  Dacres, Greenfield

  River Tame

  SD 9890 0416

  8

  St. Anne's Square, Delph

  River Tame

  SD 9861 0788

  9

  East Greenfield

  River Tame

  SD 9929 0429

  10

  Horest Lane

  River Tame

  SD 9705 0952

  11

  Brinnington Rise, Brinnington

  River Tame

  SJ 9064 9185

  12

  Manor Road, Pumping Station, Woodley

  River Tame

  SJ 9333 9288

  13

  Grimesbottom, Portwood (near pylon adjacent to Penny Lane)

  River Tame

  SJ 8975 9134

  14

  Grimesbottom, Portwood (recreation ground near Penny Lane)

  —

  —

  15

  Meadow Lane, Haughton Green

  River Tame

  SJ 9341 9298

  16

  Sheridan Way/Dark Lane Farm Estate No. 3

  River Tame

  SJ 9272 9452

  17

  Raglan Street near Peak Forest

  River Tame

  SJ 9426 9474

  18

  Roaches Lock, Mossley

  River Tame

  SD 9796 0313

  19

  Disused Railway Station in Rassbottom Street/Bayley Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9590 9855

  20

  Wharf Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9347 9822

  21

  Turner Lane/Alexandra Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9394 9877

  22

  Lower Wharf Street (manhole 482)

  River Tame

  SJ 9406 9875

  23

  Lower Wharf Street/Scotland Street (manhole 447)

  River Tame

  SJ 9391 9876

  24

  Hyde Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9371 9536

  25

  Wakeling Road/Stockport Road

  Tributary River Tame

  SJ 9223 9388

  26

  Two Trees Lane/Marina Avenue

  Culvert to River Tame

  SJ 9316 9438

  27

  Dukinfield Road/Throstle Bank Street

  Tributary River Tame

  SJ 9417 9561

  28

  Manchester Road

  Culvert to River Tame

  SD 9740 0166

  29

  Dark Lane

  River Tame

  SD 9765 0261

  30

  Waggon Road

  River Tame

  SD 9753 0197

  31

  Buckton Vale Road

  Culvert to River Tame

  SD 9768 0005

  32

  Grove Road/Spring Bank Lane

  River Tame

  SJ 9748 9995

  33

  Knowle Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9666 9860

  34

  Huddersfield Road

  Culvert to River Tame

  SJ 9723 9881

  35

  Corporation Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9655 9855

  36

  Market Street/Trinity Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9635 9860

  37

  Cumberland Street

  Culvert to River Tame

  SJ 9590 9880

  38

  Trinity Street/Dean Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9636 9853

  39

  Trinity Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9639 9853

  40

  Melbourne Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9628 9853

  41

  Caroline Street/Castle Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9606 9848

  42

  Tame Street/Park Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9539 9816

  43

  Park Road/Sandy Lane

  River Tame

  SJ 9510 9822

  372

  River Tame
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many storm overflows allow untreated sewage to pass into the River Tame; if he will list the grid references of each overflow point; and how many are planned to be fixed by North West Water during each of the next five years. [44112]

  Angela Eagle
  There are 67 storm water overflows which have outfalls affecting the River Tame. The following table shows the location of the outfalls by name and national grid reference.

  There are no plans for improvement of storm overflows into the River Tame during the remaining two years of North West Water's Asset Management Plan 2 (AMP2), agreed in 1994 with the then National Rivers Authority. However, in 1996, three unsatisfactory storm overflows in Audenshaw were abandoned and replaced by one of modern design.

  The Asset Management Plan for the five years from March 2000 (AMP3) is currently under consideration as part of the Periodic Review of water company price limits from 2000–2005, and the unsatisfactory storm water overflows discharging into the River Tame will be considered as part of this process.
  373

  Number

  Location by name

  Discharge area

  Grid reference

  44

  Hanover Street

  Culvert to River Tame

  SJ 9590 9882

  45

  Stamford Street/Astley Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9564 9843

  46

  Clarence Street South

  River Tame

  SJ 9534 9843

  47

  St. George Street/Hanover Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9591 9854

  48

  St. George Street/West Avenue

  River Tame

  SJ 9591 9854

  49

  St. George Street/Hanover Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9591 9854

  50

  Ridge Hill Lane/St. George Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9591 9854

  51

  Binns Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9534 9813

  52

  Copley Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9712 9924

  53

  Hough Hill Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9645 9830

  54

  Hough Hill Road/High Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9645 9825

  55

  Hough Hill Road/Grasscroft Street

  River Tame

  SJ 9645 9818

  56

  Walmsley Street 1

  River Tame

  SJ 9646 9811

  57

  Walmsley Street 2

  River Tame

  SJ 9646 9805

  58

  Walmsley Street 3

  River Tame

  SJ 9646 9798

  59

  Dukinfield Outfall Sewer

  River Tame

  SJ 9327 9670

  60

  Off St. Lawrences Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9335 9509

  61

  ASDA (manhole 773) Park Parade

  River Tame

  SJ 9383 9865

  62

  Caroline Street (North of Bridge)

  River Tame

  SJ 9610 9855

  63

  Illingworth Avenue

  River Tame

  SJ 9727 9843

  64

  Off Mill Lane

  River Tame

  SJ 9406 9478

  65

  Off Gibralter Lane

  River Tame

  SJ 9395 9378

  66

  Off Manor Road

  River Tame

  SJ 9415 9415

  67

  Broomstairs Road combined sewer overflow

  River Tame

  SJ 9304 9652

  Housing (Wandsworth)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions he has had with the London Borough of Wandsworth on its policy of providing affordable housing within the borough. [44116]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Ministers have had no discussions with the London Borough of Wandsworth about its policy of providing affordable housing within the borough. However, as part of the Housing Investment Programme, the Government Office for London, in conjunction with the Housing Corporation, regularly discuss with the authority its housing strategy and policy for assisting the supply of affordable housing.

  The Government's policy on planning and affordable housing is set out in the revised PPG3: Housing and circular 6/98, which replaces circular 13/96. This policy advocates a needs-based, plan-led approach to securing affordable housing in new private housing proposals. This requires that planning authorities carry out rigorous and up-to-date assessments of need for affordable housing in their boroughs, as a basis for preparing their planned policies. Therefore, where there is evidence of need for affordable housing, as is the case in all London authorities, including Wandsworth, we would expect the authority to seek the inclusion of affordable housing in all new housing proposals on suitable sites.

  American Bull Frog
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to ban the import and sale of the giant American bull frog; and if he will make a statement. [44300]

  Angela Eagle
  The EC Wildlife Trade Regulation (Council Regulation 338/97), which implements the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species 374
  of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) within the European Union, contains provisions for the suspension of imports of species on the grounds that they pose an ecological threat to European wildlife. On 15 December 1997, imports into the EU of Rana catesbeiana (American bull frog) were suspended on these grounds. The sale of specimens already legally within the EU are not affected by this ban.

  Common Land
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to publish the Good Practice Guide on Managing the Use of Common Land. [44652]

  Mr. Meacher
  We have today published the Good Practice Guide on Managing the Use of Common Land, which has been produced for us by the Countryside and Community Research Unit of the Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. Copies of the Guide have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  The Guide provides practical advice and solutions to problems experienced in the management of common land and highlights examples of good practice. It is designed for all involved in governing and managing common land. We are therefore distributing copies of the Guide widely to interested organisations and individuals.

  Council Tax Debt Collection
  Mr. Stringer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will change the way in which non-domestic rate debt is enforced following the recent changes to council tax debt collection procedures; and if he will make a statement. [44911]

  Ms Armstrong
  Many of those who respond to our consultation exercise on council tax debt collection expressed the view that similar changes should be made to the non-domestic rating regime. We have decided that,
  375
  where appropriate, the non-domestic collection and enforcement regulations should be brought into line with those for council tax. I am publishing today a consultation paper "Changes to the enforcement and levying of distress for non-domestic rate debts" setting out our proposals.

  It is important that local authorities pursue unpaid business rates rigorously. At the same time, the system needs to operate as fairly as possible for ratepayers. Debtors need to be aware what the procedures are and why they are being pursued for payment. The changes we are proposing will make the system clearer and more effective.

  A copy of the consultation document has been placed in the Library of the House.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Smoking
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the estimated gross cost of anti-smoking campaigns in Northern Ireland aimed at children and young people has been since 1988; and what assessment she has made of the impact of the campaigns on teenage(a) boys and (b) girls. [44013]

  Mr. Worthington
  The estimated expenditure on such campaigns by the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland since its inception in October 1990 is £315,300.

  Campaigns to reduce smoking among young people appear to have had a greater impact upon boys. Post-campaign quantitative and qualitative research among the target group has identified a number of issues which the Department of Health and Social Services will address in the context of the Government's forthcoming White Paper on tobacco control.

  Member

  Residence/Occupation

  Start Date

  End Date

  Dr. Morfydd Rozella Keen, OBE

  Cardiff Consultant Psychiatrist

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mrs. Sandra Mary Skinner

  Brecon Powys Officer, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. Howard John Williamson

  Pontypridd Rhondda Cynon Taff Senior Research Associate

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Roger Bruce De Wisset Duncan

  Penarth Vale of Glamorgan Director of Drugs Project

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Arthur Graham Williams

  Pontardawe Neath Port Talbot Director of Personal Services

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. Edward Coyle

  Cardiff Officer, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme

  1 March 1997

  28 February 2000

  Mr. Dewi Tegla Williams

  Carmarthen Carmarthenshire Director of Nursing Services

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Richard Martin Pates

  Monmouth Monmouthshire Consultant Clinical Psychologist

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. David Jonathan Temple

  Penarth Vale of Glamorgan Director, Postgrad Pharmaceutical Studies

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  376

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Transperience, Low Moor
  Mrs. Ann Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will take steps to ensure that the collection of public transport vehicles at present housed at Transperience, Low Moor, Bradford, remains on public display in the Bradford District. [38555]

  Mr. Fisher
  [holding answer 21 April 1998]: Coopers and Lybrand, the administrators dealing with the assets of the West Yorkshire Transport Trust Limited, have a legal duty to administer the assets, of which this collection forms a significant part, in order to recover moneys owed to the Trust's creditors.

  I have met my hon. Friend to discuss the situation, and I understand that the Keighley Bus Museum Trust will be approaching the Yorkshire and Humberside Museums Council to discuss the heritage value of the collection.

WALES

  Advisory Committee on Drug and Alcohol Misuse
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the members of the Welsh Advisory Committee on Drug and Alcohol Misuse; what their qualifications are; and when their terms of office expire. [44007]

  Mr. Win Griffiths
  The Welsh Advisory Committee on Drug and Alcohol Misuse (WACDAM) comprises a Chair and up to 26 members appointed by the Secretary of State for Wales. Members accept a time commitment of two days per month and receive no remuneration. The Committee is currently chaired by Dr. William Clee, a General Practitioner from Cardiff; his period of appointment extends to March 2000. A list of members of WACDAM, their residence/occupation and periods of appointment is as follows:
  377

  Member

  Residence/Occupation

  Start Date

  End Date

  Miss Marilyn Haydn Jones

  Conwy Lecturer in Education

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. Michael Stanhope Shooter

  Abergavenny Monmouthshire Consultant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Ray Singh

  Neath Neath Port Talbot Barrister

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Tony Burden

  South Wales Police

  24 April 1998

  31 October 1999

  Mrs. SiâRees

  Clunderwen Carmarthenshire Manager of Health Promotion Centre

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Rory Annesley

  Presteigne Powys Retired

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Owen Aneurin Owen

  Denbigh Denbighshire Voluntary Agency Director

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mrs. Susan Marie Allerston

  Bridgend Advisory Teacher for Health Education

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Ms Rhoda Briony Emlyn-Jones

  Cardiff Principal Social Services Officer

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Mr. Jeffrey Anthony Collins

  Swansea Chief Probation Officer

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. John Michael Browne

  Reigate Surrey Deputy Director, Portman Group

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. Peter John Priddle Higson

  Llanrwst Conwy Deputy Chief Executive

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. John Robert Kemm

  Birmingham Director of Public Health Services

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  Dr. Duncan Meredydd Williams

  Ammanford Carmarthenshire General Medical Practitioner

  1 November 1996

  31 October 1999

  There are currently three vacancies on WACDAM.

  Continence Services
  Ms Lawrence
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people in Dyfed/Powys Health Authority area by unitary authority area are provided with continence services; and what budget has been allocated to continence care in real terms for each year since 1990–91. [43472]

  Mr. Win Griffiths
  The funding for continence services is unhypothepothecated and is within each health authority's discretionary allocation. It is not possible, therefore, to give precise figures for budgets for these services for the years in question. Figures that are available for 1997/98 in the Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust show that it spent £198,000 on community-based continence care.

  The GP Morbidity Database Project estimated a rate of 3.8 per 1,000 people in Wales suffering from incontinence during 1996. This would imply a total for Wales of around 11,000. This is likely to be an underestimate of the number of people provided with services because the data record those patients consulting their GP about incontinence in 1996; patients coded as suffering from incontinence in previous years would not appear in the data.
  378
  Estimates at more detailed geographical levels are not robust. Data collected from NHS Trusts situated in the Dyfed Powys area indicate that Continence Nurses made a total of 995 contacts during the financial year 1996–97. This does not equate with people seen, since more than one contact during the year may well have been made.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  EU Justice and Home Affairs Council
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Justice and Home Affairs Council held in Brussels on 28 and 29 May. [44991]

  Mr. Straw
  I chaired the Council on behalf of the Presidency. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Ms Quin) represented the United Kingdom.

  This was a very successful Council, where agreement was reached on a number of outstanding issues. There was also full discussion of a range of issues relating to the justice and home affairs aspects of the enlargement process. The main matters dealt with were as follows.
  379
  Ministers signed the Convention on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Matrimonial Matters (known as the 'Brussels II Convention') and its Protocol relating to the European Court of Justice. This convention establishes grounds for court jurisdiction in cases of divorce, nullity and separation, as well as related parental responsibility orders securing care for any children involved.

  The Council agreed as 'A' points, among other things, a report on terrorist funding aimed at combating terrorism by cutting off sources of funding and countering terrorist fund raising; a report on football hooliganism; a report on the exchange of DNA analysis results; conclusions on encryption and law enforcement; a recommendation seeking to establish uniform levels of expertise and equipment for detecting forged documents at points of entry into the European Union; and a Council Communication concerning a uniform format for residence permits.

  The Council held a wide-ranging open debate on organised crime, in which Ministers stressed concerns about the growing threat posed by criminal organisations and the need for member states to act both individually and collectively to combat the threat. The Council agreed that environmental and economic crime in particular were activities on which more work should be taken forward.

  The Council noted a report on progress in implementing the Action Plan on Organised Crime which, subject to appropriate updating, will now be submitted to the Cardiff European Council.

  Political agreement was reached on the Convention on Driving Disqualification, which will now be finalised and made ready for early signature. This convention is an important road safety measure which will enable a driving disqualification imposed in one member state to be enforced in another.

  A Joint Action was agreed on good practice in mutual legal assistance. A further Joint Action establishing a European Judicial Network was also agreed, which will help to speed up gathering of evidence across jurisdictions and facilitate contacts between magistrates and prosecutors. This was one of the recommendations in the Action Plan on Organised Crime.

  The Council noted progress in the preparations for Europol to begin working. The ratification by all member states of the Convention is expected to be completed soon. The Council agreed that the activities of Europol should be extended to terrorism in principle from 1 January 1999 and that the necessary preparatory work should be put in hand. We also agreed the Europol budget for 1999.

  The Council had a wide-ranging discussion on the Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, and reached agreement on some of the outstanding issues. However, further work remains to be done on several important issues including data protection, interception of communications and the role of the European Court of Justice.

  The Council agreed a Joint Action establishing a mechanism for collective evaluation of applicant states' implementation of the acquis in the Justice and Home Affairs field. A new expert group will be able to draw on the wide range of information already available and feed
  380
  the results of its evaluations into the wider enlargement process. Conclusions on the 'rule of law' were also agreed, which will provide guidelines to the applicant states on what they need to do to build democratic and accountable institutions as a necessary pre-condition for European Union membership. There was also a discussion of ways in which the applicant states might be associated with the practical application of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) acquis before their formal accession, and this issue will be considered further.

  The Council held a joint meeting with Interior and Justice Ministers from the applicant countries to approve the Pre-Accession Pact on Organised Crime, which was another of the recommendations of the Action Plan on Organised Crime; its approval six months ahead of the timetable set by the Amsterdam Council represents a significant achievement. Ministers also had a useful discussion covering organised crime, implementation of the pre-accession pact and the rule of law. There was full agreement on the importance placed on these issues, and members of the JHA Council emphasised that they stood ready to assist the candidate countries in these areas.

  The Council agreed arrangements for the exchange of information and best practice in crime prevention, in advance of the coming into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam. A report on European Union drugs activities was approved and will be forwarded to the European Council in Cardiff. This included elements of a post-1999 European Union drugs strategy.

  The Council discussed, on the basis of proposals from Italy, the varying data protection provisions which exist in different Justice and Home Affairs instruments. Further work was commissioned to examine the scope and need for greater harmonisation of approach.

  A progress report was presented on the Action Plan on the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region. The incoming Austrian Presidency agreed to pursue the implementation of the Action Plan and to report to the next meeting of the Council in September.

  There was a full discussion of outstanding issues on the Eurodac convention, which is concerned with fingerprinting of asylum applicants. It was agreed that a Protocol should be drawn up to extend the convention to fingerprints of illegal immigrants. This is extended to be adopted by the end of 1998, when the other outstanding issues on the Convention itself should also be resolved.

  After the Council, the first meeting was held of the Committee of Ministers set up under article 18 of the Dublin Convention, which lays down criteria for determining the State responsible for deciding asylum applications. The Committee agreed on a Decision and a Programme of Action aimed at improving the operation of the Dublin Convention.

  Prison Service
  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the Prison Service's Business Plan for 1998–99. [44992]

  Ms Quin
  I am publishing today the Prison Service Business Plan for 1998–99, including the key performance targets I have set. The majority will require some improvement on the Prison Service's very creditable performance in 1997–98.
  381
  They are:

  Escapes:
  to ensure no Category A Prisoners escape
  to ensure that the number of escapes from prisons and from escorts, expressed as a proportion of the prison population, is lower than in 1997–98

  Assaults:
  to ensure that the number of assaults on staff, prisoners and others, expressed as a proportion of the average population, is lower than 9 per cent.

  Drugs:
  to ensure that the rate of positive testing for drugs (the number of random drug tests that prove positive expressed as a percentage of the total number of random tests carried out) is lower than 20 per cent.

  Overcrowding:
  to ensure that the percentage of the prison population above the uncrowded capacity of the estate is no more than 12 per cent.

  Purposeful Activity:
  to ensure that prisoners spend on average at least 24 hours per week engaged in purposeful activity

  Time Unlocked:
  to ensure that at least 60 per cent. of prisoners are held in establishments which normally unlock all prisoners on the standard or enhanced regime for at least 10 hours per weekday

  Offending behaviour programmes:
  to ensure that there are at least 3,000 completions by prisoners of programmes accredited as being effective in reducing re-offending, of which 680 should be completions of the Sex Offender Treatment Programmes

  Cost per place:
  to ensure that the average cost of a prison place does not exceed £24,615

  Staff training:
  to ensure that, on average, staff spend at least 6.5 days in training.

  I will publish a long-term strategy for the Prison Service, including new objectives and targets, once the Comprehensive Spending Review is completed.

  Chief Police Officers
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will place in the Library a copy of the full accounts of the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the last year for which the accounts are available; [44096]

  (2) which grades so entitled within the police service have refused to join (a) the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and (b) ACPO Ltd; [44098]

  (3) if the members of ACPO who became directors of ACPO Ltd. informed their respective police authorities that ACPO was a limited company. [44102]

  Mr. Michael
  None of those entitled or invited to join have refused to join the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland or ACPO Limited.

  I have arranged for a full copy of the accounts for 1996/97 for the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) to be placed in the Library.
  382
  The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland is not part of the Home Office, nor is it accountable to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The appointment of chief officers of police as directors of ACPO is a matter for those chief officers and their police authorities.

  Prisoners (Self-harm)
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research is being evaluated by his Department into the reporting of incidents of self-harm by young prisoners. [43875]

  Ms Quin
  A Prison Service Headquarters research and development group on suicide and self-injury acts as a forum for formulating and co-ordinating research into suicide and self-injury in forensic settings. A range of research has been conducted, including developing risk screening procedures amongst young offenders. Current commissioned research includes a project being undertaken at the University of Kent at Canterbury, examining current practices of recording and monitoring self-injury and suicidal behaviours, with the objective of identifying more effective methods of management.

  The 1997 publication "Suicide and Self-Injury in Prisons" (by the British Psychological Society) includes an overview of recent and current research in the area.

  In addition, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham, is currently preparing an independent thematic review on suicides and self-injury in prisons, which is expected to be completed later this summer.

  Prisoners
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) males and (b) females aged
  (i) 14, (ii) 15, (iii) 16, (iv) 17 and (v) 18 years were held in prisons on 1 May. [43656]

  Ms Quin
  The latest available information is for 30 April 1998 and is given in the table. Information on the population of young persons, by age and type of custody is published in successive volumes of "Prison statistics, England and Wales" (Table 3.2 of the 1996 edition—Cm 3732), copies of which are in the Library.

  Population of young persons in prisons in England and Wales by sex and age on 30 April 19981

  Age

  Male

  Female

  14

  —

  —

  15

  224

  5

  16

  685

  21

  17

  1,501

  61

  18

  2,309

  102

  1 Provisional figures

  Private Prisons
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements are made when assistance is provided by state prisons to private prisons for(a) controlling riot situations and (b) other purposes. [44008]
  383
  Ms Quin
  The arrangements made for providing assistance from public sector prisons to a contracted-out prison for dealing with a serious incident are no different from those between public sector prisons. These arrangements are reciprocal between public and private sectors and staff from a contracted-out prison could be used in support of a public sector prison.

  A serious incident is one which:

  poses a threat to the control of the whole or part of an establishment; and/or

  involves concerted hostile activities by a group or groups of prisoners; and/or

  may result in the evacuation of the whole or part of the establishment; and/or

  causes the governor/director to require assistance from other establishments and/or the emergency services.

  Should a serious incident occur in a contracted-out prison, trained support and specialist staff from the public sector would be provided at the same level as for a similar incident in a public sector prison.

  The provision of assistance to a contracted-out prison in the above circumstances does not incur a financial charge to the contractor. Where assistance is provided for other purposes, the cost would be charged to the contractor as appropriate.

SCOTLAND

  Students (Tuition Fees)
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the estimated total of tuition fees which will be payable in the final year of four-year honours courses at Scottish universities and colleges by United Kingdom students from outside Scotland. [44427]

  Mr. Wilson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) on 24 November 1997,Official Report, column 422.

  Students
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many United Kingdom students from outside Scotland are in the final year of four-year honours degree courses at Scottish universities or colleges. [44428]

  Mr. Wilson
  Statistics on the numbers of students in the final year of an honours course are not held centrally.

  The number of United Kingdom honours graduates from outside Scotland who qualified on first degree courses in Scotland in 1997 is given in the table.

  1997 Non-Scottish United Kingdom honours graduates from Scottish higher education institutions, by mode of study and years on course

  Years on course

  Full time

  Part time

  All students

  Three or fewer

  508

  2

  510

  Four

  2,891

  5

  2,896

  Five or more

  635

  12

  647

  Unknown

  2

  0

  2

  All graduates

  4,036

  19

  4,055

  384

  Appointments
  Mr. Moore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the names of those people whom he has appointed since 1 May 1997, indicating(a) the positions to which they have been appointed, (b) the dates of their tenure, (c) their professions, (d) their salaries, (e) the name of the person they replaced and (f) the profession of the person they replaced. [44071]

  Mr. Dewar
  The information at(a) to (d) is available in the public appointments section of the Scottish Office website on the Internet (http://www.scotland.gov.uk). It is not possible to provide a meaningful response to (e) and (f) since individual members of public bodies—other than Chairmen—are not normally appointed in direct replacement for others.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Statistics (Boundary Maps)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to her answer of 5 May 1998,Official Report, column 265, if she will make a statement on the basis on which the map for European NUTS II submitted to Eurostat was compiled, and if the map is being used to determine structural fund allocations. [43615]

  Mrs. Roche
  The criteria used by the UK Government Statistical Service in formulating proposals for changes to the NUTS classification are set out in the consultation document issued by the Office for National Statistics in June 1996. A copy of this was placed in the House of Commons Library.

  The extent to which NUTS boundaries could be used for structural fund allocations will be set out in the relevant regulations. The European Commission made its proposals on 18 March 1998; these now need to be negotiated in the Council of Ministers and where appropriate approved by the European Parliament. The NUTS boundaries for the UK which might then be used may depend on the timing of the conclusion of discussions between the Government Statistical Service and Eurostat.

  Insolvencies
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what has been the cost to public funds of the processing of insolvencies in each of the past eight years. [44206]

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths

  £000

  Year

  Total cost

  1990–91

  49,611

  1991–92

  56,897

  1992–93

  63,466

  1993–94

  69,350

  1994–95

  71,814

  1995–961

  99,199

  1996–971

  76,009

  1 The costs for 1995–96 and 1996–97 are from the agency's audited accounts. The 1995–96 accounts include an exceptional item of £12.502 million.

  Annual accounts for the year ended 31 March 1998 are currently being audited.
  385
  The Department of Trade and Industry receives the income generated by the fees charged to insolvent estates administered by Official Receivers and insolvency practitioners. Additionally, HM Treasury receives

  £000

  1990–91

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  1994–95

  1995–96

  1996–97

  Fees paid to Department of Trade and Industry

  22,385

  35,403

  45,849

  38,661

  25,957

  41,308

  30,076

  Investment income paid to HM Treasury

  26,545

  27,367

  26,509

  31,775

  41,415

  47,079

  37,994

  Total income

  48,930

  62,770

  72,358

  70,436

  67,372

  88,387

  68,070

  Net (cost)/surplus to public funds

  (681)

  5,873

  8,892

  1,086

  (4,442)

  (10,812)

  (7,939)

  Arms Exhibitions
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list those officials from her Department who attended the Contingency and Operational Procurement Exhibition (COPEX) in Jordan in April, indicating the costs of their attendance and the total amount of public funds extended by her Department to companies attending this event. [44506]

  Mrs. Roche
  No DTI officials attended the 1998 edition of COPEX in Jordan, and we did not subsidise UK firms to exhibit at or visit the event.

  Dounreay
  Dr. Moonie
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recommendations she has received about the future of Dounreay. [44559]

  Mr. Battle
  The UKAEA have advised me that there is no economic case for supporting commercial reprocessing at Dounreay over the longer term. The Government have therefore decided that Dounreay should take on no further commercial reprocessing work. Reprocessing at Dounreay will therefore come to an end when the plant has completed reprocessing its own fuel, the Georgian Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and its existing commercial contracts.

  In carrying forward this remaining work, the UKAEA has assured my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and me that safety will be paramount and,

  Gross income

  150

  200

  250

  300

  400

  For the 1998–99 tax year

  Single Person—no children

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  13.87

  24.96

  36.46

  47.96

  70.96

  Tax and NICs, as a percentage of gross earnings

  15.8

  19.9

  22.5

  24.3

  26.5

  Net income

  126.25

  160.16

  193.66

  227.16

  294.16

  Equivalised Net Income

  206.97

  262.55

  317.47

  372.39

  482.22

  Lone Parent (1 child aged 4 years)—new lone parent since April 1998, not receiving lone parents benefit

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  Family Credit

  37.54

  13.80

  0.00

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -20.5

  4.6

  15.8

  18.6

  22.2

  Net Income

  180.72

  190.89

  210.59

  244.09

  311.09

  Equivalised Net Income

  228.76

  241.63

  266.56

  308.97

  393.78

  386
  investment income from the Insolvency Services Account and Insolvency Services Investment Account. Since March 1990, these have been:

  for as long as their fuel reprocessing plans remain, they will continue to be maintained to the standards needed to satisfy all regulatory requirements. The Government believe that nothing is more important than safety in the management of nuclear facilities. That is why we welcome the audit of safety procedures and management currently being taken forward by the Health and Safety Executive and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency at Dounreay, which will ensure that the highest standards of safety are maintained.

TREASURY

  Income Tax
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 20 April 1998,Official Report, columns 400–02, concerning income tax, national insurance and child benefits, if he will provide comparable figures for (a) the tax year 1998–99 and (b) the second half of 1999–2000 on the basis of the figures used in the Financial Statement and Budget Report. [42670]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The information requested, including Family Credit or Working Families Tax Credit for the different family types, is contained in the table. The childcare tax credit within the WFTC will also provide substantial help for working families. For example, a family with one child could receive up to £70 per week towards childcare costs, and up to £105 a week for families with more than one child.
  387

  Gross income

  150

  200

  250

  300

  400

  Lone Parent (1 child aged 4 years)—lone parent from before April 1998, so still receiving lone parent benefit

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  Family Credit

  37.54

  13.80

  0.00

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -24.2

  1.7

  13.5

  16.8

  20.8

  Net Income

  186.37

  196.54

  216.24

  249.74

  316.74

  Equivalised Net Income

  235.91

  248.79

  273.72

  316.12

  400.93

  Lone Parent (2 children aged 4 years and 6 years)—new lone parent since April 1998, not receiving lone parent benefit

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  Family Credit

  52.39

  28.65

  5.20

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -36.6

  -7.5

  10.0

  15.5

  19.9

  Net Income

  204.87

  215.04

  225.09

  253.39

  320.39

  Equivalised Net Income

  204.87

  215.04

  225.09

  253.39

  320.39

  Lone Parent (2 children aged 4 years and 6 years)—lone parent from before April 1998, so still receiving lone parent benefit

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  Family Credit

  52.39

  28.65

  5.20

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -40.1

  -10.2

  7.8

  13.8

  18.6

  Net Income

  210.22

  220.39

  230.44

  258.74

  325.74

  Equivalised Net Income

  210.22

  220.39

  230.44

  258.74

  325.74

  Single Earner Married Couple (1 child aged 4 years)

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  11.45

  Family Credit

  37.54

  13.80

  0.00

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -20.5

  4.6

  15.8

  18.6

  22.2

  Net Income

  189.66

  192.53

  210.59

  244.09

  311.09

  Equivalised Net Income

  160.73

  163.16

  178.46

  206.85

  263.63

  Single Earner Married Couple (2 children aged 4 and 6)

  National Insurance

  9.88

  14.88

  19.88

  24.88

  34.88

  Income Tax

  8.38

  19.48

  30.98

  42.48

  65.48

  Child Benefit

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  20.75

  Family Credit

  52.39

  28.65

  5.2

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -36.6

  -7.5

  10.0

  15.5

  19.9

  Net Income

  214.10

  216.95

  225.09

  253.39

  320.39

  Equivalised Net Income

  154.03

  156.08

  161.94

  182.29

  230.49

  With Budget measures coming into effect in 1999

  These figures include the effect of Budget measures coming into effect in 1999—using otherwise non-uprated 1998–99 tax and benefit rates

  Single Person—no children

  National Insurance

  8.6

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  13.87

  24.96

  36.46

  47.96

  70.96

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  15.0

  19.3

  22.0

  23.9

  26.1

  Net Income

  127.53

  161.44

  194.94

  228.44

  295.44

  Equivalised Net Income

  209.07

  264.65

  319.57

  374.48

  484.32

  Lone Parent (1 child aged 4 years)—new lone parents since April 1998, not receiving lone parents benefit

  Equivalisation Factor

  0.79

  0.79

  0.79

  0.79

  0.79

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  WFTC

  51.80

  33.15

  14.73

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -31.3

  -6.1

  9.1

  18.0

  21.7

  Net Income

  196.93

  212.19

  227.27

  246.04

  313.04

  Equivalised Net Income

  249.28

  268.60

  287.68

  311.44

  396.25

  Lone Parent (1 child aged 4 years)—lone parent from before April 1998, so still receiving lone parent benefit

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  17.10

  WFTC

  51.80

  33.15

  14.73

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -33.4

  -7.7

  7.8

  16.9

  21.0

  Net Income

  200.08

  215.34

  230.42

  249.19

  316.19

  Equivalised Net Income

  253.27

  272.58

  291.66

  315.43

  400.24

  388 389

  Gross income

  150

  200

  250

  300

  400

  Lone Parent (2 children aged 4 years and 6 years)—new lone parents since April 1998, not receiving lone parents benefit

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  WFTC

  66.65

  48.00

  29.58

  11.15

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percnetage of gross earnings

  -47.4

  -18.2

  -0.6

  11.2

  19.4

  Net Income

  221.08

  236.34

  251.42

  266.49

  322.34

  Equivalised Net Income

  221.08

  236.34

  251.42

  266.49

  322.34

  Lone Parent (2 children aged 4 years and 6 years)—lone parent from before April 1998, so still receiving lone parent benefit

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  26.10

  WFTC

  66.65

  48.00

  29.58

  11.15

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -49.3

  -19.6

  -1.7

  10.2

  18.7

  Net Income

  223.93

  239.19

  254.27

  269.34

  325.19

  Equivalised Net Income

  223.93

  239.19

  254.27

  269.34

  325.19

  Single Earner Married Couple (1 child aged 4 years)

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  13.95

  WFTC

  51.80

  33.15

  14.73

  0.00

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -31.3

  -6.1

  9.1

  18.0

  21.7

  Net Income

  196.93

  212.19

  227.27

  246.04

  313.04

  Equivalised Net Income

  166.89

  179.82

  192.60

  208.51

  265.29

  Single Earner Married Couple (2 children aged 4 and 6)

  National Insurance

  8.60

  13.60

  18.60

  23.60

  33.60

  Income Tax

  10.21

  21.31

  32.81

  44.31

  67.31

  Child Benefit

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  23.25

  WFTC

  66.65

  48.00

  29.58

  11.15

  0.00

  Tax and NICs, less child benefit and WFTC, as a percentage of gross earnings

  -47.4

  -18.2

  -0.6

  11.2

  19.4

  Net Income

  221.08

  236.34

  251.42

  266.49

  322.34

  Equivalised Net Income

  159.05

  170.03

  180.87

  191.72

  231.90

  The figures in the table are weekly amounts for the 1998–99 tax year. The figures for 1998–99 include the effect of increasing child credits in income related benefits for under 11 s which will be introduced in November 1998.

