Sitting of 8 June 1998

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

  COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Peter Ainsworth be discharged from the Committee of Selection and Mr. James Cran be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]

Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SECURITY
  The Secretary of State was asked—

  Women's Website
  Ms Dari Taylor: If she will make a statement on the impact of the women's website in increasing access to Government information for women. [42926]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): The Ministers for Women's website is another demonstration of our genuine commitment to improving the dialogue between Government and the women of this country. It has attracted responses from women across the UK and beyond on a wide variety of policy, including child care, education, rape, women's and men's health, Northern Ireland and the website itself. It is another way of connecting women to Government, improving the flow of information and complementing the more traditional forms of communication.
  Ms Taylor: I am reassured by your response this afternoon, Minister. Like you, I see the website as a clear complement to a woman's life. Whether she is a traditional woman who has to, or feels she has to, stay at home, or a fast-tracking woman, this is an excellent source of information. In developing the website, will you consider Stockton borough council's website and its availability? It is free at the point of use to most women, to all people who are unemployed, to all who are unwaged and to all children. I see the website as an incredibly good service to offer. When you are considering the development of the website—
  HON. MEMBERS: "Order."
  Madam Speaker: Order. Hon. Members are getting somewhat distracted. The hon. Lady should speak through the Chair of the House and not directly to the Minister. Hon. Members are right to be disturbed about the matter.
  Ms Taylor: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am sorry.
  I hope that, when the Minister is developing the service, she will see the important link between all local women's organisations and the Ministers for Women's website.
  Ms Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I congratulate her local authority on what it is doing. Since creating the website, we have decided—as my hon. Friend suggested—to explore the feasibility of establishing a women's electronic interactive network. The feasibility study is looking at how women's organizations—local and national—might have greater access to hardware and training. When we get the results of the feasibility study, we will decide whether to commission a pilot project, whereby we could link selected women's organisations to one another locally and to us here in government.

  Occupational Pensions
  Mr. Tim Collins: What steps she has taken to improve the framework for occupational pensions. [42929]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): We fully recognise the importance of occupational pensions in providing income for retirement. The pensions review is looking at ways to strengthen and support these schemes. We want people to understand their benefits, and we are developing proposals for a quality in pensions award to find ways of acknowledging the best in occupational pension schemes and of encouraging others to meet the standards of the best.
  We will also be consulting widely on proposals to make pension schemes easier to operate, without reducing security for their members, by simplifying a number of requirements.
  Mr. Collins: Given that, why was the chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries so bitterly critical of the Government recently?
  Mr. Denham: The welfare reform Green Paper has made it clear that occupational pension schemes are one of the welfare success stories of the century. It is widely recognised that the way in which we pay pensions in the future will depend on the economic wealth that our economy generates. The package of measures in the Budget last year and this year are designed to create the economic conditions that will provide us with the wealth to pay all our pensions in the future.

  Family-friendly Working Arrangements
  Helen Jackson: If she will make a statement on the actions the Ministers for Women are taking to ensure that new employment opportunities are designed to fit in with family responsibilities. [42930]
  Jane Griffiths: If she will make a statement on the Government's plans for family-friendly working arrangements. [42938]
  The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): Family-friendly employment is a Government priority. We are encouraging good practice and underpinning it with a legal framework of rights to enable parents, both mothers and fathers, to balance their home and work responsibilities.
  Helen Jackson: Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that there will not be full-time full employment in the 21st century and that the fact that partners in families choose to work three or four days a week is good for families and for job opportunities? Will she ensure that future legislation—on sickness, holidays and pensions—offers incentives to partners in families who choose to take up part-time employment?
  Ms Harman: We want to ensure that people have as much choice as possible in how they balance their responsibilities to care for their children at home with their need to provide for their children by going out to paid work. Part-time work is an important option, which is particularly taken up by women when their children are young. It is important not only that part-time work is available but that women are not discriminated against in terms of pay and conditions when they take up the option of part-time work.
  Jane Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State aware that my constituency of Reading is one of the few places in the country where there is nearly full employment? Does she agree that employers should be aware that the long hours worked by both men and women are causing considerable difficulty to family life and that they should take steps to make their employment practices more family friendly?
  Ms Harman: That is absolutely right; it is one reason why we are implementing the working time directive, which puts a ceiling on the hours that people can work. When parents are at work, they need to be sure that their children are well cared for, which is why we have a national child care strategy: we want to ensure affordable, accessible and quality child care. Parents need not only good child care, but time with their children—around the time of birth, if a child is suddenly taken ill or if there is a family crisis involving an elderly relative. When half the work force are women, and most of those women are somebody's mother or somebody's daughter, the world of work needs to recognise that people have family, as well as work, responsibilities. We must have a competitive economy that recognises the importance of strong families.
  Mrs. Theresa May: The Secretary of State will be aware that, despite all the Government press releases and glossy brochures, the first Government action to help mothers to take up employment opportunities—many of which are part time—by helping families with the provision of child care was the tax break for places in workplace nurseries, which was introduced by the Conservative Government. Is the Secretary of State also aware that the Inland Revenue is now revisiting many of those workplace nursery schemes, removing the tax benefits and causing financial disadvantage to many working women? Does that not give people a mixed
  694
  message about the Government's real intentions in helping with the provision of child care for women in the workplace? What representations has she made for working women to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that issue?
  Ms Harman: I welcome the hon. Lady to the Dispatch Box, and I particularly welcome the point that she has raised. She has highlighted not only child care, which is important, but the tax treatment of workplace nurseries. She is absolutely right: a problem has emerged, which we are discussing with the private sector, particularly with those people who have done most to develop nurseries. We are also, of course, discussing it with the Inland Revenue and the Treasury—I shall keep the hon. Lady informed. She has come to the Dispatch Box and raised an important point.

  Women's Interests
  Laura Moffatt: What steps the Government have taken to ensure that women's interests are taken account of in each Government Department. [42931]
  Mrs. Maria Fyfe: What plans she has to ensure that Government Departments take proper account of women's interests. [42944]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): Men and women lead substantially different lives and the Government need to be aware of the different impact that our policies have on women. On 18 May, I launched our mainstreaming initiative to put women's interests at the heart of Government via a simple three-stage process to identify the impact of policy, consult on the impact and act on what we find to ensure that policies are delivered equally for women and for men.
  Laura Moffatt: Mainstreaming is the best way forward to ensure complete equality throughout Government policy, but I must raise one issue—monitoring. How will the House know that those issues are properly monitored throughout the lifetime of this Parliament to ensure that, at every turn, that policy is brought to the Government's attention and is part and parcel of everything that they do?
  Ms Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for her question. One way in which we are already ensuring that that happens is by having Ministers for Women such as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is demonstrating the way forward in our proposals for pension sharing on divorce—a clear response to the needs of women. All Departments and their policy makers will in future have access to training on those issues. The women's unit will produce quarterly bulletins to share good practice and to publicise successes. We will work with colleagues from all Government Departments to establish a monitoring regime, which will feed into an annual report, so that my hon. Friend's concerns can be properly addressed.
  Mrs. Fyfe: Did my hon. Friend notice the bravehearts in the Scottish National party this weekend scoring an own goal by rejecting any positive measures to ensure

  695
  equal representation of men and women in the Scottish Parliament, leaving Labour the only party in Scotland holding the trophy for the fight for equal rights for men and women? This morning, I saw many of the tartan army set off for France, and noticed that the Lord Chancellor was not among their number. I suggest that he might like to join in, even at this eleventh hour, because, while he is in France, he could take the opportunity to discuss the equal treatment directive, which has proved no obstacle to French politicians, but seems to be an insuperable obstacle, for some reason, to many of our Law Officers.
  Ms Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for her question. The Equal Opportunities Commission recently conducted a consultation exercise in the United Kingdom on our equality laws, which included their relevance to political parties. When the EOC reports to the Government, my hon. Friend can be assured that the Ministers for Women will engage in discussions with all our right hon. and hon. Friends on that matter. I very much note, as she does, that ours remains the only party committed to achieving equal numbers of women and men candidates for the Scottish Parliament, unlike the Scottish National party and other Opposition parties.

  Income Support (Lone Parents)
  Mr. Tony McNulty: What action the Government have taken to help lone parents on income support get into work. [42934]
  The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): We have established the new deal for lone parents to help them get off income support and into work so that they and their children can have a better standard of living than they could have on benefits. The early results of the new deal have been encouraging. More parents are going into work and lone parents and their children are better off by, on average, £39 a week and the taxpayer is better off by, on average, £42 a week.
  Mr. McNulty: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, despite all the blather, under the new deal lone parents are significantly better off than they ever were under the Tories? At the same time, will she join me to condemn the intolerant and extremist language used at the weekend about lone parents by the shadow Secretary of State for Health?
  Ms Harman: Our concern is to help lone parents do what they want to do, which is to provide a better standard of living for themselves and their children. Ours is not to judge how it came to be a lone parent family. Such families arise through many different circumstances and many parents never set out to be lone parents. What is encouraging is that, in the past three months, 30,000 fewer lone mothers have been on income support than previously. That shows that they are moving into work, combining their work and family responsibilities. They are then better off; we have discovered that, on average, they are better off by £39 a week, which is more than they could ever have been paid on benefits.
  Mr. David Rendel: I welcome any efforts that the Government may make to encourage
  696
  opportunities for lone parents to get back into work where they wish to do so. However, is there not a problem for lone parents who have children under five and who may wish to choose not to go into work? Given the benefit cuts for lone parents—partly offset, admittedly, by child benefit increases—what further effort does the Secretary of State intend to make to allow such lone parents a real choice of whether to go back to work?
  Ms Harman: The problem in the past was not that lone parents did not have the choice to stay at home—more than 1 million of them stayed at home on income support, bringing up 2 million children—but that too few lone parents were able to go out to work. The Government's policies of giving advice and support to help them into work, ensuring help with the costs of child care and ensuring that quality child care is available, provide the choice that was previously not available. The new deal for lone parents is directed at those with children over five. If the hon. Member examines the figures, he will find that more than half the number of married mothers with children under five go out to work. No one is forcing them to do so. They have the choice, and they are taking the opportunities. We are making sure that lone parents can do the same, be better off and save the taxpayer money.
  Mr. Simon Burns: As the Secretary of State has invited the House to consider the figures, will she, too, consider them carefully? Will she express concern that 75 per cent. of lone mothers who receive a letter calling them for an interview totally disregard the invitation? Does she recognise that, of the 6 per cent. of lone mothers who are getting jobs, 15 per cent. fall back into unemployment and on to state benefits in the first three months? To help to offset those statistics, will she consider bringing in a compulsory element for lone mothers to attend the first interview, although I do not suggest a compulsory element, a la Wisconsin, for the whole scheme? Will she accept that that would help to prevent her baby—her brainchild since 1 May 1997—from becoming an expensive, failed soundbite?
  Ms Harman: The problem that we have had with the new deal for lone parents—although the early results have been encouraging—is that we have had to phase the roll-out, and do it slowly and at a measured pace to keep up with demand from lone parents for the advice, information and support that we are offering. The hon. Gentleman has it wrong: the problem is not that we have personal advisers aplenty, specially trained but drumming their fingers as they wait for lone parents to come in, but that a great number of lone parents who have never before been offered a service want to take it up.
  Mr. Burns: Seventy-five per cent. are ignoring it.
  Ms Harman: We are well on target toward meeting our expectations and costings. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that his Government never recognised that lone mothers wanted to work. If lone mothers did struggle into work, it was despite, rather than because of, that Government. The new deal is welcomed by lone parents and employers, and it is making a difference. Our interim findings show that more lone parents than would otherwise have got into work are going into work as a result of the new deal.

  Retirement Incomes
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: Pursuant to the Green Paper on welfare reform, what calculations her Department made to assess adequate levels of income for those in retirement. [42935]
  The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field): Although the debate about adequacy is important, the Government's priority is getting additional funds to pensioners. The Government have today published proposals on pension sharing on divorce, which will ensure that many more women will have more adequate pensions when they come to retire than they would otherwise have had.
  Mr. Swayne: May I turn the Minister's attention to stakeholder pensions? What guarantee can he give to investors in such pensions that they will be able to buy an adequate annuity, given the nature of such instruments, the prices and values of which can fluctuate?
  Mr. Field: The aim of stakeholder pensions is to improve—substantially, we hope—on what is currently offered in private personal pensions.
  Ms Diane Abbott: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the least satisfactory way of getting extra income to pensioners is through more means-tested benefits? Pensioners, more than any other section of the community, have great difficulty with claiming such benefits, as they think that it is demeaning. If we rely on such benefits to get money to the poorest pensioners, many of them will lose out and suffer as a consequence.
  Mr. Field: I totally agree, and that is why the Government have emphasised the importance of reducing value added tax on fuel and have introduced the winter fuel bonus. If I may, I will pose the question back to my hon. Friend: what should the Government do when a million pensioners—the poorest, oldest and frailest—fail to claim income support? Should we not be concerned to ensure that they claim what they are entitled to? We believe that we should be, and we are.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Given the Minister's comments a few seconds ago, and the report last week that said that the Government would not reach the targets necessary to provide income for the poorest people, will he tell us whether the Government can absolutely rule out doing what his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) suggested might be done, and rolling together and means-testing all income for retired pensioners? Will he rule that out until after the next general election?
  Mr. Field: The hon. Gentleman misleads the House. The report says—
  Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not misleading the House. Would the Minister choose another form of words, as I am sure that he does not mean that?
  Mr. Field: He misled me, Madam Speaker, and to ensure that my mind is sorted out, perhaps I could explain the matter to the House.
  Last week's report suggested that, if we continued the policies of the previous Administration, we would not reach our targets, and that is why we are undertaking a review and will publish a Green Paper, and why we will make a fundamental change.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: I am asking the Minister a simple question, which he has not answered: will he now take the opportunity absolutely to rule out means-testing the basic state pension by rolling it up with all income for pensioners, so that pensioners can rest at ease?
  Mr. Field: I am grateful for the fact that the hon. Gentleman has twisted and turned in recent weeks, to enable him to drop the previous Government's commitment on the basic state pension, but the Government's position is clear: we gave a manifesto commitment that we would not means-test the basic state pension during our stewardship.

  Benefits (Scotland)
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: What discussions she has had with local authorities about the delivery of benefits in Scotland. [42936]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): As part of our active modern service programme, officials have met the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss a number of ways in which closer working between the Benefits Agency and Scottish local authorities can improve services to customers and help to tackle fraud.
  Mr. Dalyell: Local officers of the Department have worked extremely well and satisfactorily in recent years with the local authorities, but, with the unbundling of the United Kingdom and the dewiring of the whole tax system—as the Minister will have found on his recent welcome visit to Edinburgh—are not certain problems posed by devolution that should be discussed early by the directors of social work?
  Mr. Bradley: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Clearly, the discussions will continue, but, on my recent visit to Edinburgh, where I spoke at a conference with staff from the Benefits Agency and took the opportunity to meet representatives of other agencies, it was clear that the good working relationships would continue. Under active modern service, we will develop new initiatives to ensure a better service for all customers in Scotland.
  Mr. John Swinney: Bearing in mind the success of some local authorities in boosting the take-up of benefits, does the Minister envisage any role for the Scottish Parliament in drawing together the work of those local authorities and in the discussions with the Department, so that those in Scotland who are entitled to benefits receive sufficient information and advice to ensure that they get them?
  Mr. Bradley: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will ensure that that item is on the agenda of the Scottish Parliament when it is established.

  Pensioner Poverty
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: What assessment she has made of the extent of pensioner poverty. [42937]
  Mr. Lawrie Quinn: If she will make a statement on Government action in respect of assistance for the poorest pensioners. [42940]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): For today's pensioners, the policies of the previous Administration created growing inequality and widespread insecurity. One in four pensioners are forced to depend on income support, or fail to receive it. We have commissioned research to find out why those people do not make a claim and we are running pilots in nine areas to find the best ways of getting more automatic help to them. The introduction of pension sharing on divorce, on which we have published draft clauses today, will also help to ensure that women are able to enjoy their fair share of pension income in retirement.
  Mr. Blizzard: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that that answer implies that people simply cannot live on the basic state pension alone? Indeed, last week's Ross report told us that 2.5 million pensioner households are on less than a third of average earnings. Is he aware that, in my constituency, 30 per cent. of the population are of pensionable age and that, having seen the new deal for the young, the long-term unemployed, lone parents, disabled people and schools, many of those pensioners are looking to the pensions review to provide a new deal for today's pensioners?
  Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend is right: most people who enjoy security in retirement have two sources of pension income—the basic state pension and a second pension. That is why we want to extend the range of those people who can enjoy access to a good, value-for-money, second pension. The position of pensioners, on which we have already taken action through the cut on value added tax on fuel, the increase in the basic state pension and the introduction of winter fuel payments, is, of course, a key part of the pensions review, and my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to it.
  Mr. Quinn: I do not know whether the Minister realises this, but, in the county of North Yorkshire, some 14,000 people over 60 are failing to get the extra support that income support offers them. I find many times at my surgery that people from more rural and sparsely populated parts of my constituency of Scarborough and Whitby are failing to realise that those benefits are available to them.
  On the pilot studies that the Minister mentioned earlier, I wonder whether some consideration might be given to those rural constituents, to find out whether they can have extra help in understanding what their entitlement is.
  Mr. Denham: I can assure my hon. Friend that the pilot project areas cover a range of urban, suburban and rural areas and that we are working with local authorities to find the best ways of getting more automatic help to those pensioners. We are particularly keen to use the information that is already available to the Benefits
  700
  Agency or local authorities, and the information that exists on retirement pensions, to identify those older people who are most likely to be entitled to income support and to find the best ways of approaching them to encourage them to make a claim for that income support.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Does the Minister recall seeing the headline in The Independent on Friday, saying that millions face poverty because of pensions inadequacy? Does he accept that part of that problem was caused by the Chancellor's raid on pension funds? What will the Minister do to alert pensioners to the need to add much more to their pension provision to receive the same return that they would have had before the Chancellor's raid? Will he also bear in mind the predicament of the Secretary of State for Social Security, who is being widely leaked against as likely to be pensioned off by the end of the summer?
  Mr. Denham: I believe that I am right in saying that Friday's newspaper headlines were reporting the conclusions of the pensions review group, which showed clearly what a pensions problem we face because of the policies of the previous Government. That includes the many people who were mis-sold personal pensions because the previous Government got it so badly wrong. The group also confirms that we are right to attach the importance that we do to introducing a new framework for second-tier pensions and stakeholder pensions, and the measures that we have announced today on pension sharing on divorce, as ways of tackling under-provision.
  Mr. Steve Webb: When the statistics for the first year of the new Labour Government become available, does the Minister believe that they will show that pensioner poverty has risen or fallen?
  Mr. Denham: People will look at the record of our first year and will recognise that the basic state pension was put up by more than the previous Government had provided for; that for the first time a Government made winter fuel payments—10 million of them to 7 million households; and that for the first time a Government have set about practical action to tackle the problems of pensioners who do not claim income support, to find the best way of getting more automatic help to them. That is a record of which we can be proud.
  Mr. Malcolm Wicks: Does the Minister agree that some of the poorest pensioners are those who, during their working lives, gave up their careers to care for members of their families—perhaps a spouse with dementia or an elderly relative? As this is the start of Carers Week, can the Minister reassure the House that the Government will have regard to the pension rights of Britain's carers, so that some of our most responsible citizens no longer have to pay a penalty in poverty?
  Mr. Denham: I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend's work in introducing the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 during the previous Parliament; it represented a major step forward in recognising the rights of carers. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this issue. We, in turn, are right to explore ways of establishing a citizenship pension for carers, to enable

  701
  those of them who are unable to contribute to a second pension to avoid being on means-tested benefits in retirement.
  We are also right to introduce pension sharing on divorce. That will ensure that women—it is generally women—who do not build up their own pension rights because of family responsibilities can share fairly in the pension rights that the household builds up while they support a family at home.
  Mr. Quentin Davies: I am afraid that the Minister has already given the House a rather disingenuous response. It is not true that the Government have put up the state retirement pension by more than the Conservative Government would have done. The Conservative Government would have put it up according to increases in prices, and the Labour Government have done exactly the same—despite pretending, when in opposition, that they would restore the earnings link.
  Is it not correct that the proposed stakeholder pension will do absolutely nothing for the poorer pensioners who, according to the Government's own pension provision group report last Thursday, will continue to depend on state means-tested benefits?
  Mr. Denham: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench, although he has already had a few dry runs in previous debates.
  The Government have honoured their manifesto commitment to raise the basic state pension at least in line with prices. It is a matter of fact that we had to find substantially more resources to meet that commitment than the previous Administration had budgeted for.
  We believe that stakeholder pensions will provide an opportunity for millions of people on modest incomes and for those with intermittent working patterns to obtain value for money via a flexible second pension. They cannot do that at the moment, either because they do not have an occupational pension, or because personal pensions can be inflexible and subject to high charges. Of course we recognise, as the Secretary of State did last Thursday, that there are those who will continue to need the support and help of the state if they are to avoid poverty in retirement—we have always recognised that.
  Mr. Bill O'Brien: I congratulate my colleague on the work he is doing to bring about pension fairness for people on low incomes. We should take no lessons from the Conservatives; it was the Tories who cut the link between wages and pensions, thereby costing a single person about £22 a week.
  Will the Minister seriously consider resuming the link between wages and pensions? The gap between them needs to be examined to put right the damage done to many pensioners by the Tory Government.
  Mr. Denham: Of course, the future uprating of the basic state pension is one of the critical issues for the pensions review. I hope that everybody in the House and outside will carefully read and study the report by the pension provision group chaired by Tom Ross, which was published last Thursday. It is the first time a Government have set out clearly an independent analysis of the pensions challenge that we face.
  702
  The decisions that need to be taken in the pensions review, which will be published later this year, on issues such as the uprating of the basic state pension, will have to take into account the conclusions of the Ross report.

  Pensions Review
  Mr. Bob Russell: When she expects to publish the pensions review. [42939]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): As set out in the Green Paper, "New Ambitions for our Country: A New Contract for Welfare", we will publish a Green Paper on pensions later this year. There will then be a period of further consultation before final, detailed proposals are developed.
  Mr. Russell: That would be counted by every pensioner as a disappointing response, especially bearing in mind the Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), in which he referred to the growing inequality and widespread insecurity among pensioners in this country. Does he agree that today's pensioners are more interested in today's pensions than in yesterday's Government or tomorrow's pensioners? Does he also agree that the manifesto pledge to assist pensioners has been somewhat forgotten?
  Mr. Denham: I do not agree that the Government have forgotten today's pensioners. No previous Government have introduced winter fuel payments—spending £200 million last winter and another £200 million next winter is an act of support for today's pensioners that would not have been made by the Conservative party, had it won the last election. Nor would the Conservatives have cut VAT on fuel to 5 per cent.—indeed, as we know, they wanted, more or less, to double the rate of VAT on fuel. In our first year, we have achieved a great deal for pensioners, we have invested more in the national health service and in public transport and we are tackling the problems of crime and disorder through the Crime and Disorder Bill.
  The pensions review is of great importance for today's pensioners and for tomorrow's, but it is essential that we get it right, because we have seen the mistakes made under the previous Administration, who made pensions changes that led to millions of people leaving occupational pension schemes and millions of people suffering from pensions mis-selling. We are determined to make sure that the decisions we take, for today and for the future, are right.
  Mr. Paul Flynn: In the review, will my hon. Friend bear it in mind that between 1990 and 1994, the value of annuities fell in real terms by 34 per cent., which means that those with a personal pension lost one third of it? That is in addition to the problems caused by the mis-selling of pensions and by between one quarter and one half of contributions being taken in charges. It has been proved that those who mis-sold pensions provided pensions of poor value that were a gamble, with the lottery of money purchase at the other end. Can my hon. Friend give an assurance that when the new stakeholder

  703
  pensions, which are very necessary, are introduced, they will not be run by the same people who robbed millions of people in the personal pensions scandal?
  Mr. Denham: I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome the action being taken by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to clear up the problems of pensions mis-selling that we inherited from the previous Administration. He raises the question of annuities and I can confirm that ways of translating pension savings into retirement income are an important issue for the pensions review and one that we are examining. In developing stakeholder pension schemes, we have said that we wish those to be collective schemes which reach high minimum benchmark standards and that, through trusteeship or a similar mechanism, we shall ensure that they are run in the interests of their members.
  Mr. Julian Brazier: Will the Minister take this opportunity to rule out, once and for all, compulsory saving as a basis for the new pensions era? Does he accept that, were a pension scheme—perhaps a properly run one—to go bust for one reason or another, the state would be, in honour, obliged to step in if people had been forced to save into the scheme? Because it would be most likely to occur at the worst possible moment in the economic cycle, that would represent a huge increased risk to the public purse, as well as an unfair extra hidden tax on many people on modest incomes.
  Mr. Denham: There are already compulsory contributions to the basic state pension for all those earning above a minimum income and to a second pension for other employees, so employees are in either the state earnings-related pension scheme or a funded, invested second pension. We made it clear in the welfare reform Green Paper that there had been many representations calling for an extension of compulsion, either to raise the level of pension benefits or to extend their coverage. We said in that Green Paper that we shall seriously consider those proposals. In a number of speeches and seminars I have called for a better-focused debate on whether there should be an extension of compulsion and we shall report our conclusions on that in the Green Paper later this year.

  Women (Violence)
  Mr. John Heppell: If she will make a statement on the guidance issued by her Department to local authorities in respect of violence against women. [42942]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): The Ministers for Women are working across all Government Departments to ensure that best practice is followed in tackling all forms of violence against women. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security recently issued guidance to local authorities, reminding them of the help available from the housing benefit scheme to victims of domestic violence. However, we are aware that women are not always offered the full range of support services that they need, so we are developing a national strategy to prevent violence, to protect women and to deliver justice for women.
  Mr. Heppell: I am well aware of some of those initiatives. Indeed, £94,000 of lottery funds will be given to Nottinghamshire domestic violence forum and more than £280,000 will be used to set up a network of child contact centres to allow parents access that they would not otherwise have to their children. Will the Minister tell me how those local initiatives will be developed into a national Government strategy to deal with violence against women?
  Ms Ruddock: I congratulate the people in my hon. Friend's area who are running such vital services, which we would like other areas to provide. In trying to find out where the best practice exists, the Ministers for Women have recently written to all local authorities and chief constables asking them to tell us precisely what they are doing, and 102 local authorities have already responded, as have 41 of the 43 chief constables. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that in his area the police and the local council have responded. The police there tell me that they have a strong policy of intervention in domestic violence cases with the expectation of arresting perpetrators, which is precisely what should be done. We shall make the survey results available to hon. Members. I hope that in the meantime, all hon. Members will take the trouble to find out what local provision there is to tackle this most pernicious of crimes.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. John McAllion: How many claimants in receipt of disability living allowance have been subject to the benefit integrity project, to date. [42943]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): As at 31 March 1998, a total of 72,470 cases, including 14,815 renewal cases, had been examined under the benefit integrity project. A more detailed monthly statistical report can be found in the House of Commons Library.
  Mr. McAllion: A few months ago, figures supplied to me by a Government official showed that for every claimant who had benefits increased as a result of the benefit integrity project, 10 had their benefits reduced or stopped. Will my hon. Friend tell me whether the situation has improved since then, by which I mean that fewer claimants are having their benefits cut or stopped? If it has not improved, will he tell the House whether the Government share the view of the Social Security Committee, which in its recent report called for the project to be put on six months' probation, with a view to closing it down if it does not stop putting people with disabilities at an even greater disadvantage?
  Mr. Denham: First, no one who is entitled to disability living allowance should have anything to fear from the benefit integrity project. It is important that we make the right decisions about benefit entitlement, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced new procedures into the project in February, and further improvements have subsequently been made. The report of the Social Security Committee is important. We are considering it and we shall respond to the House in the normal way in due course.
  Mr. Edward Leigh: As a member of the Social Security Committee, I ask the Minister whether he has managed to improve control mechanisms in his Department. We must never again see the sort of anguish that was caused by the introduction of this project. The Minister responsible heard about it only a month after its introduction, by way of a telephone call on Preston railway station.
  Mr. Denham: The report raises several important issues that we shall address in future. The benefit integrity project was designed under the previous Administration. The Government have taken a series of steps that aim to improve the operation of the benefit integrity project and to ensure that the correct decisions are taken. I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that it was necessary for us to take that action and will commend us for doing so.
  Dr. Brian Iddon: A few months ago, I raised concerns in this place about the way in which seriously mentally ill people were being treated by the benefit integrity project. At that time, the Secretary of State kindly informed me that she was involved in discussions with Mencap. In view of the fact that seriously mentally ill people in my constituency continue to lose disability living allowance, will the Minister say whether those discussions have concluded and, if so, whether any special treatment will be given to the seriously mentally ill who are losing DLA contrary to medical advice?
  Mr. Denham: At this stage I can confirm that we have agreed to exclude some further categories of people—particularly those aged over 65 who will not be contacted—from the benefit integrity project. My right hon. Friend has agreed to consider the possibility of extending the groups exempt from the project, but I cannot give my hon. Friend the direct response that he seeks this afternoon.
  Mr. Damian Green: What discussions she has had with representatives of disability groups concerning the taxation of disability living allowance. [42945]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): Any discussions have been of a general, rather than specific, nature—for example, in the recent meetings arranged by Mencap. We have made it clear in our Green Paper that DLA will remain a national and universal benefit and, as such, will not be subject to a means test. Taxation is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but we have no current plans to tax DLA.
  Mr. Green: I must press the Minister a little further. Will he rule out definitively, once and for all, any prospect of the Government taxing disability living allowance?
  Mr. Denham: I must repeat the reply that I have given. Taxation is always a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I can confirm that we have no current plans to tax DLA—and nor was there any suggestion of taxing it in the welfare reform Green Paper.
  Mr. David Winnick: Is the Minister aware that all hon. Members will welcome his comment that there is absolutely no justification for taxing disability benefits, which are not taxed at present? One trusts that that will remain the Government's position now and upon their re-election.
  Mr. Denham: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments.

  Child Care Disregard
  Jackie Ballard: What representations she has received about child care costs disregard for carers in receipt of family credit; and if she will make a statement. [42946]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): The child care disregard is regularly raised in correspondence about family credit and we have acted to improve the help available. From last Monday, we increased the limit on help for families with two or more children from £60 to £100 and extended the age limit for one year. For the future, we have announced our intention to introduce a more generous child care tax credit, which, for a couple earning £23,000 a year with two children, could be worth £45 per week. We have also launched the working benefits campaign, which I know will be successful in improving the take-up of in-work benefits.
  Jackie Ballard: I thank the Minister for that reply. What advice would he give to my constituent who is a single parent and works shifts as a nurse at the local hospital? A nanny is the most flexible and appropriate form of child care for her, but the costs of nannies are not disregarded when calculating family credit. Do the Government intend to change that arrangement because a nanny may be the most appropriate form of child care for many people, particularly lone parents? If the reason for not counting the costs is that nannies are not a registered form of child care, will the Government introduce a national registration scheme for nannies?
  Mr. Bradley: I am obviously aware of the problems that the hon. Lady raises. We are anxious to ensure that standards of care are maintained, that all child care is quality child care, and that it is accessible and affordable. We shall consider registering nanny agencies, and I shall study the hon. Lady's argument with care.
  Mr. Derek Foster: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on her new deal for lone parents? The child care package is crucial to its success. Does the Minister agree, however, that as 40 per cent. of lone parents lack any educational qualification, education and training will be crucial to prevent them from being locked in the poverty pay sector?
  Mr. Bradley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that point because—as I am sure that he is aware—in the pilot areas we have invested £10 million in training to tackle that problem. We are carefully studying the results of that investment, to ascertain the best way to proceed, and to ensure that that difficulty is properly addressed in the national roll-out.

  Pensioners' Incomes
  Mr. John Hutton: What assessment she has made of inequality of income among pensioners. [42948]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): We want today's and tomorrow's pensioners to enjoy security in retirement. Income inequality between the best and worst-off pensioners has grown since 1979, and estimates show that this inequality is set to widen in future, on the basis of current policies.
  A key objective of our pensions review is to tackle the growth in pensioner inequality, to ensure that pensioners have an adequate income in retirement and that they share fairly in rising national prosperity.
  Mr. Hutton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply because it confirms that it is the Government's policy to reverse the widening trends of pensioner inequality. What progress is being made, in the nine pilot projects, in determining why 1 million pensioners currently fail to claim their income support entitlement? Will he make it his policy to reverse the appalling legacy that we inherited from the previous Government, so that pensioners, especially in my constituency, may look forward to dignity and security in retirement?
  Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the importance of the pilot projects. For 18 years, the previous Administration made no attempt to ensure that the poorest pensioners received the support to which they were entitled. It is important that we find the best ways to get more automatic help to those pensioners. I am informed that it is a little early to draw conclusions from the pilot projects, which started in April; we shall get the full report when they have run for six months. However, if we are able to report on early progress and early lessons, I shall certainly wish to keep my hon. Friend and the House informed of that progress.
  Mr. John Bercow: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that in seeking—rightly—to tackle inequality among pensioners, it is important to avoid giving assistance to those pensioners who do not need it, are not entitled to it and, in many cases, do not want it. In that context, can he tell the House today how many cheques for winter fuel payments were sent out in error, the cost of that error, and the proportion of that unwarranted cost that has been written off by his incompetent Department?
  Mr. Denham: I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact figures, but my recollection is that about 10,000
  708
  payments were made that were not in accordance with the legislation and regulation at that time. That is regrettable, but it was a tiny proportion of the 10 million payments that were made to pensioners in 7 million households. Regarding recovery, each case is being treated on its individual merits, and that is obviously the right way for us to proceed.

  Family-friendly Working Arrangements
  Lorna Fitzsimons: What were the Belfast EU presidency conclusions on women and employability relating to family-friendly working arrangements. [42949]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Ms Joan Ruddock): Family-friendly working arrangements are a key issue of our time and are important to women and men across Europe. The conference provided a valuable opportunity to explore the opportunities for achieving a successful balance between paid work and family life, and to share examples of good practice which member states can consider in the context of their own policies.
  Lorna Fitzsimons: I thank the Minister for that reply. As I understand it, the Belfast summit issued a communiqué. As a result of the listening to women exercise, the Ministers for Women identified as a priority the fact that some of the good policies that were identified at Belfast and mentioned in the communiqué were not mainstreamed at a United Kingdom level. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that if the communiqué is to achieve something—which is important for women in my constituency and elsewhere—it should be mainstreamed throughout the European Union? What efforts are the Ministers for Women making to ensure that the valuable discussions in Belfast and the communiqué on family-friendly employment have wider effect throughout the European Union?
  Ms Ruddock: The full text of the Belfast communique is available in the Library and I hope that hon. Members will go to get a copy. We found at the conference, first, that quality child care, parental and other forms of leave and family-friendly working practices are essential to women and men if we are to combine paid work with family life and, secondly, that equality between women and men must be mainstreamed into all employment policies—as my hon. Friend suggests—both nationally and throughout the European Union.
  Those are new and important conclusions for the women of Europe and we are ensuring that they are built into the preparations for the final summit of our presidency, which takes place in Cardiff next week.

Dounreay
3.30 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan(by private notice): To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will make a statement about the Government's decision to discontinue reprocessing nuclear material at Dounreay.
The Minister for Science, Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): Dounreay has played a significant role in the development of the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. The experimental fast-breeder reactor at Dounreay, built in the 1950s, was followed by a prototype fast-breeder reactor. Both aimed to show that fast-breeder reactor technology could be harnessed to generate electricity on a commercial scale.
Last Friday I informed the House, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie), that the Government had accepted the advice of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority board that Dounreay should accept no new contracts for commercial reprocessing work.
The decision will allow the UKAEA to refocus on the management of its existing liabilities, of which by far the majority have arisen from the UKAEA's own Government-funded nuclear reactor development programmes on the Dounreay site. I stress that those liabilities already exist—and they must be dealt with. No amount of wishful thinking will make them go away.
Subject to the necessary consents being obtained from the independent regulators—the nuclear installations inspectorate and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—I expect the UKAEA to continue to reprocess the existing spent fuel liabilities, the majority of which came from the reactors that operated at Dounreay. It will also reprocess material from existing, committed, legally binding commercial contracts and the small amount of material from Georgia. I am advised by the UKAEA that it expects to have completed all that reprocessing work by 2006. After that, the work of decommissioning the reprocessor will take place.
I remind the House that the Dounreay site was set up to undertake development work on fast-breeder reactor technology. Although the work on that programme was a technical success, it was decided to stop funding the programme in 1988, when it became clear that there was no prospect of the technology fully living up to its economic potential. The development programme finally stopped in 1994, when the last reactor was switched off. Obviously, it has generated no electricity since then.
The focus of activity at the site has shifted inevitably to decommissioning the reactors. Dounreay's main mission has been to decommission completely the facilities on the site. The concern now is to ensure that we pass on to future generations a safe environment at Dounreay. We are deeply committed to caring for the environment and to taking action to deal safely with the difficult legacy from past operations at Dounreay.
We want the focus now to be on decommissioning the plant and securing the site at Dounreay. Subject to satisfying the strict safety and environmental requirements of the independent regulators, commercial reprocessing was accepted as a way of offsetting some of the costs of
710
decommissioning and waste management at Dounreay, but as the UKAEA itself has recently concluded as a result of surveying the international market, further commercial reprocessing would not be economic. Giving up that sort of work is therefore the next step in achieving the main goal: refocusing the site to ensure safe and cost-effective clean-up.
I know that the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) shares my concern about the impact of this decision, perhaps, on jobs at Dounreay. I have been assured by Dounreay's operator, the UKAEA, that it does not expect significant short-term job losses as the staff currently working on reprocessing will be redeployed to other nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management work and will carry that expertise internationally in future.
In March, I announced the Government's decision to retrieve the waste from the Dounreay shaft, which will provide work at the site for several decades at least. Cleaning up the site will inevitably take more than 100 years. The process of decommissioning will now be the business of Dounreay.
Mr. Maclennan: I thank the Minister for that reply, notwithstanding the fact that it expressly contradicts the answer he gave in a written answer on Friday in that it attributes the decision to discontinue commercial reprocessing to the specific advice of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, whereas on Friday the Minister said that it was due to the authority having indicated that there was no longer-term prospect for commercial reprocessing. Perhaps in the interests of open government the Minister will be kind enough to place in the Library the precise terms of the advice that has been given.
Does the Minister recognise that the cack-handed approach to the presentation of this issue has created nothing but confusion, with headlines persisting even until today in the Scottish newspapers about the proposed closure of Dounreay—indeed, the Government's decision to close Dounreay? How can there be anything else but confusion when Ministers' offices at the Scottish Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, the Minister's Department, are issuing contradictory briefings to the press?
What are the Government's intentions about further fostering the science-based industries in the north? When the previous Government announced in 1988 the decision to end the fast-breeder reactor programme, Mr. Cecil Parkinson, who is still with us as chairman of the Conservative party, announced the intention to spend about £9 million on promoting new science-based work in the area. Some of that has already begun to come through, but it requires continuing effort and commitment on the part of the Government to build on the skills and science resources that have been accumulated over two generations at Dounreay to ensure that there is a proper future for the immediate area and the entire north of Scotland.
Mr. Battle: I am sure that my office contacted the right hon. Gentleman's office to ensure that he was well informed that the written question would be answered on Friday. I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the text of the answer. It reads:
"The UKAEA have advised me that there is no economic case for supporting commercial reprocessing at Dounreay over the longer term."—[Official Report, 5 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 385.]

711
We endorse the UKAEA's view that no more commercial contracts should be let. That was the point of the statement. That is what we said. I do not see why there is confusion about it.
I appreciate, however, that people talk—even Opposition Members occasionally, it is reported—about the closure of the plant as if it has suddenly shut down. That is not what has happened. The Scottish National party in particular put round the rumour that the whole thing can go away overnight. That is not the case. There are 100 years of work left because of decommissioning.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that AEA Technology only recently, with the help of my hon. Friend the Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office, decided that a new foresight programme—the battery project—should be sited at Dounreay and use the technical expertise of the people there. That is new investment. If I remember rightly, it is a joint venture with the Japanese. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will welcome that. It is not the case that the plant is being closed down overnight, contrary to some of the rumours that have been put around.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: When I complained to his office in rather bitter terms on Friday, the Minister telephoned me himself; I thank him for his courtesy.
Is not there a problem of morale at Dounreay? Ministers talk about the need for a safe environment until 2006 and for many years after, so is not it important that extremely good people are kept at Dounreay to undertake the management? Granted the disastrous decision was made back in 1988—
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: Hear, hear.
Mr. Dalyell: I am sure that that is the root of the trouble, as my hon. Friend suggests. It was made against the wishes of many of us. On the problem of morale and keeping good people at Dounreay, what positive proposals can be offered to ensure the safety that all of us regard as paramount?
Mr. Battle: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I cannot answer for decisions made during the past 10 or 20 years—indeed, over the past 30 or 40 years. We inherited a situation and decided to take the advice that we were given, which was that Dounreay should take on no further commercial reprocessing work, that it should handle the liabilities it has inherited from its reactors, that it should deal with the contracts that are still legally binding and in place and that it should deal with the tiny, tiny amount of Georgian waste. Dounreay has work to get on with.
The whole point of the decision is to have a clear focus for the plant and for the work force so that they know what they will be getting on with rather than wondering whether future contracts will come. That was generating uncertainty; we have cut through that and given a clear sense of direction for the future.
According to one estimate, a work force of about 1,200 will be needed at the plant to deal with the liabilities I have described, which is almost as many as are employed today. Let me add that, because of our decision in March to tackle the legacy of the waste shaft,
712
the shaft retrieval project alone will employ 400 additional people. As people work on decommissioning the reactors, as they are now, their decommissioning skills will be internationally saleable—they will be able to give advice and expertise internationally to tackle the legacy of the problem. I expect staff at Dounreay to have their morale boosted by the decision, not further undermined.
Mr. John Redwood: I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker, for granting the private notice question, which the official Opposition also requested.
The Minister should have had the grace to come to the House to make a statement on Friday. My colleagues and I learned of this important development only from the "Today" programme. We do not see the President of the Board of Trade or the Secretary of State for Scotland in the House for the announcement of this crucial decision.
The Government are presiding over a complete shambles. First, they tell us that Dounreay is a safe facility and invite in material from Georgia. Then they close an important part of the plant for safety reasons. Then they tell us that they will pay to make the plant work again as it did before. Now they tell us that they will spend a lot of taxpayers' money to make it safe, only to run it down. That is not the usual government by U-turn; it is government in a permanent spin—one spin doctor corrects what another spin doctor said wrongly the day before.
This is no way to run such a sensitive industry, so will the Minister tell us, and the people of Scotland, how much it will cost to repair and improve the plant? What investment are the Government planning to write off when the plant is eventually closed down? What are the estimated costs of the complete rundown? What reassurance can he offer the people of the United Kingdom—and, especially, of Scotland—that the Government will handle things better than they have done over the past year? The shambles is of the Government' s making, not of the previous Government's.
Is the Minister planning to accelerate the rundown of nuclear reactors? What is his current view of the useful life of Magnox stations? Will he apologise for this complete and comprehensive disaster? Does he not see that it now means maximum cost to the taxpayer and minimum benefit for Britain? It is a fitting testimony to months of dithering and contradictory statements.
Mr. Battle: At least we have done our best to sort out the problem that we inherited. The previous Administration would not even admit that the waste shaft existed which, as we have spelt out, will cost £250 million to £300 million to clean up. Where were the previous Administration when they should have been addressing that problem? They were prepared to let it fester.
We shall put the figures in the public domain when the UKAEA spells out the cost of doing the job. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) knows, there has been a lot of alarmist comment recently about safety, but the Health and Safety Executive recently announced that it would undertake a review of management of the site. That review is now under way. I do not seek to pre-empt it; I accept and welcome it and expect the UKAEA to implement the recommendations properly. Nothing is more important than the safe management of these liabilities. Unlike the last lot, we

713
shall ensure that the funds are provided for the UKAEA to clean up its existing liabilities to the satisfaction of the independent regulators.
The question tabled by the right hon. Member for Wokingham mentioned "the decision to close" Dounreay. To judge from the comments he made on the media, I think he had the impression that I went up to Dounreay on Friday, looked at the plant, shut the gate and threw the key into the Pentland firth. That was not the case. One cannot do that—the liabilities alone last for 100 years. That is nuclear business.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does my hon. Friend recall that, in the mid-1980s, especially during the miners' strike in 1984–85, some of us argued about the dangers of nuclear power? We talked about the massive cost of nuclear power and of decommissioning. We could have done with this kind of Statement 15 years ago: we might then have stopped the Tories closing all those pits when they were in power. Does my hon. Friend believe, contrary to the views of some of my hon. Friends and certainly contrary to the views of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), that this decision will strengthen the Labour Government's hand in the next few days in ensuring that the safety and maintenance of the pits that are in operation will continue?
Mr. Battle: As my hon. Friend knows, we are working hard to ensure that the coal industry is not squeezed out of the marketplace unfairly. I tend to agree with my hon. Friend's criticism of the past. We have inherited those liabilities; we shall do our best to deal with them and find the funds to meet them. It might have been interesting if the liabilities had been added to the original bill of commissioning so that the cost of electricity at the time was publicly known. That might have resulted in an equation different from that which we inherit today.
Mr. John Swinney: May I ask the Minister two questions? First, when the Prime Minister agreed to accept the consignment of nuclear waste from Georgia—we were told then that Dounreay was the safest place in the world—were the Government in possession of the recommendation to end commercial reprocessing at Dounreay?
Secondly, are the Government now prepared to invest in a centre of excellence for alternative technology research at Dounreay to create long-term, stable employment prospects for people in the north of Scotland?
Mr. Battle: I have heard the canard that I said that Dounreay was the safest place in the world. I actually said on 27 April that the Georgian waste would be "securely and safely" stored at Dounreay—as it is now. Even anti-nuclear campaigners accept that Dounreay is the safest place for it to be stored. What we are debating is setting up the conditions for reprocessing. Of course it is more important that nuclear waste be taken to Dounreay than left in Georgia. I emphasise that our decision to accept the Georgian material was based on non-proliferation treaty grounds. We are a depositor country because we have the expertise to deal with nuclear waste. Rather than leaving the material in
714
Georgia, we have made an important contribution to world security. The Georgian material is safe and secure in storage at Dounreay, awaiting reprocessing. I would be grateful if some hon. Members—perhaps not the hon. Gentleman—stopped circulating rumours to the contrary and using scare tactics to suggest that the material is not safely stored. It certainly is.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: Is not the simple truth that there have been two errors of judgment over Dounreay? First, there was the Conservative Government's decision in 1988 to cancel and destroy Britain's forefront-of-technology fast-breeder reactor programme—the most advanced in the world. Secondly, the Scottish National party decided repeatedly to run anti-nuclear scaremongering campaigns to promote hysteria over nuclear power throughout Scotland in order to win votes. Should not the people of the north of Scotland reject the SNP and all that it stands for?
Mr. Battle: I think that, sometimes, the very word nuclear is massively misunderstood—even when applied to medicine. People are now objecting to x-rays due to the use of irradiated material. It does not help when people raise the temperature. About 4,000 people with great expertise work in the nuclear industry in Scotland. Those who criticise the industry should respect that fact. I cannot go over what happened under the previous Administration, except to say that we are bringing matters into the open. That has been the problem in the nuclear industry; decisions have been taken in secret and Ministers have not answered to the House for them. We have changed that. At least we are doing our damnedest to sort out what we inherited.
Mr. Paul Flynn: Does my hon. Friend recall a series of Reith lectures under the arresting title, "The Unimportance of Being Right", in which a retired civil servant, who had a hand in nuclear decisions in the past, described the advanced gas-cooled reactor programme as the most wasteful civil investment decision since the pharaohs decided to build the pyramids? Is not it time that we considered the waste and deception of nuclear power in Britain over the past 40 years, which has left a legacy that will be a headache to our great-grandchildren? Should not we coolly and scientifically review the disaster of deception of the House and the country, as well as the entire reprocessing system and the principle behind it?
Mr. Battle: My hon. Friend is well aware that practically the last decision made by the previous Administration concerned the Nirex proposal. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, in his capacity as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, is considering the future of reprocessing. As everybody knows—and as it was well put—the problem with nuclear waste is that it remains and kills. It has to be dealt with; it cannot be wished away. We must take the best advice and use the most scientifically and technologically advanced methods to deal with the problem so that we pass to the next generation a safer environment than we inherited.
Mr. Peter Viggers: There is still much dangerous nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.

715
What effect will the decision to stop commercial contracts at Dounreay have on the United Kingdom's ability to deal with the handling of such dangerous material?
Mr. Battle: The decision concerns commercial contracts. The decision on the material from Georgia was not a commercial reprocessing decision. It was a one-off decision as a result of our obligations under international non-proliferation treaties. I imagine that each decision will be made on a case-by-case basis. The decision on Dounreay means that the UKAEA will not be entering into commercial contracts in future—not least because it finds them non-viable. We did the international community a favour by accepting the Georgian waste. We believe that we should act responsibly and make an international contribution.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: Does the Minister understand the scepticism with which his statement has been greeted? Does he acknowledge that the statements made in this place on 22 and 27 April did not mention the prospect of reprocessing being stopped? Does he accept that the decision he has announced today is very difficult to equate with the decision to accept material from Georgia for reprocessing? Will he instruct the UKAEA to prepare an explanatory memorandum setting out the commercial reasons for the decision so that that memorandum can be deposited in the Library? If he does not do that, the House will regard what has been said today as a sop to the Scottish National party.
Mr. Battle: I just wish that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had listened to what I said. The Georgian uranium was not accepted under a commercial deal—it was a one-off, under international non-proliferation treaties. We accepted it to store it, with a view to reprocessing it. There is a difference there that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not picked up.
We were advised by the UKAEA that it did not want to go ahead with further commercial reprocessing. In other words, it did not want to go around the world seeking contracts. The UKAEA wanted to send a clear signal to those with commercial contracts that Dounreay was not available because it had more than enough to be going on with, which would see it through to a safer and more secure future.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: In sorting out problems that were largely ignored or made worse by the previous Tory Government, will my hon. Friend bear in mind my plea on behalf of the local fishing communities? Dounreay and Sellafield lie on coastlines close to traditional fishing grounds that are fished by static gear and mobile gear fishermen. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must defend and promote the interests of those fishermen?
Mr. Battle: The answer to my hon. Friend is a forthright yes. We should also respect the full advice of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the nuclear installations inspectorate—the bodies that give us the best scientific advice on whether the plants should operate and on what terms. The UKAEA takes advice and guidance and—more than that—applies recommendations. The advice received following the review of the management of the site by the HSE will be implemented.

Millennium Compliance
3.57 pm
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Dr. David Clark): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement reviewing progress on tackling the millennium computer problem within central Government and the wider public sector.
Since my last report to the House on 3 March, I have conducted a further round of inquiries on Government Departments and their agencies, and I am now also able to give a picture of progress in the wider public sector. I am arranging for the completed questionnaires received from Departments in May—and summaries of them and their reports on wider public sector bodies—to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on the internet.
Overall, Departments' plans have remained stable since the March review, and very little change in scope has been found necessary. We can now identify target dates for business-critical systems. Most of the returns show progress in correcting business-critical information technology systems. A few show dates uncomfortably close to the end of 1999, although they do not involve organisations that provide services direct to the public.
The overall target dates, and the completion dates for non-critical systems, have moved by a larger margin. There are still cases in which testing seems to have started without a sufficiently defined strategy, and some plans still contain too little information about embedded systems and telecommunication systems. I am following up those issues with the Departments concerned.
The majority of returns have shown little or no change in the overall cost estimates. Departments are now firming up their estimates, and, although some previously small estimates have increased significantly, the overall costs have increased only slightly—they are now £402 million, compared with £393 million in the last round. Departments expect to meet those costs from their existing IT budgets, and only a minority of returns showed that it was necessary to reallocate funds from other budgets. We do not expect operational budgets to be affected.
A majority of the returns showed that Departments and agencies feel that they have adequate skills to undertake the work, although there is a heavy reliance on out-sourcing and consultants. Although about a third of returns stated that shortages of skilled staff could impact on year 2000 programmes, none of the Departments reported a significant loss of skilled staff owing to the millennium problem—where skilled staff turnover is usually high, there seems to be no difficulty in recruiting new staff. Most of the organisations reporting difficulties are small agencies, but the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office also reported that difficulties were being encountered in some areas.
The returns highlight the fact that a number of Departments and agencies are still experiencing difficulties in securing responses from IT suppliers about product compliance. I am asking all Departments and agencies to continue to press for that information. The returns show that many of the major Departments have conducted a full risk assessment and developed business continuity plans. That is a critical issue for all Departments, and Ministers and I will be monitoring it closely.

717
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me to report on the position there. Baseline plans for the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Departments were published in December 1997. The current quarterly monitoring process shows that Departments are making good progress, and remain on course to meet the deadline of 31 December 1998 for the conversion and testing of systems, although a small number will not be ready until early 1999.
In response to the concerns expressed in the House, the Prime Minister has extended the remit of the ministerial group on the millennium date change, which I chair, to include the wider public sector. It is, of course, the responsibility of the chief executives of the quangos, authorities and trusts to take effective and timely action on the date change problem to ensure that there is no material disruption to the services they provide, and that appropriate contingency plans are in place.
Nevertheless, the House will be concerned that the public sector as a whole continues to operate effectively after the date change; the ministerial group will take a close interest in progress on that. Ministers have for some time been in touch with the key organisations that they sponsor to emphasise the importance of tackling the date change problem and to help with advice and support. I have asked them to report on those organisations, and I have placed a summary of their responses in the Library and on the internet. I am also encouraging all non-departmental public bodies, organisations and other bodies in the wider public sector to publish their plans for millennium compliance.
The quality of the responses varies. They show that all the organisations covered are aware of the problem and are taking action, but there is clearly a long way to go before we have a complete picture. Some of the organisations are small, and the century date change has few, if any, implications for them. However, others—such as the national health service and local authorities—are critical to ensuring a satisfactory continuation of key public services over the millennium; they will need to reassure the public that they will be able to provide those services.
The National Audit Office report published last month stated that the framework for managing the remedial process in the NHS was in place, but that tight control was needed to ensure success. I welcome the NHS executive's statement that the millennium date change problem is its top non-clinical priority; I expect other wider public sector bodies similarly to treat it as a priority. There is not a great deal of time left to put systems in place if progress has so far been slow.
Ministers and I will be paying particular attention to monitoring progress in those key areas and reporting to the House regularly. The best way to reassure us all is for the bodies themselves to keep the public informed of their plans.
The importance of the year 2000 issue is also widely recognised in the European Union. At the meeting of EU Ministers of Public Administration at Lancaster house on 20 May, Ministers agreed to review progress at the next meeting in Vienna and to exchange information on the action that Governments were taking to help ensure continuity of operations in the public and private sectors.
718
They invited me to take the lead, and I have today started the process by sending the UK's contribution to this exercise to my European colleagues.
Finally, a new team has been formed within the Cabinet Office reporting to me and the President of the Board of Trade. That "year 2000 team" has strengthened arrangements to drive forward action on the date change, both within Government and through working with Action 2000 in the private sector. The reports we have so far show that the message is certainly getting across, and they provide some reassurances that action is being taken. Equally, they show that we cannot afford to let up the pressure, and that we still need to monitor progress closely. That I will certainly do, and I will continue to report to the House on a quarterly basis.
Mr. John Redwood: I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy for making that statement. It is most welcome for a Cabinet Minister to come to the House to explain the truthful position about a worrying problem. However, the content of the statement was extremely worrying. It shows the Government at last becoming concerned about the consequences of their own delays and dithering. They are beginning to see the danger of copying the style of Ethelred the Unready—[HoN. MEMBERS: "What did the Conservatives do?"] We left matters in good order; then this Government wasted more than six months before they realised that they had to get on with the job.
The Chancellor now tells us that some Departments are leaving it very late. He says that some do not know how to tackle embedded systems and telecommunications—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should listen, because this is very serious for the services that they and their constituents will want.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Get back to the planet Zog.
Mr. Redwood: That was an extremely rude remark from a semi-sedentary position, and the hon. Gentleman ought to know better.
Some people do not know which of the products that they own will work. Meanwhile, costs are going up. Most chilling of all, the Chancellor cannot tell us what the position is for the health service and local authorities, or what the position will be in our hospitals and schools come the millennium.
So will the right hon. Gentleman today confirm that, instead of lecturing the private sector further about the dust in its millennium eye, the Government's efforts will now be concentrated on dealing with the log in the public sector's vision? Will he confirm that the total cost for the complete public sector will now be in excess of £3,000 million? Will he tell us how those sums will be found, in particular by the health service and by local authorities, when both are complaining of cuts and inadequate grants? Where will the money come from? What is he going to do about seeing that it is there?
Will the right hon. Gentleman today give us a guarantee that all medical equipment and systems in the national health service will work on 1 January in the year 2000, or will have been replaced in good time before that date? Will he confirm to all pensioners and people relying on housing benefits or on income support and similar

719
payments that all those will be paid to the right people in the right way at the right address after 1 January in the year 2000? Is he able to confirm personally and on behalf of the Government that all schools and colleges—all educational establishments—will be able to function normally on or after 1 January in the year 2000?
In short, will the right hon. Gentleman give the House a millennium guarantee from the Government that the public sector will be up and running on 1 January 2000? This feeble and cautious prevarication of a statement will not do. The House, and the country, deserve something clearer and better—nothing less than a guarantee that all will work.
Dr. Clark: The right hon. Gentleman is right in one sense. The previous Administration left the task in good order: the cupboard was bare, but it was very tidy. They left us with practically no plans to work on, although I concede that the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor), who was the Science Minister, worked hard to interest his colleagues in the issue.
The right hon. Gentleman also said that we had waffled and dithered for a long time. We have just received a report from the National Audit Office, "Managing the Millennium Threat II". The first report came in May 1997, and as soon as I received it, I began to take action. We assessed the situation, and I wrote to Departments. We achieved some movement across Government towards having the issue taken seriously.
We have never lectured the private sector. When it comes to millennium compliance, the private and public sectors will have to work together, and we have tried to work to share experiences. I pay tribute to those in the private sector who have helped us to devise our plans.
The right hon. Gentleman asked two specific questions, the first of which was about the total cost. No one has any idea what that will be for the public sector. However, on 30 March, the Prime Minister announced a major initiative on the millennium bug, and he said that he felt that the current estimate of up to £3 billion was probably as good a guess as any.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the national health service and the Department of Social Security. Let me refer him to the second NAO report, which, regarding the NHS, states on page 6:
"The framework for managing the remedial programme is now in place but its size and its complexity are such that very tight control will now be required at all levels to ensure success."
We accept that, and shall work to ensure success. On the DSS, the report simply says:
"The Department's approach to project management complies with best practice recommended by CCTA."
No one pretends the solution is easy. There is a major problem, which must be tackled, and I am trying to work with the House, as all of us have a responsibility to ensure that this country and its citizens do not suffer when 2000 comes around.
Mr. Brian White: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, in certain parts of the country, skills shortages and poaching by other firms are causing a problem in the public sector? Does he accept that we are getting close to the date on which that will cause millennium problems, which could come in the
720
autumn of this year? His comment that some programmes may slip into 1999 was worrying; can he assure us that testing will not be squeezed as a result of that slippage?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, because of the actions of the Government, most significant problems have been addressed, and it is not likely that we will hit a major problem on 1 January 2000? What is more likely is that there will be a large number of small problems, none of which individually will be problematic, but all of which taken together may cause serious difficulties. Will my right hon. Friend outline the steps that he proposes to take on that? Finally, what steps does he propose to take to help third-world countries for which there will be a major problem?
Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend has considerable expertise on these matters, and he has poignantly identified the key areas. We are certainly aware that, although there may be no skills shortage today, the problem will become more difficult as we move towards the key date. It was partly for that reason that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £100 million in the Budget for improving IT excellence, 30 per cent. of which will go towards trying to tackle the millennium bug.
We are prepared to offer up to £1,300 per trainee for people from small companies and others—companies which may not be critical but which are none the less vital for society's interconnections—to go for training. We have also established MISC 4, a Cabinet Committee completely committed to considering contingency planning and the interrelationship between various aspects of both private and public industry and service providers.
Mr. Edward Davey: I welcome the Minister's statement, and especially the announcement that his working group's remit will be widened to cover the whole public sector. That is an important, if slightly belated, step in the right direction. Will he confirm that much of the statement—this certainly applies to the figures that it contains—refers simply to central Government Departments rather than to the wider public sector and the public services on which the ordinary citizen depends? We are delighted that ministerial laptops will be working when the new millennium comes, but will the computer systems in Kingston hospital, and indeed in hospitals throughout the country, still be operational?
In response to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), the Minister said that the Prime Minister's figure of £3 billion was the Government's best guess. That does not reassure anyone that the Government have a firm grasp of the problem. Can we have a more detailed breakdown of that best-guess figure? Given that national health service trusts were asked to submit their fully costed plans for tackling the millennium bug by the end of March, can the Minister now tell us the total cost of the bug to the NHS?
Given that the Chancellor said that there would be no extra funds to tackle the problem, what impact will there be on waiting lists? Does the Minister accept that widening the remit to cover the wider public sector will be a Canute-like gesture unless it is accompanied by new resources and a new sense of urgency?
Dr. Clark: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I invite him to help me in the task of trying to ensure that

721
his local health authority and trust, and indeed his local authority, can sensibly analyse the position and draw up and publish plans. I happen to believe that right hon. and hon. Members have a responsibility to persuade bodies in their constituencies that are not directly answerable to the House to follow what I regard as a sensible and open approach.
The hon. Gentleman chastised me for having no figures for the national health service. The figures are vague and difficult to collect. The National Audit Office undertook an audit, and—I am speaking from memory—estimated the cost to be more than £200 million to £250 million. I think that it is on the low side, but it was the NAO's best estimate when it published its report about three weeks ago.
Maria Eagle: I welcome my right hon. Friend's activity on this problem over the past year, and especially his willingness to make quarterly reports. The National Audit Office report makes it clear that Departments and agencies have plans of varying quality, some of which—one hopes that these are from the smaller agencies—amount to no more than one-page letters about what they have done so far. What activity is his Department undertaking to chase up those agencies and Departments with poor-quality plans, and ensure that they will be able to deal with the problem in plenty of time?
Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend quite rightly draws to our attention the great disparity of preparedness, especially within NHS trusts. The National Audit Office report says:
"one fifth of the NHS Trusts and Health Authorities thought they would need right up to the end of 1999 to ensure that all their IT systems were year 2000 compliant and 10 per cent of NHS Trusts were not confident that they would achieve this."
Frankly, that is not good enough, and I have written to the Secretary of State for Health, who is, of course, in touch with the chief executive of the national health service, to point out that that is not good enough.
We have to ensure that the message on best practice, which the national health service executive is keen to expound, is got across to those trusts which do not appear at this stage to have taken on board the seriousness of that message. Therefore, we are putting as much pressure as we can on the NHS to try to ensure that those trusts that we and others have identified do better.
Mr. David Davis: May I start by welcoming the Minister's statement that his remit is being widened? It seems necessary from the report that he quotes. The Comptroller and Auditor General, if I can summarise the thrust of that report, says that, broadly speaking, centralised Departments such as the Department of Social Security are doing well. Decentralised departments such as the NHS give much more cause for concern.
The Minister quoted a figure from the report on the cost that the NHS has cited. The report also says that that cost looks very low compared with that of other sectors. He cites the likelihood of hitting the target. I think that the report says that nearly one in six health authorities are unsure whether all their clinical equipment will be up to speed by 2000.
722
My concern is that, given that the aim is to meet the requirements out of the existing budgets of the NHS and of other decentralised departments, and given, as the Minister says, that the costs of meeting this problem will escalate geometrically as 2000 comes closer, we do not have the makings of a financial time-bomb. I should like to hear him tell the House how he will intervene to prevent both costs and risk to the public escalating as we approach 2000.
Dr. Clark: The right hon. Gentleman approaches this in what I accept is a commendable manner. He accepts that there is a problem, and I hope that he will try to help us to deal with it; his questions certainly suggest he will.
In addition to having the National Audit Office report, soon we should have a report from the Audit Commission, which will allow us to make a better assessment of the picture in the NHS and in the other delegated authorities. Plainly, we have a better picture of the central Government Departments, because we have been working with them for almost 12 months now, whereas we have just brought the other public sector authorities within our scope.
Because of the various structures that we were not responsible for setting in place, such as delegated authorities, we do not have the hands-on authority that we may have had in days past, so it is a question of persuading trusts and authorities that they must meet the deadlines. Indeed, I will be asking the relevant Secretaries of State to get the message across to the respective bodies that they must start to take these issues seriously.
On costs, the Audit Commission suggested that the costs of the NHS would be between £200 million and £850 million, although the estimate from the NHS trusts is at the lower end. I agree with the NAO that that is very much on the low side.
Mr. Derek Wyatt: Under Mackinlay's law, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on all his work on this?
May I ask for clarification? First, on the current situation with regard to Cabinet Ministers, will the actual state of each Department be put in the public domain? Secondly, I understand from all the research I have seen that it would be very unwise for any country to go into a single currency and cope with the millennium bug in one year. I wonder whether he might pose that question when he goes to Vienna, and bring back an answer.
Thirdly, is there any value in having a practice day for the millennium bug? It is dangerous to go to one date and hope that the systems are going to work. Is there a way that we could try systems in 10 per cent. of Government agencies and 10 per cent. of other agencies on a particular day in October or November this year, which is possible? It would be much better to do that than to try them all on 31 December 1999.
My final worry is that the top 60 Microsoft products, including Windows 95, are not millennium-compliant.
Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend is extremely knowledgeable about these matters. I can confirm that the detailed plans and the complete responses from Cabinet Ministers will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the internet. They add up now to more than 2,000 pages.

723
As for the Vienna issue, we have examined millennium compliance and the euro. Ever since the Maastricht treaty was signed in 1992, the countries that intend to sign up to the euro have been aware of the dual problem involved.
I do not know enough about a specific testing period; I will certainly look into it. To give my hon. Friend some idea of progress so far, we believe that about 30 per cent. of systems have been completed and about 25 per cent. have been tested. The Cabinet Sub-Committee has recommended that, once internal testing has been done, we should do random testing with outside experts to double-check the facilities.
I was not aware of my hon. Friend's point about Windows 95 and the other Microsoft pieces of equipment—but I fully understand it.
Mr. Ian Taylor: The Chancellor was generous about my efforts, and we certainly share his desire to ensure that the public are protected from a failure of systems at the millennium. Some simple things can go wrong and cause havoc. For instance, I was born in 1945; will his systems show me as being 55 in 2000, or minus 45, or not born at all? The difference is important, not just to me but to the records that the Minister is keeping.
Is the Chancellor following best private sector practice—for example, when it comes to risk assessment? Such risk assessment has led private sector companies to prioritise already. That is, of course, a good deal more sensitive in the public sector, because it implies that some functions may not continue through the millennium. Is the Minister copying the auditors in the private sector? From this year, some large companies' accounts will be qualified—a practice which could be applied to the NHS trusts.
What concerns me about costs is that a failure to provide a ballpark figure would imply that no proper audit of the problem has been carried out by some of the decentralised public services. That is not a great criticism of the Chancellor, but it is very worrying if we do not yet have a grip of the size of the problem.
Inevitably, at some point, Government Departments will refuse to deal with private sector companies that cannot guarantee that they are compliant. In the private sector, cut-off dates are beginning this year, not in 1999. Will the public sector start refusing to deal with private sector companies in this position—on 31 December 1998 or thereabouts?
Dr. Clark: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his pertinent points. I sincerely meant the tribute that I paid to his work.
I hope that I have already made it clear that we are trying to work with the private sector. We accept that it is often way ahead of the public sector, and we have a great deal to learn—we are still learning—from its experiences. Some of those advising us are prominent private sector figures.
The first lesson that we have learnt is that prioritising is critical—we have made that quite clear to all central Government Departments. The second lesson is the issue of testing and having external testing, just as, in a financial context, one has external auditors to check one's own internal auditors.
Regarding the hon. Gentleman's point about the NHS, on 15 May, we sent round a circular to the NHS making it clear to the trusts and to the NHS authorities that they
724
are responsible for getting this right. We made it clear that the ultimate responsibility for millennium compliance within a trust rests with the chief executive of that trust—that is spelled out in words of one syllable.
We understand the hon. Gentleman's third point about the wider public sector, and I accept that he was not making a cheap political point. There are problems: having devolved power to try to enable increased efficiency, one is left without the hands-on authority. I think that we have got the message of awareness and necessity across to central Government; we have not managed to do so with the same success in the wider public sector, but we intend to do so.
The hon. Gentleman's final point related to testing equipment that we are buying in, and I have installed a testing and checking regime. Although, since September last year, we have said that every piece of equipment that central Government buy in ought to be millennium-compliant, I am insisting that there is random, routine testing of the equipment to ensure that compliance standards are met. I am working in the hope that, as the market for equipment in central Government is so large, no supplier would be so foolish as to supply us with equipment that was not millennium-compliant, because we are carrying out checks.
Mr. Christopher Leslie: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although it is welcome that the Government are bringing forward plans to catch up with the neglect left behind by the previous Government, it is an outrage that so many information technology suppliers are still selling goods and products that are not millennium-compliant? Have the Government any plans to take legal action to recover some of the costs incurred by the public sector as a result of duff and defective products being sold by such companies?
Dr. Clark: As I said, I have now installed a new regime whereby there is random testing of equipment supplied. The answer to my hon. Friend is that, if we find equipment that is not up to scratch, we simply send it back, and think very hard before offering a contract to that supplier again.
Sir Sydney Chapman: The Chancellor said that his latest estimate of the cost to Government Departments of dealing with the millennium date change was £402 million, and that he was confident that that could be met out of information technology budgets, rather than, as he put it, out of operating costs. He then went on to a guesstimate, saying that he thought that the problem would cost up to £3 billion in the wider public arena.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned in particular the NHS, in which the problem would cost somewhere between £250 million and £800 million, but is he satisfied that it will be possible to meet that sum, without—in respect of the NHS, I use the term "operating costs" literally—the quality of services provided being affected? If he cannot answer that now, can he give any indication as to when the other Chancellor—the Chancellor of the Exchequer—will be able to say whether Government money will be forthcoming to deal with the problem, or whether the cost will have to come out of overall budgets?
Dr. Clark: The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point. The truth is that nobody really knows—nobody knows

725
how much it will cost either the private sector or the public sector. Those figures are only guesstimates, but each Department has made its own guesstimate, is aware of the costs and has budgeted accordingly. Let me make the general point that the replacement of IT equipment is in a very short cycle; in the past three years, the amount of routine replacement with millennium-compliant equipment has meant that the cost might not be quite as great as we thought it would be. The guess of £3 billion is the best guess that anyone has made.
Fiona Mactaggart: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about the duplication of effort, especially within the health service, with different trusts all trying to solve the same problem? I am frustrated to see Conservative Members nodding their heads in response to this, because I believe that their changes to the national health service created the divisions that have led to lots of people having to do the same job. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that separate health trusts do not have to duplicate one another's work by instructing the Medical Devices Agency to provide a list of millennium-compliant equipment so that trusts can have a single source of reliable information about what is compliant?
Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend asks pertinent questions. I assure her that that issue has been considered, but NHS trusts have many aspects. For example, the information management group of the NHS executive gives advice and guidance on information technology issues; the Medical Supplies Agency performs a similar task on supply issues; the estates agency provides specialist advice and consultancy on estate matters, including equipment; and the Medical Devices Agency, to which my hon. Friend referred, is responsible for ensuring that all the necessary steps are taken and that individual trusts are aware of those steps. We are considering ways of ensuring that the advice given by different groups within the NHS is co-ordinated. I shall draw my hon. Friend's views to the attention of the NHS executive.
Mr. Crispin Blunt: About two months ago, during Scottish questions, I was given an unconditional assurance by the Scottish Office that the emergency services in Scotland would be millennium-compliant. Can the Chancellor of the Duchy give that assurance for emergency services in England, or was his Scottish colleague being somewhat heroic?
Dr. Clark: The Scottish Office has a slight advantage, in that its old mainframe computer was replaced in March, which means that the problems in Scotland are considerably eased compared with those in England. However, the Cabinet Committee is trying to ensure that the provision of health and emergency cover is dealt with.
That is not simply a public sector issue, because the provision of emergency services requires, for example, that telephone exchanges are working. That is what I meant earlier when I referred to an interrelationship between the private and public sectors. We all depend on
726
one another, and we are working to try to ensure that contingency plans are in place at a national level so that there will be no serious problems in 2000.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Still on the subject of Scotland, does the Minister think that on Hogmanay 1999, any of us will be in a fit state to do anything, let alone cope with the millennium bug? Is there not some merit in the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sherry—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Sherry?"]—Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt)? That is what will happen on Hogmanay 1999. My hon. Friend suggested that there should at least be a dummy run on a Saturday and Sunday.
Will the Minister also consider the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White), which was also asked by those of us present during the proceedings on the Companies (Millennium Computer Compliance) Bill in the name of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson), when the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) was a Minister? My hon. Friend asked how developing countries should be helped with their problems, because, apart from anything else, chaos in their ordering and trading systems will hit us.
Dr. Clark: On my hon. Friend's latter point—it was remiss of me not to deal with this earlier, for which I apologise to him—it is important that we recommend best practice and provide help to other countries. The interrelationship that exists, as I pointed out, between the public and private sectors in this country applies equally across international boundaries. We are considering what assistance we can provide to third-world countries. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has taken every opportunity at every international conference since March to raise the issue of the millennium bug.
On my hon. Friend's other point, I was tempted to say that at least one person in Scotland should be in a fit state on Hogmanay 1999, but, in light of my hon. Friend's reference to a constituency in "Sherry", I am not sure whether that will be the case. I have said that we shall consider whether it is feasible to conduct contingency testing. I do not rule it out, but I shall seek expert advice on that point.
Mr. Malcolm Savidge: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the popular belief—which has been strengthened somewhat this afternoon—that, by new year's day 2000, we may have witnessed the complete disintegration of the shadow spokesman, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), and possibly his entire party?
Dr. Clark: That is a little unkind. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is extremely consistent: he rubbishes this Government in exactly the same way as he rubbished the previous Government.
Mr. Stephen Timms: My right hon. Friend is well aware of the anxieties being expressed that there are not enough skilled people to do the work that must be done between now and the millennium. I welcome his reassurances this afternoon about the position in central Government Departments, but what is his assessment of the position on skills shortages in the wider public sector?

727
Is there any evidence of a shortage of the skilled staff who are required in sufficient numbers to do the work that is outstanding?
Dr. Clark: I can go only on what Departments and public sector bodies tell me. With the exception of the Northern Ireland Office, the Ministry of Defence and several smaller agencies, they tell me that they do not envisage any particular shortage. However, I am advised by people in the private sector that, as we move towards testing time—particularly next year—there could be a shortage. We want to ensure that that does not happen, so we are trying to train 20,000 "bug busters" under the initiative outlined in the Budget.

Eritrea
4.41 pm
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The dispute over border delimitation and demarcation arose when Ethiopian and Eritrean armed forces clashed on the Badame plateau on 12 May. Ethiopia accused Eritrea of invading its territory and Eritrea defended its actions by claiming that it was responding to an Ethiopian violation on 6 May. There have since been further clashes in border regions over disputed territory.
On 15 May, I issued a statement on behalf of the European Union expressing our concern about the clashes, urging restraint and calling for the resolution of the dispute by peaceful means. At that time, a facilitation team led by Susan Rice, the United States Assistant Secretary of State, and including Vice-President Kagame of Rwanda, commenced a round of shuttle diplomacy in an effort to find a peaceful solution to the dispute. We have fully supported those efforts and continue to do so in both our presidency statements and personal contacts with both leaders by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
The team's initial recommendations included an Eritrean withdrawal from Badame and the restoration of the status quo of 6 May, the demilitarisation of the whole border area, the delimitation/demarcation of the boundary, and deployment of observers. We understand that, while both sides showed a willingness to accept the broad principles of the recommendations, they could not agree on several points of detail—particularly on the Eritrean side. We monitored closely developments throughout the negotiation period and, by 2 June, it became apparent that the facilitators had been unable to bridge the gap of disagreement between the two sides.
Therefore, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary took the decision to intervene in order to reinforce the European Union's position that the dispute should be settled by peaceful means and to underline our support for the work of the facilitators. On 3 June, my right hon. Friend spoke personally to Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia and sent a written message to President Issaias of Eritrea. He told both leaders that the United Kingdom and the European Union were saddened by this dispute between two friendly nations. He stressed that the outbreak of war would damage the interests of both sides and, in particular, would endanger regional stability and development. My right hon. Friend assured both leaders that the EU supported the efforts of all parties that genuinely wished to see the dispute settled peacefully.
Sadly, as hon. Members will know from media coverage, the two sides escalated the level of military engagement. On 5 June, the Ethiopians flew two bombing sorties over Asmara airport in Eritrea and the Eritreans twice launched air attacks on Mekelle in the Tigray province of Ethiopia. The Ethiopians responded with a further bombing raid on Asmara airport on the morning of 6 June. I regret to report to the House that the raids caused civilian casualties and deaths on both sides of the border. We deplore this needless loss of life and have reiterated our appeal to both sides to seek a negotiated settlement.

729
In view of the rapidly deteriorating situation, which, because of the geography, threatened to trap foreign nationals in a situation of war in Eritrea—the same geographical problem does not apply to Ethiopia—officials urgently considered the need to evacuate British nationals in Eritrea. At that point, it was clearly very dangerous to risk flying in and out of Asmara airport without guarantees of safety from both sides. Our ambassador in Addis Ababa initiated a joint United Kingdom-United States-German-Italian effort to secure such agreements. Accordingly, an RAF Hercules set off from RAF Lyneham in the early hours of Saturday morning to evacuate British nationals who wished to leave and who had been unable to be accommodated on a US civilian evacuation flight to Frankfurt the previous day. The US flight had accepted 48 British nationals, mostly voluntary service personnel. We are most grateful to the United States Government for their help.
The Germans, Italians, Americans and the United Kingdom sent in military evacuation flights on Saturday evening. Our aircraft was able to evacuate a large number of Commonwealth and EU citizens and one American, as well as British citizens, to Jedda in Saudi Arabia. One of the two American flights that day took 21 Britons to Amman in Jordan. The majority of British nationals have now arrived back in the United Kingdom. Our consulates in Frankfurt, Jedda and Amman have assisted with onward journeys. I take this opportunity to pay special tribute to those closely involved in the evacuation exercise, including the crew of the RAF Hercules and our honorary consul in Asmara, Stephen Burges. He was appointed only recently and works in an unpaid capacity—he literally experienced a baptism of fire.
Although accurate and up-to-date information is now hard to obtain, we understand that the temporary cessation of hostilities negotiated to assure the safe passage of the evacuation flights has, by and large, held. I repeat our urgent call to both parties to maintain the cessation of hostilities and to agree a formal ceasefire. If they do that, I believe that the way will be open for the facilitators to resume their work. The gap between the two sides is small and can surely be bridged. They do not dispute the border line itself: it is a matter of demarcation and delimitation. It is in the interests of both countries, which for 17 years fought together the terrible tyranny of the Derg regime, to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute. The stability and development of both countries is otherwise at risk.
We are now considering with the US and our EU partners how best we may be able to assist in the process of securing a lasting and peaceful settlement of the dispute. We believe that that can be achieved by giving our unequivocal support to the efforts of the facilitators. If we can provide material help that also supports those efforts, we shall do so. I assure the House that we shall continue to do all that we can to bring about a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Mr. Michael Trend: I thank the Minister for his statement and join him in commending the work of the Royal Air Force and members of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in evacuating British citizens from Eritrea. Like the Minister, I thank the honorary consul, Mr. Stephen Burges, who took up his post only on Monday. He has played an important role in evacuating
730
civilians from that country. It demonstrates once again the value and commitment of honorary consuls, and the Opposition are grateful for their work in assisting British citizens throughout the world.
The Minister has confirmed that all British citizens who wish to leave the country have now done so. Will he tell the House what arrangements have been made to ensure that others who may wish to leave hereafter have the opportunity to do so? On a more general but very important point, can the Minister give the House an unequivocal assurance that the United Kingdom will be able to participate in similar future evacuations should the need arise after the findings of the strategic defence review are made known and implemented?
The Minister will be aware that Britain has a particular relationship with the region, following the liberation of Eritrea in 1941 and our administration of the country for more than a decade. In view of the growing hostility between the two countries, is it right for the ambassador to Eritrea to be resident in Ethiopia? Has the Minister plans to review our diplomatic presence?
I have questions on two further specific points. First, the Minister refers to the Government being prepared to provide "material help" for the efforts of those seeking to facilitate a peaceful settlement. The Minister could have in mind, for example, arranging an international conference or providing direct military assistance. Will he be more specific about what he means by "material help"? Secondly, can the Minister shed light on what arms and other munitions may be getting through to Eritrea and Ethiopia at present?
Finally, the Minister will be aware that the dispute is not the only one in Africa that could destabilise the continent. What steps is the United Kingdom taking to ensure that other territorial disputes do not escalate into military confrontations such as the one in Eritrea and Ethiopia? For example, what does the Minister plan to do about the stand-off between two Commonwealth countries, Botswana and Namibia? What is being done to support the idea of creating an African-based and controlled peacekeeping force, which could be deployed in areas of tension—such as the border of Eritrea—while diplomatic solutions are sought?
Mr. Lloyd: In welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his new post, I thank him for his gracious remarks about those who took part in the evacuation operation, especially the honorary consul, whom I mentioned. He rightly draws attention to the valuable role that is played by not only honorary consuls, but the diplomatic community globally. At times like this, we all realise that they play an especially important role.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about the British citizens remaining in Eritrea. We believe that they number about 20. In the run-up to the eventual evacuation, we gave consistent advice that British citizens should consider the position in Eritrea, and obviously, one of the reasons for the evacuation was premised by the fact that civilian flights ceased to operate, I believe, on Thursday 4 June. In that context, the decision to send in an RAF plane for evacuation purposes was, of itself, a significant signal that we could not henceforth give guarantees about the safety of British nationals in that situation. We shall consider every practical step that is possible to offer assistance to British citizens in the light of what I have said, but I repeat

731
that the citizens who chose to remain did so—I believe—knowingly, on the basis that further evacuation may not be an option.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the possibility of such evacuations continuing in future, after the strategic defence review. He, like the whole House, must await the outcome of the publication of that review, as is right and proper.
The hon. Gentleman asked me especially about our diplomatic relationship, specifically in terms of the ambassador in Addis Ababa also being accredited to Eritrea. That situation was based on the fact that, since 1991, the two countries—this is the sad irony of the present conflict—had relations as close as it was possible to imagine between two neighbours, because they had the same background and had been through the same conflict. In those terms, the situation that confronts us is very new. I believe that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I say that, although I do not want to fail to answer his question, it is premature for us to examine how best we continue with our relations, especially with Eritrea.
The hon. Gentleman asked me what support the European Union would consider giving. So far, the primary role has been played by the United States and by the Rwandans; we applaud the role that they have played. Undoubtedly, they played a significant role in trying to prevent the conflict; they are still working hard to prevent it from continuing. We do not want to cut across anything that they do.
At the moment, therefore, the facilities that I spoke of in my statement would mainly be confined—although we would not rule out anything else that might be helpful—to technical expertise, such as the provision of technical experts to take part in the process of delimiting the border between the two countries. That is a practical role, which we may be able to play, and which we would want to play.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about conflict prevention throughout Africa. He may be aware that the British Government, with the United States and France, have been actively engaged at the United Nations, and in co-ordination with the Organisation of African Unity, in proposals to establish an African peacekeeping presence. That would consist of building a capacity between African nations, so that they can play the role that they should be playing, whereby a regional presence moves into such peacekeeping activity and can play a constructive role. We are actively engaged in that agenda; that agenda will pay dividends in future.
Mr. David Hanson: I thank my hon. Friend for his statement. First, will he give us an idea whether any assessment has been made of the longer-term solutions to the problems that have been highlighted in the past week or so? Secondly, will he give us an idea of the assessment that he has made of the impact on the important development issues in both countries? As he knows, both countries are among the poorest in the world, and have suffered from drought and famine as well as the long-term effects of war.
Mr. Lloyd: The immediate needs of both countries are an end to hostilities, an acceptance that the zone in dispute should be demilitarised, and a return to the status quo before 6 May, when the present round of conflict had its origins. Beyond that immediate agenda, there needs to be
732
agreement on a process for arbitration between the two parties. Both the United States and Rwandan facilitating team and the European Union will actively work toward that.
The second part of my hon. Friend's question is serious. Since the independence of Eritrea and since the overthrow of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, the two countries have worked closely together, in a partnership which, for the first time for a considerable while, has allowed the possibility of development. The real tragedy of this conflict is that all that is now cast in doubt. All that makes it much more difficult for would-be partners to help. It also makes it much more difficult, on the ground, for the practical progress that both countries should be making to occur. That, I regret, is the real foolishness and the real sadness of the present situation.
Dr. Jenny Tonge: I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister and the Government on helping to negotiate the ceasefire that led to the effective evacuation of British citizens from Eritrea. Does he recall that, in 1985, there was a terrible famine in the Horn of Africa, which was due to a civil war, in which Ethiopia and Eritrea and their present Governments were on the same side? Since that famine in the Horn of Africa, arms and aid have flowed together to both Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Will the Minister tell the House what proper scrutiny there has been of arms going to Eritrea and Ethiopia since his Government took power? Is it not time to end the spiral of conflict that starts with arms to fuel wars, which cause the poverty, which affects the whole of the developing world?
Mr. Lloyd: I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks about the role of the British ambassador in Addis Ababa in negotiating the ceasefire. It was an important role—one which, as it happens, not only brokered a ceasefire until 3 o'clock GMT on Sunday morning, which was the negotiated time frame, but, as far as we are aware, has led to a cessation of hostilities since. We hope that that cessation continues. A not insignificant role was played by the ambassador and his colleagues in Addis Ababa.
On the wider question of the supply of arms to both Ethiopia and Eritrea, I am rather cautious about giving the House information off the top of my head, for reasons that may be obvious. I am not aware that arms have gone from this country to Ethiopia or Eritrea in that time, although I shall seek to check those facts, to ensure, as ever, that this Government, unlike the previous Government, give accurate information to the House.
The real issue that the hon. Lady raises is the supply of arms to Africa and to other areas of potential conflict. The Government are working hard on that problem. For example, the Department for International Development recently provided the Government of Mali with significant sums, among other purposes for the possible buyback of arms that have gone into that area. The British Government sponsored a conference in the past few weeks in southern Africa, the aim of which was to examine the possibility of controlling the supply of illicit arms in that region. Those are issues on which the Government are engaged because we know that, in the end, conflict is based on the existence of armaments.

733
In the case of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the conflict is between two sovereign nations, which is rare nowadays. Few would deny the right of sovereign nations to engage in defence.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: Is there any possibility of a senior aide of Kofi Annan acting as a mediator between the two nations? Has this dreadful affair been raised at the Security Council? On the question of the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend) about the possibility of regionally based UN peacekeeping forces, how on earth can we expect the United Nations to develop such a fine idea, given that as an organisation it is so badly strapped for money, largely as a result of the stupid obduracy of Congressmen and women on Capitol hill?
Mr. Lloyd: I can tell the House that the matter certainly has been discussed at the Security Council. It should come before the Security Council again, with a view to the United Nations adopting a Security Council resolution. It is important that the UN's authority should be placed behind condemnation of the violence and the efforts of those who are trying to mediate.
Although the United Nations must be engaged at a general level, the view of the international community is that the present efforts of the United States, which speaks for itself, and of Rwanda, which is a country friendly to both parties and a neighbour, are particularly useful. We would not advocate any measure that cut across those efforts. It is important that too many people do not become involved as that would frustrate the mediation efforts.
On my hon. Friend's final question, we believe that the United Nations should be put on a proper financial footing, which means that all those who owe large sums should pay up.
Sir Peter Emery: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend) on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box in his new role, which I hope he will enjoy.
I have three questions. First, how many Europeans, other than the British, are still left in Eritrea? Do we know that? Is not the airfield at Asmara both a civilian and a military airfield? One side is military and the other side is civilian, so an attack on the airfield is an attack on a civilian airfield as well as on a military base. If we can get some sort of solution, we should be prepared to ensure that the airfield can be restored for civilian use as quickly as possible.
Secondly, as a secondary effect of the conflict, are there attacks on Europeans? I believe that that is not the case, but it would be useful to have an assurance that, although Europeans may be caught up between the two sides, there are no direct attacks on Europeans.
Thirdly, does the Minister agree that in the efforts to bring about a solution, the leadership ought to be taken by the Organisation of African Unity, whose headquarters are in Addis Ababa? Such an organisation is most likely to be able to represent both sides in bringing about a solution.
Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman is right that the airport in Asmara is both military and civilian. As far as
734
we are aware, there have been no further attacks on the airport since before the British evacuation took place. We hope that that state of affairs continues.
I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman any further information about the number of European nationals. We know that there are some 20 British nationals there, but we do not know how many other Europeans may be there. I can tell the House that on the RAF Hercules flight, there were 104 people, of whom the overwhelming majority were non-UK nationals. They were nationals of Commonwealth countries or of other European countries. We trust that we played a significant role in evacuating other European citizens, and I am sure that the House appreciates the work of the RAF and other authorities in that process.
I am not aware of any attack on European nationals. We have had no such reports, but obviously the quality of information is poor and it is not possible to give a guarantee that that is the case.
On the role of the Organisation of African Unity, the House will want to know that the OAU is in session at present. The Secretary-General, Salim Salim, has been in direct contact with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the President of Eritrea to put the force of the OAU behind the mediation role currently being played by the Americans and the Rwandans. That is the right way forward. It is important that in this almost inexplicable situation, there is no gap between organisations in the international community, and that all of us speak with the same voice and the same authority to deplore the violence and to demand that both sides get round the negotiating table.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: To return to the question of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on arms, when I was on holiday in Iran in October, I got into a chance conversation with a Russian national in Hamadan who was clearly selling arms to Iran. When I commented that he was obviously doing good business, he said, "Yes, I am certainly doing good business, but it is not half as good as the business that we do in east Africa."
Is it not the case that Russian arms, dirt cheap and pretty sophisticated, are swilling around vast parts of the developing world? I do not know what my hon. Friends can do about it, but is that not part of the problem and should we not face the fact that cheap Russian arms and ammunition are creating a great deal of difficulty?
Mr. Lloyd: It is not just Russian arms that find their way into potential conflict zones. Sadly, the world is awash with small arms. The majority of deaths and injuries worldwide are caused by small arms systems, not by the great armament systems that we tend to read about.
As I told the House earlier, the British Government are engaged on practical ways of dealing with the problem. I do not pretend that there is an easy, immediate solution. We are examining the possibility of empowering regional groupings. Southern Africa is an example of a region that has known enormous conflict in recent times and where, even now, huge amounts of arms are swilling around. If we can learn the lessons from that region, they apply in other parts of the world. At the international level,

735
with other partners who share our concern, we are examining other ways of dealing with that extremely difficult problem.
Mr. Crispin Blunt: Am I correct in understanding that the Minister is saying that the Ethiopians initiated this latest round of violence? Do the Government believe that there is any justification for this behaviour? Is it possible for the international community, especially the United Kingdom and the European Union, to draw a distinction between the behaviour of the two nations that are involved in the violence?
Mr. Lloyd: I did not say that the Ethiopians are the authors of this particular round of violence. In these situations, it is probably foolhardy to try to allocate responsibility. At this stage, we should be saying to both sides that the cycle of violence begetting violence is not the way forward. We need a clear break from hostility, demilitarisation of the conflict zone and a return to the status quo that existed before 6 May, and then to get round the negotiating table to begin the difficult process of drawing up commonly agreed boundaries. Such a process, however difficult, is much less painful than the cycle of violence that simply kills.
Maria Eagle: Given that there are other on-going conflicts in the area—one thinks of Sudan and Somalia—what implications does my hon. Friend believe the new conflict has for the region? Is this conflict likely to change the balance of power and the balance of other conflicts in the region and affect the stability of the whole of east Africa?
Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend raises an important point. We know that in neighbouring Sudan there has been a civil war for a generation—indeed, effectively since independence. We know also that in Somalia the state of governance is almost no governance. A conflict between what in recent times have been the more stable countries in the region is a tragedy for the two countries involved and is potentially destabilising within the region. That is partly why there need to be intense efforts to bring both sides to the negotiating table.
This extra or latest conflict could, of course, spill over to neighbouring countries, and the process of destabilisation could occur on a much wider scale. Sadly, that destabilisation would feed back into the conflict. There is much for us to agree on in our demand that mediation must be the right answer.

Points of Order
5.12 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your clarification. It has been drawn to my attention by friends of mine in the tobacco industry that there is a meeting tomorrow morning in the Jubilee Room. It is a so-called press briefing entitled, "A call for a more effective UK public policy on smoking cessation and the use of nicotine replacement therapy", sponsored by the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson). I understand that the promoters are being assisted by a commercial company whose public relations firm was responsible for sending out the invitations to this so-called press briefing.
Is it right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the facilities of the House should be used for a meeting purporting to address a matter of public policy when it is, in fact, masquerading as such on behalf of commercial companies that wish to supplant tobacco and replace it with an alternative?
Mr. Hugh Bayley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) is an eminent cancer scientist. Surely it is right and proper that he should hold a meeting in the House with bodies working in that sector and invite hon. Members who, like me, have an interest in his work in the fight against cancer.
Dr. Ian Gibson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to the House. I can assure the House that I would not have any truck with tobacco companies. Indeed, I have fought them for many years. I am told reliably by the two professors who have produced the report that will be presented tomorrow that they are independent of any tobacco companies. Their report will play a major part in the production of the White Paper on tobacco smoking and the protection of young people—indeed, all people—from hazards to the health of the people of our nation.
Mr. Howarth: I do not wish to detain the House much longer, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point is that commercial companies are offering nicotine replacement therapy and it is their public relations company that is behind the organisation of the meeting. I have no objection to the hon. Member for Norwich, North taking part in it. My objection is to the fact that a meeting purporting to address a matter of public policy is in fact being promoted by commercial companies, undeclared.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I have no doubt that the appropriate authority will have noted the point that the hon. Gentleman has made and will, if necessary, look into the matter for him.

TEACHING AND HIGHER EDUCATION BILL [LORDS] PROGRAMME
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee),
That the Report [4th June] from the Business Committee be now considered.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
Question agreed to.
Report considered accordingly.
Resolved,
That this House doth agree with the Committee in its Resolution.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]
Following is the report of the Business Committee [4 June]:
That—
(a) Proceedings on consideration of the Bill shall be taken in the following order, namely, Amendments to Clauses 12 to 21, Amendments to Schedule 2, New Clauses 5, 6 and 8, Amendments to subsection (1) of Clause 22 relating to treatment of students resident in different parts of the United Kingdom, remaining Amendments to Clause 22 and Amendments to Clauses 23 to 28 and remaining New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part II, Amendments to Clauses 1 to 11, Amendments to Schedule 1, Remaining New Clauses, remaining New Schedules, remaining Amendments, and
(b) the two days allotted under the Order (19th May) to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall be allotted in the manner shown in the following Table and each part of the proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion (in accordance with the Order) on the expiry of the allotted period (calculated from the commencement of proceedings on the Bill on that day) specified in the third column of the Table.

TABLE

Allotted day

Proceedings

Allotted period

First day

Amendments to Clauses 12 to 21 and Schedule 2

1 hour

New Clauses 5, 6 and 8

1½ hours

Amendments to subsection (1) of Clause 22 relating to treatment of students resident in different parts of the United Kingdom

3½ hours

Remaining Amendments to Clause 22, Amendments to Clauses 23 to 28 and remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part II

6 hours

Second day

Amendments to Clauses 1 to 11 and Schedule 1, remaining New Clauses, remaining New Schedules and remaining Amendments

2 hours

Third Reading

3 hours

Orders of the Day

  Teaching and Higher Education Bill [Lords]
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 12

  DEDUCTION OF FEES FROM SALARIES, ETC.
  5.15 pm
  The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers): I beg to move amendment No. 84, in page 8, leave out lines 14 to 18.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 12, 13, 85, 96, 97, 14 to 33 and 99.
  Mr. Byers: I extend a warm welcome to the occupants of the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Members for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and for Maidenhead (Mrs. May); I hope that they will occupy their shadow positions for many years to come.
  The amendments relate to the procedures that are necessary to bar teachers from entering the teaching profession. Tomorrow, we shall have the opportunity—in line with the recommendations of the Business Committee—to discuss in some detail the powers and responsibilities of the General Teaching Council. The amendments before us today enable us to consider what responsibilities the GTC should have, and reflect the Government's disagreement with the recommendations coming from the other place and our view that child protection matters should remain to be considered by the Secretary of State. We feel it appropriate for the GTC to have powers over the conduct of teachers and on the question of teachers' competence or otherwise—
  Mr. Hugh Bayley: Before my hon. Friend gets into his stride, I wish to intervene on a general issue involving the General Teaching Council. I know that my hon. Friend has been actively considering education jobs moving to York now that the Funding Agency for Schools is moving away. May I say publicly what I have said privately to my hon. Friend, which is that I believe that the GTC would be an appropriate body to be sited in York, partly because of its size and partly because in my view it needs to be away from the mainstream of the Department for Education and Employment to illustrate its independence and—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman wants to speak at such length, he should wait and make his speech later.
  Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for the Funding Agency for Schools and for retaining employment in York. I regret that our decision did not go in favour of basing the new framework department in York. Instead, we decided that it should be placed in Darlington. I hear what my hon. Friend says about the potential for the GTC to be sited in York. No

  739
  doubt there is a strong case that can be made on behalf of York—and no doubt my hon. Friend will make it. Decisions about the location of the GTC will be made over the next few months. I assure my hon. Friend that we will take into account the strong representations which he has already made and which he will no doubt make over the months ahead.
  The amendments deal with the role that the Secretary of State should continue to have in the barring of teachers from the profession. A number of commitments were given in Committee, and the amendments reflect several points that were made from the Government Benches and by the Opposition, who raised a number of concerns about the detail of the implementation of procedures for the barring of teachers. The amendments reflect the positive contributions made by all members of the Committee.
  For the benefit of hon. Members, I shall briefly outline the existing provisions for the barring of teachers from the profession. At present, the Secretary of State has the power to bar any individual from employment by a local education authority in a school. It is not restricted to teachers, but applies to classroom assistants, caretakers and youth workers—anyone with involvement in a school and contact with children attending it.
  In discharging those responsibilities, the Secretary of State must put the interests of children first, especially in child protection matters. That is why there is provision that anyone convicted of a sexual offence involving a child under 16 will automatically be barred from the teaching profession. All hon. Members would agree that that is wholly appropriate, but in cases that fall short of a criminal conviction, there is discretion about whether an individual should be barred as a teacher or from carrying out any capacity or responsibilities in a school.
  That discretion is currently exercised by the Secretary of State. The House of Lords, however, proposed that the power to bar for child protection reasons should be taken from the Secretary of State and handed over to the General Teaching Council. The Government have grave concerns and reservations about handing over such an important responsibility to the untried and untested General Teaching Council, which is why I shall invite hon. Members to reject the proposals from another place and agree to the amendments, under which child protection matters would remain the responsibility of the Secretary of State.
  In dealing with those matters, the Secretary of State considers representations made on behalf of individuals, who can submit written representations, testimonials, character references and, where necessary, medical and other reports. The aim of the Secretary of State, and of Ministers who have responsibility for deciding such cases, is to achieve an overall picture of the conduct of the individual. In arriving at a decision, we do not require proof beyond reasonable doubt, which is the normal test in a criminal case. We believe that, even though evidence may fall short of that, there will be situations in which an individual should be barred from a school and from working in it if the interests of children are to be put first. Ministerial decisions are made on that basis, and there is no right to appeal. An individual may apply for judicial review, however, if he believes that the Secretary of State has exercised his responsibility in a way which should be challenged.
  740
  In exercising those responsibilities, we have always put the interests of children first. Many hon. Members and parents will be concerned at the scale of the problem and the number of times annually that the Secretary of State has to consider whether an individual should be barred from taking part in classroom activities. In the 12 months to 31 March 1997, the Department dealt with no fewer than 458 misconduct cases: in 125, individuals were barred from a school and from taking part in activities, and 12 individuals had employment restrictions imposed on them. That clearly shows that we are not considering only isolated cases. Unfortunately, hundreds of cases a year—the majority concerning misconduct in relation to child protection matters—have to be dealt with by the Secretary of State.
  We believe that it is right and proper that that responsibility should remain with the Secretary of State. The Department maintains a list of people who are barred or restricted from teaching and from being involved in school-based activities, which we refer to as "List 99". Hon. Members will be surprised to learn that more than 2,100 people are on it at present. The majority have been barred from teaching or from classroom activities for child protection reasons, so the scale of the problem is considerable. The Government will not ignore it. Copies of "List 99" are issued to local education authorities, to further education college corporations and to other organisations representing employers in the education service. We are all responsible for ensuring that individuals on "List 99" are not involved in school-based activities.
  The Government have a responsibility to ensure that no one slips through the net. There are concerns, which were expressed in Committee, that a number of lists compiled for child protection purposes operate in various Departments. The Department for Education and Employment has "List 99", and separate lists operate in the Department of Health and the Home Office. I am pleased that the Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), announced last Thursday that we are to establish an interdepartmental group of officials to consider the additional safeguards that are necessary to prevent unsuitable people from working with children.
  The aim is to have a co-ordinated approach to ensure that we can establish a central register, which will be backed up by a new criminal offence, to prevent those on any register applying for work with children. I hope that the initiative will be welcomed by hon. Members.
  Mr. Phil Willis: Private schools, institutions and nurseries, where it is far more difficult to get control, were mentioned in Committee, but have not been addressed in the Bill. Can the Minister assure hon. Members that he will consider those organisations carefully, to ensure that we can offer the same protection to children in that sector as we do to children in the state sector?
  Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Individuals on "List 99" are also barred from teaching in independent schools. I am happy to give notice that if we discover an independent school employing an individual on "List 99", we shall take steps, not only in relation to the individual, but in relation to the school.

  741
  We have powers to serve a notice of complaint and to strike a school off the register of independent schools, and we have certainly exercised them since I have had responsibility for the matter. We have moved against individual independent schools that have not regarded child protection matters as being as important as they are and struck them off the register, which means that they can no longer act as independent schools. We shall exercise that power in any situation where we think that the interests of children are not being put first. That applies to the independent sector as well as to the maintained sector, for which we have responsibility as well.
  5.30 pm
  Although it is important that the General Teaching Council should be a single unified voice for the profession, it is the Government's view that it should not have responsibility for child protection matters. The House of Lords took a different view, but we believe that the public have a right to expect a coherent and rigorous system for barring people who are unsuitable to enter schools. It would have been wrong, misguided and dangerous to adopt the proposals from another place, which would have fragmented the child protection system by passing those responsibilities to the General Teaching Council.
  The General Teaching Council should have a more clearly defined role as regards regulation of the profession, however. Schedule 2 provides for the council to determine those cases that involve unacceptable professional conduct or serious professional incompetence, but reserves child protection matters for determination by the Secretary of State. More than half the cases that come before the Department concern child protection matters; they will remain the Department's responsibility. Many of the other cases have little or no child protection dimension and those will become the responsibility of the General Teaching Council. In a small number of cases where it may be difficult to define the classification, it will be for the Secretary of State to determine whether the issue involves matters of child protection: if it does, it will continue to be reserved to the Secretary of State.
  We shall place on employers a requirement to report to the General Teaching Council when they have dismissed someone on the ground of misconduct or incompetence, or when a person has resigned when he or she might have been so dismissed. Amendment No. 13 ensures that a teacher cannot tender his or her resignation in order not to be reported on the ground of incompetence or misconduct. That important safeguard closes a loophole that would otherwise exist.
  A teacher must always be entitled to put his or her side of a case at a hearing to determine whether he or she should be barred from the profession. The Bill at present requires that teachers will have legal representation before any hearing of the General Teaching Council. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) raised that issue in Committee. He was concerned that the provision was overly restrictive in terms of a friend's accompanying a teacher. The Government agree with that view. It would be inappropriate to restrict the provision solely to legal
  742
  representation. Amendment No. 17 makes it clear that a teacher can be accompanied by anybody of his or her choice, rather than someone from a legal background alone. That will be bad news to many Members of this House who are in the legal profession, but it is right and appropriate in these circumstances to widen the classification of those who can accompany an individual teacher.
  The General Teaching Council should be able to strike teachers off the register for serious professional incompetence as well as unacceptable professional conduct. That corresponds with the powers of most professional bodies, particularly the General Medical Council. Indeed, we have based many of the proposals before the House this evening on the GMC model.
  We intend that the General Teaching Council will be entitled to act only when a teacher has been dismissed on the ground of incompetence or has resigned to avoid such dismissal. The council will then consider the case and decide whether the incompetence demonstrated is so serious that it should be taken forward with a view to striking the teacher concerned off the register or placing conditions on his or her practice as a teacher. However, the new powers that we are giving the General Teaching Council will in no way cut across the new capability procedures now being adopted by local authorities and school governing bodies throughout the country. It will be for individual governing bodies to judge a teacher's competence or otherwise, and it will be the responsibility and right of a governing body to dismiss the teacher.
  Nothing in the powers that we intend to give the General Teaching Council will cut across that obligation and responsibility on a school governing body. We intend to ensure that, where that incompetence is so grave, the General Teaching Council should have the power to strike the teacher off the register so that he or she can teach in no other school.
  Schedule 2 sets out the range of sanctions that will be open to the General Teaching Council. Again, they reflect the powers made available to other professional bodies. The sanctions will be graded to respond to misconduct or incompetence of differing levels of severity. Schedule 2 would allow the General Teaching Council to issue a reprimand to attach conditions to a teacher's registration, to suspend registration for up to two years, or to strike a teacher off the register—the ultimate sanction. Those powers will provide the General Teaching Council with a full and substantial role in regulating the teaching profession. I believe that that approach will be welcomed by teachers and the wider public.
  People who are disciplined by the General Teaching Council should have a right of appeal, and the Government have been considering what arrangements should be put in place. We have now tabled amendment No. 28, which provides that individual teachers will be able to lodge an appeal with the High Court within 28 days of receiving notice of a disciplinary order. That reflects the arrangements that apply north of the border, where teachers may appeal to the Court of Session against a decision made by the General Teaching Council. I am advised that, since the GTC for Scotland was established in 1966, there have been only two appeals, so we envisage that the number of appeals will be small.
  We seek to close a further loophole by means of amendments that have been tabled this evening. Teachers may commit offences abroad. Where those would have

  743
  been considered offences in the UK, we want to ensure that they can also be considered. As the law stands, it does not allow us to do so. Amendments Nos. 15, 23, 30 and 31 will achieve that objective and close what could be a significant loophole. When the General Teaching Council investigates and hears disciplinary cases, it will need to have the power to assess all the necessary and relevant documentation, to require witnesses to attend, to give evidence and to administer oaths. That is in keeping with the powers of other professional bodies, and we intend to give such powers to the General Teaching Council. Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 do precisely that.
  In addition, the General Teaching Council will have the power to impose conditional registration orders on teachers found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct or serious professional incompetence. Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 make it clear that such an order might involve the teacher having to incur expenditure to comply with those requirements. For example, a teacher may need to undergo further training or be required to attend in-service training. In those circumstances, it is wholly appropriate for the individual to bear the costs.
  This is an important area. By means of the amendments that we are tabling this evening, and by reversing the defeat that the Government suffered in the House of Lords, this House will put the interests of children first. Where child protection matters are concerned, we must be eternally vigilant. By providing the Secretary of State with a continuing role in child protection matters, we shall be able to guarantee our children the security that they deserve. The amendments will do that, and I commend them to the House. I hope that, although the House may divide on other issues this evening, this raft of the Government's proposals will command support from members of all parties.
  Mrs. Theresa May: I thank the Minister for his kind words of welcome, but must say that, as a result of his well-known facility for figures, he has his numbers wrong again concerning the number of years that we Conservatives will be on the Opposition Benches.
  I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate from the Front Bench. I suppose that many hope that, when making their first such speech, they will be able to set the political world on fire by making a speech to which reference is made in hushed tones for generations to come.
  Mr. David Jamieson: Have a go, then.
  Mrs. May: Were it my intention to make such a speech, Government amendment No. 84 would not have been my chosen starting point.
  As the Minister made clear, the amendments raise several very important issues. I turn to the responsibility for child protection, and ensuring that those who are in charge of our children and young people in schools are entirely suitable. The Minister has set out why he believes it is important that the child protection regime should be maintained and that such powers should not go to the General Teaching Council. I fully appreciate that, given that the GTC is untried and untested, it would be risky to give it such powers and take them away from the Secretary of State.
  744
  The Minister spoke about putting the interests of children first, which, of course, is important. Given that responsibility for dismissing teachers on various grounds will be split between the GTC and the Secretary of State, we must ensure that arrangements work properly and fully and that there is no danger of any information or decisions falling between two stools. I note the interdepartmental group, although it is not clear whether it will consider ways of making certain that decisions on teachers will not fall between two stools, thus enabling teachers to continue teaching even though they are not suitable. I hope that the Minister will consider that issue to ensure that procedures are appropriate.
  Mr. Byers: Rather than spending time dealing with that specific point in my winding-up speech, I shall deal with it now. Decisions on the matter will be reserved to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will determine whether the GTC has responsibility for a matter, although if it is one of child protection, the Secretary of State will determine it. With the Secretary of State as the central authority, making the decision on allocation, the difficulties to which the hon. Lady refers should be overcome.
  Mrs. May: I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, which goes part way to resolving my concerns. I still wish to leave the issue on the table because there will always be suspicion when one body deals with instances concerning professional misconduct and health of teachers, and another deals with child protection issues. If the GTC is found to work well and is respected in the teaching profession, I hope that the Minister will not close his mind to the possibility of child protection issues being under its remit. Would it be necessary to introduce further legislation to enable that or, if everybody agreed that it were appropriate, would it be possible simply to pass the responsibility over under existing powers?
  In response to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), the Minister referred to the Secretary of State's responsibility in child protection matters for determining the suitability of teachers in independent schools. Will such responsibility also apply to people who look after children and young people in the out-of-school homework clubs that the Government are introducing? It is possible that all such people may not be members of the teaching profession. It is therefore necessary to ensure that the same rules, regulations and protection apply in such circumstances.
  5.45 pm
  Government amendment No. 13 would provide that information could be given to the Secretary of State or the GTC for England or for Wales in respect of dismissals for misconduct or incompetence, or on medical grounds, or where people resign in circumstances where
  "their employers would have dismissed them, or considered dismissing them, on any such grounds".
  I am concerned about circumstances in which an allegation is made against a teacher, a governing body considers whether it is appropriate to continue to employ that teacher, and the teacher takes early retirement or resigns due to concern about the case, even though the case would have been dismissed as entirely unreasonable

  745
  and the teacher would have been exonerated. In such circumstances, a person might want to return to work. As I understand the amendment, information about the initial consideration would be on record but, because the case had not been heard properly, its result would not. Will the Minister respond to questions concerning justice and fairness in that regard?
  I should like to raise a technical point about amendments Nos. 84 and 99; it concerns who can put their hands into teachers' pockets for GTC registration fees. I am sure that the Minister will say that he made it clear in Committee that the sums of money concerned are very small. I think that the sums quoted were £10 or £20. That may be so today, but a possible increase is not precluded.
  I am concerned about the Government's definition of employer, especially in relation to a debate in Committee on the School Standards and Framework Bill, with which the Minister will be familiar, about the relationship between local education authorities and education action zone forums. In an EAZ, teachers may, effectively, be employed by two bodies. Given the definition that the Minister is intending to insert into this Bill, it certainly seems to me that it is intended that the EAZ forum will also have the opportunity to be the body taking money out of teachers' pockets. I look to the Minister for confirmation. How will duplication be prevented when a teacher is employed by both bodies?
  As the Minister has said, several of the amendments are technical. The Government are proposing important changes in disciplinary procedures concerning the GTC. We shall tomorrow have a wider debate on what it is appropriate for the GTC to do. I accept that, as the Minister said, the House will be wary of a body, which is not tried and tested, dealing with the very important issue of child protection. If the aim is that the GTC should develop into a body that maintains professional standards in teaching, it may be necessary to consider giving it child protection powers. I hope that the Government will at least keep their minds open on that possibility and not simply dismiss it out of hand.
  Miss Anne Begg: I shall be brief, because there will be a wider debate on the powers of the General Teaching Council tomorrow. I may be unique in this House, in that I have served on a General Teaching Council. How can that be? I was an elected member of the General Teaching Council for Scotland—a post I had to give up, reluctantly, on my election to this place. In Scotland, the General Teaching Council—founded in 1966—works extremely well, although I must admit that a number of teachers in Scotland were against it at the time.
  I welcome the strengthening of powers to enable the General Teaching Council for England and for Wales to be able to strike a teacher off. I served on the investigation committee of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, which looked at any allegations to see if there was a case to answer. The committee had all the information in front of it, but took no evidence from the individual. The committee merely looked at whether there was a case to answer before passing it on to the disciplinary committee, the quasi-legal committee which took the case forward. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, only twice has the appeals mechanism to the Court of Session in Scotland been used in such cases.
  746
  It is right that the General Teaching Council should be able to strike teachers off. It sounds draconian, and it is something which one should not do lightly—that is the case in Scotland. Moves have been taken after a great deal of deliberation, but that has meant that there is confidence about the teaching profession in Scotland. The teachers themselves would not want any body other than the GTC to be taking those decisions.
  I wish to refer to the issue of an appellant being accompanied by someone other than a lawyer. In Scotland, someone from the teacher's trade union will often accompany the teacher, and there is no reason why a friend cannot come along. That makes things much easier for any teacher who is going through what is, for them, a stressful situation.
  I welcome the amendments, and tomorrow we will debate why it is so important to have the General Teaching Council for the good and well-being of the teaching profession in England and Wales.
  Mr. Byers: With the leave of the House, I shall reply to this useful debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) for sharing with hon. Members her personal experience of how a General Teaching Council works in practice. It is interesting to note that Scotland has had its General Teaching Council since 1966. If all goes well, we hope to establish one covering England and, probably, a separate one for Wales, by 2000. That is another example of where Scotland leads, England and Wales eventually follow.
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) raised a number of detailed points about the way in which we intend to develop the General Teaching Council, and I shall try to deal with them all. She referred to the important issue of ensuring that there is an individual with clear responsibility 'for dealing with child protection matters, and ensuring that, under shared responsibility, no individual can somehow slip through the net.
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead touched on a very important point—one which we have considered in some detail. We must ensure that the practical difficulties to which she referred do not apply to the Bill. That is why we have taken the view that the Secretary of State should determine whether the General Teaching Council or the Secretary of State should deal with the matters. The Secretary of State will not deal with a matter of conduct or competence, which will go to the General Teaching Council. The Secretary of State is likely to deal with purely child protection matters, and will take decisions in such cases.
  The interdepartmental group—which my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office announced last Thursday—is working across Departments, and not just within the Department for Education and Employment. The group recognises that, at the moment, a number of different Departments have responsibility for child protection matters and operate their own registers to bar people from working with children.
  Our concern is that a register in, for example, the Department of Health is not accessible by the Department for Education and Employment. Schools or FE colleges may be unaware of an individual registered for barring purposes by the Department of Health. We want to establish a central register so that no one slips through the net in terms of child protection. The interdepartmental

  747
  group has been set up specifically to establish such a central register. That will go a long way toward ensuring that we do not have the loopholes which apply at present.
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead asked whether the General Teaching Council might, in due course, take responsibility for child protection matters. As the Bill is at present worded, new primary legislation would be needed if the view was that the General Teaching Council should have responsibility for child protection matters. The matter would need to come back to the House. Some would say that that is disappointing, and that we should give more responsibility to the General Teaching Council.
  In child protection matters, we should be cautious. I am prepared to see how the General Teaching Council develops over time. If the view is that it would be appropriate to give the responsibilities to the General Teaching Council, the matter should come back to this House for a decision.
  To assist in the process, we intend to involve the General Teaching Council in child protection cases from its establishment. We would like the General Teaching Council to make recommendations to the Secretary of State on child protection issues so that it can be involved, consider matters and make recommendations. There is no guarantee that the Secretary of State will agree with the recommendations, but it is a way of involving the GTC.
  Over time—when the GTC becomes tried and tested—we may well be able to hand over responsibility for child protection matters to the General Teaching Council. If so, it is only right and proper—in the Government's view—that the matter should come back to this House to be dealt with by fresh primary legislation.
  In terms of out-of-school homework clubs and a range of activities out of traditional school hours—such as expanding summer schools or work before the normal school day starts—existing legislation and the Bill will cover those developments. The message is clear. There is no escape from proper scrutiny. The strict regime that we are proposing will apply to any activity that is school-based and involves children of school age—at no matter what time of day or night it takes place. That is right and proper.
  The sort of individuals about whom we are concerned will use any opportunity which may be available to them. If they can see a chink in the armour, they will exploit any loophole. Protection will be there for any school-based activity at any time of the day, and at weekends.
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead referred to amendment No. 13 and expressed concern at the way in which it is worded, as it simply talks about an individual who resigns being considered for dismissal. There was no alternative to that wording. If someone wanted to escape disciplinary proceedings by resigning, the matter would obviously never be determined. Striking the right balance was difficult, but it will be for the General Teaching Council to consider whether, in the circumstances, a person would have been dismissed. We felt it appropriate that, rather than allow someone to exploit the device of resigning before the matter is determined, the matter should go to the General Teaching Council or to the Secretary of State. We believe that the inclusion in the Bill of the words "considered dismissing" represents the way forward.
  748
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead is right that the Bill contains a wide definition of the employer. We want to cover all eventualities, as we are not sure how the school system will develop in the months and years ahead. Some of us have clear views on how it should develop—fingers crossed—but I am delighted that the definition in the Bill covers all eventualities.
  The amendments are important. I make no apology for giving them 45 minutes of debate, as they raise important matters that will affect hundreds of children every year—we should put those children's interests first. I hope that the House will agree to the amendments so that we can move on to the next group.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 15

  PROHIBITIONS OR RESTRICTIONS ON EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS IMPOSED BY SECRETARY OF STATE
  Amendments made: No. 12, in page 9, line 20, after 'incompetence', insert 'or on medical grounds,'.
  No. 13, in page 9, line 21, leave out
  'it is likely that they would have been so dismissed'
  and insert
  'their employers would have dismissed them, or considered dismissing them, on any such grounds'.
  No. 85, in page 9, leave out lines 23 and 24.—[Mr. Byers.]

