Sitting of 5 July 1999

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Mr. Tom King: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister is to make an extremely important statement at 3.30 pm. I have sought to get a copy of the proposals which I understand were published in Belfast. I have asked the Vote Office, which has no copy but expects one shortly. There was said to be a copy in the Library. In fact, there is not a copy in the Library, and that makes it extremely difficult for right hon. and hon. Members to respond. May I ask for your good offices, Madam Speaker? I have General de Chastelain's report, which is now available, but we do not have a copy of what, apparently, was agreed.
Madam Speaker: I understand that a copy will be made available in about half an hour. That should give Members ample time to get it before the Prime Minister speaks on it.

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

    Retirement Pensions (Upgrading)
    2. Mr. Bill O'Brien: What progress is being made on the upgrading of retirement pensions; and if he will make a statement. [88023]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): A statement on uprating will be made at the normal time. Pensioners will share in rising national prosperity.
    Mr. O'Brien: I appreciate all the contributions that have been made and the work that has been done by the Government to help pensioners. The present Government have done more since the general election than was done in 18 years under Conservative Governments. However, my concern now is for today's pensioners. Increases in water charges and in the television licence fee, and the fact that pensioners must now pay more for reduced services, mean that the increase in their outgoings is greater than the increase in the cost of living, according to which their pensions are calculated. That is driving more people into the poverty trap.
    Now, we have the threat of the reduction or withdrawal of housing benefit. More than 50 per cent. of pensioners in my constituency receive that benefit, and its loss will
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    be tragic for pensioners. Will my right hon. Friend take account of my concerns—which are shared by millions of pensioners—and assure us that today's pensioners will not lose out and that their quality of life will not be eroded?
    Mr. Darling: First, there is no question of pensioners losing housing support. All Governments have recognised that it is necessary to ensure that pensioners can meet their housing costs, and that will remain the case. However, my hon. Friend raises an important point. One of the problems that we have inherited is that, in this country, the gap between rich and better-off people and poor people has never been greater. The same applies to pensioners: the gap between better-off and poor pensioners is at its largest for very many years.
    The Government's objective is to help today's poorest pensioners by giving them the minimum income guarantee. We are spending an extra £4 billion during this Parliament to help the pensioners whom my hon. Friend mentioned, who lost out in the Tory years. We have more to do. We are increasing the winter fuel payment fivefold this year and we are determined to ensure that, in future, pensions provision is structured far better than it was in the past, so that we never again have a large number of elderly people left with very little support—as we did when the Tories were in power. We are starting to tackle that and put it right.
    Mr. Edward Leigh: The Labour Government consider that the existing state pension is inadequate, which is why they are introducing the stakeholder pension. However, has the Secretary of State seen a recent report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which shows that, instead of introducing the stakeholder pension, the Government could have achieved the same ends by reforming existing pension arrangements? Instead of setting the cart before the horse by introducing the Bill before the consultation period, why have not the Government come forward with a simple reform, buttressing the contributory principle and ensuring that people in future have a decent pension instead of the bewildering array of stakeholder and second pensions, which is confusing people and not achieving the Government's aims?
    Mr. Darling: We inherited a situation where, after the Conservatives' 18 years in office, one person in three of working age was liable to retire on income support right from day 1—such was the inadequacy of the pension provision that the Tories left us. We have ensured that the basic state pension remains the foundation of pension provision. We have introduced the minimum income guarantee for the poorest pensioners. What is more, we are making changes to ensure that people can retire on more than that minimum income guarantee because, if they do not have occupational pensions, or if it is not appropriate for them to be in personal private pension schemes, they can get access to a funded pension through stakeholder pensions.
    I am not sure how up to date the hon. Gentleman keeps on these matters, but I would say to him that the approach that we set out in our Green Paper last December has been almost universally endorsed. By contrast, there has been absolute silence from the Tories as to what their pension policy is. We do not know. Perhaps, under the new

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    regime, there will be a pensions policy, but until they get a pensions policy perhaps they should consider the benefits that our reforms will bring.
    Mr. Chris Pond: I welcome the progress that has been made on welfare reform, but is my right hon. Friend satisfied that enough has been done, and is being done, on welfare reform to meet the challenges of the 21st century?
    Mr. Darling: We have made a very good start in the first two years. We are the first Government ever to express our determination to eradicate child poverty within 20 years—something that the Tories never did, or would do. We are making changes to the benefit system to ensure that work pays and to ensure that people cannot be written off—or be allowed to write themselves off, as happened under the Tories—and we are making long-term changes to the pension structure, which was long overdue. However, we have far, far more to do, and we will not be deflected from reforming the welfare state, ensuring that a system that was designed 60 years ago is brought up to date. We have made a useful start; we have much more to do, and I am determined that we will see it through right to the end.
    Mr. David Willetts: I presume that the Secretary of State means that he will not be deflected by his own unhappy Labour activists, who were causing him so much trouble at the weekend. Can he confirm that the value of the pension will be one of the subjects covered in the welfare policy review that he was forced to offer his unhappy supporters, such as the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), at the weekend? What other Government policies will now be reviewed under pressure from the right hon. Gentleman's party activists? At a time when the Government are presiding over an increase in welfare spending of £38 billion over three years, the last thing we need is yet another roadshow.
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman has some cheek in lecturing us on social security spending. Despite all the rhetoric, over the 18 years during which the Conservative party was in power, Conservative Governments increased social security spending by 90 per cent. Under the Labour Government, the rate of growth of the social security budget is half what it was under the Tory Government. We are ensuring that the money that we spend is spent to the best possible effect. That is why we are spending a record amount on increasing child benefit to alleviate and then eradicate child poverty. That is something that the Tories never did.
    We are ensuring that work pays so that people get off benefit and get into work. That is something that the Tories opposed and did nothing about for the almost 20 years during which they were in power. We are also addressing other problems that they left us. We have a generation of pensioners who lost out because of the inadequate pension provision made by the Tories. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond), we have made a start, but there is a great deal more to do.
    Unlike the Tories, we are not prepared to tolerate a situation where a benefit system designed for a different generation in different times becomes increasingly out of date. We shall make the changes that are necessary to
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    ensure that we have a benefit system that makes work pay and provides work for all those who can work as well as providing security for those who cannot.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that pensioners in Chorley and throughout the country will not be failed by the Labour Government—unlike the Conservative Government, who presided over 18 years of failure? That is a trap into which we should not fall. Will my right hon. Friend ensure also that, whenever possible, he will increase the basic pension for all our pensioners?
    Mr. Darling: We certainly will. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), many pensioners' incomes have increased, mainly as a result of occupational pensions. The problem is that many more pensioners have lost out. Over the years during which the Tories were in power, some pensioners became poorer and poorer, and the Tories did nothing about it. The minimum income guarantee, the fivefold increase in the winter fuel allowance, the return of free eye tests and a host of other measures, including increasing investment in the national health service—all these things were opposed by the Tory party—mark the difference between this Government, who are concerned about the well-being of pensioners, and the Tory party, which both during its time in office, and now, it appears, in opposition, has had nothing constructive to say.

    All-work Test
    3. Mr. Stephen Day: If he will make a statement on his proposals to reform the all-work test. [88024]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): There is a provision in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill to replace the all-work test with the personal capability assessment. The personal capability assessment will determine entitlement to benefit in the same way as the all-work test has done hitherto. In addition, it will provide constructive information about what a person's medical condition or disability would allow them to do and advice on practical measures which might improve their chances of returning to work. This will enable personal advisers to help people identify and overcome the barriers that they face and take steps back into employment.
    Mr. Day: Is the Minister telling the House that there will be no change to the criteria applied by the new system, as opposed to the all-work test? Will there be a change in the frequency of the periodic review? Will the information that claimants have to provide change in any significant way?
    Mr. Bayley: I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman's question. It is clear that he has not been following the debate. We have made it clear time and time again that the functional ability tests which existed in the all-work test will be repeated in exactly the same way in the personal capability assessment, so that entitlement to incapacity benefit will not change in any way. However, there will be a change in that the test will stop ghetto-ising

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    people into incapacity benefit and will start examining the way to get them off benefit and into work. That is the difference.
    Ms Rosie Winterton: Will my hon. Friend say how the new tests will assist people who have mental health problems? People with mental health difficulties sometimes feel that the present system does not meet all their needs because their needs may be less tangible than those of people with physical incapacities. In my constituency, the benefits advice and tribunal unit feels that the presence of a qualified psychiatrist at an assessment would be helpful in recognising the needs of people with mental health difficulties.
    Mr. Bayley: I welcome my hon. Friend's question. She is right that concerns have been expressed about the way in which the test deals with people suffering from mental health incapacities. We are not changing in any way the threshold of entitlement to benefit, and people who currently meet the criteria will in future receive the benefit. The special procedures that apply to people with mental health problems will continue. Claimants suffering from a severe mental illness will in future, as in the past, be wholly exempt from the all-work test.
    It would not make sense to ensure that the test for certain groups of people was undertaken by a consultant psychiatrist, but it makes absolute sense to ensure that all the doctors conducting the all-work test are trained to deal with the psychological and psychiatric conditions presented to them. We are introducing better training for the doctors who undertake those tests, and in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians we are introducing for the first time ever a qualification in disability assessment management, which will lay a benchmark of good practice that will be used within the service.
    Madam Speaker: I notice that the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day), who put the original question, has already left the Chamber, before hearing the final answer. I hope that hon. Members will note that that is not the way to behave.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: The Minister knows that recently the composition of appeals tribunals hearing all-work test appeals was changed to allow for one professionally qualified chairman and no lay people. Will the new system encompass the fairer, older system? The change to one legally qualified chairman is seen as rubber-stamping a larger number of appeals being turned down.
    Mr. Bayley: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that, under the new regime, which is now fully operational, a minimum of two people will be required. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it was vital to speed up the appeals process, because justice delayed is justice denied. Many people had to wait months to have their appeal heard. That was unfair, so it was necessary to reform the system, which the Government have done.

    Carers (Second Pension)
    4. Mr. Paul Goggins: What progress he is making with the introduction of a second pension for carers. [88026]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): There has been a wide welcome for our manifesto pledge, now confirmed in the pensions Green Paper, to allow carers to build up a second pension. We are working on the details at present. We expect 2 million carers to qualify for credits each year. We are aiming for legislation in the next Session and for credits to commence in 2002, when the state second pension is due to be introduced.
    Mr. Goggins: I agree with my hon. Friend that the announcement of a carers pension is popular. May I press him on the situation of carers who should qualify for a second pension because they have been awarded invalid care allowance? The Green Paper states that qualification is automatic for carers who are in receipt of invalid care allowance, but in practice some carers who are awarded invalid care allowance do not actually receive it because they are in receipt of other contributory benefits, such as widows benefit or incapacity benefit. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the award—and not necessarily the receipt—of invalid care allowance will lead to entitlement?
    Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and the answer is yes. Credits will, as he says, go to recipients of invalid care allowance and to those receiving child benefit in respect of children under five, and credits will also go to people in the circumstances that he described—people providing care for people receiving attendance allowance and the middle and higher rates of disability living allowance, but who do not actually receive invalid care allowance, in many cases for the reasons that my hon. Friend outlined. It is an important step forward for carers and recognises the immense contribution that they make.
    Mr. Steve Webb: In the reform of pensions for carers and others, does the Minister believe that simplicity is a virtue?
    Mr. Timms: Indeed I do. That is why the state second pension is being reformed, to ensure that on retirement, everyone who has worked and contributed throughout his or her life will be delivered an income above the means-tested threshold. That is a simple goal which has been widely welcomed and which the entire House will recognise as the right way forward.

    Family Incomes
    5. Mr. Ben Chapman: What action his Department has taken to improve the situation of poorer and working families. [88027]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): In April, we increased child benefit by the largest amount ever. In October, the working families tax credit will be introduced, helping an extra 500,000 families and providing an income guarantee for every family in full-time work of at least £200 a week. Those reforms, together with other tax changes, will mean that a family on £13,000 a year will be better off by up to £2,500 a year.
    Mr. Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the situation we inherited when the Tories left power—

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    one in three children being brought up in poverty—was an absolute disgrace? Although I warmly welcome the Government's commitment to eradicate child poverty within a generation, what practical steps are being taken now to help the plight of children? That is what concerns people most.
    Mr. Darling: I agree with my hon. Friend, which is why we have been increasing child benefit by large amounts—a record amount last year and this. In addition, the working families tax credit, which the Conservatives are pledged to abolish, will mean that, because of the Labour Government, a family on £13,000 a year will be £2,500 better off than they would otherwise have been. That measure makes the case for welfare reform: it will make work pay, provide security for those people about whom we ought to be concerned and ensure that we eradicate child poverty within a generation. The Tories did absolutely nothing about that when they were in government.
    Mr. Julian Brazier: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the working families tax credit will have an impact on families also drawing housing benefit, whatever his long-term plans for benefit reform may be? Hundreds of thousands of families will face a combined tax and benefit withdrawal rate of 89 per cent. Such conditions will hardly encourage them to help themselves.
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman—unwittingly, I suspect—makes the point that further reform is necessary. The working families tax credit reduces the effect of marginal rates of taxation for poorer families, but he is quite right: housing benefit also needs to be reformed—not only because its administration is inefficient and expensive and because it is open to fraud and abuse, as all of us know, but because it acts as a disincentive to many people who ought to be in work. Unfortunately for him, he is making the case for further reform of the benefits system. I repeat what I said earlier: we have made a start, but there is a great deal more to do to ensure that the benefits system, as well as providing security for those who cannot work, makes work pay.
    Ann Clwyd: I think I can anticipate my right hon. Friend's reply, but I shall ask my question nevertheless. There is a real sense of grievance among my constituents who previously received reduced earnings allowance, which, as we know, was abolished by the Tories. In opposition, we made strong criticisms of that abolition, and there is a real sense of betrayal—I do not think I am putting it strongly enough—among the people who came to my surgery this weekend saying that they are £30 to £40 worse off as a result of that. Will my right hon. Friend look at this matter again?
    Mr. Darling: I am well aware of the point that my hon. Friend makes. She is quite right that, suddenly and unexpectedly, the Conservatives cut the rate of REA, which miners thought they would receive after had they retired. The problem is that that benefit was meant to replace people's income when they were in work. That is clearly difficult for people who have entered into commitments. I say my hon. Friend, as I have said to many of her colleagues, that I am prepared to look at this matter, as I am prepared to look at all parts of the benefits
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    system, but I do not want to raise her expectations or those of her constituents and I am not giving an undertaking that I will be able to resolve the problem to everybody's satisfaction. I think she understands that.
    Mr. David Rendel: Does the Secretary of State accept that it is particularly important for poor working families that their children should remain dependent for as brief a time as possible and should get jobs as soon as possible after they finish their education? Does he not therefore think that it is time he did something about the young people who are sometimes held up for five months before they receive national insurance numbers, thanks to the failure of the NIRS2 system? A number of businesses are refusing to give those young people jobs until they have national insurance numbers.
    Mr. Darling: Many young people go straight into jobs on leaving school, but we want to ensure that many more go into higher education to achieve better skills and qualifications. Secondly, the new ONE service, which will bring together the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency, will mean, for the first time, that someone of working age will receive advice immediately on entering the system.
    Thirdly, I am well aware of NIRS2 problems, which we inherited from the Tories—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh, come on."] The Tories signed the contract, and they must take complete responsibility for a system that did not work. The problems are being overcome. I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) supports our general thrust; that is why I find it hard to understand why he wants to take his party into closer allegiance with the Conservative party.
    Mr. Frank Roy: On the point about working families, my right hon. Friend will know that Scottish schools are on holiday. While teachers are paid during the holidays, cleaners and dinner ladies are not—and nor are they entitled to jobseeker's allowance or any other benefit. Does the Secretary of State have any plans to redress that unfair anomaly?
    Mr. Darling: I am fully aware that Scottish children are on holiday—and that we are not. I am aware of the problem to which my hon. Friend refers. About two months ago, a commissioner's decision stopped the Department of Social Security paying benefit to the dinner ladies in question. The case has been appealed to Scotland's supreme court, the Court of Session, and we should receive a definitive ruling before too long. Many dinner ladies may be entitled to some help from the Benefits Agency, and if they are in any doubt, they should contact the local agency. I shall keep the situation under review, particularly once we have received the Court of Session ruling.

    Stakeholder Pensions
    6. Mr. John Wilkinson: What discussions his Department has held with representatives of pension funds about the Government's proposed stakeholder pensions. [88029]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): Ministers and officials have benefited from numerous meetings with representatives of the pensions industry, including those from personal pension and occupational pension funds. Pension fund representatives are receiving our consultation documents on stakeholder pension schemes and will help us to get the detail right.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Would it not have been wiser to wait until the Green Paper consultation period had ended before initiating legislation? Is it not clear that both the Government's required top limit of 1 per cent. on annual fees and the low level of contributions—down to 10 per cent. a month—will squeeze life offices and pension funds that are already suffering severely under the Labour Government? Is not the axing of 4,000 jobs by the Pru a foretaste of things to come unless the Government listen and change their mind?
    Mr. Timms: We consulted widely on the framework for stakeholder pensions contained in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill before the Green Paper was published. I listen with interest to the hon. Gentleman's appeals on behalf of the insurance industry. It is our ambition that every employee in Britain should, for the first time, have access to a good-value, dependable funded pension.
    We are driving a hard bargain on behalf of scheme members, and we are absolutely right to do so. The Government and the industry need to pull out all the stops to persuade millions of people that it is worth their while to save for their retirement. We shall not do that if charges are excessive, as they have too often been for personal pensions. The financial services industry is perfectly capable of producing the good value that we need. Our job is to ensure that good value is delivered for stakeholder pensions.
    Mr. Frank Field: I congratulate the Government on the extensive consultation on their welfare reform programme, and I welcome the extension to the consultation announced yesterday. However, there appears to be a contradiction between a stakeholder pension policy that relies on voluntary saving, and the introduction of a minimum earnings guarantee, which will make it impossible for many workers to save enough to be better off than they would be under the guarantee. Will the review announced yesterday consider that matter?
    Mr. Timms: I do not believe that there is any contradiction. As formulated, the state second pension will take people above the minimum income guarantee if they have saved and contributed throughout their lives. If, instead, they are in a stakeholder pension, it, too, will contribute.
    On the point about compulsion, the problem is that many people cannot afford to save. Already, 4.6 per cent. of national insurance goes towards their pension, and for low-paid people extra compulsion is simply not on. That is why the state second pension is being designed to provide a real incentive for voluntary extra saving, and that is what I believe our scheme will achieve.
    Mr. Michael Trend: Following the Minister's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), let me say that
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    surely a basic premise of the stakeholder pension scheme is that it will be popular because there will be a set 1 per cent. annual charge. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are sticking to, and will continue to stick to, that 1 per cent. figure?
    Mr. Timms: I can confirm that we shall drive a hard bargain on behalf of scheme members. We are in consultation, and we shall take account of everything that we hear in response to the proposal. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to correct a misapprehension under which the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), is labouring with regard to the consultation process. I welcome the hon. Member for Havant to his new position, and I accept that it is a tough brief to get on top of, but I informed the hon. Gentleman and the House last Wednesday that we published two consultation documents last month and we plan to publish four more this month. The hon. Gentleman issued a rather bizarre press release under the heading "Conservative Party News", in which he said:
    "That brings the total number of such documents to a staggering 10".
    We shall have published six documents, not 10—two plus four equals six, not 10. That remains the position.
    Mr. Terry Rooney: Has any pension fund provider or any life assurance company opposed the principles of stakeholder pensions?
    Mr. Timms: No, they have not. They have warmly welcomed them. As my right hon. Friend said, there has been an almost universal welcome for the principles which we have laid down and which are contained in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill. It is important that we now work with the industry and everyone else with an interest in this matter to get the details right.

    Benefits (Orthopaedic Patients)
    7. Mr. Anthony Steen: What estimate he has made of the cost in social security benefits of the waiting times experienced by patients for orthopaedic (a) consultations and (b) operations. [88031]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Spending on social security benefits is affected by very many factors, and it is not possible to isolate the benefit cost of waiting for orthopaedic treatment.
    Mr. Steen: Will the Minister explain to the House why 25-year-old Jason Ganney of Buckfastleigh will be on state benefits until October 2001, as he has been told that that is the earliest date on which he can have a knee operation? He injured his knee while playing rugger for the Buckfastleigh Ramblers against the Exeter Saracens. He is a skilled young man. He is married and his wife is expecting a child, but he cannot look after her and has to stay on state benefits because the national health service cannot give him a date before October 2001 for a minor knee operation. Is that not disgraceful?
    Mr. Bayley: I have seen the correspondence between the hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State for Health,

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    and it is for the Department of Health to answer on health matters. I shall confine myself to the social security matters. The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. He will be aware that the new deal for disabled people is already addressing the need to ensure that people who suffer an injury while in work can retain their jobs.
    The national health service inherited from the previous Government a terrible legacy on waiting lists. The Secretary of State for Health said that it would take a 10-year programme to rebuild the national health service. However, there has been substantial progress already. An additional £417 million was provided for waiting list initiatives last year, and another £320 million this year. The number of people on waiting lists is considerably lower nationally, and lower by 4,600 in Devon, which is a 14 per cent. reduction. The Secretary of State for Health will continue to press for a reduction in waiting times for all treatments.

    Social Security Appeals
    8. Helen Jones: What steps his Department is taking to improve social security appeals procedures. [88032]
    Mr. Clive Efford: What steps he is taking to shorten the waiting times for appeals for incapacity benefit and disability living allowance claimants who have had their benefits stopped. [88036]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): As we announced on 23 June, we are improving procedures for making decisions and handling appeals. These changes will help our clients, including those whose incapacity benefit or disability living allowance has been stopped. The Independent Tribunal Service has already taken action to shorten the waiting times for appeals, and is now making significant inroads into its backlog of cases.
    Helen Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply.
    Although I have raised the matter in the House before, many constituents are still contacting me, almost in despair over the time that they are having to wait for their appeals to be heard. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that is an unacceptable burden to impose on people who are already in a very vulnerable position? Can she assure us that she will continue to monitor the situation, to ensure that the mechanism we introduced to improve appeals tribunals is delivered and that people are given decisions as speedily as possible?
    Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend makes a case for speeding up reform that cannot be questioned. I could point out that, again, the problem is due to the legacy of the Conservative party. There are backlogs of seven months. That is why we changed the system in the Social Security Act 1998, as a result of which new decision-making and appeals procedures are now being introduced. The chief executive of the new Appeals Agency has been set tough targets.
    In February there was a backlog of 70,000 cases, or 50 per cent. of the case load. By the end of May, that backlog had been reduced to 34,000, or 30 per cent.
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    of the case load. As I have said, significant inroads are being made, but we are not complacent about the task that faces us.
    Mr. Efford: I, too, thank my hon. Friend for her answer; but does she share my concern about the number of claimants whose benefits are being stopped as a result of inadequate information given to adjudicators by medical examiners, and about the impact that that is having on the backlog? What steps can she take to improve and monitor the actions of medical examiners, to ensure that they perform better in the future?
    Angela Eagle: There are many reasons why tribunal cases may be adjourned, or tribunals may not be able to reach a decision. We are trying to deal with all those reasons. Sometimes bad administration is to blame, but, by means of the new decision-making and appeals processes, we are monitoring the standard of work closely. Reports will be made to Ministers on how that is going. I hope that a significant improvement can be made in all these areas, but especially in administration.
    Mr. Tim Boswell: Does the Minister accept that people with disabilities are especially vulnerable in respect of appeals, and delays in the proper payment of benefit? Those people are extremely worried. Although the Minister has given figures in an attempt to claim that there has been some improvement, that is not the way in which many of my constituents see the position.
    Does the Minister also accept that, even if the appeals situation improves—as we all hope that it will—a further round of difficulties will arise from Government proposals to means-test incapacity benefit? Those proposals are likely to add further to the complexity of the system and to the number of appeals and difficulties, and to lead to a general lack of fairness in the treatment of people with disabilities.
    Angela Eagle: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench—I do not think that I have had the pleasure of doing so before—but I cannot agree with what he has said.
    It is important to remember that, through the changes to decision-making and appeals, we have made it easier for errors to be sorted out without the need for an appeal. We hope that that will lead to the speedy resolution of many more cases, thus clearing the way for experts to examine genuine cases that require decisions. I am convinced that we shall have a much better, more sensitive way of disposing of a number of cases—to the mutual satisfaction of appellants and those who consider their appeals—right at the beginning, before cases even come to appeal.

    Pensioners (Income Support Take-up)
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: What steps he is taking to ensure that pensioners entitled to income support are encouraged to claim it. [88033]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): My hon. Friend raises an important point, to which we are giving careful consideration. Last year, we undertook some pilot projects

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    and research studies. We expect to receive the evaluation results from them shortly. We are watching with interest more recent partnership initiatives between the Benefits Agency and local authorities, which are showing encouraging results. We hope before long to be able to announce plans to encourage take-up among pensioners.
    Mr. Prentice: When did my hon. Friend last look at a pension book? There are references to the help available, but people need 20:20 vision to read it. Why do we not simply redesign the pension book and grab pensioners' attention by saying, "1 million pensioners are entitled to claim income support, but do not do so; it could be you."? Grab their attention!
    Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Actually, it is up to 700,000 pensioners, not 1 million, but I am attracted by his attention-grabbing proposal. Another helpful initiative would be to make it easier for pensioners to claim over the telephone. We have had a good deal success with a pilot service for pensioners to make retirement pension claims over the telephone. That approach has a lot of potential as well, but I agree: it is important that we are imaginative. I want everyone who is entitled to income support—every pensioner—to receive it.
    Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Does the Minister acknowledge that one of the easiest ways in which to deliver help to some of the poorest pensioners is to look at the limitation of the threshold for capital? The limits have been at those levels for some time. The Government have said that they might look at them in the near future. Has he anything to report in that regard?
    Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point; we made it, too, in the pensions Green Paper. We intend to introduce some proposals during the life of the current Parliament, but there is no announcement to be made today.
    Ms Gisela Stuart: I am sure that the Minister would like to join me in congratulating Birmingham city council, which has just completed a pensioner awareness week, which encouraged pensioners to claim all the benefits available to them. Is any focused work being done to identify areas where, as purely statistical evidence indicates, there is particular need and high incidence of non-claiming, and to target initiatives such as the one in Birmingham at city councils throughout the country?
    Mr. Timms: I have been very impressed by what I have read of the Birmingham initiative; I have asked for more information about that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that matter. There is potential in the statistical analysis that she has described. A couple of weeks ago, I visited Wolverhampton. There has been an effective take-up campaign there, run jointly by the Benefits Agency and the local authority. The local authority identified people who, from its housing benefit records, looked as though they were entitled to income support but were not receiving it. As a result of that initiative, 300 extra people in Wolverhampton are receiving the minimum income guarantee. There is much
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    potential here, particularly in the partnerships between local authorities and the Benefits Agency. We want to explore them fully.
    Mr. David Willetts: May I press the Minister further on the interaction between means-tested assistance for pensioners and the stakeholder pension for people on low incomes? He will be aware from comments that have already been made that there is widespread concern among hon. Members on both sides of the House as to why someone should take out a stakeholder pension if all it does is reduce their entitlement to means-tested assistance. He was talking about arithmetic earlier. Let me ask him an arithmetical question. How much money do people have to have—[Interruption.] I am afraid that it is a bit trickier than the earlier question. How much money do people have to have in their stakeholder pension fund if they have no other savings, so as to secure an income that will float them off means-tested assistance?
    Mr. Timms: It depends on the level of the minimum income guarantee, which will be uprated in line with earnings, but the point that the hon. Gentleman misses is that, through the state second pension or a stakeholder pension, if people contract out of the state system into a funded pension, they will be delivered on to an income in retirement that is well above the level of the minimum income guarantee. They then have full access to all the additional savings that they have made. People will be much better off in a funded pension. That is why we want every employed person in Britain to have easy access to a good-value, dependable, funded pension scheme.

    Benefit Integrity Project
    Mr. Bill Rammell: If he will make a statement on reform of the benefit integrity project. [88034]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): The benefit integrity project was terminated on 31 March 1999. We have replaced it with a periodic inquiry process into disability living allowance awards that is both fairer and more sensitive to the needs of individual disabled people.
    Mr. Rammell: I thank the Minister for that response. Does he agree that a crucial part of the changes has been the move from a faceless, cost-cutting bureaucracy to a situation in which a claimant is, rightly, able to speak over the telephone to the person who is making the decision on that claimant's benefit eligibility? Will the Minister also reassure the House that the Government will continue to invest in training for Benefits Agency staff, particularly in disability awareness, to ensure that the changes are successful?
    Mr. Bayley: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The benefit integrity project was introduced by our predecessors, before the general election, as a cost-cutting exercise, and was, therefore, seen as unfair by disabled people. The project considered only cases for reduction in benefit, not cases in which people were being paid too little benefit. Our periodic review, however, will do both: it will reduce benefits when people's circumstances change and they no longer qualify for higher rates, but also increase benefits for those whose

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    needs increase. That is what is different about the changes, and it is why our new review process will be much fairer.
    Mr. John Bercow: According to what precise criteria will discretion be used to decide whether reviewed benefits should be backdated or not backdated?
    Mr. Bayley: The rules on backdating are the same as those that applied under the benefit integrity project: one does not backdate benefit to the date of either the inquiry letter or the inquiry visit.

    Child Support Agency
    Sir David Madel: What recent discussions he has had with the chief executive of the Child Support Agency on reform of the agency's procedures; and if he will make a statement. [88037]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): I meet regularly with the chief executive of the Child Support Agency, and, of course, discuss the way in which the agency works. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, last week, I made a statement to the House in which I described a number of improvements that we propose to make.
    Sir David Madel: When mistakes have been made by the Child Support Agency on money due for maintenance and a deduction of earnings order is imminent, whose job is it to get the mistake corrected quickly? If the job is to be ours as hon. Members, surely we should be given power to put a stop on deduction of earnings orders while the matter is being re-examined. That is a perfectly reasonable request, and a reasonable Government would grant us it.
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman has been in the House long enough to remember the time when all hon. Members had a power virtually to stop immigration cases, whereas—certainly in my experience—we were never in possession of sufficient information to be able to reach an informed judgment on those matters. I do not really think that giving Members of Parliament power to intervene in the administrative process—perhaps on limited evidence, and sometimes on the basis of limited partial evidence, from one view only—would be a particularly satisfactory way of doing things.
    What I do think is necessary is the root-and-branch overhaul of administration of the CSA, which I announced last week, and to get away from the current situation, in which the very complexity of the formula makes it very likely that there will be mistakes. In future, under the new simpler formula that I announced last week—in which only three pieces of information will be needed to calculate how much is due; the tables showing how much will be due was published in the White Paper—the incidence of mistakes is likely to be much lower.
    Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe: May I tell the Secretary of State that I do not want the powers described by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Sir D. Madel)?
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    We have had some negative press after the excellent statement made last week by my right hon. Friend on the White Paper proposals, as many people have been confused about interim administration arrangements until the legislation is changed. What can he do—perhaps working with agencies and local authorities—to get across the White Paper's message on how the changes will affect people in the intervening period, until new legislation has been introduced?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend makes a good point. In the next three years, we shall be investing £28 million in the Child Support Agency. We are strengthening the agency's senior management, and bringing in, as agencies, people with far more experience from other branches of the Department of Social Security, to tighten up the CSA's middle management and to get decision-making right in the first place.
    Additionally, we are placing far more attention on complaint resolution. More than 600 staff will be allocated to deal with interviews, face to face with those who have complaints or do not understand how a calculation has been made. Moreover, at the earliest possible opportunity, we shall introduce penalties for late payments, and make it an offence to lie to the agency or not to co-operate with it.
    I believe that all those changes will mean that the improvement that has been made in the past year or so will get better and better. I am sorry to say that until we get legislative approval to make the formula simpler, the agency will always have difficulties. It will never be popular. We can make some valuable alterations in the mean time, but a new formula is vital to ensure the fundamental changes that we all want.
    Mr. Eric Pickles: The right hon. Gentleman suggested last week that it would be helpful to have cross-party support for reform of the Child Support Agency. Does he realise that the undertakings given across the Dispatch Box will bear materially on whether there is such co-operation? In his statement last week he dismissed our worries about the confidentiality of Inland Revenue files but, on 27 April, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), assured me that the files would be used only as a last resort, repeating that assurance six times in a relatively short debate. Were the Opposition duped by those undertakings? Has the policy changed, or does the Secretary of State stand by those undertakings?
    Mr. Darling: I find it interesting that when we announce reforms that will help 1 million children who do not get help now, the hon. Gentleman is bothered only about the minority of fathers who fiddle the system and conceal their true financial state from their children. Let me make the position clear. We shall ensure that people have every opportunity to tell us how much money they have so that we can calculate how much they should be paying their children. Of course it will be only as a last resort, if they insist on misleading us or lying to us, that we shall go to the Inland Revenue and ask what that individual has said in their tax returns. It is high time that the Conservatives started addressing the real problem of 1 million children losing out because of the mess that we inherited at the Child Support Agency, which they set up.

    Young Carers
    Mr. David Kidney: How his Department (a) identifies and (b) helps young carers. [88038]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): I know that my hon. Friend has a close interest in children's welfare. He will be aware that social security benefits are not available to children under 16 in their own right, but if, unusually, we received a claim from someone under 16 who was clearly a carer and requested help, we would give appropriate advice, such as suggesting that the parent should receive benefits advice or that the family should contact social services.
    Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that some carers as young as 12 and 13 bear the heavy responsibility of caring for adults with disabilities? The national carers strategy challenges us all to identify and provide help and support to such youngsters. Although the main aim of that challenge is education and health services, there is a role for the Department of Social Security and the Benefits Agency. One inexpensive way of alerting all claimants for invalid care allowance of the possible availability of local support is shown by the south Staffordshire carers support project, which has produced an excellent leaflet called "Young Carers Need You to Listen". Will my hon. Friend look again at the rules for entitlement to invalid care allowance, which currently exclude those who stay in full-time education? Will personal advisers for 16 and 17-year-olds be sensitive to the needs of young carers?
    Mr. Bayley: I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting question. I am sure that he joins me in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks), whose Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill a few years ago contained proposals, opposed by the then Conservative Government, to ensure that the needs of young carers as well as adult carers were taken into account. That laid the groundwork. I have considered the issue that my hon. Friend has raised. It would not be appropriate to pay invalid care allowance to those under 18, because the benefit replaces earnings for those who are unable to work, although there are circumstances in which a full-time carer under 18 who is not in full-time education would be able to claim income support with a carers premium, which answers my hon. Friend's point.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Many people welcomed the words of the carers strategy. However, I ask the Minister to visit the home counties. He would be welcomed in Surrey, where he would find that the social services, education and health settlements meant that there was no prospect of expanding services—it was a question of retreating. Perhaps the most irresponsible step is to mouth the words, but not to make the means available to deliver the objectives.
    Mr. Bayley: Many things have changed since the legislation was placed on the statute book and since the publication of the carers strategy. I have visited a number of carers projects in different parts of the country, and they welcome the fact that, as part of the strategy, an additional £140 million has been made available, principally to provide breaks for carers.

    ONE Service
    Mr. John Healey: What reduction in incomplete or incorrect first-time benefit claims he estimates will result from the introduction of the ONE service. [88039]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The first pilot offices offering the ONE service opened for business on 28 June. One of the many advantages of the new service is that advisers will be able to help clients to complete their claim forms during the initial work-focused interview. We therefore anticipate that there will be fewer incomplete or incorrect first-time benefit claims.
    Mr. Healey: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that one of the understated strengths of the concept of the ONE service is the opportunity to get claims complete and correct from day one? Will she therefore consider making that objective one of the yardsticks by which the pilots are judged?
    Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We believe that there are large administrative gains to be made from preventing the duplication of work and the chasing of incorrect forms, and from ensuring that people can get their benefit payments quickly. They can then concentrate more effectively on how to get off benefit and back into work. I can confirm that that is one of the things that we will be measuring in the monitoring and implementation process, and we will be expecting significant beneficial effects.

    Public Service Delivery
    Mrs. Joan Humble: What progress his Department is making with integrating the delivery of its services to the public with services offered by other parts of Government. [88040]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): This Department is making substantial progress in planning the integration of its services to customers through a modern service programme which will deliver business change and enhance information technology support. Our primary focus at the moment is the ONE project pilots, which commenced on 28 June, in which we are ensuring the delivery of work-focused benefit services and promoting partnership, working with the Benefits Agency, the Employment Service and local authorities.
    Mrs. Humble: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware of how confusing and time consuming it is for many disabled people in particular to try to access different Government Departments and local authority departments. What plans does my hon. Friend have to ensure that areas such as Blackpool, which are not part of the pilot for the ONE service, have a single gateway to enable disabled people to access all the services that they need?
    Angela Eagle: We are hoping to learn from the ONE pilots how we can offer the service throughout the country. We are doing other things to try to integrate interdepartmental working, and the work of local authorities and the agencies of Departments. That includes

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    the presence in all 349 local authorities of remote access terminals which allow people to look at the information we have to ensure that they can process housing benefit correctly. I assure my hon. Friend that the benefits of integration will be coming to all areas of the country as soon as we can ensure that that can be done practically.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: As the Government are doing such a good job in integrating the services offered by different Departments, will the Minister have a word with the Secretary of State for Health and advise him that by focusing on the numbers on waiting lists, he is making waiting times longer, and thus adding tremendously to the social security bill?
    Angela Eagle: The hon. Gentleman should know that both waiting times and waiting lists are falling.

    Disabled People (New Deal)
    16. Dr. Brian Iddon: What progress his Department has made in implementing the new deal for the disabled. [88041]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Together with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, we have introduced the new deal for disabled people. We are also piloting a personal adviser service under the new deal in 12 areas, including my hon. Friend's constituency. I know that he has visited the scheme and has taken a close interest in its work.
    Dr. Iddon: Not only has the pilot scheme in Bolton employed four people previously on incapacity benefit but so far, in the first eight months, it has seen 565 people, half of whom have been assessed and 88 of whom have been put into an occupation. There are excellent partnerships running; with Bolton local authority, for example, with whom the scheme has won European structural fund money for 200 workplaces. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Peter Jones and his staff on the excellent start that they have made?
    Mr. Bayley: I do indeed congratulate Peter Jones and his staff. I have visited the project and I know that it is working extremely well. It shows the difference between our approach to welfare benefits and that of the Conservatives. We seek to get people off benefits and back into work.