  The data assume that the earner in the household is working over 30 hours a week for Family Credit and Working Families Tax Credit purposes; that earnings are from employment; and that there are no other sources of income. Two versions of each lone parent example are shown: one with new lone parents since April 1998; and one set with those who have been lone parents since 1998, and so will still be receiving lone parent benefit.

  The standard McClements scales have been used to determine equivalised income. This is the same process that is used in the DSS's Households Below Average Income publication.

  Income tax and NICs, less child benefit and family credit, are shown as a percentage of gross earnings, with negative figures where the family is a net gainer overall from direct taxes and benefits.

  Some of these families may also be entitled to housing benefit and council tax benefit. However, as this will depend upon the composition of the housing costs (between mortgage payments, council tax, and rent) housing benefit and council tax benefit have been left out of these figures.
  390

  Tax Reclaims
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of tax was reclaimed on bank and building society interest by(a) all people and (b) people aged 65 years or over in 1996–97, indicating (i) the average, (ii) the medium, (iii) the smallest and (iv) the largest amount reclaimed. [43338]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: The latest information is derived from the 1995–96 Survey of Personal Incomes. It is estimated that claims were received for the repayment of £110 million tax deducted from bank and building society interest that was paid or credited in 1995–96. The average amount claimed per claimant was £130 and the median was £60.

  People aged 65 or over accounted for £65 million of these claims; for these people the average amount of tax claimed back was £140 and the median was £75.

  Information is not available about the smallest and largest amounts claimed.

  Tax was deducted from bank and building society interest at 25 per cent. in 1995–96.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the number of(a) people of all ages and (b) people aged 65 years or over who did not reclaim tax paid on bank and building society interest in 1996–97 and who were entitled to do so; and if he will indicate the average amount not reclaimed. [43340]
  391
  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: The Inland Revenue have no way of identifying most non-taxpayers, so estimates of the numbers of eligible people who have not claimed back tax on their bank or building society interest are not available from Inland Revenue sources. The external sources that have been used in the past to help provide rough estimates are now out of date.

  People who know that they are likely to be non-taxpayers are able to register their bank and building society accounts to receive their interest without tax deducted.

  Double Tax Relief
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the parameters of the review into double tax relief for companies are that the relief should be revenue neutral. [43572]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: The Government attach great importance to the relief of double taxation, as indicated in the Inland Revenue press release of 17 March 1998. The current review will examine the functioning and fairness of the present system, its effectiveness in meeting the objectives for which it is provided and the compliance costs that it involves for business. Its purpose is to consider the case for structural reform in the context of international developments and the organisation of multinational businesses. The cost of the relief is influenced by a number of factors, including the amount of foreign income that is taxed in the UK and relative tax rates in the UK and other countries. A consultation document will be issued in due course.

  Tax Credit
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the number of(a) non-taxpayers and (b) non-taxpayers aged over 65 years who did not reclaim

  Resolution number

  Date

  Resolution

  38(1948)

  17 January 1948

  Calls on India and Pakistan not to aggravate Kashmir dispute

  39(1948)

  20 January 1948

  Establishes Commission (UNCIP) to investigate and mediate in Jammu and Kashmir

  47(1948)

  21 April 1948

  Recommends plebiscite to decide sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir

  51(1948)

  3 June 1948

  Urges Commission to speed up work on SCR 47

  80(1950)

  14 March 1950

  Calls for demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir and appoints UN Representative to the region

  91(1951)

  30 March 1951

  Reaffirms need for demilitarisation and plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir

  96(1951)

  10 November 1951

  Approves India and Pakistan's willingness to observe ceasefire and work for plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir

  98(1952)

  23 December 1952

  Urges India and Pakistan to negotiate two outstanding proposals of UN Representative

  122(1957)

  24 January 1957

  Denies recognition for decisions of "All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference"

  123(1957)

  21 February 1957

  SC President asked to discuss Jammu and Kashmir dispute with India and Pakistan

  126(1957)

  2 December 1957

  Notes report of SC President; urges India and Pakistan to refrain from aggravating situation

  We believe that it is primarily for India and Pakistan to find a solution to the problem. In doing so, we believe that the two sides should build on both the UN Resolutions and the 1972 Simla agreement.
  392
  a tax credit to which they were entitled on dividends paid in 1996–97; and if he will indicate the average amount not reclaimed and the saving to the Treasury. [43339]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: The Inland Revenue have no way of identifying most non-taxpayers, so estimates of the numbers of eligible people who have not claimed payments of tax credits on dividends are not available from Inland Revenue sources. Neither are there external sources that could provide reliable estimates.

  Public Sector Pay
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if it is his policy to pay in full the recommendations of the public sector review bodies for pay settlements in the year 1999–2000; and if he will make a statement. [44295]

  Mr. Darling
  [holding answer 4 June 1998]: The recommendations are being paid in full this year, although staged. We will consider next year's recommendations at the time.

  Child Benefit
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has for taxing child benefit. [44574]

  Dawn Primarolo
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated in his Budget statement that, if Child Benefit were raised, there must be a case in principle for higher rate taxpayers paying tax on it.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Kashmir
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the current United Nations Resolutions which apply to Kashmir and the date on which each was agreed; and if he will take steps to ensure that each is updated. [44221]

  Mr. Fatchett
  The United Nations Security Council has adopted the following resolutions on Kashmir:
  393

  Correspondence
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) expects to reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Spelthorne dated 8 May. [44105]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  I replied to the hon. Member on 1 June.

DEFENCE

  NATO Exercise (Macedonia)
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the code name of the NATO exercise in Macedonia in September; when he decided to commit British troops; and when(a) he or (b) his officials consulted (i) ministers and (ii) officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. [41182]

  Mr. George Robertson
  [holding answer 8 May 1998]: The NATO Partnership for Peace exercise due to take place in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia this September is called Cooperative Best Effort 98. My Department has decided, in consultation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that British troops will participate in the exercise. We will announce our contribution shortly.

  Married Quarters
  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many married quarters or commercial hirings he estimates would be required if a single Divisional HQ was established to cover Scotland and the north of England; what would be the capital value of these quarters if such an HQ were located in Scotland; and if the capital cost of the married quarters will be included in the estimates of the relative costs of establishing such an HQ in Scotland and in England. [43991]

  Dr. Reid
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: These are matters to be studied during the course of the review that is being undertaken; and I should expect them to be reflected in the cost estimates of the options, when presented to Ministers, to the extent that they materially affect the options.

  Mr. Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many married quarters and commercial hirings there are currently for soldiers working at UK Land Command's(a) 2 Div HQ and (b) Scottish District HQ; and what is the estimated capital value of the married quarters used by soldiers at the Scottish District HQ. [43990]

  Dr. Reid
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: Service Families Accommodation (SFA) in mainland UK is provided and allocated on a tri-service basis by the Defence Housing Executive. Houses are not generally provided for the exclusive use of particular formations or units. Currently, about 50 personnel at 2 Div HQ in York occupy SFA, mainly leased from Annington Homes which currently attract no capital charge. About 30 Service personnel at Scottish District HQ in Edinburgh occupy SFA, all owned by MOD, the capital value of which is approximately £2.5 million.
  394

  Helicopters
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) Sea Harrier, (b) Lynx and (c) Sea King were (i) allocated to frontline Fleet Air arm units, (ii) fully serviceable, (iii) undergoing major maintenance and (iv) held as in use reserve on 1 June. [44126]

  Dr. Reid
  On 1 June 1998, 24 Sea Harriers, 51 Lynx and 83 Sea King aircraft were allocated to front line Fleet Air Arm Units. The number fully serviceable were 20, 43 and 66 respectively. Those undergoing major maintenance were 4, 7 and 13 respectively, and these, together with 2 additional Lynx, form the In Use Reserves.

  Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal School
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the letter sent to the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East by the Minister for the Armed Forces on 18 May, if a decision has now been made on the relocation of the Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal School; and if he will make a statement. [44222]

  Dr. Reid
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 6 April 1998,Official Report, column 51. I expect to be able to announce, before the summer recess, the findings of the study into the possible relocation of the Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal School from its present site in Kent.

  Skills Shortages
  Mr. Wills
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the levels of skills shortages as regards his Department's technical civilian staff in(a) 1995, (b) 1996 and (c) 1997. [44390]

  Mr. Spellar
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, recruitment campaigns have been necessary in recent years across a range of technical specialisms. Difficulties have been experienced primarily with computer sciences, satellite communications, electrical/electronic engineering, mathematicians and physicists. Shortages have also occurred in specialisms, such as naval architects and in the aeronautical, stress and mechanical engineering areas.

  Defence Medical Training Organisation
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Defence Medical Training Organisation for 1998–99. [45106]

  Dr. Reid
  Key targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Medical Training Organisation for financial year 1998–99. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in April 1997 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1

  To achieve the following academic success rate for the categories of training shown:

  Common Core Course (CCC)—92 per cent.

  Specialist Register (SpR)—95 per cent.

  Pre Registration Nurses (Pre Reg Nurses)—96 per cent.

  395

  Key Target 2

  The following per cent. of trainees achieving academic success to be delivered on time agreed with the customer:

  CCC—95 per cent. (remainder to be delivered within 6 weeks of expected completion date)

  SpR—96 per cent.

  Pre Reg Nurses—98 per cent.

  Key Target 3

  Establish and agree with customers the baseline requirement for individual medical services training by 31 March 1999.

  Key Target 4

  Ensure that availability meets the requirement as defined in the Agreed Annual Training Requirement (AATR)—100 per cent.

  Key Target 5

  Develop and implement a corporate index of efficiency be 31 March 1999 that will then form a baseline for measuring year on year efficiency improvements.

  Key Target 6

  Ensure comprehensive application of the Systems Approach to Training to a minimum of 33 per cent. of all appropriate courses.

  Key Target 7

  Achieve satisfactory rating of customer satisfaction.

  Medical Supplies Agency
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Medical Supplies Agency for 1998–99. [45107]

  Dr. Reid
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Medical Supplies Agency for financial year 1998–99. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in March 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1

  To build, completely and to time and within budget, for all 3 services, 95 per cent. of the programme for kits, outfits and packs, as defined in endorsed Equipment Tables and as directed by D Med Prog &Plans.

  Key Target 2

  To meet 100 per cent. of the Service's requirements for stocked medical material and blood products for operations.

  Key Target 3

  To meet 98 per cent. of the Services' requirements for stocked medical material and blood products for exercises and training.

  Key Target 4

  To meet 85 per cent. of demands for Category B items, within MSA's new charter standard (next day delivery of priority demands; 72 hours for routine) and 95 per cent. within one week.

  Key Target 5

  To improve the ratio of stock issued to stock held from 1.30 to 1.72.

  Key Target 6

  By the 31 December 1998, the MSA will have set in place a mechanism which communicates the full cost of the drugs and medical material supplied. The communicated costs will be in a format which is acceptable to the Agency's major customers, whether or not they have an SLA.

  Defence Secondary Care Agency
  Ms Buck
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Defence Secondary Care Agency for 1998–99. [45108]

  Dr. Reid
  Key Targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Secondary Care Agency for financial year 1998–99. The targets build on the progress 396
  already made by the Agency since it formed in April 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1—The Operational Requirement

  From within the personnel resources provided to the DSCA by the single Services, to meet 100 per cent. of the Commanders in Chief's requirements for secondary care trained personnel for operational deployments.

  Key Target 2—Outpatient Waiting Times

  To ensure that 55 per cent. of Service patients referred to the Agency are offered a first outpatient appointment within four weeks of receipt of a referral and 95 per cent. within 13 weeks.

  Key Target 3—Inpatient Waiting Times

  To ensure that 80 per cent. of Service patients are offered a treatment date which is within three months of the decision to give inpatient treatment.

  Key Target 4—Financial Efficiency

  To develop, by 31 December 1998, a target for DSCA which represents a measure of the Agency's efficiency in achieving its corporate targets and to have set measurable Performance Indicators for subsequent years.

  Key Target 5—Quality and Patient Care

  By 31 December 1998, the DSCA will link the management systems introduced for Clinical and Non-Clinical risks and Health and Safety, with Clinical Audit and quality improvement programmes in order to determine a Quality Strategy for 1999–2000 and will have set measurable Performance indicators for subsequent years.

  Key Target 6—Military Training

  To ensure that 80 per cent. of all DSCA personnel, whose medical category permits, receive their respective Service's annual mandatory military training.

  Key Target 7—Exercises

  To ensure that 80 per cent. of the posts detailed for each Field Unit's exercise requirement are to be filled by the DSCA, are filled.

  Key Target 8—Clinical Training

  To have compiled, by 31 December 1998, a table by specialty of the total of approved years of Specialist Registrar training at each of the DSCA Units and to set measurable targets for subsequent years.

  Defence Dental Agency
  Ms Kingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Defence Dental Agency for 1998–99. [45109]

  Dr. Reid
  Key targets have been set for the Chief Executive of the Defence Dental Agency for the financial year 1998–99. The targets build on the progress already made by the Agency since it formed in March 1996 and are as follows:

  Key Target 1

  From within available personnel resources, achieve 100 per cent. of required professionally and militarily trained personnel, at the specified readiness required for deployment in support of the National Contingency Force.

  Key Target 2

  To achieve an overall increase in dental fitness to 75 per cent.

  Key Target 3

  Measures are to be implemented to target dental treatment towards clinical priority groups leading to a zero increase in the Treatment Needs performance indicator.

  Key Target 4

  To reduce the percentage of failed appointments with dental officers and the time wasted by such failures by 10 per cent. To reduce the percentage of failed appointments with dental hygienists and the time wasted by such failures by 25 per cent.

  Key Target 5

  To limit the number of personnel in dental fitness Category D4 to 15 per cent. of the total Service population.

  397

  Key Target 6

  To achieve a success rate for Dental Support Specialist (DSS) Part II training of 95 per cent.

  Naval Bases and Supply Agency
  Mrs. Gilroy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Naval Bases and Supply Agency for 1998–99. [45110]

  Dr. Reid
  The Chief Executive of the Naval Bases and Supply Agency has been set the following key targets:

  Key Target 1

  Complete 95 per cent. of the Fleet Time Maintenance Loading programme to time, budget and standard.

  Key Target 2

  Complete 95 per cent. of the agreed Maintenance Requirements at Assisted Maintenance Periods start date to time, budget and standard.

  Key Target 3

  Utilise the Fleet Time Maintenance Loading programme to establish the baseline for the NBSA shipwork element of the overall cost per Materially Available Vessel Day, and then set targets for reduction.

  Key Target 4

  Supply 95 per cent. of available material to rectify high priority (A1-B1) Operational Defects within Required Delivery Dates.

  Key Target 5

  Establish the Agency account via the CAPITAL Project, including the provision of an Executive Information System to meet business requirements, by March 2000.

  Key Target 6

  To ensure Year 2000 Information Systems compliance by completing 100 per cent. plans by 30 June 1998.

  Key Target 7

  Achieve year on year Efficiency improvement of 2.2 per cent.

  Key Target 8

  Achieve full accreditation of Investors in People by December 1999.

  Ships Support Agency
  Mrs. Gilroy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what key targets have been set for the Ships Support Agency for 1998–99. [45111]

  Dr. Reid
  The Chief Executive of the Ships Support Agency has been set the following key targets:

  Performance indicator

  Targets

  Materially Available Vessel Days (MAVDs)

  To provide the Royal Navy with the agreed percentage of materially available vessel days

  66 per cent.

  Pounds per Standard MAVD

  To provide the agreed Fleet available cost-effectively

  £38k per Standard MAVD

  Upkeep Period Timeliness

  To deliver programmed Upkeep Periods within the specified percentage tolerance of the agreed programme upkeep time

  +10 per cent.

  Upkeep Period Costs

  To contain the cost of Upkeep Periods completed during the year within the specified percentage tolerance of predicted costs

  +/-3 per cent.

  Fleet Time Material Performance (Quality)

  To limit the average number of outstanding Operational Defects per vessel in Fleet Time

  6

  398

  Performance indicator

  Targets

  Fleet Time Material Performance (Duration)

  To limit the percentage of Fleet Time during which vessels are unable, for material reasons, to perform their programmed task

  8 per cent.

  Efficient Stockholding

  To improve the stockholding to issue ratio

  2.9:1

  Resource Accounting

  To produce accruals based accounts to meet Accounts Direction

  March 99

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Higher Education Staff
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if his Department will publish statistical data for each of the last five academic years on(a) academic and (b) non-academic staff in higher education institutions to include a breakdown of employment by (i) age band, (ii) gender, (iii) ethnicity, (iv) mode of employment to include (A) part-time and (B) casual and hourly-paid employees and (v) grading; and if he will arrange for these statistics to be published annually within six months of the end of each academic year. [42388]

  Dr. Howells
  Up to and including the 1993–94 academic year, data on staff in higher education institutions were published by the Universities Statistical Record (USR), covering the former UFC-funded universities, in "University Statistics: Volume 1", and the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC), covering the former PCFC funded establishments, in "The Academic Staff of Polytechnics and Colleges". Copies of these publications are available in the Library.

  Since 1994–95, information covering all higher education establishments has been published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in "Resources of Higher Education Institutions". Editions are currently available for the years 1994–95 and 1995–96 and copies of these are also in the Library. The data requested for academic staff are contained in tables 17 and 21, but these tables do not separately identify casual and hourly paid employees. The following tables show casual and hourly paid employees by gender, ethnicity, age and grade corresponding to the figures in the published tables. In summary, between 1994–95 and 1995–96 total academic staff numbers increased by over 10 per cent. In the same period, hourly paid/casual staff went up by around 23 per cent. but in both years accounted for less than 2 per cent. of the total staff in numbers. It should also be noted that ethnicity breakdowns are available only for staff of known UK nationality.

  Information for the 1996–97 academic year will be published by HESA next month. We will pursue with HESA whether casual and hourly paid staff can be separately identified in future years.

  Data on non-academic staff are not collected centrally. This will be reviewed for the academic year 1999–2000.
  399
  The HESA volume giving staff data is currently published in June following the end of the academic year. This period is necessary to allow institutions to return the

  Hourly paid/casual academic staff of known UK nationality in all UK HE institutions by ethnicity and gender

  1994–95

  1995–96

  Female

  Male

  Total

  Female

  Male

  Total

  White

  274

  384

  658

  452

  668

  1,120

  Black Caribbean

  0

  1

  1

  0

  2

  2

  Black African

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Black other

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Indian

  0

  3

  3

  1

  5

  6

  Pakistani

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Bangladeshi

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Chinese

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Asian other

  2

  1

  3

  4

  3

  7

  Other

  4

  0

  4

  19

  10

  29

  Total known ethnicity

  280

  389

  669

  479

  689

  1,168

  Information refused

  71

  85

  156

  50

  50

  100

  Total

  351

  474

  825

  529

  739

  1,268

  Hourly paid/casual academic staff in all UK HE institutions by age and grade

  Professors

  Senior lecturers and researchers

  Lecturers

  Researchers

  Other grades

  Total

  1994–95

  Under 26

  0

  0

  1

  0

  84

  85

  26–30

  0

  0

  8

  1

  173

  182

  31–35

  0

  0

  5

  3

  206

  214

  36–40

  0

  1

  10

  1

  216

  228

  41–45

  0

  0

  18

  1

  218

  237

  46–50

  0

  0

  11

  0

  193

  204

  51–55

  0

  0

  11

  0

  148

  159

  56–60

  0

  1

  12

  0

  138

  151

  61–65

  1

  0

  9

  0

  95

  105

  66+

  0

  0

  6

  0

  26

  32

  Unknown

  0

  0

  0

  0

  232

  232

  Total

  1

  2

  91

  6

  1,729

  1,829

  1995–96

  Under 26

  0

  0

  0

  1

  77

  78

  26–30

  0

  0

  7

  4

  196

  207

  31–35

  0

  0

  22

  4

  247

  273

  36–40

  0

  0

  22

  2

  244

  268

  41–45

  0

  0

  34

  0

  240

  274

  46–50

  2

  0

  17

  0

  240

  259

  51–55

  1

  0

  23

  0

  185

  209

  56–60

  3

  2

  17

  0

  184

  206

  61–65

  0

  0

  9

  0

  99

  108

  66+

  1

  0

  11

  0

  42

  54

  Unknown

  0

  0

  0

  0

  317

  317

  Total

  7

  2

  162

  11

  2,071

  2,253

  Schools (Co-operation)
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many applications were submitted under the Government's proposals for co-operation between maintained and private schools; and what was the success rate for proposals submitted by(a) local education authorities and (b) the independent sector. [44139]

  Mr. Byers
  We received 294 applications; we are supporting 48 projects. Each application had to involve at least one maintained and one independent school and specify a lead organisation. Five successful projects currently involve LEAs, and in one of those the LEA is
  400
  raw data to HESA (by 30 September), HESA to finalise the data (by 1 December) and then compile and publish the volume.

  acting as the lead organisation. The information requested is set out in the table:

  Lead organisation

  Number of applications

  Number of successful applications

  Percentage of successful applications

  Maintained school

  179

  38

  21

  Independent school

  89

  8

  9

  Local education authority

  12

  1

  8

  Other1

  14

  1

  7

  Total

  294

  48

  16.3

  1 Other' lead organisations are organisations that are not a school or a local education authority, e.g. universities, charitable trusts, and associations of schools.

  401

  Class Sizes (Essex)
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children in(a) Essex and (b) Mid-Essex at (i) primary schools and (ii) secondary schools were in classes with 31 or more children at the latest available time; and what the corresponding figures were for 12 months earlier. [44174]

  Mr. Byers
  [holding answer 4 June 1998]: The information for Essex Local Education Authority area is shown in the table.

  Numbers of pupils in classes of 31 or more pupils taught by one teacher in maintained primary and secondary schools

  Essex Local Education Authority area

  Position in January each year

  Year

  Primary schools

  Secondary schools

  1996

  34,741

  8,064

  1997

  38,831

  8,263

  We do not hold information for Mid-Essex.

  St. Austell College
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he will publish Professor Newby's report on St. Austell College. [45098]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I am quite clear that there are important lessons to be learnt from this episode. These lessons extend beyond the FE sector and indeed beyond the world of education. I therefore consider that there is a clear public interest to be served by publishing the report, which I am doing today. Copies have been placed in the Library.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Family Resources Survey
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to her answer of 21 January 1998,Official Report, columns 565–66, how many higher-rate taxpayers have children aged (a) under five years, (b) from five to 10 years, (c) 11 to 16 years and (d) 17 years and over. [44323]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  An estimate for 1998–99 from the 1995–96 Family Resources Survey-based Policy Simulation Model suggests there are 350,000 higher rate taxpayers with children aged under 5 years, 435,000 higher rate taxpayers with children aged five to 10 years, 420,000 higher rate taxpayers with children aged 11 to 16 years, and 110,000 higher rate taxpayers with children aged 17 years and over.

  Notes:

  1. The estimates show how many benefit units with at least one higher rate taxpayer have at least one child in each of the age categories. However, these figures cannot be added up to give the total number of higher rate taxpayers with children since a number of these families have two or more children of differing ages and so will be represented in more than one category.

  402

  2. The estimates should be treated with some caution as they are based on survey data which use current weekly income to model tax liability which may not accurately represent current annual tax liabilities. Estimates may also be influenced by sampling error and response rates.

  Child Benefit
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what the total(a) gross and (b) net savings will be in 1998–99 from not having uprated child benefit in line with prices since 1979; and what the current rate per child would be had it been uprated in line with prices without any additional payment for the eldest child. [44322]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  If Child Benefit had been subject to annual uprating as described, the level of the benefit in April 1998 would have been £12.70 per week per child. The gross additional cost in 1998–99 is estimated to be £1.5 billion. The cost net of income-related benefit offsets would be around £1.1 billion.

  Notes:

  1. Cost estimates are rounded to the nearest £10 million.

  2. Figures are calibrated to the caseload and expenditure forecasts underlying the 1998 Departmental Report.

  3. The uprating calculation assumes rounding to the nearest 5p at each annual uprating.

  4. Estimates apply only to Child Benefit, and exclude any changes made to One Parent Benefit.

  Source:

  Based on data taken from the 1995–96 Family Resources Survey and the May 1996 Income Support Quarterly Statistical Inquiry uprated to 1998–99 prices, benefits and earnings level.

  Winter Fuel Payments
  Miss Kirkbride
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much of the £400 million budgeted for winter fuel payments has been spent on this year's payments. [44575]

  Mr. Denham
  Winter Fuel payments are one of a number of initiatives the Government have taken to help vulnerable people, especially the elderly, keep warm in the winter. A total of £400 million has been committed for two years (1997/98 and 1998/99), to help pensioners with fuel bills to pay.

  Overall, almost ten million eligible pensioners in over seven million households received a payment between January and March 1998 at a total cost of nearly £200 million.

  Lone Parents
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make it her policy to make attendance at an interview compulsory for those invited to take part in the New Deal for Lone Parents. [44572]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on 25 November 1997,Official Report, column 540.

  Widows Pension
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to extend the widows
  403
  pension to women aged under 45 years; what estimate she has made of the cost of that extension; and if she will make a statement. [41629]

  Mr. Denham
  Modernising the Social Security system is a key priority of the Government. In our examination of the current Social Security structure, we will take account of the needs and responsibilities of widows in pursuit of our aim of reducing poverty and welfare dependency, promoting work incentives and providing better, simpler and more efficient services to clients.

  The estimated gross cost in 1998/99 of extending widows pension to women aged under 45 years would be £58 million.

  Note:

  It is assumed that widows under 45 would be paid at the current minimum rate for a widow aged 45.

HEALTH

  Paediatric Physiotherapists (London)
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many paediatric physiotherapists are employed by each NHS trust in London; and how many posts are currently vacant. [43882]

  Mr. Milburn
  Information about the number of paediatric physiotherapists employed by National Health Service trusts in London is not available centrally as the Department's non-medical workforce census does not separately identify them from other physiotherapists; the table gives the information that is available. Figures on physiotherapist vacancies are collected by the Office of Manpower and Economics and published in the annual reports of the Review Body for Nursing staff, Midwives, Health Visitors and Professions Allied to Medicine, copies of which are in the Library.

  NHS Hospital and Community Health Services: physiotherapists employed by London NHS trusts as at 30 September 1997

  Equivalents

  Whole-time

  Barnet Healthcare NHS Trust

  30

  BHB Community Healthcare NHS Trust

  50

  The Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust

  10

  Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust

  40

  Camden and Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust

  30

  Central Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust

  20

  Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust

  50

  City and Hackney Community Services NHS Trust

  40

  Croydon Community Health NHS Trust

  20

  Ealing Hospital NHS Trust

  10

  Enfield Community Care NHS Trust

  30

  Forest Health Care NHS Trust

  50

  The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust

  20

  Greenwich Healthcare NHS Trust

  40

  Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust

  70

  The Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust

  60

  Harefield Hospital NHS Trust

  10

  Harrow and Hillingdon Healthcare NHS Trust

  20

  The Hillingdon Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  Hounslow and Spelthorne Community & Mental Health NHS Trust

  30

  Kings Healthcare NHS Trust

  60

  Kingston and District Community NHS Trust

  20

  Kingston Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  404

  NHS Hospital and Community Health Services: physiotherapists employed by London NHS trusts as at 30 September 1997

  Equivalents

  Whole-time

  Lambeth Healthcare NHS Trust

  10

  Lewisham and Guys Mental Health NHS Trust

  1—

  The Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  Lifecare NHS Trust

  1—

  Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust

  50

  Merton and Sutton Community NHS Trust

  1—

  Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Trust

  1—

  Mount Vernon and Watford Hospitals NHS Trust

  40

  Newham Community NHS Trust

  40

  North Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust

  50

  North West London Mental Health NHS Trust

  1—

  Northwick Park St. Marks NHS Trust

  50

  Optimum Health Services NHS Trust

  30

  Parkside NHS Trust

  40

  Pathfinder Mental Health Services NHS Trust

  10

  Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS Trust

  30

  Ravensbourne NHS Trust

  20

  Redbridge Health Care NHS Trust

  40

  Richmond Twickenham and Roehampton Healthcare NHS Trust

  20

  Riverside Mental Health NHS Trust

  1—

  Royal Brompton Hospital NHS Trust

  20

  The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust

  50

  The Royal Hospitals NHS Trust

  10

  Royal London Homeopathic Hospital NHS Trust

  1—

  The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust

  10

  Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust

  40

  St. George's Healthcare NHS Trust

  90

  The St. Helier NHS Trust

  50

  St. Mary's NHS Trust

  40

  Teddington Memorial Trust

  10

  Tower Hamlets Healthcare NHS Trust

  80

  University London College Hospitals NHS Trust

  40

  Wandsworth Community Health NHS Trust

  1—

  Wellhouse NHS Trust

  40

  West London Healthcare NHS Trust

  20

  West Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust

  10

  Whittington Hospital NHS Trust

  30

  Total

  2,950

  1 less than 5 and greater than zero

  Note:

  1. Figures are rounded to the nearest ten.

  2. Due to rounding the total will not be equal to the sum of component parts.

  Source:

  Department of Health Non-Medical Workforce Census

  Breast Feeding
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps are currently being taken to promote a higher rate of breastfeeding. [43609]

  Ms Jowell
  We are fully committed to the promotion of breastfeeding, which is universally accepted as the best form of nutrition for infants. Nevertheless, it is important that women are able to make a fully informed choice based on accurate and consistent information on the benefits of breastfeeding.

  The Department funds the National Network of Breastfeeding Co-ordinators (NNBC). The NNBC has been established to promote breastfeeding at a local level and to share ideas nationally with a view to increasing both the number of mothers breastfeeding and the length of time they continue to breastfeed.
  405
  Each year, the four United Kingdom Health Departments support national breastfeeding awareness week to increase public awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding, which this year took place between 17–23 May. This year, as in other years, the Department funded and provided the publicity materials used during the week. These included posters and postcards aimed at promoting breastfeeding with the slogan "free fast food for babies".

  The Department also provides financial support to the three main voluntary organisations in this area, the National Childbirth Trust, La Leche League and the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers. Close links are also kept with United Nations Children's Fund Baby-friendly Initiative which includes a Departmental observer sitting on the Steering Committee of the UK Baby Friendly Initiative.

  The Department offers support for research into breastfeeding through the Quinquennial Surveys of Infant Feeding Practice, the report of the 1995 survey was published last year. The Department also receives and publishes expert advice on breastfeeding through its advisory committees, such as Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy Panel on Child and Material Nutrition.

  We are concerned about the apparently low breastfeeding rates in this country, especially when compared with some other European countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The low incidence of breastfeeding is especially marked in low-income groups. That is why, as part of the Department's research initiative on health inequalities, we are planning to support a study aimed at identifying the barriers to breastfeeding in low-income groups. This should help us to understand what influences a woman's decision whether to breastfeed or not. In turn, this will help us to develop and test new interventions aimed at increasing breastfeeding levels and improving the health of babies from low-income families.

  Occupational Health
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many whole-time equivalent consultants in occupational health are employed in each National Health Service region. [43741]

  Mr. Milburn
  The latest information is shown in the table.

  Whole-time equivalents of consultants in occupational health by region on 30 September 1996

  Region

  Number

  Anglia and Oxford

  5

  North Thames

  9

  North West

  6

  Northern and Yorkshire

  4

  South and West

  8

  South Thames

  9

  Trent

  4

  West Midlands

  5

  Notes:

  1. The census is a snapshot at 30 September each year

  2. All figures are rounded to the nearest whole number

  Source:

  The Medical and Dental Workforce Census 30 September 1996.
  406
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many unfilled(a) consultant and (b) approved training posts there are in occupational health in each National Health Service region. [43740]

  Mr. Milburn
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  NHS Trusts (Health and Safety)
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list all National Health Service trusts that have been found to be in breach of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 since 1991; and if he will make a statement. [43738]

  Mr. Milburn
  Between 1991 and 1994, not all hospitals were National Health Service trusts, and the relevant health authority was liable for prosecution where a hospital was in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Information from the Health and Safety Executive shows that the following trusts and health authorities have been prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act since 1991:

  1991

  South West Durham Health Authority

  Riverside Health Authority

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Authority

  Trafford Health Authority

  Oxford Health Authority

  1992

  South Birmingham Health Authority

  Norwich Health Authority

  1993

  South Derbyshire Health Authority

  Airedale NHS Trust

  North Staffordshire Health Authority

  1994

  Salford Community Healthcare

  Loddon NHS Trust

  Parkside Health NHS Trust

  North Staffordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

  West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust

  1995

  Frenchay Healthcare Trust

  Dorset Community NHS Trust

  Forest Healthcare NHS Trust

  Stockport Healthcare NHS Trust

  1996

  City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Trust

  Bedford Hospital NHS Trust

  1997

  Surrey Heartlands NHS Trust

  Premier Health NHS Trust

  Community Health Sheffield NHS Trust

  Leeds Community and Mental Health Services (Teaching) NHS Trust

  Gloucestershire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

  Eastbourne Hospital NHS Trust

  Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust

  1998

  Horton General Hospital Trust.