Clause 19

  REQUIREMENT TO SERVE INDUCTION PERIOD
  6 pm
  Mr. Byers: I beg to move amendment No. 86, in page 11, line 17, at end insert—
  '(ca) precluding a relevant school, in such circumstances as may be prescribed, from being one at which an induction period may be served;'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments Nos. 87 to 93.
  Amendment No. 119, in page 12, leave out lines 5 to 10.
  Government amendments Nos. 94 and 95.
  Mr. Byers: The amendments deal with the new induction arrangements for newly qualified teachers before they enter the teaching profession. Many hon. Members will be aware of the old system in which a teacher had to serve a probationary period. That approach fell into disrepute because the necessary investment was not made available; the previous Government removed the requirement for teachers to serve a probationary period because it was taken for granted that teachers would sail through it.
  The Government take the view that an effective induction period should be put in place. The amendments would achieve three distinct objectives. First, they would enable the Government to ensure that no teachers serve an induction period in a school that is under special measures because it has been deemed to be failing. Secondly, they clarify the appeal arrangements that we intend to

  749
  introduce when teachers have not successfully completed their induction period. Thirdly, they fine-tune existing provisions in the Bill to ensure that the induction arrangements are consistent with best education and employment practice.
  On the first of those aims, amendment No. 86 would enable the Government to introduce regulations to ensure that an induction period is not served in a school that is subject to special measures. We take the view that, during the induction period, the individual teacher needs support and assistance, which should primarily come from the school. The prime responsibility of a school that has been found to be failing and is under special measures—there are nearly 500 such schools—must be to turn itself around and restore itself to good health so that it can offer the standards that we all want. In those circumstances, we believe that the school will not be able to give the necessary support and assistance to a student undergoing the induction year and that such schools should be precluded from offering an induction period.
  Amendment No. 87 would allow a local education authority to decide whether a teacher has achieved the necessary standards during the induction period. The LEA—if it is the appropriate body in the circumstances—may decide that the period has been successfully completed, or that the induction should be extended by a specified amount of time, or that the teacher has failed to complete the induction to its satisfaction.
  Amendments Nos. 88 and 92 enable regulations to be put in place so that the appropriate body can exercise functions in relation to the induction arrangements; in particular, they enable the appropriate bodies to make charges for carrying out those functions. We believe that LEAs are uniquely placed to carry out that important role. That is why we do not support amendment No. 119, which would remove that responsibility from a local education authority. The School Standards and Framework Bill gives a new duty to LEAs to promote high standards; we believe that involvement in the induction process is an important way in which LEAs can support our crusade to raise standards.
  Amendments Nos. 90 and 93 are designed to clarify the existing appeal provisions. Amendment No. 91 enables regulations to require the employer of a teacher at a maintained or non-maintained school either to secure the termination of the teacher's employment or to give that teacher other duties in the school during any appeal. Amendments Nos. 94 and 95 are technical; I do not want to delay the House by going through their requirements in detail.
  The amendments are significant and I commend them to the House. They improve the induction arrangements, clarify provision and ensure that additional responsibilities are not placed on failing schools. If amendment No. 119 is pressed, I ask the House to oppose it.
  Mrs. May: Given the time constraint, I shall speak to amendment No. 119 only briefly. In response to the debate on the previous group of amendments, the Minister referred to his expectations about the future of schools.
  750
  We know that his hopes for the structure of schools are different from those of the Secretary of State—that is reflected in the Bill, particularly in its references to local education authorities.
  Amendment No. 119 would remove clause 19(4), which prescribes that the appropriate body should mean the local education authority. We do not believe that the flexibility that is allowed is sufficient; we think that the Government should consider the matter—and perhaps even the role of the General Teaching Council—more widely. We shall debate the council tomorrow, but I believe that if it is to be the body that determines the professional status of teachers and whether the teachers it registers satisfy its high professional standards, it has a role to play in this matter. Appropriate bodies should not primarily be local education authorities, especially as, in the future that the Minister seems to prescribe, they will cease to exist.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments made: No. 87, in page 11, line 24, leave out from 'decide' to end of line 27 and insert 'whether a person—

  (i) has achieved those standards and has accordingly satisfactorily completed his induction period, or

  (ii) should have his induction period extended by such period as may be determined by the appropriate body, or

  (iii) has failed satisfactorily to complete his induction period;'.

  No. 88, in page 11, leave out lines 28 to 31.
  No. 89, in page 11, line 33, leave out
  'on the matter referred to in paragraph (f)(i)'
  and insert
  'as to whether a person has achieved the standards mentioned in paragraph (e)'.
  No. 90, in page 11, leave out lines 34 and 35.
  No. 91, in page 11, line 40, leave out from 'to' to end of line 42 and insert
  'secure—

  (i) the termination of that person's employment as a teacher, or

  (ii) that he only undertakes such teaching duties as may be determined in accordance with the regulations,

  in such circumstances following a decision that he has failed satisfactorily to complete his induction period as may be prescribed;'.
  No. 92, in page 11, line 42, at end insert—
  '(ka) authorising or requiring the appropriate body to exercise such other functions as may be prescribed (which may include functions with respect to the provision of assistance to schools or of training for teachers);
  (kb) authorising the appropriate body in such circumstances as may be prescribed to make such reasonable charges in connection with the exercise of its functions under the regulations as it may determine;'.
  No. 93, in page 12, line 4, at end insert—
  '(3A) Regulations under this section shall include provision conferring on a person aggrieved by a decision under subsection (2)(f) a right to appeal against the decision to one of the following, namely—

  (a) the Secretary of State, or

  (b) the Council or the General Teaching Council for Wales;

  751
  and any decision made on such an appeal shall be final.
  (3B) Regulations mde in pursuance of subsection (3A) may make provision for, or for the determination in accordance with the regulations of, such matters relating to such appeals as the Secretary of State considers necessary or expedient.'.
  No. 94, in page 12, line 19, at end insert—
  '(6A) Where, in accordance with a requirement imposed by virtue of subsection (2)(k)(ii), a teacher employed at a school maintained by a local education authority—

  (a) continues to be employed at the school, but,

  (b) is not undertaking his normal teaching duties there,

  any costs incurred by the local education authority in respect of the teacher's emoluments shall not be met from the school's budget share for any financial year except in so far as the authority have good reason for deducting those costs, or any part of those costs, from that share.
  Nothing in this subsection applies to a maintained school at any time when the school does not have a delegated budget.'.
  No. 95, in page 12, line 20, at end insert—
  '(aa) any reference to a school's budget share or to its not having a delegated budget has the same meaning as in Part II of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and'.
  No. 96, in page 12, leave out lines 21 to 23.
  No. 97, in page 12, line 25, leave out
  'subsection (12) of that section'
  and insert
  'section 218(12) of the Education Reform Act 1988'.—
  [Mr. Byers.]

Clause 20

  INSPECTION OF INSTITUTIONS TRAINING TEACHERS FOR SCHOOLS
  Mr. Don Foster: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 13, line 8, after 'appropriate', insert
  'following consultation with the relevant institutions on the contents of any such reports, oral and written'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 39, in page 13, line 10, at end insert—
  '(c) carry out an inspection at a relevant institution no more than once in a period of four years, unless at the request of a relevant institution.'.
  No. 5, in page 13, line 23, leave out from 'which' to 'under' in line 24 and insert
  'is relevant to the inspection'.
  Government amendment No. 98.
  Mr. Foster: I shall be brief, as time is limited. I must make clear that Liberal Democrat Members have no objection to the principle of inspection of initial teacher training provision by the Office for Standards in Education. Our three amendments enable us to raise some of our concerns about the practice of such inspections. Perhaps I should quickly declare an interest, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in that my wife is an initial teacher trainer, as I used to be, and in the past couple of years has spent many hundreds of hours preparing for and being involved in Ofsted inspections at her university.
  It is vital that inspections should not only provide information that helps to raise standards in teacher training, but that they should not place undue and
  752
  unnecessary burdens on the institutions, to the detriment of their work with students. To that end, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and Ofsted have already established, with various other bodies, a joint working party to develop a draft protocol for inspections. That protocol, with the various guidelines on procedures for inspections, is likely to be published in the summer and will cover many matters, including the minimum period of notice for inspections, advance publication of the inspection methodology and a complaints procedure.
  The House should be aware that the protocol will not be binding on Her Majesty's chief inspector, so we argue that it is important that some of the matters that are likely to be in the protocol are reflected in the Bill. That is why we have tabled the amendments, the first of which would ensure consultation with the relevant institutions before the final report was published. The report is crucial to the initial teacher training institutions since their quality grading—and hence their student allocations—are based on it. If the amendment is accepted it will ensure that there is, for example, an opportunity to correct factual errors and to ensure consistency between the oral feedback and the eventual report.
  Amendment No. 39 would limit the frequency of inspections to once every four years—even that would be more frequent than school inspections. The present frequency of inspections gives great cause for concern, not only for the initial teacher training institutions but for their partner schools, which also receive inspection visits to watch students on placement. In my wife's institution, for example, more than one third of the current year has been taken up by Ofsted inspections. Such a high frequency causes enormous difficulties and creates significant costs. Important though inspections are, they should not become a huge administrative and financial burden, causing institutions to feel that they are on a permanent treadmill, hence the suggestion of a once-in-four-years cycle.
  Amendment No. 5 would ensure that the records and documents inspected and copied by Ofsted are only those relevant to the inspection in question. Universities are right to be concerned that Ofsted should not have a completely free hand to rummage around wherever it pleases without the university even having the right to query HMI's consideration of what is relevant.
  Inspection is important if it helps to ensure that the standards of initial teacher training are raised; the amendments would help to do just that.
  Mr. Byers: In the brief time available I shall try to deal with the matters raised by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and speak to Government amendment No. 98, which would ensure that the independent inspectorate, Ofsted, had a right not merely to inspect teacher training, which is defined in clause 20, but to extend it to cover a teacher serving an induction period. It is not clear at present that Ofsted would have that power.
  I am fully aware of the concerns of the hon. Member for Bath about these matters. He is a one-man campaign to hold Ofsted accountable and Her Majesty's chief inspector individually responsible for the various actions of that body. However, I am not convinced that his amendments would achieve his objective. The Government's view is that the joint working group that has been established between Ofsted and the CVCP to

  753
  draw up a protocol to take forward these matters is the best way forward. Amendment No. 3 would add an extra, unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to the process for inspecting teacher training institutions.
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: The Government are introducing an eight-week period of notice before an inspection of English teacher training institutions. Do they intend to introduce a similar period of notice in Scotland? If not, can the Minister explain why not and state what period of notice will be given in Scotland?
  Mr. Byers: I am sure that, as a Scottish Member, the hon. Gentleman would not want an English Minister to decide those matters—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is a member of the Scottish National party and that is why I made that point. As a Scottish Member he will, no doubt, want to raise that matter with the Scottish Office, which has responsibility for it.
  The amendments are not appropriate and I ask the House to resist them.
  Mr. Don Foster: In the brief time available could the Minister at least give the House an absolute assurance that, once developed, the protocol will be expected to be observed by HMCI and the inspectors?
  6.15 pm
  Mr. Byers rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  It being one hour after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of the Bill, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [19 May] and the Resolution [this day], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.
  Amendment made: No. 98, in page 14, line 25, after '(b);' insert—
  '(ba) "in-service training" includes any training provided to a teacher serving an induction period (within the meaning of section 19 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998);'.—[Mr. Byers.]

Schedule 2

  DISCIPLINARY POWERS OF COUNCIL
  Amendments made: No. 14, in page 39, line 38, after 'for', insert 'and in connection with'.
  No. 15, in page 39, line 43, leave out 'in the United Kingdom'.
  No. 16, in page 39, line 47, leave out 'for'.
  No. 17, in page 40, line 7, leave out 'legally represented' and insert
  'represented, by any person whom he desires to represent him,'.
  No. 18, in page 40, line 10, at end insert'—
  754

  '(ca) empowering the Council to require persons to attend and give evidence or to produce documents or other material evidence;

  (cb) about the admissibility of evidence;

  (cc) enabling the Council to administer oaths;'.

  No. 19, in page 40, line 13, at end insert—
  '(2A) No person shall be required by virtue of the regulations to give any evidence or produce any document or other material evidence which he could not be compelled to give or produce in civil proceedings in any court in England and Wales.'.
  No. 20, in page 40, line 20, leave out '18' and insert '19'.
  No. 21, in page 40, line 20, at end insert—
  '(4) In framing any regulations under section 218(6) of that Act the Secretary of State may similarly take account of the functions conferred on the Council by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) (so far as not excluded or restricted by virtue of sub-paragraph (3)); and any such regulations may include provision with respect to the allocation of cases between the Secretary of State and the Council and the reference of cases by one of them to the other.'.
  No. 22, in page 40, line 22, after 'provision', insert
  'for and in connection with'.
  No. 23, in page 40, line 27, leave out 'in the United Kingdom'.
  No. 24, in page 40, line 31, at end insert
  ',and of his right to appeal against the order under paragraph 5A;
  (aa) as to the time when any such order takes effect, whether in a case where any such person exercises that right of appeal or otherwise;'.
  No. 25, in page 40, line 43, leave out 'relating' and insert 'relevant'.
  No. 26, in page 40, line 44, at end insert—
  '(1A) Without prejudice to the generality of sub-paragraph (1)—

  (a) the conditions which may be specified in a conditional registration order include conditions for requiring the person in question to take any specified steps that will, in the opinion of the Council, be conducive to his becoming a competent teacher; and

  (b) conditions may be so specified (whether for the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) or otherwise) that will involve expenditure on the part of that person.'.

  No. 27, in page 40, line 45, leave out 'so specified' and insert
  'specified in a conditional registration order'.
  No. 28, in page 41, line 20, at end insert—

  Appeals against disciplinary orders
  5A.—(1) Regulations shall make provision for conferring on a person aggrieved by a disciplinary order made in relation to him under this Schedule a right to appeal against the order to the High Court within 28 days from the date on which notice of the order is served on him.

  (2) On such an appeal the Court may make any order which appears appropriate.

  (3) No appeal shall lie from any decision of the Court on such an appeal.'.

  No. 29, in page 41, line 24, after 'provision' insert—

  '(a) for the Council, where a disciplinary order takes effect in relation to a person, to serve notice of the order on that person's employer;

  (b) requiring the employer of any such person to take in relation to that person such steps in consequence of the order (which may include his dismissal) as may be prescribed;

  755
  (c)'.
  No. 30, in page 41, line 41, after 'means', insert—
  '(a) in the case of a conviction in the United Kingdom,'.
  No. 31, in page 41, line 43, at end insert
  ',and
  (b) in the case of a conviction elsewhere, an offence which, if committed in England and Wales, would constitute such an offence as is mentioned in paragraph (a);'.
  No. 32, in page 41, line 44, leave out 'serious professional misconduct' and insert 'unacceptable professional conduct'.
  No. 33, in page 41, line 45, at end insert—
  '(2) Where regulations under paragraph 9(1)(b) of Schedule 1 require the Council to establish a committee for the purpose of discharging any of the functions conferred on them by virtue of this Schedule, references in this Schedule to the Council shall be construed, in relation to those functions, as references to that committee.'.—[Mr. Byers.]

New clause 5
  SUPPLY OF INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH STUDEN LOANS: SCOTLAND
  '.After section 73C of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 there shall be inserted the following section—
  SUPPLY OF INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH STUDEN LOANS: SCOTLAND

    Supply of information in connection with student loans
    73D.—(1) This section applies to any information which is held—

    (a) by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, or

    (b) by a person providing services to those Commissioners and in connection with the provision of those services.

    (2) Information to which this section applies may be supplied to—

    (a) the Secretary of State or the Department of Education for Northern Ireland,

    (b) any person or body acting on behalf of the Secretary of State or that department under the delegation of functions provisions, or

    (c) any person or body by whom any function of the Secretary of State or that department is for the time being exercisable to any extent by virtue of the transfer of functions provisions,

    for the purpose of enabling or assisting the recipient to exercise any function in connection with the operation of the student loans scheme.
    (3) Information supplied under subsection (2) above shall not be supplied by the recipient to any other person or body unless it is supplied—

    (a) to a person or body to whom it could have been supplied under that subsection, or

    (b) for the purposes of any civil or criminal proceedings arising out of the student loans scheme.

    (4) Subsections (2) and (3) above extend only to the supply of information by or under the authority of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
    (5) This section does not limit the circumstances in which information may be supplied apart from this section.
    (6) In this section—
    "the delegation of functions provisions" means section 73AA(3) of this Act or section (Transfer or delegation of functions relating to student support) (4) of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998;
    "the transfer of function provisions" means section 73AA(1) of this Act or section (Transfer or delegation
    756
    of functions relating to student support) (1) of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998;and
    "the student loans scheme" means the provisions of

    (i) regulations under section 73(f) of this Act with respect to loans; or

    (ii) regulations under section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 so far as having effect in relation to loans under that section,

    and in this subsection any reference to a provision of this Act includes a reference to any corresponding Northern Ireland legislation.".'.—[Dr. Howells.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Dr. Kim Howells): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 6—Transfer or delegation of functions relating to student support.
    Government new clause 8—Supply of information in connection with student loans.
    Government amendments Nos. 69, 71, 76, 65, 66, 70, 67 and 72.
    Amendment No. 111, in clause 22, page 17, line 38, at end insert—
    '(11A) A statutory instrument containing the first regulations under any provision of this section shall be laid in draft before, and shall be subject to approval by resolution of, each House of Parliament.
    (11B) A statutory instrument containing the second or subsequent regulations under any provision of this section which is made without a draft having been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.'.
    Amendment No. 100, in clause 27, page 21, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 42 on page 26.
    Government amendments Nos. 40 to 54.
    Amendment No. 114, in clause 35, page 33, leave out lines 30 to 34.
    Government amendments Nos. 75 and 68.
    Dr. Howells: I shall speak to all the Government new clauses and amendments, and I hope that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) will appreciate that. I also welcome the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) to her new position and, of course, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) to his greatly elevated position, as well as the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green).
    In Committee, I made it clear that the Government would table a number of amendments on Report designed to ensure that the new student support arrangements, in particular the new arrangements for repaying income-contingent loans, worked smoothly. Those amendments are contained within this group. Although there are many individual amendments, they deal with only a small number of substantive issues, so I hope that I shall not detain the House too long in discussing them.
    Essentially, the new clauses and amendments do five key things. They provide for the Inland Revenue to make available information to the Student Loans Company for the purpose of loan repayment. They will enable the Secretary of State to transfer or delegate his functions under the student support regulations to the bodies that

    757
    will administer the scheme, and will enable him to put in place appeals mechanisms in relation to any matters covered in the regulations. They also provide for the Secretary of State to determine, through regulations, the priority that loan repayments should take in relation to other deductions by employers. Finally, they will give the Secretary of State the power to impose penalties on those who fail to comply with the requirements of the new loan repayment regime. The group also contains a number of technical and consequential drafting amendments.
    Mr. Willis: One of the major issues in Committee was whether regulations would be available for students when they took our their loans at the beginning of the new university session this year. We were "promised" that amendments would be tabled to guarantee that regulations would be in place, but I have received a copy of a letter sent to the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), which clearly states that the regulations will not be in place. Is the Minister saying that students will be able to take out loans this year, but will have to sign a legally binding document for which the regulations will not be in place?
    Dr. Howells: The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) knows that I have written to the hon. Member for Havant, and I have had a copy of the letter sent to him. I felt it important that he knew that we did not think that the regulations would be drawn up in total. I did not want regulations that were partial or that tried to patch together the whole matrix of regulations that will govern the procedure. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that we will produce a watertight description of what signing for a loan means, what will be delivered and what will be meant by repayment. That will be of infinitely more value to students and their families than the sort of regulations that, as I said in Committee, are rarely read anyway. I give the undertaking that there will be a document for all students and their families to read, which will indicate exactly what they are entering into by signing the contract for income-contingent loans.
    New clause 5, for Scotland, and new clause 8, for England and Wales, provide for the Inland Revenue to disclose information to the Secretaries of State for Education and Employment and for Scotland, to the Department of Education for Northern Ireland and, by extension, to bodies to which functions are transferred or delegated under the Bill. In practice, that will allow the Revenue to disclose information to the Student Loans Company, to which the Secretary of State's functions in relation to loan repayment will be delegated. For example, the Revenue will be able to provide details of repayments made via employers to enable the Student Loans Company to update borrowers' accounts.
    The amendments are necessary to allow the Inland Revenue's legal duty of confidentiality to the taxpayer to be set aside in the specific case of information required for the collection of loan repayments. Without it, it would be impossible to collect repayments through the tax system. I hasten to add that the normal requirements of the Data Protection Acts will continue to apply in respect of any information that is disclosed under these provisions. There is no question of general details of a borrower's tax affairs being disclosed, but merely information that is relevant to loan repayment. We will
    758
    make it clear to students before they take out their loans that the information that they provide on their application forms may be passed to the Revenue for the purposes of collecting repayments. There is no need for specific provision in legislation for that purpose.
    New clause 6 and, for Scotland, amendment No. 41 clarify the Secretary of State's powers to transfer and delegate the powers given to him in respect of student support, replacing and improving on provisions already in the Bill.
    Right hon. and hon. Members will note that the Bill makes provision for the Secretary of State alone to make grants or loans to students. That is different from current student support legislation, which gives the Secretary of State powers to make arrangements for making and collecting loans, and which, in England and Wales, places duties on local education authorities in respect of mandatory and discretionary awards. A variety of bodies will be involved in administration of the new loans scheme, including LEAs, higher education institutions, the Student Loans Company and the Inland Revenue. New clause 6 and amendment No. 41 accordingly provide for those bodies to exercise powers instead of, or on behalf of, the Secretary of State. Amendment No. 41 differs from new clause 6 in that it does not specifically mention LEAs, which are not involved in administration of student support in Scotland.
    The new provisions allow functions to be transferred to LEAs and higher education institutions which, as independent bodies, already have distinct responsibilities for administering aspects of the existing awards and loans schemes. Functions will not be transferred to other bodies, but will be delegated. The Secretary of State will retain overall responsibility, and will be subject to judicial review. We believe that that is more appropriate in the case of bodies such as the Student Loans Company, which is wholly owned by the two Secretaries of State, or the Inland Revenue, which will collect loan repayments on the Secretary of State's behalf.
    The new provisions also enable the Secretary of State to establish an appeals procedure in respect of functions that are transferred or delegated. We are considering the details of the appeals mechanism, but I am happy to give an undertaking that a right of appeal will be put in place in relation to collection of student loans.
    Part of amendment No. 69 and, for Scotland, amendment No. 50 relates to appeals. The amendments will enable the Secretaries of State to put in place appeals mechanisms where functions have not been transferred or delegated, but have been imposed by regulation, as in the case in which they are undertaken by employers. I hope that hon. Members will agree that the provisions offer borrowers full protection against potential maladministration of the scheme.
    New clause 6 and amendment No. 41 also provide for the Secretary of State to make payments to bodies to which functions are transferred or delegated, or which are appointed to hear appeals. The payments can be toward the cost of making grants or loans, or as payment for administering the scheme.
    Amendments Nos. 69 and 70, and, for Scotland, amendment No. 48, allow for a relationship to be established between the Bill's student support provisions and other legislation that governs deductions from income. They will allow other legislation to be amended

    759
    accordingly. The amendments are necessary to take into account the fact that students and graduates may be subject to other deductions from their income. A court may, for example, impose an attachment of earnings order for unpaid council taxes or fines. There is also a limit to the amount that employers may deduct from an employee's income—the protected earnings rate, which is designed to ensure that the employee is left with enough to live on. Where total deductions payable exceed the limit, it is obviously necessary to determine which deductions should take priority. Amendments Nos. 70 and 48 enable provision to be made in regulations for determining the priority of student loan repayments and other amounts due from the borrower.
    Hon. Members will note that the Bill will enable provisions to be made in regulations for student loan repayments to be deducted at source through the tax system, as the Dearing committee recommended. That will have an impact on other legislation governing deductions from income where that legislation defines how the deductions are to be calculated. Amendments Nos. 69 and 48 would permit other legislation to be amended through regulations to take account of the impact of loan repayments. The amendments would also allow income from student loans or grants to be taken into account or disregarded when calculating a person's total income for the purpose of some other deductions.
    Amendment No. 65 and. for Scotland, amendment No. 45, ensure that provisions can be made for the imposition of penalties on borrowers or persons required to make deductions from borrowers' pay in the event of default. The amendments provide for the imposition of interest and penalties on borrowers who fail to make repayments that are due, or to provide information when required to do so. They also provide the means to impose penalties on those charged with making deductions from the borrower's salary when the borrower wilfully or negligently fails to carry out that obligation. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that we should have the power to recover public money that would be lost as a result of wilful default.
    The provisions will have no effect, of course, on those who meet their obligations. The precise penalties that apply will be set out in regulations. We envisage that they will not exceed those that apply to non-payment of income tax or national insurance contributions. For employers, that might mean the imposition of a penalty if they fail to make deductions from the borrower's salary or transmit payments to the Inland Revenue, although that would apply only when the failure was due to fraud or negligence. For borrowers, interest would he charged on any outstanding repayments, and in the event of persistent default, further surcharges might be applied, on which interest would also be charged. I stress that the charging of interest is not intended to be punitive, but is necessary to cover losses of public funds. Similarly, penalties are intended to be no higher than is necessary to discourage wilful or negligent default such as I have described.
    Amendment No. 51 is technical, and relates only to the Scottish provisions. It will enable the regulations governing the student loan scheme in Scotland to deal appropriately with borrowers who are declared bankrupt or sequestrated. Individuals who have been declared bankrupt have always been eligible to receive student loans, to enable them to undertake courses of higher education which might—we hope—improve their prospects.
    760
    Arrangements are in place to ensure that any loan payment for maintenance received during the period of such courses cannot be claimed by creditors. Amendment No. 51 will ensure that that situation can continue in Scotland. Parallel provisions are not needed for the English clauses, which are already sufficiently widely drawn.
    6.30 pm
    Amendment No. 68 extends the scope of certain provisions of the student support clauses for Northern Ireland. That is necessary to ensure that the scheme can operate effectively on a United Kingdom basis. For example, if an English student takes out a loan and goes on to work in Northern Ireland, we shall need to be able to impose duties on his or her employer in relation to loan repayment. Separate provisions with the same effect in relation to Scotland are contained in amendment No. 61.
    Amendments Nos. 40, 42 to 44, 46, 47, 49, 52 to 54, 66, 67, 71 to 73, 75 and 76 are either purely technical or consequential to the changes that I have described, and I commend them to the House.
    Mr. Damian Green: I thank the Minister for his nearly gracious welcome to the Dispatch Box, and I assure him that, as a fellow Welshman, I not only know his constituency, but can pronounce it, which may put me at an advantage over some hon. Members. It was kind of him to give us a full description of the various new clauses and amendments. I will be briefer, because I know that this is very much the hors d'oeuvres to the main course to be served this evening. I am sure that he will be as pleased as I am to see how many of his colleagues appear to wish to speak in that later debate. In this and in future appearances at the Dispatch Box, I will be as constructive and helpful as the Government deserve in every case.
    In that spirit, I must question the Government's competence in having to make so many changes to the Bill. From the outset, the motto for their policy has been, "React in haste and legislate in panic". In this relatively small part of the Bill, they have tabled three new clauses and 14 amendments, which does not suggest a finely crafted piece of legislation.
    The essential purpose of amendments Nos. 111 and 114 is to allow the House a significant say in the future organisation of the loan system. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the loans will be an extremely important part of life for many millions of families over the years, and that to have all the powers relating to their organisation delegated to the Secretary of State, with only minimal parliamentary scrutiny, is wrong both for those who will receive the loans and for the respect in which one would hope that the Government hold the House.
    Too much of the Bill, and especially this part, is skeletal—that word was used a lot in Committee—and too much power has been left in the Secretary of State's hands. The purpose of the regulations appears to be to allow maximum flexibility for the Secretary of State and minimum flexibility for those in charge of higher education and student loans. That is exactly the wrong way round and the Government should rapidly reverse the policy. The debate in Committee reverberated with that worry.

    761
    I assure those who toiled in the vineyard of the Standing Committee that, although they may have thought that they were talking only to each other, they have had at least one extremely avid reader of every word that they said, so their labours were not in vain. I am delighted to say that I am up to speed with all the great thoughts expressed by members of the Committee from all parties in what appear, from the Hansard report, to have been some quite long sittings in which, although wisdom was dispensed, it was not necessarily received.
    The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) referred to the letter that the Minister sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), which may symbolise why it is so important to make amendments Nos. 111 and 114. The Minister said that he would try to make the regulations available for scrutiny in time, and he has simply failed to do so.
    The letter says:
    "instead of draft (or partial) regulations we should produce a detailed guide to the repayment terms for students which will be published in the summer."
    It will be impossible for that detailed guide to be accurate and full, simply because the regulations will not be available. The letter continues:
    "the regulations will need to be laid … probably in early 1999—in order to allow employers sufficient time to make whatever arrangements they need to implement collection."
    If the regulations are not laid until early 1999—they have been significantly delayed once already—students and their families will not know this autumn what regulations will be in place to organise their loans, and could be left in uncertainty for some months. That extra uncertainty may discourage students from taking out loans or, even worse, from taking up places and contributes, in its own small way, to the damaging effects of other parts of the Bill.
    Our essential purpose is that priority should be given to Parliament and not to the Secretary of State. Why are Departments to be excluded by amendment No. 71 from the obligations on employers? I may be unduly cynical, but when I see that impositions are to be placed on non-public bodies, but that Departments are to be excused those obligations, my eyebrows go up and I suspect that the convenience of Whitehall is coming before that of the citizens of this country. I hope that the Minister can reassure me on that point.
    What will be covered by the word "emoluments" in amendment No. 76 that would not be covered by "remuneration"? It is important at this stage to clear up as much as possible of the uncertainty that students and their families will face.
    The Minister has said a couple of things that I also found slightly disturbing. First, he talked about a protected earnings rate being retained. Visions of the Child Support Agency appeared before me. One hopes that, with all the uncertainty that we have had in setting up the regulations, the House will not, in two or three years' time, be reverberating to debates about constituents complaining bitterly that student loan organisations do not understand what sort of protected earnings rate they need. The proposal seems similar to the provision for the agency. I hope for the sake of all concerned that we are not setting up the same sort of organisational mess as arose with the agency.
    762
    Secondly, I am disturbed that details of the penalties, particularly those that will be imposed on employers, are to be left to some later date. Again, the various Government amendments and new clauses seem to suggest throughout that it will be the employer who will be in the frame, rather than the Government or even the individual who may be defaulting on the loan.
    This is a wide-ranging set of powers. It is wrong for all the powers to be exercised by the Secretary of State without sufficient scrutiny by Parliament. I hope that the Government will accept our amendments because they do not in any way alter the main purpose of this part of the Bill. They will give the House the proper scrutiny that it will need over the years to ensure that these arrangements are made satisfactorily and fairly, in the interests of all those who will be concerned with student loans.
    Mr. Welsh: I say to the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), the official Opposition spokesperson, that the hors d'oeuvres are just as unpalatable as the main course. The Government amendments simply clear up the debris covering the Government's mistaken policy. Attention has been deliberately focused on the introduction of unfair tuition fees, but the real deterrent to university students and to their families is student loans. Future generations of young people and their families will find themselves saddled with considerable debts on loans, as well as on tuition fees, and all that will have been placed on them by Ministers who benefited from the grant system. They should be ashamed of themselves for the way in which they are acting.
    Worse still, as the Government sell off the debt loans book to private hands, income from repayments will disappear into those private hands as profit. None of it will return to replenish or to improve the higher education system. It is bad enough that tuition fees will be paid and then disappear out of the university system, but that will be compounded by the Government's short-term policy of student loan privatisation.
    The Scottish National party has consistently opposed both the privatisation of student loans and the student loans system. The amendments simply tinker with the detail of collection, while the glaring unfairness of the Government's failure to fund the university system properly will mean that the situation will worsen for universities as they deal with their student populations.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the SNP make it clear that it will sort out this horrible mess in the Scottish Parliament?
    Mr. Welsh: That is a very good point, which I shall come to later. A fundamental change in policy is required to sort this mess out.
    Ms Margaret Hodge: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Welsh: No. Time is short.
    I therefore support amendment No. 100, which would remove the Scottish provisions. This matter should be dealt with by the new Scottish Parliament, not imposed by this Parliament. The Minister has recognised that the Scottish system is distinct. In less than a year, that Scots Parliament will be in charge of Scottish education. There is no reason why it should not also deal with this matter.

    763
    It is bad enough that legitimate Scottish questions are ducked by an English Minister when a Scottish Office Minister, the Minister for Education and Industry, is sitting next to him, as happened in a previous debate. It is worse when this Parliament does not allow the Scottish Parliament to undertake what are legitimate devolved matters. This matter should be dealt with by that new Parliament. It should not suffer diktat by this organisation.
    Dr. Howells: There are many questions to answer in two minutes.
    I understand that the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Welsh) envisages an SNP-controlled regime in future. He has said:
    "We will make good, as far as we can within the limit of resources given".—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 20 May 1998;c. 22.]
    I have heard that one before somewhere.
    The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) asked me to explain the difference between emoluments and remuneration. I was tempted to say cars, but I think it is a broader definition, which encompasses benefit in kind, in Whitehall-speak; I hope that he will accept that as an answer. I tried to deal with the points that he raised about regulations as honestly as I could in my answer to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who has properly pressed us on this matter on several occasions, and in my letter to the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts).
    6.45 pm
    It being one hour and thirty minutes after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of the Bill, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [19 May] and the Resolution [this day], put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

  New clause 6

    TRANSFER OR DELEGATION OF FUNCTIONS RELATING TO STUDENT SUPPORT
    '.—(1) If the Secretary of State so determines, any function exercisable by him by virtue of regulations under section 22 shall, to such extent as is specified in his determination, be exercisable instead by such body as is so specified which is either—

    (a) a local education authority for the purposes of the Education Act 1996, or

    (b) the governing body of an institution at which eligible students (within the meaning of such regulations) are attending courses.

    (2) A body by whom any function is for the time being exercisable by virtue of subsection (1) shall comply with any directions given by the Secretary of State as to the exercise of that function.
    (3) Where any function is so exercisable by a local education authority, the function shall be taken to be a function of that authority for the purposes of—

    (a) section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972 (arrangements for discharge of functions by local authorities),and

    764

    (b) section 70 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (contracting out of functions of local authorities).

    (4) The Secretary of State may make arrangements for any person or body specified in the arrangements to exercise on his behalf, to such extent as is so specified, any function exercisable by him by virtue of regulations under section 22 (including any such function in relation to appeals).
    (5) Any arrangements made under subsection (4) shall not prevent the Secretary of State from exercising the function in question himself.
    (6) The Secretary of State may make provision for enabling appeals—

    (a) to be made with respect to such matters arising out of the exercise by any person or body of any function by virtue of subsection (1) or (4) as he may determine, and

    (b) to be so made to a person or body appointed by him for the purpose.

    (7) The Secretary of State may pay to any body or person by whom any function is exercisable by virtue of subsection (1) or (4)—

    (a) such amounts as he considers appropriate for the purpose of meeting expenditure incurred or to be incurred by that body or person—

    (i) in making grants or loans under section 22, or

    (ii) by way of administrative expenses,

    in, or in connection with, the exercise of that function;

    (b) in a case where the function is exercisable by virtue of subsection (4), such remuneration as he may determine.

    (8) Any payment under subsection (7)(a) may be made subject to such terms and conditions as the Secretary of State may determine; and any such conditions may in particular—

    (a) require the provision of returns or other information before any such payment is made;

    (b) relate to the use of the amount paid or require the repayment in specified circumstances of all or part of the amount paid.

    (9) The Secretary of State may pay to any person or body appointed by him under subsection (6) such remuneration or administrative expenses (or both) as he may determine.
    (10) In relation to any function which, by virtue of subsection (1) or (4), is exercisable to a specified extent, references in any other provision of this section to the exercise of that function are accordingly to its exercise to that extent.'.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
    Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

  New clause 8

    SUPPLY OF INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH STUDENT LOANS
    '.—(1) This section applies to any information which is held—

    (a) by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, or

    (b) by a person providing services to those Commissioners and in connection with the provision of those services.

    (2) Information to which this section applies may be supplied to—

    (a) the Secretary of State or the Department of Education for Northern Ireland,

    (b) any person or body acting on behalf of the Secretary of State or that Department under the delegation of functions provisions, or

    (c) any authority or governing body by whom any function of the Secretary of State or that Department is for the time being exercisable to any extent by virtue of the transfer of functions provisions,

    for the purpose of enabling or assisting the recipient to exercise any function in connection with the operation of the student loans scheme.
    (3) Information supplied under subsection (2) shall not be supplied by the recipient to any other person or body unless it is supplied—

    (a) to a person or body to whom it could be supplied under that subsection, or

    (b) for the purposes of any civil or criminal proceedings arising out of the student loans scheme.

    (4) Subsections (2) and (3) extend only to the supply of information by or under the authority of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
    (5) This section does not limit the circumstances in which information may be supplied apart from this section.
    (6) In this section—

    (a) "the delegation of functions provisions" means section (Transfer or delegation of functions relating to student support) (4) of this Act or section 73AA(3) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980;

    (b) "the transfer of functions provisions" means section (Transfer or delegation of functions relating to student support) (1) of this Act or section 73AA(1) of that Act; and

    (c) "the student loans scheme" means the provisions of—

    (i) regulations under section 22 of this Act so far as having effect in relation to loans under that section, or

    (ii) regulations under section 73(f) of that Act made with respect to loans;

    and in this subsection any reference to a provision of this Act includes a reference to any corresponding Northern Ireland legislation.'.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
    Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

  Clause 22

    NEW ARRANGEMENTS FOR GIVING FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO STUDENTS
    Mr. David Willetts: I beg to move amendment No. 102, in page 15, line 12, at end insert—
    '(1A) No regulations may be made under this section if their effect would be to disadvantage students by reason of their residence in one part of the United Kingdom as opposed to their residence in any other part.'.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 2, in page 15, line 45, at end insert—
    '(2A) Regulations under this section shall provide that, for an eligible student who attends a higher education institution in Scotland and whose parental home or normal place of residence for purposes other than attendance at that institution is in England or Wales, the payment of grant in respect of fees shall be made on the same basis as for a student whose parental home or normal place of residence is in Scotland.'.
    Amendment No. 8, in page 17, line 12, at end insert—
    '(5A) Regulations under this section shall make provision for the payment of grant in respect of tuition fees for the fourth or any subsequent year of study at any higher education institution in the United Kingdom to a student whose parental home or normal place of residence for purposes other than attendance at the institution is in any part of the United Kingdom.'.
    Amendment No. 9, in clause 28, page 26, line 42, at end insert—
    '(3H) In exercising his powers under this section, the Secretary of State shall ensure that fees in respect of tuition for the fourth
    766
    or subsequent year of any course of higher education at a publicly-funded institution in Scotland shall only be payable by the student concerned where a grant in the same amount has been made available for that purpose to that student.
    (3I) In subsection (3H) "the student concerned" means any student at a publicly-funded institution of higher education in Scotland whose normal place of residence for purposes other than attendance at that institution is in any part of the European Union.'.
    New clause 1—Commencement of sections 27 and 28—
    '.—Sections 27 and 28 shall come into force when ratified by a resolution of the Scottish Parliament.'.
    New clause 3—Treatment of students regarding tuition fees—
    'Under any regulations of this enactment relating to tuition fees, students normally resident in the United Kingdom who are doing the same course at the same college or university shall be treated on the same basis, irrespective of their country of residence within the United Kingdom.'.
    Amendment No. 1, in clause 39, page 34, line 31, leave out '28' and insert '26'.
    Mr. Willetts: I thank Ministers for their kind welcome to my new Front-Bench colleagues: my hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and for Ashford (Mr. Green). I thank Ministers for their best wishes after our reshuffle. I hope now that they can get on with their reshuffle, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer removes his objections, and that they are suitably rewarded when it comes.
    The central statement in amendment No. 102 is simple. Things have come to a pretty pass when that simple statement—that students from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be disadvantaged, when it comes to access to a university within the United Kingdom, because of where they happen to have been born or to be living—has become the subject of controversy in the House.
    We have reached an absurd position. The Government are going to try to whip people through the Division Lobby in defence of the proposition that there should be disadvantages for students dependent on which part of the United Kingdom they happen to be residing in. I am encouraged that that essential point is conveyed not just in our amendment, but in the other amendments, which have been tabled by the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party, and, indeed, by some Labour Members as well.
    All we are talking about is one nation. The Prime Minister has tried rather cheekily to use the language of one nation. If one nation means anything, it means that access to higher education in this United Kingdom should not depend on one's place of birth—
    The Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office (Mr. Brian Wilson): Does the hon. Gentleman believe that a student living somewhere else in the UK who chooses to do a four-year degree course in Scotland is conferring on him or herself an advantage or a disadvantage?
    Mr. Willetts: It is an advantage both for the student in question and for the Scottish university. Scottish universities want their flow of students from outside Scotland.

    767
    We would not give our amendment priority over amendments and new clauses tabled by other parties with the same objective. If, within the procedures set down for these debates, we could have a vote on new clause 3, we would be much happier; but as new clause 3 comes much later, the danger is, given the time restriction, that we would end up unable to vote on this measure at all.
    Mr. Jamieson indicated dissent.'
    Mr. Willetts: I assure the Whip that that is the procedural position, and it is why we will press our amendment to a vote, in the hope that other Members who believe in the principles of one nation and non-discrimination will support us in the Lobby.
    Someone from England, Wales or Northern Ireland—especially Northern Ireland, which lacks enough universities, and which sends many students to Scotland—will, absurdly, have to pay £4,000 in tuition fees to follow a four-year course in a Scottish university, whereas a Scottish student will have to pay only £3,000.
    Ministers have managed to upset many English students who had hoped to go to Scotland for a four-year course. They have also managed to irritate and insult many people in Scottish universities who value this inflow of students. They have added insult to injury by claiming that the four-year Scottish course is merely the equivalent of the second year of English A-levels plus a normal three-year English degree course. That is not how many people in higher education in Scotland regard such courses; nor is it how English, Welsh and Northern Irish students who go to Scotland having completed their A-levels regard Scottish courses.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Some students from St. Andrews with whom I have just held discussions make the astonishing claim that students from France, Italy or Germany will be exempt from the additional £1,000 fee. Surely that cannot be true. Are the Government saying that a migrant worker from Italy living in London will be exempt, while someone from Southend will have to pay? Can my hon. Friend think of anything more ridiculous or insulting?
    Mr. Willetts: My hon. Friend is quite right—that is the next absurdity. The Government have angered English, Welsh and Northern Irish students, and insulted the people running Scottish universities—
    Dr. Howells: Seething.
    Mr. Willetts: I have held meetings with students who have come down here from the Scottish universities, and they are indeed seething. That is why they have come to the House to protest.
    Dr. Howells: In that case, will the hon. Gentleman tell me why applications to Scottish universities from Welsh students are up this year?
    Mr. Willetts: The Minister will know that there has been a significant increase in applications for three-year courses. With this ill-thought-out measure, he is distorting
    768
    the pattern of higher education in Scotland by forcing students to begin with the second year of a course instead of starting at its natural commencement.
    Dr. Howells: The hon. Gentleman seems to forget that there is a reason: in Scotland, pupils do one year of A-levels; in Wales, England and Northern Ireland, they do two years. They are thus equipped to go into the second year of a Scottish degree course.
    Mr. Willetts: I must warn the Minister against proceeding too far down that line of argument. Nothing irritates Scottish universities more than being told that the first year of an integrated four-year course is simply a repeat of the second year of an English A-level course. That is not how they regard it, nor is it how the vast majority of students from outside Scotland who go to Scottish universities regard it.
    Caroline Flint: If that is so, why are Scottish universities allowing students from England into the second year of degree courses?
    Mr. Willetts: The reason is that they face a serious problem. Because of the Government's actions, applications are increasingly for places to begin with the second year—instead of what students would prefer, which would be a full four-year course.
    Mr. Wilson: Will the Minister do the House a service by telling us which Administration provided for students with A-levels from England and the rest of the UK to enter Scottish universities in the second year—Tory or Labour?
    Mr. Willetts: That is not the point. It is clearly the preference of a majority of students from England with English A-levels to go to Scotland for a four-year integrated degree course. That is a coherent and sensible option, now liable to a £1,000 penalty.
    The only people laughing—this is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor)—are the students from the rest of the European Union, who will enjoy the same regime as Scottish students. As was said in Committee, someone from Umbria will pay £3,000, but someone from Northumbria will pay £4,000. Not only will English students be disadvantaged compared with their Scottish counterparts: they will be disadvantaged compared with students from France, Germany, Italy and the rest of the EU.
    This point was put to the Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson)—incidentally, I should remind him that he is the Minister, not me. In answer to it, he said, "Because France is in the EU." If France is to have special treatment, what about England? Are not England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the EU as well? If the Minister carries on using this argument, he will find himself before the European Court of Justice having to explain why he is operating two different regimes.
    Mr. Wilson: Does the shadow Minister genuinely not understand the fact that the different education systems that prevail in the UK are a matter for the Administration

    769
    of the UK, whereas students from EU countries studying in the United Kingdom have parity with the arrangements in any specific part of the UK? I should have thought that a man with two brains could grasp that.
    Mr. Willetts: It is indeed a matter for the Government of the UK; all we ask is that that Government take a view about the whole of the UK. One reason for this mess is that the Scottish Office Minister may not have taken the DFEE Under-Secretary fully into his confidence when he was planning this little manoeuvre, which he suddenly launched on an amazed world—some time after the Government decided their policy on Dearing. So the Scottish Minister has made life very embarrassing for his colleagues in the DFEE, who have found themselves having to explain why they are unwilling to give English and other UK students the treatment being offered to Scottish students in Scotland. All we plead for is a United Kingdom approach.
    It is no accident that the Government have got themselves into a mess on the Scottish question—the so-called Scottish anomaly. They have been getting themselves into a mess on aspect after aspect of the proposals on higher education, and have got into a series of muddles and improvisations.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I do not want to be a pest, but I want to put a straight question to the Government and stop the Minister laughing, because something filthy and foul is being done. Why the blazes should we have a special rule applying to French and Germans, but not to Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Australians or New Zealanders? That is not a question at which the Minister should laugh; he is doing something filthy and foul to Scottish universities, and he should be ashamed of himself.
    7 pm
    Mr. Willetts: Of course, we will not have heard the end of it tonight. Those who live by the European Court of Justice will die by the European Court of Justice: the Minister may come to regret the Government's attempt to impose a regime that discriminates against one part of the United Kingdom.
    My point is that this is only one in a catalogue of disasters which began the day—23 July 1997—that the Government published the Dearing report and, on the same day, tore it up. It was when the Government failed to implement Dearing that they got themselves into the muddles on higher education policy that have bedevilled them ever since.
    The Dearing committee was set up on a bipartisan basis—although we set it up when in government, we consulted the then Labour Opposition before doing so—and its report is the only serious game in town when it comes to the future of higher education in this country; it is a serious piece of work that sets out a way forward for higher education.
    The Dearing committee had to be set up because we recognised that the time had come to take a serious look at the future financing of higher education. British universities had delivered heroic improvements in efficiency, so as to deliver a significant increase in
    770
    participation in higher education by British young people, while at the same time bringing down the cost of educating each individual student. The Dearing committee was set up to identify a way forward, and the way forward it identified was very clear.
    First, the committee decided that the maintenance grant should stay. I think that the members of the committee probably began their deliberations expecting to conclude that the maintenance grant should go, but, after they had taken evidence and deliberated, it became clear to them that the case for the maintenance grant was overwhelming. They did not want to abolish the maintenance grant and end up with students from a modest-income background finding themselves, say, £10,000 in debt—far more than students from more affluent backgrounds.
    It is impossible to defend the abolition of the maintenance grant and increased debt for students from low-income families, while simultaneously talking about a belief in wider access. Abolishing the maintenance grant and imposing greater debt on students from low-income backgrounds is incompatible with any serious commitment to widening access. The Dearing committee decided in favour of keeping the maintenance grant, and it was right to do so.
    The committee also looked at tuition fees, and concluded in favour of a £1,000 tuition fee for each student. As we are consistent in our support for Dearing, we recognise that, if Dearing recommends tuition fees, the case for tuition fees is one that we must accept. However, the basis on which Dearing recommended tuition fees was that they would be a source of extra income for universities.
    The committee did not envisage tuition fees being a student tax. For every £1,000 a university raises, the threat is of an offsetting reduction in the Government grant to universities. That is why we hope to make clear later in the debate our belief that tuition fees should be a source of extra revenue for universities rather than a means of displacing Exchequer grant.
    Before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, told the Evening Standard:
    "Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees".
    The Government are in a rather awkward position. The stage has been reached where believing that one should stand by the pledges made before an election makes one a rebel in today's Labour party—that is a path down which many Labour Members have had to tread in the past few months. If any Labour Member thinks that the Prime Minister was right to say that to the Evening Standard in March 1997, the Whips will descend threateningly, urging him or her to take constituency leave.
    Of course, the Prime Minister appears to believe that he is implementing Dearing, and I should be fascinated to learn exactly what briefing he has been given by Education Ministers. At Prime Minister's Question Time, the right hon. Gentleman claimed:
    "I made it clear throughout"
    the election campaign
    "that we should abide by the recommendations of the Dearing Committee".—[Official Report, 29 October 1997; Vol. 299, c. 892.]
    If only he would. If he had done so, his Government would not have got into the mess in which they now find themselves, whereby they abolish maintenance grants

    771
    when the arguments in favour of the retention of maintenance grants are overwhelming; they impose tuition fees without the prospect of their bringing extra resources to universities as was promised; and they break their pre-election pledges.
    Today, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has announced a package of measures that is supposed to assuage the concerns of many on both sides of the House about the provisions of the Bill. I studied the Secretary of State's package with some interest, because he has some skill—I pay tribute to it—in plucking a little package out of the air every time he is in some political difficulty.
    I realised that the package announced today is the same as the one announced on 23 September, when the right hon. Gentleman was going to speak to the Labour party conference about this measure; and it was the same as the one announced on 4 November when he was coming to the House to face a Supply day debate. What is interesting is not that he announces a package every time, but that he announces the same package every time. We have spotted that.
    Mr. Willis: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a significant difference between those packages, which is that full-time undergraduates aged over 50 but less than 55 will now be entitled to loans?
    Mr. Willetts: Would the hon. Gentleman like to tell the House his exact date of birth? I suspect that that measure is a desperate attempt to curry the support of the Liberal Democrats later this evening—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not fall for it.
    The package is nothing that the House has not seen before, and the financing for it is to be achieved purely by delaying payments to universities. The only way the Secretary of State can fund that extra resource, which he has plucked out of thin air, is by delaying the payment of the annual grant to universities, so that, instead of coming in a single one-off payment, it is to be made in three separate payments, with the third coming in the subsequent financial year.
    That will yield savings in the first financial year which the right hon. Gentleman can then put back into higher education in the form of the package that has been before the House so many times before. That is sleight of hand of rather impressive skill, but it is not a serious attempt to address the problems facing higher education because of the provisions of the Bill.
    There is nothing in the so-called package that addresses the concerns felt by Members on both sides of the House, or our desire to ensure that maintenance grants continue. We do not believe that saddling students from low-income backgrounds with large debts is a sensible or convincing way of broadening access to higher education.
    Ms Hodge: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. For 10 minutes or quarter of an hour, we have not addressed the issue of fees for students in Scottish universities. Is the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) in order?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Lady has taken the words out of my mouth—perhaps she will do a good job
    772
    in the Chair one day. The point of order is correct, and the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) should return to addressing the amendment.
    Mr. Willetts: I know that many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, so I shall not pursue my points. I simply wanted to put it on the record that we had seen through the Secretary of State's sleight of hand in respect of the package. However, you are quite right, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    The basic point is a simple one: if hon. Members on either side of the House believe in equitable treatment of students from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as part of one nation, they should support our amendment, which we shall press to a Division tonight.
    Ms Hodge: I should say that I did not make my point of order so as to hasten my contribution to the debate, but I am delighted that you called me, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Let me start by saying that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) has got it wrong, and, if he had not taken so many interventions in his speech, I would have risen to point that out. The proposal for the payment of fees in Scotland has absolutely nothing to do with access to universities. That is a completely different point. Access to places in Scottish universities will depend, as it does now, on the qualifications and standards reached by those applying. The treatment of students within the universities will be different, not the access to the universities. I should have thought that someone with the hon. Gentleman's stated intelligence would have known that.
    Mr. John Randall: I am concerned about degree courses that are offered only by Scottish universities—for example, Celtic studies—which people of Scottish parentage, living in England, might want to follow. Surely they would be put at a disadvantage because, coming from England, they could not study in Scotland on the same terms as someone who came from Scotland.
    Ms Hodge: That point is central to the debate, and I shall deal with it in my speech.
    We all know that there are different systems of education in Scotland and England. Indeed, one of the justifications for devolution in Scotland, which the Opposition do not support, is that the different systems can be administered by local people who have an affinity with the area. Students from Scotland enter university a year earlier than those from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, because they finish their compulsory schooling a year earlier.
    That is an anomaly that we must deal with, but it is one of many. To pull that anomaly out of the hat is to do a disservice to our attempt to ensure that there is equitable access to our universities and that the opportunity to study in higher education is open to the many, not the few.
    Other anomalies are more important. Why should mature students in all universities be expected to pay fees, as many of them do? Why should part-time students be expected to pay fees, as they will have to until these changes are introduced? Mature and part-time students tend to come from lower socio-economic groupings. If we want, over the longer term, to introduce a system of student finance that opens opportunity to the many,

    773
    not the few, we must create a system that will allow us to open up maintenance loans and student grants to those groups before we open them up to Scottish students.
    More importantly, why should students in further education—who are the subject of a recent Select Committee report—particularly those over 19, be expected to pay fees?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As the hon. Lady was kind enough to remind me about hon. Members straying from the subject of the amendment, I should advise her that, if her case relates to comparisons between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, I can rule her remarks in order.
    Ms Hodge: Thank you for drawing me back to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was attempting to demonstrate that there is a series of anomalies and unfairnesses, and that, even if one were to deal with one anomaly, others would remain which are worthy of more immediate concern.
    Sir Robert Smith: The hon. Lady seems to have a strange logic: she argues that, because there are other anomalies, the anomaly that is the subject of the debate should not be addressed. The fact that the world is full of anomalies does not mean that we should not deal with one when we have the chance.
    Ms Hodge: We have to choose our priorities, and this anomaly would not be my top priority, given the costs involved in dealing with it.
    Dr. Lynne Jones: Is not the point that, although we are concerned about existing anomalies, tonight we shall create a further anomaly?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is referring to amendments that we shall come to later.
    Dr. Jones: Mr. Deputy Speaker, a new anomaly would be created in the treatment of students in different parts of the United Kingdom.
    7.15 pm
    Ms Hodge: The direct answer to that point is that, if we were to accept the Opposition's proposal, we would create further anomalies.
    I shall give my hon. Friend an example. Students would get a free education in St. Andrews or Edinburgh, but if they were taking a four-year course at the university of East London or the universities in my hon. Friend's constituency, they would not have that advantage. By trying to iron out one anomaly, we would create further anomalies.
    Mr. Willis: The hon. Lady has described the essence of the anomaly—on the one hand, students who are domiciled in Scotland and go to a Scottish university will have their fourth year paid because they have one year less of compulsory full-time education, but if they go over
    774
    the border to an English university, they will have to pay for their fourth year. Surely that anomaly is unacceptable even in her terms.
    Ms Hodge: The hon. Gentleman is simply alluding to the fact that the Opposition amendment would create further anomalies.
    I shall move on to other issues. Will the introduction of our measures for Scotland put off English students from applying to Scottish universities? That is what we should all be interested in. Are we, by our proposals, putting back the clock on access to higher education, or in any way constraining choice? The answer must be no.
    As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said in his intervention on the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Havant, this year there has been an increase in the number of Welsh students who have applied to go to Scottish universities. More English, Welsh and Northern Irish students have applied to go to Scottish universities this year than Scottish students. If the proposals were as damaging as has been suggested by some hon. Members, that would not have happened.
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: Would the hon. Lady like to develop that argument further, and suggest that we should further increase fees so that even more students will apply?
    Ms Hodge: I know that the Conservatives regard this issue facetiously, but increasing access to higher education is important. I was attempting to counter the allegation that the proposals in any way inhibit access. The facts speak for themselves, and the applications prove that the proposals have not inhibited access.
    There may well be an increase in the number of students who choose to go into the second year of their study in Scottish universities. At present, the figure is 10 per cent., but it may go up. That is not a bad thing, and we should not regret it.
    It was the Conservative Government who recognised the differences between the Scottish and English education systems, and enabled English students to start their education at second-year level. Last year, 10 per cent. of those who went to Scottish universities went to do a three-year degree, not an honours degree. They will be subject to the same rules for the three years of an ordinary degree as if they had gone to an English university.
    Mr. Green: Does the hon. Lady recognise the difference between choice and coercion? The previous Government gave students the choice of going to university for three or four years, but this Government are coercing them by reducing the amount of money available. Does she not recognise that this is essentially a case of fairness? Different students will be paying different amounts in the same circumstances.
    Ms Hodge: I tried to point out earlier—perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not understand me—that there are many anomalies and unfairnesses throughout the post-education system. If we were to accept the Opposition amendment tonight, we would create still further anomalies.

    775
    The hon. Member for Havant referred to European Union students. European legislation provides that students from European countries will have their fees subsidised in their fourth year. Let us be absolutely clear how many students we are talking about. In 1995–96, only 350 students in the Scottish university system came from European Union countries outside Britain. That anomaly is not so important that it compels the sort of anger and frustration that has been expressed by some Opposition Members.
    Mr. Don Foster rose—
    Sir Teddy Taylor rose—
    Ms Hodge: I will give way.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. To whom is the hon. Lady giving way?
    Ms Hodge: I am giving way to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster).
    Mr. Foster: I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Will she remind the House whether England is part of the European Union?
    Ms Hodge: As a Liberal Democrat, the hon. Gentleman—more than anyone else—should support the concept of subsidiarity, which is integral to the debate.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Things are getting out of hand. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor, should not walk across the Chamber while asking the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) to give way. He is out of order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene, he should stand in his place and ask the hon. Lady to give way.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I got carried away—I do not usually. As a socialist, how the blazes can the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) accept the expenditure of public money to subsidise students from France and Germany when the same subsidy is not provided for students from Bulgaria and places like that? Is the hon. Lady saying that, because there are only about 300 such students, it does not matter? As a supporter of people's rights, should she not be concerned that the Government are offering facilities to people from certain areas and not to those from the poorest countries in the world? As a socialist, should not the hon. Lady be ashamed of herself?
    Ms Hodge: As a member of the new Labour party, and a warm supporter of the European project, I embrace the huge benefits that membership of the European Union has brought to the people of this country.
    Mr. A. J. Beith: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Ms Hodge: I must move on, as many hon. Members wish to participate in the debate. However, I shall give way once more.
    Mr. Beith: The hon. Lady may have inadvertently misled the House when she said that there were 300 students from EU countries. The figure for 1995–96 is in fact 3,082.
    Ms Hodge: I obtained my figures from the Library—I am not sure whether we are exchanging figures that were
    776
    obtained in different ways—and they show that 350 students from EU countries outside Britain were studying at Scottish universities in 1995–96.
    Mr. Alex Salmond rose—
    Ms Hodge: I must continue, as I have taken a range of interventions, and the hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber.
    I turn to other issues that I believe are relevant to the debate. When most people from England, Wales and Northern Ireland think of Scottish universities, places such as Edinburgh and St. Andrews come to mind. However, many Scottish universities cater primarily for Scottish students. For example, Robert Gordon university derives only 3.5 per cent. of its student intake from outside Scotland, and Paisley university derives only 4 per cent. Most Scottish universities—except perhaps the more elite establishments in Scotland—cater primarily for Scottish students.
    The Opposition may have identified an anomaly, but is it a priority for targeting resources? I argue strongly that it is not. I share the priorities of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment for distributing additional resources. Any additional money—there will be even more when resource accounting gets under way and we treat loans under public expenditure rules—should be used to improve access for lone parents, mature students and people with disabilities.
    Let us use the money to iron out other anomalies that I believe are more important. For example, part-time students are treated differently, and students in further education are treated in a totally unfair and discriminatory manner. Let us put that money to better use, so that we may create opportunities for the many, not the few.
    Mr. Donald Gorrie: Before attempting to controvert the intellectual chicanery practised by various Government Members, I shall speak to Liberal Democrat amendment No. 8.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. No hon. Member is ever involved in chicanery.
    Mr. Gorrie: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I thought that the phrase might be allowed.
    I shall speak to Liberal Democrat amendments Nos. 8 and 9. Amendment No. 8 means that fees for the fourth year and subsequent years of study in all United Kingdom universities would be covered by grants. There would be a level playing field across the whole United Kingdom, as fees would be paid for only three years. Concentration on the Scottish anomaly has concealed the fact that many university courses in England continue for four or more years and that students enrolled in those courses will suffer under the present arrangements.
    The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals estimates that it will cost £12 million a year to remove the fees or cover them by grants. That seems a modest amount to pay, to address that anomaly and assist the students enrolled in those courses, many of which are vital to the future of our economy. This is one anomaly, but there are many others. We are concentrating on the single anomaly in this amendment and we deal with other

    777
    anomalies in later amendments. I commend to the House our proposal, which would solve the problem in Scotland. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must allow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) a hearing. Every hon. Member is entitled to a hearing. Far too many conversations are being conducted in the Chamber.
    Mr. Gorrie: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Amendment No. 9 would address the Scottish anomaly by covering fourth-year fees in Scottish universities with grants. Different parties have tried to address that question from four different directions. In addition to our amendments, we endeavoured to address it by moving a motion for recommittal, which did not leave the starting blocks. We proposed that the clauses regarding Scotland be recommitted to a Scottish Standing Committee. Our amendment seeks to deal with the anomaly, and other parties' amendments deal with it satisfactorily in other ways. We shall be happy to support the Conservative amendment or any other amendments that are selected.
    This is the most extraordinary mess that the Government have made. The sight of different Departments passing the buck from one to another and saying, "It wisnae me," "I'll not pay," and "It isn't my fault," is not enlivening.
    The Government—or their latest spokesperson—argue that they are retaining equal access. In theory, there will be equal access to the most expensive seats at Covent Garden when it reopens, in that anyone will be able to go in, part with several hundred pounds and get the seat, but that is not equal access, as whether one can afford the ticket price enters into the equation.
    The arguments made in Labour interventions and speeches so far are of the "angels dancing on the point of a pin" variety, but they have a new angle on the issue, which the mediaeval people did not. The area of residence of the angel dancing on the point of a pin was the crucial new issue. The arguments—
    Mr. Ian Davidson: New Labour, new angle.
    Mr. Gorrie: New Labour, new lunacy. The arguments are incredibly unconvincing.
    7.30 pm
    Mr. Vernon Coaker: If this is as huge an issue as the hon. Gentleman implies, and if the amount of hot air generated means that the Government are in trouble, why is that not borne out by the statistics of applications by real people in England, Northern Ireland and Wales to universities in Scotland? Why is it not borne out by a plummet in applications? That is what we would expect if what he said bore a shred of a relationship to reality.
    Mr. Gorrie: We are setting out a—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I will answer the question. We are setting out a point of principle. If Labour Members cannot recognise a principle, that is their problem, not ours. We are looking
    778
    to the future. We want to establish a principle that will last. It is not a question of whether one year of students decides in a specific way, when the facts are not fully known. I ask Labour Members to imagine a scenario in which we were not doing this but, in a year or two, the Scottish Parliament passed a Bill to the effect that it would cost English students more than it would Scottish students to study in Scotland. My God, what an outcry there would be—"Wicked Scots nationalist discrimination!" Instead, the Labour party, whose duty it is to run the Union satisfactorily and fairly, is introducing this anomaly. It is blowing a hole in the concept of the Union and fairness throughout the country.
    Mr. Wilson: I wonder whether the obvious solution would be to have the same system of school qualifications, the same entry qualifications and the same higher education system in England as in Scotland. Then there would be no anomalies. Is that what the hon. Gentleman is recommending?
    Mr. Gorrie: No; I am not proposing that. I am proposing that there should be a level playing field and non-discrimination for entry to Scottish universities. For the sake of £2 million—what it has been estimated would be necessary to redress the anomaly—the Government are seriously damaging Scottish universities. They have enraged the students and the university community, which are very unhappy about the whole thing.
    Mr. Byers: Oh dear.
    Mr. Gorrie: "Oh dear" is not a very intelligent remark for Ministers to make if a large number of university principals are very unhappy with their policy.
    Ministers are deliberately denigrating the Scottish four-year degree. On a previous occasion, the Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office referred to a "leisurely four-year degree". Ministers ignore the fact that, throughout Europe, broader and longer degrees are the norm. Scotland is more in tune than is England with most of continental Europe. The Government are much mistaken in undermining the Scottish four-year degree. The idea that people can go straight in at the start of the second year—
    Caroline Flint: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that, on a point of principle, the task should be to increase opportunities for students at school and in further education in Scotland to have access to university? Is not that the point of principle—increasing the number of students from Scotland who can apply to do the four-year degree course?
    Mr. Gorrie: With due respect to the hon. Lady, that is not the issue. Scotland already has a better rate of people going on to university than England does. We shall support any measure to improve the participation of people in any part of Britain in higher and further education, and to improve their opportunities, but how one improves their opportunities by charging fees, I do not know.
    Mr. Willetts: The hon. Gentleman may be aware of the survey conducted by Scottish university students, approaching every head teacher in Scotland, of whom

    779
    68.5 per cent. felt that the percentage of their pupils entering higher education would fall as a result of the introduction of tuition fees and 70.4 per cent. felt that abolition of the maintenance grant would further reduce the percentage of their students entering higher education. If that is indeed the concern of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), it does not look as if these measures make much sense.
    Mr. Gorrie: The Conservatives can speak for themselves on their policy on fees.
    At present, about 10 per cent. of students coming from England, Northern Ireland and Wales go straight into the second year of a Scottish course. It is not an option in many courses and, according to my information, many people who start in the second year go back to the first year because they do not think that it would be sensible to continue, and they cannot cope. Only the top-quality entrants from England can go straight into the second year, and it is arguable whether it is beneficial for them, because they miss out on the breadth of the traditional Scottish degree.
    The Government have got it entirely wrong, first, on the issue of equality throughout the Union, and secondly, in their extraordinarily consistent attack on the Scottish traditional four-year degree, which is very damaging for the future. I hope that the House will support whatever amendment it has to vote on to oppose these foolish policies.
    Mr. John McAllion: I support new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), my colleagues and myself.
    The hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) made what he described as a one-nation political speech—a one-Union political speech, if you like—but I warn him that taking a Unionist line will not work with me. I certainly will not support amendment No. 102, which is a Tory amendment tabled in his name. I have been 11 years in the House, and so far I have managed never to support the Tories in any decision; I will not support them now.
    I say to Ministers, however, that neither will I vote against amendment No. 102. In an ideal world, I would have hoped that new clause 3 would be selected and voted on, and if it were voted on, I would vote for it, because it is about a serious, important issue, which Ministers should take seriously—the issue of fairness and not discriminating against people because they happen to live in a different part of this island from other people. That is the basic principle.
    People who attend the same university and do the same four-year degree course should be treated exactly the same. There is no way round that basic, simple argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) says that access for English, Welsh and Northern Ireland students to Scottish universities remains the same as it did before; it does not. A student from England, Wales or Northern Ireland must find an extra £1,000 in tuition fees if they want to take a course at a Scottish university. I realise that £1,000 here or there does not matter to a millionaire, but to many people £1,000 is a lot of money. It may make all the difference when they are deciding whether to stay in England, Northern Ireland or Wales or go to university in Scotland.
    780
    Many of my hon. Friends have argued that it is possible to jump into the second year if one has an A-level qualification instead of a higher, as they have in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking conceded that, at the moment, only 10 per cent. of students from the rest of the United Kingdom go straight into the second year of courses in Scottish universities. In fact, at a briefing given to Members of Parliament from Dundee by the local universities—Dundee university and Abertay university—it was made clear that most students coming from England, Wales and Northern Ireland do not go straight into the second year, and would not be allowed to do so because of the type of course on offer. Accountancy was mentioned. Students from England will not be allowed to go into the second year of that course at Dundee university. Of course, we can score debating points across the Chamber, but the problem is real for real students in the real world. We must take it on board when the policy that we are advocating has discriminatory implications and damages the interests of students from elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
    There is also a Scottish perspective to the argument. I was born and raised in Glasgow, but I have spent most of my life living in Dundee. I know that there are more universities in Scotland than just Edinburgh and St. Andrews. Dundee university and Abertay university in Dundee—some of my hon. Friends may never have heard of it—have high proportions of students from elsewhere in the UK. At Dundee university, 30 per cent. of the intake consists of non-Scottish students, with 14 per cent. coming from Northern Ireland. If we consider particular disciplines at the university—for example, medicine—60 per cent. of the students on those courses are non-Scottish students.
    The universities believe that the measure is bound to have an impact on the applications that they will receive and the number of students coming into the universities. The preliminary figures produced by the universities last November showed that in the case of Dundee, the number of applications was down by 17.5 per cent. At Abertay—
    Ms Hodge: That is ridiculous.
    Mr. McAllion: The principals of those universities have given those figures to the Members of Parliament who represent them. My hon. Friend may think that the argument is ridiculous, but those are the facts and that is the truth.
    Ms Hodge: I said that that was ridiculous because November was not the last date for applications to universities. Can my hon. Friend say whether applications to Dundee university are down this year? Are applications from students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland down?
    Mr. McAllion: If my hon. Friend had taken the trouble to read a Scottish newspaper last week, she would have seen a huge article reporting a speech made by Professor Bernard King, the principal of Abertay university, who was speaking about the likely effect of the extra £1,000 tuition fee on applications to his university. His words were that that would have a devastating effect. He believed that the number of students in universities across Scotland would be down by as much as 25 per cent. as a direct result of the policy. He went on to argue that, if the

    781
    problem was not addressed, the reduction in the number of students attending Scottish universities would in the long term lead to a reduction in the number of universities across Scotland.
    That is a man who knows what he is talking about. He is not an elected politician who does a wee bit here and a wee bit there about higher education. He has spent his life in higher education and he knows the likely impact of the changes on higher education in Scotland. He is alarmed, and if he is alarmed, I am alarmed and I suggest that my hon. Friends should also be alarmed. They should pay no attention to the smoothing of the figures. If we put barriers in the way of people going to university, we cannot say that that will have no effect.
    I can trade soundbites with the best of us. I also want access to university to be for the many, not for the few. I suggest to my hon. Friends, however, that anything that puts a barrier in the way of students coming to Scottish universities will not encourage access for the many.
    Mr. Wilson: Any university that was suffering a reduction in applications from elsewhere in the United Kingdom could take more students from less well-off backgrounds because, of course, no matter where in the United Kingdom they come from, they will not have to pay tuition fees.
    Mr. McAllion: There is a danger in that. My hon. Friend highlights another anomaly. In Dundee, not only do we have two universities, but we have a college of further education, Dundee college, which has 10,000 or 11,000 students. If we lose students from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the criteria for admission to Abertay and Dundee universities will be dropped. Consequently, many of the students who would have gone to Dundee college will go to one of those universities, and Dundee college will then be in trouble. Already it has insufficient funds to keep all the teachers teaching all the time.
    There is a knock-on effect all the way down the chain. I plead with my hon. Friends. No doubt the decision was originally based on public spending considerations, but it has grave implications. It would not cost a great deal of money to restore the principle that is at the heart of new clause 3. That would go down very well with people in Scotland if we could find the money to do something about it. We have the money, because there are surpluses around, as everyone is saying. We do not need to adopt such a policy and we should not try to defend it.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall call the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor). I have noted his interventions regarding European Union students. He has made his point about EU students, and the amendment deals with UK students. I would not want him to make another European speech.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I am always grateful to you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and of course I shall stick absolutely to the rules.
    The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) made an excellent speech. He was trying to tell us that we should stop playing at politics and throwing around silly figures and estimates, and realise that there is a major problem.
    782
    We all know from experience that we cannot tell the impact of anything until it happens. Instead of discussing estimates given by university professors whom we can largely judge as sensible, or soundbites from Ministers that can be disregarded, let us wait and see what happens. We should ask ourselves, first, whether the policy can work; secondly, whether it is just; and thirdly, what impact it will have on Scottish universities.
    7.45 pm
    I have three children. One went to St. Andrews university, where 40 per cent. of the students came from Scotland, 40 per cent. from the rest of the UK and 20 per cent. from abroad. My daughter is at present at Durham university. Before hon. Members start making political points, I hope that they will think about my daughter. Because I am a wealthy Member of Parliament, I send her a cheque every month. I hope that she will emerge with a good degree and with no debts. However, if I were an unemployed bricklayer, she would probably leave university—if the Bill were enacted—with a debt of £10,000. Let us forget the idea that we are making provision to help the poor. should look at the facts, not the soundbites.
    I should like to ask the Minister some questions. First, if the proposal is just, what is the definition of a Scottish student? I came from Scotland, went to a Scottish university, went down to England looking for a job and found one. If someone is temporarily residing in Scotland before starting university, having his previous home in Birmingham, is he a Scot or is he English? If somebody has been to Scottish schools and got a Scottish education and Scottish higher leaving certificates—
    Ms Hodge indicated dissent.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: The hon. Lady should not shake her head, as this is a real situation. If that person then moves to Birmingham, is he an English resident? The first thing that the Minister should say in his reply is how he will define a Scottish applicant, as opposed to an applicant from England. We know that people move around a great deal. If someone has a Scottish school education and then moves to England, how can the definitions be reasonable or practical?
    Secondly, I shall not raise the European issue but, bearing it in mind that the school education in Italy and France is fundamentally different, as the Minister well knows, why should those students get the same £1,000 off their fees, compared with other students coming from Canada, where school education tends to be shorter, or from Australia, where it is in between, or from Bulgaria, where I do not know the situation?
    Can the Minister explain why there should be a block exemption for students from the European Union? Can he tell us what will happen in the case of South American countries? French Guyana is an overseas territory of France, but British Guyana is not covered by the measure.
    Thirdly, what will be the impact on applications? I know that my son, who went to St. Andrews, was rather worried about going there because it meant an extra year of studying. He did not particularly want to do that, but the advantages of going to St. Andrews were considerable for him, so he decided to do it. Would it not be ridiculous if he had had the disadvantage of the extra year educationally as well as an extra £1,000 fee?

    783
    The fourth factor that the Government must bear in mind is that there are variations in the length of courses in Scottish and English universities. At St. Andrews, in some instances, students can apply for three-year courses. That is not possible at other Scottish universities. At Aberdeen university—I know that this applies to two courses at Dundee university—it is not possible to reduce the length of courses.
    Finally, I hope that the Government will bear it in mind that they are introducing a new anomaly in the funding of education. That is wrong, especially when the Labour party did not say that it would do such a thing before it came to power.
    I had the pleasure this afternoon of speaking to several students from St. Andrews. I spoke to others who came from Dundee and elsewhere. They happened to recognise me, although I have been away from Scotland for a long time. They were concerned. Indeed, they were alarmed. They thought that it was fundamentally wrong to introduce a measure which for the first time would bring in discrimination.
    I hope that the Minister will tell students—this is not a laughing matter—how he defines whether an applicant comes from Scotland. For example, one of my children could decide to move in with an aunt, perhaps in May, and apply to go to a Scottish university. That child could move away from home for that purpose and say that his or her home had changed for that purpose. Would that child have the Scottish advantage? On the other hand, someone could move down to England temporarily. Does that person become English? The moment we introduce differentiations for Scottish nationals or English nationals, we are bringing something into our law that is fundamentally wrong.
    As I have said before, the whole business is filthy, foul and cruel. I accept that other Governments might have done something similar. If they had, however, I fancy that there would have been marching in the streets. The Government's proposal, if enacted, will hit the poorest families hardest of all.
    My children and others with parents on higher incomes will emerge without any debt whatever. Although the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) is shaking her head, I ask her to think about these matters. My daughter will leave university without any debt. If I were on a low income, she would leave with a debt of £10,000, and some day would have to repay it. As for charges and the fees that we were discussing, those on low incomes would not pay them. However, there is still the horrible business of paying back the debt for the money that is borrowed for a university course.
    Something big has happened, and it is wrong. The hon. Member for Barking should be well aware that no indication was given to students that this would happen. The Government have done something fundamentally wrong. They should say at least that they will retain the principle that the same rules will apply throughout the United Kingdom, whether someone's residence is classified as being in Scotland or England.
    Dr. George Turner: I confess that I learned the differences between Scottish and English education at an early age: the son of Scots parents, and with a working mother, I was sent for the English school holidays to Scotland, where, to get me out of the way and
    784
    out of trouble, my relatives put me into school. The school holidays were different, of course. Having had cousins who went through the Scottish system doing their highers and four-year degree courses, and having myself followed the traditional English route—A-levels and a three-year degree course—I am well aware of the distinctive pattern of education in Scotland.
    Before coming to this place, I worked for almost 30 years in higher education. I am disappointed that the House has not addressed the real issues. Admission to education—along with fees and the suitability of candidates—relates to educational background and experience and not to where people are resident. Over my years in higher education I dealt with exchange courses. Our best universities are international, and the university of East Anglia numbers among them. Within a three-year programme, we had difficulty in ensuring that exchanges could take place—although there were many four-year courses at English universities offering European exchanges, which recognised language difficulties. We must understand that students from elsewhere in Europe who come here as part of their course have similar problems.
    In America, with no language differences, there were still grave problems in finding courses—as there would be for students moving between England and Scotland. The reason for that is that the educational system is different—salthough there are more similarities with the system in the United States, where I worked for a few years, than between the systems in Scotland and England.
    As soon as we have differences in schooling and educational systems, anomalies in admission policies may arise. I know that many English universities would dearly have loved the funding to enable them to move to a four-year degree course for those who had completed an A-level course, but I know—
    Mr. Randall: The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. Does not the argument revolve round the fact that the Government are unwilling to fund four-year courses in the rest of the United Kingdom? As was said in Committee, there are many courses, such as language courses, where four years would be appropriate. The anomaly arises because of the Government's unwillingness to fund four-year courses.
    Dr. Turner: With respect, the Government do fund four-year courses where appropriate. The question that must be addressed is whether residence is the appropriate qualification. The first part of my argument is that residence is not appropriate. What is appropriate is educational background and the totality of that education.
    I know that there are strains on English universities in finding matching courses that can be made available to American students on exchange. That is because the Americans have a four-year system. If universities that wish to attract international students do not look to the structure of their courses, they will have difficulty in attracting them.
    What are our priorities when it comes to the funding that is available for education? That is the real question for the Government to take on board. Despite the mantra of my party, I know that funding will be limited during this Parliament and the next. I know that some of my colleagues at the university of East Anglia will regret me

    785
    saying that we do not have the luxury of funding to enable us to move from the standard English three-year degree course to one of four years. The students and the teachers might like the idea, but it is not our priority.
    As an admissions tutor, I am aware of the problems that arise when there are different education systems within the same country. There is just as great a difference between the Scottish system of education and the English system of A-levels as there is for those students who chose to leave school at 16 to take the further education route. If a student takes the FE route in England through the ordinary national certificate and the higher national certificate, he may have more years of education than the student beginning a three-year degree course. That was certainly the case with the engineering course with which I was involved. The argument was that such students should be able to move into their second year at the English university. In some instances, with higher national diploma students, it was argued that they should be able to move into the third year. If the education system is to be efficient, it is necessary to structure courses for students.
    I do not know whether it is because of ignorance or because there is little else about which to argue in terms of policy, but I feel that the House is missing the main point. That can certainly be said in relation to the new clauses. We have two distinctive schooling systems and transferring between them is not the same as moving between them. Of course consideration should be given to whether such transfer or movement should be encouraged financially. Much has been made of the £1,000 involved.
    Any student who choose to extend the time that he spends in education by embarking on a four-year course after taking English A-levels could have two good reasons for doing so. One reason is that he has not planned his academic future carefully enough, early enough. It is a common fault, and understandable in the context of young people; such students continue to suffer from that, in England as well as if they wish to transfer elsewhere. Secondly, if someone else is paying, it is very nice to have a year longer to get to the same end point. There is only a modest discouragement because the extra £1,000 is less than 10 per cent. of the actual cost that is being met. The main contribution that young or middle-aged people make is the extra year that they devote to study.
    Dr. Lynne Jones: When my hon. Friend talks about the luxury of an additional year in education, should he compare that with income forgone? The Minister suggested that Scottish universities might go forward by attracting more students from low-income backgrounds. Surely he should recognise that those students would have to pay their maintenance grant back, in the form of loans. Under current arrangements, they pay back £6,000 or £7,000, which will double under the new arrangements. Is my hon. Friend concerned about that?
    8 pm
    Dr. Turner: For the moment, I am concerned to stick to the amendments. I understand that there will be a wider debate on some of the principles later.
    The principle that a person taking a year longer pays a £1,000 contribution towards that is not new. Students in England have done that, as have students who have
    786
    moved. Students from Europe who I have known have usually wanted to come in and take the shortest route: they wanted to argue themselves into the latest year in the course that they could, not necessarily the earliest, because they wanted to diminish the maintenance that they paid—which I understand they will continue to pay.
    Mr. Beith: I should like to compare notes with the hon. Gentleman, as someone whom did the same job as him—dealing with students applying to university. Does he not think it strange that an admissions tutor would say to students from Scotland or from other countries in Europe, "You should start in the first year because your education so far is such that that is the right place to start," while being unable to come to that conclusion for an English student without also saying, "It will cost you an extra £1,000"?
    Dr. Turner: Never having dealt with these matters in Scotland, I cannot speak for what happens in that system. I dealt with students who came in from further education, and I understood a system whereby a person who had spent a further year in education could usually expect to go into the degree programme at a more advanced stage. As a county councillor, I knew that such students would not have got the grant or had their place paid for for the full three years.
    Mrs. Maria Fyfe: My hon. Friend is missing a particular point about the typical conduct of students fresh into the first year at universities in Scotland or anywhere else. Such students would not necessarily plan to do a four-year honours course and might have to enjoy success to realise that they were able to do a four-year course. They might come in planning to do three years, and then wish to go on for a fourth, but if they happen to come from any part of the United Kingdom other than Scotland, they will have to pay the extra £1,000. That is unfair.
    Dr. Turner: I am afraid that I must disagree. There are different educational systems and we have to try to match them. The judgment has to be an academic one which, in general, depends on the number of years that a student has spent studying.
    We cannot afford to let education be seen to be any less efficient than it has become in recent years. There may be effects from cuts in education which will mean that we have to improve quality, but we must maintain the efficiency of the system. Conservative Members are ignoring that, and they will not have my support.
    Mr. Welsh: The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) said that one of the problems is that England cannot move from a three-year degree to the more usual four-year degree because the Government will not provide the funding. They are also not funding the resources to end the discrimination against English and other students, which is a giveaway of the real reasons for the debate: education is now resource-driven rather than driven by education needs or reasons.
    New clause 1 and amendment No. 1 would delay the Bill's implementation in Scotland until the new Scottish Parliament is set up. The education system in Scotland and attitudes towards education differ from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is widely recognised

    787
    and has been mentioned several times in the debate. Even the Government have admitted that difference in attitude. The Scottish Office response to the Garrick report states:
    "the existence of the Scottish Committee stems from the important and distinctive nature of the Scottish higher education system."
    The Under—Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), said in Committee:
    "The Scottish education system differs from that elsewhere in the United Kingdom—not just at higher education level, but at school level."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 21 April 1998; c. 150.]
    Underlying the differences in the system are different attitudes and principles. For example, a Scottish education offers a breadth of learning: school pupils are able to study a wide range of subject at a high level, and university students take a broad-based four-year degree. In respect of funding, it has been possible for centuries for people in Scotland from the poorest backgrounds to enjoy the best education, if they have the ability.
    The Bill will not only affect the Scottish education system, but will seriously undermine the principles on which it is built. It is incredible, therefore, that not a single Scottish constituency Member of Parliament served on the Standing Committee. The Scottish National party certainly sought representation, but was denied it. The Liberal Democrats chose not to give a seat to a Scottish Member, and the Conservatives could not have done so, even if they had wanted to. The Government filled their 14 seats with English and Welsh MPs, showing either that Scottish Labour MPs were not interested or that they could not be trusted to toe the party line. The truth of that will be seen in the Lobby.
    The Government initiated legislation giving the Scottish Parliament powers to administer all levels of Scottish education, but the same Government are forcing through changes in Scottish education, even though the new Parliament will be in place in less than a year. It would be an abuse of power for the Government to force the Bill on the Scottish people when it has not been properly debated or scrutinised by their elected representatives, as it would most certainly be in the new Scottish Parliament. To use the Prime Minister's words, it would be an irresponsible act.
    Given the huge administrative cost of making two fundamental changes to student funding arrangements in a short period, it would be wise to wait for the Scottish Parliament to pass such a Bill.
    Sir Robert Smith: Might not the Minister have welcomed another benefit: the chance to make sure that the computer is finally working at the Student Awards Agency for Scotland? The nightmare that I foresee is that it will not only not manage to administer a system that it has operated for years but will be unable to cope, within the space of a few months, with a new system and the means-testing of parents from Greece, Germany and Denmark.
    Mr. Welsh: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The problems of the Student Awards Agency for Scotland are only a starter—a preview of the horrors of 2000.
    Amendment No. 2 would have similar effect to amendment No. 102. It would guarantee equity in payment of tuition fees for all students at higher education
    788
    institutions in Scotland, regardless of United Kingdom domicile. That was the subject of my Adjournment debate on 15 January. As the Bill stands, English, Welsh and Northern Ireland applicants to Scottish universities will be expected to pay £1,000 more than Scottish or European Union students for the same course, even though they come from exactly the same background.
    Mr. Coaker: May I ask the hon. Gentleman the same question that I asked the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie)? If the issue is so huge—he has returned to it—why does not what is happening outside the House reflect what he is saying? Applications have not been affected in the way that his argument suggests.
    Mr. Welsh: That is not true. Applications at many universities are down, but we should remember that there is a difference between applying and taking a course. The hon. Gentleman should think beyond the present to one, two, three or 10 years from now. The Bill will not only lumber students and their families with massive debt but will have a ripple-back effect on the Scottish education system. Those major problems are being forced on Scotland. The Scottish Parliament is the best place to debate those issues so that the people of Scotland can decide what educational provision they want and what choices they wish to make, rather than have a fait accompli visited upon them.
    To solve the English-Welsh-Northern Ireland anomaly would cost only £1.5 million for students from England, £45,000 for students from Wales, and £500,000 for students from Northern Ireland—a total of £2 million. That is a small sum compared with the overall budget available to the offices governing those countries, yet it would stop the anomaly, get rid of the discrimination and solve the problem. It would not take much, and the Government could easily do it if it were a priority.
    The Government's policy is discriminatory. It will deter English, Welsh and Northern Ireland students from coming to Scotland. The Minister will no doubt quote figures to show, as the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) attempted to do, that overall applications have not been affected. However, some Scottish universities, such as Dundee and Abertay, have seen a substantial drop in applications, particularly from Northern Ireland.
    The final result of the Government's policy will not be known until the autumn, when the important admissions figures will be released. We shall then all see the effect of what is happening. Any drop in the number of students from other parts of the United Kingdom will force Scottish institutions to downsize their diverse range of courses. There is also the danger that Scottish universities may be forced to consider abandoning the traditional four-year honours degree, replacing it with a three-year course to compete on a level playing field to attract non-Scottish UK students. The effects of that will ripple back through the whole system into secondary schools, and so on. The matter should have been thought through much more thoroughly. That could and should be done within the Scottish Parliament—not in this institution, where Scotland was not even represented in Committee.
    The Government's proposal will also have a negative effect on the Scottish economy, causing a reduction in the £210 million spent each year in Scotland by students from

    789
    other parts of the United Kingdom. The Government have given two reasons for not removing the anomaly, and neither is good enough. First, they argue that Scottish students will have had one less year of school education than English, Welsh or Northern Irish students, and are therefore entitled to one more year of free higher education. That is merely a convenient excuse, which is full of flaws. For example, Scottish students may have repeated years at school, but they will not be forced to pay the fourth-year fees. Several European Union countries offer free school education for 14 years or more, but students from those countries will be exempt from fourth-year fees. However, students from England, Wales or Northern Ireland who left school at 16 and who have done an access course will have to pay fees for all four years. People have been calling that an anomaly; it certainly is, and it is certainly unfair.
    That is not the real reason for the Government's attitude. The real reason why they are unwilling to resolve the anomaly is that they are afraid of the implications in other parts of the United Kingdom. Students on longer courses in England will think it unfair that they are expected to pay fourth-year fees whereas students in Scotland are not; a maximum sum of £3,000 will be applied. The Department for Education and Employment could find a solution to that problem to satisfy English, Welsh and Northern Irish students—it could, if it wanted to.
    It is typical of this Government that they are willing to allow universities in faraway Scotland to pay the price for their flawed policies rather than face criticism closer to London. The only solution that the Government have proposed to help ease the problem is that Scottish institutions should give English, Welsh and Northern Irish students direct entry into the second year of a four-year course. However, only 7 per cent. of non-Scottish UK students currently receive direct entry into the second year of undergraduate courses at Scottish universities. The Government are happy to encourage people to go directly into the second year, whether they are A-level students, Scottish students with a certificate of sixth-year studies or, in the future—if it comes to pass—holders of advanced highers. The first year of a four-year degree is foundational and often academically necessary. Direct entry into the second year is not possible in all courses, nor is it advisable for educational reasons.
    Universities are being forced to redesign courses to suit second-year entrants for financial, not academic, reasons. The Government's flawed policy is causing the erosion of the original intention of the broad-based degree, which is gaining admiration and popularity in other countries. University is not, and should not be, simply a case of rushing people through and giving a certificate at the end. It is a learning process, which takes time.
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: Why do so few students choose to enter the second year of a course? Is it because they are discouraged by the universities, or because they choose not to enter the second year?
    Mr. Welsh: Funnily enough, more Scottish students than English choose to go directly into the second year. The question is too complex for me to answer in the short time available to me, but it is interesting.
    790
    8.15 pm
    The English three-year honours system, rather than the Scottish four-year honours degree, is the exception. My argument is based on educational grounds. Scotland has something that is worth protecting, defending and improving. In the long run, the Government's flawed policy will act as a deterrent. It will not deter access, except in the sense that people will not wish to pay the extra money and have the extra debt, and will not choose to come to Scottish universities. If that happens, a smaller range of courses will be available in Scottish universities. The problems will be seen over the coming decades because the policy is flawed.
    Our amendments would protect the four-year honours degree and ensure equity for everyone studying at Scottish universities. That is how it should be.
    Mr. Dennis Canavan: I wish to speak briefly in support of new clause 3, which seeks to address the anomaly referred to by other hon. Members.
    Under the Government proposals, a new West Lothian question has arisen—namely: why should a student from Blackburn in Lancashire doing a four-year honours course at Edinburgh university have to pay £4,000, whereas a student from Blackburn in West Lothian pays only £3,000? The anomaly is complicated even further under European Union legislation: why should a student from Belfast have to pay £1,000 more than a student from Dublin? The whole matter is patently unjust, and unless the Government take action to eradicate the injustice, they may face a court action in the European Court of Justice. I appeal to the Government to see reason. That is the basic case for new clause 3—it is a plea for justice.
    I take what the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) said about the available evidence regarding applications—I emphasise the word "applications" rather than admissions. However, it is early days yet and it would be wrong to jump to conclusions simply based on the application statistics at this stage. Well-articulated fears have been expressed by vice-chancellors and principals of almost all the Scottish universities about the damaging effect of the proposals and the fact that they will discourage students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland from going to Scottish universities. In the long term, that could undermine the Scottish four-year honours degree, which has been part of the tradition of our broad-based Scottish education.
    Some hon. Members have said that some students from England and Wales with A-levels can go straight into the second year of a degree course. That may be true for some courses and for some students, but it is certainly not universally applicable.
    I have heard at least one Minister say that students from England and Wales who opt to go to a Scottish university are already paying more anyway because they are having to pay maintenance for four years rather than the three years at an English university. That seems rather weak logic. It is almost like saying that students who already pay more should therefore pay even more. The extra £1,000 could be the last straw for potential students which dissuades them from opting for a Scottish university.
    Dr. Godman: My hon. Friend said a couple of minutes ago that such an anomaly could be referred to the

    791
    European Court of Justice. I am not so sure about that, but might it not create a very lively debate at the very first meeting of the Council of the Isles?
    Mr. Canavan: It could, indeed. I am not a lawyer so I do not know the strength of such a case going to the European Court of Justice, although I think that outrage will be expressed by all parties in a debate on education in the Council of the Isles.
    I made some effort to find out an estimate of costs involved by tabling some written answers, which were answered on Friday, and for which I am grateful to the Minister for Education and Industry, Scottish Office. He was not, however, very revealing in his first answer. I asked:
    "what is the estimated total of tuition fees which will be payable in the final year of four years honours courses at Scottish universities and colleges by United Kingdom students from outside Scotland."
    He replied:
    "I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) on Monday 24 November 1997".— [Official Report, 5 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 383.]
    I looked with great anticipation for the appropriate extract in Hansard. In reply to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West, the Minister said:
    "no specific estimate of the likely average fee per student for those students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland studying in Scotland is available."—[Official Report, 24 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 422.]
    I know that, sometimes, figures are not the strongest points of some Education Ministers, but my hon. Friend the Minister for Education and Industry was educated at a Scottish university, so we expect better.
    The Minister did eventually give me some figures, when I asked:
    "how many United Kingdom students from outside Scotland are in the final year of four-year honours degree courses at Scottish universities or colleges."— [Official Report, 5 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 383.]
    Although his reply did not exactly answer my question, he said that, last year, there was a total of 3,543 non-Scottish UK honours graduates from Scottish higher education institutions who had completed four or more years study.
    Even if all those 3,543 students were paying the full fee of £1,000, the maximum cost to the Government would be just over £3.5 million. If we assume that one third will be exempt from paying fees, one third will pay a partial fee and only one third will pay the full fee, the total estimated cost would probably be less than £2 million. I should be grateful if the Minister would be good enough to confirm that, or give some rough estimate. That £2 million would or could be shared between the Department for Education and Employment, the Welsh Office and the Northern Ireland Office. Although the cost is not astronomical, the Government would generate much good will towards Scottish universities and colleges if they were to eradicate the unfair anomaly. I therefore plead with the Minister to do so.
    Mr. Beith: I should like to stress to the Minister the sense of injustice with which this matter is viewed in Berwick-upon-Tweed, where the nearest two universities are in Scotland and there is a long tradition of people doing four-year courses at Scottish universities, including Aberdeen, and how people will sense the anomalies.
    792
    There is a fairly considerable movement of people and pupils across the border in and around Berwick. Quite a number of pupils complete their education in England but have a domicile in Scotland. All the Minister's arguments that, since students have had a year less full-time education in Scotland they are entitled to the full four years of education, do not apply in such cases. Such students will have completed their English education to the end of the A-level year, and will still be entitled to four years of a Scottish degree course because they live on the Scottish side of the border. On the other hand, the majority in England will have to pay the extra £1,000 in order to go to a university in Scotland. That is regarded as a very great injustice.
    The injustice is compounded when it becomes clear that, by comparison with a student from Dublin, Bavaria or Sicily, the Berwick student will have to pay £1,000 more. The Minister still has not answered the argument that people in Berwick-upon-Tweed have long believed that they are in the European Union. They are entitled to parity of treatment in the EU as much as those who come to the United Kingdom from any other part of Europe.
    The sense of annoyance, and even outrage, is very strong among pupils, teachers and parents in whose families there is a tradition either of going to university in Scotland or of going across the border and therefore having been in and out of both education systems. The anomaly is absurd. It is not a matter of removing some old anomaly. The Government have created a new one and I shall vote for any amendment that is designed to prevent them from doing so.
    Mr. Wilson: I should like to pick up on the point made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). We are not talking about an anomaly, as I shall explain. We are talking about two different education systems. Anyone trying to square that circle must arrive at the conclusion that the only way in which to have an internal education system free of such anomalies is to have a unitary system. I doubt very much whether the nationalists or the Liberal Democrats are proposing that. Indeed, as a product of the Scottish education system, I would very strongly oppose that.
    I turn to the amendments tabled by the nationalists because that will not take much time. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Welsh) proposed that all such matters should be put back for the consideration of the Scottish Parliament. If I wanted to be uncharitable and to put egg on the hon. Gentleman's face, I might accept the proposal. But I am an humane man, so I shall spare the hon. Gentleman's embarrassment.
    The result of the proposal would be to deny Scottish universities the additional funding that these changes will bring, deny Scottish students access to the much more sympathetic loans regime that the legislation will introduce, and deny Scottish mature students the improved arrangements that have been announced today. Of course, by extension, the proposal would deny Scottish part-time students from less well-off backgrounds the abolition of tuition fees that we have announced in Scotland. If the hon. Gentleman wants to face his electorate to tell them that he has wiped out all of that in Scotland but not in the rest of the United Kingdom, I should perhaps facilitate it.
    One wonders why the hon. Member for Angus wants to postpone all the matters for the consideration of the Scottish Parliament. The implication is that here is a

    793
    Braveheart figure who cannot wait for the Scottish Parliament in order to abolish everything and introduce what he has espoused in recent months. It is therefore with interest that we look at the debate in the Scottish Grand Committee two weeks ago, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson) asked the hon. Member for Angus:
    "Before the hon. Gentleman finishes his peroration, will he say whether he is committing his party to abolish loans and reintroduce grants? If so, at what level? Is he committing his party to unfreeze bursaries and, if so, at what level will they be restored?"
    The Braveheart figure replied:
    "We will make good, as far as we can within the limit of resources, given the mistakes of the present Labour Government."
    Under repeated pressure, the hon. Gentleman admitted that he and his party have reneged on all their rhetoric to such an extent that the National Union of Students accused them of betrayal.
    Mr. Welsh: All the hon. Gentleman's vitriol betrays his lack of policy and of faith in Scottish democracy. Such matters should be considered by the Scottish Parliament. The decisions should be taken in the Scottish interest. No amount of waffle, vitriol or attacks will disguise the fact that I am against tuition fees and the Minister is in favour of them.
    Mr. Wilson: With respect, it is easy to be against bad weather and all sorts of things. Unless one is going to legislate on a matter, such comments are completely meaningless. Given the chance, the hon. Gentleman has again failed to say that his party would reverse the legislation. As he bravely said:
    "We will make good, as far as we can within the limit of resources, given the mistakes"—
    as he sees them—
    "of the present Labour Government."—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 20 May 1998; c. 22.]
    The grand old Duke of Banff has led his men to the top of the hill and marched them down again—without a shot being fired in anger.
    Mr. Welsh: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Wilson: No, we must move on to serious matters.
    I have heard the word "anomaly" used repeatedly tonight. [HON. MEMBERS: "From Labour Members."] Yes, from all over the place. I understand why some of my hon. Friends—including my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge)—talk about anomalies. I understand why the Liberal Democrats talk about anomalies. I understand why the press talk about anomalies. However, I am astonished that the Scottish National party describes the Scottish education system as an anomaly.
    We are talking not about anomalies, but about two different education systems within one state. No amount of casuistry or complaining about anomalies can make them fit perfectly. We have two different systems. We have two different school qualification systems. We have two different university admissions systems. We have two
    794
    different higher education systems in these universities, conferring different degrees in Scotland and other parts of the UK.
    8.30 pm
    Dr. Brian Iddon: I would like to throw my hon. Friend the Minister a Mackinlay and stand the argument on its head. I accept the difference between the two education systems, but there is a strong argument in England that we ought to broaden the A-level system—for obvious reasons—which would put pressure on universities to run four-year courses. If that is followed through—many of us are in favour of it—will the education team grant an extra £1,000 for those deserving it within the new English system?
    Mr. Wilson: That is an interesting debate within the English education system for which, I am pleased to say, I am not responsible.
    Let me turn that around, as that matter relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie), who complained that the four-year degree in Scotland was being perniciously removed. There is much talk about the tradition of the four-year degree. How long does it take to make a tradition? When I attended university in Scotland, about 30 per cent. of students in Scotland took four-year honours degrees and 70 per cent. took three-year degrees. These figures have now been transposed, for reasons which are not entirely educational.
    For some people, three-year degrees are right, and they are wasting their time doing six years at school and four years at university. I do not accept the idea that to maintain some bogus tradition, it is inherently better to spend 10 years at that stage of one's life in education than nine or eight years. What is best for the individual is what is best for education and this country.
    Sir Robert Smith: The Minister seems to forget that in his desire to force people through more quickly, he wants to take away the first year at university. The tradition from which he came involved students starting on a level playing field in their first year, and it is far more important to keep the breadth at the beginning. How far people go through university—and how they come out and what experiences they choose to take with them—is a debate for another day, but forcing people to accelerate their education at the beginning of university is a mistake.
    Mr. Wilson: Which is precisely why we are not forcing anyone to do anything. We are giving them choice. At present, around 10 per cent. of students from England choose to go into second year at Scottish universities in that relatively small number of cases where it is both an appropriate course and they hold appropriate A-levels. In exactly the same way when the advanced highers come on stream, I will not say that any Scottish school leaver should spend six years at school obtaining advanced highers and then—to maintain a tradition—must do another four years at university to get an honours degree.
    For many, it is better to do that in eight or nine years, rather than ten years. We should think of the interests of students, rather than maintaining the financial arrangements which are dear to the heart of some higher education institutions.
    Dr. Godman: As one of the few Members of this House who has taught in a Scottish university, I agree

    795
    with what my hon. Friend says about the distinctiveness of our educational system, which I would not wish to change. Does he agree that our Scottish universities are enriched by encouraging youngsters—both as undergraduate and graduate students—to come to them from other points of the compass within the UK?
    Mr. Wilson: Of course they are, but there is a wide range of proportions in Scottish universities; from 3 per cent. of students from England at Robert Gordon or 4 per cent. at Paisley, to between 45 and 48 per cent. at St. Andrews or Edinburgh. I do not believe that it is inherently better to have between 45 and 48 per cent. of students from England than it is to have a wider spread and to have students from a wider range of social backgrounds.
    St. Andrews and Edinburgh are maintaining not only that they want students from England but, by definition—a point I made in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion)—that they want students who will be liable for full fees. In other words, they want students from the upper range of the social classes—the ones who pay fees. If they felt that there was a shortage of students coming from England, they could resolve that problem instantly—if they see it as a problem—by taking more people who would not be liable for fees, and who thereby come from different social classes from those who are, perhaps, more accustomed to the cloisters of St. Andrews. Let us have a wider mix of students at all universities, but let us not hide behind the fallacy that the Opposition's case is in any way internationalist—it certainly is not.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the Minister confirm that the science departments of international repute at the university of Edinburgh are not concerned about the social class of their students?
    Mr. Wilson: I will indeed, but they are concerned with getting more money into the university to maintain that international excellence. That is why university principals support what we are doing in terms of university funding, which will bring up to £140 million extra each year into the Scottish universities. The weakness of the Opposition parties is that we say exactly where Scottish higher and further education can get £140 million a year, but by prevaricating on the changes in student funding, they cannot say where that £140 million is coming from.
    I grant this to the Tories. For many reasons which had nothing to do with education—and had a lot to do with very high unemployment—they were good at piling numbers through the gates of our higher education institutions. However, the money did not follow. We now have a system that delivers high numbers of students to higher education, but which is underfunded, creaking at the seams and needs the infusion of new money which only the Labour Government are proposing to provide.
    Dr. Lynne Jones: Will my hon. Friend confirm that in allocating funding to universities, the Government will not take into account the proportion of students who pay the fees, as opposed to those from lower-income backgrounds who will not pay the fees?
    Mr. Wilson: The way to address that is for universities to go out and promote wider access to university, as we
    796
    are doing in Scotland. On 1 May, we had a marvellous conference in Glasgow to discuss widening access and we have put serious money into the support of access programmes, run by universities, which go out into non-traditional areas to attract students into higher education.
    It makes me angry when I hear people speaking from a supposedly radical political perspective, who defend a funding system which, to this day, delivers only 11 per cent. of students from lower-income groups, as opposed to 80 per cent. from higher-income groups, into higher education. If that is some sort of golden age which we are supposed to defend, count me out. When I went to a Scottish university, I was the one out of 14 Scottish school leavers who went to university. I have been acutely aware all my life that many of those 13 who did not go to university were every bit as well equipped to benefit from it as I was. The reality, which we cannot disguise from ourselves, is that, under the present system, almost 50 per cent. of school leavers in Scotland go to university despite—or perhaps because of—the loans system. What determines whether people go to university is not the theory of a funding system, but access to resources when they go through higher education. That is what we shall maintain and improve upon.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Is the Minister saying that the document published by the university of St. Andrews—which shows that, as a result of the Government's proposals, the average student could be £3,000 worse off and the poorer student could be £5,400 worse off—is utter nonsense? Does he accept as a straight fact that, as a result of the proposals, poor students will be much worse off than those who come from higher-income families? He must know that that is true.
    Mr. Wilson: Even the hon. Gentleman does not believe that a Government can, even if they wanted to, remove all society's inequities through a higher education Bill. He supported a Government who introduced student loans, which I have to accept led to an increase in applications to university. I have to recognise that the effect of student loans has been to give students money when they need it, which is when they are going through university.
    We should all have a common purpose in telling students the truth, so that people are not deterred from applying to universities because of false information. Under the current system, which was introduced by the Tories, a graduate who earns £17,000 a year repays £87 a month whereas, under the new system, that student will be repaying £50 a month. Under our proposals, there will be far less to deter people from lower-income backgrounds from entering higher education.
    We reject the amendments. The United Kingdom does not have a symmetrical system of higher education or, indeed, of education. If the Government had agreed to pay students from the rest of the United Kingdom for four-year degree courses at Scottish universities, there would have been the same demand on a larger scale in respect of four-year courses at universities in the rest of the United Kingdom. Moreover, all the money to pay for that would, by definition, have gone to better-off families instead of into higher education. The whole purpose of

    797
    the Bill is to ensure that more money goes into higher education, to widen access and to give this country the educational and research base that it needs for the future.
    Mr. Willetts: We have heard a speech from the Minister who came up with the wheeze of cutting the tuition fees that Scottish students in Scottish universities had to pay—they would have to pay them only for three years. Presumably, he thought that that would have an effect on the participation rates of Scottish students in Scottish universities. If that argument is good enough for Scottish students, it is good enough for English, Welsh and Northern Irish students.
    The simple point behind our amendment is that students from different parts of the United Kingdom should not be discriminated against by reason of their residence—that is one-nation politics, and I hope that hon. Members from all parties will be able to support the amendment. I appreciate that some Labour Members feel a bit squeamish about supporting a Conservative amendment, although, in the debate, they seemed happy to endorse its principle. We should have been happy if the House had been able to discuss and vote on new clause 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), but, sadly, that was not procedurally possible. The only way in which hon. Members will be able to express their belief that students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland should receive the same treatment as students from Scotland in going to Scottish universities is to vote for the amendment.
    The Minister created the problem for his colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment by breaking ranks—I should have loved to have heard their reaction when he came up with his wheeze. He made a rather tepid defence of the Government' s position. He described tuition fees as bad weather and the Scottish tradition of higher education as a bogus one. As we know, however, the four-year course is an integral part of the educational experience of going to a Scottish university, and there is no reasonable prospect that English students will all take up a course at a Scottish university in the second year. We invite hon. Members from all parties who believe in equity between the different countries of the United Kingdom to support the amendment.
    Question put, That the amendment be made—
    The House divided: Ayes 172, Noes 300.

    Division No. 293]

    [8.44 pm

    AYES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Breed, Colin

    Allan, Richard

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Arbuthnot, James

    Burnett, John

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Burns, Simon

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Burstow, Paul

    Baker, Norman

    Butterfill, John

    Baldry, Tony

    Cable, Dr Vincent

    Ballard, Jackie

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Cash, William

    Bercow, John

    Chidgey, David

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Clappison, James

    Blunt, Crispin

    Colvin, Michael

    Brady, Graham

    Cormack, Sir Patrick

    Brake, Tom

    Cotter, Brian

    Brazier, Julian

    Cran, James

    798

    Cunningham, Ms Roseanna (Perth)

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

    Curry, Rt Hon David

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Dafis, Cynog

    Madel, Sir David

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    Malins, Humfrey

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Maples, John

    Day, Stephen

    Mates, Michael

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Duncan, Alan

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

    Evans, Nigel

    Moss, Malcolm

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret

    Oaten, Mark

    Faber, David

    Page, Richard

    Fabricant, Michael

    Paice, James

    Fallon, Michael

    Pickles, Eric

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Prior, David

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Randall, John

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Fox, Dr Liam

    Rendel, David

    Fraser, Christopher

    Robathan, Andrew

    Garnier, Edward

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

    Gibb, Nick

    Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

    Gill, Christopher

    Ruffley, David

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Gorrie, Donald

    St Aubyn, Nick

    Gray, James

    Salmond, Alex

    Green, Damian

    Sanders, Adrian

    Grieve, Dominic

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Gummer, Rt Hon John

    Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Shepherd, Richard

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

    Hammond, Philip

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Hancock, Mike

    Soames, Nicholas

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Harvey, Nick

    Spring, Richard

    Hawkins, Nick

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Hayes, John

    Steen, Anthony

    Heald, Oliver

    Stunell, Andrew

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Swayne, Desmond

    Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David

    Swinney, John

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Syms, Robert

    Horam, John

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Hunter, Andrew

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Tredinnick, David

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Trend, Michael

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Tyler, Paul

    Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Viggers, Peter

    Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

    Walter, Robert

    Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

    Wardle, Charles

    Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)

    Waterson, Nigel

    Key, Robert

    Webb, Steve

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Wells, Bowen

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Welsh, Andrew

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Whittingdale, John

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Willetts, David

    Lansley, Andrew

    Willis, Phil

    Leigh, Edward

    Wilshire, David

    Letwin, Oliver

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Lidington, David

    Woodward, Shaun

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Yeo, Tim

    Livsey, Richard

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Loughton, Tim

    Luff, Peter

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Mr. John M. Taylor and Mr. Tim Collins.