Northern Ireland
Madam Speaker: The right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) raised an important point of order at 2.30 pm today about the joint statement by the British and Irish Governments, which should have been available in the Vote Office at that time. I understand that it was available in Northern Ireland at 9 pm on Friday. There is no reason whatever why it should not have been in our Vote Office early this morning. I hope that those who are responsible for distribution will improve efficiency.
3.31 pm
The Prime Minister: With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on last week's talks on Northern Ireland.
Last Friday, I proposed a way forward for Northern Ireland. The starting point was the Good Friday agreement, which set out an agreed basis for a peace settlement in Northern Ireland. It offered Unionists what they have sought for the past 70 years: the principle of consent—that is, no change to the status of Northern Ireland without the agreement of the majority of its population; changes to the Irish constitution, with Dublin dropping its legal claim to the North; and devolution of powers to Northern Ireland, with an elected Assembly, an Executive and other institutions.
For the nationalists and republicans, the Good Friday agreement offers equality, justice, and the normalisation of Northern Ireland society; for the first time since partition, the ability to share power and responsibility and not have their electoral mandate set at naught; a range of new institutions, including north-south bodies; and, over time, as the security situation improves, demilitarisation.
Above all, the Good Friday agreement offered all the people of Northern Ireland the prospects of permanent peace and an end to violence. I believe that it is still the only true way forward for Northern Ireland.
Of course, difficulties remain. There is still violence, much of it recently by loyalists opposed to the Good Friday agreement, and there is still conflict and bitterness, as we can see in Portadown, where I will continue to work for a settlement of the Drumcree issue; but life in Northern Ireland has improved immeasurably since the Good Friday agreement. Normality has returned to most parts of the Province.
Whatever their disagreements, the two sides now talk to one another regularly, but one vital issue is unresolved: how to secure the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. The Good Friday agreement required all parties to use their best endeavours to secure decommissioning.
On 25 June, the Taoiseach and I secured the commitment of all the signatories to the Good Friday agreement to three principles on which the rest of our work was then based: that an inclusive Executive should be formed, exercising devolved powers; that all paramilitary arms should be decommissioned by May 2000; and that decommissioning should be carried out in a manner determined by the International Commission on Decommissioning under General John de Chastelain.
Both sides need certainty. Unionists want certainty that decommissioning will happen, and a guarantee that, if it does not, they will not be left in an Executive with those who refuse to make it happen. Republicans want the
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certainty that Unionists are serious about participating in a genuinely inclusive Government. Our agreement last Friday, in my view, provides both.
In more detail, the proposal is as follows. Northern Ireland Ministers would be nominated by the parties, using the d'Hondt procedure, on 15 July. The devolution order would be laid before Parliament on the following day, and powers transferred on 18 July.
The de Chastelain commission would require a start to the process of decommissioning. The general has already said that he expects this to be within
"literally a couple of days".
That process of decommissioning begins when a paramilitary group
"makes an unambiguous commitment that decommissioning will be completed by 22 May 2000 and commences detailed discussions of actual modalities (amounts, types, location, timing) with the Commission through an authorised representative."
So there would have to be definitive statement of intent, certified by de Chastelain literally within days. If that does not happen, and de Chastelain certifies a breach of this process, at that point the Executive is unwound. So we shall know within days whether decommissioning is to happen or not.
The commission then sets a further time limit, within which there is to be a start to actual decommissioning of weapons. The general has said that he would expect that to be within a few weeks. Again, should the actual decommissioning not come as de Chastelain has laid down according to the Good Friday agreement, then the failsafe kicks in. De Chastelain is due to make reports on progress on actual decommissioning in September, October and December and in May 2000, by which time it is to be complete. That is all entirely in line with the Good Friday agreement. Under it, parties are expected to use their best efforts to secure decommissioning. Last Friday's agreement is effectively the basis for how that will be judged.
Should default occur, the institutions are suspended automatically while we find a way forward. We are then, in effect, back to where we are now, but with these two vital differences: the blame for default is clear, and the parties are then free to move on in an Executive without the defaulting party. I cannot make the other parties agree to a new Executive, or force anyone to sit in a Government with anyone else, but I can make sure that Sinn Fein does not continue in an Executive with the Ulster Unionists should there be a default of the de Chastelain process. All that will be set out in legislation.
In my judgment, it is a far better deal than was on offer at Hillsborough. That offered a token act of decommissioning, dependent on reciprocal steps by the British and Irish, with no clear framework for completing the decommissioning process by May 2000. This, by contrast, provides a guarantee of a complete process of decommissioning, plus a failsafe that fully protects the interests of Unionists. There is a challenge to all parties: to Unionists to agree to a power-sharing Executive; to republicans not just to give up violence but to decommission weapons in accordance with the undertakings set out in the Good Friday agreement; and to nationalist opinion to support parties implementing this agreement and not to support those who refuse to do so.
If last Friday's agreement is put through, we will know in days whether the paramilitaries are serious about decommissioning their weapons. After 30 years

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of bloodshed, grief-stricken families and terror-torn communities, is it not worth waiting 30 days to see whether the undertakings are fulfilled? If they are, peace—real peace—can come. If they are not, we will know that the challenge of true democracy was too much for those linked to paramilitary groups. Either way, we will know. So I say to people: discuss the detail, debate it and engage; but do not throw away the best chance for peace that we will have in this generation.
Mr. William Hague: We are grateful to the Prime Minister for his statement. The whole House will appreciate his efforts and those of many others to resolve those very difficult problems.
The Good Friday agreement continues to have the full and unequivocal support of the Opposition. It offers the prize of peace and an end to the horror and suffering of the past 30 years. We are committed to making it work and to seeing it implemented in full.
Does the Prime Minister agree that the decommissioning of all illegally held arms and explosives is an absolutely essential part of that process? It was supposed to begin almost immediately and to be completed by May 2000, but, so far, it has not happened. Will he make it clear that the obstacle to progress has been not the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and his party, who have done all that was required under the agreement, but the terrorists—republican and loyalist—and their political representatives, who have failed to get rid of their arms?
Does the Prime Minister agree that, against that background, the anxieties of the Unionists are wholly understandable? They are being asked to admit, as Government Ministers in a part of the United Kingdom, representatives of terrorist groups that remain fully armed and capable of carrying out violence on a massive scale. They are being asked to take on trust claims by Sinn Fein, which does not even profess to speak for the IRA, that, once it is in government, disarmament might take place.
In assessing these proposals, we have two major areas of concern that give rise to two sets of questions. First, it is clear that there is still no cast-iron guarantee that the IRA will commence decommissioning its weapons. One of its leaders was quoted as saying that there was no guarantee of decommissioning. Will the Prime Minister confirm that, in the emergency legislation—to which the House will give speedy passage—there will be a precise, transparent timetable for decommissioning?
Secondly, on the failsafe guarantee, Friday's document states that, without decommissioning, the Government
"will suspend the operation of the institutions set up by the Agreement."
Does the Prime Minister agree that that could punish democratic politicians for the failure of paramilitaries to decommission? Will he therefore expand on his comments on the radio this morning, when he said that, if the IRA failed to state its intention to decommission within days,
"it's open to us all to formulate a new way forward without Sinn Fein"?
Will the Prime Minister confirm that, in those circumstances, he would seek the suspension from the Assembly of Sinn Fein and any loyalist paramilitary groups? Will he further confirm that the Secretary of State
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would use the power given her in the Good Friday agreement to invite the Assembly to form a new Executive without Sinn Fein? That is not to say simply that it could do so, but that the Secretary of State would use her power to invite it to do so—that is the difference in what I am asking.
Will the Prime Minister confirm also that, in those circumstances, he would, without hesitation, put on hold any reform of the RUC and criminal justice system and stop the early release of terrorist prisoners?
We are now at a stage where the two Governments—British and Irish—and the democratic parties, nationalist and Unionist, have jumped every hurdle. Let us make no mistake: the stumbling block is the failure of paramilitaries, loyalist and republican, to decommission weapons. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is now up to those paramilitaries to make the process work, and, if they fail to do so, we should set the maximum penalties for them?
The Prime Minister: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. The bipartisan support in the whole process has been extremely important in taking it forward, and I hope that it continues, because it will be difficult to make progress without it.
The right hon. Gentleman said that decommissioning has not happened, but the Executive has not yet been established, and the decommissioning issue is precisely what held it up. People point out that we said that representatives could not sit in the Executive until we were sure that they had given up violence for good—that is what I said during the referendum campaign, and that is, of course, precisely why they are not sitting in the Executive. We need to deal with that issue, which is why we have tried to reach agreement in the way that we have.
I entirely agree—it is important to emphasise this point—that loyalist paramilitaries have to decommission too. There can be no question of saying that it is an imposition only on republican paramilitaries; it is in respect of all paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there were understandable anxieties and that people would be expected to admit to an Executive people who are fully armed and to take their word on trust. It is important to make two points.
First, the benefit of the agreement that we have is that people would not be able to carry on sitting in an Executive fully armed. They would have to be agreeing to a process of decommissioning that got rid of all the weapons by the agreed date, which is May 2000. The problem with the Hillsborough declaration was that it asked for one token act of decommissioning, and no guaranteed process after that.
Secondly, people say that we must take Sinn Fein on trust. The whole agreement of last Friday is based on the simple principle that neither side will take the other on trust. We may as well face up to that; that trust does not exist, for perfectly understandable reasons. Therefore, the purpose of the agreement is to build in guarantees, certainty. So, there is the certainty for the republicans that the inclusive Executive will be set up, and the certainty for Unionists that they will not be expected to carry on sitting in the Executive with those who are not giving up their weapons. We have tried to build in certainty, not trust.

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The right hon. Gentleman asked us to say that, if there were to be a default by Sinn Fein, we would invite the other parties to go forward without it. I say categorically that we would certainly be doing that—as long as people understand that I cannot force parties to form a Government together. I cannot force some of the parties now to get into government with the other parties, but I can certainly provide the basis for a way forward and say that the party that is in default in the agreement should be the one that is punished. There is no doubt about that; we can make that very clear.
The release of prisoners is governed by the legislation that is set out, and a range of factors are to be taken into account, including the issues about which we are talking. I make the following point about maximum penalties. At the present time, we simply do not know whether people will decommission. My point is, whatever they say, whatever they have said to us and whatever indications they have given, I understand perfectly well why people will not accept undertakings, words, statements or any of the rest of it. If we do not put this agreement to the test and find out literally within days whether decommissioning will happen, we will never know. The republicans will say, "We might have, if we had been given the chance," and the Unionists will be left without the knowledge of whether the republicans ever would have done so.
I believe one thing absolutely and sincerely: we will never get this Executive to work unless the obligation to decommission is accepted and carried through. In the legislation, we must build in proper failsafes and guarantees so that we give this thing a chance to work, but do not leave the Unionists or, indeed, any other democrats, in an Executive in which people keep a private army and intend to use it.
Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach and all others involved on retrieving hope from what looked like pretty irretrievable despair at the end of last week. Does not the Good Friday agreement remain the only blueprint for peace in Ireland, and the Belfast agreement the only route to it? With that in mind, is it not important that all sides, perhaps especially the Unionists, consider this agreement in detail rather than peremptorily dismissing it, as that would damage not only peace in Northern Ireland but very possibly the Unionists' cause as well? Does the Prime Minister agree, however, that he has some work to do to reassure the Unionist community about it? Will he therefore provide a few more details on the following three areas?
First, will the Prime Minister give more details about the timetable for decommissioning and the role of General de Chastelain? Secondly, will he be a little more precise about how long the Unionists will be asked to sit in an Executive before the IRA gives dependable and concrete assurances by way of action on its commitment to decommission before 2000? Lastly, will he assure us that the failsafe will not bring down the whole devolutionary structure and that, if one party defaults—whether IRA or any other terrorists—the others will not only be able to go ahead but will do so with the Government's help, support and good wishes?
The Prime Minister: First, it is important again to point out that there will be no decommissioning if we do
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not find an agreement to move this issue forward. The alternative to last Friday's agreement is not faster, quicker decommissioning, but no decommissioning. Secondly, the timetable for decommissioning is laid down by General de Chastelain, but he has already given indications of the timetable that he would expect and when the reports are to be delivered—the first, as I said, in September and subsequently right up to May 2000. Incidentally, if he wishes, he can lay down an even quicker timetable for decommissioning. Anybody who has had anything to do with General de Chastelain realises that he is, rightly, respected by all sides, both as independent and as extremely concerned to ensure that decommissioning is actually delivered.
It is as well that the right hon. Gentleman raised the third point; it is not that Sinn Fein must provide a statement to the de Chastelain commission within days of the formation of the Executive, but that the paramilitary group itself—the IRA—must do so, as must the other, loyalist, groups. Most people would recognise that as a pretty significant event. We shall know that within days, and then, some weeks down the line, we shall know whether actual decommissioning is occurring. During that time—literally the next few weeks—we shall be able to see whether those undertakings are honoured.
Finally, in relation to the failsafe, yes it is extremely important to recognise that, in order to give the automatic guarantee, we have to suspend the institutions, but, of course, we shall then find a way forward that ensures that the punishment is visited on the defaulting party, whoever that defaulting party may be. That is obvious; it is right and just.
Mr. David Trimble: I echo the words of the Leader of the Opposition in thanking the Prime Minister and, indeed, Taoiseach Ahern for the amount of time that they have devoted to this issue, and for spending all of last week in Belfast. It is appreciated and, as the Prime Minister is aware, it is also appreciated by my Assembly colleagues—even if we differ slightly as to the outcome of matters.
The Prime Minister knows that my Assembly colleagues and I want to see devolution, and that we want to see actual decommissioning occur. However, he also knows that, in asking us to include Sinn Fein in an Executive in advance of decommissioning, he asks us to sacrifice the democratic principle to expediency. He is asking us to take a gamble with an ineffective and unfair safety net. That point has already been made. The question is: why close all the institutions? In effect, why give a veto to the paramilitaries? That would mean that, if the IRA does not like the results of, say, the Patten commission on policing, it could close things down, simply by delaying decommissioning. It also gives other paramilitaries a veto.
What will happen if the UDA, the UVF, the LVF or the INLA decide that they will stop decommissioning in order to destroy all the institutions of the agreements? That is not an effective remedy. The remedy should be directed towards the parties in default. With regard to the other paramilitaries, closing the Executive is no penalty; the only possible penalty has to do with prisoners. That has to be looked at again.
Finally, does the Prime Minister recall that, at the beginning of last week, he was seeking a series of declarations—especially one from Sinn Fein that the war

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was finished, over, done with and gone? He also wanted from Sinn Fein a declaration that it will succeed in persuading those with arms to decommission. He was also seeking from the IRA a statement that, in effect, accepted the Sinn Fein statement. What happened to those declarations?
The Prime Minister: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the time that we spent in Belfast. I do not regret any of the time that I spend in Belfast—occasionally, I wish it were slightly more productive. I also thank him for the constructive way in which he has engaged in the negotiations. I entirely understand the anxieties that he rightly represents.
If the issue is the democratic principle that we cannot sit in government with people who have a private army in reserve, every democrat would agree with that. The reason why I believe this process to be superior to Hillsborough is that, in the Hillsborough declaration, we could have had a token act of decommissioning, but we could still have been sitting in an Executive with people who had a private army. After all, if they get rid of one load of weapons, that is not the same as getting rid of everything. It is, therefore, better to have a process of complete decommissioning; I think that the right hon. Gentleman would accept that. The issue is simply how it starts. I hope that I have provided some assurance as to that by saying that the process of decommissioning, which begins with the explicit statement on behalf of the paramilitary organisation, has to start within days, otherwise, we go back immediately and rewind the position.
The second point that the right hon. Gentleman makes is about the ineffective and unfair safety net. Surely that is precisely what we should try to discuss in the coming days, because there will have to be legislation, which will be properly scrutinised, and the points that he is making—perfectly fairly—need to be taken into account. For example, he asks why groups that have not decommissioned should have a veto over the process. In a sense, one could say that, by not decommissioning now, they have a veto over the process, but I think that our way of dealing with it prevents them from having a veto because the suspension is not the only thing that happens. We then go into a review, and then we can invite the parties to take a different way forward. So we do not—and should not—end up in a situation where the defaulting party manages to bring punishment upon everyone else and no punishment upon itself. I agree with that. Again, we are happy to look at a way that we can deal with that objection.
In respect also of the loyalists, I think that it is very important to realise that, although the loyalists will not be part of the Executive, none the less they have the obligation to decommission. The entire range of factors that must be taken into account are very clearly set out in the legislation on prisoners, and I would refer back to them in detail.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked whether it would be right to end up closing all the institutions. There was an implication there—this may be a misunderstanding—that all those institutions would come to an end and never be revived. That would not be my view as to the way forward. There must be a suspension—otherwise,
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the Unionists are left on the Executive with those who have refused to decommission or are in breach of their agreement—but then we must find a way forward that ensures that the institutions do work again, but work in a way that is consistent with the democratic mandate of the Ulster Unionist party and the other parties, ensuring that those parties in default pay the price for being in default.
Finally, in relation to the declarations by Sinn Fein and the IRA, I have set out where the IRA would have to make its statement, but I want to make this point very, very clear indeed. We could have decided to go with a process that depended on words. We have decided not to do that. This process depends on actual decommissioning happening—actions. If there are not actions, the failsafe kicks in immediately. So I am not asking us to be in a situation where we are expecting democrats to sit in the Executive with organisations linked to paramilitary groups, which then can simply sit there, keeping their weapons, no one being able to do anything about it. We are not saying that words are the protection. There has to be actual decommissioning. If there is not actual decommissioning, the failsafe kicks in, and then we can find a different, and better, way forward.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Taoiseach on the tenacity of purpose that they showed over the past week and their determination to try to bring to an end more than 30 years of mayhem, death and destruction. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has been most unfairly pilloried during the past few days. She has the admiration and support of every Labour Member.
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that any Executive must have the support of both sides of the community; that on each side of the community more than one party must agree with what is going on; and that, therefore, it does not necessarily follow that there could be an Executive without Sinn Fein?
Secondly, can my right hon. Friend confirm that, for the first time, he has got from Sinn Fein an understanding that he has regarded as being one of the greatest movements of position in politics in Ireland for many, many years? That must be put to the test, and the way that he has suggested puts it to the test. Anyone who would seek to throw that away in a fit of pique or because they wanted every t crossed and every i dotted would, if they persisted in that, be subject to a great deal of deserved criticism from all the peoples in these islands.
The Prime Minister: First, I think that I know better than anyone else what my right hon. Friend has had to go through over the past two years in doing her job. I know of the difficulties that it has caused her from time to time. I can assure the House that I am second to none in my admiration for the way in which she has done her job.
Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) made a very correct point about both sides of the community. We should never forget that more parties than Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists are involved in these matters. There are other political parties with a mandate—most notably there is the SDLP, but there are others which also need to be taken account of.
Thirdly, as for Sinn Fein and the statements that it has made, I believe that it is prepared to make this historic shift. However, I do not believe that the Unionists should

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have to rely upon that. That is why I think that it is right to put it to the test. The detail obviously matters as well, and I hope that it is properly scrutinised. I only ask people to let us have a discussion about the detail to see whether the justifiable anxieties and concerns can be allayed.
Mr. John Major: It is possible that we may be near the conclusion of a very long trail. I hope that everyone will look clearly at both the opportunities and the difficulties that lie immediately ahead of us.
The Prime Minister and the party leaders have done extraordinarily well to expose the questions that were always going to be there at the end of the day—will the IRA decommission and can the word of Sinn Fein bind the IRA and its future actions? If the answer to those questions is yes, I think that peace is at hand and that democracy has a triumph. If the answers are no, the Prime Minister is surely right to say that Sinn Fein cannot sit on the power-sharing Executive. In those circumstances, I would seek some clarification.
The Prime Minister said a moment ago that the Executive and perhaps the Assembly would be suspended. Will he confirm that that would happen very briefly? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the Irish Government agree with that policy, and with the Executive and the Assembly then continuing without Sinn Fein? Will he tell the House also whether he has discussed or will discuss with all the political parties, including most importantly for this purpose the Catholic majority party, the SDLP, whether they would remain in an Executive and an Assembly were Sinn Fein to have been removed from it for not decommissioning its arms? That is a crucial point.
As the Prime Minister will know, the fear in Ulster is very straightforward. It is that Sinn Fein will enter the Executive, the IRA will not then disarm, Sinn Fein will assert that it is separate from the IRA, and that there will then be pressure for it to remain on the Executive for fear that its removal would be the trigger for a fresh bout of violence. That is the fear of many people in Ulster. Upon that, I found the Prime Minister's statement of a few moments ago to be encouraging. However, will he be absolutely clear that he would not permit that to happen and that the legislation that will come before the House will ensure by its provisions that that could not happen? If that were to be the position, I think that many of the fears in the House and beyond would be removed.
Finally, does the Prime Minister agree that political pressure from London and Dublin to try to ensure that we can finally produce a peace at the end of a long process is entirely justified, but that it should focus on the paramilitaries and not upon the democratic political parties?
The Prime Minister: First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his work; he really began this process. I know that there is a great deal of gratitude for all of the work that he did on this issue while Prime Minister. I think that I can confirm all of the points that he has raised. It is the position of both Governments that it is open to the parties to continue in an Executive without Sinn Fein. I simply repeat that I cannot force people to sit on the Executive together, but it is open to them to do so. The SDLP must make its position clear, but I understand that it is prepared to move forward without Sinn Fein
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should the circumstances be such that Sinn Fein is clearly the defaulting party. However, the SDLP must make its own statement on that.
I entirely understand the right hon. Gentleman's point about the fear in Ulster. He will know that people would not want the situation to be left in the hands of the two Governments. That is because they know that the two Governments will be subject to pressures. They would know and would fear—I think that this would be the fear of Unionists—that the two Governments would be under such pressure to keep the process going on any basis that even if Sinn Fein defaulted, some way would be found of ignoring the default. That is why I have suggested that the decommissioning process is in the hands of the independent commission. The commission will lay down the timetable for decommissioning and certify every step in the way. There will be an automatic kicking-in of the failsafe should the commission not certificate that progress is being made or should it certificate that progress is not being made. In other words, there is no possibility of the Unionists being made to sit in the Executive with Sinn Fein, if Sinn Fein is in breach of the undertakings that it gave.
The purpose of making sure that the initial statement, within days of devolution, is on behalf of the paramilitary organisation is to get rid of the notion, once and for all, that a statement by one of the political parties linked to those groups is enough. It is not. The statement must be from the paramilitary organisation, it must be, in the words that we have set out, "clear and unambiguous" in the intention to decommission, and it must be combined with the appointment of a representative to ensure that that happens. We are guarded against the very point that the right hon. Gentleman rightly says we should be guarded against.
It is worth quoting the conclusion of an editorial today in the Belfast Telegraph, which is ready to be pretty sceptical about most of the deals and agreements. It states:
"On balance therefore, we believe that the deal is worth a try, worth further examination and refinement but certainly should not be subject to rejection out of hand."
That is what the Belfast Telegraph has written today, and I ask all parties to try to ensure that that is the case.
Mr. David Winnick: As the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who started the peace process knows full well, during the 18 years that we were in opposition, we supported the then Government at every stage over Northern Ireland, and we did so because it was in the national interest. Will my right hon. Friend consider letting the Ulster Unionists know, when he next meets them, that the large silent majority in Britain has always supported the wish of most people in Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, but that they undoubtedly support the Good Friday agreement?
If there is slightest doubt about the wishes of the vast majority of British people with regard to the Good Friday agreement, could there be an opportunity to allow people on the mainland to vote, as people voted in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic? If there were such a vote, it would be even larger than in those two places for an agreement that leads to the possibility of a permanent peace in Northern Ireland.
The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his support. The Good Friday agreement was agreed in

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referendums north and south. I believe that with the certainty that we now provide about the link between the Executive and the decommissioning process, support for the agreement should be reinvigorated.
Mr. Tom King: Is the Prime Minister aware that his comment that there is a total lack of trust between different sides can be readily endorsed? Does he recognise that, because of that lack of trust, it is difficult to have much confidence in decommissioning, certainly if one reads the comments of General de Chastelain? None the less, the House would accept that the Prime Minister may have sources of information and further knowledge that he cannot share with the House which give him confidence that there will be the seismic shift that he described, but which is not apparent in any of the documents currently available to us.
I still have one reservation. The Prime Minister speaks of the failsafe kicking-in, but it seems to me that there is no failsafe until 20 May, which is the moment at which it would become clear that decommissioning had not taken place. Unionists therefore face the prospect of sitting in an Executive during that period.
Against that background, the last words of the Belfast Telegraph editorial that the Prime Minister quoted, about the need for further consideration and refinement, not outright rejection—I strongly agree with that—and the reassurance for Unionists to which the leader of the Liberal party referred, are extremely significant.
Does the Prime Minister agree that it is sad that no member of the SDLP is to be seen in the House today? I saw the television broadcast which implied that there were only two political parties in Northern Ireland, in the shape of the Unionists and Sinn Fein, but I believe that the role of the SDLP as the majority non-violent nationalist party is very important.
The Prime Minister: I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes.
In relation to the detail, I should explain that the failsafe device kicks in at several stages up to May 2000. That is the benefit of the agreement that we have. Under the Good Friday agreement, there was no failsafe up until May 2000. Now we have agreed that, within a few days, the decommissioning process has to start with the statement of intent. After that, there will be the first report on actual decommissioning. Then there will be further reports all the way through to May 2000.
The Unionists will not be left in the Executive with Sinn Fein and the IRA doing nothing about weapons. The decommissioning process will get under way virtually straight away and has to be followed through all the way to May 2000. That is a far tighter timetable and agreement than we had before and they are in the hands of de Chastelain. As I said in answer to questions earlier, people would not accept it if they were in the hands of the two Governments, but most people who have talked to General de Chastelain know that he is deadly serious about decommissioning happening. If it does not happen, he will not certify it as happening.
The right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) rightly said that General de Chastelain makes it clear in his report that he is not yet fully satisfied that
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decommissioning will happen. Correct. Never mind private assurances that are given—I do not take the private assurances that are given either. The only thing that will do for me is decommissioning actually happening. That is why we have set out this process, but if we do not test it out, we will never know whether decommissioning is to be delivered or not.
Perhaps I should make this point as well: people will say, "Why don't you get the decommissioning first and then the Executive?" Under the Good Friday agreement that is put the other way round. It is not a precondition to establishing the Executive that there should be decommissioning, but it is an obligation. We have to marry those two obligations, which is why we have attempted to do it in the way that I have described.
Let us be clear: we want republicans to succeed. If they can bring about decommissioning that will be a huge step forward for everyone. To be fair to them, they have always made it clear to me that they can achieve it if it is in line with the Good Friday agreement, but not if it is a departure from it. That is why they rejected Hillsborough, even though in many ways it offered an easier deal for them.
Mr. Tony Benn: As the last remaining Member of the House who was in the Cabinet 30 years ago when the troops were sent in—one of many unsuccessful attempts to impose peace in Northern Ireland by force from London—may I add my sincere congratulations to the Prime Minister on the time, effort, patience and imagination that he and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have shown and for which there is absolutely no precedent from any previous Prime Minister? Therefore criticism from the other side of the House should not concern him too much.
Will the Prime Minister consider the fact that, whatever the setbacks and difficulties, and there will be both, he should retain two principles at the forefront of his mind? I am sure that he will do so. First, peace and justice in Northern Ireland depend on the involvement of the two communities, and Sinn Fein has the democratic legitimacy of the ballot box. That is the basis of its entitlement to consideration. Secondly, will he cling, above all, to close relations with Dublin? For the first time since partition, London and Dublin jointly oversee the prospects of peace in Northern Ireland. That, along with a settlement of the difficulty that he has described, offers our best hope for a future in the next century quite different from the tragedy that has befallen Northern Ireland in our own lifetime.
The Prime Minister: I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words.
This is a clear agreement—a deal. For the nationalist and republican communities, there has to be justice and equality. There has to be an end to discrimination. There has to be a genuine sense of sharing power and responsibility. In return, however, once that full ripening of democracy comes about, all people clearly have to give up the notion that violence can be run alongside the ballot box. From now on, people have to make a choice. The next few weeks are the moment of choice for Northern Ireland. People have to decide whether they are prepared, in return for justice and equality, to forswear the use of violence for ever. I hope that they make that choice.
Our relations with the Irish Government offer an opportunity to provide a way forward. The Irish Government and Prime Minister are entirely sincere in

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wanting to make sure that violence and the gun are taken out of the politics of Ireland for ever. We should work with them to ensure that that is so.
Mr. Peter Brooke: If there is any delay in disarming and decommissioning by loyalist paramilitaries, who would not necessarily be adversely affected by that decision, would General de Chastelain have any latitude in the certificates that he gives to others whose behaviour might be affected?
The Prime Minister: No. The obligations stand alone for each group. Each of them has a responsibility to decommission, and for one to say that it would not decommission would give no excuse to others. Everyone has the same obligation, and the penalties can be exacted accordingly.
Mrs. Louise Ellman: I congratulate the Prime Minister on his determination and perseverance in the inevitably complex pursuit of peace in Northern Ireland. While the achievements of the Good Friday agreement necessarily focus on the saving of lives, does he agree that it is important to note openings for increased standards of living for the people of Northern Ireland that are emerging from the new east-west trade routes developed as a result of the agreement? In particular, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, the Northern Ireland CBI and the north-west development agency are developing links at present.
In view of the overwhelming importance of saving life, increasing living standards and establishing normality of life for the people of Northern Ireland, does my right hon. Friend agree that the House should support his statement, and that—in and out of Parliament—we should support groups who have difficulties, rather than seeking to exacerbate the problems?
The Prime Minister: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The potential for jobs, investment and improved living standards is immeasurably increased by a viable peace process. Northern Ireland has an enormous amount to offer inward investors and companies that wish to do business. People should be able to invest in Northern Ireland in the knowledge that a proper political process is under way.
Sir Brian Mawhinney: I, too, commend the Prime Minister on his diligent search for an agreement.
General de Chastelain indicated in his report that he asked the paramilitary groups and parties to respond to two questions—were they committed to disarmament within the terms of the Good Friday agreement, and when would the Government receive details of the modalities? Does the Prime Minister recall that General de Chastelain said that no response was received from either the IRA or the UDA by the 28 June deadline? Will the Prime Minister give us some insight into the discussions held since 28 June with the IRA, either by General de Chastelain or by Ministers, which have enabled him to give so much more encouraging a statement to the House today?
The Prime Minister: I think, again, that is vital to stress certain points. The right hon. Gentleman is
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absolutely right to say that de Chastelain made it clear that he could not say at present that there would be decommissioning. That is why the agreement that we have entered into is not dependent on anyone's saying that there will be decommissioning, but, in the first instance, on the Paramilitaries—whether the IRA or the loyalists—giving a statement of intention to decommission, which will be followed by a declaration of satisfaction from the Independent Commission on Decommissioning that that is so.
Actions are what matter. People say that I have received great assurances from Sinn Fein or the IRA that they are about to move ahead, and I believe that the political leadership of Sinn Fein wants the process to work. But my belief is not enough, and assurances are not enough. We have constructed a process in which, unless assurances translate into deeds, people will not sit in the Executive alongside democrats. That is the important point to remember. All sorts of discussions were held last week, and all sorts of assurances given. However, we have learned often enough in Northern Ireland that we cannot pay attention simply to assurances. Unless the assurances are followed by deeds, there is no deal.
Mr. Tony Worthington: I should also like to congratulate the Prime Minister and all those involved in these strenuous negotiations. I should particularly like to congratulate the Official Unionists on what they have achieved in the past three years. If one had said three years ago that the Official Unionists had achieved the principle of consent, backed by the people of Ireland, north and south, in a referendum, it would have been difficult to believe. If one had said that there was to be a massive devolution of legislative powers to Northern Ireland, it would have been difficult to believe. Now all the IRA's armaments and other weapons may be decommissioned by next May. There are failsafes. Does the Prime Minister agree that, if the Official Unionists go along with this agreement, it will be the most miraculous negotiation that anyone has ever achieved?
The Prime Minister: It has not happened yet.
I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he did as Labour Opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland. If we do not put this to the test, we will never know whether decommissioning would have happened. That is why it would be foolish to throw away the chance of getting the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons by May 2000. My hon. Friend is right to say that many of the issues are already resolved. The issues that have torn apart negotiations in Northern Ireland for years and years, such as the principle of consent, the idea of an Assembly, and the changes to the Irish constitution, are now resolved.
Mr. Michael Howard: I, too, join in the tributes that have been paid to the Prime Minister for his persistence. Does not he accept that the complexities that he has painstakingly explained to the House, however well-intentioned they may be, would be wholly unnecessary if the men of violence were prepared to lay down their arms? What makes the Prime Minister suppose that, if they have genuinely given up violence but refuse to lay down their arms now, so that the Executive can commence, they will lay down their arms in days, weeks or months from now?
The Prime Minister: The simple answer to that question is, if they do not, they will not sit in the

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Executive with the Unionists. It is up to them what they do now. They have always said that they will decommission in the context of the implementation of the agreement and the establishment of the institution. Let us see it. If it does not happen, they will not sit in the Executive with the Unionists. If it does happen, we should all be grateful. We must put it to the test. We will never get out of this situation unless we finally throw down the challenge to them, put them to the test, and see whether the test is met.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I, too, join in congratulating the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State on their patience and expertise in all these negotiations, and on the prize that that offers of peace in Northern Ireland and long-term peace for all the island of Ireland. I am sure that he recognises the enormous movements that have been made by the nationalist and Unionist communities in reaching this close position in which we may get long-term peace. I am sure that he, too, wants to see a non-military Northern Ireland in the future. Were there any discussions in the past week or will there be anything in the legislation that he proposes to introduce on limiting the private ownership of licensed arms and the large number of gun clubs in Northern Ireland? Having reached a point at which decommissioning is a real possibility, we surely would not want to see a growth of private arms, which could lead to the destabilisation of a peaceful Ireland in the future.
The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. The tricky issues that he raised in the latter part of his question should be resolved in the longer term. The immediate task is to establish a framework which spells out a guarantee for the parties. That guarantee will allow us to ensure that both devolution and decommissioning occur. That is the primary task.

Finance Bill [WAYS AND MEANS]

  CAPITAL ALLOWANCES (FIRST YEAR ALLOWANCES)
  Resolved,
  That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made in the Finance Bill restricting the expenditure on machinery and plant for use in Northern Ireland in respect of which 100 per cent. first year allowances may be made.—[Mrs. Roche.]

  OIL TAXATION (ANTI-AVOIDANCE)
  Resolved,
  That provision may be included in the Finance Bill about—

  (a) the receipts which are to be treated as tariff receipts or disposal receipts attributable to an oil field;

  (b) the persons who are to be treated as participators in an oil field; and

  (c) the time for payment of petroleum revenue tax.—[Mrs. Roche.]

FINANCE BILL [MONEY]
Queen's recommendation having been signified—
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Finance Bill, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable out of or into the National Loans Fund attributable to any provision of that Act relating to borrowing from the General Account of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise or the General Account of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.—[Mrs. Roche.]

FINANCE BILL [WAYS AND MEANS]

  CHARGEABLE GAINS: ABSOLUTE ENTITLEMENT TO SETTLED PROPERTY
  Resolved,
  That provision may be made in the Finance Bill amending section 71 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.—[Mrs. Roche.]

  GOODS FOR SALE ON BOARD SHIPS OR AIRCRAFT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(b),
  That provision may be made in the Finance Bill amending section 1 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 as respects stores.—[Mrs. Roche.]
  4.26 pm
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Financial Secretary tell us why she considers the motion to be necessary?
  4.26 pm
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mrs. Barbara Roche): I certainly will.
  We shall have a number of debates today on the matters covered by the motions, and during those debates, we will explain exactly why we are dealing with them in this way. It is, of course, natural for representations to be made during the passage of a Finance Bill, not only by hon. Members on both sides of the House—
  Mr. McLoughlin: Will the Financial Secretary give way?
  Mrs. Roche: Not at this stage. It will be my great pleasure to give way to the not-so-silent Whip when the time comes.

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  As I was saying, it is right for representations to be made not only by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but by industry. That has been the normal course of events during not only this Bill's passage, but the passage of Finance Bills under the Conservative Administration. Being a listening Government, we listen and take representations into consideration.
  4.28 pm
  Mr. Oliver Letwin: In due course, we shall debate the substance of the new clauses that deal with goods for sale on board ships and aircraft, but this motion paves the way for that substantive discussion. I think that this an appropriate time for us to ask a number of pertinent questions relating to the amounts of the taxes and duties being raised, which are of some significance, and which we debated to an extent when similar matters dealt with in statutory instruments came before the Standing Committee last week.
  Can the Paymaster General—or the Financial Secretary, on her behalf—tell us how much money will be raised by this and associated measures? Can she also say how she envisages the money being used? If, as seemed clear in Committee, it is to go directly into the Consolidated Fund—as we would expect—what projections have been made as part of the forward look, how far have the figures already been incorporated in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's projections, and will any revisions to those projections be required?
  In Committee, the Paymaster General waxed eloquent about the Government's difficulty in forecasting the financial effects with any degree of accuracy. [Interruption.] As the Financial Secretary says, from a sedentary position, she explained that it would be difficult to forecast the total effect of the change relating to duty-free sales. I assume that this measure will form part of those arrangements. If there is a difficulty of forecasting, how can appropriate numbers have been figured into the Chancellor's calculations? However, if numbers have been figured into his calculations, how can there be the difficulty of calculation to which she alluded during the Committee's consideration of the measure?
  The answers to those questions will be helpful when it comes to consideration of the subsequent matters that are associated with the motion, and which fall to be debated a little later.
  4.30 pm
  Mr. David Wilshire: I have a couple of questions to which I would welcome an answer when we debate the substance later. Both relate to the amount of money that will be raised by the measures.
  The first relates to something that the Minister said in the Eighth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation last week. One of the concessions that the Government said that they had obtained was that items that are dutiable, but consumed on board an aircraft or ship, would continue to be "free of tax"—I quote from the Hansard of the Committee. Before we start our debate later, may we be told whether it is free of tax—VAT—or free of VAT and duty? We need to have that point clarified, so that, when we debate the substance, we shall know exactly how much the concession is worth. If it concerns only VAT, it is hardly worth anything. If it concerns VAT and duty, it is a significant concession. That is something that we must debate, but we need the financial facts first.
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  On the other matter, I would be enormously grateful if, at the start of the debate on the substantive matters, the Government could let us have a list of those ports and airports that are geographically within the European Union, but to which the measures would not apply. What is the value of that concession, or exemption from the regulations that they seek to bring in? I should be grateful for answers to both those questions before we start the main debate.
  4.32 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: I, too, would like to express my concern that there has been insufficient analysis of the split between duty and VAT, which my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) has already mentioned. In particular, I wonder whether the resolutions would apply to airports and ports, or only the vessels and aircraft themselves. If they apply to airports, in the collection of VAT, how will a distinction be made between travel within the European Union and transportation that is undertaken by passengers outside the European Union—where, of course, the issue will be duty free?
  The Minister will be aware that, for example, terminal 3 at London Heathrow has aircraft travelling to the European Union, to other parts of Europe that are not part of the EU and to the United States of America. Has she made any analysis of the burden on shops in trying to determine whether a boarding card is for the EU or outside the EU? Has she made any projections of how much extra revenue will be derived gross over the next five years from the collection of VAT and/or duties, compared with the actual disbursements by the state over the next five years as part of our contribution to membership of the EU?
  Has the Minister estimated the costs that will be incurred by Government in ensuring that the new regime will be administered properly? Presumably, extra staff will be employed by Customs and Excise to ensure that the duties are maintained correctly. If that is so, what will be the marginal cost of employing extra staff for each of the next five years? For that period, what burden will the state—and, therefore, taxpayers—bear in implementing the measure?
  4.35 pm
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the Minister tell us the implications for our further debates of approving motion 5? Motion 1 states that provision may be made in the Bill
  "including provision having retrospective effect".
  However, in the paper submitted on 12 May, in Brussels, to the code of conduct group, the Minister said:
  "This Scheme has been legislated but not yet activated."
  If there has been some error, will it have an impact on our further debates, bearing in mind that there is provision for retrospectivity in something that has not yet been—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are debating motion 5, not motion 1. As far as I can see, there is nothing in motion 1 about a retrospective effect.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: I am not questioning that point. I am asking the Minister what relevance the motion will have to our future debates. I was simply citing the matter as an example of something that has already happened.
  4.36 pm
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Has my hon. Friend the Paymaster General had an opportunity to look back over the papers from any previous Government who, 15 years ago, were aware of what would happen on the matter? Has she had access to the calculations that were made then? Will she also tell us whether she has had any access to the terms of reference of BAA plc on its responsibility being divided between the administration of airports and the creation of shopping malls?
  4.37 pm
  Mr. Edward Leigh: Motion 5 is important, as it could have a significant effect on not only the public, but on Ways and Means motions generally and on the Government's finances. It is a thoroughly unpopular measure, which is being foisted on the British people against their will. However, the matter has now been settled and we cannot argue about it.
  The Government pray in aid the fact that the measure will have a significant impact on Government revenue, as those who are affected by it will have to pay duty. Nevertheless, today, I think that we have to hear a bit more from the Minister about the precise revenue implications of a thoroughly unpopular and draconian tax increase being imposed on those who are simply trying to buy something on board a ship or aeroplane.
  In this short debate, the Government might also make clear the precise implications of the measure for the various tax regimes as—now that we are getting rid of duty free—even the shortest journey by sea or air might pass through different tax regimes. It is not clear how the measure will be implemented in practice, or how the tax will be levied.
  Therefore, not only will the public be losing a highly valued privilege—which they have enjoyed for a very long time—and the Government, by underhand means, be receiving revenue that they had not previously expected, but the public will be put to various inconveniences.
  Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend mentioned implementation of the measure and various tax regimes. Does he accept that there could be very real difficulty in collecting duty from travellers on a flight going to a European Union destination and then on to a non-European Union destination? How does he imagine that Customs and Excise will ensure that the correct duties are applied at the correct time?
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend made that point in his excellent earlier comments. It certainly has not been made clear, to the House or the public, how that problem will be resolved. Clearly, different rates will apply according to whether a flight or sea journey originates from a European Union destination or from a non-European Union destination. However, a part of some air or sea journeys originating in a non-European destination will be made in the European Union. What tax will people pay on those journeys? The public could be very confused. The situation is not acceptable.
  We should also consider the potential for the Exchequer to lose revenue because people in Dover and the Heathrow area will lose their jobs as a result of the loss of duty-free concessions. We now hear that such has been
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  the profit margin of many duty-free shops that they can apparently afford to ensure that the public buy their whisky or cigarettes for the same prices as before. That may be the case, but the Government cannot rely on it. They must come clean and explain the revenue implications.
  Mr. Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend share my concerns and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) about the confusion in the collection of duties between EU and non-EU areas, and the considerable doubt about the sums that will be collected, depending on whether the duties concerned are VAT duties or excise duties in the normal sense of the word? Does he agree that it will be interesting to hear whether the Paymaster General is able to answer my questions about the differentiation between the collection of excise and VAT duties?
  Mr. Leigh: The differentiation between excise and VAT duties is very interesting. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) also referred to it. I hope that the Paymaster General will be able to enlighten us. I have certainly received no enlightenment so far.
  Mr. Letwin: My hon. Friend's remarks bring to mind a further oddity. Does he agree that the clause to which this motion refers would reduce the revenue accruing to the Exchequer? Is it not odd to have such a Ways and Means motion?
  Mr. Leigh: I am not sure whether it is very usual. I do not understand why the Government are apparently reducing the revenue coming to the Exchequer. I cannot believe that that is their intention. I am sure that there is some misunderstanding.
  What will be the effect of the revenue from duty free not being available for reinvestment in terminals and the transport network? That useful source of revenue will now be lost—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must counsel the hon. Gentleman that he is going far too far.
  Mr. Leigh: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. All those points have implications for the Ways and Means motion. If that revenue is no longer available, the Government must make up the shortfall somehow. The motion is incredibly important and we should have a proper debate on it. It should not just go through on the nod as yet another Ways and Means motion. The implications for the Exchequer are enormous. The public are being made to suffer. The Government are introducing an underhand tax rise which the public did not ask for. It is incumbent on the Minister to explain the implications for Ways and Means.
  Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend is right to say that the issue should not go through on the nod. Was it not the Speaker's decision that up to 45 minutes should be allowed for debate on each of the Ways and Means motions? Would it not be an insult to the House if we merely nodded them through?
  Mr. Leigh: We saw earlier that the Minister was trying to nod things through at the rate of an express train,

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  moving motions formally. That is not acceptable. The British people demand explanations from the Government and we intend to get them in this short debate of a mere 45 minutes. The public are angry and want an answer. It is incumbent on the Minister to give an answer from the Dispatch Box. If she does not, we should vote against the motion.
  4.44 pm
  The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): The new provisions, which the motion provides the way for, would bring into United Kingdom legislation directive 92/12 EEC, which allowed only until 30 June 1999 the continuation of duty free for passengers to take away at the end of an intra-Community flight or sea crossing. I am sure that at the heart of all the points that have been made is a concern for passengers. I am delighted to be able to tell the House that shopping at Gatwick was easier than ever this morning. Gone are the complicated restrictions for Community travellers, who can now purchase as much as they like, duty paid. The tax-free shops have risen to the challenge and created a marketing opportunity, as we knew they would.
  All travellers pay the same price for non-dutiable goods. Almost all prices have been held, emphasising what a good deal this is for the consumer. There is plenty of advice on hand, and travellers and retailers alike have adapted quickly to the new rules. BAA, for example, announced last week that it was holding at least 90 per cent. of all prices at exactly the same level.
  Mr. Fabricant: I am not sure whether the right hon. Lady's remarks are strictly on Ways and Means. However, will she clarify how those concerned at terminal 3 at Heathrow, or at the Gatwick terminals—where travellers go within and outside the EU—know what VAT or duties to charge or not to charge? How do they know the passenger's ultimate destination?
  Dawn Primarolo: It is up to the duty-free shop to ascertain whether the person is travelling within the EU or outside the EU. All travellers must produce their ticket to purchase at a duty-free shop, and the new technology in shops has been altered to cope with the arrangements.
  Mr. Wilshire: I want to ask the hon. Lady about the figures for Gatwick, which are clearly important, as the sales post-duty free will determine the amount of revenue that the Government get. What proportion of the sales was to people travelling from Gatwick to the EU, and what proportion was sold to those travelling from Gatwick to destinations outside the EU? That will tell us how much is duty paid and duty free, and will enable this House to determine what income the Government will receive. The other thing that we need to know—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can make a brief intervention, but not a second speech.
  Mr. Wilshire: I understand your point entirely, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What quantity of goods within those figures is being bought by individuals, so we know how much extra is being taken on aircraft?
  Dawn Primarolo: I intended to assure Opposition Members that airports and ports—I gave Gatwick as an example—were coping admirably with the new arrangements. Alas, I do not have responsibility for the commercial success or the figures of those shops, or for the flow of business through them. I was addressing whether things were running smoothly at our airports.
  Conservative Members asked me about the expected increase in revenue, and VAT in particular, following the change in arrangements. Last week, we discussed a statutory instrument that also amended our legislation, and I made it clear to the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) and others that it is difficult to give a precise estimate, as the increase will depend entirely on the decisions of shoppers and those who provide the facilities for them.
  It is estimated—it is only an estimate—that there could be an increase of £120 million a year, but that depends entirely on how the companies providing the services seize on the new commercial opportunities that are now open to them. That is certainly outside the Government's control. I made it clear in Committee that we would monitor closely how the arrangements work and assess whether they continue to provide the best opportunities that we can secure after the abolition of duty free.
  The hon. Member for Spelthorne asked two specific questions, and I hope that it will be in order for me to answer them now. First, I can confirm that consumption on board, once the journey has started, will be free of both VAT and excise duty. Secondly, the territories involved outside the EC fiscal area are Andorra; the Aland Islands; the Channel Islands; Gibraltar; the Republic of San Marino; the Canary Islands; the overseas departments of France; and Mount Athos. I am sure that that will help the hon. Gentleman enormously when he takes part in the relevant debate later.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) asked about regulations, especially with regard to airports. I have not seen any. She asked about the preparation undertaken by the previous Government. There was no preparation, to my knowledge, and that made the task all the more difficult for the Government and the traders as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sought a deferment of the abolition of duty free, to enable us to get a good successor regime in place. We had very little time. There has been great co-operation between the traders, airport authorities, ferry companies and Customs and Excise to try to get the best result for everyone.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Oliver Letwin.
  Mr. Letwin: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was going to try to intervene on the Minister, but she finished before I could. I want to ask—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise. I had not realised that the hon. Gentleman had already spoken. I called the Minister on the understanding that she was winding up the debate, so we must now put the Question.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That provision may be made in the Finance Bill amending section 1 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 as respects stores.