  407

  NHS Staff (Ill-health)
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many retirements on the grounds of ill-health there have been from the NHS Pension Scheme in each of the last five years. [43885]

  Mr. Milburn
  Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the National Health Service Pensions Agency under its Chief Executive, Mr. A. F. Cowan. I have asked him to reply to the hon. Member.

  Letter from A. F. Cowan to Dr. Evan Harris, dated June 1998:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question, as it falls within my area of responsibility.
  The number of ill-health retirement awards made by the NHS Pension Scheme in each of the last five years was:

  Year

  Number of ill-health retirement awards

  1993–94

  9,520

  1994–95

  9,030

  1995–96

  8,082

  1996–97

  6,928

  1997–98

  6,510

  Histopathology Services (Kent and Canterbury Hospital)
  Dr. Ladyman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish the terms of reference for the recently announced review of histopathology at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital; and if he intends to widen the scope of the review. [43794]

  Mr. Boateng
  The terms of reference for the review of histopathology services provided by Kent and Canterbury Hospital have been agreed with the Royal College of Pathologists and have been published. There are no plans to widen the scope of this review.

  Homicide Inquiries
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what factors underlie the differences between his answers of 16 February 1998,Official Report, column 494, and 13 March 1998, Official Report, column 377, in respect of the number of inquiries under way into homicides committed by mentally-ill people. [43977]

  Mr. Boateng
  The reply given on 16 February 1998,Official Report, column 494, showed that the total number of independent inquiries currently underway was 24.

  In the reply given on 13 March 1998, Official Report, column 377, the list showed only those inquiries which were nearing completion. The total number remains 24 although the dates of publication have not all been settled yet.

  Epilepsy
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will provide resources for research into sudden unexpected death in epilepsy; [44092]

  (2) if he will set up an inquiry into sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. [44093]
  408
  Mr. Boateng
  I met a delegation led by the organisation Epilepsy Bereaved?, on 2 June to discuss their concerns about sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). The delegation, which included epilepsy specialists who have conducted research into SUDEP, has been invited to design and submit a bid for a national sentinel audit of epilepsy services. This will involve working closely with several relevant national organisations.

  The Department supports Epilepsy Bereaved? through a Section 64 core grant of £45,000 in total for the years 1997–2000.

  Disabled People
  Mr. Hurst
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of adults with severe learning disabilities residing in(a) long-stay hospitals and (b) the community. [44077]

  Mr. Boateng
  It is estimated that there are about 160,000 adults with severe learning disabilities in England. We estimate that approximately 5,000 of these are placed in continuing National Health Service care. There are also about 3,000 other people in old long-stay learning disability hospitals. This means that there are approximately 152,000 people with severe learning disabilities living in the community outside long-stay NHS care. A significant number of the approximately 3,000 people currently in old long-stay learning disability hospitals are also likely to move into the community over the next few years.

  NHS Trusts (London)
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what financial transitional support has been made available in the years(a) 1994–95, (b) 1995–96,
  (c) 1996–97 and (d) 1997–98 to London trusts, excluding the London teaching hospitals. [43891]

  Mr. Milburn
  [holding answer 2 June 1998]: The information requested is provided in the table.

  Transitional support to London trusts, excluding the London teaching hospitals 1994/95–1997/98

  Year

  Total £000

  1994/95

  11,622

  1995/96

  13,309

  1996/97

  8,291

  1997/98

  8,631

  Notes:

  1. Trusts included in total are: Lewisham, Greenwich, Lambeth and Southwark, Kingston Hospitals, Royal Free, Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, Central Middlesex, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Northwick Park, Eastman Dental, Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, Tavistock and Portman, Whittington

  2. In addition to these, financial transitional support has been made available over the period to other London trusts and to London health authorities. The total central funding for London was included in the Turnberg Report; copies of which are available in the Library

  Residential Child Care Workers
  Mr. Dawson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to review the pay, conditions, training and qualifications of residential social workers working with children in care. [44550]
  409
  Mr. Boateng
  The pay and conditions of all staff are matters for their individual employers.

  We are jointly with the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work developing a new post qualifying award in child care and the relevant training for that award. In addition, we have put aside £2 million in 1998–99 to secure the training of significant numbers of child care staff leading to national vocational qualification in care at level III.

  Foster Carers
  Mr. Dawson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to review the fees, reimbursement of costs, training and support of foster carers. [44551]

  Mr. Boateng
  The level of allowances paid to foster carers is not set by central Government, but is determined by individual local authorities. It is for each authority to decide what amount it pays according to prevailing local requirements. Many authorities base the allowances they pay on those recommended and published each year by the National Foster Care Association, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Training and support for foster carers is one of the issues being considered by the United Kingdom Joint Working Party on Foster Care. The group's broad aim is
  410
  to develop national standards for foster care. It began work in October 1997 and expects to publish a good practice guide in the spring of 1999. The Department is helping to fund this work. The training and support for foster carers was also addressed in the report 'People Like Us' by Sir William Utting, published in November 1997. We established a Ministerial task force to prepare its response to the recommendations contained in the report. Our response will be published later in the summer.

  The Department is also funding work being undertaken by the National Foster Care Association to develop training materials for use by foster carers who are relatives and friends of the children being cared for, and for social work staff. The launch of the training pack is scheduled for March 1999.

  Trust Mergers
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many management posts have been abolished, and how much money has been saved, as a result of his approving the merger of Ashford (Middlesex) and St. Peter's Hospital NHS Trusts. [44106]

  Mr. Milburn
  To date, five management posts have been removed as a consequence of the merger resulting in a saving of £400,000.

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

Registered Establishments (Scotland) Bill
Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
It has come to the attention of the Scottish Office that there is a deficiency in the law regulating independent sector residential and day care establishments in Scotland. The result is that certain establishments providing care and support for certain vulnerable groups are not in fact subject to regulatory controls in accordance with policy intentions. The proposed Bill seeks to restore the policy intention.
Residential and day care homes are provided by local authorities and by the independent sector. These are either in the private sector or provided by voluntary organisations. The policy intention since the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 was enacted has been that the relevant homes in the independent sector which deal directly with the public should be regulated through registration with the appropriate local authority.
However, an insertion into the 1968 Act by the Registered Establishments (Scotland) Act 1987 had the perverse effect of limiting the policy intention only to relevant independent sector homes which provide their services to clients of a local authority. In other words, those homes which deal directly with the public and do not provide services to local authorities are not in law required to register.
It is difficult to estimate with precision how many establishments may be affected, but we believe the figure is in the region of 140 establishments covering residential care homes and children's homes and, it is thought, a small number of independent schools.
The primary concern is that the law as it now stands is such that a number of homes for vulnerable people do not have the statutory protection of registration. This flies in the face of this Government's, and for that matter the previous Government's, stated intention of providing as much protection for these vulnerable people as possible.
It is therefore considered essential to plug this gap without delay. The most appropriate vehicle for achieving this in the circumstances is by a Private Member's Bill. That is the procedure which I am using this morning.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld.)
11.7 a.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, the Bill can be given a welcome. It brings registration with and inspection by the local authority, it is to be hoped, to all
590
establishments in Scotland where people are accommodated and cared for. It also extends the scheme of voluntary registration to establishments which offer no or minimal personal care or support.
I wish to make several observations about the operation of the Bill. First, it tampers with the most significant piece of legislation from my student days—the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968.
Secondly, a close examination of the Bill and its legislative background identifies that this is the fourth time that Section 61 has been altered and improved. Tracing the amendments proposed by the Bill takes us through the Social Work Act, the Registered Establishments (Scotland) Act 1987, The Children (Scotland) Act 1995, and now this Bill. There is beginning to be a clear need for consolidation of these Acts.
Thirdly, the Bill proceeded through another place in lamentable order. There was no consideration or scrutiny whatsoever as it went through all stages at 2.30 p.m. on Friday, 24th April. Hansard reports that the only person to speak was Mr. Deputy Speaker, who complained that the Bill was only published on the previous day. Considering the imminent return of the Scottish parliament, this is a fine example of how that unicameral parliament must not act when dealing with legislation.
Fourthly, the Bill establishes regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State in respect of the extension of registration and inspection. However, these new duties fall to the 32 local authorities to implement. There is a risk that we shall see 32 different schemes of registration and inspection. For some of the smaller local authorities—this is my chance to mention Clackmannanshire—there will be very little scope for building up experience, due to lack of numbers. I wonder whether any consideration was given to altering the positioning of the registration and inspection function from local authorities to central government, as is the case with education.
Fifthly, there will be a fear that the process will be prescriptive, with caricature marxist social workers running around altering the character of all establishments into their narrow image. Of course, my colleagues were never like that! I hope that the registration and inspection process will be conducted in a manner whereby the registration and inspection officer will satisfy him or herself that there is a comprehensive system of personal care and support in place and will record a description of exactly what it is. That would allow the process to be one of insistence on minimum standards and allowing for notices-to-remedy to be issued.
Sixthly, as noble Lords who followed the Committee stages of the Children (Scotland) Act will recall, and of Sections 34 and 35 in particular, considerable emphasis was put on the place of the chief social work officer or the Secretary of State to receive and investigate complaints about the conduct of private schools. This role of the local authority and the Scottish Office to act as a receiver of complaints in the last resort will be extended to all the new categories brought within the scheme by the Bill.

591
Seventhly, this Bill was heralded by the idea that it would bring old folks' homes for the wealthy into the registration scheme. That is rightly achieved by it. Wealth gives no more control over one's environment than reduced means, if one is incapacitated. Families will be afforded some assistance if their dottled relatives are being mistreated or exploited.
Eighthly, I want to bring some attention to what my noble friend Lady Linklater of Butterstone would have said had she been able to attend this debate. This is about an omission in the Bill. The Children (Scotland) Act brought about the registration and inspection of children's homes and residential schools. It provided for their registration within the terms of Sections 34 or 35. The former dealt with those categorised as children's homes, the latter as residential schools. My noble friend's complaint is that the school she founded, Butterstone, for educationally fragile mainstream pupils is wrongly categorised as conforming to Section 34, as a children's home, and hence being inspected by social work inspectors twice a year, but by education inspectors only once in 10 years. It is a pity that the Bill does not provide a correction to this anomaly, which would allow such a school to be inspected under Section 35 every four years, and hence as a school. Considering that the school takes its pupils through to Highers, it is clearly dealing with mainstream but vulnerable-to-bullying children. Perhaps some thought can be given to this issue.
Finally, the Bill has a spin-off for all establishments which offer accommodation. They have to declare whether or not they offer personal care or support. The decision not to register could be seen as a business liability. This would be a declaration that no personal care or support is offered. Not only will this affect organisations like the Scottish Youth Hostel Association, outdoor centres which offer training and advice, housing associations and criminal justice organisations which run supported accommodation projects, but I imagine that few hotels, guesthouses or B&Bs would want to declare that they offered no personal care. I suspect that the boundary between registration and non-registration will be quite fluid.
My Lords, despite these observations, I continue to welcome the Bill.
11.15 a.m.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Hardie): My Lords, I, too, am delighted to be able to support this small but important Bill. The Government are grateful to my noble friend Lord Hogg for taking charge of the Bill and for his opening remarks.
The Bill aims to deal with what has been described as a flaw in the law relating to the registration of certain establishments under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. I call it a flaw as what is set out in the 1968 Act, following amendment in 1987, is at variance with intended policy and accepted practice. This Bill seeks to bring the law into line with policies subscribed to by this Government and previous governments. My noble friend has already explained the background in more detail.
592
I want to underline the importance of the registration and inspection procedures undertaken by local authorities. These are designed to ensure that establishments which are in the business of providing personal care are in fact providing good standards of care for their residents, most of whom are vulnerable people of some kind. We have a responsibility to ensure that our youngest and oldest are being properly cared for. Registration is a public indication that a particular establishment and its managers are fit for the purpose of properly looking after the people entrusted to their care.
Our concern today is that the law as it stands is such that approximately 140 residential care homes do not have the statutory protection of registration. This, as I have said, flies in the face of the stated intentions of this Government and the previous government of providing as much protection for these vulnerable people as is reasonably possible. It is essential therefore to take steps without delay.
Scottish Office officials are in discussion with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Directors of Social Work about the arrangements which need to be made with the establishments affected. Authorities will need to scrutinise their records and will wish to make early contact with the establishments concerned. Thereafter, it will be necessary to make arrangements for them to be formally registered once the Bill reaches the statute book. We hope that these new registrations will be executed with the minimum of bureaucracy and inconvenience for all concerned.
Before concluding, perhaps I may deal with one or two points made by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. I note and welcome his support for the proposal. First, as regards the debate in the other place, it is my understanding that the measure had all party support and that leaders of all parties gave approval.
As regards a review and consolidation of the legislation, if the noble Earl wishes to have a discussion with me or to write to me making a formal request for consolidation, I shall consider it as I do any other request. I should have thought that this would have been an ideal topic for the Scottish parliament to undertake early in its life.
We have in hand proposals to revise the 1968 Act as regards the provisions relating to registration and inspection. Guidance is in hand as part of our approach to improving the system and ensuring that there is no fragmentation and that authorities of all sizes apply the same criteria.
I welcome the support and co-operation given already to this Bill by all parties in the other place. Not to support the Bill would be to risk the well being of those who most need our protection. The affected care-home owners would be disadvantaged by no longer being able to rely on the public confidence in their establishments which registration brings.
As my noble friend Lord Hogg made clear, this Bill should command your Lordships' full support in ensuring a safe passage through the House. That ought

593
not to mean stifling debate; anything which prevents the Bill's progress would, I suggest, be of benefit to no one. I earnestly commend the Bill to the House.
11.19 a.m.
Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld: My Lords, I do not intend to make another speech which, I am sure, will come as a great relief to everyone. However, I cannot promise that the same brevity will apply to the Scotland Bill which is shortly to be before the House. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, whom I count among my friends in this House, will return to the matters that he raised and will take up the kind suggestion made by my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate that he write to him about consultation. I trust that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Bill
11.20 a.m.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is a Bill of topicality and current interest. In recent weeks we have all experienced, both in urban and rural areas, the adverse impact of transport congestion and air pollution on the quality of our life. That is particularly damaging for people who suffer from respiratory illnesses. At this time of the year, in the summer, the impact of urban congestion and pollution is clear for anyone to see. Indeed, if you happen to be a jogger like myself or a hill walker, that clearly affects all of us as we try to exercise in air of low quality. That is part of the argument for the Bill.
At the outset I should like to state that the argument is not about being opposed to cars as a means of transport. The argument is about the more efficient use of cars by using them for the modes of journeys for which they are most appropriate. It certainly is not about attacking the motor manufacturing industry which employs, both globally and worldwide, one in seven of the workforce. That is particularly so in the regional economy of industrial south Wales and Deeside. The automotive industry and the car component industry are absolutely vital to the inward investment strategy pursued so effectively by the Welsh Development Agency.
The Bill is about trying to ensure that there is a clear approach to road transport in relation to an integrated transport strategy. We are awaiting with baited breath the publication of the White Paper in that respect. I do not expect my noble friend the Minister—and I look forward to hearing her reply to the debate—to reveal all that is in the document. However, the consultation document of last August, issued jointly by my right honourable friend in the other place Mr. Ron Davies and other transport Ministers, stated that, reducing the dependence on the car and lorry through providing
594
genuine alternatives and promoting greater use of, and more, attractive public transport, together with safer walking and cycling, are central to achieving a more sustainable transport system.
Therefore, the Government certainly support the principles of the Bill as indeed do a huge range of voluntary organisations and campaigning groups which are funded by government departments. I refer in particular to the "Going for Green" initiative established by the previous government, so ably headed by Professor Graham Ashworth with whom I am privileged to share some work within the Tidy Britain Group as chair of the Keep Wales Tidy consultative committee. The latter has recently produced the newsletter of the environment cities and sustainable communities project, called Working Together. In it is highlighted what would now be the fourth event of the "Don't Choke Britain" campaign, emphasising the importance of reducing traffic congestion and pollution, especially in cities.
I am pleased to be able to tell the right reverend Prelate that there is a Christian ecology link contribution to this campaign and that all of us who are practising Christians are being urged to support "Car Free Sunday", which will take place on June 14th. I am certain that all of us who will be going to church, to chapel or indeed to any other place of worship on that day, will take note of that campaign.
I emphasise the latter because there is a voluntary element to this whole activity. We are talking about setting a target for reduction. The achievement of such a target is not merely a matter for government; it is a matter for the voluntary activity of all of us in trying to green our own practices and also in working with others within our communities.
I look forward to hearing the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, because I know of the great interest of the Liberal Party in the issue since the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1977, which concerned local authorities. That was a significant piece of legislation in that it made an important statement and was the first time that there had been a commitment to the reduction of traffic as part of legislation. That was supported by all political parties. Therefore, I look forward to hearing the response from the Opposition Front Bench. I say that because I know that the Bill had the support of the Leader of the Opposition in the other place—namely, Mr. Hague, the former Welsh Secretary—who took a great interest in transport policy when he was at the Welsh Office.
The reasons for the Bill are to continue the process of the 1997 Act in that, because it referred to local authorities, national roads—that is, trunk roads and motorways—were exempted. Of course, that could have the effect of moving traffic from local roads on to trunk roads. Similarly, the role of the Secretary of State had no place in the 1997 Act. However, this Bill, which has national targets for England, Scotland and Wales, fits in entirely with the Government's and my devolution policies. It also indicates quite clearly in the current situation, and prior to the establishment of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh national assembly, the fact that the Secretaries of State will have responsibility. The

595
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, along with the Welsh and Scottish Offices, will be able to participate in the development of those targets.
In my view, public targets are an effective way to deal with the issue. I call in evidence the 20th report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. I should point out that I assured my noble friend the Minister that I would not read the whole of the document. However, the relevant sections are the commission's assessment of what it stated in its previous report in 1994. Indeed, it reiterates the objectives of transport policy. In particular, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 4.3 of Chapter 4 where the report states:
"The concept of setting national targets for modal shares has been criticised. It was central to the Eighteenth Report that transport policies must have both specific objectives and quantified targets, against which progress towards the objectives can be monitored and reviewed. Within that general approach, we remain convinced of the value of targets for modal shares in fostering a strategic approach to complex issues. Even where achieving particular targets lies outside the direct power of central government, they can provide important guidance to local authorities, transport operators, transport users and suppliers about the extent and direction of change required. Setting challenging targets can help stimulate new thinking about solutions to difficult problems. The proposals in the Eighteenth Report about specific targets were presented as subject to detailed evaluation and modification by government; we have not attempted to carry out that task ourselves in this review".
I believe that that paragraph summarises the importance of setting targets. I hope the Minister will confirm that it is certainly the intention of the Government to pursue that line so clearly set out by the Royal Commission.
We face increased environmental and social costs from congestion. We face the negative impact of congestion on other economic activities. All the road traffic forecasts that I have seen forecast an increase of between 9 per cent and 15 per cent. in road traffic by the year 2000. The worst case scenario is a forecast increase of up to 80 per cent. by 2025. That is the context in which we must set our limited targets of reducing road traffic congestion and limiting the impact of road traffic on our environment. I emphasise that we are developing the thinking of the previous government. I refer to the former Secretary of State for the Environment, John Gummer, and the previous government's document on sustainable development, The UK Strategy, Cmnd Paper No. 24/26. I shall not quote from it although I am tempted to do so. John Gummer stated that a growing economy does not need ever growing traffic, and there is no longer any need to link economic growth with traffic growth.
In a press release issued on 16th January 1997 John Gummer states,
"if … we focus on the opportunities for gaining access with less movement, for maximising public transport and for exploiting new technology, we will be able to continue to meet our economic needs".
There is no argument that a continued increase in road traffic is the only way to secure further economic growth. Clearly some road schemes and some traffic movements are essential. However, judging by the number of traffic movements that are undertaken for
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short journeys, people's lives tend to be governed by the car rather than the other way around. Some 59 per cent. of car journeys in the UK are shorter than five miles and 25 per cent. are shorter than two miles. That, in itself, indicates a need to change our personal practices as well as a need for the broader framework that we seek in this Bill.
The detail of the Bill is fairly straightforward in that its definition of road traffic excludes those wonderful vehicles which are adapted to carry more than eight passengers in addition to the driver. Therefore this Bill will encourage the use of forms of transport other than the private car. It is important to emphasise my next point with regard to the kind of areas in which I have lived all my life. The Bill emphasises the need for adequate provision of taxi services in rural and non-rural areas and the need to address the mobility needs of those with disabilities who may have difficulty in getting about without using private cars. The need for this Bill is urgent. The Bill addresses global and local needs in that it attempts to set targets to reduce the impact of road transport on our environment.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Elis-Thomas.)
11.33 a.m.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Rail Freight Group and an adviser to ADTRANZ. I welcome the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has emphasised its importance. I believe he mentioned forecasts of an increase in road traffic of up to 80 per cent. over 25 years. I believe that in the past few years the Government have revised their forecasts downwards slightly, but they still forecast an increase of perhaps 50 per cent. over 20 years. Whichever figure one chooses, it comprises an enormous increase.
However, my first problem with the Bill is that it seeks to place a duty on the Government to set targets for a reduction in road traffic. When one has a forecast of a 50 per cent. increase over 20 years, I am not sure whether a reduced increase would still count as a reduction. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, will clarify that when he speaks at the end of the debate. The noble Lord referred to the duties of local authorities with regard to the 1997 Act. I hope that the White Paper will propose ways of slowing the rate of increase or even stopping it by encouraging people to walk or cycle rather than drive, and of course by encouraging the use of rail freight. I always mention rail freight in transport debates. However, if we are to halt the increase immediately, bold and courageous measures will be needed. I believe it will be a long, slow process, whatever the Government are able to achieve.
We have discussed many of the measures that may or may not appear in the White Paper in this House and elsewhere almost ad nauseam. I shall not rehearse the arguments in detail today as regards a reduction in exhaust emissions. Like the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, I approve of the report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. It is one of the most well-researched and readable

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documents on this subject that I have read in the past 10 years. It warrants much study. Its contents are fairly frightening. I remember when my party was in opposition we took the then government to task on this matter.
Many measures could be taken to reduce road traffic but they can be summed up in the need to reduce car use, as the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has said. We hope that the Department of Transport's White Paper will give some positive leads in this direction. However, one could argue that over the past 20 years, other government departments have pursued policies which have encouraged car use. Hospitals have become fewer in number and larger, as have schools. Out-of-town supermarkets have been built. That is, of course, a planning matter for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. I cannot use the word "customers" in respect of people who use hospitals but the policies I have just mentioned have resulted in people travelling greater distances. An enormous proportion of people who use hospitals do not have access to a car and have to use public transport. The same applies to schools. We have debated that matter on many occasions. As I said, people who often do not have access to a car have been forced to travel greater distances. Such policies have resulted in extremely good financial projections for other government departments. Hospitals and schools have been rationalised. However, no budget is allocated to help people reach schools and hospitals.
I am not so rash as to propose amendments for the Committee stage, assuming we reach that stage, but it would perhaps be useful to seek to place a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to the causes of road congestion and to consult with other departments of state to ensure that their plans do not exacerbate the situation. If the Government do not wish to set road traffic reduction targets, they can, of course, duck behind the provisions of Clause 2(2). I am sure they will not do that. Perhaps the White Paper will contain more details on this matter. It is quite clear to me that whatever measures the White Paper contains, the increase in road traffic will continue unless funds are made available to provide radical solutions. Those will cost money. It is important that any measures are supported by the public. The costs will fall on local authorities as well as central government.
Recently I was sent the results of an interesting MORI poll which was carried out in May. It was commissioned by the Association of Train Operating Companies. I believe that the poll is objective. I shall summarise a few of its findings. The first is that 92 per cent. of people think that road congestion is a serious problem—presumably, 8 per cent. do not. That is fine. Secondly, 90 per cent. of people are willing to accept additional restrictions on cars in major cities to tackle congestion. That is a measure that appeals to me and I imagine to my noble friend the Minister. The figures indicate that 25 per cent. are more likely to vote for the Government if they introduce restrictions. That is nice! Also, 76 per cent. would be happy to see car use restricted if there were a better integrated transport system. That, of course, has to be defined. Moreover, 71 one per cent.
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support an extra tax on vehicles entering some urban areas—I hope that means a charge; there is subtle difference—so long as the money raised is used to improve the public transport (bus/rail) system. Finally, 67 per cent. are concerned with car pollution increasing children's health problems; and 57 per cent. with the impact of road congestion on the environment.
Nevertheless, a large number of cars users will say, "That's fine, but it doesn't apply to me". We have discussed that matter before, and I hope that we can get away with it by means of education and other measures. Those statistics are important in assessing the public's acceptance of traffic measures. They might encourage the Government to be robust in trying to introduce controls and come up with plans that genuinely can reduce traffic.
My final point is fundamental. It is crucial that the revenue from these charges, as I choose to describe them, for on-street parking, speeding, driving in bus lanes, and charges on congestion in the future—infringements of traffic regulations—are spent on improving public transport and other measures to reduce traffic. I hope that my noble friend will give me some assurance, whatever proposals are in the White Paper to that effect, that she and her colleagues have achieved continuity in relation to the precedent set by the London parking regime, whereby 100 per cent. of the revenue from fines, after administration, goes into public transport in London. I hope that that approach will be widened and that precedents can continue to be set. I very much support the Bill, and look forward to the Minister's reply.
11.42 a.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, has given a wide-ranging view as to what he believes the Bill might or might not do. However, his eloquent expressions left me feeling somewhat frustrated with the Bill. It is difficult to find a connection with any other measures currently being implemented. On its own, the Bill provides for no action at all. Indeed, the Secretary of State is relieved of the requirement to do anything, at least for some 18 months. One has the feeling that there is not as wide an appreciation of the enormous economic and social benefits that are enjoyed by the world generally, and ourselves in this country in particular, as a result of modern road transport systems.
It is not merely a question of motor cars. It is a question of production and distribution of goods and services. Looking at the growth that has taken place in recent years, one can measure the connection between economic growth and a growth in transport. As the noble Lord, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, suggested, one might reasonably expect the Government's White Paper on integrated transport policy to suggest some action. I look forward to discussing that in due course. It may suggest action to deal with what I acknowledge are the disbenefits of increased transportation.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can possibly help the House as to whether he has any interest to declare in the field of increasing motor transport.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, if I was not disposed to be friendly towards the noble Lord, I should say that that intervention was of some impertinence. In the 30 years that I have been in this House, I have never failed to declare an interest if it was appropriate. I think that may answer the noble Lord.
Fourteen months ago, under the guidance of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I argued during debates on the 1997 Act that we should not get very far with trying to fix charges without attempting to find solutions to the problems that give rise to them. It is fourteen months since the passage of that legislation, and what has happened? Nothing has happened other than the production of some guidelines, which are now under discussion. So we have not advanced very far, and this second Bill is now before the House.
There will be growth in vehicle ownership. Of that, we can be absolutely sure. I do not know the figures; I am not a prophet. I could certainly appreciate a lessening of usage if and when there is a reasonable alternative available, reasonably priced. However, although we have debated these matters at great length in this House over the years, I fear that the prospect remains rather remote.
I am not as pessimistic as other commentators on the roads scene as to the disbenefits in terms of health, congestion and so on. I am not as pessimistic as the noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas and Lord Berkeley. I sincerely believe that advances in fuel technology, engine and exhaust designs, etc., will make a much greater impact on the transport scene over the next five, 10 and certainly 15 years, than we have seen in the previous comparable period. There will have to be much greater investment, not only by the automotive industry, but also by government. In so far as tax or charge systems are involved, such measures will encourage the automotive industry to accelerate its already advanced research and development programmes.
Similarly, there has to be greater investment in road development systems. I do not necessarily refer to having more roads, but improving those that we have. There are enough management systems in place, so that given the will and the right kind of expenditure by local and national authorities, we can make far better use of the roads system. Equally, vehicle design, particularly in terms of telematics—on-board information systems and reciprocal sending systems from road management schemes—will improve the position. Noble Lords may feel that that is something of an over-simplification. We have debated the matter many times, and before the summer is over we shall be discussing it again.
There are two matters in the Bill that I wish to address. Clause 2(3) states that,
"the Secretary of State shall have regard to the adverse impacts of road traffic, including"—
and a number of points are listed. We hear that the Bill is not an anti-vehicle Bill. It therefore seems odd to include in the Bill a regard for the adverse impacts
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—many of which, incidentally, I believe to be perceived rather than real. Where are the positive implications, the beneficial impacts, to be considered? In any relationship there needs to be a balance. I should want to see something added to the Bill to ensure that those beneficial impacts receive some consideration, particularly the social impacts referred to, all of which have enhanced the quality of life for so many people.
The Bill does not deal with any of the recent fiscal measures taken in the Budget, which have added considerably to costs, particularly of freight transport. In Clause 2(4)(a) and (b) there is no mention of the needs of industry. I should like to see an amendment to the Bill to ensure that the needs of commerce and industry are given consideration equal to that given to the provision of taxi services, although I do not know how one would provide taxi services in this way.
I am lukewarm about the Bill, although I do not wish to impede its progress. Many people think it will be a good thing, and I am not against good things, but I do not feel it will make the kind of impact that is suggested.
11.51 a.m.
Viscount Simon: My Lords, there is a general agreement that the policy to reduce traffic on the roads, to take traffic away from places where it does damage to the local environment and the amenity of local communities and to improve modal choice available for access to jobs and essential community services, is right. But it is my intention to provide a little food for thought.
The Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997 requires local authorities either to specify targets for reducing road traffic and traffic growth levels in their areas or to say why they consider it inappropriate to specify these targets. However, the Bill offers no framework to show how traffic reduction targets might be achieved. I should be interested to learn if there is to be any government commitment to the long-term funding that will be needed to develop good quality bus and train services, which are fundamental to reducing dependency on cars. Without doubt, most local authorities will be unable to afford the capital expenditure.
We have yet to see how the statutory requirements of the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997 take their course. We also have to see how the White Paper on integrated transport sets the policy framework and the investment plans to address properly future traffic growth. In view of those two aspects—and I hope I am not being too simplistic—could not this Bill be considered as being slightly premature?
11.53 a.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I have to apologise sincerely to the House for speaking in the gap, due to an administrative oversight on my part. If we are to be pedantic, I have to declare an interest as I am president of the Heavy Transport Association.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, for introducing his Bill today and I rise briefly to make comment upon it. The tenor of the Bill assumes that all road traffic is negative. My noble friend Lord Lucas touched on that point, and I agree with his view. Road

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traffic is directly linked to economic activity. That is perhaps one reason why it is such a convenient and even appropriate target for the Government to raise tax revenues to support its spending plans. While there are some rather weak arguments presented regarding empty running of goods vehicles, generally speaking, goods vehicle traffic reflects economic activity. Therefore, if the Government succeeded in reducing goods vehicle traffic, they would have done so by creating a recession, or even a depression. Of course, if the Government reduced private car use, they would have created a miracle!
At Clause 2(3)(g), the Bill refers to the adverse social impacts. I do not really understand what those are. There certainly are social benefits of road traffic, a point upon which my noble friend Lord Lucas also touched.
One argument with which I heartily agree is that, as more roads are built, so traffic increases. I am as guilty as anyone, as my domestic and work arrangements would be impractical without the road network that has been built over the past 20 years. Equally, I have confidence that the Minister herself, when authorising any road scheme, will always have regard to the "adverse impacts" listed in Clause 2(3).
My main concern is that the Bill seeks to introduce targets for road traffic reduction in order to reduce the "adverse impacts". Surely it would be better to have targets to reduce the adverse impacts themselves. Most of these can be measured, apart from the social impact that I have already touched upon. The noble Lord may wish to draw my attention to Clause 2(3), but, if he does so, he may be exposing opportunities for improving the construction of the Bill.
Finally, the Bill addresses an extremely important issue, as we know that the projections for traffic growth and congestion represent a nightmare, but this will be a key issue in the Government's integrated transport review. We look forward to the Minister's right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister settling his differences with the rest of the Cabinet and the publication of the White Paper. No doubt there will be a major Bill to follow and I believe that, if this matter is not covered, the Bill could be amended to do that.
11.56 a.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, in welcoming this Bill, I begin by saying that it and its predecessor, as the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, said, has always had the support in Parliament of my noble friends in your Lordships' House and our honourable friends in another place. In fact, it was Don Foster who steered the 1997 Bill through the House of Commons. In a new policy document, which I helped to launch yesterday, we commit ourselves to a 1 per cent. annual reduction in traffic. That compares with the current rate of increase of 2 per cent. a year.
Everyone knows that road traffic is increasing. The congestion that it brings in its wake is an increasingly unpleasant factor in our daily lives. Road traffic is also a major contributor to the air pollution which damages our health. These are real problems, not merely perceived ones.
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I shall not deal at length with the question of pollution, which has been widely discussed here and elsewhere. In fact, I shall not deal at length with anything. However, I wish to make some comments about congestion. Congestion makes our streets more threatening and less pleasant for local residents and pedestrians. A recent BMA report shows that heavy traffic keeps people in their homes and reduces the sense of local community. It is dangerous. The director of the Child Health Monitoring Group at Great Ormond Street hospital stated recently that traffic volume is by far the most important risk factor for child pedestrian safety. Deterred by those two factors, parents prefer to take their children to school by car rather than let them walk, whether alone or accompanied. Congestion breeds more congestion. Nationally one in 10 trips by car is a school run.
Congestion is also expensive, costing, so the CBI has estimated, £19 billion per year. For comparison purposes, that is more than three times the projected cost of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. And Transport 2000 estimates that there are a further £6.3 million of costs which could be added through lost days at work and other costs of road accidents.
Unlike pollution, congestion cannot he tackled by purely technical means. We can hope and expect that alternative fuels and lean burn vehicles may make a considerable contribution to the reduction of pollution—the sort of thing to which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred. But there is no magic solution which can leave our travel habits intact and which will also solve the problems of congestion in towns, villages, on trunk routes or in lesser roads in the country. Determined action is required, led at a national level.
We already have a good idea of what that action might and should comprise. It should include changes in planning law to reduce the need to travel. A second aspect would be the reallocation of existing road space to give more room to buses, cyclists and pedestrians. Reference has already been made to the fact that three-fifths of all car trips are less than five miles in length and one-third of all trips are less than one mile. Those and other measures, such as safe routes to school, could impact significantly on the level of traffic in built-up areas.
We need to use a carrot and stick approach to persuade people to use public transport more often. We believe that those measures should include a direction of funds from charges on non-residential parking, traffic fines and possibly road charges to improve public transport and other methods of reducing traffic. In response to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who made reference to the social aspects of the issue, any improvement made in the safety of roads for walkers, cyclists and pedestrians and to improve public transport would be of enormous benefit to that one-third of the population who do not own and do not have access to a car.
Within that approach, national targets for traffic reduction have an important part to play, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, in what we hope will be a satisfactory White Paper and the policies which will