    MacKay, Andrew

    799

    NOES

    Ainger, Nick

    Davidson, Ian

    Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Alexander, Douglas

    Dawson, Hilton

    Allen, Graham

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Denham, John

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Dismore, Andrew

    Armstrong, Ms Hilary

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Ashton, Joe

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Doran, Frank

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Dowd, Jim

    Banks, Tony

    Drew, David

    Barron, Kevin

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    Battle, John

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Bayley, Hugh

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Beard, Nigel

    Efford, Clive

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Ennis, Jeff

    Bennett, Andrew F

    Fatchett, Derek

    Benton, Joe

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Fisher, Mark

    Berry, Roger

    Fitzsimons, Lorna

    Blizzard, Bob

    Flint, Caroline

    Blunkett, Rt Hon David

    Flynn, Paul

    Boateng, Paul

    Follett, Barbara

    Borrow, David

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Brinton, Mrs Helen

    Galbraith, Sam

    Brown, Rt Hon Gordon (Dunfermline E)

    Galloway, George

    Gapes, Mike

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Gardiner, Barry

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    George, Bruce (Walsall S)

    Browne, Desmond

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Burgon, Colin

    Godsiff, Roger

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Byers, Stephen

    Gordon, Mrs Eileen

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Grant, Bernie

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Campbell—Savours, Dale

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Caplin, Ivor

    Grocott, Bruce

    Cawsey, Ian

    Grogan, John

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Gunnell, John

    Chaytor, David

    Hain, Peter

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Church, Ms Judith

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Hanson, David

    Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Healey, John

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Heppell, John

    Clelland, David

    Hesford, Stephen

    Clwyd, Ann

    Hewitt, Ms Patricia

    Coaker, Vernon

    Hill, Keith

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Hinchliffe, David

    Cohen, Harry

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Coleman, Iain

    Hoey, Kate

    Colman, Tony

    Home Robertson, John

    Connarty, Michael

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Cooper, Yvette

    Hope, Phil

    Corbett, Robin

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Cox, Tom

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Cranston, Ross

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Crausby, David

    Hurst, Alan

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Hutton, John

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Cummings, John

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Jamieson, David

    Darvill, Keith

    Jenkins, Brian

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    800

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Purchase, Ken

    Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Rammell, Bill

    Jowell, Ms Tessa

    Rapson, Syd

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Raynsford, Nick

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Kelly, Ms Ruth

    Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)

    Khabra, Piara S

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Roche, Mrs Barbara

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Rogers, Allan

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Rooker, Jeff

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Rooney, Terry

    Laxton, Bob

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Lepper, David

    Roy, Frank

    Leslie, Christopher

    Ruane, Chris

    Levitt, Tom

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Liddell, Mrs Helen

    Sawford, Phil

    Linton, Martin

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Sheerman, Barry

    Love, Andrew

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Singh, Marsha

    McCabe, Steve

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Macdonald, Calum

    Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

    McFall, John

    Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    McIsaac, Shona

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Snape, Peter

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Soley, Clive

    McLeish, Henry

    Southworth, Ms Helen

    McNamara, Kevin

    Spellar, John

    McNulty, Tony

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    MacShane, Denis

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Stevenson, George

    McWalter, Tony

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    McWilliam, John

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Mallaber, Judy

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

    Stott, Roger

    Martlew, Eric

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Maxton, John

    Straw, Rt Hon Jack

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Stringer, Graham

    Meale, Alan

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Merron, Gillian

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Michael, Alun

    Milburn, Alan

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Moffatt, Laura

    Temple—Morris, Peter

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Timms, Stephen

    Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

    Tipping, Paddy

    Mudie, George

    Touhig, Don

    Mullin, Chris

    Trickett, Jon

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Truswell, Paul

    Norris, Dan

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Olner, Bill

    Vaz, Keith

    O'Neill, Martin

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Organ, Mrs Diana

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Pearson, Ian

    Watts, David

    Pendry, Tom

    White, Brian

    Perham, Ms Linda

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Pickthall, Colin

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Pike, Peter L

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Plaskitt, James

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Pollard, Kerry

    Wills, Michael

    Pond, Chris

    Wilson, Brian

    Pound, Stephen

    Winnick, David

    801

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Wyatt, Derek

    Woolas, Phil

    Worthington, Tony

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Ms Bridget Prentice and Mr. Greg Pope.

    Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

    Question accordingly negatived.
    9 pm
    Mr. Canavan: I beg to move amendment No. 35, in page 15, line 12, at end insert—
    '(1A) Regulations under this section shall make provision requiring the Secretary of State to pay maintenance grants to eligible students whose income or parental income is less than a prescribed amount.'.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 107, in page 15, line 45, at end insert—
    '(2A) The Secretary of State shall ensure that—

    (a) in any regulations made under this section in relation to any eligible student for any prescribed purpose for any academic year, provision continues to be made for maintenance grants to be payable to such a student, and

    (b) the value of such grants shall be no less in real terms than the amounts prescribed at the time this section comes into force.'.

    No. 121, in page 17, line 14, at end insert—
    '(6A) The Secretary of State shall ensure that, in any regulations made under this section in relation to any eligible student for any prescribed purpose for any academic year—

    (a) the maximum amount of any loan made available to that student is no greater than half the prescribed cost of maintenance for such a student for that purpose for that year, and

    (b) provision continues to be made for maintenance grants to be payable to such a student, subject to—

    (1) a maximum amount of half the prescribed cost of maintenance, and

    (ii) assessment of any contributions applicable in his case.'.

    No. 36, in clause 27, page 21, line 46, at end insert—
    '(4) Regulations under this section shall make provision requiring the Secretary of State to pay maintenance grants to eligible students whose income or parental income is less than a prescribed amount.'.
    Mr. Canavan: Amendments Nos. 35 and 36 would oblige the Government to pay maintenance grants to eligible students whose income, or whose parental income, is less than a prescribed amount. I am in good company in moving the amendment, because option B of the Dearing report—Dearing' s preferred option—included payment of maintenance grants, especially for low-income families, because their withdrawal would act as a disincentive to potential students.
    The case for maintenance grants seems self-evident. Before I was elected to the House, I spent virtually all my working life in education, teaching in comprehensive schools. At one stage, I was assistant head of one of the largest secondary schools in Scotland, and a fair number of my pupils came from disadvantaged home backgrounds, many of them from low-income families. Despite their disadvantage, a reasonable number managed to stay at school and, in some cases, to go on to college or university, and I know that that involved considerable sacrifice and hardship for the low-income families who encouraged their sons and daughters to do so. That would have been absolutely impossible if those sons and daughters had not received grants.
    How on earth will a young person from a low-income family be encouraged to go to college or university if he or she is told, "You will receive no grant and you will have to borrow all the money for maintenance while you

    803
    are at college or university"? At the end of a course, students will have a millstone round their necks—a debt of more than £15,000 in some cases.
    Most of the Government's Education Ministers used to be shadow Ministers, and some of them voted against Tory proposals to switch from grants to loans, arguing that that would be bad for students and for educational opportunity for young people. Now they are in government, they tell us that they have changed their minds, and that there is no evidence that the move from grants to loans will act as a disincentive because the participation rate is up, not down. However, that rate is up despite the movement from grants to loans, rather than because of it. Our participation rates are well behind those of countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada. Furthermore, our rates among socio-economic groups D and E are particularly inadequate, which is why Dearing recommended the continuation of maintenance grants to facilitate access for students from low-income families.
    Dr. Lynne Jones: It is true that with the introduction of maintenance grants, the participation percentage went up for people from the lower socio-economic groups, but between 1991 and 1995, of the total of 60,000 additional places, students from group E took up only 3,000, and those from groups D and E only 10,000. Most of the additional places went to those from the higher socio-economic groups.
    Mr. Canavan: My hon. Friend reinforces my point that a huge improvement is required to increase access for students or potential students from low-income families and deprived backgrounds.
    I cannot for the life of me understand how a Labour Government can propose the abolition of maintenance grants, especially when that Government contain many Ministers who were themselves beneficiaries of the very generous higher education grant system introduced under an earlier Labour Government, when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister.
    When I recently put that point to a senior Cabinet Minister, he said, "But Dennis, one in three or more now go to university, compared with only one in 14 when we went." I must confess that I fail to see the logic in that, because it would have been far fewer than one in 14 if there had been no grants.
    Mr. Willis: I have a great deal of sympathy for the points that the hon. Gentleman is making, as I, too, have a background in education in deprived areas, particularly in Leeds and the north-east, but does he accept that the biggest barrier to young people from the lower socio-economic groups going on to university is not specifically finance, but their academic achievement in school?
    Mr. Canavan: The hon. Gentleman's experience as a teacher may be quite different from mine, as I can remember some pupils of great academic achievement whose parents experienced grave difficulties in allowing them to stay on at school, let alone go on to university. The complete abolition of the grant system would be an even bigger impediment.
    My brother and I were the first two members of our family to have the opportunity to go to university. We would never have had that opportunity had grants not
    804
    existed. Our grandfather was forced to leave school at the age of 10, he went down a coal mine at 12 and he was a Labour councillor in the 1920s. He and his Labour colleagues had the vision to see that education was the key to the liberation of working-class people, and they laid the basis of a grant system to encourage working-class children to stay on in education. That continuing education would never have happened had it not been for the vision and foresight of Labour pioneers in local as well as national Government.
    I now have four grandchildren and I think that I have a duty to pass on to them the same benefits that my grandfather passed on to me, but I fear that the Government's proposals will turn back the clock. I urge the House to support the amendment, which is forward-looking and will improve educational opportunity for many young people, and especially those from low-income families.
    Mr. Willetts: The debate, which continues with this important amendment, shows how important and right it was that the Dearing committee was set up—and how significant a contribution to the higher education debate its report is. The reason why we set up the Dearing inquiry when we were in government—and, of course, we did so on a bipartisan basis, with the agreement of the then Labour Opposition—was that important questions needed to be asked about the future direction of higher education.
    We had achieved a significant widening of access to higher education and a big increase in the number of students participating in higher education, but that was financed to a significant extent by a reduction in the unit of resource per student. Many people in the higher education world should be congratulated on delivering those efficiency savings, but they could not carry on indefinitely in that way; that is the first reason why we set up the Dearing committee.
    We also set up the Dearing inquiry because we had had the objective of moving from a system of 100 per cent. grants to one of 50 per cent. grants and 50 per cent. loans. It was right, once we had reached that 50:50 mix, to take a step back and to invite an independent body of experts to review whether the 50:50 balance was correct or whether we should go further.
    I will be frank with the House. I expected the Dearing report to conclude that the maintenance grant should be abolished, and I think that many people believed that that would be Dearing' s conclusion. Indeed, in his report, Ron Dearing—Lord Dearing as he now is—makes a remark in passing that suggests that that is where he himself began. In discussing precisely the point before the House—the balance between grants and loans—he says:
    "In going through that process"—
    the process of careful scrutiny of the evidence—
    "we all changed and developed our views: we did not end up where we started."
    When they reviewed the evidence, the 15 experts under Ron Dearing concluded that the 50:50 split between grants and loans was the right split, and that the maintenance grant should not be abolished. Having set up the Dearing inquiry—as I say, on a bipartisan basis—we are persuaded by the arguments that Ron Dearing advances. Those arguments are persuasive. If we set up the Dearing inquiry on an honest basis, we should all accept the conclusions that he reaches.

    805
    The core argument in Dearing's report is simple. It is that, with the proposals that are being put before the House by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, a student from a low-income background will end his or her university career with a debt of £10,320, instead of a debt of £5,625. It is impossible for anyone contemplating the figures on the increased indebtedness of students who, by definition, will be from the poorest backgrounds, to maintain that that will have no impact on access to higher education.
    It is extraordinary that the Secretary of State—and we all admire his decency and commitment to wider access to higher education—has got himself into the position of trying to maintain that doubling the debt of students from the poorest backgrounds is somehow compatible with the objective, which he believes in, of widening access to higher education. That is a problem that he has created for himself by not implementing the proposals in the Dearing report.
    For the future of higher education, the best way forward is to take the entire package that is proposed by Ron Dearing; nothing else on offer from any party is more thought through, has more empirical evidence in support or commands greater consensus in the world of higher education. The onus is on those who want to do something different from the report's proposals to explain why they believe that, instead of keeping that 50:50 split between maintenance grant and loan, the maintenance grant should be entirely abolished. I suspect that there was an understanding on the part of many people in the world of higher education that if they agreed to the policies that the Labour party hinted at before the election—abolishing the maintenance grant—
    The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): It was not a hint.
    Mr. Willetts: It was not explicit in the manifesto, but let us give the Secretary of State the benefit of the doubt: Labour implied that it would get rid of the maintenance grant. The problem is that there was another part to the deal, which was that Labour would not introduce tuition fees. When the National Union of Students signed up to the deal, it believed that if it went along quietly with the abolition of maintenance grant, tuition fees would not be imposed. That is why the then Leader of the Opposition told the Evening Standard in the notorious questionnaire that he answered that he had
    "no plans to introduce tuition fees."
    People in higher education thought that they would have to sacrifice the maintenance grant in exchange for—
    9.15 pm
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that, before the election, the NUS was far more concerned about the idea of top-up fees, which his party said it would allow colleges and universities to introduce? They would have been a far greater deterrent to equality of access than the current proposals.
    Mr. Willetts: We were careful not to anticipate the Dearing report. The Government are in such a muddle
    806
    partly because they thought that the deal they were putting together would also be proposed by Dearing. They were caught out by the fact that Dearing did not recommend abolishing the maintenance grant and not introducing tuition fees.
    We have no desire for the widespread use of top-up fees—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I will tell the House about the problems faced by real life vice-chancellors. One of them heads a university offering a course in maritime engineering, training engineers to investigate North sea structures. He is rightly proud of the course, one of the best in the country. He cannot be expected to give his students a free diving course, even though they need to be qualified divers. He wants, therefore, to be able to carry on charging for the diving course; and he wants to know whether he will need a statutory instrument, cleared by the DFEE, to enable him to do so. Anyone who thinks that the way to reform higher education for the 21st century is to force vice-chancellors to go to the DFEE to clear their financial arrangements for maritime engineering courses has another think coming—it is nonsensical.
    Mr. Derek Twigg: What exactly would the hon. Gentleman rule out for top-up fees?
    Mr. Willetts: We would rule out a general regime of top-up fees. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman did not take part in the Committee debates. In Committee, we tabled an amendment making it explicit that the tuition fee should be no more than 25 per cent. of the cost of the university course; and to make it difficult for the Government to charge more than that. I know from our time in office how people often criticise reforms as the start of a slippery slope—there will be worse to come, they say. That is indeed what happened in Australia. We were trying to put more hurdles in the way of Ministers who might attempt to put up the percentage by more than price increases—but Ministers did not accept our amendments. The question asked by the hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Twigg) would, therefore, be better addressed to his own Government.
    I do not want to go on for much longer, because I know that many Labour Members want to speak. The point is a simple one: it is whether or not the Secretary of State can honestly tell the House that the measures he is trying to get through tonight will widen access to higher education. Nobody can seriously believe that doubling the debt of students from the poorest backgrounds can contribute to that.
    The Secretary of State has rushed out a package of concessions today which, no doubt, he will tell the House is intended to answer that anxiety about access. As I said earlier, today's package bears striking similarities to the one he launched before the Labour party conference to help get him through that event, and to the one he launched in early November to get him through a debate in the House, so little in the package is new to us. He has introduced some proposals on helping single parents, which seem to be focused more on the last Labour rebellion than on the issue before us tonight. Whatever he proposes in respect of mature students and single parents does not alter the fact that every person who seriously studied the issue concluded that the maintenance grant should stay on the 50:50 basis at which the Conservative Government left it.

    807
    I hope that I do not embarrass the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) when I say that, if the House does not reach our amendment—it is unlikely that we shall have an opportunity to vote on it—the Conservatives will support his amendment. We shall do so because his amendment is consistent with the Dearing report, and it is the Dearing report on which we rest our case. We shall not be supporting him on the abolition of tuition fees because, unlike the Liberal Democrats, we recognise that one of the things that people in higher education want is an increase in resources; therefore, the obligation on anyone who is serious about contributing to the debate on higher education is to specify where those resources should come from.
    Dearing thought that that increase should come from the tuition fee. Our objection to the tuition fee is not one of principle, but one of practice. The Government, instead of introducing the tuition fee on the basis envisaged by Dearing, which would have brought an overall increase in resources to universities, have not been able to accept our amendment, which proposes that there should be a guarantee that there will not be offsetting reductions in Higher Education Funding Council grants to universities that will reduce universities' grant according to whatever extra money they raise from tuition fees. That is the objection of many in the university world to the Government's tuition fees proposals, to which subject we might turn later this evening.
    Mr. Blunkett: I congratulate the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) on his appointment as shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment. I fear that courses in deep-sea diving may prove appropriate in the months and years ahead. I can help the hon. Gentleman out a little tonight, as my son is studying marine biology and has to undertake diving lessons—so far, at his own expense. However, if the hon. Gentleman examines amendment No. 77, he will see that his friend who teaches marine engineering will be able to organise suitable field trips so that his students can undertake diving. I thought that it would be useful to start off on a helpful note.
    Mr. Willetts: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words, and welcome the fact that the amendment to which he refers is one that Conservative Members tabled in Committee. The Government were not willing to accept it at that stage, but have now accepted it in response to the arguments that we advanced in Committee.
    Mr. Blunkett: As long as I am in the job, I shall have the open-mindedness to see when even something from Conservative Members registers as acceptable. That is what we have done, and what we shall continue to do.
    I fear that my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) will be less than pleased to be walking through the Lobby with Conservatives this evening, defending a system that is indefensible. Those who vote against our proposals tonight would have to put something in their place—not simply to replace our proposals on maintenance, or, for that matter, on a contribution by the better-off towards fees, but to replace the system that has clearly failed.
    We are here tonight discussing this matter not for the benefit of our health or because we are masochists, but because the previous system was on the verge of collapse.
    808
    The education system that we were offering had been eroded by the previous Government. There had been a 40 per cent. drop in unit costs. Universities were unable to envisage resources being made available in future to maintain and improve quality. At the same time, they saw a real danger that, as higher education became available to more students, restrictions would be placed, as they had been over the previous five years, on the number of students—certainly south of the border—who could go to university. That was the cap imposed by the Conservative Government, along with an erosion of quality and underfunding, and there were cries from the universities that they were on the verge of collapse.
    Something had to be done. Students asked for something to be done because of the mish-mash of the mortgage-type loans scheme and the erosion of the residual grant, which the Conservative Government had cut year after year. Yet tonight, Conservative Members are telling us that they are suddenly in favour of maintenance grants, when it was they who started the process of removing them.
    Mr. John McDonnell: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Blunkett: I will. I hope that you will not defend Opposition Members.
    Hon. Members: Cheap.
    Mr. McDonnell: I think that we deserve better than that. On the principle that you have raised—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I would be grateful if both the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) used the correct parliamentary language.
    Mr. McDonnell: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    The Secretary of State said that the grant has been eroded and therefore must now be abolished, but pensions were eroded by the previous Government. Are we to abolish them?
    Mr. Blunkett: I expected better of the hon. Gentleman, despite the remark I made when I gave way to him. [AN HON. MEMBER: "He is your hon. Friend."' He is "the hon. Gentleman" to me, and I shall describe him in the terms I want.
    I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) that, if we were to do something about the mish-mash that existed, we would have to restore the grant in full, because to leave it in the circumstances that we inherited, with the mortgage-type loans scheme and the residual parental contributions, would do no student a favour. It would trap students in that mortgage-type scheme, fail to increase the grant element, and atrophy a mess in perpetuity. We would have to find the money for the grant and therefore raise money from elsewhere to fund further access and the opening up of places in higher education, which my hon. Friends who have put their names to the amendments would want.
    At the same time, we would have to ensure that we funded priorities such as nursery education, literacy and numeracy programmes, the avoidance of exclusion,

    809
    investment in the infrastructure of schools, and the preparation for a new century in terms of investment in new technology. Nobody believes that there is a fairy godmother, and that we will not only find the money for expansion and the money the universities are desperate for to retain their world-class status and quality, as well as to restore the former grant levels, but to deal with pensioners, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington raised. One has to live in the real world of politics to make difficult decisions and see them through.
    Mr. Llew Smith: Is the Secretary of State saying that some of the poorest families, and, indeed, the poorest students, in my community would prefer no grant to even a small grant?
    Mr. Blunkett: I think that they would prefer to have higher education rather than no education at all. That is the option. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) should bear this in mind: if we were to retain the cap on higher education and not expand the numbers, which will cost a lot of money, who would get their sons and daughters into university? Who have historically found places for their sons and daughters in university?
    Ms Diane Abbott: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    9.30 pm
    Mr. Blunkett: In a moment.
    Only 2 per cent. of children from manual labouring families get into university. Like me, my hon. Friend has a constituency with one of the lowest rates of adult higher education in Britain. My constituency is the sixth worst in Britain in that regard.
    I know what students want. They tell me that they want support when they need it, and that they are prepared to contribute when they can afford to do so. It is a simple, old principle: to those according to their need from those according to their means. When people have the means—when their earnings from future prosperity allow them—they are willing to make a contribution.
    That is what we are asking in our new programme: it is the nearest thing we have to progressive taxation. It is based on the simple principle of being attached to the Inland Revenue, with repayment determined by the level of income at a time when people can afford it and in circumstances that ensure that people receive the resources when they need them. The programme is entirely in line with the manifesto upon which my hon. Friends fought the general election.
    For the benefit of the hon. Member for Havant, the manifesto said:
    "The improvement and expansion needed"
    in higher education
    "cannot be funded out of general taxation. Our proposals for funding have been made to the Dearing Committee, in line with successful policies abroad. The costs of student maintenance should be repaid by graduates on an income-related basis, from the career success to which higher education has contributed."
    810
    We cannot make it clearer than that—it is not a hint or an implication, but a manifesto commitment upon which we won the general election.
    Mr. Don Foster: Although the Liberal Democrats do not support the Secretary of State in introducing tuition fees, he will be aware that we support him in requiring an increased amount of money from students through the change from maintenance grants to loans. Does he accept that his argument would have considerably greater force if he would give a clear commitment that the additional money raised from students will be ring-fenced and spent in the higher education sector?
    Mr. Blunkett: I shall give what I have given at least twice in the House: a commitment that the resources raised will go to further and higher education. We refer to "further and higher education" because of the overlap between those two areas.
    In Scotland, where the level of entry into higher education is 45 per cent., compared with 32 per cent. in England and a similar figure in Wales, the number of students taking higher education courses is very much higher than the figure south of the border.
    I am not prepared to discriminate against further education, which needs funding desperately. Adult students are not exempt from having to contribute towards their further education fees, and they have been treated disgracefully in the past in relation to maintenance. This and subsequent Parliaments will begin to resolve that inequity. I wish that those who are today opposing the manifesto commitment and Government policy were concerned about the problems in further education.
    Mr. Dalyell rose—
    Mr. Ted Rowlands rose—
    Mr. Blunkett: To which of the group should I give way—the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott)?
    Mr. Rowlands: Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, I hope. It is a bit different from Hackney. In my manifesto to my constituency, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, I did not propose the introduction of tuition fees, and nor, to my knowledge, did we do so nationally.
    Mr. Blunkett: I am dealing with maintenance, but I am not proposing to abolish free fees, and I am certainly not preparing to do so—as other parties would do—for those on low incomes. I am quite prepared, later tonight, to defend the situation in relation to protecting the better-off in relation to their having to pay a small contribution to—
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Blunkett: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell).
    Mr. Dalyell: My right hon. Friend referred to the resources to be raised. What is the departmental estimate of the amount to be raised? What has the Department for

    811
    Education and Employment said, in its professional opinion, is the amount likely to be raised by these proposals? Is it about £140 million, or is that the wrong figure?
    Mr. Blunkett: What will be raised is offset by the initial costs of the provision of the sums that must be repaid. That would be necessary whichever system we used. In other words, we would have to find the money—be it a grant or a loan—initially, to do so. However, the actual amount that will come in from maintenance next year—as opposed to the amount that must go out—is £600 million, and the year after, it will be £850 million.
    That is the nub of the reason why we took the decision to extend the Dearing proposals, and combined that with the manifesto commitment. In that way, we would raise sufficient resources to ensure that we could provide access, retain and extend quality, and provide a fair system, which would hold for years to come.
    Mr. Rowlands rose—
    Dr. Lynne Jones rose—
    Ms Abbott rose—
    Mr. Blunkett: I shall not give way; I want to make progress.
    Mr. Rowlands: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State has said that he will not give way at the moment.
    Mr. Blunkett: I shall give way later. I want to make progress, because we need to deal head on with the question why we are introducing the repayment system for maintenance.
    At the start of the debate, the new shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Havant, talked about what the Conservative Government had done. It is quite important tonight that we shed a little light on what the hon. Gentleman believed and believes, because, if he is to succeed in opposition, the first lesson he must learn is, "Always check what you have written yourself."
    In his book, "Why Vote Conservative?"—an extremely good question—the hon. Member for Havant wrote:
    "In the old days we spent a lot per student, including a generous maintenance grant. That high level of spending per student was only possible for a system aimed at a tiny elite of students: it acted as a barrier to expansion. The increase in student numbers has been associated with a change in the pattern of student support."
    He said that nearly 2 million student loan accounts would have been issued and £4 billion would have been provided in loans. He said:
    "That is a massive contribution to student welfare. It is inconceivable that taxpayers, often on modest incomes themselves, would have been willing to pay it all outright as grants."
    The hon. Gentleman was right to say that the old system was designed for a small elite. He was right to say that modest income tax payers would be unwilling to fund others who would be better off in later life, if they did not believe that they would make a contribution themselves. He was right to say that the system would erode. Why cannot the hon. Gentleman stick to his guns tonight,
    812
    and admit that his Government did not have the guts to reorganise the system? They did not have the bottle to set about the reforms needed. They left it to us to sort out the mess that they had created.
    We are carrying through our manifesto and conference decision. I have always believed that conference decisions were important in ensuring that the parliamentary party was accountable to the party as a whole, and that conference was the decision-making body and should be respected by those who, as representatives of the party in Parliament, hold their place only because we stood on a common manifesto, not on one that we wrote ourselves on the back of an envelope.
    Mr. Willetts: As the Secretary of State is so keen on the manifesto basis for maintenance grants, will he explain where in the Labour manifesto the introduction of tuition fees is mentioned? If the manifesto doctrine is the basis on which he defends maintenance grants, how will he explain the fact that, before the election, the Leader of the Opposition, as he then was, made it clear that Labour would not introduce tuition fees?
    Mr. Blunkett: First, that does not relate to the amendment. Secondly, I made it abundantly clear at the general election that we would await the Dearing report. I said again and again, in Parliament and outside, that we would reserve our position, and that I was open to persuasion. That was included in the statements during the general election.
    The proof of the pudding is in the eating. On ITN at lunchtime, a student was interviewed. I do not know where the political reporters were. The student said that, if these measures were introduced, half the students would not want to go to university. That was a little out of date. The numbers of students applying for the autumn term from school and college have gone up this year. Those who predicted a massive drop were simply wrong. We understand from the Universities and Colleges Admission Service—UCAS—based on data from postal codes, that there has been no change in the socio-economic make-up of students applying for university next year.
    Part-time students will not be affected, except that they will be secure if they lose their job. We will support them and help them out. Such help was not available before.
    There is undoubtedly concern about full-time mature students. The matter is close to my heart, as I made clear on Second Reading. I have every intention of ensuring that mature students are supported and helped wherever necessary. First, in the Green Paper "The Learning Age", we stated that we would consult on the issue of lifting the threshold—the age—at which someone would be entitled to help. I am delighted to announce that, having consulted, we will lift that figure, so that people under 55 will be entitled to support and help in the same way as younger students.
    We said that we would look at how we could increase access funding. We are doubling access funding, and we are making it available in such a way that it can help people who are seeking places, not just those who are already experiencing hardship in universities.
    We said that we would provide a non-means-tested special grant for disabled people. I can announce that we will increase it to £10,000 for those who need extra support because of their special needs.

    813
    We said that we would protect those who were worse off as mature students with dependants. We will retain the non-repayable grant for students with dependants, and we will retain as a non-repayable grant the £1,000 for single parents, as we recognise that they do not have the support at home that would otherwise be available to mature students. The package ensures that those in their later years who wish to enter higher education have nothing to fear from our proposals.
    Mr. Hilton Dawson: Will my right hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the excellent measures that he has brought forward? However, will he recognise that I have some disappointment that he has not yet explicitly addressed the issue of care leavers, who are grossly under-represented in the population of young people who go on to higher education? These people have explicit financial needs, and at least they should be supported through the long vacations.
    9.45 pm
    Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend is right. The scandal of 75 per cent. of school leavers from residential care leaving without any qualification must be recognised. Even more scandalous is that only 1 per cent. leave with an A-level qualification. We need to reverse that trend. As was said earlier this evening, it is the low standards that too many of our children receive at school that are the main barrier to them entering higher education. I am prepared to consider specific help for those leaving residential care as part of a much broader package between the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health, to support those people as a decent family would do if it had the necessary resources.
    I do not pretend for a moment that the proposals that the House is considering right the wrongs of inequity within our society. I cannot overturn in terms of student funding and funding for universities the difference between the silver spoon that some children are born with and the wooden spoon of others. However, I can ensure that the education that those from poorer families receive enables them to provide that silver spoon for their children. In other words, it will be the foothold on the ladder of learning.
    Dr. Iddon: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Blunkett: I shall give way one more time.
    Dr. Iddon: I appreciate the raising of the age limit to 55, on which I have been lobbying my right hon. Friend. If, tragically, one of these mature students died, would repayment of the loan disappear, and not become a burden on the estate of such a person?
    Mr. Blunkett: The difference between a mortgage-type repayment and an income-related scheme is that ability to pay is dependent on income. If someone is deceased, the debt dies with him. If his income drops, so does his
    814
    repayment. That is why I said earlier that the proposal is as near as possible to the principle of progressive taxation. That is its basis.
    Ms Abbott: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Blunkett: I shall not give way. I shall make two final remarks.
    First, our proposals are a direct alternative to universities introducing top-up fees, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Havant. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that, had we not reorganised and introduced an entirely new way of funding universities and access for students, we would have faced a barrage of top-up fees from universities. Top-up fees play no part in our proposals, and it is not my intention that they should.
    Secondly, we had to face the simple reality that, over the years, we have let down too many of our young people. We have failed them in terms of the standards they received at school and the expectations that they should rightly have for themselves and their future. These proposals enable them to get that foothold and to take up higher education, not by squeezing out other students, but by expanding the possibilities and the available options, and by doing so to ensure that they can pay back. They will be able to afford to pay back the contribution that has been invested in their future. That is why rights and responsibilities go together. It is why the Government have bitten the bullet, and decided to take these measures for the future of our country.
    Mr. Welsh: The Secretary of State taunted one of his colleagues, but I believe that it was the right hon. Gentleman who was seeking to defend the indefensible. If the previous system was on the verge of collapse, it was because the Tories were inventing the policies that the right hon. Gentleman is now carrying out. The real problem is lack of resources. Instead of providing them, the Government are putting the financial burden on to individual students and their families, which is unacceptable for a party that said that its priority was education, education, education.
    When the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) and I were elected in 1974, we taught at neighbouring schools, and my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) was a teaching colleague of the hon. Gentleman at his school. I therefore understand exactly the situation he described, and his motivation in moving the amendment. Although the introduction of tuition fees has received a lot of attention, the scrapping of grants is a more serious problem. Dearing proposed retaining grants, but the Government ignored his considered view, and are steamrollering through this unpopular and unwise policy. Dearing had hardly uttered his conclusions before the Government had overturned them.
    Means-testing fees will help students from poorer backgrounds, but the fact that they will be expected to pay their living costs will result in many deciding against higher education because of the financial barrier.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell rose—
    Mr. Welsh: The Government's decision to abolish grants will force students on longer courses into debt of

    815
    £15,000 or more. The loans may be income-contingent, but they will still act as sufficient deterrent. Perhaps the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) does not believe that.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: By how much would the hon. Gentleman's party be prepared to raise income tax to pay for the measures that he suggests?
    Mr. Welsh: The hon. Lady should look at our policy for an independent Scotland. We have fully costed such policies, but our problem—[Interruption.] An independent Scotland could well afford it.
    Our problem is that we are inheriting from the Government an impoverished devolved assembly living on pocket money that will face, for exactly the same reasons, exactly the same problems that the Government have imposed on the hon. Lady. The Government are not making education their priority, and she will be answerable to her constituents for that.
    The amendment would tackle a severe problem. I must point out to the hon. Lady, because I notice the great distinction between traditional Labour and new Labour, that the reality under the new Labour Government is that a student in receipt of a full grant who takes out a full loan receives almost £800 a year less than an unemployed single person claiming jobseeker's allowance and housing benefit. Under the proposed system, students will, if anything, be in a worse position, which is hardly an incentive for people on benefits to enter further or higher education. That is the policy supported by the hon. Lady, and she is answerable for that.
    Students are most concerned about the abolition of grants. That is the clear message at student rallies and protest marches, and in petitions which have been organised throughout the country. Perhaps the hon. Lady wants to ignore that, but those people are voters, and they will let her know how they feel.
    I must make a point to the hon. Lady from the Scottish perspective. The previous debate showed that the Minister in charge of Scottish education believes that the Scottish four-year degree is a bogus tradition. No wonder he is even more unpopular than his Tory predecessor—the Government are completely out of touch with educational institutions and with public opinion. The hon. Lady can defend that if she wants to do so, but the Government should abandon their proposal to abolish grants and think again.
    I support the amendment, and I know the motivation of the hon. Member for Falkirk, West in moving it. I commend him for so doing.The Government were elected on a priority of education, education, education. They should say why they have abandoned that priority. I leave that to their conscience.
    Miss Melanie Johnson: First, hon. Members must ask how they want to use taxpayers' money. It is important to use a lot of that money to help people into the education system early and to give them every support, so that they come out of the school system with good qualifications and educated to a high standard. Secondly, we must ask ourselves what is fair for students and for taxpayers. Those questions must both be weighed in the balance. It is a matter of choice, and there are many choices to be made in this matter.
    816
    One way of looking at the issue is to imagine that we were making a decision without knowing, in this case, whether we were rich or poor. That form of decision making comes from the philosophy of a man called Rawls in deciding the meaning of justice. I recommend that way of looking at the matter to the House, because the Government's proposals, as opposed to those in the amendment, match the criteria for the best and most just way of making a decision.
    Mr. Welsh: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Miss Johnson: I shall give way in a moment.
    What we have here is a process that gives people a fair deal, whether they are poor or rich.
    Mr. Welsh: The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), sitting two seats away from the hon. Lady, called me sotto voce "elitist" after my speech. I am a former pupil of Govan high school. Ordinary folk from Govan went to university and went on to do PhDs, which they could do then under the grant system. They will now be deterred from doing so by the massive loans that must be repaid. Is the hon. Lady really saying that putting a massive debt on individuals will improve access to further and higher education?
    Miss Johnson: Several comments can be made about that. First, we have already heard this evening how, at one time, one in 14 people went on to university, whereas we now have a much better ratio of one in three. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Quite right. To sustain the progress that has been made in that respect, we must look at how to proceed in the future. I spoke earlier about the decisions and choices that people have to make. Crucial to the debate is the fact that people must decide at one time in their life what university course to do and what to do with the rest of their life—we are trying to give people as much access to those courses as possible—and, at a later time, they must pay back into the system, according to their income. Those two events do not happen at the same time. Some Members of this House, if not deliberately then certainly mistakenly, conflate the two time scales. The issue of when students pay back is crucial.
    Earlier in the debate, we heard the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Gorrie) talk about the principle of angels dancing on a pinhead. Given his party, I was moved to wonder whether he was referring to the amount of Liberal Democrat policy that one could get from 1p on income tax. He talked about access to places such as Covent Garden and said that we could not get more access. People must pay now for the privilege of access to Covent Garden, which is why it is a privilege that few can afford. The proposals that we are discussing give people the opportunity to pay back later when they can afford so to do, which is why they are fair.
    Ms Abbott: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Miss Johnson: The hon. Lady has come relatively late into the Chamber.
    Dr. Lynne Jones rose—
    Miss Johnson: I shall give way to the hon. Lady, who has been here for some time.
    Dr. Jones: The hon. Lady is perfectly right to say that our priority must be to give more young people from

    817
    poorer family backgrounds access to higher education. That must be our top priority, but of the young people who are qualified to go to university, those from a lower socio-economic background are about half as likely to go to university as those from the top classes of society. Why does she think that is, and how does she think these measures will help to improve that situation?
    Miss Johnson: The figures certainly do not show that the present system is successful. Were it successful, the hon. Lady would not be highlighting such figures. Nor would one of the other contributors to the debate have highlighted the same figures. If the system were successful, there would be much better access. That is what we are addressing.
    10 pm
    Caroline Flint: Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that, following the introduction of student loans, between 1991 and 1997, the number of students from unskilled and semi-skilled families rose from 6 per cent. to 14 per cent., showing that previous maintenance loans were clearly not working for such people and that access to further funding to support them through college did? Today's proposals are a progression on that.
    Miss Johnson: Exactly that point needs to be made.
    I come now to the question of the future, in which there is every likelihood of good pay. Such a future is available to many graduates. If people do not receive a good income, they will not have to pay back the loans. In fact, they will have to pay back nothing if they earn less than £10,000 a year. At earnings of £17,000 a year, they will pay back only £12 a week—4 per cent. of their income.
    I have felt able most strongly to recommend that extremely good investment to sixth-form students in my constituency, when I have spoken to them on the subject over the past six months or so. The comments were well received, and many local students were persuaded—quite rightly—of the Government's arguments. [Laughter.] Conservative Members may laugh, but those students were persuaded. I have received almost no letters of complaint about the changes from sixth formers. The proposals are finding much favour.
    It is interesting to note, as does the editorial in The Times today, that there is an unholy alliance—The Times describes it as an "incredible alliance of convenience"—between the National Union of Students and the Tory party. The editorial expresses the hope that the arrival of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) in place of his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), as shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment, will mean that the Tories will reconsider their opposition to the Government's proposals. My experience in talking to students is very much in line with the sympathies expressed in today's editorial in The Times.
    Mr. Green: I assure the hon. Lady that, as long as the NUS is prepared to support the Conservative party, we Conservatives are happy to have its support. I am happy that she is happy to throw such support away.
    Miss Johnson: I am reliably informed that the NUS is not entirely with the Conservative party in these matters,
    818
    because it supports us on the question of maintenance. None the less, it seems to be making an unholy alliance with the Conservatives on other related matters.
    We must bear it in mind that, although Conservatives and, indeed, some Labour Members are expressing concern, part-time, Open university and postgraduate students already pay fees of the kind that is envisaged. Indeed, most further education students pay fees. We are proposing that much more of the higher education sector should fall into line with much of the further education sector and the remainder of the HE sector. Parity between different sectors is important. There is no reason in justice why somebody on one course should receive markedly different support from the state from that received by someone doing a similar course post school.
    Ms Abbott: The hon. Lady referred earlier to fairness and justice. She must be aware that after examining the options in great detail, Dearing expressly rejected completely abolishing the maintenance grant—a means-tested grant—as that would bear most heavily on the poorest students. Could the hon. Lady explain how loading young people from Hackney with a burden of debt—which would not be the case if the maintenance grant were not abolished—will encourage them to go to university?
    Miss Johnson: The trouble with the hon. Lady's argument is that it takes no account of the fact that no remission was envisaged in the provisions to which she refers. Therefore, she is not comparing like with like. Under the proposals—which I support—twice the level of subsidy will go to those from poorer homes than to those from richer homes.
    It was entertaining to hear the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) describe his support for his daughters, and the fact that they would end up with no debts as a result of their time as students. I commend his support for them, but the fact is that many families cannot afford to do that. The question is how we provide people with access to higher education. We cannot usefully compare students from families with a lot of money, which will always be able to support and buy more for their children, with those from poorer families, which can never hope to do that.
    Five years after a person graduates, he or she is likely to be earning 15 per cent. more than a non-graduate. After 10 years, the figure is 20 per cent. Those arguments meant that the position that I argued with the sixth formers found favour.
    It was interesting that—probably because I was a member of the Standing Committee—I received correspondence from the local branch of the NUS, which decided to take out a full-page wrap-round in the local free paper to advertise my membership of the Standing Committee and to give its views of the Government's proposals. As a result of that extensive publicity—the paper was circulated to all local residents—I received no phone calls and only, I think, two letters at my constituency office.
    Despite the Opposition's position—and although some students have joined them—their complaints are not finding support among the public, because the public recognise that there is an issue to be addressed. We cannot run the system that was left to us with 40 per cent. Less

    819
    per head going in with each student to each university place. Many students will find that we shall not be able to increase access. Something will have to give—the access or the quality, or both. I would suggest that it is close to being both, but quality is currently at risk.
    Mr. Willis: The hon. Lady's last point is incredibly important. Dearing said that we needed £365 million this year, £550 million next year and £1 billion by 2000 simply to stand still with the existing number of students. Fees this year will raise £150 million. How does the hon. Lady—and her Front-Bench colleagues—propose to make up the difference, to give us the quality that we need for our existing students, let alone more students?
    Miss Johnson: We have spent £165 million this year, and proposals will emerge from the comprehensive spending reviews, which are about to report. The Government need take no lectures from Opposition Members—particularly the hon. Gentleman, who would spend 1p on income tax many times over. In Committee, we saw him spend that 1p many times over.
    I reiterate my belief that the proposals will produce a much more just system—they will produce greater fairness and better access. In particular, people from poorer backgrounds will be helped; they will be able to afford to say, "I can invest in my education. As I can pay back the money when I can afford to do so, I can, as a young adult, take responsibility for this investment and pay back the system."
    I am sure that this year's figures, which show an increased interest among 18 to 21-year-olds in university places, will be followed by even better figures in the years to come. We shall find that access is enhanced, especially for the groups that we want to be better represented in the universities.
    Mr. John Hayes: There are three principal differences between the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) and me—[Laughter.] I should say that there are three principal differences beyond those that are patently obvious. First, I recognise the extent of public disquiet about the Government's proposals—for the hon. Lady to say that she has received no correspondence about them is incredible, although I understand that she is ex-directory.
    Miss Melanie Johnson: I did not say that I had received no correspondence; I said that, as a result of the student union advertisement, I received no additional correspondence. I have had some correspondence, but not a significant amount.
    Mr. Hayes: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her qualification, although it throws even less light on the amount of correspondence that she received than her original comments did.
    The second difference is that I come from a working-class background, so I might not have qualified to become a new Labour Member of Parliament. I was the first in my family to enjoy the opportunity of going to university, partly because sufficient funds were available to me. Anyone who believes that access to higher education is solely, or even principally, a matter of academic qualifications—as the hon. Member for
    820
    Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) suggested—misunderstands the cultural problems and social issues associated with the varying staying-on rates across the country. Even a superficial glance at those rates confirms that deep-rooted assumptions and preoccupations—about leaving school early, going to work and earning a first pay packet—prevent many people from working-class families from applying to university.
    Mr. Coaker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Hayes: Nottinghamshire, from where the hon. Gentleman comes, is a good example of what I am talking about—I give him that tip before he intervenes.
    Mr. Coaker: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Does he agree that the difference in staying-on rates is the key issue? Culture and educational achievement, not grants, impact on low-income families. Unless expectations and achievements are raised, and unless the way in which low-income families view education is changed, access to higher education for those families will never be improved.
    Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman speaks a lot of sense—expectations are a key issue. To separate expectation from finance—from the burden that working-class families are likely to endure—is a nonsense, as he must know. Anything that aggravates that burden and increases apprehensions will surely have a detrimental effect on attempts to widen access.
    Dr. Nick Palmer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Hayes: I have already given way to one Nottinghamshire Labour Member, and I do not intend to make a habit of it.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said, the truth of the matter is that Dearing looked into this issue carefully. The assumption was that just as all parties accepted and welcomed the setting up of Dearing, they would accept and welcome the conclusions because it was an independent and empirical study and it therefore was not prejudiced. Frankly, it was also assumed that Dearing would recommend the abolition of the maintenance grant. However, the Dearing committee believed that abolition would damage the prospects of working-class children. Let us make no bones about it, because that is what the report said. It viewed abolition as the likely cause, not of an increase in children from working-class homes going to university and a widening of access, as many hon. Members have said, but of a narrowing of access and a disincentive to those very children, which is why it recommended keeping the maintenance grant. Let us not be under any misapprehensions about that either.
    I said that there were three differences between the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield and me—the third is that I am going to be concise. It is disingenuous to suggest that the public were made aware of the proposals before the election. I spoke in a number of places then—on NUS platforms and against Labour representatives.
    10.15 pm
    Mr. Phil Hope: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the previous Administration—the Conservative party, which he now represents—left university finances in such dire straits and capped the number of places, which meant that many young people in Corby simply could not get into university, because there were no places? Can he also explain why the Conservatives will tonight support charging all students in Corby tuition fees and why they are not opposed to universities being able to charge extra fees on top?
    Mr. Hayes: I do not want to go off on a tributary towards Corby, but there was a massive expansion of higher education under the previous Government, as has been acknowledged by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The figures have been made clear. Higher education mushroomed during the previous Government. Also, the Conservative Government set up Dearing, mindful of the very issues that the hon. Gentleman draws to the attention of the House. The Conservative party did not assume that those were not problems that needed to be faced or challenges that needed to be met. It reflects badly on the Labour party now that it is in government that it does not accept the advice of that independent committee.
    Finally, as I do not want to fall into the trap of being quite as long-winded as the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield: I meant that kindly, of course—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Well, I meant it fairly kindly. The truth of the matter is that there was no open acknowledgement or clear manifesto pledge. I have the Labour manifesto here—I carry it with me all the time, to see how many promises have been broken—and there is no clear indication that tuition fees would be introduced. That is not mentioned. The section on higher education is very short and does not mention tuition fees at all.
    Let us be absolutely frank. Hon. Members on both sides of the House, if they care about widening access to higher education, should resist the proposals. Furthermore, those proposals do no credit to the new Labour Government.
    Mr. Bill Rammell: I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) is not still in his place. I understood his argument about tuition fees to be that they would simply be a mechanism to deal with course fees. I think that he also referred to maritime students. That was very different from the interpretation of the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) in Committee when we debated these matters, when it was clear that the Conservative party was in favour of the general principle of top-up fees for institutions. That may well be part of the reason for the right hon. Gentleman's removal. It is a problem when one thing is said in the Standing Committee and a different thing on the Floor of the House.
    I am happy to support the package of proposals that the Government are putting forward and recognise that many of them are challenging. When moving from a minority system of participation in higher education to a mass education system, we clearly need and desire a new funding system. As someone who worked in the university sector for 10 years before the general election, I am conscious that the universities need a substantial injection of cash, which simply will not be produced from the annual Treasury spending round.
    822
    It has been argued many times that to restore student grants to the 1979 level, to remove the cap on access and to restore university funding would cost the equivalent of 3p or 4p on the standard rate of income tax. Even if the Government were committed to raising taxation by that amount, the idea that we would spend it on students and universities instead of schools, hospitals and public transport is simply not the politics of the Government, or of the real world.
    Mrs. Fyfe: My hon. Friend is doing as others have done in assuming that the amendment is about restoring the old level of maintenance grant. The amendment mentions a maintenance grant but specifies no amount, and it refers to income of a "prescribed amount", not a specified amount. It is so open-ended, I wonder why hon. Members cannot accept it.
    Mr. Rammell: No matter how beneficial our system of Government finance, we will always live with a limited budget. There is a choice between retaining the current proportion of student grant and protecting students from the poorest backgrounds from tuition fees. I believe that the latter is the higher priority.
    I support the Government's position because there was an explicit commitment in Labour's manifesto at the general election. I acknowledge that individual Members may have taken a different personal view, but I did not. There was a specific commitment in my party's manifesto to move from a system of student grants to an income-contingent loans system, and that is what we are debating. I want to highlight some of the disingenuity—I would say hypocrisy, but that would be unparliamentary—in the Conservative party's statement that it is opposed to scrapping maintenance grants. When in government, the Conservatives steadfastly whittled away student grants year after year. How can their position this evening be squared with the statement in November 1993 of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)—then the Chancellor of the Exchequer—when he introduced the dramatic, unprecedented and previously unannounced expansion of loans as opposed to grants? He said:
    "the recent explosion in student numbers has revealed as ridiculous the fears that the student loan scheme might deter students from poorer families."—[Official Report, 30 November 1993; Vol. 233, c. 931.]
    That is what the Tories said in government, but they are putting forward a different story this evening. They are crying crocodile tears, and playing politics with a crucial issue.
    The evidence shows that the increase in loans has not deterred access. I have come to terms with that over time, and the fact is that participation by students of lower-income backgrounds has increased since the introduction of student loans—from about 6 per cent. of students from unskilled family backgrounds in 1991 to 14 per cent. in 1997. In supporting the Government, I very much welcome the substantial increase which has doubled access funds. It will address real needs in universities and institutions in which students are genuinely struggling to make ends meet, and it should be highlighted.
    Part of my reason for supporting the overall package came up when I answered the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe):

    823
    this issue is about choice within a limited budget. When it comes to deterring access, the imposition of tuition fees on students from poorer backgrounds would act as a greater disincentive to entering higher education than would the absence of a student grant. It is a question of choice, and a matter of weighing the arguments.
    We must tackle the defence of the existing system which is based on traditional, principled arguments about the welfare state. It is argued that the welfare state was created to allow people to contribute according to their means and benefit according to their needs, but that is not the way in which universities and higher education have operated over the years. Over time, the people who have benefited from university education have predominantly been those from better-off backgrounds, with the vast majority coming from socio-economic groups A and B.
    The key issue is how to get more students from the lower socio-economic groups to go to university. It is a matter of opening minds and raising ambitions, and the current system is inadequate. Money is important, but it is certainly not everything.
    Mr. Allan Rogers: My hon. Friend said several times that people from working-class and lower socio-economic backgrounds do not have the expectation of going on to higher education, but he is absolutely wrong: the whole tradition of the Rhondda and the mining valleys of south Wales is that people from those very backgrounds have indeed gone to university, and that is one reason why they have supported the Labour party so solidly; they have always supported the idea of free access to higher education. My hon. Friend should come to my constituency to find out whether working-class people have those aspirations.
    Mr. Rammell: It is not my intention to trade working-class credentials, but the matter is one on which I feel passionately, because I was the first person from my family to go to university. I grew up in a council house and come from a working-class background, and I very much value the benefit that I received from a university education. The fundamental problem with that argument is that, for every one of me or of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) who benefited from the system, eight or nine of our contemporaries simply did not get the opportunity.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will my hon. Friend explain to me and to my constituents how it is an incentive for people from poor backgrounds to go to university if they know that, at the end of their course, they will be £10,000 in debt? That is surely the fundamental issue: either we support poor students in going to college or we do not; if we do not, it is the middle classes who will benefit.
    Mr. Rammell: There is nothing in the proposals to force students to pay before they go to university. If we are genuinely interested in opening up higher education and creating a mass opportunity for at least half our people, we must square the circle and ask the question how we are to fund the system.
    Another key question is how we are to encourage people from lower-income backgrounds to go on to higher education. It is not simply a matter of finance. One of the
    824
    most striking statistics that I have come across is that the proportion of students from socio-economic groups D and E who go on to higher education is about 14 per cent. but that the proportion of those same students who gain two A-levels is greater than 50 per cent. We must improve our school system and open up new opportunities.
    Some will argue that we must retain decent grants and not have tuition fees, paying the price of a reduced number of students in higher education. I do not support that elitist argument, and nor should the Government. We need to consider how genuinely to open up university education to allow as many people as possible to benefit.
    The proposed reforms are necessary. The Conservative party's insistence that we accept the Dearing proposals lock, stock and barrel is interesting, but the idea that, had it won the general election, it would have accepted all 70 or 80 proposals without any intervention or independent thinking, is clearly unrealistic.
    Overall, the package of reforms is necessary if we genuinely want to open up higher education. It is a package that must be viewed against the background of determination to open access and to increase student numbers. Part of the reason why we should support it is that, overall, we have ensured that students from lower-income families do not have to pay tuition fees.
    This is a difficult issue. Many hon. Members have thought about it, but the key issue is opening access and getting more students from poorer families into higher education. The previous system has not done it. This one has a chance of doing it and we should support it.
    10.30 pm
    Mr. Don Foster: Unlike the Labour and Conservative parties, which were unable at the last general election to go to the electorate with clear policies for the future funding of higher education—because they decided to wait until the Dearing committee reported—the Liberal Democrats considered this issue well before the general election. In our policy document "The Key to Lifelong Learning", we considered all our concerns, which are shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House, about the future funding of higher education, and we were able to come to some clear conclusions as to what the way forward should be.
    We acknowledge, as Labour Members certainly do, that the 40 per cent. cut in funding over the past 10 years under the previous Government led to severe difficulties for universities. The financial pressures on them will be increased still further if the new Government do as we hope they will—ensure an increase in quality and opportunity to widen and extend access for students. If that is to happen, it is clear that higher education needs a significant injection of additional funds.
    We considered how best that might be done. Of course, one of the options was the introduction of tuition fees. Very rapidly, we chose to reject that option. We easily came to the conclusion that their introduction would be an extension of a tax on learning—a student tax—and we were therefore fundamentally opposed it.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Employment would respond by saying that some students, notably part-timers, already pay tuition fees. We acknowledge that, but the right hon. Gentleman's solution to the problem of creating a level playing field is not to say that

    825
    we will try gradually to remove tuition fees for all students, including part-timers, but to say that we will introduce tuition fees for all students. Sadly, he is supported in that policy by the Conservative party.
    As we have already seen, the introduction of tuition fees has led to considerable confusion. I do not need to repeat all the difficulties; we already know about the fiasco involving gap-year students, about the problem of Scottish universities, and about the confusion of students doing courses for four, five, six or even more years. We also know that means-tested tuition fees are socially regressive.
    It is very surprising to find a Labour Government introducing a socially regressive policy. [Interruption.] I am asked, "Why is it socially regressive?" It is simple. It is based on parental income, rather than on the future income of students. It seems ludicrous that a child from a wealthy family will end up paying fees, but, later, when perhaps doing a relatively low-paid job, have to repay that amount, whereas someone from a low-paid family who ends up in a well-paid job will have nothing to pay back. Indeed, the Prime Minister told the House that the Government's policies were based on the future earnings of students. That is simply not true. Either the Prime Minister was misled by the Department or he is misleading himself.
    Any political party that has stated that our universities need increased income also has a duty to be honest with the electorate and say where the additional funding will come from. In our policy documents, before and during the election, we made it clear what our solution was. We said that there are three beneficiaries from high-quality higher education. The first is the nation; so some of the additional money should come from the nation through increased income tax. Secondly, employers benefit; so they too should make an increased contribution, perhaps through an education and training levy. We also believe that students benefit; they too should pay more towards their costs.
    That is why we accept the need to convert the current maintenance grant to a loan. In that respect, we support the Government. We accept the Secretary of State's argument that we have a simple choice: either to revert to a complete grant, or to revise the system completely and make it a loans system, based on a much fairer repayment regime.
    The real difficulty tonight is not just with the Government's proposal to introduce tuition fees, but with the Government's refusal to ring-fence the money being raised from students for use in higher education. It is no good implying, as the Secretary of State did today, that if students want higher-quality higher education they should pay for it, if he will not even ensure that the money raised from them will be used to that end.
    Ring fencing, coupled with a new system of resource accounting—I know the Secretary of State wants that introduced as quickly as possible—would release, by 2001, an additional £1 billion for use in higher education.
    Although we will support the Government in the Lobby in this vote, we are disappointed that there will be no opportunity for a vote on tuition fees. We would definitely have voted against the Government on that. We are
    826
    disappointed, too, that we will not have the chance to vote on the ring-fencing of fees. On that also we would have voted against the Government.
    Mr. Tony Benn: The one thing upon which the House is agreed is that the former Government left us with a very serious situation affecting the universities. There were serious anomalies, including the fact that students in further and part-time education paid fees while those in full-time education did not. But what the House has not been told is that the money saved by the previous Government was given in tax cuts to the very rich—that has hardly been mentioned in the debate.
    I have listened carefully, but I am unpersuaded that the Government's proposals are the right ones. No one has mentioned the fact that if someone goes to college he or she forgoes three years' earnings. Those earnings may be from a low-paid job filling shelves in a supermarket; but someone doing that at £120 a week would end up with £18,000 after three years. That is the investment that students make in their education.
    The Liberal Democrat spokesman was right to say that education benefits everybody. When I go to see my doctor from Chesterfield, I benefit from her education. Everybody in the House has benefited from the education of doctors and lawyers—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lawyers?"] Of course: everybody benefits. The idea that the only beneficiary of education is the person who receives it is an illusion.
    Then we come to the assertion that graduates make more money and therefore should pay more. What about people who make more money without being graduates? We should tax the rich, not the educated. The other day, I was picked up by a cab driver and I always ask cab drivers what they did before. The driver was about 20 years old and he said that he had worked in the City. When I asked what he had earned, he said "About £70,000 a year, but the firm went bust and now I'm back driving a cab." It is a ludicrous idea that those who have a degree ought to pay more tax than people who have more money and no degree.
    I do not know how many hon. Members read the evidence given by Bernie Ecclestone to the Nolan committee. He said that what he did had nothing whatever to do with formula one; he gave the money to the Labour party because he had read that the Labour party would not increase personal taxation. These proposals are taxes on those who go to colleges to protect the wealthy from having to make any contribution.
    As to the question of whether this measure was in the manifesto, one can use all sorts of phrases, but, throughout the whole election campaign, I never heard any member of the Front-Bench team say, "If you vote Labour, we will have tuition fees." It was never put like that. One can say, "We are going to ask people to make a proper contribution," or put it other ways, but if it had been said, "Vote Labour and there will be tuition fees," it would at least have alerted people to what was in the Government's mind, even if it would not have affected the outcome of the election.

    827
    One other point worries me: the arguments in favour of loans for higher education could apply equally to schools. The principle would be exactly the same if the Government were to say, "We need more money for schools; people who go to school do better; so we will let you go to secondary school, but you will have to take out a loan." I can imagine people saying to me, "Mr. Benn, we will give you an operation, but you will have to take a loan if you can't afford to pay now." The principle at stake is that of the welfare state: that we benefit collectively from the health and education of the nation. That is the argument and I fear that we are eroding it.
    I do not know the Secretary of State's own view, but, having been a Minister for many years, I know that every Minister has a row with the Treasury. What we are doing tonight is paying the price for what the Chancellor said two days ago, reaffirming the continuation of the public expenditure limits set by the previous Chancellor before his Government were defeated. I might be wrong, but I did not meet anyone in the election campaign who said, "I'm voting Labour to be sure that the public expenditure limits of the Government now in power will be retained for the next five years." Perhaps there were some who did—perhaps new Labour made such an appeal, but it certainly did not do so in Chesterfield.
    I shall support my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). I wish we had more time to debate fees, but at least his is a solid amendment, reaffirming the Labour party's historic commitment to opening the way for people to go to college. I benefited from a free education before the grant system came in, because at the end of the war, if one had been in the Royal Air Force, one was allowed through; but I would find it awfully hard to watch any Member of Parliament who had benefited from grants going into the Lobby tonight to vote to replace those grants with loans and to introduce tuition fees.
    Mr. Coaker: I rise to oppose the amendment and support the Government, because I do not believe that it is the lack of grants that will deter students from going on to higher education. In my view, grants do not determine who goes on to higher education.
    If we look at the number of people going to university under the current system, we can see that that system is failing. The figures force us to confront the stark reality that the current higher education system benefits the higher socio-economic groups and disadvantages those at the bottom. Only 2 per cent. of those from the unskilled social group go on to higher education, compared with 14 per cent. and 39 per cent. from the top social groups.
    Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Coaker: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to elaborate my points, he will then be able to attack them.
    Those are phenomenal figures. In 1997, 4,895 home applicants in the unskilled social class were accepted to degree courses. In the intermediate group—the second-highest social class—109,020 applicants were accepted. In the top, professional class, 37,758 applicants were accepted. That policy is not working to benefit the lower socio-economic classes; it is failing them. If we do not confront that fact and do something about it, we will continue to fail those people, even if we now feel that we are doing them a disservice.
    10.45 pm
    Mr. Austin Mitchell: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Coaker: I shall develop my arguments first.
    The repayment of the loan is progressive—it relates to income. That progressive tax is the system with which we want to replace grants. If people's incomes are below a certain level when they go to work, they will not repay the loan. They will repay it only on the basis of what they are earning. It is about time that we stopped frightening people by talking about students incurring debt, and started talking about lending people money so that they can invest in their future. We will then be able to move forward.
    Mr. Hayes: Is the hon. Gentleman telling the House that this is a matter of semantics and marketing? Is he suggesting that the groups that he has described, which are not benefiting from the current system, will be encouraged and assisted by getting rid of the maintenance grant?
    Mr. Coaker: That is exactly what I am confronting head on—the fact that the existing system is failing. If we fail to recognise that, all we will do is perpetuate that failure. These are hard choices, but we must make them.
    We should consider why people from lower socio-economic groups are not going on to further and higher education. I have experience of working in schools, trying to encourage young people from those backgrounds to stay on in education. It is a question of getting those young people, not into higher education, but into further education. We cannot persuade many of them to stay on at 16, let alone 18. Again, if we do not confront that fact, we will not be in a position to do much about it. We should consider that in the context of all the reforms that we want to introduce.
    The question is not one of money or grants, but one of raising people's educational achievement and their expectations, and of encouraging them to believe that they can stay on. We must expand opportunities in higher education and further education so that young people in the social groups about which we are particularly concerned can make progress. The Bill must be seen in conjunction with the School Standards and Framework Bill.
    Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend said that we should not scare potential students about the level of debt but say, "We are transforming your grant into a loan and that is an investment opportunity for you." A number of years ago, the Conservative Government abolished the grants to several of my constituents under social security legislation and loaded them with debt. Was that an investment in their future?
    Mr. Coaker: I am talking about trying to encourage young people into further and higher education. The current system does not work, but if we start talking about loans as investment for the future that allows people to go into further and higher education so that they can earn more and have all the opportunities and advantages that education brings, we will encourage more people from those backgrounds to stay on and, in doing so, we will create opportunities for all.

    829
    I taught for many years in schools that served those communities and, for the last few years, I worked as a deputy head teacher. The problems that we faced did not involve money—although that is also important. We could not encourage young people to stay on in education at 16 and go to college. We could not raise their expectations and we could not create a culture of educational achievement. That will be the real mark of the Government's success: if we achieve those aims, we will ensure that more young people go on to further and higher education. In that way, we shall create opportunities for all groups in society, but particularly for those at the bottom of society.
    Lorna Fitzsimons: I speak in this debate as the first person from my family to enter higher education and as one who spent a long time representing students in post-16 and post-graduate education.
    I praise the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), who encapsulated the lessons that I learnt the hard way by representing students and the real politics that faced us when we gained office and read the Dearing report. Those who advocate swallowing all of Dearing forget that that report suggested that every student, regardless of his or her socio-economic background, should pay a flat tuition fee. [Interruption.] I do not find that funny. The reality for students under your Government was debt because of the way that you whittled down the student grant.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The Chair does not have a Government.
    Lorna Fitzsimons: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the passion carries me away.
    Under the previous Administration, the student grant was whittled down to such a small amount that debt was a way of life for the majority of students. Therefore, I think that it is fickle for the Opposition to talk about student debt in relation to the maintenance grant. They had plenty of time to address the problem of debt among students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Labour turned honestly to the Dearing report before the last election—as did all three main parties. We recognised that we had a limited amount of money and a crisis on our hands and we considered how we would spend those funds.
    As my colleagues have pointed out eloquently, the Government's priority was ensuring that the barrier to higher education was not at the point of access. I am disappointed that hon. Members have confused students with graduates in this debate. Students will pay off loans for tuition fees or maintenance grants only after they have graduated and their incomes have reached a certain level. Under the previous Administration, we had the most expensive student loans system that was ever manufactured. Despite all the economic expertise of the banks, London school of economics graduates, professors and so on, it would have been cheaper to give students the money than administer the old student loans system. We must be honest about the plight that many students face.
    The other argument I wish to nail is the claim that we have enjoyed free state higher education and that this Government are somehow responsible for its abolition.
    830
    As has been said in the Chamber tonight, that denies the fact that many students have been responsible for meeting their own fees for years—only a minority of students were privileged to receive the state subsidy. That fact is swept under the carpet. The Opposition are not bothered that those students have had to shoulder the load; they have had to pay their fees and it has been hard. The reality, however, is that new Labour is about principles.
    Mr. Richard Allan: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Lorna Fitzsimons: No, I will not; I have limited time.
    With limited money and with the crisis that we inherited, we had to ensure that there was no barrier to access for those poor students who, we believed, would have been more disfranchised by having to pay a tuition fee. That is where we put our subsidy. We are putting our policies and principles into practice. I am sad that some of my colleagues cannot see the reality of the system that we inherited.
    In a perfect world, of course we would like everyone—
    Mr. Allan: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Lorna Fitzsimons: No; I have limited time and I am trying to let more hon. Members speak.
    In an imperfect world, it is necessary to prioritise. We have prioritised, ensuring that poor students do not have to pay fees. If there is one message that must go out of the Chamber to the students of the future, it is: "If you come from a low-income background, you will not have to pay a fee under the present Government's proposals."
    Yvette Cooper: Tonight, we have heard many arguments about access—especially access for people from low-income and low-skill backgrounds. Labour Members passionately agree about that. We all believe in that, we all want to achieve it and we are all passionately angry about the previous Government's failure to do enough to get children from lower-income backgrounds into higher education. However, we must be hard-headed about the way in which we act to pursue that goal.
    In my constituency, the problem is not only the low number of people entering higher education, but the low number of people who stay on, after age 16, in any form of education. Nationally, 77 per cent. of 16-year-olds stay on in full-time or part-time education. In my constituency, only 50 per cent. do. From some schools, only 25 per cent. do.
    Mr. Swayne: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Yvette Cooper: I shall not give way. I am sorry, but I have little time and it has been a long debate.
    In my constituency, 30 per cent. of teenagers leave school at 16 and go into unemployment or into a job with no training. That is the problem that we must face if we are to improve access to the crucial skills and education that, at the moment, are the key to prosperity in life. To tackle inequality in this country—
    Mr. Corbyn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Yvette Cooper: I am sorry; I must make progress, because it has been a long debate and I want to finish to allow other hon. Members to get in.

    831
    To tackle inequality in this country today, we must do so through education. If we leave those 16-year-olds in my constituency without access to further or higher education, we are failing to tackle inequality. Faced with a choice between a continuation of the existing maintenance grant system, a return to the 1990 maintenance grant system, as suggested by amendment No. 36 and a new, fair, loan system that liberates hard cash to do something radical for the 16-year-olds in my constituency, enabling them to stay on and have a chance, I shall go for the fair loans and the cash, to do something more substantial.
    It is a fair principle that graduates who earn more—
    Mr. Graham Brady: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Yvette Cooper: I am sorry; I shall not take interventions.
    It is a fair principle that graduates, as they earn more—because they do earn more—should pay something back. Even taking into account the three years that they may spend not earning, they still earn more. They earn masses more than the people in my constituency who are not going into any form of further or higher education—some figures say 10 per cent. more, others say 25 per cent. Either way, a degree is the key to getting on in life, and to higher earnings throughout life.
    Of course, society also benefits from higher education, so society must continue to contribute to it. That is a central part of the Secretary of State's higher education funding proposals. Society must continue to pay, but it is fair that people who earn the most pay something back.
    I have been very lucky. I have benefited not only from higher education and an undergraduate degree, but from being able to take a master's degree at the London school of economics. As a result of the latter, my earning power—my salary—doubled. I took out a career development loan to pay for that, and I have only just finished paying it back. I think that it was fair that I should take out a loan, rather than asking people in my constituency who have been taxpayers in low-income jobs to pay that subsidy to my higher earnings.
    Of course, post-graduate education is different from undergraduate education. I do not say that the same principles should apply, but the underlying principle that if one earns more and is benefiting more, one should pay something back is surely right.
    I ask the House, having listened to the debate this evening, not to vote for the status quo, which has not helped my constituents, but to take the radical approach, to go for the new, fair student loan system and to give us the cash to do something far more powerful to help my constituents to get a better chance in life.
    11 pm
    Mr. Green: Behind much of the passion that we have seen this evening lies a good deal of sadness. I share that sadness because the House will take an historic decision this evening if it votes against the amendment and votes with the Government today and tomorrow, and it is a historically wrong decision.
    The maintenance grant has served many thousands of people well since it was introduced, and I see no reason why it should not continue to do so. Like many hon.
    832
    Members on both sides of the House, I benefited from it. I was educated at a state school, and my sister and I were the first generation of our family to go on to higher education. We benefited from maintenance grants.
    Clearly, we cannot continue with the previous system if the expansion of higher education is to continue; we all accept that. That is why the previous Government introduced a mixed grant and loan system, and we can be proud of that. I am extremely proud of the massive expansion in higher education over the past 18 years. When we came to power, one in eight went into universities; when we left, the figure was one in three. That gave many thousands of young people the opportunity to go into higher education—an opportunity that they would never have had in any previous decade.
    We should be proud of that expansion, and we should recognise that we achieved it through a balanced financial system which mixed grants and loans for those students. Many Labour Members pointed out that access did not diminish after loans were introduced, and we can all be proud of that. One Labour Member noted that since the loan system was introduced, not only did the numbers go up, but the range of those going into higher education increased. There can be no hon. Member who does not believe that we must do better in extending the range of those who have access to higher education.
    The objection to the Government's proposals, and the reason why we support the amendment, is that their proposal will move sharply in the opposite direction. Many Labour Members are embarrassed about it because they feel that they are breaking their election pledge. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) observed that his constituents did not think that they were voting for the introduction of tuition fees if they voted for a Labour Government. He can go further than that.
    A month before the election, in his 50 answers to the Evening Standard, the Prime Minister was asked in question No. 6:
    "Will Labour introduce tuition fees for higher education?"
    He replied:
    "Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education."
    Perhaps the Secretary of State could argue that something has happened since that has changed the situation.
    Mr. Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Green: My time is limited and I want to give the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), who moved the amendment, a chance to get in.
    What has happened since that might have changed the situation? The Dearing committee reported. It was set up on a cross-party basis; everyone agreed that it was a sensible way forward and that we needed to examine the funding of higher education. I remember that my Labour opponent at the general election, who was a teacher at a university, always said that the Labour party could not make any commitments about higher education because it was waiting for Dearing to report.
    That is how Labour fought the general election. What did the Government do as soon as they received the Dearing report? On the day that it was published, they started rubbishing it, and they decided not to implement one of its most important proposals. That is a betrayal not

    833
    just of the students of this country, but of everything that Labour told the British people during the general election campaign.
    The Dearing committee was clearly set up with the idea that the time for maintenance grants might have gone. The issue has been discussed by those who care about funding for higher education for many years. There was a clear presumption that the Dearing report would come down on the side of saying that the time had passed for maintenance grants. We should respect the fact that after 14 months of study, the distinguished group that made up the Dearing committee decided, rather unexpectedly, that there was a role for maintenance grants to play in the future of British education. That decision was made precisely because the committee was most concerned with access to higher education for those who would not otherwise be able to afford it.
    It is not simply a matter of adding up how much students might pay or determining who should not have to pay tuition fees. It is, as many hon. Members have said, a matter of culture. Those who say that we are reclassifying debt as investment and who claim that by so doing, everything will be all right, are talking nonsense. People know when they are in debt. They know that they will have £10,000 to pay back when they leave university.
    Students who come from less well-off backgrounds are much less likely to take the risk. It would be a tragedy for those individuals and for the country as a whole if less well-off children, thinking about higher education, decided that it was too high a risk and said, "I'll play it safe and not go into higher education." If the Government force through their proposal, they will condemn thousands of the less well-off to a less good life than they could achieve by their own efforts and damage our economic performance by narrowing the base of those who will develop the skills that we as a country need to ensure that our prosperity continues.
    The position is worse than that, because there is no guarantee that the money that will be raised from the fees and saved on the maintenance grant will be put into higher education. We have had half a commitment for this year and we have no commitment for future years. This is a Treasury-driven agenda which will do nothing for higher education. The Government have disappeared into the logic of their own focus groups. They have decided that if the Treasury demands it, they prefer to clobber the poor rather than the better-off. That is an historic mistake.
    I admit that the motives of many of those on the left of British politics have been good. I think that they have been wrong-headed, but socialism clearly arose from a desire to promote common decency. Uniquely, the Government are throwing out the baby of common decency with the bath water of socialism. Socialism has been proved to be intellectually wrong and not to work. However, behind it there was a thought—many Labour Members must have gone into politics with this in mind—that there must be some common decency. The Government are betraying the sense of common decency that brought many Labour Members into politics in the first place.
    Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) will have to do much better than that if he
    834
    is to succeed on the Opposition Front Bench. He said that he was proud of the Conservative Government. Is he proud of a 40 per cent. cut in unit costs per student? Is he proud of capping entry into university, to prevent increased access? Is he proud of a Government who halved the grant, but who did not provide additional funds for access or for hardship, which we are doing by means of the Bill?
    The hon. Gentleman's opponent at the general election was right. We spelled out clearly what we would do on maintenance, and we said that we would review the Dearing proposals on fees.
    Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    Mr. Blunkett: No, I will not.
    We are voting on the issue of the maintenance award. We are voting not on fees, but on whether a manifesto commitment, which was explicit, will be carried forward. We are voting on whether a Labour party conference decision, which was overwhelming, will be carried this evening. We are talking about ensuring that students have the money at the point when they need it, and that they repay it when they can afford to do so.
    That is the simple issue before us. It is not a matter of principle about free post-16 education, because that is not even at stake within the amendment. If it were, part-timers and further education students would be in a different position from full-time undergraduates. No principle is being laid aside. We are talking about a provision to ensure that no one is in hardship at university, with additional provision for those who find themselves in difficulty, with loans to be repaid at a real nil rate of interest based on the Inland Revenue system and linked entirely to ability to pay.
    We are asking the House to carry forward this signal reform in the funding of the higher education system, so that the majority, not the minority, can benefit. For the sake of a modern Britain in a new century, we ask hon. Members to vote against the amendment.
    Mr. Canavan: The Government propose to abolish maintenance grants and to make students completely dependent on loans. To put sugar on the pill, the Government are telling students that they will be able to borrow more money and repay it over a longer period. May I say to the Secretary of State that it is little consolation, especially to students from low-income families, to be told that the millstone around their necks will be heavier and there for longer?
    May I also say to the Secretary of State that nothing in my amendment is inconsistent with Labour party policy or with the manifesto commitment, which was a bit ambiguous? It said that the costs of student maintenance should be repaid by graduates on an income-related basis. Some graduates might argue that they already do that by paying income tax. May I also say to him that, sooner or later, the Government will have to grasp the nettle and realise that the introduction of a progressive taxation system is essential for a fair education system?
    The Secretary of State has already introduced some special financial support for students with disabilities and lone parent students, and I welcome that. If my amendment proposed the abolition of loans and the

    835
    reintroduction of a comprehensive system of maintenance grants for all students, I might be able to understand part of his argument that, in some way, it conflicts with his reading of the manifesto, but I am not proposing that. All I propose is that there should be some maintenance grant for students from low-income families. I imagine that most hon. Members, at some stage in their careers, have received the advantage of a maintenance grant to enable them to go on to college and university. I appeal to every hon. Member please not to kick away the ladder of opportunity from future generations, and please to support my amendment in the vote.
    Question put, That the amendment be made:—
    The House divided: Ayes 176, Noes 313.

    Division No. 294]

    [11.13 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Fox, Dr Liam

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Fraser, Christopher

    Arbuthnot, James

    Garnier, Edward

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Gerrard, Neil

    Baldry, Tony

    Gibb, Nick

    Bell, Martin (Tatton)

    Gill, Christopher

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Bercow, John

    Grant, Bernie

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Gray, James

    Blunt, Crispin

    Green, Damian

    Boswell, Tim

    Grieve, Dominic

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Gummer, Rt Hon John

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Brady, Graham

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Brazier, Julian

    Hammond, Philip

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Hawkins, Nick

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Hayes, John

    Burns, Simon

    Heald, Oliver

    Butterfill, John

    Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Canavan, Dennis

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Cash, William

    Horam, John

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Clappison, James

    Hunter, Andrew

    Collins, Tim

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Colvin, Michael

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Cormack, Sir Patrick

    Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Cran, James

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Key, Robert

    Cunningham, Ms Roseanna (Perth)

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Curry, Rt Hon David

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Dafis, Cynog

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Dalyell, Tam

    Lansley, Andrew

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Leigh, Edward

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    Letwin, Oliver

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Day, Stephen

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Lidington, David

    Duncan, Alan

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    Livingstone, Ken

    Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Loughton, Tim

    Etherington, Bill

    Luff, Peter

    Evans, Nigel

    McAllion, John

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Faber, David

    MacKay, Andrew

    Fabricant, Michael

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Fallon, Michael

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Madel, Sir David

    Flight, Howard

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Malins, Humfrey

    836

    Maples, John

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Marek, Dr John

    Spring, Richard

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Mates, Michael

    Steen, Anthony

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Swayne, Desmond

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Swinney, John

    Mitchell, Austin

    Syms, Robert

    Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Moss, Malcolm

    Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Norman, Archie

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Ottaway, Richard

    Townend, John

    Page, Richard

    Tredinnick, David

    Paice, James

    Trend, Michael

    Pickles, Eric

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Pollard, Kerry

    Viggers, Peter

    Powell, Sir Raymond

    Walter, Robert

    Prior, David

    Wardle, Charles

    Randall, John

    Waterson, Nigel

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Wells, Bowen

    Robathan, Andrew

    Welsh, Andrew

    Whittingdale, John

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Rogers, Allan

    Wilkinson, John

    Rowlands, Ted

    Willetts, David

    Ruffley, David

    Wilshire, David

    St Aubyn, Nick

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    Salmond, Alex

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Wise, Audrey

    Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

    Woodward, Shaun

    Shepherd, Richard

    Yeo, Tim

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Mrs. Maria Fyfe and

    Soames, Nicholas

    Mr. John McDonnell.

    NOES

    Ainger, Nick

    Burnett, John

    Alexander, Douglas

    Burstow, Paul

    Allen, Graham

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Byers, Stephen

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Armstrong, Ms Hilary

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Ashton, Joe

    Campbell—Savours, Dale

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Caplin, Ivor

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Casale, Roger

    Banks, Tony

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Barron, Kevin

    Chaytor, David

    Battle, John

    Chidgey, David

    Bayley, Hugh

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Beard, Nigel

    Church, Ms Judith

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Clark, Dr Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Bennett, Andrew F

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Benton, Joe

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Berry, Roger

    Clelland, David

    Blizzard, Bob

    Clwyd, Ann

    Blunkett, Rt Hon David

    Coaker, Vernon

    Boateng, Paul

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Borrow, David

    Cohen, Harry

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Coleman, Iain

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Colman, Tony

    Brake, Tom

    Connarty, Michael

    Breed, Colin

    Cooper, Yvette

    Brown, Rt Hon Gordon (Dunfermline E)

    Corbett, Robin

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Cotter, Brian

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Cox, Tom

    Browne, Desmond

    Cranston, Ross

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Crausby, David

    Burgon, Colin

    Cummings, John

    837

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Darvill, Keith

    Jamieson, David

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Jenkins, Brian

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Davidson, Ian

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Dawson, Hilton

    Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Jowell, Ms Tessa

    Denham, John

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Dismore, Andrew

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Doran, Frank

    Khabra, Piara S

    Dowd, Jim

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Efford, Clive

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Ennis, Jeff

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Fatchett, Derek

    Laxton, Bob

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Lepper, David

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Leslie, Christopher

    Fisher, Mark

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Fitzsimons, Lorna

    Liddell, Mrs Helen

    Flint, Caroline

    Linton, Martin

    Follett, Barbara

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Love, Andrew

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    McCabe, Steve

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

    Galbraith, Sam

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Galloway, George

    Macdonald, Calum

    Gapes, Mike

    McFall, John

    Gardiner, Barry

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    McIsaac, Shona

    George, Bruce (Walsall S)

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Godsiff, Roger

    McLeish, Henry

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

    Gorrie, Donald

    McNamara, Kevin

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    McNulty, Tony

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    MacShane, Denis

    Grocott, Bruce

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Grogan, John

    McWalter, Tony

    Gunnell, John

    McWilliam, John

    Hain, Peter

    Mallaber, Judy

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Martlew, Eric

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Maxton, John

    Hancock, Mike

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Hanson, David

    Meale, Alan

    Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

    Merron, Gillian

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Michael, Alun

    Harvey, Nick

    Milburn, Alan

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Moffatt, Laura

    Healey, John

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Heppell, John

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Hewitt, Ms Patricia

    Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

    Hill, Keith

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Hinchliffe, David

    Mudie, George

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Mullin, Chris

    Hoey, Kate

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Home Robertson, John

    Norris, Dan

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Oaten, Mark

    Hope, Phil

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Howells, Dr Kim

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Olner, Bill

    Hughes, Simon (Southward N)

    O'Neill, Martin

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Organ, Mrs Diana

    Hurst, Alan

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Hutton, John

    Pearson, Ian

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Pendry, Tom

    838

    Perham, Ms Linda

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Pickthall, Colin

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Pike, Peter L

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Plaskitt, James

    Stott, Roger

    Pond, Chris

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Pope, Greg

    Straw, Rt Hon Jack

    Pound, Stephen

    Stringer, Graham

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Stunell, Andrew

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Purchase, Ken

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Rammell, Bill

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Rapson, Syd

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Raynsford, Nick

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Timms, Stephen

    Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

    Tipping, Paddy

    Rendel, David

    Touhig, Don

    Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)

    Trickett, Jon

    Truswell, Paul

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Roche, Mrs Barbara

    Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

    Rooker, Jeff

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Rooney, Terry

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Tyler, Paul

    Vaz, Keith

    Roy, Frank

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Ruane, Chris

    Wallace, James

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Watts, David

    Sawford, Phil

    Webb, Steve

    Sheerman, Barry

    White, Brian

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Singh, Marsha

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

    Willis, Phil

    Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    Wills, Michael

    Wilson, Brian

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Woolas, Phil

    Snape, Peter

    Worthington, Tony

    Soley, Clive

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Southworth, Ms Helen

    Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

    Spellar, John

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    Mr. Robert Ainsworth and Mr. Jon Owen Jones.

    Stevenson, George

    Question accordingly negatived.
    It being more than six hours after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of the Bill, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order [19 May] and the Resolution [this day], put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.
    Amendments made: No. 69, in page 15, line 45, at end insert—

    '(j) modifying any enactment or instrument (whenever passed or made) so as to provide for the treatment, in connection with any calculation with respect to the income (however defined) of persons to whom grants or loans are made under this section, of amounts due from or payable to such persons under such grants or loans;

    (k) for appeals with respect to matters arising under the regulations (including provision for determining, or enabling the determination of, the procedure to be followed in connection with appeals).'.

    No. 71, in page 16, line 32, leave out 'any government department,'.
    No. 76, in page 16, line 37, leave out 'remuneration' and insert 'emoluments'.
    No. 65, in page 17, line 3, at end insert—
    '(ca) requiring the payment, by persons or bodies to whom requirements imposed in pursuance of any of paragraphs
    (a) to (c) apply, of—

    (i) penalties in cases of non-compliance with, or otherwise framed by reference to, such requirements, and

    (ii) interest in respect of periods when such penalties are due but unpaid;

    (cb) requiring the payment by borrowers, in respect of periods when amounts due under their loans are unpaid, of—

    (i) interest (applied to such amounts at a rate calculated otherwise than in accordance with subsection (4)(a)), or

    (ii) both such interest and one or more surcharges (together with further interest in respect of periods when such surcharges are due but unpaid);'.

    No. 66, in page 17, line 10, leave out 'Income Tax' and insert 'Taxes'.
    No. 70, in page 17, line 12, at end insert—
    '(f) determining the priority as between deductions falling to be made by virtue of paragraph (a)(i) and deductions falling to be made from emoluments payable to borrowers by virtue of other enactments (whenever passed).'.
    No. 67, in page 17, line 14, at end insert
    ', and "the Taxes Acts" has the same meaning as in the Taxes Management Act 1970'.
    No. 72, in page 17, leave out lines 32 to 38.—[Mr. Jamieson.]

  Clause 26

    INTERPRETATION OF CHAPTER I
    Amendment made: No. 77, in page 20, line 45, at end insert—
    '(ba) fees payable for field trips (including any tuition element of such fees),'.—[Mr. Jamieson.]

  Clause 27

    GRANTS AND LOANS: SCOTLAND
    Amendments made: No. 40, in page 21, leave out line 34.
    No. 41, in page 21, line 36, leave out from 'loans"' to end of line 1 on page 22 and insert—
    '() After that section there shall be inserted—

    GRANTS AND LOANS: SCOTLAND

      Delegation or transfer of functions relating to student support
      73AA.—(1) If the Secretary of State so determines, any function exercisable by him by virtue of regulations made under section 73(f) of this Act shall, to such extent as is specified in his determination, be exercisable instead by such body or person as is so specified.
      (2) A person or body by whom any function is for the time being exercisable by virtue of subsection (1) above shall comply with any direction given by the Secretary of State as to the exercise of that function.
      (3) The Secretary of State may make arrangements for any person or body specified in the arrangements to exercise on his behalf, to such extent as is so specified, any function exercisable by him by virtue of regulations under section 73(f) of this Act (including any such functions as to appeals).
      (4) Any arrangements made under subsection (3) above shall not prevent the Secretary of State from exercising the function in question himself.
      (5) The Secretary of State may make provision for enabling appeals—

      (a) to be made with respect to such matters arising out of the exercise by any person or body of any function by virtue of subsection (1) or (3) above as he may determine; and

      (b) to be so made to a person or body appointed by him for that purpose.

      (6) The Secretary of State may pay to any person or body by whom any function is exercisable by virtue of subsection (1) or (3) above—

      (a) such amounts as he considers appropriate for the purpose of meeting expenditure incurred or to be incurred by that person or body—

      (i) in making grants or loans by virtue of regulations under section 73(f) of this Act, or

      (ii) by way of administrative expenses,
      in, or in connection with, the exercise of that function;

      (b) in the case of any such person, or of any body with which the Secretary of State has made arrangements under subsection (3) above, such remuneration as he may determine.

      (7) Any payment under subsection (6)(a) above may be made subject to such terms and conditions (including conditions as to repayment) as the Secretary of State may determine.
      (8) The Secretary of State may pay to any person or body appointed by him under subsection (5) such remuneration or administrative expenses (or both) as he may determine.
      (9) In relation to any function which, by virtue of subsection (1) or (3) above is exercisable to a specified extent, references in any other provision of this section to the exercise of that function are accordingly to its exercise to that extent.'.
      No. 42, in page 22, line 3, leave out '73(1)' and insert '73'.
      No. 43, in page 22, line 17, leave out 'any government department'.
      No. 44, in page 22, line 25, leave out 'remuneration' and insert 'emoluments'.
      No. 45, in page 22, line 40, at end insert—
      (ca) requiring the payment by persons or bodies to whom the requirements imposed in pursuance of paragraphs (a) to (c) above apply, of—

      (i) penalties in cases of non-compliance with, or otherwise framed by reference to, such requirements, and

      (ii) interest in respect of periods when such penalties are due but unpaid;

      (cb) requiring the payment by borrowers, in respect of periods when amounts due under their loans are unpaid, of—

      (i) interest (applied to such amounts at a rate calculated otherwise than in accordance with subsections (6) and (7) below), or

      (ii) both such interest and one or more surcharges (together with further interest in respect of periods when such surcharges are due but unpaid).'.

      No. 46, in page 22, line 47, leave out
      'under section 73(I)(f) of this Act or under this section'
      and insert
      'to which this section applies'.
      No. 47, in page 22, line 49, leave out 'Income Tax' and insert 'Taxes'.
      No. 48, in page 23, line 2, at end insert—

      841

      '(f) determining the priority as between deductions falling to be made by virtue of paragraph (a)(i) above and deductions falling to be made from emoluments payable to borrowers by virtue of other enactments (whenever passed);

      (g) modifying any enactment or instrument (whenever passed or made) so as to provide for the treatment, in connection with any calculation with respect to income (however defined), of amounts due from or payable to such persons under loans granted by virtue of regulations to which this section applies.'.

      No. 49, in page 23, line 5, at end insert
      'and "the Taxes Acts" has the same meaning as in the Taxes Management Act 1970'.
      No. 50, in page 23, line 42, at end insert—
      '(10A) Regulations to which this section applies may make provision for appeals with respect to matters arising under such regulations (including provision for determining, or enabling the determination of, the procedure to be followed in connection with such appeals).'.
      No. 51, in page 23, line 42, at end insert—
      '(10B) Regulations to which this section applies may, in relation to a borrower's discharge under or by virtue of section 54 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 or on an order being made under paragraph 11 of Schedule 4 to that Act, make provision for the treatment of any debt or liability to which a borrower is, or may become, subject in respect of sums received, or which he is entitled to receive, after the date of his sequestration.'.
      No. 52, in page 23, line 44, leave out '73(1)(f)' and insert '73(f)'.
      No. 53, in page 24, line 25, leave out '73(1)(f)'' and insert '73(f)'.—[Mr. Jamieson.]

    Clause 28

      IMPOSITION OF CONDITIONS AS TO FEES AT FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN SCOTLAND
      Amendment made: No. 54, in page 26, line 7, leave out 'respect of and insert 'connection with'.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
      More than six hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the Bill, further consideration of the Bill stood adjourned, pursuant to the Resolution this day.
      Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered tomorrow.

    DELEGATED LEGISLATION
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): We have four motions before the House; it may be convenient to take them together.
    Mr. Eric Forth: No.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: We shall take them one by one—first, motion 3.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    CONTRACTING OUT
    That the draft Contracting Out (Functions relating to National Savings) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 6th April, be approved.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
    The House divided: Ayes 296, Noes 56.

    Division No. 295]

    [11.28 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Ainger, Nick

    Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

    Alexander, Douglas

    Dawson, Hilton

    Allen, Graham

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Denham, John

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Dismore, Andrew

    Armstrong, Ms Hilary

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Doran, Frank

    Austin, John

    Dowd, Jim

    Barron, Kevin

    Drew, David

    Bayley, Hugh

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Beard, Nigel

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Efford, Clive

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Ennis, Jeff

    Benton, Joe

    Etherington, Bill

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Fatchett, Derek

    Berry, Roger

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Blizzard, Bob

    Fisher, Mark

    Boateng, Paul

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Borrow, David

    Fitzsimons, Lorna

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Flint, Caroline

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Flynn, Paul

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Follett, Barbara

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Browne, Desmond

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Burgon, Colin

    Fyfe, Maria

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Galloway, George

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Gapes, Mike

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Gardiner, Barry

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    George, Bruce (Walsall S)

    Canavan, Dennis

    Gerrard, Neil

    Casale, Roger

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Chaytor, David

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Godsiff, Roger

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Gordon, Mrs Eileen

    Grant, Bernie

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Grogan, John

    Clelland, David

    Gunnell, John

    Clwyd, Ann

    Hain, Peter

    Coaker, Vernon

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Cohen, Harry

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Coleman, Iain

    Hanson, David

    Colman, Tony

    Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

    Connarty, Michael

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Cooper, Yvette

    Healey, John

    Corbett, Robin

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Heppell, John

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Hesford, Stephen

    Cox, Tom

    Hewitt, Ms Patricia

    Cranston, Ross

    Hill, Keith

    Crausby, David

    Hinchliffe, David

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Hoey, Kate

    Cummings, John

    Home Robertson, John

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Hope, Phil

    Dalyell, Tam

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    Darvill, Keith

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Davidson, Ian

    Hurst, Alan

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Hutton, John

    843

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Plaskitt, James

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Pollard, Kerry

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Pond, Chris

    Jamieson, David

    Pope, Greg

    Jenkins, Brian

    Pound, Stephen

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Purchase, Ken

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Rammell, Bill

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Rapson, Syd

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Raynsford, Nick

    Khabra, Piara S

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Roche, Mrs Barbara

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Rooney, Terry

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Laxton, Bob

    Rowlands, Ted

    Lepper, David

    Roy, Frank

    Leslie, Christopher

    Ruane, Chris

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Liddell, Mrs Helen

    Sawford, Phil

    Linton, Martin

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Livingstone, Ken

    Sheerman, Barry

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    Love, Andrew

    Singh, Marsha

    McAllion, John

    Skinner, Dennis

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    McCabe, Steve

    Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    McDonnell, John

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    McFall, John

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Snape, Peter

    McIsaac, Shona

    Soley, Clive

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Southworth, Ms Helen

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Spellar, John

    McLeish, Henry

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    McNamara, Kevin

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    McNulty, Tony

    Stevenson, George

    MacShane, Denis

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    McWalter, Tony

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    McWilliam, John

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Stott, Roger

    Mallaber, Judy

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Marek, Dr John

    Stringer, Graham

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Marshall-Andrews, Robert

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Martlew, Eric

    Maxton, John

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Meale, Alan

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Merron, Gillian

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Michael, Alun

    Timms, Stephen

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Tipping, Paddy

    Mitchell, Austin

    Touhig, Don

    Moffatt, Laura

    Trickett, Jon

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Truswell, Paul

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Mudie, George

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Mullin, Chris

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Norris, Dan

    Ward, Ms Claire

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Watts, David

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    White, Brian

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Olner, Bill

    Wicks, Malcolm

    O'Neill, Martin

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Pearson, Ian

    Perham, Ms Linda

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Pickthall, Colin

    Wills, Michael

    Pike, Peter L

    Wilson, Brian

    844

    Winnick, David

    Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Wise, Audrey

    Woolas, Phil

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Worthington, Tony

    Mr. Robert Ainsworth and Mr. Jon Owen Jones.

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    NOES

    Allan, Richard

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Leigh, Edward

    Baker, Norman

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Ballard, Jackie

    Livsey, Richard

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Loughton, Tim

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Brady, Graham

    Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Mates, Michael

    Burnett, John

    Oaten, Mark

    Cable, Dr Vincent

    Rendel, David

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Robathan, Andrew

    Cotter, Brian

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Sanders, Adrian

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Stunell, Andrew

    Gorrie, Donald

    Swayne, Desmond

    Grieve, Dominic

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Hancock, Mike

    Tyler, Paul

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Viggers, Peter

    Harvey, Nick

    Wallace, James

    Hawkins, Nick

    Walter, Robert

    Hayes, John

    Wardle, Charles

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Webb, Steve

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Willis, Phil

    Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Wilshire, David

    Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)

    Mr. John Bercow and Mr. Eric Forth.

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    MARINE POLLUTIONM
    That the draft Merchant Shipping (Control of Pollution) (SOLAS) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 21st April, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
    The House divided: Ayes 307, Noes 10.

    Division No. 296]

    [11.39 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Berry, Roger

    Ainger, Nick

    Blizzard, Bob

    Alexander, Douglas

    Boateng, Paul

    Allan, Richard

    Borrow, David

    Allen, Graham

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Austin, John

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Baker, Norman

    Browne, Desmond

    Ballard, Jackie

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Barron, Kevin

    Burgon, Colin

    Bayley, Hugh

    Burnett, John

    Beard, Nigel

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Benton, Joe

    Canavan, Dennis

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Casale, Roger

    845

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Gorrie, Donald

    Chaytor, David

    Grant, Bernie

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Clark, Dr Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Grogan, John

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Hain, Peter

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Clelland, David

    Hancock, Mike

    Clwyd, Ann

    Hanson, David

    Coaker, Vernon

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Harvey, Nick

    Cohen, Harry

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Coleman, Iain

    Healey, John

    Colman, Tony

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Connarty, Michael

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Cooper, Yvette

    Heppell, John

    Corbett, Robin

    Hesford, Stephen

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Hill, Keith

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Hinchliffe, David

    Cotter, Brian

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Cox, Tom

    Hoey, Kate

    Cranston, Ross

    Home Robertson, John

    Crausby, David

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Hope, Phil

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Cummings, John

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Dalyell, Tam

    Hurst, Alan

    Darvill, Keith

    Hutton, John

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Davidson, Ian

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Jamieson, David

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Jenkins, Brian

    Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Dawson, Hilton

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Dismore, Andrew

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Doran, Frank

    Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

    Dowd, Jim

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Drew, David

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Khabra, Piara S

    Efford, Clive

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Ennis, Jeff

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Etherington, Bill

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Fatchett, Derek

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Laxton, Bob

    Fitzsimons, Lorna

    Lepper, David

    Flint, Caroline

    Leslie, Christopher

    Flynn, Paul

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Follett, Barbara

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Linton, Martin

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Livsey, Richard

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    Love, Andrew

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    McAllion, John

    Fyfe, Maria

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Gapes, Mike

    McCabe, Steve

    Gardiner, Barry

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    McDonnell, John

    George, Bruce (Walsall S)

    McFall, John

    Gerrard, Neil

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    McIsaac, Shona

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Godsiff, Roger

    McLeish, Henry

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

    Gordon, Mrs Eileen

    McNamara, Kevin

    846

    McNulty, Tony

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    MacShane, Denis

    Singh, Marsha

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Skinner, Dennis

    McWalter, Tony

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    McWilliam, John

    Smith, Miss Geraldine(Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Mallaber, Judy

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    Marek, Dr John

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Marshall—Andrews, Robert

    Soley, Clive

    Martlew, Eric

    Southworth, Ms Helen

    Maxton, John

    Spellar, John

    Meale, Alan

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    Merron, Gillian

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    Michael, Alun

    Stevenson, George

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Mitchell, Austin

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Moffatt, Laura

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Stringer, Graham

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Stunell, Andrew

    Mudie, George

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Mullin, Chris

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Norris, Dan

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Oaten, Mark

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Olner, Bill

    Timms, Stephen

    O'Neill, Martin

    Tipping, Paddy

    Pearson, Ian

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Perham, Ms Linda

    Touhig, Don

    Pickthall, Colin

    Trickett, Jon

    Pike, Peter L

    Truswell, Paul

    Plaskitt, James

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Pollard, Kerry

    Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

    Pond, Chris

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Pope, Greg

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Pound, Stephen

    Tyler, Paul

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Wallace, James

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Purchase, Ken

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Watts, David

    Rammell, Bill

    Webb, Steve

    Rapson, Syd

    White, Brian

    Raynsford, Nick

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Rendel, David

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Roche, Mrs Barbara

    Wills, Michael

    Rooney, Terry

    Wilson, Brian

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Winnick, David

    Rowlands, Ted

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Roy, Frank

    Wise, Audrey

    Ruane, Chris

    Woolas, Phil

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Worthington, Tony

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Sanders, Adrian

    Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Sawford, Phil

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Mr. Robert Ainsworth and Mr. Jon Owen Jones.

    Sheerman, Barry

    NOES

    Bercow, John

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Swayne, Desmond

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Wilshire, David

    Hawkins, Nick

    Hayes, John

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Dr. Julian Lewis and Mr. Eric Forth.

    Leigh, Edward

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    DEFENCE
    That the draft Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 11th May, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
    Question agreed to.

    NORTHERN IRELAND
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
    That the draft Fire Services (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 12th May, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
    Question agreed to.

    HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
    Ordered,
    That Mr. Richard Allan be discharged from the Home Affairs Committee and Bob Russell be added to the Committee.—[Mr. John Mc William, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

    Playing Fields (Planning Permission)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
    11.52 pm
    Miss Julie Kirkbride: I thank the House for this opportunity to talk about playing fields—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. Due consideration must be given to the hon. Member who has the Adjournment debate.
    Miss Kirkbride: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    As I say, I thank the House for this opportunity to discuss the important issue of playing fields. I know from colleagues on both sides of the House that this issue affects many constituencies where there is concern about the pressure to develop playing fields, but I hope that the House will forgive me if I talk particularly about my constituency and our concerns about the threat to a playing field in Bromsgrove, which is commonly known as the recreation ground.
    I should like to make clear the circumstances in which this debate has arisen. There is a proposal to build an arts and leisure complex on an area of ground known as the rec. It is in the very centre of town, and was covenanted in 1911 for the purposes of recreation. This green space has been used for those very purposes for the best part of a century. The Labour district council proposed to build the complex in its 1995 manifesto; we learned only subsequently that it was to be built on the green space in the centre of town.
    I do not oppose the idea of an arts and leisure complex for Bromsgrove. As an ancient market town in north Worcestershire, we have been stripped of many of our services. They have gone to other towns in the area—especially to the new town of Redditch. It is important to the cultural life of Bromsgrove that we have an arts complex. Only a few weeks ago, I visited the local operatic society. It had been forced to hire part of the district council's offices, known as the Spadesbourne suite, at huge cost; and had had to install a tiered seating system to enable an audience to attend. Three thousand pounds, which is what it cost the society, is far too much for a small operatic company to expect to get in gate money—hence the need for such a local facility.
    The campaigners believe, as I do, that the complex should not be sited on the recreation ground. The proposal is to use a site fronting Market street on the east, or town side, with Recreation road to the north and Churchfields to the west. The area under consideration has an Asda superstore to the south; in front of the superstore is a car park. The proposal is to move the car park to the green space known as the rec, and to build the arts and leisure complex on the area that is now the car park.
    We object to the proposal first and foremost because the park is a green lung in the centre of our town. It is an attractive old market town, although more could be done to make it more attractive still. Building an arts complex in this location, however, would do a great disservice to the attractions of our town centre. The green space in the centre of Bromsgrove is used for all sorts of recreation:

    849
    walking dogs, lunching on sunny afternoons out of office hours, and so on—all this in addition to the regular sporting activities held on the site.
    The proposed plan would also cause severe traffic congestion. It is already almost impossible to move around the centre at teatime, when office workers are leaving for home. The new facility would only worsen the traffic problems, and prolong the hours of severe congestion. The centre of town is not well served by roads; most traffic is taken by the ring road outside, but for those who need to enter and leave the centre, the congestion is acute at certain times of day. I do not believe that the proposal will make that any better; nor is there any way in which roads could be constructed to alleviate the traffic problem if an arts and leisure complex were built.
    Our third objection is that the complex could have a severe impact on the town centre itself. Like many small market towns, we have been severely affected by the growth in out-of-town shopping centres. I am not here to oppose what many of my constituents want—they like to shop in Merry Hill, and we all understand that it is easy to park and to shop there. The future for Bromsgrove is not to compete with what Merry Hill does, but to provide a different shopping experience, by giving resources and making improvements to the town centre.
    As I shall be knocking my Labour council quite a lot during my speech, I should say that I was pleased to see in the local newspaper this week that improvements are to be made to the town centre to do it up a little. That is a welcome development, because we must cash in on our antiquity, our uniqueness and our having a high street which does not contain only predictable stores. It has niche stores which casual shoppers find more interesting and entertaining on a Saturday afternoon. The fear is that a rival centre, not based in the high street, will only add to Bromsgrove town centre's problems.
    The recreation ground is used for sporting activities, and until last year, when the proposal appeared clearly on the agenda, goalposts were erected during the season on the recreation ground. It was mean of the council not to erect the goalposts this year as the precursor to the proposal to build on the ground, and perhaps in acknowledgement of the fact that the campaign to save the rec was gaining ground. The removal of the goalposts is disappointing to the teams that regularly used the ground for weekend sports. For all those reasons, we are concerned that the proposal should not be allowed to proceed, and I hope that the Minister has taken on board those objections.
    Many thousands of objections have been sent in, although the district council disputes who, what and where, and active petitions have been raised to object to the plans. I should like to put on record the efforts of Dennis Norton, who has led the campaign to save the rec. He is a respected business man in Bromsgrove, and has a great love and affection for the town. He has left his collection of material relating to Bromsgrove for the benefit of the townspeople, and no one could suggest that his heart does not lie with the best interests of Bromsgrove. However, that kindness and love for our town has been repaid by those who object to his objections, with a high-handed and unsatisfactory response.
    850
    I do not wish to name all those involved in the campaign, but I should like to mention a dear friend, Lorna Priddey, who has acted as an unofficial secretary to the campaigners and worked to save the rec for the benefit of the people of Bromsgrove in her characteristic unstinting, dedicated and kind-hearted way.
    Those of us who object to the proposals are unhappy with the way the council has treated us. Some high-handed letters have been sent to people who have sent in objections, and the discussions on the proposals for the recreation ground have, in large part, been held in private council chamber. I doubt that the new Government would approve of that, given their determination to have more open government. It is only fair to the people of Bromsgrove that such discussions should take place in more open proceedings.
    There is also a sense of legitimate grievance that the two local newspapers that bear Bromsgrove's name were not used to advertise the plans, on the spurious ground that they did not cover the entire constituency. A paper that is not, perhaps, as well read was therefore given the notice, which caused offence.
    I am sorry to tell the Minister, but it is true, that Bromsgrove has the misfortune to be served by a rather second-rate Labour council—unlike our new Labour Government—which is out of touch with what the people of Bromsgrove want. It is belligerently determined to continue with the proposal, despite the objections that it is receiving. I appeal to the Minister to listen to the wider views of the community, and to persuade his colleagues on the council to choose an alternative site for this development.
    Mr. Oliver Letwin: Does my hon. Friend realise that the tale that she has told, which is fascinating and new to me, is replicated, almost word for word, by a case in my constituency of West Dorset, and, I suspect, by similar cases in the constituencies of many other hon. Members?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going far too wide of the subject before the House.
    Miss Kirkbride: I am very much aware that the use of playing fields for all sorts of schemes affects all hon. Members. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his efforts, and those who have written to me about their experience in West Dorset, on a successful campaign to stop such a development. That is what can happen when an assiduous Member of Parliament is representing the people's interests.
    There has been rudeness in the Labour council's dealings with those who have objected to the planning permission, including myself. It has been suggested that we are getting our facts wrong, but the council is refusing to admit that there is public hostility. I shall read a little from the letters that the council has received. People who live very close to the site concerned wrote:
    "We would like to assure the council that the land is most definitely still regularly used for the purpose in which it was intended as an open space and recreation facility. We live opposite the field and feel we are in a far better position to know how often people play football, cricket, walk their dogs and generally use the area than councillors sat behind closed doors … If they came to the area regularly in particular on a Saturday or Sunday they would see for themselves."

    851
    That letter is symptomatic of the objections and feelings of the people of Bromsgrove about the fact that their opinions have not been taken into account.
    That letter raised another objection about the likely increase in noise pollution. It says:
    "We would like to point out that we have suffered sleepless nights, caused by groups of youths playing loud music from amplifiers on the existing car park"—
    which is some distance from the houses—
    "at 2 and 3 am",
    and it goes on to say:
    "by moving the car park … nearer the houses this would again become a very real problem."
    That is what the people of Bromsgrove feel.
    Clearly, I took up this issue before I had the good fortune of having this debate. I took it up with the English Sports Council. When I last spoke to the council, it had yet to proceed with the final acceptance of planning permission, and it is only at that stage that the Sports Council will be officially and finally asked for its views. As an interim—albeit pretty clear—indication of the likely response, this letter was copied to me after being sent to the chief executive. It states:
    "The English Sports Council has considered the application in the light of its playing field policy … It is not considered that the applicant has demonstrated satisfactorily that any of the identified special circumstances apply in this case and in the absence of a suitable justification for the development we wish to register our objection to the planning application."
    We know that the English Sports Council disagrees with the proposal.
    I ask the Minister to address two issues on the record. First, if the sports council continues to disapprove of the development when the council has submitted its final planning application, can I be reassured—and may I reassure my constituents—that the matter will go to the Secretary of State for planning approval? Bromsgrove district council must not be allowed to act unilaterally: it must seek the final approval of the Secretary of State if the sports council objects.
    Secondly, will the Minister amplify the Government's policy on playing fields? I understand that Labour's sports manifesto, entitled "Labour's Sporting Nation", states specifically that the Government will end the policy of selling playing fields. It seems likely that this Labour council will conflict with the Labour Government's policy. Labour's manifesto states clearly that the Government will not allow this sort of development of playing fields, yet for some extraordinary reason that message has not reached Labour councillors.
    As this is a fraught issue, it has been suggested that I am wrong to raise the matter on the Adjournment of the House tonight. I am aware that, if it becomes a matter for the Secretary of State, his judicial functions will preclude the Minister from stating clearly the Government's attitude to the planning procedure. We also face the problem—I do not wish to stray from the subject under discussion—of hospital cuts and closures in my area affecting the Kidderminster general and Alexandra hospitals. No one would suggest that I should not raise the difficult subject of hospital closures in the House of Commons until the decision is taken to close those hospitals.
    Therefore, I point out to my critics that I am not willing to stand by and see the recreation ground developed without mentioning the proposal in every forum available,
    852
    in an effort to stop the development before a final decision is taken. When that occurs, my constituents and I will have nowhere else to go to raise our legitimate objections.
    12.12 am
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) on her success in securing the debate, and on presenting the case on behalf of her constituents. I fully understand why she has raised the issue, but I hope that she will appreciate that it would be improper for me to comment on the merits of the case as it is likely to be referred to my Department. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State would have a quasi-judicial role in considering the matter, and it would be improper for us to prejudice in any way our consideration of the facts. That is why we must be circumspect in responding to the specific case.
    I hope that the hon. Lady will accept that I am happy to respond in the spirit in which she initiated the debate by outlining the Government's policy on the matter, and what we are doing to protect playing fields.
    Under the previous Government, local authorities faced considerable pressures on their resources, and many felt that they had no alternative but to look to the disposal of assets in order to generate additional resources. That led many authorities to sell off open spaces and playing fields.
    The present Government believe that selling off playing fields and open spaces is wrong, and we have proposed that the practice should be subject to greater scrutiny. We believe that playing fields are vital for maintaining the quality of our communities. They provide an essential recreational resource for schools and the wider community. It is important that people have access to playing fields and open spaces close to where they live.
    We therefore attach a high importance to retaining playing fields in urban areas. In recent years, too many have been lost, and grass-roots sport has suffered as a result. I entirely endorse the anxieties that the hon. Member for Bromsgrove expressed about people's need for access to open space for recreational purposes. That is why the Government made a manifesto pledge to stop the sale of playing fields that schools and communities need.
    The current Government policy is contained in planning policy guidance note No. 17, on sport and recreation. That emphasises the special significance of all playing fields, and stresses that they should usually be protected. It advises local planning authorities that they should distinguish in their development plans between parks and other open spaces that need protecting from development, as against sites that are temporarily in recreational use, or unused open land which may be suitable for development.
    PPG 17, which dates back to the previous Government, says that playing fields should not be developed for other uses unless it has been established that the sites will not be required, in the longer term, for school or community use. The emphasis is on identifying whether there are local deficiencies in provision, and protecting such facilities by policies in plans and showing sites to which the policies apply on the proposal map in the local plan. That is the current position under PPG 17.
    As I have stressed, and as I believe the hon. Member for Bromsgrove recognises, despite the guidance in PPG17, there are growing pressures on the potential use

    853
    of playing fields. Those pressures could well increase—for example, in light of our need to accommodate a growing number of households. On 23 February 1998, the Government issued their policy document "Planning for the Communities of the Future". The document stressed the importance of locating new development, wherever possible, in existing urban areas. That is common sense, in order to safeguard the countryside, but there is the difficult corollary that, unless development is controlled, pressure on open space may increase.
    We want to make it absolutely clear that good-quality playing fields and open spaces will remain available in urban areas, and will not be swallowed up as part of the process of trying to accommodate increasing amounts of housing in urban areas. Urban quality should not be sacrificed, which means that open spaces and playing fields need greater protection.
    Since 1 August 1996, local planning authorities in England have been obliged to consult the English Sports Council on any planning application involving the development of playing fields. We have carried out a review of the first year of operation of that new arrangement, which showed that planning permission was granted for 26 of the 35 applications to which the sports council objected. That strongly suggests that there are real grounds for concern.
    Accordingly, we assessed 22 of the cases that were granted planning permission, to discover whether there were any significant problems. As a result of that analysis, on 16 January the Government announced how they would fulfil their manifesto pledge to stop the sale of playing fields that schools and communities need.
    The initiative that we announced in January co-ordinates three measures, respectively from the Department for Education and Employment, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The object was to send a clear message to all local authorities to discourage them from selling and permitting the development of local authority-owned playing fields that are needed.
    The Department for Education and Employment currently has legislation before Parliament which will require the prior consent of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment where the local authority, a governing body or a foundation proposes to dispose of a school playing field, or where a local authority proposes to change the use of a playing field. The DFEE will consult shortly on the criteria on the basis of which decisions will be taken.
    With regard to our position, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions would be tightening up planning controls in respect of development of all local authority-owned playing fields where the English Sports Council advises against the proposals. We are suggesting that a local planning authority will be required to notify the Secretary of State of any proposal for development of a local authority-owned playing field, where the English Sports Council has objected because it would have a detrimental effect on the provision of playing fields.
    The notification procedure will be triggered where a relevant sports council has lodged an objection to an application because it is concerned that there is an existing
    854
    deficiency of playing fields, or that the proposal may result in such deficiency. We consulted all local planning authorities about the proposed arrangements on 12 February, and there was overwhelming support for our proposals. We propose to issue a direction shortly under the general permitted development procedure order to bring the arrangements into operation.
    The hon. Lady might reasonably ask—if her speech had not been completed—what we will do in the interim. We have advised local planning authorities to consider whether it is possible to defer making decisions, or alternatively to inform the local Government office of any contested cases that would meet the requirements of the new arrangements.
    The Secretary of State has the power to issue a direction under article 14 of the general development procedure order that would prevent the granting of planning permission by a local planning authority, if the Secretary of State considered it necessary to use that power because the local authority was unlikely to refer the matter. However, we are advised by the Government office for the west midlands that the particular case will be referred to the Secretary of State. Assuming that that is correct, the hon. Lady has no grounds for concern.
    As for the future, local planning authorities are required to determine planning applications in accordance with their development plans. For planning applications involving the development of playing fields and open spaces, local authorities must take into account the longer-term needs of the wider community and consider whether there is, or is likely to be, a deficiency of playing fields and public open space.
    If the application is likely to result in local deficiency in the supply of playing fields, there should be a presumption in favour of rejecting it. If there is doubt as to whether there is deficiency or whether the application is likely to result in deficiency—in other words, where the local planning authority and the English Sports Council disagree—the application should be referred to the Secretary of State, who will decide whether to leave the application for the local authority to determine or to determine it himself.
    I hope that that satisfies the hon. Lady that the Government have acted and are acting in the interim to ensure greater protection for playing fields. That is our overriding concern. I am sure that she will appreciate why I cannot comment on the particulars of the individual case, which are likely to come, by one means or another, to the Secretary of State for final decision.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Twelve midnight.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Public Trust Office
  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what guidelines are followed by the Public Trust Office on consulting relatives when a transfer of receivership is proposed. [43673]

  Mr. Hoon
  The guidelines followed by the Public Trust Office to consult relatives when a transfer of receivership is proposed are set out in the Court of Protection Rules 1994 at rule 27.