  WORKS OF ART, ANTIQUES, ETC.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No.52 (1) (b),
  That provision may be made in the Finance Bill amending section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
  4.54 pm
  Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: It is unusual for the House to discuss so many Ways and Means motions. That says a lot about the Treasury's lack of organisation. In the case of this particular motion, it has been known for a long time that certain provisions would have to be made in respect of the art market if the Government failed in their attempt to negotiate a better deal with our European partners. The fact that the motion has been tabled now raises the question of why it was not tabled earlier in the Bill's passage, so that we could have had a proper and detailed debate in Committee on the terms of the new clause that the motion is intended to support.
  Mr. Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real difficulty under the terms of the Ways and Means motion in calculating the additional revenues that will accrue to the Government? Does he also agree that, far from raising funds, the measure would diminish the funds raised by the state by causing a deterioration of the art market in the United Kingdom, in which case, one has to ask why a Ways and Means motion has been tabled?
  Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing me to my next point, which is to question whether a Ways and Means motion is required. It is known that, when VAT at 2.5 per cent. was introduced on works of art, the volume of international sales conducted in London fell by 40 per cent. If that volume were to fall by a further 40 per cent. when the duty doubles to 5 per cent., which is the effect of the measure that we shall debate later this evening, the amount of revenue raised would go down, not up. Indeed, it has been intimated by those who know a great deal about that market that the level of sales will collapse to almost nothing, so there will be a serious shortfall in the amount that the Government expect to raise. Therefore, a pertinent question for the Paymaster General is, will she confirm how much money is being raised now from the current provision, and how much more or less is expected to be raised once the new provision has been implemented?
  I raised the issue of the future of the art market and the tax threat with the Prime Minister in the House a few months ago. I was told that his Government would use all the means at their disposal to ensure the right outcome. I was given to understand that the Government were prepared to use the Luxembourg compromise to force our partners in Europe to think more clearly about an issue wherein they have nothing to gain and we have everything to lose. Why have the Government failed to allow the House a debate on that subject until now? Why have they not been prepared to invoke the Luxembourg compromise in this respect?
  In the papers the other day, we read the spin about the Government having saved the art market from a new tax: we were told that the Government's negotiations had averted a tax called droit de suite, which would certainly have been another nail in the coffin of international art sales in London. Why did the Government claim to have
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  saved the art market from a new tax only a few days before introducing a measure to double an existing tax on the art market in this country?
  We need to know why there are spurious definitions in the new clause, and what effect any relaxation of those definitions would have on the revenue to be collected under the Ways and Means measure. Why are limited editions acceptable, provided there are no more than eight—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now straying into the territory of the new clause. If, when we come to debate the new clause, he is fortunate enough to catch my eye, he might be able to explore such points at that time, but I would suggest that he does not do so now.
  Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand from my hon. Friend's arguments and the views expressed by others that the art market is to be diminished, so tax revenue will be reduced. Therefore, is it in order for us to debate a Ways and Means motion, which is primarily used to increase revenues?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: There is nothing out of order about a Ways and Means motion in such circumstances. However, hon. Members will help the Chair if they try to maintain a strict distinction between the debate on the Ways and Means motion and the debate that they will have later on the new clause in the Bill to which it refers.
  Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I understood that during a debate on a Ways and Means resolution, we could ask Treasury Ministers exactly what sums they expect to raise. I ask them what is their estimate of the revenue to be raised in respect of limited editions under the various categories listed. Have they given any thought to how much revenue they might lose if the definitions were rather more relaxed? They seem absurdly tight at the moment.
  Of all the definitions and restrictions, perhaps the most significant is that which relates to works of art imported into the EU or the UK and then exported outside the EU within 12 months. What is the impact of that provision on the revenue to be raised? What would be the impact if that period were extended to 24 or 36 months? Surely works of art of the kind that we are considering in this debate are typically held by collectors for long periods.
  If the intention of the measure is to exempt certain categories to help the international art market in London, surely it would be reasonable for the exemption to last for a period longer than 12 months that would take into account the very long time that it sometimes takes to negotiate the sale of a work of art. Such works of art could then still come through London; otherwise, sales will be lost to centres outside the European Union, such as Geneva and New York.
  The estimate that I gave the Prime Minister, with which he agreed, was that 5,000 jobs in our economy—mostly in London, but throughout the UK—are at risk because of this measure. Why, at this late stage, are the Government trying to spring on the House a proposal that will probably cost this country 5,000 jobs without giving us a proper

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  chance to consider it and without sticking to the assurances that were given in the House only a few months ago?
  Mr. Fabricant: When the Prime Minister revealingly agreed with my hon. Friend that there could be a loss of 5,000 jobs in the industry, did he give an estimate of the money that will be lost to the UK in trade and revenue, which is relevant to the Ways and Means resolution? If he did not, will my hon. Friend do so?
  Mr. St. Aubyn: That is a matter best left to the experts. I have seen estimates, but I have learned during the proceedings on the Finance Bill that it is safer for us to ask the Government for their officials' professional estimates than to come up with our own. My hon. Friend asks a pertinent question, and I expect the Paymaster General to have the answer. However, there can be no doubt that a loss of 5,000 jobs is very serious for our economy, particularly as some of those jobs are very well paid and extend beyond the art market to the tourist industry. Many people who come to London to buy international works of art also visit places of historic interest, stay in London hotels and fructify the city's economy. All that will be jeopardised by the proposal.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I listened with care to the answer that the Prime Minister gave my hon. Friend during Prime Minister's questions, and the right hon. Gentleman gave the House a clear impression that he would use all his personal authority to prevent this increase in VAT. Does not my hon. Friend think that the Prime Minister's authority in negotiating in Europe has been severely dented by the necessity to bring this Ways and Means resolution before the House?
  Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have heard time and again how the Government, by engaging in what they regard as a more positive way with our European partners, would somehow deliver great concessions and achieve what we were unable to achieve when we were in government. Surely, this is a test case for that so-called new approach to dealing with the European Union, and the tabling of this Ways and Means resolution is an admission by the Government that their policy towards Europe has failed. No one in the European Union will gain from this increase in taxation, and our market will lose. Everyone agrees with that.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: Has it occurred to my hon. Friend that it is of little consequence to the Treasury should this largely transatlantic business be damaged and disappear on the ground that that will result in a level of convergence with the European continent that would not otherwise be achieved, which is the object of the Government's policy?
  Mr. St. Aubyn: I know that I should not be tempted off the issue, but there can be no doubt that the concerns expressed on the Opposition Benches are very much about an important, thriving London market.
  When I raised the matter with the Prime Minister, his Back Benchers—it is recorded in Hansard—thought it a laughing matter. They thought that the loss of jobs was a matter of hilarity, much to the Prime Minister's embarrassment. Indeed, Government Back Benchers are
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  laughing at the moment. It is much to the Prime Minister's embarrassment again that this resolution should be before us. What will be the cost to our economy of the loss of those 5,000 jobs? When will the Prime Minister come to the House to explain why he was not prepared, as he indicated only a few months ago he would be, to invoke the Luxembourg compromise in order to protect a vital national interest?
  5.6 pm
  Mr. John Townend: Will the Paymaster General confirm that it should always be a principle of Ways and Means resolutions that tax increases are to increase revenue? In the resolution before us, tax is being doubled. Does she agree, however, that there is no possibility of the revenue doubling? I suggest to her that the proposals could, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) has said, reduce revenue. Will she give a firm estimate of what proportion of the art market she thinks will leave this country for New York or Switzerland? Will she also give an estimate of the cost of the resolution not only in loss of jobs, but in corporation tax on profits of a very much reduced art business?
  Does this not show that European tax harmonisation is not a good thing and will very often hit individual countries? If the Conservative party is proved right and the art market substantially contracts, causing an important loss of jobs, will this not be a very good example of how this House of Commons will not be in a position to take remedial action to restore the position and to bring back the art market? London, as an international art centre, might be destroyed for ever. If this is being at the centre of Europe, it is a disaster for Britain.
  5.8 pm
  Mr. Peter Brooke: I declare an unremunerated interest as president of the British Art Market Federation, which derives from my presidency of the British Antique Dealers Association—which I declare in the Register of Members' Interests, along with its agreeable but uncovenanted excellent Christmas present, on which I declare tax.
  Between 1985 and 1987, when I was Paymaster General, I was responsible for answering for Customs and Excise in this House and understudying my noble Friend Lord Lawson, as he now is, in ECOFIN, the latter of which I continued to do until 1989. Having wrestled with exactly the same issues that are in front of us, I have sympathy with the Treasury. I remember the difficulty that they caused us then.
  The difficulty, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) has said—I think that it is familiar to everybody who is participating in this debate—is that the introduction of this tax on works of art entering the European Union will result in a significant amount of trade not ending up in London. It will be sold in New York or Geneva instead—indeed, in due course perhaps, in Tokyo as well.
  In 1994, when the legislation which we are revising came in, a reasonable question was how we were obliged to take it through if EU tax changes had to be conducted unanimously. The answer was that the Commission had threatened to take us to court under different legislation,

  665
  on the ground that a nil rate of VAT represented a potential distortion of trade. I had a leper's squint at that issue in my capacity as the then Secretary of State for National Heritage, as, prior to the creation of the British Art Market Federation, which was stimulated by the previous Government, I used regularly to meet representatives of the art market trade, although VAT remained a matter for Treasury Ministers. My right hon. Friends at the Treasury made it clear that they would give way on VAT, on that subject, only provided that the art trade agreed. However, both sides realised that there was a genuine possibility that the British Government would lose in the European Court against the potential threat. Had they done so, they would have found themselves with a 17.5 per cent. tax rate.
  I realise the difficulty with which the present Government have had to wrestle. I am disappointed in the quality and, indeed, the timing of publication, of the European Commission report examining the effects of VAT on the art market. I hope that the Paymaster General will say a word or two about that when she replies. I realise that the Government had to concede. However, I am grateful for the decision contained in the new clause, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford did not refer—probably quite properly, given the rules of order: that there will be a poultice and a palliative in that VAT on works of art created after 1973 will now be taxed at 5 per cent. rather than at 17.5 per cent. I understand that the money resolution is needed to introduce the relevant new clause.
  You would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were to dilate at any length on the subject of droit de suite. However, it did come up in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford. I congratulate the Government on the robust manner in which they are fighting this issue at present, but I should be grateful if the Paymaster General will repeat that the Government's robustness will continue—although I realise that we are discussing a Department of Trade and Industry matter. It is no good merely to delay the matter; we must win. To lower the temperature of the debate, I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford that the 5,000 jobs relate to droit de suite as well as to VAT; they are not merely a VAT casualty.
  5.12 pm
  Mr. Andrew Tyrie: I agree with everything that was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). I am relatively new to the House, but I am surprised by all these Ways and Means motions on the Order Paper. I do not understand why they are there. Will the Paymaster General give me the precedent for producing an Order Paper laden with such motions at the Report stage of the Bill?
  I shall confine myself to the revenue aspects of the matter. Everyone agrees that the increase in VAT will be damaging to the UK art market—that is not in dispute. We do not need to look into the crystal ball; we can read the book. The increase from 0 to 2.5 per cent. had a deleterious effect on the existing art market. Labour Members seem to find that a matter for levity—as they do whenever we debate the subject; I find that deeply regrettable. In the light of the imposition of an increase in
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  VAT from 2.5 to 5 per cent., how much will revenues fall? We are debating a Ways and Means motion. What estimate have the Government made of the fall in their revenues that is likely to result from that imposition? If there is no fall, how much will the increase be? My guess is that it will be extremely small.
  I reinforce the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster as to the European Commission's report. We were promised a thorough study of the matter, but we have not received one. If the report has been published, it must have come out quietly, because I have not seen it. If it has been published, what does it say and what is the Government's reaction? Is there any succour in it for the UK art market?
  Finally, did the Government argue forcefully for an extension of the derogation, or did they capitulate? Did the Government seek to find any allies for the approach that they took?
  5.15 pm
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am glad to catch your eye in this debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is the first chance that the House has had to address this issue since we had the news that the Government had been obliged to concede on the increase in VAT from 2.5 to 5 per cent. on certain works of art.
  The way in which the Government have introduced the Ways and Means resolution is a disgrace, for two reasons. First, the Government must be in a certain amount of chaos or they would not have had to produce so many Ways and Means resolutions tonight. Why on earth had they not thought of all this during the Bill's many weeks in Committee? The Government should have been able to think about some of these matters. The subject of the resolution that we are now debating may have caught them unawares, but they should have been able to set many of the others before the House earlier.
  Secondly, it is an utter disgrace that, only a few weeks ago, the Government were telling us that they had saved the art industry from the need to introduce this Ways and Means resolution. That was typical spin by the Government. Time and again, when something dreadful is about to occur, they say, "Do not worry; we have prevented it"—and at the end of the day, when everyone has taken their eyes off the ball, lo and behold: they come to the House with a Ways and Means resolution. You would rule me out of order if I went into any more detail, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it bodes very ill for a much more serious matter—the withholding tax.
  I cannot understand why the Luxembourg compromise was not invoked, given that the harmonisation of VAT across Europe is so much against the interests of the whole European Community, not just of this country. If it had been invoked, the Ways and Means resolution would not have been before the House tonight. It is essential that, when the Paymaster General replies, she tells us in some detail what negotiations took place with the Commission, and through the Council, that caused the resolution to be before us tonight.
  I have some questions for the Paymaster General; I should be grateful if she would answer them. The very helpful notes on clauses tell us that this measure applies not only to works of art—to which we have confined our debate this evening—but to antiques and collectors' pieces. It would be useful for the House and the trade to

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  Know—obviously, the Government would not introduce the resolution if they had not made the calculations—how much extra tax the Paymaster General expects the increase to net the Government, first from art and, secondly, from antiques and collectors' pieces. It would be interesting to know what projections the United Kingdom Government have done on this matter—whether they really think that they will net an increase in VAT as a result of passing the Ways and Means resolution. Like my hon. Friends, I have a strong suspicion that there will be a net loss of VAT, but let us hear the Government's predictions.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) mentioned the amendment to section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 to decrease the rate of VAT for those works of art created after 1 April 1973 from 17.5 to 5 per cent. It would be interesting to know how much VAT that will lose the Government. What figures have they calculated in that respect?
  It has been calculated that the changes will lose the UK 5,000 jobs. In introducing a Ways and Means resolution to the House, the Government should be able to tell us—it would help the trade—how many jobs are likely to be lost as a direct result of this measure and how many are likely to be lost as a result of the combination of this measure and the introduction of droit de suite.
  It would be useful to know how many jobs the Government reckon will be exported from the European Community; after all, it is the European Community that is forcing us to introduce the measure. Are all those jobs to be lost to the UK and the European Union, or will some of them be redistributed around the European Union? Will there be an increase in the art market elsewhere in the European Union? If that were the case, it would make some sense for the Commission to insist that the UK introduced the measure. If none of those jobs is to be reclaimed in the European Union, it seems daft.
  Mr. John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Christopher Leslie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I shall give way to my hon. Friend and then to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Bercow: Is my hon. Friend aware, in the context of the motion, that the habitual refrain of Ministers is that they eschew the cause of tax harmonisation within the European Union despite appearances to the contrary? Does my hon. Friend agree that it is of the utmost importance that, in responding to the debate, the Paymaster General should explain to us how she distinguishes the words "to harmonise" and "to co-ordinate", given that page 898 of the "New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" defines "to co-ordinate" as to
  "place or class in the same order, rank or division"?
  What is the difference?
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. However, I am sure that, if I strayed too far down that path, you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We on the Opposition Benches
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  believe in tax competition, not tax harmonisation. On this matter, the Government are entirely inconsistent. When I raised at some length the question of tobacco taxes, the Government were all for having a tobacco tax at a different rate from that of the rest of the EU and losing a huge amount of revenue thereby. However, when it comes to the issue that is before us, which will result in the loss of many jobs, the Government seem to want harmonisation. I do not understand why the Government cannot be more consistent on this matter. If they were, at least everyone would know where he stood.
  Mr. Leslie: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why, in 1994, the Conservative Government gave a legal undertaking to increase the value added tax on imported works of art to 5 per cent?
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: If the hon. Gentleman had been present—I am not sure whether he was—to listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, he would have heard that, if we did not agree to an increase from 2.5 to 5 per cent., albeit that we had a derogation for 20 years, we would be subject to a threat to take us to the European Court, and the European Union could have imposed a 17.5 per cent. rate of tax. That would have been far more damaging.
  I am saying that the Government are dealing with the circumstances as they arise, and they are that the derogation is to end in June or July. The Government have to deal with that. It is their stewardship that we are under, whether we like it or not. They appear to be intent on decimating our art market because it seems that they cannot put an appropriate argument to our European partners that the increase in tax is disastrous for us and for them as well. It is daft. If the increase would benefit the EU as a whole, there would be some sense in it, but that is plainly not the position. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster has said, business will be driven away. It will go not to Paris, Berlin or anywhere else in the EU, but outside it. It will go, for example, to Geneva, New York or Tokyo. The EU will lose jobs, balances of payments will be adversely affected and tax revenues will be lost.
  The Prime Minister put his personal authority on the line when he said that he would do something about this tax increase. He said, in effect, that he would convince our European partners that it did not make sense. At the end of the day, he failed in that respect. If that has happened, how many more times will he fail in Europe, and how many more times will the United Kingdom be disadvantaged thereby?
  5.25 pm
  Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: Like a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I do not think that the motion should be nodded through, notwithstanding that we can debate the substance of new clause 14 at a later stage this evening. We need to know from the Minister now what the anticipated yield will be from doubling valued added tax on imported art.
  We are talking about a most important industry. Labour Ministers seem somewhat dismissive of the art industry as a whole and they should be reminded that it is not based only in London. There is an extensive network of dealers and galleries throughout the United Kingdom and

  669
  there are many ancillary industries such as framing, conservation, insurance and shipping, all of which feed off the international market, which is based in London.
  The motion would double the rate of VAT on imports. We know that it derives from a directive passed in 1995, from which the United Kingdom had a limited derogation. As so often happens with the European Union, the boomerangs return. The Government may remind us this evening that they have postponed the separate threat represented by droit de suite, the levy on the resale of contemporary art. It would be useful to know on what terms that has been postponed, and whether it may turn out to be a boomerang as well.
  In the 1995 agreement, it was agreed that, by 1999, when the British derogation ended, there should have been a study into whether VAT on imported art was damaging the European art market. That report has been produced. It was late—it should have been produced last year, but it was made available only a few months ago. It is interesting that, although the report was commissioned by the European Commission, and to that extent is not wholly impartial, it nevertheless paints a good picture of the damage already caused by VAT, even at present levels.
  As regards the impact on the United Kingdom, the report states:
  "Between 1994 and 1997"—
  during that period, VAT at 2.5 per cent. was imposed—
  "the United Kingdom went from being a net importer … to being a net exporter"
  of art, so VAT even at that lower rate clearly caused damage. The report also records—this is dangerous—the views of the New York dealers, whom it states
  "are all very excited at the prospect of import VAT rates being increased in the UK (which they see as their main competitor)."
  The report concludes that
  "high value buyers and sellers are increasingly choosing New York over London as their preferred venue because of the 2.5 per cent. differential."
  That happens even at the present VAT level, which we are about to double.
  Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me? I want to give the Minister an opportunity to respond.
  The Commission's own study shows conclusively that damage has been caused, so it was—I choose my words carefully—mendacious of the Commission to assert in its press release that the report had provided no evidence of damage to the European art market. That was flatly untrue.
  The Minister will probably remind us in a moment that the Commission has agreed to reduce the 17.5 per cent. VAT rate that at present applies to contemporary art painted or created since 1973. That is a welcome development, but it does not offset the damage that will be caused by the doubling of the 2.5 per cent. rate.
  The Commission, which after all has a duty to promote the economic interests of Europe as a whole, even if it is dismissive of the UK's interest, should not have ignored
  670
  the evidence of its own study, which showed damage not simply to the UK, but to the entire European art market. The only people who will be pleased by the motion are competitors outside Europe, in Switzerland, the United States, Japan and elsewhere. It will simply transfer business—
  Mr. Leslie: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I shall give way very quickly to the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie); I apologise to the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies).
  Mr. Leslie: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Can he confirm whether, when he has Paymaster General in 1994, he was in any way involved in the discussions or negotiations about the move from 2.5 to 5 per cent?
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I was not Paymaster General in 1994, so I had nothing to do with the negotiations.
  I conclude with a request to the Paymaster General. If the motion goes through—it looks as though it will—and if the Commission's own study turns out to be correct and damage will be caused, will she ask it to produce a further study in due course so that it can return to this matter and reduce the minimum mandatory rate?
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the people responsible for the measure are officials sitting in highly paid jobs in the Commission who do not care about job losses even though 17.5 million people are already unemployed in the European Union?
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend is entirely correct. The measure is a bureaucrats' charter and the people in the Commission who introduced it will not lose their jobs. Our constituents who rely on the vitality and success of the trade will lose their jobs—not the people in the big auction houses, which will simply transfer their auctions to New York. The little people—the porters, the packers, the office staff, the experts, the framers—will lose their jobs. They have been abandoned by the Labour party, but they have not been abandoned by us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) says.
  I understand the constraints under which the Paymaster General has been negotiating, but, even at this late date, I ask her at least to ask the Commission to study this matter and return with other proposals if the damage, as reported, occurs.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Fabricant.
  Mr. Fabricant rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise to the House; I was distracted for a moment. Has the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) given way or has he concluded his remarks?
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I have concluded.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In that case, I should call the Paymaster General to reply to the debate in the remaining time.
  5.31 pm
  Dawn Primarolo: I shall try to deal with all the points that have been raised within the short time that remains. If I cannot, I shall certainly deal with them in the later debate.
  I remind the House of the context of this matter. The previous Government—I understand that the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) was Paymaster General from 1994 to 1996—committed us to an absolute legal obligation to raise VAT on works of art from 2.5 to 5 per cent. The then Government asked the Commission to undertake an independent study, but they unfortunately did not have that written into a directive. The agreement was political and therefore not enforceable in law.
  The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), who is very well informed and follows these issues closely, referred to the delayed report. He is quite right: the independent report should have been available at the end of December, but it was not available until March. The Commission made its response as late as 28 April and the Government's view is that it ignored the recommendations. In our opinion, the Commission's recommendations did not properly recognise elements of the independent report, which we then pursued vigorously with the Commission and other member states.
  The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) asked about the Commission's report. I can tell him that it and an explanatory memorandum were put before the House along with the Government's view. Although the report was lodged with us, the Commission unfortunately did not make it generally available and, under the agreement undertaken by the previous Government, we could not require it to do so. However, we at least obtained a copy for ourselves and were able to scrutinise the details.
  The Government were faced with the Commission's insistence on the implementation of the absolute legal requirement. As hon. Members know, the consequence for the Government of not complying with our legal obligations would have been infraction proceedings and things could have been considerably worse. None the less, we continued to pursue the Commission to seek either an extension of our derogation or the setting of 2.5 per cent. as the rate for the rest of Europe. Only one other EU country—Denmark—applies the 5 per cent. levy, and the others apply higher rates.
  The Government faced an absolute legal agreement and had no room for manoeuvre because the independent report had not been written into the directive. The Commission refused to move, and other member states did not agree to reopen the matter. At present, income to the Government is around £10 million, and the increase in VAT to 5 per cent. on goods currently taxed at 2.5 per cent. will yield around a further £10 million in a full year. The offset resulting from widening the scope of the new 5 per cent. rate to include imported works of art previously taxed at 17.5 per cent. will, however, leave the overall package effectively revenue neutral.
  Mr. Tyrie: Will the Minister give way?
  Dawn Primarolo: Forgive me, but I have been left little time to reply to the debate. I shall be happy to return to the point in later debates.
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  The Government have continued to work closely with the art market, recognising its valuable contribution to a global art market centred on New York and London. The European Union should see London as a European centre of excellence, but we have not been able to win that argument at this stage. In a press release, the British Art Market Federation welcomed the Government's decision to provide for the reduction on imports of contemporary art, saying that that decision and
  "the Government's equally robust opposition to the Artists' Resale Rights Directive,"
  —not relevant to this debate, and not part of my responsibilities—
  "will we believe, enable us to maintain the UK's competitive position in the international art market."
  The federation recognises what we have done, and recognises that we were bound by legal obligations because of the previous Government's commitments. It has congratulated the Government on vigorously pursuing the best interests of the art market. Despite what some Opposition Members say, the Government are committed to ensuring that the British art market gets a fair deal.
  5.39 pm
  Mr. Leigh: I am sorry that the Minister was unable to give way during the debate. Clearly, she had time to do so. What can she say about new subsection 6(a), which sets out items accepted for definition—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that the Minister will not have an opportunity to answer that question.
  It being three quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(b) (Money resolutions and Ways and Means resolutions in connection with Bills).
  Question agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That provision may be made in the Finance Bill amending section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994.

  VALUE ADDED TAX (PREPARATIONS ETC OF MEAT, YEAST OR EGG)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(b),
  That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made in the Finance Bill amending the provisions of Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 by virtue of which supplies of preparations and extracts of meat, yeast or egg are zero-rated.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
  5.39 pm
  Mr. Letwin: I am not clear about the meaning of the motion. Nor am I entirely clear about the guidance on Member's interests, so, for the avoidance of any impropriety, I declare a possible interest in that a pet shop may have been a client of the bank of which I am a director.
  The motion is the most vexed of those before us this afternoon. I have a few straightforward questions that Ministers may wish to answer now so that we do not have to deal with them when we reach the considerable number

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  of substantive questions to be debated later. I am not clear—the notes on clauses do not make it clear—whether the situation is as I envisage it, which is that up till the time when the lacuna that gave rise to the substantive change was spotted, pet shops were paying VAT.
  Dawn Primarolo indicated assent.
  Mr. Letwin: I am glad to see that I am right in that. In that case, this Ways and Means motion cannot possibly have the effect of changing the revenue that was extracted or would now fall to be extracted from those who were previously operating under the mistaken assumption that the law was correctly constructed and that Customs and Excise had the right to levy the VAT that it was levying.
  The motion must therefore relate to the future and to the question of how much can be raised in the future. Will the Paymaster General give us an estimate of the effects on the Revenue of that change in the future? What will be the immediate effect—the first-round effect? What additional VAT revenue will be raised assuming no demand elasticity? What will be the second-round effect—the long-term effect—assuming that things change and people use less pet food as the price rises?
  I take it that the Treasury has done an analysis of both those effects. For reasons which I do not want to dwell on now—it would intrude into the substantive debate—I do not want to go into detail about why I think that this is an important question to answer. However, I hope that the Paymaster General can clear up the factual point and give us an idea of those two projections, which I presume the Treasury has made.
  Will the Paymaster General give us some guidance? Has it been normal practice in the past to have a Ways and Means motion when an uncovenanted error has been discovered ex post? That would be instructive for the future ordering of parliamentary business.
  5.42 pm
  Mr. Fabricant: I am a little surprised that the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) is not present. The headquarters of Bovril and Marmite are located in Burton, which is close to Lichfield. The House will know that Bovril and Marmite make use of beef extract and yeast, which are the substances referred to in this Ways and Means motion. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), who leads from the Front Bench so expertly and fluently, asked about pet foods. Will VAT be applied only to products used in alcoholic beverages, such as yeast and egg—which I suppose is used in egg nog or advocaat—or will it be applied to Marmite and Bovril?
  We need an assurance that VAT will not be applied to Bovril. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset says, we must make a plea for Bovril and Marmite to ensure that they remain exempt. If VAT were applied to those products, employment in Burton would be affected, and it is conceivable that people in Lichfield work in that factory, which is only a few miles down the A38. More importantly and more directly related to this Ways and Means motion, we need an assurance that this small measure does not mean that VAT will be put on human food. Will the Paymaster General give a clear and
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  unequivocal assurance that VAT will not be applied to Bovril or Marmite as a precursor to VAT on foods generally?
  It would be utterly hypocritical if the hon. Lady could not give that assurance. Many of us remember the scares that the Government caused before the last general election when they were in opposition. They asked for such guarantees, even without the Ways and Means motion which spurs me to ask this practical question.
  If Bovril and Marmite are not to be exempted, will other products also not be exempted? If so, will the Paymaster General list those products? It is not just the hon. Member for Bovril—or the hon. Member for Burton—who ought to be present; others should be here, given that food industries in their constituencies may now have to pay VAT and other duties on food under the present Government, for the very first time.
  I dare say that the Paymaster General will say that this is just another example of tax co-ordination with Europe, where VAT on food is the norm; but what will be the annual value of transactions affected by the change? How much of the tax will be on food, how much on pet food and how much on alcoholic beverages, particularly advocaat?
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: Is this not yet another example of the Government's hitting the poor with regressive taxation? Are they not taxing basic foods in the worst possible manner?
  Mr. Fabricant: I take exception to that. I always like Marmite on my toast, and, while there is nothing wrong with being poor, I would be mendacious if I said that I was.
  What consultation has the Treasury had with food and drink manufacturers? I am not talking just about Bovril, and I am not talking just about beer manufacturers, which are also based in Burton. What consultation has taken place about the amount that would be raised? What evidence exists to suggest that the current tax regime unduly benefits this part of the food and drink industry, to the detriment of other parts? Why has the measure been introduced? The House needs to know. What are the ulterior motives?
  The Paymaster General looks at me in surprise and horror.
  Dawn Primarolo rose—
  Mr. Fabricant: I give way to the Paymaster General. Perhaps we shall hear an answer as well as a question.
  Dawn Primarolo: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that we are talking about pet food?
  Mr. Fabricant: The Paymaster General says that we are talking about pet food, but that is not at all clear from the motion. If we are, can she give us a firm undertaking that VAT will be imposed on neither Marmite nor Bovril, and that a Labour Government will never—I repeat, never—impose VAT on human food? If she will not give that undertaking, will she withdraw the disgraceful remarks that she made when her party was in opposition,

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  and when she posed similar questions to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer?
  If the change—I refer to the amendment provided for in the motion—be deemed always to have had effect, what will be the "retrospective effect"? How far back does the Paymaster General mean to go—three years, six years, nine years? What will be the clawback? If it applies only to pet foods, what will be the implications for major manufacturers and major employers such as Pedigree? The Paymaster General laughs, but Pedigree is the largest pet-food manufacturer in Europe. Based in the east midlands, it employs hundreds of people, who could lose their jobs as a direct consequence of this measure.
  I do not need to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I have raised the issue on the Adjournment, and in questions—that the last tax harmonisation introduced by the Labour Government of which I was conscious involved the introduction of water regulations. The regulations seemed innocent enough in themselves, but, as a result, Armitage Shanks in my constituency was taken over by a United States company, and jobs were lost—simply because the Government thought that co-ordination in Europe would put us at the heart of Europe, notwithstanding that loss of jobs. That, of course, has nothing to do with the motion that is under discussion.
  We need assurances today. We are not just talking about Marmite and Bovril, but about the entire food industry. The Paymaster General may proudly say, "It affects only pet foods" but what are the job implications for firms such as Pedigree and others? How many years back will the retrospective action go?
  5.51 pm
  Mr. Peter Luff: As I listened to the apocalyptic comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), I wondered whether Nostradamus had in mind the motion when he prophesied all kinds of things for this period in July; somehow, I suspect not.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), I have racked my mind to think of an interest to declare. I cannot think of one, except that, having heard my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield speak, I should declare that my son is a prodigious eater of Marmite and that my dog eats large quantities of Bonio dog food.
  As Chairman of the Select Committee on Agriculture, I thought that it was an issue on which I should perhaps detain the House for a few moments. The motion seems to be one of the more regrettable of those on the Order Paper, principally because it is retrospective. The Minister may argue that it corrects an error by the previous Government and is therefore not retrospective, but it has not been law for the past five years and the Government intend to make it so, first by the motion and then by the new clause, which we will debate later. That is of some concern.
  It is not a great matter of party controversy. If it was an error—the notes on clauses tell us that it was, and who are we to disagree?—by the previous Government, it should be corrected, but I cannot help reflecting on the fact that, in my experience, if errors relating to VAT on pet food are committed by ordinary citizens, their correction is rigorously enforced. However, according to
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  the motion and the subsequent new clause, Customs and Excise will be given the benefit of the doubt if it is found to be responsible for the fault and is likely to lose revenue.
  A year or so ago, I had a case in my constituency of a pet shop owner who decided to sell his products by breaking bulk purchases and splitting packets. There was a huge dispute as to the VAT liability that flowed from that decision, which could have put that pet shop out of business. Fortunately, after an unsympathetic Customs and Excise inspector, a more sympathetic one came along and the matter was put right, but, often, disputes over VAT on pet food can have important consequences for small businesses. Therefore, the Paymaster General owes us a clear explanation of exactly what is going on in the new clause, bearing in mind how strongly retrospective errors by Customs and Excise are enforced.
  I am concerned about the details of the new clause that are provided in the notes, which say:
  "The practical effect of the amendment will be to restore taxation to certain foodstuffs, principally pet food, and to restrict the zero-rating to non-alcoholic beverages made from extracts of meat, yeast or egg."
  I recognise weasel words when I see them.
  Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. He was here when the Paymaster General pointed out rather pompously that the measure applied only to pet food. He has pointed out that it applies principally to pet food. In any event, that is what is said in the explanatory notes, not the measure itself. As Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, does he agree that the motion might, either on purpose or inadvertently, apply to foods? Therefore, it would be nice to hear a reassurance that the Government will never introduce VAT on any human foodstuffs.
  Mr. Luff: My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is clear from the explanatory notes that the Government understand that the measure involves the extension of VAT to human foodstuffs. The notes refer to
  "certain foodstuffs, principally pet food".
  The Paymaster General shakes her head. If the measure does not refer to human foodstuffs, why do the notes on new clauses say that it does? We need a clear explanation of precisely which foodstuffs are affected and which are not.
  Why the urgency? The error has gone uncorrected for five years. When was the error spotted by the Paymaster General's officials? It must logically have been spotted some time in the past week; otherwise the measure would surely have been dealt with earlier in the proceedings on the Finance Bill.
  What brought the error to the Paymaster General's attention? What is the problem that has caused her the great concern? Why has it not been left for next year's Finance Bill? Why is there a great ragbag of motions before the House today?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield made great play—understandably, in view of the possible effects on Marmite and Bovril—of the absence of the hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), but I say in her defence that the precipitant way in which the Government have brought the motion to the House today may have meant that she was not aware of the possible implications. If she were, I am sure that she would wish to explore them with the