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stem from it. First, efforts made by local authorities to reduce traffic under the provisions of last year's Road Traffic Reduction Act could merely transfer that traffic onto the national network. A national target would not only ensure that local authorities were acting within a national context, but also ensure that the nationally managed motorway and priority route network is also being managed under the same discipline.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, referred to the difficulties which local authorities face in dealing with these matters. Many noble Lords will be aware that I have a long and close experience of those difficulties, having been involved in the construction of both the Surrey transport plans. In relation to local authorities, not only is the correct distribution of funds lacking, which is of major importance, but also the overall direction of policy under which they can work.
In that context we welcome the anticipated support from the Government for today's Bill in line with their policy handbook for the 1997 election which informed candidates that,
"Transport targets [will be set] at both national and local level [and that] our strategic aims are … to reduce and then reverse traffic growth".
Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was not a candidate in those elections and may not have read the handbook. However, it is certainly part of the Government's policies not just to halt but actually to reverse traffic growth. I hope that the introduction of subsection (2) into Clause 2 does not cover some backtracking on the Government's part and I hope that we shall be reassured on that point by the Minister when she replies to the debate.
Secondly, targets will be necessary anyway if the Government intend to meet their CO2, and air quality targets. Calculations will have to be made as to how much traffic reduction is needed to hit those targets and work will need to continue towards reducing traffic by that amount.
Finally, the Government have set or promised to set targets for a large number of other government objectives—literacy and numeracy, hospital waiting lists, CO2, emissions and so forth. Public targets are more effective than private targets and they send clear signals to everybody about the Government's transport policy.
I should like to add one further comment. The point of having a target to accompany a policy is that it gives us two things: first, a goal—something to which we can work; secondly, a tool—something which measures our progress towards that target. I thoroughly support today's Bill.
2.52 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, before I begin my remarks I should declare a couple of interests, one of which is as a member of the public policy committee of the RAC and the other that I am deputy president of the Institute of the Motor Industry. Unfortunately, both those interests are unpaid, voluntary ones and nor have I received any briefing from either organisation on this Bill today. These remarks therefore are my own.
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I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, on introducing the Bill to this House. Of course it passed all its stages in another place, but in doing so emerged, if I may say so, as a rather pale shadow of its former self. It has been considerably watered down and I was not sure what we were left with to debate today, and I am therefore all the more grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation this morning.
One thing on which we can all agree is that there should be a reduction in road traffic. The only problem is that everybody thinks that it is someone else who should reduce their use of the car, so that there is more room on the road, and less congestion, for themselves. That is quite understandable as the car has become, for the vast majority of people, an essential part of modern life, in the same way as the television, the fridge or the washing machine. It is too easy—and I am afraid that it seems to be a characteristic of this Government—constantly to criticise the car and motoring in general, without recognising the enormous benefits to the quality of life that car ownership has brought to many millions of people—many who, in previous generations, would have led much more restricted lives, sometimes never moving more than a few miles from where they were born. The car is here to stay, and in a way one could liken the noble Lord to King Canute in trying to stop the tide of car ownership and in trying to limit people's freedoms to use their car when and where they feel like.
We all await, with a great deal of interest, and perhaps a little trepidation, the arrival of the Government's White Paper on an integrated transport policy. But I hope that it will at least recognise the fact that the car accounts for 90 per cent. of passenger journeys in this country. So far the Government's record is not good. The Treasury is now taking some £30 billion a year from the road user, and yet is spending less and less on road building and maintenance. The Minister acclaimed, with pride, that she increased the maintenance budget by £100 million. That is of course very necessary as so much of the road network is in dire need of repair, and she is to be congratulated. But those congratulations are muted, from these Benches in any case, because it is not £100 million of new money; it is £100 million of existing money taken from the overall roads budget, which is no doubt why the number of new road starts is down to seven this year, all of which were already in train long ago. The number of bypass starts is down to one this year, probably the lowest number in modern history, thereby depriving towns and villages across the land of much needed relief from congestion, noise and pollution, in fact all the things listed so carefully in Clause 2(3) of this very Bill. All the Minister has done is to rob Peter to pay Paul.
But to return to the detail of the Bill, which as I said has a desirable aim, I note that Clause 1 excludes traffic constructed or adapted to carry more than eight passengers; in other words, buses. So the object is to move more people on to buses. That is of course highly desirable, and I am a frequent bus user myself, when it suits. But, as everyone knows, the bus is not suitable for many purposes. It seldom comes to outside one's own front door, nor delivers to one's exact destination. Particularly in rural areas they are few and far between.

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It has been said that this is due to deregulation; in fact, that has become a popular myth. The fact is that buses were deregulated to try and stop the long-term decline in bus usage that had been taking place for at least the previous 30 years.
The real reason for the decline in bus usage has been the fact that, as people have become better off, they have bought cars to take advantage of all the benefits of car ownership. Changing patterns of life such as the weekly shop—impossible to bring back home on public transport—increased parental choice in schools, out-of-town workplaces and many others referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, have increased dependency on the car.
I shall wish to move an amendment at Committee stage to add freight transport to this exclusion. Public transport is not an option for freight. Business does not move freight around for fun, as the Government seem to think is why people drive around. Long distance freight sometimes has the option of rail but for the vast majority of movements, including in particular local deliveries and home delivery, freight traffic is essential.
Freight traffic is a good barometer of the state of the economy, and I am sure that we all want a thriving economy. Incidentally, if the Government want a reduction in traffic, all they need to do is to engineer a downturn in the economy. But they seem to be well on the way to doing that without any help from me. Increased efficiency has already enabled industry to move much more freight around with 13 per cent. fewer lorries than 10 years ago. It would be quite unfair if freight traffic was to be mixed up in the provisions of this Bill.
Another area where I think the Bill could be improved would he to strengthen Clause 2. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has already referred to that. As the Bill stands, it seems to be an option as to whether the Government produce any targets at all. If the Government in their absolute discretion think that other measures are appropriate, they can just use other measures and not set targets.
The mover of the Bill said in another place on 24th April (at col. 1077 of the Official Report) that he would encourage someone to move an amendment to achieve the purpose of requiring the Government to impose targets. I am happy to help such an aim when we come to the Committee stage.
To summarise, I give this Bill a guarded welcome. I believe that the Bill can be improved in Committee and I look forward to the next stage.
12.25 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, for introducing this Bill and for his very clear exposition of the thinking behind it. I should say at the outset, as the Government have already said in another place, that we are happy to support the Bill.
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We have had a fascinating debate which has been wide ranging. I think that if I replied to all the questions and issues that have been raised, I could comprehensively pre-empt the content of the White Paper, and probably pre-empt the continuation of my own ministerial career. So I shall not succumb to that temptation.
However, I must rise a little to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara. I think that he is in very dangerous territory to criticise this Government's attitude to investment in roads. It is somewhat galling to find that his congratulations on our attempts to reinstate some of the disastrous cuts in road maintenance by the previous administration are criticised because we are taking the time to conduct a proper, open consultative review of the roads programme and to try to come up with a programme for investment in our road network that is based on objective criteria.
I have to say to him that the conduct of that review is in clear contradistinction to the reviews and the slashing of the road programme that took place in 1995 and 1996 and about which, I must tell him, colleagues of his in another place, coming to me to talk about their favourite road schemes, have been extremely critical.
But I must return to the matters before us today and concentrate on the Bill. If enacted, the Bill would require the Secretary of State to set and publish in a report national targets for road traffic reduction in England, Wales and Scotland and provide for analogous legislation to be introduced to cover Northern Ireland.
If, however, the Secretary of State considered that other targets or other measures were more appropriate for the purpose of reducing the adverse impacts of road traffic, he would not be required to set national road traffic reduction targets. In that case he would be required to publish a report explaining his reasoning and including an assessment of the impact of the other targets or other measures.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, thought that we need not be so pessimistic about the negative impacts of traffic because of the technical advances in engine design which are capable—as is the auto oil directive—of reducing adverse impact. The very point of Clause 2(2) is that if those technical advances were deemed more appropriate to reduce the adverse impacts of road traffic, despite increase in traffic levels, that could be addressed in any report prepared under Clause 2(2).
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, wanted some reassurance that this was not backtracking on the part of the Government. It is not backtracking; it is recognising that everyone who has spoken in today's debate and those who promote the Bill are looking to reduce traffic levels, not as an aim in itself but because of the adverse effects that come and are acknowledged, together with the beneficial effects on mobility and the economy that have also been referred to. It is about minimising those adverse effects. We must look at all the possible measures that could contribute to that minimisation.
In favour of setting national road traffic reduction targets it has been argued that they would address directly the need to reduce the impacts of transport upon

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the environment. Transport is the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of climate change. While emissions of air pollutants from road transport such as lead, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides are falling as cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels penetrate the market, the impact of cleaner technology is in danger of being undermined by predicted traffic growth.
The other argument is that national road traffic reduction targets are not needed for the reasons that I outlined before; that the Government should focus primarily on the wider environmental impacts which transport produces—rather than on the road traffic itself—and which are reflected in the environmental aims underlying this Bill. We have a range of targets related to these issues that I should like to consider in a moment.
I turn to the White Paper on which a number of noble Lords have commented. It will be published shortly. It will be the first for 20 years. It will establish a framework within which to develop an integrated transport policy for the 21st century. Perhaps I can reassure my noble friend Lord Berkeley that the Government are working on the basis that integration means not only integration between transport modes, so that there are safe, reliable and convenient connections between the different forms of transport, but also, which is more difficult to achieve but absolutely fundamental, integration with environment and planning policies so that the transport system is consistent with the principles of sustainable development. This also means integration with fiscal and economic policies so that a sustainable transport system supports employment, economic growth and a competitive economy, and integration with social and health policies so that our transport policies can contribute to our wider aims of a fairer and more inclusive society.
Perhaps it is important to say here—the point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas—that this Government, as the promoters of this Bill, are not anti-car. The car will remain an essential element, and road transport will remain an essential element in our society. The Government, I am happy to make clear, accept this and recognise it. But equally there is a wide-ranging recognition that we need to strike a better balance between the various modes of transport and to give people more choice when they are making decisions about how they move around. That choice means providing a safer environment for cycling and walking. It means improving public transport. The improvement and provision of safe and economically acceptable public transport is, I can assure my noble friend Lord Simon, an important part of the White Paper.
We are looking at ways in which we can tackle the growth of car dependency which has implications for the health of our nation and certainly for the health of our schoolchildren as well as implications for pollution and congestion. We are looking at how we can tackle that through fiscal, regulatory and financial measures and by awareness campaigns and the work of voluntary organisations. I certainly note the comments of my
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noble friend Lord Berkeley on the issue of ensuring that any money raised from congestion charging should be reinvested in public transport. He will not be surprised to know that others have made the same point in the consultation on the White Paper.
The role of targets has also been raised in response to the consultation exercise. There are a number already in place that have a bearing, directly or indirectly, on transport. Beside the targets for reducing CO2, emissions, to which I shall come in a moment, we have the national air quality strategy; which sets stringent limits on eight major pollutants to be met by 2005; a target to double the amount of cycling by 2002 and to double it again by 2012; and a target to cut the number of road casualties by a third on average levels for 1981–85 by the year 2000, with a commitment to set new road safety targets for the period following 2000.
Those existing targets are likely to be significant drivers of new transport measures, at both national and local level. We are also considering carefully whether there is a need for additional targets to provide a further impetus to the policies that are adopted, including the need to set targets for walking and for the introduction of green transport plans across government.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and other noble Lords referred to the Road Traffic Reduction Act, passed in the dying days of the previous government, which requires local authorities to set targets for traffic reduction on local roads in their area. Inevitably there is a link between the Bill before us today and the duties placed on local authorities under the Act. In January we issued for consultation draft guidance to local authorities on meeting their obligations under that Act. At present we are considering the responses to that consultation. We envisage that local authorities will have to produce reports under the Act by July 1999. These reports should contain the results of their reviews of existing and forecast levels of traffic on local roads in their area, as well as targets for reducing traffic levels on such roads, or their rate of growth.
Economic circumstances and regional characteristics mean that traffic conditions will vary from one part of the country to another, as well as between urban and rural areas per se. So it would be unrealistic to expect all authorities to set identical traffic reduction targets. Instead, the Act allows local authorities to decide, after close consultation with local residents and businesses, what targets they should set, or whether there are good reasons for not setting targets for all or any part of their area.
Any measures which local authorities implement to help achieve traffic reduction targets will also have implications for regional and national traffic levels, the point made by the noble Baroness, unless they are to have the effect of merely displacing traffic into neighbouring areas. As a result, we shall be looking closely at the traffic reduction strategies adopted by authorities and their likely effects in determining the role which national traffic targets could play.
Turning to C02 reductions, we shall be consulting this summer on the measures needed to ensure both that we meet our legally binding Kyoto target and move over

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time towards our domestic aim of a 20 per cent. reduction in C02, emissions by 2010. We aim to publish a wide-ranging and open consultation paper in the near future. It will build on the outcomes of other reviews—integrated transport policy, energy policy, utility review—with the aim of developing, early next year, a balanced climate change programme which covers all sectors of the economy and engages all parts of the community—businesses, local government, community groups and individuals.
Our climate change programme will include measures to improve energy efficiency by business and in the home; reduce transport emissions; and increase the proportion of electricity generated from renewables and combined heat and power. Measures to tackle climate change will give us a more efficient, less car-dependent transport system; better air quality; warmer, more comfortable homes; energy savings for business and consumers; and new jobs and market opportunities from more efficient technologies. I do not think we should look at this negatively. There are great opportunities in the battle against climate change.
That puts into context today's debate about the role that traffic reduction and transport can play in reducing pollution. I believe that national road traffic reduction targets are an important issue which we need to consider as part of the continuing transport debate, alongside the range of measures and targets that I have outlined today.
Perhaps I may conclude by stressing that the Government believe that the Bill is worthy of our support. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, his honourable friends in another place and his advisers for the hard work and determination they have shown in carrying forward this Bill.
12.25 p.m.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister and to all those Members of your Lordships' House who have taken part in the debate. I was particularly gratified, as indeed was my colleague in another place, Mr. Cynog Dafis, the Green Party of Wales Member for Ceredigion, as I like to call him, who took the Bill through the other place, by the fact that all noble Lords who have spoken gave a welcome, some more qualified than others, to the Bill. It was clearly emphasised in the debate and by the Minister herself that it is not a case of either/or; the Bill is part of a package of measures. In that sense I cannot agree entirely with the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that this might be premature. But I think that he was putting that as a probing Second Reading question rather than as a condemnation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, responded clearly to the point of my noble friend Lord Berkeley about a reduction in the context of a projected increase by indicating that any reduction on an exponential increase is a reduction. As we seek to take the Bill forward, we will certainly be able to look in greater detail at the mammoth task that we face in terms of that reduction.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, described himself as being somewhat frustrated. However, I did not think that was reflected in his speech. I thought that he brought a
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nice sense of realism to the debate because sustainable development is precisely about the costs and benefits of all modes of transport and all other modes of economic activity. I am not trying to be greener than thou in the debate, but I shall be returning, sooner rather than later, to Snowdonia by train and bus. However, I may have use of my wife's car during the weekend if I am suitably properly behaved. There are many of us these days, even in rural areas, who try to share one vehicle per household. In our case we are a household of three. The other person in the household, my son, does not drive. He occasionally is driven, but he is a regular bus user. I am just trying to prove that we do sometimes practise what we preach.
The Bill is not anti-car. All of us need to make use of cars, especially in situations of emergency in rural areas. But we are concerned about the overall impact of the car on social and economic life. On the positive side, we recognise the freedom brought about by car ownership and all the attractive aspects of the car culture. But we also recognise the downside of that culture. That point was brought out in the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. We are not trying to emphasise that all aspects of road traffic are negative.
I have to call in aid, without quoting it at length, the report of the Royal Commission. In Chapter I of its report it estimated the environmental and social costs of road transport as between £10.9 billion and £20.5 billion a year for all UK transport in 1994. The true cost was considered to be substantially greater because of the unquantified costs. Its latest report (Cmnd. 3752) discusses other estimates for both air pollution, climate change costs, noise elimination costs, road accidents and the social and environmental costs of congestion. We are all well aware of that. It is those negative sides of the problem that we try to deal with in Clause 2(3) of the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, emphasised the importance of child safety and its relationship to the movement to school by car which has increased so much. It is placed in the overall context of the need for an integrated transport policy. I particularly enjoyed her quoting from the Labour Party handbook. The Liberal Democrats perform an excellent service in this House and in another place by reminding the Labour Party of its election commitments whenever the need arises. The Minister was certainly aware of those commitments. I would not wish to do anything to damage her ministerial career. We followed each other both in the other place and in this House. She has gone further than I have, but I certainly would not want to hold her back in any way.
I was very pleased that the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, on the Opposition Front Bench recognised the desirable aim of the Bill. I believe that he gave it a "guarded welcome". In his reference to King Canute I have to tell him that we have, as always in Welsh matters, a Welsh version of the myth. It was Maelgwn, prince of Gwynedd, who sought to resist the tide in the Conwy Estuary. The beauty of that estuary has been protected from the ravages of road transport by a very expensive but attractive tunnel. It was constructed in the ministerial time of his noble friend

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Lord Roberts of Conwy. We are not making an attempt to reduce the tide of car ownership but to ensure that the tide does not overflow all other modes of transport or other forms of social interaction. That is what the issue of sustainable development is all about, and I believe that there is little between us on that.
However, I do not believe that I could consider accepting an amendment which would seek to remove freight traffic from the definition of road traffic in Clause 1 of the Bill. We shall return to this in Committee. If that is the intention that was being signalled, I do not believe I shall be able to accept it.
As regards the noble Lord's other point of placing further duties on the Government, we can certainly look again at what is available to us now in Clause 2(2). That indicates clearly that there is a duty on the Secretary of State. In my reading of it, this particular version puts the road traffic reduction targets in the context of other targets. When the White Paper emerges no doubt we shall be able to see how all these various targets contribute to each other. That is my final point.
I would like to thank all those who have taken part in the debate. Again, I would like to cite my honourable friend in the other place, Cynog Dafis, for his sterling work in taking the Bill through the other place. I look forward to doing the same here successfully. As regards my immediate interests, they are to fulfil Her Majesty's Government's new targets for walking. I hope to put in at least 20 miles this weekend and that means that I shall qualify.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Public Interest Disclosure Bill
12.34 p.m.
Lord Borrie: 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 Borrie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Protected disclosures]:
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton Lord Wedderburn of Charlton moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 13, after second ("disclosure") insert ("knowingly or recklessly").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps I may explain the approach which my noble friends and I have taken as regards amendments to this Bill. I was unavoidably absent at Second Reading, but I share the view expressed by many in that debate—by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and my noble friends Lady Turner and Lord McCarthy—that this is an excellent and long overdue venture. It follows the usual procedure now for matters of this kind of a Private Member's Bill
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supported by the Government. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and the members of Public Concern at Work on putting this Bill forward.
However, no Bill is perfect. We apprehend that it is equally our job, with a Bill that goes through this procedure, to suggest revisions where we believe it is proper so to do. But it is sometimes difficult to know to whom to direct the suggestions, whether to the originators of the Bill or to the Minister. No doubt they will explain their own individual positions.
In addition, we have not tabled every possible amendment that we believe should be made. Perhaps I may use this opportunity to mention one or two matters which deserve a second look, but which we did not include in our amendments. For example, in the new Section 43C it is suggested that an employer may—or by inference may not—authorise a grievance procedure. At Second Reading (Hansard, 11/5/98; col. 901.) the Minister said, very sensibly, that employers,
"may build upon existing grievance procedures or it may be more appropriate to designate a senior manager, the company's lawyer or an auditor as the person with whom concerns should be raised".
Perhaps the Bill does not take full account of the fact that in 1995 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that in these days,
"It is an implied term in a contract of employment that the employers will reasonably and promptly afford a reasonable opportunity to their employees to obtain redress of any grievance they may have".
That was in the case of Goold v. McConnell in 1995. I am not suggesting—and neither are my noble friends—that a grievance procedure, as it is usually understood, is precisely the sensible procedure to have for disclosures of this sort, but with a small amount of adjustment what is now a legal duty could be made to serve, as the Minister suggested, in this Bill.
We have not put down amendments on the question of the burden of proof. I ask the Minister if he will, with his skilled advisers, look through the Bill to see exactly on whom lies the burden of proving something true or false.
I shall speak to Amendment No. 1, which arises in this way. The whole philosophy of the Bill would appear to be based on a worker taking reasonable action on the basis of reasonable belief. That does not in any way summarise fully the terms of what will be new Sections 43C, 43G and 43H on which we shall no doubt spend more time later. The thread that I found was that if a worker is behaving reasonably, he might on the whole be able to slip through these hoops.
However, that is certainly not so with regard to one subsection. I refer to the case of a worker who in good faith and reasonably, so he believes, wants to disclose to a proper person some misfeasance of Maxwellian proportions. He may find that unintentionally he has transgressed some strict rule of the criminal law. We no longer teach our students that mens rea or a guilty mind is necessarily part of a criminal offence. If that employee is working with someone who is hacking information from another programme—a few years ago we made that a crime—he may not know that that information is coming from a young hacker, who will

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probably be aged about 12 because in order to get a really good hacker one has to go down the age range, that employee will be committing a crime. However, the worker sitting next to him, who then wants to disclose the matter, may he an accessory. In certain circumstances, I would be prepared to argue that he could be a principal.
The example that is usually given is of someone finding that he is acting contrary to by-laws. That arises especially where a worker is giving the information, on paper, as it were, in a place where he is not supposed to do that. It is easy to find by-laws that may be transgressed. It has been suggested to me that there may be situations in which such an employee could innocently trespass with others into private property and find that he was part of an aggravated trespass under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
In such circumstances, the amendment suggests that that employee may be made to lose his protections under the Bill—that is what is at stake in subsection (3)—if he commits any criminal act with or without mental intent. The amendment retains the loss of protection where the worker has acted either knowingly or recklessly in that way. The word "recklessly" covers a wide ground. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, once put it, it is the man who turns a blind eye. Other members of the judiciary have described it as including "Nelsonian knowledge". I accept that. Indeed, I am asking for a small area of ground in which the worker maintains the possibility of protection under the rest of these provisions when he knows none of the elements, and has failed to inquire into any of the elements, which constitute a criminal offence.
At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said something with which I entirely agree. He said:
"This … will become a statute which will not be easy for the ordinary worker in the workplace to interpret without some help".— [Official Report, 11/5/98; co1.904.]
I entirely accept that. Indeed, I have adopted that line. Surely the ordinary worker will understand whether he is being penalised—because now we are saying that he will lose his protections—just because in the course of his action he wandered into some area of criminal liability about which he knew nothing and of which no one had advised him. If the employee has reason to take advice, that still falls within the provisions of the Bill. Surely it is not a circumstance which should remove the protection of disclosure by a worker wholly taken by surprise at his criminality. I fear the day when the worker is deprived of his protection when others are not merely because of what may be the accident of criminality in the actions in which he has joined. I take it that the provisions would cover the position of a worker who is part of a group which could be said to be a conspiracy, aiming at the same venture; the acts of one being attributed as the acts of all.
This is a small amendment, based on what many people believe to be the philosophy of the Bill, which is that if workers act reasonably, are sensible, and take advice when they obviously should, they will be protected in a broad sense. We think that subsection (3) offends that. We do not believe that there is any problem with the Official Secrets Act. Anyone who is subject to
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that Act will know that they have to get things cleared. We thought that we should table this small amendment for your Lordships' consideration. I beg to move.
12.45 p.m.
Lord Nolan: I totally applaud the motive underlying the amendment, and perhaps I may say a word or two about it. The clause as it stands requires proof of the commission of a criminal offence by the employee who is to be deprived of the protection of the Bill. If he has been prosecuted in a criminal court, questions of proof will proceed on ordinary lines. If the question arises in, say, an industrial tribunal, I believe the law to be that the offence would still have to be proved according to the standard appropriate for crime. That was certainly the view expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Lane when he was Lord Chief Justice, and on a number of occasions by my noble and learned friend Lord Denning. It would be a rare and rash judge who would take a different view.
I cannot put my finger on every one of these offences, but I suspect that many, if not all, contain their own specified type of guilty mind, guilty knowledge or perhaps a defence for the innocent, unwitting transgression of a statute. I wonder whether some confusion might arise if, on top of the requirements of the provisions for the commission of a particular offence, the tribunal considering the matter has to add in the adverbs "knowingly or recklessly". Might that not present the tribunal with some difficult questions of law when I hope that that will not be necessary? In other words, I hope that the fact that the offence has been committed will itself be a matter of sufficient gravity as to deprive the employee of the protection of this measure as long as he fulfils the ordinary requirements of the relevant Act for the commission of the offence. Of course, it might be one of strict liability, but they are rare. Usually some guilty mind is required. I question whether the additional words might muddy the waters instead of clarifying the law, which is the intention of the amendment.
While I am on my feet perhaps I may add that, like my noble and learned friend, I was unable to attend the Second Reading debate. However, I should like now to welcome the Bill. My three years in a previous incarnation as chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life persuaded me of the urgent need for such a measure. That view was shared by all my fellow committee members. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and his colleagues at Public Concern at Work for so skilfully achieving the essential but delicate balance in this measure between the public interest and the interests of employers.
Lord McCarthy: Perhaps I may disagree with the direction taken by the noble and learned Lord. He seems to be concentrating on what might happen if a case got to court or to a tribunal. The noble and learned Lord may be right about that; I would not know; but the object of the Bill is to get things started. The object of the Bill is that if workers believe that their employers, or those acting for them, have committed a criminal offence, not complied with a legal obligation, have been

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party to a miscarriage of justice, have put at risk health and safety and so on, they want to know whether they can do anything about it under an Act of Parliament. Can they now do something about it? The Bill states that they can take advice from a lawyer. We say that they should also be able to see a trade union official. But what will they be told? They will be told that, while they may have evidence, they cannot know all the details, what the employer's defence will be or whether he has certain explanations for what has happened.
The worker may say that that is all he knows and ask whether he can have a go. We suggest that at that moment the person who offers advice can say to the worker that he will not be done for ignorance but for recklessness. It will require caution and care, but if there is something of which the worker is unaware he will still be protected. We fear that unless something like that is available at the beginning of the process there will not be a process at all.
Lord Haskel: I very much welcome the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, to our consideration of the Bill today, and in particular his support for it. The Bill fulfils one of the key points made in the second report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which the noble and learned Lord chaired with distinction: the need to encourage greater openness within organisations when dealing with wrongdoing or failures. We feel that this Bill will encourage greater openness in both the public and private sectors. I also acknowledge the important work carried out by the noble and learned Lord's committee identifying the need for effective internal procedures to allow employees to raise their concerns. We believe that the Bill will encourage employers to use existing procedures or to introduce new ones where necessary to facilitate internal disclosures and the prompt resolution of problems.
Turning to the amendment, Section 43B(3) in Clause 1 excludes protection for workers where they make a disclosure that involves a criminal offence. The Bill could not possibly provide carte blanche protection for those who made disclosures that breached other statutory prohibitions on disclosures and therefore involved criminal offences. If it did, the Government could not possibly support such a measure; yet the purpose of the amendment is to provide a defence in a case where the individual did not know, and it was reasonable for him not to know, that an offence was being committed.
We believe that the amendment is both unnecessary and undesirable. In some cases lack of knowledge is already a defence against breaches of statutory prohibitions on disclosure, and one example of that is the Official Secrets Act. In such cases the amendment would assist workers. However, ignorance of the law in other cases is no excuse. The Bill must not undermine the statutory provisions that Parliament has put in place. If individuals ought to be able to disregard the law because they did not know of its existence, that should be provided in the statute itself, not just in the particular circumstances covered by this Bill. The effect of the
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amendment is that employers could be prohibited from disciplining an employee who had committed a criminal offence. That cannot be right.
I turn to the particular case of the hacker raised by my noble friend Lord Wedderburn. Section 43B(3) in Clause 1 excludes from protection disclosures which involve a criminal offence, but that does not mean that there must necessarily be a conviction or a criminal prosecution for the section to apply. My noble friend Lord McCarthy referred to the Bill being reasonable. I believe that if the matter went before a tribunal a high standard of proof would be required before the tribune could decide whether an offence had been committed. That would ensure a fair hearing for the employee. Nor would it be the same as finding the individual guilty of a criminal offence. But clearly it would be wrong to protect workers who had broken the law and the Bill cannot do so. Bearing that in mind, I hope that my noble friend will reconsider his amendment.
Lord Borrie: This Bill is meant to encourage any worker in any workplace who discovers a malpractice of some kind, whether it is financial, a breach of safety regulations or the commission of a criminal offence by the employer—several examples were given by me and other noble Lords during Second Reading—to disclose those matters in the public interest. It is not concerned with a worker who wishes to disclose some malpractice for his own ends, possibly to try to gain a private advantage. As the title of the Bill clearly indicates, it is concerned with the public interest. In our society and the general scheme of things because the law states that a criminal offence can be committed only when it takes place knowingly or recklessly, or where it is a strict liability offence, as my noble friend Lord Wedderburn has indicated, it is very difficult to say that the commission of a criminal offence by a discloser can nonetheless be in the public interest. That is the difficulty I face in supporting the amendment.
I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, not only for his support for the Bill but for his comment that, as and when a matter of this kind comes before an industrial tribunal, because a worker, having disclosed some malpractice, is victimised or dismissed, if it is faced with the argument on the part of the employer that the employee, by disclosing the malpractice, has committed a criminal offence that must be proved before that tribunal to the criminal standard; that is, beyond reasonable doubt. The case cited by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, was one decided by the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, who held that in disciplinary proceedings involving a solicitor, where it was alleged that a professional had committed a serious crime, the tribunal should apply the criminal standard of proof. Having in mind the situations that may arise under this Bill, the consequences for the reputation and employability of an employee who is dismissed because he is thought to have committed an offence of some kind will be no less grave than those for a professional such as a solicitor who is struck off as a result of allegations of a serious crime affecting his professional integrity. Therefore, I respectfully agree with the noble

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and learned Lord, Lord Nolan. I suggest that it is safe to assume that an industrial tribunal will follow that precedent and adopt the criminal standard of proof in applying Section 43B(3).
My noble friend Lord McCarthy said that that may well be the situation if the matter comes to an industrial tribunal, but he is concerned with the encouragement or discouragement at the earlier stage where an employee is considering the possibility of disclosing a malpractice, going perhaps to someone for advice on the subject and being told, "Well, there are certain provisions in the Act which will protect you if you are victimised as a result of disclosing a malpractice but not if you commit a criminal offence". But anyone, including any lawyer, with whom that is discussed will surely make the point made also by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, that the employer will not have any defence to a claim for unfair dismissal following victimisation and so on unless it can be proved to a criminal standard of proof that an offence has been committed.
I do not think I need to go into the Official Secrets Act because, although that was raised during the Second Reading debate by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, my noble friend Lord Wedderburn has appreciated that there are defences there if a prosecution is brought under that Act, whereby no offence is committed should there be reasonable cause to believe that the matter did not relate to defence or security matters, intelligence and so on.
There is a residue, if one may put it that way, of purpose to this amendment which I respect. It relates solely to strict liability offences. However, apart from the point made particularly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, with regard to the burden of proof before any industrial tribunal, in many of the secrecy offences—of which there are several hundred involving strict liability—there is no matter of having to prove knowledge or recklessness before you can be found guilty. The freedom of information White Paper which was produced a few months ago, Cmnd. 3818, entitled Your Right to Know, points out:
"The Government intends where appropriate that the new Act—
the freedom of information Act, as it will be—
"should repeal or amend the many existing statutory bars to disclosure that have been identified".
If it were not for that, I would see a greater risk which the amendment would justify and would be seeking to deal with. However, I am content that many provisions are being reviewed by the Government concerning strict liability offences. One hopes that the Government will bear in mind these matters when they come to the freedom of information Act as it will eventually become, and the earlier secrecy provisions in a whole range of Acts of Parliament will disappear.
It seems to me that at the end of the day in a public interest disclosure Bill it is not appropriate to say that it is in the public interest to disclose things that are under the existing law criminal. Let us rest on the belief that many strict liability offences that currently exist perhaps should not exist and can be argued against in due course when we discuss the freedom of information Bill. I would ask the proposers of this amendment not to pursue it because it is not appropriate, in a Bill dealing
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with particular matters of disclosure between employers and employees, to seek to make it appear that it is in the public interest to disclose something even though the disclosure involves something that is currently a criminal offence.
1 p.m.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I thank those who have made comments on our amendment and I shall try to be brief in responding. So far as the Minister is concerned, my noble friend spoke at one point about convictions, but of course this amendment is not about convictions. The problem which the noble and learned Lord and my noble friend Lord Borne have touched upon is twofold. First, it has behind it a whole raft of sections of clauses which express the public interest in terms of what it is right or not right for the worker to disclose. We have such a complicated set of provisions on the public interest that I take it my noble friend Lord Borrie is reasonably satisfied with them as he has not put down any amendments. Therefore when it comes to the tribunal, it comes, it is true, as a civil matter but, subject to one place—I cannot find any other place in the Bill where this is so—it comes to the tribunal with the question: was this dismissal protected or was this detriment within the terms of what we will come to later on?
The tribunal, the EAT, the Court of Appeal and, if need be, the House of Lords will decide this according to the usual civil tests of probability. Of course counsel may say—my noble friend Lord McCarthy made the point—or the manager may say to the worker, "Don't you go on with this because I have got a little strict liability crime in my books that I have been told about and so you had better shut up". The employee, being on the one hand a very loyal employee and on the other hand subject to the problems of flexibility these days, says, "Oh dear". If I may say so, building a point for those to come later, that is the point at which he needs his trade union official. But many workers will say, "I had better shut up".
We must remember that the point of new Sections 43A and 43B, especially subsection (3,) is that they knock the whole procedure down into the dustbin. If you cannot pass that, you do not get to all these wonderful procedures in the remainder of the new sections. We will look in Hansard, but I am not sure that my noble friend Lord Borne did really represent the amendment. We are not planning to have any Divisions today and this is the only chance we have of discussing this very important Bill. But the worker may not know, has no reason to know and could not with reasonable acts and omissions know that there was some element of criminality here. My noble friend Lord Borrie asked, "Do you mean to say that he did not have any of those things? Are you going to exempt him from a number of secrecy provisions?". I would say, "Yes". It is not unknown for one Bill to adapt itself to another. If the criminal argument is strict—because I believe that the public interest has to be served—he is then allowed, not necessarily to disclose, let us be clear, but he is past the first hoop and he can go on to new Sections 43B, 43C and so on.