  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many clients under the supervision of the Public Trust Office have suffered financial losses under its supervision in each year since 1990. [43671]

  Mr. Hoon
  No client under the supervision of the Public Trust Office has suffered a financial loss since 1990. Any loss that has occurred as a result of a mistake by the Public Trust Office is made good.

  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the number of clients under the supervision of the Public Trust Office in each year since 1990. [43672]

  Mr. Hoon
  It is only from the 1993/94 financial year that caseload figures in the Public Trust Office have been monitored on the same basis year on year. Although figures prior to 1993/94 exist, they have not been formulated in the same manner as those available from that date. On this basis, I am able to provide the figures from 1993/94 which include those cases in the Trust and Funds Sector of the Public Trust Office, as well as the Mental Health Sector caseload:

  1993–94—261,603;

  1994–95—262,409;

  1995–96—284,619;

  1996–97—297,195;

  1997–98—302,506.

  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list how many times a complaint against the Public Trust Office has been referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner; and how many were upheld, for each year since 1990. [43685]

  Mr. Hoon
  No separate records are available before 1995 as, prior to the Public Trust Office being established as an executive agency on 1 July 1994, complaints referred to the parliamentary Commissioner were not separately recorded. Since 1995, one formal complaint has been received from the Parliamentary Commissioner 412
  which he is currently investigating and he has made preliminary inquiries into three complaints which were taken no further.

  Mr. Faber
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many complaints were received by(a) the Public Trust Office and (b) his Department in respect of the operation of the Public Trust Office in each year since 1990. [43674]

  Mr. Hoon
  I am able to supply the figures for each financial year from 1990–91. However, it should be noted that the introduction of Charter Standards by the Public Trust Office, to coincide with the launch of the Office as an executive agency on 1 July 1994, together with the recommendations made by the Citizen's Charter Complaints Task Force, meant that, from 1994–95, complaints were monitored in a more rigorous and consistent fashion across the Office.

  The figures for each year from 1990–91, showing the number of complaints received by the Public Trust Office, and the number of complaints received by the Lord Chancellor's Department in respect of the operation of the Public Trust Office, respectively are as follows:

  1990–91: 64 and none;

  1991–92: 101 and none;

  1992–93: 115 and none;

  1993–94: 136 and 13;

  1994–95: 169 and 8;

  1995–96: 331 and 21;

  1996–97: 443 and 33;

  1997–98: 512 and 20.

  Magistrates Court, Worcester
  Mr. Michael J. Foster
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what progress is being made on the building of a new magistrates court in Worcester. [43724]

  Mr. Hoon
  A new magistrates court for Worcester is being procured though the Private Finance Initiative. Final offers have been submitted by two bidders. It is hoped that a preferred bidder will be announced shortly with the contract finalised later this year. The new accommodation is expected to be available in 2001.

  Legal Aid
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what percentage of legal aid cases are solely for parental access. [43888]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Legal Aid Board is unable to provide the information in the format requested. Legal aid cases relating solely to parental access are not separately recorded by the Board. Such cases could be covered by a certificate issued in response to applications for residence and contact orders; or by combined certificates including injunctions ancillary relief, residence and contact orders. Applications for residence and contact orders are not solely covered by civil legal aid. Work relating to such orders could also be included under Legal Advice and Assistance (Green Form Scheme) and ABWOR.
  413
  The table sets out the figures available for certificates issued and ABWOR bills paid which related specifically to residence and contact orders, as reported in the Board's annual report (Tables Civil 6, Civil 6A and Civil 7 refer).

  Proceedings

  Total civil legal aid certificates issued 1996/97

  Certificate issued for residence and contact orders

  Percentages of all certificates issued which relate to residence and contact

  Matrimonial proceedings

  91,911

  12,099

  13.16

  Private Law proceedings1

  69,889

  58,072

  83.09

  Non-matrimonial proceedings

  162,752

  n/a

  n/a

  Public Law proceedings1

  21,434

  n/a

  n/a

  Total certificates

  345,986

  70,171

  20.28

  ABWOR bills paid

  7,703

  6,272

  81.42

  1 Applications for the various different orders available under the Children Act 1989 can be made under either Public or Private law proceedings. Application for residence and contact orders made under the Children Act 1989 are specifically included under Private law proceedings above.

  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans he has to review the training of administrators on the Legal Aid Board. [43889]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Legal Aid Board is an independent body and I do not interfere in the day-to-day running of the organisation. There are two executive members of the Legal Aid Board who are administrators, the Chief Executive and the Director of Resources and Supplier Development. Their training is monitored by the Board's Top Management and Personnel Committee. The Committee is chaired by the Chairman of the Board and oversees the performance of all senior executives and is responsible for ensuring that they are adequately trained. We have no plans to review arrangements.

  Adult Protective Legislation
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he expects to introduce legislation to reform(a) adult protective legislation and (b) enduring power of attorney. [43959]

  Mr. Hoon
  Consultation on the Green Paper "Who Decides—Making Decisions on Behalf of Mentally Incapacitated Adults" has not closed. Well over 3,000 responses have been received and are being collated for analysis by an interdepartmental working group of officials. No decision has yet been made as to a timetable for taking matters forward if it is decided to proceed to legislation in these areas.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Nuclear Deterrence
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 18 May 1998,Official Report, column 218, what factors underlie the delay in replying to the letter from the hon. Member for New Forest, East. [43624]

  Mr. Prescott
  I responded to the points raised in the letter in my answer of 18 May 1998,Official Report, column 218, and I now consider the matter closed.
  414
  However, these figures do not include combined civil legal aid certificates or any green form bills paid, as neither are separately recognised.

  Bicycle Lanes (Greater London)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many miles of cycle lanes there are currently within the Greater London area. [44120]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  Taking together the London Cycle Network, the Thames Cycle Route, the Priority (Red Routes) programme, and other measures on London's trunk roads, approximately 225 miles of cycle lanes had been introduced by March 1998. Highway authorities have also provided cycle lanes on local roads, outside of the London Cycle Network and the Red Routes, but mileage figures are not held centrally.

  Nuclear Materials (Transportation)
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what reports he has received from his French counterpart, concerning her decision to halt movement of spent irradiated nuclear fuel transport flasks on 6 May; how many flasks of this type have been transported into the United Kingdom; and if he will place the safety of spent fuel transportation on the Agenda for the next European Environment and Transport Council meetings. [44108]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  I understand that consignments of irradiated nuclear fuel from power stations are currently suspended in both France and Germany following revelations of high levels of non-fixed radioactive contamination arising during shipments to the reprocessing facility at La Hague. I am not aware of any shipments from European power stations to Sellafield revealing similarly high levels of contamination in the United Kingdom. I further understand that my counterparts in France and Germany have set up a working group of the representatives of their safety authorities, charged to organise the bilateral co-operation of the specialists in the disciplines concerned. My officials have offered to participate in this working group. I believe it would be appropriate to await the findings and recommendations of this working group before consideration is given to putting this item on to the Agenda for the European Environment and Transport Council meeting.

  New Parishes
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many applications for the creation of new parishes under the Local Government and Rating Act 1997 his Department has received; what is the average time taken to determine the applications; and what were the outcomes of such determinations. [44391]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Since 1 May 1997, my right hon. Friend has received seven requests for new parishes in the form of petitions and 13 from district councils following parish reviews. To date, he has decided that three new parishes should be created; he has yet to decide on the other requests.

  The three parishes for East Cowes, Beverley and Cottingham were all requested by petition and took, on average, around six months from receipt of paperwork to the decision being made.

  Air Pollution
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on how many days during May the Government's ozone health safety guideline in atmospheric air was breached in High Peak; and if he will make a statement. [44376]

  Angela Eagle
  My Department measures air quality at the Ladybower site in Derbyshire.

  There were six days during May when the National Air Quality standard for ozone (50 parts per billion (ppb) as an 8-hour running mean) was exceeded at Ladybower. The levels on these days reached the "moderate" air pollution band. There were no days during May when air pollution reached "high" (greater than 90ppb as an hourly mean). The highest hourly ozone concentration recorded during May at Ladybower was 69ppb.

  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what targets he has set and measures he has put in place to reduce atmospheric ozone to below the Government's ozone health safety limit. [44377]

  Angela Eagle
  The Government have adopted a provisional objective for ozone of 50 parts per billion as a running 8-hour mean, to be achieved at the 97th percentile level, i.e. on all but 10 days per year assuming perfect operation of the monitoring station with 100 per cent. data capture throughout the year, by 2005.

  Ozone is a secondary pollutant found in the atmosphere from the reaction of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of sunlight. It is a transboundary pollutant in that precursors emitted in one country can contribute to ozone formation in others. Action to tackle ozone formation needs, therefore, to be taken in a coherent fashion at a European scale in order to optimise the cost effectiveness of abatement measures.

  The United Kingdom has implemented many measures aimed at reducing ozone precursor emissions. These include ratification of the UNECE-CLRTAP (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe-Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution) Protocol to reduce emissions of VOCs by 30 per cent. relative to 1988, ratification of a UNECE-CLRTAP Protocol to
  416
  stabilise emissions of nitrogen oxides at 1987 levels, implementation of several European Community Directives to reduce exhaust emissions of VOCs and nitrogen oxides from road vehicles, implementation of an EC Directive to reduce emissions of VOCs from the storage and distribution of petrol and implementation of the European Community Directive limiting the emissions from Large Combustion Plant.

  In addition, the Government are currently actively participating in discussions on further European measures to reduce emissions of VOCs from the use of solvents and further measures to reduce emissions from road vehicles planned for the years 2000 and 2005. Furthermore, and due to the international nature of ozone formation, the Government are actively participating in discussions to develop a further UNECE-CLRTAP protocol and a European Community Strategy to address ozone.

  Highways Maintenance (Cumbria)
  Mr. Maclean
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will publish the Highways Maintenance Budget for Cumbria for each of the last 10 years. [44859]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  Figures for Cumbria County
  Council's net current expenditure on highways maintenance are only available for the last eight years, as listed.

  Year

  £000

  1990–91

  23,460

  1991–92

  24,031

  1992–93

  24,358

  1993–94

  22,607

  1994–95

  23,558

  1995–96

  22,066

  1996–97

  23,974

  1997–98

  122,365

  1 Provisional outturn

  The budget estimate for 1998–99 is £22,781,000.

  Disabled Facility Grants
  Mrs. May
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the expenditure in 1996–97 and 1997–98 on disabled facilities grants; how many such grants were awarded in each of these years; and what was the average cost of a disabled facilities grant in each year. [44664]

  Mr. Raynsford
  In 1996–97, more than 22,000 mandatory and discretionary disabled facilities grants were given at a cost of over £90 million in public expenditure. The average grant was just over £4,100. No figures are yet available for 1997–98.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 1 June 1998,Official Report, column 17, concerning disabled facility grants, if he will set out the timetable for developing policy; and what plans he has to consult on the matter. [44618]

  Mr. Raynsford
  We will be considering policy on disabled facilities grants during the forthcoming year. We have no current plans to consult formally.

  Prison Planning Inquiry, Morecambe
  Miss Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what questions were asked in the telephone survey mentioned in the planning inspector's report carried out on holidaymakers to Middleton Sands, Morecambe, relating to the proposed prison there; if he will provide a breakdown of the results; and if he will make a statement. [44395]

  Mr. Raynsford
  [holding answer 5 June 1998]: I will write to my hon. Friend.

  Duty Free
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate his Department has made of the increase in the costs of transporting freight on the cross-Channel ferries that will arise from the abolition of the duty-free trade and consequent increase in ticket prices. [44810]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 13 May 1998,Official Report, columns 117–18.

  National Air Quality Strategy
  Mr. Pound
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what account he will take of the findings of the Atmospheric Particles Expert Group on the extent of pollution from coal-fired and oil-fired power stations in his review of the National Air Quality Strategy. [44639]

  Angela Eagle
  We will be considering information from a variety of experts, including the Airborne Particles Expert Group, during the process of the review of the National Air Quality Strategy. The report of the Airborne Particles Expert Group has yet to be published. A draft of the report will be circulated for peer review in the summer. The final report is due to be published towards the end of this year.

  Genetically Modified Organisms
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what research has been carried out into the effects of genetically modified crops planted in England on(a) surrounding areas and (b) those who consume the food and into the risks of cross-fertilisation with non-genetically modified crops planted nearby. [44581]

  Angela Eagle
  The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions funds a research programme to support the risk assessment of proposed releases of genetically modified organisms into the environment. Copies of all our published research reports have been placed in the House of Commons Library. Six completed reports are awaiting publication and seven projects are currently under way. Our assessment of the likely effects of the GMOs always includes the surrounding area. This would include, for example, gene transfer to wild relatives and other crops, effects on Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and the safety of those living in the vicinity of the release. Therefore, all our research projects contribute to our assessment of applications for consent in this respect.
  418
  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are responsible for safety of GMOs and products derived from GMOs which may be consumed as food and animal feed. MAFF are currently funding 25 research projects which address specific risk assessment issues with respect to use for food. Completed reports are publicly available in the MAFF library.

  With respect to cross fertilisation, the risk assessment for applications for consent to release GMOs always considers firstly, the likelihood of gene transfer occurring and secondly, the consequences of gene transfer for human health or the environment. In coming to a view on gene transfer, we also take into account internationally agreed standards for seed purity which have been developed over years of plant breeding experience. These set out required isolation distances to achieve the required level of seed purity for seed certification.

  A number of research projects have been carried out by both my Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to investigate transgene movement.

  Gene flow in natural populations of Brassica and Beta (DETR)

  Genetically Modified crops and their wild relatives (DETR)

  Investigation of feral oilseed rape populations (DETR—to be published shortly)

  Local and regional scale movement of an oilseed rape transgene (MAFF);

  Risk assessment of transgene movement (MAFF).

  In addition to this research, my Department has commissioned monitoring of releases of genetically modified oilseed rape being planted for seed production under a marketing consent. This includes field sampling and testing for evidence of gene transfer. A report of the first three years' work will be published in due course.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many acres in England have been given over to genetically modified crops; and if he will make a statement as to the acreage of the different crops involved. [44580]

  Angela Eagle
  Currently, there are 64 experimental trials of genetically modified crops in progress covering a total of approximately 841 acres. Of these, one site is 494 acres, with the remainder consisting of small size plots with an average area of less than 2 acres. In addition to the sites for experimental releases, there is one oilseed rape trial for commercial seed production covering 17.5 acres.

  The majority of the experimental trials are for oilseed rape (27), sugar beet (16), and potatoes (14), although GM wheat (3), maize (2), chicory (1) and barley (1) are also grown.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what will be done with genetically modified crops sown in Staverton and under the control of his Department once they have been harvested. [44579]

  Angela Eagle
  The genetically modified maize crop sown at Staverton has animal feed safety clearance from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and it is normal practice for such material to be used as animal fodder after harvest. In addition, some of the crop may be used for analysis of seed production and yield, as it forms part of the National List Trials for maize.

  Kent County Council
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the salary bill for Kent County Council for the years(a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97, (c) 1997–98 and (d) 1998–99 anticipated. [44211]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Kent County Council have reported employee expenses in 1995–96 and 1996–97 as £539 million and £558 million respectively. Employee expenses are not separately identified within the available data on 1997–98 provisional outturn and 1998–99 budgeted expenditure.

  The above figures for employee expenses include indirect expenditures such as relocation and training expenses as well as the direct salary bill.

  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many staff were employed by Kent County Council in(a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97, (c) 1997–98 and (d) 1998–99. [44210]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The available information refers to the position at June each year, so data for 1998 are not yet available. The figures for earlier years are as follows:

  Staff employed by Kent County Council at June of each year

  Year

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total staff

  (a) 1995

  19,300

  21,000

  40,300

  (b) 1996

  19,000

  21,100

  40,100

  (c) 1997

  18,700

  20,200

  38,900

  Source:

  Joint staffing watch for England

  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many staff left the employ of Kent County Council in 1997–98 to join the staff at the Medway Unitary Authority. [44212]

  Mr. Raynsford
  I understand from Kent County Council that 5,873 staff transferred from their employment to that of the Medway Unitary Authority in 1997–98.

  Waste Strategy
  Mr. Pound
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what progress has been made in developing a new waste strategy for England and Wales. [45124]

  Mr. Meacher
  I promised earlier this year that I would begin the process of preparing a new national waste strategy with a wide ranging public consultation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I will be launching tomorrow, at the Institute of Waste Management Centenary Conference in Torbay, a consultation paper: "Less Waste: More Value", which sets out the key principles underlying our approach, and seeks views on how to improve the way our society deals with its waste.

  The consultation exercise will last through the Summer. We will be looking for views from a wide range of people and organisations, and want to provoke a wide debate on the options open to us and the best way to take waste management into the twenty-first century. The
  420
  consultation period will end on 25 September, after which we will carefully study all the views presented to us and start drafting the new waste strategy.

  Copies will be sent to hon. Members, and will also be available tomorrow morning in the Library of the House.

  Derbyshire County Council
  Mr. Pond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what is his decision on the final cap for Derbyshire County Council; and if he will make a statement. [45125]

  Mr. Prescott
  I have today laid before the House a draft Order, under section 57 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, setting out our decision on the final cap for Derbyshire County Council.

  We have considered very carefully all the available relevant information, including the case made by the Council in support of a higher cap, before taking our decision. We have decided to increase the cap proposed for Derbyshire, by £2.9 million.

  Derbyshire's cap is, in our view, reasonable, appropriate and achievable in all the circumstances of the County Council. This decision will reduce public expenditure and the burden on council taxpayers in the County by £1 million in 1998–99. This will result in a council tax reduction (at Band D) of around £4.31.

  Paper Pulp Disposal
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many breaches of regulations in respect of the disposal of paper pulp on agricultural land there have been in the last three years; and what action was taken against those responsible. [43640]

  Angela Eagle
  [pursuant to her reply, 1 June 1998, c. 28]: Under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it is unlawful to deposit, recover or dispose of controlled waste without a waste management licence, contrary to the conditions of a licence or in a way which causes pollution of the environment or harm to human health. Where someone purports to be carrying out an activity which is exempt from waste management licensing but fails to comply with the terms of the exemption, that person may be prosecuted under section 33 of the 1990 Act for carrying out a licensable activity without a licence. The Environment Agency is responsible for the enforcement of these provisions in England and Wales.

  Most landspreading of waste is carried out under the terms of the exemption from waste management licensing in paragraph 7 of Schedule 3 of the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994. I understand that the Environment Agency is developing a central prosecution database. However, I am advised that, at present, the Agency does not maintain a central record of occasions or sites on which waste may have been landspread in a manner which is inconsistent with the terms of the exemption in the 1994 Regulations.

DEFENCE

  Territorial Army
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which Territorial Army headquarters Ministers have visited since 1 May 1997. [43644]

  Dr. Reid
  No visits have yet been made to Territorial Army Headquarters by any Ministers in my Department. Ministers have, however, met both senior TA officers and representatives of the TVRAs on a number of occasions since 1 May 1997.

  Aircraft
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) Tornado, (b) Tornado F3, (c) Harrier, (d) Jaguar, (e) Hawk, (f) Nimrod, (g) Sentry, (h) TriStar, (i) Puma, (j) Sea King and (k) Chinook were(i) allocated to frontline RAF units, (ii) fully serviceable, (iii) undergoing major maintenance and (iv) held as in use reserve on 1 June. [44130]

  Dr. Reid
  I will write to the hon. and learned Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library.

  C-17 Aircraft
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will make a statement on the procurement of C-17; [44467]

  (2) how many companies are involved in the production of C-17s; and what guidelines are being used for the purchase of C-17. [44468]

  Mr. Spellar
  Our future air transport requirement is being scrutinised closely in the Strategic Defence Review and no decisions have yet been taken. Any future airlift procurement will be subject to normal procurement rules. In reply to the specific question on C-17, the aircraft is produced by the Boeing Company.

  Future Large Aircraft
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the British Government's commitment to the Future Large Aircraft. [44469]

  Mr. Spellar
  A provisional request for proposals has been issued to Airbus, Turkish Aerospace Industries, Alenia and FLABEL pending the formation of Airbus Military Company, AMC. We are still discussing with our partners when Requests for Proposals will be issued to potential suppliers under competitive arrangements. A procurement decision will be made in the light of the conclusions of the Strategic Defence Review and of the responses to the Request for Proposals.

  Defence Exports
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence at what rate commercial exploitation levies are normally levied against the export of defence equipment whose development has been funded by his Department. [44511]

  Mr. Spellar
  Commercial Exploitation Levy rates are negotiated case by case, either on the basis of fixed percentage rates according to the nature of the equipment, or through profit sharing schemes. Details of levy 422
  arrangements for individual equipments are commercially confidential, as are the amounts of levy received in respect of specific sales.

  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what was the cost to public funds for each year since 1990 incurred by branches of his Department other than DESO in the promotion of British defence exports; [44435]

  (2) what was the cost to his Department of the attendance of (a) Ministers and (b) officials at defence and aerospace shows and trade fairs in each of the last eight years; what other costs were incurred in each year; and which bodies have funded these costs. [44437]

  Mr. Spellar
  This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the value of the commercial exploitation levies paid by Vickers to the Government as a result of each of the contracts from the Government of Oman for the export of Challenger II tanks; and what percentage of the contract this represents. [44509]

  Mr. Spellar
  Disclosure of this information would harm the competitive position of contractors and I am therefore withholding it under Exemption 13 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Military Assistance Fund
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the purpose of the Defence Military Assistance Fund; when it was set up; and what was its budget in the last year. [44434]

  Dr. Reid
  The Defence Military Assistance Fund is a cash fund which is available to subsidise the cost of overseas military assistance in support of defence objectives, including training, loan service personnel and other support activities. It was introduced on 1 April 1996 to replace the Defence Policy Fund and the Defence Sales Fund. The budget allocated for the Defence Military Assistance Fund last year was £10.506 million.

  Ex-Service Men (Mental Welfare)
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department has provided in financial assistance to the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society (Combat Stress) in each of the last five years. [44386]

  Dr. Reid
  In keeping with the practice that central Government do not provide funding in support of charities' core activities, the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society (Combat Stress) does not receive any financial support from the Ministry of Defence and is responsible for raising its own funding.

  Service Families Quarters (Kingston)
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans his Department has made for the disposal of The Keep in Kingston; and if he will make a statement. [44563]

  Mr. Spellar
  My Department has no plans to dispose of Service Families Quarters at The Keep in Kingston.

  Joint Command and Staff Training
  Mr. Alan Keen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on joint command and staff training matters. [45105]

  Mr. George Robertson
  The establishment of the Joint Services' Command and Staff College at its interim site at Bracknell has highlighted the considerable benefits to be had from a joint approach to command and staff training within a multinational environment. Opportunities for the common understanding of warfare and Defence as a whole are maximised. Specially selected officers have their command, analytical and communication skills tested against challenging scenarios ranging from Peace Support Operations to modern warfare. As part of our commitment to joint training, my Department has signed a PFI contract with Defence Management (Watchfield) Ltd. to build a new Joint College at Shrivenham (Watchfield) and to provide a range of facility management services. The new College is scheduled to open in September 2000.

  Equipment Exhibition
  Mr. Sedgemore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the Royal Navy and British Army Equipment Exhibition. [45141]

  Mr. Spellar
  Following consultations with the UK Defence Trade Associations, we propose to change the future arrangements for the exhibition of naval and land systems equipment. In future, the Royal Navy and British Army Equipment Exhibition will be replaced by an international defence exhibition, run by a professional exhibition company, in a partnership to be formed with the Trade Associations. Subject to the conclusion of satisfactory arrangements, including a decision on the venue, the first exhibition will be held in September 1999. The Ministry of Defence will ensure that the exhibition is run fully in line with Government policy on defence exports and MOD officials will be closely involved to ensure that comprehensive security and emergency arrangements are in place. The move to an international format reflects the wide involvement of UK industry in collaborative projects and joint ventures and the Government's encouragement of these trends.

  Land Mines
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps his Department is taking to assist in the global elimination of anti-personnel land mines. [45140]

  Mr. George Robertson
  I have on a number of occasions underlined my commitment to doing as much as possible to achieve this objective. My hon. Friend will recall my letter of 27 January, in which I set out our plans to destroy all of the Army's operational stockpiles of anti-personnel land mines by 1 January 2000—well ahead of the deadline set by the Ottawa Convention. I am delighted to say that plans have now also been put in place to destroy the HB 876 anti-personnel submunition of the RAF's JP233 Airfield Denial Weapon by the same date.

  The MOD is also heavily involved in addressing the problem of the millions of mines that are the legacy of devastating conflicts around the world. We have made good progress in implementing the five point action plan on humanitarian demining I announced in October last year—in particular, the Mine Information and Training
  424
  Centre at Minley is now fully operational—and we continue to look for ways to do more; the recent gifting of 10 demining tractors to the HALO Trust is one example of our commitment in this area.

  Aircraft Noise Measurement Trial (Tewkesbury)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the results of the noise measurement trial relating to low-flying aircraft in the Tewkesbury area; and if he will make a statement. [44403]

  Mr. Spellar
  A paper on the results of the noise monitoring trial is in preparation. It is our intention that this paper will be submitted for consideration for critical peer review at an international noise conference due to take place in New Zealand later this year. I will arrange for copies to be sent to the hon. Member, and placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

PRIME MINISTER

  Rebuttal Officers
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Prime Minister on what dates each Government and agency rebuttal officer was thus designated. [43552]

  The Prime Minister
  The early and effective response to criticism of Government policy has always been an important and non-political duty of all departmental and agency press officers under all administrations. Titles of officers is a matter for Departments and agencies and is not centrally determined.

  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said in his reply to the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) of 11 May 1998, Official Report, column 40, one officer in his Departments has been designated a rebuttal officer.

  Evacuees Reunion Association
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Prime Minister what steps the Government are taking to promote the 1999 anniversary celebrations of the Evacuees Reunion Association. [44591]

  The Prime Minister
  The Evacuees Reunion Association (ERA) contacted me last year seeking Government support for their proposal to mark the 60th anniversary of wartime evacuation with a church service and rally in central London. The Home Office, which has responsibility for remaining civilian wartime matters, has taken a lead on this issue and will be seconding an official to provide help and guidance with the preparations.

  Sierra Leone
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Prime Minister which(a) Ministers in HM Government and (b) parliamentary private secretaries have spoken to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee on matters relating to the Committee's First Special report of Session 1997–98 (HC 760) Sierra Leone: Exchange of Correspondence with the Foreign Secretary. [44321]
  425
  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 5 June 1998]: I would expect Ministers and parliamentary private secretaries to have spoken both formally and informally to members of the Foreign Affairs Committee from all parties over the last few weeks on issues relating to Sierra Leone. This is part of the normal interface between Select Committees and Government.

  Child Pornography
  Ms Beverley Hughes
  To ask the Prime Minister what progress has been made by the G8 countries in preventing the international production and distribution of child pornography, with particular reference to the Internet; if this matter was considered at the Birmingham Summit; and if he will make a statement. [43951]

  The Prime Minister
  At our summit in Birmingham last month, we agreed to implement rapidly the Principles and 10-point Action Plan against high-tech crime adopted by our Justice and Interior Ministers in Washington last December. Our governments are engaged in co-ordinated discussions with relevant industries in our countries, including Internet Service Providers, to develop better arrangements for obtaining electronic evidence of crimes and making it available to investigators and prosecutors in other jurisdictions. This will help us to combat a wide range of crimes including abuse of the Internet for the distribution of child pornography.

  The UK has an absolute prohibition on the production, circulation and possession of child pornography and these stringent laws equally apply to the Internet.

  The Government support the work of the Internet Watch Foundation which was established in September 1996 by Internet Service Providers primarily in response to growing concern about child pornography on the Internet. The Foundation passes all child pornography reports to the National Criminal Intelligence Service who route these to the relevant enforcement agency of the country concerned when the material appears to have originated outside the UK.

  The UK Government are committed to tackling the problem of child pornography and will continue to support initiatives to curb this gross misuse of our computer networks.

  Mr. Stephen Kock
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Prime Minister what sums of money were paid(a) by Her Majesty's Government and (b) by those acting on their behalf in salary and expenses to Mr. Stephen Kock between 1985 and 1992. [44809]

  The Prime Minister
  None.

WALES

  European Structural Funds
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what the costs were in each year since 1990 of administering European Structural Fund programmes in Wales. [43844]
  426
  Mr. Hain
  The separately identifiable administrative costs to the Welsh Office from 1992–93 onwards are set out in the following table. Information on a comparable basis is not readily available for earlier years.

  £

  Financial year

  Expenditure

  1992–93

  501,457

  1993–94

  588,834

  1994–95

  623,738

  1995–96

  601,340

  1996–97

  706,973

  1997–98

  590,200

  The Welsh European Programme Executive Ltd. was incorporated on 15 October 1996. The financial transactions of the company commenced on 1 January 1997. Responsibility for most Structural Funds programme management was delegated to the company by the Welsh Office from 1 July 1997.

  The administration costs for the company from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1997 amounted to £854,384. These costs are not directly comparable to those given for the Welsh Office as they include setting-up costs and a range of overheads not included in the Welsh Office figures.

  European Affairs Forum
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress he has made in establishing a Welsh Forum on European Affairs; if he will list the names of those who attended the meeting of the preparatory group on 7 May; and if he will make a statement. [44062]

  Mr. Hain
  No such meeting was held on that date. The future relationship between Wales and Europe is, however, under review by Ministers.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Historic Properties
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans he has to provide new resources to repair historic properties; and if he will make a statement on the recent English Heritage report on neglected historic properties. [44005]

  Mr. Banks
  The majority of Government funding for the repair of historic properties is channelled through English Heritage (EH), which will receive £102.0 million in funding this year from my Department. EH plans to offer £34.5 million in conservation grants for 1998–99. This includes £2 million for a new fast track grants scheme for repairs needed to limit further deterioration, and a further £5.3 million for grants schemes under its new Buildings at Risk initiative. The Government welcome EH's Register of Buildings at Risk, which highlights the most important historic buildings in need of repair. Combined with the new grants scheme, it marks the start of a new strategy to encourage best practice in the preservation of historic buildings, in accordance with the Government's planning and policy guidance note 15—"planning and the historic environment".

  Bradenstoke Priory Barn
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what representations he has received from the villagers of Bradenstoke in Wiltshire concerning their attempt to repatriate the mediaeval barn of Bradenstoke Priory from California; and if he will make a statement; [44331]

  (2) what applications the National Lottery has received from the villagers of Bradenstoke concerning the mediaeval barn of Bradenstoke Priory. [44330]

  Mr. Banks
  My Department has received no representations concerning the barn, although I am aware of the proposal to restore it to its original site. The Government have no locus to intervene in the matter. I understand that no application for Lottery funding in respect of the barn has so far been made. The Heritage Lottery Fund would in principle be prepared to consider such an application. Its success would depend upon the Trustees' assessment of the project against their normal funding criteria, which centre on heritage merit and benefit to the public.

SCOTLAND

  Hunts
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if hunts which are licensed to hunt on Forestry Commission land have to follow the same rules as members of the public with respect to control of dogs and use of authorised routes only. [43747]

  Mr. Macdonald
  The subject of the question relates to matters undertaken by Forest Enterprise. I have asked its Chief Executive, Dr. Bob McIntosh, to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Bob McIntosh to Jackie Ballard, dated 8 June 1998:
  The Secretary of State for Scotland has asked me to reply to your question regarding the licensing of hunts on Forestry Commission land and whether hunts have to follow the same rules as members of the public with respect to the control of dogs and use of authorised routes only.
  As you will be aware, the Forestry Commission welcomes members of the public to its estate through a policy of freedom of access on foot where there are no legal or other restrictions. To help manage this freedom of access the Forestry Commission's Byelaws 1982 apply to all land managed by the Forestry Commission to which access is provided.
  The control of dogs is specifically mentioned in the Byelaws. Under Byelaw 5 (xiii) it is an offence for a person to permit any animal in his charge to be out of control, while Byelaw 5 (xiv) makes it an offence for a person to permit any dog for which he is responsible to disturb, worry or chase any bird or animal or, on being requested by an officer of the Commissioners, fail to keep the dog on a leash.
  Fox hunting is an activity which is controlled by licence on the Forestry Commission estate, the licences restricting the areas where hunting can take place and the activities which can be carried out.
  The licences which are used to authorise hunting all contain enforceable conditions, including one requiring compliance with the Forestry Commission byelaws, except as expressly authorised by the licence. I would like to assure you that the conditions are designed to ensure that hounds and terriers are kept under control, and it is the Forestry Commission's intention to tighten these conditions further in the near future.
  428
  At present, the licences include conditions which:
  Designate the specific areas of land over which the Hunt may operate
  Provide specific instructions for Masters of Foxhounds on the use of terriers
  Require Masters of Foxhounds to ensure compliance with requirements relating to the protection and welfare of animals including the Protection of Badgers Act 1992
  Require Masters to call off hounds in the event of them starting to hunt deer
  Provide for monitoring of the activities of Hunts by Forest District Managers to ensure compliance with all the terms and conditions. In the event of non compliance, the licence may be revoked.
  I hope that this reassures you that the activities of fox hunts and in particular hounds and terriers associated with hunting are rigorously controlled.

  Higher Education Students
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a document for the guidance of students and higher and further education institutes setting out the new arrangements on fees, grants, loans, access funds and hardship loans; and if he will do so in consultation with students and institutions to ensure that it answers the questions frequently asked. [43874]

  Mr. Wilson
  In October 1997, we published the booklet "Scottish Higher Education for the 21st Century" which gave those proposing to enter higher education in 1998–99 and beyond a guide to the new arrangements. The arrangements have also been the subject of discussions with representatives of institutions.

  The annual information booklet, "Student Support in Scotland—A Guide for Undergraduate Students 1998–99", was subsequently published by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland at Easter and has been widely available to both students and institutions. The booklet is part of the student support applications package and it provides full details of the assistance available to meet tuition fees, together with the grant and loan entitlements of new students entering higher education in session 1998–99. It also explains how students can apply for hardship loans and assistance form the Access Funds.

  We will be publishing additional factsheets this month which set out in bullet format answers to the questions most frequently asked in relation to specific types of students.

  Further information will be published later in the year and we will be happy to consider suggestions about the content.

  Derelict and Contaminated Land
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make it his policy to collect statistics on the acreage of(a) derelict and (b) contaminated land in each constituency in Scotland; and if he will make a statement. [43332]

  Mr. Macdonald
  [holding answer 1 June 1998]: Information on derelict and contaminated land is collected for the Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey by local authorities and is supplied to the Scottish Office who publish this in aggregated form. Further development of the survey would be required in consultation with the data

  429
  providers before analyses could be provided at Parliamentary Constituency level. While the information supplied to the Scottish Office provides a grid reference for each affected site, assembling and publication of the information by Parliamentary Constituency would require geographic coding of sites and additional preparatory work by local authorities. As with all official statistics, the Survey is kept under review.

  Secure Accommodation
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many places currently exist in Scotland for secure accommodation for children; how many there were in each year since 1988; how many children are waiting for secure accommodation to become available; and if he will make a statement. [44026]

  Mr. Galbraith
  There are currently 86 secure places for children in Scotland, proportionately twice the number of secure places available in England and Wales. We therefore have no plans to increase significantly the number of places. Information on the number of secure places has been collected since 1991 and is noted in the table.

  Year

  Number

  1991

  84

  1992

  84

  1993

  84

  1994

  84

  1995

  88

  1996

  88

  1997

  86

  1998

  86

  Details of the number of children waiting for a secure place are not held centrally, but peaks and troughs of demand arising from the combined needs of Courts and Children's Hearings mean that from time to time there will be situations where a secure place may not be available. A National Planning Group was set up in June last year to advise on the planning, management and development of secure accommodation and its alternatives. A report on its work to date is expected in the next few months.

  Housing Budget
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what his Department's budget was for council and other publicly financed housing (i) in cash terms and (ii) in real terms, in 1998–99 prices and (iii) as a percentage of Scottish GDP each year since 1978–79; and how much was spent per council tenant and publicly financed housing tenant in Scotland in (i) cash terms and (ii) real terms, in 1998–99 prices, in each of these years. [43392]

  Mr. Macdonald
  [holding answer 2 June 1998]: The available information is set out in the table. To provide meaningful information relating expenditure on housing to GDP, it would be necessary to include not only housing expenditure by the Scottish Office but also other public housing expenditure including, in particular, Housing Benefit which has increased substantially over the period.
  430
  Given that Scottish Homes' grant in aid is used largely to support housing development by housing associations and private developers, it is not meaningful to divide the totals in the table by the numbers of public sector tenants in each year.

  £ million

  Year

  Scottish Office housing budget in cash terms 1,2

  Column 2 at estimated 1998–99 prices

  1978–79

  542

  1,760

  1979–80

  691

  1,922

  1980–81

  738

  1,736

  1981–82

  667

  1,430

  1982–83

  616

  1,233

  1983–84

  535

  1,023

  1984–85

  516

  940

  1985–86

  430

  742

  1986–87

  457

  766

  1987–88

  504

  802

  1988–89

  434

  647

  1989–90

  459

  640

  1990–91

  539

  696

  1991–92

  604

  733

  1992–93

  536

  624

  1993–94

  541

  612

  1994–95

  552

  615

  1995–96

  497

  539

  1996–97

  449

  474

  1997–98

  531

  546

  1998–99

  508

  508

  1 The figures for the Scottish Office housing budget in columns 2 and 3 include Housing Support Grant, Housing Revenue Account capital allocations, Scottish Homes grant-in-aid (prior to 1989–90, expenditure on the Housing Corporation and Scottish Special Housing Association), allocations to the former New Town Development Corporations, and resources made available in 1997–98 and 1998–99 under the capital receipts initiative.

  2 The figures exclude, however, repairs and improvement grants made by local authorities to owner occupiers, expenditure on Housing Benefit, local authorities' capital receipts and local authority capital funded from current revenue. They also exclude private sector investment levered in as a result of Scottish Homes' grants to housing associations and private developers.

  Chief Police Officers
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which grades so entitled within the police service have refused to join the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. [44099]

  Mr. McLeish
  I am not aware of any eligible grades so entitled who have refused to join the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will place a copy of the full accounts of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland for the last year for which the accounts are available in the Library. [44095]

  Mr. McLeish
  The accounts of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland are contained in the Association's annual report. I have arranged for a copy of the 1997–98 report to be placed in the Library of the House.

  Firearms
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland on what dates his Department held consultative meetings on the Review of the Firearms Forms and Rules with (i) the British Medical Association and other professional medical representative bodies, (ii) the National Farmers Union (England and Wales), (iii) the National Farmers Union (Scotland), (iv) the Country Landowners Association (England and Wales), (v) the Country Landowners Association (Scotland), (vi) firearms clubs and associations, (vii) the British Deer Society, and the Deer Commission for Scotland and (viii) the British Sports Association for the Disabled; when he plans to conclude the review of firearms forms and rules; when he plans to implement the proposed new forms and rules; for what reasons the Home Office Note of the main issues raised at the meeting on 19 February to discuss the forms, was not sent to all consultees when requesting further written submissions; and when he intends to meet consultees to discuss these matters. [44100]

  Mr. McLeish
  These are matters for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary who has overall responsibility for policy in relation to firearms in Great Britain.

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many children received free school meals in each year since 1979; and what proportion of children this represents. [44205]

  Mr. Wilson
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  Education authority schools: number and percentage of pupils receiving free school meals in Scotland 1979–80 to 1996–97

  Year

  Number of pupils present on census day

  Number of pupils taking free school meals

  Percentage of pupils taking free school meals

  1979–80

  867,816

  122,618

  14.1

  1980–81

  867,786

  114,711

  13.2

  1981–82

  823,646

  124,547

  15.1

  1982–83

  814,506

  132,953

  16.3

  1983–84

  756,735

  129,335

  17.1

  1984–85

  752,073

  136,669

  18.2

  1985–86

  735,543

  136,627

  18.6

  1986–87

  729,869

  143,194

  19.6

  1987–88

  729,505

  145,219

  19.9

  1988–89

  713,034

  105,232

  14.8

  1989–90

  704,357

  99,303

  14.1

  1990–91

  698,554

  101,915

  14.6

  1991–92

  695,201

  107,186

  15.4

  1992–93

  687,081

  107,709

  15.7

  1993–94

  727,101

  121,479

  16.7

  1994–95

  729,089

  121,123

  16.6

  1995–96

  730,835

  121,318

  16.6

  1996–97

  731,096

  115,421

  15.8

  Insolvencies
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many(a) individual and (b) corporate insolvencies there have been in each of the last eight years. [44202]
  432
  Mr. Wilson
  Statistics on insolvencies are produced by statisticians in the Department of Trade and Industry. The information requested is shown in the table:

  Insolvencies in Scotland

  Individuals

  Companies

  Sequestrations

  Total

  Compulsory liquidations

  Creditors' voluntary liquidations

  1990

  4,350

  470

  251

  219

  1991

  7,665

  616

  304

  312

  1992

  10,845

  670

  310

  360

  1993

  6,828

  551

  286

  265

  1994

  2,182

  444

  242

  202

  1995

  2,188

  441

  252

  189

  1996

  2,503

  441

  266

  175

  1997

  2,502

  447

  254

  223

  Education Funding (Argyll and Bute)
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proportion of his Department's funding for education has been allocated to Argyll and Bute; for what purpose; and under what headings since May 1997. [44576]

  Mr. Wilson
  The Department's funding for education extends principally to the further and higher education sectors, including grants to students. Such expenditure is not readily identifiable for particular geographical areas. Responsibility for school education in the Argyll and Bute area lies with Argyll and Bute Council and is funded through the general arrangements for local authority resources. Resources have also been allocated to Argyll and Bute Council since May 1997 for the following specified purposes related to school education:

  £

  1997–98

  1998–99

  Early Intervention

  118,289

  107,450

  Alternatives to Exclusion

  23,663

  54,000

  School Security

  239,000

  239,000

  In-Service Training for SEN

  21,437

  17,278

  In-Service Training for Pre-school

  21,693

  —

  Pre-School capital

  70,008

  —

  New Deal for Schools

  202,000

  607,000

  School Rationalisation

  —

  440,000

  Spend to Save

  —

  341,000

  Main Pre-school Grant

  —

  758,480

  Additional Pre-school Grant

  —

  388,430

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Lisnevin Disturbances (Children)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many(a) Catholic and (b) Protestant children were held in Lisnevin at the time of each disturbance there in 1994; how many of each group were prosecuted and convicted arising out of the disturbances; and how many were transferred to the Young Offenders Centre, Hydebank. [31626]
  433
  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 27 February 1998]: There have been no serious disturbances in Lisnevin since 1994. In that year, two incidents occurred. The first in April and the second in November. The details requested are as follows:

  Protestant

  Catholic

  Total

  April 1994

  Population

  16

  16

  32

  Transferred to YOC

  6

  11

  17

  Prosecuted

  5

  8

  13

  Convicted

  4

  5

  9

  November 1994

  Population

  14

  27

  41

  Transferred to YOC

  1

  8

  9

  Prosecuted

  1

  6

  7

  Convicted

  1

  6

  7

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Non-custodial Sentences
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the estimated annual cost of running(a) home detention orders and (b) community curfew orders backed by electronic tagging. [43876]

  Ms Quin
  The proposals in the Crime and Disorder Bill relating to Home Detention Curfew are estimated to cost up to £35 million per year, but are expected to avoid the need for estimated expenditure of up to £180 million a year on new prison places. Research conducted on the current trials of curfew orders estimated that a national roll-out of curfew orders could cost up to £22 million per year. However, this estimate does not take account of the effect of providing electronic monitoring for curfew orders simultaneously with Home Detention Curfew.

  The Home Office is currently letting contracts for electronic monitoring services under which contractors will be responsible for providing a range of applications of electronic monitoring. The final cost of electronic monitoring services will depend on the outcome of the procurement process.

  Ecstasy
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he proposes to take in respect of the supply of ecstasy testing kits; and if he will make a statement. [44169]

  Mr. George Howarth
  Kits which test for the presence of ecstasy are, in our view, of doubtful value in reducing risks to users. Ecstasy itself is a drug with well-documented short-term risks; and there are worries about its long-term effects. Ecstasy tablets seized in this country which have been tested by the Forensic Science Service have not been contaminated by substances more harmful than ecstasy itself. While the situation will be kept under review, there is no present intention to introduce specific controls on the supply of these kits. But it should be noted that possession of a substance 434
  for the purpose of testing it would be an offence if the substance was a controlled drug or a preparation or product containing one.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from the UK Drugs Tsar regarding the E-Z ecstasy testing kits. [44167]

  Mr. George Howarth
  My officials anticipated such representations and advised the United Kingdom Anti-Drugs Co-ordination Unit on 28 May that it appeared that the E-Z Test kit did not contain any controlled substance which would require it to be licensed.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what advice his Department has given to the distributors of the E-Z Test ecstasy testing kits; [44170]

  (2) what communications his Department has received from the United Kingdom distributor of the E-Z Test ecstasy testing kits; and when they were received. [44168]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The Department was asked by E-Z Limited on 23 March for its view of the ecstasy testing kit it proposed selling. In reply, officials explained that the Home Office did not endorse such products, and that the Government believed that testing could give a false sense of security and would not help to reduce the risks involved in taking the drug.

  Nightclubs (Illegal Drugs)
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many night clubs have(a) had their licence revoked and (b) been refused a renewal of their licence by local authorities following receipt of a report from a chief police officer concerning problems with illegal drugs on their premises under recent legislation; [44161]

  (2) how many club licences have been (a) revoked and (b) refused a renewal as a result of conviction of the licensee for operating in breach of conditions as a result of problems with illegal drugs in each of the last five years; [44159]

  (3) how many night clubs have been the subject of reports from chief police officers concerning problems with illegal drugs on their premises in each of the last five years. [44160]

  Mr. George Howarth
  This information is not held centrally.

  In practice, many clubs are already doing a good deal to tackle drugs misuse in partnership with the police, local authorities and other agencies. For those not able or willing to do so, the Public Entertainments Licences (Drugs Misuse) Act 1997 was brought into effect on 1 May 1998. This gives local authorities new powers of immediate closure where there are serious problems with the supply or use of controlled drugs at premises controlled by a club licence holder.

  Drivers (Drugs)
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Mr. Ennis)
  435
  on 21 May 1998, Official Report, column 454, regarding driving under the influence of drugs, what is the most recent estimate made by the Forensic Science Service regarding the prevalence of drug/driving cases; and what were estimates for each of the last 10 years. [44200]

  Mr. Michael
  The Forensic Science Service (FSS) has not made such an estimate. Figures are available for the last three years on cases submitted to the FSS by police forces. These are:

  Year

  Number

  1995–96

  1,218

  1996–97

  1,343

  1997–98

  1,700

  Forensic Science Service
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average time taken for fingerprint analysis to be carried out by the Forensic Science Service at the request of the police. [44166]

  Mr. Michael
  It should be remembered that the Forensic Science Service (FSS) is involved in a minority of cases, where the technology is complex and technical/chemical enhancement of fingerprints is requested, not in the vast bulk of routine cases. The average turn-around time (taken over the year 1997–98) is 50 days. Where a result is needed urgently, the FSS endeavours to respond accordingly and fast-track responses are included in these overall figures.

  Greyhounds
  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what factors underlie the priority which the Government have given to introducing legislation to cover the welfare of greyhounds; [44156]

  (2) if he will provide independently funded vets to attend all greyhound tracks; [44154]

  (3) if he will implement a levy on betting on greyhound racing to provide a fund for improving tracks, veterinary support and greyhound welfare; [44155]

  (4) what plans he has to implement the recommendations contained in the Sixth report of the Home Affairs Committee of Session 1990–91 (HC 463) on the Financing of Greyhound Racing (a) relating to the increase in the registration fee to owners (paragraph 44) and (b) a requirement on track owners and on and-off course bookmakers to donate a part of their profits to the Retired Greyhound Trust (paragraph 44). [44157]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The present law, principally the Protection of Animals Act 1911, makes it an offence to ill-treat any animals, including greyhounds. We have no plans for further legislation in this area. The greyhound racing industry already takes greyhound welfare most seriously—both during and after the dogs' racing careers.

  Neither the 1978 Royal Commission on Gambling nor the 1991 Home Affairs Committee report recommended a levy on greyhound betting. Both regarded this as a commercial activity that did not demand direct Government involvement. We take the same view.
  436
  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will include independent greyhound tracks within the legislation which oversees standards for dogs in competitive sport. [44153]

  Mr. George Howarth
  Independent greyhound tracks are already covered by the animal protection and gambling laws—in particular, the Protection of Animals Act 1911 and the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. There are no plans to make separate provision for them.

  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish a statutory body concerned with greyhound racing. [44152]

  Mr. George Howarth
  There are no plans to establish such a body.

  Public Safety Radio Communications Project
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to (i) promote and (ii) support the public safety radio communications project in North Yorkshire. [44220]

  Mr. Michael
  The Public Safety Radio Communications Project (PSRCP) is intended to replace all radio infrastructures for the police service with the new generation of digital radio communication systems from 1999 onwards. The project is being managed by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) which became a Non-Departmental Public Body in April this year. Under the PSRCP, a national co-ordinated approach is being taken to the planning, design and implementation of the new communications systems, and PITO has been supporting North Yorkshire Police, along with all other forces in England and Wales, to achieve this. A Business Case for the implementation of the project will be completed this year, and a decision taken on whether to proceed. If a contract is awarded, the North Yorkshire Police force is scheduled to be one of the first forces to receive the new service.

  Members of the European Parliament
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the procedures which will apply when vacancies for UK MEPs occur. [44194]

  Mr. George Howarth
  Our intention is that, where a vacancy arises from the death or resignation of an MEP who was a candidate on a party list, the vacancy will be filled by the next eligible and willing candidate on that list, provided that the party concerned is still content to be represented by that person.

  Where a party list has been exhausted or where the person whose death or resignation has caused the vacancy stood as an independent candidate, a by-election will be held.

  If a vacancy occurs in Northern Ireland it will, as now, be filled by means of a by-election.

  Emergency Services
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answers of 20 April 1998,Official Report, columns 524–27, if he will list for each fire and civil defence authority the total amount of

  437
  grant aid given to such authorities for emergency planning in 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98 and the provision for 1998–99, identifying where applicable any allocations transferred to fire and civil defence authorities by metropolitan district or London borough councils. [44562]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The information required is given in the table.

  Civil Defence Grant Allocations (£000s)

  Fire and Civil Defence Authorities

  1995/96

  1996/97

  1997/98

  1998/99

  London

  388

  388

  338

  318

  Greater Manchester

  1364

  2229

  2204

  2194

  Merseyside

  3369

  3369

  3342

  3335

  South Yorkshire

  4229

  4229

  4204

  159

  Tyne and Wear

  5369

  5369

  5345

  5335

  West Midlands

  194

  194

  169

  159

  West Yorkshire

  194

  194

  169

  159

  Metropolitan Districts transferring their allocations to FCDA:

  1 Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Wigan

  2 Stockport

  3 All Districts in Merseyside

  4 Sheffield

  5 All Districts in Tyne and Wear

  Police Staffing
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research his Department has evaluated into staffing demands for the police during bank holiday periods. [44179]

  Mr. Michael
  The Home Office has not commissioned or evaluated any research into staffing demands for the police during bank holiday periods and we are not aware of any research in this area. The allocation of resources and the deployment of officers is decided locally by chief constables.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he has taken to increase the number of police officers since 1 May 1997. [44178]

  Mr. Michael
  The last Government removed from Ministers any direct control over police numbers or the deployment of police officers. Under the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994, it is for individual chief constables to determine the number of police officers in their force within the resources available to them. Resources for the police in England and Wales this year increased by 3.7 per cent., or £258 million, to £7.15 billion.

  We are working with the police to ensure that these resources are used as effectively as possible, and to reduce administrative burdens in order to enable chief constables to put more officers back into the community.

  Asylum Seekers
  Sir Norman Fowler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many current applicants for political asylum have been granted work permits pending consideration of their cases; and if he will make a statement; [44633]
  438
  (2) how many applications for political asylum are currently pending; what is the average length of time for consideration of an application; and if he will make a statement; [44632]

  (3) what plans he has for speeding up the process of dealing with applications for political asylum; and if he will make a statement. [44634]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  At the end of April 1998, there were 51,465 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision, a reduction on the previous year. Applications are currently estimated to be taking, on average, 14 months to reach an initial decision in cases lodged after the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, and 58 months for those lodged prior to that Act. Both these figures reflect the proportion of inherited old cases within the system. But figures for 1997 show that 38 per cent. of initial decisions on asylum applications were taken within six months, as against only 10 per cent. in 1992.

  We are committed to bringing a fresh approach to asylum: one that is fairer, faster and firmer than the one we inherited. We will make announcements on the way ahead as soon as we can.

  I regret that information on the number of asylum applicants granted permission to work is not available.

  Firearms Compensation
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many claims under the firearms compensation scheme currently remain outstanding under each of options A, B and C; and by what dates he expects all claims under each option to be settled. [44470]

  Mr. Michael
  Payments under Options A and B of the large calibre handgun compensation scheme and the parallel ex gratia scheme for small calibre pistols were completed by the end of May, as planned. The only exceptions are around 300 cases involving firearms dealers and individual owners where payment cannot be finalised because of outstanding queries over the eligibility of items claimed for, difficulties in obtaining the required details to enable payment to be made, or where the claimant has declined to complete the required Declaration on the claim form. Payment on these remaining claims will completed as soon as the necessary information and signatures are provided.

  The Firearms Compensation Section (FCS) is now devoting the bulk of its resources to processing the Option C claims, which are fewer in number but more complicated. There are around 24,500 Option C claims to be processed, the great majority of which are mixed claims on which payments have been made already under Option A or B. The rate of payment on these claims will increase now that we have more staff allocated to this task. In the interests of fairness, Option C claims are being dealt with in the order in which the guns were surrendered to the police, so that the claimant will not be penalised by any subsequent delay in forwarding the claim to the Home Office. The target is to complete most of these payments by the end of the year, if not all, and we will do everything that can be done to clear these claims in a shorter time if at all possible.
  439
  Around 11,000 claims were submitted during February under the statutory surrender scheme for small calibre pistols. These are being registered on the FCS computer system by data-processing staff, and substantive work will begin on them when the overall work position permits. Until the claims have been examined in detail, it is not possible to give a firm date for completion.

  The FCS Information Line on 0171 271 8977 gives regularly updated details of the current processing times for all classes of claim, to enable claimants to monitor the progress of their claims.

  Closed Circuit Television
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when a decision will be made on the application by Wootton Bassett Town Council for funds to install closed circuit television. [44708]

  Mr. Michael
  The results of round 4 of the Closed Circuit Television challenge competition will be announced shortly.

  Wymott and Garth Prisons
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what initiatives he is taking to extend the prison accommodation at the HM Wymott and Garth Prison sites. [44624]

  Ms Quin
  The Prison Service has no immediate plans to extend prisoner accommodation at these prisons. A programme of general maintenance and building repair works continues at the prisons.

  The Prison Service keeps under regular review the need to house the rising prison population. The issues taken into account when determining how to meet this demand are strategic need, timing, cost and implications for the establishment concerned.

  Prisons (Illegal Substances)
  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the number of visitors to prisons found to be in possession of illegal substances in the last year; and how many were subsequently charged with an offence. [44715]

  Mr. George Howarth
  In the 12 months ending 31 May 1998, a total of 1,071 people visiting prisons were arrested by the police in connection with possible drug-related offences.

  The Prison Service does not record what action was subsequently taken by the police.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Mobile Telephones
  Ms Walley
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will require mobile telephones to be sold and labelled with a health warning; and if she will make a statement. [43698]
  440
  Mrs. Roche
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health on 8 December 1997,Official Report, column 456.

  The Department is aware of public concern on this subject, which is taken seriously. Advice on the health implications of exposure to electromagnetic fields from mobile telecommunications equipment is discussed with the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and also with the Department of Health.

  The exposure guidelines of the NRPB for fields associated with mobile telecommunications equipment are based on well-established thermal effects. NRPB's view is that mobile phones currently used in the United Kingdom comply with the recommended exposure limit. There are no plans to require mobile phones to have a health warning.

  I would add that Type Approval of mobile phones is required before they can be connected to a mobile telecommunications network. This includes testing of the power output to the antenna. Mobile telecommunications equipment must also comply with the EU Directive on Electromagnetic Compatibility.

  Indonesia
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the President of the Board of Trade if ancillary equipment in(a) standard individual export licences and (b) open individual licence categories, may be included with the delivery of Hawk aircraft to Indonesia in 1998. [44436]

  Mr. Spellar
  I have been asked to reply.

  Ancillary equipment in standard individual export licences and open individual licence categories has been approved for supply to Indonesia in support of the sale of Hawk aircraft. The timing of delivery of any equipment is a matter for the exporter subject to the conditions of any export licence necessary.

TREASURY

  Departmental Energy Use
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the Department's energy usage was from(a) renewable energy and (b) combined heating in each year since 1989–90. [44081]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Treasury does not use energy(a) from a renewable source or (b) combined heat and power.

  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much(a) oil, (b) gas and (c) electricity was purchased for the heating, lighting and powering of accommodation occupied by his Department within the United Kingdom in each year since 1989–90; and what was the total cost in real terms of each in each year. [44086]
  441
  Mrs. Liddell
  The table shows the costs and quantity of oil, gas and electricity purchased for heating, lighting and power in Treasury accommodation since 1989–90.

  Fuel

  Actual expenditure (£)

  Annual consumption units k Wh

  1990–91

  Gas

  46,951

  1,438,663

  Oil

  37,536

  2,724,116

  Electricity

  245,470

  4,423,000

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  43,272

  5,751,128

  1991–92

  Gas

  59,674

  1,847,046

  Oil

  84,855

  806,088

  Electricity

  230,835

  4,123,618

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  45,872

  5,930,656

  1992–93

  Gas

  12,942

  813,156

  Oil

  5,251

  19,714

  Electricity

  242,357

  3,094,580

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  48,468

  6,203,602

  1993–94

  Gas

  6,066

  331,358

  Oil

  Nil

  —

  Electricity

  219,911

  3,555,058

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  40,143

  5,977,659

  1994–95

  Gas

  12,995

  1,087,116

  Oil

  6,785

  40,869

  Electricity

  218,583

  3,553,202

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  47,864

  5,987,000

  1995–96

  Gas

  22,734

  1,192,052

  Oil

  1,844

  14,053

  Electricity

  161,086

  3,474,725

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  47,535

  4,596,833

  1996–97

  Gas

  20,810

  843,163

  Oil

  Nil

  —

  Electricity

  215,958

  3,994,845

  Whitehall District Heating System1

  194,081

  5,292,210

  1 Whitehall District Heating System (WDHS) is run by Property Advisers Civil Estate (PACE) and provides heating to Government buildings in Whitehall including GOGGS.

  Economic and Monetary Union
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which body will guarantee the value of notional euro in Phase B of Stage Three of EMU from January 1999 to July 2002. [44459]

  Mrs. Liddell
  On 1 January 1999, the euro will become the actual and sole currency of participating member states. The old national currencies of these member states will continue only as denominations of the euro. The conversion rates between these currencies and the euro will be legally fixed. The European Central Bank will become responsible for euro monetary policy from this date onward.
  442
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what profits he estimates will derive to the United Kingdom from seigniorage if the United Kingdom participates in Stage Three of Economic and Monetary Union. [44456]

  Mrs. Liddell
  If the UK participated in Economic and Monetary Union, its share of the monetary income accruing to the national central banks would depend on a number of factors, including the number of other Member States in EMU, the level of note issue by the European Central Bank, and the level of ECB reserve requirements. It is impossible to estimate with any degree of certainty now the size of the UK's allocation if and when it joined the single currency.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how profits of seigniorage on euro notes and coins will be distributed among participants. [44453]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The method for allocating monetary income between national central banks in Stage Three of EMU is described in the Statute of the ESCB. The sum of monetary income accruing to the national central banks in the performance of the ESCB's monetary policy function will be allocated in proportion to each central bank's paid-up share in the capital of the ECB. National central banks' contributions to the capital of the ECB will be based on Member States' relative population and GDP.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent changes have been made to the remit of the European Union Monetary Committee; and what is its role in relation to(a) the EMI and (b) the ECB. [44455]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The remit of the Monetary Committee continues to be as set out in Article 109c(1) of the Treaty. In accordance with Article 109c(2) of the Treaty, the Monetary Committee will be replaced by an Economic and Financial Committee at the start of Stage Three of EMU. The ECB shall appoint two members of the Economic and Financial Committee. The Monetary Committee and the Economic and Financial Committee contribute to the preparation of the work of the Council, including with respect to matters involving the EMI and the ECB.

  Population Statistics
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the estimated or projected numbers of people aged(a) 65 years or over, (b) 75 years or over and (c) 85 years or over in (i) North Staffordshire Health Authority area (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) the United Kingdom for (1) 1996, (2) 2001 and (3) 2006; and in each case what the figures are as a percentage of the total population. [44327]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Tim Holt to Ms Joan Walley, dated 8 June 1998:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question asking for the

  443
  estimated or projected numbers of people aged (a) 65 years or over, (b) 75 years or over, (c) 85 years or over in North Staffordshire Health Authority area, the West Midlands and the United Kingdom

  Resident population of North Staffordshire Health Authority, West Midlands Health area and the UK in 1996, 2001 and 2006

  All ages (thousands)

  Age 65 and over (thousands)

  Age 75 and over (thousands)

  Age 85 and over (thousands)

  Percentage aged 65 and over of all persons

  Percentage aged 75 and over of all persons

  Percentage aged 85 and over of all persons

  North Staffordshire Health Authority

  1996

  471.2

  76.1

  32.5

  7.8

  16.2

  6.9

  1.7

  2001

  484.9

  74.0

  34.1

  8.3

  15.3

  7.0

  1.7

  2006

  492.6

  73.7

  34.7

  9.0

  15.0

  7.1

  1.8

  West Midlands Health area

  1996

  5,316.6

  828.1

  363.0

  86.5

  15.6

  6.8

  1.6

  2001

  5,375.0

  831.6

  390.9

  100.7

  15.5

  7.3

  1.9

  2006

  5,417.2

  849.4

  406.4

  111.4

  15.7

  7.5

  2.1

  United Kingdom

  1996

  58,801.5

  9,250.8

  4,192.5

  1,067.2

  15.7

  7.1

  1.8

  2001

  59,618.1

  9,298.7

  4,405.6

  1,162.5

  15.6

  7.4

  1.9

  2006

  60,286.6

  9,467.4

  4,504.1

  1,208.4

  15.7

  7.5

  2.0

  Sources:

  Population Estimates Unit, ONS

  Migration & Subnational Population Projections Unit, ONS

  Government Actuary's Department

  Jersey
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the fiscal and monetary responsibilities of(a) the Government and (b) the Bank of England in relation to the financial institutions and affairs of Jersey; to what extent the liabilities of the Jersey financial institutions are underwritten by each; and if he will make a statement. [43922]

  Mrs. Liddell
  [holding answer 3 June 1998]: The responsibilities of the UK Government in relation to Jersey and the other Crown Dependencies were last set out in the Kilbrandon report in 1973. In essence, the Government are responsible for Jersey's external relations and defence, and the Crown has ultimate responsibility for the good governance of the Bailiwick.

  Although Jersey is in monetary union with the UK, neither the Government nor the Bank of England have responsibility for the fiscal or monetary affairs of the

  New cases of thyroid cancer (International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, ICD9, 193) in children aged under 18, diagnosed in 1982–91, by regional health authority of residence, England and Wales

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  Northern

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  2

  0

  0

  1

  2

  Yorkshire

  0

  0

  4

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  4

  1

  Trent

  2

  3

  0

  0

  1

  1

  2

  3

  0

  0

  E. Anglian

  0

  2

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  N.W. Thames

  0

  2

  1

  1

  0

  1

  1

  2

  0

  1

  N.E. Thames

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2

  2

  1

  0

  1

  2

  S.E. Thames

  2

  2

  1

  1

  2

  1

  1

  2

  1

  1

  S.W. Thames

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Wessex

  3

  2

  2

  1

  2

  1

  4

  1

  0

  0

  Oxford

  0

  1

  1

  0

  1

  3

  0

  0

  1

  0

  S. Western

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  1

  1

  1

  2

  W. Midlands

  2

  2

  2

  2

  1

  1

  0

  0

  1

  0

  Mersey

  0

  2

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  N. Western

  2

  0

  1

  2

  0

  0

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Wales

  0

  1

  0

  4

  2

  0

  3

  l

  1

  0

  England and Wales

  11

  17

  14

  11

  17

  14

  15

  10

  12

  9

  444
  for (1) 1996, (2) 2001 and (3) 2006 and in each case, what the figures are as a percentage of the total population.

  The table provides the information requested.

  Bailiwick, nor for underwriting the liabilities of Jersey's financial institutions.

  Thyroid Cancers
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many incidents of thyroid cancer in young people under the age of 18 years there were in each health authority for each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [44319]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Nigel Jones, dated June 1998:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary question on thyroid cancer.
  The number of newly diagnosed cases in persons aged under 18 by regional health authority in England and Wales, 1982–91 (the latest ten year for which data are available), are shown in the following table.
  445

  Interest Rates
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 5 May 1998,Official Report, column 454, if he will list the real interest rates in (a) the United Kingdom, (b) the USA, (c) Germany and (d) Japan, defined as actual interest rates less the rate of inflation for these countries. [43443]

  Mrs. Liddell
  These approximate measures can be readily calculated using actual interest rates and rates of inflation, both of which are listed for the named countries in OECD Main Economic Indicators and in other publications available in the House of Commons library.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Sierra Leone
  Sir Alastair Goodlad
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what was the level of United Kingdom bilateral aid for basic social services in Sierra Leone(a) in the year before and (b) in the period since the 1997 coup d'état; and what efforts her Department made to ensure that these services were maintained for particularly vulnerable groups following the coup. [44172]

  Clare Short
  (a) In financial year 1996–97 the level of UK bilateral aid for basic social services (water and sanitation, education, health and welfare, and humanitarian aid) in Sierra Leone was £2.87 million.

  (b) Since the military coup on 25 May 1997, we provided £3.24m to support the humanitarian work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), NGO programmes in neighbouring countries for Sierra Leonean refugees, and NGO relief and development work restarted since the return of President Kabbah's Government.

  Following the coup, DFID provided funds to ICRC and contributed to EU humanitarian programmes. We contributed funds for the UN Humanitarian Aid Co-ordination Unit (HACU) which co-ordinated humanitarian activities of the UN agencies and NGOs working in Sierra Leone and neighbouring countries. HACU produced a code of conduct to ensure that humanitarian aid reached targeted groups. DFID officials also joined the EU humanitarian assessment mission to Conakry, Guinea, in September 1997.

  Sir Alastair Goodlad
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what British Government co-funded NGO projects were cancelled or postponed as a result of the decision to suspend aid to Sierra Leone following the 1997 coup d'état. [44173]

  Clare Short
  The following projects were suspended when aid to Sierra Leone was discontinued following the 1997 Coup:

  Action Aid—Water and Sanitation project

  Cause Canada—Water and Sanitation project

  Primary Health Care—Medical Research Centre, Bo

  Christian Children's Fund—Children affected by war/ Community based support

  Concern Universal—Assistance to Children Affected by War Programme.

  446
  Sir Alastair Goodlad
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what resources her Department provided to the Kabbah Government in exile; and for what purposes. [44199]

  Clare Short
  The Department for International Development (DFID) provided £240,000 to President Kabbah's government in exile. £50,000 of this was to enable them to pursue activities to promote the return of the democratically elected government, and £190,000 for a workshop and seminar in the United Kingdom in October 1997 to plan for the restoration of government after their return.

  European Development Assistance
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list the names and positions of her Department's officials who are currently working in the external development Directorate-Generals of the EC. [44314]

  Clare Short
  My Department currently has 10 staff on secondment to the external development directorates of the EC.

  Name

  Directorate-General

  Specialism

  Guy Mustard

  DGIA

  Administrator

  Matthew Wyatt

  DGIA

  Administrator

  David Daniels

  DGIB

  Health

  Andrew Hall

  DGIB

  Economist

  Alex Kremer

  DGIB

  Economist

  Andy Roby

  DGIB

  Environment—(Forestry)

  Sean Conlin

  DGVIII

  Social Development

  Michael Parkes

  DGVIII

  Urban Development

  John Roberts

  DGVIII

  Economist

  Digby Swift

  DGVIII

  Education

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps the United Kingdom Government are taking to increase access to information in Europe and recipient countries on projects funded by the European Commission's development assistance programme. [44311]

  Clare Short
  The UK Government are committed to increasing transparency in EU decision making, including the activities of the EU institutions. During our Presidency, I have taken part in a debate at the European Parliament on development assistance and given evidence on two occasions to its Development Committee. The UK has supported the Commission's proposals on Information and Communication programmes for TACIS and Phare and the Department for Trade and Industry maintains a database of projects being funded by major multilateral agencies, including the EC.

  Some progress has been made on our initiatives to improve openness in the EU. We have also begun preparatory work with the European Commission and European Parliament on implementing the openness provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty. These provisions will cover all areas of EU activity, including development assistance programmes.
  447
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans she has to increase the number of her Department's officials working in the external development Directorate-Generals of the
  EC. [44315]

  Clare Short
  My officials frequently talk to the Commission in Brussels and in delegations about the opportunities for placing secondees in the external development Directorate-Generals.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the meeting of the European development ministers on 18 May. [44313]

  Clare Short
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) of 3 June 1998,Official Report, column 236.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what is Government policy in respect of environmental impact assessments of projects within the European Commission's aid programme; [44308]

  (2) what is the Government's policy on the integration of environmental and social considerations into European Commission-funded infrastructure development
  projects. [44306]

  Clare Short
  As stated in the White Paper Eliminating World Poverty: a Challenge for the 21 Century, this Government are committed to encouraging all multilateral developments institutions—including the European Commission—to integrate environmental and social sustainability into their projects and devote more attention to evaluating and monitoring their activities. DFID worked closely with the European Commission to develop procedural guidelines for this purpose. However, continuing efforts are required to ensure the Commission's guidance is always fully reflected in the design and implementation of projects and programmes. My Department continues to work with the Commission to seek to improve effectiveness in this area.

  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to one of his previous questions on 11 May 1998, Official Report, column 24, for details of the ways my Department has been doing this.

  Cameroon
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what representations her Department has made to the European Commission regarding the implementation of an Environmental Impact Assessment of the Commission's road rehabilitation programme in Cameroon. [44307]

  Clare Short
  My Department made representations to the European Commission regarding implementation of an Environmental Impact Assessment when notification of the new road rehabilitation programme was received last year. The EC has assured us that appropriate environmental protection measures will be clearly spelt out in the project document. The project will be considered towards the end of this year by the European Development Fund Committee on which my Department sits.
  448

  Lomé Convention
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) if she will place in the Library records of decisions and approvals of Government disbursements to the EDF; [44310]

  (2) if she will list with dates the amounts of the United Kingdom's disbursements to the EDF under the current Lomé Convention; and when the next disbursements are due to be called from the Commission. [44309]

  Clare Short
  Disbursements against the Lomé Convention began under the Seventh European Development (EDF) in 1994. The Commission calls down funds from Member States as it needs them. There are usually four quarterly payments each year, normally in January, April, July and October. The table sets out the payments for each quarter under the seventh EDF.

  Year

  Quarter

  Payment (£)

  1994

  Third

  82,902,220

  Fourth

  70,505,090

  1995

  First

  25,759,245

  Second

  53,782,341

  Third

  82,158,009

  Fourth

  60,110,159

  1996

  Second

  27,013,201

  Third

  39,493,366

  Fourth

  58,673,835

  1997

  First

  11,768,512

  Second

  40,895,789

  Third

  44,363,144

  Fourth

  39,042,589

  1998

  First

  21,603,431

  Second

  31,848,249

  The next disbursement is expected in July.

  Stabex Projects
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, (1) pursuant to her answer of 5 May 1998,Official Report, column 276, on Stabex, what steps she has taken to press for the reform or abolition of the Stabex programme; [44317]

  (2) what mechanisms exist to ensure that the European Commission takes account of her Department's views on environmental and social impact in Stabex funding proposals; [44316]

  (3) if she will place in the Library records of the Government's recommendations to the European Commission on Stabex funding proposals. [44312]

  Clare Short
  The UK clearly set out its position on Stabex for the Commission and other Member States in the Government's paper on the future of Lomé in October 1997. I have placed a copy of this paper in the Library. There has been strong opposition to the abolition of Stabex from some Member States in subsequent discussions on the EU' s negotiating mandate for the successor to the Lomé Convention. However, the UK has been negotiating vigorously to reform this instrument, most recently at the Development Council on 18 May which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and I attended.
  449
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer to him of 5 May 1998, Official Report, column 276, on the procedures my Department uses to assess Stabex projects. There are no formal mechanisms under the Lomé Convention to ensure the UK's views are taken account of by the Commission. Information on the views my Department has fed to the Commission on Stabex proposals could be gathered only at disproportionate cost.

  Sudan
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what financial aid has been given by Her Majesty's Government to alleviate child hunger in Southern Sudan; and what estimate she has made of the annual cost of feeding one child for a year. [44709]

  Mr. Foulkes
  The British Government allocated £6.2 million for the crisis in Southern Sudan during May bringing our overall assistance to Sudan since February to £10.2 million. This assistance is in support of vulnerable groups and families, including children. There is no useful estimate of the costs of feeding one child for a year since the figure can vary a great deal depending on the circumstances.

  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans she has to increase aid from her Department to help people in the Sudan suffering from famine; and if she will make a statement. [44335]

  Clare Short
  Since 1991, my Department has provided £145 million in humanitarian assistance for Sudan.

  Since my statement to the House on 29 April 1998, Official Report, columns 331–38, the Government of Sudan have been gradually improving access to the worst affected areas, particularly in Bahr El Ghazal. I approved further British contributions during May totalling £6.23 million which brings our overall assistance to Sudan since February to £10.23 million. I have made it clear since the beginning of the current emergency that we alongside other governments will provide the funding needed for the Sudanese emergency and that the problem is one of access rather than resources. The EU General Affairs Council on 25 May again called for a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes, which remains the most urgent requirement. This is why we have been pressing for a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes, which remains the most important requirement in order to provide help to the people in need.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  New Deal (Thanet)
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) how many eligible participants have to date registered interest in the New Deal within the Thanet travel-to-work area; [44472]

  (2) how many eligible participants are currently undergoing Gateway preparation for the New Deal within the Thanet travel-to-work area to date; [44473]
  450
  (3) how many eligible participants have within the Thanet travel-to-work area currently obtained New Deal placements with (a) the private and (b) the public sector. [44474]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  New Deal was launched nationally on 6 April and it is of course early days for this ambitious undertaking. I am encouraged by the start in the Canterbury Unit of Delivery which includes the Thanet travel-to-work area. 223 young people have attended their initial New Deal interview and of these 115 have requested early entry. 62 clients are currently participating in the Gateway process and 26 have found work in the Private Sector.

  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many(a) private and (b) public sector employers have expressed interest within the Thanet travel-to-work area in offering New Deal placements; and if he will list them. [44475]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  Within the Employment Service Canterbury District, which forms the major part of the Thanet travel-to-work area, 71 employers have so far signed formal agreements to enable them to offer jobs under the New Deal employer option to young unemployed people.

  Of these, 68 employers are from the private sector and three are from the public sector. I have asked the local Employment Service District Manager to supply the list of employers.

  Education and Social Affairs Council
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the Education and Social Affairs Council of Ministers meeting on 4 June. [43020]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry and I chaired the joint Council of Education and Social Affairs Ministers on 3–4 June. My hon. Friend the Scottish Office Minister of State for Education and Industry and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales also attended.

  The Council discussed National Employment Action Plans which all Member States have provided in accordance with the process agreed at last November's Luxembourg 'Jobs Summit', and completed its assessment of the Plans in preparation for the European Council at Cardiff on 15–16 June.

  The Council reached political agreement on a Regulation extending Regulation 1408/71 (social security for migrant workers) to civil servants in special schemes and adopted a package of annual amendments to Regulations 1408/71 and 574/72. The Council also reached political agreement on a Directive safeguarding the supplementary (i.e. occupational and private) pension rights of migrant workers, subject to the lifting of a Danish Parliamentary scrutiny reserve and a Portuguese linguistic reserve.

  The Council adopted a Recommendation on a Parking Card for people with disabilities.
  451
  The Council reached political agreement on the text of a common position on the promotion of European pathways for work-linked training (Europass).

  The Council reached a common position on a Directive amending the Acquired Rights Directive, subject to the lifting of a German Parliamentary scrutiny reserve. The Council made further progress on the employee involvement aspects of the proposed European Company Statute.

  The Council heard presentations from the Presidency on a pilot project to promote teacher mobility across the EU and from the Commission on its proposals for a new generation of programmes on education, training and youth. A copy of the Council minutes will be placed in the Library when it becomes available. The Commission also made presentations on its Communication on developing the social dialogue at Community level; its Communications on a new Social Action Programme (1998–2000); and on the proposed ILO Declaration on Fundamental Rights.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Correspondence
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the system used in his Department to monitor correspondence from hon. Members; and what plans he has to improve
  it. [43004]

  Dr. John Cunningham
  [holding answer 21 May 1998]: Letters from hon. Members and Peers are recorded on a computerised database. Correspondence is carefully monitored to ensure letters are dealt with as soon as possible after receipt.

  Abattoirs
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will issue guidance

  £

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  Simplified Scheme1

  857,573

  962,047

  1,257,807

  1,174,990

  1,064,093

  Main Scheme:

  Cereals

  17,558,515

  24,991,146

  36,871,045

  38,482,551

  37,831,102

  Oilseeds

  4,319,060

  4,272,686

  4,818,064

  4,834,745

  5,999,961

  Proteins

  6,026,268

  4,244,039

  3,771,947

  3,269,814

  3,202,411

  Linseed

  2—

  1,384,788

  1,376,113

  1,052,701

  1,803,395

  Set-aside

  6,864,098

  9,367,276

  9,281,101

  7,343,384

  4,152,753

  1 All eligible crops under the Simplified Scheme are paid at the cereals rate

  2 In 1993 linseed growers received subsidy under the linseed subsidy scheme but this cannot be broken down by county

  Subsidy was also paid on hemp as follows:

  Year

  £

  1993

  7,090

  1994

  79,241

  1995

  176,484

  1996

  125,638

  1997

  234,432

  452
  as to arrangements for the reporting of acts of intimidation by abattoir employers and owners against Meat Hygiene Service staff and veterinarians. [43376]

  Mr. Rooker
  Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) operational staff (Official Veterinary Surgeons, Meat Hygiene Inspectors and Meat Technicians) have been instructed to inform their Senior Managers immediately of any instances of intimidation which prevent them from carrying out their duties to protect public health. A confidential helpline has been set up to assist any MHS employee who feels intimidated or subject to threatening behaviour from plant operators or employees.

  Information on prosecutions relating to instances of intimidation, obstruction and aggression against MHS staff is published in the Meat Hygiene Enforcement Report, a copy of which is placed in the Library of the House each month.

  All successful prosecutions relating to acts against MHS staff will be published immediately via a separate Press Notice.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many slaughterhouses there are in Great Britain; and how many of these slaughter(a) poultry, (b) pigs, (c) cattle and (d) horses. [44236]

  Mr. Rooker
  At 1 May, there were 607 slaughterhouses in Great Britain licensed to produce meat for sale for human consumption. Of these, 153 were licensed to slaughter poultry, 310 pigs, 399 cattle and 12 horses. Licences are generally not required for slaughterhouses with an annual production of less than 10,000 birds for sale for human consumption.

  Suffolk Farmers (Subsidy)
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list, by crop, the total amount of subsidy paid to farmers in Suffolk for each of the past five years. [44292]

  Mr. Rooker
  The following table gives information for payments to farmers in Suffolk under the Arable Area Payments Scheme (AAPS).

  In addition farmers in Suffolk will have benefited indirectly from a number of other EU support measures but this cannot be quantified on a county basis.

  Knackers
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures he proposes to take to encourage farmers to make better use of the knackers' trade. [44358]
  453
  Mr. Rooker
  It is for the livestock industry to take responsibility for disposing of its waste in a safe and sustainable manner. Nevertheless, the Department will continue to urge the industry to use knackers' yards and hunt kennels to dispose of fallen stock wherever possible. Officials will also continue to liaise with representatives of the knacker and farming industries over future arrangements for the disposal of fallen stock.

  EU Support Payments
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the impact of the euro on(a) EU support payments, (b) farm incomes and (c) United Kingdom agricultural exports. [44143]

  Mr. Rooker
  The European Commission is expected to make proposals during June on the future of the EU agrimonetary arrangements. A detailed examination of the impact of the Euro on UK agriculture will need to be made in the light of those proposals.

  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to give United Kingdom farmers the choice of receiving EU support payments in sterling or euros; what assessment he has made of the impact of such a system; and if he will make a statement. [44144]

  Mr. Rooker
  We intend to examine this question in the light of the proposals on the future of the EU agrimonetary system which we expect from the European Commission in June.

  Novel Foods
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on Article 8 of the Novel Foods Regulations (258/97/EC), with particular reference to the substantial equivalence criteria; and what plans he has to review those criteria. [44291]

  Mr. Rooker
  The labelling rules in the Novel Foods and Novel Food Ingredients Regulation (258/97) apply to all foods and food ingredients covered by the regulation including those considered under the simplified criteria on the grounds of substantial equivalence. There are no plans to review this regulation at this time. However, last month, detailed rules for labelling of genetically modified (GM) soya and maize ingredients were agreed which require all foods to be labelled where any material arising from the genetic modification process is present. These rules are expected to set a precedent for the way all future GM foods will be required to be labelled in Europe.

  Milk Prices
  Mr. Hurst
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of reasons for the decrease in milk prices over the last year; and if he will make a statement. [44122]

  Mr. Rooker
  In March this year, milk producers received an average of about 19.7p per litre, which was nearly 4p lower than for the same period in 1997. The main factor was probably the strength of sterling and the related revaluations of the green pound. More generally, at the request of the Director General of Fair Trading, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is currently 454
  investigating the supply of raw milk in Great Britain. It is due to report to the President of the Board of Trade in October.

  Canadian Pedigree Friesians
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if meat from Canadian pedigree Friesians of over 30 months old slaughtered in the United Kingdom is permitted to be sold in the United Kingdom. [44717]

  Mr. Rooker
  No. The Fresh Meat (Beef Controls) (No 2) Regulations 1996, as amended, prohibit the sale for human consumption of any meat from a bovine animal over 30 months of age at the time of slaughter, whether in Great Britain or elsewhere, unless it is from a herd registered under the Beef Assurance Scheme or from one of the 14 countries exempted under the Regulations.

  Brandy Butter
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if it is permitted to describe brandy, rum and whisky butters offered for retail sale as butter if they contain less then 34 per cent. milk fat; and if he will make a statement. [44712]

  Mr. Rooker
  From April 1999, only alcoholic butters (including brandy, rum and whisky butters) containing a minimum of 34 per cent. milk fat will be permitted to be described as such. This results from the adoption of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 623/98, which further amends Commission Regulation (EC) No. 577/97 relating to standards for spreadable fats. During the negotiations in Brussels, the UK did not support this particular rule which arbitrarily limits the milkfat content of products described using the term "butter".

  Officials are working with the relevant companies to find ways to minimise the problems for UK manufacturers.

  Hemp
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the advantages of hemp as a source for paper; and if it is his policy to promote the growing of hemp for that purpose. [44718]

  Mr. Rooker
  Hemp is a useful alternative crop, producing renewable raw material for a variety of uses including paper. The paper and hemp industries are best placed to examine and develop the market for hemp as a constituent of paper.

  Subsidies
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the total sum spent on subsidies for the sale of food, fruit and vegetables from the EU in the most recent annual period for which figures are available. [44325]

  Mr. Rooker
  The total sum spent on directly subsidising sales of fruit and vegetables in 1997 through export refunds was 67 mecu (£49m at an average 1997 exchange rate of £1 = 1.3758 ecu). In addition, 6,214 mecu (£4,516m) was spent on directly subsidising the sale of other CAP
  455
  commodities through export refunds and aid under subsidised food programmes, although it is not possible to determine what proportion of export sales were for human consumption.

  Food Destruction Costs
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the total sum spent by the EU on the destruction of food, fruit and vegetables in the most recent annual period for which figures are available. [44326]

  Mr. Rooker
  The total sum spent on withdrawals of fruit and vegetables from the market in 1997 was 293 mecu (£213m at an average 1997 exchange rate of £ 1 = 1.3758 ecu). Statistics on the destination of produce withdrawn in 1997 are not available, but an average 62 per cent. of withdrawn fruit and vegetables was destroyed between the 1989/90 and 1993/94 marketing years. In addition, £1.5m was spent on the disposal of 6,000 tonnes of intervention beef in 1997. This beef was purchased and stored before the restrictions on beef from animals over thirty months old were introduced in March 1996.

  Livestock Support
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the levels of(a) suckler cow, (b) ewe premium and (c) HLCA payments for beef and sheep per animal in cash prices and at 1997 prices for each of the last five years and his proposals for 1998–99. [23484]

  Mr. Rooker
  [pursuant to his reply, 19 January 1998,c. 450]: The information requested is set out in the following table. The proposed rates for 1998–1999 are not yet available.

  Payment rates (£ per head)—Sheep Annual Premium Scheme, Suckler Cow Premium Scheme, Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  Cash prices

  1997 prices

  Sheep annual premium:

  Including LFA supplement

  1993

  24.41

  27.32

  1994

  22.21

  24.28

  1995

  26.95

  28.47

  1996

  19.04

  19.64

  1997

  n/a

  n/a

  Excluding LFA supplement

  1993

  19.25

  21.55

  1994

  16.96

  18.54

  1995

  21.26

  22.46

  1996

  13.66

  14.09

  1997

  n/a

  n/a

  Suckler cow premium:

  Including extensification premia

  1993

  93.90

  105.12

  1994

  115.12

  125.83

  1995

  143.04

  151.10

  1996

  155.15

  160.03

  1997

  1159.48

  1159.48

  1997

  2146.52

  2146.52

  456

  Payment rates (£ per head)—Sheep Annual Premium Scheme, Suckler Cow Premium Scheme, Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances

  Cash prices

  1997 prices

  Excluding extensification premia

  1993

  65.73

  73.58

  1994

  87.49

  95.63

  1995

  114.43

  120.88

  1996

  124.12

  128.02

  1997

  117.36

  117.36

  Hill livestock compensatory allowances:

  SDA beef cow

  1993

  63.30

  70.86

  1994

  47.50

  51.92

  1995

  47.50

  50.18

  1996

  47.50

  48.99

  1997

  397.50

  97.50

  DA beef cow

  1993

  31.65

  35.43

  1994

  23.75

  25.96

  1995

  23.75

  25.09

  1996

  23.75

  24.50

  1997

  469.75

  69.75

  SDA high rate ewe

  1993

  6.50

  7.28

  1994

  5.75

  6.28

  1995

  5.75

  6.07

  1996

  5.75

  5.93

  1997

  5.75

  5.75

  SDA lower rate ewe

  1993

  3.60

  4.03

  1994

  3.00

  3.28

  1995

  3.00

  3.17

  1996

  3.00

  3.09

  1997

  3.00

  3.00

  DA ewe rate

  1993

  2.86

  3.20

  1994

  2.44

  2.67

  1995

  2.44

  2.58

  1996

  2.65

  2.73

  1997

  2.65

  2.65

  1 Rate less than 1 livestock unit per hectare

  2 Rate greater than 1 livestock unit and less 1.4 livestock units per hectare

  3 Includes Beef special aid of £50.00

  4 Includes Beef special aid of £46.00

  LFA = Less Favoured Area

  SDA = Severely Disadvantaged Area

  DA = Disadvantaged Area

  Final Sheep Annual Premium rate for 1997 not yet fixed

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Sierra Leone
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), of 19 May 1998,Official Report, column 362, if the briefings supplied to ministers on Sierra Leone contained information pertaining to the five intelligence reports on the supply of military equipment to Sierra Leone. [44036]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  I refer to my statement in the House during the debate on 18 May 1998,Official Report, columns 604–11, in which I announced the investigation by Sir Thomas Legg KCB QC into allegations about the

  457
  Government involvement with the supply of arms to Sierra Leone by UK citizens and firms, and said that the Terms of Reference would be placed in the Library of the House. I intend to publish the report of the investigation.

  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if his Department's officials in Canada reported to his Department in London the allegations in the Toronto Globe and Mail of 31 July 1997 referred to by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) on 18 May 1998,Official Report, column 613. [43617]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  [holding answer 2 June 1998]: The High Commission in Ottawa faxed the press article in question to the FCO under a letter summarising its substance in early August. There was no UN arms embargo on Sierra Leone at the time, nor did the article specify the possible supply of arms to that country.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which(a) Ministers and (b) parliamentary private secretaries in his Department have spoken to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee on matters relating to the Committee's First Special report of Session 1997–98 (HC 760), Sierra Leone: Exchange of Correspondence with the Foreign Secretary. [44320]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  [holding answer 5 June 1998]: I refer to the written answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister today, Official Report, column 425. I met the Chairman of the Committee on 1 June. Among other issues, we discussed the Committee's request for the release of telegrams relating to Sierra Leone. I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee on this subject later the same day.

  Schools Information (European Union)
  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the information provided by the Government to schools on(a) the EU and (b) the euro, seeks to set out both the costs and the benefits of each. [43790]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  We do not systematically provide schools with information about the EU or euro, although there are a number of Government publications which individual schools can request and all schools received a pack which included information about our EU Presidency at the start of this year. In general, literature produced by Government departments about the EU takes a factual approach, explaining particular policies and the UK's views rather than weighing up arguments for and against EU action. But the Treasury booklet "The Pros and Cons of EMU" sets out the main potential costs and benefits of the euro.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the current situation in Cyprus and the initiatives being taken by his Department to resolve the conflicts on that island. [43743]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  We continue to lend our full support to the United Nations Secretary-General's search for a settlement to the Cyprus problem, including through 458
  regular contacts with the parties and other members of the international community involved in working to end the tragic division of the island of Cyprus.

  Colombia
  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what representations he has made to the Colombian Government regarding the assassination of the human rights lawyer, Eduardo Umana Mendoza, on 18 April 1998; [44149]

  (2) what representations he has made to the Colombian Government regarding the assassination of the former leader of the Communist Party, Maria Arrango Fonnegra, on 16 April. [44150]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  The British Ambassador, representing the EU presidency, made representations to the Colombian Government on 29 April unreservedly condemning the murders of the human rights defenders Eduardo Umana and Maria Arrango.

  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action the United Kingdom is taking to protect human rights workers in Colombia. [44151]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  At a political level, we raise the issue of the safety of human rights workers with the Colombian Government whenever the opportunity arises. At a practical level, officials at the British Embassy in Bogota have a regular dialogue with human rights NGOs, and the Ambassador and his Deputy carry out high-profile visits to areas of conflict to demonstrate their support for the work of human rights workers. These visits, in particular, are highly valued by NGOs. The UK and EU partners are also pressing the Colombian Government to make early and practical use of the US$1.2 million they have earmarked for the protection of human rights workers.

  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received on the links between sections of the Colombian Armed Forces and the paramilitary groups who are responsible for human rights violations in Colombia. [44148]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  We have received numerous reports of collaboration between Colombian paramilitary groups and certain units of the Armed forces at local level. The Colombian Government have recently announced the disbanding of a particular Army Unit thought to have been involved in such collaboration.

  Human Rights
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list those countries which are currently party to the Lomé convention which his Department has assessed as failing in human rights terms. [44228]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  No such assessment has been made. But the Government attach great importance to the human rights provisions of the Lomé Convention. We have been working during the UK Presidency to agree an internal procedure allowing the EU to implement the
  459
  human rights suspension clause introduced by the Mid Term Review of the fourth Lomé Convention. We hope this procedure will come into force in the autumn.

  Bulgaria
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance he is giving to Bulgaria to aid its preparations for eventual membership of the European Union. [44381]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  The Luxembourg European Council last December agreed to enhance the pre-accession strategy for the Central European EU applicants to help them prepare for membership. The principal new element of this strategy are the Accession Partnerships, which identify the main priority areas for each candidate where progress is necessary to meet the Copenhagen Criteria for membership. The UK Presidency implemented the remit from Luxembourg to conclude the Accession Partnerships by the end of March.

  The EU's Phare programme will target the priorities identified in the Accession Partnerships. Between 1995 and 1999, Phare spending on Bulgaria will be 415 mecu. (UK share approximately £49 million). In addition, the Department for International Development's Know How Fund has provided approximately £15 million of assistance to Bulgaria since 1991. This has been designed to help the transition to democratic pluralism and a market economy, in particular, by supporting the strengthening of civil society and promoting social inclusiveness, paying particular attention to the needs of vulnerable groups.

  Mercenaries
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans the Government have to sign the UN convention against the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries; and if he will make a statement. [44560]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  We have no plans at present to sign the UN Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. We have doubts concerning its legal enforceability in the UK. We are looking at options for national domestic regulation of private military companies.

  Nigeria
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on United Kingdom policy on the supply of arms to Nigeria. [44617]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  The EU agreed a Common Position on Nigeria on 20 November 1995 which includes a full-scope arms embargo. The UK interprets the embargo to include all goods and technology on the Military List (part III of Schedule 1 of the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1994). The Government enforce the embargo rigorously.

  Algeria
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visitor's visas have been granted to Algerian citizens in each of the last five years. [44463]
  460
  Mr. Fatchett
  Information is held centrally on the visas issued by each entry clearance issuing Post, not by nationality.

  Because visit visa applications may be made at any visa issuing Post irrespective of applicant's nationality, the figures requested can be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Sudan
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to sponsor a resolution against Sudan in the UN Security Council as a result of the recent evidence of genocide in the northern area of Bahr Al Ghazal. [44829]

  Mr. Fatchett
  We are deeply concerned about the distressing human tragedy in the Sudan, particularly the current crisis in Bahr Al Ghazal region. On hearing of reports of killings in Northern Bahr Al Ghazal, I instructed our Embassy in Khartoum to convene a meeting of EU Ambassadors and arrange for collective EU views and comments. The Sudanese Ambassador was also called by the Foreign Office and asked for the GoS's explanation of what had taken place.

  We will look at any proposals for new UNSCRs against the GoS on their merits and in light of the views of other Security Council members.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he plans to make to the Government of Sudan in respect of recent evidence of genocide in the northern area of Bahr Al Ghazal. [44828]

  Mr. Fatchett
  The Sudanese Ambassador was called on 29 May by a senior Foreign Office official. The official expressed our grave concern at the reports of killings in Northern Bahr Al Ghazal and asked for an explanation from the Government of Suden (GoS).

  We will continue to be active in trying to find a solution to problems in the Sudan. As a next step, we have pressed for an early meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development Partnership Forum. I shall represent the UK at a meeting in The Hague on 18 June.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of the Sudan in relation to the civil war in that country; and if he will make a statement. [44400]

  Mr. Fatchett
  The UK has long supported the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) peace process as the best chance to bring an end to the civil war in Sudan through a comprehensive negotiated settlement and this Government are active in promoting and reinvigorating the peace process.

  As Presidency we issued an EU Declaration on 1 May which voiced European concerns and called upon all parties to implement an immediate cease-fire. It also urged parties to make every effort to come to a comprehensive negotiated settlement. At the UK's instigation, Sudan was discussed at the United Nations Security Council on 5 May and we have lobbied countries in the region, including the Government in Khartoum, to facilitate a negotiated settlement. In order to maintain the

  461
  momentum of the peace process, we pressed for an early meeting of the IGAD Partnership Forum, as a result of which the Netherlands will host a meeting on 17/18 June in The Hague. I will represent the UK. The Sudanese Government and Opposition are well aware of our views and my officials are in touch with all parties.

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Government in Afghanistan regarding human rights in that country; and if he will make a statement. [44397]

  Mr. Fatchett
  We do not consider there to be an effective government in Afghanistan. We remain deeply concerned by the continuing human rights abuses in Afghanistan. At the instigation of the UK, the EU adopted a Common Position on Afghanistan in January which included calls for an improvement in human rights. We regularly make representations to all the warring factions on the issue. We also urge Afghanistan's neighbours, both bilaterally and in the UN, to use their influence over the warring Afghan factions to bring the fighting and the human rights abuses to an end.

  Cardiff Summit Table
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which suppliers of standard conference furniture were asked to submit quotations for the supply of a standard conference table for the European Summit in Cardiff; and what prices they quoted. [44620]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  The conference table forms part of the overall event production contract for the European Council. Our event production company established from the major UK conference furniture suppliers that no table which fully met the specification was available for hire, (their researches showed that a conference table which was the right size, not the right configuration, for Cardiff City Hall could be hired, but would still cost more than half as much as having a table made which could be used in Cardiff and subsequently). They put all carpentry involved in the European Council and G8 contracts (for which they were also responsible) out to tender to three companies as a package in order to keep costs to a minimum. The company judged by our event production company to have the capacity to manage this scale of project at lowest cost was awarded the carpentry subcontract. They are making the frame of the table, but have further subcontracted the veneer top and cable management system to a specialist cabinet maker regularly used by them for this type of contract.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for what reasons the conference table ordered by his Department for the European Summit in Cardiff is not made of British materials. [44622]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  The table for the European Council meeting in Cardiff is being made by a UK company, with a UK sub-contractor, who are responsible for sourcing materials for the table against cost and quality criteria. Of the major materials used, the steel is from the UK. The MDF is from the Republic of Ireland, on grounds of cost and availability. The oak for the veneer 462
  top comes from the USA. There are two reasons for using American rather than British oak: it is cheaper (British oak would cost 40 per cent. more); and the knotting grain pattern usually found in British oak would make a consistent veneer finish significantly more difficult to make.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many designers were invited to submit proposals for the conference table ordered by his Department for the European Summit in Cardiff; how many different designs were costed; and if the cheapest design was selected. [44621]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  The overall event production contract for the European Council (of which the conference table forms part) was awarded on the basis of an evaluation of the whole package put forward in the tender, not any single element. Six event production companies were invited to tender. Two declined to bid, and two others merged and submitted a joint bid. The three bids were evaluated against a comprehensive set of criteria, including cost and quality. Of those judged to meet an acceptable standard, the cheapest bidder was appointed.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was(a) the originally quoted price and (b) the price paid for the conference table ordered by his Department for the European Summit in Cardiff. [44619]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  In the original tender for the overall event production contract for the European Council (which includes the conference table) in August 1997, the company which won the contract quoted £38,640 for the table. We have not yet received a bill for the table, but expect it to cost about £50,000. We understand from the event production company that the cost has risen (i) because specialist advice on the acoustics of the Assembly room in Cardiff City hall has led to a sound system being built into the table (which was not part of the original specification), and (ii) because we asked the company to have the table made in adaptable modular format so as to be usable in different rooms (the original specification applied only to City Hall in Cardiff)—this involved making two extra endpieces.

HEALTH

  Emergency Contraception
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health from what sources emergency contraception can currently be obtained. [43701]

  Ms Jowell
  The emergency contraceptive pill is classified as a prescription-only medicine under United Kingdom and European Community legislation. It is available from most general practitioners and against a prescription from pharmacies, family planning clinics, some accident and emergency units and many genitourinary clinics.

  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what reasons emergency contraception pills are classified as prescription-only medicines. [43700]
  463
  Ms Jowell
  The emergency contraceptive pill is classified as a prescription-only medicine under criteria embodied in United Kingdom and European Community legislation. It is considered to be a product which is likely to present a direct or indirect danger to human health, even when used correctly, if used without the supervision of a doctor. There is also concern about the potential for the emergency contraceptive pill to be used incorrectly, if used without medical supervision.

  Benzodiazapines
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of harm caused to unborn babies from their mothers taking benzodiazapines during their pregnancy there have been in each of the last five years. [44073]

  Ms Jowell
  Information on the number of babies born to mothers taking benzodiazepines during pregnancy who have congenital abnormalities or experience complications is not available. The number of congenital anomalies and neonatal complications reported to the Committee on Safety of Medicines through the United Kingdom's spontaneous adverse drug reaction scheme from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1997 suspected as associated with benzodiazepines is shown in the table.

  Year

  Number of suspected adverse reaction reports of congenital anomalies and neonatal complications associated with benzodiazepines

  1993

  5

  1994

  0

  1995

  0

  1996

  1

  1997

  5

  A report of a suspected adverse drug reaction does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the drug, as factors such as underlying disease and concomitant medication may be contributory. The level of reporting of adverse drug reactions with particular drugs is influenced by the scale of drug usage, the period of time the drug has been on the market and publicity about the drug.

  Private Residential and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment he has made of the way in which social services departments interpret the regulations and guidance issued by his Department concerning eligibility for funding elderly people in private residential and nursing homes; [44831]

  (2) what plans he has to issue further guidance to all local authority social services departments setting out their responsibilities to ensure a common approach to eligibility for funding of private residential and nursing homes for older people; [44830]

  (3) what representations his Department has received concerning elderly people in private residential and nursing homes mistakenly using their own savings to pay for accommodation and treatment which should be funded by local authorities. [44832]
  464
  Mr. Boateng
  The contribution to be made by people placed by local authorities in residential or nursing homes towards the costs of their care is governed by the National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992 No. 2977. We update these Regulations annually and issue clarifying guidance which takes account of points raised in representations made to the Department in the course of the year about the operation of the system. The most recent guidance, Local Authority Circular b(98)8, was issued in March 1998, copies of which are available in the Library. In order to receive local authority support, a person must undergo an assessment of their care needs by the local authority to determine the type and level of care needed, and if residential and nursing home care is arranged, a financial assessment to determine their contribution towards the cost. Concerns have been expressed about the way the elderly residents' savings have been treated in residential care and nursing homes. The Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Bill, will ensure that once a person has been assessed as needing residential or nursing home care they will not have to use savings below the capital threshold set out in the Regulations to contribute towards the costs. Subject to this becoming law, we will issue guidance to accompany it.

  Cannabis
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make available the research his Department has commissioned into the effects of cannabis. [44970]

  Ms Jowell
  Reports of literature reviews addressing the following aspects have now been submitted to the Department in their final form following peer review:

  Clinical and Pharmacological Aspects—Professor Heather Ashton (Newcastle University)

  Psychological and Psychiatric Aspects—Dr. Andrew Johns (Institute of Psychiatry)

  Therapeutic Aspects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids—Dr. Philip Robson (Oxford University).

  These reviews were commissioned by the Department but intellectual property right lies with the authors. The views are their own, and are not necessarily those of the Department of Health. Copies have been placed in the Library.

  Heroin
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the recent Swiss pilot scheme for the provision of injectable heroin to addicts; and if his Department will be represented in the conference on this subject in the USA in June. [44215]

  Ms Jowell
  There is already experience in the United Kingdom of prescribing the diamorphine (pharmaceutical heroin) albeit only for a small number of people in drug treatment. The Swiss trials indicate that it is feasible to use diamorphine under strictly controlled conditions as part of a comprehensive social and psychological intervention. In the absence of any comparative trials it is difficult to determine the value of the diamorphine provision as distinct from other aspects of the treatment package.
  465
  We will look carefully at the outcome of the New York conference on heroin maintenance that took place on 6 June 1998 and will be represented at the United General Assembly Special Session on drugs in New York this month.

  Smoking
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to tackle the current increase in smoking amongst young women. [42962]

  Ms Jowell
  In 1998/99, we are funding a Health Education Authority run adult smoking education campaign costing £5.5 million, which identifies five key target groups—two of these groups are adults in the 16–24 age group and women and pregnant women.

  We also fund a teenage smoking campaign costing £1 million which especially focuses on teenage girls (ages 11–15). I recently launched the latest phase of the campaign, the "Respect" roadshow, which aims to reach out to teenagers in settings that are attractive to them and involve them in lively, absorbing presentations which illustrate that life without cigarettes is not only possible but desirable.

  We are currently considering possible ways in which to reduce tobacco consumption and our conclusions will form part of the Tobacco Control White Paper, which will be published later this year.

  Prescriptions
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if it is his policy to limit NHS prescriptions to cover a maximum period of 28 days; and if he will make a statement. [44714]

  Mr. Milburn
  No. Prescribers determine the period of a prescription, taking into account the clinical condition of patients and the need to minimise waste.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to review the powers of health authorities to rule out prescribing drugs with proven clinical benefits on the grounds of cost; and if he will make a statement. [44399]

  Mr. Milburn
  Health authorities are responsible for using their resources to the best effect to meet the health needs of their populations. We are proposing a national, authoritative source of guidance to help the National Health Service assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of new treatments including new medicines.

  Primary Care Groups
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance he is giving to health authorities on setting up primary care groups in natural communities which have populations of less than 80,000 people. [44402]

  Mr. Milburn
  Health Service Circular 1998/065, which we published in April, said that primary care groups will be based on natural geographical communities of people, typically covering around 100,000 population. However, we have made clear that it is the functions which a primary care group will carry out that will determine its size, shape and configuration.

  Nurses and Doctors
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many(a) nurses and (b) doctors were recruited to the National Health Service in (i) 1995–96, (ii) 1996–97 and (iii) 1997–98; [44477]

  (2) how many (a) nurses and (b) doctors were employed in the National Health Service in (i) 1995–96, (ii) 1996–97 and (iii) 1997–98. [44476]

  Mr. Milburn
  The information requested about the numbers of doctors and nurses employed by the National Health Service can be found in the Department's statistical bulletins: "Hospital, Public Health Medicine and Community Health Service Medical and Dental Staff in England: 1986 to 1996" (the latest year for which information is available) and "NHS Hospital and Community Health Services Non-medical Staff in England: 1987–1997", copies of which are available in the Library. Information about the number of nurses joining the NHS is collected by the Office of Manpower and Economics and published in the annual reports of the Review Body for Nursing staff, Midwives, Health Visitors, copies of which are in the Library. Information about the recruitment of doctors is not collected centrally.

  Bed Occupancy
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS beds were occupied by people who were waiting to be transferred to either nursing homes, residential care homes or their own homes in(a) 1995–96, (b) 1996–97 and (c) 1997–98. [44396]

  Mr. Boateng
  Information on the number of patients aged 75 and over, ready for discharge but still occupying a hospital bed, has been collected through the routine quarterly monitoring system since April 1996. Before then, it was collected at six monthly intervals.

  Copies of the information available have been placed in the Library.

  NHS Waiting Lists
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if it is his policy to establish targets for the average number of months waited by patients; and if he will make a statement. [44716]

  Mr. Milburn
  No. Our commitment over the lifetime of the Parliament is to reduce National Health Service waiting lists by 100,000 from the record level we inherited. Bringing down waiting lists—and keeping them down—will in turn bring down waiting times.

  As a first step, we have achieved our target of eliminating long waits. At the end of March 1998, for the first time in the history of the National Health Service, no English resident has been waiting more than 18 months for treatment.

  We are also committed to ensuring that—by the year 2000—everyone with suspected cancer will be able to see a specialist within 2 weeks of urgent practitioner referral. This guarantee will apply from April 1999 for breast cancer.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  New Deal (Lone Parents)
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to introduce an element of compulsion into the new deal for lone parents. [42932]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  The New Deal for Lone Parents is a voluntary programme. There is no question of us trying to compel lone parents to go out to work rather than looking after their children.

  Pensions
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the proportion of the population which will be covered by the extension of second-tier pensions. [42933]

  Ms Harman
  For the second pensions, the Government have two objectives:

  All those who could be paying into a second pension do so, and;

  when they do pay into a second pension they get good value for money.

  Today, we are publishing a draft bill, 'Pension Sharing on Divorce' which will ensure that, on divorce, women will get a fair share of pension rights.

  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received from organisations representing pensioners on pension levels. [42959]

  Mr. Denham
  The Department does not maintain information in the form requested. However, the Pensions Review has received over 2,000 written responses as part of its public consultation exercise; 652 of these responses commented on the uprating of State pensions. In addition, Ministers have personally met Pensioner Groups—such as National Pensions Convention, Public Service Pensioners Council, Pensioners Voice, British—Pensioners Trade Union Action Association, National Association of Retired Police Officers, National Federation of British Telecom and Post Office Pensioners and Southwark Pensioners Action Group—as well as groups representing the interests of pensioners—such as Age Concern and Help the Aged—to listen to their views.

  As we promised in our manifesto, we have uprated the basic pension at least in line with prices. From April, the basic pension is £103.40 a week for a couple and £64.70 for a single pensioner. We have also provided additional help of £400 million to help pensioners with their fuel bills for last winter and next winter.

  The Government's pensions review is examining the value of the basic State pension including the future uprating of pensions. The Review will report later this year.

  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the effect on current revenues from employee and employer national insurance contributions if all those currently accruing rights to a SERPS pension were to contract out into an approved personal pension. [44629]
  468
  Mr. Denham
  The additional revenue forgone in terms of National Insurance rebates for the tax year 1998/99 is estimated to be £4 billion.

  Pensioners (Income Support)
  Mr. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement about the number of pensioners receiving income support. [42947]

  Mr. Denham
  The latest available figures show there are around 1.7 million pensioners receiving income support. In addition, there are an estimated 1 million pensioners who are entitled to Income Support but not claiming it. These figures represent in total around one in four pensioners.

  A key objective of the pensions review is to ensure that pensioners should have an adequate income in retirement; that they should share fairly in rising national prosperity and that public finances should be both sustainable and affordable.

  For today's pensioners, we have commissioned research to find out why so many pensioners fail to claim their Income Support entitlement, and we are running pilots in nine areas to find the best ways of getting help to them.

  Mr. Peter Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many(a) pensioners living alone and (b) pensioner households aged (i) between the state retirement age and 75 years, (ii) 75 and 85 years and (iii) above 85 years are dependent on income support. [43801]

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

  Pensioners claiming income support, November 1997

  Marital status

  State retirement age to 74

  75 to 84

  Age Group 85 years and over

  Couple

  103,000

  56,000

  18,000

  Single

  436,000

  444,000

  250,000

  All

  539,000

  501,000

  268,000

  Notes:

  1. Figures for single claimants are based on claimants without a partner.

  2. Pensioners are defined as men aged 65 and over, and women aged 60 and over. The age of a couple is determined by the age of the eldest partner.

  3. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand cases.

  4. Figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample, and are subject to a degree of sampling error.

  5. This analysis excludes pensioners in residential care and nursing homes.

  Source:

  Income Support Statistics Quarterly Inquiry, November 1997.

  Benefits Appeals
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps she proposes to introduce within her Department to enable benefits appeals to be dealt with more speedily. [42950]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  The Social Security Act 1998, which received Royal Assent on 21 May, paves the way for modernising the delivery of social security, including
  469
  the handling of appeals. A wide range of measures—some of which we are introducing immediately—will streamline the administration of appeals and ensure appeals are dealt with more speedily. In particular, the Act enables the Secretary of State to assume responsibility for the administration of the appeals system. She will set and publish demanding targets for the administration of appeals and report on the results.

  Benefits (Marriage and Illegitimacy)
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment her Department has made of the likely impact on marriage and illegitimacy of her proposed changes in the benefit system. [42951]

  Mr. Field
  The social implications of all proposed benefit changes are considered carefully. We believe that the family remains the fundamental building block of society and the new welfare system will offer support to families on the basis of the needs of children rather than on family structure or marital status. The Budget announcements of increases to benefits for children, the Childcare Tax Credit and the Working Families Tax Credit are clear evidence of our commitment to supporting families with children.

  Pension Schemes
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the new guidelines for the calculation of the minimum funding requirement for pension schemes will be published. [42953]

  Mr. Denham
  The actuarial profession's proposals for a change to the valuation method have been agreed, and their guidance note is being revised. There is an ongoing review of the minimum funding requirement's methodology.

  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what factors underlay her decision not to initiate a review of the minimum funding requirement immediately after the July Budget. [42961]

  Mr. Denham
  The methodology and actuarial assumptions in the minimum funding requirement were devised by the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries. We were informed that they would be carrying out a review following the July Budget. We fed into that review a report by the Government Actuary, whose views we had sought on a number of issues.