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  Paymaster General. That leads to the more important question: what consultation have the Government had with the sectors of the pet food and other food industries that are likely to be affected by the motion and the substantive new clause?
  Specifically, what pet foods will be affected by the motion? We do not know what the measure's practical effect on ordinary pet owners will be. It is important that, before the motion is nodded through, we hear what practical effect it will have on pet owners.
  We know that some pet owners are among the poorest members of our society—those who the Government claim they wish to help. An extension of VAT on pet foods is not an inconsequential matter, but of great moment for some of those people.
  Mr. Fabricant: Is my hon. Friend aware of the therapeutic value of pets, and that pensioners, old people and people with psychiatric problems all benefit from owning pets? Will they be able to afford to keep them if there is VAT on pet foods, or even more tax on pet foods, which will put prices up?
  Mr. Luff: Looking at you carefully, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I judge that I should probably not get too sidetracked down that alley, but I agree with my hon. Friend.
  We need to know the precise effects of the measure on pet foods. What will happen to retail prices as a result of it? What will happen to the Government's revenues? What sums of money are actually involved? What sums of money have been lost as a result of the mistake in 1994? What sums of money will be recouped in future years as a result of its correction?
  I know from bitter experience in the House that the simplest and most apparently innocent measure often is the source of the greatest concern to the House, or should be. Anything that begins casually with the words
  "This new clause corrects an error in the consolidation of existing law"
  puts me immediately on my mettle. The Paymaster General has said in an almost jocund tone, "It refers only to pet foods." It is potentially a serious measure for the House to consider. She needs to treat the matter with some seriousness, not levity, in her winding-up speech.
  5.58 pm
  Mr. Michael Jack: My eye is taken by the terms of the motion. The first point on which I seek clarification was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff)—the provision having retrospective effect. That also worries me. Retrospection in any tax measure is something of which Treasury Ministers always fight shy. I am intrigued to know why the law must go back to what it would have been had it been correct in September 1994. I should be grateful if the Minister could spell out more clearly than the notes on clauses what the measure means for companies. I am unclear as to the financial impact of retrospective VAT legislation on those enterprises.
  What I am clear about is constituency cases where VAT problems of immense complexity drag on for some time, where it is sometimes difficult or, indeed, costly to
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  unravel the consequences of what to the citizen is retrospective activity. However, here we are talking more seriously about a change in the law.
  How was it that that particular error in transcribing a cross-reference from the Value Added Tax Act 1983 came to occur? Some people may think that the motion is part of a wider exercise by officials, admittedly and understandably, combing VAT legislation to close loopholes and protect the Government from perceived revenue loss. However, is the motion being proposed for other reasons? Hon. Members should be told why the error—which has lain dormant since 1983—has suddenly been resurrected, just as the century ends. How did that occur?
  The motion, intriguingly, deals with "preparations". I am not sure which definition of preparation is being used in the motion. I appreciate that VAT legislation has long ensured that the manufacture of foods—the bringing together and further processing of certain ingredients, adding value—such as biscuits and sweets has always attracted VAT. I should also tell my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) that those foods are for human consumption. Nevertheless, I do not fully understand how the word "preparations" is being used in the motion. Does it entail the bringing together of raw ingredients without further processing, or bringing together some of the ingredients that would be affected by the proposal after they have been further manufactured, cooked or processed in some other way?
  Ministers should give the House some clear and detailed explanation of what they are inviting us to agree. The motion, taken at face value, does not assist us in our voyage of exploration, but its import may be greater than it seems.
  6.2 pm
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Will the Minister answer one brief question? Is there any way at all that the Government could mark on the Order Paper matters about which the House has no power to do anything? Perhaps I should first declare an interest: I have a dog of my own, called Corrie. When I get back from the House, he likes me to take him for a walk. Sometimes, however, I am detained in the Chamber, not because hon. Members talk too much, but because we spend our time talking about things about which we can do nothing.
  I know that you will be well aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker—because of the great interest that you take in public affairs—that the House has recently spent hours and hours debating matters that we can do nothing about. We have had a great deal of discussion, for example, about genetically modified foods, about which people get very excited and agitated. However, because of European law, we can do absolutely nothing about GM food. We also had a long debate—for a whole day—on the age of homosexual consent, although Parliament could do nothing at all about it.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced hon. Member. One example by reference perhaps; but he must not go on, ad infinitum, on matters that are nothing to do with motion 7.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker; but it is everything to do with the motion. I simply want

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  to ask Ministers whether, in light of Article 28(2)(a) of the EU sixth directive, they have any power to do anything about the substance of the motion?
  We may all think that retrospective taxation is ridiculous, and agree that the Government should withdraw a motion that would unfairly apply taxation—and carry the can for it. However, my understanding of the situation—you may not think that this is relevant, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is—is that, even if all 635 hon. Members said, "Let's agree that we will not backdate tax on dog food", and voted accordingly, it would have no impact at all. The Government would have to levy the tax, simply because of the sixth directive.
  I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and other people do not like me talking about these things, but it is time that Parliament woke up to the fact that we spend hours and hours talking about things about which we can do absolutely nothing. I simply wish that Parliament would wake up to the fact that a democracy is dying every single day, and that—on this issue, as on so many others—we are wasting our time talking about something about which we can do nothing.
  Will the Minister say if, by any remote chance, I am right about that point? If, by any remote chance, I am talking a load of rubbish, as the Deputy Speaker seems to think, will the Minister say—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has made a disgraceful suggestion. I am here merely to try to keep the House in order, and believe that the hon. Gentleman was straying into generalities too far beyond the scope of motion 7. I hope that he will consider very carefully what he said.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: I am sorry—it is simply something that I feel very strongly about.
  I was asking a simple question. I hope that the Minister will tell us—to avoid my having a dispute with the occupant of the Chair, which I have never had in my 35 years in the House of Commons; and to help the House of Commons—whether the Government might consider having on the Order Paper a little map, circle, scroll, arrow, or something that would not be too controversial or cause a dispute in the House, to indicate those matters about which we can do nothing. That would save a great deal of the House's time, and give me more time to go back and take my dog out for a walk.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. Leigh: The Minister, in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant)—she obviously thought that it was a devastating intervention—asked whether he was aware that the motion applied to pet food. What she did not confirm was that the motion applies only to pet food. The Minister should realise that our suspicions and concerns have been fuelled by that intervention—although I think that the argument could be resolved very easily.
  The motion's implications for the Revenue are enormous: the political and revenue implications of launching any attack on the principle of zero-rating food are staggeringly important. I should really like the Minister, on behalf of the Government, to commit herself to the principle that we are not starting to renege on the
  680
  pledge, which was given in the general election by her and the Government, that we shall not move away from zero-rating on food.
  Mr. Swayne: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Order Paper does not mention pet food at all, but talks about "meat, yeast, or egg"? As a consequence of the measure, and to avoid the taxation increase, we may well have to eat unleavened bread.
  Mr. Leigh: I am not sure about the need for unleavened bread. However, I am sure that, so far, we have not received a commitment from the Minister.
  My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) was right to say that Back Benchers can go only by what they are told in the explanatory notes—which should be helpful. The notes that we have been given today are not at all helpful—except, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) has made clear, in fuelling our suspicions. If we were supposed to be reassured that the motion would apply only to pet foods, why does paragraph 2 of the explanatory notes state—as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire said—that the measure will apply "principally" to pet food? Why do the notes not say that it will apply only to pet food? The House deserves a reassurance on that matter.
  It would be the utmost hypocrisy for the Government—under the guise of a seemingly innocuous measure concerned only with pet food—to increase their revenues by extending VAT to ordinary foodstuffs. We want a commitment that they are not attempting to do that. We also want to know precisely which grocery items will be affected by the measure. What are the measure's revenue implications? What will be the annual value of transactions affected by the change? What will be the net effect on Treasury revenues? What consultations have the Government had with food and drink manufacturers and with retailers?
  We want to be reassured that, as a consequence of the negotiations, the principle of zero-rating food will not be abrogated. We also want to know what evidence there is to suggest that the current tax regime is unduly benefiting that part of the food and drink industry to the detriment of others. Unless we get all those reassurances, we are perfectly entitled to be suspicious of what is going on this afternoon.
  6.10 pm
  Dawn Primarolo: I hope that I shall be able to reassure the House on this modest and sensible measure. There is no extension to foodstuffs that are currently zero-rated. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) can have his Marmite soldiers and drink his Bovril this evening in the sure knowledge that there is no challenge.
  While legal issues arising from an appeal to the VAT and duties tribunal earlier this year—but after the Budget—were being examined, it was discovered that a transcription error had been made in the Value Added Tax Act 1994. Throughout the relevant time, VAT has been raised on those products. No new VAT is being imposed and there is no extension. The manufacturers, the Government of the day and their officials believed that VAT on pet foods could be charged and collected, as it

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  had been since 1973. We collected the tax because that was the position before the transcription error was made in 1994. We now have to correct the law.
  Mr. Luff: Is the hon. Lady saying that the Government have collected tax revenues illegally and are now seeking retrospective sanction for having done so?
  Dawn Primarolo: No. The items had never been zero-rated. The previous Government supervised the changing of the 1994 Act, when the transcription error occurred. They were fulfilling their legal obligations under the requirements to impose VAT. We are committed to maintaining zero rates on food. They are not affected in any way.
  Mr. Letwin rose—
  Dawn Primarolo: I should like to make this point first. The explanatory notes make it clear that the zero-rating of foodstuffs is not affected.
  The grouping covers pet foods primarily, but there are certain other preparations—
  Mr. Letwin rose—
  Dawn Primarolo: I should just like to deal with this point. The other preparations are extracts of meat, yeast or egg, such as advocaat and yeast products intended for use in home brewing. That was the law as we had all understood it.
  I have also been asked whether there is a precedent.
  Mr. Letwin rose—
  Dawn Primarolo: I should like to deal with this point and get all the facts on the table before hon. Members work themselves up into a lather again about the problems.
  I was asked whether there had been errors before. Unfortunately, there have. The previous Government had to make a correction to the Finance Bill in 1995, because the starting date for earlier changes to bad debt relief was omitted when the provisions for consolidation into the Value Added Tax Act 1994 were made. The measures are not retrospective because—
  Mr. Letwin rose—
  Hon. Members: Give way!
  Dawn Primarolo: I will give way in a minute. Hon. Members should be patient. It will help to have the facts.
  This is not retrospective taxation because the legal liability to tax has not been changed contrary to the expectation of the taxpayer. The taxpayer had been paying the tax.
  If the House voted against the motion, it would cause chaos. Manufacturers and the Government believed that the law gave cover. I am sure that a test court case would show the intention of the legislation before 1994, but it is better to correct legislation when an error is found.
  Mr. Letwin: I am grateful to the Paymaster General for giving way. That is the point on which I have been
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  trying to intervene, without being in any kind of lather. The hon. Lady said a moment ago that it had not been illegal to levy VAT during the intervening period when the mistake was in force. Is that not because my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) is right and the sixth VAT directive is in force, meaning that in law VAT could be levied on the products? Is this not merely a tidying operation with no effect on the outcome of cases?
  Dawn Primarolo: That is my point. There is no change. If we did not make the alteration, the Government could be left open to a loss of revenue, which would be unwise. Any prudent Government would act.
  This is a simple proposition. An error was made; taxpayers and the Government have behaved in good faith. The law will now be corrected. There will be no refunds, no additional charge and no increase in food prices for pet lovers. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) feels that his time may have been wasted. There is no extension on foods; those are the simple facts.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made in the Finance Bill amending the provisions of Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 by virtue of which supplies of preparations and extracts of meat, yeast or egg are zero-rated.

  DISCOUNTED SECURITIES ETC.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(b),
  That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made in the Finance Bill amending paragraphs 10 and 13 of Schedule 13 to the Finance Act 1996 and section 92 of that Act.—[Mrs. Roche.]
  6.17 pm
  Mr. St. Aubyn: I rise to point out that, yet again, we have a motion with retrospective effect. In Standing Committee, we raised several objections to the phrasing of clause 61 and others. There was a great deal of consternation among Ministers, and they had to go away and think again. The Government new clauses on Report propose significant changes to the way in which they hope to address the highly technical problem of tax leakage resulting from the current legislation. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that.
  Before we pass the measure, will the Minister confirm that the retrospective effect will not mean that companies that have honestly, but ingeniously found a way to minimise their tax liability will see an increase in their tax bill? I have no truck with tax evasion, but it is right that businesses should be able to plan their tax affairs with some certainty. Clauses should not be sprung into Finance Bills, retrospectively changing the law, to deny companies exemptions or advantages in the tax system that they legitimately believed that they could make use of. If we breached that principle, we would undermine the rule of law on which the whole tax system is based. If taxpayers feel that the Government will introduce retrospective legislation every time that they find a legal way to use the tax system to their advantage, they will eventually feel that they are unable to challenge the Government through the court of law on the tax system. The costs of doing so

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  may be great, but we could lose an important constitutional test and a brake on the power of the Executive to raise tax at their whim. That is what is at stake.
  Will the Minister confirm that the problems that we highlighted with the original phrasing of the clause, in terms of the ordinary call provisions for securities, and the possible effect of the introduction of a withholding tax are dealt with by the new phrasing of the clause? I look forward to her response.
  6.20 pm
  Mrs. Roche: I am surprised by the remarks of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn), who gave his version of what happened in Committee. It was an interesting version, and there are always many different historical interpretations of what has happened.
  In Committee, I said that when we had consulted on this complex proposal, we received representations from the financial sector. It appeared that the way in which the clause had been drawn went too wide and was taking in some matters that we did not wish to be included. Therefore, in consultation with the industry, we made some new proposals and we have had a favourable reception. That is another example of how this Government listen—unlike the previous Government.
  I remind the hon. Member for Guildford that the Tory Government tried to introduce this measure, and that this Government, once again, have had to deal with some unfinished business that the Conservative Government were unable to get through.
  The hon. Gentleman asked why the resolution was retrospective. Clause 61 was founded on retrospective resolutions, and operates from 15 February 1999, when it was announced—a few weeks before the Budget. In that sense, it is technically retrospective. The Conservative Government did this on many occasions to stop tax avoidance, which was the right thing to do.
  If the hon. Member for Guildford wants to honour the pledge of the shadow Chancellor on public spending, making sure that proper tax avoidance measures are in place is the right thing to do. I had hoped that he would give us some credit because we propose to make the clause—which takes effect from 15 February—less wide ranging. As to the other matters that he raised—yes, I can assure him on both those points.
  Question put and agreed to.

Orders of the Day
  Finance Bill
  Not amended in the Committee, and as amended in the Standing Committee, considered.
  Finance Bill
    New Clause 7

      FIRST-YEAR ALLOWANCES FOR INVESTMENT IN NORTHERN IRELAND
      '.—(1) In section 22 of the Capital Allowances Act 1990 ("the 1990 Act") (first-year allowances), in subsection (3CC) (which restricts the expenditure on machinery and plant for use in Northern Ireland which is eligible for 100 per cent. allowances), after paragraph (b) there shall be inserted "; or

      (c) expenditure on the provision of a goods vehicle for the purposes of a trade which consists primarily of the conveyance of goods; or

      (d) unauthorised expenditure on the provision of machinery or plant for use primarily in—

      (i) agriculture, fishing or fish farming, or

      (ii) any relevant activity carried out in relation to agricultural produce, fish or any fish product for the purpose of bringing it to market."

      (2) After subsection (3CC) of that section there shall be inserted—
      "(3CD) For the purposes of subsection (3CC) above—

      (a) expenditure is unauthorised expenditure unless it is authorised, for the purposes of subsection (3CA) above, by the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland; and

      (b) 'relevant activity' means transportation, storage, preparation, processing or packaging.

      (3CE) An authorisation given, for the purpose of subsection (3CA) above, by the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland—

      (a) may be given either specially (that is to say, so as to apply only to a specified item of expenditure or a specified person) or generally (that is to say, so as not only so to apply);

      (b) may, if given generally, be modified by that Department; and

      (c) may in any case be absolute or conditional."

      (3) In subsection (10) of that section, after "section" there shall be inserted—
      "'agriculture' and 'agricultural produce' have the same meanings as in section 6 of the European Communities Act 1972;
      'fish' includes shellfish;
      'fish farming' means the intensive rearing, on a commercial basis, of fish intended for human consumption;
      'fishing' means a trade, or part of a trade, which consists of the catching or taking of fish;
      'goods vehicle' has the same meaning as in the Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1995;".
      (4) In section 22B of the 1990 Act (withdrawal of first-year allowance on change of use)—

      (a) in subsection (2)(a), for "the period of two years beginning with the date of the incurring of that expenditure" there shall be substituted "the relevant period"; and

      (b) after subsection (2) there shall be inserted—

      "(2A) In subsection (2) above 'the relevant period' means—

      (a) where the expenditure concerned exceeds £3.5 million, the period of five years beginning with the date of the incurring of that expenditure, and

      (b) in any other case, the period of two years beginning with that date."

      (5) After section 22B of the 1990 Act there shall be inserted—

      Disclosure of information in connection with first-year allowances
      22C.—(1) No obligation as to secrecy or other restriction on the disclosure of information imposed by statute or otherwise shall prevent—

      (a) the Board or an authorised officer of the Board from disclosing to the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland (`the Department') or an authorised officer of the Department, or

      (b) the Department or an authorised officer of the Department from disclosing to the Board or an authorised officer of the Board,

      information for the purpose of assisting the Board in the carrying out of their functions with respect to claims for capital allowances made under section 22 by virtue of subsection (3CA) of that section or, as the case may be, the Department in the carrying out of its functions under that section.
      (2) Information obtained by virtue of a disclosure authorised by this section shall not be disclosed except—

      (a) to the Board or the Department or to an authorised officer of the Board or of the Department; or

      (b) for the purposes of any proceedings connected with a matter in relation to which the Board or the Department carry out the functions mentioned in subsection (1) above."

      (6) The preceding provisions of this section have effect in relation to every chargeable period ending on or after 12th May 1998.'.—[Mrs. Roche.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      6.27 pm
      The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mrs. Barbara Roche): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      In last year's Finance Act, we introduced a measure to give 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for small and medium-sized businesses investing between 12 May 1998 and 11 May 2002 in machinery or plant for use in Northern Ireland. The legislation does not come into effect until a day to be appointed by the Treasury. This was necessary to allow time to make sure that the measure would not be anti-competitive.
      It is now apparent that some modifications are needed to the scope of the measure to bring it into line with competition law. New clause 7 will make the necessary changes. Once made, we expect to receive confirmation from the European Commission that the measure is not anti-competitive. This will allow us to appoint the day and to bring the legislation into effect. Once that is done, the 100 per cent. first-year allowances may be claimed on any expenditure in the qualifying period.
      It may be helpful, and for the convenience of the House, if I outline briefly the areas of change. On transport, the 100 per cent. first-year allowances were never intended to apply to expenditure on machinery and plant for leasing or letting, hire cars, long-life assets, sea-going ships, railway assets or aircraft. New clause 7 will expand the exclusion to cover transport assets, such as lorries or containers used in the freight haulage
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      business. It will not affect the entitlement to allowances on transport assets in other types of business, such as delivery vans of retail businesses, mobile shops or tourist buses.
      As for the agriculture and fisheries sectors, the new clause will mean that 100 per cent. first-year allowances will be available only on investments authorised by the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland, as compatible with competition law in the Department.
      As for large investments, under the normal rules, the 100 per cent. allowance will be clawed back if the asset begins to be used primarily outside Northern Ireland within two years of the expenditure being incurred. For exceptionally large investments, the new clause will extend that claw-back period to five years. The changes are required to ensure that the measure comes within competition rules while retaining the maximum benefit for Northern Ireland businesses.
      Mr. Michael Jack: Will the Minister expand on the conflict with competition law, which she used as a generic term? Which competition law is causing the problem?
      Mrs. Roche: I am talking about state aids, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. Rightly, and understandably, the Commission has an interest in this matter. It has always been the policy of this Government—and, to be fair, of the previous Government—to be vigilant on state aids so that protectionism is not let in by the back door. We must make sure that the measures are compatible.
      I commend the new clause to the House.
      Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: It is significant that we have been debating for more than two hours before getting to the Government new clauses. That is because of the wholly unprecedented number of money resolutions that the Government have tabled at this late stage. By definition, money resolutions are tax raising. To have eight tabled at the start of the Report stage shows not only that we have a tax-raising Government and that we have had a series of tax-raising Budgets, but that we now have tax-raising Report stages.
      Rightly, we have examined some of the money resolutions, and we can now approach the stage where we can look at the new clauses. I am interested in this one, as it restricts the ability of businesses in Northern Ireland to reduce their tax burden through the use of 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for small and medium-sized enterprises.
      The measure was announced last year by the Government, and was passed in last year's Finance Bill. It has been approved by the House, but we now learn that it was not brought into effect because of possible problems with competition law.
      My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), in an acute intervention, asked exactly what that meant. He got a reply, but I am not sure that the Financial Secretary was entirely accurate. I ask the question rather than make the allegation. It is possible that she was a little disingenuous.

      687
      6.30 pm
      We know that the 100 per cent. first-year allowance conflicts not with United Kingdom competition law, but with the requirements of the European Union business taxation group, chaired by the Paymaster General, who confirmed in a parliamentary answer that the subject of first-year allowances for businesses in Northern Ireland is being investigated by the group.
      If the group concludes that the allowances conflict with the requirements of fairness and tax competition, they could be withdrawn, which is a serious matter. It is time that the Government came clean about the EU group, because the allowances are not the only measure in the Budget that could be hit. For example, the 40 per cent. first-year allowances for small and medium-sized enterprises in the rest of the United Kingdom were debated in Committee upstairs without Ministers mentioning the fact that they, too, are under investigation by the business taxation group.
      More recently, I asked how many British tax measures were under review by the group. It took the Treasury nearly a month to come up with the answer, which is surprising, as the Paymaster General chairs the group. Eventually, she confirmed that eight measures were under investigation, including measures relating to the film industry, which, again, we debated in Committee without knowing the full facts; enterprise zones, which should be of interest to Labour Members who believe in industrial regeneration; and the 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Ireland.
      The House, extraordinarily, is being asked to pass certain tax measures while at the same time a European Union tax committee, chaired by a Treasury Minister, is sitting in secret—the agenda and minutes are not published—and may require those measures to be repealed or withdrawn. This is an important constitutional issue and the House must have an explanation. The Government have agreed in advance to abide by the tax committee's decisions, so it is not an advisory group.
      We know that because the matter was debated in 1997 and the Government published an explanatory memorandum. In its report on the matter, the Scrutiny Committee said that
      "the Government would agree to the code only 'if it intended to honour it'."
      The Government have agreed to the code on business taxation, so they must have agreed to honour it. Will the Financial Secretary confirm that it follows that, if the business taxation group rules against the capital allowances for businesses in Northern Ireland, the Government will withdraw them?
      Sir Teddy Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend think of any possible reason why the Government should not publish the reports of the code of conduct committee, given that the latest one, published in May, contains a series of additional measures? Is not it an insult to democracy and to all that we are meant to stand for that the Government are agreeing to measures on so-called tax loopholes without the House of Commons or the people being told? Will he invite the Government to publish the most recent report, which I happen to have in my hand because I got it by devious means?
      Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I entirely agree. The House deserves to know what tax measures are being discussed
      688
      elsewhere, as it practically came into existence to take the means of taxation away from the Crown or the Executive and put it in the hands of those who are answerable to the electorate. My hon. Friend is seeking to assert an ancient right.
      The Government have made much of their commitment to openness and "Your Right to Know". I think that they even plan to introduce a Bill to allow the people to know what is being done in their name. It would be a good start if the Government could tell us what tax measures are under review.
      The parliamentary answer to which I referred made it clear that the measures that it lists are drawn only from the group's initial list. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) said, there are other lists. I believe that some energetic web surfer discovered a list of more than 200 European—not all British—tax measures that are under review by the secret committee chaired by the Paymaster General. Will the Financial Secretary publish a comprehensive list of the British measures?
      Will the Financial Secretary confirm that the restrictions in the new clause, which would cut back the scope of the allowances as agreed last year, were introduced in response to fears about the EU committee, so that bringing our measures into line with the requirements of European competition law really means bringing them into line with the requirements of that committee? Why else have the restrictions been introduced? The allowances were announced last year to a great fanfare and passed by the House.
      The allowances are being restricted in areas in which the situation in Northern Ireland has got worse, such as haulage. The Government's tax measures on road fuel have made the haulage industry uncompetitive, and the problem is especially acute in Northern Ireland, which has a land border with another member state, so the industry can easily be undermined by lorries using cheaper fuel from the Republic. We know that a great deal of fuel smuggling goes on there; the Government will not even give us an estimate of how much, but we know that the problem is serious and worsening.
      The same applies to agriculture and fisheries. Northern Ireland faces the same problems as the rest of the United Kingdom, so the case for restricting allowances there has not been made. We strongly suspect that the restrictions are designed to bring us more in line with the requirements of the EU tax committee.
      I have another question for the Minister. The terms of the new clause indicate that the capital allowances for agriculture are to be restricted in a way that is devolved to the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland. That is somewhat remarkable, as it means that the power, not only to authorise specific items of expenditure on agriculture, but to specify persons, is to be at the discretion of that department. Officials in that department will be able to decide that one person gets the capital allowance, but that another person does not. That is a remarkable provision for the House to approve: instead of setting out tax liabilities in rules and regulations, we are now devolving that power to the say-so of officials at the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Minister can tell us why the rules cannot appear on the face of the new clause.

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      My real point is that we are beginning to see the results of the Government's weakness in respect of European Union tax harmonisation. In 1997, they agreed to a code and they said that they would abide by it. Now, although the Government proudly announced certain tax measures last year and now want to introduce them, those measures are under review by that tax committee. In effect, the judgment of the House on matters of taxation has become subservient to a European Union committee over which we have no control. Those are the facts and we require an explanation.
      Mr. Edward Davey: I apologise for not having been in the Chamber for the first minute of the Minister's speech introducing the new clause.
      I agree with some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), especially those relating to the secrecy surrounding the group that meets in Europe, because I believe that all the committees that meet in Europe should be far more open than they have been. It is possible that, when the right hon. Gentleman was a Treasury Minister and attended meetings of ECOFIN in Brussels, he pushed for greater openness about the proceedings of that committee, but I doubt that he did so. If I am wrong, I should be more than happy to take an intervention from him. The Conservative Government did not have a good record on pushing for greater openness in Europe, and I hope that the current Government will do a better job in that respect.
      I disagree when the right hon. Gentleman questions the purpose of the tax committee, because there is a need to examine how state aid is allocated and whether specific forms of state aid meet the requirements of competition law. Competition law is a bulwark of the single market. It is astonishing that, in the Chamber and in Committee, the right hon. Gentleman has argued continuously against bodies such as the tax committee, given that he is—I assume—in favour of the single market. It is astonishing for the Conservatives to be in favour of free trade and of the single market, but against those mechanisms of the European Union that are designed to make the single market work more effectively, including by abolishing state aid. The Conservatives are supposed to oppose most forms of state aid, so it is astonishing that the right hon. Gentleman does not support the EU in trying to get rid of state aid which has, historically, been used by other EU member states in ways that are to the detriment of British jobs and industry. I should have thought that the ideological position adopted by the Conservatives would lead them to be in favour of the sort of approach embodied in that European committee.
      That does not mean that we should not voice concerns about specific measures laid before the House, and new clause 7 did cause me some concern when I read it and the explanatory notes, especially because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it removes first-year allowances for investment in the road haulage industry. As we heard in earlier debates on the Finance Bill, the road haulage industry in Northern Ireland is in great trouble, because of the differential vehicle excise duties and fuel excise duties charged in Northern Ireland and in the neighbouring country across the land border, the Republic
      690
      of Ireland. Now seems an especially inappropriate time to remove allowances, and my questions to the Minister focus on that issue.
      6.45 pm
      Can the Government think of no other way—for example, through capital allowances or direct grants—to support the road haulage industry in Northern Ireland as it attempts to tackle the problems that are specific to it, rather than generally affecting the mainland road haulage industry? Does the subsection to which the right hon. Member for Wells referred, which would give the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland powers to make specific grants, offer a means of enabling the Government and civil servants to provide help to the Northern Ireland road haulage industry? Obviously, it would be limited to that section of the industry that is related to agricultural transportation, but it might offer a means of helping at least one part of the industry.
      I accept that rules for the application of tax law should appear in legislation, rather than administrative laxity or freedoms allowing civil servants in departments to hand out allowances for specific expenditures. That is not the best way to proceed. However, in the present circumstances of the Northern Ireland road haulage industry encountering great difficulties, that power—if it can be used in the way I suggest and remain in accordance with competition law—might offer Ministers a means of helping that industry, for example, by helping it to convert to fuel-efficient lorries.
      I hope that the Minister will answer my points when she winds up the debate. She should not listen to the protestations of the right hon. Member for Wells in respect of the wider issues.
      Mr. Geraint Davies: At this historic time, as we look toward a peace settlement in Northern Ireland, I am sure that the whole House would welcome any extension of preferential treatment in terms of capital allowances that focused on small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Ireland. The new clause strikes a balance between acting in accordance with competition law and doing too much and risking accusations of providing state aid that distorts competition. The result is that we can promote industrial prosperity in Northern Ireland while abiding by competition law.
      The Conservatives' view seems somewhat schizophrenic. On the one hand, they say that we should have nothing to do with the Europeans and their competition law; on the other hand, they are the first to accuse other European countries of giving unfair subsidies that make our industry uncompetitive. Perhaps we should be accustomed to the Conservatives holding such a contradictory position. We all want fair competition and we all want to support peace in Northern Ireland. Offering preferential treatment to SMEs in Northern Ireland offers a way ahead that fits in with European competition policy, which is much to be applauded. I welcome the new clause.
      Sir Teddy Taylor: The House should realise what it is about tonight. On 12 May 1998, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his intention to introduce 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for spending by small

      691
      and medium-sized businesses on machinery and plant for use in Northern Ireland. That was carefully thought out—the Government did not simply shove the measure on the table and then phone up their friends in Brussels to ask them whether it was fair and reasonable.
      As I hope that the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies)—whose speech was so fascinating—appreciates, although the scheme was carefully thought out before being announced by the Government, it has not yet been activated—it has not happened yet. I am sure that he is having a jolly discussion with the hon. Lady sitting behind him, but I hope that he has heard that simple point. Despite that, and although there has been consultation, the Government are now saying that they got it wrong and will have to change it substantially.
      The Government are removing the 100 per cent. first-year allowances for transport assets. Why would they do that? Has the road haulage industry had a wonderful time? Is it subject to special preference? We all know that the road haulage industry has had massive new taxes imposed on it, so why are the Government discriminating against it in this measure?
      On agriculture and fisheries, the 100 per cent. first-year allowances will be available only for investments authorised with the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland as being compatible. The 100 per cent. first-year allowances will be withdrawn if the asset begins to be used outside Northern Ireland within two years of the expenditure being incurred. How on earth will that be implemented? Will the Government introduce passports for machinery, so that, if machinery is moved from Northern Ireland to, for example, Scotland, they can make a note of that and ensure that the allowance is withdrawn?
      Those are extraordinary measures, and we should ask ourselves why there is panic and why legislative changes are being made to bash road haulage and to introduce a passport for machinery to ensure that it is not transferred, even for a few days, from Northern Ireland to Scotland. Frankly, that is nutty.
      As hon. Members are well aware, I have never been a great fan of grants and allowances in any form. However, the Government are changing a sensible scheme that was carefully thought out and approved by the House. The scheme is very detailed. It says that, to qualify as small and medium-sized enterprises, businesses have to meet two of the following three tests: they have to have an annual turnover of not more than £11 million; they have to have assets of not more than £5.6 million, and they have to have not more than 250 employees. The miracle men of the Treasury had worked out a reasonable, sensible scheme, and the Government are now introducing these rather strange changes before the scheme has even started. I hope that Members will ask themselves, "Why are the Government doing that?"
      The Government are not introducing the changes because they are stupid or nasty, although all Governments can, to some extent, be stupid or nasty. Something has happened or someone has said that they must change the scheme. It is pretty obvious that the Government have been involved in discussions in Europe in secret committees, and that they have not been publishing the resulting papers. A report of the code of conduct group was mentioned in the Treasury Sub-Committee only last week. I said that I had heard that there was a great plan to tell us about unfair tax
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      discrimination and that there was a report on that. I asked whether it was possible to get hold of that report and I was told "No. Such reports are secret and they are not available."
      I have a great friend, a brigadier in Gloucestershire, who can always get secret reports if I particularly want them, so I got that report. I have it in my hand. It is not available to the public. It says that there have been two reports of the code of the conduct committee, which is chaired by the Paymaster General.
      One report classified items of tax competition that the committee felt were unfair, unreasonable and wrong. Four proposals were made. The first related to the film industry. The poor old film industry had better watch out, because it is going to get clobbered. The second related to tax relief on shipping, and I warn that industry that it, too, will be clobbered. The third related to enterprise zones and the fourth to first-year capital allowances in Northern Ireland. Those were identified by that secret EU committee as one of the flaws in the tax arrangements.
      I am sure that you will rule me out of order if necessary, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but what worries me is the contents of the second report of that committee, which are alarming and terrible. When they become public, people will be upset.
      As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I had rows with the previous Government just as I do with this Government. Why the blazes will they not tell the people the truth about what is happening in Brussels? Why the blazes will they not publish the reports as they emerge? I am sure that the Government will say that the reports do not require them to take action. We all know what is happening with tax harmonisation and we all know what is being forced on us. We all know what is coming in by the back door, and it is time that people told the truth. I am sure that the Government are exactly the same as the previous Government, and they should tell people what is happening. I ask the Minister why those reports cannot be published. Why cannot the report for which I asked, which emerged in May, be published? Why cannot the Treasury Sub-Committee get hold of it?
      I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I am getting bad-tempered in my old age, but what is happening in the House of Commons is appalling. People are not being told what is happening. The Government are making announcements and we are debating measures about which we can do nothing. Although there may be a case for throwing away our democracy, we should be consulted.
      Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a parallel between this case and the publishing of the minutes of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee? If those minutes can be published, why cannot the minutes of the committees to which he refers also be published?
      Sir Teddy Taylor: It is interesting to read the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee, and I agree with my hon. Friend that the more we publish, the better. We do not want secret information but, if the Government are saying that there are tax mistakes or unfair forms of taxation, Parliament and the people should be told.

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      Part of the latest report concerns the Channel Islands, and, frankly, I should not like to have any money invested in the Channel Islands now—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman considerable leeway. He is, of course, entitled to make his point about the new clause, but he is not entitled to debate the generality of his argument about secrecy and openness. The new clause concerns first-year allowances for investment in Northern Ireland, and his remarks must relate to that.
      Sir Teddy Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I mention discussions in Europe only because the report specifically says that our grants to Northern Ireland industry are considered wrong and unfair by the code of conduct committee. If we cannot mention that, I do not know why we are in the House of Commons at all. It may be said that the reports are not public and that people cannot get hold of them, but they exist and they arise from meetings that have taken place.
      I am very sorry that, for the first time since I came here in 1964—which was a long time ago—I have had a dispute with the person in the Chair. It is not my practice to fall out with those who are in the Chair. However, something very nasty and wrong is happening, and I find it appalling that the Minister can say that the Government have suddenly decided, for no apparent reason, that the allowances that they agreed only last year and that have not yet been introduced must all be changed.
      The Government will no doubt say that they are not legally obliged to implement the conclusions of the code of conduct committee, but that committee regards four specific items as contrary to tax harmonisation, and we do not know about many of its other conclusions, so, although I shall achieve nothing in relation to the new clause and I shall probably fall out with more people than ever before, I urge the Government, at the very least, to start publishing the committee's reports. They know that those reports will, in any event, become public. I have the latest report, which has not yet been published, and I am sure that someone else will get hold of the next one.
      Why cannot Parliament be told what the Government are discussing? Why cannot we be told what agreements are being made on taxation? Having spent 35 years in the House and discussed many matters, I find it sad that people are not being told about such agreements and that we spend a great deal of time discussing things that we can do nothing about. We are—inadvertently, I am sure—being misled about the origin of the changes introduced in the new clause. I hope that other hon. Members will ask themselves why the Government suddenly want to change a detailed scheme that was introduced in 1998, before it has even been implemented. There is something wrong in that, and I hope that my colleagues will pick up on that.
      7 pm
      Mr. Jack: This is an intriguing new clause. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to shine a little light into what, from the speeches so far, seem to be increasingly murky waters.
      One of the things that worries me in overall terms is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) said, something was
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      introduced after careful thought in order to confer a tax advantage on one part of the United Kingdom, yet, for the reason that the Minister described in response to my intervention—it offends competition law—it is being changed. She also prayed in aid state aids. I am now less clear about the matter than I was before she replied. If the Financial Secretary will do me the courtesy of listening, I should like to ask her why, for example, 100 per cent. scientific research allowances that are available in Northern Ireland are not affected by the proposals.
      In general, two important tax principles are raised by the new clause. One is whether giving any 100 per cent. allowances contravenes the currently unspecified competition laws. The second is whether a sovereign member of the European Union choosing to grant a tax advantage to one area within its own boundaries runs foul of our position in the EU.
      I have always understood that one of the principles that one operates in tax in this area is that of fiscal competition. My understanding is that, up to now, a country wishing to confer certain capital allowances for certain purposes on certain tax regimes has never been challenged; we may have whatever allowances we like. It is difficult to answer why we appear to be corrupting that advantageous position by the new clause. The Financial Secretary must spell out very clearly how competition law interacts with the sovereign right of the UK to levy its own tax rates.
      We are facing harmonisation by the back door. The Financial Secretary winces, but she will know that, when I was in the Treasury, all our EU partners—certainly the major players who valued independence of their tax-determining regimes—would have fought tooth and nail the case of Hoechst v. the European Union on a matter connected with corporation tax because they did not want somebody else determining their tax law.
      If, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East says—he and I have not always agreed on matters European—there has been a change of Government policy, let us have it out in the open. It is no use the Financial Secretary shaking her head. One of the values of these debates is that we may tease out any new interaction between competition law and tax law, with which the new clause deals.
      I should like a specific answer to the question how, for example, Northern Ireland can benefit from a 100 per cent. scientific research allowance but cannot benefit from the original proposal. Will the Financial Secretary spell out the competition laws that are corrupted by the proposed state aid?
      We know that one country may confer a benefit through the tax system, but another may do so by another mechanism. It is certainly of interest to those in the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland to know of the disquiet among Northern Ireland pig producers over the moneys that were passed to French pig producers in connection with difficulties faced in the French industry. The £150 million that the French Government passed to their pig producers was supposedly to deal with restructuring their industry. The French Government may have decided to deal with that matter via a tax allowance. Similarly, we may have responded by giving our pig industry a tax allowance for various matters such as welfare.