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What resistance to this amendment does is to cut him out, very likely in a situation where he most needs advice and does not have it, probably on the shop floor. After that, one wonders what will happen. However, I can see that we are not going to get any assistance on this, although I was hoping that the Government would say they are going to look at this. The whole point of a Committee stage is to be able to look at matters such as this before the later stages of a Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Turner of Camden Baroness Turner of Camden moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 35, at end insert ("or
( ) to an independent adviser falling within the terms of sections 9 and 10 of the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act 1998.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2. It will perhaps be recalled that at Second Reading several noble Lords referred to the need to refer to unions as being appropriate organisations to which individuals could report dangerous or fraudulent practices. I referred to the Private Member's Bill that I, with the help of my two noble friends, Lords Wedderburn and McCarthy—I am glad to see them here today—succeeded in getting adopted several years ago.
It will be recalled that the appalling Piper Alpha disaster might have been prevented had reports been made earlier about dangers inherent in the practices being carried out or omissions that had occurred. In that incident, it became clear that the unions to which many of the employees belonged were not recognised. Indeed, the employers were hostile. Moreover, since employees were employed on short-term contracts, they were unwilling to be identified as possible trouble makers since they otherwise would probably not have had their contracts renewed. Our whistle blowers' Bill gave such individuals who reported on unsafe practices protection without their having to wait two years for it as was normal in the case of other unfair dismissal cases. That Bill was later absorbed in a more general health and safety at work measure now on the statute book.
However, it was natural for the employees at that time to report their concerns to the unions. Our amendment makes that explicit in the new Bill. We have taken wording that already exists in legislation and which has, moreover, been used by a Bill recently accepted by the Government (now an Act), the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act. That defines who is a relevant independent adviser. I quote from the schedule to the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act 1998. A relevant independent adviser is such for the purposes of the legislation,

"(a) if he is a qualified lawyer,

(b) if he is an officer, official, employee or member of an independent trade union who has been certified in writing by the trade union as competent to give advice and as authorised to do so on behalf of the trade union,

(c) if he works at an advice centre (whether as an employee or a volunteer) and has been certified in writing by the centre as competent to give advice and as authorised to do so on behalf of the centre; or

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(d) if he is a person of a description specified in an order made by the Secretary of State".

It seems to us that this is a comprehensive, good and complete definition. It deals also with the situation if the union is not recognised.
It is important to have such a measure in the Bill. As at present drafted, protection exists if the union's solicitor intervenes on behalf of a member. But if the intervention is by an authorised union official who may know a great deal more about the circumstances involved than perhaps an outside lawyer, then the protection is not explicit. I believe that that was not the Government's intention, or that of the noble Lord, Lord Borne, in drafting the Bill. I am certain that it was intended that unions should be given status within the context of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Gladwin of Clee: I support the amendment because, together with my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde I am a member of the council of the Public Concern at Work. I am anxious that the Bill should reach the statute book as soon as possible. I believe that every effort should be made to encourage industry and commerce to create credible machinery in which employees have faith so that perceived malpractices and wrongdoing can be handled internally. The Bill deals with circumstances where such machinery does not exist. That brings me directly to Amendment No. 2.
In my experience as a trade union official, the normal channel for an employee to seek to reveal a perceived wrongdoing is to his or her trade union official, usually a fairly senior official outside the immediate place of work; in other words, the kind of union official described several times in Schedule 1 to the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act which my noble friend has already cited. If someone has been certified as competent and authorised to give advice, why cannot disclosure to such a person be protected?
Secondly, I find a lack of clarity between disclosure made to a trade union official in a workplace where the union was recognised, and one where there was no recognition. Where unions are recognised, there is normally a collective agreement covering terms and conditions of employment, grievance handling and disciplinary procedures. My guess is that as yet few of the collective agreements specifically refer to whistle blowing. In those circumstances, will a disclosure made in good faith to a union official—after all, he may be the signatory of such a collective agreement—be a protected disclosure; and, if not, why not?
The third situation relates to an employee who is a trade union member but works in a workplace which does not recognise trade unions for collective bargaining, so there is no collective bargaining agreement; there is no whistle-blowing procedure. The employee goes to his union official and in good faith discloses his concern about perceived wrongdoing. My noble friend has pointed out that it would appear that if the union's solicitor writes to the employer the disclosure is protected. But if the union official takes the matter up, then the disclosure is not protected. Is that correct? If it is, is it not quite unreal?

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Finally, I have a direct question of the Minister. How does the exclusion of trade union involvement in this Bill square with the proposal in the Fairness at Work White Paper which proposes the creation of a legal right for employees to be accompanied by a trade union representative during grievance procedures? I welcome clarification from both my noble friends.
1.15 p.m.
Lord Haskel: When my noble friend Lord Borrie spoke to the first amendment, he reminded us that we want to encourage the use of proper internal procedures. That is why the purpose of Section 43C in Clause 1 of the Bill is to encourage workers to raise their concerns with the employer first, whether directly or through proper internal company procedures. They need only act in good faith in doing so, which is deliberately not an onerous condition.
The Bill is therefore very much in line with the Government's partnership approach, which seeks to encourage greater co-operation between employers and workers and trade unions.
I appreciate my noble friend's wish to see a role for trade unions in internal whistle-blowing procedures. But the amendment is not the best way to go about it. My noble friend Lord Gladwin asks how this is reconciled with the Fairness at Work White Paper. The Government have already set out a package of proposals in the Fairness at Work White Paper. It is in that context that we should regard the role of employers, workers and their representatives, including trade unions, in establishing greater co-operation. The White Paper includes welcome proposals on trade union recognition and proposals making it unlawful to discriminate by omission on grounds of trade union membership or non-membership. Indeed, the paper lays down proposals about workers being able to be accompanied by a trade union official
The Bill is a specific measure. It is about protecting responsible whistle blowers. As drafted, it delivers necessary protection and will encourage the use of proper agreed procedures and greater openness between employers and workers. On that basis, it has received widespread support. The Bill contains powers to prescribe persons for the purposes of disclosure. When we come to make the order, we shall consider which persons or bodies should be prescribed. We will consider my noble friend's views in that context and also the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner.
But our present intention is to prescribe those such as the Health and Safety Executive or the Financial Services Authority with a specific role in regulating and investigating wrongdoing. Our present view is that it would not be appropriate for trade unions to be fitted into the structure, but we are open to further discussion. For those reasons, the Government cannot support the amendment.
The Fairness at Work White Paper proposes to create a legal right for employees to be accompanied by a colleague or a trade union representative of their own choice at grievance and disciplinary procedures. We believe that that will help to assure employees that they
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will receive a fair hearing. The proposal is a contribution to the way in which we would like to see problems resolved in the workplace, involving all interested parties working together to ensure that companies can maintain their competitiveness and that workers are treated fairly.
Lord McCarthy: The noble Lord invites us to respond and we must do so. He said that the Government are listening and we must respond. He said that the Government are interested in proper procedures. But he also said that this is a specific measure and that is the difficulty. The noble Lord rightly mentioned many times Fairness at Work, but the Government propose to encourage a legal right for all employees to be accompanied by a fellow employee or trade union representative of their choice during grievance and disciplinary procedures. With great respect, we are not talking about grievances or discipline. We are talking about alleged corruption and alleged illegality. It is not a grievance on the part of the worker that illegality and corruption is occurring. The employee wants to make a public protest and to put it right. This is a specific measure.
I am worried when the Minister goes on to say that these public activities are not the functions of trade unions. In Heaven's name, why not? If one looks at the history of trade unions one sees that we have a Labour Party because it was interested in public concerns, not only in the grievances and disciplinary activities of its members. It had a role and a function.
I hope that the Minister will listen to the argument that on any reasonable case the trade unions should be involved.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I wish to put to the Minister some words of his own and to quote from what he said on Second Reading. He rightly brought to our attention the fact that there are two ways of looking at what the worker wants to do; there is the internal procedure, which those who frame the Bill would like to be tried first, and there is an external procedure. He stated:
"the Bill also protects workers where it is appropriate for them to disclose information to someone other than their own employer or the designated regulator. That may happen where it is unreasonable to expect internal disclosure because the worker reasonably believed that he or she would he victimised or that information would he covered up if the employer were alerted".—[Official Report, 11/5/98; col. 901.]
Those are two proper examples where the employer is alerted.
More important for the individual is the case where he fears victimisation. To whom does the worker turn in such a case? Certainly not to the internal list, which the Minister properly gave us, but to the external list. Those in charge of the Bill say that there will be a list of people who are designated under Section 43F, although it sounds as though trade union officials will not be designated under that section. According to the Second Reading debate, they are being confined to giving advice on codes of practice.

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We are saying that our noble friend the Minister is right that people will fear victimisation, but we want them to have a chance of talking to someone on a reasonable basis which is not cut off from other lawful procedures. If a worker is threatened with victimisation, or believes that he is, and has begun proceedings in an industrial tribunal, it is now possible to allow a compromise agreement to end the proceedings. That procedure has been up and running for only a few years. It used to be something which one could not or should not do. However, we passed that provision in 1996.
My noble friend Lady Turner referred to the three groups of people to whom the worker can go for advice and to discuss the issues on a compromise agreement. But it is likely that in the middle of the discussion with his trade union representative, not with the lawyer—and we query the position of the representative from the citizens advice bureaux—the trade union representative, usually of a senior level, will say, "There seems to me more in this". The worker will say, "Yes, I could tell you tales that would make your hair stand on end". The trade union representative will say, "For goodness sake, level with me. Come on, I want to know about this". As the Bill stands, they must go through the provisions in Sections 43G and 43C. No legal advice is involved so Section 43D does not apply. Why on earth is it wrong for the worker in that situation to tell the trade union representative who is acting for him what the case is about when it would not be wrong to do so if he were sitting with a legal adviser, perhaps acting in the same industrial tribunal case? My noble friend's amendment is eminently reasonable.
Lord Haskel: The noble Lord is right in saying that if there are good reasons for not disclosing first to the employer because of the fear of victimisation, the individual will not lose protection if he or she goes to someone else. That someone else could be a trade union official. Obviously, a tribunal would look at it one way if a person went to a trade union official and another way if he went to a journalist.
I refer the noble Lord to Section 43F. The Secretary of State is obliged to prepare a list of those external people to whom an individual can go. Certain trade union officials could be included in the list, but that matter is open for discussion and has not yet been settled.
Lord Borrie: As regards the substantive issue, there is no difference between the sponsors of the Bill and the sponsors of the amendment. Undoubtedly, individual trade union officials will play a major role in implementing this legislation at a number of different levels. Apart from the role which trade unions will have in advising employers and negotiating with them on suitable whistle-blowing procedures, the Bill recognises that unions will have a valuable part to play in advising individual members who have concerns.
Where a union is recognised—I will not go into what Fairness at Work states about that and the future possibilities—I have no doubt that management will actively want it to play a role as an alternative channel
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to line management in receiving disclosures of malpractices in the workplace. In that way, trade unions or trade union officials will be part of the employers' whistle-blowing procedures and as such the union will be protected under Section 43C.
Where a member makes a disclosure to his union in the course of obtaining legal advice—and here, if you like, I am talking about the union solicitor—then, irrespective of whether the union is recognised at the workplace, if there is such a disclosure and a seeking of legal advice on how to raise the matter, that disclosure to the union solicitor will be protected under Section 43D.
However, I should now like to emphasise a point to which I shall return later. It is something which none of the speakers in favour of the amendment has so far mentioned; namely, that a key aspect of all such disclosures to lawyers mentioned in the Bill, as reflected in Section 43B(4), is that the communication is confidential. That is a point of some significance to the role of the unions to which I shall return shortly.
Where a union does not come within any of those provisions which I have mentioned, then, as my noble friend Lord Wedderburn said, Section 43G will apply. In cases where the employee is victimised because he went to his union for assistance, that fact alone should meet the provisions in Section 43G(2)(a) and relieve him of the need to raise the matter with management because of fear of victimisation. The key issue in anything to do with Section 43G is whether the disclosure made to the union was reasonable. In those cases, I suggest that it would indeed be reasonable. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. He cited Section 43G(2)(a). Am I right in thinking that that deals with a disclosure which is primarily internal; in other words, it deals with the situation where the person concerned,
"makes a disclosure to his employer or in accordance with section 43F"?
However, we should put Section 43F aside because we do not know what the Government will do as a result of their new thinking. Surely this relates to disclosure to the employer.
Lord Borrie: No. Section 43G refers to someone outside the workplace—that is to say a union official—where at the time that the person makes the disclosure, as set out in Section 43G(2)(a), he,
"reasonably believes that he will be subjected to a detriment by his employer if he makes a disclosure to his employer".
The points that I have been making suggest to me that, in practice, the Bill—and, admittedly, it is subtle detail—is adequately comprehensive. One anticipates that there will not really be any problems about disclosures to unions or union officials. However, if I am wrong in that respect, then, as my noble friend the Minister indicated, unions will no doubt want to make a case to the Government to be "prescribed" persons under Section 43F. The list in that respect has not yet been devised. Indeed, on Second Reading I believe that

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I used as examples regulators such as the Financial Services Authority, and so on. However—who knows?—a case could be made and that would he for secondary legislation.
I turn now to the wording of my noble friend's amendment—
Lord McCarthy: Before my noble friend refers to that wording, perhaps I may make a point which I do not want to be overlooked. My noble friend mentioned the word "confidential". I do not want that to escape our attention. I was very pleased that he mentioned the word, but he then passed on to something else.
Lord Borrie: I should tell my noble friend that I intend to return to that word.
Lord McCarthy: I shall make further comment at that stage.
Lord Borrie: I am sure that I indicated that I would return to the matter in due course. I do not need to repeat the wording of my noble friend Lady Turner in listing the people who are "independent advisers" under the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Act 1996. I need not speak about qualified lawyers because clearly there is no problem in that respect. We also have officers and employees of unions who are certified as competent to give advice and workers in an advice agency. That provision deals with advice and assistance in the compromise of claims. As such, I am not sure that it is directly relevant to the subject matter of this Bill. I doubt that it is appropriate that disclosures to someone in those three groups should be equated with a reporting of a malpractice to the employer. Indeed, whether the person is an advice worker or a trade union official, it is difficult to equate that with the first line of approach, as it were, in the Bill which is to an employer or someone in the employer's organisation.
Where a person is approached for confidential legal advice, protection under Section 43D will apply. As with all disclosures for legal advice, Section 43B(4) ensures that the lawyer cannot do as he pleases with the information. That is a most important point. As it stands, the amendment would not impose on advice agencies and unions the linked obligation under Section 43B(4). Unless the advice agency or union accepts that the information is subject to clear obligations of confidence, it will be free to do as it pleases with the information.
It is possible that certain advice agencies—or, indeed, unions—will accept as a matter of practice strict obligations of confidence. However, the amendment does not deal with that aspect of the matter. I shall now pursue that issue because, if I do not do so, I am sure that my noble friend Lord McCarthy, will urge me to do so. One solution would be to say that the disclosures to unions under the provision should be subject to obligations of confidence. Therefore, that would make it the same as disclosures to lawyers. But to do so would have a significant effect on the role of unions in labour relations. It would mean that the information could be used for no other purpose than the one to which the client had agreed. It could not be used in the course of
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general negotiations with the employer. More significantly, if the information related to some safety risk, but the whistle blower decided that he did not want to raise it or pursue it, it would not be open to the union to take up the matter itself even though the well-being of some of its members might well be affected.
Without such an obligation of confidence as a quid pro quo to trade union officials being equated with lawyers, one possible effect of the amendment would be to give irresponsible whistle blowers a potential passport to media and more public disclosures if they were to find an individual union member or officer who would brief the media. The publication would he effected by that person on his own behalf. The employer would have no recourse against the employee whose disclosure would be protected. We are sure that this is an unintended effect of the amendment because, as my noble friend Lady Turner said on Second Reading, disclosures to the irresponsible and sensational parts of the media should not be encouraged. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I am much obliged. Does my noble friend recognise the fact that this point is always made about trade union officials? Indeed, it is never made about anyone else. There is a clause in the Bill, though not very well drafted, about lawyers; but surely that does not alter the very simple fact—as the Court of Appeal has pointed out on many occasions—that there is a law of confidence. My noble friend the Minister said on Second Reading that the courts apply a public interest test when considering whether or not there is a duty of confidence.
If it is confidential information, it will he a breach of confidence to impart it other than in the public interest. That does not depend on any aspect of the Bill but it does apply to all the other people involved, such as those that the Minister suggested would he proper first targets; for example, the auditors and advisers of the company, trade union officials and all sorts of other people. They are all equally governed by the law of the land. If you want to put in something about lawyers you may do so, but you had better look first at their fees.
Lord Borrie: I understand my noble friend's point. However, surely he will accept that there is a special provision in the Bill stating that lawyers to whom disclosure is made are under an obligation of confidentiality. If you have that in the Bill, but allow disclosures to other people without a similar provision, the legislation might well be interpreted as meaning that a provision of confidentiality applies to one group but not to the other, whatever the general law may state.
Lord McCarthy: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I have no desire to claim any special legal privileges for trade unions. If the Government can accept our amendment if a similar obligation is placed upon trade unions as is already placed upon everyone else, we have no objection to that. We do not seek any immunity for trade unions. We want them to be treated exactly the same as others. However, a large part of the imaginings of the noble Lord are imaginings. In which

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negotiations could unions learn secrets that they are better off not knowing? It is suggested that if they do not know these secrets they can "clobber" the employer. However, it is suggested that if their shop stewards tell them these secrets, they cannot "clobber" their employer. That is fantasy. Collective bargaining negotiations are not based on secrets. They try to influence and to persuade people. It is not a matter of passing secret envelopes to and fro. This is a matter for the union to decide. If the union thought that giving the kind of advice we are discussing could compromise it in collective bargaining, perhaps the union would not give that advice. I repeat we are not asking for special privileges. We are saying that trade unions should be put on exactly the same footing as everyone else.
Lord Borrie: As regards what my noble friend Lord McCarthy has just said, I do not feel there is any great difference between us on this matter. I refer to the phrase that he and the Minister have used, which is taken from the White Paper; namely, "grievance procedures". The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, made the point that if we are talking about public interest disclosure of malpractice, that is not what he or I would typically think of as a grievance procedure. Surely my noble friend will accept that the phrase "grievance and disciplinary procedures" appears only in a White Paper at the moment. We are not talking about words in a Bill. Therefore there is surely scope for us to pursue that matter to ensure that if the word "grievance" does not cover what we are talking about here, it should be amended to enable unions to assist their members to pursue with employers the disclosure of malpractices. It is clearly the Government's intention in the Fairness at Work White Paper that irrespective of whether a union is recognised in a workplace, an employee should have the right to union representation in these matters. If that is the case, it is implicit in that procedure that there is a disclosure between the employee and the union official; otherwise, how on earth can the union official represent the employee? In those circumstances I ask my noble friends to withdraw the amendment on the basis that the Bill and further legislation will cover this issue. I believe that they need not pursue the matter further.
1.45 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: I thank the Members of the Committee who have contributed to this extremely interesting debate. I was sorry to learn that my noble friend the Minister does not feel that the Government can support the amendment. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has said that there is not much between us on this question. However, issues have been raised in the debate which give me cause for concern. As regards recognition, I accept that as the Bill stands at present it is possible that where a procedure exists—the emphasis is on introducing good procedures—that may well cover the situation. However, I stress that in those cases where there is no recognition and the employer is hostile, difficulties of this kind can arise. For example, an employer may not have put in place good safety measures. It is that kind of employer who may give rise to problems. An
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employee of such an employer is most likely to feel that he will be subjected to victimisation if he raises the issue. Therefore it is essential that it should be spelt out clearly in the Bill that that is a protected disclosure in regard to trade unions.
I take the point made by my noble friend the Minister that under new Section 43F(2) it is intended to produce a list—as I understand it—of persons or descriptions of persons who will be regarded as appropriate in terms of disclosure within the remit of this Bill. However, I still feel that some issues that have been raised in the debate give me cause for concern. The issue of confidentiality has been dealt with explicitly by my noble friend Lord McCarthy. I have spent most of my life as a union official. We were in the habit of receiving confidential information during the course of our activities. We, of course, respected that confidential aspect; otherwise, we would not have been able adequately to represent the interests of members either collectively or individually. I do not accept the notion that because unions, unlike lawyers, do not have an obligation in this regard, we are in some way less able to deal with confidential information than lawyers.
The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, mentioned the possibility that the press could become involved in these matters. I must dispute that because again I come back to the point that unions are used to keeping confidential information confidential, if that is necessary. I take it that in any event new Section 43G(1)(c) is intended to deal with the press as it states that an individual,
"does not make the disclosure for purposes of personal gain".
Often the press is involved precisely because they offer personal gain to individuals who provide information. I believe the Bill intends that an individual should not seek out the press first but should seek to pursue all the avenues available under procedures or—the option we would consider—by reference to a trade union.
I do not intend to press this amendment to a Division. I shall consider what has been said. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider the points that have been made by myself and my noble friends because they are important. I hope that we can reconsider this matter at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy Amendment No. 3:
Page 4, leave out lines 37 and 38 and insert—
("(d) he believes on reasonable grounds that the relevant failure is of a very serious nature, and").
The noble Lord said: This, again, is a small and narrow amendment which relates to new Section 43H which governs the conditions necessary for qualified disclosure where an employee believes that there has been an exceptionally serious failure. I suppose that the most likely situation is mentioned in new Section 43B(1)(b) which refers to a failure,
"to comply with any legal obligation".
If an employee feels that an exceptionally serious failure has occurred, presumably involving some legal dereliction, there is a procedure whereby he or she is protected in disclosing that information.
There are five conditions that have to be met. The wouldbe complainant, or whistle-blower, must be acting in good faith; must believe that the complaint is substantially true; there must be no personal gain; and he or she must believe that the failure is "of an exceptionally serious nature". It is the fourth condition that we do not like and wish to change. We wish to replace, "exceptionally serious nature", with, "of a very serious nature". The matter still has to be serious, but has to be very serious and exceptional.
It is generally accepted, and has been stated by a Minister, that one of the advantages of this procedure is that, under it, the worker is most likely to be able to avoid telling the employer. So it is a rather useful gateway. It might be said that in the circumstances an employee does not know who to tell on the employer's side or that he or she would rather go to one of the bodies set up by the Government, or even to a trade union. We therefore believe that this item is rather important. It is important that if an employee has "reasonable grounds"—the concept included in the amendment—he or she should be able to show that there has been a "very serious" dereliction or illegality rather than an "exceptional" one.
It might be asked what the difference is. "Exceptional", might relate to a matter that cannot be known. There might be some databank indicating the average, the mean, the norm; and it might then be said that the matter was an exception: that only 4 per cent. or 8 per cent. of illegalities were of this kind, and this one was therefore exceptional. It would be very difficult for anybody to he certain that a complaint was exceptional. I find it an exceptional word. It would be easier to operate if the matter was "very serious". A "serious" matter would not be trifling, incidental or unimportant; and a matter that was "very serious" would he the same, only more so. We should not then get into this "roundabout", whereby we are trying to calculate whether a matter falls within the top 5 per cent. of illegality. We therefore believe it more reasonable and sensible to change the wording on the face of the Bill in the way that we suggest. I beg to move.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: I intervene very briefly and shall not delay the Minister. I had not intended to speak so much on the difference between "exceptionally serious" and "very serious", although "exceptionally serious" is better in this context. My concern was with the other words in the amendment; namely,
"he believes on reasonable grounds that",
which were not mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. We are not happy with that wording. We believe that "reasonably" is a subjective concept, and that the whistle-blower should be required to have a better case than merely that, "he reasonably believes".
Lord Haskel: New Section 43H provides protection for workers who make disclosures about exceptionally serious failures. The intention is to provide as clear an indication as possible that the order of seriousness—if I may put it that way—is greater than that for other disclosures. The new section is meant to apply only in very rare cases. The purpose of inserting "exceptional"
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is to indicate that the case is indeed a rare case. Nobody wants individuals disclosing confidential information to other bodies unless the circumstances are exceptional.
However, we all recognise that there will be concerns that are rare, but so grave that they need to be disclosed and dealt with as soon as possible. We believe that the current wording conveys that very clearly. In our view, the proposed amendment is less unambiguous, and leaves room for doubt as to how this section should be interpreted in practice.
We believe that the best way to convey the order of seriousness under new Section 43H is by referring to failures that are objectively judged to be exceptionally serious. There may be disclosures which are very serious, but hardly exceptional, and such disclosures would be protected under other provisions in the Bill.
I realise that my noble friend Lord McCarthy has some concerns about whether an individual will be able to judge if a matter is exceptionally serious. He mentioned that issue at Second Reading. It is a very fair point. He raised it in the context of guidance on the Bill.
Public Concern at Work will be liaising with the CBI and the TUC in developing guidelines. These will provide a user-friendly explanation of the Bill, and the best practical way for workers to proceed if they are worried about wrongdoing or failures in the workplace. That will be of considerable practical value to employers and workers alike.
In addition, the Department of Trade and Industry will be issuing its own guide to workers' rights under the Bill. This, too, will set out a straightforward explanation of the provisions in the Bill. Like other DTI guidance on employment rights, it will be available free from a range of sources. We will certainly do our best to ensure that the Bill is well understood. I hope that my noble friends will find this a helpful and acceptable alternative to their amendment, and that the guidelines will indeed serve to show what is exceptional and what is rare.
Lord McCarthy: I am glad to hear the noble Lord's remarks. We are starting to move on this matter. He agrees with me, as Hansard will show, that there are some circumstances that are "very serious" but hardly "exceptional". In other words, he says that we are trying to make it just a little easier to use this provision in the Bill. Yes, of course, that is what we are attempting. Indeed, we say that it is almost impossible to know in advance what is exceptional; whereas, rather more broadly, matters can be found that are very serious when they cannot be said to be exceptional. So we are making some small progress.
One point worried me. As I understand it, the Minister is saying that the purpose of new Section 43H is to speed matters up. He seemed to be saying that if they were very serious or exceptionally serious, the matter would come to a tribunal more quickly. I do not know whether that is the Government's aim. The aim is not clear; that is part of the problem. I thought that the aim of this new section was to provide one of the circumstances in which an employee might be more likely not to inform an employer and still be protected;

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namely, because a matter was "exceptionally serious". If it is not about the gravamen of a dereliction of law and is about moving upstream in the queue, then I shall have to think again. Perhaps the Minister will also think again. I may have misunderstood his remarks.
Turning to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, the Bill is peppered with the idea, "on reasonable grounds", as is almost every Bill. I do not know whether it is now the policy of the Opposition not to like the word "reasonable" and that they want us to remove it from all future measures. My noble friends wrote this amendment and inserted the word "reasonable". At first, I thought, "That old thing again". It is not exceptional to have such a provision in the Bill. The crux of the matter is whether we insert "very" and remove "exceptional". However, at this stage I am prepared to withdraw the amendment and beg leave to do so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
2 p.m.
Clause 2 [Right not to suffer detriment]:
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton Lord Wedderburn of Charlton moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 6, line 25, at end insert (", or threatened with.").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 4, I shall, with permission, speak also to Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 8, which all deal with the problem of inadequate remedy, where we wish the right to be made stronger than it is.
In Clause 2, it is the right of a worker not to be subjected to any detriment by an employer. Here, having learned from the Wilson and Palmer cases, the legislator has put in,
"by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by his employer done on the ground that the worker has made a protected disclosure".
When we look at the other way in which a victim may be victimised or prejudiced, Clause 5, the new Section 103A to the main Act, states that
"An employee who is dismissed shall he regarded … as unfairly dismissed if the reason (or, if more than one, the principal reason) for the dismissal is that the employee made a protected disclosure".
I hope that the amendment will not be regarded as particularly contentious. It seems to me extraordinary that the worker retains his protection where he has made disclosures but the employer can come in before the act is complete and before there is the protection under the various clauses we have looked at, and, for example, make a threat or do something else to the prejudice of the employee. I believe I am right in saying that it is the view of the campaign which produced the Bill that, if an employer threatens to commit an act which is, in a broad sense, prejudicial to an employee, if it is only a threat it is taken out of the protection of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act.
I have always had some sympathy with that view, but, unhappily, last year the Court of Appeal, in the case of Mennell v. Newell and Wright, referred to in The Times of 18th July, rejected that argument. It is not the first
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time, as my noble friend Lord Gladwin will know, that the Court of Appeal has done a worse job than the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Briefly, the situation was that a worker, who was a lorry driver, had put to him, as had been put to his colleagues, a new set of contracts. The new contracts which the employer wished to press upon them provided for a deduction from wages in order to pay for their training, which had previously been paid for by the firm. The lorry driver complained and was dismissed. He said that he had been dismissed for asserting a statutory right, which is now provided in Section 104 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which prevents the dismissal being proper.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed with that reasoning—at somewhat more length, of course. But the Court of Appeal said no: that, although a complaint could be presented under the 1986 Act even where an employee had not been employed for two years—as so often, that was at the centre of the matter—an industrial tribunal had no jurisdiction to deal with a threatened deduction of wages under, originally, the Wages Act but could hear complaints only where an employer had actually made a deduction.
What I gain from that case, unhappy though it is, is that the courts are drawing a clear distinction between things that an employer does and things that an employer threatens to do. As the Bill stands, it does not cover things which an employer threatens to do to the disadvantage of an employee.
Lord Borrie: Does that not depend on the interpretation of the word "detriment" in the Bill?
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: If we were trying to upset the Court of Appeal decision in Mennell v. Newell and Wright, I would join my noble friend in making that plea. There are several ways in which one can argue that it is wrong. What I am saying is that the law today, when the legislature is to make its decision, is, according to the Court of Appeal, that threats are out and acts are in. That is true of the Bill. I think my noble friend Lord Borrie and I are very close on this matter. I agree that I should want to argue if an employer came along and said: "I know all about you, Borrie. We know you are going to make complaints about what is going on in the firm. We know you haven't started to do so yet, and you certainly have not got yourself protected, but you had better go and join the awkward squad. You will not get so much overtime".
Lord Borrie: But is it not a detriment to me if I have that hanging over me?
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: With respect, I think it is, but the Court of Appeal said it was not. One has to find some distinguishing factor in Mennell v. Newell and Wright. My noble friend does not agree. I am trying to do my best with a decision which I think is a bad decision. I am asking the legislature to help us by making the position