  Disabled People
  Mr. Hayes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans the Government have to tax benefits for people with disabilities. [42952]

  Mr. Denham
  We have made it clear in our Green Paper that Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance will remain national and universal benefits and as such they will not be subject to a means test. Taxation is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, but we have no current plans to tax DLA: there were no such proposals in the Green Paper. Equally, there are no plans to tax Income Support (the income-related benefit paid to many people with disabilities) War Pensions or Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit.
  470
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the number of people with some level of disability in the United Kingdom; and how many of them receive state benefits. [42957]

  Mr. Denham
  There is no generally agreed formula for defining disabled people. The Disability Survey suggests that there are some 8.6 million disabled adults in private households. The numbers who receive benefits as a result of their disability are shown in the table.

  Benefit

  Recipients1,6

  Date

  Income Support

  2,4,5892,000

  August 1997

  Disability Working Allowance

  14,813

  September 1997

  Disability Living Allowance

  2,096,000

  February 1998

  Attendance Allowance

  1,279,000

  February 1998

  Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit

  3272,000

  7—

  War Disablement Pensions

  258,363

  April 1998

  Severe Disablement Allowance

  369,000

  November 1997

  Incapacity Benefit

  1,701,000

  November 1997

  Jobseeker's Allowance

  17,000

  August 1997

  1 These figures do not take into account any benefit overlap

  2 Numbers for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance are rounded to the nearest thousand

  3 Figures are taken from a 5 per cent. sample except Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit which is 10 per cent., Disability Working Allowance and War Disablement Pension which are 100 per cent.

  4 The Income Support figure excludes cases who transferred to Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance with effect from October 1996

  5 Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance are based on claims receiving disability premium when either the claimant or partner is disabled

  6 All figures are for United Kingdom except War Disablement Pensions which is United Kingdom plus Overseas, Severe Disablement Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance are for Great Britain

  7 Figures for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit are for Great Britain at April 1997 and Northern Ireland figures are at February 1998

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when she will respond to the fourth report of the Social Security Committee on disability living allowance (HC 641). [42954]

  Mr. Denham
  We will be making a full response to the Social Security Select Committee's report in due course and in doing so we will adhere to the usual conventions set out by the Procedure Committee.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have been taken off disability benefit in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [42958]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is not available in the format requested. 269,000 Attendance Allowance awards and 145,000 Disability Living Allowance awards ceased in the 12 months ending April 1998.

  Information is not available on the reasons for cessation, but these will include death, absence abroad, and non-renewal of a fixed period award, as well as withdrawal where the benefits agency found that the conditions of entitlement were no longer satisfied.

  Note:

  Figures based on 100 per cent. data, rounded to the nearest thousand.
  471
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment she has made of the percentage of people who, following a review, are denied the care component payments of the disability living allowance; how many of these people are terminally ill; and if she will make a statement. [44398]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is set out in the tables.

  Disability living allowance review decisions in 1997–98

  Decisions

  Amount

  All Decisions

  370,054

  Review allowed1

  44,288

  Award increased2

  90,075

  Other decisions3

  235,691

  Notes:

  1 Reviews within three months of the original decision determined in the claimant's favour

  2 Reviews where there are relevant changes in circumstances and the rates of either component increased

  3 Cases where benefit is disallowed, decreased or unchanged

  Source:

  Analytical Services Division: 100 per cent. data

  DLA terminally ill cases1

  Cases

  1996–972

  21997–98

  Cleared3

  26,890

  23,907

  Awarded on initial claim4

  24,830

  22,160

  Awarded on review4

  5,760

  4,380

  1 Figures relate to terminally ill cases which are classed as 'special rule'. For these cases the three month qualifying period is not required and processing takes priority over other cases

  2 Figures relate to 12 months ending February

  Note:

  The cleared figure which relates to initial claims only, includes people awarded benefit, disallowed benefit and also cases withdrawn before being decided. These figures indicate that the success rate for terminal ill claimants is high

  Sources:

  3 Analytical Services Division: 100 per cent. data

  4 Analytical Services Division: 5 per cent. data

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what discussions she has had with medical authorities regarding terminally-ill people who are denied the care component element of disability living allowance; and if she will make a statement. [44404]

  Mr. Denham
  None. When a claim is received and the information contained on the medical condition is not sufficient to determine the claim, advice is sought from Benefits Agency Medical Service doctors. They will consult with the claimant's General Practitioner, Consultant or other health professional to ascertain the nature of the condition and the effects on that person's needs.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to reform the process of awarding the care component element of disability living allowance; and if she will make a statement. [44405]

  Mr. Denham
  The Green Paper, "New ambitions for our country: A new contract for welfare", published on 26 March makes clear our commitment to the principle of providing special allowances to help with the extra costs of disability. We will maintain Disability Living 472
  Allowance and Attendance Allowance as universal national benefits for those who meet the conditions of entitlement. These benefits will not be means tested.

  We have also given a clear commitment that, in taking forward any proposals to change these benefits, we will consult disabled people, their organisations and others with an interest. For this reason, we are setting up a new Disability Benefits Forum with organisations of and for disabled people, to discuss how the system can be reformed to ensure that benefits go to those who need them. Details of the Forum will be published shortly.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment she has made of the impact of the review system for terminally ill people receiving the care component of disability living allowance; and if she will make a statement. [44406]

  Mr. Denham
  Procedures are already in place to fast track initial claims and any subsequent review requests from people who are terminally ill.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what factors are taken into account when assessing whether a claimant is entitled to receive the care component of disability living allowance. [44407]

  Mr. Denham
  The factors taken into account are the effects of a person's disability on their day to day life as described in their self-reporting claim form. Information provided by a person's General Practitioner and/or hospital consultant or other health professional is also factored into these considerations. Adjudication Officers consult Benefits Agency Medical Services doctors on the nature and effects of disabilities. Information is also available to Adjudication Officers in the Disability Handbook which is compiled by senior doctors of this Department and approved and monitored by the Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board.

  Benefit Advisers
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to increase the number of benefit advisers working in the Benefits Agency. [42955]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  Staff throughout the Agency offer a range of advice to customers. In line with Ministers' aims of achieving welfare reform and providing an Active Modern Service, we are developing an integrated approach to provision of advice, both in respect of benefit entitlement and in terms of broader welfare considerations. This approach reflects the principle that customers can be better served by greater co-ordination of services which have traditionally been provided by wholly separate organisations.

  We are currently evaluating the ways in which such co-ordination might best be achieved. This may involve the deployment of more caseworkers, not only within the Benefits Agency, but also in partner organisations such as Employment Services, Local Authorities, other DSS Agencies and the wider welfare community including the private sector.
  473

  Children
  Mr. Derek Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the action the Government have taken to improve the support for children through the social security system. [42956]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  In his Budget Statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out a number of measures for families with children. From November 1998, there will be a £2.50 increase in the under-11 child allowance in Income Support (IS), Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Housing Benefit (HB), Council Tax Benefit (CTB), Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance. From April 1999, Child Benefit for the eldest child and the family premium in IS, JSA, HB and CTB will be increased by £2.50.

  Support for children will also be substantially improved by the introduction of a childcare tax credit which is designed to make support for children through the tax system more generous and more transparent.

  In addition to these measures, increases in the childcare disregard for in-work benefits came into force from 1 June. The maximum disregard is now £100 a week for families incurring childcare costs for two or more children of qualifying age and the upper age limit for children has been extended by a year.

  Long-term Sick and Disabled People
  Mr. Purchase
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps she has taken to help the long-term sick and disabled into work. [42960]

  Mr. Denham
  The Government are committed to improving opportunities and incentives for disabled people who want to work, whilst providing appropriate support to those who cannot. There are four strands to our strategy for helping people with disabilities or long-term sickness who want to work; taking action to help make work pay; providing the active help and encouragement people with disabilities need to move into work; removing obstacles to work from the benefits system; and promoting radical change in the work place to ensure equality and opportunity.

  Specific initiatives include the New Deal for Disabled People, under which we will pilot a new Personal Adviser Service and fund a number of innovative schemes to test ways of helping disabled people who want to work; changes to benefit rules, including a new 52 week linking rule for incapacity benefits to be introduced from this October; the Disabled Persons Tax Credit, which we are developing to replace and enhance Disability Working Allowance; and the Disability Rights Task Force, which we have set up to advise on the best ways to secure civil rights and maximise the benefits of the Disability Discrimination Act (the remaining provisions of which we are committed to implementing). We are also setting up a Disability Rights Commission, to promote, protect and enforce the rights of disabled people.

  Ministers for Women
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the priorities of the Ministers for Women during the UK presidency of the European Union. [42963]
  474
  Ms Harman
  The theme of the UK Presidency is employability. We have been clear from the outset that this means the employability of women as well as men. The importance of child care and family friendly employment policies—two of the priorities of the Ministers for Women—are key to this.

  On 5–6 May we called a meeting of the EU Ministers for Women to discuss women's employability—at this highly successful conference.

  a consensus was reached on the importance of affordable, accessible and high quality child care and family friendly working policies;

  it was agreed that the Ministers for Women would meet at least once a year in the future to exchange ideas and best practice in these areas; and

  the need to include women's concerns through all employment policies, both at a national and EU level, has been firmly placed on the EU agenda.

  Ms Kingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the outcome of the meeting in Belfast on the EU Presidency Conclusions on Women and Employability. [42927]

  Ms Harman
  The theme of the UK Presidency is employability. We have been clear from the outset that this means the employability of women as well as men. That is why we called the meeting of EU Ministers for Women which we held in Belfast on 5–6 May.

  The meeting focused in particular on the importance of child care and family friendly employment policies, and provided a valuable opportunity to share best practice with our EU partners. The meeting reached a consensus on the following key points.

  Affordable, accessible, and high-quality child care, parental and other leave schemes, and family-friendly working policies are essential for women and men to combine work and family responsibilities.

  Equality between women and men must be included in all employment polices, both at national and EU level; so that measures to improve employability and support the unemployed take the rights and needs of women and men fully in account.

  Meetings of Ministers for Women and for Equality provide useful opportunities for the exchange of ideas and best practice and developing strategies. They intend to meet at least once a year in future.

  Member states expressed their commitment to drive forward these initiatives and will use proposed future meetings to do so.

  Benefits (Young People)
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many representations she has recently received on the inability of 16 and 17-year-olds to claim benefits; and if she will make a statement. [42964]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  As well as informal approaches, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has received 28 letters in the last year relating to the benefit entitlement of 16 and 17-year-olds. Sixteen of these related to Income Support and 12 to Jobseeker's Allowance. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has received four letters and one Parliamentary Question on this topic in the last year.
  475

  Service Delivery
  Mr. Caplin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on Government actions to improve the quality of service delivery in the social security system during the last year. [42965]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  Improved service delivery is central to our approach to welfare reform. Our services must actively help people to move off welfare and into work.

  In December 1997, we launched our Active Modern Service programme to transform Social Security by building a system that commands the support and confidence of those who use it, those who administer it and those who fund it, providing a better, simpler, more efficient service to clients.

  The focus of our effort will be to provide services that clients need. We will achieve a much better outcome if we include them in the debate. On 18 June 1998, we will be speaking to client representatives to begin to tell them of our plans and consult them about the way forward.

  Much has begun to be put in place, enhanced quality of service delivery by improving decision making, closer working initiatives with Local Authorities, pilots to test the automatic delivery of benefit for pensioners and personal advisors for Lone Parents and the Disabled.

  Social Security Expenditure
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to her answer of 27 February 1998,Official Report, column 380, if she will provide a breakdown of the figures for non-cyclical social security expenditure between benefits for the (a) elderly and (b) non-elderly. [44653]

  Mr. Field
  The information requested is set out in the table.

  Non-cyclical social security expenditure

  £ million

  Year

  Elderly

  Non-elderly

  1978–79

  26,918

  16,882

  1979–80

  26,718

  18,277

  1980–81

  27,025

  17,392

  1981–82

  29,157

  18,926

  1982–83

  30,532

  19,626

  1983–84

  31,627

  21,328

  1984–85

  31,943

  22,213

  1985–86

  33,082

  22,694

  1986–87

  34,453

  23,774

  1987–88

  34,475

  24,085

  1988–89

  33,423

  23,802

  1989–90

  33,958

  23,903

  1990–91

  34,835

  25,139

  1991–92

  36,517

  27,735

  1992–93

  37,673

  31,283

  1993–94

  39,196

  34,333

  1994–95

  39,456

  35,661

  1995–96

  39,826

  37,007

  1996–97

  40,799

  38,312

  1997–98

  41,311

  38,740

  1998–99

  41,820

  39,212

  1999–2000

  42,274

  39,819

  476
  Notes:

  1. Figures have been taken from the 1997 Social Security Departmental Report as well as earlier equivalent publications. The figures exclude the cost of Administration

  2. The figures for 1996–97 are estimates of expenditure in that year. Revised figures for the years 1996–97 to 1998–99 have been included in the 1998 Social Security Departmental Report. Figures for subsequent years are not included as they are subject to the findings of the Comprehensive Spending Review, the results of which are expected later this year

  3. Benefits have been allocated according to the main reason they are paid in order to provide figures consistent with tables in the Social Security Departmental Report. This means that some benefits, such as Attendance Allowance, have been included in the non-elderly totals shown in the table, even though they may be paid to elderly people.

  Family Income
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimates she has made of the level of income required to support a family with children relative to a family with no children. [44630]

  Mr. Keith Bradley
  There are many factors which affect the financial needs of a family, including the presence of children. These are reflected in the structure of allowances in the income-related benefits.

  The new welfare system will provide better support to families with children. That is why we have announced a £2.50 increase in Child Benefit for the eldest child and a £2.50 increase in the family premium in the income-related benefits. We have announced further help for vulnerable families with young children through a £2.50 increase in the under 11 child allowances.

  These measures will help families to give every child a better start.

  Incapacity Benefit
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have lost their entitlement to incapacity benefit because of the all work test since its introduction; and what percentage of those were(a) over 50 and (b) over 55 years. [43046]

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

  Incapacity Benefit recipients found capable of work following application of the all work test

  Number

  13 April 1995 to 31 August 1996

  Numbers (all ages)

  178,000

  1 September 1996 to 30 November 1997

  Numbers (all ages)

  251,000

  Percentage aged 50 and over

  31

  Percentage aged 55 and over

  18

  Notes:

  1. Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand

  2. Due to initial data collection problems, the proportion of recipients found capable of work broken down by age is not available from 13 April 1995 to 31 August 1996

  3. Figures include recipients found capable after initial referral for the all work test and after re-referrals

  4. The all work test is not applicable to Incapacity Benefit recipients aged 58 or over on 13 April 1995 who had been in receipt of Invalidity Benefit continuously between 1 December 1993 and 12 April 1995
  477
  Source:

  13 April 1995 to 31 August 1997. 100 per cent. count of the computer system; excludes a small number of cases not on the system

  1 September 1996 to 30 November 1997. 5 per cent. sample of the computer system; excludes a small number of cases not on the system

  Domestic Violence
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what support her Department gives to those fleeing domestic violence. [42928]

  Ms Ruddock
  Income-related benefits are available to women fleeing domestic violence. However, we are aware that women are not always offered the full range of support services they may need.

  As Ministers for Women, tackling violence against women is one of out three key priorities. In drawing up our National Strategy, we are consulting with experts in the field of domestic violence, and listening to the views of women who have suffered domestic violence, to build a strategy to help prevent domestic violence; protect those who suffer it; and bring to justice those who perpetrate it.

  Pensioners (Scotland)
  Mr. Gorrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people and what proportion of those over 60 years old in Scotland receive(a) income support, (b) housing benefit, (c) council tax benefit and (d) income from disability benefits. [43812]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is set out in the table.

  Benefit

  Number

  Proportion of population per cent.

  Income Support1

  172,000

  16.6

  All Housing Benefit2

  230,000

  22.2

  All Council Tax Benefit=

  292,000

  28.2

  Income Support claimants receiving a disability related premium1,3

  79,000

  7.6

  Housing Benefit recipients with income from disability benefits2,4

  81,000

  7.9

  Council Tax Benefit recipients with income from disability benefits2,4

  91,000

  8.8

  Attendance Allowance5

  122,000

  11.7

  Disability Living Allowance5

  83,000

  8.0

  War Disablement Pensioners6

  25,000

  2.4

  Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit7

  12,000

  1.1

  Incapacity Benefit8

  56,000

  5.4

  Severe Disablement Allowance8

  6,000

  0.6

  1 Claimants as at November 1997. Number of claimants aged 60 or over is based on benefit units who receive a pensioner premium. It may therefore include some claimants who are under 60 years whose partner is aged 60 or over

  2 Figures as at May 1996. The information refers to benefit units which may be a single person or a couple. The data do not include second adult rebate cases

  3 Claimants with a disability premium are also included in the total of 172,000 IS claimants in Scotland aged 60 or over. Claimants with disability related premiums are claimants aged 60 to 79 with a Higher Pensioner Premium or claimants with Severe Disability Premium

  4 Information for recipients with income from disability benefits refers to benefit units where there is either a disability premium or a higher pensioner premium in payment
  478
  5 Figures relate to November 1997

  6 Figures as at February 1998

  7 Figures as at April 1997

  8 Recipients as at November 1997

  Notes:

  1. As at October 1997 there were only a negligible number of Disability Working Allowance recipients in Scotland aged 60 or over

  2. Figures rounded to the nearest thousand

  Sources:

  1. Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry—a 5 per cent. sample

  2. Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit with income from disability benefits and Council Tax Benefit with income from disability benefits are from Housing Benefit Management Information System—a 1 per cent. sample with and without Income Support

  3. Attendance Allowance, Disability Allowance figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample of data from the Analytical Services Division

  4. War Disablement Pensioner figures are derived from a 5 per cent. sample from the War Pensions Computer System

  5. Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit figures are based on a 10 per cent. sample of data from the Analytical Services Division which includes an adjustment for late statistical returns

  6. Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance figures are taken from a 5 per cent. sample of the PSCS(INCAP) system which excludes a small number of cases held clerically

  7. Population figures are from the Office of National Statistics as at June 1996

  Mr. Gorrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate her Department has made of the number of people of pensionable age in Scotland in each year to 2010. [43809]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is set out in the table.

  Projected numbers of people of pensionable age for Scotland 1998–010

  000s

  Year

  Population estimate

  1998

  918

  1999

  920

  2000

  922

  2001

  923

  2002

  925

  2003

  930

  2004

  935

  2005

  938

  2006

  942

  2007

  956

  2008

  968

  2009

  980

  2010

  984

  Notes:

  1. The table is based on population projections for Scotland provided by the Government Actuary's Department based on population estimates for 1996

  2. The estimates take account of the equalisation of State Pension Age from 2010

  3. All figures are rounded to the nearest thousand

  Mr. Gorrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of people aged (i) 64 to 74 years and (ii) 75 years and over in Scotland live alone. [43813]

  Mr. Denham
  The proportion of people aged 64 to 74 years and 75 years and over in Scotland who live alone is 32 per cent. and 55 per cent. respectively.
  479
  Notes:

  1. The figures are based on information from the Family Resources Survey 1995–96.

  2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 1 per cent.

  3. Calculations for the number of people living alone are based on the number of people who report no other adults or children in their household. For this reason figures may be subject to misreporting.

  4. The Family Resources Survey does not cover those pensioners who are in hospital or residential care and therefore these people are not included in the estimates.

  Mr. Gorrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many and what percentage of pensioners in Scotland currently receive the state retirement pension. [43814]

  Mr. Denham
  The number and percentage of people above State pension age in Scotland currently receiving the State Retirement Pension is 863,500 and 94 per cent. respectively.
  480
  Notes:

  1. The figures are based on information from the Pensions Strategy Computer System and from the Scottish Registrar's population estimates.

  2. Figures for the number in receipt of State Retirement Pension are rounded to the nearest one hundred. Figures are rounded to the nearest 1 per cent.

  Housing Benefit Fraud
  Mr. Hanson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the level of fraud in housing benefit. [42941]

  Mr. Field
  We have made it clear in our Green Paper that rooting out fraud is an essential part of welfare reform. We are undertaking a fundamental review of the Department's counter-fraud strategies to ensure a coherent, well-prioritised programme to reduce overall fraud levels through earlier prevention, more effective deterrence and better detection.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

Multilateral Organisations: Parliamentary Scrutiny
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will consider publishing the voting positions of United Kingdom executive directors at the board meetings of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and similar multilateral organisations in order to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny; and whether they will advocate that such a policy be adopted by all member countries.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, decisions in the IMF and World Bank executive boards are usually taken by consensus rather than by formal vote, so a voting record, as such, does not really exist for most matters. Other institutions such as the regional development banks, the EBRD and the World Trade Organisation follow similar procedures.
Lord Judd: My Lords, but does not my noble friend agree that, at a time when the Government are very committed to the regeneration of democracy, a significant issue is developing in the multilateral institutions where decisions are made with far reaching implications not only for this country but for the rest of the world? If we in Parliament are properly to scrutinise what happens in those institutions, is it not essential that we have fuller information about what is being said in our name within them, what others are saying and how decisions are reached?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend raises two very important issues with his further question. He rightly draws attention to the issue of transparency in the international organisations. The British Government have been pressing heavily for greater transparency. In a recent speech to the interim committee of the G7 the Chancellor of the Exchequer demanded that we should publish press information notices quickly, that we should publish the conclusions of Article 4 missions, and that we should improve the accountability of the IMF.
My noble friend also raised the issue of parliamentary accountability. The executive director is a British civil servant accountable to Ministers in the Government and therefore accountable, through them, to Parliament in
684
House Questions, debates and Select Committees. Speeches and communiqués are also placed in the Library.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, how does the noble Lord propose to deal with the European Central Bank within the context of the Question?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the European Central Bank does not come within the scope of the Question which I am answering today. However, my noble friend will have a full opportunity to debate the matter when we discuss the report of the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Barnett.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, what action have the Government taken to establish a separate post of executive director for the World Bank and to make that position an appointment of the Department for International Development in consultation with the Treasury?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, Mr. Gus O'Donnell is executive director for both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. That joint appointment will be continued by his replacement, Mr. Stephen Pickford. However, the noble Baroness is right because in one case he reports to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and in the other to the Secretary of State for International Development.
Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, although the British Government wish to make maximum transparency available, even though reporting to Parliament through a civil servant is not the most obvious and clear-cut way of doing so, what is the position of other member states? Is the Government's view on transparency shared by others? If so, can we look forward to better informed debates?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, with respect, I do not agree with my noble friend that the appointment of a civil servant as executive director is anything other than the obvious way of assuring parliamentary accountability. British civil servants are responsible to Ministers who, in turn, are responsible to Parliament.
As to whether other members of these international organisations are as keen on transparency as we are, my noble friend should draw his conclusion from the fact that we are taking the lead in promoting transparency. If we are taking the lead others are somewhat behind.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, how is any member of the public able to discover the British Government's position at a plenary meeting of the International Criminal Court, which is about to take place in Rome, on matters as important as the independence of the prosecutor, retrospection and so forth? How can any member of the public discover the Government's attitude?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have not taken the International Criminal Court to be a multilateral organisation similar to the IMF or the World Bank and

685
therefore I do not know the answer to the noble Lord's question. However, I shall write to him on the issue that he raises.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, what sort of parliamentary scrutiny is envisaged by this Question and what effect is it supposed to have?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, one way in which the noble Lord could find out would be by asking a Question. As I have explained in relation to the parliamentary scrutiny, there is the availability of questioning Ministers in the House; the fact that legislation, when it affects those issues, comes before Parliament; the fact that it is possible to have debates in this House and in the other place on those matters; and that Select Committees can summon Ministers and the executive director directly to be questioned about those activities in international organisations. Similarly, the speeches and communiqués which are the communication of this Government to international organisations are available in the Library and on the Internet.
Lord Judd: My Lords, will my noble friend accept that many of us find it extremely encouraging to hear it stated so firmly that the Government are leading on the issue of transparency? In particular, we are encouraged by what my noble friend said about the need to look at key civil servants who participate in those institutions themselves giving evidence when Parliament is, through its procedures, scrutinising those affairs.
Does my noble friend agree that if we could achieve more openness within those institutions, we could, for example, have a much healthier perspective on the issue of international debt? Our Chancellor has been trying to lead the world on the alleviation of debt in the poor world, which is of immense significance, but he has been blocked consistently by certain other member countries of those institutions which have hidden behind a tradition of not disclosing what goes on within them.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for recognising the efforts that we made at the G8 summit in Birmingham to promote the forgiveness of aid-related bilateral debt. In the absence of—shall we say?—universal agreement on all those points, we can ensure greater transparency in the international financial systems and international financial data. Indeed, that is what the Prime Minister reported back to Parliament after the Birmingham summit.

Association of Chief Police Officers
2.44 p.m.
The Earl of Lytton The Earl of Lytton asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the purposes of a Home Office donation to the Association of Chief Police Officers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) of £458,000 in 1996–97, and a contribution from the
686
police authorities of £330,000 for the relevant part of ACPO's 1996–97 accounting period; and what services are provided by ACPO to these donors.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, the Home Office provides a contribution to the running costs of the Association of Chief Police Officers' Secretariat in respect of salaries and administrative expenses. Police authorities contribute to the association in recognition of its role in providing professional policing policy advice to police authorities, government and others. The provision of professional policing policy advice is carried out by the association in support of local policing, rather than as a specific service to a particular organisation.
The Earl of Lytton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and I am mindful of the fact that I have a former president of the Association of Chief Police Officers sitting next to me. Will the Minister explain to the House what principles of accountability apply to those sums which come from both the police committees and the Home Office direct? What accountability is there in respect of those sums? More particularly, what scrutiny is available in relation to those in the normal way in which such sums are scrutinised?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the Government's contribution to ACPO is managed by the Home Office. It pays invoices for approved expenditure incurred by ACPO. Therefore, before any payment is made, scrutiny is directed to every request made by way of invoice.
Furthermore, the copy of ACPO's accounts for 1996–97 has been placed in the Library and the accounts for 1997–98, which are currently being prepared, will also be placed in the Library. In future, the accounts will be published in Companies House format and will include various references to the Government's contribution.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that over a period of time, governments have given precisely that degree of financial support to the Association of Chief Police Officers? Is he aware that on a whole range of issues ranging from policy relating to crime to road traffic, the advice which it gives to the Home Office and to police authorities is of considerable public importance? Therefore, does he agree that such support is highly desirable?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am sure that that is absolutely right. As the noble Lord says, this has been going on for a number of years. It is extremely useful to the Home Office to have a source of informed

687
expertise. Most Ministers who have been in receipt of the advice, although they may not agree with it on every occasion, recognise its worth and value.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, does that mean that other organisations will also receive core grants from the Home Office for the same reasons?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, not necessarily, no.
Lord Merlyn-Rees: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the advice which comes from ACPO on a variety of issues is not the only source of advice? It comes also from within the police department and the inspectorate. It is not the only advice, is it?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Merlyn-Rees is absolutely right. It is a very important source of advice but we have our own internal statistical department; we consult a large number of bodies in the criminal justice field; and we have contributions from institutes of criminology, from universities and a wide variety of international sources.
Lord Knights: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that ACPO has divided itself recently into two organisations: the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is funded in the way that the Minister has already indicated, dealing with professional policing policy; and a second separate organisation, the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, which deals with staff matters, conditions of service and so on, which it funds itself?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. It was thought appropriate that there should be a division between those two functions: the second being a matter of negotiation about terms and conditions and such matters; and the first being the sort of independent advice to which a number of your Lordships have already referred.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, the noble Lord is probably not aware that I had lunch with the Chief Constable of Norfolk today. He will be speaking to a colleague of the Minister in the Home Office and the noble Baroness, Lady Haymah. I hope that the Government will take advice from the chief constables when that is put before them.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I did not know that the noble Lord had had lunch at all, and certainly not with the Chief Constable of Norfolk. I am sure that it was an excellent lunch and that the conversation was most stimulating.
We always listen with great care to what is said by chief constables. They are at the sharp end of policing. They have enormous responsibilities. As was implied earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I believe that
688
there is an extremely useful, constructive relationship between ACPO and the Home Office and long may it continue.

Millennium Dome: Progress
2.50 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they can give any further information on the Millennium Dome, its progress, its contents and their cost.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, progress on the Millennium Dome is on time and within budget and details of the project will continue to be released as it develops. The New Millennium Experience Company is continuing to make good progress on sponsorship, with £87 million already committed, putting the company on course to achieve its sponsorship target. On 1st June, the New Millennium Experience Company and Marks and Spencer announced "The Children's Promise" initiative—a scheme to encourage people to donate their last hour's pay of this millennium to enhance the opportunities of the nation's children in the next—as part of Marks and Spencer's £12 million founding partner sponsorship support. That was in addition to the founding partner and official sponsors announced on 24th February.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I give the Minister a rather half-hearted and token "thank you" for that Answer. Does he not think it a little odd that so little is known about the contents of this really rather magnificent building, which is now nearing completion both on time and within budget? Indeed, it is splendid. We have been told that the sexless giant which was surveying its own child has been removed and replaced by a golden lady. However, apart from that, we know nothing. Is it not about time that those concerned with this huge building were informed as to what its contents will be?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord thought that I was rather half-hearted—
Noble Lords: He was!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I now realise that he was half-hearted in his thanks. That is even worse. On reflection, I believe that I was too modest in my response. In fact, the construction work is two weeks ahead of schedule. As the noble Lord knows, seven out of the 13 zones in the Millennium Dome were presented to the public at the end of February and work

689
is proceeding on them as well as on all the others. We still have 18 months to go. Would not the noble Lord like a few surprises at the end?
Lord Beloff: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be very appropriate for the dome to be left completely empty? It could then act a symbol of New Labour.
Noble Lords: Oh!
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, can the Minister help the House a little as regards the cost involved? Is there any distinction or overlap between the funding which has been well publicised for construction and allied purposes and the amounts of money which he has enumerated; namely, those moneys which have been provided by generous sponsors? Are those two sums of money quite distinct and separate, or will some of the sponsorship money be used for construction purposes? Perhaps the Minister can give us some guidance on the matter.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, clearly the sponsors have a right to require that some part of their money should be used for specific purposes; indeed, they have done so. However, the funding of the project as a whole, which includes large amounts of lottery money, will be used for all purposes such as construction, filling, access and for other aspects of the Millennium Dome. It is a single budget.
Lord Montague of Oxford: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend the Minister can clarify one aspect of his original Answer, which relates to the raising of £100 million for the children's programme. My noble friend said that people are being asked to contribute their last hour's salary of the millennium to the fund. However, does he intend to commit his last hour's salary to that end? I shall of course commit mine, but will my noble friend support the rest of the House doing the same?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, on the dangerous assumption that I still have a salary at that date, I will. As I also have a pension, I will undertake, without any qualification, to contribute the last hour of earning from my pension.
Lord Renton: My Lords, bearing in mind that the millennium marks 2000 years of Christianity, can the Minister say in what way the contents of the dome will record that fact?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Yes, my Lords. As I have said on numerous occasions in this House, the spiritual aspect of the dome's contents are being worked out in close collaboration with the Lambeth Group, which is sponsored by the Church of England but which includes all Christian and other faiths. The group is
690
taking a leading role in deciding that part of the dome's contents which fall within what we call, "the spirit zone".
Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, is the Minister in a position to say whether any changes have been made to the planned contents of the dome since we last debated the matter two months ago? In particular, can I urge the Minister to try to find a space in its 20 acres to depict some defining moments in our far from inglorious national history?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, changes are taking place all the time as design concepts are developed and approach completion. The noble Lord's suggestion about our,
"far from inglorious national history",
can and certainly will be taken into account. There are those who are urging us in the spirit of contrition, which is so popular these days, to make amends for some of the less glorious parts of our history. However, I should not pass a personal comment on that suggestion.
Earl Russell: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the message contained in the latest Wonder Bra advertisement, which says:
"Some domes enjoy public support"?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my principle is to allow noble Lords who use Question Time to make jokes to have them unimpeded by interventions from me.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, in order to encourage and set an even better example, will my noble friend the Minister consider asking his colleagues to announce that they are donating rather more than an hour's pay towards this project?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I shall follow with interest any initiative that my noble friend takes in that direction.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that those who will be responsible for the contents of the Millennium Dome actually know how much money will be available to them?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Yes, my Lords; without doubt. I can certainly give that assurance. Those who are carrying out the design and preparation work are very well aware of the budgets which have been set for them by the New Millennium Experience Company.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, does the Minister agree that support given by the Deputy Prime Minister for a fun-fair in the grounds of Battersea Power Station shows that either the Government are surreptitiously looking for a backup to their preparations for the year 2000 celebrations, or that they are hopelessly divided over them?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as the noble Baroness well knows, neither is the case. Only a

691
minority of the millennium funding goes on the dome. The vast majority of lottery money will be spent on celebrations, buildings and activities in all parts of the country, including Battersea. Indeed, why not?

Bristol Royal Infirmary: GMC Inquiry
2.58 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
In the light of the General Medical Council's inquiry into children's deaths while undergoing heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, whether the Department of Health were aware or were informed of the situation at the time of the operations; and, if so, what action, if any, was taken.
The Minister of State, Department of Health, (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that these tragic events took place over a number of years during the term of office of the previous administration. However, I understand from Department of Health records that concerns were raised informally with officials as early as 1992. Those concerns were pursued with the Bristol trust which, in 1994, agreed plans to improve the service. In January 1995, the department took formal action to ensure that the situation in Bristol was investigated by independent experts. Your Lordships will know that a professional inquiry by the General Medical Council has just been completed.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. But is it not obvious that at the time these terrible tragedies took place, the safeguards—if there were any in place—were not sufficient to prevent a large number of these children from dying? Will the Government take steps to introduce measures as quickly as possible to provide a better future for children, and anyone else who is undergoing an operation, to prevent this carnage from happening again?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the Government are committed to try to raise quality standards of all National Health Service treatment. For the first time in England we intend to publish comparative death rates following surgery in individual hospitals. Those hospitals will be weighted for case, mix and catchment area. We also intend to set up an independent commission for health improvement. The commission will visit every NHS trust regularly and will have special powers to investigate particular problems in any hospital. This work must be matched by more comprehensive clinical audit. For example, there are at present four national confidential inquiries into deaths after surgery, maternal deaths, still births, infant deaths, and suicides, but participation is voluntary. Among our range of new measures the Government will take action to require all relevant clinicians to participate in these professionally led external audits.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, no doubt the Minister is aware that the BMA's consultants and
692
specialists committee has indicated a need for publication of clinical audits. The rate of deaths which the Minister has just mentioned is, of course, the most basic and simple measurement. However, the BMA is not in favour of individual practitioners being audited or their results being published. The Minister mentioned the commission for health improvement which is to be established next year. Will she ask that commission to undertake a review of the competence of consultants in all fields? Is it not the case that once a person has reached the top of his profession, there is no peer review and, unfortunately, we discover incompetence too late?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the noble Baroness rightly draws attention to the problems in the existing system which mean that much audit is retrospective. The commission for health improvement will undertake regular visits to hospitals to make a regular check on individual and collective performance within hospital trusts. In addition, the audit I mentioned this afternoon of clinicians and hospitals has previously been carried out on an entirely voluntary and confidential basis. We shall now require clinicians to participate in that.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, should we not consider the effect of stigmatising a particular cardiac surgery department in Bristol—where terrible things have occurred in the children's department—without redressing the balance slightly by adding that much cardiac surgery is successfully carried out there, including an operation on myself a year last September?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord is so obviously a striking advertisement of the good care that is available within the NHS. I think we always recognise that the vast majority of care within the health service is of the highest quality. The problem consists of identifying those who fall below the good standards of most clinicians. That is what we hope the new system will achieve.
Lord Alderdice: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the reply that she has given indicates, to some extent, a sluggishness on the part of the Department of Health in addressing some of the concerns which were raised over a period of time? Does she not accept that if we are merely to go down the path of collecting crude mortality statistics, there could be a danger that consultants may adopt a rather conservative approach to treatment, and they would tend not to take on patients who represented a high risk as they feared a problem in respect of mortality statistics? Can I take it that the rather sophisticated measures the Minister has mentioned will address that concern?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, of course all of these statistics are bound to be stigmatised—to use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff—as crude. Mortality rates can, of course, he inappropriately interpreted. That is why the clinical governance arrangements which the NHS will be required to follow

693
from next year will include not just an assessment of the financial health of any institution but also its broad quality outcomes. That will address the more subtle aspects that the noble Lord mentioned. I do not have time to discuss that extensive system in detail at Question Time.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that while the activities of the doctors and Department of Health officials concerned should come under the closest possible scrutiny, the activities or non-activities of the board of the trust of that hospital should also be examined? Can my noble friend assure me that the responsibilities and actions of the executive and non-executive directors of that trust will be subject to the closest possible review?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I do not wish to comment on the exact terms of the independent inquiry which we have announced will take place with regard to the Bristol trust once the General Medical Council's conclusions are finally reached. It is specific in the terms of the new commission for health improvement that in the last resort the Secretary of State will be able to dismiss a trust chairman and board if they have fallen short of any of the new standards.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, in view of the growing importance of quality assurance in the medical field nowadays, is the noble Baroness aware that the Bristol oncology centre has quality assurance approval to ISO 9002, which is an important part of its procedures to avoid accidents? Has the heart surgery department in the Bristol Royal Infirmary—or did it have—ISO 9002 quality assurance approval? If it has that approval, the accidents we are discussing should not have taken place.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, for the reasons which I gave in response to the first supplementary question of my noble friend Lord Dean, I hesitate to comment on the history of the relationship between the Department of Health and the organisation we are discussing. As I understand it, services from the department in Bristol were commissioned by the Supra Regional Services Advisory Group but contract monitoring was limited to cost and volume considerations. That is, of course, precisely what we seek to change by introducing the quality element in monitoring.

Business
3.9 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis will, with the leave of the House, repeat in the form of a Statement an answer to a Private Notice Question in the other place on the Dounreay nuclear reprocessing plant. This will be followed by my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey who will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement on the "millennium bug". I take this
694
opportunity to remind the House that interventions should be confined to brief questions and comments for clarification. Peers who speak at length do so at the expense of others.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip arrange for a third Statement to be made—which would give us such a wealth of enjoyment today—and for the noble Lord the Leader of the House to make it, on the future of this House? It seems to some of us that ordinary good manners—which I know are a little out of date—might have suggested to the Government that, before the noble Lord the Leader of the House made a statement about the future of this House, he might have considered doing so here within your Lordships' House. I shall quote from a handout which was available in the Library shortly before lunch. I quote from the speech of the noble Lord the Leader of the House in the Queen Elizabeth Conference Hall. He states,
"I am delighted to have the opportunity today to set out the Government's proposals".
I think that it is not asking too much, even in one of the Houses of Parliament which is under severe threats at the moment, for it to be treated, while it is still in existence, with the same courtesy as the Government would expect it to show to them.
This is a very serious example of the way in which the Government ride roughshod over other people's feelings and disregard the respect that is due to this House. Had they made a Statement today, as they ought to have done, it would have given some of us an opportunity to say that we regret the way in which the Government have picked upon supposed blemishes in this House, while they have entirely ignored those that undoubtedly exist in the far more powerful House of Commons. It would have been seemly had they done so.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, perhaps I may follow the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, and say that I was rather surprised that this statement was made to a conference called by the Daily Telegraph and a constitutional unit that has been formed for only six months, has no trustees and no aims, and is an offshoot of the Manorial Society, which sells titles.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I very much support the remarks of my noble friend Lord Peyton. It was to my surprise, as Opposition Chief Whip, that I discovered that, although many Statements were offered today, none was on the subject discussed this morning at the QEII Conference Centre.
Perhaps I may point out to my noble friend that, although we were promised an outline of the Labour Government's proposals on the House of Lords, I am afraid that very little in it was new. However, it did contain one important announcement: namely a promise by the noble Lord the Leader of the House that an options paper, a consultation document, would be produced. If that is the case—and I have no reason to disbelieve the noble Lord—when is it to be delivered? Will time be made available for a debate to take place in this House, so that the House can inform the

695
Government of its view when the Government reach a decision? Since the noble Lord promised that a Bill would be forthcoming this autumn, it must be preferable to have that debate as soon as possible and, it is to be hoped, before the summer Recess.
Members of this House know a great deal about the reform of this place. However, could not the opportunity have been taken to make a Statement that could have been repeated in another place? It is surprising from time to time to meet colleagues from another place who understand very little about the issues under consideration. Since reform of the House of Lords will affect another place considerably, should not Members there also be given an opportunity, through a government Statement, to discuss the matter and question the Government about the future of this place?
Earl Russell: My Lords, without wishing to prolong these remarks, will the noble Lord the Leader of the House join me in asking the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, to withdraw his slur on the Constitution Unit? It is a body dedicated to the provision of information which the noble Lord might find as useful as other noble Lords do.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard): My Lords, to correct a point of fact, in answer to the noble Earl it was not the Constitution Unit that was involved in the organisation of the conference. Therefore, my noble friend Lord Cox, in saying what he had to say in his usual salty and forthright way, was not directing his ammunition at the target that the noble Earl feared.
I am rather surprised at the somewhat waspish way in which the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, has approached this matter. As the Opposition Chief Whip said, there was little that was new in my statement this morning. There was no cataclysmic novelty. The idea that I or any other Government Minister cannot make a speech on an issue that is clearly of public importance, repeating what we have said previously—that I have to come to this House in order to repeat what I have said previously in this House before I am allowed to repeat it outside—seems an extraordinary proposition. I am bound to say that I reject what the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, had to say.
The Government have said that there will be an options paper. We have said that there will be a debate. I have nothing further to add today, save for the time-honoured phrase used so much by Members on the other side when they were in power; namely: we shall publish the options paper when the time is right. The matter of a debate is one for the usual channels.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House has rejected my remarks out of hand. In doing so, he has acted unsurprisingly and totally in character. Since I have been in this House successive Leaders of the House from my own party have bent over backwards at least to treat the Opposition with courtesy and to consider whether there was anything in any point
696
that they wished to raise. As it is, the noble Lord the Leader of the House has given me the impression that he is a man whose conceit will not allow him to apologise.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene in this unseemly bilateral argument. I think the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, is being quite unreasonable and totally unfair. I listened this morning to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I believe that he will not mind my saying that there was nothing unusual in what he said. Indeed, the speech was made up of remarks that he had made in this House from time to time. There is nothing at all wrong with that. This conference was arranged to provide a platform for the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne. It was wise, right and courteous of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to open the conference in the way that he did. I say that totally without prejudice, to the extent that I agreed with him; and totally without prejudice as to the need for a debate in this House.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for his remarks. I am extremely surprised, indeed astonished, at what the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, said. I totally reject his suggestion that I do not treat the Opposition with consideration, and, if it is not too harmful to him, with some affection. I do not believe that I have behaved in a conceited way in the office that I hold. Nor, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, do I believe that the House as a whole feels that I have behaved in that way since I have been doing this job. I am sorry that the noble Lord felt the need to express his feeling in the way that he did. I hope that, on reflection, he will feel that he went too far.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, perhaps I may thank my noble friend for clarifying the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I was not in fact referring to the Constitution Unit.

School Standards and Framework Bill
3.19 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone): 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.—(Baroness Blackstone.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 60 [Responsibility of governing body and head teacher for discipline]:
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 183:
Page 47, line 37, at end insert—
("(c) registered pupils at the school, and
(d) teaching and non-teaching staff at the school.").
The noble Baroness said: Now that there is a chance that I shall be heard, I shall begin my remarks. In speaking to Amendment No. 183, I am speaking to a

697
group of 10 amendments, of which Amendments Nos. 183, 184, 185, 190, 191 and 198 are in my name. Some are government amendments, and some stand in the names of my noble and learned friend Lord Archer and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford.
I begin by stating some of the general aims of this group of amendments and of the group starting with Amendment No. 186—a big group of 18 amendments. There are various things I should like to see done with regard to these clauses which deal with exclusion. First, we wish to put in place steps that will prevent so many exclusions. The situation is not good at the moment. Different schools and different local authorities have very different records of exclusion. We need to discover the reasons for so many exclusions in some cases and suggest methods by which there might he fewer.
I wish to see more pupil involvement in matters to do with schools. I spoke at Second Reading about the fact that pupils are not mentioned in the Bill; they will be mentioned in some of the amendments which I shall move today.
Where a pupil has been excluded from school, particularly permanently excluded, we wish to make sure that he or she is reinstated quickly and does not miss out on a lot of education in the meantime. We also wish to see more LEA involvement where there have been exclusions. I believe that some of the government amendments deal with that matter. I shall move my amendments as they arise, but I expect that there will be some answers from the Government when their amendments are moved.
Amendments Nos. 183 and 185 require that governors and head teachers give consideration to the views of pupils and staff on discipline measures. It seems extraordinary that the two groups that make up the school community—the schools' pupils and staff—are excluded from those who must be consulted about discipline measures. The value of including both groups in the process is overwhelmingly obvious. The purpose of the amendment was supported by the Labour Front Bench when in opposition and I therefore hope for a sympathetic response.
The aim of Amendment No. 184 is to introduce more constructive principles for school discipline. In the Bill the Government simply repeat the previous government's principles with regard to school discipline. The amendment reframes these principles and adds others which we believe set a clearer and more constructive framework for the drawing up of schools' behaviour codes—for example, requiring bullying to be tackled and encouraging appropriate sanctions. This amendment, too, was supported by the Labour Party when in opposition.
The responsibility for good order in a school should be of importance to everyone involved in the school community—the governors, the head, the teachers and the pupils. There is much more likely to be a positive outcome if measures have the support of everyone. I am very anxious about bullying. There has been a great deal of talk about it, and no wonder. It clearly happens in
698
a great many schools and is not at all a nice thing to contemplate. I hope we can receive some positive responses on that matter.
The purpose of Amendment No. 190 is to ensure that the governing body asks for, and considers, advice from the LEA before confirming an exclusion or reinstating a pupil excluded by the head teacher. There is wide variation between schools in terms of outcomes for pupils who may be experiencing difficulties and in terms of school policy and practice relating to exclusion. It is therefore essential for the statutory framework to provide the necessary checks along the road to exclusion.
The Special Education Consortium argues that one of the most important checks is for the LEA to have the power to intervene in the process of exclusion. This should happen at a point before the governing body confirms an exclusion or reinstates a pupil reinstated by the head teacher. That would provide an opportunity for the LEA to advise the governing body on the appropriateness of steps it has taken and on any steps that the school might take. One of the issues on which the LEA may wish to advise is whether the school has recognised any specialised need that the child may have. I mentioned this point late last Thursday night when I spoke to Amendments Nos. 182 and 189.
The aim of Amendments Nos. 191 and 198 is to entitle pupils to attend appeals against their exclusion. The amendments would put education legislation in line with other domestic children's legislation—the Children Act, for instance—and Article 12(2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It appears that in practice it would not cause any bother to the system since the department states that it has not had complaints about pupils being excluded from appeal hearings.
I quote from a paper by Professor Neville Harris, which is shortly to be published, which was mentioned by my noble and learned friend Lord Archer, entitled The developing role and structure of the education appeal system. It appears in an edited collection of papers entitled Administrative Justice in the 21st Century. Professor Harris and two others are writing up the findings of their research into school exclusion appeal procedures, which is being funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The research has included observations of 46 appeal hearings in eight LEA areas and questionnaire responses from nearly 300 parents of permanently excluded children. A book discussing the research findings in detail is planned.
"The excluded child may only bring an appeal in his or her own right if aged 18 or over. Thus, in practice, children will only he witnesses, and then only if called. Save the Children sec this as meaning that. 'A child facing exclusion … has no automatic entitlement to challenge accusations made against him or her'.
Some panel members have told us that it is helpful to be able to speak to the child and elicit the child's version of the events. Turner J. has said that hearing the child's account of the matter constitutes 'an act of obvious fairness' in exclusion appeal cases. In our research, 16% of children who attended the hearing gave oral evidence, although 11% … were not given an opportunity to do so. Although 84% of children who attended gave oral evidence, it must be appreciated that the excluded child attends in only a minority of cases (42% of the observed hearings). Moreover, there is no mechanism by which the child can he summoned unless the parent brings him or her and the child expresses a wish to speak to the

699
committee. In a recent case, Collins J. was critical of the appeal panel's failure to question the child concerned when they wanted to do so; they allowed themselves to be swayed by the parents' representative who did not want the child to speak to the panel … Overall, current practice in school exclusion appeals does seem to run counter to the principle of the child's participation in welfare-related decisions, reflected in s.1 of the Children Act 1989 and article 12 …
Where the child does participate in the appeal hearing there are, in our experience, sometimes serious shortcomings in the manner of questioning of the child adopted by some appeal committee members or LEA or school representatives. In particular, there was on certain occasions a fairly oppressive questioning of a kind which was quite inappropriate … It demonstrated the quasi-criminal character of the proceedings in some cases. As one parent wrote to us: 'One member of the panel interrogated my daughter. His tone of voice was disgusting. He was trying to make her admit to things she had not done. His tone of voice reduced her almost to tears'.
A lack of independent representation of the child (and no equivalent of the guardian ad litem in family court proceedings), together with the lack of a lawyer chair, has probably contributed significantly to this kind of problem in these cases".
I am sorry for having quoted at length, but it is an important matter, and I hope that the Minister will respond accordingly. I beg to move.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: Perhaps I may speak briefly in support of the noble Baroness, who has covered the points very thoroughly. My name is to Amendment No. 190, the aim of which is to ensure that the governing body requests and considers advice from the LEA before deciding to exclude or reinstate a pupil. I believe the government amendment deals with that point. I support entirely what the noble Baroness said.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: Perhaps my noble friend will permit me one correction. I do not believe that any of the amendments now included in this group are tabled in my name. That followed certain representations I made after last Thursday because I did not feel that it would assist the Committee's clarity of debate. It does not in any way diminish my support for what my noble friend said.
Baroness Byford: Perhaps I may speak to the amendments standing in my name, Amendments Nos. 191A and 187A, and the other two with regard to the 15th school day. I shall come back to those if I may.
Amendment No. 191A requires that, where a child has had problems and been considered for exclusion, not only should bad behaviour be looked at, but also the possibility that there may be medical reasons for that misbehaviour. We all know that many children today are diabetic and some have personality disorders. They are often labelled "bad" children when there may be good medical reasons why their behaviour is disruptive.
The Minister will agree that the amendment is not technically correct. As I understand it, there is no medical officer of health to which the matter can be referred. I am willing to withdraw the amendment later and perhaps come forward with more appropriate wording. The point behind the tabling of the amendment is that some children in the system are wrongly labelled bad or naughty when their behaviour may be caused by
700
a medical problem. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter because it is not only the occasional child who faces these problems from time to time. I turn now to Amendment No. 187A.
Lord Whitty: Amendment No. 187A is in a different group.
Lord Addington: Briefly, I wish to support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady David. These amendments are important. A child excluded from school represents a failure for the system and any means of looking more closely into the problem should be incorporated in the Bill. The amendment is a sensible approach to what may be a medical problem leading to disruptive behaviour.
A good example was given to me at lunchtime concerning a child with diabetes. The child can suffer from a blood-sugar imbalance which makes him manic and disruptive in the classroom before the level goes too high and the child passes out. That sort of behaviour should be considered and some form of medical check, if such a situation arises, may be extremely important. It should be built into the system.
All we are asking is that the right type of expertise be made available before a final decision on exclusion is reached. Surely that is not too much to ask.
Baroness Lockwood: I support my noble friend in these amendments. The whole question of exclusion from school is one of concern to the education system. We need to look at the matter in a much more positive frame of mind, as my noble friend indicated.
In the current climate of schools with league tables and competition there is a tendency to look upon exclusion as one way out of the difficulty. I do not for one moment underestimate the problems faced by teachers having to cope with disruptive children. However, a number of research projects looked at the inclusion rather than the exclusion of children in a more positive way. I should like to see much more encouragement along those lines.
The amendments to which my noble friend referred give an opportunity to the education authorities to give advice and to help schools be more positive in their approach to the problem. It is important not only to encourage pupils and families to make representations and to put their point of view, but also there needs to be an understanding of how difficult it can be for an inarticulate family to put forward the positive views that are needed. Help for such parents and children is very important and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a positive response to the amendment.
Lord Rix: I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady David, and in particular Amendment No. 184 concerning the new subsection (4A)(d) involving bullying.
Scratch any actor or ex-actor and one will probably find that they bleed from having been bullied at school. That is probably because we were all ghastly little show-offs but, if my memory and that of my fellow

701
thespians serves me right, there is no question but that, if the headmaster had been able to act on our behalf and prevent bullying in our childhood, it would have made our lives a great deal happier. New subsection (4A)(d) is a splendid provision to include in this Bill.
Lord Swinfen: I too welcome this group of amendments. When the Minister replies, will he say whether, when the teachers receive their training either before they take up their initial post or in continuing their training later, help is given to recognise in a pupil any medical or psychiatric condition which may be affecting the pupil so that appropriate advice can be obtained? I am not expecting teachers to be doctors or psychiatrists, but sometimes a layman can see that something is wrong and suggest that appropriate advice be obtained.
Lord Peston: Can my noble friend say how he is proposing to proceed? We have two classes of amendment—those from Back-Benchers and two from the Government. Though they are grouped together it is difficult to see how they fit. Is my noble friend proposing to speak to his amendments and then sit down and let the debate continue, or is he proposing to reply to the debate and speak to his own amendments?
Lord Whitty: Since the government amendments and the amendments of my noble friend Lady David are somewhat interlocked I propose to speak to the government amendments and then comment on the related amendments if that is acceptable to the Committee. I hoped to do that fairly soon, but I note that the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, is about to rise.
Lord Peston: I am still hoping to speak first as a Back-Bencher and I am sure that the noble Lord would rather speak afterwards. I find it difficult to see how the amendments interlock; they do not seem to be related and bear little resemblance to each other. I shall speak simply to the Back-Bench amendments and then wait to hear my noble friend speak to his amendments.
It seems to me that two or three fundamental principles are involved in this issue which ought to be on the face of the Bill. In other words, this is not a matter of regulation or ministerial Statement in your Lordships' Chamber. Central to this issue, first and foremost, is that the interested child—if I dare use that word; I know that it is not politically correct—the young person should have the right to be heard included on the face of the Bill. I have no doubt that the Government ought to accept my noble friend's amendments or themselves table an amendment that leaves beyond a shadow of doubt that principle.
Secondly, and reverting back to my schooldays, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, referred to bullying. What upset me most about my schooldays was the totally arbitrary behaviour of teachers, particularly the head teacher. I am not in touch with schools so for all I know that kind of arbitrary behaviour still goes on. It quite clearly goes on in the field of exclusion.
702
The point of the amendments tabled by my noble friend and others is that we should remove arbitrary behaviour and that decisions regarding exclusions should be rule-based and articulated rationally. My noble friends' words and the reasons for them should be obvious. However, I prefer wording such as "the reason for each rule should be spelt out so it becomes obvious". Either way, we need more than that which exists at the moment. Those are the two main points that I wish to put forward.
I speak as someone who would always wish to be supportive of head teachers, but reinforcing the removal of arbitrary behaviour relates to my noble friend's amendments. One relates to the inclusion of teaching staff and others at the school. I am immensely supportive of her expression in Amendment No. 184,
"encouraging good behaviour on the part of all members of the schools".
The implication of the way in which the world works is that the only badly behaved people in the school are a number of unruly pupils. That was certainly not my experience when I was at school and it is not my view now. I very much underline the words at the beginning of Amendment No. 184. I am well aware that this is an immensely difficult matter and I hope that we shall pursue it—if we are all alive after the Statements which will occupy our time. Other matters to do with exclusions are also relevant. If I dare to use the word "philosophy" underlying the amendments put before us, they are the ones to which the Government should respond positively and make sure that there is something on the face of the Bill.
I do not wish to be party political. As a layman I accept entirely what the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said. It seems to me that very frequently a medical difficulty underlines the exclusion problem. I would like that to be on the face of the Bill so that people are reminded of it. In supporting my noble friend, I am supporting what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford.
Lord Dearing: I hope that the breadth of support for these amendments influences the Government in their response to them. I welcome their thrust and I support particularly the amendments relating to bullying. It causes such misery. It has now become a well-recognised problem among many nations such as the Japanese. Its government has instituted a colloquium of six nations, of which the United Kingdom is one, to go into this matter. Part of the reason for the misery is that the victim is often most reluctant to draw attention to his or her experience. It can be disabling. It is a matter about which the Secretary of State has expressed concern. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government will respond to this particular amendment in this group.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: As the only practising teacher and former head teacher, my profession has some contribution to make to this debate. I admire the noble Baroness, Lady David, and I share the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, to support human rights. Like him, I am very much against arbitrary behaviour.

703
When the Minister replies I hope that he will pay regard to the situation that exists in many parts of the country. My daughter is in her first year of teaching at Bethnal Green. Apart from one reference in this debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, I was surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady David, paid no attention to the real and urgent problems that teachers face.
There are two groups of people involved when discipline is bad or when children become disruptive. The first is the teachers themselves and in many cases they are unable to control their classes. The second group comprises the other pupils who are not disruptive, but who find that their education is severely damaged.
I am not opposing these amendments in principle, but I am surprised that their proposers, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, in particular, at no point paid regard to the other side of the coin. For example, I have a serious worry that there are only 20——
Baroness David: I do not think the noble Lord listened carefully to what I had to say. My Amendment No. 183 wants teachers to be involved. It wants the teaching and the non-teaching staff at the school to have a chance to express their views. I was not elaborating on that, but I certainly want the teachers to be able to express their views. I hope that that partly answers the noble Lord.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: I am delighted that the noble Baroness wants the teachers to express their views since they are the most intimately involved. But I felt that the whole tenor of the noble Baroness's amendment was to emphasise human rights against the corporate necessity to maintain an ordered community in a school. I also believe that one of the great problems that the teaching profession faces is that there are too few referral units. I cannot quote the exact figures, but I believe that there are only about 20 in the country.
Referral units for pupils who are seriously disruptive are very important. They can also be used for those with medical problems to whom my noble friend Lady Byford has referred. I hope that in his reply the Minister will show more regard than some other Members of the Committee for the poor souls in places like Bethnal Green, and in many inner city areas, who are facing the problems. My daughter had to separate pupils fighting with a knife in the playground, and that at a junior school!
I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady David, agrees that teachers have some part to play, but we must realise that we have to give them sanctions as well. As the Minister responsible for these matters, I hope that he will pay some regard to the teachers' worries when he replies.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Tope: I have some hesitation in joining in this debate because I have no intention or wish to repeat memories or confessions from my schooldays, but rather to recount some more recent experiences. I believe I mentioned on the last day of the Committee stage that I was a governor of a junior school. We had a
704
governors' meeting only last week to consider the joint annual report. We spent some time considering the school behaviour policy. That is the more recent and relevant experience that I wish briefly to touch on in this debate.
I particularly wish to commend Amendment No. 184 and the approach outlined there. On Thursday I expressed some doubts as to whether it is necessary to have these matters on the face of the Bill, but, if it is thought to be necessary, then I have a very great preference for the approach as well as the wording of Amendment No. 184 because it is a constructive approach. It is very much what we were discussing at the governors' meeting. We discussed bullying which, sadly, is an issue in any school. Perhaps it always has been, but it certainly is today. The school has a "no blame" approach to bullying. That may be easier to implement in a junior school than in a secondary school. I recognise that it may be easier to implement in the London borough of Sutton than in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. But it is the aim that matters and that is the aim shown here.
The approach in Amendment No. 184 is exactly right. Bullying is an increasingly important issue. While all of us stand up for the rights of individuals, be they the bullies, those being bullied, or the teachers, it is proper to approach bullying in a whole-school context. The whole school should be involved including the head—it is hard to imagine how the head would not be involved—the teachers and all the pupils, including the perceived bullies and the perceived victims. The "no blame" approach that I heard at first-hand from the head teacher last week seems to commend itself. It was working very well in that school.
I move on to what the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, said. Even if he had not said what he did. I would have dealt with the matter but perhaps not in quite the same style. I know the noble Baroness. Lady David, well enough to know that she most certainly recognises that the difficulties are not wholly with the child or the victim, but that they also apply to the staff. We have a responsibility and duty to teachers who have to cope with a very disruptive child in a class. Whatever the reasons for that disruptive behaviour, its effect on the rest of the class can at best be disruptive and at times be seriously alarming. I speak from some experience. As I have said before in this Chamber, my wife is a teacher and she has had to deal with similar situations. One has responsibility for other children in the class, to the school as a whole and to teaching staff.
I believe that the approach to these problems outlined in Amendment No. 184 is a positive and constructive one. I shall say a little more about how best to deal with that when we move on to the subject of exclusion. While we are rightly mindful of the needs of pupils who may be subject to exclusion, I am sure that we do not need the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, to remind us again that we must also be mindful of the needs of other pupils, the school staff and the reputation of the school itself, which is increasingly important these days. I warmly

705
support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady David. In particular I commend to the Committee the approach outlined in Amendment No. 184.
Lord Whitty: I partly agree with my noble friend Lord Peston that this group of amendments is not obviously logical. It is slightly more logical following the withdrawal of my noble and learned friend Lord Archer; but even so, it requires some explanation. If I speak to the first two government amendments it may make our position clearer. This group of amendments deals with the serious issue of permanent exclusion of children from schools. The Bill as drafted introduces a single system governing exclusions under which the LEA will have a role at the appeal stage for all schools. In the light of the report of the Social Exclusion Unit on truancy and school exclusion we have tabled government amendments to give the LEA a stronger role earlier on in the exclusions process. I believe that that point is related to Amendment No. 190 moved by my noble friend Lady David. Government Amendments Nos. 189A and 189B would require the governing body to allow an official of the LEA to attend a meeting of the governing body, to consider any exclusion of more than five days, and require the governors to have regard to the LEA's written and oral representations. The LEA's role will be to offer advice on how other schools locally may have responded to similar incidents and, if necessary, to advise on procedural matters.
In some cases the LEA may also be able to offer constructive alternatives to permanent exclusion; for example, a period of part-time education in a pupil referral unit before re-integration into school, or some other form of counselling. I believe that at an earlier stage in this debate—perhaps it was late at night—I indicated the number of pupil referral units in operation. The figure is not 20 but 330. Therefore, that option is available in a large number of authorities. Under these amendments the authority will not be able to instruct the governing body to reinstate the pupil but governors must have regard to the LEA's representations. I believe that those amendments meet the same concerns as my noble friend's Amendment No. 190 and the points referred to by my noble friend Lady Lockwood and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth. Therefore, I hope they agree that those amendments achieve the same aim and are prepared to withdraw Amendment No. 190.
As to the question of discipline and consulting parents, pupils and staff, Amendments Nos. 183 and 185, in the name of my noble friend Lady David, have already been spoken to by my noble friend Lord Peston. I agree that it is important to involve pupils and staff when drawing up a school's discipline policy. It is not our intention to exclude teachers from that area. The noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, referred to his experience. Others have similar experience. I have never been a teacher but I come from a teaching household. As the son of a teacher, I am aware that issues of discipline are some of the most difficult ones faced by teachers. It is our aim to ensure that teaching staff in particular should make a contribution to drawing up a school's discipline policy.
706
However, the question is where, how and when that input takes place for both pupils and staff. Our approach is that that should be a matter for individual schools in the light of their particular circumstances. In some cases that may be before the governing body makes its statement of general principles; in others, head teachers may decide that it is best to consult pupils and staff when determining the detailed rules and codes of conduct. Therefore, for reasons of flexibility we are not convinced that it is necessary to include a specific requirement on the face of the Bill for widespread consultation either by the governing body or the head teacher. Schools require flexibility, and that is best left to guidance rather than wording on the face of the Bill.
Amendment No. 184 seeks to be more prescriptive and specific than the present wording of the Bill about the principles of school discipline. Most of the comments in that regard have related to the proposed paragraph (d), which is concerned with bullying. It is important that schools' discipline policies take action to combat bullying. We all recognise the seriousness and probable growth of this problem, although it may be a decade or two ago since my noble friend Lord Peston and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, experienced bullying. But it is not tolerable even if it produces the kind of talent that both noble Lords have exhibited in this House, together with that of the thespian friends of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. Nevertheless, it is intolerable and sometimes deeply destructive of children.
The main aim of our policy in this area is to provide schools with clear and helpful guidance so that they can tackle the problem of bullying. Reports of the Chief Inspector of Schools have shown that most schools have clear procedures to deal with bullying and that the use of the department's anti-bullying pack indicates that most schools operate it either separately or as part of a wider behaviour and discipline policy. The question is how effective that policy is in practice. We believe that that is best left to guidance rather than prescription on the face of the Bill.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 191 and 198, which relate to pupil attendance at appeal hearings. In many cases schools already allow or encourage pupils to attend governors' meetings to consider their exclusion or make an appeal to an independent appeal hearing. In many cases, particularly for older pupils, it is right to allow the excluded child to present his or her case. Certainly we expect the school to give the child an opportunity to set out his or her version of events before a decision to exclude is made. But to allow a pupil to attend the appeal hearing will not be appropriate in every case, particularly where a very young or immature child is involved.
While we acknowledge that the amendment before us would not force the pupil to be present at either the governing body hearing or at the appeal, we are concerned that by placing this right on the face of the Bill we may create an expectation that the pupil should be there in all cases. Therefore, implications could be drawn from the pupil not being there. We consider that to meet the point it is more appropriate to have statutory guidance. I hope that my noble friend Lady David agrees that that is the best way to allow children to

707
present their views without placing pressure on some children in inappropriate circumstances to make recommendations.
Amendment No. 191A deals with referral to a medical officer. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, also referred to this matter. We recognise that there is scope for many exclusions to be prevented by earlier intervention by schools and other agencies, including in some cases health agencies. A strong focus on early intervention on a multi-agency basis is often appropriate. Schools and LEAs are under a statutory duty to identify and assess children's special educational needs, having regard to the SEN code of practice when they do so. Our Green Paper contains proposals for improved identification and provision for all children with SEN, including those whose special needs could give rise to difficult behaviour. To answer the point put by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, the Green Paper includes proposals to improve that aspect in the training and information available to teachers. We shall publish an action plan to bring about these improvements when full consultation on the Green Paper has been concluded, as soon as possible after the school summer holidays. We are particularly concerned that exclusion could from time to time be used to punish poor behaviour that arises from unmet special educational needs or special medical needs.
The department will be issuing new guidance emphasising the importance of identifying such cases early and providing the necessary support which might include referring the pupil to the health professionals, as requested in this amendment. But that would be a matter for guidance. There will be detailed and flexible arrangements to ensure that such things are considered, which would help to avoid exclusion at a later date.
That deals with the amendments that have been proposed by various noble Lords in this group. I also have to speak to Amendment No. 193A. This amendment, in one sense, might logically have been better grouped with the amendments standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Archer, Amendments Nos. 192 and 193, but they deal with the question of providing reasons for exclusion.
As currently drafted, the Bill requires the governors to notify the parents of their decision but the governors do not have to give the reasons for their decision. The Government Amendment No. 193A rectifies this omission by requiring the governing body to set out a statement of their reasons for upholding a permanent exclusion when notifying the parents of the outcome of their consideration of the case. I trust that my noble friend Lord Archer will bear that in mind when we come to that group of amendments. I think it deals with one of the points covered by his amendments.
4 p.m.
Lord Peston: Before other noble Lords who have put their names to amendments possibly speak again, may I ask my noble friend a question. I apologise to him for asking it because I have forgotten the answer to the question. When the subject of guidance has come up
708
before we have asked what is the legal standing of guidance. I remember asking that a couple of years ago but I regret to say I have now forgotten the answer. I take it that guidance has less statutory force than being on the face of the Bill but it has some strengths.
The reason I ask is that in one or two of these cases it seemed to me—and here I differ from my noble friend—to be compelling that the matter should be on the face of the Bill rather than left to whether you respond to guidance or not. I refer to bullying as one obvious example. Merely to say in guidance, "Our guidance is that you should do something about bullying", seems to me to be immensely less than having in this statute something of the sort we have here. I have to say to my noble friend that I did not hear him give an argument. I heard him say he prefers guidance but I did not hear him tell me why guidance is the way to do it. Unless I have totally forgotten what we used to say about guidance—and I was then in opposition so I should have remembered it better than I do—guidance was not a bad thing in many cases where it would not be unreasonable sometimes not to accept that guidance. But in this case I think it would be so unreasonable not to accept the guidance that I should have thought my noble friend might at least like to reflect on whether the rightness of the argument is much more on the side of my noble friend Lady David than it is on the side of the department and we should, at least for one or two of these matters, find a way of putting them on the Bill.
Lord Rix: May I support the noble Lord, Lord Peston, in this. If a head teacher required guidance on the question of bullying and those words were actually used, that he required guidance, I should have thought that he was a singularly inept head teacher.
Lord Whitty: It is clear that bullying in schools takes place on a fairly widespread basis. Therefore, additional guidance, help and support to schools in ensuring that bullying is minimised is desirable. The department has already provided some substantial help to schools. We would intend to improve that guidance in a number of respects under the guidance required by this Bill.
The legal status of guidance, particularly when it relates to a disciplinary procedure, as it does here, is that the governing bodies—in this case it is the governing bodies—have a statutory duty to have regard to guidance when reaching their decisions. That is the position. It is not prescriptive in terms of it being on the face of the Bill, but they will need to have regard to guidance when carrying out their procedures and reaching their decisions. I hope that clarifies at least the status point from my noble friend's intervention.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: May I intervene simply to say that I noted the comments of my noble friend on his Amendment No. 193A. I am grateful to him for having taken note of the point which I was making. But, as he says, it clearly belongs to a later group of

709
amendments. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I defer any further comment on it in the interests both of clarity and expedition until we reach that later group.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may just come back to the noble Lord on his explanation of guidance. Of course technically that was absolutely right. But the truth is, and in answer to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Peston, there is such a thing as guidelines and guidance. Guidelines are a less formal obligation on the part of local authorities. Guidance they must have regard to, but they can have regard to it and dismiss it. If they are challenged on the decision they come to, it is purely a procedural matter as to whether they took into account in coming to that decision the advice that was set out in the guidance. The guidance does not oblige local authorities to be consistent with the guidance other than to have taken account of it in coming to a decision.
Lord Rix: May I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, says. Going away from personal, long-distance memories, I should like to come to the particular problem we face at the moment; that is in regard to children with special educational needs.
It is a well-known fact that one of the major problems they face is that of bullying. Certainly in mainstream schools children with learning disabilities are, without question, subject to the most appalling bullying in many cases. I cannot believe that there should not be some statutory declaration on the face of the Bill in regard to this bullying. Forget old actors like me, but come back to people like my daughter who at one time have been classed SEN. Unfortunately, that was before people with learning disabilities were educated as a sine qua non. But in current days I know that many of the complaints from parents of children with learning difficulties, with obviously special educational needs, are that of bullying. I believe it should be on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Warnock: May I ask the Minister to supply the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was wanting, against having this on the face of the Bill? We have heard good things about guidance, but we have heard no bad things from the Minister about putting this on the face of the Bill. Partly because of what my noble friend Lord Rix, has said, I feel very strongly that children with special needs are particularly likely to be the subject of bullying. That is a matter which becomes increasingly important as there is increasing pressure for these children to be in mainstream schools.
Lord Swinfen: Would the Minister agree with me that guidance, generally speaking, has no value whatsoever when things are going well? But if something goes wrong, someone can be in considerable difficulty and have some very awkward questions to answer if they have not followed the guidance. That is the time when it is important. When everything is running smoothly guidance is not
710
necessary. When things start to go wrong and the guidance has not been followed, they have some awkward questions to answer. That is what appears to me to be guidance which is much weaker even than regulations. I feel that it would be wise to have something on the face of the Bill.
Lord Dearing: I should like to support that comment. Guidance descends on schools like leaves descend on the pavement in autumn and, like leaves, it is swept aside because of the sheer volume. It has become counter-productive. If there is an issue of great seriousness, as I believe there is on bullying, it needs to be distinguished from the leaves and given a special status by being included on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Byford: I rise in support of noble Lords who have spoken. I believe firmly that this should be on the face of the Bill. Bullying is the most dreadful experience for many young people. Although my own amendment does not apply in the same way, certainly with regard to those who have special educational needs, I think we should look at it again. I urge the Government to include it on the face of the Bill. We are encouraging children who have special educational needs to take their place in mainstream schools, provided that that is the parents' wish. One thing that will put them off is the knowledge that there is no extra protection for them. That will make families hesitate to take that step which we would all welcome. I support other Members of the Committee in encouraging the Government to take this step.
Lord Addington: If bullying is to be taken seriously, it must be on the face of the Bill. With so many pieces of paper descending on teachers from all over the place, giving them a target would help. We have had a great many debates in this Chamber about integration and SEN. If this matter is dealt with properly, it will allow integration to go forward. If we do not get this right, we will find many pupils with SEN problems developing social problems as a result of being unable to cope with the classroom. That is often because they fail in the classroom. It is a chicken and egg situation. We may be able to break that process if we tackle bullying successfully. Surely something more positive should be done. That would stop many of the secondary problems that arise in the case of SEN pupils.
Lord Whitty: I do not believe that there is anything between us on how we regard the serious issue of bullying, the need for schools to have measures to tackle it, for disciplinary procedures to be effective in tackling it, and for care for the victims of bullying, whether they are SEN pupils or anyone else. The question is whether putting it on the face of the Bill would be the most effective way of dealing with it.
Amendment No. 184 sets out in some prescriptive detail each school's behaviour and discipline policy. Our approach is that each school needs to ensure that its procedures, and the way in which those procedures

711
are conveyed to the pupils, reflect the situation within that school. The guidance, which will take into account other aspects of school behaviour and the duties of head teachers, governing bodies, pupils and staff, will be better able to guide schools in how to achieve those discipline and anti-bullying policies and will be more effective than would inserting three lines on the face of the Bill.
It is a complex situation. Different schools face different problems, and different schools will wish to deal with those problems differently. The surveys which the department and the inspectorate have carried out on how bullying is dealt with currently in schools indicate that most schools have a policy in this area. The aim of our policy is to improve the effectiveness of those policies and the protection of those pupils who are the victims of bullying. We do not believe that achieving that result, which is already recognised in virtually all schools, will be improved by having a requirement prescriptive of policy on the face of the Bill. The effective operation of policies which already exist in many cases is what is required.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, it is not true to say that guidance has no role where things are going well. It may well be that it is because a school is following guidance that it has no serious problem. Clearly, where things go wrong a failure to have observed that guidance—that is the point raised by the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Peston—before any appeals body or in any legal case would put the school authorities in a difficult position. That is the strength of guidance. Given that this places the whole question of an anti-bullying policy in a broader context, guidance seems to us to be the best means of dealing with the problem.
I stress that although we do not accept that this requirement should be on the face of the Bill, we are all committed to ensuring that anti-bullying provisions in all schools are improved and strengthened, and that the plague of bullying which some people claim is going on in some schools, should effectively be brought to an end. There is no difference in objective, but we do not believe that this provision would help meet this objective, whereas detailed and effective guidance would.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Rix: Before the Minister sits down, may I say I fear that I cannot understand how a committee, looking at guidance, will affect the life of the bullied child as quickly as is essential. If bullying is taking place it should be stamped out on day one, or on day two at the worst, not after it has been referred to the LEA, or a head masters' conference, whatever may take place. Head teachers must be told that bullying must not take place. It must be on the face of the Bill. Just to offer guidance to some committee to look at the way the head teacher and the staff stamp out bullying in their school is impossible for that poor bullied child. The Minister may say that there may be some bullying, I am 100 per cent. certain that there is bullying, and a great amount of it when it comes to pupils with SEN.
Lord Tope: I intervene again with hesitation. There is clearly considerable concern about bullying on all sides of the Chambers. I understand that the Minister
712
cannot concede today, but I hope that he recognises that concern and will agree that the Government will at least think further about it.
I shall relate an experience from my own authority. As it happens, it was in the social services area rather than education, in terms of guidelines. My authority was held, in the courts, on an issue of child minders and smacking, to have had too much regard to guidelines issued under the Children Act. We interpreted the guidelines word for word. The court held that we had had too much regard to them. I have yet to hear of a local authority being held to have had too much regard for an Act of Parliament. That is an important difference.
Lord Whitty: Without interfering in the internal affairs of the Sutton LEA, and not knowing that case, that underlines the difference referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, between guidance and guidelines. The requirement to have regard to guidance would have statutory force and therefore would have, as I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, a substantial deterrent effect on the ignoring of those guidelines by authorities.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, the guidance is available to the governing body, and it sets out what should be pursued by head teachers, teachers, pupils and staff within schools. That guidance would be more explicit and clearer than a general phrase on the face of the Bill. Before my noble friend replies to the debate, I take the feeling of this place on this issue. Although I remain to be convinced that it would help one bullied child to have this on the face of the Bill rather than in guidance, there may be something in what Members of the Committee have said, and I ask my noble friend whether she would be happy were I to reflect on this matter and perhaps consult her between now and Report.
Baroness David: I thank all Members of the Committee who have supported me. I have received strong support for these amendments. I have had especially strong support for Amendment No. 184 which is an amendment to Clause 80. It introduces more constructive principles to school discipline.
I have listened with great care to what has been said. It is abundantly clear from all this that bullying is an issue which really has to be dealt with properly. I was very relieved that my noble friend has now said that he will reflect on this matter, because I was afraid that he would turn it down altogether. However, it appears that what has been said has made some impression on him and of course I shall be very pleased to consult with him and others between now and the next stage of the Bill.
However, I think we must have something about bullying on the face of the Bill, and that would be included in Amendment No. 184. It is also important for the general public to see that the Government are facing up to this and appreciating how bad the situation really is. Personally, I would like to see the word "pupil" on the face of the Bill. I think that is important. Whether or not the amendments I have put down are acceptable, I hope that the Government will think about this. I would prefer them to bring forward their own amendments, which would satisfy me. I very much hope

713
that that will be done. I am sure that the Government will read carefully what has been said during this debate and of course I will read carefully what my noble friend has said.
The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, with whose amendment I have a lot of sympathy, was really making the same point as I made on Thursday on Amendments Nos. 182 and 189; namely, that bad behaviour can often be caused not just by children being naughty but because their needs have not been recognised. The noble Baroness put forward the medical need, but in these amendments I am talking about special educational needs. In a way, they each cover the same point.
I think I have had support from everybody who spoke, except perhaps for the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, who chided me not for what I had said but rather for what I had not said. I try to speak firmly to the amendments and the clauses on which they are based, which perhaps is a practice that has not always been followed on the other side of the Committee. I think that that is very important if we are to make progress, and I congratulate myself on not speaking for too long on these matters. As I have said, I hope that the Government will reflect on what has been said and bring forward their own amendments at Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 184 and 185 not moved.]
Clause 60 agreed to.
Clause 61 [LEA's reserve power to prevent a breakdown of discipline]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 185A:
Page 48, line 19, after ("(2)") insert ("or where subsection (2A) applies").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 185A, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 185B, 185C, 193B and 193C.
Where an LEA wishes to invoke Clause 61(1), as well as one or both of Clauses 16 and 17, we want them to be able to do so without having to invoke two distinct procedures. Amendments Nos. 185A and 185B would therefore allow an LEA which had started the process of intervention under Clause 15(1) to use not only either or both of their powers under Clauses 16 and 17, but also their powers under Clause 61(1). In other words, a warning notice under Clause 15(2) might result in the use of any of those powers. Alternatively, an LEA, after having given a notice under Clause 15(2) that they proposed to exercise their powers under Clauses 16, 17 and 61(1), would have the option of ultimately invoking Clause 61(1) alone. These amendments are designed to allow LEAs to make use of these different powers in a flexible way, without having to serve different types of notices, which could be confusing as well as bureaucratic.
Turning to Amendment No. 185C, this new clause gives the Secretary of State the power to require governing bodies of maintained schools to set targets for reducing unauthorised absence. A school's target would be published in the governors' annual report
714
alongside its current unauthorised absence rate. This new power will be applied where a school has an attendance record significantly below average, as specified in accordance with regulations and drawing on the annual absence returns made to the department. A letter will be sent to the governing bodies of all schools so identified, informing them that the duty to set a target applies to them and for how many school years it will have effect. If, however, there is a strong reason why the governing body of a particular school should not have to set an attendance target, subsection (2)(c) provides for a waiving of the requirement.
The actual target will be for the governing body to decide in the light of local circumstances and in discussion with their local education authority. The department will be consulting on arrangements for attendance targets shortly. The aim will be to work towards a significant reduction in truancy through a partnership approach, and school-level targets will clearly need to reflect, and contribute to, LEA targets. This amendment will, if enacted, help to focus minds and resources on a key area of school improvement and will contribute to the Government's agenda for reducing youth crime and disorder, which, as we all know, so often happens when large numbers of young people are truanting from school.
Amendment No. 193C is designed to ensure that all schools follow the Government's detailed guidance on the use of exclusion. While most schools follow the existing guidance carefully, it is clear that a fairly small minority do not. At present the guidance is non-statutory, so there is little that parents can do if, for example, a school excludes their child for a quite trivial reason, or fails to follow the correct procedure. These amendments will mean that the head teacher or the governing body will be required by law to have regard to the new guidance on exclusion which will accompany this legislation, strengthening a parent's case when it comes to an independent appeal.
We intend to make regulations requiring the governing body's functions in relation to exclusion to be carried out by a discipline committee, as is currently the case in grant-maintained schools. The purpose of Amendment No. 193B is simply to ensure that the discipline committee, too, must have regard to the guidance on exclusion. I commend these school discipline and attendance amendments to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Peston: In rising warmly to support these amendments, perhaps I may make a slightly acid comment. Of course, they are quite prescriptive and if we were worried about matters of this sort I would rather have a prescriptive amendment on bullying than anything else. I say this to make quite sure that people have not forgotten my acerbic approach to these matters. I would like to ask my noble friend with regard to Amendment No. 185C in particular—because this is immensely important and it is an amendment I strongly support—whether she could clarify, in this context, what is meant by,
"to secure that annual targets are set".

715
I take what she said to mean that not merely should targets be set in the sense of objectives—in other words, this is what we are going to do apropos truancy—but implicit in that is "this is what we shall do to achieve those ends".
In economics we always distinguish means from ends and we use the word "targets" just to mean ends and therefore we would not include in that the concept of means. However, my noble friend has interpreted this to mean both means and ends. Therefore can she confirm that the Secretary of State has in mind that the school
et al should say, "this is our objective; we assume the objective to be 100 per cent. attendance unless there is some extraordinarily good reason for children not being present, and this is how we intend it should happen". Is my interpretation of this amendment correct?
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: I thank my noble friend for the acid comment. As my noble friend Lord Whitty has already said, we shall look again at bullying to see whether there is a sensible way in which we could put something on the face of the Bill.
In regard to reaching particular targets, this amendment is designed for those schools that have significantly below average attendance records and where the Government feel that something should be done. It would be common sense that where a school is asked to specify its targets for a particular goal it would need have to have some idea as to how it could reach that goal. It would be pointless if the school, including its governing body and head teacher, were only required to publish the target and did not have to spend some time indicating how it was going to get there.
Lord Swinfen: On that particular paragraph, I wonder whether it is wise to specify "day pupils". I know that there may not be many boarding pupils in local education authority schools, but what would be the position if there was a boarding pupil who failed to turn up for instruction, even though present in the school, without due cause? It may be an abstruse point, but it could mean that the school had no authority to chase him up and make certain that he had to attend lessons.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps the noble Baroness would pick up my noble friend's point and mine at the same time. In Amendment No. 185C the Government have completely missed the target itself. The distinction between authorised and non-authorised needs to be understood. There are some schools which authorise, rather casually, absences from school. Sadly, in some cases, particularly where children are not easily dealt with in a classroom, it is easier to find some way of authorising their absence than not.
It seems to me that there are a number of important points. One is total absences from school. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, made a very important point. How many children are not in school on any given day? Then one looks for reasons why they are not there. The authorised absences need to be looked at because the policy for authorised absences between one school and
716
another can give an interesting picture of the way in which a school either deals with authorising absences with rigour, or does not. Some schools are very strict about authorising absences and some are not. It seems to me that a picture can be drawn from that.
Secondly, on unauthorised absences, in Amendment No. 185C we are putting the onus on the governing body to do something about unauthorised absences. I believe that the teachers in our classrooms are pretty busy people and frequently the only thing that they can do about unauthorised absences is to do home visits, to see where the children are, and to liaise with the police and social services. Often these children are roaming around the streets, standing on street corners and getting up to no good.
If the family have not given reasons why they are out of school, and the school has not given them permission to be out of school, then we are talking about a difficult group of people. If you have a school where a head teacher and the teachers are highly committed to good education, and want their children to be in school, the fact that they are not there may well be beyond their control, not within it.
Here we are putting the onus on the governors for getting those figures down and getting the number of unauthorised absences down. It seems to me that there must be some case for putting that onus on families. Why is it that their children are not in school? If they are not in school it is difficult for the school to act in loco parentis for those children. There needs to be some recognition and understanding that the school and the school teachers cannot do this alone. It seems to me to be grossly unfair to use legislation to put an obligation on the schools to cope and to control unauthorised absences.
When we were in office I had a lot to do with exposing this issue. That is a prerequisite for knowing what is going on in schools. What are the numbers of children who are not in school on any given day? We should have two columns, one for those who are authorised and one for those who are not authorised. At the outset I made the point that LEAs and Ofsted should be as interested in the policy for authorising absences as they are for the incidents of unauthorised absences, and schools may not be the ones to blame. It would be quite wrong to put that onus on the schools.
I am decidedly unhappy with Amendment No. 185C because I believe the Government are missing a target and are putting an onus on schools where they may have no control.
Lord Peston: I was slightly puzzled by what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said. Surely the law still holds that during the period of compulsory schooling the parents do have a responsibility. Secondly, I should have thought the one great merit of Amendment No. 185C is, to use her word, exposure. What this amendment does is precisely what she seems to think is important. I am puzzled by why she is critical of it. It seems to me that it says very much more than before, and that the Secretary of State wants this matter exposed. To echo my noble friend, she did not say, in

717
indicating that schools would wish to intervene here, that that means that parents no longer have any responsibility or will not have a part to play.
If I may say so, I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, was slightly unfair to the Government on this occasion, which is why I said earlier that I warmly support this amendment.
Baroness Blatch: The responsibility for children attending school must rest with parents. It cannot be the responsibility of schools to see that children leave their homes and arrive at school. They may go somewhere else on the way. If they check in for assembly and then disappear, which is another form of skipping school, they are technically in school. They are there for registration and then disappear for the rest of the day, perhaps roaming the streets, they are not recorded technically as unauthorised absences but as attending school. So there are problems.
My first point is that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that that responsibility must lie with the parents. Secondly, as far as exposure is concerned, that is already done. The system at the moment requires schools to register attendance in school, authorised absences and unauthorised absences. We know the picture. The picture is there for the DfEE and for the local education authority. The third problem is that the Government have chosen to put the responsibility on the governors and the school for unauthorised absences.
I am simply saying that much of the responsibility for unauthorised absences will be parents who do not take enough care that their children not only leave home for school, but, in fact, arrive at school. Why should it be a legal obligation on the part of the school to get that figure down? Some of the measures are very practical, but they are measures for which the school teachers simply do not have time; that is, home visits, finding out why the child is not in school and liaising with the police. They need outside help. That is what I thought education welfare officers were about. It is important that the obligation is as much on them as on the governors of the school.
Baroness Seccombe: I support my noble friend Lady Blatch. I also draw the Committee's attention to the situation where parents are brought to court because their child is not attending school. I am horrified at the length of time that seems to pass in that process. Usually by the time the parents appear in court there have been about four terms when the attendance of the child has been absolutely abysmal—two or three times a week, if that, for half days.
Lord Peston: I do not wish to prolong this discussion, but there is nothing between us on the subject of parents. Even if there were, the law is the law when it comes to the parents' responsibility for the child attending school. I do not see that this amendment in any way detracts from that.
I have two thoughts on this. One is that I make sure that my child is at school. I believe that getting the child into school is approximately where my responsibility ends, for that day at least. I find it hard to believe that the teachers do not have some in loco parentis responsibility. I assume
718
that this amendment is about that. I assume it is to re-enforce the school's role without undermining the parents' role. Perhaps my noble friend will say that that is a misinterpretation, but that is certainly how I read it, which is why I support it.
I hope that both noble Baronesses agree that one task of the teachers is to make the pupils feel that it is worth while going to school. I am not saying that most unauthorised absences are connected with the fact that children think that school is a waste of time—I hope that is not the case—but a reasonable policy objective is making the school an attractive place. The main point of the amendment is not to undermine the parents but to encourage them, while accepting an explicit role for the school. For the last time, I support the amendment.
Baroness Blatch: I hope that this is the last time that I shall come back on a point. I would rather come down more heavily on the responsibility of parents and toughen and strengthen the law on forcing parents to see that their children attend school. I am concerned that a school serving a tough area in which there is a high incidence of absence will be deemed a "baddie" because that is how it will appear in the tables. The opposite will be the case in the leafy lanes where the co-operation of parents is at a high level. In those areas, without any effort on the part of teachers, children will arrive in school and stay there for the whole day.
Where there is a high level of unauthorised absences, the Bill's provision is misplaced in putting the onus on the school and the governors to reduce that level. The responsibility for getting children into school must be with the parents, who must ensure that they stay there. Once at school, loco parentis comes into play; it is the responsibility of the school to keep them there.
Baroness Blackstone: The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, is right in saying that there are few state boarding schools. They do not have to keep attendance registers for their boarders because it is assumed that pupils are in school. They are in total loco parentis. I expect any kind of boarding school, whether independent or state, immediately to follow up a child who is absent.
I turn to the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. I am grateful for the support I received from my noble friend Lord Peston because I, too, am puzzled by the way in which she has attacked the amendment. I had thought that it would be widely welcomed and accepted. Of course parents have the prime responsibility: of course the onus must be on parents; and of course the Government entirely recognise that. As she rightly said, some schools have a more difficult problem than others in grappling with truancy. But the amendment is basically about truancy; in other words, non-authorised absences. I accept that perhaps some schools are abusing the system of authorised absences and allowing children to be away when they should be at school. We shall want to examine that and seek evidence of such authorised absences being granted by schools.
I entirely accept that this is not a matter only for schools. It is also a matter for the education welfare service, which has a prime responsibility for following up children who are not attending schools. However, it is

719
important that the schools liaise closely with the education welfare service, the police, and other social services. Some schools are better at doing that than others. That is what the amendment is about. It seeks to ensure that the schools which are not tackling truancy satisfactorily should try to improve their record.
However, the Government must take into account the social conditions in which the school operates. It would be unfair to schools not to do so. The Government will take it into account.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is concerned with the way in which the juvenile court procedures operate and is trying to reduce the time which some cases take. Indeed, in the Crime and Disorder Bill the Government are introducing parenting orders for school attendance offences and will give magistrates more flexibility in dealing with them.
I hope that in the light of my response to those questions, the Committee will accept the Government's strong commitment to trying to improve attendance at all schools. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 185B:
Page 48, line 30, at end insert—
("(2A) This subsection applies where—

(a) a warning notice has been given in accordance with section 15(2) referring to the safety of pupils or staff at the school being threatened by a breakdown of discipline at the school,

(b) the governing body have failed to comply, or secure compliance, with the notice to the authority's satisfaction within the compliance period, and

(c) the authority have given reasonable notice in writing to the governing body that they propose to exercise their powers under subsection (1) of this section (whether or not in conjunction with exercising their powers under either or both of sections 16 and 17);

and a notice under paragraph (c) of this subsection may be combined with a notice under section 15(1)(c).").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 61, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 185C:
After Clause 61, insert the following new clause—
("School attendance targets
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE TARGETS
—(1) Regulations may make provision for and in connection with—

(a) requiring, or

(b) enabling the Secretary of State to require,

governing bodies of maintained schools to secure that annual targets are set for reducing the level of unauthorised absences on the part of relevant day pupils at their schools.
(2) Regulations under this section may, in particular, make provision—

(a) for the Secretary of State to impose such a requirement on the governing body of a maintained school where—

(i) the specified condition is for the time being satisfied in relation to the school, and

(ii) he considers it appropriate to impose the requirement;

(b) for such a requirement to be imposed by the Secretary of State in such manner, and for such period, as may he specified in or determined in accordance with the regulations;

(c) for the Secretary of State, where he considers it appropriate to do so, to exempt the governing body of a maintained school, in relation to any school year, from a requirement imposed by virtue of subsection (1)(a) or (b).

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(a)(i) the specified condition is for the time being satisfied in relation to a maintained school if in the previous school year the level of unauthorised absences on the part of relevant day pupils at the school (as determined in accordance with the regulations) exceeded such level as may for that year be specified in or determined in accordance with the regulations.
(4) In this section—
"relevant day pupil" means a pupil registered at a maintained school who is of compulsory school age and is not a boarder;
"unauthorised absence", in relation to such a pupil, means any occasion on which the pupil is recorded as absent without authority pursuant to regulations under section 434 of the Education Act 1996 (registration of pupils).").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Haskell: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume to hear the Statements.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Dounreay Nuclear Reprocessing Plant
4.47 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Clinton-Davis): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer to a Private Notice Question which is being asked in another place on the Dounreay nuclear processing plant.
"Dounreay has played a significant role in the development of the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. The experimental fast reactor at Dounreay, built in the 1950s, was followed by the prototype fast reactor. Both aimed to show that fast reactor technology could be harnessed to generate electricity on a commercial scale. Last Friday, I informed the House, in response to a Question from my honourable friend the Member for Kirkcaldy, that the Government had accepted advice from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Board that Dounreay should accept no new contracts for commercial reprocessing work. This decision will allow the UKAEA to refocus on the management of existing liabilities, by far the majority of which have arisen from the UKAEA' s own government-funded nuclear reactor development programme on the Dounreay site. I must stress that these liabilities already exist and so must be dealt with.

721
No amount of wishful thinking will make them simply go away. Subject to obtaining the necessary consents from the independent regulators—the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency—I expect the UKAEA to continue to reprocess the existing spent fuel liabilities, the majority of which have come from the reactors which actually operated at Dounreay. It will also reprocess material from existing committed legally binding commercial contracts and the small amount of material from Georgia. I have been advised by UKAEA that it expects to have completed all of this reprocessing work by 2006. After that the work of decommissioning the reprocessor will take place.
"Perhaps I can remind the House that the Dounreay site was set up to undertake work on the development of fast breeder reactor technology. Although its work on this programme was a technical success, it was decided to stop funding in 1988 when it became clear that there was no prospect of the technology fully living up to its economic potential. The development programme finally stopped in 1994 when the last reactor was switched off. Dounreay produces no electricity. Consequently, the focus of activity at the site has shifted inevitably to decommissioning those reactors and Dounreay's main mission has been to complete decommissioning of the facilities on the site. The concern now is to ensure that we pass on to future generations a safe environment.
"We are deeply committed to caring for the environment and to taking action to deal safely with the difficult legacy from past operations at Dounreay. We want the focus now to be on decommissioning the plant and securing the site at Dounreay. Subject to satisfying the strict safety and environmental requirements of the independent industry regulators, commercial reprocessing was accepted as a way of offsetting some of the costs of decommissioning and waste management at Dounreay. As the UKAE has itself recently concluded, as a result of surveying the international market, further commercial reprocessing would not be economic. Giving up this sort of work is the next step in achieving its main goal, which is refocusing the site to ensure safe and cost-effective clean-up.
"I know that the right honourable Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross shares my concern about the impact this decision will have on jobs at Dounreay. I have been assured by Dounreay's operators, the UKAE, that it does not expect to see any significant short-term loss of jobs, as the staff currently working on reprocessing will be redeployed on other nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management work.
"In March I announced the Government's decision to retrieve the waste from the Dounreay shaft, which will provide work for several decades. Completing the clean-up of the site will take over 100 years. The process of decommissioning will become the business of Dounreay."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for repeating an important Statement on an issue which has been before this House and the other place and which has featured in the media for a number of weeks.
I wholeheartedly agree with the introductory sentence that Dounreay has played a significant role in the development of the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. Undoubtedly it has and undoubtedly, if the fast breeder reactor system had proved to be economically viable, the work done at Dounreay would have given this country a leading world role in relation to fast breeder reactors; but it was not to be.
Does the noble Lord agree that the nuclear industry in general has proved to be a very important part of the Scottish economy? In terms of jobs, there are some 4,000 in Scotland in the nuclear industry, and a very large amount of electricity is produced for Scottish consumers. The noble Lord can perhaps remind me; I cannot remember whether it is 40 per cent. or 60 per cent. It is, however, significant. That electricity is produced safely and efficiently at Hunterston and Torness, with a little produced still at Chapelcross.
Those of us who supported the nuclear industry have occasionally had our problems in giving that support. One problem has been a distinct muddle and occasional lack of openness in the industry itself. That has not helped those of us who have been prepared to defend the industry, and perhaps particularly so at Dounreay. A second problem has often been the campaigning, at the taxpayers' expense, of nuclear-free committees in almost every Labour local authority. If the Minister wants me to believe that he is a supporter of nuclear energy I hope he will do something about his own party's ambivalent attitude in that regard.
Is the noble Lord aware that I welcome the assurances in the Statement about the jobs on the site? I fully appreciate that the decommissioning will take some time and that a lot of jobs will be involved over that time. Can he give any assurance that the skills obtained in this decommissioning will be used world-wide, putting us in a position where we can help other countries, commercially, of course, to decommission their plants?
The noble Lord will need no reminding of the exchange that took place between us on 21st May this year. I wonder if he regrets accusing me of going overboard on some of the assertions I made? When the noble Lord answered me that day, did he know that the Atomic Energy Authority had already decided to end commercial reprocessing at Dounreay? If he did not know, why did he not know? Even more recently, when the Prime Minister answered a Question last Wednesday in the other place with a robust defence of Dounreay and a vigorous attack on Mr. Alex Salmond—not normally my favourite person—did the Prime Minister know that the Atomic Energy Authority had decided that Dounreay was not a safe place for any more commercial reprocessing? If he did not know, why did he not know?
May I now have an answer to the questions I asked on 21st May? I see in the Statement that it is hoped that the reprocessing of the material on site will be

723
completed by 2006. I therefore presume people will know the answers to my questions. When does the noble Lord think Dounreay will regain its reprocessing permissions for both irradiated and non-irradiated materials? How much will it cost? Will it be months or will it be years? Will it be more or less than £200 million, for example? There must be some idea of the timescale and the costs, if an assurance can be given in the Statement that the job will be completed in 2006. I really do wonder if the noble Lord and his right honourable friend the Prime Minister might like to reconsider the ringing statement they made that Dounreay was the safest place on earth to take the Georgian nuclear material?
4.55 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for repeating the Statement on this important issue. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, paid tribute to all those who worked at Dounreay on the development of the fast-breeder reactor. I had the opportunity of visiting the site some years ago and was most impressed with the technology.
Although we have given up any further development in that area, can the noble Lord advise us what other countries are doing'? I believe that the French and the Japanese are continuing with their fast-breeder programmes. Or is this whole process being given up world-wide? If it is to be continued elsewhere, no doubt the skills that we have obtained could be put to good use.
On the question of reprocessing on the limited basis now anticipated, I pose a similar question to that asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, on the cost of improving the reprocessing plant in order to obtain the necessary approvals. The impression given is that commercial reprocessing has been given up because of the uncertainty of the market and also the cost of bringing the reprocessing plant up to a satisfactory standard. However, would this not have to be done anyway in order to reprocess the remaining material that has to be handled there? If so, would the Government he reconsidering commercial reprocessing?
It is clear from the Government's Statement that there will be a large number involved in continuing employment on the site. The reprocessing will take until the year 2006 and many decades beyond that for decommissioning. Would it not be desirable, however, for the Government also to be contemplating some other high technology operations in the area in order to offer alternative jobs to those who might have to leave or wish to leave so that the great skill accumulated at Dounreay shall not be lost?
4.58 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for the questions they have posed. I want particularly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, for supporting the first sentence of the Statement, which is most generous of him. Of course he is right in saying that the nuclear industry has played an important part in the Scottish economy. I cannot give him the exact
724
breakdown in terms of percentages for which he asked. On the question of criticism of the industry, he will know more about that than I because the last government were dealing with that industry for 18 years. He says that there was muddle and lack of openness in the industry. I think there was a lack of openness in the last government's activities vis-à-vis that industry. One of our criticisms, and, I think, a justifiable criticism, is that the idea of transparency was not upheld. That, as he rightly says, has blighted the industry. I believe that the last government were complicit in that.
As to using the skills which may be accumulated in terms of decommissioning on a more general and world-wide scale, a point taken up also by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, I agree entirely that that seems a proposition which needs to be investigated carefully. If those skills can be utilised in that way, so much the better. Certainly, decommissioning is not a matter that simply affects this country.
The noble Lord asks whether I regret saying that he had gone overboard. Not a bit of it. It is such an uncharacteristic function of the noble Lord that it has remained embedded in my mind. There is no call for an apology on my part because we were talking about something rather different from that which we are discussing today.
The noble Lord was significantly more emollient in his questions today. He asked when Dounreay will regain the necessary permissions. I dealt with that on the last occasion and I have nothing to add. I cannot put a term on it. The noble Lord was then suggesting that it was years and years away. We have had an opportunity to look more closely into the situation. It may be as long as two years but I do not wish to provide a categoric answer because one does not know what will be the outcome of those investigations.
The noble Lord asks how much it will cost. At this stage, I cannot indicate that. I shall look further into the matter. It is not an issue with which I am as familiar as I should like to be, or as I am with all the other matters which fall within my immediate remit.
The noble Lord asks whether we were aware of the economic decision leading to the action we have taken. That was announced at the end of last week. It was not a matter of which the Prime Minister, my honourable friend John Battle or I were aware. It is an economic decision and not a matter of safety. That was made very clear during the questioning which arose on the last occasion.
I have not been able to give an assessment of the costs involved but I should add that the Government are committed to providing funds to bring Dounreay up to standard in order to allow the discharge of all existing liabilities. Contrary to what was asserted by the noble Lord, the Government stated that the Georgian material would be stored safely at Dounreay. The press said that Dounreay was the safest place in the world for nuclear material. Nothing was said to that effect by the Prime Minister or any other Minister. It is important to recognise the responsibilities that we have for ensuring that non-proliferation, safety and all the other issues which I mentioned on that occasion are adhered to.

725
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, asked what other countries are doing. In other words, he asked whether they are facing similar problems. I am not sure whether it is an entire parallel but my recollection is that the French Government announced that the installation known as Super Phénix, quite close to the border with Switzerland, was being decommissioned. That was about six or seven months ago. However, I cannot provide any further information in response to that question.
I am sure that the point the noble Lord made about employment will be taken into account by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. As the noble Lord rightly said, there does not appear to be a risk of any significant unemployment arising over the course of the next several years until the year 2006. A great deal of work must be done in that regard. I thank the noble Lord for drawing attention to something which may be worrying for the local community. I hope that what I have said will give some reassurance.
5.5 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, listening to the quiet tones of this debate, is it not the case that one would hardly realise that an environmental disaster of enormous magnitude has taken place? Effort has been put into this project over the years and the ultimate result of that effort is that it will take 100 years to get rid of its consequences.
That is not only happening here; it is happening also in other parts of the world. I started with the view that while nuclear weapons were wholly undesirable, nuclear energy had possibilities. Is it not the case that voices more authoritative than mine are now saying that this is a dead end and that it is time it was brought to an end? Finally, will the Government spend even half the time and effort that has been spent on nuclear energy on wind and wave projects? They are more likely to be successful in spending money on that rather than encouraging further disasters of this sort.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I recognise that my noble friend has deeply committed views on this issue. However, I do not go along with his suggestion that this is an environmental disaster of unprecedented magnitude. It is a state of affairs which must be dealt with. There is no point in wishing away the whole situation. The problem exists and must be dealt with. You cannot just throw the key into the sea and hope that the whole problem will disappear.
As regards other forms of energy, my noble friend will understand that we shall shortly be making a statement on the energy review. I hope that he will wait to hear what we must say about wind and wave in that context.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, will the Minister accept that this is an occasion when great tribute should be paid to all those who have participated in the engineering feats of Dounreay over the past 40 years? The people of Caithness and the Highlands of Scotland
726
accepted and welcomed Dounreay and put their trust in what it could achieve. It achieved a great deal. Those people have every right to hope that the Government will do all they can to alleviate the sorrow and tragedy of such a wonderful venture having to come to an end.
Will the Minister agree that it is a simple fact, proved over the years, that generation by nuclear power has been an enormous success? It now accounts for a very high percentage of generation in this country, particularly in Scotland. However successful alternative sources of energy may be, it will be a long time before they can come anywhere near producing the amount of electricity which nuclear energy is presently affording us.
Finally, will the Minister do everything possible to try to ensure that, after the year 2006, alternative arrangements are made to keep in the Highlands the high-tech personnel who have made their homes there? That is essential for them, as they are now in the middle of their careers and it may not be too easy for them to move. It is also important that such talents should be kept in an area such as the Highlands of Scotland.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I shall deal, first, with the noble Lord's last question. Only last Wednesday AEA Technology announced the construction of a lithium battery plant which will involve some 300 employees. That is good news. As I indicated, I do not believe that there is a serious problem of unemployment looming in the near future. Should that forecast be incorrect, I know that my right honourable friend would certainly turn his attention swiftly to it. However, I do not want to get into a position where people become over anxious about a situation which is unlikely to arise.
The noble Lord is right to talk about the engineering feats over the past 40 years and the contribution made. However, that lies somewhat uneasily with what his noble friend Lord Mackay said about the lack of openness with which the previous government were faced. Of course, mistakes have been made, but that does not adversely affect the contribution made by loyal employees operating with great skill and ability. It is right that I should pay that tribute to those concerned from this Dispatch Box.
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, did my noble friend the Minister notice the uncharacteristic red herring which the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, introduced to the debate when referring to the material brought from Georgia? Will my noble friend confirm that the amount of material brought from Georgia is not much bigger than the water jug which his noble friend on the Front Bench has just picked up? Indeed, such an insignificant quantity is of no danger to anyone, unless one were to eat it.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right; indeed, it is not even as big as the red herring mentioned by the noble Lord opposite.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I met a group from Dounreay in Glasgow at

727
the weekend? Is he also aware that the primary concern of those who work there is that there is an immense amount of expertise within Dounreay? It is very much hoped that the Minister can give an extremely positive assertion to the effect that the best use will be made of that expertise in the interests of the safety of the world's environment in the years to come.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I have already given my assent to the proposition advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, which said the same thing but in rather different words.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend the Minister will appreciate that the assurance that he has just given and that given to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, are extremely welcome. Anyone who knows the area will be aware of what an exciting development Dounreay has been. It has transformed the whole social and cultural life in what would otherwise he a very remote and somewhat bleak area. Therefore, the assurances that my noble friend has given about there being no immediate job reductions should be emphasised.
Perhaps I may also point out to my noble friend the Minister that the Highlands and Islands Development Board exists in that part of the country with a specific remit to encourage new industry and diversify. Therefore, can my noble friend confirm that the HIDB will be fully consulted as regards any arrangements which are being made for diversification?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am grateful for the support that my noble friend has given. I can give him an assurance that the HIDB will be fully consulted and involved in the decisions which are being taken.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, bearing in mind that the announcement of the closure of Dounreay was made towards the end of last week, perhaps my noble friend the Minister will give me the opportunity today to complete the historical picture of why Dounreay was there in the first place. Does my noble friend the Minister recall the movement called "Atoms for Peace", which was the forerunner to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? The former campaign for peace was designed to harness atomic power for peaceful purposes to produce cheaper electricity for the benefit of the people. Is my noble friend aware that the "Atoms for Peace" campaign was particularly strong in Scotland because the Scottish people wanted to play a central role in the development of this new technology? Will my noble friend accept that it is only right and proper that we should place on the record of today's exchanges our tribute to those pioneers who gave the people of Scotland that opportunity, which they grasped with both hands?
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, my noble friend speaks with great authority on the matter and I accept the assertions that he makes. However, I take issue with him on one aspect; namely, the suggestion he made that there has been a decision to close Dounreay. That is not
728
really accurate. We have not made a decision to shut Dounreay. Indeed, that assertion was made in the other place by the right honourable gentleman, the shadow Secretary of State. That would be impossible. Quite simply, there are many nuclear liabilities on the site which are the difficult legacy of its nuclear power development work. They must be managed responsibly. This Government are committed to providing the right amount of money to ensure that that happens. Therefore, I would make a slight variation to the conclusion drawn by my noble friend.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, as a footnote to what he has already said, will the Minister add the following point: the Highlands and Islands Development Board has been mentioned, but it ceased to exist a few years ago? Therefore, the body which ought to be referred to in this context is its successor; namely, Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for that information. Indeed, I gratefully receive it and plead total ignorance of the situation to which he alluded. As on many previous occasions, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his assistance. It is difficult to co-operate with and enjoin the support of an organisation which has ceased to exist.
Lord Desai: My Lords, not being a Scotsman. I shall not become involved in tributes concerning Dounreay. However, despite what my noble friend Lord Ewing said, does my noble friend the Minister agree that nuclear power has not proved to be economically viable; in other words, it has not met the market test? We must apply that test, apart from bearing in mind the other factors mentioned by my noble friend Lord Jenkins. Can the Government now publish an estimate of how much it has cost us in the search for cheaper power through nuclear energy, which was itself a novel idea? It would be most helpful if we could know the total cost involved to the nation. Indeed, we could learn from that and, when dealing with such technological miracles in the future—like biotechnology—we would know that going down that path is not always a solution to all problems.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, my noble friend has gone slightly too far. I am aware that he is not in fact Scottish; neither am I. As far as concerns the question regarding how much the whole enterprise of seeking to apply a nuclear power has cost, I suggest to my noble friend that he tables a Question in that respect. In that way, the whole House would benefit from such information rather than my writing to him, which would mean that only he and I would be privy to it. My noble friend is right to say that the market test is appropriate. However, I do not believe that I can add anything useful to what I have already said. I hope that my noble friend takes that piece of advice.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, on a point of clarification, I understood that the noble Lord said clearly that the material from Georgia—I accept

729
that it is a small amount—would be stored at Dounreay. How does that fit with the Answer the Minister gave to a Starred Question on 21st May when he said that the,
"unirradiated highly enriched uranium will be processed into targets for production of medical isotopes"?—[Official Report, 21/5/98; col. 1761.]
Either it goes into storage or it is to be processed, it cannot be both.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, it is going into storage for the immediate future. What happens to it after that will depend on receiving the appropriate sanctions from the various authorities concerned. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.