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      Has there been any attempt in framing the new clause to ensure that there is equivalence of help across the EU, given that we may choose to help an industry via tax allowances, but another member state may deal with such a situation by another method? I am now more confused than ever in understanding how there can be parity of competition. The example that I quoted is not hypothetical; it a real issue that affects pig producers not just in Northern Ireland but in the United Kingdom generally.
      It might have been helpful if the Financial Secretary in her opening remarks had compared and contrasted capital allowances north and south of the border. By and large, the use of assets, particularly agricultural assets, is the point of comparison. I would have liked to have known that we were not disadvantaging ourselves in Northern Ireland by the proposed measure.
      I turn to an aspect on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) touched in his pertinent and perceptive comments. In tax terms, this is a highly unusual measure. DANI is to make statements on what qualifies for tax allowances. Can the Financial Secretary tell me whether those judgments are challengeable via the commissioners of the Inland Revenue? It strikes me that we have a one-way street. DANI will be able to make judgments—there is no definitive list in the new clause—but there appears to be no mechanism for challenging them. The only way in which taxpayers may normally deal with such circumstances is to challenge an Inland Revenue ruling through the commissioners. I am not clear whether that mechanism will be open to people in this matter.
      The proposed subsection (3CE) is even more mysterious. It says that DANI authorisations
      "may, if given generally, be modified by that Department",
      and
      "may in any case be absolute or conditional."
      Does that mean that DANI, or someone else giving an interpretation of the new clause, will be allowed a second bite at a ruling? It sounds to me as if some conditional ruling could be given, hinting that an allowance might be included, but subsequently modified or omitted. That is a recipe for, to say the least, a lack of clarity and certainly a lack of precision in operation. I, for one, would like some clarification.
      I do not understand how a fiscal activity puts us in contravention with competition laws when we already have an ability to set sovereign rates of tax as we choose. I underscore the importance that I attach to being given clear explanations of why we thought that the legislation as originally drafted was all right, but we are now told that it must be modified by new clause 7.
      Mrs. Roche: This has been an interesting debate. If one had heard the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), one would have thought that the Conservative party was in favour of first-year capital allowances. However, the right hon. Gentleman neglected to point out that, in 1984, Lord Lawson, then Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, phased out 100 per cent. first-year allowances.
      Of course I understand the speech made by the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor); I assure him that I have a great regard for him and have no intention of falling out with him. However, I want to
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      make it clear to all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken that, although the Northern Ireland measures were notified to the code of conduct group that is chaired by my hon. Friend the Paymaster General, we do not believe that they represent harmful tax competition. We are considering not that group, but state aids. I point out to the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack)—in the gentlest possible terms—that I sometimes wonder whether we inhabit parallel Treasuries. The state aid rules were in place when we joined the EU. Any aid, including fiscal aid, can be found to be a state aid. That has always been the case; it was certainly the case when the right hon. Gentleman held the position of Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
      Sir Teddy Taylor: As the hon. Lady has suggested that the Government may not have reported this matter to the code of conduct committee, will she ask her officials to read page 63 of the committee's report, published on 25 May, reference 8231/99? The report gives the clear impression that the matter was one of a small number of alleged, harmful tax competition measures presented to the committee by the UK Government. I realise that Ministers sometimes do not see such reports, but it is there in black and white.
      Mrs. Roche: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but perhaps he did not hear me correctly. I said that the matter had been notified to the committee. However, we are dealing not with that group, but with the normal rules on state aids, and I shall deal with that during my remarks.
      Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The issue is not whether the matter was notified to the committee, but whether the committee is investigating it as potentially harmful to tax competition. We submit that it is the latter; the matter is under review and hence may be withdrawn by the Government, under the assurance that they have already given that they would abide by the outcome of the committee.
      Mrs. Roche: The right hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong; the premise of his speech was wrong. It is not the code of conduct group that is at issue, but state aids. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman views that group as a vast conspiracy. Let me allay his fears. I am afraid that he goes home at night wondering whether the code of conduct group is following him. With my long experience as a constituency Member of Parliament, I have regularly had to reassure my constituents as to such fears. I am anxious to reassure him that it is not a problem.
      When we introduced the measure, we said in our press release that it would need to be cleared with the European Commission as a potential state aid. Could we have been more open than that? It was clear from the start. State aid rules arise within the framework of Community competition policy and have a legal basis in the provisions of the treaty of Rome. The provisions make illegal any non-approved aid given by a member state in any form that distorts, or threatens to distort, competition by favouring certain businesses or regions, or the production of certain goods—that has always been in the treaty. The EC enforces state aid rules and approves certain state aids that are compatible with the common market.

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      In my introductory remarks, I pointed out that the Government support a tough stance on state aid. We have consistently supported initiatives both to tighten the state aid rules and to improve their implementation, with the overall aim of reducing distortions in the single market and of improving competitiveness in Europe. I think that the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East acknowledged that in his remarks. We introduced the 100 per cent. first-year allowances and the enabling legislation last year, to give a clear signal of our support for new investment in Northern Ireland. That is what it was all about. As we made clear in the press release, we knew that we should need to clear the measure with the Commission before it could be brought into effect.
      I want to spell out that there would have been no point in restricting the scope beforehand. As the House is aware, the state rules are complex, and subject to negotiation. We bid high, knowing that we might have to compromise and settle for less at the end of the day. However, we rightly wanted to get the best possible deal for small businesses in Northern Ireland—as any Government would want to do. Given recent events, I am sure that the House is united in wanting prosperity for Northern Ireland.
      7.15 pm
      Mr. Clifton-Brown: I have listened carefully to the Financial Secretary's remarks. She pointed out that the state aid rules are extremely complicated. Indeed, the European Court does not operate on the basis of precedent like our own courts; it can overrule its previous decisions. It seems, therefore, that DANI will have an impossible job in trying to judge, at the margins, whether those decisions come under the state aid rules. It will surely always have to rule against the decisions coming under those provisions. Will the hon. Lady explain how DANI will be able to make decisions?
      Mrs. Roche: When one is dealing with matters that are the subject of debate within the EU, such as agriculture, of course one needs tight rules. However, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the Department is expert in such matters. When the rules are applicable, we want businesses to take advantage of them.
      The road haulage sector was mentioned. There will be limited impact on hauliers, because most road haulage in Northern Ireland is cross-border or international, and hence would not have met the condition in the provisional measure that assets must be used primarily in Northern Ireland. The new clause excludes only vehicles and containers from the scope of first-year allowances; the road haulage sector will still be able to claim 100 per cent. first-year allowances on other assets. I know that that will be of interest to the industry.
      Under the treaty of Rome, there are strict rules on state aids for agriculture; that is why the provisions relating to DANI are included. However, there will be a right to go before the Commissioners.
      The new clause is extremely sensible; we have tried to achieve the best possible deal for businesses in Northern Ireland. I commend it to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 15

      OIL TAXATION: QUALIFYING ASSETS
      '.—(1) Subsection (2) below applies where—

      (a) an asset which is not a mobile asset is a qualifying asset for the purposes of the Oil Taxation Act 1983 in relation to a person ("the taxpayer") who is a participator in an oil field ("the field");

      (b) tariff receipts or disposal receipts of the taxpayer which are referable to the asset are attributable to the field for a chargeable period ("the earlier period");

      (c) receipts of the taxpayer which are referable to the asset for a subsequent chargeable period ("the later period") would not, apart from this section, be tariff receipts or disposal receipts attributable to the field for that period as a result of—

      (i) the taxpayer's ceasing to be a participator in the field; or

      (ii) his becoming a participator in another oil field; and

      (d) not more than two chargeable periods intervene between the earlier period and the later period.

      (2) The Oil Taxation Acts shall have effect, in relation to the later period and any subsequent chargeable period, as if—

      (a) receipts of the taxpayer which are referable to the asset for the period concerned were tariff receipts or disposal receipts attributable to the field for that period; and

      (b) in a case falling within subsection (1)(c)(i) above, the taxpayer continued to be a participator in the field.

      (3) Subsection (4) below applies where—

      (a) an asset which is not a mobile asset is a qualifying asset for the purposes of the Oil Taxation Act 1983 in relation to a person ("the taxpayer") who is a participator in an oil field ("the field");

      (b) tariff receipts or disposal receipts of the taxpayer which are referable to the asset are attributable to the field for a chargeable period ("the earlier period");

      (c) in a subsequent chargeable period ("the later period") the taxpayer disposes of—

      (i) the asset; or

      (ii) an interest in the asset,

      to another person ("the transferee") in circumstances such that section 7 of the Oil Taxation Act 1983 does not apply to the disposal; and

      (d) not more than two chargeable periods intervene between the earlier period and the later period.

      (4) The Oil Taxation Acts shall have effect, in relation to the later period and any subsequent chargeable period, as if—

      (a) receipts of the transferee which are referable to the asset for the period concerned were tariff receipts or disposal receipts attributable to the field for that period; and

      (b) the transferee were a participator in the field.

      (5) Subject to subsection (6) below, any reference in this section to receipts of any person which are referable to the asset for a period is a reference to any sums which—

      (a) are received or receivable by that person in that period in respect of the use of the asset, or the provision of services or other business facilities of whatever kind in connection with its use; or

      (b) are received or receivable by that person in respect of the disposal in that period of the asset, or an interest in the asset.

      (6) In a case falling within subsection (3)(c)(ii) above—

      (a) any sums which are received or receivable by the transferee otherwise than by virtue of his acquisition of the interest shall not be regarded for the purposes of subsection (4) above as receipts of his which are referable to the asset for any period; and

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      (b) for the purposes of paragraph (a) above, such apportionments shall be made as may be just and reasonable.

      (7) This section shall be construed as one with Part I of the Oil Taxation Act 1975; and in this section "the Oil Taxation Acts" means—

      (a) the enactments relating to petroleum revenue tax (including this section);

      (b) Chapter V of Part XII of the Taxes Act 1988 (petroleum extraction activities); and

      (c) sections 62 to 65 of the Finance Act 1991 (oil industry)

      (8) Nothing in this section shall be taken to affect the meaning of "participator" in paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the principal Act.
      (9) Subject to subsection (11) below, subsection (1) above applies where—

      (a) the disposal by virtue of which the taxpayer ceased to be a participator in the field; or

      (b) the acquisition by virtue of which he became a participator in the other oil field,

      was made on or after 1st July 1999.
      (10) Subject to subsection (11) below, subsection (3) above applies where the asset, or the interest in the asset, was disposed of on or after that date.
      (11) Neither subsection (1) nor subsection (3) above applies where the disposal or acquisition concerned was made pursuant to an agreement which was made before 1st July 1999 and either—

      (a) the agreement was not conditional; or

      (b) the agreement was conditional and the condition was satisfied before that date.'.—[Mrs. Roche.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mrs. Roche: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 16—Petroleum revenue tax: instalments.
      Government new clause 17—Business assets: roll-over relief.
      New clause 19—Offshore oil and gas: roll-over relief—
      '.—(1) Section 193 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 is hereby repealed with effect from 6th April 1999.
      (2) In section 155 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (classes of assets for the purposes of roll-over relief) after Class 8 there shall be inserted—

      CLASS 9
      A licence under Part I of the Petroleum Act 1998 or the Petroleum (Production) Act (Northern Ireland) 1964.
      This section applies to all licences (or interests in them) disposed of on or after the 6th April 1999.".'.
      Government amendment No. 35.
      Mrs. Roche: The new clauses and the amendment relate to the taxation of North sea oil and gas activities. New clause 15 prevents the avoidance of petroleum revenue tax—PRT—that could occur if tariff income, which was attributable to a PRT-paying field, were shifted to a non-PRT-paying field.
      New clause 16 will maintain the monthly flow of PRT receipts from companies which, mainly as a result of new clause 15, will be participators in a PRT-paying field, although they will have no interest in the oil and gas produced by that field.
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      New clause 17 and the related amendment No. 35 extend capital gains roll-over to UK oil licences. That change will make it easier for the oil industry to rationalise its holdings of North sea oil licences. This will allow more scope for cost cutting and more aggressive development of new prospects.
      There is evidence that some oil companies are considering restructuring their interests in North sea oil and gas fields. Due to the existing rules for charging PRT on tariffs received for the use of pipelines and other North sea oil assets, a restructuring of assets can lead to tariffs being shifted, for PRT purposes, from the current chargeable field to a different field.
      Where the tariffs are currently attributable to a field that pays PRT, there will be an effective PRT charge on the tariffs. That PRT would be lost if the tariffs were shifted to a field that did not pay PRT. There is no justification for that loss of PRT, particularly as it would create a mismatch between the effective PRT relief already given in the PRT-paying field on expenditure on building the assets and the lack of an effective PRT charge on future tariff income.
      New clause 15 prevents that PRT loss by ensuring that, where a restructuring would lead to a change in the field to which tariffs are attributed for PRT purposes, the tariffs will continue to be attributable to the current field. In addition, if the owner of the tariff-generating assets would not, following restructuring, be a participator in the field to which tariffs remain attributable for PRT purposes, he will be deemed to be a participator in that field. That will ensure that PRT can be charged in that field on the tariffs that are attributable to it.
      New clause 15 is aimed at retaining the current PRT charge on tariffs which could be lost due to the restructuring of companies' interests in North sea oil and gas fields, but it should not prevent restructuring of these interests. Where there are good commercial reasons for the restructuring, new clause 15 should not prevent the companies from going ahead with it.
      The total tax potentially at risk from companies being able to shift tariffs from PRT-paying fields to non-PRT-paying fields is about £100 million per year. New clause 15 will protect those tax receipts.
      New clause 15 has been introduced at this stage due to the evidence that has very recently come to light about some companies considering the restructuring of their interests in North sea oil and gas fields in a way that would have led to a loss of PRT on tariff income. To protect that tax, we have had to act very quickly.
      One effect of new clause 15 is that there will be more companies that are participators in a North sea oilfield but that do not own an interest in the oil produced.
      PRT, as the House knows, is paid by monthly instalment. The amount of the instalment is based on the PRT liability for the previous period, and an adjusting payment or repayment is made, two months after the end of each chargeable period, to take account of any underpayment or overpayment of PRT for the current period. Where a participator in a field has not delivered or appropriated any oil in any month, he can withhold the PRT instalment that is due in the following month. That is because an oil company that has received no cash flow from the field in the previous month may not have sufficient cash to pay its PRT instalment.

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      Companies that are deemed to be participators by new clause 15 will be able to use that rule to withhold all PRT instalments, given that, as they have no interest in the oil produced by the field, they will never have received oil in a previous month. But there is no justification for allowing a company to withhold instalments if the company has received tariff income in the previous month. New clause 16 therefore ensures that a PRT instalment for a month cannot be withheld if the participator has any tariff receipts that are received or receivable in the previous month. New clauses 15 and 16 therefore aim to protect the Exchequer from the loss of tax that would arise from tax avoidance.
      New clause 17, on the other hand, extends a relief—roll-over relief—to gains that oil companies make on the disposal of UK oil licences. Roll-over relief allows a business to sell one business asset and acquire another without facing an immediate capital gains tax charge. By deferring the tax charge, the relief helps reduce the effect of tax on companies' investment decisions.
      UK oil licences were removed from the scope of roll-over relief in 1987. As a result, if a company sold its interest in a UK oil licence, it was liable to an immediate tax charge on any chargeable gain that arose. That charge was levied even if the proceeds of the sale were reinvested in another UK oil licence.
      Our recent discussions with oil companies have revealed that the North sea oil industry has changed significantly since 1987. There is now far more emphasis on developing mature fields, maximising the use of existing infrastructure and managing projects efficiently. In that context, the absence of roll-over relief is causing problems for companies as they seek to rationalise and consolidate their North sea interests. It is now no longer appropriate to deny roll-over relief on UK oil licences.
      New clause 17 therefore repeals the 1987 legislation that excluded UK oil licences from the scope of roll-over relief. The House will be pleased to know that UK oil licences will now be put on a similar footing to most other business assets and qualify for roll-over relief. Amendment No. 35 is consequential: it includes the repeal within the list of provisions in the repeals schedule of the Finance Bill.
      I hope that this news will be greeted very warmly by both sides of the House; it certainly will be by the industry. I commend the Government new clauses and the amendment to the House.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: The hon. Lady intoned her brief like an orthodox priest intoning a liturgy in Church Slavonic which he did not understand and did not expect his audience to. She does much less than justice to the two measures that the Government are proposing. They are quite different from one another.
      Mrs. Roche: As a member of the United Synagogue, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will rephrase that; I would hate him to get me into any trouble.
      Mr. Davies: The hon. Lady is proposing five new measures. They are, in fact, about two quite different subjects. The first two—new clauses 15 and 16—deal
      702
      with a PRT issue, and the subsequent three measures deal with a capital gains tax issue. It would be sensible to separate the two.
      On the first group—new clauses 15 and 16—we have no problem in principle with a measure that is obviously designed to prevent avoidance of PRT. Let us say that a company has an asset that has benefited from PRT relief in its purchase or construction. It then gives up its interests in the production of a field, but maintains that tariff-generating asset to service the field. Under present rules, that tariff-generating asset could be allocated to a non-PRT field and so, whereas the asset had benefited from PRT reliefs in the past, the revenues generated by it would not be subject to PRT. In so far as new clause 15 restores symmetry in that respect and prevents the loss to the Exchequer of avoidable—I believe unjustly avoidable—PRT, we are very happy with it.
      New clause 16 deals with the consequential case: if a company has given up its interests in the production of a field, by definition it has no production so, under the rule that says that if it has no production for two quarters it does not pay PRT, it would be relieved of paying PRT for ever. I take it that the hon. Lady, in conceiving these two new clauses, had in mind something like a gas or oil pipeline that services a number of fields and could, by this method, without new clause 16, be switched from a PRT field to a non-PRT field.
      Mrs. Roche indicated assent.
      Mr. Davies: I see that the hon. Lady endorses my interpretation. However, I would like to ask her, because it is an important point, exactly what type of assets would be involved. I take the pipeline to be a clear case in point. I see that the second line of new clause 15 excludes mobile assets. Clearly, something like a mobile drilling rig would be a mobile asset. However, what would be the position of a floating production platform? Could such a platform have benefited from PRT relief when it was installed in a PRT field? If it is shifted to another field, will it generate revenues free of PRT? I do not know whether the Financial Secretary is listening to my question but it is an important one. The House deserves an answer to it and we look forward to that.
      7.30 pm
      I ask the hon. Lady to be precise with the definition of assets. She was not precise in her speech, and nor were the Government in their explanatory notes. I have suggested pipelines but we want to know beyond that what types of asset would be affected. That having been established, I think that in principle the Opposition would be happy to accede to the new clause.
      When I read new clause 17, I naturally thought, "Hurrah!" What is the new clause? Of course, the Government would not tell us. The Financial Secretary has not mentioned it. New clause 17 represents the Government bringing forward a provision to deliver exactly the effect for which we have been lobbying. Our new clause 19 is designed to produce exactly the same effect. It is probable that the Government heard from the industry—we consulted it on these matters last week—that we were bringing forward a new clause. No doubt the Government thought, "Right, we shall trump the Conservatives. After all, we will do the right thing ourselves."

      703
      The Financial Secretary is clearly embarrassed about this. If not, she would have mentioned the Opposition's new clause in her introductory remarks. She managed to skate over the fact that there are two new clauses on the amendment paper that would have the same effect. Both would achieve by different means exactly the same effect.
      Mrs. Roche rose—
      Mr. Davies: The hon. Lady has been rumbled and I give way.
      Mrs. Roche: The hon. Gentleman has been in the House rather longer than me. However, I did not think—no doubt I shall be corrected—that it was my job when I opened the debate to speak to the Opposition's new clauses and amendments. I might be wrong, but I thought that I would leave that to the hon. Gentleman and others.
      Despite all the bluster that we have heard from the hon. Gentleman, I said that the Conservative Government had removed the relief in 1987. I am extremely glad that the hon. Gentleman has come around to our point of view, but it is rather late.
      Mr. Davies: The hon. Lady's attitude is astonishing. First, she is found guilty of plagiarism, and tries to hide the fact. Secondly, she introduces the Government's new clause while trying to hide from the House the fact that there is an alternative on the amendment paper which addresses the same issue but suggests a different response. My greatest suspicions are aroused by the hon. Lady's behaviour. Obviously she did not feel confident enough of her solution to the problem to want to refer to the Opposition's solution. If she thought that her solution was better and ours was weaker or less adequate than her own, she would have been delighted to speak to our new clause to explain why the Government's new clause was better. However, she did not do that.
      Tonight, the House has a three-way choice. First, it can decide to do nothing and leave the present regime in place. Secondly, it can accept the Government's proposal to grant roll-over relief to North sea licences. Thirdly, it can accept the Opposition's proposal to grant North sea roll-over relief to North sea licences. The two proposals are very different.
      Mr. Edward Davey: If the Government are being as opportunistic as the hon. Gentleman seems to be alleging, surely they would have done this before the Scottish parliamentary elections.
      Mr. Davies: I do not think that the Government have been particularly clever in their handling of the Scottish parliamentary elections, which is why other parties did so well, to the Government's great surprise. I am not surprised that they got their tactics wrong for that one as well, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
      We have had this situation before, and it has done great damage to the country. The Conservative party has come up with a solid proposal. It is a well-thought-through, viable and sensible proposal that is very much in the national interest. The Labour party, not to be outdone, and out of sheer machismo or pique, has decided to destroy what the Conservative party put in place when we were
      704
      in government, or to pretend or attempt to neglect, as we have seen this afternoon, the proposals that we are putting forward in opposition, in favour of their own.
      There was a striking example of that over the past few months with the destruction of personal equity plans and tax-exempt special savings accounts, which were great successes. The Government could not bear the fact that those scheme were great successes and that people were saving more money.
      Mr. Bob Blizzard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Davies: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. He must learn patience.
      The Government could not bear the idea that these schemes were great successes and that household saving was increasing so well through PEPs and TESSAs. Against that background, they had to introduce their own scheme. The independent savings account is full of holes, full of shortcomings and badly thought through. Of course, it went quite wrong.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that he is straying way beyond the terms of the new clause. Perhaps he will return to the matter in hand.
      Mr. Davies: Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will not say any more about PEPs and TESSAs versus ISAs. However, I think that the analogy is a fair one. We have a choice between a Conservative proposal and a Labour proposal. What is more, we have the Labour Government trying to pretend that the Conservative proposal does not exist. The Labour Government are running away from the opportunity to explain the merits of the two proposals and to defend their own. It appears that they are not capable of criticising our proposal.
      Mr. Blizzard: The hon. Gentleman is trying to claim credit for a Conservative proposal. However, when I argued the point during Treasury questions, no Conservative Member rose to continue to press it. When I asked my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Industry during Trade and Industry questions to take up the point, again no Opposition Member intervened in support. During the meetings of the all-party group, of which I am the chairman, no Conservative Members have pressed the case. How can the hon. Gentleman square reality with what he is saying now?
      Mr. Davies: If the hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied with an answer that he receives during parliamentary questions, he must take up the matter with the Ministers concerned. It is Labour Ministers who are in a position to give answers. The hon. Gentleman has scored something of an own goal or has aimed a shot at his own side.
      The difference between the two approaches is quite significant. However, we both appear to have the same stated aims, just as with savings schemes, which I must not mention—but we both apparently want to increase savings. The Conservative scheme or schemes delivered that and Labour's did not. Indeed, the Labour scheme delivered a great reduction in savings. In this instance,

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      we again have the same aims. We both agree that it would be desirable to remove any tax obstacles to greater trading of North sea assets.
      It is quite natural that at the beginning of the exploitation of a new field, such as the North sea, the risks are high. When licences are being bid for, those risks will be syndicated extensively so that there will be many participations. As fields become more mature, it is natural that there should be trading of those assets, shares and licences, and that there should be fewer holders. In many instances such restructuring can lead to economies of scale, which are extremely desirable.
      Apparently we are all at one on the objective. That is certainly the Opposition's position. We believe that roll-over relief should be provided for North sea assets, as it is for many other business assets in this country. The question is how best to get there. We decided to get there in the most direct and straightforward fashion, and that was by saying, "We already have eight classes of business assets which qualify for roll-over relief, so we shall create a ninth." The eight classes have proved to be quite robust. There has been no difficulty at all in obtaining roll-over relief. There has been no ambiguity—and, to my knowledge, no court cases—about businesses in those eight established classes getting roll-over relief.
      The sensible step would be to add a ninth class as we have done in new clause 19. What is wrong with that approach? The Financial Secretary did not attempt to argue that there was anything wrong with that approach, and I draw some comfort from her silence. That approach was evidently so unexceptionable that the hon. Lady, who is pretty combative in her way when she wants to be, gave up at the thought of trying to take exception to it. We can take comfort from the proposal that we conceived and tabled.
      The hon. Lady's proposal, new clause 17, takes a different approach—a more complicated and less certain approach, which is much less sensible. It knocks out the provisions of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 that explicitly excluded North sea assets from benefiting from roll-over relief. The Government's new clause would restore the status quo ante—the status quo before 1992. The hon. Lady either has not done her homework, or she is being less than frank with the House by not mentioning that. She tried to skate over a material aspect of her new clause. The problem with re-establishing the status quo that existed before the 1992 Act is that that state of affairs was uncertain and unsatisfactory.
      It was possible to argue then, and it had been argued before 1987, that North sea licences amounted to a claim on the continental shelf. The continental shelf is land—indeed, it was defined by the 1958 Geneva convention on the continental shelf, and confirmed by the 1982 law of the sea convention, as the extension of the land of a coastal state under the waves, so to speak.
      The claim was made before 1987, not unreasonably but by no means with unambiguous certainty, that a licence was a claim on land, and that roll-over relief should therefore be provided, because land that was being exploited by the business that held the licence should qualify for roll-over relief under class 1, whereby land occupied for a commercial purpose benefits from roll-over relief.
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      The trouble was that that was not unambiguous. So uncertain was it that the Revenue challenged that interpretation, which gave rise to the famous case of RTZ v. Ellis in 1987, in which the Revenue argued that an area was not land and RTZ claimed that it was. As I recall, the matter was referred to the special commissioners, who decided in favour of RTZ. The Government of the day decided to legislate before the matter reached the High Court.
      In other words, the jurisprudence was never established before the statute of 1987, which was replaced by the 1992 statute that the Government want to repeal. By definition, a return to the status quo ante would be a return to a state of ambiguity that was never resolved, and which was the basis for extremely expensive investigation and much doubt on the part of investors, businesses and all those involved in the oil industry.
      7.45 pm
      That would be a foolish way of trying to resolve the problem. I want to hear from the hon. Lady why she decided to resolve it in that way, and why, as she has taken up our initiative to grant roll-over relief to North sea assets, if it was for reasons other than machismo or pique on her part, she did not accept our way of doing that. The House deserves and will require such an explanation.
      If the hon. Lady does not want to withdraw new clause 17 and accept new clause 19, which would be the best way of resolving the problem, I suggest that she makes a clear statement to the House now that the Government interpret the law prior to 1992 to mean that the continental shelf counts as land for the purposes of class 1 roll-over relief. If she says that, it may have some force in the courts if the matter is subsequently litigated.
      However, I regard that as second best. It would be far better for the Government to accept our proposal and to go down that much surer and safer avenue. If the hon. Lady wants to carry the Opposition with her, she must go down one of those routes. So that the matter is absolutely plain, I repeat that she should accept new clause 19—in any event the House deserves an explanation of why she does not consider that a better route—or she should make sure that, if she goes back to the status quo before 1992 or the first legislation on the subject in 1987, the ambiguity that then prevailed is not restored. The only way in which she can do that is by making that declaration now from the Treasury Bench.
      Mr. Frank Doran: I welcome the measure presented by the Government and the speed with which it has been introduced. Before I develop that point, I shall comment on the speech that we have just heard from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies).
      It is always endearing to hear a Front-Bench spokesman for the Conservative party pretending that the Conservative party still matters. The gist of the speech of the hon. Gentleman seemed to be that the Government were ignoring the new clauses tabled by the official Opposition. If that contribution was an example of the Conservative Front-Bench team at its best, it is not difficult to see why the contribution was ignored.
      The hon. Gentleman left one indelible impression on my mind—the idea of our three women Treasury Ministers strutting their machismo round the Chamber.

      707
      I hope that they will carry on strutting their machismo for the rest of our discussion of the Bill, because it is important that they hold the line.
      The importance of the oil industry in the United Kingdom is often understated. Not only can we produce our own oil, but the industry still pays substantial sums to the Treasury—about £4 billion a year, down from the boom years when about £12 billion a year was paid in royalties and tax to the Treasury. It is a mature industry and is now in decline. We know that the decline will be long and slow. In my constituency in Aberdeen, we are still looking to at least another 20 or 30 years of the oil industry.
      The fact that the industry is not in its prime must be taken into account, so I am pleased that the Government have introduced the measure. One of the biggest problems that the industry faces is the ownership structure. In the early years, many small and large companies bought shares in the various oilfields that were developed, some of them speculatively, and some of the shares have paid off handsomely.
      However, rationalisation of investment is necessary to reduce costs in the North sea. We are still an expensive province, and we all compete for the same share of oil investment. It is a global industry and a global market. There is one pot of money in each company, and we compete with provinces around the world for that investment, for example, we compete with Kazakhstan, western Australia, Asia and the middle east.
      Most of the middle eastern Governments are exploring the possibility of western investment coming in. All those countries can produce their oil and their gas much more cheaply than we can in the United Kingdom, so it is important that the Government take every opportunity to support the industry. The measure is a small but important one, particularly for the long-term future of the industry.
      There are about 380,000 jobs in the oil industry throughout the UK. A recent survey by the Offshore Contractors Association, which is based in my constituency of Aberdeen, determined that 220 Members of the House had constituencies with more than 500 oil-related jobs. That is a significant figure. There is an impression that the industry operates only in Aberdeen, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Teesside and Merseyside, but it penetrates virtually all the country. Even here in the south-east and central London, significant numbers of jobs in planning, computers and software are related to the oil industry.
      Measures that help the industry and the jobs in my constituency help jobs throughout the country. They will also help to sustain the industry throughout the country for the next 20 or 30 years and I congratulate the Government on their introduction.
      Sir Robert Smith: I follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran) in emphasising the pervasiveness of the oil industry. It has not only a direct, obvious presence, but has tentacles—such as subcontracting and the supply industry, which depend on it—that reach throughout the United Kingdom economy. It is important not only to Members of Parliament who represent constituencies with a direct oil interest, but to every hon. Member that the oil industry thrives and prospers long into the future.
      708
      As the joint vice-chair of the all-party offshore oil and gas industry group, I recognise the industry's importance and welcome anything that will help it to grow and prosper. Although it is especially important to my constituency in the north-east of Scotland—it is obvious and on the doorstep—from time to time we lose sight of the extent to which it pervades our local economy and how dependent on it we have become. Therefore we do not always realise that we look to the future by supporting and developing it.
      We must look to the future by making sure that the industry's morale survives this period of low oil prices and by recognising that the industry is a mature province. Although we still have infrastructure in the original main fields, new technologies can exploit far smaller reserves that were ignored first time round. Those technologies are viable and economic because they can bolt on to the original technology at the heart of the mother fields, but if they go out of production we will lose that essential infrastructure and not achieve further onward developments.
      Such developments would be a great benefit because the technology being developed in the North sea is exportable. If we have a good home market and a good home base for the industry, we can build the export industry and confidence in it. This country missed opportunities because it did not develop the export potential of an industry on our own doorstep as much as we might have liked. However, many small innovative contractors have the confidence to export, but they need the security of the home market. That is why anything that the Government can do to avoid disrupting the market and to encourage it is to be welcomed.
      When the Government were elected, they did not fully understand the sensitivity of the market and embarked on a clumsy review of oil taxation, which worried people and threatened investment. I hope that the measure is a sign that we can draw a line in the sand on that and that the Government are beginning to learn their lessons and work constructively with the industry. I have welcomed the establishment of the task force. I hope that the measure is a symptom of what can come out of its work—not only bringing the industry and various Departments together to understand how complex and interconnected the industry is, but bringing various sectors of the industry together so that they can co-operate. Taking a constructive approach to the industry will benefit the individual players within it.
      We need to drive forward the industry's export potential. In particular, I welcome paragraph 10 of the Treasury briefing on new clause 17, which states:
      "The cost of this measure is therefore expected to be negligible. The loss of tax on gains on oil licence disposals under current legislation is expected to be offset by increases in tax yield resulting from the benefits of more rationalisation of UK oil licence holdings."
      That underpins the whole argument that those of us who support a long-term viable future for the industry have been putting to the Government. We want them to say now that they want to make money from the long-term future of the industry and want it to survive. That would send an important signal to people in boardrooms around the country who are deciding where to invest. If the country bought into the idea of achieving long-term returns, the industry may benefit if it also invested to achieve long-term returns.

      709
      If we can send out such a signal and build on the optimism, the industry may emerge from the price shock of the past year with more potential than would have been the case if we had not been brought to our senses by it. In particular, it helped to bring the Government round from their initial approach of immediately taking more money out of the industry, which was an easy way for the Treasury to benefit. They are beginning to realise that the Treasury will benefit if the industry survives well into the future.
      Every year oil companies hold briefings on the industry's future and every year the graphs look set to dip. Oil is a finite resource, but we have pushed the envelope of that graph well into the future and the industry is viable. People ask me, "What will we do in the north-east when the oil runs out?" We should make sure that we exploit what oil there is and maximise for our community the benefits of having a good industry on our doorstep.
      The industry pervades our economy and we should maximise the benefits of that for the United Kingdom and maximise its great export potential. I urge the House to support the measure and send a signal of optimism to those who have to make the vital decision to invest for the long term in an industry that is so important to the United Kingdom economy.
      Mr. Blizzard: I, too, support new clause 17 and wholeheartedly welcome the restoration of the capital gains tax roll-over relief for the oil and gas industry. I am the chairman of the all-party offshore oil and gas industry group and I represent a constituency that relies heavily on the industry, which is a major source of employment.
      The industry has been operating for about 30 years and has achieved huge benefits for this country, such as the sheer scale of its input into our economy. Often, people think only of the 30,000 jobs offshore, but 10 times that number are spread around the country onshore through the 5,000 contractors whose work relates to the industry. Annual investment from the industry accounts for about 16 per cent. of total British industrial investment.
      Hon. Members should consider for a moment the sums that I am talking about. Shell, which is based in my constituency, invests about £2.5 billion a year in the North sea operation. We should compare that with the capital investment that is made when a new Japanese electronics company sets up. We rightly get excited about investments of £200 million, £300 million or £400 million, but one oil company is investing annually eight times that sum in the North sea. That is substantial investment.
      In my constituency, as in many others, the industry provides the employment that was lost from shipbuilding and fishing. The employment comes not only from large companies such as Shell and large fabricators such as Odebrecht, but from home-grown companies such as KYE and Boston Putford and scores more, some of which are little businesses with fewer than 10 employees. They all form part of the supply chain for the industry.
      The industry has also provided a huge source of revenue to the public purse down the years—the debate concerns how that can continue—and relatively clean North sea gas, which has been of great benefit to the environment. When that fuel is used to generate
      710
      electricity, it produces only half the CO2missions of coal burn. This country is on course to meet the Kyoto targets because of the contribution made by North sea gas.
      As other hon. Members have said, the industry has been going through a difficult time, and it is still doing so. The situation was critical when the international oil price fell to $10 a barrel. Although the price has recovered to about $16, the outlook is for a price somewhere between those figures rather than an increase to the bigger prices of the past. To understand what is going on in the North sea, we have to look beyond the oil price, because the industry is not the same as it was 30 or even 15 years ago. In fact, people then thought that the industry would not still be with us today. It is remarkable that it still is, even if field sizes are not the same as years ago.
      8 pm
      It would not be economic to exploit today's fields if the industry still operated as it did 20 years ago. The industry has undertaken dramatic cost reduction measures, efficiencies and the development of new technology in a hostile environment, all of which has made the North sea a world leader. It is good for our business that we can export technology and expertise around the world.
      The industry has changed, and, in its maturity, it needs a new tax structure, different from those of the past. We want the industry to continue for another 30 years—we need the jobs. We want the exports to continue, and we want continued investment that must be won in a global economy in which oil companies can choose to come here or go elsewhere. We want continued tax revenue from a huge industry. As long as the infrastructure exists in the North sea, it makes environmental sense to extract as much oil and gas as possible rather than leaving it behind.
      Capital gains tax roll-over relief will help. It is well targeted and effective, and it will enable assets to be consolidated or traded, ownership to be rationalised and partners to be aligned. It will therefore reduce costs. Various projects and deals that would not otherwise have gone ahead can go ahead because of the change. Existing infrastructure can be used to develop satellite fields, and the relief will encourage investment, extending the life of the industry. It is a win for both the industry and the Treasury. By extending the life of the industry, the Treasury will receive more revenue in the end.
      The measure proves that we have a listening Government. The industry has put its case, and the Government have listened. The Government want to work with the industry, and their method of doing so provides a model for such working. The task force has been formed, and the Government have sat down to see what can be done. Rather than having a lot of empty bluster after everything has been sorted out, a task force—into which both the industry and the Government put much time and effort—has brought about results.
      The Government have signalled their commitment to the oil and gas industry, and they understand that field size—and not just oil price—is important. The changes are welcome in my constituency and in the scores of others around the country that support the industry. One comes to the House to press many issues and ask many questions. It is good sometimes to see a case on which one has worked coming to fruition.
      Mrs. Roche: This has been an interesting debate. I shall deal first with new clauses 15 and 16, which deal

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      with the definition of an asset. The definition—not new, but in existing legislation—is plant and machinery used in the field.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: Does that include a floating production platform?
      Mrs. Roche: Floating production platforms are unlikely to be affected by new clause 15.
      Mr. Davies: That is a very vague response. In what circumstances would a floating production platform be affected, and in what circumstances would it not be affected? It is important to be precise.
      Mrs. Roche: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that one must be careful in the language that one uses when dealing with taxation. I have been as precise as I can under the circumstances. Assets affected would include terminals and pipelines. The position regarding floating production platforms would depend on whether they were considered to be a mobile asset, a dedicated mobile asset or a fixed asset. The hon. Gentleman was perfectly right to ask his question. I mean no disrespect to him when I say that it was one of the most coherent parts of his speech.
      Mr. Peter Brooke: The Financial Secretary has read the note handed along the Bench to her, and has indicated that the situation would depend on three different things. However, she did not say in what way it would depend on them.
      Mrs. Roche: The right hon. Gentleman will realise that the situation will depend on individual circumstances. A definition of assets is included in the Oil Taxation Act 1983. There are also matters of interpretation, and, as a former Treasury Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the situation depends on circumstances. I have been as helpful to the House as I can. The position would also depend on what had been agreed at the time—the right hon. Gentleman knows how the Inland Revenue works, and what negotiations take place; he has a good memory, and all that will come flooding back to him.
      The principal subject of our debate is capital gains tax roll-over relief. We heard an excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran), who takes a close interest in the industry and who has great expertise. We heard a further excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), who chairs the all-party offshore oil and gas industry group. We have had many interesting discussions on the subject, and I know of his great efforts in this regard. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir R. Smith) also holds a position in that group.
      It is difficult to know how to characterise the speech made by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), except to say that I heard every word, even though he delivered it without a foghorn. My hon. Friends and I were accused of machismo and of strutting our stuff, and we shall be pleased to carry on as we are. I should have taken the hon. Gentleman's bluster and protestations more seriously if the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale)—now off to be
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      Parliamentary Private Secretary to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague)—had not congratulated us during the Committee Stage. At no time in Committee did he raise CGT roll-over relief. Even in the all-party group, no Opposition Member has ever raised the matter.
      New clause 19 is an Opposition U-turn, reversing the position that they took in 1987. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford can protest all he likes, but they had all their years in Government to put it right. I shall outline the differences between our new clauses and the Opposition's new clause.
      The Opposition want to allow roll-over relief on oil licences, with effect from 6 April 1999. Our new clause extends roll-over relief to oil licences from 1 July 1999, the date on which we tabled the new clause. Our aim is to encourage future transfers of oil licence interests. Applying roll-over relief to transfers that have already taken place would not help to achieve that objective. I see no case for making the new clause retrospective, as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
      There are some technical differences between our new clauses. The hon. Gentleman would wish his new clause to be right, but it contains some technical problems. The Opposition want to add a new class of assets for oil licences under section 155 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. That is an unnecessary complication, and the precise effect of new clause 19 is not clear as it refers to legislation that has already been repealed. The relevant provisions of the Petroleum (Production) Act 1934 were superseded with effect from 15 February 1999 by the Petroleum Act 1998. So the new clause that the hon. Gentleman invites me to prefer to the Government's new clause is defective. It is not precisely clear how the commencement rule would apply, as there is no indication of which acquisitions are to be covered by the clause.
      Mr. Davies: The hon. Lady makes footling points. It makes no difference to the substance whether the provisions come into effect from April or July, and she must know that. There is no reference in our new clause to the 1934 Act, and I do not know where she got that from. Will she address the main point that I raised? Her proposed new clause takes us back to the uncertainties of the pre-1987 regime, whereas our new clause creates an explicit new class of assets which will qualify for CGT roll-over relief. The essential difference between our new clauses is the unambiguity and greater certainty of the one, and the ambiguity and lesser certainty of the other. I hope that the hon. Lady will not run away from this important issue.
      Mrs. Roche: I regret that the hon. Gentleman has taken the same approach as he has taken throughout the debate, in contrast with other hon. Members who have contributed to a positive discussion about the state of the industry. I do not regard technical deficiencies in a new clause as a footling matter. I shall deal with his points if he will allow me to proceed.
      When drafting our new clause, we carefully considered whether we needed to introduce a new class of assets for United Kingdom oil licences into the list of classes of assets already eligible for roll-over relief. We concluded that a new class of assets was not necessary, and that the only change required to ensure that companies can claim roll-over relief on oil licences was to repeal section 193 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.