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absolutely clear. Why people should want to rely upon the opaque nature of the law when they can put it right in a place such as this House, I cannot think.
If we do not like that position, there is Clause 5, which makes it absolutely clear that the protection against unfair dismissal applies only where an employee has made a protected disclosure. There is no question of that section being a problem. It must be right, if the employer or manager comes along and threatens the worker.
Let us think for a moment of the situation we are considering. The worker believes that management is doing something wrong. He is faced with the question, "Shall I disclose this? If I do, I may have to go home and say that I have been given my cards and the family does not have a wage the following week". He has to make that decision, helped, we hope, by his trade union representative. Surely he will look at the Bill and say, "It must be that I am protected from dismissal for making this proper disclosure, even though I have not gone about it fully according to the provisions of the other clauses".
This clause should provide for the employee who is dismissed to be regarded as having been unfairly dismissed, if the reason for the dismissal is that the employee made, attempted to make or perhaps intended to make—I have not put that in my amendment—a complaint. I should like the Government to think about that and prevent whistle blowers—if they be called such—from being dismissed by managers who take action before the employee takes all the necessary steps before he is protected. I beg to move.
Lord Borrie: Before my noble friend sits down, I thought he was speaking to three different amendments, one of which is Amendment No. 5, which seeks to insert the word "intend". I have not understood that amendment so far. It seems to me that if somebody intends something and it is merely in his mind, that cannot give rise to a situation which could result in either victimisation or a claim for unfair dismissal.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My noble friend is right to question the situation. It is true that we added those words but we added them for this reason. Where a worker, in discussion no doubt with others because people talk to each other, said, "I think what they are doing up there is wrong and intend to make it an open matter and disclose"; somebody may say, "You have heard of this Act and had better watch out". However, the worker says that he intends to complain. The manager hears about it and says, "I hear that you are intending to use these procedures to allege that we do terrible things, which we do not".
The matter rests on the evidence. If he is subject to a detriment, it is on the ground that he intended to follow the procedures in the Bill. I hope that the Committee will see that that is a situation in which he should be protected.
The Earl of Balfour: I feel that the addition of these words will weaken the position of the worker. Perhaps I can put it this way. A worker has the right not to be
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subject to or threatened with any detriment by any act or a deliberate failure to act by his employer. With all due respect to what has been said, I feel that the words of the Bill are better without the addition of the amendment.
These amendments are grouped with Amendment No. 8. Perhaps I may ask the Committee to take a minute to look at Clause 5. So far in the passage of this Bill we have been dealing with amendments to the 1996 Act. We have been talking about "workers". Perhaps Members of the Committee will be good enough to look at the first line of the proposed new Section 103A. It begins:
"An employee who is dismissed shall he regarded".
I feel that for the sake of consistency it should read "a worker". Equally, page 7, line 21, which deals with the addition of subsection (6A) to the 1996 Act, reads,
"the principal reason) for which the employee was selected for dismissal".
Again, we have so far talked of the "worker" up to this point and perhaps we should substitute "worker" for "employee" in both cases. It is a technical point, but one worth making.
2.15 p.m.
Lord Haskel: Perhaps I may quickly respond to the last point made by the noble Earl. Lord Balfour. I think that the word "employee" is in the Bill because the protection applies to anybody working in the company, be he a worker working on the shop floor or an employee in the boardroom. I think that the intention is that it should apply to everybody who is involved in the company and not just workers.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 4 and 6 and the point made by my noble friend Lord Wedderburn. I am not a lawyer, and I am not sure that I want to get into an argument over particular cases. Indeed, we may have to write to the noble Lord about this particular case, but it seems to me that the notion of detriment includes being threatened. That is already well understood. I am not sure whether or not the case quoted by my noble friend Lord Wedderburn undermines that. Detriment is a broad concept and the Bill makes it clear that it includes deliberate failures to act as well as actions.
Our understanding of how this would work can be illustrated by an example. An employee who has made a disclosure to the employer could be threatened with relocation to a remote branch of a company, for instance, where promotion prospects are poorer. That kind of threat is a detriment and even though the worker can be assured that the employer could not lawfully carry out the threat, the fear of the threat may well amount to detrimental action. Any threat which puts a worker at a disadvantage constitutes in itself detrimental action. Certainly, such a threat would be contrary to the openness which we hope to see between employers and employees working together in dealing with wrongdoings or failures under the Bill.
The wording of the Bill follows the drafting of existing provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which provides protection against detrimental treatment on specified grounds such as carrying out duties of a

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health and safety official. These provisions have not caused difficulties of interpretation, but to use different wording in this case, as suggested by the amendments, we feel would cast doubt on whether threats were covered in those other cases.
I turn to the clauses to which Amendments Nos. 5 and 8 are proposed, providing protection for employees who are victimised or unfairly dismissed for making a protected disclosure. I can understand my noble friends' wish to ensure that an employee who failed to get his message across should not lose protection. However, it seems to me most unlikely that such a situation would arise. Normally, a disclosure made to the employer or via internal procedures is likely to get through, rather than be merely attempted.
But even if the worker passes information on internally and it does not reach the right person who is responsible for dealing with such matters, it seems to me that a tribunal is likely to find that the employee has disclosed to the employer and is protected, provided that he acted in good faith.
These amendments could allow workers to argue that although they had failed to follow the correct procedures, they had intended to do so and so had attempted to make a protected disclosure. This would of course undermine the clear procedures set out in the Bill. The Bill already contains provision in Section 43J to prevent employers placing "gagging" restraints on employees. The amendments could be misinterpreted to enable workers to use the threat of disclosure as a bargaining counter with their employers, rather than working in partnership with them to resolve the concerns. This would be contrary to the spirit of the Bill.
I hope that noble Lords will accept this explanation as to why the Government could not accept these amendments.
Lord Borrie: I do not need to add very much because my noble friend the Minister has set out the reasoning that I would have employed in terms of these linked amendments. In relation to what the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, said, the word "worker" appears throughout. Of course only a worker can be dismissed under the unfair dismissal procedures. But I think that the word "employee" appears because it is inserting something into an existing Act where the word "employee" is used.
I asked my noble friend Lord Wedderburn about the amendment dealing with intention. I thought that intention could be just something in one's mind and therefore nothing could possibly arise out of that in terms of victimisation or a claim. He said that people who have an intention to disclose may well talk about it to others. I can understand that. But as soon as the employee talks to someone who is a senior person—a manager or someone in line management—he is part of the organisation of the employer and a disclosure to him, talking to him, is a disclosure within new Section 43C, and therefore there comes about the protection against victimisation and so on in the legislation. So I cannot see the value of the amendment dealing with intention. As for "attempt", the attempt involves, as I understand
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it, some sort of move towards disclosure which has not been completed. There may be some marginal value in that, but it requires the strong imagination of my noble friend to think that that adds something to the Bill.
It is clear from the earlier words of my noble friend Lady Turner that we are to have a Report stage. I shall read in Hansard what everyone has said. I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I am grateful to all those who have taken part in the debate. I appreciate that I did not deal separately with each amendment. I wish to reply to the discussion with three points. First, I would say to my noble friend Lord Borrie, "By all means choose words different from ours". The only difference between us is the state of the evidence, as it were, of what the employee is doing. Surely he would join us, and persuade the Minister to join us, in so framing the Bill as to prevent a manager from imposing a detriment or even effecting a dismissal before the employee has completed the acts which are necessary for his disclosure, albeit that it is down to everyone, or only to the two of them, that he has the intention and wish, or even made the attempt, to go a little way but has not yet fallen within one of those areas of dense prose in new Sections 43C and 43H. That is the challenge before us. I appreciate that my noble friend will really say, "If you find someone who is doing that kind of thing, either he is protected or he ought to be protected".
I make my second point to the Minister. Will he stir the stumps of his department to look out for him the judgment in Mennell v. Newell and Wright, as the argument he put forward is, by analogy at least to that judgment, exactly the argument which lost in that case? I never understand why people whose arguments have lost in a case do not take the advantage of being in the legislature to get their own way, as it were, and overrule the courts.
Thirdly, I agree with my noble friend Lord Borrie about "worker" and "employee". "Employee" is substituted in the relevant legislation where it is inserting something. The noble Earl. Lord Balfour, mentioned that. I hope that on reflection my noble friend can support our amendments. Given the time, I have in mind an occasion, which I have cited in writing elsewhere, on which Mr. Balfour, as he was then, in 1906 complained that Sir Charles Dilke and others, but Sir Charles Dilke especially, the grandmaster of trade union law at that time, were going on too long at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon in August. I do not wish to be the reason for that to happen. Therefore, I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Complaints to employment tribunal]:
[Amendment No. 6 not moved.]
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Limit on amount of compensation]:
Baroness Miller of Hendon Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 7, leave out lines 10 to 12 and insert—
("there shall be no limit on the amount of compensation that may be awarded by the tribunal."").
The noble Baroness said: Like the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nolan, I too, was unable to be here at Second Reading. But I and other noble Lords are aware that this Bill received considerable support from all sides in the other place, as well as in your Lordships' House where, unlike in the other place, it received a formal Second Reading debate. Indeed, Clause 4, with which this present amendment is concerned, was also not debated in Committee there.
The subject of the capping of compensation for wrongful discrimination caused concern on all sides of your Lordships' House during the debate on the Second Reading. It was expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, when she cited the difficult case of Maxwell v. BICC. It was expressed again by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde. Both were supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said that the Government shared some of our concerns.
There is some inconsistency in the approach to this problem. Since the Government have said that they support this Bill, it is as much their responsibility as that of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, to correct that inconsistency. As drafted, the Bill limits compensation to the amount payable under the employment rights Bill.
But this Bill is at least as much about sexual discrimination as it is about other cases of unfair dismissal or improper discrimination. In the Race Relations (Remedies) Act 1994, which I had the privilege of conducting through your Lordships' House, I pointed out the need for consistency between compensation for sexual discrimination and racial discrimination.
In the case of Marshall v. Southampton and South West Health Authority, the European Court of Justice ruled that a limit on the amount of compensation payable in sex discrimination cases is incompatible with Community law. As a result of that decision, the Sex Discrimination Act was amended by secondary legislation and the Race Relations Act was amended by the remedies Bill I have just mentioned.
There is a second inconsistency. The Government have just published their White Paper Fairness at Work. On page 16, paragraph 3.6 the Government announced,
"The Government intends to abolish the maximum limit on awards for wrongful dismissal".
So important did the Government regard this announcement that they printed it in bold type. I cannot understand why, if the law is to be changed in any case, the Government cannot anticipate that change by carrying it into effect as regards the subject matter of this present Bill.
This is a probing amendment, and we on this side of the Committee and, I suspect other Members on both sides of the Committee, will be glad to learn of the
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views of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, on this matter and no less important, those of the Government. I beg to move.
Lord Haskel: The noble Baroness is quite right that we featured her point in the Fairness at Work White Paper. Perhaps it would be helpful if I explain what is proposed on compensation in the White Paper.
The first point to make is that the Government have proposed, in the Fairness at Work White Paper, to remove the limit on compensation for unfair dismissal cases, which currently stands at £12,000. The existence of this limit means that some individuals may not be properly compensated for their losses. That point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and others at Second Reading. We believe the removal of the maximum limit will help ensure that all workers are properly compensated. I am sure that all noble Lords will welcome that proposal.
The White Paper also invites views on removing limits on special awards under Section 125 of the 1996 Act. It is the Government's suggestion that compensation under the Bill should be based on special awards, which already involve a higher level of compensation. The White Paper acknowledges that limits may deter some people from exercising their legitimate rights, which I believe, is one of the points the noble Baroness is making.
These proposals would make the amendment unnecessary, since both the compensation for detriment under this provision and the compensation for unfair dismissal which it must not exceed will be based on the individual's loss and will not be limited. I believe that that deals with the point raised by the noble Baroness about sexual discrimination.
Perhaps I may make clear at this point a misconception which may arise about the Bill. Although we have talked about the Bill affording protection to workers and encouraging a greater degree of co-operation and openness between employers and workers, the Bill also affords protection to all people working in companies, from shopfloor to director level. I know that that approach has been welcomed by all sides.
Lord Borrie: We are glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, has raised this matter. It enables me to remind the Committee that when the Bill was going through another place a consultation was undertaken in which 85 per cent. of those consulted, including all the key bodies such as the CBI, the TUC and the professions, agreed that there should be no ceiling on the limit of compensation. One is delighted that the Fairness at Work White Paper has indicated the Government's proposals, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Haskel, and that they take full account of the responses of interested parties.
I welcome this proposal for two reasons. First, compensation for one's loss will reassure many relatively well paid workers that they are adequately protected. As such, it will help to ensure that the Bill's

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potential as a check on malpractice will apply in all kinds of workplaces, whether in the industrial belts or the City of London.
Secondly, if the guarantee of a special award of at least £17,000 is removed, one can welcome the fact that there will be no risk that people will look for a whistle to blow. I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment in the light of what my noble friend said.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: I thank the noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Haskel, for their helpful remarks, in the light of which I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Unfair dismissal]:
[Amendment No. 8 not moved.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 18 agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

Sexual Orientation Discrimination Bill [H.L.]
2.33 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is my third attempt to introduce a Private Member's Bill to outlaw discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, and to do so by extending the scope of the Sex Discrimination Act. In 1995 I failed because time was not available. In 1996 your Lordships adopted the Bill, but it failed to make progress in the other place. I hope that this will be third time lucky. Because of my background and interest I am most concerned about discrimination in employment, but this time the Bill goes a little further and covers the provision of goods and services and some other matters that I shall deal with later.
It is not always understood by the otherwise well-informed that the law as it stands does not afford any protection against discrimination in employment and other areas to homosexual men and lesbians. It is not unlawful to refuse to appoint people, to treat them less favourably, perhaps by demoting them, to pay them less or to dismiss them because they are gay or lesbian. Nor is harassing them or allowing other employees to harass them unlawful. As the law stands at the moment, these things happen to gays and lesbians and there is no remedy for them in law.
It may be argued that the situation has changed, that in today's world such events do not occur, that there is now greater tolerance, that there are well known role models and that in any event behaviour cannot be changed, bad though it may be in some cases, by legislating against it. Research shows that discrimination takes place and that it is a common experience. A report
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published by Stonewall indicates that 48 per cent. of its respondents have been harassed at work; 49 per cent. believe that they have to conceal their sexuality from those with whom they work; and 16 per cent. have faced actual discrimination at work. A survey by Social and Community Planning research confirms these findings. One in three heterosexuals said in a survey that they would be less likely to hire job applicants if they knew them to be gay or lesbian.
We are talking about ordinary people in ordinary jobs. Role models, important though they are—I commend them for the assistance that many have given to the cause of gay and lesbian protection—are often in the kind of professions where there is an acceptance of the right of people to live their private lives as they choose. One has in mind particularly the theatre, the entertainment profession, the arts and—perhaps one can now say—politics. But the research undertaken by Stonewall is about very ordinary people doing ordinary jobs in offices, shops and factories. I have the results of some of that research. I refer to the case of a bartender who had been in that employment for two years. There was never any complaint about his work until a woman colleague asked him out and he refused. When she saw him with his male partner she wrote to the manager to complain about his being gay and therefore, in her view, a possible AIDS risk. He was dismissed. That was five years ago. He has been fighting his case through the courts ever since. The difficulty is that dismissal because of sexual orientation is not unlawful.
Next is the case of a man who worked as a cashier for five years. His supervisor found out by accident that he was gay. From then on he was constantly picked on even though before that there had been no complaint against him. He was later dismissed. He found another job only to be dismissed from that when an adverse reference was received from his previous employer. There is also the case of a nursing auxiliary who worked with disabled people for 15 years until he was recently dismissed. There were no complaints about his performance for the first 11 years but his problems began with the appointment of a new manager who made homophobic remarks and made a point of telling others that he was gay. False allegations were made against that employee and he was dismissed. He is now awaiting the results of an internal appeal. There are also very well documented cases of harassment and violence against individuals when their sexual orientation becomes known.
There is little doubt that there are strains of homophobia in our society and some of it is extremely vindictive. It may be argued that little can be done about behaviour but I disagree. For many years women endured inequality not only in pay but in treatment generally. Legislation, and women's willingness to use it, has changed all that dramatically. Although there are still problems they are nothing like those of 20 or 30 years ago. Remedies are available. Legislation has a powerful effect. Generally speaking, we are a law-abiding nation. If one tells a person that what he is doing is against the law he will pause to think. The chances are that he will stop it. Surely, it is unpleasant

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and unacceptable that individuals who carry out their duties at work quite properly should be subjected to bullying and harassment and have no remedy.
An increasing number of employers are now including sexual orientation in their equal opportunities policies. Most public sector employers have done so. I have here a list of leading employers who have now done so voluntarily. They include household names like Barclays Bank. Abbey National, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Glaxo Wellcome, Littlewoods, Sainsbury's, Shell and many others. They are good employers, but you do not need legislation to compel good employers to do the right thing. We have to make sure that others follow their good example and the way to do that is to give people similar protection in regard to sexual orientation, as already exists concerning gender and race discrimination.
My Bill also covers the provision of goods and services. Again, it is not unlawful to discriminate against lesbian women and gay men by refusing to supply goods and services to them. Stonewall has had reports of hotels refusing bookings. One hotel owner told a local paper, and I quote:
"Everyone runs their business their way and I run the hotel the way I see fit. If it is made illegal. I would have to respect the law, but at the moment I can do as I like".
I should like finally to refer briefly to precisely what my Bill covers. Clause 1 inserts a new clause into the Sex Discrimination Act to make it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation in any of the fields to which that Act applies: that is, employment, education, the provision of goods, facilities, services or premises. Clause 2 deals with interpretation and that defines sexual orientation by adopting the definition used in the New Zealand Human Rights Act, as meaning a person's heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation.
Clause 3 ensures that the provisions relating to sexual orientation discrimination do not apply to organised religions. This follows the exemption that already exists in the Sex Discrimination Act. Any decision to changes the Church's policy, or any religion's policy for that matter, would have to come within the Church itself rather than from Parliament. It is not covered by this Bill.
Clause 4 provides that local education authorities are under a duty not to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation in carrying out their functions. Clause 5 amends the Sexual Discrimination Act so that the Equal Opportunities Commission can bring proceedings in respect of discriminatory practices resulting in unlawful discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, as it can now in respect of sex discrimination and discrimination against married persons.
Clause 6 extends exemption for charities conferring benefits on persons of one sex only to charities conferring benefits on certain sexual orientations only where this restriction on their work is contained in a charitable instrument. Clause 7 covers sexual discrimination in terms and conditions of employment. I should perhaps point out that this would not cover pensions, because the Equal Pay Act does not do so. It
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is possible that in order to do this an amendment is required to the Pensions Act 1995. I personally would be in favour of that, but that is another argument and it is not covered by this Bill. Finally, the Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland because the Sex Discrimination Act does not apply directly to Northern Ireland. An order in council would be required to extend it.
This is a simple Bill, designed to protect vulnerable people. One can only imagine the stress that discrimination causes to many people who simply want to live quietly and unobtrusively and to get on with their lives. It is now illegal to discriminate on grounds of sex, race or, in Northern Ireland, on religion or political belief. It is also, with some qualifications, unlawful to discriminate against people with disabilities, yet discrimination in relation to sexual orientation remains perfectly legal.
I recently received a letter when it became known that I was intending to introduce this Bill again. I will quote from the letter:
"I ant writing to urge you to encourage and persuade fellow Labour Members and other Members to press the Minister not to let the Bill you are presenting fall by the wayside again. How long do gay men have to wait before there is a start to undo 100 years of bigotry, persecution and injustice?…"
Before I sit down I should perhaps make it clear that this Bill has nothing to do with the argument about the age of consent. That is a different issue which is being currently debated in the other place, and no doubt we shall have the opportunity of dealing with that in due course. Furthermore, as regards the Armed Forces, my advice is that if those were to be included, it would have to be stated in terms in the Bill, and it is not. Again, I believe that it is a matter which has to be debated in another place.
As I said earlier, this is a simple Bill designed to remove continuing injustices in the field of employment and in other fields. I commend it to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Turner of Camden.)
2.40 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for the careful way in which she explained the purposes of her Bill. Ever since I began attending your Lordships' House five years ago, the noble Baroness has been pre-eminent, both on the Opposition Front Bench and now when she raises important issues from the Back Benches.
If any noble Lord is tempted to divide the House, I shall be inclined to vote Content, or at least to abstain, not in support of the principles of the Bill but rather following the conventions of the House. It is well known that an intention to divide the House should be foreshadowed by a suitable amendment to a Motion on the Order Paper.
I have an interest to declare since I command a REME recovery company in the Territorial Army. It is possible that the Bill may adversely affect the TA and the Regular Army. I have not yet checked the 1975 Act.

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It may be that the services enjoy some exemptions. The noble Baroness covered that point. However, it may be necessary to consider suitable amendments to ensure that the status quo does not change as regards the services. It may affect recruiting. Parliament and this House would then be able to address this thorny issue at the next quinquennial review of the Service Discipline Acts in a few years' time.
In a masochistic way, I slightly regretted that no noble Lord tabled a suitable amendment for debate during the time of the last review. I recall briefly touching swords with the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I know that any such debate would have been a real challenge to me. But I fully accept that the services need to reflect the society they seek to protect. However, at the same time I have to remind your Lordships that servicemen and women may be called upon to perform duties and to take action that a civilian would never be expected to do. I do not think that now is the right time to explore that argument further. Other noble Lords have more important contributions to make.
We in this country have made good progress with the promotion of equal opportunities both by using legislation and by changing public attitudes. But perhaps an equally serious form of discrimination is ageism, where employers make it clear that an older applicant would be unlikely to succeed or would be excluded from any consideration for employment. Obviously the noble Baroness's Bill is not a suitable vehicle for that issue. Nonetheless I suspect that it affects a larger proportion of the population than her Bill seeks to protect.
My final point is this. All areas of administration use acronyms to describe legislation. We have the HSAW (the Health and Safety at Work) Act. In the military we have RFA (the Reserve Forces Act) 1997. The noble Baroness will be familiar with TUPE. Perhaps the noble Baroness should look at the initial letters in the Short Title of her Bill.
2.48 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I originally put my name down to speak to the Bill because I considered it a vehicle for raising an issue referred to at an all-party disability group on Tuesday. It related to secondary discrimination: people from the gay community who happen to have disabilities.
I shall return to that point briefly in conclusion. Since further noble Lords will speak in the gap, I shall speak briefly to support the Bill. This is an issue relating to basic human rights. In these circumstances one is tempted to misquote Martin Luther King. He said, "The law cannot stop somebody disliking me, but it can stop them lynching me".
We are not quite at that level but we are asking that people should be allowed to earn their living without being discriminated against because they find someone sexually attractive. That is what the Bill is about. If we discriminate against people because they have lustful thoughts then perhaps a young man who works in a shop during the summer months when women wear slightly
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more revealing clothes should be banned. Are we going to carry on down that road? I do not believe so. It is absurd.
We are talking about making it a legal right for someone to be employed without discrimination. As the noble Baroness said, those with high levels of skill or who are in demand are generally able to fight off discrimination. However, those undertaking more mundane tasks or who are more vulnerable are open to it. I hope that the Bill will receive an unopposed Second Reading and will be placed on the statute book. There is no reason why it should not be.
Perhaps I may use the debate to flag up an issue relating to the same sex oriented community, to use appallingly politically correct language. It was suggested at the meeting I mentioned earlier that that community should look to those within it who are disabled because they are feeling increasingly isolated. No attention is being paid to them because of the amount of political energy required to pass legislation such as we have before us today. A gay or lesbian person in a wheelchair is out of the mainstream. That leads to mental problems and feelings of isolation. They are in the mainstreams of neither monitory groups nor of society as a whole. I hope that people from that community will take that point on board and put it on their shopping list of things to be dealt with.
I hope that the Bill reaches the statute book, when it will no longer be necessary to deal with such problems. They fly in the face of natural justice. Surely, there are better things we could be doing with our time than arguing against natural justice.
2.53 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, it is clear that on Fridays an unusual loquaciousness seizes the House. Therefore, I shall say simply that it is 33 years this summer since I had the honour of becoming a Member of your Lordships' House. I made my maiden speech on the Sexual Offences Bill. For the first time, it became legal for consenting adults to have homosexual relations. For that reason, I support the noble Baroness today. She and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said everything that needs to be said about the reasons why the Bill is necessary. Employers are presented with three temptations: first, in deciding not to appoint people whose sexual orientation they do not like; secondly of demoting or dismissing them; and thirdly, of paying them less. All those points were admirably dealt with by the noble Baroness in her opening speech.
She referred also to the more difficult issue of harassment. She gave some very good examples of the way in which that occurs. She said that it is sometimes argued that we cannot change public opinion; people have these hatreds of those who are gay and those who are lesbian; but what are we to do about it? Surely one must simply put up with it. The noble Baroness gave the most admirable example in calling upon the historic record of the women's movement to show that public opinion can change and can become more tolerant.
However, I have one word of warning; namely, that tolerance exists on two levels. First, there is the tolerance which some people who do not like gays or

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lesbians should show on the matter. However, there is the other side of tolerance, which is that those who are gay or of a different sexual orientation ought, in their employment, to take care that they do not ostensibly, willingly and arbitrarily offend those with whom they work.
It is very understandable that someone who "camps it up" in his work may well find that his colleagues do not like it because their clients do not like it. Let us take, for example, the case of the transvestite. I know and like certain transvestites and I am not at all surprised when I find myself addressed by them in the morning in male costume, but find them in "full fig" in the evening, wearing makeup and skirts, enjoying themselves. I enjoy their company, too.
However, if one were in a business relationship and the person with whom one was having a business relationship with appeared in the morning as a male but, in the afternoon, suddenly appeared as a female, it is possible and understandable to argue that that could perhaps sway one's judgment. I think it wrong that such judgment should be swayed, but all that I am saying is that there is room for tolerance on both sides. When I say that, I have in mind in particular the outrage that occurred on Easter Day when the sermon of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury was interrupted.
I should like to make it as clear as I possibly can that the objects of the noble Baroness are admirable and that they should be endorsed by the House.
2.57 p.m.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, I understand that another of my noble friends proposes to speak in the gap, so I shall confine myself to speaking for just a few minutes. Like my noble friend Lord Attlee, I am one of the admirers of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, who moved this Second Reading. Indeed, she is a great model of courtesy, conduct and kindness in the House. However, I am sorry that she has identified this Bill with something which seems, on the face of it, to be part of a campaign by the gay community to legitimise itself in the face of opposition. Moreover, she has done so by way of a Private Member's Bill to amend statute law which has been with us for 25 years.
I know that I am perhaps not taking a very popular line, but I am not interested in that. I am all for equality of treatment; indeed, so are we all. However, subject to our support for equality of treatment, we also recognise that there can be such things as wrongdoing. When there is wrongdoing and it is proved fairly in a court of law, you put the wrongdoer behind bars. There is nothing discriminatory in that; it is the decision of society as a whole.
My complaint about the gay/lesbian campaign is that it runs counter to the heterosexual tradition not only of society in general but of supporters of nearly every religion one can think of. When the Question is put, I shall shout "Not Content", although I accept that I should have tabled a Motion on this matter. However, this week I have been busy with other matters.
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A point that is not generally recognised is the strong medical evidence that homosexual acts undertaken by men and boys are dangerous to health and that anal intercourse is physically damaging and is prone to lead to disease. The use of condoms makes no difference as regards safe sex. There is no such thing as safe sex in this regard. The anus is not meant to be used in this way. A body of expert medical evidence supports the view that I am expressing in a rather clumsy way. I am sorry that I cannot support the Bill of the noble Baroness, whom I greatly admire. As I said, I shall shout "Not Content" at the appropriate time.
3.1 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, as I am speaking in the gap I shall make one brief point. However, it is an important one. Society has no responsibility more important than that of looking after children. Consequently nothing that we do in Parliament is more important than to seek to protect children. Children are of absolutely fundamental importance and they should always be at the top of our agenda.
As your Lordships know, a good many children in this country are being brought up in children's homes. They are defenceless and vulnerable. As we all know, recently there has been a number of serious and well publicised scandals in England and Wales relating to child abuse in children's homes. I believe we were all greatly shocked by those scandals. It is unfortunately the case that these homes have been, and are being, targeted by some homosexuals who want to infiltrate them in order to abuse the children. That is not only a worrying development in itself, but some of those homosexuals may carry AIDS, in which case they will pass a death sentence on many of the children they abuse.
There are real dangers in all this. I was encouraged to read in yesterday's Hansard a Written Answer of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, concerning child protection measures. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, stated,
"the Government arc setting up an interdepartmental working group of officials to consider additional safeguards to prevent those who are unsuitable from working with children … The group will also consider whether further measures are necessary to protect 16 and 17 year-olds who may be vulnerable to abuse by those in a position of trust, such as carers, teachers and leaders of organised residential activities".—[Official Report, 4/6/98; cols. WA 51 and WA 52.]
It is greatly to be welcomed that the Government are addressing that problem. However, this matter does not involve only known sex offenders, but also those who have not been convicted of an offence but who have a homosexual orientation and who seek to infiltrate children's homes. I believe it would be irresponsible, and indeed unforgivable, for us to prevent local authorities—I believe this Bill would do that—from refusing jobs to those who apply to work in children's homes whom they believe, or suspect, may have designs on the children in those homes.
For that reason, I shall support the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in opposing the Bill. I very much hope that the Opposition parties will oppose it as a matter of principle. It does not seem to me that the Bill divides

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up into finite, small points that can be considered in Committee. It is a question of one single aspect and either you agree with it or you do not. Personally, I do not.
3.5 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I must be brief as I am speaking in the gap. I am bound to say in passing that this is not a Bill about paedophilia. It is about discrimination at work. That is what we are addressing.
The noble Baroness has twice previously produced a similar measure. The then Opposition supported those, but they were opposed by the Government, who advanced a number of reasons. They said it was not really a problem; it was not a sufficient problem to warrant legislation; that existing legislation covered the matter; and that if we passed such a measure it would merely lead to more and more legislation in relation to more and more minority groups. They said: we are not the French, the Italians or the Swedes, who may have had such legislation for years; we are the English. I hope that the noble Baroness will not trot out any of the tired old arguments that we heard from the previous government on both occasions in the past.
There are only two arguments that the Government can make. One is that this is not a perfect Bill. The other is that all these provisions are embraced in future legislation relating to fairness at work. The argument of the character in "The Lady's Not For Burning", that it's all got to be done at the proper time, and this is not the proper time, does not fit.
If the Bill is not perfect, then let us amend it, transform it, change it. Let the Government tell us now what they want to do. The Bill could be totally transformed. To say that it is not perfect is not an argument. To say that it all has to be gone into at the proper time is also wrong. We do not know when the proper time is. This is an immediate problem affecting a large number of people, and this Bill is a way of dealing with it. Therefore, I hope the Government will accept the Bill.
3.8 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, my reason for speaking in the gap is that I did not think it would be possible for me to respond to the many lobbies from educational and religious establishments, and so on. Only at the last moment did I find myself free to attend this House. My view is that the trouble with homosexuals is that they are exhibitionists, and they should keep quiet about it. For that reason, if the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, chooses to divide the House, he will not lack a Teller.
3.9 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Annan, I, too, strongly supported the decriminalisation of private homosexual activities 33 years ago, at a time when it was a somewhat unfashionable and unpopular cause. However, it is a mistake to regard this Bill as a natural progression from that legislation. Wolfenden
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gave homosexuals the freedom to be themselves without fear of being sent to prison, while this Bill deprives those who find certain practices repugnant of their freedom to make a choice as to whether to associate with, let their houses to or employ people. The noble Baroness has introduced the Bill with her usual skill and sincerity. However, there are others who believe with equal sincerity that coercive political correctness has gone quite far enough.
As my noble friend Lord Halsbury indicated, if people behaved with discretion, as they did in a more civilised age, and kept their sexual proclivities to themselves, the problem would scarcely arise. An employer or potential employer might have a vague suspicion that someone was inclined in a certain direction, but that would normally be the end of the story. It is when people shout their sexual orientation from the rooftops that the problem arises. I concede that there are hard cases; the noble Baroness mentioned a couple of moving examples. However, as we all know, hard cases make bad law.
The Bill would, for example, force a family with teenage sons to employ a homosexual gardener or handyman. It would force an elderly and fastidious widow to employ a lesbian housekeeper against her will. The Bill goes further than the previous Bill in that it extends to the provision of services. It would force individuals posted abroad for one or two years to let their houses to people whose intimate practices they found—justifiably or unjustifiably—abhorrent.
For the first time in history, it will become illegal to advertise for a married couple. Such an advertiser could face a fine of up to £5,000 by virtue of lines 18 to 22 inclusive on page 1 of the Bill in conjunction with Section 33 of the 1975 Act, which is de facto incorporated into the Bill. Illegal to advertise for a married couple: think about that, my Lords!
3.12 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield: My Lords, I welcome part of the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, in this Bill, and I certainly share her concern about discrimination. I welcome the words of the noble Lord. Lord Annan, about the unfortunate events in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Day.
I do not believe that homosexual orientation is necessarily a fixed state. It is well known that many people are attracted to members of the same sex at certain stages in their life but not at other stages. I therefore do not believe that sexual orientation can be legislated for in the same way as gender. As I understand it, it is the equal treatment between men and women, irrespective of their gender, that is the basis of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Since sexual orientation is not an issue of gender, it should not, in my view, be included within the definitions of the Act as here proposed.
I am conscious of the fact that I am speaking in the gap. Perhaps I may turn to three clauses that may raise issues of potential conflict for the Church, church schools and religious charities. Clause 3 amends Section 19 of the Sex Discrimination Act so that it would not