Millennium Computer Compliance
5.20 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement which has been made in another place by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on tackling the year 2000 date change problem within central government and the wider public sector. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, I should like to make a Statement reviewing progress on tackling the millennium computer problem within central government and the wider public sector.
"Since my previous report to the House on 3rd March, I have conducted a further round of inquiries of government departments and their agencies and I am now also able to give a picture of progress in the wider public sector. I am arranging for the completed questionnaires received from departments in May and summaries of them and their reports on wider public sector bodies to be placed in the Libraries of the House and published on the Internet.
"Overall, departments' plans have remained stable since the March review and very little change in scope has been found necessary. We can now identify target dates for business critical systems. Most of the returns show progress in correcting business critical IT systems. A few show dates uncomfortably close to the end of 1999, though they do not involve organisations that provide services direct to the public. The overall target dates and the completion dates for non-critical systems have moved by a larger margin. There are still cases where testing seems to have started without a sufficiently defined strategy and some plans still contain too little information about embedded systems and telecommunication systems. I am following up these issues with the departments concerned.
"The majority of returns have shown little or no change in the overall cost estimates. Departments are now firming up their estimates and while some previously small estimates may have increased significantly, the overall costs have increased only slightly—now £402 million, compared with
730
£393 million in the previous round. Departments expect to meet these costs from their existing IT budgets and only a minority of returns indicated that it has been necessary to reallocate funds from other budgets. We do not expect operational budgets to be affected.
"A majority of the returns indicated that departments and agencies feel they have adequate skills to undertake the work, although there is a heavy reliance on outsourcing and consultants. Although about a third of returns stated that shortages of skilled staff could impact on their year 2000 programmes, none of the departments reports significant loss of skilled staff due to the millennium problem, and where skilled staff turnover is normally high, there appears to be no difficulty in recruiting new staff. Most of the organisations reporting difficulties generally are small agencies but the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office also reported that difficulties were being encountered in some areas.
"The returns highlight that a number of departments and agencies are still experiencing difficulties in securing responses from IT suppliers about product compliance. I am asking all departments and agencies to continue to press for this information.
"The returns indicate that many of the major departments have conducted a full risk assessment and have developed business continuity plans. This is a critical issue for all departments, and Ministers and I will be monitoring this closely.
"My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me to report on the position there. Baseline plans for the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland departments were published in December 1997. The current quarterly monitoring process shows that departments are making good progress and remain on course to meet the deadline of 31st December 1998 for the conversion and testing of systems, although a small number will not be ready until early 1999.
"In response to the concerns expressed in this House, the Prime Minister has extended the remit of the Ministerial Group on the Millennium Date Change, which I chair, to include the wider public sector. It is, of course, the responsibility of the chief executives of these quangos, authorities and trusts to take effective and timely action in relation to the date change problem so as to ensure that there is no material disruption to the services which they provide and that appropriate contingency plans are in place.
"Nevertheless, it is a matter of concern to this House that the public sector as a whole continues to operate effectively after the date change and the ministerial group will take a close interest in the progress being made there. Ministers have been in touch for some time with key organisations which they sponsor to emphasise the importance of tackling the date change problem and to help with advice and support. I have asked them to report on these organisations and I have placed a summary of their

731
responses in the Libraries of the House and on the Internet. I am also encouraging all non-departmental public bodies, organisations and other bodies in the wider public sector to publish their plans for millennium compliance.
"The quality of the responses varies. They show that all the organisations covered are aware of the problem and are taking action, but there is clearly still a long way to go before we have a complete picture. Some of these organisations are small and the century date change has few if any implications for them. But others are critical to ensuring a satisfactory continuation of key public services over the millennium, such as the National Health Service and local authorities and they will need to re-assure the public that they will be able to do so. The National Audit Office report published last month stated that the framework for managing the remedial process in the National Health Service is in place but that tight control is needed to ensure success. I welcome the National Health Service Executive's statement that the millennium date change problem is its top non-clinical priority and I expect other wider public sector bodies also to treat this as a priority matter. There is not a great deal of time left to put systems in place if progress has so far been slow.
"Ministers and I will be paying particular attention to monitoring progress in these key areas and reporting to the House regularly. The best way to reassure us all is for the bodies themselves to keep the public informed of their plans.
"The importance of the year 2000 issue is also widely recognised in the European Union. At the meeting of EU Ministers for Public Administration at Lancaster House on 20th May, Ministers agreed to review progress at the next meeting in Vienna and to exchange information on the action that governments were taking to help ensure continuity of operations in public and private sectors. They invited me to take the lead and I have today started the process by sending the UK's contribution to this exercise to my European colleagues.
"A new team has been formed within the Cabinet Office reporting to me and the President of the Board of Trade. This 'Year 2000 Team' has strengthened arrangements to drive forward action on the date change, both within government and through working with Action 2000 in the private sector. The reports we have so far show that the message is certainly getting across and provide some reassurances that action is being taken. They equally show that we cannot afford to let up the pressure and that we still need to monitor progress closely. This I will certainly do and continue to report to the House on a quarterly basis."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
5.28 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating that Statement. I am certain in my own mind that he is millennium compliant. I run on a
732
rather older operating system and I await anxiously the update which the noble Lord and his colleagues have promised. However, that raises other matters.
The Statement, as made, gives me great cause for concern. It seems to me to show symptoms of overoptimism, a lack of critical awareness of the problem, a general acceptance of slippage and unsatisfactoriness, and no feeling of urgency or commitment to the process. The Government let our plans and preparations for dealing with the millennium bug lapse when they came into office and they still are not up to speed. I would have hoped by now that they would both have realised the magnitude of the problem which they face and also begun to understand what the symptoms of the Civil Service in failure mode are. This Statement shows them full-blown. It is a cause for much concern that the Government do not seem to realise that.
Let us take a short look at the schedule provided by the Government. I have only a couple of small pieces of paper compared with the great wodge of papers with which they will provide us. Even in that information there are major causes for concern. I refer to little things such as the British Embassy in Fairyland which presumably believes it will be millennium compliant in the year 2000. March 2000 is the date by which the Foreign Office thinks it will be able to bring its systems up to date.
The matter that causes me concern beyond any other is the approach of the Ministry of Defence. It is the largest of the ministries and has the largest problem in this area. Its target date is December 1999 for its business-critical and embedded systems. Are we to expect that our nuclear warheads will decide at the millennium that the world no longer exists, and make their own contribution to it? It is an awesome thought that the Government should even begin to consider such a deadline acceptable, let alone practical.
Local authorities are reported to be at varying stages of readiness. Given what we know of local authorities, that is not exactly comforting. It is said of the Department of Health and its various allies and offshoots that they will either have everything done by September 1999 or have effective contingency plans in place. Already the Government are anticipating failure in the National Health Service. What, in the context of an over-stretched, under-staffed service such as the NHS are we to anticipate by way of "effective contingency plans" if the operating systems of a hospital suddenly close down at midnight on 31st December or even earlier? I cannot see how the Government can calmly contemplate the concept of contingency plans coming into operation and think that acceptable in regard to the way in which the NHS is going forward.
The deadline for compliance in the nuclear industry is set at March 1999. Who is ever going to admit to that deadline slipping? How are the Government ever going to be told by civil servants or those who report to them: "No, we are worried about that. It looks like September", or, "It may be that we shan't make December". The Government will not know what is happening in that sort of area until it is far too late to do anything about it.

733
I do not yet know the content of the raft of information that the Government will show us. I hope that the individual returns will allow us to see that departments are making progress. The Statement contains no example or hope to indicate that factual information will enable us to see that progress is being made. We are promised ministerial monitoring. But mere deadlines set at March and June 1999 cannot be monitored. There will have to be intermediate targets. I hope the noble Lord will confirm that there is a series of intermediate milestones that are being met. I hope that the noble Lord will confirm in future Statements that the Government will report on the meeting of those milestones, rather than offer woolly statements such as, "We think we shall get it done by June 1999", which is so far away that they can "factor in" any catch-up procedure that they might imagine without facing the reality; namely, that deadlines are slipping and completion may not occur.
The Statement suggests that the total cost of the exercise is £400 million. Will the noble Lord confirm that the actual total cost is in the order of £3 billion when the National Health Service, local authorities and other public bodies are taken into account? Will he also confirm that the Government intend fully to fund that cost, and in particular not expect the National Health Service to meet its immense liabilities out of its existing resources? The Statement indicates that some departments are falling behind and many are having trouble with suppliers not responding to their requests. Will the Government information to be placed in the Library indicate which departments are falling behind and which suppliers are not responding? If not, will the Government make that information available to us?
The overall concern is that the deadlines that have been accepted and adopted by this Government are far too late. They are March and June 1999 for critical systems, and September 1999 for embedded systems. There is no way in which those deadlines can slip and still allow the Government or anyone else time to deal with the problems that will result. It is essential that the Government tighten up on those deadlines and get matters completed considerably faster. It is essential that they start to put in place some plans for disaster control.
It is clear that some major system somewhere will fail at the millennium. Let us imagine what would happen if the national grid went down. It would not exactly delight people or help them celebrate the millennium. It may be that civil servants and Ministers rest comfortable in the thought that they will hold a good party for the millennium but will not book flights anywhere because it might not be safe. It is time for them to accept their responsibilities and make sure that the millennium works well for all of us. That includes setting out plans and arrangements to deal with the disasters that will occur and making sure that they have the minimum impact. This problem will not go away. It is a problem that we shall all have to face up to when the time comes. We look to the Government to take the matter far more seriously in the remaining few months before these pigeons all come home to roost.
5.35 p.m.
Lord Razzall: My Lords, I, too, wish to thank the Government for repeating in this chamber the Statement made in another place. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the tone of some of the following remarks. However, this is clearly an important issue, as the Government rightly recognise. In the brief time available, I wish to ask the Minister a number of detailed questions and two of a more general nature.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed out that on page 2 of the Statement there is a clear reference to the fact that the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office are having difficulties in dealing with the issues and, in particular, in recruiting the required number of skilled staff. Bearing in mind the significant issues of timing to which the noble Lord referred, is the Minister in a position to give any indication as to what steps are being taken by those two ministries to deal with those difficulties? As we all know, the recruitment of skilled staff is a significant problem in the IT area in both the private and public sectors. It is slightly bland simply to say that those two key ministries are having difficulties recruiting staff. We should like to know what steps the Government, and those ministries in particular, are taking to remedy that defect.
Secondly, the Statement indicates that departments and agencies are still experiencing difficulties in securing responses from IT suppliers in relation to product compliance. That has been a perennial complaint. Will the Minister confirm that a major reason is that particularly in relation to older systems, where an IT supplier has bought in products from a third party supplier, often the IT supplier is not in a position to provide an answer as to whether or not the system is millennium compliant? That problem will not go away. Will the Minister confirm that this is not merely a case of suppliers saying that they are not prepared to provide the information; in many cases they are not in a position to know. That will clearly present a problem in both the public and the private sector.
My third more detailed point seeking amplification on the Statement is this. Considerable weight is given to the importance of non-departmental public bodies. We are all aware of the importance of the non-departmental public bodies, quangos or whatever one wishes to call them, as an interface between the Government and the population. The obvious reference is to the National Health Service and local authorities, but there are many other such bodies.
As a former member of a local authority, I have no doubt whatsoever that this is not only a question of how the problem is dealt with; it is a question of whether or not resources are available in those bodies to deal with it. I should welcome confirmation from the Minister, without going into the necessary judo or wrestling that goes on between government budget-setters and those bodies each year, that the necessary resources will be made available, if necessary, by the Government to ensure that non-departmental public bodies are in a position to deal with this problem. There will be no point in the Government saying in the year 2000: "Of course, it was nothing to do with us. The Chancellor

735
always said that he would stay within the spending limits set by the previous government and therefore we were not prepared to make any more money available to those bodies to enable the problem to be dealt with".
Those are my three specific questions on the Statement. Perhaps I may make two points of a wider nature. The Statement obviously covers only the operation of the problem, the prospective solutions to the problem and action taken by the Government towards solving it in the public sector. But, as we all know, there is still a significant problem in the private sector. Even in these days of new Labour, presumably the Government do not take the view that the private sector is nothing to do with them. I should be grateful for the Minister's confirmation that, in the Government's view, the private sector is taking adequate action to ensure that products and buildings will be millennium-compliant in time.
I should like to expand a little on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. We tend to assume that the millennium bug is all about whether our British Gas bill will turn up on time; whether business as we know it will come to a stop; or, dare I say it, whether the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, cannot finish her latest novel because her PC has crashed. It will not only be about that, of course; it will be about such questions as whether our air traffic control systems work satisfactorily and whether people will feel safe travelling on planes on 1st January 2000; what will happen to our weather satellites; whether GCHQ's supply of information will come to a standstill as a result of a millennium failure. The Government could perhaps give a more explicit assurance that they are satisfied that those items which are significant for the safety of the individual and of the Realm will be dealt with in time. As an aside, I suspect that the example of the national grid was a bad one, if the experience in New York 10 years ago is anything to go by.
5.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their responses to the Statement. Perhaps I may say first to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that I am far from being millennium-compliant. My real-time clock is okay, but I have had to do various things to my BIOS clock, and there are still swathes of software on which no corrective action has been taken. The noble Lord is too kind to me in that respect. The liveware is still going.
I was taken aback to some extent by the tone of the noble Lord's observations, which contrasted with those of Mr. John Redwood, in another place, who described the Statement as being truthful rather than, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, over-optimistic. The noble Lord spoke about our having let previous government action lapse. That simply is not true. The previous government action, which I have studied in some detail, involved the setting in place of CITU and the CCTA and preliminary action on the central government sector. Even at that time, under the previous government, it involved a deadline for compliance of January 1999, with a compliance date for financial systems of April 1999 at the Government's financial year-end. The noble
736
Lord complained about 1999 deadlines, hut they were already in place under his government before we came into power. Immediately, on 21st May last year, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster wrote to all departments seeking much wider information than that which had been requested by the previous government. That has been followed up, as is evidenced by the Statement, by action in the wider public sector, in the National Health Service, local authorities and NDPBs.
In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, we recognise, and have always recognised, that the private sector is the Government's concern. Action 2000, which is controlled by the Cabinet committee MISC 4 chaired by the President of the Board of Trade, is specifically designed for that purpose, although I hope it will be agreed that our approach has not been one of bullying the private sector but of trying to help it. I shall return to some of those issues in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred to departments—in particular, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence—where the deadlines are later than they should be in 1999. I agree with him. I do not believe that those deadlines should be allowed to approach so closely to the millennium date when they cannot be changed without there being dangers in the slippage. There is a list of examples in the documentation of slippage of more than three months in those dates. The individual returns, which are available in the Library—I can give the noble Lord a copy now if he would like one—recognise the danger of slippage and set that out department by department. They also set out intermediate targets, which are what the noble Lord asked for. There are departments that will have to do a good deal better than they have reported to us. However, we are not just requiring them to report; we are taking action to ensure that their work is speeded up. That is why we have set up the special team within the Office of Public Service for that purpose.
I think the noble Lord is a little unfair about the National Health Service. The National Audit Office report, published on 15th May, says, as is said in the Statement, that the framework for managing the remedial process is in place. I accept that that is only the first point, but I do not think that that is a reason for panic about the National Health Service. Later this month we shall be able to publish a management paper, produced by the Audit Commission, which covers the National Health Service and local authorities and goes beyond an analysis of the scope of the problem to giving practical help to individual National Health Service Trusts and to individual local authorities, with a series of do's and dont's of testing, case studies and so on. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, that the key to this is to avoid overlap and to make sure that the lessons that are learned by the lead authorities are rapidly made available to other authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked me about the £400 million, rising to £3 billion. These are different figures. The £400 million applies to central government departments and agencies; the up to £3 billion figure, which the Prime Minister gave on 30th March, is the figure for the wider public sector. I do not claim that any of these figures are accurate; there is no way in

737
which they can be. Estimates from individual, large private companies show how much those companies vary one from another and in total.
The noble Lord asked me whether we would fully fund all of these costs or whether they would be met from existing resources. The Statement made clear that in the bulk of cases the costs will be met from existing IT resources and that in fewer than one-fifth of cases will public authorities and departments have to raid money from other budget heads. We are not fully funding them; no, they will be fully funded from within existing budgets.
The theme of the noble Lord's comment was that the deadlines are too late. I do not take that view. Where they are late, as they sometimes are, we will do something about it. But our theme must be help rather than bullying.
The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, asked about staff shortages in the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office in particular. Both those departments are using outside consultants and bringing in contract programming skills for these purposes. Indeed, the Ministry of Defence is bringing in programmers from outside this country. I have no doubt that it has the security elements well in hand.
The noble Lord talked of the difficulty of obtaining information from IT suppliers and referred to the problems which suppliers themselves face in analysing older equipment. That is right. There is a run on people who are skilled in Basic, and Cobol from 15 or 20 years ago. However, in general, for most of the public sector, first, all our purchases have been millennium compliant since September 1996 and, secondly, over the period of time we are considering, the normal replacement cycle will deal with the majority, though not all, of those problems.
I believe I answered the other questions of the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, out of turn. If I have not, I shall write to him.
5.51 p.m.
The Earl of Balfour: My Lords, perhaps I can ask one question. As a Minister, can the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, consider the problem of where mistakes are made in a computer. We all realise that it is easy to feed in the wrong number. But it appears to me, from all my research, that only the most senior management personnel are permitted to correct even a number such as a date or a reference.
For example, it took me two-and-a-half years to obtain the correct field numbers for my farm in Scotland. That resulted in part of the set-aside subsidy not being paid to me, though it was no fault of mine. A mistake in council tax takes around six months to correct and, from what I can gather, at the present time only the most senior management personnel can alter a mistake even though it may be something as simple as a reference number. That makes life extremely difficult
738
and perhaps some less senior people may be permitted to make those alterations in view of the problems that may arise at the millennium.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry to hear of the difficulties the noble Earl is facing. He is describing defects of management rather than of information technology systems.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I pick up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, relating to the question of defence, particularly defence in an international forum. My noble friend will be aware that I am a delegate to the Western European Union. My fellow delegates and I questioned the authorities within the WEU regarding what other countries in the organisation are doing to meet the problems of the millennium bug. We have not so far been treated with any seriousness by the officials who answered us and that is of great concern.
My question to my noble friend concerns what our Government are doing to raise the matter of the millennium bug within the international defence forums, particularly within NATO. The consequences of our NATO allies not addressing the issue with the seriousness with which our Government are addressing it can hardly be exaggerated. I shall be grateful to know whether the Government have any systematic approach to raising the issue.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: One of the most disturbing aspects for me of the Statement I repeated is not so much that we are falling behind, but that we are ahead of other people. It means that other countries are less advanced than we are.
When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster raised this matter on 20th May, as I said in the Statement, he found that a number of other countries are significantly behind in their arrangements. Indeed, it is fair to say that only the Netherlands is at or beyond our level of preparedness. My noble friend is therefore correct.
In relation to weapons systems there are two kinds of failure. One is the kind which would make the systems go off unexpectedly and the other is one which would stop them from working altogether. I rather like the second kind of failure.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, it is good that we are having a report on this matter on a quarterly basis and I thank the Government for that. However, the Minister said that the Government are concerned about suppliers. Is there any merit in putting deadlines on suppliers so that we will know the full scale of the problem in time? The Statement did not have anything in that regard but I hope that deadlines have been fixed.
Also, an awful lot of scaremongering is taking place in relation to planes falling out of the sky in the millennium. From the point of general public comfort, is there any statement that the Minister can make in that regard to stop once and for all that scaremongering? People are becoming increasingly concerned.

739
I should like the Minister's response to a further suggestion. Every large organisation is currently doing precisely the same thing that government departments are doing. I spoke about this in another country to a company linked in with a company on whose board I serve. The other company was carrying out its own research in a specific area of responsibility and I asked why it could not tell people in London what it was doing.
Bringing that experience to bear—this is a true situation—in the area of government, is there any merit in trying to get together the experts in, for instance, major FTSE companies and asking what are the areas in which they believe they have had a significant breakthrough and whether they are prepared to share the experience? It is not simply a government problem; it is a national problem, a world problem. We must try to harness all the brains to deal with it. I fear that there is a lot of, "not invented here" going on and a lot of multiplication of effort, not just duplication. I shall be grateful for the Minister's comments.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am not in the position of being able to say that planes will not fall out of the sky or that one's microwave oven in the kitchen will not work. The noble Baroness is right to say that what government departments are finding is strictly comparable to what other kinds of big business are finding. In other words, they are finding that some of the problems they anticipated are easier to solve than it was thought they would be and some are considerably more difficult. I do not believe that we have yet come to the end of that process. It would be premature of me to seek to give comfort to ordinary people because my conviction is that, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
On the issue of getting together the best brains, the noble Baroness has a point. The Cabinet committees and ministerial sub-groups have not only set up this team in the Cabinet Office, but they are also bringing in outside advisers who attend these meetings. We will be able to announce names later this month. I am sure that they will take seriously the suggestion made by the noble Baroness in relation to bringing together experts from other countries and other sectors.
Lord Wise: My Lords, perhaps I can ask one question of the Minister relating to small businesses. As he knows, a number of suppliers are offering products allegedly giving solutions to the problem of the year 2000. I should perhaps declare an interest in that I am involved with one of those companies.
The prices and the efficacy of the products vary enormously, as do the attendant consultancy services. It is a difficult task for small businesses to judge and assess the quality and value for money of these products. Can the noble Lord tell me of any plans that the Government may have to provide small businesses with an approved list of the products and the suppliers?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wise, raises an important point. He is quite right in saying that it is not within the resources of small
740
and medium-sized businesses to deal with the millennium date change. That can only be done with outside help. As he knows from the talks we have had, we are keen to make the suppliers of services to those businesses known to the people in government who are responsible. Access was provided in the case which the noble Lord referred to me. We take very seriously the need for outside consultancy for smaller firms. We shall certainly think very hard about the suggestion he makes of providing some kind of evaluation of the services that they provide.

School Standards and Framework Bill
6 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 62 [Power of head teacher to exclude pupils]:
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 186:
Page 48, line 35, at end insert—
("() No pupil may be permanently excluded from a maintained school unless—

(a) all reasonable steps have been taken by the school to avoid excluding the pupil; and

(b) the head teacher is satisfied that allowing the pupil to remain in the school would be seriously detrimental to the education or welfare of the pupil, or to that of others at the school.").

The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 186 is the first of 18 amendments in this large group, and of those amendments Amendments Nos. 186 to 188 and Amendments Nos. 194 and 235 are mine. As regards Amendment No. 186, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, has read paragraph (b) which states,
"the head teacher is satisfied that allowing the pupil to remain in the school would be seriously detrimental to the education or welfare of the pupil, or to that of others at the school".
That answers the worry that the noble Lord had about an earlier amendment. Perhaps I may remind the Minister that this amendment was tabled by the Labour Party Front Bench in relation to the (now) Education Act 1997. It was also tabled by it in 1993 and, presumably, it was in favour of the sentence therein.
We have yet to encounter a head teacher or governor who has any objection to the grounds themselves. These are widely held to be a correct description of the circumstances when a pupil may—arguably, should—be permanently excluded.
The proposed grounds, already in DfEE circular 10/94, have two limbs. The first limb—that the school should have taken reasonable steps to avoid the exclusion—could be usefully developed in regulations or guidance, in terms of what steps are reasonable. However, the word "reasonable" ensures that where there is a genuine emergency, such as a violent assault, a pupil may be excluded straight away.
The second limb—that unless excluded, the pupil's behaviour would be seriously detrimental to the pupil's or others' education or welfare,—would prevent the exclusion of pupils for routine, very minor disciplinary misdemeanours.
We believe that it is the key to obtaining the "step change" in exclusions desired by the Prime Minister because it fetters schools' massive powers in this area while at the same time introducing a clear, legal baseline which should operate for the benefit of all. All parties would, finally, be reading the same script and allegations of a system which unfairly discriminates against teachers, governors or LEAs, black children or looked-after children, or whatever, should be put to rest.
My next amendment is Amendment No. 187. However well schools organise themselves and however well LEAs work in support of them, inevitably there will be times when pupils have to be excluded for the safety of other pupils and the staff at the school. The challenge for the legislation is to ensure that, for pupils who are excluded, they are out of school for as short a time as possible and that during that time there is as much educational continuity as possible.
The 45-day total over the year of the fixed-term exclusions brought in by the Education Act 1997 will be confirmed by the regulations in this Bill. If it is not amended, this limit will come into effect this September. The 45-day total is too long. If the days were all allocated within one term it could mean that a child would miss nearly a whole term of education in one fell swoop. We wish to see the 15-day limit over one term re-introduced, combined with greater clarity about the provision of work during that period.
Amendment No. 188 aims to improve school responsibilities in relation to fixed-term exclusions. The Children's Consortium on Education, which is responsible for this amendment, believes that a clear distinction should be made between permanent and fixed-term exclusions which we believe should revert to their common name of "suspension". The grounds for a fixed-term exclusion can, we argue, be much wider than those for a permanent exclusion, including "automatic" suspensions; for example, for possession of a weapon or drugs. However, this amendment ensures that schools do not suspend children just to get a break from them and that they take appropriate steps when suspension occurs.
The consortium would also argue that the 45-day limit imposed by the Education Act 1997 reverts to a 15-day limit. The Truancy and School Exclusion report from the Social Exclusion Unit, emphasises the importance of reintegrating an excluded child into school and the lack of alternative education provision offered to them. That appears in paragraphs 2.21 and 2.22 of the report. This reintegration is difficult enough after a five-day exclusion. A week is a long time to a child. After a total of 45 days in a school year—or missing two and a bit months of school—it becomes almost impossible. Those who receive education otherwise—an estimated 25,000 according to the Social Exclusion Unit—receive only 10 per cent. of full education.
Under this amendment the head teacher is placed under a general duty to take steps to get a suspended pupil back into school as soon as possible. Two specific steps are mentioned: to make sure that any special educational needs of the pupil have been identified and
742
to have a meeting with all the relevant people to agree causes and solutions. All of these steps were supported by the conclusions of the Ofsted Report on exclusions from secondary schools and the Truancy and School Exclusion report from the Social Exclusion Unit. This amendment was tabled by the Government when they were in opposition in 1996–97. It was very useful that the school exclusion report came out before we had to discuss these clauses in the Bill. I very much hope that attention will be paid by the Government to this very good report.
The terms of Amendment No. 194 have not yet been considered by the Government, either now or when in opposition. They are to ensure that unpopular schools are not forced to take all the excluded pupils in the area because the popular schools are full and therefore can resist any direction to admit a pupil. The excluded pupil filling the vacated place would have to satisfy any admissions criteria relating to academic ability or religious affiliation attached to the place, but not ones relating to attitude, aptitude or catchment area. This revolving-door policy would allow pupils to begin again at another school while protecting the unpopular schools from becoming the obvious place for all problem pupils and pupils with problems. That is especially true now that we know the majority of excluded children have unmet learning difficulties.
The amendment might be unpopular with some schools; for example, those who use exclusions as a backdoor method for selection. That should be offset by the gains to other schools.
An indirect, but important, consequence of this amendment, should be to concentrate the minds of schools before excluding a pupil because it might mean that they get someone worse. If accepted, Clause 88 might need some consequential amendment. We would argue that Clause 79 could, but does not have to be, abandoned since any need for it would be obviated. The "two strikes and you're out" measures which ensure that no single school is forced to admit all of the difficult pupils already excluded from other schools would become redundant. This amendment would support an LEA's obligation to provide an excluded pupil with a full-time and appropriate education as recommended by the Social Exclusion Unit in its recent report.
The proposed clause requires that parents and pupils agree to the placement in order to comply with the statutory principle of parental preference and the pragmatic principle of pupil co-operation. It is an important point that excluded pupils are looked after properly and reinstated as soon as possible. The longer they are out of school the less easily they will be able to reintegrate into the education system.
Finally, Amendment No. 235 is designed to secure that excluded pupils and others out of school such as sick children are entitled to full-time education. There is no disagreement that excluded pupils need full-time education—if anything, they need more than other pupils. The fact that they are not provided with full-time education is a matter of resources, not principle. Out-of-school education does not have to conform to the national curriculum. One can include activities such as

743
work experience, which may well be very good for children. Failure to make this provision places parents in the invidious position of being in breach of their legal duty to secure their children's full-time education. I beg to move.
Baroness Byford: I speak to three amendments in this grouping. I apologise to Members of the Committee. Earlier I was wrong to assume that they would be run together. It was a newcomer's error. I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 187A, 194A and 197A, all of which are part of the same group. Amendment No. 187A deals with the whole question of exclusion. It proposes that after a period of more than three days parents should have a right of appeal. If their child is excluded for a shorter period that is perhaps unnecessary. The amendment seeks to define an acceptable period. If a child is excluded for half a day or a day to trigger the whole process is unreasonable. My amendment suggests that the provision should be activated after a period of more than three days.
Amendments Nos. 194A and 197A deal with the length of time that the exclusions are in process before the end of the appeal procedure. The noble Baroness, Lady David, and I seek to ensure that in this day and age of instant communication children go back to school as quickly as possible. I believe that it is sensible to reduce the period in the Bill to two weeks. That is the purpose of these two consequential amendments. The intention is to get children back into the class. One of the difficulties is that until the appeal is heard very often the child cannot be moved to another school and dealt with in an ongoing manner.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: I should like to speak briefly to Amendment No. 223 which is part of the present group. Once again, one of my amendments has been propelled involuntarily into a group to which it is totally unrelated. With the leave of the Committee, I propose to speak to it when we reach Amendment No. 195 and defer comment upon it until then. At the risk of repeating the obvious, that in no way diminishes my support for what has been said by my noble friend.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: Amendment No. 235 is in my name. The noble Baroness, Lady David, has spoken ably to this amendment. Amendment No. 235 seeks to ensure that pupils who are excluded are given full-time education. It is the parents who have the responsibility to ensure that their children have full-time education, not schooling. I do not suggest that the parents should necessarily be responsible for providing the education but it is important that the child is educated. If the child is excluded and allowed to do nothing the child's behaviour will become worse. The child will be idle. The Committee will be familiar with the old saying that the Devil makes work for idle hands. A child needs to be educated and kept interested in his education. If the child is not interested in his or her education he or she will not pay attention and will not learn.
Normally, children will be excluded because their behaviour is below standard. That may well be because of special educational needs, possibly because they are
744
so bright that they are far ahead of the rest of the class and become bored; others because they have difficulty in learning and cannot keep up or do not understand. They also need special attention. It may also be the case that they cannot see the blackboard and their sight needs to be looked after. All of those matters need to be considered. But if one is to produce children who grow up into responsible members of society one must ensure that even if they are excluded from school they are given full-time education so that they can feel worthwhile individuals in themselves and receive training to make them useful and responsible members of society; otherwise, they will end up as hoodlums.
Lord Elton: I briefly endorse what has just been said by my noble friend Lord Swinfen. I do so on the basis of seven years' experience as a teacher in a secondary school, two of them in a comprehensive school with 1,500 boys on a slum clearance estate. The availability of exclusion when I was teaching at that school would have been enormously tempting. My task would have been a great deal simpler had I been able to disembarrass myself of certain people whose names and voices are still clearly imprinted upon my memory. But that would have been a dereliction of duty. I believe that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness is a minimum requirement that the Government can refuse only on the grounds that the requirement already exists elsewhere in another form.
I should like to emphasise to the Committee that first temporary and then permanent exclusion is a slippery slope down which disaffected children slide into an area in which they are almost universally tempted into some form of criminality. I chair a charity, the Divert Trust, which introduces adult mentors who are paired up with children who are on the edge of exclusion or who are in exclusion. Its aim is to reduce juvenile crime. The most predictable area of juvenile crime is among children who are excluded from school and given nothing whatever to do or a little to do without supervision; in other words, they are subjected to an intensification of the circumstances which led to their misbehaviour in the first place. Their position is made worse and not better. This is an expensive activity, but I can assure Members of the Committee that if children are not formally taken in hand at that stage with care the expense to the state and the institutions to deal with criminals will be hugely greater.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: I too rise in support of the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. The Committee is considering exclusion in terms of the protection of the school or perhaps the punishment of the individual. But I believe that there may be occasions when the young person needs the kind of support that can be given by a pupil referral unit which perhaps the school is unable to give. Often youngsters with behavioural problems come from difficult home backgrounds and will require the kind of individual support that is simply not available in a large class.
My experience of pupil referral units is that they do good work with such youngsters because, of course, they work with much smaller groups of young people.

745
I have seen both local authority referral units and private ones. In both cases it is possible to work with young people at a level which is simply not possible in a school and, moreover, to work in such a way that it is possible for them to be fed back into mainstream provision. I am thinking primarily of primary school children. I would entirely endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that intervention at that level and in that sort of case can not only give immense support to young people but is in the end a much less costly way of going about it.
Baroness Blackstone: In responding to the amendments moved by my noble friend Lady David and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, I am also speaking to a group of government amendments which I hope will provide reassurance for those who have spoken on this group.
Perhaps I can say this to my noble and learned friend Lord Archer. I am sorry that for some reason on the groupings the amendment that he has @referred to, Amendment No. 223, was listed with this group. On the groupings that I have we intended it to be grouped with the other amendments on Schedule 18. He is absolutely right, that is the correct place for it.
I understand the intention behind these amendments, which is to reduce the number of children who are excluded from school every year. I have an enormous amount of sympathy with that intention and agree with a great deal of what has already been said. The Government are very much committed to the same goal. However, they do not consider that these amendments are the best way to achieve that.
Beginning with Amendment No. 186, I recognise the wording of this amendment as advice taken from the department's own guidance on exclusion. While most schools follow this guidance carefully and use permanent exclusion only as a last resort—which, of course, is what they should do—and in response to the most serious incidents, it is clear that a minority of schools choose to ignore our guidance. That is why we have tabled amendments—to require all those involved in the exclusion process to have regard to the Secretary of State's guidance. That was in the earlier group, Amendment No. 193C.
The revised guidance will continue to place emphasis on the need for permanent exclusions to be used only as a last resort and when the child's continuing presence in the school would be seriously detrimental to the welfare or education of others in the school. However, unlike primary legislation, the detailed guidance can be used to recognise that there may sometimes be exceptions to this general rule.
Acceptance of Amendment No. 186 could make it unlawful for a school permanently to exclude a pupil with no previous record of poor discipline who mounted a serious physical attack on a teacher, as it might be argued that such an exclusion was not a "last resort". It is important that schools are able to respond with a permanent exclusion to one-off incidents of behaviour
746
that may be very damaging to others in the school. I therefore think that it would be better to use statutory guidance to tackle the problem that this amendment highlights.
Moving on to Amendment No. 187. I should reassure noble Lords that the Government are well aware of concerns within this place about the provisions introduced by the Education Act 1997 to allow schools to exclude a pupil for up to 45 days in a school year rather than the current limit of 15 days in a school term. The changes will come into force this September and the revised limits on fixed period exclusions are replicated in this Bill.
The changes to the time limits were introduced, with cross-party support, in response to concern from head teachers that 15 days was not long enough to prepare the pupil to be reintegrated into school, and that schools were having to resort to permanent exclusion when a longer fixed term exclusion would have been much more appropriate. The I5-day limit is seen as a particular problem where support from social workers or educational psychologists, for example, is needed to ensure successful reintegration.
I know that there is concern that some schools may abuse this new flexibility, leaving children out of school for several weeks at a time with no proper education. But it cannot be right to abandon a provision which, when used appropriately should help reduce the incidence of permanent exclusion simply because of fears that not all schools will use the provision properly. Instead, we need to establish an exclusions process which includes enough safeguards to ensure that schools use longer fixed period exclusions only where appropriate. We therefore believe that the Bill contains the necessary checks to ensure that exclusions of more than the current limit of 15 days are used only where these are absolutely necessary to avoid a permanent exclusion.
Turning to Amendment No. 188, I should like to reassure noble Lords that there is no need for a regulation-making power to help ensure that a child who is excluded for a fixed period returns to school as quickly as possible. Clause 63(1)(a) requires the head teacher to tell the relevant person, normally the parent, the length of the exclusion at the point at which the pupil is excluded. We will use guidance to make absolutely clear to head teachers that fixed period exclusions should not normally be for more than a few days, and also to encourage meetings between teachers, parents and the pupil where a child persistently misbehaves.
As with the other amendments in this group, I have sympathy with the intention behind Amendment No. 194. The amendment would force schools which have permanently excluded a pupil to give first priority when filling that place to a pupil excluded from another school.
Unfortunately, however, the proposal is not without its disadvantages. First among these is that it would appear to "reward" an excluded child with a place at a popular oversubscribed school, ahead of well behaved children who were on the waiting list. Instead we intend

747
to use other incentives, such as changes to the financial arrangements and the way in which performance tables are calculated, to give schools extra incentives to avoid exclusion and to admit pupils excluded from other schools.
I sympathise strongly with the intention behind Amendment No. 235. As noble Lords know, many children who are permanently excluded from school currently receive little education, often only a few hours a week. Some children do not have any education arranged for them at all for several months. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, rightly pointed out, this is an appalling situation. These children will not only suffer educationally in the period out of school, but will also have great difficulty re-integrating into school, as well as being likely to get into trouble with the law.
Following the report Truancy and School Exclusion from the Social Exclusion Unit, it is now government policy for all children excluded from school to receive an appropriate full-time education by the year 2001, and I welcome the support for this from my noble friend and from the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen.
In May of this year, the Social Exclusion Unit report recommended how we can make a step change in the levels of truancy and exclusion. We are pledged to reduce levels of truancy and exclusion by one third by 2002 and we are taking a whole range of steps to achieve that. We recognise, however, that there will always be some children, I am afraid to say, who are excluded from school. An important part of our strategy is therefore to ensure that those pupils' needs are properly catered for while they are out of school. We have therefore agreed to stipulate in statutory guidance that "full-time and appropriate education" be provided for every child who is excluded for more than three weeks. This will be quite a difficult recommendation to meet. It will take some LEAs quite a while to reach the starting blocks.
We are, of course, aware that arranging education out of school for a mixed bag of schools is expensive. Extending that provision will certainly have financial implications. These are being considered as part of the comprehensive spending review. It will take a little time to achieve the significant improvements that I think we all agree are needed to current provision, but I expect there to be a full timetable for all excluded children by no later than 2001.
I do, however, understand and fully support the aim of the amendment. I am still, however, doubtful that an amendment of this kind is necessary. It does not have the effect of requiring full-time education for excluded pupils. An amendment to require that cannot be made to Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, as that section applies to all children who are not in school, not just those who have been excluded; including, for example, sick children. It would also not be advisable to apply a rather narrow legal meaning of "education" to that particular set of children. Many of the children, particularly the older ones, are seriously disaffected. They will respond to something out of the ordinary to re-engage in mainstream society and education. An increased emphasis on personal and social development,
748
counselling, possibly placement in a further education college for an older child, or with a voluntary provider, can all be valuable activities for an excluded child. Clearly, nobody would want to see any of such activities in any way restricted by an over-narrow legal framework.
The department's statutory guidance will explain in detail the kind of provision that might not easily be defined as "education". It will be much easier to explain that in statutory guidance than to set it out in law. We intend to issue the guidance later this year, after wide consultation with local education authorities and others. We have already informed LEAs that they should be moving towards a full timetable for every child, with a clear focus on reintegration into mainstream schooling wherever possible. The guidance will expand on that. As I have indicated, we expect that to be delivered by 2001.
I now turn to a group of amendments concerned with the arrangements for a parent to appeal against the permanent exclusion of his or her child. In some cases, for example training of appeal panel members and the presence of observers at the hearing, similar considerations apply in relation to both admissions and exclusions appeals.
Amendment No. 187A is intended to remove the parent's right to make representations against exclusions of three days or fewer. The Bill as drafted requires the governors to hold a meeting to which the parents are invited only in the case of exclusions of more than five days. For shorter exclusions the governing body may decide to receive written representations only, and perhaps consider them termly at an ordinary meeting.
The Government consider that that approach places a minimal burden on governors while allowing them to keep under review the head teacher's use of short fixed period exclusions.
Amendments Nos. 194A and 197A are intended to reduce the amount of time that excluded pupils are out of school and not learning. I am entirely in accord with the desire of the noble Baroness to speed up the appeals process as much as possible. Indeed, the Bill as currently drafted explicitly requires the LEA to have regard to the desirability of securing that an appeal is heard without delay.
Where parents are sure that they wish to appeal against a permanent exclusion there is nothing to stop them doing so immediately. In some cases, however, parents will wish to seek advice from others before reaching a decision as to whether to appeal. The Government consider that reducing the time limit from 15 to 10 school days might place too much pressure on parents when they are making that important decision.
I turn to Amendment No. 197A. We have already set LEAs a challenging timetable for setting up panels to hear appeals against permanent exclusions. While we would, of course, encourage those panels to hear their appeals as quickly as possible, we do not believe that it would be practicable to reduce the timetable any further in every case. In the light of what I have said, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, will feel able not to move her amendments.

749
I turn now to the government amendments. I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 198A, 222A, 222B, 223A and 226A. The amendments respond to concerns raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Archer who fears that too large a number of observers can be intimidating for parents and that a restriction on observers would emphasise the independence of the appeal.
The amendments restrict the right of observers at admission and exclusion appeals at appeals hearings relating to children permanently excluded from two or more schools. Under our amendments, a member of the authority or, in the case of admission appeals, a governor of the school concerned, will only be allowed to observe an appeal hearing where the appeal panel so directs. That would allow the appeal panel to hear representations from the parties involved and come to a decision on whether observers should be allowed. We expect the provisions in the Bill to be supported by guidance on the role of observers in the proposed code of practice.
We have also tabled a technical amendment (Amendment No. 223A) to ensure that the right of a single Council on Tribunals member to observe an appeal hearing is worded in the same way in the separate schedules relating to admissions appeals and to exclusion appeals. These amendments do not affect the right of members of the Council on Tribunals to observe an appeal hearing.
Government Amendments Nos. 196A, 219B and 219C concern the arrangements for hearing appeals against decisions on exclusions and admissions. They are necessary to cover those, I hope, rare occasions when a member of the appeal panel is taken ill or dies during the course of the consideration of the appeal. The amendments apply only to panels with five members. They allow the panel to continue its consideration of an appeal provided that three or more members of the panel remain, and the panel continues to include at least one lay member and at least one member with knowledge or experience in education or who is a parent of a registered pupil at a school.
These amendments will reduce the number of instances where the untimely death or illness of a panel member delays the conclusion of an appeal or, particularly in the case of multiple admission appeals, requires the relevant authority to reconstitute the panel and rehear cases. Such a delay to the outcome of an appeal hearing is not in the best interests of the children concerned.
Finally, Amendment No. 198B removes from the primary legislation details of the factors that must be taken into account by an appeal panel when deciding whether to direct that a permanently excluded pupil be reinstated. As we intend to replicate those provisions in new guidance, to which appeal panels will be required to have regard, that level of detail is more appropriately covered in guidance.
Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reassuring words about how the Government view the education of children who are, as it were,
750
thrown out of school. I know my honourable friends from the Liberal Democrat Benches raised that issue in another place. They, too, will be pleased to hear what the Minister said today.
I cast my mind back some, perhaps 10, years. I could not help thinking that many authorities dealt rather more effectively with excluded children than we may do today. I found it distressing to note that it may be a couple of years before we return all over the country to some of the best practice that happened in local authorities in the past.
It is not easy, because it is not cheap to deal with the education of excluded children. The terrible mess that we have got into over this can be put down partly to the fact that school budgets have been cut over the years. This is the area that has been cut in the past. Many children have created many problems with a great deal of extra expense for us in other areas of our daily lives. It is a sad reflection on what has happened to education in recent years.
I strongly believe it is because of the cuts that local authorities were forced to make that these types of children did not receive the education and help that they required when they could not be maintained within schools. It is quite clear that some of the practices that operated years ago were very effective, and it would be nice if we could get back to that situation sooner than the year 2001. I urge the Minister to press for these things to be done sooner if that is possible, in which case we should all be very pleased.
Baroness Blatch: I should like to endorse that point and then return to something that the Minister said when speaking to these amendments: namely, that full-time education would be guaranteed for all children who are excluded over a certain period. Of course it would be costly—those are the words of the Minister—and these matters will be considered by the comprehensive spending review. We do not yet know what that review will throw up? We do not know whether it will throw up billions of pounds or something less. Nor do we know the priorities for spending that money when it comes on stream. My question is very specific and I think it is important. The policy is actually fixed in concrete and a date has been set for it. Therefore, can the noble Baroness say that, whatever amount comes out of the comprehensive spending review and whatever may be the share for education, this particular policy will pre-empt any savings? In other words, the money will be found and will be given to LEAs to meet their obligations in order to deliver quite specifically this pledge by the year 2001.
Baroness Blackstone: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for her comments. She is absolutely right that 10 or 15 years ago nothing like the number of children were being excluded from schools as is currently the case. This Government are determined to bring these numbers down. I agree that it is rather disappointing that it will take a little while but, frankly, we have to be realistic. She is of course right to say that school budgets were cut in the past and this particular area was not perhaps given the priority that it should have had.

751
Of course the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, is right: I cannot give a guarantee as to what the comprehensive spending review will throw up, and any help that she can give me in this area in negotiating with the Treasury will be welcome. This is of course a very high priority area, because, if we do not solve the problem, there will be a large number of uneducated or semi-educated young people who in the end will not be employable, quite apart from the fact that they may well get into serious trouble with the law.
Baroness Blatch: I am afraid that the noble Baroness has missed my point. I do not think there will be a large number of uneducated people, because in law there will be a very specific obligation on local authorities to deliver. They will not have any choice. There is no flexibility built in here. If 2001 is the year by which every child who has been excluded in the particular circumstances set out in the Bill must be provided with full-time education, and if the money does not come from the comprehensive spending review, it will be pre-empted money from the local authorities.
I am simply saying that if the money is not thrown up by the comprehensive spending review or if the allocation is not made by the Treasury via the Department for Education from the spending review, does that mean that local education authorities will have their own expenditure pre-empted in order to fulfil their legal obligation under the Bill by the year 2001?
Baroness Blackstone: I think that perhaps the noble Baroness should be a bit more confident about what I have said. The Social Exclusion Unit has reported on this. This is an area to which the Government are totally committed, and somehow or other the money will be found. I am absolutely convinced that this is a very high priority and it is an area where the government of which the noble Baroness was a member signally failed. We were left with very large numbers of exclusions, compared with earlier years, and young people were not being adequately supported.
Baroness Blatch: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness because she has given me the answer that I wanted: that the money will be found from somewhere. I thank her.
6.45 p.m.
Baroness David: There have been quite a number of contributions to this group of amendments and I would like to thank the noble Lords, Lord Swinfen and Lord Elton, for the support that they have given. It is very good to hear others with teaching experience speaking about this particular area. I am also grateful to the right reverend Prelate, who commented on Amendment No. 235. I certainly agree with him that referral units are necessary and are often extremely good. My worry was that quite often pupils were not sent to them and so those children were not receiving the education they should have been receiving. Whether this is work experience or a place in a referral unit does not really matter. If they are excluded from school, we want them to be somewhere, getting some sort of education.
752
I was very cheered by what my noble friend said about Amendment No. 235. I accept that my amendment may be technically incorrect, but it is encouraging to hear that the Government are taking very seriously the point that children should have proper full-time education if they are excluded. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, I am sorry that we cannot be sure of it happening until the year 2001, but after all that will be a great improvement on what is happening now. We hope to move towards that provision so that all children receive full-time education if they are excluded—a move that may have to be made by degrees. I should like to have my noble friend's reassurance about that.
I think that my noble friend had a certain sympathy for my other amendments. However, I shall have to read her objections to Amendment No. 186, which I shall do very carefully. I was rather surprised by the response to Amendment No. 187 and also to the amendments put by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that 15 days is too short a time to reintegrate pupils. I should not have thought that was the case, but I suppose I must take it that it is. It seems to me that steps should be taken immediately a child is excluded. Perhaps we could make progress with this situation which, as my noble friend said, really got much worse under the previous government.
The Minister is relying a great deal on guidance. Guidance, as we discussed earlier, is all right but it does not have to be regarded; and that, I think, is the worry about her response to some of the amendments I moved. I will read what she has said and, if need be, I will come back at a later stage. I was particularly pleased with my noble friend's response to Amendment No. 235, which is very important indeed. I am grateful to her for that. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 186.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 187 not moved.]
Clause 62 agreed to.
Clause 63 [Exclusion of pupils: duty to inform parents, etc.]:
Baroness Byford Baroness Byford had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 187A:
Page 49, line 6, at end insert—
("() Where the exclusion referred to in subsection (1) above is for a period of more than three school days, the head teacher shall, in addition to the matters referred to in that subsection, inform the relevant person—").
The noble Baroness said: I thank the Minister for her response. As I said at the beginning, the whole purpose of this group of amendments is to speed up some of the processes that are laid down in the Bill. I think all those who have spoken are very aware that we do not wish to have children excluded from schools, or to have them excluded for as short a time as possible. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. Perhaps I might also say to the noble Baroness, Lady David, that I am a little disappointed that we cannot speed up the appeals committee; the review. I also will read Hansard.
[Amendment No. 187A not moved.]
Clause 63 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 188 not moved.]
Clause 64 [Functions of governing body in relation to excluded pupils]:
[Amendment No. 189 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 189A and 189B:
Page 49, line 40, leave out from ("representations") to end of line 41 and insert ("about the exclusion made to the governing body—

(i) by the relevant person in pursuance of section 63(1)(c) or (2)(b), or

(ii) by the local education authority;").

Page 49, line 42, leave out ("the relevant person") and insert ("each of the following, namely—

(i) the relevant person, and

(ii) an officer of the local education authority nominated by the authority,").

On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 190 to 191A not moved.]
Lord Archer of Sandwell Lord Archer of Sandwell moved Amendment No. 192:
Page 50, line 10, at end insert ("and the grounds on which it is based").
The noble and learned Lord said: It may be convenient for the Committee to discuss Amendment No. 193 with this amendment. Earlier my noble friend Lord Whitty spoke to Amendment No. 193A and it may be convenient to discuss that with this grouping.
These amendments address a narrow point, but they seek to introduce a requirement which is at the very foundation of natural justice. This part of the Bill, as we know, deals with exclusions. It is a difficult enough subject in all conscience. The Council on Tribunals has found it necessary, in successive annual reports, to criticise the provisions which previously existed. I welcome the Government seeking, in this Bill, to address some of those problems.
I hope that the omissions that these amendments seek to rectify were simply because it was intended to deal with the matter subsequently in regulations, but I believe that it is of sufficient importance to appear on the face of the Bill.
Clause 63(1)(b) says that, where the head teacher decides to exclude a pupil, he must inform the parents or other relevant person of the reasons for the exclusion. Quite right, too. It would be monstrous if a child were excluded and those concerned were not told the reasons. When the governing body is informed of the exclusion, it is under a duty to decide whether to uphold the exclusion or to order reinstatement. Yet the Bill imposes no obligation to give the reasons why the governing body agrees or disagrees with the head teacher.
One would have thought, in any event, that those most concerned were entitled to know the reasons for an exclusion and what subsequently happened about it. The case goes further. If there is an appeal, the matter may have to be considered by an appeal panel. The appeal is specifically stated to be against the decision of
754
the governing body—not, the Committee will observe, against the initial decision of the head teacher to exclude. Is the appeal panel not to have the advantage of knowing the reasons for the decision against which it is hearing an appeal? So far, I believe that my noble friends agree with me, as my noble friend Lady Blackstone has set down Amendment No. 193A and my noble friend Lord Whitty has spoken in support of it.
I am grateful to my noble friends for taking note of my amendments and conceding 50 per cent. of them. I am bound to say that that is a higher response rate from the Front Bench than Back Benchers have been accustomed to in the past.
Amendment No. 193A would require the governing body to tell parents or other relevant persons the reasons for upholding the decision to exclude a pupil, if they uphold it. My gratitude to my noble friend Lady Blackstone is augmented by the fact that she took the trouble of writing to me to explain what she proposed to do. I hope it will not appear churlish, in the light of such generosity, if I point out that it meets only half of my amendments. I was proposing that the governors should be required, if conversely they overturn the decision of the head teacher and direct that the pupil should be reinstated, to tell the head teacher the reasons for their conclusion.
Earlier we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, of the concerns of the staff at the possible return of a pupil who has been excluded. It is a matter of great concern if a thoroughly disruptive pupil is permitted to return to the school, notwithstanding the decision of the head teacher to exclude him. No doubt, there will be occasions when parents and child will demonstrate an element of triumphalism: "There you are, you see, we were treated unjustly".
Surely the governors could be required to say that they were not persuaded that the allegations against the pupil were true; that they think there may be room for a mistake; or that they think there was an over-reaction and they agree that the complaint was justified, but they think that the child could be offered counselling and, in the light of that, could be given one more chance.
It would be important for everyone to know the governors' reasons. The staff would have to live with the decision. There have been occasions when, in the case of an exclusion panel, the staff have been so far affronted by a decision to reinstate a child that they have discussed strike action. I am sure that my noble friends will agree that it is of the greatest importance that all the decisions provided for in this part of the Bill, at every stage, should carry authority and be accepted.
While I thank my noble friends for their generous response to my amendments, I hope that they will feel able to extend their response one stage further. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: As my noble and learned friend said, it probably would have been more convenient if the government amendment were considered here. I shall refer to it in my remarks. These amendments concern circumstances in which the governing body must give

755
reasons for its decisions on exclusions. I am grateful to my noble and learnd friend and the Council on Tribunals for bringing this to our attention.
As currently drafted, the Bill requires governors to notify parents of their decision, but the governors do not have to give reasons. The government amendment, as I have said, rectifies that omission to the extent that it requires the governing body to set out a statement of its reasons for upholding a permanent exclusion when notifying the parents of the outcome of its consideration of the case.
My noble and learned friend's amendments go further than that in two respects. They place a requirement on the governing body to give the parents reasons for upholding a decision to exclude a pupil for a fixed period, as well as permanently, and requires the governing body to give reasons when it is directing reinstatement—in other words, overturning the initial judgment as my noble and learned friend has just mentioned.
We do not consider it necessary to put this on the face of the Bill. While it is clearly the practice for the governing body to give reasons for all its decisions, and in practice it is inconceivable that the governors would not tell the head teacher why they had overturned an exclusion, the reason this is dealt with on the face of the Bill is because it is only in the case of a decision to exclude permanently that there is a statutory right of appeal for the parent. That is why we have tabled just this one amendment to the schedule. However, we intend to cover the other aspects of notification in the guidance, to which governing bodies and others will legally be required to have regard. In practice, it would be inconceivable that the guidance and practice of governing bodies would not require them, for example, to tell the head teachers why they had overturned an exclusion.
On the understanding that those points would be covered by guidance, and that the main point as to whether there is a statutory right of appeal is dealt with by the government amendment, I hope my noble and learned friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: Of course, I am grateful to my noble friend for meeting me perhaps a little over half way. He has persuaded me that he has gone a little over the dividing line. I am grateful for that.
As for providing an appeal when a child is excluded for a fixed period, I say at once that that was an oversight. I drafted my amendment in something of a hurry, late at night, and I had forgotten that that would be a consequence. That is not what was in my mind. However, it seems to me that if the governors reinstate a child whom the headteacher has purported to exclude he is entitled to know why. Although in 999 cases out of a 1,000 they would tell the head teacher why they disagree, sometimes relations are strained or the school is unhappy. Sometimes governors are unreasonable, but not for the most part. Why not provide for such circumstances? I can see no reason.
My noble friend says that the issue will be dealt with in guidance. We have already had several exchanges about the status of the guidance. I would much rather
756
provision appeared on the face of the Bill, but at this stage and in view of what my noble friend was kind enough to say, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7 p.m.
[Amendment No. 193 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 193A and 193B:
Page 50, line 19, at end insert—
("(ia) the reasons for the decision,").
Page 50, line 38, leave out ("section 65") and insert ("sections 65 and (Exclusion of pupils: guidance)").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 64, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 65 agreed to.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 193C:
After Clause 65, insert the following new clause—
EXCLUSION OF PUPILS: GUIDANCE
(".—(1) This section applies to any functions of—

(a) the head teacher or the governing body of a maintained school,

(b) a local education authority, or

(c) an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 2 of Schedule 18,

conferred by or under any of sections 62 to 65 and Schedule 18.
(2) In discharging any such function, such a person or body shall have regard to any guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 194 not moved.]
Schedule 18 [Appeals against exclusion of pupils]:
[Amendment No. 194A not moved.]
Lord Archer of Sandwell Lord Archer of Sandwell moved Amendment No. 195:
Page 176, line 27, at end insert—
("() The panel shall be chaired by a barrister or solicitor of at least 5 years' standing or by a person having a 5–year qualification (construed in accordance with section 71 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990).").
The noble and learned Lord said: The Committee may find it convenient if we also discuss Amendments Nos. 196, 197, 220, 221 and 223. Perhaps your Lordships will permit me to reverse the order of my amendments and speak first to Amendment No. 196. It is easier to argue from the general to the particular.
Amendment No. 196 virtually speaks for itself. Being a member of an appeal panel is not the same as attending a committee meeting, although one sometimes meets members of local education authorities who believe that it is. It is concerned with a judicial process. It is concerned with ensuring that the parents or other relevant persons are given a proper opportunity to state their case and that the head teacher, the governing body, the LEA and everyone concerned shall know the case which they have to meet and be given a fair chance to answer it. It is concerned with identifying the issues

757
which fall to be decided. The Bill now helps to clarify these issues. But I have visited exclusion panels which failed to keep separate the question whether the conduct complained of took place and the question of whether if it did take place exclusion was the appropriate reaction. The friend who assists the parent or relevant person is not always a skilled advocate. I once heard a well-meaning friend of the appellant say to a panel, "I ask you to believe the boy when he says that the incident never happened and I suggest that he has learnt his lesson and you should give him another chance".
Being a member of a panel is concerned with procedural rights, some of them now underpinned by the Human Rights Act. If those who are members of the panel are to address all those tasks so as to do justice they need to be trained. Perhaps I may say in passing that Amendment No. 220 addresses the same question in relation to admission appeals.
The problem is that there is no one system of panels with a national authority or a national president. There are more than 600 LEAs or other governing bodies. Some of them address the question of training in a serious and responsible way. Some are less conscious of the need. My noble friend may know that last year the Council on Tribunals distributed a questionnaire among all the LEAs in this country in respect of the provisions they made for training. The results were most enlightening. Some LEAs reported that they worked very hard at training. At the other end of the scale were those who said that they did not see the need and did nothing. Right off the scale were those who did not take the trouble to reply. But most interesting of all were the substantial number who said, "We would like to do better, but we are not sure how to go about it. Can you please advise us?".
The Tribunal's Committee of the Judicial Studies Board earlier this year invited a number of people to a course on training for trainers. Some LEAs responded. I believe that some would have attended the course but were unable to do so because the LEAs concerned felt unable to provide the slender resources involved. That is going to require serious commitment by the department together with the tribunals committee.
I can speak for the Council on Tribunals, which has only its advice to offer but which will be happy to provide that. I should be grateful to hear from my noble friend about the department's thinking on this whole problem.
I turn to Amendment No. 195. Of all the concerns which the Council on Tribunals has on the Bill this is probably the most serious. It has appeared in a whole succession of the council's annual reports. An appeal to determine whether a child should be permanently excluded from his or her school is perhaps the nearest analogy to penal proceedings among statutory hearings. The panel needs to establish whether the complaint is well founded and, if so, whether exclusion is the appropriate reaction. Again, the parents and the child have a series of procedural rights, some of them underpinned by the Human Rights Act. Equally, it is
758
essential that the head teacher and staff shall have the opportunity of putting their case, together with the governors and the LEA.
All those belong among the occupational concerns of the lawyer. I have heard exclusion appeals chaired by people without legal training. Some were conducted impeccably and I was convinced that justice was done. In others, I have seen mistakes which called aloud for judicial review. My noble friend Lady David mentioned Professor Neville Harris, to whom I ventured to advert last week for showing us some of the provisional conclusions from the research which he is currently carrying out with Miss Karen Eaton. They have observed more than 40 exclusion appeals in eight different centres and received answers to questionnaires from nearly 300 parents, more than 100 panel members, more than 100 head teachers, 60 school governors and more than half of all the LEAs in the country. They conclude that a lawyer chairman would help to reinforce the independence of the panel and would be more effective in giving reasons.
Chairing a judicial hearing is not like chairing a committee meeting. I do not suggest that the special skills called for can never be found in a lay person. I say that they are more likely to be found among lawyers. Sometimes there is a qualified lawyer from the executive department of the local council to guide the chairman, but there is no guarantee of that. Even if there is, the situation is not similar to that in a magistrates' court where not only is there an experienced and qualified clerk, but also an experienced magistrate in the chair. Here, panel members may sit very infrequently or have little experience of sitting at all, let alone of taking the chair.
I have a feeling of déjàa vu. A few weeks ago, we had this debate in relation to social security appeal tribunals during our proceedings on the Social Security Bill. On that occasion, the Government listened and took note and Ministers were persuaded. I cannot believe that my noble friend is less disposed to listen than her colleagues in government.
Turning to Amendment No. 197, this amendment again addresses a problem which members of the Council on Tribunals have encountered in the course of their visits to exclusion panels. It is important that whoever is to chair the panel should know well in advance that he or she will be in the chair. The chairman must have in mind what to say to the parties about the order of proceedings, whom to invite to speak first, whom to invite to ask questions, the order of submissions in summing up—all that. It is usually sensible for the chairman to go through the papers with the clerk or legal adviser prior to the hearing.
When that is said, it is hardly likely to provoke disagreement; but it does not always happen. We have encountered occasions where, when the panel is assembled at five minutes to two for a two o'clock hearing, the panel members proceed to choose who is to take the chair. My amendment is designed to ensure that someone shall be nominated well in advance of the hearing. If Amendment No. 195 is accepted, it will be obvious who is to chair the hearing; but I tabled

759
Amendment No. 197 as a fall-back position since it addresses a separate problem. Amendment No. 221 addresses the same point in relation to admission appeals.
Finally, turning to Amendment No. 223, this amendment addresses a provision which is found for the first time in this Bill. Paragraph 12 of Schedule 24, dealing with admission appeals, provides that a member of the governing body of the school may attend as of right as an observer. In the case of an appeal under paragraph 2 of the schedule, that is, an appeal against arrangements made by the governing body, I assume the governing body will probably attend anyway as a party to the hearing. Where the appeal is under paragraph 1, however, that is, an arrangement made by the LEA, I appreciate the governing body may have no statutory right to be present.
What troubles the Council on Tribunals is, where parents are confronted by a room full of people, they may be less relaxed and less able to state their case than where there are fewer people present. It was that which prompted me to table my amendment. Although I appreciated that one cannot always exclude an observer from the governors, a compromise was possibly to let it depend upon the consent of the appellants. My noble friend has produced an alternative arrangement and it is one which I think I accept. For that reason I do not propose to pursue this amendment further.
After that group, I can say, as I think one of Mark Twain's characters said, "I couldn't set out such a string as that if I never got to glory". I beg to move Amendment No. 195.
Lord Dormand of Easington: I wonder whether my noble and learned friend could help a non-legal person like myself on two matters which arise on Amendment No. 195? I see that "five years" is mentioned on two occasions, so there must be some significance in that. I believe three years would be adequate for this purpose, that is to say, chairing a panel. Nor do I have the faintest idea what Section 71 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 means, although perhaps your Lordships are all very familiar with it.
A second, perhaps more important, question is whether my noble and learned friend can tell me, from his long and very esteemed experience in the legal profession, what would be the supply of barristers or solicitors with that qualification or standing. The last thing the Minister would want is a delay in settling some of these matters.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: As to the first matter which my noble friend raised, we had to have some criterion of who would be a qualified lawyer for this purpose. I settled on someone who would be entitled to appear in one of the higher courts, but I would not go to the stake on that. If someone were to say a three-year qualification was sufficient, I would be easily persuaded.
760
As to whether there will be a sufficient supply of lawyers, that is a matter which has troubled us and it may be one of the matters which is troubling the department. Normally it ought not to be difficult for a local education authority to find a local solicitor who is able to give one afternoon of his time for an appeal of this kind. There are not a very large number of appeals; they are not happening every day, as my noble friend knows. I cannot believe that there is great difficulty in obtaining someone with suitable qualifications; but I await to hear what my noble friend says about this before forming a definite conclusion.
Lord Swinfen: I would support the noble and learned Lord's group of amendments. It is quite obvious that these appeal panels should be run properly. Throughout this section of the Bill, however, we have been hearing of a great many people who are excluded—excluded probably because they have special education needs. I can see nothing on the face of the Bill that says the panel has to have among its members anyone with expertise and knowledge on special education needs. I would have thought that the process of excluding a pupil is the first stage in making certain that the pupil's education is carried on in a satisfactory manner elsewhere or, if the appeal against exclusion is granted, in that school.
We have been told that 20 per cent. of pupils in schools may have special education needs and that a high proportion of that group become excluded. I believe that there should therefore be provision within the Bill for a member of the panel having expertise in special education needs.
Lord Tope: May I start with a point of agreement with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, on the importance of training. Probably all of us would accept that in important work like this it is vital that people should be properly trained to understand the issues and the process. To that extent I would agree with Amendment No. 196 although, were it to be pursued, I would suggest that the time for the training is after the appointment but before the members sit on the panel. In practice, that is usually the more appropriate time. It is certainly the case in local authorities, which train councillors after they become councillors but before they undertake the duties for which they are specifically trained.
That leads me on to my next point, which is where I begin to have considerable difficulty with what is being proposed here. Local authorities have a huge number of appeal panels of one sort or another, whether dealing with housing benefit, council tax review or a range of matters under social services, many of which are at least as difficult as school exclusions and quite often dealing with the same people. Local education departments have a range of appeal panels on school allocations, and so on. A principle of all of those panels, which from my understanding of Schedule 18 is repeated here, is that they are essentially lay panels, are advised by professional officers and should certainly include professional legal advice. Having proper access to proper advice for what is essentially a lay panel is

761
very different from appointing a lawyer to the panel or to chair the panel. Were one to be doing that, one would produce a wholly different aspect of local authority work generally.
I do not think anyone, even the Council of Tribunals, would suggest that every local authority appeal panel, of whatever nature, of whatever title, should necessarily be chaired by a lawyer. If they were to be chairing a body like this, there are certainly other bodies within a local authority, particularly within social services, which would find such chairing necessary. That is wrong and unnecessary. The proper role is that laid down in the schedule for a lay panel, to be properly trained as a lay panel but to be advised by professional advisers, whether they be lawyers, people with expertise and experience in education and, in particular, special education. That is the correct nature of the panel.
I have one final semi-serious point to make. The schedule provides for local authorities to fix the level of remuneration. There has already been some question as to whether we should find lawyers with three years' or five years' experience. My experience of local authority remuneration leads me to believe that no lawyer with any experience will be prepared to act for that sort of money.
That is a semi-serious point. Much more serious is the fact that I believe that Amendment No. 195 changes significantly the nature of this panel and other panels which are operated by local authorities. I believe that that is unnecessary and regrettable.
Baroness Blackstone: I shall deal first with Amendment No. 195 to which my noble and learned friend attached quite a lot of importance. Clearly, the permanent exclusion of pupils has an enormous effect on their lives and those making such decisions need to have the skills necessary to judge whether permanent exclusion is appropriate.
However, as my noble friend Lord Dormand implied, it is extremely important also that the appeal panel members are able to meet at short notice and have the flexibility to meet at a time which is convenient to the parents and those other parties who are entitled to attend the hearing.
We consider that introducing a requirement that the chairman be legally qualified may make it difficult to convene a hearing within the strict time limit which applies in exclusion cases. However, it may help my noble and learned friend if I say that we shall use guidance to emphasise the importance of having a suitably qualified chairman and to emphasise that a legal qualification will often be an advantage. I accept, however, what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said that lay panels of this sort can and should be able to obtain professional legal advice when they need it. I accept also that it may sometimes be rather expensive if all those panels—and there are approximately 1,200 per year—are to be chaired by legally qualified chairmen who may require rather higher fees than lay chairmen.
I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, that ideally we want people with a whole range of expertise, and certainly that must include someone who has a
762
knowledge of education. There may be occasions when it is particularly appropriate to have on those panels someone who has experience of special educational needs and not just education generally. But that will not be necessary in relation to all 1,200 panels which sit. Therefore, I do not believe that it is sensible to include that provision on the face of the Bill. However, I note what the noble Lord said and accept the spirit of it.
I turn now to Amendments Nos. 196 and 220. We recognise the importance of training for appeal panel members and agree that they must be very clear about their roles and responsibilities. Under provisions in the Bill, LEAs and governing bodies will be required to have regard to guidance contained in the statutory code of practice on admissions. Guidance in the code will cover the constitution and procedures to be followed by admission appeals panels. We shall of course consult our partners in education on the draft code and the new guidance on exclusions. The Council on Tribunals will be one of the bodies which the Secretary of State consults.
We expect the guidance on both admissions and exclusions to stress the importance of training for panel members and to say that LEAs and other admission authorities should ensure that members have had that training before they serve. We know from the council's own research that there is already a great deal of good practice on training but we acknowledge that there are probably areas for improvement. We hope to draw on existing good practice and make improvements where necessary.
My officials are working closely with the Judicial Studies Board to take forward work in that area. The board's recent course on tribunal skills was extremely well attended by education appeal members. Almost half the places went to educational panel members funded by my department. We have earmarked funding to look at the training for admission appeals panels and we are discussing with the Judicial Studies Board how best we should address the training needs of panel members. That may be through regional training events which my department will organise or through the development of a training module to be used by LEAs and governing bodies.
The initiatives that we are taking and the money that we are putting into training for panel members demonstrates the importance that we attach to it. We believe that that is a better approach than more statutory requirements on the face of the Bill.
Similarly, Amendments Nos. 197 and 221 would have the effect of requiring LEAs or governing bodies to nominate the person to be the chairman of an appeals panel which hears both exclusion and admissions appeals. The Government plan to use guidance to cover the appointment of certain panel members to act as chairmen. That will state that in the case of exclusion appeals the LEA should appoint the chairman and in the case of admission appeals the appointment should be made by the admissions authority.
I turn now to Amendment No. 223. The Government very much sympathise with the intention behind this amendment. We know that the Council on Tribunals is

763
concerned that too large a number of observers can be intimidating. But in the light of those concerns, as I have said already, I have tabled and moved a number of amendments which would restrict the right of observers. I hope that my noble and learned friend will accept that that has been done and that that is adequate.
We considered whether the attendance of LEA or governing body observers should be limited to cases where the parties agree. However, we concluded that it may not be in the interests of justice to give a party an absolute right of veto. I hope that in view of those government amendments, my noble and learned friend will not wish to pursue his amendments.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: One and two-halves out of four is not a bad score. I am quite grateful to my noble friend.
I take the point which my noble friend the Minister and my noble friend Lord Dormand made on Amendment No. 195 that a lawyer may not always be available at short notice. However, my experience is that there are not that large a number of appeals against exclusions in any particular locality. I agree that there may be a different problem in relation to admissions appeals at certain times of the year. I take that point.
I take the point also about resources made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend. For those pragmatic reasons, I do not wish to press this matter, certainly at this stage. That does not mean that I accept the objection in principle of the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
The fact that there are other local authority panels which are normally not chaired by a lawyer does not seem to me very persuasive for two reasons. First, most of the panels which he mentioned are for quite different purposes and operate in a very different way.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Tope: I accept that I referred to such matters as council tax and housing benefit review. Of course, I would accept that if that was what the noble and learned Lord had in mind. However, without actually mentioning them by name, I alluded to quite a few panels within the area of social services. I said that quite often they would be dealing with the same child and the same sort of issues. I suggest that they are at least as difficult, as important and as complex as those dealing with exclusions. Indeed, child abuse cases have been mentioned in this context. I have sat on some of these panels. They are both most difficult and heart rending. I do not wish to suggest that they are in any way less important to the future of the child than an exclusion panel.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: I do not suggest that they are not difficult, that they are not heart rending, and that they are not of great importance to the future of the child. However, I believe that a case conference is a rather different kind of proceeding, but this may not be the moment to debate that aspect of the matter. The other point that the noble Lord made was to say that because you cannot do it for everyone you should not do it for anyone. Similarly, I am not sure that that is a terribly good argument. Nevertheless, it is not something that I intend to pursue tonight.
764
I totally agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. In a suitable case—that is, a case where it is appropriate—there should be a member on the board who has experience and expertise in the matter of special educational needs. The Council on Tribunals has actually gone further. It has suggested that the sensible way to deal with exclusions would normally be to allow a special educational needs tribunal to deal with them. That would ensure that there was a legal chairman. Therefore, I go along with a great deal of what the noble Lord said, but I shall not pursue Amendment No. 195 any further.
As regards Amendment No. 196, I am grateful for what my noble friend the Minister said about a statutory code of practice and about guidance that emphasises the need for training. I am also grateful for her undertaking that the Council on Tribunals will be fully consulted when the training arrangements are put in place. Of course work with the Judicial Studies Board, funded by the department, is of great importance. I cannot really ask for more than that, except to say that there is no obvious reason why this provision should not be on the face of the Bill, but I do not seek to insist upon it.
I turn now to Amendment No. 197. As what I wanted to see on the face of the Bill will be the subject of guidance, I shall not take the matter any further. Similarly, my noble friend the Minister has virtually met the point that I was trying to make by way of Amendment No. 223. I am grateful to my noble friend for her very generous response. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 196 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 196A:
Page 177, line 3, at end insert—
("() Where, at any time after an appeal panel consisting of five members have begun to consider an appeal, any of the members—

(a) dies, or

(b) becomes unable through illness to continue as a member,

the panel may continue with their consideration and determination of the appeal so long as the number of the remaining members is not less than three and the requirements of sub-paragraph (3) are satisfied.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 197, 197A and 198 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 198A and 198B:
Page 178, line 23, at beginning insert ("if the panel so direct,").
Page 178, leave out lines 30 to 40.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 199 and 200 not moved.]
Schedule 18, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Haskel: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving this Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage begins again not before 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Savings
7.34 p.m.
Lord Patten Lord Patten rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they are making in developing their policies to promote savings.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very glad to have the opportunity to question the Government in this short debate as I am most concerned at their apparent failures in some key areas of the promotion of saving in this country. In doing so, I should declare my interest at Charterhouse plc., now a wholly-owned subsidiary of CCF (Credit Commercial de France).
Generally, since the last general election the Government's handling of the economy has been sound. It may surprise some noble Lords to hear that remark. However, I have never been one to oppose for the sake of opposing, but perhaps that is because I spent 18 years in the other place on the Government Benches, or supporting them, so I did not get into the habit. Nevertheless, I may learn it in this House. It is not surprising that, by and large, the Government's handling of the economy has been sound, as their economic policies have the soundest possible foundations based on their economic inheritance from the last Conservative administration and the three that preceded it.
Indeed, it seems to me very lacking in generosity and uncharacteristic on the part of the right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer never to have recognised explicitly—at least as far as I know from the record—the great inheritance he received from my right honourable friend Mr. Kenneth Clarke, one of the greatest post-war Chancellors. Where is the recognition? For that matter, where are the 364 economists who, early in the 1980s, signed that infamous round- robin letter condemning Tory prudence and Tory privatisation, the policy which is now a world economic orthodoxy? I am glad to be able to tell the House that, in my view, no one has been more orthodox than new Labour in its adoption of so many old Tory economic policies. I congratulate it.
Upon such foundations the Government can now afford to be radical in areas where the previous Conservative Government did not have that opportunity or chose not to be radical. I give two examples. The first is national savings; the second is capital gains tax. Both areas are in urgent need of reform as the Government develop their policies to promote savings and a rational approach to savings.
The late right honourable gentleman Mr. J. Enoch Powell was surely absolutely right when, in his book, Saving in a Free Society, published in 1960—in my view a classic work—he wrote,
"that National Savings have now remarkably little connections with saving".
One can hear that political thinker saying those words. I am told that his birthday falls on 16th June; indeed, that may well be national political thinkers' day in future years. But if what J. Enoch Powell wrote in 1960 was true, how much more is it the case in 1998?
The idea that national savings somehow equal the meritorious activities of the thrifty and the deserving poor accumulating some savings via self-denial, has not been a reality since the inter-war years. I must tell the House that I believe that national savings are now redundant. They do not help the poor any more; neither do they help the Treasury in any significant way in funding the public sector borrowing requirement. There are much better instruments available for doing so, as the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench knows. Nor, as distinguished economists such as Mr. Richard Jeffery have argued, is it necessary any longer for the Treasury to use national savings as a policy tool, by making the rates so attractive as to soak up loose money. The Treasury now recognises that this will not affect liquidity in any way; rather it simply moves money around the chess board from one sort of savings to another.
There is a myriad of ways of saving. National savings are expensive to administer. Ministers have been good enough to give me figures showing that in the financial year just ended the running costs of national savings amounted to what seems the huge sum of £175 million a year, including a Civil Service pay bill of about £80 million. Just imagine what the right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer could do with such a sum, scratching around as he is at the moment, in his comprehensive spending review, to try to save much smaller sums of money here, there and everywhere.
National savings are an archaic hangover. They are redundant. They should be allowed to wither on the vine and be scrapped. Talking of scrapping, why do not the Government allow the private sector to scrap over these funds and in so doing save the taxpayer £175 million per year—all that money being spent in the past year to raise for the Government just £1 billion which is the predicted yield in the year 1998–99?
The same goes for capital gains tax. It is never too late to say sorry. I am sorry that it was a Conservative Government who introduced that tax in the dying days of the 1959–64 administration. I believe that capital gains tax is wrong in principle. It is applied to money which has already been taxed at least once and which will probably be taxed again at a later stage via inheritance tax. I believe also that capital gains tax is wrong in practice. The £1.1 billion it raised in the past year would be multiplied many times over if the disincentives to saving and re-investment inherent in it were to be removed and the money left to cascade through the system.
Noble Lords will remember that back in the early 1980s old Labour used to look askance at Tory Chancellors cutting the top rate of personal income tax. But one has to consider the huge bonus that has been produced for the Treasury. The money has multiplied time after time. It has produced buoyant revenues that will allow the Chancellor shortly to run the economy at a surplus. New Labour should not look askance at the opportunities presented to carry off exactly the same trick as regards capital gains tax for the benefit of the national good.
I have recognised previously that the Government have a strong mandate for reform. They have clear objectives on investment and growth. They now need to recognise the golden opportunity that the reduction and eventual abolition of capital gains tax would give to mobilise savings and thus encourage longer term and higher risk investment. The Government do not seem to realise that the high headline rate of capital gains tax has acted as a positive disincentive for investors and managers thinking of investing not only their effort but also their savings in higher risk businesses. We need to mobilise those savings by engendering a virtuous cycle of saving, subsequent risk taking, subsequent wealth creation, and then the re-investment of success.
We all have our sources. It is not just Labour spin doctors who have their sources. I am told by my sources that the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister has some private sympathy with the views I have just expressed. I have been told that the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister regards capital gains tax as a "political" tax which is wrong but difficult to remove because of the politics of envy that might be engendered. I hope that the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister and his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and others in the Administration will take a long, hard, radical look at capital gains tax in the interests of sustained economic growth via investment. Radical measures are needed. I look forward with interest to hearing the speeches that are to follow. I look forward with the greatest interest of all to hearing the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, who is to reply to the debate and who is of course a well known radical.
7.44 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Patten for his most illuminating speech. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, has the great advantage over me of knowing what he is talking about. He is thus able to make suggestions. I shall confine myself to asking the Minister some questions.
I am interested in where the Government find themselves in their internal debate on savings and to what extent they have developed opinions as to where they should be going. What are their feelings on flexibility? Most of the discussions we have had in previous debates have related to what one might call fixed saving, such as pensions and building up money for old age to pay for possible illness in old age. These are savings that people generally do not have recourse to at an earlier stage. Someone can fall seriously ill and still not have recourse to money that he or she has tucked away for a pension fund. Their child may need a large amount of money to help him or her over a problem, but his parents cannot dig into their pension fund. Money that they have put aside in that way is allocated to just one liability, that of old age. However, the person in question may not attain old age.
To my mind there are clear disadvantages in focusing too heavily on fixed investment, not least the matter of the poverty trap. As this Government and others improve the benefits available to people who have not saved, it becomes harder and harder to compensate
768
people who have made the effort to save, particularly those at the lower levels of income. They may have deprived themselves and their families of much good in their lifetimes but may not benefit from that in the end.
I hope that when the Government talk of encouraging savings they will focus on savings that are more flexible even if they are long-term savings, and that they will allow at least some part of them to be released when more immediate problems threaten. In a way that is a form of saving which has an additional benefit for the economy in that such savings are likely to be spent when the economy is in recession and at a time when it is generally helpful for savings to be spent. That is something the Government do in such circumstances. However, savings which are put aside for the long term stay locked up and contribute nothing to initiate the required recovery.
With that theme in mind, I am interested in what role the Government envisage for using savings in economic control. Let us suppose we find ourselves in a post-monetary union world. Many of the levers which the Government have traditionally used to control the economy will no longer apply. Do the Government envisage some measure of control over the flow of savings as the kind of lever they are likely to want to use? Is compulsion on the agenda therefore? Are we still looking at a system where in order to increase the level of saving the Government intend to exercise some degree of compulsion? Do the Government recognise that any form of compulsion inevitably implies some form of guarantee? You cannot compel people to do things without taking responsibility for the outcome. If you compel people to save, you are saying as a government that that saving will be safe; its terms will be fair; and the whole process will be a relatively simple one which will not result in the saver making many mistakes due to not understanding what is going on.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh has been briefed on these points. It is difficult to know whether that is the case with these wide debates. Does the noble Lord agree with me that the way to approach that kind of problem is the way a commercial company would approach it; that is, to concentrate on a single fund, to have it managed by a number of managers to spread the risk and to allow access to the market and expertise, but to get away from a whole multiplicity of different investment schemes and to find oneself looking—if one is compelled to invest—at a single investment fund?
That could have many advantages. It would cost a great deal less than a more complicated system, particularly one involving advertising and marketing. It would offer a great deal in terms of safety, and potentially a much better long-term return, because the fund would be cash-positive in the short and the long term. Investment mangers could therefore invest far more heavily in equities and take a far greater degree of risk with concomitant return than they could if a more laissez-faire strategy were pursued of allowing people to save in whichever way they want.
The whole question of saving, as my noble friend said, is of central importance to the future of the country. There is a great deal to be said for helping

769
people to take risks. It is an approach that we are not good at in this country. Many aspects of our national and financial character have biased us against it. There has been a general feeling that those who have failed in business should not be trusted in business again. The problem does not affect those who set out with new ventures in America. One of the great reasons for their success is that those who have learnt through their failure are allowed the opportunity to succeed in the end.
If we examine the biases in the Pensions Act that we put in place, and in other pieces of legislation, we see that many creeping pieces of legislation on the side have made it much more difficult for institutional fund managers and others to take a risk. It has been difficult for them to take the chance that the return will be greater if they invest in young businesses and new businesses, compared with the safety of investing in the old established companies, knowing that at least the return will not cause heartache under the Pensions Act, or some criticism, and being picked up on in terms of short-term performance. I greatly look forward to the Government's reply.
7.52 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I intervene in the debate as the one woman who is prepared to take on the men on possibly a slightly different footing from the approach that one has been used to. Women are just as good at planning and saving as men.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Patten on his speech; and also the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, whom I have known for many years and whose expertise in this field I have admired. When we were in government, we all followed him because he was so helpful. I wish to thank my noble friend Lord Patten for providing the opportunity for this debate. It will be short because one or two noble Lords have had to remove their names from the list of speakers.
The Government are rightly encouraging people to save. Apart from anything else, it would save the Treasury from having to rob Peter to pay Paul. However, I wish to emphasise the real difficulty that women of my generation all too often encounter.
There are 3 million widows in this country, and over 500 women are left without their partner every day. I declare an interest as an office holder of the National Association of Widows. Many of my widows are war widows. Unless they were very lucky, they are left without anyone to help them plan for the future, let alone save for themselves and possibly their children. This debate is about saving. However, one has to plan in order to save.
Those of use who fought in the war, and are proud to have done so, are now "past our sell by date". We find it difficult to get employment to help us to save. How awful those advertisements are which state, "Only those under 50 need apply". As we know, living expenses increase every year—sometimes every day. We are grateful for the pension awarded to war widows, but wish there were more in the Treasury kitty to help those who are younger than we are.
770
My noble friend Lord Lucas referred to illness. Illness can come upon us at any time in our lives. It can come upon our children, or their husbands if they are lucky enough to have a husband, or upon the whole family. Very often, there are no savings in the bank or at the Post Office. There may be some savings behind a counter—which as I understand it is becoming more and more difficult to cope with. Having to queue up to have money handed over is demeaning in the worst possible way.
We are told to go out to work in order to save, and to plan in that way. But jobs of any sort are not easy to find. If you cannot work, you certainly cannot save. I look forward to hearing the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, as to how those who are older can save enough to help their grandchildren and their children if they are so minded. We all want to pass on money or goods of various sorts in order to help our children. That is very difficult when one has no money with which to do it.
I am lucky enough to work hard for several charities. I almost long to pass round the hat now for some of those charities. They need help with saving, as we all do. I look forward to hearing my noble friends speak. This is an important debate. Perhaps some ideas will emerge from the debate to help people plan their savings in future.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. She made a very important point; namely, the ways in which the Government help individual savers are not necessarily a matter of grand economic policy but are of importance to individuals, to those who need the savings for later life and to improve the quality of their lives. They are the ones most affected by the changes that are made to savings regimes. I do not intend to go into great detail in this debate. I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patten, whose Question we all welcome, in approaching the matter with a rather broad brush. I assure the noble Lord who will reply that I shall not put any questions to him.
The difficulty is that one can never know what effect particular changes in savings regimes will have on the pattern of savings. One cannot accurately predict patterns of consumption and one never knows how the patterns of savings will change if new incentives are provided for a particular form of savings.
I wish to look at the Budget changes in a rather broad perspective. I start with a piece of personal history—now almost ancient history. Just over 25 years ago I launched the Institute for Fiscal Studies. At that time, after a period in the Treasury, I was struck by the mess that the tax system was in. Like Topsy, it just grew, and that is almost inevitable given the nature of our parliamentary procedures. No one seemed to look at the tax system as a whole or at the way in which one tax affects other taxes. There has always been a tendency for a multiplication of exemptions in a way which has neither rhyme nor reason. There would be a special allowance at one stage for the blind but no allowance

771
for the deaf, and it all depended on what a particular parliamentarian put forward, and occasionally on the softness of heart of Treasury Ministers.
The reputation of the Institute for Fiscal Studies was made by the setting up of the Meade Committee, the aim of which was to look at the tax system as a whole. The report of that committee is still influential today; it is regularly quoted. People go back to it as the original source for ideas on tax reforms. It was a very effective committee because it had a brilliant chairman, the great and wonderful Professor Meade, who subsequently won the Nobel prize—though not for his work on tax. I recruited for the committee three rather bright young economists. One was John Flemming, who later became the chief economist at the Bank of England; the second was Mervyn King, who was also connected with the Bank of England; and the third was John Kay, then a very young and bright economist, who has now also established a considerable reputation.
The committee recommended an expenditure tax—not an extension of VAT but an exemption of savings from income tax. Savings were to be exempt; income and savings funded were to be exempt; but when savings were realised, the proceeds would be taxable. Many economists still very much favour that system. It has one great advantage, apart from its intrinsic merits; that is, it goes very much with the political grain. There is always pressure from parliamentarians to create exemptions. Exemptions can be created for particular forms of savings but, provided the proceeds are taxed, a coherent system can emerge. Indeed, that is the way in which a number of reforms have gone. Another advantage of the system would be that all savings would be treated alike. Savings would be neutral in influencing people's choice of the assets they would select, which in itself would improve economic efficiency.
The present system is still anomalous. I looked at the IFS green budget recently: there is a system for pensions; a system for TESSAs and PEPs—and now there are to be ISAs; a system for owner-occupied houses; a system for life assurance; and a system for stocks and shares. But there is a trend towards a certain uniformity of the treatment of savings, and a number of the reforming Chancellors have encouraged that trend. They also go the other way, because they are looking for new sources of revenue, preferably hidden sources. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, was a very distinguished Chancellor who was very interested in tax reform. He moved towards a rationalisation of the system, but in fact he also moved the other way and looked at a hidden source; namely, insurance policies. The present Chancellor has also moved in the general direction, which I think is to be encouraged, but he, too, has looked for hidden sources and has decided to impose a hidden tax on pension funds, which is going in quite the wrong direction. Private pensions were at least a good, classical pattern: exempt when contributions are made and the income taxed, with one anomaly, which is the lump sum. If the Chancellor had wanted to be rational about pensions, he should have started to phase out the tax-free lump sum, but instead he went the wrong way.
772
This process is also consistent with the phasing out of SERPS and the substitution of private pension contributions, which I feel should be compulsory pension contributions, free of tax when the contributions are made. It would almost certainly increase savings among lower income groups more effectively than any other single measure.
What was striking before the Budget was the different treatment of the savings of the better-off who invest in PEPs and TESSAs compared with the savings of those who invest in building societies or liquid bank deposits. That is why I think that, on the whole, ISAs are to be welcomed. They are complicated, but they are a step in the right direction because they will help individuals on lower incomes, even if one does not know exactly what effect they will have. The system of ISAs is not quite an expenditure tax regime; it is not quite the exemption of contributions from income tax and taxation of benefits; it is not the EET but the TEE regime, contributions out of taxed income and then exemptions at the next two stages. At least there is now a certain consistency. It was right to encourage the inclusion of those who could not afford to keep their savings in any account for a long time. Low income families, particularly those with children, need liquid accounts, drawing on them for their varied needs and being unable to put money away for a long period. I am glad that the Chancellor has lifted the cap which he had previously proposed which would have created many difficulties. People will have a wider choice.
On the whole, the Chancellor is proceeding in the right direction. One does not know what the effect will be over time. It is likely that the effect will be beneficial, although, if the Chancellor is really interested in increasing savings for their future among the lower paid or those with lower incomes, I think he must bite the bullet and accept that the single most important measure will be the introduction of compulsory, privately funded pension schemes to replace SERPS.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, we have had a short but interesting debate, and we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Patten for introducing it. A number of issues have been raised and in my seven minutes I hope to range across them.
In introducing the debate, my noble friend discussed two matters—capital gains tax and national savings. I think my noble friend knows that, towards the end of our term of office, we were thinking of phasing out capital gains tax, for the very reasons he mentioned: it was a disincentive to save and a disincentive to reinvest. That is perhaps a conclusion that the present Government may come to at some stage; certainly I think we ought to be looking to it for the future.
My noble friend described national savings as redundant and wanted the system to be privatised. I have news for him. If he had been here on the Thursday when we adjourned for the Whitsun Recess he would have heard an interesting exchange between the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and myself, in a House even emptier than it is today, in which the Government began the

773
process of privatisation in a contracting out order for national savings. I cannot resist suggesting to my noble friend that he should study that.
My noble friend will know from his membership of the other place that the Labour Party was not very keen on contracting out of services. It certainly was not very keen on the deregulation Act; indeed, it was going to abolish it when it came into office. Instead, the Labour Government decided to use the Act on the question of national savings, despite the fact that as recently as January 1997 a Labour Party press release described any kind of contracting out of national savings as privatisation. Perhaps my noble friend and I can delight in the fact that the Labour Party has now decided that privatisation is a good thing. The contracting out—or partnership, as I think the Government prefer to call it—is 95 per cent.:5 per cent. One of the trade unions, which probably used to be a great friend of the Labour Party, did not think that that split described a partnership but sounded much more like a total shift of national savings to the private sector.
My noble friend highlighted the costs of running the national savings scheme. The private sector's view is that, of the 4,000 jobs currently in national savings, 1,500 are simply not needed. Perhaps, therefore, the Government are beginning to listen to the kind of philosophy my noble friend and I backed over many years.
My noble friend Lord Lucas discussed a number of interesting issues, one of which was the relationship between high returns and high risks. The reality is that the new ISAs cannot be significantly different from bank accounts or building society accounts where, if we put in our money and leave it there with certain provisos—for example, we want high performance; we will only withdraw once or twice a year or with 90 days' notice and so forth—we will receive a higher return than if we put the money into a day-by-day account. If the ISAs are to be day-by-day accounts they will not be able to give the kind of high return that the Government probably want.
My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve made an important point in relation to savings for women, in particular war widows. I could probably finish my seven minutes discussing those matters. I made no secret previously from this Box, even when I answered from the government side, that I felt there was huge merit in younger war widows receiving their pensions for life. I hope that when the MoD looks at pensions—not at social security—it will go down that road.
The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and I concluded that the debate would end up in the same kind of way. We are both interested in pensions—he perhaps more lucratively than me. We addressed a number of conferences together. What puzzles me about the Government's attitude is that they have separated pensions and savings. I would have put pensions first, but we are still waiting to see what pension ideas are going to come forward and, returning to savings, still waiting to see what the ISA benchmark will look like.
774
As my noble friend Lord Lucas said, a high performance in the equity element of ISAs is inevitably associated with high management charges. That is inevitable. There are those who think we can go to tracker funds. That is fine, provided there is a rising market. What happens to tracker funds in a falling market? They have never been tested in a falling market.
What if, as inevitably will be the case, the non-benchmarked ISAs perform better than the benchmarked ISAs? Will the Government attempt to bring in regulations to tie the hands of the non-benchmarked ISAs so that they come nearer to the benchmarked? The real problem in relation to benchmarking is that the Government will look as though they have authorised benchmarked ISAs. Savers will see them as safe or guaranteed. They will buy that benchmark and if the benchmark provides a lower return than non-benchmarks, as it inevitably will, they may feel that they have been robbed and decide that they have been misled by the Government. Therefore, I say to the Minister that he must watch out on benchmarking as it could easily be a difficult thing for people to understand and deal with.
I conclude with the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne. The most important saving that people can do is in relation to their pensions. The Government have put the cart before the horse. I do not know what they are going to do to make pensions more attractive than savings. I see what they have done for savings. What are they going to do for pensions? They have already taken away one of the tax advantages. Pensions were once exempt when money was put in; exempt while the money grew and taxed when it came out. The Government have removed that second exemption. Their abolition of ACT on pensions means that £5 billion more—the noble Lord will expect me to say this—will be taken out of pension funds by the Government in the future and that means £5 billion less for the people who put their money into pensions. It is inevitable. The Government must therefore be extremely careful in relation to pensions.
The Government must try to introduce a pensions package which is more attractive than the savings packages and encourages people to invest in their pensions. That is the most important thing a government can do for ordinary people—those who do not have the kind of pension funds that many of us possess. They need our help and encouragement so that they can enjoy the security in old age that only pension savings will bring, not ordinary savings.
8.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government too are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for introducing this short and amazingly wideranging debate. I am not sure whether he was setting a trap for me. He described the Government's achievements as resulting from sound economic policies. I thought, "That sounds fine; we can start from there". Then at the end he described me as being a well-known radical. That sounds to me as though he is

775
seeking to distance me from government policies and to tempt me to unorthodoxy and instant dismissal. I shall resist that temptation.
Let us remember that just 10 years ago this country was enjoying what was claimed to be an economic miracle. Tax revenues were rolling in; house prices were rising; consumer confidence was high and the then Chancellor. Nigel Lawson, capped it all with a giveaway Budget of tax reductions and plans to increase government spending as a proportion of GDP. But look what happened to that miracle—it all went bust. Those policies resulted in a disastrous boom-bust cycle.
When we talk about the inheritance of previous governments—I do not doubt the justice of some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Patten—let us record over a longer period the number of boom-bust periods in the 18 years of Conservative rule. Let us record also our determination to avoid that rollercoaster of macro-economic instability which discouraged long-term saving and investment and damaged both business and individuals. Instead we are determined to create the right environment in which individuals and businesses will be encouraged to save and invest for the long term with confidence. That is the starting point of our attitude to savings—to ensure economic stability.
Too often in the past an individual's hard-earned savings have been eroded by hard-earned inflation. That is why, within days of taking office, we gave the Bank of England operational responsibility for setting interest rates. We recognised that a new monetary framework was necessary to achieve low and stable inflation—the essential bedrock on which people will be encouraged to save and invest. That framework ensures that interest rates are set on the basis of the long-term needs of the economy, not short-term political considerations.
Similarly, we recognise the importance of sound public finances to create the right environment for individuals and businesses to plan ahead. That is why we are introducing a statutory code for fiscal stability and why we set out a five-year deficit reduction plan which brought public finances back to a sustainable footing which we are determined to lock in. That framework will ensure that fiscal policy, like monetary policy, is set with Britain's long-term interest in mind. The introduction of the fiscal framework will not only create a more stable macro-economic environment, but it will also have the effect of improving the Government's own saving position. For the economy as a whole it is the nation's savings—the sum of private and public sector savings—that matter for economic growth. The Budget shows that we are well on course to meet the Government's two strict fiscal policy rules. Over the past year the fiscal stance has been tightened by around 2.5 per cent. of national income. That will feed directly into the nation's savings through lower government borrowing.
In that context, I did not find the radical suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, in relation to capital gains tax at all attractive. Of course, capital gains tax raises around £1 billion a year. It must surely be right in principle to tax capital gains; to maintain some measure of equity between taxation of income and
776
taxation of gains. But the abolition of capital gains tax, or even its partial abolition, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, referred, would bring us straight back to the situation that I remember very well in my early days in business when lawyers and accountants spent vast amounts of time and money finding ways to convert income into capital gains in order to benefit from lower capital gains tax rates. That would happen if we abolished the concordance between income tax and capital gains tax and, still more, if we followed the more radical proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, to abolish capital gains tax altogether.
If we did that the loss to the Revenue would be many billions of pounds rather than the £1 billion which capital gains tax raises at the moment. In passing he referred to inheritance tax. Clearly, the level of that tax has to be set to stop the kind of evasion that was all too common under previous régimes. The Government's fiscal policy and their probity are direct ways in which they can increase overall savings, encourage better balanced growth and support monetary policy.
I was puzzled by some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said at this point. He talked about the need to have more flexible and more liquid long-term savings. We do not see it that way. As the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, said, we see a fundamental difference between long-term, locked-in savings, which is what pensions are, and liquid savings for the shorter term. It is very dangerous to confuse them or to try to get them to meet because they are serving different purposes. Both are important in building up a good savings ratio, just as low government borrowing is important for building up a good national savings ratio. But our economic policy must be to encourage saving and not—and I come back to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—to think of savings as a means of economic control. I found that a very strange concept indeed. Our tax and regulatory regime encourages and supports long-term saving and investment.
I crossed out of my speech the passage about tax credits and pensions believing that no one was going to raise those subjects, but I underestimated the noble Lord, Lord Mackay. The abolition of tax credits last year removed the artificial tax bias that encouraged companies to pay dividends rather than retain and reinvest profits. The reform will improve the climate for long-term business investment. This Government have helped businesses by reducing corporation tax, and it is now the lowest in any major EU economy. They are committed to keeping it at that level, or below, for the life of this parliament. I do not take any lessons about the abolition of dual dividend relief.
A number of noble Lords said that pensions are more important than short-term savings. I hope I have made clear our view that both are essential. The fact that we have brought forward our proposals for individual savings accounts before we have concluded our discussions on stakeholder pensions does not mean that we are any less keen on improving the pension régime.
But I have to remind the House that it was a Conservative Government which in effect destroyed the SERPS régime in the 1980s by eroding benefits

777
dramatically so that they were based only on the average of 20 years rather than the three best years, and by making them more uneconomic by encouraging opting out into less suitable private schemes with the disastrous effect that we all know.
If we are appraising radical measures, what sort of government are they that, within a month of their inevitable removal from office after five years, produce a proposal, as the Conservative Government did in March last year, which would have imposed taxation on the payments into pension funds and removed taxation on the receipts? That was a huge change in inter-generational equity without any sort of consideration or discussion whatever. If by any chance they had won the election, we would have been stuck with that.
I am not going to anticipate the conclusions that we come to about compulsion. As the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Mackay, already recognise, the compulsion of stakeholder pensions is a fundamental issue which we have to resolve. I remind them, however, that we already have a substantial compulsory pension element in national insurance contributions.
In addition to long-term pensions, we want to provide other incentives to save, not only to ensure security in retirement, but to encourage savings more widely. It is a scandal that half the adult population has less than £200 in liquid savings and half of them have no savings at all. Our aim is to spread the savings habit to many more people and to get those who currently have only modest savings to save more.
In saying that, I do not underestimate the difficulties that the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, raised for women, widows and war widows in particular. Characteristically, she has hit on the most important and most difficult areas of policy which we are having to address. That is the balance between social security expenditure and what people can do for themselves. That is the fundamental issue of social policy in our time.
We are determined to reduce dependency with our welfare-to-work policy; policies for reducing, when we can, the lower income tax rate to 10 per cent.; and increased child benefit in real terms. With all these measures we are seeking to encourage people to get back into work and to discourage them from the kind of dependency which the noble Baroness recognises is so demoralising and which denies people hope and control of their own future.
In view of the time, I shall cut out what I was going to say about individual savings accounts. We published a consultation paper at the end of last year. That has had an effect on the final version which we have agreed and which will begin next April. I appreciate the difficulties that noble Lords have identified, but I point out that the difficulties they identified in November and December last year have largely been dealt with in the final scheme.
778
I must say a word about national savings since the noble Lord, Lord Patten, gave considerable emphasis to them and since he was reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, of our debate just before Whitsun. However, I believe he is addressing his remarks to the wrong "McIntosh". The noble Viscount, Lord Mackintosh of Halifax, is the grandson of the founder of national savings. Perhaps he would put up a strong defence of his grandfather's brainchild.
We recognise that national savings have to move with the times and that they have to provide a good return to individual savers as well as to the Government. They bring in £1 billion a year, which is not to be rejected lightly. As the noble Lord, Lord Mackay, reminded the House, national savings will now have its operational activities contracted out which should improve its efficiency.
I do not have time to deal further with the private sector promotion of savings, which is enormously important to the Government, but, together with the economic stability that I mentioned earlier and the Government's tax strategy, what I have described represents the building blocks of our policy to promote savings.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure for five minutes.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.30 to 8.35 p.m.]

School Standards and Framework Bill
House again in Committee.
Clause 66 [Duty to secure due provision of religious education]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 200A:
Page 51, line 35, leave out ("to be provided at the school") and insert (", or may be, required to be provided at the school in accordance with Schedule 19 (or, as the case may be, each such religion or religious denomination)").
The noble Lord said: In rising to move Amendment No. 200A I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 255B, 256A, 257A, 257B, 257D and 257H. Amendment No. 200A is a technical amendment. Clause 66 provides for an order to designate foundation and voluntary schools with a religious character in the new framework and to state what that religious character is, of whatever faith. There are already some joint Church of England/Methodist and joint Church of England/Catholic schools and there could be more joint faith schools in future. It follows therefore that we need to allow for this is in the order designating schools with a religious character, which is the purpose of the words in brackets at the end of the amendment. The amendment also tidies up the wording to reflect the fact that, in line with the position established since the 1944 Act, under Schedule 19 a voluntary controlled or foundation

779
school is required to provide religious education in accordance with the tenets of the Church which provides the school only if parents request it; otherwise, it can provide the locally agreed syllabus RE.
The amendments to Clause 130 are also technical amendments. They clarify three points in relation to Clause 66 and the associated order designating schools with a religious character. First, they adjust the definitions of schools which are Church in Wales, Church of England and Roman Catholic schools so that those definitions are linked to the schools which are designated under the Clause 66 procedures as being associated with the relevant Church. They also take into account the amendment to Clause 66 by which the order designating schools with a religious character can specify more than one religion or religious denomination in the case of such joint faith or joint denomination schools. Secondly, they allow for references to schools with a religious character to apply to either or both of the faiths or denominations concerned in the case of such joint faith or joint denomination schools. Thirdly, they ensure that wherever the Bill assigns a power or function to "the appropriate Diocesan authority" those references also can be read as applying to either or both of the diocesan authorities for joint C of E/RC schools. The amendments to Clause 131 are also technical. They merely insert a cross-reference to a definition in the index clause. These amendments have all been agreed with the Churches. I commend them to the House.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 66, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 19 agreed to.
Clause 67 [Requirements relating to collective worship]:
Lord Tope Lord Tope moved Amendment No. 201:
Page 51, line 42, leave out ("all pupils") and insert ("each pupil")
The noble Lord said: I rise to move Amendment No. 201 which stands in my name. I recall on Thursday that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, described one of his amendments as a grammatical quibble. I think that to some extent this amendment falls into the same category but perhaps with a slightly more serious point.
As the clause is drafted at the moment it could certainly be taken to mean—although I do not think it does—that all pupils must take part in the same act of collective worship, and that may be practically impossible in many schools. Quite a number of schools these days do not have sufficient space for all pupils to be in the same act of worship in the same place at the same time, which I suspect is not the intention here anyway. My amendment simply seeks to make it a little clearer that we mean each pupil must take part in an act of collective worship, though not necessarily the same one. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I must confess that I had not thought of that interpretation. Rather than give the lengthy description of why it would not
780
materially alter the meaning of the clause or the related schedule, I think I would rather take the noble Lord's point away and think about it between now and Report. That cannot possibly do any harm, can it?
In this group we also have Government Amendments Nos. 201A and 201B. If the Committee would allow me, I should like to speak to them now. They are introduced in place of one from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon which he has since withdrawn. I am most grateful to him for doing so. The wording, which is slightly different from the original, has been agreed by the Churches. The right reverend Prelate has been good enough to write to my noble friend Lady Blackstone to explain that he has to be out of the Committee at this time but that he supports the amendments which are on the Order Paper.
The amendment to Clause 67 is straightforward and consequential on the more significant amendment to Schedule 20. It simply changes the description of the contents of Schedule 20 to accommodate the amendment to that Schedule. The purpose of the substantive amendment—that is, Amendment No. 201B—is to make the Bill more explicit about the nature of collective worship in foundation schools with a religious character, and in voluntary schools.
Under current legislation, and in this Bill as originally drafted, the governing body of such a school is responsible for collective worship arrangements after discussion with the head teacher. Those arrangements must be in accordance with any provisions of the school's trust deed. This amendment confirms those requirements, but also adds a further provision in respect of foundation and voluntary schools with a religious character.
In cases where provision for collective worship is not made by a trust deed, then the worship in those schools is to be "in accordance with the tenets or practices of the religion or religious denomination" specified in the order referred to in Clause 66(4).
The Church of England assures us that this will not cause problems, or indeed significant changes, in any of their schools: the purpose is simply to clarify the existing law. I commend these amendments to the Committee.
Lord Tope: I think this is the nearest I have come to a victory on this Bill. I am almost tempted to press it to the vote and actually secure the victory, @but I shall not. Given the assurances from the Minister that he will look seriously at this important grammatical point, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 201A:
Page 52, line 11, leave out from ("worship") to end of line 13.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 67, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 20 [Collective worship]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 201B:
Page 183, line 8, at end insert—
("Nature of collective worship in foundation schools with a religious character and voluntary schools
In the case of a foundation school which has a religious character or a voluntary school, the required collective worship shall be—

(a) in accordance with any provisions of the trust deed relating to the school, or

(b) where—

(i) provision for that purpose is not made by such a deed, and

(ii) the school has a religious character,

in accordance with the tenets and practices of the religion or religious denomination specified in relation to the school under section 66(4).").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 20, as amended, agreed to. Clause 68 to 70 agreed to.
[Amendment Nos. 202 and 203 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 71 [Transfer of land on appointed day]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 203A:
Page 55, line 35, after ("land") insert ("and certain rights and liabilities").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 203A and to speak to the rather large batch of other amendments included within this group. I have written to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord, Lord Tope; and also to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who has actually received it on this occasion.
These are all relatively technical amendments. The first two amendments, Amendments Nos. 203A and 203B, relate to Clause 71 and Schedule 21. They relate to the provisions dealing with the transfer of land in respect of former grant maintained or grant maintained special schools which become foundation, community or voluntary schools on the appointed day.
The White Paper said that the premises of a community school would be owned by the LEA and that foundation and voluntary schools would own their own premises. The Government have since acknowledged that trying to achieve complete consistency of ownership for voluntary and foundation schools would create too much turbulence and that the guiding principle to be adopted under the new framework should simply be that schools should continue to hold what they now have. These amendments follow that principle. The rest of the amendments relate to Schedule 22. That schedule contains detailed and complex provisions designed to safeguard public fund investment in foundation, voluntary and foundation special schools. Most of the amendments are technical. Others are to address concerns expressed by the Churches, and others are to bring the discontinuance arrangements for community schools into line with those for other maintained schools. I shall try quickly to explain the purposes of these groups of amendments.
Amendments Nos. 203E, 203F, 205A and 205C address concerns expressed by the Churches about arrangements for LEA compensation where property, which has either been provided or enhanced by LEAs, is sold. These amendments will require LEAs to record capital expenditure investment in order to qualify for compensation and will also make explicit provision that trustee or governing body investment should be taken into account when determining the level of compensation.
Baroness Blatch: Will the noble Lord give way? I cannot find an Amendment No. 205C. I can find an Amendment No. 205A.
Lord Whitty: I apologise. It should be Amendment No. 206C. Amendment No. 206C applies in that group.
The next group of amendments—Amendments Nos. 203C, 206K, 206L, 206M, 206N, 206P and 206Q—extend the coverage of the discontinuance provisions within Schedule 22 to include schools in the community sector and also provide that these provisions bite when the governing body is dissolved rather than when the school closes.
Amendments Nos. 203D, 206F, 206G, 206R, 206AC and 206AF give the Secretary of State the option to decide whether land held by a governing body of a closing school should be transferred to another school. Normally such land would pass to the local education authority but where the school's closure follows a reorganisation, and the school is replaced by another school on those existing premises, it would be sensible to allow the direct transfer of land to the new governing body. Where land is transferred to another school in this way, these amendments ensure that its future disposal is subject to the normal disposal rules.
Amendments Nos. 203G, 206D, 206E, 206H and 206J are technical amendments to the general disposal provisions which will ensure that they are consistent, clear provisions devoid of duplication.
The next batch of amendments is a fairly lengthy batch from Amendments Nos. 206S to 206W which again relate to the school discontinuance provisions. These amendments will ensure that when a school closes any land held by the governing body, and any governing body rights and liabilities, are re-assigned or dealt with appropriately when the governing body is dissolved.
Amendment No. 206X is a technical amendment which places a duty on schools that hold registered land to meet the requirements of the Land Registration Acts and regulations when they transfer land under the provisions of the schedule. The amendment makes provision also for the construction of agreements to which the governing body was a party.
The final group of amendments (Amendment Nos. 206Y, 206Z, 206AA to Amendment No. 206AE) comprises technical amendments which extend provisions dealing with the disposal of any property under this schedule to include the termination of a tenancy of premises leased for the purposes of a school. They provide also that any compensation payable by a landlord to the tenant school must be regarded as

783
proceeds of sale and be dealt with as such under the provisions of this schedule. I hope that that explains the amendments. They do not alter in any sense the substance of the Bill. I hope therefore that the Committee can accept them.
Baroness Blatch: I have some questions for the noble Lord. I do not know who wrote his notes because the amendments do not tally with those that we were given in the letter. The letter is not complete because the noble Lord has included a large number of amendments which are not part of the technical explanation.
On the amendments that we have had explained to us, perhaps I may query, first, Amendments Nos. 203A and 203B. They relate to Clause 71 which introduces Schedule 21. It makes provision for land to transfer from one body to another. That is where there has been an arrangement between one school and another. I wonder whether that is not an elaborate way of dealing with the issue. Why not leave the arrangements with protection for the second school? For example, does the LEA have the power—it is important to know this—having taken on the responsibility, for seeing that the arrangement continues between two schools, to vary that arrangement or disturb it in some way?
I turn now to Amendments Nos. 203D, 206F, 206G, and 206AC which relate to providing the Secretary of State with an option to direct that land owned by the governing body of a closing foundation, voluntary, or foundation special school be transferred to a new or an existing school where the closure is linked to statutory proposals. Is that irrespective of ownership?
Amendment No. 203G, as I understand it, brings trustee disposals into line with those of governing body or foundation body disposals. It is the arrangement under which an LEA may be entitled to compensation for any investment in school premises. What is being done? Who will be the arbiter to determine those matters? I know of many examples where it is not clear from where the money came. For example, capital moneys that went to some grant-maintained schools were enhanced by help in kind, money from the governing body, moneys raised locally, and sometimes by money from local authorities, the local community or some form of private finance. Were the premises to be disposed of it might be difficult to separate out where the ownership lay in terms of input. Some of these arrangements are informal and some are formal. It would be helpful to know how that would work or who would be the arbiter.
Amendments Nos. 206D and 206E clarify, as I understand from the Government, the provisions under which the Secretary of State may, again, direct. There are a great many powers here for the Secretary of State. In this case, he may direct school trustees to pay a local authority all or part of the sale proceeds from the disposal of any school premises which were acquired or enhanced by grant-maintained school funding grant arrangements. As grant-maintained schools return to the fold, at what point could that be triggered? Is it intended
784
that where a grant-maintained school has had a transaction the LEA could ask for repayment on its return to foundation school status? What about a grant-maintained school that may have received a capital sum which has been re-cycled into enhanced provision for the school? Again, what protection would there be for that? What would be the liabilities for the school and its governing body?
Amendment No. 206R gives the Secretary of State, again, the option to direct that the property of a closing school should transfer to the governing body of another school or schools. How will that work? Is the property in private trust protected? Again, how will that policy work in relation to the work of the organisation committees and any decisions that flow from the organisation committees? Amendment No. 206U, again, contains another power to direct. The explanation we have had on that is acceptable.
Amendment No. 206V is, again, an amendment that clarifies paragraph 7 arrangements for property held on trust by the governing body when a school is closed, and the governing body is dissolved. The explanatory notes say that if there are no school trustees, the governing body may transfer the property to any other person who must then use the property for maintained-school education. What if that land has a covenant on it which provides that after educational use it should be used for a specific purpose in the event of closure?
Finally, Amendments Nos. 206Y, 206Z, 206AA, 206AB, 206AC, 206AD and 206AE form a different cluster from the one described by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I am told that these amendments ensure that the disposal of any property under the schedule includes the termination of a tenancy of premises leased for the purpose of a school. This looks a little like compulsory acquisition, because the provision goes on to say that any reference to sale proceeds should include compensation that a landlord may pay to the school tenant for quitting the premises. Again, I should like to be certain that there is no element of coercion in that.
Lord Lucas: To give the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, a further pause, I shall not add to the list of questions on this group of amendments. When we come to the acceptance or otherwise of this group of amendments in the course of going through the Marshalled List, we shall come across Amendment No. 206B. I am sure that the noble Lord will remember that I have an outstanding question on that amendment, which is why paragraph 1(3)(a) of Schedule 22 is not included in the list of exemptions. I shall wish to address that amendment when we reach it, if we have not already dealt with it in the course of the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.
Lord Whitty: I can reply to at least some of those points. We shall need to check Hansard to see whether I have covered them all. In relation to Amendments Nos. 203A and 203B, the noble Baroness asks whether the LEA could effectively take charge of the transfers. The answer is that it could not—not in the legal sense that she means—because it needs to have the agreement of the other school. Therefore these provisions between two schools are required.