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      Since 1987, the Inland Revenue has accepted—the hon. Gentleman will know this if he has done his homework—that UK oil licences are an interest in land as defined in class 1A of section 155 of the 1992 Act. It has recently obtained advice from its solicitors confirming that. Its acceptance of that point is made clear in its published manual on the corporation tax rules that apply to North sea oil companies. As a result, when section 193 is repealed by new clause 17, the only barrier to oil companies claiming roll-over relief on UK oil licences will be removed. I assure the House that, as UK oil licences are interests in land, new clause 17 will allow companies to claim roll-over relief on the disposal of UK oil licences.
      This has been a good debate. I should like to congratulate all hon. Members who took part. I also want to thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Industry, who chairs the task force on this issue, and the industry for all the constructive discussions we have had. I commend the Government's new clauses, and urge the House to reject the Opposition's new clause.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 16

      PETROLEUM REVENUE TAX: INSTALMENTS
      '.—(1) In paragraph 3 of Schedule 19 to the Finance Act 1982 (months in which instalments may be withheld)—

      (a) in sub-paragraph (1), at the beginning there shall be inserted "Subject to sub-paragraph (1A) below," and after "month" there shall be inserted "(the relevant month)"; and

      (b) after that sub-paragraph there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraph—

      ?(1A) Sub-paragraph (1) above does not apply if the relevant month is a month in which any consideration (whether in the nature of income or capital) is received or receivable by the participator in respect of any such matter as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of section 6(2) of the Oil Taxation Act 1983 (chargeable tariff receipts)."
      (2) Subsection (1) above applies for the purpose of determining whether instalments are payable in respect of chargeable periods ending on or after 31st December 1999.'.—[Mrs. Roche.]
      Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 17

      BUSINESS ASSETS: ROLL-OVER RELIEF
      '.—(1) Section 193 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (roll-over relief not available for gains on oil licences) shall cease to have effect.
      (2) This section has effect in relation to—

      (a) a disposal of a licence or an interest in a licence which occurs on or after 1st July 1999;

      (b) an acquisition of a licence or an interest in a licence which occurs on or after 1st July 1999.'.—[Mrs. Roche.]

      Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 8

      LENDING BY REVENUE ACCOUNTS TO NATIONAL LOANS FUND
      '.—(1) Where, at the close of business on any day, a sum stands to the credit of—

      (a) the General Account of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, or

      (b) the General Account of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue,

      that sum may be lent to the National Loans Fund on that day.
      (2) Subsection (1) above does not apply to any sum to the extent that it is required to be paid, on the day in question, in accordance with section 10 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866.
      (3) A loan made by virtue of subsection (1) above shall be repaid before the close of business on the day after the loan is made or, where that day is not a business day, before the close of business on the next business day.
      (4) Subject to subsection (3) above, a loan made by virtue of subsection (1) above shall be made in such circumstances, and on such terms and conditions, as the Treasury may from time to time direct.
      (5) In this section "business day" means any day other than—

      (a) a Saturday or Sunday;

      (b) Good Friday or Christmas Day;

      (c) a day which, in England and Wales, is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971;

      (d) a day specified in an order under section 2(1) of that Act (days on which financial dealings are suspended) and declared by that order to be a non-business day for the purposes of this paragraph; or

      (e) a day appointed by Royal proclamation as a public fast or thanksgiving day.'.—[Ms Hewitt.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      New clause 8 allows any cash balances held at the close of business in the bank accounts of the two Revenue departments at the Bank of England to be lent overnight to the National Loans Fund, which will repay what it borrows by close of business on the following business day. That will help the Debt Management Office to manage the Government's cash requirements efficiently when it takes on that role. The DMO will be able to rely on these Revenue department balances being available to help to balance the daily cash flows into and out of the National Loans Fund. That will decrease uncertainty for the DMO, and will, most importantly, prevent it from having to pay to raise cash in the market when there is already cash available within Government.
      At the same time, the money will still be available during the business day to cover the possibility that tax repayments due exceed tax receipts on that day. The change will benefit Government, but will not have any effect on the Revenue departments' dealings with taxpayers. New clause 8 is a sensible piece of housekeeping by the Government, and I commend it to the House.
      8.15 pm
      Mr. Howard Flight: This certainly sounds like a sensible piece of corporate management: the corporate treasurer approach making the

      715
      National Loans Fund the cash flow management vehicle for Government. The rate of interest and terms will be decided as the Treasury sees fit. It would be interesting to know whether the Treasury will see fit to pay market rates or some other specific rate.
      It would be valuable to know the balances that go through Customs and Excise during the year, whether its overall budgeting has hitherto taken account of interest earned and whether that level will change.
      The new clause implies that the sums may be lent at the volition of the commissioners of Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue. Surely the intention is that it will be at the direction of the Treasury, whether the commissioners want it to happen or not.
      I ask myself why, at this stage of the Bill, the Government have suddenly had a conversion to corporate efficiency. Why was this measure not introduced long ago? It has been slipped in quietly at the end of the Bill. Surely this is what the Bank of England, as the Government's banker, has done, in that the different organs of Government have had positive and negative balances. The Government own the Bank of England, so why do they need to step back from the Bank and allow the National Loans Fund to manage cash flows? Does it, by any chance, have anything to do with European Union obligations, and the fact that the Government will not be able to borrow from the Bank of England? It would be undesirable for one Government account and the National Loans Fund to be overdrawn at the Bank of England as a result of a temporary cash flow problem. Perhaps the pooling of these cash flows into the National Loans Fund is designed to avoid that.
      It is surprising that the Government have slipped this measure in at this stage of the Bill, unless there is some reason beyond virtuous corporate treasurer efficiency, which should not be necessary as the Government own the Bank of England. Perhaps there is some other reason that the Government are not disclosing.
      Will the Economic Secretary deal with the specific organisational questions to which I referred earlier, and tell us the reason for using the National Loans Fund as the cash manager, rather than the Bank of England?
      Mr. Michael Fabricant: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), I also wonder why this new clause has been introduced on Report. The explanatory note produced by the Treasury says that this is merely a technical provision. Unlike my hon. Friend, who believes that it has been introduced by the treasurers for some Machiavellian reason, I suspect that it was tabled at this late stage of the Bill merely due to incompetence.
      What will be the market test for this borrowing from one Government Department to another, or from one series of funds to another, rather than on the open market? The Minister said that it was obviously cheaper to borrow internally. I accept that, but will a nominal interest rate be set? If such a rate is set, who will charge it against whom? Will it be entirely within the Treasury, or will a particular Department benefit from the loan funds overnight?
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      When the moneys are chargeable, will we see a transfer of funds? And—this may interest the House more—how much does the Paymaster General think will be loaned overnight, as an aggregate sum, over a year? Are we talking about millions, or about billions?
      Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend's speech, but, apart from the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary, no Government Back Bencher is present to listen to this important debate.
      Mr. Fabricant: I find that extraordinary. We may be speaking about billions or, for all I know, trillions of pounds. The Paymaster General gave no indication of the amount that we are discussing. Let us not forget that this is not Government money; it is our money. It is their money—taxpayers' money. We need to know how the taxpayer will be affected. Will he or she benefit from the interest rates that are being set, or will he or she suffer a disadvantage because the money is not sought from outside sources?
      It is not good enough to try to slip a measure through late in the evening when Labour Members—all 300-plus of them—are wining and dining in the fleshpots of London. We are talking about taxpayers, money. Thank God we have an Opposition who are at least opposing these proposals.
      Ms Hewitt: I rather regret the fact that I do not have the chance to wine and dine, whether in the fleshpots or simply in the Members' canteen.
      We engaged in a full and interesting debate on this subject in Committee. Clause 125 completes the separation between monetary policy and cash management—debt management operations—that we undertook when we gave the Bank of England operational independence in regard to monetary policy. The new clause is simply and genuinely a technical consequence of the main provision that we introduced in the Bill. It follows from the assumption of cash management by the Debt Management Office, a Treasury agency that already handles debt management.
      As the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) said, at present the Government's daily need for cash to balance the books is met through the Bank of England, and through the ways and means overdraft facility with the Bank's issue department. However, once we start managing the cash separately and allowing the Debt Management Office to manage it on behalf of the Government, it would be inefficient to allow money to sit in separate accounts—those belonging to the Revenue departments—if it could be made available to meet a deficit on the National Loans Fund, when the alternative to using that spare cash would be borrowing by the DMO from the markets.
      Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that this has nothing whatever to do with our possible entry into the single currency in years to come. We have simply completed the separation of monetary policy and debt management operations, in order to avoid any conflict of interests—or perceived conflict of interests—between the two. In particular, as I explained in

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      Committee, the separation will assure the markets that debt management decisions are not influenced by inside information on interest rate decisions.
      Mr. Fabricant: Will the Minister answer the specific questions that I asked her? I see that her official has passed her a note, so perhaps she will be able to do so. First, what amounts are we talking about on aggregate—millions, billions, trillions or what? Secondly, if she is in effect market-testing between internal transfers within the Treasury and borrowing on the open market, what interest rates will be set and what criteria will she use to set them?
      Ms Hewitt: I was just coming to that. All in good time.
      There will be no interest rate charges, because money is simply being lent from one Government account to another. It would be no more appropriate to charge interest on the loans than it would be if I were transferring money from one account to another in my own name. As for the amounts that might be lent, we estimate that the maximum that Customs and Excise might lend would typically be about £700 million. We do not expect to be able to meet the loans from the Inland Revenue to the National Loans Fund, although the new clause gives the power for that to be done.
      As I say, this is simply a technical provision that will further improve the Government's housekeeping arrangements and, by reducing any possible need for the DMO to raise money on the open market, will save the taxpayer modest amounts of interest that would otherwise have been paid.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 4

      ALLOWABLE LOSSES WHERE BENEFICIARY ABSOLUTELY ENTITLED
      '.—(1) For subsection (2) of section 71 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (allowable losses of trustees treated as transferred to a person becoming absolutely entitled to settled property) there shall be substituted the following subsections—
      "(2) Where, in any case in which a person (`the beneficiary') becomes absolutely entitled to any settled property as against the trustee, an allowable loss would (apart from this subsection) have accrued to the trustee on the deemed disposal under subsection (1) above of an asset comprised in that property—

      (a) that loss shall be treated, to the extent only that it cannot be deducted from pre-entitlement gains of the trustee, as an allowable loss accruing to the beneficiary (instead of to the trustee); but

      (b) any allowable loss treated as accruing to the beneficiary under this subsection shall be deductible under this Act from chargeable gains accruing to the beneficiary to the extent only that it can be deducted from gains accruing to the beneficiary on the disposal by him of—

      (i) the asset on the deemed disposal of which the loss accrued; or

      (ii) where that asset is an estate, interest or right in or over land, that asset or any asset deriving from that asset.

      (2A) In subsection (2) above 'pre-entitlement gain', in relation to an allowable loss accruing to a trustee on the deemed disposal of any asset comprised in any settled property, means a chargeable gain accruing to that trustee on—
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      (a) a disposal which, on the occasion on which the beneficiary becomes absolutely entitled as against the trustee to that property, is deemed under subsection (1) above to have taken place; or

      (b) any other disposal taking place before that occasion but in the same year of assessment.

      (2B) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b)(ii) above an asset ('the relevant asset') derives from another if, in a case where—

      (a) assets have merged,

      (b) an asset has divided or otherwise changed its nature,
      or

      (c) different rights or interests in or over any asset have been created or extinguished at different times,
      the value of the relevant asset is wholly or partly derived (through one or more successive events falling within paragraphs (a) to (c) above but not otherwise) from the other asset.

      (2C) The rules set out in subsection (2D) below shall apply (notwithstanding any other rules contained in this Act or in section 113(2) of the Finance Act 1995 (order of deduction))—

      (a) for determining for the purposes of this section whether an allowable loss accruing to the trustee, or treated as accruing to the beneficiary, can be deducted from particular chargeable gains for any year of assessment; and

      (b) for the making of deductions of allowable losses from chargeable gains in cases where it has been determined that such an allowable loss can be deducted from particular chargeable gains.

      (2D) Those rules are as follows—

      (a) allowable losses accruing to the trustee on a deemed disposal under subsection (1) above shall be deducted before any deduction is made in respect of any other allowable losses accruing to the trustee in that year;

      (b) allowable losses treated as accruing to the beneficiary under this section, so far as they cannot be deducted in a year of assessment as mentioned in subsection (2)(b) above, may be carried forward from year to year until they can be so deducted; and

      (c) allowable losses treated as accruing to the beneficiary for any year of assessment under this section, and allowable losses carried forward to any year of assessment under paragraph (b) above—

      (i) shall be deducted before any deduction is made in respect of any allowable losses accruing to the beneficiary in that year otherwise than by virtue of this section; and

      (ii) in the case of losses carried forward to any year, shall be deductible as if they were losses actually accruing in that year."

      (2) This section applies in relation to any occasion on or after 16th June 1999 on which a person becomes absolutely entitled to settled property as against the trustee.'.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The new clause is intended to prevent avoidance of capital gains tax through the purchase of losses realised in trusts. We are introducing it now because it is only in the past six weeks or so that the Inland Revenue has gathered evidence of significant exploitation. When we announced the measure on 16 June, our assessment of the potential loss of revenue, if the schemes of which we had evidence were to succeed, was about £500 million. Since then, further schemes have come to light, and the estimate has now risen to £750 million. That is exploitation on a grand scale, and it is entirely unacceptable. We have made it clear that we shall take prompt action to stamp out

      719
      avoidance of this kind. That is why we are taking action now, and why we shall continue to take such action whenever the need arises.
      Capital losses realised by trustees on assets in a trust can normally only be set against capital gains of the trust. The losses cannot be transferred to beneficiaries of the trust, except in one situation: when a beneficiary becomes absolutely entitled to settled property under the terms of the trust—in other words, when the property of the trust becomes the property of the beneficiary. Any capital loss arising on that occasion that cannot be used by the trustees is transferred to the beneficiary.
      Those rules, which have applied since 1965, are being exploited in the following way. Trustees of trusts with large losses that cannot be used to offset gains within the trust create an interest in the trust property in favour of a beneficiary. That interest is contingent on a certain event occurring—an event that is almost bound to occur—after a short period.
      Steps are then taken for appropriate portions of the interest to be sold to individuals and companies that have gains to shelter. Those individuals and companies become new beneficiaries of the trust. When the appointed day arrives—usually after a very short time—the appropriate amounts of losses pass to them. In such cases, huge losses are available. The Revenue is aware of one scheme where a manufactured loss of £1 billion is involved. The effect is that people with gains can use losses that they have not incurred to eliminate their tax liability. That is wholly contrary to the purpose of the legislation.
      8.30 pm
      The mischief is not confined to cases where new beneficiaries purchase an interest in the trust. The beneficiaries could be appointed by the trustees, or the interest could be transferred to the ultimate beneficiary via an intermediary. It is because of those difficulties that confining action to the purchase of interests in trusts would not solve the problem.
      The Revenue has been aware of the possibility of loss buying in those circumstances for some time, but there has been no evidence of a widespread problem until very recently. However, as I have said, in the past few weeks, evidence has emerged of very large losses being manufactured in trusts purely to take advantage of those rules by profiting from their sale. The scheme takes a number of forms, but all involve the creation of losses within UK trusts, or the use of UK trusts with existing losses, so that the trust loss can be sold to prospective purchasers.
      Although the Revenue will challenge the validity of those schemes under existing law, the scale of the problem is so large that we are not prepared to stake the potential loss of so much tax on the possibility of a favourable outcome in the courts. The only sure way to stop the sale of all future trust losses is to attack the source of the problem; I am sure that hon. Members agree.
      The new clause provides for losses on trust assets sold by the trustees to be allowed within the trust under the normal rules. If a beneficiary becomes absolutely entitled to an asset in the trust and a loss is deemed to accrue on that occasion, and if the trustees cannot offset that loss against gains arising at that time, or earlier in the year, the loss will be transferred to the beneficiary, but the beneficiary can then use that loss only against subsequent gain arising on that asset.
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      That is how the legislation should work and that is how it will work from now on. The new clause not only stops a serious potential loss of tax, but puts right an anomaly in current legislation, which should have been corrected a long time ago. I commend the new clause.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: I have some sympathy for the Paymaster General's approach to the problem. She has set out her thinking clearly, for which we are grateful. However, several points concern me. I shall ask her some questions. I hope that I receive clear and sensible answers, so that we can have a serious dialogue across the Dispatch Box. I hope that she does not follow the example of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who tried to avoid all my questions although, finally, she made the declaration that I wanted all along, so I suppose that we must be grateful to her for that.
      Two things concern me most about the new clause. It seems to run counter to, and potentially to damage, two principles that should characterise our tax law, or any rational and fair tax law. I fear that the new clause moves our law on capital gains tax away from those two principles.
      The first, which is terribly important, is even-handedness between losses and gains. If trustees can distribute gains and if those gains are subject to tax in the hands of the recipient and beneficiary, it should be axiomatic that trustees can distribute losses and that those losses can be used freely by the beneficiary, to be set against gains for which he or she might otherwise be liable elsewhere on his or her portfolio of investments. We seem to be moving away from that principle of equivalence of treatment between gains and losses.
      Secondly, the new clause poses the danger of moving us away from the principle that an individual should be taxed on the basis of his or her income or capital gains to the greatest extent possible, irrespective of whether those assets are held, those incomes or gains derive from a beneficial interest in a trust, or whether they are held directly.
      We know very well that, for many years—although it is not always the case—trusts were established deliberately to avoid tax legally. However, the previous Government's reforms, which have been implemented in the past few years, to modernise our tax system have all attempted to remove that anomaly in tax law, and to ensure that people are taxed on their real financial position—on losses or gains for capital gains tax; on income for income tax—regardless of whether income was channelled through, or assets held, in a trust. Now, we are moving away from trying to make such a reform.
      There may be very good reasons for establishing a trust, and I do not want anyone to get the impression that Conservative Members are against establishing one. There are extremely respectable—indeed, valuable—reasons for establishing a trust, such as to promote a particular cause or objective, to protect the interests of minors, or to protect family property down the generations by preventing one generation from squandering it all. Those are all sensible and responsible uses of a trust. However, so far as possible—this was the thrust of the previous Conservative Government's reform of trust taxation—trusts should not be established simply to shelter a given income flow or potential capital gains from tax to which the beneficiary, without a trust, would be liable.

      721
      New clause 4 moves against the previous Government's reforms, and in the direction of creating a situation in which it is less advantageous to have losses credited to one in a trust, as it would not be possible to offset those losses against gains that might arise elsewhere in one's portfolio. Such an offset should be allowed if gains distributed to the beneficiary are similarly taxable.
      Those are my general concerns, and those principles certainly inform the Opposition's thinking and the way in which we consider tax. I should like the hon. Lady to tell us, very frankly and seriously, whether she generally shares our principles in the matter; and, if she does, how she justifies moving the proposals in new clause 4 and, regrettably, taking the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 away from those principles. If she does not share our principles, perhaps she will tell us why she does not.
      The hon. Lady justified the Government's proposals entirely on the ground that they would deal with potential tax avoidance, and she gave some alarming figures on that. I am, again, grateful to her for her extremely intelligent and sensible exposition of the Government's thinking on the matter. She explained why the Government feel that there would not be sufficient protection if we legislated that gains could be enjoyed for purposes of setting against losses only when the beneficiary to which the gains were distributed had not purchased his or her interest in the trust—as other mechanisms would be available that could lead to the same abuse that she described. An existing beneficiary could, for example, nominate another beneficiary, or the trustees could nominate another beneficiary.
      My initial reaction to those examples is that, presumably, without some financial consideration, no one would nominate someone else to benefit from gains or useful losses that were attributable to him or her. I should think, therefore, that the approach that the hon. Lady rejected might be more promising than, at first sight, she believed they were. I am quite certain that, in practice, any trustee or beneficiary who is giving away his or her rights is receiving some form of compensation. Therefore, if we legislated to ensure that such ultimate beneficiaries could not enjoy the benefits of losses they had thus acquired, we might solve the problem. I hope that she thinks a little further about whether there might be some other way to approach the issue which would not do violence to the key principles that I have just enunciated.
      Another approach that is worth exploring and on which I should like a response from the Paymaster General would be to protect those who are beneficiaries by virtue of the original trust deed. They might not be named in the trust deed because they might be a subsequent generation, but they would be of a category provided for in the original trust deed rather than secondary or tertiary beneficiaries who had been nominated or who had purchased their interest in the trust through the avenues that the hon. Lady set out. I make my suggestions in a constructive spirit, because I share the Minister's concern about the potential loss of tax revenue and I am grateful to her for the extent to which she has taken us into her thinking.
      I do not doubt the hon. Lady's personal sincerity, but the new clause aroused my suspicions. Eliminating the risk of tax avoidance is not a full and credible explanation
      722
      of the motives behind the Government's proposals. Only a small part of the new clause—subsection (2)—addresses potential avoidance. Subsection (2D) sets out the rules for the order in which losses can be set against gains for the purposes of determining capital gains tax liability. Subsection (2D)(a) says:
      "allowable losses accruing to the trustee on a deemed disposal under subsection (1) above"—
      deemed disposal is when an asset is transferred from a trust to the direct ownership of the beneficiary—
      "shall be deducted before any deduction is made in respect of any other allowable losses accruing to the trustee in that year".
      What the devil does the order in which losses are set off against gains have to do with tax avoidance? If someone set up an artificial scheme to generate losses in a trust to be set against gains from elsewhere to reduce CGT liability, they would not need to be told by legislation that the losses had to be used in that way because they would have gone to the trouble of creating those losses for the purpose of reducing CGT liabilities. That arouses great suspicions, which I hope that the hon. Lady will be able to allay. If she does, we shall support a well considered attempt to attack a genuine source of potential tax avoidance.
      Subsection (2A) refers to
      "a disposal"—
      by the trustees—
      "which, on the occasion on which the beneficiary becomes absolutely entitled as against the trustee to that property, is deemed under subsection (1) above to have taken place; or
      (b) any other disposal taking place before that occasion but in the same year of assessment".
      Taken together with subsection (2D), which I quoted earlier, the effect will be that trustees who cannot make use of all their losses will not be able to distribute those other than the deemed losses that may have been incurred to the beneficiary, because they will have had to set off against any gains the deemed losses in the first instance. Once those are exhausted, they may find themselves with other additional losses that cannot be transferred to the beneficiary. Trusts will lose the ability to use certain losses.
      Is the new clause an attempt to prevent a new source of tax avoidance or is it an attempt to change the existing regime applying to trusts to make it less favourable to honest trusts, which will no longer be able to use the totality of losses that is currently available to be set off against CGT-liable gains? That is what I want to know.
      8.45 pm
      Why are we going in for this complication? Why do we have these rules on the order in which the losses must be applied? Is not it incredible—or non-credible—to suppose that if artificial losses are created, they will not be used immediately to offset gains? Why would people otherwise take the trouble and expense to set up these artificial schemes?
      We want to know whether these matters have been thought through. Does this proposal really represent the bare minimum required to address the notional or potential loss? Will the position of entirely innocent trusts—which continue to administer themselves on the same basis and are not the source of any artificial schemes—be made considerably less favourable by what I believe to be a far too bluntly drafted clause?
      Dawn Primarolo: As this is the first time that I have addressed the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) from the Dispatch Box since his promotion, may I belatedly congratulate him and welcome him to the Opposition Front Bench?
      I will try to deal with the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, which are very important. The Government were faced with a serious situation. The current tax rules in this area are anomalous. Trustees of trusts are taxed as a separate person from the beneficiaries for capital gains purposes, and are chargeable on all gains made on trust property at the special rate.
      It is more than a little odd that, in those circumstances, the rules should allow losses on trust property to be passed to beneficiaries to set against gains on property which have not emerged from the trust. Losses realised by the trustees ought to be allowed only against property which is in the trust or which has come out of the trust. That is what the new clause is trying to deal with.
      The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford asked about the purchased interests, and why we have not attacked them. There would be a real difficulty in establishing whether a trust interest had been purchased. Under some arrangements, the trustees and the beneficiaries may be bypassed altogether, with the money—because there is a payment—going directly from the purchaser to the scheme organiser or the loss creator.
      It would have been futile to introduce legislation which missed the mark and allowed some schemes to escape and provide opportunities for other schemes to be reworked to get around the rules. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford asked whether that may still be the case. We have tried to write the rules in the new clause in such a way as to prevent that from happening in what is a complex area.
      We have tried to avoid immensely complex legislation, which could deny the transfer of loss to beneficiaries who might be genuinely added at the discretion of the trustees. That would be wrong in principle. The only situation where we consider it justified for losses to continue to be transferred from a trustee to a beneficiary is where the asset on which the loss arises is transferred to the beneficiary.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: I am well aware of what the proposals are. I am asking the Paymaster General to think a bit further about a limitation that would exclude beneficiaries who have purchased their interest in the trust. Her original response was that such beneficiaries would not necessarily have had to purchase their interest because they could have been nominated by the trustees or a beneficiary, but it is fundamentally implausible that the trustees or a beneficiary would give away their interest—which must, by definition, have a value if it serves a purpose in a tax avoidance scheme—for no consideration.
      Now, the Paymaster General says that the sums concerned might have been transferred from the ultimate beneficiary—the beneficiary of the artificial scheme—to the organisers of the scheme, with the trustees and the beneficiary having no benefit, but it would be a breach of trust law for a trustee simply to give away such an interest. A provision based on someone having directly or indirectly purchased an interest in a trust is a great deal more robust than she originally thought.
      Dawn Primarolo: I do not agree. After careful consideration we came to the conclusion that such a
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      provision would be difficult and complex and would not deal with the abuse that is clearly taking place. The Government wanted to get to the root of the abuse without introducing too much complexity in the legislation. The capital gains tax system taxes the gains of trusts separately from those of individuals. The trustees are treated as different persons from the beneficiaries for CGT purposes. The new clause is an anti-avoidance measure. It does not alter the fundamental basis for taxing trusts.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Why, in closing the loophole, are the Government shifting the principle of tax neutrality from the beneficiary to the trust, introducing a much tighter definition that is very unfair to those who were given much fairer treatment under the previous Government's reforms over 18 years?
      Dawn Primarolo: To ensure that the abuse is stopped. The potential loss of tax is so great that we had to act. If tax planners introduce such complicated and ingenious ways of getting round the intent of legislation, they must expect the Government to respond.
      Mr. Davies rose—
      Dawn Primarolo: The complaint of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford seems to be that the Government have gone too far and that there were other ways of dealing with the matter. I have explained that, despite the fact that we considered some of his suggestions carefully, the only way of guaranteeing that we deal with the root problem is embodied in the new clause, which I commend to the House.
      Mr. Davies rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister has finished her contribution. She is not giving way.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 9

      EU TRAVEL EXPENSES
      '.—(1) In section 200 of the Taxes Act 1988 (expenses of Members of Parliament), in subsection (2), for the words from "the cost of" to "Strasbourg" substitute "EU travel expenses" and after that subsection insert—
      "(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) above 'EU travel expenses' are the cost of, and any additional expenses incurred in, travelling between the United Kingdom and—

      (a) any European Union institution in Brussels, Luxembourg or Strasbourg, or

      (b) the national parliament of another member State.".

      (2) This section has effect in relation to sums paid on or after 1st April I999.'.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Dawn Primarolo: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 25.
      Dawn Primarolo: This clause makes a small but necessary change to the tax rules dealing with the

      725
      payments that Members of Parliament receive to cover the costs of visiting European Union institutions. In 1991, the House set up a scheme to meet the costs of one visit a year to EU institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. To avoid any uncertainty about the tax treatment of payments made under the scheme, the Conservative Government introduced what is now section 200(2) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 to take them outside the scope of any tax charge.
      On 26 May this year, the House passed a resolution extending the range of destinations covered by that scheme. Members can now also get the costs of one visit a year to the national Parliament of another EU member state. We need to carry that through to the tax rules; otherwise, we shall have a tax exemption for some payments authorised by Parliament for hon. Members' EU travel, but not others. The new clause extends section 200(2) to take in the additional destinations now included in the House scheme.
      We also need to make a consequential amendment to schedule 5 of the Bill to ensure that the same rules apply to any corresponding payments made to Members of the Scottish Parliament and of the devolved Assemblies, in line with the resolution of the House.
      Mr. Oliver Letwin: I do not want to tarry long on the new clause, because there are juicier morsels to come. However, I should like to ask the Paymaster General two or three questions.
      We recognise that, in principle, the measure flows from a resolution of the House, to which the Minister referred. During the debate on that resolution, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), who occupies a special position in the House, mentioned that:
      "There has been a decline in the reputation of this institution in the past few years"
      and went on to say:
      "It is vital to the authority of this institution that we maintain the public perception of the integrity of Members of Parliament"—[Official Report, 26 May 1998; Vol. 332, c. 416.]
      Doubtless, the Paymaster General recalls my right hon. Friend's remarks. In the light of those remarks the House made an amendment—originally tabled by my right hon. Friend, I believe—to the resolution that required Members who took up the option of a trip to Paris, Rome and so on to state in advance the purpose of their visit. That gives rise to my precise questions.
      If a visit is for a specific business reason, why would it be taxable? Why is it not analogous to a business visit engaged in by any private sector employee who has correctly stated that the purpose of his visit is a business purpose, which counts as a business expense and is not taxable?
      As the Paymaster General reminded the House, under clause 48 of the Bill, Members of the Scottish Parliament and Members of the Welsh Assembly have to be treated in the same way as Members of this Parliament; therefore, they will be subject to the same tax treatment if new clause 9 and amendment No. 25 are accepted. In the light of my previous question, it is material to ask whether that would apply even if the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly had not passed resolutions with an amendment
      726
      analogous to that which my right hon. Friend tabled in this House. In other words, might not Members of the Scottish Parliament and Members of the Welsh Assembly be exempted from tax simply by virtue of the analogy with membership of this House, even if they do not have to make the declaration on which procedures in this House will now be founded?
      If that is the case, is it not an example of the very problem to which devolution generally gives rise? We seek to give the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament certain freedoms of manoeuvre and we forsake the ability to vet whether, in fact, those freedoms of manoeuvre are being used in a way that is responsible from the point of view of taxpayers. Things will have come amiss if it turns out that Members of the Scottish Parliament can do what Members of this House would have been able to do if my right hon. Friend's amendment had not been passed—get both free trip and tax exemption without having to state in advance why they are going on the trip and prove that it is a business affair. If I am mistaken in my assumption, I should be grateful for clarification from the Paymaster General.
      9 pm
      Mr. Peter Luff: I shall not detain the House for long. The new clause leaves rather a nasty taste in the mouth when one considers all the other new clauses that we are debating this evening which are designed to increase the tax take, and often to take more tax from very vulnerable members of our society. Here we have a group of Members of Parliament, who could hardly be described as vulnerable, seeking to obtain new tax advantages for themselves at the taxpayers' expense.
      There is a strong sentiment in many parts of the House that the original resolution was a mistake, and that tax advantages should have been retained entirely to European institutions. That pass has been sold and the privilege has now been extended to other, national Parliaments. I am sceptical about whether people will find sufficient reason to justify the additional trips to national Parliaments. There would be a rough justice in maintaining the present tax concessions rather than handing money back to MPs for these freebies.
      I note that the resolution to which the new clause refers enables MPs to be paid twice the corresponding civil service class A standard subsistence rate. The perk seems to be very generous as it is, and it would be perfectly reasonable to tax this extension of it. I do not accept the logic of the Paymaster General's opening remarks.
      Mr. Fabricant: The Paymaster General opened the debate by saying that this is a small but necessary amendment, but I am not sure that it is necessary. At the moment, the provisions apply to Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, and only £44,500 out of a total budget of £250,000 has been spent, so clearly there is not much of a demand for the provision.
      I said earlier that I wondered where all the Labour Members were. I notice that there are now two Labour Back Benchers present. I suggested that while we were debating the taxpayers' money, most of them were in the fleshpots of London. What bothers me is that after the new clause has been passed, they will be visiting the fleshpots of Berlin or the beaches just east of Athens, which will now fall under the aegis of the measure.

      727
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) said, the economy is contracting and the weakest in society are suffering. It is typical of this Government that the pigs are being lead to the trough at such a time.
      Mr. Andrew Love: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that when the original motion came before the House and was fully discussed, only two or three members of the Opposition opposed it in the debate and, more importantly, voted against it when we went into the Lobbies?
      Mr. Fabricant: The point is how many Labour Members voted against that motion. Two wrongs do not make a right. If only £44,500 out of a budget of £250,000 has been used, the provision is under-utilised. I put it to the House that these trips are yet more jollies, which seem to have been promoted since the Government came to power.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Will the Paymaster General tell us how much of the budget will be spent under the new provision? What will she do if too many of her colleagues demonstrate a propensity to indulge in this new form of subsidised travel so that the fund is exhausted before the end of the year?
      Dawn Primarolo: Opposition Members need to keep this measure in proportion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) said, when the original motion was discussed the official Opposition did not oppose it. The normal procedure is to make such trips tax-exempt.
      The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), who spoke from the Front Bench, asked why we need a specific tax exemption at all. Several provisions in the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 deal specifically with Members of Parliament; they reflect the nature of Members' duties. In most cases, deductions for any payment to meet the cost of Members' visits to European countries would be available under the ordinary schedule E rules, but it would sometimes be difficult to determine whether a visit would meet the qualifying conditions. Section 202 of the ICTA avoids that uncertainty by taking payments to Members of Parliament who have been authorised under the terms of the House scheme out of the scope of any tax charge.
      As hon. Gentlemen will know, Members of Parliament will have to apply in advance and give the reasons for and purpose of their visit, and whom they will be meeting, before the travel is agreed by the House. The Fees Office will require information on the visit's purpose, location, duration and the persons or organisations to be met to be sure that the visit is within the resolution of the House.
      Mr. Fabricant: I take the hon. Lady's point that Members will have to give an official reason, but what is to stop someone visiting an institution for three days and then spending a further week on the trip at their own expense having had the travel paid for them by the House of Commons—or should I say the taxpayer?
      Dawn Primarolo: The rules of the House are laid down and Members are required to comply with them. As the hon. Gentleman well knows—I do not know whether
      728
      he is advocating an avoidance scheme—that is the correct way in which to behave. I am sure that he behaves in that way. To infer that any other Member would not comply with those requirements is ungenerous of him, to put it mildly.
      The hon. Member for West Dorset asked whether legislation was needed to extend the Westminster tax scheme to the devolved Assemblies; the answer is yes. Without the amendment, the Westminster tax rules would not automatically apply to the devolved Assemblies, as should happen.
      Mr. Letwin: The question I asked was whether if, for example, the Scottish Parliament did not agree an amendment or pass a resolution that would require Members of that Parliament to make the same declaration in advance, would they nevertheless be tax exempt?
      Dawn Primarolo: My understanding is that the rules of the House on the terms under which Members of Parliament can travel, as provided under the resolution of the House, are clear, and that those rules extend, therefore, to Members of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.
      The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) felt that the proposal was yet another perk for Members of Parliament. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, it is important to keep this matter in perspective. In most circumstances, Members are treated for tax in the same way as employees generally. We are dealing with specific provisions to deal with one or two minor areas where the position of Members of Parliament does not fit easily into the general tax framework.
      No more money is being made available. The budget of £250,000 for Members' visits to European institutions remains unchanged. The amendments simply bring the resolution of the House into the tax legislation—as was the practice of the previous Government. It is an entirely reasonable thing to do. I commend the new clause to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 6

      GOODS FOR SALE ON BOARD SHIPS OR AIRCRAFT
      '.—(1) For subsection (4) of section 1 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 (goods for sale on board ships or aircraft to be treated as stores) there shall be substituted the following subsections—
      "(4) Goods for use in a ship or aircraft as merchandise for sale to persons carried in the ship or aircraft shall be treated for the purposes of the customs and excise Acts as stores if, and only if—

      (a) the goods are to be sold by retail either—

      (i) in the course of a relevant journey, or

      (ii) for consumption on board;
      and

      (b) the goods are not treated as exported by virtue of regulations under section 12 of the Customs and Excise Duties (General Reliefs) Act 1979 (goods for use in naval ships or establishments).

      (4A) For the purposes of subsection (4) above a relevant journey is any journey beginning in the United Kingdom and having an immediate destination outside the member States.
      (4B) In relation to goods treated as stores by virtue of subsection (4) above, any reference in the customs and excise Acts to the consumption of stores shall be construed as referring to the sale of the goods as mentioned in paragraph (a) of that subsection."
      (2) This section shall be deemed to have come into force on 1st July 1999 but shall not have effect in relation to any shipment of goods before that date.'.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Dawn Primarolo: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      As hon. Members will know, until last week, passengers on ferries, hovercraft and aircraft travelling within the European Union were able to buy duty-free goods, either on board or at duty-free shops at ports and airports. Within the EU, duty free came to an end on 30 June. All merchandise sold for take away must now be sold duty and tax paid. The new clause makes the necessary changes to the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979, bringing the Act's provisions into line with a decision taken unanimously, in 1991, by the previous Government and all other member states.
      Several statutory instruments preceded the new clause to give effect in UK legislation to the abolition of duty free. From 1 July, goods sold to the travelling public for them to take away at the end of journeys within the EU are subject to VAT at the rate applicable in the member state of departure. Excise goods, such as tobacco and alcohol products, are chargeable with duty at the rate of the member state of departure or of the country of destination—depending on where they are sold.
      The vast majority of journeys within the EU can benefit from the simplified procedures introduced by the Government, and from the concessions that we managed to extract from the Commission. In the few areas where the simplified arrangements cannot operate, discussions have been held with service providers to ensure the smooth introduction of the successor regime.
      The new regime is working smoothly, but the Government will keep the implementation of the scheme under review to ensure that—should further amendment be required—we can assist the trade and the travelling public. That includes the possibility of returning to the Commission to press for any changes that may become necessary.
      I commend the new clause to the House.
      Mr. Letwin: I have already declared one potential interest in that a pet-food shop might be a client of my bank; I now declare another in case some airline or shipping company is also a client.
      We accept that the measure is a corollary of the removal of duty free. In the Standing Committee to which the Paymaster General has already referred, we fully exposed the fact that both the previous Government and the then Opposition were partners in crime in bringing about that sorry state of affairs. Moreover, we have adequately exposed the history of the matter. Notwithstanding the protestations of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), formerly the shadow Economic Secretary, the present Prime Minister came into office,
      730
      believing, for some reason unknown to man or beast, that he could change something that was locked in unanimous cement—why, I cannot imagine. To his great astonishment, and that of the British public, he found that he could not change it in the least. That, of course, represented a major triumph for the getting to the middle of Europe, sitting at the table and then being eaten thesis—why we have to be at the top table and retain our so-called influence.
      Leaving that on one side, the devil is in the detail; that came out in our debates in Standing Committee. The provision makes it clear that the Paymaster General inadvertently misled the Committee in explaining the state of the law. It also demonstrates the depth of the mess. Paragraph (4A) of the new clause is the operative item. It tells us that in order to be "a relevant journey", a journey has to begin in the United Kingdom—that is uncontroversial—and has to have an
      "immediate destination outside the member States."
      You were lucky enough to avoid the Standing Committee where two problems arose, Mr. Deputy Speaker; we christened them the Gibraltar problem and the Basle problem. The Gibraltar problem came to light only after the Paymaster General realised, and correctly and helpfully informed the Committee, that Gibraltar was not actually part of the EU. We had previously thought that it was a Casablanca problem. I had thought that, in order to get duty free, one would have to fly to Casablanca and then on to Gibraltar, because Casablanca is—I quote new clause 6(4A)—
      "an immediate destination"
      outside the EU, but it turned out that actually one only had to fly to Gibraltar. As long as one goes to Spain via Gibraltar, one will be able to collect duty free; if one goes to Spain directly, one will not.
      9.15 pm
      My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) brought out the more vexed issue of the Basle problem. Should Basle airport be privatised, I would recommend that hon. Members consider investing in it early, because Basle has the lucky escape, so to speak, of being in two countries—Switzerland and France—at once, or in neither country at any time. As a result, if one wants to travel inside the EU to France and one happens to be clever enough to do it via Basle, one will also be entitled to duty free, even though one will be walking straight out into France.
      Those were just two of the very large run of problems that were brought up, and that illustrated the complicated farce that the present proposals will give rise to. The Paymaster General, in an eloquent series of utterances, told the Committee that it was a puffed-up thing and that no one need worry because
      "Passengers would have to go to Casablanca, get off the plane, go into the airport and then rejoin the plane before take-off."
      Then she said rhetorically to the Committee:
      "What am I supposed to do about duty-free goods outside the EU?"—[Official Report, Ninth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, 1 July 1999; c. 16.]
      Unfortunately, today, the Paymaster General produces new clause 6 and subsection (4A), and we find that the relevant item is the "immediate destination". It turns out that there is no need to get off the plane at all; it is quite

      731
      sufficient for that place to be the first stop on one's journey. While one is there, or on the way there, the things that one is sold are stores in the technical meaning of the term and therefore may be sold duty free—and hey presto, the mess is not only a mess, but a mess the character of which, it turned out last week, the Paymaster General has not understood.
      Undoubtedly, during the coming weeks and months, clever lawyers, clever airlines and so on will illustrate a heap of other such messes. I am sure that the Paymaster General will then return to the House and say that she never meant any of those things and that she really had quite a different clause in mind. It is just a pity that she has not brought that before the House today.
      Mr. Edward Davey: Does the hon. Gentleman think that people travel for duty free or to get from A to B?
      Mr. Letwin: The hon. Gentleman, unlike many of us in the House, is obviously not a skier. I have to tell him that there are lots of ways to get to Switzerland and lots of ways to get to France, and quite a lot of them end up by getting from A to B; it is just that one can choose to go via C, D or E. He would be very well advised to think of going via Basle in future.
      Mr. David Wilshire: Thank you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have little doubt that you would rule a general debate about duty free out of order, so I shall confine myself to some specific matters that are raised by new clause 6, which are relevant to duty free in general but more specifically to the financial arrangements.
      I am worried about this issue because my constituency is hard up against the boundary fence of Heathrow, which means that either many hundreds, or a 1,000 or so, constituents of mine depend on the duty free trade for their jobs. It also means that a significant number of customs officers who work at Heathrow are my constituents. Perhaps more important still, almost all my constituents—whether they travel for duty free or for other reasons—enjoy duty free, so I am very much involved in the entirety of this debate.
      I am worried about new clause 6 because it gives effect to changes that will lead to redundancies in my constituency, and that will put pressure on the decreasing number of customs officers—decreasing because the present Government see fit to reduce the number of customs officers at Heathrow fairly regularly. In case the Paymaster General is tempted to say that new clause 6 will reduce the work load of customs officers, I would respectfully suggest that it will actually increase it because, previously, anyone passing through terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4 bought duty free and away they went, and the Customs and Excise people knew the score. Now, it will be necessary to decide, when a person leaves, for example, from terminal 1, where the heck they are going, or if they are arriving at terminal 1, where they have come from. As a result we shall need more, not fewer, customs officers—or very clear assurances from the Paymaster General that the existing customs officers will not be put upon unreasonably.
      The new clause also confirms the Government's failure to prevent something happening that they trumpeted that they would prevent. It is a failure by the Government from
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      which they cannot hide on this occasion. When the Paymaster General replies, it will not be good enough for her to say, "We have obtained some wonderful concessions." I heard her try that trick last week.
      I have had a good, long and hard look at the so-called wonderful concessions, and one of them bears mentioning. We were told that, if a ferry is coming across the English channel and someone happens to get himself into the shop before the vessel enters territorial waters, there is a concession that enables the individual to continue shopping. However, the small print states that, after three months the concession will disappear. So much for the Government's marvellous negotiating skills when they go to Brussels.
      There are a number of matters concerning the new clause on which I seek clarification. I begin with the concept that it is founded upon the treating of goods in ships and aircraft as stores. Are we absolutely clear what we mean? The clause states that it is necessary to refer to section 1(4) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. That is where we must turn to find our definitions, and I did that this afternoon.
      Section 1 of the 1979 Act amounts to four and a half pages of various definitions. The section goes so far as to draw a distinction between a ship, which is defined, and a British ship, which is also defined. Search as I might, I could find no definition of an aircraft. If we are to be told in the new clause that we must refer to the 1979 Act for a starting point, where is the definition of "aircraft" from which we must work?
      The Paymaster General may shake her head and think that I am being pedantic. However, she tells us that we must refer to the 1979 Act for a definition of "ship". I ask her to provide us with one for "aircraft".
      Another feature that bothers me about the concept of treating goods as stores is that the new clause refers to "Goods … carried." It does not refer to goods loaded. Here, there is a problem. As it is made clear in the definition that we are talking about ships and not British ships, we are talking about any ship that comes into a United Kingdom port carrying goods.
      Let us suppose that a Norwegian ship leaves Bergen and calls in at Newcastle. There is no problem because it has come from somewhere outside the European Union. However, it is carrying duty-free stores from Bergen which it will take back to Bergen. If I understand the clause correctly, if that ship returns directly to Bergen, there is no problem. It will not have landed anything but it will have duty-free goods on board. However, if that ship, having sailed from Bergen to Newcastle, calls in at Rotterdam before returning to Bergen, Customs and Excise will have to board it and make a list of every last thing on it and make those concerned pay duty, which they may or may not have paid back when they leave Rotterdam to go to Bergen. That is the nonsensical feature of referring to "Goods … carried" and not goods loaded. I shall be most grateful if the Paymaster General will tell us why the particular wording has been used.
      I am also concerned about "relevant journey" as a definition. We are told that it equals
      "an immediate destination outside the member States."
      This afternoon, the Paymaster General helpfully gave me a list of those parts of the European Union that are outside the customs union. One of them was Andorra.