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be illegal to discriminate against ministers of religion in a job situation which is limited to one sex or sexual orientation so as to comply with the doctrines of the religion. However, Section 19 does not extend beyond the minister of the Church, so that employment of other staff—for example, youth workers, who are clearly in an influential position, particularly over young people who are at an age when their sexual orientation may be uncertain—would be outside the exclusion of doctrinal belief. It seems to me that churches and other faith organisations would possibly be forced to employ those who did not conform to their religious beliefs on sexuality. I should like clarification from the noble Baroness on that point.
As we have already heard, Clause 4 amends Section 23 of the Act so that a local authority may not discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation in the way that they carry out their education functions. Clause 4(2) amends Section 25(1) so that it will read,
"a body to which this subsection applies shall be under a general duty to secure that facilities for education provided by it, and any ancillary benefits or services, are provided without sex discrimination or sexual orientation discrimination".
That sounds fine, but those two sections could be used to argue that teachers should give equal weight to sex education, promoting homosexual relationships as if they were of equal moral status to heterosexual relationships.
As it seems to me, there is part of an agenda underlying this Bill which is about promoting homosexual lifestyle as being equivalent to heterosexual lifestyle. I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me if I misread her underlying intentions, but if those are her intentions, then under God that is a position that I cannot accept. The two sections may be used not only to argue that teachers should give the matter equal weight, but also that it would apply to governors as well. I would value her clarification on that.
Finally, Section 6 and Section 43(2) of the SDA says that charitable benefits can legally apply only to persons of one sexual orientation as well as to those of one sex as currently provided for in law when specified in a charitable instrument. However, as I understand it, charities would not be excluded from the employment requirements of the Act and would be unable to refuse to employ individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. That situation would be of great concern to some Christian and other religious charities which do not believe that homosexuality is compatible with Christian or other faith beliefs.
I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for taking some time in the gap, but I look forward to clarification from the noble Baroness on those issues.
3.15 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am glad that we heard the case against the Bill in the gap. It is proper parliamentary procedure, as well as natural justice, that we should hear the case on both sides. I listened to it with a great deal of interest. I look forward to resuming the engagement with it in Committee and shall now briefly respond to some of the points that have been made.
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The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, said that homosexuals are exhibitionists. First, that is conspicuously not true of a large number of gay people whom I know. Secondly, supposing it were true; I believe that most of us can think of some heterosexual exhibitionists—the names of Gallagher and Gascoigne come to mind among others. If one were to discriminate against exhibitionists, the profession of politics would suffer grievous loss.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, argued that this was taking political correctitude too far. The basic principle of political correctitude is that we are all human. As soon as we start saying that we are all human "except", it does not matter what one puts under the word "except"; we are treading on a dangerous slope.
The noble Lord referred to the possibility of letting houses to people whose practices one might regard as abhorrent. If I let my house—and I have done so—I do not believe that I have any right thereby to know in what sort of sexual practices the people occupying it may indulge. It is none of my business. Provided they leave my house in good condition, as they found it, that is all apart from payment of rent—that I can legitimately require of them.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, on the subject of children's homes, raised an issue of great seriousness, but one which I do not believe to be germane to this Bill. Paedophilia is a crime. Everybody I know agrees with that proposition and I believe all the supporters of this Bill agree equally. But paedophilia comes equally in both sexual orientations. I believe it to be wrong in whichever sexual orientation it comes. When I attempt to restrict paedophilia and if I am convinced—as I perfectly well might be next time I listen to a serious discussion on the subject—that restrictions are not sufficient, then I shall consider extending them.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, raised also the case of 16 and 17 year-olds in care. This is a serious issue. I understand what he was saying and agree with a great deal of it. But again, such abuse can happen within a heterosexual or a homosexual orientation. The abuse of positions of power in order to obtain sexual favours is in all circumstances wrong. It is something from which "straight" men are by no means immune. I would be reluctant to use that argument as an argument against employing "straight" men. One punishes the abuse of power and the use of force involved in inflicting unwanted sexual attentions persistently and repeatedly regardless of the sex involved.
The right reverent Prelate, having paid tribute to the principle of equal treatment, argued that there might be a danger of conferring equal moral status. We all have views about each other's moral status. Most of us, most of the time, have the wit to keep quiet about them. The world's religions have often had views—very passionate views—about the moral status of others among the world's religions. The Church of England is in a conspicuous and honourable place in having learnt that we must live and let live among different religions. I believe that exactly the same thing is true of sexual morals. There are a great many things that are done that I believe do not enjoy equal moral authority. But if I were prepared to legislate against everything that I think

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does not enjoy equal moral authority, I should take up a great deal more time of this House than I am willing to do.
The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, said that if you do something wrong you should be put behind bars. With respect, if you do something criminal you should be put behind bars. That is a very different proposition. To the suggestion that anyone who does something wrong should be put behind bars, I reply in the words of Hilaire Belloc:
"Is it true? It is not true
And if it were it would not do
For people such as me and you
Who pretty nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong".
I am happy to support this Bill.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I may say to the noble Earl that I used the term "wrongdoing" in a rather general sense. Of course he is quite right that "criminal" is the word I should have used.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, some of your Lordships will be aware of my own endeavours over many years to secure the advancement of women in public and political life. It is therefore with personal confidence that I can confirm to your Lordships that my party is opposed to any form of discrimination, whether it be on the grounds of race, religion, sex, age or, indeed, on the grounds of sexual orientation.
On 14th July 1995 when I wound up for the then Government on the Second Reading on one of the previous Bills on this subject introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, I said that we did not believe that legislation was the most effective way to overcome entrenched prejudice.
I said I believed that such legislation amounts to a form of coercion to conform and would add another piece of legislation to an already overregulated society. I added that we preferred instead to explain
"that we all have a duty and a responsibility to examine our consciences and ensure that in our everyday dealings with one another we act fairly and put to one side the race, sex or sexual orientation of our fellow citizens".—[Official Report, 14/7/95; col. 2021.]
In some ways it is embarrassing to be quoting from my own speeches, but I shall do so again, because in the same debate I said that protecting the interests of one particular group through legislation sends a signal to every group, however small and however narrow and partisan their cause, that they, too, could be candidates for specific legal protection.
My views on that aspect have not changed. I believed then that the burden of proving the need for legislation rests on those who are making the case that we ought to have legislation. I still believe that that case has not been made. I doubt whether the case will ever be made that we will be able to persuade a majority of the public to
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accept that legislation—and I emphasise the word legislation—is the way to deal with this difficult and sensitive matter. However, if the majority of your Lordships disagree with me, there is one caveat that I should like to add.
The previous Acts prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race and sex have undoubtedly provided a remedy for those who have been unfairly or improperly treated for those reasons. There can be little doubt that because of the sanctions that the Acts imposed the law has also protected untold numbers more by inhibiting any such improper and distasteful conduct. Yet, on the other side of the coin, they have also generated a culture of litigiousness which has resulted in a number of cases which really should never have been brought. It is all too easy for someone who has been refused a job or passed over for promotion or has not received a raise to allege that it was on some grounds of discrimination. In some cases it is simply due to the inability of the so-called victim to recognise either his own lack of qualifications or the superior qualifications of the persons with whom he was competing.
There is also the problem that there is no risk, because the tribunal does not award costs against the loser, however frivolous the claim or however flimsy the defence. The costs incurred by employers, both in terms of money and managerial time in fighting unjustifiable claims, are a considerable burden. This means that the complainant might just as well launch speculative proceedings in the hope that the nuisance value will encourage the respondents to settle. Some of the well publicised and ludicrous cases that have been reported in the press that ought to have been thrown out by the tribunals but were not may very well also be a factor. Then there have been the astronomical and wholly disproportionate damages that have been awarded in some cases, damages far in excess of what the victim might have received if he or she had suffered some severe injury in an accident.
Again, I should like to remind your Lordships that it was I who piloted the Race Relations (Remedies) Act 1994 through your Lordships' House, so there can be absolutely no question of my being personally opposed to the award of proper and reasonable damages in cases of wrongful discrimination. So the caveat I wish to enter is that I hope that the good intentions of the Bill will not be spoiled, should the Bill ever reach the statute book, by providing yet another source of ill-conceived claims. I hope that those responsible for administering the Bill, if it should become an Act, will do so with discretion, by rejecting out of hand the more improbable claims and thus discouraging others from launching similar implausible claims. I hope when it comes to awarding damages that the tribunals in all cases of unfair dismissal, on whatever ground, and in cases of improper discrimination, also on whatever grounds, will bear in mind that their function is to compensate the victim for his loss and his humilation, his mental suffering if you will. It is not their function to award punitive damages.
If I may indulge myself for the last time in my speech, I should like to quote what I said in 1995: we believe that people should be dealt with on the basis of their

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individual merits and their qualifications, and solely on those grounds. My noble friend Lord Henley is not here today, but on the second occasion that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, introduced her Bill, he said:
"We deplore unjustified discrimination. We will continue to send out the message that it is morally unacceptable".—[Official Report, 6/3/96; co1.406.]
I was very pleased to hear what the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said in answer to the difficulty mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. I understand his concern—we all share that concern: I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, shares that concern—about children in children's homes. But paedophilia has nothing to do with the Bill. I have read many cases of dreadful things happening to children in children's homes which were definitely done by heterosexual men and not homosexual men. So I really do not think that we should introduce that kind of idea into this Bill.
This is the third attempt of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, to introduce this Bill in one form or another. I believe that her persistence certainly deserves full marks and, if I may say so, my congratulations. I hope that she will not mind if I say to her that we shall most certainly not oppose this Bill at Second Reading, but that it is not one that should be included on the statute book because we do not believe it is a matter for legislation.
3.30 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, I wish to pay tribute to my noble friend's longstanding, energetic and knowledgeable commitment to equal opportunities in general and to her championing of this cause. I agree with her that it is a cause very well worth fighting for. I also wish to acknowledge the important role which has been played, and continues to be played, by Stonewall. In the 1995 debate on the previous Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, one noble Lord referred to Stonewall as the most moderate and most intelligent of lobbying groups which recognises the changes of culture in our society and the pace at which they are taking place. It still deserves that accolade. The position of the Government—which is not to support the Bill—is not taken lightly, given its valiant supporters. The reason that the Government are unable to do so has nothing to do with the arguments made against it by speakers in the gap.
The equal opportunities movement in this country is a vibrant one, I am glad to say. For instance, the Institute of Personnel and Development is leading a campaign among employers and personnel professionals intended to promote a positive approach to equal opportunities in the round, including sexual orientation, and to bring out the skills and experience of all employees. The Government welcome and endorse that campaign. I am delighted that more and more employers, including the Government themselves, and 75 per cent. of all health services have equal opportunities policies which specifically include sexual orientation.
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During our presidency of the European Union, Ministers have repeatedly said that, in order to create a Europe which is "inclusive", we must promote equality of opportunity in education and training and at work. That means combating discrimination and promoting access to employment and equality of opportunity; and providing security at work, while remaining adaptable enough to respond to economic change. It was for these reasons, and because we deplore unjustified discrimination of all kinds, that a very early action after the election was to negotiate the Amsterdam Treaty, containing the new Article 13 which gives the Community new powers to oppose discrimination on much wider grounds than the existing one of sex.
The Government's position is clear. Our manifesto reads,
"The country's attitudes to race, sex and sexuality have changed fundamentally. The Labour Party's task is to combine change and social stability … We will seek to end unjustifiable discrimination wherever it exists".
That remains our firm intention. I am very aware that in comparison to discrimination on grounds of sex, race and disability, there is a gap in the protection that we offer some individuals.
Let me remind the House of some government activity. The Government's legislation giving further effect in our domestic law to the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights law will emphasise the positive rights of individuals, with all their varying characteristics, and is a historic initiative.
We have changed the UK's immigration provisions so that same sex partners in established relationships have a right of entry and then of settlement after another year together. We look forward to the new treaty powers in Article 13 being put to good use when all member states have ratified the treaty, bearing in mind that we will have to proceed by unanimity.
The Government have stated their intention to repeal Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 as soon as a suitable legislative opportunity arises. Section 28 was introduced to ensure that local authorities did not intentionally promote homosexuality, publish material with that intention or promote the teaching in their schools of the acceptability of homosexuality as a "pretended family relationship". The section has been widely perceived as discriminatory and we believe that it serves no useful purpose.
As regards homosexuality in the Armed Forces, the Government have committed themselves in the course of this Parliament to reviewing the position. We will take account of the weight of the evidence, of the UK's laws and of the views of the European Court and of the Armed Forces themselves. The review will start with the position agreed in the last Parliament and will look in detail at the findings of the thorough survey which was undertaken by the MoD in 1995–96. A way forward will then be established.
The Government have agreed that there will be a free vote on whether the age of consent for homosexual sex should be equalised at age 16. This could be debated at the Report stage of the Crime and Disorder Bill if a Beck-Bencher tables such an amendment.

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I would also like to remind the House that the new White Paper, Fairness at Work, proposes reducing to one year the length of time which an employee must be in work before gaining protection from unfair dismissal. It his hard to imagine circumstances in which an industrial tribunal would find sexual orientation fair grounds for dismissal.
I hope that, having assured your Lordships of the Government's genuine concerns, I may now give the reasons why we are unable to support the Bill. First, your Lordships are aware of the importance that this Government place on the family and on the need to consider how all our policies impact on the family. We recognise the central value of the family and marriage, but also acknowledge that there are other forms of partnership and other ways of bringing up children which are also valid. For generations, marriage has provided for millions of people a strong and stable base for the bringing up of children in a rapidly changing world. This is not to deny, however, that there are strong and mutually supportive families and relationships outside marriage. This Bill goes to the heart of that issue. It invites us to treat same-sex couples as the equivalent of a family unit, which leads logically to treating all mixed-sex unmarried couples as the equivalent of a family unit. What we must do is tread a careful path between taking account of social reality and at the same time ensuring that we do not undermine the family.
Secondly, I come to one of our major concerns. The Bill would outlaw not just direct, but also indirect, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. This could mean that it would be unlawful for anyone covered by the Sex Discrimination Act—not just an employer—to apply to someone a,
"requirement of condition which is such that the proportion of people of a homosexual or lesbian orientation who can comply with it is considerably smaller than the proportion of people of heterosexual orientation who can comply with it".
In every case, applying such a condition would be in principle unlawful. The burden of proof would be on the defendant to prove that it was objectively justified.
No one can be sure what "requirements or conditions" this Bill would make unlawful in principle, but perhaps the most obvious one is marriage. It would become unlawful in principle to base any treatment or benefit on the fact that someone is married. This is a massive change from the present. In the employment field, for instance, currently the SDA specifically allows an exemption so an employer may recruit a married couple. This Bill leaves it unclear where that exemption would end up. Looking much more widely than work, I am advised that it might even be that favouring married couples would be held to be direct discrimination and therefore incapable in law of being justified.
In its judicial capacity, your Lordships' House has ruled that there is direct discrimination if, but for her sex, a woman would have received the same treatment
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as a man. It might be said that but for their sexual orientation a gay or lesbian couple would have the right to marry. This raises serious and important issues.
Earl Russell: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that some married couples do not feel in need of a tariff barrier?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, yes. Thirdly, I should like to expand on pensions. Noble Lords will realise from what I have said that any rule that gives married couples preferential treatment over gay couples can be discriminatory. In spite of the comments of my noble friend Lady Turner, outside the state schemes the Bill would have far-reaching implications for occupational pensions which paid survivors' benefits. If schemes were required to pay survivors' benefits to same sex couples, the provision might need to be extended to all unmarried couples. The impact needs to be considered carefully. There could be very significant cost implications for all contributors and all schemes' funding. In the Civil Service alone the Government estimate that this would cost some £20 million a year.
One problem is that one cannot prejudge the result of the Government's current wide-ranging review of benefits and pensions. We have received representations that occupational pensions should be required to pay survivors' benefits to all partners irrespective of marriage. We shall consider those representations as part of the review, but at this stage we are unable to give a commitment. Meantime, it is perfectly possible for occupational schemes to extend survivors' benefits on a voluntary basis, and an increasing number choose to do so. Even though the state social security schemes may not be covered by the Bill, it would raise highly important issues, especially in regard to the potential differences between contracted-in and contracted-out pension benefits. The Green Paper on pensions to be published by DSS Ministers later this year will open up debate. We believe that that is the right time to deal with this discussion. Beyond pensions, eligibility for certain benefits such as income support and family credit are based on the definition of the family unit. One would need to look carefully at those very wide benefit issues.
I have already mentioned the Armed Forces. In spite of the advice given to my noble friend, I am advised that not only serving members of the Armed Forces but civilians would be affected. For example, the MoD does not allow its civilian staff to be accompanied by unmarried partners, whether heterosexual or homosexual, on overseas tours. This is a long-standing convention with certain host nations and invariably reflects host nations' religious or other laws about marriage.
I have already referred to what is often described as the family unit. Currently, non-married couples are excluded from jointly adopting a child as marriage is seen as an indication of permanence and commitment of the couple. It also helps the child's legal status if the relationship breaks down. These are not systems to be dispensed with lightly. We are currently considering the introduction into the UK of the Parental Leave Directive. I am aware that Stonewall has informed the

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Government that workers with parenting responsibilities, whether recognised in law or not, should benefit from parental leave rights.
In housing, at present certain succession rights to tenancies are given to the surviving member of a heterosexual partnership but not of a same sex partnership. The Government have undertaken to consider, in the light of comments made in the course of a Court of Appeal judgment, how far that legislation may be amended, but this must be done carefully.
At this stage therefore I can promise that the Government are committed to giving serious consideration to the issues raised by this Bill. I should like to make clear that our reservations are about scope and timing, not about the good intentions of the Bill. I am glad to say that the Equal Opportunities Commission is currently consulting on proposals for extensive changes to the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act. We are looking forward to seeing the recommendations of the EOC after consultation and we shall consider them carefully and positively. Its present consultation proposes a new right to equal treatment encompassing sexual orientation.
I can assure noble Lords that all of the issues that I have outlined will be thoroughly analysed in the context of changes to current sex discrimination and equal pay legislation. I hope that my noble friend will be able to accept that it is reasonable to await the final views of our specialist equal opportunities body.
However, fortunately there is increasing recognition that this kind of discrimination in the workplace should be addressed, and many major employers incorporate sexual orientation in their equal opportunity policies. I want therefore to repeat that the Government are committed to looking seriously at the issues raised in the context of the wider review of equality legislation. I hope that I have made clear that the Government deplore unfair discrimination. I hope that I have also made clear that they have good reasons for reservations about the scope and timing of the Bill. Nevertheless, the convention of the House is that the Bill should be given a Second Reading.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, before my noble friend Lady Turner rises to wind up the debate, perhaps you would allow me to say a few words. I listened with great interest to some of the speeches made on this Bill today, although not to all of them. I was very surprised to see that a number of noble Lords have indicated that they may well divide against the Second Reading of the Bill. While it is of course procedurally possible and technically in order for them to do so, I hope your Lordships will not mind my pointing out that it is perhaps somewhat at odds with the current procedures of this House for there to be no less than six speeches in the "gap", when on the original list there were only eight speakers.
Certainly during my short time in the House I have known no such precedent; in this case, until the speeches in the "gap" took place, there was no notice that this Bill would not be given a Second Reading in the usual
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way. I was indeed surprised that no notice of a Division had been given by tabling the appropriate Motion so that it could appear on the Order Paper. I accept of course, as several speakers have said, that they all had different reasons for not being able to put down the Motion, but I hope they will all agree that it is a little unfortunate that a Division may take place on an issue of this sort, given this procedural—I nearly said "wrangle" but perhaps that is not the right word—device, or certain devices, that have been used this afternoon.
I really would put this appeal to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale: he has heard the issues, he has made his point and I hope that in all the circumstances he will not divide the House on the Second Reading of this Bill. In the event that a Division is called, my ministerial colleagues will abstain, as my noble friend the Minister has made it clear that the Government do not support the Bill. However, as the Leader of the House, in the circumstances of this case I have to say to your Lordships that in my view it would be wholly in accordance with the present usual practice of your Lordships' House to allow this Bill a Second Reading today. I hope that in all the circumstances the noble Earl will not seek to divide the House.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, am I allowed to shout "Not-Content", or not'?
Lord Richard: My Lords, of course the noble Earl is entitled to say that he is not content. The rules are perfectly clear that on the Second Reading of any Bill any Peer is entitled to say that he is not content. However, I am saying that the way in which this has been dealt with this afternoon is, first, peculiar; secondly, not in accordance with the normal current practices of your Lordships' House; thirdly, that it would be unsatisfactory, to put it mildly, if there were to be a Division on this Bill in these circumstances; and, fourthly, I think that perhaps one or other of the "gappers" could have put down a Motion on the Order Paper. In those circumstances I hope that the noble Earl will not divide the House.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, from these Benches I would like to give my entire support to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said with regard to the procedure to be adopted on this Bill.
Earl Russell: My Lords, perhaps I may also say the same on behalf of these Benches.
3.48 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for making clear the constitutional position of the House. I should like also to thank all the noble Lords who have participated in what I think was an extremely interesting debate. In particular, I thank those noble Lords who have been kind enough to support the Bill. There have been a number of them on all sides of the House.
I say this to those noble Lords who opposed the intentions of the Bill. My intention is simply to provide a clear means whereby ordinary people doing ordinary

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jobs will not be discriminated against, mainly in their employment. The issue has other aspects too, but I was mainly concerned with employment. I say that to the right reverend Prelate who intervened to speak about religions and the Church in particular. Our intention is simply to provide people with a different sexual orientation from the heterosexual one with a means, a remedy, if they feel they are being discriminated against.
Contributions were made by a number of noble Lords on such issues as exhibitionism, and so on. Those have been dealt with very adequately by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We are concerned here again with people who simply want to lead their lives with as little intervention, bullying and harassment as possible. I wish to provide them with a remedy should they feel that they are being discriminated against.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for allowing me to intervene. I am worried about one small point. I agree that all of us should be against unfair discrimination. However, the Bill seems to provide a reverse unfairness for ordinary people. Let us be fair to the employer who has to pay the wages and consider an employer who has two applicants for the job one of whom appears an obvious homosexual. It may not be that factor which makes the employer choose the other man. However, would it not then be possible for anyone to say—my noble friend Lady Miller made the point—"I have been discriminated against because of my sexual orientation"? Would the measure not give someone the advantage of using that weapon? That is what worries me.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, the same situation arises in any discrimination case, whether on grounds of sexual orientation or any other discrimination. If anyone feels that he has been discriminated against unfairly, I seek to provide some remedy that he can apply. If there is a hearing, it may be decided that that was not the case. But at least the individual concerned who feels that he has been discriminated against unfairly has some form of remedy and some way in which to proceed. That is what the Bill is about. It can apply, irrespective of sexual orientation, in a discrimination case on other grounds. It is no different. Under the Bill, the individual would have some remedy, whereas at present if the ground is sexual orientation there is no way in which the grievance can be adequately explored.
I turn to what the Minister said. I am glad to learn that the Government are considering the repeal of Section 28 which was of such concern to many people in Stonewall, and many who feel they have been discriminated against. I am glad to learn also that there will be a free vote on the whole issue of the Armed Forces. My understanding is that the Bill clearly does not cover the Armed Forces. As I said earlier, it would mean, I think, that there would need to be amendments to other legislation. If that were intended to be included in this Bill, it would have to be stated in terms, and it is not so stated. So far as I am aware, the Bill does not cover the Armed Forces.
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I believe that a number of issues raised by the Minister could be dealt with through amendments to the Bill. The noble Baroness addressed the issue of family and family units. One respects the Government's views, and other views expressed. I am glad to learn also that the Equal Opportunities Commission, of which I was a member for some eight years, is now having seriously considered by the Government the changes for which it has pressed for a long while to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. However, I still believe that that does not cover all the issues that we wish to be addressed in the Bill.
I understand that the Bill does not cover pensions and that special legislation is required. That is because the original equality legislation did not cover pensions and in the Bill, we seek to apply those provisions. I would be in favour of survivors' benefits being extended to same sex partners, but that is not part of the Bill. I understand that the matter requires detailed consideration.
This is a simple Bill designed to give, in the main, employment protection—other protection is provided—to people who have a sexual orientation as described in the Bill. A number of noble Lords who have spoken believe that there may be other repercussions. That is not what the Bill provides. The issue of children was adequately dealt with by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, when she spoke on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench. It is the view of those who support the Bill. I commend it to the House.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the Leader of the House for my oversight and I thank him for his kind words. I am 87 and I forget things. One day he will be 87 and no doubt he will forget things, too. I offer sincere apologies to the House for failing to observe the rules. I naturally accept the advice and respect the leadership which the Leader of the House gives us so nobly.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Fireworks Bill
3.56 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Monkswell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Elton) in the Chair.]
Clause 2 [Power to make regulations about fireworks]:
[Amendments Nos. 6 to 8 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Renton: The clause contains wide powers to make regulations. The Select Committee on delegated powers and deregulation, in paragraph 9 of its report of 22nd April, described it as a "disturbingly" wide power. It therefore considered that your Lordships,
"may wish to seek a ministerial undertaking to reassure the House that this wide power would, in practice, be used narrowly".
I hope that the Minister who is representing the Government will be able to give such an undertaking. It is vital that the Government should do so.
Finally, Clause 2(3) requires the Secretary of State to consult various organisations, only one of which is specified. Can the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, tell us what other organisations he has in mind which should be consulted?
Lord Monkswell: The noble Lord will find that during the first day in Committee and at times today various ministerial undertakings will be given by the Government in respect of the way in which they will implement and deal with the Bill when it becomes an Act. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my understanding of what will evolve today.
With regard to the noble Lord's second point as regards the organisations which will be consulted when it comes to making regulations, it is fair to say that organisations representing firework manufactures, firework sellers, those reflecting the interests of the users of fireworks and, indeed, those representing safety interests—and I have in mind in particular the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents—will be included. However, I am sure that he will appreciate that it would not be sensible to put on the face of the Bill a list of all such organisations. Indeed, that would vary over time as new organisations develop and others fall by the wayside. The broad categories of the organisations that I have mentioned would be the ones that we envisage will be consulted about this legislation.
Lord Renton: I am much obliged. However, as regards the Government being asked specifically for an undertaking, that is an issue which will need to be considered when Clause 2 stand part is discussed because that is how it arises. Indeed, the Select Committee referred to Clause 2. Therefore, we should have that undertaking. I have with me the Hansard report of the first day of Committee but, after reading it, I cannot determine whether such an undertaking was given.
Lord Haskel: Owing to the disturbance that took place when the noble Lord first started to speak, I was unable to hear clearly the particular undertaking that he has in mind. We gave a number of undertakings on Second Reading. I believe that the requests for certain undertakings made by the Select Committee have been responded to. However, I am not sure about the specific undertaking to which the noble Lord referred. We can certainly look into the matter and give that undertaking in writing or indeed during the next stage of the Bill.
Lord Renton: I can answer the noble Lord's query as to where this matter originally arose. It is mentioned in paragraph 9 of the Select Committee's report.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Prohibition of supply etc. to young persons]:
[Amendment No. 9 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Renton: As regards Clause 3, I believe that we should look again at subsection (2), which says:
"Fireworks regulations may include provision prohibiting the purchase or possession of fireworks, or fireworks of a description specified in the regulations, by persons who arc below an age so specified".
That provision was put into the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, but I wonder whether he or the Government have any particular age in mind. Indeed, that is a most important point.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Before my noble friend responds, perhaps, I may, with the deepest respect, point out to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that during the Committee stage, we proceed by means of amendment or by notice given that a clause should or should not stand part of the Bill. It is very difficult for those who are putting forward legislation to anticipate points which have not been made in the form of an amendment and to know to what they should reply. Of course, the noble Lord is strictly in order in raising a question on any clause in the Bill; indeed, I do not deny that. However, Committee stages survive because matters are notified in advance.
Lord Renton: With deep respect—and I speak from 19 years' experience in this Chamber—my understanding of the discussion on a clause stand part during the Committee stage of a Bill enables any noble Lord in any part of the Committee to ask the promoter of the Bill, or indeed, the Government, if it is a government Bill, what a particular part of the clause means, what its results might be and whether they will consider any further matter in relation to it. That is in addition to the discussion of any amendments tabled.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Lord is, of course, entirely right, but it is common and helpful when that is to take place that noble Lords should give a minimum of notice of the matter they intend to raise by placing a Motion on the Order Paper to oppose the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lord Haskel: I respond to the noble Lord's point that he made earlier. Eighteen is the current age and there is no expectation that it will be changed.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Prohibition of supply etc. in certain circumstances]:
[Amendment No. 10 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Renton: I have a short point on Clause 4 of which I have not given notice. I do not consider it necessary for me to have done so. It appears that the supply or use of fireworks will be prohibited by regulations during periods of the year to be specified in regulations. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, what periods of the year he had in mind when he inserted that provision in the Bill?
Lord Monkswell: My understanding is that there is some concern among members of the general public about the selling of fireworks for some time prior to 5th November and also for some time afterwards. What we have set out in the Bill is a power for the Minister to circumscribe the period during which fireworks may be sold. That would be decided after consultation and therefore no specific dates can be mentioned as regards the limitations that are envisaged. I am sure the noble Lord understands that there is genuine public concern about this matter. This is a fall-back power if the sale of fireworks over an extended period of time were to continue.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Prohibition of supply etc. of certain fireworks]:
[Amendment No. 11 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Public fireworks displays]:
[Amendment No. 12 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Haskel: I may anticipate the points that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is to raise but it may be helpful if I deal with two points raised by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation relating to the concept of public fireworks displays.
First, there was concern that training requirements might discourage traditional firework events put on by clubs such as scout groups, or even backgarden displays. I can confirm on behalf of the Government that there is no intention that events of this sort should be penalised. Where clubs and individuals wished to use the more dangerous types of fireworks it would be the intention to ensure that training was readily accessible to them.
Secondly, the Select Committee sought clarification of what is meant by a "public fireworks display". Specifically there was concern about whether the definition was too widely drawn and might include events of the kind I have just described. I should like to take this opportunity to confirm that we have looked at this matter closely. Clause 6(5) provides that a public fireworks display is one,
"to which the public, or any section of the public, are admitted (whether or not on payment)".
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The important question to ask about any display is, "is it open to the public, or to a section of the public?". We are firmly of the view that displays at private parties, private club functions, etc., are not public displays, because they are clearly not open to the general public.
Lord Renton: Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, that when a Select Committee of this House has drawn attention to particular provisions in the Bill it must be in order for us to refer to the views of the Select Committee and ask for undertakings, especially when the Select Committee has suggested that undertakings should be asked for.
On that basis, I invite the attention of the Minister to paragraph 11 of the Select Committee's report at the top of page 5, and the indication by the committee that,
"a Ministerial undertaking might be made [with regard] to … traditional back garden bonfire night fireworks".
That goes to the heart of the matter. That is where the people of this country will be interested, involved and concerned as to the effect of the Bill. Bearing in mind the view of the Select Committee that on this and other matters mentioned in the paragraph there should be a ministerial undertaking, perhaps the noble Lord would be so good as to add to his remarks. I am sure that the Committee would be appreciative.
Lord Haskel: The point made by my noble friend Lord McIntosh was that it is the usual courtesy of the House to give notice of these questions. As I was not given notice of this matter, I shall have to write to the noble Lord about it.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord was not given notice by me but by the Select Committee. Presumably he read the committee's report; he was obliged to do so.
Lord Haskel: The clarifications and undertakings required by the Select Committee were dealt with in relation to previous amendments and at Second Reading, when I made a statement on many of these points.
Viscount Astor: I am sorry to disagree with the Minister, but in fact the matter did not arise at Second Reading. We did not discuss any of these points. It is only now, when we are examining the detail of the Bill, that we are doing so. However, we should be grateful to the Minister for saying that he will come forward with those clarifications.
Lord Monkswell: My understanding, having glanced at paragraph 11, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is that my noble friend Lord Haskel did effectively give a ministerial undertaking that satisfied both of the questions raised by the Select Committee. We may need to check Hansard to see that the specific wording of the undertaking given directly meets the requirements of the Select Committee. I am fairly sure that it does. However, a reading of Hansard will allow us to appreciate whether that is the case. If it does not, I am sure that we can arrange for undertakings to be given subsequently.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 to 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Training courses]:
4.15 p.m.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 12A:
Page 6, line 6, after ("State,") insert—
("( ) authorise the making by the Secretary of State of provision about the charging of fees for the grant or variation of licences,").
The noble Lord said: I suggest that with this amendment we also discuss Amendments Nos. 12B to 12D; they all go together.
First, perhaps I may make a somewhat general comment. I should point out that these and the other amendments outstanding on the Marshalled List were tabled by my noble friend Lord Mancroft. I am sorry to say that my noble friend cannot be present today as he has been taken rather severely ill. My noble friend obtained advice from the Government—that is the euphemistic way of putting it—before he tabled these amendments, and we are grateful to the Government for the help that he was given.
At Second Reading my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, and others complained that the Bill was merely an enabling Bill which was vague and lacking in safeguards. Its contents were severely criticised by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. The amendment I now move and those grouped with it, and other amendments on the Marshalled List, are intended to try to overcome the sweeping delegated powers contained in the Bill, which, as I said at an earlier stage, are quite exceptional. I have never seen anything like it before.
Members of the Committee will see that Amendment No. 12A inserts the words:
"authorise the making by the Secretary of State of provision about the charging of fees for the grant or variation of licences".
Amendment No. 12C inserts in Clause 10 the words:
"making by the Secretary of State of provision about the charging of fees for attendance at courses of training in the uses of fireworks, and
the making by the Secretary of State, or by any body or bodies established or recognised by the Secretary of State under this section".
This is a somewhat technical group of amendments and I do not believe that the Committee will expect a full explanation of them. They are essentially drafting amendments, but they pave the way for a later amendment on affirmative resolutions. I beg to move.
Lord Annaly: I support these amendments. Without them there is no requirement in the Bill that the fees referred to by my noble friend Lord Renton will be approved by the Secretary of State or be subject to a limit specified in regulations. It was the firm recommendation of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation that the fees charged for granting a licence to both training providers and those wishing to attend training courses should either be
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approved by the Secretary of State or be subject to a limit specified in regulations. These amendments fulfil that requirement and should be supported.
Lord Haskel: These amendments are acceptable to the Government. They will allow the Secretary of State to specify that fees be set according to a formula which covers costs and allows for a reasonable element of profit but is not excessive.
Viscount Astor: My name is also down to these amendments. Earlier in the Committee stage the Bill received a mauling—in my view, quite rightly. The Bill was heavily criticised by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation. Having sat where the Minister sits, I know what it is like to be attacked by the Opposition for coming forward with any Bill, whether it be a Government Bill or a Private Member's Bill, which is full of Henry VIII clauses. I am always surprised that parliamentary draftsmen think that they can get away with that in this Chamber.
The Government have indeed taken on the concerns that were raised, but perhaps I may make one point. The Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation suggested that a ministerial assurance might in certain circumstances be satisfactory. The Committee gave a clear indication that it would not be satisfied by that, and I believe that the Select Committee should take note of that for the future.
The Government looked at this and agreed to accept the amendments tabled. We thank the Minister for that and perhaps apologise for the ambush that was created at the first stage of Committee. However, I hope that he sees why we felt it was so important to get this right. It would be not only a bad Bill, but it would be extremely bad for the future and the future of this Chamber if clauses of that kind were allowed to go through unchecked.
I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, is also prepared to accept these amendments and indeed the amendments that we shall be debating shortly. I thank the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, in advance. My noble friend will be moving them and I shall not necessarily have to say anything more this afternoon.
Lord Monkswell: Perhaps I can respond briefly, though the hour is late. I should clarify to the Committee that the report of the Select Committee on delegated powers raised various points but required no amendment to the Bill. However, it sought a number of ministerial assurances.
I believe that it is a question of interpretation as to how the Bill is read. As the noble Viscount. Lord Astor, pointed out on the last Committee day, a number of noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber felt concerned regarding the powers that the Bill would confer on government Ministers. Unfortunately, they did not seem capable of waiting for ministerial assurances to be given, all of which have been or will be given in the course of the debate.