785
Amendments Nos. 206D and 206E relate to capital receipts. The noble Baroness has not quite taken the point here. The provision does not relate to the transfer into foundation status, or any other status; it relates to when a school closes. If she understands that, this amendment is clearer.
Amendment No. 206AA comes towards the end of the group. I think that it is the one to which the noble Baroness referred. It relates to the proceeds from a landlord effectively buying off a tenancy. It is not intended that there should be any coercive element behind that provision. It will simply be where the landlord effectively pays the school to vacate the premises which will be part of the school's assets which might need to be returned in those circumstances.
Amendment No. 206R relates to the property of a closing school being transferred to the governing body of another school rather than to the LEA. It does not affect private trusts, so I am advised, which I think was the point behind the noble Baroness's question. Regarding Amendment No. 206V, this relates to the noble Baroness's questions on the situation where there were effectively covenants or restrictions on the use of that land. In all cases, rights and liabilities to the land go with the land and therefore if there are liabilities or covenants governing the future use of that land, this will not override them. Those covenants will be part of the transfer.
I have missed Amendment No. 203D, contained in the second group to which the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, referred. These relate to the Secretary of State's option to direct that land owned by the governing body of a closing foundation should be transferred to either a new or an existing school. The amendment relates to land owned by the governing body; it does not relate to the situation where the land or premises are owned by the trustees. I think that was part of the point behind the remarks of the noble Baroness.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred to Amendment No. 206B, I think. I believe I am aware of the point to which he is referring and I think we will probably have to return to it. It is not effectively covered by the advice I currently have.
Lord Lucas: I agree that it is not in the batch that we are talking about but I thought it would be kind if I were to give the noble Lord notice of a point that was going to hit him before we reached the next group of amendments.
Lord Whitty: As always, I am deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his kindness. I hope that with that explanation the Committee can accept these amendments.
Baroness Blatch: I wish to come back on two points. The noble Lord said that Amendment No. 203D referred to land owned by the governing body, but the amendment goes on to refer to a closing foundation, a voluntary or a foundation special school. I want to be absolutely certain that if the governing body is the
786
owner, the governing body can be the owner of a voluntary or a foundation school and the moneys do not belong to the Government for the Secretary of State to direct. The point of my question, irrespective of ownership, was that the governing body is not necessarily an LEA-type governing body, as stated in the Explanatory Note.
On Amendment No. 206R, the noble Lord missed one of my questions. I am grateful for the answer on the other point that I raised that trustee property would be protected. How does the policy interrelate with the work of organisational committees and the decisions that flow from the organisational committees?
Lord Whitty: Amendment No. 206R relates to the provisions about whether it merges as a result of a decision by a school organisation committee, as in future it normally would, or if there were some other reasons for closure. I am not sure that the particular consequence of a school organisation committee decision alters the provisions of the clause. If the noble Baroness wishes to explain the circumstances further, I will come back on that.
In relation to Amendment No. 203D and so on, we are talking about where the governing body owns the premises rather than some trustee body. That relates to all types of school listed in the clause—a foundation, a voluntary or a foundation special school. Where a private trustee owns the land or the premises then it is clearly a different situation.
Baroness Blatch: I take it that if it was owned by a body other than an LEA or state provider the Secretary of State would not have a power to direct. The actual point I am getting to is that I want to be absolutely certain that he would direct only in the case of properties that belong either to an LEA, a public body or a state-controlled body. The noble Lord has not referred to Amendment No. 203G where, as I say, you can have a single project, particularly in a grant-maintained school, accepting help in kind, which is costed and which includes money raised by parents, by the community, or sometimes by the local authority, and certainly sometimes by private finance, all inside one project. If that arts centre, say, is sold off and it has been built in that way, with some initial capital from the LEA, does the whole thing become requisitioned by the LEA?
Lord Whitty: As I understand the clause—I will clarify it further in writing—we are talking of money and provision in kind from the LEA and that does not relate to money from other sources. However, I think I had better clarify that in writing to the noble Baroness. On Amendment No. 203G I beg the noble Baroness's pardon. I have forgotten her point on the amendment. Perhaps she will remind me.
Baroness Blatch: This amendment really refers to a situation with a great mixture of financial input. It refers to a single project and, where that is the subject of a disposal, who would be the arbiter, what its value was

787
and where the receipts of that value should reside, and who decides what is a genuine capital receipt to the people in the area who subscribed to it.
Lord Whitty: I think I had better write to the noble Baroness. I suspect that at the end of the day the arbiter, if there is a dispute, will be the courts.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 71, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 21 [Transfers of land on appointed day]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 203B:
Page 185, line 26, at end insert—
("Transfer of rights to use land
8A.—(1) Where paragraph 4, 5, 6 or 7 applies to an existing school and any land held by a person or body other than the governing body of the school was, immediately before the appointed day, used for the purposes of the school, any rights or liabilities—

(a) enjoyed or incurred by the governing body in connection with the use of the land, and

(b) subsisting immediately before the appointed day,

shall on that day be transferred to, and by virtue of this Act vest in, the local education authority (in a case to which paragraph 4 or 7 applies) or the foundation body (in a case to which paragraph 5 or 6 applies).
(2) Where paragraph 4 or 7 applies to an existing school and any land held by a person or body other than any trustees who hold any land for the purposes of the school was, immediately before the appointed day, used for the purposes of the school, any rights or liabilities—

(a) enjoyed or incurred by any such trustees in connection with the use of the land, and

(b) subsisting immediately before the appointed day,

shall on that day be transferred to, and vest in, the local education authority in accordance with a transfer agreement.
(3) Nothing in this paragraph applies in relation to land to which paragraph 4, 5, 6 or 7 applies.
(4) In this paragraph—
"existing school" has the meaning given by paragraph 4, 5, 6 or 7, as the case may be;
"transfer agreement" means an agreement—

(i) made for the purposes of sub-paragraph (2) between the local education authority and the trustees mentioned in that sub-paragraph, and

(ii) providing for the rights or liabilities in question to be transferred to, and vest in, the authority on the appointed day, whether or not in consideration of the payment by the authority of such amount as may be agreed between the parties.").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move this amendment formally.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 72 [Foundation, voluntary and foundation special schools: disposal of land and discontinuance]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 203C:
Page 55, line 41, leave out ("such") and insert ("maintained").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 72, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 22 [Foundation, voluntary and foundation special schools: Disposal of land and discontinuance]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 203D to 203G:
Page 186, line 25, after (" 6") insert ("or paragraph 5(4)(c) of this Schedule").
Page 187, line 3, at end insert—
("(5) Sub-paragraph (1)(e) shall not apply in the case of any expenditure incurred on or after the appointed day unless the authority—

(a) prepared a statement in writing—

(i) containing details of the amount of the expenditure, the acquisition or works funded (or to be funded) by such expenditure, and the total cost (or estimated total cost) of that acquisition or those works, and

(ii) indicating that the expenditure was being treated by them as expenditure of a capital nature; and

(b) sent a copy of the statement to the governing body either before, or no later than 12 months after, the expenditure was incurred.").

Page 187, line 30, at end insert—
("(5) Sub-paragraph (1)(e) shall not apply in the case of any expenditure incurred on or after the appointed day unless the authority—

(a) prepared a statement in writing—

(i) containing details of the amount of the expenditure, the acquisition or works funded (or to be funded) by such expenditure, and the total cost (or estimated total cost) of that acquisition or those works, and

(ii) indicating that the expenditure was being treated by them as expenditure of a capital nature; and

(b) sent a copy of the statement to the foundation body either before, or no later than 12 months after, the expenditure was incurred.").

Page 187, line 37, leave out ("enhanced in value") and insert ("acquired, or enhanced in value,").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 204 and 205 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 205A:
Page 188, line 22, after ("authority") insert (", the trustees or the governing body of the school").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 206 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 206C to 206AF:
Page 188, line 30, at end insert—
("(5A) Sub-paragraph (1)(b) shall not apply in the case of any expenditure unless the authority—

(a) prepared a statement in writing—

(i) containing details of the amount of the expenditure, the acquisition or works funded (or to be funded) by such expenditure, and the total cost (or estimated total cost) of that acquisition or those works, and

(ii) indicating that the expenditure was being treated by them as expenditure of a capital nature; and

789

(b) sent a copy of the statement to the trustees either before, or no later than 12 months after, the expenditure was incurred.").

Page 188, line 48, after ("authority") insert ("either").
Page 188, line 48, at end insert ("as he determines to be just").
Page 190, line 7, leave out ("either or both") and insert ("one or more").
Page 190, line 12, at end insert ("; and
(c) in a case where the discontinuance of the school is connected with proposals under section 27 or 30 or paragraph 5 of Schedule 7 to establish, or to make a prescribed alteration to, any other school or schools, require the land or any part of the land to be transferred to the governing body of such maintained school or the temporary governing body of such new school as he may specify.").
Page 190, leave out lines 22 to 28.
Page 191, leave out lines 7 to 13.
Page 191, leave out lines 16 to 19 and insert—
("7.—(1) This paragraph applies in connection with the dissolution of the governing body of a maintained school by virtue of paragraph 4 of Schedule 10.").
Page 191, line 20, leave out ("this paragraph applies") and insert ("a governing body are so dissolved").
Page 191, line 21, leave out ("of the school").
Page 191, line 23, after ("liabilities") insert ("(including rights and liabilities in relation to staff)").
Page 191, line 24, leave out ("discontinuance date") and insert ("date of dissolution").
Page 191, line 26, after ("shall") insert ("on the date of dissolution").
Page 191, line 26, leave out (", the local education authority on the discontinuance date") and insert—

("(i) the local education authority, or

(ii) one or more of the following, namely the governing body of a maintained school and the temporary governing body of a new school, if the Secretary of State so directs before the date of dissolution").

Page 191, line 29, after ("land") insert ("or other property").
Page 191, line 29, after ("transfer") insert ("or payment").
Page 191, line 33, at beginning insert ("unless the Secretary of State otherwise directs by order made before the date of dissolution,").
Page 191, line 34, at end insert—
("(3A) Subject to sub-paragraph (3B), a governing body who are to be dissolved as mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) may transfer any land or other property which is held by them on trust for the purposes of the school to any person to hold such land or other property on trust for purposes connected with the provision of education in maintained schools.
(3B) Sub-paragraph (3A) does not apply to any land or other property so held by the governing body of a foundation, voluntary or foundation special school where any other persons also hold any property on trust for the purposes of the school; and any such land or other property shall on the date of dissolution be transferred to, and by virtue of this Act vest in, those persons.
(3C) If any doubt or dispute arises as to the persons to whom any land or other property within sub-paragraph (3B) falls to be transferred under that sub-paragraph, it shall be treated as falling to be so transferred to such persons as the Secretary of State thinks proper.").
Page 191, leave out lines 35 to 38.
Page 192, line 13, at end insert—
("8A.—(1) Where a transfer under paragraph 1(3)(a), 2(3)(a), 4(2), 5(4)(a) or (c), 6(2)(b) or 8(2)(b) of this Schedule relates to registered land, it shall be the duty of the transferor—
790

(a) to execute any such instrument under the Land Registration Acts 1925 to 1986,

(b) to deliver any such certificate under those Acts, and

(c) to do such other things under those Acts,

as he would be required to execute, deliver or do in the case of a transfer by agreement between the transferor and the transferee.
(2) Paragraphs 6 to 8 of Schedule 10 to the Education Reform Act 1988 (construction of agreements) shall apply in relation to transfers under paragraph 7 of this Schedule as they apply in relation to transfers to which that Schedule applies.").
Page 192, line 17, at end insert ("; and
(ii) in the case of any premises held under a tenancy to which Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 ("the 1954 Act") applies, the termination of that tenancy under that Part of that Act").
Page 192, line 20, leave out ("or compensation").
Page 192, line 21, after ("rent;") insert—
("(ia) any compensation for the disposal, including any compensation paid by the landlord on the quitting of any premises within paragraph (b)(ii) by the governing body, foundation body or trustees (whether or not the compensation is required to be paid by section 37 of the 1954 Act (compensation where order for new tenancy precluded on certain grounds));").
Page 192, line 23, at end insert ("or compensation").
Page 192, line 23, at end insert—
("(d) "new school" has the meaning given by section 69(3).").
Page 192, leave out lines 24 to 34.
Page 192, line 35, leave out ("sub-paragraph (2)") and insert ("paragraphs (b)(ii) and (c)(ia) of sub-paragraph (1)").
Page 192, line 51, at end insert—
("() In paragraph 1(1) references, in relation to the governing body of a foundation, voluntary or foundation special school, to any land being acquired in a particular way include references to the land being acquired in that way by the temporary governing body for the school.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 73 agreed to.
Clause 74 [Rating of maintained schools]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 206A:
Page 57, line 12, leave out subsection (2).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 74, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 206B:
After Clause 74, insert the following new clause—
("Stump duty
STAMP DUTY
.—(1) Subject to subsection (2), stamp duty shall not be chargeable in respect of any transfer to a local authority under any of the following provisions, namely—

(a) paragraph 4 or 7 of Schedule 21 or any corresponding provision of regulations under paragraph 10 of Schedule 2,

(b) paragraph 4(2), 5(4), 6(2)(b), 7(2) or 8(2)(b) of Schedule 22, or

(c) any regulations under paragraph 4 of Schedule 8.

(2) No instrument (other than a statutory instrument) made or executed under or in pursuance of any of the provisions mentioned in subsection (1) shall be treated as duly stamped unless—

(a) it is stamped with the duty to which it would be liable but for that subsection, or

791

(b) it has, in accordance with section 12 of the Stamp Act 1891, been stamped with a particular stamp denoting that it is not chargeable with any duty or that it has been duly stamped.

(3) In subsection (1) any reference to a transfer under any provision or regulations mentioned in that subsection shall be read as a reference to a transfer under that provision or those regulations taken with section 198 of, and Schedule 10 to, the Education Reform Act 1988 if those provisions of that Act apply to the transfer by virtue of any provision of this Act or that Act.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move.
Lord Lucas: This is the amendment about which I warned the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. When this amendment fell to be discussed I left the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, with a question to which I have not yet had an answer. This clause sets out a number of exemptions from stamp duty, principally when they are not already exempt because of the charitable status of foundation schools or other similar schools. It seems to me that the transfers envisaged in paragraph 1(3)(a) were of an exactly similar nature to those which were being exempted by this amendment, but had not been included in this amendment. I would be grateful to have now an explanation of why they have been left out.
Lord Whitty: I apologise to the noble Lord for not covering the point. If the Committee will permit, I shall pass on to him detailed information. The advice which has just arrived indicates that the exemption is only for compulsory transfers and not for voluntary transfers. If the noble Lord requires further information I shall write to him.
Lord Lucas: Indeed, but the first word of paragraph 1(3)(a) is "required". If that is voluntary it is a new use of the word and one which is strange to me. Perhaps it is another example of the strange English employed by those who write Bills, but I doubt it. It seems to me that there is a lack of voluntariness about the word "required". I am happy to wait for the noble Lord to write to me.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 75 agreed to.
Clause 76 [Application of employment law during financial delegation]:
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 207:
Page 57, line 38, leave out ("or expedient").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 207 and I shall also speak to Amendment No. 208. Principally, I am interested to hear from the Minister what use they intend to make of the powers in Clauses 76 and 77. The particular point that I am making in these amendments is that I find it unsatisfactory that when dealing with such important issues as employment law and the trust deed or instrument constituting a school, the Secretary of State has powers to make amendments when he finds it expedient. I understand why it might be necessary to have such powers when it is necessary, but it does not seem to me that either of these areas of law or deed are
792
such as should be tampered with merely because it is the easiest way to do it rather than because it is necessary. I beg to move.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Whitty: The provision in Clause 76, which essentially rolls forward the current arrangements, has remained more or less unchanged since its introduction in the 1988 Education Reform Act. Its purpose is to give the Secretary of State the means to ensure that governing bodies are accountable under employment law for those employment functions they carry out in relation to school staff whose employer is the local education authority. The removal of the word "expedient" would curtail the scope of the Secretary of State for deciding what is appropriate to make sure that governors are properly accountable for their employment functions. I do not consider that it is either necessary or appropriate to alter this provision.
It is important to retain the scope for the Secretary of State to make modifications that he considers necessary. It allows him to make modifications which, although they may not be strictly necessary in a tightly defined interpretation of the word, may be expedient for reasons which make good sense. For example, it is not strictly necessary for the Secretary of State to modify the requirement in the Employment Rights Act for the employer to provide an employee with a statement of the written reasons for dismissal. In such circumstances, the LEA could provide this to the employee after asking the governing body what the reasons are. It is not strictly necessary to modify this element of employment law, but it is expedient to do so because it makes administrative sense for the governing body to set out its reasons for dismissal directly to the employee. The inclusion of the word "expedient" simply allows the Secretary of State to adopt a common sense approach to this function.
As regards Clause 77, similar arguments apply. It primarily deals with circumstances where there is conflict between the terms of a school's trust deed and statutory requirements. The provisions in the clause are not new. Existing legislation contains similar powers. The trust deed might, for example, include provisions about membership of the governing body which were incompatible with the requirements for the legal category to which the school has been allocated. In these circumstances, an efficient mechanism for modifying the trust deed is needed. The Secretary of State would modify the school's trust deed to bring it into line with the relevant requirement. But, before doing so, he would consult the school's governing body, its trustees and the appropriate diocesan body where relevant.
Amendment No. 208 seeks to remove the words "or expedient". But by its nature, the clause is designed to deal with circumstances which are difficult to foresee. There are around 8,000 schools with trust deeds and the terms of these trust deeds vary considerably from school to school. Governing bodies are required to run schools in accordance with any trust deed, subject to any statutory provision. There may be circumstances in which it would not actually be impossible for them to comply with both the trust deed and the statutory

793
requirements, but it would be very difficult for them to do so. In these circumstances, it would be expedient rather than necessary for the Secretary of State to modify the trust deed.
The words "or expedient" would allow the Secretary of State to respond more flexibly to requests from governing bodies or trustees. The modifications they ask for might not be strictly necessary, but might be helpful to the school. Removal of that would prevent the Secretary of State from acting in the interests of schools or, alternatively, they would have to seek modifications through the more laborious mechanism provided by charity law. For example, the trustees of a voluntary aided school may state that six specified different and separate bodies must appoint the foundation governors. That could be accommodated within statutory requirements, so it is not necessary to change, but everyone concerned with the school might regard it as over-complicated. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State could use his powers under the "or expedient" provision to ensure that those changes could be made; otherwise, they would have to apply to the Charity Commissioners to alter the terms of the trust deed.
I hope that with those explanations we can keep the existing provisions relating to "or expedient" in the two clauses. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation, which is exactly what I had hoped for. These are wide powers as drafted. I accept the noble Lord's explanation of how they will be limited in use. I am also grateful to him for his suggestion that anything we put into law must necessarily be good and regarded as such. I hope that he will apply that principle more widely. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 76 agreed to.
Clause 77 [Modification of trust deeds]:
[Amendment No. 208 not moved.]
Clause 77 agreed to.
Clause 78 [Modification of provisions making governors of foundation or voluntary school ex officio trustees]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 208A:
Page 58, line 30, leave out ("and those appointed by the local education authority") and insert (", those appointed by the local education authority and any co-opted governor nominated by a minor authority").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 78, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 79 [Code of Practice]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 208B:
Page 59, line 4, at end insert—
("() The code shall require that educational criteria must have priority in determining the admission arrangements of schools.").
The noble Baroness said: We come now to a part of the Bill the effect of which will impact on every school and on every category of school in the land. There are
794
therefore two things I wish to say at the outset. First, to put on record the importance of this part of the Bill and the important practical consequences of the way in which it will work; second, what an outrage it is that we do not see a draft of the admissions code of practice.
It is alleged, and it is even claimed that someone close to the DfEE was overheard to say, that "Whatever happens, do not let the code of practice out in draft while the Bill is being discussed in the House. It will only give rise to even wider debate". The even wider debate is one which we should be having in relation to the department's intention for devising and composing a code of practice we ought to be able to see in draft.
I feel as strongly about that as did the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh about a code of practice on a previous Bill, when the Opposition quite rightly refused to move on with the Bill unless Members had the code of practice in their hands while they discussed a very important aspect of a Bill.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Quite accurate, my Lords. We tried to refuse to move on but we were in a minority, as we still are in this House, and we failed.
Baroness Blatch: Let me remind the noble Lord that he did not fail. The noble Lord will know that the code of practice was produced for a stage of the Bill and it was in people's hands. It was not only in the hands of Members of this House but also in the hands of people outside this House, with interested groups. Before this Bill has completed its passage through the House, both on Report and at Third Reading, I am making yet another plea that we have a draft of the code of practice in the hands of Members while we discuss this important issue.
The issues which will flow from the code of practice cover very important matters such as parental preferences; the admissions arrangements which will be overseen by admissions authorities and a definition of who they will be; the objections to the adjudicator—we have talked a lot about the adjudicator and the absolute powers of the adjudicator—and the way in which it will impact on schools which have a religious aspect to their foundation; publication of admissions; the fixing of admissions numbers; appeal arrangements and the powers to direct, which are very considerable, to admit children to specified schools; to give directions under Section 91 and, of course, the way it will impact on nursery provision.
I cannot say too strongly just how important I believe Part III of the Bill is. I want to underpin all that will flow from the Bill. I am sure that whichever Minister replies to this amendment will ask why one should put on the face of the Bill that "educational criteria must have priority in determining the admission arrangements of schools". I am too old a hand in both local and national government to know that it is not always educational criteria which motivate changes of admissions policy. It can be money. It can be the state of buildings. It can be philosophical objections to types of education; the existence of sixth forms or the reorganisation of sixth forms. It can impact on selection and the selection policy. It can impact on so many

795
things. I believe that this House should have as a paramount consideration—and that does not in any way diminish the importance of considering costs—that even where a decision is to be made it should first be measured in terms of whether it is an educationally sound idea, an educationally sound policy, ahead of the other issues of cost. If a policy is to be propounded under the code and exercised by a local authority and costs are allowed to override educational considerations, we should have no part of that. For those reasons, I wish to have that provision on the face of the Bill.
I ask to be reminded about the code of practice. I understand that in the Bill it is dealt with under the negative resolution procedure. I wish to be certain that this code will come before the House under the affirmative procedure. I believe that I have already secured that but I should like confirmation of it. If I have not secured that, I apologise in advance for the omission and I shall attend to that matter on Report. However, my memory tells me that I may have covered that matter already. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I start by echoing what the noble Baroness said about the importance of this part of the Bill. As she rightly says, admission policies affect all children in all types of school. Over the years, they have caused more agony and anguish for parents, children and those running our schools than almost any other single issue.
The code of practice to which the noble Baroness referred, which is the subject matter of Clause 79, reflects our approach to managing diversity in admissions through advice, co-operation and adjudication rather than through conflict, as has happened too often in the past. The advice in the code will not be a dogmatic, centralised view on what every school's admission policy should be. It is designed to give practical advice on a range of admission issues and on the new legislation. That advice will be drawn up only after discussion and consultation with our education partners and a draft will be laid before both Houses.
The Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation endorsed our approach in the Bill to the statutory basis that we are giving to the code. Its focus will be on working to achieve fair and objective admission arrangements. We shall start the discussion and consultation process shortly.
Ministers have said in another place that we shall be issuing interim guidance on admissions before a draft code is produced. We shall first consult on a draft of that interim guidance. That interim guidance will be an important document. Not only will it give advice on the arrangements for the operation of the next admissions round where practicable, but it will foreshadow the new admissions framework under the Bill. That will enable everyone to prepare for the new arrangements in timely fashion, subject to Parliament's approval. The consultation on the interim guidance will also start discussion on the content of the draft code.
I stress that we shall be fully involving interested parties when preparing the draft code before issuing it for further consultation and eventually laying it before both Houses.
796
The noble Baroness raised the point about timing. We shall consult shortly on the draft interim guidance, certainly in good time for that draft to be available to your Lordships' House on Report. We shall then produce a draft code for consultation in the early autumn and shall seek to lay the draft code before both Houses early in the new parliamentary Session. We anticipate that it will be published early next year. I confirm that, as the noble Baroness suspected, the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation is content with that method of parliamentary scrutiny.
I turn to Amendment No. 208B which we are now debating. The Bill requires us to consult fully on what should be included in the code of practice and for a draft of the code to be laid before both Houses. The Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation thought that those provisions were entirely appropriate.
It is not our intention to pre-empt public consultation or any scrutiny by Parliament by stating on the face of the Bill, as this amendment would demand, the specific criteria which the code should or should not say take priority. The purpose of the Bill is to support improved standards in all schools. We agree that educational issues should be considered above other issues when making decisions about the provision of education. That might be in school place planning or in the drawing up of educational development plans.
Our aim is for all children to benefit from the improved educational standards that we are seeking at all schools. But we are today debating the arrangements for admitting children to those schools. Admission authorities should choose the criteria that best serve the parents and children. The noble Baroness mentioned a number of non-educational criteria which I believe she acknowledged were appropriate; for example, she talked about money, about costs, about the state of buildings and about selection policy. She also made a philosophical point which I did not fully understand. However, there are other criteria which are not strictly educational. I have in mind the popular criterion of sibling links which many schools give, or the impact of priority for local children. Further, many Church schools give priority to children from a particular faith or denomination. We support the right of such schools to continue to give priority to children of a particular denomination and have built appropriate safeguards into the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, will know that the Bill as a whole is devoted to the raising of educational standards. I can assure her that the admissions framework, including the code of practice, will support that objective. On the basis that I have been able to give the noble Baroness the assurance, without pre-empting what the code of practice will say, that education issues should be considered above others, I hope that she will find it appropriate to withdraw her amendment.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: I am not happy with the Minister's reply. The noble Lord said that we will have draft interim guidance, but I do not believe that he said what it will cover in terms of how it will differ from the

797
information to be covered by the draft code of practice; in other words, is the draft interim guidance something akin to a draft code of practice? If it is not, what is the distinction and what will it cover? As for timing, it is as I suspected all along; namely, that we are not going to see the draft code of practice until well beyond the turn of the year. Of course, my private information suggested that we would not see it and that we would not see it for the good reason that it would give rise to wider debate.
The Minister said that the scrutiny committee was content with the situation. However, that is only the scrutiny committee. What I want to know—and the noble Lord did not answer my question—is whether the code of practice will come before this Chamber under the affirmative resolution procedure? If not, whatever the scrutiny committee may find, I want to know this information for my own purposes. I believe that it should be put before both Houses under that procedure.
The Minister said that he saw no reason why it should not be on the face of the Bill. Between now and the Report stage, I may well return to the words used by the noble Lord when he talked about the importance of discussing legislation on the face of the Bill, which is in nature skeletal and framework legislation and which then paves the way, for example, for more detailed codes of practice. There is also the importance of having details of the Government's intentions in the hands of Members as they discuss such matters on the Floor of the Chamber. I believe that the argument for me is as strong on this Bill as it was for the noble Lord on the other legislation.
The Minister referred to issues regarding admissions policy which are non-educational. He mentioned money, cost, which amounts to the same thing, and sixth forms. When I was working in local government and went through the painful process of reorganising or even closing schools, I personally made a commitment on every single occasion. My commitment was always this: if, at the end of the day, the alternative provision offered to any child was not at least comparable to the education that he or she was receiving—or, indeed, better than the education that he or she was receiving—then, whatever the cost benefits of the changes, we should not proceed with them. On the basis of that, every time we entered into a reorganisation as regards money and/or costs (if that was the initial motivating factor) we always made it a paramount consideration that, first and foremost, the decision should be educationally sound. If it then produced a cost benefit, so much the better.
The Minister said that he did not understand the philosophical point that I made. I can tell the noble Lord that a number of local authorities across the country do not believe in school based sixth forms. Sometimes great pressure is applied by further education colleges in this regard. Understandably they believe that if it were not for school based sixth forms, sixth form education could be arranged more effectively in an educational sense and more cost effectively. As we all know, the unit cost of a sixth form place is rather greater than the unit cost of a sixth former being educated in
798
further education. It is conceivable that within an organisation plan there could be reorganisation of sixth form provision for acceptable reasons and, to some people, unacceptable reasons. It is important to keep at the forefront of people's minds that educational considerations should supersede some philosophical objection or whim, or an objection on the ground of cost.
The noble Lord also referred to popular schools, sibling links and faith denominational links. However, in each of those cases there is an educational argument. Schools are popular because of their high educational standards. People want places at those schools. As regards sibling links, it is quite obvious to those of us who have more than one child that having them settled in the same school—if that is what we wish—results in a better educational output because the family and the children in it are settled. However, that is not always the case. Some families benefit from having siblings in different schools. That is part of the facility afforded to parents. As regards faith denominations, that matter is very much tied up with education. It is an educational consideration. I do not regard popular schools, sibling links or faith denominations as being outside the remit of my amendment. The noble Lord did not think it was necessary to include the provision on the face of the Bill. He dismissed some of the points that I made. I profoundly disagree with his view. I believe the provision should be included on the face of the Bill.
On Question, amendment negatived.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 209:
Page 59, line 7, at end insert—
("() The code may include guidelines to show how children who may have special educational needs, and children for whom a statement of special educational needs is maintained under section 324 of the Education Act 1996, shall not be disadvantaged in admissions arrangements.").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 209 is linked to Amendments Nos. 213, 215 and 229. They all concern admissions policies and how they affect children with special educational needs. Amendment No. 209 seeks to include in Clause 79 the phrase,
"The code may include guidelines to show how children who may have special educational needs, and children for whom a statement of special educational needs is maintained…shall not be disadvantaged in admissions arrangements".
If the amendment were accepted, all the people listed in Clause 79(1) who are involved with admissions policies would be obliged to consider how their policies did not disadvantage children with special educational needs. We seek assurances that children with special educational needs will have their problems addressed in the proposed code of practice. We also seek to ensure that a mechanism for monitoring admissions will be established.
I believe that earlier in the discussion on this Bill it has been mentioned that in the past couple of years since the issue of circular 6/96 there has been much evidence to show that parents of children with special educational needs are being turned away with comments such as, "Why do you not try a school which is better equipped

799
to deal with the kind of difficulty your child has?" Those who have special needs but have not yet received statements are told, "Go and get a statement, or an assistant, and we might be able to admit you". In other words, there is unquantified but nevertheless considerable evidence that schools are becoming more reluctant to admit children with special educational needs.
Therefore this amendment to Clause 79 is designed to provide the Minister with an opportunity to assure us that these matters will be addressed in the code of practice on admissions. I beg to move.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I give my wholehearted support to this amendment. It sounds very important and valuable.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining the amendment. Indeed, I am grateful to her for the wording. It is a very probing type of amendment, if I may put it that way. It says that the code "may" include guidelines, rather than insisting that it should include guidelines.
As the noble Baroness will be aware from our debate on the previous amendment, the guidelines, although statutory in the sense that the rationale behind them is set out on the face of the Bill, are extremely local and flexible in many of the ways in which they operate. They are not intended as the be-all and end-all of admissions decisions. There is no such thing. There is no philosopher's stone in this matter. The amendment would allow the code of practice on admissions to give guidance on the admission of pupils with special educational needs, so that they will not be disadvantaged. We fully support the sentiment behind the amendment. However, it is not necessary, as I am sure the noble Baroness knows.
Turning first to those children with statements of special educational needs, in those cases strong safeguards are already provided by existing legislation. Parents have a right to be consulted throughout the process of statutory assessment, and may then specify the school that they wish to see named in the statement. Naming a school in a statement overrides all other admissions criteria: the admission authority is under a duty to admit the child to the school. However, we shall consider carefully with special educational needs groups what might helpfully be said in the code around the admission of children with statements.
For those children who have special educational needs but do not have a statement, we have given a commitment in our Green Paper, Excellence for all children, that the proposed statutory code of practice on admissions will make it clear that children with special educational needs but without statements cannot be treated any less favourably than other applicants.
Those pupils with special educational needs but without statements will be subject to the same admission arrangements as all other pupils attending mainstream schools. Before finalising those arrangements, admission authorities will be required to consult on the arrangements they propose and, where there is
800
disagreement over a school's admission arrangements, the matter may be referred to the adjudicator. The code of practice will offer guidance to admission authorities and the adjudicator, among others, in carrying out these functions.
Let me also say that the Bill requires the Secretary of State to consult on the draft of the code of practice and provides for the draft code to be placed before both Houses of Parliament. On that point, perhaps I may respond to a matter raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, in her closing remarks on the previous amendment. It is proposed that the code of practice should be presented to Parliament under the negative procedures and the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee has agreed with that view. On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness will agree that her amendment is unnecessary and will feel able to withdraw it.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: On the question of a provision on the face of the Bill in regard to pupils with special educational needs, we await further elucidation on what, if anything, has come out of meetings which I understand the noble Lord, Lord Rix, who is not in his place, may have had with the Department for Education.
I maintain that there is a need to get that interest firmly on the face of the Bill. I can see that this may not be the right place to do it, and I am sure that this is not the right time to press the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.45 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 209A:
Page 59, line 17, after ("(1)") insert—

("(a) make separate provision (by means of separate codes of practice) in relation to different functions under this Chapter of the bodies and persons mentioned in that subsection;

(b)")

The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 209A, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 209B, 211A and 211B. Amendments Nos. 209A and 209B would allow the Secretary of State to make separate provision, by way of separate codes of practice, for different admission functions. We need this flexibility to allow the Secretary of State to issue a separate code of practice on admission appeals. Guidance covering admission appeals might need to be quite detailed and specific, as can be seen from the present informal code on appeals, which is widely valued. Including this degree of detail on one topic would unbalance a single code, particularly for admission authorities and areas where appeals are not such an issue. Amendment No. 209B needs to be included as a consequence of Amendment No. 209A. It provides for references to the "code" or admissions functions to include references to any separate code or the functions to which it relates.
Amendments Nos. 211A and 211B are tidying up amendments, designed to correct and clarify the intentions of the Bill where two or more schools enter into co-ordinated admission arrangements. Amendment

801
No. 211A corrects the drafting of the Bill. As presently drafted, the Bill would allow for maintained schools to be involved in co-ordinated admission arrangements only where they make their own admission arrangements. This would preclude community schools—except those which had delegated authority from their LEA to make their own admission arrangements—from joining a co-ordinated scheme, which would clearly be undesirable. The amendment ensures that Clause 81(6) could apply to any maintained school.
Amendment No. 211B ensures that, as now, expressions of parental preference are dealt with in accordance with the co-ordinated admission arrangements. Where schools are in co-ordinated admission arrangements, approved by the Secretary of State, these arrangements may take precedence over the duty on admission authorities to comply with any expressions of parental preference as set out in Clause 81(1) and (2). The present draft of the Bill does not make this clear, as it does not include a direct reference to Clause 81(2) with regard to meeting expressed parental preferences. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas: Amendment No. 210 and Clause 79 stand part are grouped with these amendments. I shall await the Government's opinion on Amendment No. 210; I simply wish to find out what they intend to do with regard to that suggestion. My purpose in giving notice of my intention to oppose the Question that Clause 79 stand part of the Bill was simply to allow a decent debate on the clause. I think we have had that debate and I shall therefore not oppose the Question.
Co-ordinated admission arrangements clearly override parental preferences to a certain extent. I should like to know from the noble Baroness what kind of co-ordinated admissions arrangements the Government approve of. What kinds of arrangements will receive the Secretary of State's blessing and what kinds will not? Are we looking at any change of policy here? I should be grateful for a restatement of how the Government see that working and the ways in which schools might look constructively to develop these policies or be aware of the fact that they should not be thinking along those lines because the Government will not let them get away with it.
Baroness Maddock: In drawing up the draft code of guidance on admissions, what reference will the Government have to environmental issues? One of the big problems when children go out of area to school is transport and the number of cars which end up sitting outside schools. If schools are to get together on their admission policies, there may be something they could do between them, perhaps to get school buses going together, if nothing else. We have heard that the Minister for Transport is looking at how we can reduce the number of cars on our roads. In recent years the number of cars turning up outside school gates has definitely increased.
I do not pretend that the solution is easy and I am not expecting an answer which says that it is. However, I hope that, in drawing up this code of guidance, that
802
will be something at which the Government will look to see whether anything sensible can be done to reduce the amount of extra transport generated these days outside schools.
Lord Lucas: Perhaps I can just stick a pin into a Liberal Democrat obsessional matter. Out-of-area admissions in many cases reduce the need for transport because the major school in a neighbouring local authority may be a good deal closer than the school in one's own local authority area. That is a subject to which we will come later when I suspect I shall have some good long arguments with the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Baroness Maddock: I felt that I made my point in a non-confrontational way. It is a serious issue and that was the way I intended to make the point. We do not want to get into a "ding dong" about it; that would not be helpful. We are trying to make sure, where we can—I do not dispute what the noble Lord said; his point is absolutely right—that the matter is considered, and that is why I phrased my comments in the way that I did.
Baroness Blackstone: I do not want to intervene in the little spat taking place between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat Benches. Perhaps I can begin with Amendment No. 210. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that, in line with the duty in the clause, the Secretary of State will consult widely on the draft code and copies will be made available to any member of the general public upon request. For those reasons it is not necessary to place the requirement on the face of the Bill and I hope that, in the light of that, the noble Lord will consider not moving his amendment.
On the issue of co-ordinated admission arrangements, the Government will want to listen, during the consultation period, to any proposals that come forward. I suspect again that they will not be dissimilar to what exists already—the noble Lord asked that question; however, it will depend on proposals put to the Secretary of State by admission authorities. The Government will be looking particularly to simplify admission arrangements and to ensure that parents hold any one offer of a place.
We come to the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. I am sympathetic in many ways to her point. I wish more children could walk to school or go by bicycle. I know that there are issues of safety and security, especially in big cities. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right that the school run is now blocking up many of our urban roads at certain times of the day. If we can find ways to reduce the amount of moving around, that is something we will consider. We will look carefully at any proposals that take into account those environmental factors.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 209B:
Page 59, line 19, leave out from ("code"") to end of line 20 and insert ("or to functions under this Chapter shall have effect, in relation to any such separate code of practice, as references to that code or to functions under this Chapter to which it relates (as the case may be).").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 79, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 80 [Making and approval of code of practice]:
[Amendment No. 210 not moved.]
Clause 80 agreed to.
Clause 81 [Parental preferences]:
Baroness Byford Baroness Byford moved Amendment No. 210A:
Page 60, line 44, at end insert—
("(3A) Each local education authority shall record the number of cases where the duty imposed by subsection (2) does not apply for the reason referred to in paragraph (a) of subsection (3).").
The noble Baroness said: This clause deals with parental preferences. It requires that a local authority,
"shall make arrangements for enabling the parent of a child

(a) to express a preference as to the school and

(b) to give reasons for [that] preference".

My amendment requires,
"Each local education authority shall record",
that parental choice—in other words, the parents' first choice—and this information should be made public.
At a time when the Government are committed to raising standards in schools and pursuing the course that good schools will be able to expand, it seems logical that we should have some way of judging what is and what is not a good school, but not just in terms of the school itself but as regards the choice so that parents would wish to send their children to that particular school. As we have heard in earlier debates, parental choice will vary. Their judgment may be swayed by academic achievement or by the league tables which are now published; it may be by the specialism that a particular school offers. There may also be a religious character to the school or that the parents wish to consider the ethos and moral culture for which the school is renowned. We have had that in our earlier discussions on this Bill. It may well be an indication that siblings have a bearing on the matter.
At the moment there is no place in the Bill where the parents' choice, particularly their first choice, is recorded in any way. Parents may well ask how they are to know what is a good school if they are not interested in just academic achievement. My amendment seeks to give parents another indicator by which to judge the school. The fact that the list will be published school by school within the local education authority would be an added value for parents. I would like to see this measure included in the Bill.
I move this amendment and, if this amendment is accepted, I move also Amendments Nos. 214A and 215A.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The grouping is for the convenience of the Committee. The noble Baroness can
804
move Amendment No. 210A. She has spoken to the others, but she cannot move more than one amendment at a time.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for that assistance. I am happy to speak to just Amendment No. 210A.
Baroness Blackstone: It is perfectly appropriate for the noble Baroness to speak to the other amendments in the group, but she cannot move more than one, the first in the group.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for helping me out on this occasion. I have spoken to Amendment No. 210A and as a consequence I would like to include Amendments Nos. 214A and 215A because of the consequences they have for the clause. I ask the Minister to consider the first preference of parents. I also ask the Minister to consider also the parents who are not successful in their first choice. They should be included in some form of table as league tables already exist for academic achievement. I beg to move.
Baroness Maddock: I rise to speak to two other amendments in this group; namely, Amendments Nos. 213 and 215. My noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood has already mentioned them. We would like to have these amendments on the face of the Bill as regards children with special educational needs. The first is an amendment to Clause 87. It seeks a mechanism which will enable local education authorities to monitor admissions. They need to be able to monitor whether schools are systematically admitting more or fewer children with special educational needs than a fair proportion of their intake would suggest. This information would be very helpful in informing discussions with schools in the particular area of admissions. The amendment to Clause 87 is designed to provide a mechanism to ensure that information is made available by community, foundation and voluntary schools.
The other amendment to Clause 84 is designed to ensure that information about how admission policies have been working over the previous year informs the consultation on the determination or variation of admission arrangements. It is designed to ensure that permitted forms of selection do not include any forms of selection that may discriminate on the grounds of disability. Tonight the Committee has considered a whole series of amendments relating to admission of this very special group of children. We have heard examples of possible discrimination. These amendments are designed to ensure that no child is refused admission to a school on the ground of disability or special educational needs.
Baroness Blatch: I support my noble friend's amendment. I also support the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. I believe that the recording of preferences will underpin the information that the Government require to support two policies. The first is the expansion of popular schools. This will provide a

805
great deal of information as to where parents are voting with their feet. The second deals with the importance of showing up those schools that are not being supported by parents. That will also give the Government the opportunity to focus attention on those schools. I was interested in one aspect of the class size pledge. It appeared likely that a good deal of the money for the class size pledge in terms of supporting preferences, which is what my noble friend seeks to have counted, would end up going to over-subscribed as opposed to under-subscribed schools. That is an interesting side issue which flows from that policy.
Referring to the matter raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, it is ironic that the only classes that will be allowed to bust the class size pledge and go to 31, 32, 33, or whatever the figure may be, are those that accept children with special needs. A guarantee is required that if a child with special needs is not to be turned away an attempt must be made to make extra provision to support a teacher who not only has a class of 30 but children in excess of that number who make particular demands on that teacher. That should not take place at the expense of either the teacher and/or the child. I am concerned about many hundreds, or possibly thousands, of schools in rural areas where it is not possible, certainly in the short term, to find extra classrooms because there is no room on the site for them and yet a child in a particular locality may want a place as a special needs child in a school. How can that preference be met?
This point is linked not only to the point raised by my noble friend in moving her amendment but to a debate on a previous amendment. Will the code of practice address the whole issue of parental preferences and codify the class size pledge that the application of that policy will not result in the sending of a child an unreasonable distance—this is all to do with admissions policy—or to a poorer performing school, or placing a child in a higher age group in a junior school, or not allowing a class other than in special needs cases to go over 30? Will the capital costs be met? Will it not only sustain the level of parental preferences but, as the honourable gentleman in another place makes clear in the background document, enhance parental preferences and place that local authorities under an obligation to see that they are enhanced? I believe that the recording of parental preferences is one way to hold this policy to account to make sure that it delivers what is intended by the Government. On those grounds I believe that the Government should support my noble friend's amendment.
Baroness Blackstone: I begin with Amendments Nos. 210A, 214A and 215A. These amendments would place express duties on the face of the Bill requiring local authorities to keep a record of each parental preference which is refused under paragraph (a) of Clause 81(3)—the "prejudice ground"—and on authorities and governing bodies to publish the number of such refusals in a year. Paragraph (a) is capable of covering a range of types of "prejudice" that can occur, but these will not normally arise unless the number of places in the particular school is oversubscribed.
806
Of course a parent must be given a right of appeal in such a case, but sufficient records will already exist for that purpose.
As to publication, we agree that knowing various levels of oversubscription at a school may be of considerable value to parents in judging the realistic options they have when applying for a school place. Indeed, departmental advice in the past has suggested that schools and LEAs might publish such information.
However, this is a matter which the Government do not think belongs on the face of the Bill. It would be unwieldy to include precise details to be published—important though they may be—in primary legislation. Instead, Clause 87 already enables details of this kind to be set out in regulations.
To require all LEAs and governing bodies to record and publish these details seems a trifle overbureaucratic. Published details are already quite lengthy and we do not believe that this is something that should be made compulsory.
I would, however, be very happy to give a commitment to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that we shall carefully consider what the code might say about voluntarily publishing additional details such as the levels of oversubscription and about the ways parents may best assess the realistic options that they have.
Perhaps I could say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, on the code of practice that, yes, of course, it will address the issue of parental preferences. I confirm what my honourable friend the Minister for School Standards has already said: we intend, with the class size pledge, not just to sustain current levels of parental preference but to enhance them. That is something that the Government made clear when we were discussing the class size clauses in the Bill.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 203 and 205 and say to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, that I am sympathetic to the intention behind these amendments. I now understand that their aim is to ensure that children with disabilities and special educational needs are not discriminated against, by establishing a mechanism which would enable LEAs to monitor admission arrangements and identify whether schools are taking their responsibilities towards children with special educational needs—including those with disabilities—seriously. That is extremely important.
Perhaps at this point I could also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that she is absolutely right: if a child has a statement, the school must give the support that goes with that statement; so if a child with special educational needs is additional to the class size ceiling of 30, he or she would need to have the additional resources.
Baroness Blatch: That facility was already in place under the previous government: where a child is formally statemented, the provisions follow the child. I am talking about a child with special needs who falls short of being formally statemented. But if that child is guaranteed a place in a school where the class size pledge can be busted, then it is important to recognise

807
two things: first, that the class size has been exceeded; and, secondly, that there is an extra burden on the teacher in the classroom.
Baroness Blackstone: I was just about to come to that point. Of course the noble Baroness is right. I could not agree with her more. If a child with special educational needs has been taken into an infant class, which means that the number goes over 30, for the period of time that that class is over 30 and the child is in the class, the additional resources must be provided.
I shall return to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness. The new admissions framework is designed to allow consultation by all admission authorities in an area through a forum on one another's admission arrangements for the forthcoming admissions round. That is to allow for constructive debate, I hope, leading to local agreement on those arrangements, with the right of referral to the adjudicator where that cannot be reached. LEAs and governing bodies will be required to publish information about the current admission arrangements for all schools to help inform parents considering which schools to apply for.
We have previously stated our commitment to ensure that school admission arrangements do not allow children with special educational needs, including those with a disability, to be discriminated against. Monitoring arrangements will be important to ensure that, in practice, children with special educational needs, but without statements, are treated no less favourably than their peers. It is right that such mechanisms should be put in place, but we must ensure that we put in place considered arrangements which will provide us with the right information.
I assure the Committee that we are considering the issue in the light of the responses to the SEN Green Paper. Although it is premature to include specific legislation at this stage, I can give an undertaking that in working up our proposals for taking forward our policies on inclusion we shall take careful account of the issue raised by the amendment. In view of that, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for that reply. I am encouraged by her response that she might be looking for voluntary inclusion for schools or the LEA to indicate first preference, but she referred also to it becoming cumbersome and over bureaucratic. I assume—perhaps the Minister will correct me—that that information is already to hand and that the LEAs and the schools will know at this stage how many people have applied for that school as first preference. Perhaps she can answer that point.
Secondly, is it the Minister's intention to put these requirements into regulations or guidelines if they are not to be in the Bill? Perhaps the Minister would like to respond.
Baroness Blackstone: I do not believe that the LEA will have all that information. It will have to ask the schools to record carefully every application made to them, including applications that may eventually come
808
to nothing. They would then have to send it to the LEA. I do not want to suggest that the Government are not sympathetic to what lies behind the amendments. It is helpful for parents to have some idea about which are the over-subscribed schools. I suspect that in most LEAs they will have a good idea. Such information is normally in the public domain. The over-subscribed schools are known.
When I was speaking earlier, I said that I was happy to give a commitment to the noble Baroness that we will consider carefully what the code might say about voluntarily publishing additional details, such as levels of over-subscription, and how parents might best assess their realistic options. I hope that that answer helps.
Perhaps I may tell the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that I am now informed that unless a child has a statement that child will not be admitted as the 31st, 32nd, 33rd or 34th child. It is only in those cases where a child has a statement that the class size ceiling of 30 will be lifted. In other cases that would not happen. I think that what I said earlier may have been slightly misleading.
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Maddock: I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. I think that time will tell and we will have to see what comes forward later on. However, I do not intend to press the amendments.
Baroness Blatch: Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I press her a little further? Is she saying that a child with special needs who falls short of being formally statemented and who would be the 31st child in a school which cannot be physically expanded because there is no room, would be sent off to another school even though the school, the governors, the head teacher and the parents in that local community are entirely happy for the child to be taken into that school as the 31st child?
Baroness Blackstone: We are going over ground that we have already covered at great length in the debates that took place on the class-size clauses of the Bill. I do not think it is terribly helpful to have them again on a completely different part of the Bill. We will be able to come back to all these matters on Report. The Government's class size pledge is one that they regard as extremely important. If this was a village school where the child would be required to travel some distance, I made clear when we were discussing the class-size parts of the Bill that the child would be taken in. However, if it is an urban school then we are sticking to our pledge that we do not think that the standards of our infant schools can be raised with the very large class sizes we have had in recent years.
Baroness Blatch: I personally take offence at the remark just made by the noble Baroness. This is an admissions issue and we are talking about admissions policies. The very fact that the class size pledge is a separate issue in the Bill is one thing, but it impacts very much on whether the admissions code of practice is to take into and subsume the pledge covered in

809
Clauses 1 to 4. If it does not, then it is not going to be delivered if the local authority is not obliged, through the code of practice, to deliver it. That will be the mechanism. So I make no apologies for raising the matter. The noble Baroness, in the circumstances I have described, in one answer said no, the child could not be accepted because the class size pledge cannot be exceeded. Then, in the second answer, the noble Baroness said that if it meant going a reasonable distance the child could be accepted. The particular scenario I painted was one where the child would in fact make a 31st child. I shall reflect on what the noble Baroness said, but those two answers are inconsistent. However, the whole subject is entirely pertinent to the admissions policy set out in Clauses 79, 80 and 81.
Baroness Byford: If I may return to my amendment, it would have been immensely helpful to all of us debating in the Chamber tonight if a code of practice had been available. It is rather a shame that we shall have to wait until next year before it will come into being. However, having said that and having listened to the Minister's response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 211 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 211A and 211B:
Page 61, line 11, leave out ("made by") and insert ("for").
Page 61, line 16, after ("shall") insert ("(despite anything in subsection (2))").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move these two amendments together formally. I have already spoken to them.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 81, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Lucas: I signalled my intention to oppose the clause as an opportunity for the Minister to elucidate how she sees under the new regime the two opposing and irreconcilable forces of parental choice and what the schools want being dealt with and, so far as possible, reconciled. The noble Baroness will know of enough examples of how schools and local authorities use preferences to fight for what they want and how parents use preferences to try to lever things their way to enable me not to have to go into great detail. I would prefer to listen to the Minister and then seek clarification if I feel a matter has not been covered.
Baroness Blackstone: The clause is a straightforward restatement of the existing parental preference provisions currently set out in Section 411 of the Education Act 1996. That Act consolidated existing legislation, as I suspect the noble Lord knows—the right for parents to say which school they would prefer their child to attend and the duty on LEAs and schools to comply with that preference, unless any of the specified
810
relief supply has, of course, been enshrined in legislation right back since 1980 and was the cornerstone of the noble Lord's party's parental choice policy.
In a nutshell, the clause consolidates all existing provisions relating to parental preference. It incorporates two changes introduced by the previous government in the Education Act 1997. The first relates to twice excluded pupils and makes clear that the duties to comply with the parents' preference is to supply it in such cases.
The second prevents partially selective schools from keeping selective places unfilled where demand for places at the school exceeds the places available and not enough applicants meet the selective criteria.
We have, of course, now agreed some minor technical amendments to subsection (6). These clarify the procedures whereby two or more schools may enter into an agreement to co-ordinate their respective admissions timetables and procedures for that agreement to be approved by the Secretary of State. His approval can give schools added flexibility over meeting parents' preferences.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is interested in the interaction of the provisions on parental preference and the new admissions framework. I hope I can reassure him and the Committee that the new admissions framework will safeguard the right that parents have enjoyed since 1980 to have a say in the school placement of their child. This clause carries forward that right, together with the duty on school admission authorities to comply with parental preference, unless they can show that this would prejudice efficient education or efficient use of resources, or in the case of selective or religious schools that applicants do not meet any selective or religious criteria. This means that normally, if a school has space, eligible pupils must be admitted. I hope that helps the noble Lord.
Lord Lucas: Yes, that will satisfy me for the moment. We shall come back to any conflicts that attitude might create under later sections.
Clause 81, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 82 and 83 agreed to.
Clause 84 [Procedure for determining admission arrangements]:
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 211C:
Page 62, line 38, at end insert—
(" (1A) The admission arrangements shall, in respect of any admissions made otherwise than under the provisions of sections 86, 94 and 95, give an over-riding preference to children who are resident in a designated area and whose parents have expressed a preference for the school in accordance with section 81.
(1B) In this section "designated area" means a geographical area determined by the admissions authority.
(1C) A designated area may include parts of the areas covered by more than one local education authority.
(1D) More than one school may include the same geographical area in its designated area.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 211 C and to speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 211D, 211E, 213BA and 214.
Amendment No. 211C introduces the question of how admission arrangements are to interlock. I have chosen to set out in this model something which will be familiar, and that is designated areas or the idea that schools should have a particular area which they are supposed to serve. This is going back into history, but my reason for putting it in this amendment is that it appears to have been revived by this Government in the context of further education, that is if the trade rag FE Now! is to be believed. The FEFC has decided that FE colleges should have local catchment areas and that colleges should not be funded for students which they bring in from outside those catchment areas. That is taking the concept of catchment areas a long way and certainly further than I would intend to in this clause.
I do not pretend to have any particular attachment to the ideas that I have set out here. I merely wanted to take an idea, see how far it would run and use it to elucidate what the Government's plans were for ensuring, or going as far as they can to ensure, that there are not gaps in the provision which individual children fall through. In other words, every child has a right to attend a school which is sensibly located and has a sensible provision according to where they live and what their abilities are. I shall be interested to hear how the Government intend to achieve that.
Amendment No. 211D is intended to allow the Government to elucidate how subsection (3), paragraphs (a) and (b), are intended to work. What kind of area less than an LEA is the Government contemplating? What kind of regulations and opportunities are they thinking of putting in place? How do they see them working?
Amendment No. 211E is similarly probing. It is intended to discover how the arrangements between a local education authority, an admissions authority and the adjudicator will work. What will be the restrictions on the adjudicator? What terms of reference will he have to work to in contemplating the kind of admission arrangements which the admissions authority will have to set out? What allowance should be made for the capriciousness or agenda which the adjudicator will bring to it?
Amendment No. 213BA is merely the adjunct to Amendment No. 211C, which reflects the ideas set out in terms of the instructions which the adjudicator may receive. Amendment No. 214 suggests that the adjudicator will also need to be given instructions as to how he should regard the need of schools which have a religious character to maintain that in respect of their admissions policies. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for explaining his amendments. I appreciate that they form a coherent whole, even though it is an investigative whole. Amendments Nos. 211C and 211D would require the admissions authority to draw up areas and give priority in allocating school places to parents who live within those areas and to express a preference over and above out-of-area parents, except where the school operates special religious or selective arrangements.
812
Amendment No. 211E would prevent an admissions authority from being able to vary its admission arrangements during a school year, even following a major change of circumstance. Amendment No. 213BA would also require the adjudicator in making decisions to have regard to children being resident in the designated area of the most convenient local area schools and to have regard to the whole country being divided into areas.
Amendment No. 214 to Clause 86 refers to references made to the adjudicator by the school's governing body when the LEA does not agree to the school's proposed special arrangements. In prescribed cases covering denominational or religious criteria, the adjudicator must forward the reference to the Secretary of State for him to determine.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised this interesting and complicated debate about the link between geography and meeting parental preference. In speaking to the previous group of amendments he sought to see how the Government would resolve the conflict, as he put it, between parental choice and what schools want. We will never resolve that conflict. It is not even as though there were a simple question of parental choice, because different parental choices may be in conflict and different requirements of schools may be in conflict. That is why we have this enormously complicated section of the Bill, which is complicated even without setting out on the face of the Bill the contents of the code of practice.
These are issues where the best will sometimes be the enemy of the good and where the best for one person will sometimes be to the detriment of another. I admire enormously the principles on which the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, dealt with admission policies when she was in local government, if she got through her time in local government and achieved what she said she achieved. I believe she said that, whenever there was an allocation to be made other than to the first parental choice, the alternative would be—perhaps I may finish my understanding of what she said and, if I am wrong, then she can correct me—at least as good in educational terms as that which would have been achieved by the first choice.
10.30 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord did get it wrong. I was talking about reorganisation policies. I was talking about closing schools, merging schools, changing the nature of schools, where children, as a result of those changes, had to be given an alternative provision. In every single case cost was not the prime factor; rather, it was the soundness of the alternative educational provision, which had to be at least comparable, if not better.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful for that and apologise for misinterpreting her. I think that is a special case of the more general difficulties which will face all educationists, all parents and all children.
I have a lot of sympathy with parents who want to send their children to the local school or to one with established transport links. I also appreciate the very real

813
disappointment faced by parents who are unable to gain a place at their preferred local school and whose children can face a longer journey to a school which was not their first preference.
The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, however, swing the balance too far the other way. Whether they swing it quite so far as his description of the policies of the Further Education Funding Council I do not quite know. I have not had an opportunity to investigate that. I am behind on my reading of FE, so I will have to reserve my position on it. The present position is that admission authorities can define catchment areas within and across local education authority boundaries, and give priority to parents living within that area who express a preference. It must be wrong to require them to do so, however, and so not allow them to choose any other equally valid criteria in determining applications. Many reasonable criteria are used, including sibling links and medical or social reasons. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, would call those educational reasons. Does she also call the issues of catchment area educational reasons, which are to have priority? I should not tempt her, should I?
Many parents choose schools other than their local school. The principle of parental preference does not necessarily mean choice of a local school, but giving all parents the best chance of getting a place for their child at the school of their choice, regardless of why they made that choice.
I welcome the opportunity to explain the proposed definition of areas in the legislation. Admission authorities will be required to consult with others in the particular area. The code will say that that should happen through a forum. The Secretary of State may make regulations to prescribe the extent of those areas, whether they simply cover the area of a local education authority or are more or less extensive, and so allow consultation across local education authority boundaries. Regulations on which we will be consulting will define our approach to these areas.
The obvious examples, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will recognise, are with the growth of unitary authorities within the areas of counties and sometimes in the middle of counties, as for example with Milton Keynes or Leicester City, where it would be a nonsense, given the previous situation of a single local education authority, to have two local education authorities acting at arm's length and not co-operating.
Amendment No. 211E would mean that an admission authority would not be able to vary its admission arrangements during the course of the school year following a major change of circumstances, even if it would sensible or desirable for it to do so to help meet local parental preference. That cannot be right. But there must be safeguards where admission authorities change their criteria or procedures. That is why the subsections in the Bill require the involvement of an adjudicator.
Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 214. Clause 86 is in the Bill in order to preserve the rights of denominational schools to make special admission arrangements to
814
maintain their character. It both carries over the similar right from the Education Act 1996 and meshes it with the new framework as a whole.
I have referred already to the effect of the amendment, which relates to references made to the adjudicator by the school's governing body when the LEA does not agree to the school's proposed special arrangements. The adjudicator may have regard to whatever matters are relevant and must have regard to the guidance in the admissions code. I hear what the noble Lord said and will take into account his remarks in considering the detail of the code.
I repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord for raising those issues. As I said before, without claiming that the Government have found the philosopher's stone which will satisfy all parental demands and all school needs, I hope the noble Lord will recognise that his amendments would give undue predominance to one particular factor, possibly at the expense of others, and will not press his amendment to a Division.
Baroness Blatch: I find it difficult to take issue with what the noble Lord has just said about parental preference. The idea that any government in office can meet that 100 per cent. is fanciful and cannot be done.
However, this Government have pledged to enhance it, to make it better; and to improve on the present level of parental preference. I wish to continue to press the Government on ways in which they intend to do that. It seems to me that there is a confusion. We have organisational committees, local education authorities, the operational duties of the adjudicator, parents making their preference and schools having a wish as to what they want to do. We have both LEAs and schools which are admission authorities. In particular, as I understand it, the foundation schools will be their own admission authorities. I do not know the extent to which they can be overruled. For example—and it is a question that I have not posed before in the context of this issue—I do not know whether an organisation committee can initiate organisational proposals which impact on admission policies. The matter would be passed on to the adjudicator only if somebody on the organisation committee did not agree. But can an organisation committee initiate proposals which would impact on admission policies and parental preference?
At the end of the day, where does power lie? Does it lie with the Secretary of State, the local education authorities or the organisation committees and the adjudicator system? It is quite difficult to know where parents stand who are making the preference, where the power lies in order to meet it and what mechanisms the Government will put in place to make sure that the level of parental preference is in fact enhanced under the new arrangements.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It would be confusing if we returned to the school organisation committees. We are not dealing with those at the moment. We are dealing with admission procedures. Therefore, we are dealing with admission authorities, local education authorities, which are sometimes admission authorities, and admission forums which bring together those

815
education admission authorities which need to be brought together in order to make parental choice meaningful.
The noble Baroness is quite right to say that by having foundation schools and some voluntary schools as admission authorities in their own right, whereas the local education authority is the admission authority for community schools, there is the possibility of confusion. But by bringing them together in admission forums, we provide the coherent whole which parents need in order to understand the situation in their own area. Parents are represented on the governing bodies of those schools which are themselves admission authorities and they have their say in the activities of LEAs. Therefore, at all stages, they are represented and have an influence; indeed, at any stage, they have the power to express their views to the admissions forums.
The other complication which the noble Baroness recognises is that for some parents there is not a natural area in which they find themselves. That is the problem with the phrase, "designated area", which is used in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. Under those circumstances, the admissions forums could be overlapping; in other words, a parent could be in the area of two admissions forums. I believe that it will work out all right, provided that we understand that the parents' and the child's needs are at the forefront of such considerations. The organisation will have to adapt itself to meet those needs.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. But my point is: where does the power lie? In the case of a foundation school which is its own admissions authority, can it be over-ruled by any other part of the process?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: In a situation of conflict which cannot be reconciled, the bulk of the reconciliation will be in adherence to the code of practice. That will be a statutory code of practice as set out under Clause 79 of the Bill. The code will make clear the relative importance of all the factors which have to be taken into consideration. When that is not possible and the conflict cannot be resolved, it will be the responsibility of an adjudicator. In the end the buck has to stop somewhere. That is where it stops.
Lord Tope: I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for raising the issue. I am not certain that the amendment is necessarily the right answer but I am equally certain that I do not have the right one. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that he believes it will all work out all right in the end. I very much hope that he is right, because this issue is extremely important in those LEA areas—and I simply use that as a geographical description—which are particularly affected by the provision.
In his response the Minister referred to the new unitary authorities which are new LEAs and which sometimes find themselves in the middle and at other times on the edge of the existing LEAs—the counties. This is not a new problem for those who have been LEAs in major conurbations, especially in London but
816
also in some of the metropolitan areas. The effects of what is usually called the "Greenwich judgment" have been considerable. Parents do not understand why their children cannot have preference over children who live, as they would see it, in a very different area; for example, another borough in another LEA area. That is the case at present.
I have no wish whatever to exclude children from wherever they may come; indeed, they are more than welcome to any LEA school. However, what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is talking about in his amendment is: who has the "over-riding preference"? It is a difficult problem to resolve. The simple answer is to say, "Get rid of the Greenwich judgment", but I believe that the issue is more complex. Even though I and my party would support the removal of that judgment, it is a difficult and complex issue. I wait with interest to hear how the Government will solve it.
We have just been through local council elections. In my area—and my area was not alone in this—I have to say that all three political parties pledged themselves to campaign to their last breath to reverse the Greenwich judgment, such was the strength of feeling on the issue. As the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in my borough have campaigned for it, and as we, of course, said that we agreed, I wait to hear how the other parties are going to solve the problem. I am sure that we will he able to reach agreement with them on that point.
I am sorry to make this issue appear less serious than it is. I can only repeat that for many parents this is a serious concern. Speaking as the leader of a council, this is the issue on which I encounter the strongest feelings. People do not understand why their child cannot be admitted to a school a few hundred yards from their home, and yet a child from another local authority area miles away, often not in London at all is admitted. That child may live in Surrey or even Sussex. The schools in our area are so good, they even attract pupils who live in Brighton. I acknowledge that is a tribute to the schools concerned, but it is no consolation to the parent who attends my Saturday surgery and asks, "Why cannot my child be admitted to that school?" That is the issue to which this Government have to find the answer.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Lucas: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, for the answers which he gave me. I am also extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, for such a clear exposition of the problems which occur round the boundaries of local education authorities, particularly successful ones such as that of the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to cross border fora. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, puts that kind of dreamy idea in context. We are not dealing with authorities which, generally, are rushing to co-operate with each other. A good deal of guidance may be required from the Government to tell them what they are supposed to do. They are not supposed to allow their citizens to get up in arms to repel boarders from Surbiton, Kingston, or wherever the neighbouring authority may be. They are supposed to co-operate to arrive at a pattern of provision which suits a larger, more coherent area than individual London boroughs.

817
However, these problems also occur out in the provinces. I can think of corners of Dorset with a big Hampshire conurbation a mile away with a big, successful secondary school. The Dorset village just across the border may contain a thousand or two thousand people and have a decent primary school, but the Dorset secondary school is 10 miles away in the other direction. It is sensible to deal with cross border provision. But without guidance, encouragement and direction from this Government directed at solving the kind of problems which, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, correctly says, many people get worked up about, we are all at sea. If this is all in the code of practice, it merely illustrates why we need to have that in front of us before Report stage with enough definition and coherence to enable us to understand how the Government are approaching the matter to make sure that this Bill which we are being asked to pass gives the necessary powers and has the necessary characteristics to deal with this problem, which is not unsolvable but which requires a degree of effort and coherence on the part of the Government to solve.
I hope the Government will take the opportunity to read FE Now! between now and Report stage, which states,
"A new funding condition included in the 1998/99 Funding Guidance for Colleges says that 'the Council may not wish its funds to be used by an institution … to develop provision outside its local catchment area' … the Council may refuse to pay the college its grant unless it agrees not to take students from outside this area".
That is a draconian and extraordinary provision. I would like to have the Government's reaction as to whether it is a direction which they approve the FEFC taking. If they do, to what extent do they propose to allow local education authorities to proceed in a similar direction as regards the schools under their charge? I do not require an answer from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, now unless he wishes to give one.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: In the context of the School Standards and Framework Bill I do not think it would be appropriate for me to write to him about the policies of the Further Education Funding Council. If he wishes to raise that issue separately, he is free to do so.
Lord Lucas: I am merely using the quoted policy of the FEFC, which is after all a government organ, as an example of policy promulgated by this Government in asking the Government whether this is the policy the Government wish to import, or would be prepared to see imported, into the way local education authorities deal with their schools. Would they be happy to see this policy of the FEFC imported into the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, deals with the schools under his command—in other words, if they start taking pupils from outside they will not be funded? That would be an effective answer to the problems of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. It is one that the Government are apparently allowing elsewhere in the education system. I do not require an answer for further education, but I want to know in the context of this Bill whether that approach, which is clearly part of the Government's policy for education, is one that they see as allowable for schools; and if not, why not?
818
The Greenwich judgment causes some interesting anomalies in all areas. I ran across its effect the other day in the outskirts of Newcastle, where the children in the suburbs there have effectively taken over the local Northumberland secondary school, and people in the outlying villages stretching miles into the hinterland now have nowhere to go and have enormous cross-country bus trips. It is a problem that has to be dealt with sensibly and, I hope, by some co-operation and coherent thought. If the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is able to provide us with some more of that today I shall be delighted. Otherwise, I look forward to the code of practice.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Lord tempts me to my feet again. I thought I had made it clear that the code of practice will do its best to resolve all of those problems, but that it will not in practice be possible to do so in all circumstances. That is why, in responding earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, I made it clear that, failing agreement, which we hope will be achieved in nearly all cases, there must be reliance on the adjudicator. I cannot wave a magic wand for the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, any more than I can for the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch.
Lord Lucas: Subject to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, feeling that he has heard all that he hopes to hear this evening—or at least, all that he has reason to hope to hear this evening—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 211D, 211E and 212 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 212A:
Page 63, line 38, leave out subsection (8) and insert—
("(8) Regulations may make provision—

(a) specifying matters to which any consultation required by subsection (2) is, or is not, to relate;

(b) as to the manner in which, and the time by which, any such consultation is to be carried out;

(c) as to the manner in which, and the time by which, any notification required by this section is to be given;

(d) specifying matters which are, or are not, to constitute major changes in circumstances for the purposes of subsection (5)(b);

(e) authorising an admission authority, where they have in accordance with subsection (4) determined the admission arrangements which are to apply for a particular school year, to vary those arrangements to such extent or in such circumstances as may be prescribed;

(f) for the application of the requirements of subsections (5) and (6) to variations proposed to be made by virtue of paragraph (e), or to any prescribed description of such variations, as if they were variations proposed to be made under subsection (5);

(g) as to such other matters connected with the procedure for determining or varying admission arrangements under this section as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.").

The noble Lord said: It may be more convenient if I speak to Amendments Nos. 212B and 212C when the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, has moved them. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for not moving Amendment No. 212, which would simply have removed subsection (8) of Clause 84.
This amendment rewrites subsection (8), we hope giving effect to the views of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. The committee asked us to be more precise about the effect of the regulations.
What we are saying in Amendment No. 212A is that the regulations should determine which matters may or may not be consulted on; set out how consultation is to be carried out, including the timescale; set out how notification is to be given, including the timescale; define "a major change in circumstances" in subsection (5)(b), which would necessitate a variation in a school year of admission arrangements; set out the circumstances under which admission arrangements may be varied in the school year, and the extent to which they may be varied; require the adjudicator's approval for varied admission arrangements; and finally, provide for other matters relating to the procedure for determining or varying admission arrangements as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
This amendment puts more detail onto the face of the Bill about what subsequent regulations made under this clause may cover in respect of the procedures for admission authorities to follow when determining or varying their admission arrangements. The Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee has asked us to clarify the intentions behind Clause 84(8), and we are glad to do that in this amendment.
We believe it is right that regulations—not primary legislation—should cover the details of the procedure which an admission authority must follow when first determining its admission arrangements or subsequently varying them. It would not be appropriate for this level of detailed information to be included in primary legislation. As this is a brand new procedure, as part of our new admissions framework, it is right that we have the flexibility to make any necessary adjustments to regulations, rather than primary legislation, in the light of experience of the operation of the new framework. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe): I should tell the Committee that, if this amendment is agreed to, Amendments Nos. 212B to 213 inclusive will be pre-empted.
Baroness Blatch: My Amendments No. 212B and 212C were my way of dealing with the recommendations in the report of the scrutiny committee. I prefer my own way because, with the Government's Amendment No. 212A, we end up with the Secretary of State still having open-ended powers, as set out in paragraph (g). Under the original wording in Clause 84(8) there is power to vary admission arrangements,
"as the Secretary of State thinks fit".
In paragraph(g) of the amendment, it is,
"as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate".
Nevertheless, the Secretary of State is given powers to vary admission arrangements.
It would not be of concern if these provisions were on the face of the Bill if it were not for organisation committees and the adjudicator. The noble Lord is
820
irritated by any return to the subject of organisation committees and adjudicators, but it is not possible to discuss this matter without thinking about the role of that new body and the powers that will be wielded by the adjudicator. At the end of the day, they will be inextricably linked in the mechanistic delivery of the code of practice. It will be the organisation committees that will deliberate over these issues.
A moment ago the noble Lord was upset that my noble friend Lord Lucas brought in the FEFC. In fact, the FEFC will be one of the groups sitting around the table in the organisation committee contributing to decisions, if they are made at organisation committee level, about school provision which affects admission policies.
I was pleased to have clarification from the noble Lord that at the end of the day a foundation school, with its own power as an admission authority, can be overruled by the deliberations of an organisation committee and the adjudicator. That is what the noble Lord said. If matters cannot be resolved at the local level by the organisation committee, it goes to the adjudicator, and, as the noble Lord rightly said, at the end of the day somebody has to make the decision. I would prefer it to be the admission authority—where the LEA is the admission authority, the LEA; and, where it is a foundation school, that foundation school. The context for the amendments is very important because we have this new phenomenon built into the Bill and the way in which the admissions code of practice will be delivered. I think that the noble Lord's Amendment No. 212A and my amendments are straightforward alternatives. I shall not press my amendments this evening, but I may well return at Report stage with a similar amendment to the open-ended power in paragraph (g).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 212B, to 213 not moved.]
Clause 84, as amended, agreed to.
11 p.m.
Clause 85 [Reference of objections to adjudicator or Secretary of State]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 213A:
Page 64, line 15, at end insert—
("(1A) Where

(a) admission arrangements have been determined by an admission authority under section 84(4), but

(b) any parent of a prescribed description wishes to make an objection about those arrangements, and

the objection falls within any description of objections prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph, that person may refer the objection to the adjudicator.").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 213A, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 213B to 213G. I hope that these amendments will be welcomed because they give the parent a right to object direct to the adjudicator in certain circumstances.
Perhaps I can say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that I hope I never either feel or express irritation. I certainly did not express any irritation about references to the adjudicator because, though the adjudicator is a long-stop, he is an important part of the new admissions procedures. I was merely somewhat puzzled when on occasion the noble Baroness referred to the school organisation committees when I thought we were concerned with admission authorities.
In Wales—I say this safely in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas—objections will go direct to the Secretary of State, in effect, the National Assembly for Wales from May 1999.
The principal amendment giving effect to this intention is Amendment No. 213A. The subsequent amendments are consequential and bring parents' objections within the existing framework governing consideration of objections by the adjudicator or the Secretary of State. I shall leave out Wales from now on to simplify matters.
We were prompted to bring forward this amendment by the situation in Wandsworth where almost all secondary schools have selective admission arrangements of some sort, contrary to the wishes of many parents. There is concern that the Bill does not at the moment provide for a situation where parents in an area are unhappy with the arrangements that an admission authority is proposing to adopt, but other admission authorities may be content and so would not object. Without this amendment the adjudicator would not be able to consider the issue and parents' concerns would not be addressed.
We will be setting out in regulations those arrangements against which parents will have a right to object. At present we envisage that this will apply only to partial selection. But regulations allow us the flexibility to respond in the event of parents raising other major issues of concern where they have significant local impact. We certainly do not envisage bringing routine matters—such as the way an individual school prioritises its over-subscription criteria or the date by which admissions have to be submitted—within the scope of the regulations.
We will also be defining in regulations the term "parent" for the purposes of this provision. The general definition—someone who has parental responsibility for a child or who has care of it—is obviously too wide for these purposes. We do not want parents in Cumbria to be able to object to admission arrangements in Devon, for example. And we will be specifying the conditions that will have to be met before the adjudicator has to consider parents' objections. It is arguable, for instance, that admission arrangements are not causing problems if only one or a very few parents in an area object.
These amendments provide an important safeguard for parents. I hope that they will be welcomed.
Baroness Blatch: I apologise to the noble Lord if I used the word "irritation". I should not have done so.
822
I remember clearly the noble Lord saying that we do not want to return to the whole subject of organisational committees and I heard a discernible voice from my right on the Liberal Democrat Benches saying "Hear, hear!". All I am saying is that we cannot discuss these issues in this context without thinking about organisational committees and the working of the adjudicator. However, I am sorry if I used the word wrongly. The noble Lord is not usually irritable; he is usually extremely accommodating across the Dispatch Box.
In a spirit of conciliation, as the noble Lord is so concerned about parents in these amendments and is giving them a right to object to the adjudicator, will he not go one step further? Will he give the same parents, where they are dissatisfied, an opportunity to appeal against the adjudicator's decision, not on purely procedural grounds—that is the only way in which they can appeal in court to prove that there has been a breach of the way in which the adjudicator has procedurally arrived at the decision—but to appeal as they would have done to the Secretary of State if the Secretary of State had made a decision, for example, about a school closure, a merger or some form of reorganisation? If the noble Lord uses arguments to say that the parents have a right to object when they are unhappy I also believe that when they are unhappy they have right to appeal to the adjudicator.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Without in the slightest degree feeling or expressing irritation, the issue of whether there should be an appeal from the adjudicator to the Secretary of State is a theme which, shall we say, runs through a number of parts of the Bill, including this part. Therefore, it is entirely legitimate for the noble Baroness to raise it. The answer will be, as it has been in all cases, that the adjudicator is an independent person, appointed, of course, by the Secretary of State on a part-time sessional basis. It is our firm intention that we should refrain from the centralising tendency of having ultimate appeals back to the Secretary of State so that in the end we are departing from the whole theme of the Bill, which is local decision-making. The idea of an adjudicator is because we know that in certain limited circumstances local decision-making will come to an impasse. Therefore, there must be something behind it. But to go beyond that to reinstate the role of the Secretary of State would be entirely wrong.
Lord Lucas: I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, could confirm or deny the impression that I am arriving at as to how this whole arrangement will work. It seems to me that various people will be charged with putting together the policies—the schools, the local education authority, the FEFC, local Churches, and so on—and they will interact with various other bodies which I shall refrain from mentioning. The Government are saying that those bodies must jolly well sit down and work it out together and arrive at a co-operative solution; if not, off it goes to the adjudicator. Am I right in saying that the adjudicator will be a totally unknown quantity

823
to these parties, that he will not be given any bias in the guidance which the Government are thinking of giving him, and that there will be nothing in the guidance under Clause 79 to say, "You have to give priority to this, that or the other party to this discussion priority"; but rather, "You sit down, you look at everything, you arrive at a reasonable decision and you have no restraints on you as to on which side of the argument you come down"? In other words, will it be for all parties an unknown process rather than being something which one party will come to believe favours its case?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The adjudicator will have to act in accordance with the code of practice in exactly the same way as the other local participants in the admission process. Therefore, in that sense, whether or not the adjudicator is personally known to any of the participants is something I cannot anticipate. But I can say that he will be working to the same rules.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord keeps using the code of practice as a kind of backstop that the adjudicator will act in accordance with. Under the way the provision is placed in the Bill the adjudicator is obliged under the law to have regard to the code of practice. The adjudicator can dismiss the advice of the code of practice. As long as procedurally the adjudicator can prove that in coming to a decision he had regard to the code of practice but, nevertheless, on balance he reached a view that was inconsistent with the code of practice, it is perfectly all right. It is a procedural matter only and it is only about statutorily having to have regard. That is all that needs to be proved in a court of law.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Baroness is right in saying that he has to have regard to it. But the only way in which, under those circumstances, he is going to do something which is in conflict with the code of practice—which to me is inconceivable anyway—is if the code of practice turns out in the end to be inapplicable to the local circumstances on which the adjudicator is being required to adjudicate. That is what "having regard" means.
Lord Lucas: I was a little unclear in what I said to the noble Lord. I know that I am not going to hear what will be in the code of practice. Can the Minister give some indication of what sort of things will be in it as far as the adjudicator is concerned? Is he going to be told that there is a menu for him with particular attitudes and ideas that he will have to bear in mind, or will he simply say that he has to act fairly and take all sides into account? In other words, in the code of practice is he to be given a set of biases or will he be allowed a reasonable man's free rein?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not know. The noble Lord and I will know in good time before Report stage when the interim guidance is published.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 213B:
Page 64, line 16, leave out ("such a reference") and insert ("a reference under subsection (1) or (1A)").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 213BA not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendments Nos. 213C to 213G:
Page 64, line 25, after ("(1)") insert ("or (1A)").
Page 64, line 36, leave out ("the bodies whom they consulted under section 84(2)") and insert ("persons by whom an objection about those arrangements may be made under subsection (1) or (1A)").
Page 64, line 43, at end insert ("or (1 A) or the adjudicator or the Secretary of State is required to determine an objection referred to him under subsection (1A)").
Page 64, line 46, leave out ("that subsection") and insert ("subsection (I) or (1A)").
Page 65, line 5, after ("(1)") insert ("or (1A)").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 85, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 86 [Special arrangements to preserve religious character of foundation or voluntary aided school]:
[Amendment No. 214 not moved.]
Clause 86 agreed to.
Clause 87 [Publication of information about admissions]:
[Amendments Nos. 214A to 215A not moved.]
Clause 87 agreed to.
11.15 p.m.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth Baroness Darcy de Knayth moved Amendment No. 216:
After Clause 87, insert the following new clause—
EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN MAINSTREAM SCHOOLS
(" .—(1) The Education Act 1996 shall be amended as follows.
(2) In section 316 (children with special educational needs normally to be educated in mainstream schools)—

(a) for subsection (1) there shall be substituted—

"(1) Any person exercising any functions under this Part in respect of a child with special educational needs who should be educated in a school shall secure that the child is educated in a school which is not a special school unless that is incompatible with the wishes of his parent and the needs and ascertainable wishes of the child."; and

(b) subsection (2) shall be omitted.").

The noble Baroness said: With this amendment we return to children with special educational needs, but perhaps with a slightly broader brush approach than with the amendments we have just been discussing. Here we are talking only about children with statements. I hope that the Committee will bear with me because this amendment need a little explanation. It seeks to ensure that children with statements of special educational needs are educated in mainstream schools provided that that is in accordance with the parents' wishes and the needs and ascertainable wishes of the child.
The amendment removes some of the conditions of efficiency first introduced in the Education Act 1981, now embodied in Section 316 of the 1996 Act, which for 17 years has provided legal loopholes for LEAs reluctant to include children with statements in mainstream schools. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, was the Minister in charge of the 1981 Act. She has said that had she been able to stay she would have spoken in support of this amendment and I am very grateful for that.
The conditions that the amendment removes are that the LEA has a duty to offer mainstream education provided that that is compatible with the efficient education of the other children and the efficient use of resources. The amendment retains the condition of being compatible with the child's own educational need and the proviso, introduced in 1993, that it must be compatible with the parents' wishes. The amendment brings a welcome first-time mention of the ascertainable wishes of the child.
It is important to stress that this amendment removes the conditions of efficiency only from the general duty of LEAs to provide a mainstream education for a child with a statement. When it comes to a parent expressing a preference for a particular school, the conditions about the efficient education of other pupils and the efficient use of resources, which is in Schedule 27 to the 1996 Act, (page 414, subsection 3(3)) still apply and also to the change of name school which is on page 416 of the schedule.
In other words, if this amendment is accepted, in the case of a parent seeking a mainstream placement for a child with a statement, the LEA has a duty to place the child in some mainstream school. The LEA does not have to place the child in the particular school of the parents' choice if it does not fulfil the efficiency criteria. The LEA only has to place the child in some suitable mainstream school. There will be no compulsory placement in a special school, but equally there will be no automatic right to the preferred school either. For the parent who prefers a special school placement that choice is left intact.
Why is the amendment necessary? The Special Educational Consortium feels that it is needed to prepare the ground for implementing the Green Paper, Excellence for all Children, and to ensure that children with statements have the same opportunity of a mainstream education irrespective of where they live. In the Green Paper, the Government express a strong wish to see more pupils with special educational needs included in mainstream primary and secondary schools. The Government support the 1994 UNESCO Salamanca World Statement on Special Educational Needs which calls on all governments to adopt the principle of inclusive education unless there are compelling reasons for doing otherwise. That is stated on page 44 of the Green Paper, in the first paragraph of Chapter 4.
The consortium thinks that the amendment would send a clear signal of the Government's intentions to those LEAs which for 17 years have remained reluctant to offer an inclusive education to children with
826
statements and that it would prompt LEAs to think in good time how they can provide mainstream places for all children with statements where that accords with the parents' wishes and the needs and ascertainable wishes of the child.
There is still a wide variation in the extent to which LEAs make provision in the mainstream or special schools. The Green Paper states on page 45, Chapter 4, paragraph 5, that out of the whole pupil population of an LEA, the number of pupils in special schools varies between 0.5 per cent. and 2 per cent. The consortium is particularly concerned about the unacceptable lengths some LEAs will go to to insist on special school placements against the parents' wishes. The consortium has documented evidence of families taken to court when they have chosen to educate the child at home rather than send him or her to a special school. Of course, most LEAs would not go to those lengths, but there are a number of children out of school throughout the country because their parents do not feel that special schools will meet their needs and there is nothing else on offer, yet some of those children have, after long periods out of school, gone on to do well in mainstream schools, perhaps in another LEA.
Probably more typical of the way LEAs behave is the example of Wandsworth. Although it certainly does not actively promote inclusion—indeed, it has a high proportion of its pupil population in special schools—parents have told the consortium that that LEA has accepted their clearly stated preference of a mainstream placement and has not tried to place their child in a special school against their wishes.
A substantial and increasing number of schools are committed to an inclusive approach. What comes across strongly is how all types of pupil benefit, for example, in terms of personal development or by having their special needs or problems identified early on because teachers have had the experience of teaching those with more severe learning difficulties. It is interesting that Newham, which is perhaps the best known and most often quoted of LEAs which successfully promote inclusion, has, at the same time as increasing the number of statemented children in the mainstream, seen a decrease in the number of pupils excluded from school. Newham schools are also among the most improved in the country. In the other place on 11th March, on Report, at col. 594 of Hansard, the Under-Secretary of State, Estelle Morris, said:
"The greatest asset of inclusion is that it benefits both groups of children".
Inclusion brings many benefits. The Government are firmly committed to more inclusion, but LEAs still vary enormously in their provision and commitment. This amendment would ensure that regardless of where they live, all parents and their children with statements would be able to choose, if they wished, for those children to be educated in a mainstream school. There would be no automatic right to a preferred school, but there would be a mainstream placement; and for those parents who preferred the special school placement, that choice would be respected. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at the amendment and in reply will agree to put something on the face of the Bill or at the very least

827
to send an exceedingly strong signal to those reluctant LEAs that they must take better account of the wishes of parents who want their children with statements to have an inclusive education. I beg to move.
11.15 p.m.
Baroness David: I strongly support the amendment so ably moved by my noble friend. She has made very clear that what we want are better opportunities for all children to he educated in mainstream schools and to try to improve the actions of some LEAs which have not been totally supportive. It does not force parents to have their children educated in mainstream schools but gives them the opportunity to choose a special school if they so wish.
It is interesting to consider the different reactions of LEAs. If one goes back to the 1991 Act, there was then much discussion about integration. I remember it well because I took part in it. The Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE) describes the approach as follows:
"Many ordinary schools 'integrate' disabled children by bringing them into their premises—on a full or part-time basis—but on the ordinary school's terms. The pupils can stay if they can benefit from what is already on offer, schools do not expect to change to accommodate and support diverse needs. Other children experience a warmer welcome and their place is more secure".
It is not of much use if they are taken in but the school is not really prepared to accommodate them. However, that attitude has changed. The CSIE has also stated:
"Inclusive education, by comparison, demands that a mainstream school considers all pupils in its area as fully belonging to the school and all of its varied activities. Each child has the same rights of access—each belongs and each is entitled to appropriate support to meet individual need … Inclusive education also demands that ordinary schools change their systems and structures for educating and socialising children and young people".
There is a significant and growing number of schools committed to an inclusive approach. Some of these schools are quoted as case studies in the Green Paper. The schools themselves speak of the benefits to all their pupils, not just the special needs pupils, of a more inclusive approach. In the case study of John Smeaton Community High School in Leeds the Green Paper says:
"The school's 1996 Ofsted report noted that the quality of teaching was a particular strength, with good planning and use of individualised teaching programmes to meet the needs of pupils with [special needs]. Such pupils were fully integrated into mainstream school life and lessons, and the personal development of all pupils was enhanced as a consequence of the diverse intake of the school".
It is of interest that pupils without special needs learn by having special needs children in their midst.
The National Foundation for Educational Research produced a paper on educational achievement in the London Borough of Newham. My noble friend Lady Darcy has quoted from it. It is important to note that at the same time that Newham has increased inclusion it has decreased exclusion and its schools are among the most improved in the country.
828
I believe this to be a very important amendment. It seeks to improve on what now takes places but without being prescriptive about how that is achieved. I strongly support the amendment and hope that the Minister will, too.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne: I rise to comment on this most interesting and constructive amendment. I perceive the reasoning behind it. I am aware of several special needs schools that accommodate children of five to 16 years of age, cover the four key stages and yet perhaps have only 25 or 32 children, costing £46,000 a year per child. My point is not the cost but the fact that, however comforting for parents or warm and friendly for the children that school may be, with that small number it cannot offer the educational provision of the national curriculum.
However, the amendment may not address fully a group of children about whom I have a concern. I refer to children with low incidence disability and with uneven distribution nationally. It is possible that if this amendment were passed it could do those children a disservice by excluding them, possibly inadvertently, from the best education on offer in the United Kingdom. Instead of supporting the amendment, my answer is to argue for fewer but better special schools, particularly for children with low incidence disability and with uneven national distribution and to regard them as a national resource that is not geographically bounded, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, argued strenuously this evening.
Earlier, in Amendment No. 209, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, talked of the admission of children with special needs to mainstream education. I fully support that. Normally, as is identified in Amendment No. 216, children with special needs in mainstream education sounds correct; it is a non-divisive approach. It is a proper inclusion of all our young people into the national education resource, the public sector, irrespective of background, ability, disability or any difference.
I am concerned that the amendment which is put forward in the best of faith by two of the people I admire most profoundly in this Chamber tilts the balance towards exclusion from special needs and might perhaps lead to an undesirable outcome.
I suggest that no parent can ever believe that their child is ordinary. Every child, their child, is special and unique. Each child's birthright is its own package of balance and challenges. I suggest that we must have special schools for extra special children, whether this is for the Yehudi Menuhin violinists or for children who present themselves and their carers with special challenges. I think that those children need specialist teachers and the most advanced technology of all because you need to have a critical mass of knowledge and experience to meet those children's challenge.
Take deafness, for example. Every year 450 profoundly deaf babies are born in the United Kingdom—a very small number—whose cases and needs I had the welcome opportunity to discuss on Friday last with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I thank

829
the noble Lord for that excellent and helpful meeting. Take blindness—another small number. Both are acute sensory deprivations. In minor forms, between them they afflict most of the population at some point during their lives. But from birth I would argue that they interfere drastically unless curtailed by modem science and advancement and the best of teaching, with the acquisition of formal and informal education. Indeed, we can perceive that by looking at the outcomes where deaf and blind youngsters have to take jobs, if they can find them at all, at levels far below that which their talent would normally attain. Blind in Business, a small charity I used to chair, has instigated job covenants with business to try to achieve a higher goal.
Why not mainstream, therefore, as this amendment would suggest, for all those children? Because mainstream cannot offer the special provision and the pool of educational teaching talent which those children need in order to flourish. I can give examples. A very wealthy individual approached me recently asking for help with his small son, born profoundly deaf and unable to speak. I went to meet the boy. I took a long time speaking to his father, but two years later he transferred him from mainstream to special school.
All the wealth of Arabia, which had equipped the local public sector school with everything and more a thousand times over for that young boy, could not bring out his speech, his socialising, his capacity for that. He needed the very special teachers of a special deaf education school. His mainstream school, fully funded in every possible way that anyone could imagine, was unable to help because it did not have educational audiologists or speech and language therapists. If all that money could not do it, then special schools are, surely, badly needed.
Over and above the proper thrust for special needs children to be in mainstream education, we must recognise also that there are some forms of disability—the sensory disabilities are the two most obvious—which need what I can only define as a national resource, because the numbers are so small and the spread so uneven and so unforecastable that there has to be a better way of doing that than bringing those children into mainstream education.
If mainstream education were to have many of the provisions which the special needs schools have, then the children with lesser sensory deprivation could well be catered for. On deafness, for example, acoustic conditions and lighting, training for teachers, small class sizes, because of one-to-one teacher interaction with the children, and other improvements are badly needed to promote speech and language development. Classroom amplification aids are an example. Many things could be done. I believe that they will be done. I welcome the Bill and I welcome the amendment, but as of now I beg the Minister to turn down the amendment and to address the point that I put to him, that national resources, looked at in a special way—fewer, better, well-sized special schools, alongside and in co-ordination with better resourced mainstream schooling—would help all those children.
11.30 p.m.
Baroness Byford: I support the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy. I accept all that the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, said. I spoke earlier about classes and of the medical needs of some of the children within those classes. Unless I have misunderstood the amendment, my understanding is that it is the wish of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy, to see as many children as possible who can cope in mainstream schooling, to be able to be part of it, but that parents should be able to have special provision for their children if they so choose. I should like that clarified, because that is my understanding. I appreciate all that the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, said, but that was my interpretation of the amendment.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: That was a helpful question. Perhaps I may intervene, because I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, misunderstood what I was getting at. I was not getting rid of special schools in any way. I accept all that she said. I applaud the achievement, for example, of the Mary Hare School for the Deaf, which has no rival. It is terrific. The only tilting of the balance that I was doing was ensuring an even approach by the LEAS in providing the possibility of mainstream education for the children with statements whose parents wanted it and for whose particular education need it would be suitable.
Baroness Blatch: It was the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, who put a figure on the number of the children who the report believed were children with special needs. The figure was 20 per cent. About 2 per cent. of that 20 per cent. was deemed to have acute special needs. Then came everyone within the spectrum, from someone merely having difficulty learning to read within the classroom, demanding more of the teacher in the classroom than average, through to the most acute.
My experience of local authorities is that they are not awash with money. So they do not readily accept the expensive provision which special school provision often represents. On some occasions there is great tension when they believe that it is appropriate to place someone in a special school. Their great problem with that is funding.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment. However, it throws up a number of questions. I looked through the Education Act 1993, Part III of which was dedicated to special needs. The 1993 Act built upon the 1981 Act. It is my understanding that the 1998 or the 1999 Bill, or whatever year it is, that will flow from the special needs paper will build on the 1993 Act, so that there is a continuing development relating to the provision for children with special needs. It has always been my view, whatever the provision is, that it should be appropriate to the needs of the child. Whatever the special needs of the child are, they should be met in the most appropriate way.
The question it throws up for me is one that I have discussed with the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, and that is the interaction between this amendment and what in fact is contained in the 1993 Act. That is that parental preference is given some

831
paramountcy in the code of practice, for example, and at the tribunal, right from the LEA level, where the parental preference is made, and the mechanism is put in place for the parents to continue to challenge if they believe that their own child's needs are not being met in the most appropriate way.
My understanding has always been that where a preference can be met, and where the preference is consistent with the educational needs of the child, it shall be met. The tension that is thrown up only happens where the educational needs of the child are identified, and the parents make a preference which may, in fact, be inappropriate educationally. It would then be a requirement on the education authority to deem what is educationally appropriate, which may be out of sync, with the parents' preference. Of course, that is where the tribunal comes in and makes a judgment as to whether the local authority has done the right thing.
Where the parent makes a preference which is expensive for the local authority, and where the local authority can meet the educational needs of the child and the educational provision is at least comparable to that preferred by the parents, then it is possible for the local authority to presume in favour of the local authority provision and to stand judged about that when it comes to the tribunal. In other words, what still matters is the LEA meeting its obligation under the law to provide appropriate education for a child. I am not sure about the way in which this works.
One of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson made is that there will always be a number of children with low incidence disabilities, and it is important to get a cohort of children that makes sense in terms of educational provision. Therefore, sometimes that can only be met as a national provision or a regional provision. It seems to me that there will always be the case for that.
If I read the amendment aright, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, is trying to counter parents having a right to make a preference for a special school provision in the 1993 Act, with having equal rights for the parents to make a preference for mainstream school provision, as long as it is consistent with the educational needs of the child. I have no difficulty with presuming in favour of mainstream provision—and I think that is what this amendment is saying—as long as it is consistent with the parental wishes.
The Minister has to consider the interaction of this with the 1993 Act. He has to consider this amendment with the importance of providing appropriate education for the child, and in terms of it meeting parental preferences and getting away from what I have always thought to be unhelpful—an aggressive integrationist policy. At the end of the day it is a combination of what is right for the child and what is as close as possible to the wishes of the parent.
Lord Addington: I would like to make one or two comments on this amendment. When talking of special educational needs we often have this argument about the most appropriate type of education and the benefits of the sheltered environment as against greater integration.
832
Everybody agrees that there is room for both. That has been established in this debate so far. The only real discussion is, is this particular amendment the right way of progressing towards a situation where both will be attainable for most people who will benefit from either one of them? It is a very difficult subject that we are making motions towards.
Sensory deprivation and problems of a sensory type of impairment are always going to be the most difficult type for integration across the board, because they affect the way in which you absorb information. My noble friend Lady Nicholson said that that was going to be one of the most difficult areas because the structure of lessons and learning is often difficult. That is in purely educational terms.
It is easier to integrate into classrooms pupils with movement impairment. However, there are so many variations on the themes that one cannot make hard cases either way. The amendment is probably the best attempt I have seen to square the circle. It does not achieve the objective and the refusal is purely on financial grounds. Can the noble Baroness tell us why? What exactly needs to be done? We have danced around the problem for long enough. Surely we should take this opportunity to try to correct it.
Lord Whitty: This has been an interesting debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, my noble friend Lady David and others who have put their name to the amendment for sharing their thinking with the department. It has helped our thinking to move on.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked whether this was the right amendment for achieving objectives which, broadly speaking, we all share. I would argue that it is not the right amendment either technically or strategically. Technically speaking, as many noble Lords who know better than me the complexity of the law relating to special educational needs will be aware, the amendment seeks to change Section 316 of the Education Act 1996, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, stated, re-enacts provisions which were in the 1993 Act and to some extent in the 1981 Act.
Section 316 seeks to secure that a child with a statement of SEN shall, if that is what the parents want, be educated in a mainstream school, subject to the LEA being absolved from meeting that general preference where to do so would not meet the child's needs or would be incompatible with the efficient education of other children or with the efficient use of resources. The amendment seeks to do away with the latter two conditions but not the first.
There is an interaction, however, between Section 316 and Schedule 27 to the Act. In fact, Schedule 27 comes first because the LEA proposing to issue a statement for a child with special educational needs must, under the provisions of that schedule, name the maintained school—mainstream or special—that is preferred by the parents unless the same three exemptions apply. Section 316 comes into play only where parents do not express a preference for a particular school or where their preference for one mainstream school is not being met. Section 316 provides that if the LEA is not obliged

833
to name the school, for whatever reason, it should nevertheless name a mainstream school unless one of the three conditions applies in the sense that no mainstream school could be named.
The overall effect of the amendment would be to retain all three specific conditions which LEAs must consider when deciding whether a school should be named in a statement, but it would somewhat illogically remove some of the conditions which would be available for an LEA to pray in aid under Section 316 when not complying with a parental preference for a specific school under Schedule 27. That is the main technical reason why this is not the appropriate amendment, although there are other issues. While it is attractive, we should need to examine carefully the wider implications of the amendment's reference to securing the ascertainable wishes of the child, sympathetic though we are to taking more account of the views of children with SEN.
Moreover, there are strategic reasons why at this stage we would not wish to support the amendment. In our Green Paper on SEN we gave a commitment that we would strongly promote the inclusion of children with SEN in mainstream schools, as is the objective of this amendment. The issue of inclusion has already provoked far more comment than any other aspect of the Green Paper. The department has been carefully digesting those views. The great majority were in favour of a cautious move towards more inclusion; but they also indicated that there are some very real issues to be addressed, some of which were addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson.
It is quite clear that some parents of pupils with SEN, either through experience or because of their own feelings, do not believe that their child's need can be properly met in a mainstream school. We accept that there are clearly some children for whom a national provision in fewer and better special schools would be more appropriate. It is also unfortunately true that other parents of pupils who do not have special needs fear that their increased inclusion would disrupt their own children's education. There are also teachers, worried about their ability to cope with pupils with a wider range of needs. All these responses need to be taken into account and indicate that we must move sensibly and sensitively.
The Government have in train two related courses of action to secure the objective which lies behind this amendment. The first is the SEN Green Paper itself, the consultation for which has been concluded, and the Government will put forward an action programme in the light of the responses, to be issued shortly after the Summer Recess. The second course of action which is also relevant to this is that the disability task force, chaired by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment, will, among other things, specifically review the present exclusion of education from the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act.
I cannot prejudge the outcome of those two exercises. What I can say, and say unequivocally, is that they will result in a powerful programme to remove barriers to
834
inclusion and that if we see a need to change legislative provisions such as those we are discussing today we shall do so. This is not in any way to dismiss the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, who, both tonight and at a meeting we had last Friday, has expressed her view on these issues. She is clearly in favour of inclusion where appropriate; but a number of issues—the provision of speech and language therapy-associated links between the Department of Education and Employment and the Department of Health, and the need to look at the planning and provision of fewer but better schools for low-incidence disabilities, particularly sensory disabilities—are issues which we have discussed in the context of the SEN Green Paper and which we will be taking into account on the action programme we hope to put in place after the summer.
It may well be that we shall propose to Parliament measures which will have the same effect as the present amendment, but they will be part of a coherent overall package which will take account of all of these concerns. At that stage we will want to propose practical legislative arrangements for children with SEN—arrangements which will work and which will last. We do not consider that deciding to adopt this amendment in the Bill at this stage would help that situation. Piecemeal changes are no substitute for the full review on which the Government are now embarked.
Having said that there are both technical and strategic objections to this amendment, we do share the objective behind the amendment. I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise the very real commitment to move in the direction proposed. With that commitment from the Government I hope that the noble Baroness is prepared to withdraw her amendment, at this stage at least.
11.45 p.m.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I first of all thank all noble Lords who have spoken: the noble Baroness, Lady David, who, as she said, has been on this since 1981, as I have myself, as has the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who offered her support; the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for her thoughtful question and support, and the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, for many of her remarks. I do appreciate and understand what she said, but I hope she has equally understood my reply. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, for her question, her very serious consideration of this amendment and for her broad support. I welcome that very much indeed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who as usual puts his finger unerringly on the matter. I am extremely pleased that he thinks it is the best attempt yet to square the circle, and I am very grateful for that.
I turn now to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. He is really refusing this amendment on two grounds—technical and strategic grounds. I may not have totally understood the technical grounds and I should like to read again what he said. I am not sure that he was right about that but I shall read very carefully what he said.
I found his strategic argument much more disappointing. I spent rather a long time trying to explain this issue and I did not get my point across very

835
well. Since 1981, we have been trying to pave the way for inclusion. I appreciate that we must wait to hear what the taskforce has to say and the replies to the Green Paper. However, it will not be possible to start implementing inclusion unless we get this straight and we have not done that since 1981. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said that when she introduced the 1993 Act, she was trying to improve matters and sort this out.
That disappoints me enormously. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, says that it will remove the barriers to inclusion and is part of a coherent, overall pattern which will demonstrate pure commitment. The Green Paper gives a very firm commitment as regards moving towards inclusion but if that is to be anything more than mere aspiration, the LEAs must be prepared to offer and be offering mainstream education throughout the country. I do not like the expression "a level playing field" and I have never used it before but I may have to on this occasion so that the Committee will know what I mean.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, knows that the noble Baroness, Lady David, and I were in communication with the department. I said that I would not divide on this amendment but I emphasised that I would like a very clear message from the Minister to those LEAs which are reluctant to respond. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will realise that I mean no discourtesy to him: I do not feel that the message is very strong in any event but I feel that a ministerial message of encouragement to LEAs comes rather stronger when it is from the lips of the Minister herself. I understand that the Government do not feel like doing that at the moment.
Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will agree to discuss this matter before the next stage of the Bill. I do not ask the Government to pre-empt the Green Paper but could we not try to smooth the way towards offering an equal opportunity for children wherever they live?
Lord Whitty: I am happy to discuss further these matters with the noble Baroness, and I am sure that the department will be happy to do so. I would hope that as strong a message as possible was going from the department and from Ministers in general to those local authorities which are dilatory in even the most elementary preparations for providing for pupils with special needs. In that sense, the Government's commitment is clear.
The Government's final position will depend on their overall assessment of the response to the Green Paper. It would not be the Government's intention to propose changes to this legislation until we have that overall package, taking into account all the concerns, which it is intended to produce very early into the autumn.
Therefore, discussion would allow her to feed in her views and other views into that process and sharpen up that process. But I do not believe that there would be a very different position on Report, following those discussions. Let us have a look at the matter to see whether there is anything on which we could reach agreement before the next stage. However, I should not
836
like to mislead the noble Baroness, because our strategic objection to the amendment is that we wish to wait until the autumn to put together the total package.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I thank the noble Lord for that. I appreciate that it may not be possible to change the legislation. I understand that. However, I believe that a firmer message could be given to pave the way. I should be very grateful for further discussions with the department. With that, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 216A:
After Clause 87, insert the following new clause—
EFFECT OF ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS ON SCHOOL TRANSPORT POLICY
(" . Each local education authority shall so order its school transport policy as to give practical effect to the admission arrangements of the maintained schools in its area.").
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 241. These amendments are inconsistent and badly drafted. However, that does not matter because they are not for passing: they are for discussing. They cover two aspects of school transport policy. Perhaps I may deal first with Amendment No. 241. This refers back to the discussion we had on parental preference. As I said previously, one of the ways in which local authorities seek to curtail the use and the expression of "parental preference" is by limiting the school transport available to schools which parents might otherwise regard as alternatives. For example, if there are three good secondary schools in a county town, you can only get transport to one of them. That is all right if you are rich, have your own car and can zoom about on the school run that the Government say they wish to discourage. However, if you cannot afford that or your car is committed to work or other duties, you will be unable to take advantage of the parental preference which could easily be available if the local authority had the wish to provide it, together with a little imagination.
Amendment No. 216A touches on the rather more serious subject of school transport within the whole sphere of local admission arrangements. The current position is quite clear; namely, that transport policy is controlled by the LEA. That is an enormous strength. If you are in charge of the transport policy, you have a great ability to bend others to your will because you cannot easily indulge in admission polices that go against the school transport policy. Indeed, one can look back to counties which have denied their local grammar schools any form of transport in order to discourage children attending them. That is merely an expression and not—thank goodness—a common expression of the sort of power which control over the transport policy gives the local authority.
What I want to find out from the Minister is whether that is a power which will continue to be in the sole exercise of the local authority. Alternatively, will it become much more a part of the whole admissions

837
procedure, with the local authority being under a duty to provide the transport that accords with the admissions authority to which it has been party? I beg to move.
Baroness Maddock: I am slightly disappointed with the noble Lord. I thought that I would be able to stand up and say how much I supported his intentions and, if these were his views, how surprised I was by his earlier intervention. However, I now understand that the noble Lord has slightly different views. He is more concerned with parental choice than actually trying to tie that up with anything environmental. Perhaps that is why he was so keen to attack me for wanting to be environmental earlier.
The noble Lord has a point but his reasons are very different from those I would support. We need to address the issue of how we can help people to get their children to school satisfactorily while not using cars so much. The proposed amendments would achieve that end, although I believe the noble Lord's prime aim is to secure choice. It is important for people to have choice, but the system sometimes works against people. Indeed, as the noble Lord said, sometimes it works very much against people who are trying to exercise choice.
I remember one case I had to deal with where a family moved into an area. The child could not go to the nearest school because it was full. The child had to go somewhere else. The parents had no means by which to get the child to school. There was no transport provided, and the parents were working. They managed, very imaginatively, to get around the difficulty, but we are talking about a real problem here.
I believe that we need to look at what has happened on the ground as regards admissions policies to see whether we can devise something that helps resolve some of the awkward situations that arise. However, as the noble Lord said, this is an amendment for discussion. He is right to say that some people's choice is severely limited because they cannot afford to get their children to school. The other advantage of school buses is that they result in fewer cars on the road. In that spirit, I am happy to contribute to this debate.
Midnight
Lord Whitty: I am afraid that the Government cannot support the amendment. Quite apart from any technical deficiencies, we consider that this area should be left in general to local authorities' discretion. The proposals as they stand would involve considerable expense and impose a new and continuing burden on LEAs.
LEAs have considerable discretion in this area. They must provide free transport to the nearest suitable school for those pupils of compulsory school age if the school is beyond statutory walking distance. In all other cases, however, it is for LEAs to decide whether or not free transport is necessary. But the term "necessary" is not defined in law; LEAs must act reasonably in this matter. They should consider each application on its individual merits, taking into account all relevant factors, in particular a parent's wish for his child to attend a school of the religion or denomination to which the parent adheres.
838
Even in cases where free transport is not necessary, LEAs may help by paying all or part of a pupil's travelling expenses. The cost of this already in England alone amounts to some £380 million a year which is a not insignificant sum. The noble Lord's proposals would add to that significantly. The courts have made it clear that LEAs do not have a blanket duty to provide free transport to a school other than the nearest suitable one, whatever the distance. However, the courts have also held that LEAs must take account of the reasons for a parent's preference, although the preference is not the sole consideration.
The Government are reluctant to take away LEAs' discretion in these matters—a discretion which has been upheld by the courts. The law quite rightly gives LEAs a pretty wide scope for discretion so that a transport policy can meet local and individual needs. It is, in our view, a matter for each LEA to decide whether and how it exercises these powers and provides school transport in its area. Moreover, the amendment would lead to substantial additional transport costs and would take away the discretion that we wish to keep at local level.
The noble Lord will no doubt be disappointed in that response to his probing amendment. Nevertheless that is the position to which the Government adhere, and it is right that I should express it in those fairly uncompromising terms. In view of that, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: It is late but I cannot let the matter go by. May we hope that once the transport White Paper has been published, its policies—which I hope will be good ones, if all the signals are correct—will be adopted not just by one ministry but by all ministries? The Minister quite rightly talked about costs. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with an education authority, particularly in a county area, is acutely aware of those costs. Nevertheless, we have to consider the £16 billion a year cost arising out of congestion on the roads. I hope that in the future a broader view will be taken of these costs in the context of an integrated transport policy. I do not expect the Minister to reply to that point as this is not his subject, but it is mine and I could not resist the temptation to make my point.
Lord Lucas: I am grateful for the support from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I find myself in agreement with certainly everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said, and with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said. I did not, of course, find myself in agreement with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. But then much of what he said addressed parts of my amendment that were there purely for the sake of discussion. I am quite aware that the drafting of my amendment is deficient and would cost local authorities a quite unreasonable sum of money.
Nonetheless, the core argument remains to be confirmed. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will confirm that that is the truth; namely, that the local education authority will have control over transport policy, and will therefore effectively have a stranglehold on schools' admissions policies and on the school

839
organisation plan—because whatever other people work into those by way of adjudicators, panels or committees, all a local authority has to do is to say, "Fine, but we are not going to provide the transport for that", and it wins. If that is the way in which the Government see this provision operating, I am grateful for the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spelling it out so clearly. If it is not, I shall be grateful if he will say why not.
Lord Whitty: I thought I had said why not; and the "why not" has also been referred to in the courts. Local authorities have to act reasonably in refusing to provide transport in cases where parents have made a reasonable choice for their children. That requirement to act reasonably greatly constrains any local education authorities which attempt to use the non-provision of transport to sabotage parent choice. I believe that is what lies behind the noble Lord's amendment.
Perhaps I may respond briefly to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. Clearly, an overall move to the provision of greater public transport includes school transport, and all those social costs have to be borne in mind. I would add that a large proportion of the congestion costs caused by home-to-school individual transport are caused in areas which are below the statutory walking distance, let alone duplicating the provision of local authority transport which does exist.
Lord Lucas: Perhaps we should procure that all children have to run to school! I thank the noble Lord for his reply. We shall read it with great interest in Hansard. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 88 [Fixing admission numbers]:
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 216B:
Page 67, line 44, at end insert—
("() Where a school is required to refrain from allocating places up to its full admissions number so that places are available for late admissions, the local education authority shall treat such unallocated places, for the purposes of funding the school, as if each two such places equalled one allocated place.").
The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to the Question whether Clause 88 shall stand part of the Bill.
We now turn to admission numbers. I believe I am right in saying that the admissions authorities will be free to raise admission numbers above the standard number, and that there is no provision for the local education authority having to agree that before it can be done.
Am I also right in thinking that, with that increase in admission numbers, the additional resources will flow on a per pupil basis; and that, however much the LEA may disagree about admission numbers or whatever arrangements are eventually arrived at by the adjudicator, it will be the local education authority which ends up with the bill and the responsibility? If there is anything that the noble Baroness can do to elucidate the working of this policy and say where under the new arrangements the responsibility will lie, I should be most grateful.
Amendment No. 216B addresses a practice of local education authorities in particular of saying, "Right, your admission number is 200, plus 20; the 200 is the number you are allowed to admit, the plus 20 represents the others that we can stuff into a school if they happen to turn up later—in other words, you must keep 20 places in your school free in case we have use for them later because that is convenient for ensuring that the system runs through the whole county". That means that a school must provide the resources and space for an additional 20 pupils and receive under LMS no remuneration for that.
This amendment asks the Government: first, is that a practice that they expect to continue; and, secondly, would they agree that, where such a practice is imposed, it should be reasonable for the local education authority to give the school some remuneration for keeping places open? I beg to move.
Baroness Blackstone: I shall first address the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, before turning to the question of why this clause should stand part of the Bill.
Admission authorities are not currently required to keep places empty for late admissions, nor will they be required to do so under the new arrangements. Where places are held open by schools for short periods, this does not result in any alteration of funding because that is calculated on the basis of pupils present at certain dates rather than pupil load over the year. However, if it does appear that there is a need to permit education authorities to adjust funding to recognise places held open, this would be a matter to be dealt with in the regulations to be made under Clause 46 governing the calculation of schools' budget shares. It would seem inappropriate to pre-empt the outcome of the current consultation on funding by writing a requirement of this kind into primary legislation. On the whole, the Government do not think it a good idea for places to be kept open. We would expect local education authorities and schools, where they are admission authorities, to fill their places where they can.
I turn now to the reasons why this clause should stand part of the Bill. The clause contains provisions for the fixing of admission numbers at maintained schools and gives effect to Schedule 23, which sets out arrangements for determining, reviewing and varying standard numbers at maintained schools. The clause largely reproduces the provisions existing under the Education Act 1996 but with important changes to enable LEAs to comply with the infant class size provisions set out in Clauses 1 to 4 within the time limits that we have set ourselves.
If we are to have a system for admitting pupils to schools which allows maximum parental choice, it is important to have a system for setting admission numbers in relation to the ability of the school to accommodate pupils. The standard number is the minimum number of pupils the school must admit, if asked to do so, in the normal admission age group. But admission authorities are free to set admission limits above this if they choose to do so—I believe that was one of the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas

841
asked—and they must then admit pupils to that level. However, they may not set an admission limit below the standard number. Again, the noble Lord asked about that. The clause provides a mechanism through which increases to the admission number may be proposed by the LEA or the governors where they are not the admission authority for the school. Where this is not agreed, the governors or LEA may apply for an increase in the standard number. That protects the interests of all those involved in the organisation of places.
It is clearly important that these arrangements should not in any way restrict the effective implementation of the class size policy. The clause therefore provides that admission authorities must not set an admission limit above the standard number if it would conflict with those class size limits. It further requires admission authorities to review the existing standard number and apply for a reduction where it is set at a level which would be incompatible with meeting class size limits. The clause also gives the Secretary of State the power to disapply the standard number for a transitional period while a review is being carried out and a reduction applied for. I hope that the noble Lord sees the purpose of having the clause as part of the Bill and that I have answered his questions.
Lord Lucas: All my questions but one have been answered. Is my understanding right that, if a school which is its own admission authority chooses to increase its admissions number, the LEA has no say in that and no ability to get that wound back down again? With that agreement by way of a nod, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 88 agreed to.
12.15 a.m.
Schedule 23 [Determination, variation and review of standard numbers]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 217 to 219:
Page 195, line 41, at end insert—
("(6A) If—

(a) by the end of such period as may be specified in or determined in accordance with regulations, the committee have not voted on the question whether to vary the standard number under sub-paragraph (1), and

(b) the body by whom the application was made request the committee to refer the application to the adjudicator,

they shall refer the application to the adjudicator.").
Page 195, line 42, leave out from ("If") to end of line 43 and insert ("the committee—

(a) have voted on any matter which (in accordance with regulations under paragraph 5 of Schedule 4) falls to be decided by them under sub-paragraph (1) by a unanimous decision, but

(b) have failed to reach such a decision on that matter,").