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      Another that has been mentioned is Gibraltar. However, we are told that a relevant journey must take one outside a member state. Gibraltar is not outside a member state. It is part of the European Union, but it is outside the customs union.
      The Andorran situation bears closer scrutiny. Last time I was there, huge numbers of French matrons driving Renaults and Citroens were bombing up and down the mountain, going up empty and coming down full, and seemed to be making numerous journeys every day. If they can go on doing that, why cannot we, when we go across the channel?
      I am worried about whether the definition of "relevant journey" is accurate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) referred to the Basle-Mulhouse problem. I shall not detain the House by rehearsing the stupidity of it, but when I was given a list of parts of the EU that are outside the customs union, I got wonderful places in the Caribbean and other bits of France all over the place, but no mention of that lovely little part of France that is occupied by Basle airport.
      As the Paymaster General told us in Committee last week, if we travel into Basle airport from Heathrow, we can have all the duty free to which the allowances entitle us, but it is in France, so the information that we were given this afternoon was, I suggest, duff information. It did not include all those parts of the EU that are outside the customs union.
      Will the Paymaster General therefore revisit the answer that she gave me and try again? Will she also tell me whether the definition of "relevant journey" as an immediate destination outside the member states is sufficient, given that she admitted that travelling to a part of France can be construed as a relevant journey? There seems to be some trouble with the drafting.
      There is a further problem with the definition of "relevant journey". If we leave Tilbury and head for Tangier, that is a relevant journey. If, however, we have engine trouble on the way and put in in Vigo in northern Spain, do Her Majesty's Customs and Excise have to fly out to Vigo to say, "Oops, sorry, this is not a relevant journey any more, so we want to make sure that you give us all the excise duty and VAT."? If not, where is the qualification in the legislation that states that an unexpected diversion into an EU state does not trigger the problem that I am highlighting?
      Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend contrasts the difference in travelling from one part of the EU to another, not involving the UK. He asked whether there had been a mistake in the drafting. Does he think that we have over-egged the European Union directive and made it a tougher regime than it need otherwise be?
      Mr. Wilshire: I am certain that we shall behave as we usually do in the United Kingdom, and rigorously enforce measures while others shrug their shoulders and may or may not bother to enforce them. That is one of the reasons why we suffer time and again at the hands of Brussels bureaucrats, when others get away with ignoring them. Again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I went down that track for much longer, you would rightly call me to order.
      Another phrase that concerns me in the wording of the new clause is "for consumption on board". We have not had an explanation why the Government suggest that.
      734
      I am all in favour of as many concessions as we can get, but this seems illogical. The reason why our harmless bit of fun has been taken away, as I understand it, is that the Brussels bureaucrats decided that it was against the interests of the single market for us to be allowed to buy duty free as we travel round the EU.
      If we travel from Paris to London, we are travelling within the EU, but the Brussels bureaucrats say that it is perfectly all right for us to have duty free, provided that we consume it. That is daft. If we can get a concession for consumption, why not other concessions?
      The exception is incredibly difficult to enforce. Someone travelling on a ferry may be thirsty and buy lots of drinks, only to be taken ill because the sea is rough. What will he do? He has bought drinks to consume, but has not consumed them. Will customs officers tear around the ship checking what people have eaten, drunk and smoked as they make their journey and demand duty if they have not finished a bottle? We need an explanation.
      9.30 pm
      Another thing bothers me about the words "for consumption on board". We now know that duty-free prices at places such as Heathrow were seriously inflated—we are talking about £5 on an £8 bottle of spirits. We are granting an exception so that ferry companies and aircraft operators can sell duty-free drinks to passengers. Do the Government plan to make it compulsory for bar price lists and menus to make it clear that the person serving drinks is taking advantage of a duty-free perk? If they do so, there would be a warning of some sort and, when people paid, they would not make the mistake of comparing bar and menu prices with those in what was the duty-free shop and is now the duty-paid shop to judge whether they were being ripped off.
      What do the Government have in store for Eurostar in respect of the words "for consumption on board"? When people catch a ferry from Dover to Calais or fly from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle what they eat, drink and smoke on the ship or the aircraft is duty free—that is the concession—but it is not if they catch a train. That also is illogical. Perhaps the Paymaster General can tell the House why Eurostar and Le Shuttle have been singled out for such particularly nasty treatment.
      Mr. James Gray: Has my hon. Friend noticed the astonishing urgency with which the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary is dashing up and down to pick up bits of briefing? He is obviously hitting a few bull's eyes.
      Mr. Wilshire: I am fully expecting detailed answers to all my questions. Although some Labour Members may think that I am being a bit of a nuisance, Mr. Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I apologise, Madam Speaker; you can tell that I have been carried away by my enthusiasm.
      The new clause raises two other issues—the safety of aircraft and environmental damage. Profit margins are being cut and the holding down of prices in what were duty-free shops will work only if sales increase. There is now no limit on what people can buy duty paid at Heathrow airport or wherever and it therefore follows that it is perfectly possible to buy a large number of bottles of spirits.

      735
      When I raised that issue with the Paymaster General in Committee last week, I received the answer that airlines would not allow vast numbers of bottles to brought on board. However, the number does not have to be vast. Someone with no hand luggage could easily bring four or five bottles on board instead of one. That would be within most airlines' limit. Alternatively—this has already happened—someone could buy a large number of bottles and arrange for the aircraft operator to carry them in the hold.
      I represent part of Heathrow, and I am worried by the thought of large quantities of inflammable liquid in glass bottles hurtling about the skies. I believe that we have opened up a safety problem and I should be grateful if the Paymaster General would address it. I am also concerned about the extra weight that will be carried by aircraft. It would be easy to say that I am making another pedantic point, but if the weight carried by an aircraft increases the burn of aviation fuel increases and further damage is done to the atmosphere and the ozone layer.
      There is a simple solution to the problem that the new clause causes: the Government should allow the sale of duty-paid products at lower foreign prices to arriving passengers at British airports. They would not then need to go to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to stock up with huge numbers of cheaper bottles. They could fly with less luggage, the aircraft would be safer and there would be less chance of environmental damage. I commend that approach to the Minister.
      So many messages have been passed to the Paymaster General that I have probably asked enough questions of her. I see that another answer is on its way to her as I speak. I hope that she will not fall into the trap of saying simply that I am being difficult, or trying to wile away a few minutes. All my questions are serious. They raise difficulties about the wording of the clause and the workability of a forthcoming Act of Parliament. All of them need clear answers, although some were technical and, if the answers being passed to the hon. Lady do not answer them in detail, I should be grateful to receive a written reply, copied to the Library.
      I deplore what has happened. It has spoiled the fun of many. It causes redundancies in my constituency, and it is yet another reason why the EU's powers need to be taken away. But I am a realist. What has happened has happened, and we must get the Bill right. Will the Minister repeat the undertaking that she gave in Committee to introduce the changes with the lightest possible touch from Customs and Excise in the early stages, when problems will arise? Will she repeat her undertaking to review absolutely everything over the next three to four months—not just what suits her—to see whether we can learn from the mistakes that the Government have undoubtedly made?
      Dawn Primarolo: I will not say that the hon. Gentleman was wasting time, and he was wrong to suggest that I should. I think that he is misguided, and that he has not paid attention to the fact that the successor regime operates already. He obviously has not read the newspapers or the undertakings given by suppliers about the possibility of job losses, but I understand entirely why he, like any good constituency Member, is particularly concerned about the future employment of his constituents.
      736
      The hon. Gentleman was present when I made it clear that preparations for the abolition of duty free and arrangements for the successor regime were working smoothly for traders and travellers. I am happy to repeat that Customs and Excise will work closely with the trade and will apply the light touch for which he asked. We shall review the work of the successor regime in the light of experience. The hon. Gentleman will have seen that many of the disasters that he predicted, and which he continues to forecast, have not happened.
      The hon. Gentleman asked why on-board consumption was VAT free. The Commission announced on 2 October 1998 that member states could continue to allow goods consumed on board to be relieved of VAT. I explained in Committee that the Government would allow that to happen.
      Mr. Wilshire: The Minister may recall that I asked whether consumption was exempt of tax alone or of tax and duty. She may have made a slip of the tongue, but I understood her to say that goods would be free of VAT. Will they be free of VAT alone, or duty too?
      Dawn Primarolo: I am sorry; I misheard the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he was asking about VAT only. The position that I set out earlier on excise duty and VAT is correct.
      The hon. Gentleman asked about the immediate destination provision. As I said in Committee, if a flight involves a stop-over outside the European Union, travellers have a limited entitlement to duty-free goods. As he well knows, it is a very limited entitlement and may not be the bargain that they thought they would get.
      Over the next few months, the staff of Customs and Excise will concentrate on helping the industry to adjust to the new regime. In the long term, Customs and Excise does not expect the duty-paid regime to be any more demanding of its resources than the former duty-free regime.
      The hon. Gentleman may have seen the report in The Sunday Telegraph on the decision of British Airways not to sell alcohol and tobacco on flights, but to continue to offer other goods under the EU restrictions.
      As I said to the hon. Gentleman in Committee, safety is a matter for the airline companies, which are perfectly capable of enforcing a reasonable attitude towards the carrying of duty-paid goods, and are doing so.
      The hon. Gentleman's final point was on triangular routes. A ferry may move through several duty regimes. As I said in Committee and in my opening remarks, the simplified arrangements apply to the majority of journeys. However, in the exceptional case of triangular routes, fuller accounting procedures are required. Those operators are already used to dealing with more complex accounting of their stores and sales under the old regime. The problem that the hon. Gentleman forecasts is not manifesting itself in the spectacular way that he continues to suggest.
      The Government would have preferred more time to work on a successor regime, but it was not available to us. We would have preferred it if the previous Government had made some preparation for the abolition of duty free, for which they voted, but they did not. In the circumstances, we have a regime that has been welcomed by the trade, that is working well for the travellers,

      737
      and that is ensuring that the transition from duty free to the new regime is as smooth as it could possibly be. I commend the new clause to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 14

      WORKS OF ART, ANTIQUES, ETC.
      '.—(1) In subsection (4) of section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (which treats as reduced for VAT purposes the value of goods falling within subsection (5) of that section and imported from outside the EC)—

      (a) at the beginning there shall be inserted "Subject to subsection (6D) below,";

      (b) for "14.29 per cent." there shall be substituted "28.58 per cent."

      (2) For subsections (5) and (6) of that section there shall be substituted the following subsections—
      "(5) The goods that fall within this subsection are—

      (a) any work of art;

      (b) any antique, not falling within paragraph (a) above or (c) below, that is more than one hundred years old;

      (c) any collection or collector's piece that is of zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archaeological, palaeontological, ethnographic, numismatic or philatelic interest.

      (6) In this section 'work of art' means, subject to subsections (6A) and (6B) below—

      (a) any mounted or unmounted painting, drawing, collage, decorative plaque or similar picture that was executed by hand;

      (b) any original engraving, lithograph or other print which—

      (i) was produced from one or more plates executed by hand by an individual who executed them without using any mechanical or photomechanical process; and

      (ii) either is the only one produced from the plate or plates or is comprised in a limited edition;

      (c) any original sculpture or statuary, in any material;

      (d) any sculpture cast which—

      (i) was produced by or under the supervision of the individual who made the mould or became entitled to it by succession on the death of that individual; and

      (ii) either is the only cast produced from the mould or is comprised in a limited edition;

      (e) any tapestry or other hanging which—

      (i) was made by hand from an original design; and

      (ii) either is the only one made from the design or is comprised in a limited edition;

      (f) any ceramic executed by an individual and signed by him;

      (g) any enamel on copper which—

      (i) was executed by hand;

      (ii) is signed either by the person who executed it or by someone on behalf of the studio where it was executed;

      (iii) either is the only one made from the design in question or is comprised in a limited edition; and

      (iv) is not comprised in an article of jewellery or an article of a kind produced by goldsmiths or silversmiths;

      (h) any mounted or unmounted photograph which—
      738

      (i) was printed by or under the supervision of the photographer;

      (ii) is signed by him; and

      (iii) either is the only print made from the exposure in question or is comprised in a limited edition;

      (6A) The following do not fall within subsection (5) above by virtue of subsection (6)(a) above, that is to say—

      (a) any technical drawing, map or plan;

      (b) any picture comprised in a manufactured article that has been hand-decorated; or

      (c) anything in the nature of scenery, including a backcloth.

      (6B) An item comprised in a limited edition shall be taken to be so comprised for the purposes of subsection (6)(d) to (h) above only if—

      (a) in the case of sculpture casts—

      (i) the edition is limited so that the number produced from the same mould does not exceed eight; or

      (ii) the edition comprises a limited edition of nine or more casts made before 1st January 1989 which the Commissioners have directed should be treated, in the exceptional circumstances of the case, as a limited edition for the purposes of subsection (6)(d) above;

      (b) in the case of tapestries and hangings, the edition is limited so that the number produced from the same design does not exceed eight;

      (c) in the case of enamels on copper—

      (i) the edition is limited so that the number produced from the same design does not exceed eight; and

      (ii) each of the enamels in the edition is numbered and is signed as mentioned in subsection (6)(g)(ii) above;

      (d) in the case of photographs—

      (i) the edition is limited so that the number produced from the same exposure does not exceed thirty; and

      (ii) each of the prints in the edition is numbered and is signed as mentioned in subsection (6)(h)(ii) above.

      (6C) For the purposes of this section a collector's piece is of philatelic interest if—

      (a) it is a postage or revenue stamp, a postmark, a first-day cover or an item of pre-stamped stationery; and

      (b) it is franked or (if unfranked) it is not legal tender and is not intended for use as such.

      (6D) Subsection (4) above does not apply in the case of any goods imported from outside the member States if—

      (a) the whole of the VAT chargeable on their importation falls to be relieved by virtue of an order under section 37(1); or

      (b) they were exported from the United Kingdom during the period of twelve months ending with the date of their importation."

      (3) This section has effect in relation to goods imported at any time on or after the day on which this Act is passed.'.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Dawn Primarolo: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The new clause enables the United Kingdom to fulfil its legal obligations under the seventh VAT directive, as incorporated in the EC sixth VAT directive. That directive requires member states to apply a minimum rate of VAT

      739
      of at least 5 per cent. to a wide range of imported works of art, antiques and collectors' pieces. The new clause implements the undertaking given by the previous Government to increase our rate to the minimum level.
      Since 1995, the United Kingdom has applied a rate of 2½ per cent. to a limited range of works of art, antiques and collectors' items. Until the UK implemented the seventh directive, those products had been relieved from import VAT. That rate of 2½ per cent. has been available to the UK only under a transitional derogation, which was time-limited to 30 June 1999.
      9.45 pm
      Despite our inheritance from the previous Government, this Government have decided that, on balance, it would be better all round for our 2½ per cent. rate to be more widely available in the Community. We have fought that case long and hard in Europe, arguing that the interests of both the United Kingdom and the Community generally would be best served by 2½ per cent. being made the minimum rate available to all member states. However, we have also pressed the case for the UK to retain its special rate for a further period in the event of our failing to reach agreement with our European partners.
      Mr. Fabricant: Will the Paymaster General give way?
      Dawn Primarolo: May I finish what I am saying? After that, I shall be happy to respond to any points that the hon. Gentleman wishes to make.
      Either of those proposals would have required both the support of the European Commission and the unanimous agreement of all other member states. Despite our efforts, it became clear that there would be little support for the UK position, and it has therefore not been possible to secure the unanimous agreement that was necessary to bring about the change.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Will the Paymaster General give way?
      Dawn Primarolo: I want to finish what I am saying. I shall then be happy to respond to any points that hon. Members make in the debate.
      We have throughout worked closely with the art trade. We fully realise the importance of the British art market and its worldwide standing. For those reasons, we propose to ease the effects of the increase in the rate of import VAT by widening the scope of the new 5 per cent. rate to a broader range of art works. That rate will apply to the full range of items that may be entitled to a reduced rate of import VAT under the sixth directive.
      Mr. Andrew Tyrie: Will the Paymaster General give way?
      Dawn Primarolo: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would let me put the case. I shall, of course, respond to the points that hon. Members make in the debate. We engaged in some discussion about the matter at the outset, and I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to take part.
      Even with the increase, there is still no lower rate of import VAT in Europe on works of art. It is the minimum that the Government need to do to comply with the
      740
      absolute legal obligation that we inherited from the last Administration. The package offers a much wider coverage of the reduced rate for art imports and should ensure that the UK remains an attractive place for the art trade.
      Our proposals have been welcomed by the British art market, which has acknowledged the length to which the Government went to try to undo the damage done by their predecessor. I commend the new clause.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) for drawing attention to the last Government's difficulties. Their decision to accept the halfway house that has persisted until now was a compromise that was, in effect, forced upon them. It was always envisaged that the economic impact of a 2.5 per cent. VAT rate would be properly assessed by the European Union, and it was reasonable to suppose four years ago that, when the matter came up for review this year, our partners would understand the effect that the rate has had on the London art market in particular.
      The Paymaster General asked us to applaud her efforts. The fact is that the widening of the 5 per cent. band will not affect the major issue, which is where international art sales take place. It is in the sales of Impressionist paintings and old masters that the really attractive big money is being spent. Those are exactly the sort of sales which, in the future, will take place almost exclusively in Geneva, New York and other places outside the European Union. It is the lucrative end of the market that London will lose, and the consequences for London will be severe.
      The Paymaster General has failed to tell us in this debate or the previous one how many jobs she expects the market to lose as a result of the measure. There can be no doubt that jobs will be lost. It may not be as many as the 5,000 predicted earlier—let us hope that that is the case—but there will be job losses.
      The Paymaster General's comment that the new measure is tax neutral beggars belief. The only sense in which it is tax neutral is that the amount of tax that is raised may be no more than the amount that was raised under the previous system. Any situation in which the tax rate doubles but the amount of tax collected remains the same is, by implication, one in which the volume of transactions has, in effect, halved. Will she confirm—I hope she is listening—that in the key areas, including the old masters, the Impressionists and other parts of the value end of the art market, the implication of her prediction on revenue is that the value of sales in the United Kingdom will halve as a result of the increase in tax?
      In Committee, I suggested to the Paymaster General and her advisers that they should look at the exemption for culture under the sixth VAT directive. There is a clear exemption for cultural activity in the European Union—VAT should not apply to cultural activities where those are not to the disadvantage of other member states.
      It is widely agreed that, in the case of the art market, any low rate in the UK is not to the disadvantage of other member states because we are in competition not with them, but with Geneva, New York and other centres where there is no tax to pay. Why is it that before we did not impose tax on art sales in this country? It is because, fundamentally, it is not a financial transaction but a

      741
      cultural exchange. Therefore, under the VAT directive, there is a specific exemption, which could be explored with our other partners. On that basis, a wide exemption could be granted to the market in this country.
      Four years ago, we chose not to go down the contentious legal route to protect our art market. We chose to enter a compromise deal—
      Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. St. Aubyn: I will finish in a moment; I shall let the hon. Gentleman in in a moment.
      We chose to enter a compromise deal on the basis that, within four years, the evidence would be clear that the rate was damaging our market and not helping anyone else's. We assumed that our partners in Europe would accede to our request at the end of the period to cut the rate again. Having failed to do so, we should be going down the legalistic route. We should be trying to protect a valuable business in this country. It is the Government's failure to do so, despite their promises in recent months, that is the real disappointment. That is why our questions deserve a proper answer from the Paymaster General.
      Mr. John Townend: I do not know whether I heard the Paymaster General correctly, but I got the impression that she said that the 5 per cent. rate was not continuous but for a limited period. If that is so, will she tell us how long that period is and what the rate is likely to increase to?
      The Paymaster General surprisingly said that the decision to double the VAT rate was welcomed by the art trade in this country. I find that incomprehensible because the only people who will welcome the VAT increase in London are art dealers in New York and Switzerland.
      The terrible situation has shown us one thing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) said, naturally, we expected from an equitable point of view that our European colleagues, having looked at the effect of the 2.5 per cent. rate, would see reason and allow us to continue at that rate. As has been said many times, it is not a question of harmonisation to remove unfair competition with other countries in Europe. There are only three international markets in the world: London, Geneva and New York. Once the change is made, all that will happen is that the European Union as a whole will lose out in the international art market to America and to Switzerland. Does not that fact demonstrate—to the House and to the British people—that, when our vital national interests are at stake, we cannot depend on Europe?
      It does not matter whether the previous Government made a great mistake in agreeing the change or the current Government are making a mistake now. The current Government said, "Things will be different: we are at the heart of Europe. We shall persuade our European partners to see reason." In this case, we have reason on our side, but the Government have failed completely.
      Mr. Geraint Davies: Today, we have heard much froth and rubbish from Opposition Members on the issue to which there are two aspects: first, VAT on certain items
      742
      will be increased from 2.5 to 5 per cent.; secondly, there will be a VAT reduction on other works of art. However, we have not heard much from Opposition Members about the VAT reduction.
      Let us get our facts right. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) asked the shadow Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), whether he was Paymaster General in 1994, when the previous, Conservative Government agreed the VAT increase from 2.5 to 5 per cent.—about which Conservative Members have been whingeing today, but which they agreed—but he said that he was not Paymaster General at that time. [Interruption.] However, all the records—such as old lists of ministerial responsibilities—seem to say that, in September 1994, David Heathcoat-Amory Esq. was the Paymaster General.
      Mr. Heathcoat-Amory rose—
      Mr. Davies: Obviously the right hon. Gentleman has some sort of memory problem. Perhaps that is why he has a majority of only 528. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] I shall certainly give way, if the right hon. Gentleman would like to correct the record.
      Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for graciously giving way, as he mentioned me. I should like to make it absolutely clear, and beyond doubt, that I had nothing to do with the negotiation of those matters or the decision, all of which were dealt with by my noble Friend Lord Cope. Will the hon. Gentleman accept that assurance?
      Mr. Davies: Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman knew nothing about it, and had no responsibility for it whatsoever? In answer to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, the right hon. Gentleman said that, in 1994, he was not Paymaster General—but he was. Could we get that matter clear, for the record? What sort of Cabinet was involved in the decision? Regardless of whether the decision was taken by him, one of his colleagues or someone who has subsequently slipped off the electoral terrain—as I said, the right hon. Gentleman has a majority of only 528—with such talk about positions previously held, one wonders whether he will be in the House for very much longer. The simple fact is that British art will be successful for much longer than he will be.
      There will be a marginal tax increase. Although no one welcomes the increase—which was introduced by Conservative Members—to counteract it, the Government are introducing all types of concessions. There will be a massive reduction in the marginal rate of VAT, from 17.5 to 5 per cent., on tapestries, ceramics, enamels and photographs.
      More widely, there is a new generation in a thriving antiques industry, which will generate many new jobs. However, all we hear from whingeing Opposition Members—crying crocodile tears, moaning and rolling around on the Opposition Benches—is, "What about the

      743
      job cuts?" The Government are reviving the industry, while dealing with the legacy of tax constraints that we inherited from the previous Government.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Davies: Perhaps we can now move on. I would have taken the hon. Gentleman's intervention, but he refused—from absolute embarrassment—to take mine.
      Mr. Tyrie: I simply want to ask the Paymaster General a few questions that I was unable to put in an intervention.
      First, will the Paymaster General clarify the assumptions behind her forecast of a £10 million revenue increase from the VAT increase from 2.5 to 5 per cent? Will she state categorically whether those assumptions include the sharp fall in business that is likely to occur because of the VAT increase?
      Secondly, will the hon. Lady commit herself to the review that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) asked for? Will the Government go to Brussels and press for another report after a couple of years, which will show the damaging effect that the increase in VAT will have in Britain and across the European market? The market will move out of Europe to New York and Tokyo. Will she commit herself to pushing for a review of this absurd policy after a couple of years?
      10 pm
      Mr. Christopher Gill: My hon. Friends the Members for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) and for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) have made a good case on behalf of the London art market and shown how the tax will adversely affect it. I have every sympathy with their point of view and the strength of their argument.
      The Government are fully signed up to the European Union. Instead of looking at the issue in the narrow confines of the British interest, why has it not been possible for the British Government to persuade the European Union that not increasing the tax is in the interests of the European Union as a whole, not just the London art market? London is part of the broader picture. Why has it not been possible to persuade the powers that be that the change would damage the European Union? The argument should be advanced on a broader plain. We need to explain to our European partners that the opposition is in New York and Geneva. By damaging the London market, all that we are doing is damaging Europe.
      Mr. Fabricant: I endeavoured to intervene on the Minister earlier, but she was determined not to let anyone in. When we debated the subject on the earlier narrow Ways and Means motion, she said that we would be quite competitive at 5 per cent., because, apart from Denmark, other countries had a higher rate. The problem is that those countries are not the competitors. The competitors are Basel, Geneva and New York. What is the general sales tax for art works in New York state or Geneva?
      Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: We debated the issue earlier today, but there are some questions outstanding, to which my hon. Friends have referred. I have two questions.
      It is regrettable that VAT on imports is to be doubled. That will be a heavy and savage blow to the British art market. No one has made a secret of the fact that we are
      744
      dealing with a pre-existing directive. I am happy to reassure the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) again that it had nothing to do with me. The negotiations took place while my predecessor was Paymaster General, but I do not dissociate myself from my noble Friend Lord Cope, who secured an undertaking that the Commission would conduct a study before the derogation ran out. That study was forthcoming and showed that damage had been caused even at the existing levels of VAT on art imports.
      The study also mentions that in the 1950s Paris was the biggest art market not just in Europe, but in the world. It has been damaged by a combination of the droit de suite—a levy on the resale of works of art—and the imposition of VAT on art imported into France. That is a matter for the French Government, but the same levels of VAT are to be imposed on the UK market despite the damage that has been shown in the study by the consultants. That conflicts with article 2 of the treaty of Rome, as amended, which says that the European Union should have a number of objectives, the first of which is to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment. It has been shown by the study that the proposal will cost jobs in the EU, and will undoubtedly do further economic damage. It is my contention that the European Commission is breaking the treaty in persisting with its intention to bring the minimum level of VAT on art imports up to 5 per cent.
      My first request, which has been echoed by my hon. Friends, is that the Commission should be asked to conduct a further study after the VAT directive is enacted to ensure that no further damage is done and, if damage is inflicted, that action will be taken. That is a modest request to make of the Government.
      My second request concerns the linked matter of droit de suite. Happily, that separate threat has been deferred. However, it has only been postponed, and I would like to know on what terms it has been deferred, whether it will come back, whether further technical work will be undertaken and whether further political consultations are taking place.
      The art market needs to know the answers to those questions tonight. I asked them earlier today without success. Perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to answer those two specific questions.
      Dawn Primarolo: We can sum up the approach of the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) as, "It is nothing to do with me. I was just a member of the Government of the time—or, at least, I was voting for them."
      The previous Government committed the United Kingdom to an absolute legal obligation to increase VAT on works of art from 2.5 per cent. to 5 per cent. It is true that the previous Government asked the Commission to undertake an independent study of the impact of the imposition of 2.5 per cent. VAT on the art market. However, the study was not made conditional on anything. It was not put in the directive, nor was it said that the derogation should not expire until the study was completed.
      The study was completed independently, and arrived late. It showed that there were grounds for continuing to argue the case that the increase from 2.5 per cent. to 5 per cent. should not take place. The Commission ignored that,

      745
      and made its own recommendations. The Government were faced with an absolute legal obligation to increase the VAT to 5 per cent, which could not be resisted. There was simply no practical choice but to implement the increase. We were faced with the legal obligations signed up to by the previous Government.
      Earlier, I referred to the cost to the British art market, how much revenue would be raised by increasing the levy to 5 per cent. and the results of the concession. The British Art Market Federation has said that it believes that the overall package will enable the art market to remain as competitive as it is already. Therefore, the Government's figures of a £10 million rise, as well as the cost of the concession, will result in a revenue-neutral position. [Interruption.] I am not surprised that Conservative Members do not want to listen, because their crocodile tears at this late stage are pathetic. The Government have fought hard, working in partnership with the art market, and we continue to press the case. We made it clear to the Commission that we want to pursue the impact on the art market of increasing VAT.
      The British art market is of value to Europe. We should think not about our art market versus the rest of Europe but about sales in the international market. I am happy to give the House the undertaking that the Government will continue to fight for the best interests of the art market. We deeply regret the fact that the previous Government were so foolish as to create an absolute legal obligation with which we now have to comply, but there is no alternative.
      The package that we have proposed will enable the art market, so it tells us, to remain competitive and vibrant and attract new trade.
      Mr. Townend: The Paymaster General said that the art market has said that the reductions on ceramics and tapestries—which are minor parts of the market compared with painting—will allow it to remain competitive. Who exactly has said that?
      Dawn Primarolo: I could send the hon. Gentleman a copy of the British Art Market Federation's press release in response to our proposals. I am sure that he would be delighted to read it and to congratulate the Government on having done our very best—given that we were forced to increase VAT—to put together a package that mitigates the impact and helps the art market. I commend the new clause to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 5

      PREPARATIONS ETC. OF MEAT, YEAST OR EGG
      '. Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (zero-rating) shall have effect, and be deemed always to have had effect, as if in Group 1 (food), in Note (6) (which provides that certain items which override the exceptions listed in that Group relate only to item 4 of the excepted items (non-alcoholic beverages)) for "Items 4 to 6" there were substituted "Items 4 to 7".'.—[Dawn Primarolo.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Dawn Primarolo: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      746
      The new clause corrects an error made in the transcribing of a cross-reference from the Value Added Tax Act 1983 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994, unintentionally extending zero-rating to VAT on food to include pet food, although it has been this Government's, the previous Government's and the industry's interpretation that VAT was to be applied at 17.5 per cent. It restores the position to what everyone understood it to be until Customs and Excise recently discovered the error. I commend it to the House.
      Mr. Letwin: The new clause gives us a marvellous illustration of what is wrong with VAT legislation. The drafting mistake that the new clause remedies arose because of a quadruple negative. In the first place, everything is subject to VAT, but schedule 8 zero-rates—makes not VATable—certain items, including those in group 1, item 2 of which is animal feeding stuffs and pet foods; but certain items in group 1 are excepted and are not not VATable; but there is an override for preparations and extracts of yeast, meat or egg, which are not not zero-rated, or not not not VATable, making them not VATable, or zero-rated; but the override is overridden by note (6), which restricts some of the overrides to beverages such as Bovril, the favourite drink of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). That makes the other meaty preparations on that list not not not zero-rated, in which case, they are not not not not VATable—in which case, they are, of course, VATable. All of that was meant to apply to pet foods—poor old pet foods.
      Unfortunately, that string of quadruple negatives quite defeated Her Majesty's Government's magnificent legal advisers—and, we are to assume because no challenge was levelled, the entirety of the private sector, until very recently. Now, Her Majesty's Government have splendidly caught up with the fact after the fact; but they hardly needed to because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) pointed out earlier this afternoon, the sixth VAT directive probably had direct effect throughout, so there was probably no need for the change.
      That brings me to my questions. Does the Paymaster General know what the yield of the measure will be if it has been correctly drafted? I asked her this some hours ago, when we debated the Ways and Means motion, but she failed to answer—no doubt it was an oversight. Perhaps she will answer now.
      10.15 pm
      Mr. John Bercow: The challenge my hon. Friend poses the Paymaster General is entirely unexceptionable, so I assume that she will be able to answer it. However, does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Lady does not have to look into the crystal ball when she can read the book? Given that, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), the Paymaster General said that this tax had not only been incurred legally, but had been paid by the relevant sector in previous years, should she not be able to tell us how much was paid in the financial year 1998-99, and do so immediately?
      Mr. Letwin: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are discussing an opportunity loss for the Exchequer and, since we can know what revenue came to the Exchequer

      747
      through pet food VAT last year, the Paymaster General should be able to estimate what the opportunity loss would be were the new clause not added to the Bill—always assuming it had any value in the first place.
      My next question is whether the drafting is now right. I should not bother to ask were it not for the fact that the whole thing is so incomprehensible that it defeated all the draftsmen to begin with, and it might be that there is a mistake this time.
      I should also like to know what is a packaged food for birds. Packaged foods for birds will be caught, but packaged foods that happen to be eaten by birds but are not for birds will not be caught. This is just like the Medicines Control Agency: a great deal of fuss and bother has been caused by the difficulty of determining what something is for before one has eaten it. Whether the thing in question is caught depends to a great extent on whether one is a bird or a human being.
      I hope that the Paymaster General can tell us that she is confident that, this time around, she and her officials have got the drafting right, because what we have here is legislation that is a dreadful mess. That is nobody's fault—the blame must be spread across the past 50 years—but the situation has been greatly worsened by the sixth VAT directive. What we should have been dealing with this evening is a proper clearing up of some ghastly architecture; unfortunately, what we have is just another piece of patchwork.
      I hope that the Paymaster General will tell us, first, that the provision yields some serious revenue and, secondly and crucially, that it has been correctly drafted this time.
      Dawn Primarolo: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's second question is that I sincerely hope that the provision is correctly drafted this time and that the transcription error has now been corrected. The yield is £185 million a year, which is not an insignificant sum, so it seemed to be a good idea that the Government should maintain the revenue.
      I know that it is late, but I think that the Opposition should consider calming down, and agreeing that the new clause makes sense and represents sensible management.I apologise to the House for the previous Government having made the error, and I hope that the Opposition will now agree to its being corrected.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 3

      NON—TAX PAYERS
      'Nothing in the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 shall have the effect that any tax payer whose total income is below the personal allowance threshold for income tax purposes shall pay income tax.'.—[Mr. Quentin Davies.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Madam Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 18—A pensioner's tax exemption certificate—
      '.—(1) The Inland Revenue shall be given the power to issue tax exemption certificates to taxpayers who, at any time within that year are of the age of 65 or upwards, whose income does not exceed £6,000 (Tax Exemption Certificate Limit), and is likely not to exceed that limit in the three following years.
      (2) The Tax Exemption Certificate shall:

      (a) entitle the taxpayer to receive income from all sources without deduction of income tax

      (b) exempt the taxpayer from dealings with the Inland Revenue, save to confirm the level of income when renewing the Tax Exemption Certificate

      (c) require the taxpayer to notify the Inland Revenue by 5th October following the end of the tax year where their income has exceeded the Tax Exemption Certificate limit

      (d) be granted for a period of four consecutive years.