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As I say, it is a question of interpretation as to whether or not the amendments are necessary to meet the concerns expressed. As the promoter of the Bill I shall accept all the amendments tabled this evening, but it is worth pointing out that I felt they were not strictly necessary, though I concede that they meet anxieties expressed by the Committee on the last occasion and no doubt other anxieties that would come forward if the amendments had not been tabled and were not to be accepted.
Lord Renton: I thank my noble friends for their clarification of this group of amendments and the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, for his views on the matter also.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 12B
Page 6, line 13, leave out from beginning to ("and").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendments Nos. 12C and 12D:
Page 6, line 16, leave out from ("the") to ("provision") in line 19 and insert ("making by the Secretary of State of provision about the charging of fees for attendance at courses of training in the use of fireworks, and
( ) the making by the Secretary of State, or by any body or bodies established or recognised by the Secretary of State under this section, of").
Page 6, leave out line 25.
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I shall move these amendments en bloc. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 to 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Prohibition of supply etc. of other explosives]:
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 12E:
Page 8, line 6, leave out ("under this section") and insert ("by virtue of this subsection").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 12E and 12F go together. They clarify the distinction between regulations made under subsection (1) of Clause 14 and those made under subsection (3).
Subsection (3) allows for amendment by regulations of the definition of "explosives", which applies for the purposes of the Bill. Such regulations will not be subject to public consultation. I would, however, point out that if the Committee accept the amendments to Clause 16, which I shall be moving shortly, the regulations made under subsection (3) of Clause 14 would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. That is a safeguard which I suggest is well worthwhile.
Lord Haskel: These amendments are a matter of clarification and are acceptable to the Government.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 12F:
Page 8, line 8, leave out ("this section") and insert ("subsection (1)").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16 [Parliamentary procedure for regulations]:
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 12G:
Page 8, line 14, after ("instrument") insert—
("( ) Regulations under section 1(2) or 14(3) shall not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.
( ) A statutory instrument containing fireworks regulations shall be").
The noble Lord said: This is perhaps the most important of the various amendments on the Marshalled List today on this Bill. Noble Lords will recollect that during the previous debate, on the first day in Committee on 5th May, Clause 1(2) and Clause 14(3) which provides powers to amend by regulation the definitions of fireworks and explosives were criticised as Henry VIII powers, and rightly criticised. This was also a matter on which the Select Committee expressed concern. There was no limit on the face of the Bill on what might be brought within the definition of fireworks or explosives—very wide Henry VIII powers.
As a safeguard, and in order that Parliament may be required to consider the regulations made under those two clauses, Clause 1(2) and Clause 14(3), I suggest that they should be subject to affirmative resolution, and in each House, although of course in your Lordships' House we have various conventions which rather limit the use that we make of affirmative resolutions, sometimes, some of us think, regrettably. However, this is a good safeguard and I beg to move.
Lord Haskel: We have reflected further on this issue. It was always the Government's intention that the powers in Clauses 1(2) and 14(3) would be used only in exceptional circumstances. However, in view of the comments made by several noble Lords in Committee on 5th May, we accept that it would be appropriate to make use of the powers in Clauses 1(2) and 14(3) subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. These amendments are therefore acceptable to the Government.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 13 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 17 to 19 agreed to.
In the schedule:
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 13A:
Page 9, line 23, at end insert—

("1984 c. 54.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984.

In Schedule 9, paragraph 7(3) and (4).")

The noble Lord said: This amendment has been brought forward because the attention of my noble friend Lord Mancroft was drawn to it by the

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Government. It is a very technical matter and I shall give a brief explanation. The amendment would add a reference to two sub-paragraphs from the schedule to the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984. Those two sub-paragraphs need to be repealed because of a prospective repeal that the Government have in mind of Sections 30 and 80 of the Explosives Act 1875. When those sections are repealed, the two sub-paragraphs in question in the 1984 Act will no longer be relevant since they amend those sections in their application to Scotland. The amendment is desirable in order to keep the statute book tidy. I beg to move.
Lord Haskel: It seems sensible that this opportunity be taken to deal with what is a technical matter. The amendment is therefore acceptable to the Government.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Haemophiliacs and Hepatitis C
4.31 p.m.
Lord Morris of Manchester Lord Morris of Manchester rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what new help is intended for people with haemophilia who were infected with hepatitis C in the course of NHS treatment or, in the case of those who have died, for their dependants.
The noble Lord said The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is a deep sense of injustice among people with haemophilia and their families, one of the most vulnerable groups in Britain today. The tragic story of three brothers explains why.
All three inherited haemophilia, a life-long bleeding disorder that requires continuous medical treatment. Two of the brothers were infected with HIV by contaminated blood products used in their NHS treatment and died of AIDS-related illnesses. They received financial help from the Macfarlane Trust, funded by the Government, and were able to make provision for their families. The third brother escaped HIV infection but was infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), also by contaminated blood products used in his NHS treatment, and died of liver failure. For him there was no financial help. He went to his grave unable to make any provision for his family.
Each of the three brothers had become terminally ill and died from the same cause: contaminated NHS blood products. But one was denied the help given by a government-funded trust to the other two. That contrast in treatment not only suggests but shouts of injustice.
To date the Macfarlane Trust, set up by the last government in 1989, has been given £80 million to disburse in ex-gratia lump sum awards, regular monthly payments and one-off grants to 1,200 people with haemophilia who were infected with HIV and their dependants. It was an official acceptance of moral responsibility for their loss and hardship. There was then and is now exactly the same moral responsibility for loss and hardship among those infected with HCV. But nine
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years on they are still waiting for parity of treatment with other haemophiliacs who were infected at the same time and by the same route. It has been argued that to compensate them would take money away from patient care in the NHS. That is not just to get the wrong end of the stick, but the wrong stick. For the payments made in the HIV cases, including those for the dependants of people who subsequently died of AIDS, came from contingency monies, which is what the Haemophilia Society, on grounds both of equity and social justice, is seeking now for the hepatitis C victims. The society simply wants the terms of reference of the Macfarlane Trust to be extended to include them.
Measured against the pain and suffering endured, help on the scale made available by the Macfarlane Trust is by no means excessive. The HIV and HCV infections among haemophiliacs have been described as the gravest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. Blood products have been treated against HIV and HCV since 1986; but this came too late for the UK's haemophilia community of 6,000 people, almost all of whom had been infected by then. Some 4,800 were infected with HCV and 1,200 with HIV. Even more sadly, some were infected through their NHS treatment with both.
Hepatitis C attacks the liver and is potentially life-threatening. Current medical opinion is that up to 80 per cent. of people infected will develop chronic liver disease. Of these up to 20 per cent. will develop severe liver problems such as cirrhosis, many of them liver cancer. Based on death certificate information, mortality from liver disease is now 16.7 times higher for haemophiliac males than for the general population and 5.6 times higher for liver cancer. Over 90 haemophiliacs have already died as a result of being infected with hepatitis C. Many others are gravely ill and have lost jobs, homes and sometimes family in consequence of their infection.
To sustain its call for parity, the Haemophilia Society has drawn the attention of the Department of Health to the findings of in-depth research into the problems and needs of people infected with HCV who are not yet seriously ill. The research examined the overall impact of HCV on them and their families. If Ministers have not read its findings, I hope very much that they will do so. It is a most disturbing social document. Families are shown to be trying to cope with sickness, loss of income, loss of jobs and loss of independence, while having to live with what they know may soon prove to be a terminal illness.
The most daunting worry of those infected is not knowing which of them is likely to develop chronic liver disease and perhaps cirrhosis or cancer of the liver. While many will be spared, they all have to face grave uncertainty about their future and to suffer the stress and anxiety it creates. Regardless of their health now, all who are HCV antibody positive will be unable to gain life insurance except at prohibitive rates, while those with young families or other dependants are denied the peace of mind that goes with knowing that, if they become terminally ill, their dependants will be provided for.
The research also makes plain the cost, even to those whose health is not yet very seriously affected by the infection, of having to reduce their hours of work, give up opportunities for promotion, take less demanding jobs and give up working altogether.
The enervating effects of hepatitis C make many physical and mental activities impossible. As well as losing income, most of those affected also face increased expenditure on medicine and dietary requirements. The overall impact of being infected varies between individuals, but inevitably many families and relationships are pushed to breaking point. For those whose health becomes progressively worse the problems multiply. Having haemophilia is bad enough; having to cope with another life-threatening disease can be a crushing burden.
Their most urgent need—and urgency was never more urgent, for the death toll rises with every passing month—is for financial help to loosen the vice of reduced income and increased costs. Not to recognise this is to increase their vulnerability and, as one HCV-infected haemophiliac after another has made clear to me since this debate was announced, leaves people who are doubly handicapped and doubly disadvantaged in double despair.
This is well recognised abroad, not least in countries much poorer than ours. Among our closest neighbours here in Europe, in Ireland the government give financial help; so too, among others, do the Italian Government.
It was stated for the Government when the Green Paper on welfare reform was published on 26th March, both in your Lordships' House and in another place, that their
"commitment to the vulnerable is non-negotiable".
That declaration raised hope nowhere more visibly than in the haemophilia community. For no one who speaks to those with HCV infection, more especially those now trying to cope with chronic liver disease, can doubt their vulnerability nor that of their dependants. Of course, they know that new Ministers cannot always act as quickly as they would like—and I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Ramsay is to reply to today's debate, but the declaration of 26th March gave the haemophilia community new hope which I trust will now soon be justified by an end to the cruelly discriminatory treatment of people whose plight the word "vulnerable" might have been invented to describe.
Meanwhile I shall be grateful to my noble friend if, while conveying to Ministers my appreciation of their decision to fund until next April the provision of recombinant Factor VIII, free from the risk of blood-borne viruses, for haemophilia patients under 16 and those newly diagnosed, she will also make plain the deep concern felt on both sides of both Houses of Parliament about the cut of £88,000 in the department's funding of the Haemophilia Society for the current year. Much of that funding was awarded to the society under the previous administration to cover the costs of providing special advice and support services for haemophiliacs with HCV infection. The need for those
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services is no less today than it was then and I hope a decision that seems totally inexplicable to the haemophilia community will be reversed.
In none of the parliamentary campaigns I have been closely involved in over 34 years in Parliament—even thalidomide and that for statutory recognition of dyslexia—have I had so strong a sense that no campaigning should have been necessary to right so obvious a wrong. Enormous cross-party backing has been given by MPs to Motions calling for parity of treatment. As each successive Motion has shown, the issue is regarded not as one of Right and Left, but of right and wrong. It is just as demonstrable that, given the nod by Ministers, both Houses could end this huge scandal within an hour.
For all of us know that in truth anyone claiming to see any difference in principle between the claims of those infected with HIV and HCV will have no difficulty whatever in spotting from afar the smallest needle in the biggest haystack.
There are many celebrated texts on the undoubted wrong of delaying justice. My choice today is Magna Carta which famously declares,
"To no one will we delay right or justice".
Recognition that justice delayed is justice denied was never more relevant than it is today in the small community for whom I speak in this debate. It hopes profoundly that this opportunity will be taken to justify the new hope given to them as vulnerable people by the ministerial Statements in both Houses of Parliament on the 26th March. But if its campaign has to go on I am in no doubt—nor should anyone else doubt—that go on it will until right is done.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Winston: My Lords, the House will be grateful to my noble friend the Lord Morris of Manchester for introducing this important short debate. I have no wish to detain the House at this late hour this afternoon and I shall be brief. However, one cannot escape the terrible fact that death by liver failure or liver cancer is a particularly horrible end. There is a slow inexorable decline, with severe fatigue and malaise. Patients with these viruses are frightened about their marital relationships. They are concerned about having sex. At the same time, paradoxically and ironically, they suffer loss of libido. They feel sick, have no appetite and lose weight. If they have liver cancer often they have severe pain that is quite intractable. The end is a mixture of a decline, with mental confusion and finally coma. It is true that occasionally there are expensive opportunities for liver transplantation and dialysis, but most of these merely palliate the condition and offer control for a certain time.
As the noble Lord has eloquently pointed out, there is no difference between HIV and hepatitis C that is produced in this way. The cause is the same, a virus, and it comes from the same source, blood products. Yet, sadly and oddly, there is discrimination by the Government. With one exception, there is no logic to it. The exception, sadly, is mere expediency. No government in this situation, quite understandably, want

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to create a precedent. Therefore, my noble friend who is to reply this afternoon, although an honourable person, sadly is here to defend what is probably indefensible. The precedent is already there. The fact is that patients with HIV have already been compensated to a large extent by government action. A decision on the basis of expediency is not moral.
This Government came to power on a wave of moral feeling and with moral promise. The very National Health Service to which these people owe their treatment, and in this case its unfortunate outcome, is based on a moral promise of which the Government are rightly proud. It was founded on a moral principle. We on this side of the House are proud of the moral principles of this Government. But moral principles not only carry credit and bring public support but impose obligations and responsibilities. There is a price as well as an advantage in taking the moral high ground. The alternative is potentially worse. If these patients eventually resorted to litigation it could prove more expensive; certainly it would be more damaging to them as individuals and potentially more damaging to the Government.
I believe that the Government need to consider more seriously the alternatives for genetic disorders like haemophilia. Here I declare an interest having been involved in genetic disorders and research into their prevention for 10 years. The fact is that it is possible, using modern embryological methods, to screen the families which are at risk and some of whom have been affected with this virus. Undertaking pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is no longer at the research stage. Indeed, in my institution the research approval on the basis of an ethical approval is now withdrawn because it is no longer seen to be a research procedure. It is a clinical procedure. That procedure costs £2,500, and the alternative cost perhaps of treating somebody year after year with hepatitis, or indeed just for haemophilia, and the blood transfusions is around £15,000.
The strange thing is that, although the Government came to power with a promise to abolish the internal market, it is a lottery as to whether these patients are treated by the NHS. In some parts of the country they do and in other parts they do not; but the NHS is not funded through local taxation but through national taxation, and there needs to be a national policy. I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, cannot give us any undertaking this afternoon, but I hope that she will take back this message to the Department of Health and to the Government. I have a suspicion that on all sides of the House there will be unanimous support for a manoeuvre of this kind.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I suspect that in a very straightforward debate on a straightforward problem like this, with so much expertise in front of me, there is little else I can do but agree, so I will proceed as quickly as I can. As has been stated, there is a precedent for this: a treatment for haemophilia has led to a viral infection. As has also been said before, this has happened with the AIDS virus, which may have been the causing virus, if I might try and use the correct term in such learned
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company. That has led to a variety of illnesses, sometimes resulting in death. With hepatitis C the same principle applies, except that the process is slightly different because the virus is different.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, has just given us a description of how harrowing and damaging that process is. It might take longer, according to the notes that have been provided for me on this, but the principle is still there; the worry is still there; and ultimately an untimely death is still there. If we could do it once, then we can do it twice. The only real debate that is going on today is as to when compensation will be paid, because the legal precedent is there. Although we do not have our usual battery of heavy guns firing from the legal world, we all know that they will win their case in the end; even if it is not here it will be in another court—perhaps the European Court of Human Rights. It will happen. We must do something. These people are suffering because the system got it wrong. The system which said, "We will look after you" got it wrong. Whether or not the sufferers are taxpayers, they are entitled to expect the system to take care of them. And yet, that is the system which gave them a killing disease. Surely they are entitled to some support.
The Minister may not be able to give us a positive answer today but she knows as well as everybody else that the Government will have to do something. Delay which, because of the dead hand of the Treasury, lies upon this problem as it lies upon everything, will result only in greater suffering for those who have the condition. This is not good enough, and hopefully a new Government with such a huge majority must he able to overrule the Treasury, so that the tail does not wag the dog. That is something which must be reversed in this case and action should be taken as soon as possible. We must not wait until after long and expensive legal cases have taken place. We are speaking not just in terms of money but in terms of people's lives. Ultimately people's lives must be more important.
We have heard that it is comparatively cheap to take action by screening before the condition occurs. A little investment is required. I do not know how many times and on how many issues I have said that we should act now rather than pay later. It is invariably cheaper in the long or even medium term to put a little money up front. I hope that the Government will do something. It may be too much to hope that the Minister can answer now. However, I like to think that hope springs eternal, and that we shall hear something soon. The issue will not go away. The Government will eventually have to give ground, as sure as eggs are eggs. The legal precedents are there. I hope that we shall soon hear some positive information.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Alderdice: My Lords, we are all in the debt of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, for introducing the debate. As he rightly and eloquently said, in many ways it is not a complicated argument. It is extraordinarily straightforward and simple. Therefore, I shall not take up much time as the issues have been laid out clearly by my colleague, and the noble Lords, Lord Morris and Lord Winston.

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There are three specific issues. First, there is the moral question. Those of us who come into the caring professions give an undertaking that we shall try to do the best we can for those under our care, but that at the very least we shall not make their situation worse. Sometimes that is a more onerous undertaking than at first appears. Nevertheless it is an entirely proper one. A relatively small group of people, whose care was undertaken in good faith, has suffered terribly. There is a moral question there. Those who undertook the care, out of no real cause of their own, did harm. When we do harm it is incumbent upon us to put the harm right as best we can, or at least make some compensation.
The second issue has been spoken about extensively. I refer to the fact that this group of people is not unique. Others suffer from haemophilia and have already been compensated for contracting HIV in precisely the same circumstances. In that context, it is incomprehensible that at the start of this process the decision did not ensure that those who were infected would be compensated. It is extraordinary that there was a decision to compensate one group and not another.
My noble friend describes hope as springing eternal. I believe that we have gone as far into "eternal" as we should have to do. The hope should not have to spring any longer; it should be responded to.
Thirdly, we should not forget that those who suffer from haemophilia have done so from before birth. They have suffered considerably already, through no fault of their own. To suffer again at the hands of those who were doing their best to care for them is an assault almost too great for anyone to be expected to bear. But to add to that by giving no compensation and steadfastly refusing time after time to recognise their predicament and to give due compensation—while on the other hand doing so for others who suffer the same type of disorder—is quite extraordinary.
We are not talking about large amounts of money in the greater scheme of things. In my own small province of Northern Ireland, we are speaking of some 76 haemophiliacs. Let it be said that probably one-third of those who are suffering from the disorder are suffering from an infection with HCV.
Apart from the issue of compensation, a further problem arises. I raise the issue with the Minister and appreciate that she may be unable to respond immediately. It has been decided that the care of some of the patients will be continued at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, but that the care of others in a different age group will proceed at the Belfast City Hospital. However, the hepatologist will remain at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Therefore, some of the patients will be cared for partly in one hospital, partly in another and then back to the first.
A small group of people are suffering from a disorder which is not widespread and from an infection which is less likely to be attended to by the media and therefore they find themselves suffering all the more but quietly, painfully and in a very upsetting way. It is the will of your Lordships' House and it appears to be the will of the other place that this matter should be dealt with
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speedily. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance on the matter, if not immediately at least within a timescale when the matter will be acted upon.
5 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morris, brings to your Lordships' House today a cause which he has consistently championed with vigour in another place for many years. For that we must be genuinely grateful. Perhaps surprisingly, the subject of today's debate has not been aired with any regularity in your Lordships' House either in this Parliament or the last. Few who have listened to the noble Lord can fail to be moved by what he said. I agree that Ministers have a duty to consider with the greatest care what options might be available to assist this most unfortunate group of individuals. Those individuals find themselves chronically and sometimes gravely ill as a direct result of treatment they received from the National Health Service.
The noble Lord is right in saying that the case he is advancing is essentially a moral issue. It is not a case which rests on any claim of negligence. The people who received contaminated Factor VIII during the 1970s and early 1980s received the best treatment available in the light of medical knowledge at that time. The techniques followed today to test and screen blood products were not available in those days. Until 1991, there were no tests to detect hepatitis C in blood donations. Indeed, very little was known about hepatitis C. The Department of Health did not know and could not have been expected to know the nature or extent of the hazards in those imported blood products.
In describing this as a moral issue, I must acknowledge—and I hope that I do not anticipate the Minister's remarks too closely—that it is a moral issue of a particularly complex kind. It is a matter with which Ministers in the previous government wrestled for a considerable time. That is why, for all the understandable frustrations felt by those who are looking for answers from the Government, I do not wish to criticise the Minister or her colleagues too harshly for delaying their decisions. The problem as to whether this particular medical accident—namely, the inadvertent transmission of a potentially fatal virus during routine treatment for haemophilia—is of sufficient gravity to merit exceptional recognition by the Government in the form of financial assistance for the victims.
As the noble Lord mentioned, the previous government recognised the exceptional suffering and hardship of the thousand or so haemophiliacs who were accidentally infected with HIV when being treated with Factor VIII blood product. There were at that time very good reasons for regarding that particular group of individuals as being unique and, therefore, worthy of a unique kind of compensation. What possible reason then could there be to withhold financial help from the other 3,000 or so people who contracted hepatitis C under exactly the same circumstances?
We have heard from the noble Lord how devastating can be the effects of hepatitis C on those who succumb to it. Haemophiliacs who succumb to the virus are many

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times less likely to respond to treatment than non-haemophiliacs; and hence many times more likely to die from the condition. Indeed, some have already died. Like those who have died of AIDS, they have left relatives to cope without them. Others are suffering from the debilitating effects of hepatitis or cirrhosis, unable to work properly or unable to work at all and, indeed, unable to lead anything like a normal life. On the other hand, others have responded to treatment and are able to carry on with daily living in an almost normal fashion, free of all symptoms. The prognosis for these people is good.
One of the considerations which led Ministers in the last government to take the exceptional course of assisting HIV patients was the argument that this would not lead to similar claims from other groups. That in itself is no reason for Ministers not to entertain this further claim. As I have said, they should certainly do so. But it is a fact which serves to flag up a fundamental principle which applies to treatment delivered under the NHS—namely, that when unwanted accidents do happen (and noble Lords should note that I am talking about accidents, not acts of negligence) there has never been any question of this triggering compensation from the Government. Any medical or surgical treatment carries risks and hazards, however expert the level of care. Sometimes things go wrong that are no one's fault. So the question must be asked in relation to victims of hepatitis C: what distinguishes their accident—serious and distressing as it is—from other medical accidents? If compensation were to be paid to them, how could we resist paying compensation to someone who might have contracted a virus during a stay in hospital; or someone who died because an ambulance was unable to reach him quickly enough?
We are into the realms of no-fault compensation—an idea which has been batted around the NHS for a number of years and which, as a concept, appears to be delightfully simple. If something goes wrong, it does not have to be anyone's fault. You do not need to prove negligence. You will be compensated anyway. But if one looks at this idea rather more closely, all manner of anomalies rise to the surface. In practice, we would encounter exactly the same kind of difficulty distinguishing the cases which qualified for compensation from those which did not. Such a scheme would be unworkable and unfair. We would be institutionalising a culture of claim and counter-claim, of finger pointing and finger wagging—a profoundly unhealthy culture which I believe would be deeply damaging to NHS morale.
If there is a genuine case to be made for hepatitis C victims—and there may be—it must be on a basis which distinguishes that group of people pre-eminently from all others. I can think of some good arguments for doing so. Not least is the fact that the infection from which they are suffering arises from a hazard whose very existence was not known about at the time the treatment was administered. It was not, in other words, "one of those accepted risks one took". It marks them out as a discrete, self-contained group. It has resulted, for many of the victims, not in a mildly annoying physical
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weakness but in a truly terrible deterioration in the quality of life, and sometimes no life at all. Those are the things I ask the Minister to reflect upon.
It should not be a question of money. Whatever the Minister's conclusions on the matter, I hope she will not be side-tracked by worries relating to the erosion of the health budget. Funding for a special payments scheme should come from the contingency fund, which has already been mentioned, exactly on the lines of the Macfarlane Trust for HIV victims. What I hope she will say about the health budget is that substantial, meaningful money is being directed towards research into our understanding of hepatitis C, its transmission, its prevalence and the evaluation of new treatments. There is a compelling need to advance our state of knowledge about this still poorly understood condition.
This has been a useful and timely debate, and I look forward with interest to the Minister's reply.
5.10 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, who has such an outstanding and distinguished record in furthering the cause of the disabled and other groups afflicted by serious health problems, for the opportunity he has given us today to discuss an issue of such importance and concern to those involved.
I express my appreciation to those who have contributed to this debate from such an impressive breadth and depth of professional and personal experience. The Government are, of course, aware of the widespread and deeply felt concern inside and outside this House and another place for the plight of those patients with haemophilia who were inadvertently infected with hepatitis C through blood products prior to the introduction of viral inactivation processes in 1985. It is a concern which we very much share. I can assure my noble friend Lord Morris that Ministers are fully aware of the research reports to which he referred on the effects of HIV infection on haemophiliacs and their families, as well as of the first-hand accounts from sufferers.
The many representations both from those affected, and from others on their behalf, not least the Haemophilia Society, and of course the eloquent accounts given here today by many noble Lords have provided a clear, poignant and harrowing picture of the difficult situation which many of those infected may have to face. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to fail to sympathise with this group, or with the distress of any patients who, already having to cope with one condition, find that the treatment for that disorder has given them another. Many noble Lords have made that point today. I do not believe anyone would disagree with that. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, referred to the problem in Northern Ireland. I cannot comment on that because the Department of Health is not responsible for that. However, I shall certainly draw his comments to the notice of the relevant authorities.
Many of the representations which we have received have raised the issue of extra help, mainly in the form of financial assistance, for those directly affected. In some

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cases—as indeed is the case in our discussion today—help has also been requested for the dependants of those who have died.
I am sure all those present are aware that the question of some form of special payments scheme was one of the points raised with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health when he met the Haemophilia Society last September to hear its first-hand accounts of the effects on the lives of those with haemophilia and their families, of contracting hepatitis C. At that stage my right honourable friend told members of the Haemophilia Society that he would consider the matter very carefully and would write to them.
We know that many of those who have made representations on this subject are disappointed that this has not yet been possible, and that we have not, as yet, been able to announce our conclusions on this matter. The Secretary of State has written to the Haemophilia Society explaining the delay. In those letters, he made clear that the issues involved were very complex—as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, explained eloquently and with authority—and that the emergence of potential problems relating to new variant CJD had made the position even more complicated. Accordingly, the matter was still being considered. That remains the position. I can, however, assure the House that we shall announce the outcome of our deliberations just as soon as we are in a position to do so.
At this point, perhaps I may deal with a point made by my noble friend Lord Morris about the grant to the Haemophilia Society. Section 64 grants are aimed primarily at taking forward the department's objectives through the expertise and initiatives of voluntary organisations supported by time-limited grants. The department is of the view that that is best achieved through project grants. Some £60,000 of the society's grant last year was in respect of the final year of a three-year project. The Haemophilia Society did not submit another project grant application for this year, although we understand that it is currently working on some new proposals. I can assure my noble friend Lord Morris and the House that we shall be happy to consider any new application from the society.
Before looking at one or two of the factors which make this issue such a testing one, I wish to say a few words about the vital importance of blood and blood products to the NHS. First, I should like to stress the fact that, despite the very sad subject of this debate, our UK blood supply is considered one of the very safest in the world. It is important that patients and the wider public know that. It is also very important that donors understand that we need their blood more than ever before. The need for blood for transfusions increases year on year. But that need has now grown even faster, because the NHS is treating more patients than ever before, carrying out more surgery and starting a major drive to reduce waiting lists. I therefore strongly urge those who are able to give blood, to do so, thereby helping the NHS to do its job. Giving blood is a quick and easy way of making an amazing contribution to society—that of helping to save lives.
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I hope that patients will also be reassured from recent precautionary steps announced by the Department of Health in relation to the theoretical risk from new variant CJD, that the Government have taken, and will continue to take, all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of blood and blood products.
That applies of course equally to all blood products, including Factor VIII and Factor IX, the clotting agents which many haemophiliacs need to help to control their condition. These products have helped to transform the lives of people with haemophilia by enhancing their quality of life, and also greatly increasing life expectancy. The provision of these products by the NHS has transformed haemophilia care. Greater longevity in the haemophilia community, the increasing use of prophylactic care and new developments—such as the advent of recombinant (synthetic) alternatives to the human plasma-derived clotting agents—together mean that overall spending on haemophilia care is rising at about 10 per cent. per year.
Spending on individual patients will average between £20,000 and £30,000 each year, and for a few patients this may increase to as much as £500,000. I hope that that demonstrates the commitment of the NHS to people with haemophilia. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester for his expression of appreciation for the decision made by the Government that recombinant Factor VIII be made available to all children under 16 and to new patients. Sadly, I understand that approximately 80 per cent. of haemophiliacs worldwide have no access to any treatment whatsoever.
My noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester mentioned that the Irish Government pay what he called compensation to those who have contracted hepatitis C. It is for each country to make its own decisions in the light of specific circumstances, but most other countries have decided not to make payments to those who have contracted hepatitis C.
I echo what the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, said. Those blood products were undoubtedly the best treatments available for people with haemophilia at the time that those who are infected with hepatitis C contracted the infection. Without those treatments, many people with haemophilia would not be alive today, and, if they survived, it would only be with significant and crippling damage to their health.
At that time, however, all the safety processes currently in operation had not become available. I am thinking specifically of the viral inactivation procedures introduced in 1985. Nor was there, at the time, any test available for detecting hepatitis C in blood donations. Such testing was introduced in 1991 as soon as reliable blood screening tests first became available. These are very important points to bear in mind when considering the issue before us today.
My noble friend Lord Morris and several other noble Lords made the point that this position could be said to apply equally to those who contracted HIV via the same route, and yet there are schemes offering financial support to those people. He and others asked what difference there was between the position of those

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patients and those who contracted hepatitis C. The special payments scheme for those who contracted HIV in this way was set up in recognition of the quite exceptional circumstances involved. The unique features of the HIV claim included the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS at the time the decision to compensate was made; the public revulsion surrounding all aspects of the virus at that time; and the fact that the condition was easily transmissible to the spouses of those affected. Many of those infected and their families, including the children, found themselves totally ostracised within their communities.
The progress of the infections also differs. Past reports on clinical aspects of hepatitis C infection indicate that the natural history varies widely. About 20 per cent. of those infected may recover completely; the remainder develop chronic infection. Some of those with chronic infection are asymptomatic, some experience vague symptoms, such as fatigue, and some will have the extreme, horrible end conditions which have been described. These complications may take up to 30 years to develop.
I am pleased to say today that two new types of treatment for hepatitis C have recently become available which are showing impressive results. These are Interferon and effective anti-viral drugs. We understand that the evidence so far suggests that these can virtually suppress the virus in many cases and in a significant proportion of cases eliminate it altogether. These are truly remarkable developments which could change significantly the daily lives and future health and prospects of many of the people whom we are discussing today.
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We should also remember that haemophiliacs are not the only patients who, despite receiving the best treatment available at the time, are claiming special help from the Government because of the consequent effects of that treatment. Those groups include non-haemophiliacs who have contracted hepatitis C through blood transfusions. We need to think very carefully whether it would be fair or equitable to introduce new help which was not available to all these groups equally. We also need to consider carefully the best use of resources available to the National Health Service.
I note the point made by my noble friend Lord Winston about the importance of research into genetic disorders and of the need to co-ordinate service provisions. I also note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on the question of research into hepatitis C.
Many have indicated that this is a straightforward issue. I hope that what I have said, which is confirmed by what the noble Lord, Lord McColl, so eloquently said, demonstrates that this is by no means a simple or straightforward issue.
I appreciate that the Government's response to the request for help for those infected with blood products is eagerly awaited. As I explained, we will announce our conclusion as soon as we can. I repeat that I am exceedingly grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris in particular and to all noble Lords who contributed to the debate. I can assure them that the Government will consider all their points very carefully.
House adjourned at twenty six minutes past five o'clock.

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