Page 195, line 45, at end insert ("(6A) or").
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I shall move Amendments Nos. 217 to 219 en bloc. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 23, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 89 [Appeal arrangements]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Before calling Amendment No. 219A, I draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that a revised list has been promulgated saying that Amendments Nos. 221B, 221C and 221D, which were on the original list as having been debated, have not been debated and will be debated along with Amendment No. 219A.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 219A:
Page 69, line 15, at end insert—
("(3A) A local education authority and the governing body or bodies of one or more foundation or voluntary aided schools maintained by the authority may make joint arrangements consisting of—

(a) such of the arrangements made by the authority in pursuance of subsection (1) as the authority may determine; and

(b) arrangements made by the governing body or bodies in pursuance of subsection (2).").

The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 219A, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 219D, 219E, 221A to 221E and 223B to 223D.
The Bill already allows two or more governing bodies of foundation or voluntary aided schools to make joint arrangements for enabling parents of a child to appeal against a decision refusing the child admission to a school.
The Local Government Association asked the Government to consider extending that provision so that LEAs too may make joint arrangements with governing bodies of voluntary aided and foundation schools if those bodies agree. The amendment to Clause 89 will allow LEAs and governing bodies of foundation and voluntary aided schools to make joint arrangements for appeals if they so wish.
As a result of the amendment to extend joint arrangements, it has been necessary to make a number of consequential amendments to Schedule 24 on the constitution and procedures for appeal panels. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas: I have two amendments in this group, Amendments Nos. 222 and 226. They both make the same point; that is, that at present the Bill provides that appeals should be heard in private except when the local education authority (with a few other possibilities) agrees otherwise. I am proposing in both cases that parents should be able to request that appeals be heard in public where they feel that that would best serve their case in the interests of justice.
Baroness Blackstone: The Bill currently provides for appeals to be heard in private unless directed otherwise by the body or bodies making the appeal arrangements. The provision in the Bill reflects the current provision in the Education Act 1996. We do not believe that it should be extended in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

843
In exceptional cases we accept that a public hearing may be considered appropriate, but we believe that the decision should remain with the body making the appeal arrangements. That is because that body, in making the decision on whether or not to hold a public hearing, must have regard to any guidance given in the code of practice.
The statutory code of practice on admissions will give guidance on the operation and procedures for admission appeals, including on when a public meeting might be appropriate. We expect the code's formal guidance to give no less weight than the current informal guidance to the wishes of parents.
As in the current informal guidance, the guidance in the code is likely to advise the body concerned, before deciding whether to direct that the hearing should take place in public, to consider among other things the wishes of the parents and the effect that any publicity might have on the parties concerned (particularly pupils, parents, teachers and the schools themselves) during and after the hearing. As I have said before, LEAs and governing bodies must have regard to the guidance contained in the code before carrying out their functions. The code cannot of course give guidance on this matter to parents.
There is an additional problem with Amendment No. 226 which focuses on the small number of appeals which consider the admission of twice excluded pupils. In that type of appeal, the school governing body appeals against an LEA decision that a pupil should be admitted, rather than a parent appealing against a decision that their child should not be admitted. So parents are not in fact involved. It would be inappropriate to change Schedule 25 in the manner suggested. In the light of what I have said, I hope that the noble Lord will not move his amendments.
Lord Lucas: I am very grateful for that explanation. I shall certainly not move them.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 89, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 24 [Admission appeals]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 219B to 219E:
Page 199, line 24, at end insert—
("() Where, at any time after an appeal panel consisting of five members have begun to consider an appeal, any of the members—

(a) dies, or

(b) becomes unable through illness to continue as a member,

the panel may continue with their consideration and determination of the appeal so long as the number of the remaining members is not less than three and the requirements of sub-paragraph (3) are satisfied.").
Page 200, line 12, at end insert—
("() Where, at any time after an appeal panel consisting of five members have begun to consider an appeal, any of the members—

(a) dies, or

(b) becomes unable through illness to continue as a member,

the panel may continue with their consideration and determination of the appeal so long as the number of the remaining members is not less than three and the requirements of sub-paragraph (3) are satisfied.").
Page 200, line 14, after ("if") insert—
("(a) (except in sub-paragraph (7))").
Page 200, line 16, after ("and") insert—
("(b) in sub-paragraph (7), any reference to the governing body of the school in question or to that school were a reference to any of those governing bodies or to any of those schools (as the case may be).
(2)").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 220 and 221 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 221A to 221E:
Page 200, line 17, at end insert
("Joint arrangements by local education authorities and governing bodies
3A.—(1) Where (by virtue of section 89(3A)) joint arrangements are made by a local education authority and the governing body or bodies of one or more schools, paragraph I shall apply in relation to those arrangements as it applies in relation to arrangements made by a local education authority under section 89(1), but as if in sub-paragraph (7) any reference to the governing body of the school in question or to that school were a reference to the governing body of any school to which the arrangements relate or to any such school (as the case may be).
(2) An appeal pursuant to such joint arrangements shall be to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 1 as it so applies.").
Page 200, line 22, leave out ("paragraph 2 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3)") and insert ("either of those paragraphs as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3 or 3A)").
Page 200, line 29, after ("1") insert ("(or in accordance with that paragraph as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3A)").
Page 200, line 49, at end insert—
("(2) Where any such panel is constituted in accordance with—

(a) paragraph 1 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3A, or

(b) paragraph 2 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3,

any liability arising under sub-paragraph (1) above shall be a joint and several liability of the bodies by whom the joint arrangements are made unless otherwise previously agreed in writing between those bodies.").
Page 201, line 25, leave out ("local education authority or governing body (or bodies)") and insert ("body or bodies").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 222 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 222A and 222B:
Page 201, line 28, at beginning insert ("if the panel so direct,").
Page 201, line 31, at beginning insert ("if the panel so direct,").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 223 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 223A to 223D:
Page 201, line 35, leave out ("a") and insert ("one").
Page 201, line 36, at end insert—
("(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1), an appeal to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 1 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3A shall be treated—

(a) as an appeal to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 1 if it relates to a community or voluntary controlled school; and

845

(b) as an appeal to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 2 if it relates to a foundation or voluntary aided school.").

Page 201, line 47, at end insert—
("(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1), an appeal to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 1 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 3A shall be treated as an appeal to an appeal panel constituted in accordance with paragraph 2, if it relates to a foundation or voluntary aided school.").
Page 201, line 50, leave out ("local education authority or governing body (or bodies)") and insert ("body or bodies").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 224 and 225 not moved.]
Schedule 24, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 90 agreed to.
Schedule 25 [Children to whom section 82 applies: appeals by governing bodies]:
[Amendment No. 226 not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 226A:
Page 203, line 9, at the beginning insert ("if the panel so direct,").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 227 and 228 not moved.]
Schedule 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 91 to 93 agreed to.
Clause 94 [General restriction on selection by ability or aptitude]:
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 228A:
Page 72, line 3, at end insert—
("() any selection by ability conducted in connection with the admission of pupils to the school who have disabilities or special educational needs which the school is particularly equipped to accommodate;").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I wish to speak at the same time to Amendment No. 230. These two amendments address completely different subjects. The first amendment is in response to seeing Amendment No. 229 on the Marshalled List. I thought, "Hey, wait a moment, you ought to allow schools to select people who have a particular disability, where schools have gone to great expense and trouble to put in place the facilities to deal with that disability". If a school is particularly equipped to deal with people in wheelchairs and neighbouring schools are not, it seems sensible that the school be allowed to select people who need wheelchair access so that the school's facilities may be taken advantage of. A school may also have particular facilities to deal with other forms of physical disability. That is what I am aiming at. I hope that the Minister will tell me that the amendment is entirely unnecessary because schools will be able to do that anyway.
Amendment No. 230 comes back to a chestnut which was roasted at great length in the other place. It is unsatisfactory that there should be a definition of "ability" in the Bill but not of "aptitude" when both words have similar weight and are used in ways which can be quite confusing if there is no accepted definition of aptitude. This amendment is my personal and, I hope, reasonably common sense definition of aptitude and
846
ability and the way in which they relate to each other. I hope that it proves acceptable to the Government. I beg to move.
Lord Tope: I speak briefly to Amendment No. 229, which is largely self-explanatory. Schools must not, as a policy, reject the applications of disabled pupils and require admissions systems to consider disabled children in an unbiased way. In a sense it is the flip side of the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has moved, which is a very sensible amendment. I feel sure that the Government will be able to support both amendments.
Lord Whitty: We are committed to the objectives of the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Tope. However, we do not consider that these amendments are necessary in certain circumstances. In more general terms, they also come within the strategic approach that we are adopting towards special educational needs. I can assure Members of the Committee that Clauses 94 to 98 do not in any sense undermine the existing legislation governing the assessment of children with special educational needs, including those with disabilities.
The Committee will know that the existing legislation provides strong safeguards for children with statements of SEN. Naming a school in a statement overrides all other admission criteria whatever the nature of the school. The admission authority, including that of a selective school, is under a duty to admit a child to a school. Therefore, in part these amendments are unnecessary in relation to children with statements.
On the broader issue, we have given a commitment under the Green Paper, and the consultative exercise which is under way on that paper, that we shall make it clear that all children with SEN cannot be treated any less favourably than other applicants. As I said in earlier debates, we are still drawing our conclusions from that consultation and we hope to issue a statement to that effect in the autumn. Meanwhile, we are spending substantially greater sums on school access than previously. In addition, as I mentioned, we are engaged in looking at the question of the relationship between disability legislation and education legislation.
Our aim is to ensure that any legislation works that protects over and above that which already exists for children with SEN and is within an overall and coherent programme for such needs. These amendments are not the way to achieve that and are partly unnecessary. They could only come into full effect if they were within the overall package which we intend to produce in the autumn. On that basis I hope that the noble Lords will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, Amendment No. 230 is entirely different. It is an attempt to play the lexicographer in this slightly complex area of distinguishing between ability and aptitude. As he said, it caused many debates in the other place. In fact, the distinction between the two has been enshrined in Education Acts since 1944. The previous government commissioned substantial research from the NFER on it. We believe that such matters, however gallant an attempt at definition, are best left to guidance and the code of practice. We can consult on this difficult matter

847
which may apply differently in different specialist areas. All parties will have to have regard to the guidance and the code, but we would not be statutorily rigidly bound by a specific definition. We therefore prefer to deal with this definition in that manner. I have no doubt that I could provoke a lengthy debate, even at this hour of the night, on the distinction between "aptitude" and "ability", but I hope that in the circumstances the noble Lord will accept that this is not the best way of going about it and that our provision of guidance on the matter will, in practice, be more helpful.
Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord for his attempt to help us and for his recognition that there is a distinction which, frankly, some of his colleagues failed to recognise at earlier stages.
Lord Lucas: I am grateful to the noble Lord and if, as he says, guidance is to be given on what "aptitude" means in particular cases, that seems to meet the requirements of the legislation quite nicely. However, I should be grateful if the noble Lord could point out to me which clause of the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to issue guidance on this point.
Lord Whitty: I understand that that point will be covered in the code of practice on admissions and by the provisions on partial selection.
Lord Lucas: I look forward to the code with even greater enthusiasm. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford Lord Pilkington of Oxenford moved Amendment No. 228B:
Page 72, line 3, at end insert—
("() any selection by ability consequent upon section (Admission arrangements: selection procedure);").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 230A, 230B and 230C. Noble Lords will realise that these all deal with the old subject of selection by ability and seek to provide at least partial use of selection by ability, allowing governors to ballot parents, and so on.
I am not raising this matter to cause arid controversy at this late stage—or rather, at this early hour of the morning. I want to put before the Government certain research that shows that selection by ability can assist in bringing about an improvement in the overall standards of education. Traditionally, when comprehensive education was first introduced, it was argued—the argument has almost become written in tablets of stone—that the selective system benefits only the top 20 per cent. and disadvantages the rest. However, I suggest that recent research has shown that selection need not benefit only the top 20 per cent., but that it would also help all the others.
Perhaps I may give the Committee some statistics. In England, in local authority comprehensive schools, the percentage gaining five or more passes at grades A to C at GCSE is 39 per cent.; further examination reveals that the proportions are 47 per cent. for voluntary Church
848
comprehensives; 49 per cent. for GM schools and 94 per cent. for grammar schools, whereas the surviving secondary moderns, relatively small in number, have a rate of 29 per cent., but do better than 700 comprehensive schools. In mathematics, the secondary moderns are ahead of 900 comprehensive schools.
Perhaps I may give another comparison. Northern Ireland has maintained a selective system with secondary modern schools and 52 per cent. of its secondary school pupils gain GCSE passes at grades A to C—that is, 10 per cent. better than the English comprehensive schools. I suggest that if the Government allowed some selection—or, more radically, followed Northern Ireland's example—that would improve our results similarly.
Perhaps I may give an analogy with what happens on the Continent. In Germany, which has a very selective system, with the Gymnasien taking 30 per cent. of the age range—as do Northern Ireland's grammar schools—the mathematical attainments of pupils in the lower half of the ability range are better by the equivalent of two years' schooling than the corresponding range for pupils in England. The problem is that England has become so obsessed with the ideology which has governed educational debate for the past 30 years that these facts are ignored. It is not true that only 20 per cent. of the ability range benefits if there is some form of selection. If one adds into the equation, as in the case of Germany, excellent technical schools, one can improve the position even further.
I very much doubt whether at this time in the morning the noble Baroness the Minister can be persuaded to change her mind given the fact that over the past 20 or 30 years she has held rather rigid positions on this point. I also hold fairly rigid positions. But these amendments ask the Government to give some thought to the research that has produced these results in deciding how, if standards are to be improved, the education system can be altered to achieve better performance. The Government do this when speaking of schools with special emphasis which will undoubtedly have to select by ability on the basis of modern languages, science, mathematics or whatever may be chosen. Therefore, my amendments do not go against government policy. Very shortly, in the following clauses to which my noble friend will speak, the Government move in my direction. Why not go the extra mile and improve the results and do as well as Northern Ireland? Then the Minister will have a place in history. I beg to move.
Lord Tope: I do not want to discourage the Minister from having a place in history, especially on a subject of this kind. I was slightly surprised to hear the noble Lord accuse the Government of having rigid views on the subject of selection. I could accuse the Government of holding anything but rigid views on selection. I intended to ask her to explain how old Labour had transformed into new Labour on this issue.
I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, with great care. I too must join in the all-round confession of having held rigid views for rather more than 20 years. My LEA still has a selective system. It has a number

849
of very good grammar schools and secondary modern schools. The Conservative administration 20 years ago decided that grammar and secondary modern schools would all be called high schools and it would be assumed that all were equal.
I would be interested to see the research to which the noble Lord has referred. It is late at night to try to understand these points. I understood the noble Lord to say that there were many secondary modern schools which had better results than comprehensive schools. But I did not understand—perhaps it was my shortcoming—how selection improved the standards of other schools. These days almost anything can be proved by research and statistics. I take my area as an example. We have a number of very good grammar schools which produce good results, not surprisingly. We also have a number of what may be called—but are not called—secondary modern schools with less good but still very satisfactory results. That reflects the nature of the area in which they are situated and many of the homes from which the children come. There is generally a higher level of attainment in a borough like ours than in many others. The relatively small number of grammar schools in this country, and by definition the rather larger number of secondary modern schools, are in areas of that kind. They tend to be in middle class areas (if I dare to use that term) of higher attainment. Therefore, they are likely to produce better results than, say, inner-city areas whose schools may be wholly comprehensive.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: Is the noble Lord entering sociological facts into the fact that Northern Ireland, with a totally selective system, faced with endemic civil war for the past 25 years, produces a 10 per cent. better result than England? Do you explain it there by sociological facts? Northern Ireland is not an affluent country in the same way as England. Those are facts.
Lord Tope: Parts of Northern Ireland are extremely affluent. Parts of it are not, I readily accept. I want to be wary of jumping to simplistic conclusions to prove a point. I might argue—though I do not particularly want to—that, for instance, denominational schools achieve better results. I suspect that generally that is true. That may well be just as much a factor in Northern Ireland as a system of selection. So I think we have to be rather wary of seeking to prove what we wish to prove through rather dubious and doubtful statistics stated to be research. I think that even in their new incarnation the Government are likely to reject these amendments. I would certainly wish to urge them to do so.
Lord Whitty: The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is quite right. I did not expect, at this time of night, to be looking in detail at educational and sociological research. However, I must make a few remarks on the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington.
I do not believe that there is any comprehensive survey of total research which would prove that selection produces better results for those who are not
850
selected. Indeed, both common sense and a large number of statistics indicate precisely the opposite. The very narrow base on which he based his comparison with the remaining secondary moderns and some comprehensives is clearly subject to the sociological difference to which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has referred. While recognising his effective leadership of the London Borough of Sutton—
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to the noble Lord. Would the noble Lord like to prove that the opposite is the case and that where selection exists, education is actually dragged down?
Lord Whitty: I think that there are a number of statistics which would prove that precisely, not all of which I have to hand tonight. However, if one looks at a couple of examples within what used to be regarded as the Tory heartland—I am not entirely sure where the Tory heartland now is—in Hampshire and Kent, Kent has a selective system whereas Hampshire is non-selective. Consistently, Hampshire has had a higher number of pupils gaining five or more GCSEs than Kent. I am not claiming that that proves that the same is true everywhere. But I believe that the majority of research studies would show that and not what the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, is claiming.
In relation to secondary moderns, if I could just complete my sideways praise of Sutton, I do not think it has a lot to do with the noble Lord's leadership; it has to do with a different sociological basis. I do not think you prove anything by saying that secondary moderns in Sutton do slightly better than comprehensives in Tower Hamlets. I do not think that that is a relevant comparison.
As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, of course I come from Northern Ireland but I was hardly educated there. I was educated in England, but it is possible that it is the input at the earliest stages which is of higher quality rather than the added value in Northern Ireland. I would certainly subscribe to that theory.
I do not believe that the system of selection in Northern Ireland gives better results. I would caution the noble Lord. Lord Tope, in his praising of denominational schools in Northern Ireland. The social costs and the political costs of having an entirely divisive denominational system in Northern Ireland perhaps considerably outweigh any marginal improvement in the academic achievement. However, let us be frank about this—
Lord Tope: Would the Minister accept that I was not necessarily praising, or, for that matter, condemning denominational schools. I was simply saying that one could make just as reasonable an argument for saying that that was a reason for a higher level of attainment as the selective system. I entirely accept and agree with the general point the Minister makes.
Lord Whitty: I accept what the noble Lord says. However, we can go about this looking at the facts and figures and no doubt we can all draw our own conclusions. But the reality is that for most of this Bill,

851
despite the occasional frissons between us, we have been examining the best ways in which we can achieve, broadly speaking, agreed aims within the context of the framework of the Bill as proposed.
We have diametrically opposed views in that area. The amendment is a full frontal attack on the provisions for selection in the Bill. It challenges directly the commitment we gave in the White Paper and before the election that we rule out any future new provision for selection on general ability. We have committed ourselves to no new selection. The amendments seek to allow any school to propose just that.
The new clause would put in place an entirely new mechanism for the reintroduction of selection and would allow a school to propose not just partial selection by ability, which we oppose, but total selection by ability—running completely counter to Clauses 99 to 102 on grammar schools.
Under this provision a grammar school which had been required to discontinue its selective arrangements following a parental ballot could re-introduce full selection by ability. We will not agree over the amendment, which would have a deeply destabilising effect upon schools, parents and children. It would allow ballots for the reintroduction of selection, engineered annually, thus distracting the schools from their main task of raising standards.
We are prepared to accept that existing arrangements should remain. We consider that the views of parents form an important element in the consideration of any proposed changes. That is why we propose ballots for the decisions on the removal of grammar schools' selective arrangements, and why we have introduced the amendment referred to earlier, to give parents a right to object to the adjudicator.
On the issue of new arrangements for selection by ability, we have already listened to parents. The feedback to the White Paper was totally welcoming. We do not wish to have an unnecessary battle over schools that already have partially selective arrangements unless the parents who feed into that school wish it. The amendment would sanction not just the continuation of existing arrangements but their substantial extension or modification. Clause 95 provides that schools wishing to benefit from preserving existing partial selection must not increase their proportion of selective admissions in any relevant age group, nor must they make any significant change in the basis of selections.
The amendments would turn that limited freedom to maintain existing partial selection into an unlimited ability to extend selection across the board. They would even allow schools which now select just a small proportion of their intake to turn themselves into what are effectively totally selective grammar schools by the back door. I am aware that Members opposite oppose that position, but these are, in effect, wrecking amendments to a significant part of the Bill's strategy. They would make a mockery of the Government's policies to expand educational choice and increase equal opportunities for all children. There is no way the Government can accept the amendments. They would
852
bring back a great deal of the divisiveness that existed in the education system and would neglect majority interests.
I ask the mover of the amendment to withdraw it. I have no doubt that the noble Lord will tell us that he reserves the right to come back at a subsequent stage, but at this time of night, despite the fact that we have a pretty clear ideological and strategic conflict here, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas: I confess I am disappointed but not surprised by what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. I should have thought that the Government Front Bench on this Bill was a pretty good advertisement for selective education and a credit to the schools which educated them, all of which are great schools. I should be fascinated to have the statistics that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to. Perhaps he could drop me a note in the course of the next week or two on the relative performance of selective and non-selective education. I would much appreciate that. I am a great collector of such information.
You cannot say no to selection by ability. You get it anyway. People choose where they live and they will choose to live somewhere like the London Borough of Sutton because it has a good education system. This produces a disparity of performance which has nothing to do with the ability of the child, but which has to do with the ability of the parents to pay the price of the local houses, and to have the sort of job which allows them to live far from where they work.
In some ways it is unsatisfactory because you have to make the choice for all the children in your family, and you do not have the ability to choose, in every sense, a good unselective comprehensive school for a child who would be better suited to that. It is also unsatisfactory because it becomes a socially based selection rather than a purely academic selection.
The Government should be prepared to look at what happens in the private sector. There is, in the private sector, a good range of schools from the very academic to the extremely unacademic. Parents choose the sort of school which suits their child best. Of course, there are unacademic children who choose to go to academic schools because that is the sort of environment in which they flourish. By and large the majority of academic children do better in academic schools and the majority of non-academic children do better in rather broader schools. There are some academic children in particular who do much better in a broader environment than they do in the relatively narrow confines of a strongly academic school.
We need to look after the academic people. They are an important part of our strength as a nation. Even more than that, we need to look after the non-academic people because it is the non-academic who employs the academic. If one looks at the old boys and girls of the famous selective independent schools, you will see that it is remarkable how few great innovative people come out of the highly selective schools and how many come out of the less selective ones. We have to do our best to make sure that the people who are going to be

853
our future Richard Bransons have the right environment in which to flourish, and that is not a school which is bent on academic success, but a school which is bent on a full, broad education. That is much easier to achieve if those who are really suited to an academic education are enabled to take their education elsewhere.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: I shall begin by casting an element of doubt into the love affair between the Liberal Democrats and the Government. I welcome the fact that the Government have become a little more pragmatic than was the case when they were last in power, in setting up schools of special excellence, which is going to involve selection by ability, even if it is only in French, Spanish and German. That is selection by ability, so that is a step in the right direction.
At this stage of the morning I certainly do not want to swap statistics, although I do think serious thought ought to be given by the Minister and the department to the situation in Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, where certainly their selective systems, on many studies, have produced a better performance than we produce in England. One of the reasons for this Bill being introduced is that we are worried about standards. We must face the fact that, if the standards here are not good and the standards in schools in Germany and Holland are good, then some thought ought to be given to structures as well as to exhortation and organisation.
That said, I realise that the gap is still large, although, as I say, the Government spokesmen have come nearer us than would have been the case when I have debated this with some of their predecessors in other forums. When there is economy of scale, some schools can specialise in the more vocational elements of education and others in academic elements. When they have to do both it is an expensive operation.
I shall not dwell on this. I shall withdraw the amendment, but pragmatism is beginning to prevail, and even though the Liberal Democrats remain true to their distant past, I think the Government are gaining sense. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 229 and 230 not moved.]
Clause 94 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 230A not moved.]
Clause 95 [Permitted selection: pre-existing arrangements]:
[Amendments Nos. 230B and 230C not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 95 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Tope: I proposed the Motion so that we would have the opportunity for a lively and sparkling debate, whereby the Liberal Democrats could demonstrate that they have stood firm on the principles that they have held for many years, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. Furthermore, the Conservative Party could demonstrate the opposite and the Government
854
could explain how old Labour has become new Labour and how the love affair between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party has come to a sudden end—again!
Perhaps at one o'clock in the morning we have debated the subject enough, but I wish to make one point. I was a little confused about what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He spoke of Richard Branson and said that we need to have grammar schools in order that future Richard Bransons can flourish without interference from academically gifted pupils. I did not wholly follow the argument and I am certain I am not doing justice to it. Perhaps some of that is deliberate.
My concern always is not so much for the academically gifted, nor for those on whom we have rightly spent a lot of time tonight; for want of a better term, the more disadvantaged. My concern is for the vast majority of children who fall into neither category. As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I was concerned about the simple distinction between the academic and non-academic. Most children—most people—do not fit neatly into one or other category. The vast majority fall within a narrow range of ability, and we need to be concerned about such children.
The noble Baroness challenged the Minister, who did not take it up, to show how selection had dragged down standards of achievement. I would not want to take up that challenge, still less to use that expression, but I do not remember in recent years selection being reintroduced. I know of one or two former Conservative LEAs which thought they might like to do so and perhaps some have done. There is no broad-based research in this country to demonstrate the result one way or the other.
However, there is considerable experience of the reverse—where selection has been abolished in recent years and where standards have improved for the greater number of children and not deteriorated for the academically gifted who would have gone to grammar school. I believe, and there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate it, that where selection has been abolished there is a greater opportunity for children who would not have gone to grammar school. There are greater and stronger incentives to teaching staff, and a school which has a full range of ability is a better microcosm of the society in which those children will live. That is also an important point.
I do not wish to reopen a debate which we have rightly concluded, but I wish to ask about Amendment No. 230A and the reference to a ballot of parents. I imagine that what was intended was a ballot of parents at the school making the proposal. But a change to one school usually affects a number of other schools. If one were to have such a ballot it should take place among the parents and other interested parties. Indeed, prospective parents are often far more important than parents of children at the school because many will have left before a change has taken effect. When we discuss these issues we are always concerned, perhaps rightly, for the more gifted, the children at the grammar school or the prospective grammar school. We seldom have so much concern for those who are not in those schools and who do not have those advantages.

855
It is too late at night for the lively and sparkling debate that I hoped for when I tabled this amendment, but I still make clear my opposition to this clause and hope that at least we will hear how old Labour has become new Labour.
1 a.m.
Baroness Blackstone: I am quite sure that the one thing I cannot do at this time of night is to sparkle. Indeed, I am a little nervous in replying, in that I am not sure how I will measure on the Richter scale of flexibility versus rigidity. At this stage I will certainly not try to engage in some of the arguments raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.
I have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I think that the Government's views on partial selection are now quite well known. All too often it has led to both controversy and confusion, and it certainly detracted from the wider goal of raising standards for all. Accordingly, it would have been open to the Government to introduce a Bill designed to bring an immediate end to all partial selection; but we have chosen not to do so because we do not believe such an approach would be in keeping with the spirit of the Bill, which seeks to promote local co-operation and agreement—something which in general the Liberal Democrat Party supports. We have to bear in mind that there may be some areas where existing partial selection is not causing problems and it may even command quite widespread local support. We want to allow for that possibility.
The approach that we have adopted squares with what we said in the White Paper. The key is that Clause 95 and the others relating to partial selection must be read in conjunction with the provisions in Clauses 84 and 85, which set out the detailed consultation requirements and the adjudicator's remit.
I am very grateful to the earlier suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. I think he implied that the Government are pragmatic about these matters. I accept that and I take it for the compliment I think it was meant to be. I believe that the Government are also realistic. They seek to give responsibility and freedom to those at local level to determine what works best in their area, set against a duty to consult each other and to have regard to an admissions code of practice. It is through working together that any problems arising from partial selection will be resolved.
Lord Tope: My Lords, I think this debate and the previous one have livened things up just a little bit at one o'clock in the morning. Clearly I will not press my opposition at this stage of the night.
Clause 95 agreed to.
Clause 96 [Permitted selection: pupil banding]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 230D:
Page 73, line 7, after ("ability") insert (", or of any range of ability which shall be specified in the admission arrangements,").
The noble Baroness said: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 230D and 230E, which refer to banding and the Government's slightly muddled approach to selection. I also rise to comfort the noble
856
Lord, Lord Tope; not to sparkle in his presence, but to offer some crumbs of comfort. I take issue with my noble friend on the Front Bench—I think for the first time—regarding the way in which I believe he was somewhat sanguine about the Government's policies. I think that old Labour is there in spades. If you cannot see that, then you see nothing.
It does not suit Mr Blair's image to get rid of ability in one fell swoop, so he does it in this way. He sets up a rigged balloting system to make sure that the grammar schools disappear off the face of the earth and follows that up with an admissions policy, the code of practice of which we will not see while we discuss this Bill because it will be hidden under wraps; that is, unless the spin doctors think it is advisable to leak it at some point. I doubt it. It is not a document they would want us to see ahead of discussing this Bill. What is not done by the rigged balloting system will be polished off by the admissions policy, when it is applied.
The truth is that selection will go and the Government intend that it should go. In the department there are at least two Ministers who are unreconstructed old Labour and there is a Prime Minister and at least one Minister in the department who have signed up to new Labour. Therefore, there is that presentational issue. The Government are saying that they are not really against selection. They are saying, "We are pragmatic. We shall keep what we have at the moment but not add to it". The truth is that it will not stay. What exists at present is very much under threat.
This is serious politics of envy. It is a dumbing-down, a levelling-down. It will take some time before its effect registers. We have seen a sustained attack on what works: assisted places to help young people from low income families, on Oxford and Cambridge, on grammar schools, on the autonomy of our GM-schools and now a sleight-of-hand attack on selection. Therefore, I am not the least bit impressed by what is taking place at present.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tope: "Watch this space". I agree that the Liberals would have been open and honest about this. They would have introduced a Bill which would have been unequivocal and which would have contained abolition clauses. However, I ask the noble Lord to have faith because he will get where he wants to be in policy terms by the measures in this Bill, although it may take a little longer.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and their colleagues in the Labour Party are not prepared to take a look around the Continent to see what works. They are certainly not prepared to look at this country to see what works. We shall see a destruction of what works, and it is such a pity. We believe that it is right to be concerned for all children; that there are some children who are much better suited to a fast-stream, academic education. That is why we set up city technology colleges and specialist schools. There are children who will have aptitude and ability—and I use those words wholly interchangeably—to go to a school which specialises in languages, sciences, technology, the arts, history, geography or whatever it may be. We provide schools to ensure that that can happen.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, asked for examples of where selection has been reintroduced. It has been reintroduced in our specialist schools. They are free to, and do, select children on the basis of an aptitude and/or ability in their particular specialism.
Before I left the department I approved a bilateral school. That was a school that was a secondary modern school in an area served by grammar schools. It wished to have one fast-stream grammar school entry. We believed it was worth doing. We were advised strongly by the officials in the department that it was inadvisable to give such approval on the grounds that it might fail and be embarrassing for Ministers. I took the view that approval should be given if the parents wanted it, the school believed it could deliver and the headmistress believed that she could offer education to girls—it was a girls' school—who were more suited to a fast-stream academic provision. It has been extremely successful and I am very proud to have done it. Had it failed, I should have still taken off my hat to a school which was innovative and wanted to try to do its best by the girls in that school.
I do not have any hang-ups about this. I have looked at the thesaurus and the dictionary. "Aptitude" always subsumes ability. Ability does not always necessarily subsume aptitude because you can have ability without an aptitude for a subject. But wherever the word "aptitude" is found in the dictionary, it subsumes ability. We are having a crazy debate about selecting children on the basis of aptitude and not on the basis of ability. Again, it is cowardly on the part of the Government. They are trying to say that they are modern but, on the other hand, they are almost a dinosaur in terms of what they are destroying in their path.
I do not believe that my noble friend Lord Lucas was being inconsistent. Indeed, he was trying to help the Government to make that distinction. He was trying to tease the Government out of their shell and persuade them to offer a proper distinction, which they have so far failed to do. We have read and re-read the debates which took place in another place. I do not believe that I have ever read a more unenlightened debate as to what it is that the Government are trying to do when they make a distinction between the two words. It is true to say that this is egalitarian. It is definitely where old Labour wants to be. All that is working in British education will now be sacrificed on the altar of egalitarianism. It is a great pity.
It may help the noble Baroness if I couple Amendment No. 231A with my amendments. Indeed, Amendments Nos. 231A and 230F deal with keeping testing. It seems to me to be bizarre. If specialist schools are allowed to select on the basis of their specialism, what on earth are they going to use for selection? They cannot interview or test. Therefore, they will have to rely on selective or perhaps objective approaches. Somewhere in the system someone will have to say, "We believe in this child's ability"; in other words, it will be a form of selection without being able, physically, to have the child before those concerned in order to challenge and to test whether or not there is an aptitude or an ability to cope with a curriculum which
858
would offer a particular kind of education. It really is absurd. I make no apology for using strong language in that respect. Young people certainly need stretching and that applies especially to the most able children in our land. For a proportion of them, offering an academic education is the answer.
I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, on one point. In this Chamber we are seldom concerned about the other children; namely, those who are not selected for grammar schools. I do not stand guilty of that charge. My children went to a comprehensive school. They have done extremely well, so I make no criticism. I have always believed that what matters is how a school is run, how it is led, together with the competence and the quality of the staff. I have always thought that it is the most powerful brew to have supportive parents, receptive children and good and high quality staff. That seems to me to be most powerful brew. Indeed, whether it is a bilateral school, a comprehensive school, a grammar school, a specialist school, a city technology college, a voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled school, it really does not matter if it is well run. What matters is having the full tapestry of provision. That means diversity and as wide a choice and opportunity as possible to enable children to receive the most appropriate education.
We pride ourselves on being concerned about children with special needs. I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, talked earlier about the children who end up at the Menuhin School or the Chetham School in Manchester. That is one end of the spectrum of special needs. At the other end of the spectrum are the children who have a different kind of special need but which, nevertheless, is equally as important and must be met. It is seriously prejudiced and bigoted not to allow testing and to bar selection on the basis of having a child tested for ability and/or aptitude.
Amendment No. 230G, which is also tabled in my name, would take out the word "prescribed", while Amendment No. 230F would remove the reference to subsection (2) which would be removed by Amendment No. 321A. Amendment No. 230H would remove the pernicious subsection (1)(b) which, again, restricts the percentage of ability to 10 per cent. The provision is simply dumbing down.
I should like to think that we would have an opportunity to influence the thinking on this clause, but with the Leviathan of the majority in another place and the simple baying of the Back-Benchers on the Labour Benches, which was supported heartily and warmly by those on the Liberal Benches, I suspect that these schools are doomed: selection is doomed, grammar schools are doomed, autonomy for grant-maintained schools is doomed, assisted places are already doomed and Oxford and Cambridge are also doomed over time. I hope that the Ministers feel proud of their achievements. I beg to move.
1.15 a.m.
Lord Tope: The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, began, as indeed did the Minister, by saying they were unable

859
to sparkle at this time of night. I thought they sparkled remarkably. Indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, told me that I would feel encouraged by what she had to say. I felt enormously encouraged by much of what she had to say. If she is right, I cannot understand why the Government go to such extraordinary lengths to keep quiet about this. Nor have I heard the baying which she mentioned, but perhaps my hearing is selective.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in our previous discussions on this Bill, has confessed, or has come close to confessing, to us that he is really Old Labour. I have long had a sneaky feeling that on this issue at least the Minister's head rules her heart. I hope that all the encouragement I have just received from the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, is not to be dashed by the reply we are about to hear.
Lord Whitty: I am not sure how to reply to the noble Baroness, who ranged widely in her comments. I was not entirely sure which clauses she addressed. I shall have to consider how I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I had thought that the noble Baroness was speaking to Amendments Nos. 230D and E on banding. I do not recall that banding was referred to. However, I am prepared to accept that she has subsumed that in her general castigation of the policy and has addressed Amendment No. 230F and the related amendments.
I shall address briefly the issue of banding. The noble Baroness's amendment on banding uses the term in an entirely different sense to our understanding of it. We consider that it is not destructive of the comprehensive principle in that it aims to ensure that schools do not contain a disproportionate number of children from any one ability band. That was the approach taken by certain Old Labour authorities. We consider that, when used flexibly, it could enhance our new system. The form of banding that the noble Baroness proposes would allow a "creaming off" and therefore reintroduce selection by a different method. We cannot accept that form of banding.
As regards aptitude and ability, the transition from Old Labour to New Labour has been painful for many but also enlightening for many. We do not believe that education should be based on selection from above, selection by schools of parents and of children. But we do believe nowadays—even if we perhaps did not believe this clearly before—in diversity among schools and choice for parents within an essentially comprehensive framework. We recognise that some schools will specialise. We have provided partial selection to enable testing for aptitude for a certain proportion of children in particular subjects in which certain schools specialise.
However, that specialisation and that selection are subject to certain important conditions. The three most important are that selection by aptitude should apply to no more than 10 per cent; selection should be only for prescribed subjects—which the noble Baroness seeks to delete—and aptitude must not be used to cover what is really old Toryism; that is, selection by ability. The amendments before us in this group remove two of those
860
vital safeguards. Amendment No. 230H removes the 10 per cent. ceiling, while Amendment No. 230G would remove the prescription of the subjects involved.
We would wish to confine our selection by aptitude in the sense of these clauses to the four subjects the Government have already identified; namely, music, technology, foreign languages and sport. These amendments would allow a school to name anything else as an area where aptitude could be tested and therefore reintroduce testing by what pretty much amounts to general ability. This would cut across our general approach in favour of comprehensive education and equality of opportunity for all children, and as far as possible equality of choice for all parents within a diverse but nevertheless essentially comprehensive school system.
The noble Baroness also referred to Amendment No. 231A. That amendment would remove the safeguard against extending aptitude into broad ability testing and selection on that basis. It would therefore allow aptitude to become a cover for selection by ability.
I hope that the noble Baroness's broad brush approach and my response have allowed us to deal with a fair number of the remaining amendments. There is obviously a clash of approach between us. The noble Baroness accuses us of destroying all that is good in education. I respond that we are providing the basis of an education system that will benefit all our children and not merely an élite which probably does not even amount to the 20 per cent. referred to earlier by noble Lords opposite. We believe that is the forward programme for education in this country.
Although we have enormous differences and I am sure the noble Baroness will wish to return to this matter on Report, at least for tonight perhaps we may move on to the few remaining groups, and then go home and return to these matters on Wednesday.
Baroness Blatch: Noble Lords opposite can be sure that I shall return to this matter. To help the noble Lord move on, I have subsumed Amendments Nos. 230D, 230E, 230F to 230H, and 231A. Those are the last of my amendments for tonight.
If this Bill is meant to represent a raising of standards in education in this country, I simply say, and make no apology for it, "God help us!"—because this Bill certainly does not do that. It destroys all that is good in British education. It really is the most destructive Bill I have ever come across.
To the noble Lord, Lord Tope, I simply say: do not be surprised about what I have said. The way in which this legislation is presented is destructive, but it has been "Blairited". It suits the Blair image to lull people into a false sense of security. It is his approach to middle England. What middle England does not know is what is behind the clauses in this Bill. That is not surprising: it is an incredibly difficult Bill to read. If, as the noble Lord says, believing in the pursuit of excellence and in appropriate education for children, including meeting the needs of the most able children in our land and providing for the least able, is "old Tory", if that is his criticism, I am very proud indeed to live and die as an "old Tory".

861
I am glad to hear one phrase at least that the noble Lord used tonight, because it is true. It is the first time that it has been said in relation to this Bill in this place or another place—namely, that its content essentially amounts to comprehensive education. That is in fact what subsection (1)(b) on page 73 adds up to:
"no level of ability is substantially over-represented or substantially under-represented".
In other words, it is an absolutely pure comprehensive system. At least I am glad to witness the honesty of the description.
There is one other point that I must raise, however late the hour; namely, the hypocrisy of this Government. It is all right for Harriet Harman to choose a selective grammar school; it is all right for Tony Blair to choose the best school that he finds in London and to reject the schools in his own area; and it is all right for other members of the Cabinet. But is it not all right for the other citizens of this land. Why is it that they are to be denied the school of their choice? Miss Harman's child goes a very long distance to be educated at a grammar school. That is another policy in the Bill which we shall discuss on Wednesday. This is again sleight of hand. It does not suit the Government's image to say that grammar schools will be abolished, so they set up a rigged balloting system to make sure that, over time, that is exactly what will happen.
I find this one of the most depressing moments that I have had in this Chamber. When the Parliament of which I am a Member puts a seal on the Bill, I shall have been party to the demise of all that is good in British education. I am deeply ashamed of that. The only thing that allows me to go home with a clear conscience is the fact that I shall do my bit, as long as the Bill survives, to fight the Government in their prejudiced policies. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 230E not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 96 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Lucas: I have given notice of my intention to oppose this Question. I am puzzled as to what the noble Lord thinks the clause achieves for parents. In what way does this form of selection benefit parents or their children? How is the wording that appears in the clause designed to achieve that benefit? It seems such an inexact form of words. There is no absolute definition of what the bands should be. The bands are not in relation to anything definable but just in relation to the ever-changing sea of who the applicants may be in a particular year. One may find substantial proportions of one band subsumed by brothers and sisters and therefore those who are found to be in this band will suddenly have to live much closer to their school, if it is one of the schools that has an as-the-crow-flies rule, whereas children who fall in another band will be able to come from three or four times the distance. The clause will produce a very unpredictable pattern for parents. They
862
will not be able to say: "We are likely to be able to get our children into this school because we live 200 yards away from it". Maybe that band will be full that year.
What procedures will be used to test the children? Will there be a nationally recognised test on which the results will be scored, or will different schools run their banding in different ways? Will there be any restriction on which parents are allowed to apply to a particular school? Could one find that particular bands are made up of parents who live a long distance away from the school, whereas other bands are made up of parents who live much closer?
As far as I can read it, a very confusing and unsatisfactory position for parents will be produced if a school adopts this formula for banding. I do not see that it will do parents or their children any good. I can see that it might generally be thought to be of mild convenience for a school to know roughly what proportion of children of what kind of abilities it will have in any particular year. But most schools survive without having that kind of arrangement, and do so very well. I cannot see that the mild convenience for the school is in any way worth the inconvenience for the parents.
Baroness Blackstone: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked what the clause was about. It provides that banding—that is, the use of testing to ensure a representative spread of ability—will be a permitted form of selection. We made clear in the technical consultation document that such arrangements would be acceptable.
Banding was used extensively by the former ILEA. That may not commend it to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, or to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, but it was widely accepted by parents and useful to pupils at that time. It was used from the late 1960s until the authority's abolition in 1990 to try to secure an even distribution of ability across its secondary schools. The aim was to ensure that schools did not contain a disproportionate number of children from one ability band. To this end, children were tested, usually in reading, in their final year at primary school and placed into one of three broad ability bands according to their results. Schools then admitted a set number of pupils into each band, typically in the proportions 25–50–25, taking into account parental preference. A number of inner-London boroughs have retained banding to the present day. Indeed, Hammersmith and Fulham, having abolished banding after the break-up of the ILEA, recently reintroduced it.
I say to the noble Lord and to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that we are committed to the comprehensive principle. We believe that banding is compatible with that principle. I listened carefully to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and fully accept that banding may not be appropriate in all areas. We are certainly in the business of prescribing how the admission arrangements of comprehensive schools should best be organised. That must be a matter for local determination. The new admissions framework, as we have said on a number of occasions already today, is about local partnership and local agreement.

863
We believe that it is right that the Bill should recognise that banding arrangements are working well in some areas and that other admission authorities should be free to consider whether they want to introduce such arrangements, if they believe that they fit their circumstances. That is entirely consistent with the overall aim to put in place an admissions framework based upon consultation and co-operation between partners at local level.
At the same time, we recognise that it is important to ensure that the freedom to introduce banding is not misused. In the past we have seen individual schools using proposals to introduce banding as an alternative to partial selection in order to recruit a higher proportion of high ability pupils. The clause contains a number of safeguards to ensure that, in future, banding cannot be used in such a way. For example, it provides that no level of ability is substantially over or under represented; that any tests will only be used to determine the ability band into which a specific child falls—it will not be open to schools to give priority for admission to those pupils who achieve the highest test scores within a specific band; and that the introduction of banding shall require the publication of statutory proposals under the regulations to be made under Clause 27.
Ultimately, of course, schools which band will be caught by the provision in Clause 81, preventing schools which are not wholly selective by high ability or aptitude from keeping places empty. I may not have convinced the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about the usefulness of the clause, but it allows a well-tested system used in certain authorities to be continued if they wish.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness one question. If testing by interview is not allowed, and testing by examination is not allowed, then what kind of test will be used to establish the different ability levels that will be a balance of representation in a school that operates a banding system?
Baroness Blackstone: I have already answered that question. The normal test that is used is one of reading ability.
Lord Lucas: I am grateful for that explanation. I do not find myself convinced by it, but am nonetheless grateful for it.
Clause 96 agreed to.
Clause 97 [Permitted selection: aptitude for particular subjects]:
[Amendments Nos. 230F to 230H not moved.]
Lord Lucas Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 231:
Page 73, line 40, at end insert ("or such greater percentage as may be prescribed").
The noble Lord said: This amendment asks a number of simple questions of the Government. First, why is 10 per cent. the right figure? Secondly, if the Government, as I suspect, plucked this figure out of history and the air would it not be a good idea if the
864
Government gave themselves the power to adjust that figure, in the light of experience, without having to come back for primary legislation? I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: All I shall say at this time of night is that there is no point in our legislating for a reserve power which the Secretary of State has no intention of using. We consider that 10 per cent. strikes the right balance between promoting specialism in a school and safeguarding the interests of local children. We do not therefore believe the noble Lord's amendment to be necessary.
Lord Lucas: I will hold the noble Lord to those words. Nothing in the Bill shall include a power which the Secretary of State has no present intention of using. I shall look through the Bill carefully and hope to bring the noble Lord's words to his attention on several occasions on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 231A not moved.]
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendment No. 231B:
Page 74, line 4, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Baroness said: I must apologise that due to an oversight this group of technical amendments has been tabled at a late stage. I hope they will provide helpful reassurance to those parents and others who have questioned whether the adjudicator will have the power to end existing partial selection by ability where an objection is made to him.
Although it has always been the case that the continuation of existing partial selection is covered by the provisions in Clauses 84 and 85 because admission arrangements providing for partial selection will be subject to annual consultation, Clause 98 presently refers only to the introduction, variation or abandonment of partial selection, and this may have given rise to doubts. We made it clear in the White Paper that the adjudicator, guided by the code of practice, would need to be empowered to end existing partial selection. These amendments dispel any doubts about his ability to do so. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I have a very brief comment. On the basis of what the noble Baroness said, I feel entirely vindicated. It is the adjudicator who will eventually get rid of selection. He has the power. It is now made explicit. I rest my case.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 97, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 98 [Permitted selection: variation or abandonment etc. of arrangements]:
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone moved Amendments Nos. 231C and 231D:
Page 74, line 14, at beginning insert—
("(A1) In connection with the determination of a maintained school's admission arrangements for a particular school year, sections 84 and 85 shall, except to the specified extent, apply in relation to the making or abandonment by those arrangements of

865
provision for any permitted form of selection by ability or aptitude as they apply in relation to the making or abandonment by those arrangements of provision for other matters.
(B1) In subsection (A 1) "the specified extent" means the extent to which those admission arrangements would effect an alteration in the provision made by the school's admission arrangements as respects any such form of selection (whether by introducing, varying or abandoning any such form of selection) which constitutes a prescribed alteration for the purposes of section 27.").
Page 74, line 18, leave out subsections (2) and (3).
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 98, as amended, agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Police (Northern Ireland) Bill
Reported from the Grand Committee without amendment.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before two o'clock.

Official Report of the Grand Committee on the
  Police (Northern Ireland) Bill
  Monday, 8th June 1998.
  Police (Northern Ireland) Bill

    The Committee met at four of the clock.
    [The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) in the Chair.]
    The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): Before I put the Question that the Title be postponed, it may be helpful to remind your Lordships of the procedure for today's Committee stage. Except in one respect, our proceedings are exactly as in a normal Committee of the Whole House. We shall go through the Bill clause by clause; noble Lords will speak standing; all noble Lords are free to attend and participate; and the proceedings will be recorded in Hansard. The one difference is that the House has agreed that there shall be no Divisions in the Grand Committee. Any issue on which agreement cannot be reached should be considered again at the Report stage when, if necessary, a Division may be called. Unless, therefore, an amendment is likely to be agreed to, it should be withdrawn.
    I should also explain what will happen if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting. The Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division bells are rung and will resume after 10 minutes, and if the noble Lord who is speaking could finish his sentence, then we can adjourn.
    Title postponed.
    Clause 1 [The Police Authority for Northern Ireland]:
    On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: The Bill had a very important and extended Committee stage in another place and was extensively amended in the later stages. I do not believe, therefore, that it will need extensive discussion but I should like to raise a few points in the course of our consideration this afternoon.
    The first set of clauses, starting with Clause 1, set out the relative responsibilities of the Secretary of State, the Police Authority for Northern Ireland (PANI) and the chief constable. It is quite complicated to understand the nuances of the responsibilities between the three parts of the tripartite structure. That is important because, unless the public understand where the responsibility lies in any particular instance, it is difficult to see that accountability is really being satisfied.
    The other feature which seems to me to flow from the Bill is that an awful lot of paper will be required. The Secretary of State is to issue a statement of principles for policing which will be laid before Parliament in due course under Clause 37; codes of practice for PANI under Clause 38; regulations for the administration of
    CWH 2
    the Royal Ulster Constabulary and for the administration of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve under Clauses 25 and 26; and general guidance for policemen under Clause 39. The Secretary of State is also to issue three to five-year objectives for policing under Clause 14, and the chief constable is to issue the three to five-year strategic policing plan under Clause 16. The Police Authority for Northern Ireland is to issue annual objectives and annual performance targets under Clause 15. Finally, PANI is to issue the annual policing plan, which will originally have been drafted by the chief constable and then discussed with PANI. That is to say, nine documents have to be drawn up, consulted on and issued before anyone starts policing anybody under the Bill.
    There is later to be an annual report within three months from the chief constable to PANI, and an annual report within six months from PANI to the Secretary of State. There may also be special reports from the chief constable to PANI, from PANI to the Secretary of State and perhaps even special reports from the chief constable to the Secretary of State which would also have to be laid before Parliament. All this seems to amount to a huge weight of paper which it will be difficult for individuals to follow unless they are involved in the structure themselves and following the process quite carefully.
    The other thought which strikes me about all of this is that the documents to which I have referred are all in the future. There have been numerous documents building up to this Bill. The principle one was the consultation paper on Policing in the Community issued in 1994, which was followed by a White Paper from the previous government and a Labour Party shadow White Paper covering similar ground from their point of view. There was a fundamental review, as well as Maurice Hayes' report on the complaints system. Now there is to be this legislation, and before all of this comes into force the Patten Commission will start its work to re-think the whole issue. The RUC must therefore be the most examined and reported on police force in the world.
    Throughout it all they continue to do an extremely difficult job to protect the public from ordinary crime as well as to protect the whole democratic system from that minority which tries to shoot and bomb their way to a different form of government. The RUC and the RUC Reserve, and everyone connected with them, deserve our highest praise, but also our circumspection in proposing yet further upheavals to their system of management. I hope, therefore, that the Patten Commission will give thought to whether all this paperwork is necessary and to how many changes will actually be beneficial, given the tremendous upheavals involved and the consideration that has already been given to the matter. First in the Commission's mind must be the question whether any future changes will help both acceptability and accountability.
    As far as I am concerned, although this Bill should certainly pass into law in much the form now before us, we need to reflect a little before making further changes

    CWH 3
    to the RUC and the whole system of managing it, at least allowing these changes to bed down and be well understood before we take any further steps.
    Lord Alderdice: Perhaps I may remark briefly on the Question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. I have some sympathy with the view that the police authority may, in its current form, not represent the best way of carrying things forward. Indeed, I have made it clear on a number of occasions that I take the view, as do my colleagues, that if we could move to a situation in the next couple of years whereby a democratically elected parliamentary assembly in Northern Ireland were able to take responsibility for policing and other justice matters, that would ensure a degree of accountability far beyond what has been achieved by the police authority.
    Indeed, I recall speaking in South Africa not very long after the agreement was reached there, to some folk about the situation concerning the South African police. They said the situation had changed quite radically. I asked whether this was because representation on police matters had changed: they said it was not that. I asked whether they had brought in completely different staff: it was not that. I asked whether the name had changed, and they said it had changed from the South African police to the South African police service but that was all. I asked them what had made the difference, and they said it was accountability. This had been a police force which existed to maintain apartheid, but now it was Mr Mandela's police force, and that had made the difference.
    The one factor which will ensure much greater acceptability of the police is not endlessly revising the RUC but ensuring that it is accountable to the people through their elected representatives. That is why I have some sympathy with the view which questions whether the police authority in its present form is the best way of running things.
    However, that is something for further down the line. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cope, I welcome the appointment of Mr. Chris Patten as head of the new commission. He is a man of enormous substance and qualification in this matter and I believe that his appointment has relieved some of the anxieties that were felt.
    Let us be clear, however. Any reassurance that that might bring, and any reasonableness with which people might approach this matter, can only occur when people understand that we are talking about improving the context in which policing can be carried out—that is, an entirely peaceful one without terrorism leaving the police able to address civil policing matters as they would do in the rest of the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Also, for there to be suggestions in the public domain—though I hasten to say not from more responsible politicians or indeed from the Government—that we are looking to a time when former terrorists might be part of the RUC is both absurd and extremely destructive. I can only assume that some of those who are putting forward the ideas are
    CWH 4
    doing so in order to destabilise matters and to stir up trouble. They know perfectly well that that is not a possibility, nor should it be.
    Let us be clear that it is not a possibility—now or at any stage in the future. We look to people who are involved in the police service as people who are upholders of the law, not conscious breachers of the law. That is not to say, of course, that where some young people at the age of 15, 16 or 17 years old were caught with stones in their hands—in the context that the community was in utter turmoil—that should for ever and a day be held against them. That is a different matter entirely and should not be confused. The idea that people consciously involved in terrorism should ever be in a position to act as members of a legitimate police service in Northern Ireland is unacceptable. We must make that very clear.
    If we can move forward with the Bill and build further upon that with the Patten Commission, ensuring a degree of accountability which goes way beyond the police authority, I believe it is legitimate for this Bill to pass into legislation, although not as an end in itself. Frankly, if it were to be that I should be most unhappy. Perhaps we can receive reassurances from the Government, as I hope we can, that this is merely an enabling step to ensure that we can fulfil the reasonable undertakings that we reached on 10th April. It would be helpful if the Minister would simply state this. It will not introduce some of the extraordinary suggestions that there have been from others, either about the structure of the police, fragmenting it and breaking it up, or in terms of membership of the police. Those are matters that are of some concern in Northern Ireland.
    I look forward to receiving those reassurance from the Minister and I heartily suppose that he will not have too much difficulty giving them.
    Lord Blease: We have jumped to Part III of the Bill. In the general remarks at this stage I wish to put forward a point although not to deal with it in detail. It has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. The word "force" is a descriptive word which in my view leads to some problems: I prefer the word "service".
    I say this with a good deal of experience and understanding of the role of the RUC in Northern Ireland. Indeed, it has had a very challenging, serious and difficult task over a number of years. We know that that load has been carried with great purpose in trying to maintain peace and order in Northern Ireland. I feel that the word "force" as used in Part III of the Bill does not properly incorporate the real work that the police service does in Northern Ireland and I would prefer to see the word "service".
    I realise at this stage of the Bill that it is not appropriate to make any suggestions. However, I draw attention to this matter. I believe that it is possible to incorporate in the definition that the word "service" includes force and other duties that the police carry out for the people of Northern Ireland. I want to give notice that I support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, but I shall not press the matter until later in the Bill.
    4.15 p.m.
    Lord Fitt: I wonder whether it was worth coming here or whether it was a waste of time. This Bill is going to be dissected, bisected and, inquired into by the Patten Commission. It seems that we are going through an awful lot of deliberations on a Bill, and whatever decisions may be taken here may be overturned by the Patten Commission. The Patten Commission is to inquire into the whole structure of the RUC.
    This Bill had its foundations in another place under the Conservative government. Why was it thought necessary to introduce this Bill? Coming from Northern Ireland and recognising the dissentions and divisions within that community, I say that the Conservative government thought this Bill necessary because one section of the community in Northern Ireland did not trust the RUC, as at present constituted, for a single second. I do not think that was right.
    I was a Catholic—I still am—a member of the minority community, and had nationalist intentions during my political career. There were occasions when the RUC appeared to be showing undue bias towards the unionist community. On one famous occasion when I was taking part in the civil rights demonstration on 5th October 1968, I was beaten by the RUC by a baton. That fact has been recorded on many occasions.
    The police did that—not because they were a biased police force, not because they were anti-Catholic or pro-Protestant or pro-unionist; but because they were under the control of the Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland. It was the Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland who banned that particular civil rights demonstration in Derry. The police were acting under the instructions of the Minister of Home Affairs.
    We now have a police authority, and the police are no longer under the control of a single political individual. I have to say—and I say it with a great deal of regret—that the party which I formerly led, the SDLP, was composed of three men from the urban society of Belfast and four from outside Belfast. I had some reservations about the RUC, but nothing to compare with the extent to which that force has been maligned and castigated by my former colleagues—and not only then, but up to the present day. Indeed, that was one of the reasons why I found it necessary to give up the leadership and to resign from that party.
    I remember very well on one occasion the RUC preventing me from traversing particular streets in different geographic areas in the course of fighting an election. Again, that was advocated by the Minister of Home Affairs. I recall sitting in the gallery of the Old Stormont Parliament—I believe in 1953—when the Flags and Emblems Bill was debated and put on the statute book. That Bill was one of the most bigoted, sectarian, biased pieces of legislation ever to be put on the statute book of Northern Ireland.
    The police had to police that particular Act, under which it was agreed that it was a grievous sin to be seen flying an Irish tricolour or to be wearing any nationalist insignia by way of a uniform or a badge. Again, that
    CWH 6
    was down to the Minister of Home Affairs; it was not the police who did that just because they did not like the minority community.
    Many of the allegations made against the RUC were totally and absolutely unfair. At the moment we hear Sinn Fein talking about the nationalist community. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, mentioned that last week. One of the Sinn Fein councillors, now a candidate for the assembly election, gave a very belligerent, bellicose, vindictive statement against the RUC saying it had to be disbanded because it was not acceptable to the nationalist people.
    I wonder who gave him the idea that he was in a position to determine what the nationalist people thought. The nationalist people in Bangor, Portadown, Donaghadee and other parts of Northern Ireland find the RUC quite acceptable. It is only in the ghettos, which have been created by gunmen and terrorists, that the RUC is not acceptable. The reason it is not acceptable in those ghetto areas is that it is the RUC which has apprehended, brought to the courts and had convicted people who were guilty of the most heinous crimes.
    I can understand the spokesmen for the IRA and Sinn Fein being vindictive against the RUC but what I regret totally is that the party which I formerly led, the SDLP, was the very first, before Sinn Fein became a political force to be reckoned with in Northern Ireland, to start off this campaign of vituperation and condemnation against the RUC, and it is still doing it.
    Last week and the week before, the police authority asked the political representatives of Sinn Fein, the SDLP and others to come to talk to it, to see what their ideas were and what their concerns were about the RUC. Sinn Fein said that it would not go. That is understandable from Sinn Fein, as spokesman for a terrorist organisation. It is not, however, understandable for a legitimate constitutional political party like the SDLP to say it will not attend either. That only gives support and succour to the spokesmen and the representatives of terrorists.
    Three or four weeks ago the Daily Telegraph published the photographs of 289—it should have been 301—members of the RUC who were killed by terrorists. I recognised 43 of them. I was frequently in contact with members of the RUC and I must say that morale is very low at the present moment. Whatever excuses may be put forward for this Bill—that changing the name to police service would make it the same as a police service in Sussex or in Wolverhampton—the RUC see this as an attack on their name. It will no longer be the RUC that they joined. Morale within the RUC is extremely low at the moment.
    In anything that is said or done in this House or outside it in relation to this Bill, we must be very careful that nothing should be done further to lower morale in the RUC. It is a force which has withstood attacks such as no other force in western Europe has had to withstand over these past 30 years. The force has given sterling service, as I said on Second Reading. Had it not been

    CWH 7
    for the morale and courage of the RUC during the past 30 years, Northern Ireland would have been in a state of total anarchy.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I wonder what will happen if the Patten Commission duplicates what both Houses of Parliament have thus far produced. We have all these reports—and your Lordships may be adding further light reading in the course of the next few days. If Parliament and the Patten Commission flatly contradict each other, which will carry the greater weight?
    I do not know whether it would be touching on the Royal Prerogative to suggest that if this Bill goes through both Houses of Parliament, the Royal Assent should be withheld until the Patten Commission has reported.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Dubs): I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cope, for giving notice of his intention to oppose Clause 1. It gives me an opportunity to deal with some of the Bill's fundamental points although I realise that we are dealing with it in Committee and not at Second Reading. Nevertheless, noble Lords have highlighted some important issues to which I should like to respond in some detail. I do not want to trespass too long on the time of the Grand Committee but, given the importance of this particular debate, I will take a little more time in dealing with these points than I would wish to do in the normal course of Committee procedures.
    It might be helpful if I were very quickly to summarise the Government's aim as regards the relationships between the police authority and other partners in the tripartite structure, which is the nub of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cope.
    As I indicated when noble Lords first debated this Bill, the aim of the legislation is to make the policing of Northern Ireland more efficient, more effective, more accountable, and, as a result, more acceptable, thereby commanding increased confidence across the whole community.
    I have used the term "more accountable". I know the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, developed the theme of accountability, and that he would prefer accountability to be of a different form from the sort envisaged in the Bill. It may well be that in the fullness of time one may be able to move to the position which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, suggested, but at the moment, in the real world that we are dealing with in Northern Ireland, I believe that in terms of accountability, the Bill represents a good way forward.
    The Bill clarifies the relative responsibilities of the chief constable, the police authority, and the Secretary of State in the governance of policing in Northern Ireland; otherwise known as the tripartite structure.
    The Bill introduces a range of measures intended to make the RUC and the police authority more accountable; for example, through police planning and objective setting. As I said during our previous debate,
    CWH 8
    the provisions in the Bill are the building blocks on which other sensible improvements can be made if found to be necessary in the future.
    The Bill introduces moderate and timely measures which will enable the police service in Northern Ireland to evolve to face whatever challenges the future holds, including the threat of resurgent terrorism.
    The provisions, which will ensure better policing for everyone in Northern Ireland, are supported by the chief constable and by the police authority.
    Some noble Lords have referred to the work of the independent commission. I do not want to spend a great deal of time going through the arguments about the commission which have been well aired and are reasonably well understood, but I believe the commission will have an important role, bringing together ideas and making proposals on policing in order that we can have a new beginning, with the prospect of a more stable and peaceful future based firmly on democratic values. That stems from the "yes" vote which I believe was a turning point for Northern Ireland in the recent referendum.
    The commission has an important part to play, but I believe that the strength of the Bill is that it stands on what it puts forward. It may well be that, in the fullness of time, the commission will want to take that work further, but the Bill itself makes important changes which will improve policing in Northern Ireland. It is not dependent upon the commission, but of course the work of the commission may well take this a great deal further.
    However, before I consider the details, I should like to pay tribute to those who have served and protected the people of Northern Ireland from the scourge of terrorism. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and others, that the work of the men and women of the RUC, and of those who work alongside them, has been outstanding over many years.
    Over the past 29 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said, 301 officers have lost their lives as a result of terrorist attacks, and many thousands more have been injured. All officers and their families have had to live with the constant danger of terrorism and we have not forgotten the sacrifice that they have made.
    In paying tribute to the RUC, we should remember that the RUC, in providing a community police service for all the people in Northern Ireland, continues to face unique and all-too-often dangerous circumstances as its officers go about their daily duties. Despite this, they continue to uphold the rule of law and to safeguard the lives and the property of all the people of Northern Ireland.
    I should like to say a few words about the work of the Police Authority for Northern Ireland. Clause 1 of the Bill provides for the continued existence of the Police Authority for Northern Ireland. The clause replaces, with some amendment, Section 1 of the Police Act (Northern Ireland) 1970. The police authority was created to ensure the operational independence of the police, by putting them at arm's length from government, and to represent the interests of the community in policing matters. The Government are

    CWH 9
    strongly committed to the tripartite structure as an effective system of police governance. The Bill maintains a strong police authority with an enhanced role in representing the community and holding the chief constable to account.
    The Government, as a demonstration of their commitment to the future of the police authority, published a consultation document, entitled Your Voice, Your Choice, on 9th February 1998. The document, copies of which are available in the Library, outlined options for reforming the method of appointment of the membership of the authority, with a view to making it more representative of the community. The period of consultation is ongoing. It is an issue which the commission may wish to examine, and which, as the new arrangements for Northern Ireland take shape, the political parties there may wish to consider further.
    It is clear that the police authority, both members and staff, has over the years given sterling service to the people of Northern Ireland. It has had to operate under the threat of attack. The Government and the community in Northern Ireland are indebted to it.
    I now deal with one or two specific points which were raised in the course of the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, expressed concern about the allegations that in future paramilitaries might serve in the police. As the Prime Minister said, the agreement does not mean that we are going to have gangs of former paramilitaries. I understand that the police authority and the chief constable have been jointly examining recruitment procedures to determine how under-representation of different groups can be remedied. I welcome this initiative. The chief constable is considering the recommendations of the report, which include
    "reviewing the current criteria on criminal convictions".
    Perhaps I may give an example of that lest there be any misunderstanding. There might be a person who as an adolescent has thrown stones and was either cautioned or convicted for such an offence. That is what I believe may be the outcome of this review. Therefore, one might wish to see whether people who have committed offences of that sort—what I would regard as minor offences, not that I condone them—should be debarred for ever from serving in the police in Northern Ireland. We should await the conclusions of this exercise. However, those convicted of serious offences are not fit to be in the police. As the Prime Minister has said, that is foreign to our way of thinking and will not happen.
    The noble Lord, Lord Blease, commented on the use of the word "force" rather than "service" in Part III of the Bill. We have used the word "service" in the new umbrella title "Northern Ireland police service". "Force" is a technical, collective term for a body of constables throughout the UK and all the body of legislation which the police enforce. So we are simply using normal terminology when we refer to the word police "force".
    The noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, asked what would be the position if the Patten Commission contradicted the Bill and which of the two would carry the greater weight. The Patten Commission will make recommendations. The Government are obliged
    CWH 10
    under the agreement to consult the Northern Ireland parties and the Irish Government on implementing them. If that requires legislation, the normal democratic process here and, if agreement on devolving policing has been reached, in Northern Ireland, will take that legislation forward. Patten is not empowered to override Parliament. He will make proposals to the British Government, who will then take those further.
    The noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, also asked whether Royal Assent might not be delayed until after the Patten Commission has reported. The Patten Commission is to report in a year. If the Bill does not receive Royal Assent this Session, it would fall for all time. Therefore, it would not be possible to delay Royal Assent for that reason. I believe that there are important respects in which the Bill ought to get on the statute book and delaying it for a year would not be in the best interests of policing in Northern Ireland. I fear very much that, if we did what the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, suggests, we would lose time and gain nothing.
    4.30 p.m.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I am most grateful to the Minister. I apologise for interrupting him. That presumably means that Clause 7 (on the arrangements for obtaining the views of the public on policing) authorises the police authority to make arrangements for obtaining the views of the public on policing in Northern Ireland. It will be able to proceed with that the moment the Bill receives Royal Assent, in tandem with the Patten Commission going along parallel lines—perhaps not seeking the opinion of the same people, but perhaps obtaining very different views as there would not appear to be any interrelationship between them.
    Lord Dubs: My understanding—we have now jumped to Clause 7—is that the Bill contains provisions, to which the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, refers, stating that the police authority shall have the responsibility of ascertaining the views of the public about matters concerning policing, and of gaining the co-operation of the public in preventing crime.
    The Patten Commission has a wider remit. Clause 7 restates the existing powers of the police authority—it simply repeats the powers which already exist as regards Northern Ireland—but the Patten Commission has a wider remit which will enable it for the next year to investigate all these matters in some detail. So, although at one level it might appear that there is an overlap between the two, for the sake of orderliness the Bill continues the present powers, but the Patten Commission has a wider remit with which the noble Lord is familiar.
    I think that deals with all the points raised. The provisions in this Bill are the building blocks on which other sensible improvements can be made if time permits in the future. I hope that the Committee will feel that this is an appropriate clause to stand part of the Bill.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: I am grateful to the Minister for responding to the points that have been made in this

    CWH 11
    short debate and I welcome what he said, particularly about the employment of former terrorists in the police force, which was extremely important.
    I should like to comment very briefly on a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, about responsibility for the police transferring to the assembly at some date in the future. The Minister said that that might happen in the fullness of time, which is not a bad phrase to use about this because a prerequisite is that first there should be peace. Terrorism should be fully over—not only from those who supported the Good Friday Agreement, more or less, but also from those who did not support it. We all know that there are terrorist organisations which did not support it. In particular, the transfer of responsibility cannot take place until after there is no further need for the use of troops in support of the civil power. I cannot see that happening very quickly although, obviously, the sooner it happens, the better.
    There is another prerequisite, which I hope will also be met in a similar period of time: the assembly and new executive should have the chance to prove themselves to be effective and working bodies which can take clear decisions and give clear instructions to the police. If that does not happen, it would be extremely difficult for responsibility to be transferred because police forces need clear instructions which they can carry out, and which everyone understands that they are carrying out. What the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said about what happened in former times, such as 1968, makes that clear. When instructions to the police are given by the political representatives responsible, people should be able to see that the police are carrying out the democratic wishes through the mechanisms which have been set up. With those further thoughts, I am entirely content that Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 1 agreed to.
    Clause 2 agreed to.
    Clause 3 [Staff of the Police Authority]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 1:
    Page 2, line 37, after ("subsection") insert ("(3) or").
    The noble Lord said: With Amendment No. 1 it is convenient for us to discuss Amendment No. 2 also.
    Clause 3 deals with the staff of the police authority. They are to be partly employed directly by PANI under subsection (3), partly supplied from the Civil Service under subsection (4). In both cases, as far as most of the staff are concerned, the chief constable is to have the direction and control, although he can only engage and dismiss those directly employed under subsection (3). Those Civil Service staff designated under subsection (6) remain civil servants, not under the chief constable and not employed by the police authority. They are not, incidentally, called police service staff; they are presumably the staff of the authority.
    I found that subsection very confusingly worded, I must admit, but the wording of subsection (7) means that the civil servants who are not so designated under
    CWH 12
    subsection (6) are to be described as "police service staff". It also says that those employed directly by the police authority are police service staff.
    If the chief constable alone engages an employee, alone can fire that employee and also exercises all the other powers and duties of an employer, which is what the clause provides, it is difficult to see who is really the employer. The employees are not being employed in any meaningful way by the police authority itself. I suppose we shall be told that although they may not be in any ordinary sense employed by the police authority, they will be in a legal sense; therefore my amendment will be unnecessary because of that legal fiction, as it seems to me.
    The underlying question is why do we need this convoluted legal apparatus to enable PANI to do its job? In one way I should like to have rewritten the clause completely to say that there are three types of people involved: policemen, who are members of the RUC or the RUC Reserve; police service staff, who help the policemen directly under the control of the chief constable; and police authority staff, who help the authority to do its job. Unfortunately, at this stage we cannot rewrite the whole clause, and that is to some extent what is achieved by the subsections, as I read them. However, they are not at all clear.
    All those who will actually work for the police authority itself in doing its job appear to be civil servants on secondment, apart from the chief executive, and there may be one or two others. I am not sure that that is entirely desirable, but no doubt the Minister will tell us if I am right.
    Amendment No. 2 covers a different point. Clause 4 provides a power for a civil servant who works for PANI under the arrangements under Clause 3(4) to be transferred to work directly for PANI or to serve under the chief constable, depending on whether he is designated under Clause 3(6).
    As drafted, the transfer seems to be compulsory; the individual has no choice in the matter, and that seems unsatisfactory. I realise that it might be covered in the regulations that are to be introduced to develop these matters further, but as far as I know we have seen no draft regulations so far. In any case, it seems to me that the protection of the voluntary nature of the transfer should perhaps be in the primary legislation. PANI and its Civil Service staff seem to be concerned at the moment about those compulsory transfer provisions. They seek assurances that in the event of any down-sizing of civilian staff such staff should receive the same consideration as police officers, especially if early retirement or other schemes are introduced to reduce the numbers.
    They have also noted that the Secretary of State said there will be a two-year period after any regulations are introduced beyond which no current civil servant will be able to get back into the Civil Service proper. The authority's view is that this should be extended to at least five years in the present circumstances, or preferably that the staff should be able to compete for civil service vacancies over an indefinite period.
    They are also concerned that civilian staff who might find themselves dismissed by the chief constable should have a right of appeal to the police authority. This would help to put some fabric on what I described earlier as the fiction that the police authority employs them. However, if they appealed against the chief constable's decision in case of dismissal, that should be considered most carefully. I beg to move.
    4.45 p.m.
    Lord Blease: I wonder whether we could include consideration of terms and conditions of employment in relation to ancillary workers who may possibly be employed in departments. I know that that goes down the line a fair way; it possibly comes within the ambit of this clause, although I do not see reference to civil staff. Reference to police staff I can well understand. However, there are other civil employments and perhaps the terms and conditions of their employment are drawn up in detail. Under those terms and conditions it may be necessary to embrace some form of commitment to the services in which they have been engaged.
    Lord Dubs: Perhaps it would be helpful if I were first to deal with Amendment No. 1.
    Clause 3 sets out the administrative arrangements governing the police service staff of the police authority. The main thrust of the clause centres on the delegation of management functions in respect of police service staff to the chief constable. The clause allows the police authority, with the approval of the Secretary of State, to employ staff to assist the police force or the police authority in the discharge of their functions, and provides for the secondment of members of the civil service to the police authority.
    The purpose of subsection (7) is to clarify who is to be covered by the term police service staff. In tabling his amendment the noble Lord is seeking to include within subsection (7) those staff who are employed by virtue of the provisions of subsection (3).
    Following consultation with the legislative draftsman, I am advised that those staff falling within the provisions of subsection (3) are already covered. The words "are employed by" recorded on line 36 refer to the staff who fall under the terms of subsection (3).
    I appreciate the point is somewhat technical, but I believe the position is already covered. In the circumstances I do not believe that the noble Lord's amendment is necessary or would take us any further forward.
    Perhaps I may turn now to Amendment No. 2. Clause 4 allows the Secretary of State to make regulations through which civil servants seconded to the police authority may be transferred to the employ of the authority. It also requires the Secretary of State to consult the authority, the chief constable, and any organisations representing staff, before making such regulations.
    Giving the chief constable proper authority over police and support staff under his direction and control is a central principle of this legislation. By making those seconded staff employees of the authority, not only will
    CWH 14
    they then come under the chief constable's direction and control, but, crucially, he will have full managerial responsibility for them.
    This Government recognise the sensitivities in this area. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already consulted with trade unions and other interested bodies. We have given an assurance that adequate time will be allowed for extensive consultation before regulations are brought into force. In essence that means that unless agreement is reached, they will not invoked before 2001. The Government are committed to ensuring that the chief constable is given proper managerial responsibility for all his staff and believes that this clause is the correct way to achieve that. The noble Lord's amendment would have the effect of providing that even after the full consultation had taken place, members of staff would individually have to consent to transfer. That would be potentially disastrous, both to the chief constable, the police authority and the staff. What if large numbers of staff refuse to transfer? They could not be retained in the Civil Service group and would consequently have to be made redundant. As that is surely not the noble Lord's intention, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
    I wish to make one other point on the question of civilian staffing. There is a four-way split: civil servants and police authority employees; and working for the RUC or working for the Police Authority for Northern Ireland. Anyone working for the RUC, be it a civil servant or a PANI direct employee, will be a member of the police service staff. Anyone—that is to say a civil servant or a PANI direct employee—working for PANI itself will not be. Only police service staff will be under the control of the chief constable. Civil servants can be sacked only by the Civil Service Commission. But the chief constable will be allowed to carry out all other management functions.
    It is convoluted, but gives effect to the desire to give the chief constable the same powers as his colleagues in the rest of the UK. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, will in the circumstances withdraw his amendment.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: I am not surprised to be told that Amendment No. 1 is unnecessary. At present, I shall do as the Minister suggests.
    With regard to the compulsory transfer, it was no wish of mine that large numbers of this staffing concern should be made redundant. But the fact that it might happen may be a spur to them not to resist compulsory transfer—certainly not in large numbers. However, it might be desirable for there to be a voluntary element, rather than that PANI and the chief constable find themselves with a large number of staff who do not wish to work for them. That would not be a very good arrangement.
    I have reflected on what the Minister said: that we should return to this at a later stage in our proceedings. However, for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 3 agreed to.
    Clause 4 [Power to transfer staff to employment of Police Authority]:
    [Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
    Clauses 4 agreed to.
    Clauses 5 to 13 agreed to.
    Clause 14 [Setting of policing objectives by Secretary of State]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 3:
    Page 7, line 33, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
    The noble Lord said: Amendments No. 3 and 4 together make a single small point. Clause 14 provides for the setting of policing objectives by the Secretary of State. However, as drafted the Secretary of State "may" produce such objectives; and by implication may not if she, or he as it is expressed in the Bill, does not feel like it.
    On the other hand, under Clause 15 PANI must determine annual objectives for policing. Those objectives under Clause 15 must be consistent with the objectives of the Secretary of State, which may not have been produced. We in Parliament are being asked to pass a law to lay a duty on PANI to frame objectives consistent with the objectives of the Secretary of State even if there are none. The Government propose duties for other people, but only a permissive clause for Secretaries of State. Therefore, perhaps we should say that the Secretary of State "shall" produce these policing objectives. I beg to move.
    Lord Dubs: As noble Lords will know, the provisions giving the Secretary of State the authority to set policing objectives broadly mirror those contained in Sections 37 and 38 of the Police Act 1996 which apply to England and Wales.
    As it is the intention of the Government to maintain, as far as possible, parity with mainland legislation, perhaps it would be helpful if I were to address each of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, in turn.
    Amendment No. 4 seeks further to clarify the responsibilities of the Secretary of State in relation to her discretion to revise her objectives. The Bill, as drafted, indicates that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State may determine, and from time to time revise, objectives for the policing of Northern Ireland. While I accept that the amendment seeks to make clear the discretion that the Secretary of State has, I believe that the position is already sufficiently implicit in the wording of the clause. In view of this, I believe that the amendment is superfluous.
    Amendment No. 3, which has also been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, seeks to place a statutory requirement on my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to determine policing objectives. Such a requirement is not placed on my right honourable friend the Home Secretary under the Police Act 1996;
    CWH 16
    the word used is "may". I do not believe that Northern Ireland should be treated differently. It is clear that the objective-setting mechanism that the Bill will put in Statute is already operating successfully. It has been tried and tested, both in Northern Ireland during the shadow exercise and in England and Wales.
    It may be helpful if I say a little more about the 1998–99 objective-setting process. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced her objectives on 25th October 1997. These were finalised following consultation with the police authority and the RUC, and both welcomed them at their launch. The police authority subsequently launched its objectives for 1998–99 on 19th February, and the first Northern Ireland annual policing plan was jointly published by the chairman of the authority and the chief constable towards the end of March. The shadow exercise proved that the process is working effectively.
    Perhaps I may make a further point about the amendment. The Secretary of State need not set objectives, but PANI's objectives must be consistent with any set by the Secretary of State. Accordingly, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, to withdraw his amendment.
    Lord Alderdice: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may make one comment. He has raised—I have no doubt that this will come up again and again—the question of carrying out policing and other functions in Northern Ireland in the same way as in the rest of the United Kingdom. In many senses the process of "reading across" is rather helpful, but there are certain senses in which it manifestly is not.
    The whole subject of policing is particularly questionable because the purpose of the police in Northern Ireland has been quite different, up until now, from that of the police in the rest of the United Kingdom. The RUC—and its predecessors, the RIC—was put in place to maintain the integrity of the state as well as to contend with ordinary civil policing matters. This is the kind of "reading across" which is simply not a possibility. The Police Authority for Northern Ireland is the subject of contention in the way that no police authority on this side of the water is, and its membership is not entirely balanced in the way that one would expect on this side of the water. The relationship between the Secretary of State, the police authority and the chief constable is radically different from the relationship between a Cabinet Minister here, police authorities and chief constables. Its very name—the very fact that it is called the "Royal Ulster Constabulary"—gives it a charter which I believe is shared with only the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
    The whole subject of policing is different in Northern Ireland. Although I have no great argument with the Minister on this matter, I would caution against repeatedly thinking that, by getting "reading across" on a contentious issue like policing, you are always solving the problem. Frequently, you are simply ignoring a problem which is there and which is not going to be resolved simply by "reading across", any more than it will be resolved by "reading up" from the Garda Siochana.
    5 p.m.
    Lord Dubs: I take the noble Lord's point. That is why we have a separate Bill for policing in Northern Ireland and why we are having the Patten Commission, neither of which is comparable to anything happening in other parts of the United Kingdom. I was simply referring to the practice in England and Wales where we had tested a particular and, in this context of policing as a whole, a fairly minor but detailed point. It had been shown to work and it made sense to apply that to Northern Ireland. As a general principle, I accept the noble Lord's point that policing in Northern Ireland is different. The Government see it as being different; that is why we are addressing it in a way that is specially geared to Northern Ireland.
    I may have misled the Committee a few minutes ago. I was making a point about the Secretary of State setting objectives. I should like to clarify that. It was in relation to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cope. If the Secretary of State were not to set objectives, PANI would simply have a wider discretion but it would still have to set objectives for the police service. That is the proper way of dealing with the point made by the noble Lord. I believe he has indicated that he will withdraw the amendment.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: First, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, that reading across from the rest of the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland is not always appropriate in these cases, although I am in favour of it as a general proposition as far as possible.
    The point that I was making was quite small. It was really only a verbal point. I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will set objectives; it would be astonishing if he did not set objectives under the clause. However, the clause only provides that the Secretary of State "may", whereas Clause 15(2) gives a clear impression that there will be such objectives. It says that the PANT objectives,
    "in any event shall be so framed as to be consistent with the objectives determined under [Section 14]".
    However, I shall not press the matter. It is a small verbal point rather than one of principle. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    [Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
    Clause 14 agreed to.
    Clauses 15 to 18 agreed to.
    Clause 19 [General functions of Chief Constable]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 5:
    Page 10, line 15, at end insert—
    ("and shall consult the Police Authority during the implementation of the plan.").
    The noble Lord said: Apart from the objectives that we have been talking about, PANI also has to agree in public to the annual policing plan. This will be drafted in the first instance by the chief constable but it is PANI's plan in the end. The chief constable then has to have regard to the plan under this clause in running the police force.
    What lies behind the amendment is the fact that we all know that the best laid plans, particularly in situations such as are found in Northern Ireland, cannot always be followed. The first Earl of Stockton pointed out that "Events, old boy, events" are very significant in political and governmental matters. That led me to wonder what will happen when the plan cannot be followed exactly and when a variation from the plan is desirable. Therefore, I suggest in the amendment that the chief constable should consult PANI as the year progresses, not merely report at the end about how he has fared. I am sure that he will do so in practice. The amendment seeks to recognise that he is likely to do so by setting it out on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
    Lord Alderdice: I find this a somewhat puzzling proposition. In putting it forward, the noble Lord, Lord Cope, pointed out that he is concerned about events: unexpected or untoward matters that might arise, probably without much warning, or at least in the operational context as far as the chief constable was concerned; not matters that would be in the policing plan. After all, the policing plan would be in place, it would be agreed and the chief constable would be bound to follow it through. As he has said, therefore, this is in the context of events which have arisen. In that context, however, it could be difficult to bind the chief constable to consultations with the police authority because if it were the case that the chief constable and the policy authority agreed, then so be it. However, these matters often have to be handled with such alacrity that consultation could hardly be very full.
    If, however, in the context of some immediate operational, event the chief constable were to find that the police authority did not happen to agree, for whatever reason—whether its members were not as aware of the situation as he was or they simply disagreed—one would be putting him in a position where there could be gridlock in the operational effectiveness of the police. In the context of an event so contentious as to require consultation, to ensure that the chief constable could not act because of gridlock between himself and the police authority might be a most unwise matter. The amendment does not say that the chief constable "may" consult the police authority, because it is obvious that he may. It says that he "shall" consult the police authority.
    Therefore, if this amendment were to be passed, would it not, in the context of difficult events, possibly place the chief constable in a most invidious position? Indeed, would it not reduce the operational independence of the chief constable, which is something that we so strongly value?
    Lord Dubs: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, because he has really answered for me. In tabling this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Cope is seeking to require the chief constable to consult with the police authority during the implementation of the annual policing plan.
    I am not clear exactly what this amendment seeks to achieve. By virtue of the provisions of Clause 17, the annual policing plan is drafted by the chief constable,

    CWH 19
    who in turn submits it to the police authority for its approval. The authority has the power to accept the plan as drafted, or amend it after consultation with the Secretary of State.
    It is appropriate for such approval to be sought before publication. However, I believe consultation between the authority and the chief constable during the implementation of the plan could be seen to weaken the chief constable's operational independence, the point most helpfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice.
    I fear that the impression could be given, if the amendment is accepted, that the chief constable's operational judgments are being made subordinate to the opinion of the police authority. The difficulty in this area is not the problem of differences between the police authority and the chief constable as to what should be done. I am confident that on most matters they will be in agreement. I think it is wrong in principle to tie the chief constable's hands in the way this amendment proposes.
    This proposal deviates from the position in England and Wales and in Scotland in a key aspect of operational independence, although I hesitate to make that point in view of the earlier discussions, but it is valid in relation to this particular issue. The police already have power under Clause 48 to require the chief constable to submit reports. These reporting arrangements have been refined to clarify the authority's power to specify the form in which such reports are to be given and to lay down a time limit.
    In general terms, but especially in Northern Ireland, we have to ensure the operational independence of the chief constable. The remarks of my noble friend Lord Fitt earlier point to this particular conclusion.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: Before the noble Lord, Lord Cope winds up, I wonder whether we are talking about the same term? As I understand it the amendment does not suggest that the chief constable should consult on the annual policing plan. The amendment is attached to the phrase
    "the statement of principles issued under section 37".
    To my mind, therefore, it would appear to give at least a degree of accountability which would be welcome in the light of what has generally been stated in earlier debates.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: I certainly have no desire to weaken the operational independence of the chief constable or even to make it appear that it should be weakened. I am therefore impressed with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice and the Minister that my amendment might be taken in that way. I had not intended particularly to attach it to the statement of principles as opposed to the annual policing plan. I merely intended to make sure that the chief constable, in discharging his responsibilities, kept in touch with PANI, and to recognise that the best laid plan at the start might not work out as either of them expected.
    However, in view of the comments that have been made, I seek leave at this stage to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
    Clause 19 agreed to.
    Clause 20 [Exercise of functions of Chief Constable in cases of absence, incapacity, etc.]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 6:
    Page 10, line 21, at end insert—
    ("( ) If the Chief Constable is unable to act, the Police Authority, after consulting the Secretary of State, may, in an emergency, designate a senior officer as in subsection (1)").
    The noble Lord said: This clause is all about what happens if the chief constable becomes unable to exercise his functions for various reasons—if there is a sudden vacancy, or if he is absent, incapacitated or suspended from duty. The clause provides that the chief constable shall, in advance, designate a senior officer to have the powers of chief constable should one of these events occur. This is clearly necessary, and subsection (2) provides that only one officer is to be so designated.
    In proposing this amendment, I was looking at the possible very difficult scenario of what might happen if both the person designated and also the chief constable became unable to act—became incapacitated—at the same time. This is not a happy thought, but it is not inconceivable. We know that the Provisional IRA tried in Brighton in 1983 to kill not only the Prime Minister but as many of the other senior members of the government as possible. I have personal reason for remembering that. Later on there was a mortar bomb attempt to kill the right honourable gentleman, Mr John Major, and some of his senior colleagues with a single blow. Both those attempts failed. In another way, the tragic Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash did kill most of the leading figures in the Northern Ireland intelligence community at one time. It is not, therefore, impossible to believe that a situation, either accidental or deliberate on somebody's part, might lead to both the chief constable and the deputy chief constable, or whoever else was designated, being unable to act. We should provide for this, and that is what I have attempted to do in Amendment No. 6. I beg to move.
    Lord Dubs: The purpose of this amendment is to give the police authority the power, after consultation with the Secretary of State, to designate a senior officer to act in the absence of the chief constable. The power to designate would only be used by the authority in an emergency situation; for example, if the chief constable was unable to exercise his powers by virtue of subsection (1).
    I am resisting this amendment on the grounds that I believe it is unnecessary. In the unlikely event of the chief constable and his deputy being simultaneously removed, for whatever reason, the normal chain of command would automatically transfer responsibility on the basis of first rank, and then seniority. The police authority would then have the duty, as quickly as possible, to appoint a new chief constable.
    The amendment is unnecessary and could, conceivably, give rise to confusion through preventing the normal transfer of responsibility through the chain of command until the authority had had time to meet

    CWH 21
    and decide on its nominee as stand-in for the chief constable. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: However, in the unlikely event occurring, which we are envisaging in considering this clause, it seems that no one would, for a while—until a permanent appointment were made—have the powers of the chief constable. Clearly the immediate operational decisions could still be made, but no one would have the powers of the chief constable. Otherwise there is no need for him to designate anybody to act in his capacity at all, if it is as automatic as the Minister said.
    Lord Dubs: My understanding is that if the worst were to happen, and we lost the chief constable and his deputy, there is the system within the RUC on the basis of rank and seniority to decide who would take over. Then the task of the police authority would be as quickly as possible to appoint a new chief constable. In operational terms the police have a system in Northern Ireland which ensures there is always somebody who is in charge, whatever may happen to the senior or more senior people.
    5.15 p.m.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: Yes, someone would be in charge, but no one would have the powers of the chief constable for the time being. However, I will not press the matter on this occasion. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 20 agreed to.
    Clauses 21 to 50 agreed to.
    Clause 51 [The Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland]:
    On Question, Whether Clause 51 shall stand part of the Bill?
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: We have now moved on to Part VII of the Bill. Clause 51 is the basic clause abolishing the Independent Commission for Police Complaints for Northern Ireland and setting up the new ombudsman, which the following clauses spell out in more detail.
    I am not exactly clear at the moment when this is to happen, but clearly before it does happen it is right that we should pay tribute to the work that has been done by the commission which is to be abolished. It has had a most difficult job, as indeed the ombudsman—whoever it turns out to be—will in due course discover. In my judgment the commission has performed it well and deserves a tribute from us. I do not think the replacement of the commission by a single individual should be seen as a criticism of its work, which has been outstanding.
    There is one other general point which I wish to make at this stage, which concerns the financial effects of the Bill. The financial effects seem to be unusually uncertain, and indeed the financial memorandum that
    CWH 22
    was presented with the Bill when it was first introduced in another place some six months ago, said as much. Page viii of the Bill states:
    "The effects on those budgets of the changes proposed in the Bill are still uncertain".
    It occurred to me to wonder whether, six months later, the Minister can give us any more information about the expected costs of the new arrangements by comparison with the old ones. They have given rise to a certain discussion, and I have no doubt they have been discussed very carefully, not least in the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland, as well as in other parts of the Northern Ireland Office.
    Lord Alderdice: Perhaps I may briefly say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cope, for raising this question. It gives us a chance to pay tribute to the Independent Commission for Police Complaints, which has had a very difficult job over a long period of time.
    The problem it had from the very beginning was one that I and my colleagues pointed out. It was not seen as fully independent. It was felt that it did not have quite the level of freedom and independence in terms of investigating complaints that will be the case for the ombudsman.
    Having expressed some scepticism, at an early stage and on a number of other occasions, about the need for the Bill at this time, I have to say that if there is one reason why the Bill is valuable, and is valuable at this time, it is specifically because of Clause 51 and the clauses following, and the establishment of a truly independent ombudsman on policing.
    I do not in any way want to query the independence or the quality of service of the Independent Commission for Police Complaints. It was that the structures under which they were established, in particular the absence of a capacity for fully independent investigation, to some extent tied their hands and in the public mind reduced the degree of independence that was possible for the ICPC. That will be relieved to a great extent in respect of the ombudsman. I welcome very strongly indeed the establishment of the office of ombudsman. I have no doubt that it will be carried through with distinction. This amendment is of value in order to emphasise at this stage of the Bill the tremendous importance that this component has. It seems to be the most valuable part of the Bill. I strongly support it.
    Lord Dubs: I am grateful for the supportive comments that have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, asked when it was intended to bring this matter into effect. It is at the discretion of the Secretary of State, but I can tell the Committee that the target date is March 1999, although that is not a firm decision at this stage.
    I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, gave me notice of his intention to oppose Clause 51 stand part to ensure that we could have a wider discussion about the concept of the police ombudsman. The discussion indicates that it is an important issue—and one which justifies the Bill, if nothing else does. However, I believe that there are other justifications for the Bill, although this issue is important.

    CWH 23
    The purpose of this part of the Bill is clear. It is to give effect to recommendations made by Dr. Maurice Hayes in his report A Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland? which was published in January 1997. Dr. Hayes went to great lengths to consult widely on his report and to achieve support for it. There have been many supportive comments made by politicians from many parts of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland stressing the need to have a completely independent system of investigating police complaints. I know that many years ago, when this was an issue in England, it was also the view of many people that a totally independent system would be helpful to the police and would be another way of achieving accountability, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, referred.
    Perhaps I may quote from Dr. Hayes' report:
    "The overwhelming message I got from nearly all sides and from all political parties was the need for the investigation to be independent and to be seen to be independent. Whilst there were systematic failings in the present arrangements they lacked credibility because of lack of independence, because it was the Chief Constable who decided what a complaint was, because there was no power of initiative, and because the complaints were investigated by police and others".
    That is the real justification for having an independent system.
    The noble Lord, Lord Cope, asked about the costs. It is clear to us that there will be more costs than Dr. Hayes originally envisaged, but the detailed scoping study has not yet been completed, so I am not yet in a position, I fear, to give firm figures. We shall, however, ensure that the work of the ombudsman will be properly resourced.
    There is no need for me to make any other point except to repeat my gratitude for the welcome that has been given to this concept and to thank noble Lords for giving me a chance to do so in the debate.
    Clause 51 agreed to.
    Clause 52 [Complaints—receipt and initial classification of complaints]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 7:
    Page 26, line 22, leave out from ("complaint") to end of line 23 and insert ("about the conduct of a member of the police force which is made by, or on behalf of, a member of the public, in so far as the complaint does not relate to the direction and control of the police force by the Chief Constable,").
    The noble Lord said: With this amendment I wish also to discuss Amendment No. 9. I start with a confession. I do not know whether other noble Lords find, as I do, that reading Bills induces after a while a terrible frustration at their convoluted language and construction. Every now and again one cannot resist trying to simplify them, and I confess that on this occasion I have succumbed to that temptation and attempted to do just that.
    I hope I have not changed the purpose that lies behind this part of the Bill. Clause 52(2) provides for the chief constable to preserve the evidence when there is a complaint about the conduct of a policeman. However, the clause does not say that straightforwardly. It says that he must preserve the evidence in the case of a
    CWH 24
    complaint covered by subsection (4), and subsection (4) starts by saying, "Subject to subsection (5)". You have to read all three subsections simply to decide what the clause is about. I have tried to simplify the language and I have used all the same operative words as are used in the Bill, but my version takes 45 words whereas the Bill uses 67 words. In other words, I have cut down by one-third the words used without changing the meaning by one jot. More importantly than merely cutting down the length of this clause, I suggest that my draft is easier and quicker to comprehend. I beg to move.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, has rendered some assistance not only to the Committee, but also to the parliamentary draftsmen. He is not really criticising them because they have managed to streamline the process through which they have to work to a form of art. The noble Lord is trying to simplify all of that, and thus to be of assistance to the draftsmen, so that to some extent—perhaps even in a small way—they will be relieved of the pressures under which they are, and have been, working. I paid tribute to them in your Lordships' House only a week ago when I said that we had not realised earlier this year that the Northern Ireland legislation was imposing such a hideous burden on the parliamentary draftsmen not only of Northern Ireland, but of the entire United Kingdom. I repeat that tribute. Anything that can be done to simplify the language, and to assist the draftsmen and draftswomen and the Minister would be worthy of support.
    Lord Dubs: I am grateful to the tribute that the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, has paid to the parliamentary draftsmen. Indeed, with six major Northern Ireland Bills in this Session, an all-time record, it is not surprising that the parliamentary draftsmen are busy, given all the other burdens of the current legislative programme. The parliamentary draftsmen are certainly working very hard at present.
    I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, has in the past indicated that he wants government publications, whether legislation or other documents, to be written in good English—and I respect his wish. That is not easy to achieve, however, as no doubt he found out when he was in government. The advice I have been given is that these amendments are not necessary because they do not alter the meaning of the clause, merely its wording. That is probably something with which the noble Lord would agree.
    The clause as drafted is clear. Subsection (2) begins:
    "Where a complaint—
    (a) is made to the Chief Constable".
    That appears to relate to the conduct of a police officer. It continues:
    "the Chief Constable shall take such steps as appear to him to be desirable for the purpose of preserving evidence relating to the conduct complained of".
    The clause then makes it clear that this duty:
    "does not apply to a complaint in so far as it relates to the direction and control of the police force".

    CWH 25
    The noble Lord's proposed amendments are a different way of expressing the same thing, but they do not deal with the knock-on effect in subsection (6). In any event, I hope that the noble Lord will understand that I do not want to adjust the current wording which I believe is sufficiently clear. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for confirmation that my re-draft does not change the effect of the clause. As I made clear, it was not intended to do that. It follows from the fact that it does not change anything that my amendment is not necessary.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I am grateful to the noble Lord because I was about to put to him a question and I do not insist on an answer at the moment. If he were ordered secondment to the ranks of the parliamentary draftsmen, would he prepared to consider it?
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: Only for about 30 seconds, or rather less! If the transfer was compulsory under the clause we were discussing earlier, I would go sick.
    Lord Dubs: In my experience of politics—and the noble Lord's is more extensive than mine—it is always good to have a fall-back occupation.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: I used to think that in another place, but having arrived here, and having reached a sufficiently advanced age to receive a parliamentary pension, I have slightly changed my view on that matter.
    However, the fact is that it is necessary to try to write statutes in understandable English, which often means that they become rather shorter. I entirely agree with what the Minister said about the volume of work that is being placed on the parliamentary draftsmen at the moment in respect of Northern Ireland affairs. Under these circumstances I will not press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    5.30 p.m.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 8:
    Page 26, line 24, leave out ("desirable") and insert ("reasonable").
    The noble Lord said: This amendment attempts to change, in a very small way, the actual sense of this particular clause. The clause provides that:
    "the chief constable shall take such steps as appear to him to be desirable for the purpose of preserving evidence relating to"
    a complaint. I can see that to give him an open-ended duty to preserve evidence could be difficult, but "desirable" seemed an odd word to choose to express the duty to be laid on the chief constable.
    One can imagine a conversation between a little boy and his mother. "Why did you hide the broken bits where I would not find them?" Little boy: "Because I felt like it." That would not be well received, nor would it be if the chief constable turned up in court and said he did not think it was desirable to keep this evidence,
    CWH 26
    and that was all he had to do. I therefore suggested that the word "reasonable" should be used instead, so that the chief constable would not necessarily have to keep everything, but if the court or the ombudsman and other people thought it necessary at a subsequent time, then he would have to justify that it was unreasonable to have expected him, in all the circumstances, to have kept the evidence—not merely undesirable in his own opinion.
    Lord Alderdice: On this occasion I am rather impressed with what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, says on this matter, particularly when he describes the circumstances where the chief constable might be asked to give an account of himself in a public context. Were he to use the words of the statutes here and say that he felt it was not desirable to do so, those who do not naturally have a very positive opinion of chief constables might well wonder why he did not desire it. Whereas, if he were to say that this was not regarded as reasonable but was going beyond the bounds of what it was reasonable to expect, then in public terms that would be seen to be a much more reasonable defence.
    While at this point I have no doubt that the Minister wants to consider the matter further, I hope that he and his colleagues will consider it further at a subsequent stage. Although it is not a matter of great enormity, were a chief constable in a position of having to defend himself in a public fashion the word "desirable" would be less desirable than the word "reasonable", which is very reasonable.
    Lord Dubs: All I would say is that the English language is a wonderful thing!
    I would caution against the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Cope. There are precedents for the use of the word "desirable" in legislation. It is the wording which is used in the Police (Northern Ireland) Order 1987, which established the Independent Commission for Police Complaints, and the Police Act 1996. Both pieces of legislation state that, where a complaint is made, such steps shall be taken "as appear to be desirable" to preserve evidence relating to the conduct complained of.
    Moreover, the word "desirable" sets a higher standard. A dictionary definition of "reasonable" is "having modest or moderate expectations"; "reasonable" sets a minimum standard whereas "desirable" exceeds that. I believe that we all desire more than the minimum. I would, therefore, ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
    Lord Alderdice: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask a question. He referred to the two previous pieces of legislation and I must confess my ignorance of them. However, my assumption—I may be entirely wrong—is that the Independent Commission for Police Complaints would maintain the material as was desirable, rather than the chief constable. I would have much less feeling that in the public mind the Independent Commission for Police Complaints might be questioned on whether or not it had done what was right and reasonable by keeping it only as was desirable. It is the chief constable who is being scrutinised. I may be entirely wrong and it may refer to the chief constable.

    CWH 27
    I simply took from what the Minister said that the previous legislation referred to what the Independent Commission for Police Complaints would do.
    Lord Dubs: The advice I have is that the previous legislation refers to the chief constable, not the Independent Commission for Police Complaints.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: Clearly, we must consider this matter further, but meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    [Amendment No. 9 not moved.]
    Clause 52 agreed to.
    Clause 53 [Complaints - informal resolution]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 10:
    Page 27, line 18, after ("gives") insert (", and does not withdraw,").
    The noble Lord said: Clause 53 provides for the informal resolution of complaints, one of the highly desirable features of the legislation and one which we all hope will be used to a great extent and will help to deal with many complaints. Among other things, subsection (2)(a) provides that a complaint can be dealt with informally only if in the first place the complainant agrees.
    However, I wonder what would happen if later in the progress of the complaint—perhaps because further facts emerge or a different set of circumstances becomes apparent in the course of the investigation and the probing of the complaint—the complainant decides that his complaint is in fact more serious than he originally thought. He may be losing confidence in the informal resolution of it, in which case the complainant should be in the position provided for by my amendment whereby he can withdraw his consent to the continuation of the informal resolution procedure.
    In that case, it would be a matter of returning to square one and the complaint would go into the formal procedure and pass through that, resulting, one hopes, in a conclusion in due course.
    If it is to be resolved informally, it will not be much good if halfway through the process the complainant has lost confidence in it. It is desirable, therefore, to provide this kind of safety net to allow the complainant to withdraw his consent, if he so wishes, halfway through the investigation of the complaint. I beg to move.
    Lord Dubs: The first of the noble Lord's amendments to Clause 53 deals with the consent of the complainant to his or her complaint being informally resolved. The noble Lord wishes to include a provision enabling the complainant to withdraw consent to informal resolution. This is not, in fact, necessary. Under the rules of statutory interpretation, the giving of consent by the complainant is—and I hope noble Lords will forgive me for using this technical term—"always speaking". In other words, the complainant's consent can be withdrawn at any stage and the complaint therefore ceases to be suitable for informal resolution.
    CWH 28
    I suggest that the noble Lord's amendment is therefore unnecessary. The second amendment would result in the deletion from Clause 53 of subsection (8). I believe that this clause is necessary. Precisely the same provision exists in Section 86 of the Police Act 1996 which applies to complaints in England and Wales, and in Article 22 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Order 1987, the existing legislation in Northern Ireland.
    Subsection (8) states that,
    "A statement is not rendered inadmissible by subsection (7) if it consists of or includes an admission relating to a matter which does not fall to be resolved informally."
    It therefore provides an exception to subsection (7) which in turn provides that statements made by any person in an informal resolution case are not admissible in any subsequent criminal, civil or disciplinary proceeding. Subsection (8) would apply, for example, when an officer or complainant made an admission which was completely unrelated to their complaint. It is a sensible provision which deals with the possibility of the complainant or officer seeking to use subsection (7) to protect confessions about matters which were not the subject of the informal resolution. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: The Minister says that the first amendment is unnecessary because of a statutory rule. That simply demonstrates that I am not qualified to be a parliamentary draftsman, which lets me off the earlier hook on which the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, sought to attach me.
    I do not wish to pursue that. I did not speak to Amendment No. 11 because I could not quite work out what the subsection was intended to mean. The Minister has given us some assistance on that matter.
    I am still not entirely clear about the matter. If someone makes a statement in the course of the investigation of an informal complaint, it cannot be used in any subsequent case unless it is regarded as an admission about something else. Admission is not defined as far as I can discover. There could be difficulty in deciding whether it was an admission. Clearly if someone says, "I committed an unrelated crime", that is an admission. All sorts of statements might be regarded as an admission, in ordinary English.
    I have studied Clauses 50 and 73. They set out many definitions but do not define "admission". Perhaps the definition is well known in law.
    It may be desirable that a statement taken when trying to resolve a dispute should not be used in court in connection with the matter which is the subject of the dispute, because if it were allowed to be admissible people would be less likely to give information which might lead to resolution of the matter. If there is an admission of something else in the course of the informal resolution procedure the whole statement becomes admissible even in a case which flows directly from the complaint. That does not seem to me desirable. It will make people less likely to be frank while trying to resolve the complaint informally.
    An unrelated admission could make the related matters covered in the statement admissible in a court case arising out of the complaint itself. That is why I

    CWH 29
    queried subsection (8). Clearly I do not wish to take subsection (8), or anything like it, out of the Bill. I believe that some provision should be in the Bill. In seeking to speak to Amendment No. 11 I am querying whether the wording of subsection (8) is correct.
    5.45 p.m.
    Lord Dubs: First, on the question of admissibility, my advice is that this is for the court to determine.
    I thought the noble Lord intended to say that as subsection (8) had three negatives in it, it was difficult to follow. I was hoping that he would come up with better wording. However, I am advised that it is necessary and that it fulfils the purpose, as I have said. Therefore I urge the noble Lord not to proceed with his amendment.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: In that case, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 10.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    [Amendment No. 11 not moved]
    Clause 53 agreed to.
    Clauses 54 to 63 agreed to.
    Clause 64 [Regulations]:
    Lord Cope of Berkeley Lord Cope of Berkeley moved Amendment No. 12:
    Page 34, leave out lines 25 and 26.
    The noble Lord said: We have all become used to seeing Bills littered with powers for the making of orders, regulations and statutory instruments of one sort and another. It is an entirely legitimate practice in moderation, but, carried to excess, it can be pernicious because it devalues Parliament, even if negative or affirmative procedures are provided for. It allows very provisional, almost sloppy, thinking to take place because it gives the power to change anything at a later date. It means that, as in this case, we are asked to pass highly provisional legislation which may change almost out of recognition as a result of the powers being granted in this clause as a whole.
    Of course, I realise why Ministers and civil servants like the practice, particularly when they are struggling for parliamentary time. They can easily slip into the idea of putting in an order-making power which can be altered without having to bother returning to Parliament too often in the future.
    I have not proposed that this whole clause of regulating powers should be deleted, but only much more modestly, in Amendment No. 12, that the Secretary of State should not be able to allow the ombudsman to ignore the Bill. I cannot see much point in Parliament labouring over all these clauses if they can be set aside by subsection (2)(e), which would enable the ombudsman to dispense with any requirement of the Bill.
    Amendment No. 13 also attacks a regulatory power proposed in the Bill which would otherwise allow the Secretary of State to make provision for, as far as I can see, absolutely anything, for any purposes specified in
    CWH 30
    that regulation. That does not even seem to me to limit the provision to anything to do with the police in the sense that the Secretary of State might say that he wishes to make a regulation about something else, and that he has the power to make a regulation under this clause for any purposes specified in the regulation. It may be nothing to do with the provisions of the Bill. Indeed, it sounds like carte blanche permission for absolutely anything. I would be grateful to know from the Minister what sort of things he and his advisers had in mind when providing this all-purpose power to alter anything, not only in the Bill but almost outside the scope of the Bill, as far as I can see. I beg to move.
    Lord Molyneaux of Killead: I shall be brief, but I wonder whether it will be possible for the Minister to take seriously the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, and whether he can give us an indication—I appreciate that this may be difficult—of whether giving such a power to the ombudsman is common practice with regard to other ombudsmen in Northern Ireland and wider afield in the United Kingdom generally.
    Lord Alderdice: I wonder whether I might ask the Minister to suggest under what sort of circumstances he would expect that the ombudsman might wish to dispense with some of the regulations and with which regulations he might dispense. It seems rather strange that we should be suggesting that the ombudsman might dispense with some of the regulations that the Government and Parliament have felt it right to put into place. Will the Minister give us some indication of what those circumstances are so that we may understand it better?
    Lord Dubs: The noble Lord's amendments seek to delete the power of the Secretary of State, by regulation, to enable the ombudsman to dispense with any requirement of this part of the Bill. This particular provision, about which the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, asked, replicates Article 19(2)(E) of the Police (NI) Order 1987 and was a power available to the Secretary of State regarding the Independent Commission for Police Complaints.
    The provision is required to allow for circumstances where the ombudsman, perhaps in a report under Clause 61 of the Bill, advises the Secretary of State that some procedure is, for example, not working well or at all or is particularly onerous. The ombudsman might recommend removing the provision and the Secretary of State may agree and so bring forward regulations. Those regulations, of course, would be laid before Parliament and so an opportunity for debate would be available.
    To turn to the noble Lord's second amendment, he seeks to remove the powers of the Secretary of State to make regulations to give effect to any purpose specified in the regulation-making power. This again replicates provisions in the Police (NI) Order 1987—those in Article 19(3).

    CWH 31
    The provision is required to allow for sub-delegation. For example, if under Clause 64(2)(a) regulations provided for a copy of a complaint to be furnished to an officer, then those regulations could also state that the precise form in which the complaint should be presented would be left to the Secretary of State to prescribe.
    Any regulations made under this procedure would, of course, be made only after consultation with the ombudsman, the police authority and the police association.
    The noble Lord, Lord Cope, and I believe the noble Lords, Lord Molyneaux and Lord Alderdice, asked a more general question about the regulation-making powers of the Bill. The Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee has considered the regulation-making power and reported to say it was content save for one small point. That was in relation to Clause 64(2), which replicates Article 19(2)(F) of the Police (NI) Order 1987. It is required to allow the chief constable to delegate his functions. It is peculiar to police legislation. It has not normally been on the face of police legislation, either in Northern Ireland or in England and Wales, but has been left to regulations.
    CWH 32
    Although I understand the concerns about the excessive use of regulations rather than having matters on the face of the Bill, the fact is that in these instances we are simply taking forward into the new legislation provisions which already exist in the previous legislation. We are not breaking any new ground; we are simply continuing what has been existing practice.
    Lord Cope of Berkeley: In the light of that response, which I shall consider carefully between now and the later stages of the Bill, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    [Amendment No. 13 not moved.]
    Clause 64 agreed to.
    Remaining clauses agreed to.
    Schedules 1 to 6 agreed to.
    Title agreed to.
    Bill reported without amendment.
    The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne): That concludes the Committee's proceedings on the Bill.
    The Committee adjourned at six minutes before six o'clock.

  The Third Way
  The Third Way
  The Middle Way
  The Middle Way
  European Council and European Union: Forthcoming Business
  European Council and European Union: Forthcoming Business
  General Affairs Council, 25 May
  General Affairs Council, 25 May
  US Nuclear Doctrine
  US Nuclear Doctrine
  Arms Sales to Taiwan
  Arms Sales to Taiwan
  Afghanistan Arms Embargo
  Afghanistan Arms Embargo
  Indigenous Minority Languages
  Indigenous Minority Languages
  New Joint Services College
  New Joint Services College
  National Blood Authority
  National Blood Authority
  Iraq Crisis: Broadcast Jamming
  Iraq Crisis: Broadcast Jamming
  Service Personnel: Hearing Test Procedures
  Service Personnel: Hearing Test Procedures
  Landmine Elimination
  Landmine Elimination
  Scotland: Per Capita Spending
  Scotland: Per Capita Spending
  Forth Road Bridge: Vehicle Numbers
  Forth Road Bridge: Vehicle Numbers
  Council Tax Debt Collection Procedures
  Council Tax Debt Collection Procedures
  Motorway Hard Shoulders: Sweeping
  Motorway Hard Shoulders: Sweeping
  Waste Management: Consultation Paper
  Waste Management: Consultation Paper
  Creswicke Road Playing Fields, Bristol: Bus Depot
  Creswicke Road Playing Fields, Bristol: Bus Depot
  Prison Service: Business Plan
  Prison Service: Business Plan
  Justice and Home Affairs Council, 28–29 May
  Justice and Home Affairs Council, 28–29 May