      (3) The Tax Exemption Certificate limit shall be automatically uprated every year in accordance with section 257 of the Taxes Act 1988.'.
      Amendment No. 2, in clause 19, page 9, line 12, leave out '20' and insert '10'.
      Mr. Davies: I remind the House that I have interests that are listed in the register, but none of them is relevant to this debate or to earlier debates.
      This is a crucial point in the proceedings. There is no need for any political banter or point-scoring. In tabling new clause 3 and amendment No. 3, we contend that the Government, in only two years, have inflicted immense damage on our income tax system. They have brought about a disreputable shambles by making changes that bear no relationship to the principles that ought to characterise a tax system. In a fair, just and economically sensible and successful society, a tax system ought to be based on the principles of justice, clarity and rationality. We now have an income tax system that is brutally unfair, discriminatory—particularly against the most vulnerable people—and incomprehensibly irrational and opaque.
      I turn first to the callously unfair aspects of the tax system, as modified by the new Labour Government. The result of their measures is that people at the bottom of the income scale, whose incomes are so low that they do not even reach the income tax threshold, are now subject to income tax. That is already having a devastating effect on the finances of extremely—indeed, I would say almost pathetically—poor people.
      Let us consider someone whose total income is £5,000 a year, which is derived from dividends. That person might be one of those widows whom the Government have decided, in other measures, to deprive of their widows pension. We debated and, I regret to say, unsuccessfully opposed that vicious measure only a few months ago. That person might be somebody who has no pension or other source of income, but who has saved from a lifetime of self-employment a small amount of money that now yields £5,000. That person might be someone who had to leave employment because of disablement, and we know how the Government have now cruelly restricted the eligibility criteria for incapacity benefit and are means-testing that benefit.
      Those people are at the bottom of the income scale. A few months ago, their income was £5,000. What is their position now, following the Government's measures? It is almost inconceivable. Most people in this country, who are not in that category, have not even begun to face the reality of what has happened to people on the

      749
      lowest incomes. The result of the Government's measures is that people who had £5,000 to live on now have only £4,000. Those people, who are extremely vulnerable, have lost £1,000 a year, which is an income reduction of 20 per cent.
      Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend is expounding the case with great force and eloquence. Is he aware that during the proceedings on last year's Finance Bill, the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) urged the then Paymaster General to reconsider the Government's position on the tax treatment of dividends as it affected people of pensionable age? The hon. and learned Gentleman, having made that suggestion as a Government Back Bencher to the beleaguered Paymaster General, was subsequently promoted to the post of Solicitor-General. Sadly, despite his promotion, the Government have not shifted their position. Is not it about time that they did so, or that the Solicitor-General relinquished his post?
      Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend makes two telling points—one about an hon. and learned Member who certainly ought to be considering his position in the new Labour Administration. I hope that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who is about to respond to me, is also considering not just her position, but whether she feels proud to serve in a Government who press on the poorest people in our society in such a malicious and devastating fashion. That is exactly what has occurred.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) rightly said, the former Paymaster General, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), felt sufficiently ashamed by what his Government had done to express his embarrassment in Committee and to hold out the prospect that something would be done. Nothing, of course, has been done.
      This is part and parcel of a campaign waged by this new Labour Government against the new poor—people who are at the bottom of the income scale, but who have a small amount of savings and therefore do not qualify for the Government's means-tested benefits. They are being clobbered over and again by these vicious tax measures.
      One thing is quite extraordinary: the Government have protected certain categories of people from the impact of the abolition of the dividend tax credit. They have protected the higher taxpayers—people who would have been paying a marginal 40 per cent. tax on their dividend income and who continue to pay a marginal 40 per cent. on other sources of income. They have a new dividend tax rate of 32.5 per cent. The Government have protected overseas holders of British equities, so that Americans who receive a dividend stream from this country will still receive a cheque—a tax credit—from the Treasury.
      The Government cannot find a single crumb for people in this country who have saved hard or who are—perhaps—widows whose husbands saved on their behalf and who have some small savings income from dividends on which to live. The Government should be utterly ashamed of themselves. It amazes me that they can sleep happily in their beds knowing how cruelly they have
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      ruined the standards of living of people who are right at the bottom of the income scale. That is the achievement of new Labour.
      Mr. Christopher Leslie: Do the hon. Gentleman's comments about people on the lowest income mean that he will now support the working families tax credit?
      Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman has been well schooled by new Labour. The technique that he has learned is this: if one is asked an awkward question, if one is confronted with unpleasant reality, and if it is suggested that one's Government have betrayed the very principles on which the Labour party has thrived for most of this century, one changes the subject. The hon. Gentleman has tried unconvincingly to do so.
      I shall next consider people who are slightly up the income scale. What is the position of savers who have an income from saving, from bank deposits, building societies, bonds and gilts, or wherever, which takes them just above the income tax threshold? They do not benefit from the new lower tax rate of 10 per cent. They therefore find themselves at a disadvantage. For reasons incomprehensible, and certainly indefensible either in terms of justice or economic rationality, such savers are taxed at 20 per cent.—not at 10 per cent., as for the first £1,500 earned income band of taxable income.
      What has actually occurred? I shall briefly go through the range of rates, because the public have not yet focused on what has happened. Until last year, under the regime inherited from previous Conservative Administrations, there were only three income tax rates in this country. They were applied simply according to the taxpayer's income. They were progressive: the basic rate of tax was 23 per cent.; the lower rate was 20 per cent.; and the higher rate was 40 per cent. People paid at the relevant marginal rate according to their income. The system was fair, rational and comprehensible, and was widely accepted.
      10.30 pm
      What have the Government done during their two years in power? They have replaced those three rates—that simple and rational system—by eight different categories of liability for income tax and by five, soon to be six, different rates. They did so according to no principle at all, so that what has emerged is a dog's breakfast. There is a 10 per cent. lower rate of income tax on the first £1,500 of earnings from employment or self-employment. That does not apply to savings income from bank or building society deposits, bonds, gilts and so on. There is a 10 per cent. basic rate on dividends—not a lower rate—which takes that tax rate on dividend income up to more than £32,000. That is an extremely low rate. Anyone who receives dividend income up to more than £32,000—taking into account the personal allowance, which, I think, is now £4,335—does not have to make any further payments to the Revenue; that person does not have to account for any further tax.
      Then, there is a 20 per cent. basic rate on other savings income, so that, although dividends are taxed at 10 per cent, bank deposits are taxed at 20 per cent. Where is the rhyme or reason in that? What about income from earnings from employment or self-employment?

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      The basic rate is 23 per cent.—not 20 per cent. as for savings—for income within the range of the basic rate; that is up to £32,000 for people aged below 65, and slightly more than that for those aged over 65.
      I have already referred to the new 32.5 per cent. higher rate on dividends; there is a 40 per cent. higher rate on other savings income, and on income deriving from employment or self-employment. Soon, there will be an eighth category and a sixth rate: a 44 per cent. marginal rate for those with children, when the child tax credit comes in.
      The system is a complete shambles, based on no conceivable principle. Is it to be defended as being fair to the poor and slightly more unpleasant for the wealthier? No, not at all. As I have shown in my example, the people who suffer most—with a 20 per cent. reduction in their income overnight—are the poorest in the country, who have a savings income from dividends. On the other hand, higher rate taxpayers are protected; if they have dividend income, they are subject to a special 32.5 per cent. rate. One could not possibly say that the new system is a workers tax, as has been argued by new Labour, and that people receive better tax treatment if their income is from employment or self-employment rather than from savings. The reverse is true. People with higher earnings from employment and self-employment will pay tax at a margin of 40 per cent., whereas, if their income derives from dividends, the rate is 32.5 per cent. There is no rhyme or reason in that.
      I take two examples from different ends of the range. First, let us take a person whose total income is £6,000. If that income derives from United Kingdom dividends, they get £6,000; that is fine. If that income derives from bank interest, they will pay 20 per cent. tax above the threshold, and their income will be £5,711. If they have earned income, they will pay 10 per cent. for the first band of £1,500 above the personal allowance, and they will get £5,855. If their income were from foreign dividends, they would get the same amount, because a rate of 10 per cent. would apply. If they have—
      Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Davies: Not at this stage.
      Therefore, we have a series of five different possibilities—income from UK dividends; income from bank interest; income from earnings; income from foreign dividends; or income from PEPs and ISAs, in which case there will be a tax credit of 10 per cent., so the person will end up with £6,600. The income tax rate depends, not on how much one earns, but on the source of income.
      Secondly, let us take someone with a total income of £30,000. If their income derives from dividends, they are credited with having paid tax at 10 per cent. and have nothing more to pay. If it derives from bank interest, it is taxed at 20 per cent. beyond the personal allowance, and they will get £25,665. From self-employment or employment, they will get £24,293; from foreign dividends, £27,433. From PEPs or ISAs, they will get £33,000 because they will get a tax credit. There is no rhyme or reason in that.
      This is a system that simply cannot remain viable. This is a system that has lost all touch with justice or good sense. This is a system that the Government have
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      managed to introduce in merely two years. They have produced a shambles—an extremely damaging shambles—and they are in danger of undermining the fundamental support for taxation in this country, which has always been a feature of British life. If one produces something that is neither fair nor rational, one will not enjoy public respect; and that is the most devastating disservice to the cause of good taxation that any Government could possibly deliver.
      Mr. Geraint Davies: It is a great pleasure to have the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who bears my name, back on the Conservative Treasury team. He is very amusing when he makes his emotional outbursts, which bear no relation to reality. Strategically—to put this in context—the Government are trying to have a Budget that gets people back to work and supports families, while protecting the least poor with minimum income guarantees. The changes that are embraced in the Budget and will be entailed in what happens in the wider economy, should be seen in that context—enabling families to work, stopping child poverty, making work pay, and so on.
      There has been a lot of ranting from the Conservative Benches about the so-called pathetically poor and the cruel nature of the new Labour Government, but we should view that in context. The crocodile tears that Conservative Members have been shedding come from those who made up a Government who introduced such things as the poll tax, which obviously hit the poor the worst, and VAT on fuel, which especially hit the pensioners that they claim to be concerned about. That Government introduced charges for eye tests and cut pensions in real terms. We had the pensions mis-selling crisis.
      Also under that Government, about a million pensioners underclaimed their rights, and the Conservatives did nothing to encourage and enable people to claim their rights. There was a complicated system, which many people who did not have a very good education—because of the legacy of the lot opposite—did not understand. Essentially, we ended up with a lot of poor people who did not claim their benefits. These are the sort of things that the Government are doing something about.
      Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman is a good colleague of the Solicitor-General and I believe that he sat on the relevant Finance Bill Committee with him. Given the hon. Gentleman's reputation for intellectual curiosity, has he at no stage since the elevation of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) to the post of Solicitor-General asked him whether he has changed his mind about the Government's policy on the tax treatment of dividends for pensioners? Has he asked the hon. and learned Gentleman whether he is now a supporter of the Government's position or whether, continuing to believe in the position that he held as a Back Bencher, he has used his position within government to argue for a change of policy? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the thought of consulting his hon. and learned Friend has not crossed his mind?
      Mr. Davies: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that long-winded question. He would know, if he had bothered to be a member of the Committee to which he referred,

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      that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General asked whether the Government would care to review their position. The then Paymaster General said, "We will have another look at it because we are very fair on the Government Benches." The Government took that look and came to the conclusion that they were pursuing the right policy.
      It is necessary to separate social policy from economic policy. Without rehearsing all the arguments, Opposition Members should know that the changes were introduced to encourage more inward investment in companies and to get rid of tax distortions and excess pay-outs of dividends. The fact that there is a by-product for some non-taxpayers is known, but against that we have a strategy for eliminating poverty that is separate. It is horses for courses, and that is a rational approach.
      When we consider the number of people who are concerned by the changes—if he had been up to speed I would have expected the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford to refer to the 300,000 pensioners—we find that 220,000 pensioners are affected by less than £100. About 270,000 are affected by less than £200. After all, we are giving £100 to older people for their winter fuel benefit. We are talking about gainers and losers, and in the wider context there is the reduction of value added tax on fuel, the minimum income guarantee and the extra £21 billion that is going into the health service. We must consider the real impact that the Government are having on pensioners. It is no use considering a small change in a microscopic way. We must have a wider vision of what is happening, and within that broader context is the case that the Labour party is the pensioners' friend.
      Sir Robert Smith: If someone is £200 worse off and he is given £100 to pay his heating bills, what is he meant to pay the heating bill with when he is £100 worse off net?
      Mr. Davies: The first £100 was only the winter fuel benefit. When we add up the other factors the average is £240. The hon. Gentleman should look up some of the facts rather than coming out with glib remarks that make no sense.
      The changes that we made to advance corporation tax were to repay tax. Pensioners who invested in equities were receiving cash back on tax that they did not pay. A differential approach was taken to those pensioners who perhaps invested in other sources of savings. Clearly there was a distortion, which has been removed. If we want to give more money to poorer pensioners, it can be done through other strategies such as the minimum income guarantee and winter fuel benefit. Indeed, that is precisely what we are doing. We have introduced a range of measures including health service changes—
      Mr. Desmond Swayne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Davies: No, I will not take any more interventions.
      We have got rid of eye-test charges for pensioners and there have been VAT changes. A host of measures in favour of pensions have been introduced by the
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      Government. It is fallacious and cynical for pompous speeches to be made by Conservative Members about the particular change that we are considering.
      Mr. Townend: I support new clause 3. It would ensure that people who earn less than £4,335—which, I should have thought, even Labour Members would accept is not a very high figure—and more importantly, people between the ages of 65 and 74 who earn no more than £5,720, do not pay income tax. I am particularly interested in that group because in my constituency, East Yorkshire, we have a much higher percentage of old age pensioners than in the country at large.
      10.45 pm
      The new clause tries to set right the perverse situation that occurred as a result of the Government's decision in the July 1997 Budget to abolish dividend tax credits for non-taxpayers. That measure came into effect this year and means that non-taxpayers who have already paid the tax on their dividend income cannot reclaim it, as they used to be able to do. That affects 300,000 pensioners, quite a number of whom are in my constituency.
      It is all very well for the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) to say that £75 or £100 is not much money, but for pensioners living on just over £100 a week, an extra £2 a week in their pocket is a lot of money. At the last election Labour claimed to be the party of the old age pensioners, and the hon. Member for Croydon, Central said that today. The Government should think carefully about accepting the new clause, as it would be in their interest.
      It was fascinating to me that an officer of the Pensioners Alliance came to my last surgery in Bridlington. That person is a lifelong socialist. I confess that, at the last election, I did not get anything like the support from older people that I had got in previous elections. That was for two reasons. First, it was put about that the Conservative party would do away with the old age pension. Secondly, the old age pensioners were led to believe that the Labour party would restore the connection between the average wage and the pension.
      Mr. Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Townend: Naturally, I was interested in why that lady had come to see me. I could not help asking whether she was happy with her Government. She said, "No, that is why I have come to see you, Mr. Townend. I am very interested in learning what Mr. Hague's new policies are likely to be for pensioners, because we feel let down by the Government." She pointed out that people who had saved modest amounts could no longer reclaim the tax on the dividends.
      When pensioners heard the Chancellor's speech, they were led to believe that the connection between earnings and pensions had been restored. Then they found that anyone who had an occupational pension got nothing at all. They learned that there was a new 10p income tax rate, but it did not apply to pensioners. They were told that they would keep their marriage allowance, but that was not for new pensioners—only for existing pensioners. The lady at my surgery said, "We are very disillusioned, and I will tell you one thing, Mr. Townend. We will not be voting in the European elections."

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      The Labour party should take note of that. The old people are feeling let down. If Labour Members say that an old age pensioner on £5,720 a year should be paying tax, they have got it wrong.
      Mr. Edward Davey: What the hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) did not tell us is what he told his constituent about Mr. Hague's pension policy. I learned from my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) that when the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) was in charge of pension policy for the Conservative party, his pension policy was not to have a pension policy. I hope that a Conservative Member will intervene to tell us what William Hague's pension policy is.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman should realise that when he refers to another right hon. or hon. Member, he should do so by his constituency.
      Mr. Davey: I am grateful to you for putting me right, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      I agree with the substance of what the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford said. He made the point that the Government's abolition of the dividends tax credit has hit a lot of elderly people—300,000 of them. Despite a long review, the Government have failed to see the error of their ways. It is no good the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) saying that we should divide social policy from economic policy. Of course we should not; they are totally intertwined. The Government recognise that linkage in other policies. I have always thought that the welfare-to-work programme is about ensuring that social justice helps economic efficiency, so he cannot have it both ways.
      The Liberal Democrats have tabled new clause 18 to put that idea before the House and the Government. We believe that giving tax exemption certificates to pensioners who are below the income tax threshold would simplify tax administration, bringing to the Inland Revenue and also to pensioners a lot of savings—not only financial, but in terms of anxiety and worry. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners who are below the income tax threshold receive large self-assessment tax returns every year, filling them with anxiety about whether they are due to pay tax, how to fill in the form and who they need to see make sure that they do so correctly. They want to pay any tax that they owe, but are not sure how to go about that.
      New clause 18 is based on a simple idea developed by the low incomes tax reform group of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. We have borrowed it and we hope that the Government will borrow it from us in turn. It would ensure that all those unnecessary self-assessment tax returns do not have to be sent out. The Government could take that further and ensure that taxpayers who are sent self-assessment tax returns, even though they owe only a small amount, could benefit from simplification of the tax system.
      The Chartered Institute of Taxation has produced many examples of ordinary taxpayers—pensioners—who are extremely concerned when they receive such forms.
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      A pensioner from Tilbury was quoted in one of the institute's recent reports, which was published in June. The pensioner wrote:
      "I am one of those pensioners on low income who is being hectored by the Inland Revenue. I've tried explaining about my income not being enough to tax. This is the third year running"
      that the pensioner has had to do that
      "even though my circumstances stay the same."
      A pensioner from Stroud wrote:
      "My husband is disabled and a non-taxpayer. We now realise that because we have a joint Pensioners Bond we are sent a self-assessment form automatically every year.
      We could easily do without this form filling as we are on low income having paid taxes all our lives."
      I shall give a final quote, although I could have given hundreds. A pensioner from Ilfracombe wrote:
      "My experience from the Tax point of view is basic. I have not paid any for over 20 years, but still receive annual tax forms. Now I must fill in the new Tax Assessment Forms (for the 2nd year running)."
      That is bureaucracy gone mad; it is causing huge anxiety among the pensioner population and it flies in the face of the Government's declared policy. When the Chancellor announced the comprehensive spending review to the House, he said:
      "We shall also set a tax guarantee that no pensioner will pay income tax unless their income rises above a specified level."—[Official Report, 14 July 1998; Vol. 316, c. 193.]
      That is a policy that hon. Members on both sides of the House can subscribe to—it is very sensible—but it is yet to be enacted. New clause 18 would give the Government the chance to do so. It is a practical way forward.
      The proposal for tax exemption certificates is simple. The Inland Revenue could work out from the records which pensioners had not paid tax for the previous two years and write to them, making the offer that they would gain a certificate if they filled in a simple application form. Alternatively, the individual non-taxpaying pensioner could apply to the Inland Revenue for an application form for a tax exemption certificate, for which I suggest the following simple wording: "I do not expect my income to exceed the tax exemption certificate threshold of £6,000 for the current year. I do not anticipate that my income in the next three years will exceed the tax exemption certificate threshold. If my income should exceed the tax exemption certificate threshold in the next three years, I will notify the Inland Revenue by 5 October following the end of the tax year."
      Everyone would be able to understand such a simple declaration, and it would save us the cost of sending millions of tax returns to non-taxpayers, as well as saving them anxiety. Certificates could be re-registered every four years, and random checks used to ensure that the system was not abused, as happens in other parts of the tax system. Our proposal is in line with the Conservative new clause, but offers a practical idea to simplify administration of the tax system.
      Our amendment is not just about non-taxpayers or self-assessment tax returns, but about the relationship of the Inland Revenue and the public sector with pensioners and others who may have difficulty filling out forms, such as those with learning disabilities. The IR ought to be far more user friendly. The Government could use new clause 18 to make a start on that.
      Mr. Luff: The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is honourable and decent. If she listens to the purpose of new clauses 3 and amendment No. 2—and of the new clause proposed by the Liberal Democrats—she will realise that her task of asking the House to reject them is unpleasant and unsavoury. The purpose of new clause 3 is simply to ensure that those who earn less than the income tax threshold do not have to pay income tax. Who can argue with that? The Financial Secretary may say that the clause is technically flawed, or that it needs to be rethought. However, the principle that underlies it must be one with which the whole House agrees.
      Amendment No. 2 would ensure that savings income is liable to taxation at the new 10p lower rate, not the 20p rate. Both measures would have a disproportionate advantage for those on low incomes, particularly for pensioners. I hope that the Minister will think carefully about what she is to say later.
      In the post today, I received a document that I did not recognise. As far as I can tell, it must be a Government briefing document for Labour Members, as it is headed "DSS Key Messages on Welfare Reform June 1999".
      Mr. Leslie: Read it; it is very good.
      Mr. Luff: Reading it is exactly what I intend to do. It states:
      "The Government's central aim is to make the welfare state fit for the next century."
      Some new Labour waffle follows, then the document says that the Government aim to
      "promote work for those who can and security for those who cannot."
      On pensioners, it adds:
      "Most help for those with most need. Giving more help to the severely disabled, to poor pensioners and to children."
      How will the measures on which the Government are insisting tonight help poor pensioners?
      The document goes on—particularly amusingly—to say:
      "Providing for the future with new stakeholder pensions and encouragement that those who can save should do so."
      What encouragement do the measures on which the Government are insisting give to those who want to save?
      Later, the document lists all the marvellous things that the Government claim to have done to help pensioners—the minimum income guarantee; the winter fuel allowance referred to by the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies); free eyesight tests; and the reduction in VAT on fuel. There is no mention of much more—the abolition of mortgage interest relief at source and the implications for home income plans; the abolition of married couples allowance for new pensioner families; and the higher rates of fuel duty that are crippling poor pensioners in many rural areas. The Financial Secretary will have to defend the position of making poorer pensioners pay income tax or pay it at higher rates than is acceptable.
      I invite the Financial Secretary to think carefully about the consequences of rejecting amendment No. 2 on the taxation of savings. The estimates of independent analysts suggest that accepting this amendment would cost just £85 million, and £55 million of that advantage would go to people of pensionable age. I cannot believe that the
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      new Labour Government, who publish such documents to send to their Back Benchers, intend to reject these measures. I am sure that the Financial Secretary, whatever she says, will, in her heart, know that the Opposition are right.
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      Mr. St. Aubyn: The Government's mantra that we hear so often—that they govern for the many, not the few—will have a hollow ring tonight. The 300,000 people we are discussing are the few. They are vulnerable, and many are old. They are also the few because they believe in being self-reliant. It was significant that the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) emphasised the benefits that this group of people may be entitled to as a result of the Government's measures. Some of them may welcome those benefits, but others take pride in the fact that they have managed to provide for themselves up till now, and that is how they intend to carry on. As a result of the Government's proposal, those people will lose a significant amount of income.
      In the debates on this issue this year and last year, Labour Members argued that this group of people could change their investment strategy, and that, if they switched to bonds, they would not suffer income tax. The difficulty with that approach is that inflation, even at the present low rates, eats away at such savings. In the long term, the only way to protect the value of an income through a savings plan is by investing in shares. We learned today that the average income in this country has now reached £20,000 a year. I read that, 25 years ago, it was only £2,500. People who, at the start of their retirement, took the Government's advice and put all their retirement savings into bonds may have had their standard of living severely curtailed compared with what they might have achieved if they had kept their savings in shares.
      What is the point of a Government tax strategy that encourages the old, the vulnerable and the weak to put their small amount in the least sensible form of savings? Surely that goes against the whole thrust of modern thinking. We should encourage people to care and provide for themselves. We should foster the self-help culture. The Government are penalising the people who have provided for themselves through thick and thin, and who have wisely invested in shares to protect some of the value of their savings.
      The other argument that was advanced in Committee this year and last year was that those people could put their money into ISAs. If they were to do that, they would get a double whammy. Not only would there be an element of taxation on their share income in ISAs but, because the amounts involved are very small, the management charges for running those funds would eat into the net income or into the capital. One way or another, they would suffer greatly compared with the situation they were in before the Government came to power.
      Perhaps the Minister could tell us in passing what proportion of ISAs has been invested in stocks and shares and what proportion has been invested in cash ISAs. We could judge from that how successful the Government's new initiative has been.
      We have already heard the ghost of the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) hovering over the debate. I remember the surge of

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      optimism among Conservative Members during the Committee stage of last year's Bill when he addressed the Committee with enthusiasm, urging the then Paymaster General to make concessions. We thought that the Government were at last listening to the needs of the few as well as the mantras of the many. Unfortunately, however, that particular Paymaster General has disappeared from the scene. He has not been in the Chamber for quite a while. I fear that he has been sent to Coventry, if not to Coventry, North-West.
      Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend presents an irresistible temptation. Does he agree that, at the end of the speech of the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies), it was no clearer than it had been at the beginning whether he thought that the Solicitor-General had since experienced an apostolic conversion and come round to supporting the Government's view, or whether—secretly, and smothered in guilt—he still believed what he had said a year ago from the Back Benches?
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Unlike my hon. Friend and me, the Solicitor-General is a lawyer, and none of us really knows what he believes. I wish that he were here to tell us. In his absence, however, I think that the Financial Secretary owes us an explanation. Why have the Government stalled at the last fence? Why have they failed to treat this section of our community fairly? I feel that they should pause, and consider the negative signal that the measure will send to other savers.
      Dr. Vincent Cable: I want to say a little about amendment No. 2, which Liberal Democrats tabled along with Conservatives. It relates specifically to discrimination between different kinds of income earned and unearned, and the 20p rate. Let me summarise what I consider to be the central reasons why that is an adverse development.
      The first reason has, in part, already been summarised by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). It introduces a great deal of complexity into the system. We are talking not merely about the distinction between earned and unearned income, but about the distinction between different types of savings income. Different rates now apply to dividend and fixed-interest income; different rates apply to fixed-interest deposits, as opposed to annuities, which stem from another kind of interest income. There is no economic, equity-based or administrative reason for that; it just happened to emerge from a very complex, badly-thought-out piece of legislation. That is why we are pressing our amendment, which relates specifically to the certification process that will make things much easier for low-income pensioners.
      Another point has not been mentioned, although it is important. The Government have unintentionally reintroduced the old tax principle that unearned income is in some sense less worth while than earned income. It used to be a principle of taxation that those with rentier income were somehow less worthy than those who were working. That principle had been scrapped, but now it is returning in disguise. Although it may have been reintroduced unintentionally, it is very unhealthy, and not compatible with the ideas that I thought that new Labour stood for.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: The hon. Gentleman is making a strong point. A case might be made for penalizing
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      so-called unearned income, as opposed to earned income, and a case might be made for doing the opposite. At present, however, the Government are penalising unearned income at the bottom of the tax scale, and propose later, at the basic rate, to tax unearned income at a lower rate—dividends at only 10 per cent., and other savings income at only 20 per cent.—while taxing earned income at 23 per cent. That, surely, is complete madness.
      Dr. Cable: The hon. Gentleman is right. The central issue of the debate is how the proposals affect people at the bottom end. I sense that the Government still have not appreciated the extent to which people who are otherwise very poor still depend on unearned income. The situation is quite common. We all have constituents in this position—for example, people who have not made the contributions that would entitle them to a state pension, and who therefore save. Because they have substantial savings, they will not qualify for income support, and their future retirement therefore depends almost entirely on savings income. Young pensioners in particular, and those whose allowances are particularly small—those who have retired prematurely, or have been made redundant—are being hit at very low levels of income by higher rates of tax. Therefore, the system does not merely discriminate against unearned income. As the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford says, it particularly hurts poor savers.
      In that context, I say a word about dividend tax credits and the dividend problem. It has been referred to, but it is helpful to go over a little of the chronology. The hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) has been singled out. I was present in the Committee when he spoke. He has been perhaps unfairly singled out because he was speaking up for the colleagues who were around him. He was representing a genuine disquiet among Labour Members about what was happening. Indeed, that continued for many months afterwards. There was a widely circulated early-day motion, which was, I think, roughly equally supported in the three parties.
      I subsequently went to see the former Paymaster General with the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North and the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). He was very accommodating and accepted fully that an unfair and unfortunate major anomaly had been created. He undertook to mobilise the Treasury's resources to try to do something about it. What was discreditable was not the fact that he was not able to something about it—there may have been genuine administrative difficulties in sorting out the problem—but that it took the Treasury six months to make up its mind to tell us. Its reply came through in a written answer to me; it was sneaked through six months later. Not merely the policy but the way in which the Treasury handled the matter subsequently was discreditable.
      In addition to all the other disadvantages of applying extra rates of tax to savings incomes, the provision is a further measure disadvantaging and discouraging personal savings. As the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) has been sitting patiently during the debate, it is worth mentioning that he introduced a particularly popular and valuable form of personal savings called pensioner bonds. I was intrigued, as one of my constituents asked, how the returns on pensioner bonds had developed since he introduced them. It was clear not merely that the nominal return on the bonds had gradually

      761
      declined over the past few years—I would expect that because inflation is lower—but that the real return on the bonds had been allowed to fall by about 2 per cent.
      Therefore, a popular form of savings is being devalued and we have increased taxation of savings. In the short run, that may not matter—the United States has much economic growth and deteriorating personal savings—but it cannot go on. A society cannot grow rapidly and in a sustainable way without healthy personal savings. In addition to all the unfairness that the tax change introduces, it undermines the fundamentals of our economy.
      Mr. Swayne: I support new clause 3. I would have kept my peace but for being provoked to speak by the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies). Otherwise, I would have relied on the eloquence of Conservative Members who have put the case solidly.
      The hon. Member for Croydon, Central refused to take my intervention, which was uncharacteristic because he is normally generous in taking interventions. However, I could see his difficulty, with the Government Whip shaking his head and telling him to refuse. The penalty is that he must now endure listening to me.
      The hon. Gentleman expounded a most peculiar argument. He seemed to suggest that it was all right to plunder the savings of the elderly, so long as Government policy was viewed in the round. Specifically, he cited the fact that those people would benefit from the minimum pension guarantee. It might have escaped his notice that the guarantee is not yet payable, yet elderly pensioners in my constituency have already lost the right to reclaim tax on dividends. As a consequence, while living on low incomes, they are paying tax where they were not paying tax before. That is what the new clause is designed to remedy.
      Labour Members might believe that people who have savings in the form of shares have developed a form of financial sophistication that makes it open season for such a tax increase. However, the lie to such sophistication is given by the number of constituents who are still writing to me to say that they have only just realised what effect the Government's proposals will have on them. That does not speak of great financial sophistication.
      11.15 pm
      Labour Members might also think that, generally, people who have invested in shares are at the wealthier end of the income ladder. However, the most distressing letters that I have received on the issue are from those who admit that being able to reclaim tax paid on dividends makes a difference, not between wealth and poverty for themselves but between being able to afford small luxuries—such as Christmas presents for their grandchildren, or visits to their relatives—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Gray: The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) laughed.
      Mr. Swayne: Labour Members may well laugh, but they might also recall that those are the very people for whom the Labour party—before it became new Labour,
      762
      in pursuit of middle income and of those who are able, because of their income, to make donations to the Labour party—used to care.
      Mr. Bercow: The whole House will have noticed that the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) does not believe that pensioners should be able to buy Christmas presents for anyone—that is the scale of the scandal of his position.
      Nevertheless, does my hon. Friend agree that, when the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) said that the Government's handling of the matter was dishonourable, the one thing that he omitted to mention was that, today, the single most dishonourable aspect of the Government's handling of the matter is that the only currently serving Treasury Minister who served in the Finance Bill Committee when the matter was discussed is not in the Chamber to reply to the debate? I refer, of course, to the Paymaster General. Where is she?
      Mr. Swayne: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend; he makes an important point. I am certain, however, that the dignity of age will change the views, and indeed the attitude, of the hon. Member for Shipley.
      Quite unacceptably, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central contended that it is perfectly acceptable to plunder the savings, and therefore the self-reliance, of elderly people, and to replace them with means-tested benefit. What signal does that send to generations yet to retire? What message does it send in respect of self-reliance?
      The hon. Gentleman went on to speak of the need to eradicate child poverty. Does he not realise that the tax that we are debating would be paid by children? Although I grant him that the tax is unlikely to be paid by children living in poverty—the nature of the arrangements that we are discussing are such that they are unlikely to be made for children by parents who are below the poverty line—I ask him to consider the fact that many parents have arranged for shares to generate income for their children precisely because those children will not be able to provide for themselves, as they are handicapped and their parents are worried about their future. They, too, will pay the tax, and their income will be affected by it.
      I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider his earlier remarks and reflect both on their wisdom and the message on self-reliance that they have sent to the British people.
      Mrs. Roche: The hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) said that he was not going to speak but was provoked into doing so. I am in the same position: I was tempted not to speak until I heard his speech. I have never heard such arrant nonsense, although he is not alone in this debate. One would have thought that the Conservatives had not presided over record levels of child poverty when they were in government and that they had not introduced VAT on fuel—perhaps the most regressive measure to hit our pensioners; yet they have the temerity to pose as the party of the pensioner. That is nonsense.
      We have debated the issue time and again. That makes it all the more surprising that the new clause reveals a basic misunderstanding about the tax credit system and is fundamentally flawed. If the Conservatives really cared about the new clause, they would do their homework and get it right. Once again they have not done their homework, and not only can they not get the politics right but they cannot get the detail right either.

      763
      The withdrawal of payable tax credits does not mean that non-taxpayers below the personal allowance threshold will suffer tax on their income. The tax credit has never represented tax deducted on behalf of the individual, and the payment of tax credits on dividends was never a repayment of tax deducted on their behalf. On the contrary, it represented a payment to non-taxpayers of tax that they had not borne in the first place—tax paid by the company. Effectively it was an income top-up. The withdrawal of the credit leaves the non-taxpaying shareholders in the position of having paid no tax on the dividends.
      Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the hon. Lady acknowledge the reality, which is that someone who had £5,000 entirely from dividends to live on will now have £4,000? That is a catastrophic fall in income for someone who is not well off—very likely a pensioner.
      Mrs. Roche: The hon. Gentleman should listen to what I am going to say about the total package. If he does, he will find out.
      Conservative Members have used the new clause as another opportunity to rehearse the well-worn arguments on the issue. Why did we make the change? We wanted to remove a distortion in the corporation tax system that encouraged companies to distribute their profits as dividends rather than reinvesting them in their business. Reinvestment is essential for growth in the economy, which we want to encourage. We know what the Conservatives did to our economy and we are determined not to see it repeated. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may shout. They do not like hearing the facts, but they are going to hear them this evening.
      Payable tax credits were abolished immediately for most companies and pension funds, but we recognised that there would be a period of change. By investing in the new individual savings accounts, individuals will be able to benefit for a five-year period from 1999 from the payment of a 10 per cent. tax credit on dividends from UK equities. I urge the House to reject the new clause.
      I understand the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) about the impact of the tax system on older taxpayers, but I am not convinced that his solution is the best way to deal with the problems. The aim of the proposed certificate for older taxpayers is that those on low incomes should be given assurances that they are outside the tax system, in particular to enable them to receive income without the deduction of tax at source. The present system achieves what the certificate is designed to do. Around two thirds of older taxpayers are outside the tax system. We are proud of that record. The package of Budget measures has taken a further 200,000 older people out of the system. Many of them have no reason to contact the Inland Revenue at all unless their circumstances change and their income rises.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: Is the Financial Secretary proposing that people with share savings should put them through an ISA? How much has been put into share ISAs compared to the amount put into cash ISAs since the scheme was launched?
      Mrs. Roche: I would certainly not want to give advice. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman must learn to have
      764
      some patience. I gave way to him, and I will be pleased to reply if he will wait. It is no surprise that, in the first period, the most money has gone into cash ISAs, considering that they were very much designed to appeal to those with little or no savings. I am delighted to tell the House that ISAs are a tremendous success and are proving very popular. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury on all the work that she has done.
      Mr. Davies: Will the Financial Secretary give way?
      Mrs. Roche: No—the hon. Gentleman had his chance. If he will forgive me, I have heard him at volume tonight. I gave him one chance.
      Obviously, the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) is no longer interested in ISAs, as he is busy talking. However, for many poorer people, ISAs have been a great boon and we are proud of them.
      The £1 billion Budget package for older people included a new minimum tax guarantee for pensioners; and the age-related personal allowances were increased by up to £200, more than required by statutory indexation. [Interruption.] I am not surprised that Conservative Members do not recognise the importance of that minimum guarantee. It is certainly important for the majority of pensioners whom the Government represent.
      The proposal would have the effect of increasing the personal allowance for many lower income pensioners to £6,000 a year. As I have explained, the Budget package already includes generous increases in the age-related personal allowances. [Interruption.] I do wish that Conservative Members would cease chattering. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton is entitled to a reasonable reply and that is what he will get.
      The idea of the certificate was put forward by the low incomes tax reform group. I can tell the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton that the Inland Revenue is holding discussions with the group about its ideas, and we are always willing to consider how the scheme might be improved.
      Savings income, such as bank and building society interest, is already taxed favourably. It is taxed at the lower rate of 20 per cent., rather than at the basic rate of 23 per cent., until it is of a sufficient size for the higher rate of tax to apply. As part of the reform of corporation tax, dividends are taxed at 10 per cent. up to the basic rate limit.
      Mr. Davies: Why?
      Mrs. Roche: I will tell the hon. Gentleman why—because one of the basic tenets of the Chancellor's Budget was to encourage work and enterprise and to help families. That is what we have done.
      Mr. Davies: Will the Financial Secretary give way?
      Mrs. Roche: No, the hon. Gentleman has had his chance. I noticed that he took no interventions. I have taken one from him and responded to a sedentary comment.
      The Conservatives' amendment, which was not costed, would cost the Exchequer an extra £1 billion a year. Once again, we see that the Conservative party is prepared to

      765
      talk about public services without saying how it will spend public money. The Conservative party poses as the pensioners' friend, but it is no such thing. It is the party that in the past has undermined pensioners. I urge the House to reject the new clause.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 149, Noes 316.

      Division No. 223]

      [11.30 pm

      AYES

      Allan, Richard

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Amess, David

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

      Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

      Jack, Rt Hon Michael

      Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

      Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

      Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

      Jenkin, Bernard

      Bercow, John

      Keetch, Paul

      Beresford, Sir Paul

      Key, Robert

      Blunt, Crispin

      King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

      Boswell, Tim

      Kirkbride, Miss Julie

      Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

      Laing, Mrs Eleanor

      Brazier, Julian

      Lansley, Andrew

      Breed, Colin

      Leigh, Edward

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Letwin, Oliver

      Browning, Mrs Angela

      Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

      Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

      Lidington, David

      Burns, Simon

      Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

      Cable, Dr Vincent

      Livsey, Richard

      Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

      Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

      Chope, Christopher

      Llwyd, Elfyn

      Clappison, James

      Loughton, Tim

      Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Luff, Peter

      Clifton—Brown, Geoffrey

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Collins, Tim

      MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

      Colvin, Michael

      Maclean, Rt Hon David

      Cotter, Brian

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Cran, James

      Madel, Sir David

      Davey, Edward (Kingston)

      Malins, Humfrey

      Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

      Maples, John

      Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

      Mates, Michael

      Day, Stephen

      Maude, Rt Hon Francis

      Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

      Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

      Duncan, Alan

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

      Duncan Smith, lain

      Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

      Evans, Nigel

      Moss, Malcolm

      Faber, David

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Fabricant, Michael

      Ottaway, Richard

      Fallon, Michael

      Page, Richard

      Flight, Howard

      Paice, James

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Pickles, Eric

      Fox, Dr Liam

      Prior, David

      Fraser, Christopher

      Randall, John

      Gale, Roger

      Redwood, Rt Hon John

      Garnier, Edward

      Robathan, Andrew

      George, Andrew (St Ives)

      Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

      Gibb, Nick

      Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

      Gill, Christopher

      Ruffley, David

      Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

      Russell, Bob (Colchester)

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      St Aubyn, Nick

      Gray, James

      Sanders, Adrian

      Green, Damian

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Grieve, Dominic

      Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

      Gummer, Rt Hon John

      Shepherd, Richard

      Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

      Simpson, Keith (Mid—Norfolk)

      Hammond, Philip

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

      Harvey, Nick

      Soames, Nicholas

      Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David

      Spelman, Mrs Caroline

      Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

      Spicer, Sir Michael

      Horam, John

      Spring, Richard

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Steen, Anthony

      766

      Streeter, Gary

      Waterson, Nigel

      Stunell, Andrew

      Webb, Steve

      Swayne, Desmond

      Wells, Bowen

      Swinney, John

      Whitney, Sir Raymond

      Syms, Robert

      Whittingdale, John

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Wilkinson, John

      Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

      Willetts, David

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Willis, Phil

      Taylor, Sir Teddy

      Wilshire, David

      Townend, John

      Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

      Tredinnick, David

      Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

      Trend, Michael

      Woodward, Shaun

      Tyler, Paul

      Young, Rt Hon Sir George

      Tyrie, Andrew

      Viggers, Peter

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Wardle, Charles

      Mr. Oliver Heald and

      Mrs. Jacqui Lait.

      NOES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Coffey, Ms Ann

      Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

      Coleman, lain

      Ainger, Nick

      Colman, Tony

      Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

      Connarty, Michael

      Alexander, Douglas

      Corbett, Robin

      Allen, Graham

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

      Corston, Ms Jean

      Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

      Cousins, Jim

      Atherton, Ms Candy

      Cranston, Ross

      Atkins, Charlotte

      Crausby, David

      Austin, John

      Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

      Banks, Tony

      Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

      Barron, Kevin

      Cummings, John

      Battle, John

      Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

      Bayley, Hugh

      Curtis—Thomas, Mrs Claire

      Beard, Nigel

      Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

      Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

      Darvill, Keith

      Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

      Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

      Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

      Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

      Bennett, Andrew F

      Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

      Benton, Joe

      Dawson, Hilton

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Dean, Mrs Janet

      Berry, Roger

      Denham, John

      Best, Harold

      Dismore, Andrew

      Betts, Clive

      Dobbin, Jim

      Blears, Ms Hazel

      Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

      Blizzard, Bob

      Doran, Frank

      Bradley, Keith (Withington)

      Dowd, Jim

      Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

      Drew, David

      Bradshaw, Ben

      Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

      Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

      Edwards, Huw

      Browne, Desmond

      Efford, Clive

      Burden, Richard

      Ellman, Mrs Louise

      Butler, Mrs Christine

      Ennis, Jeff

      Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

      Etherington, Bill

      Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

      Field, Rt Hon Frank

      Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

      Fisher, Mark

      Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

      Fitzpatrick, Jim

      Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

      Fitzsimons, Lorna

      Campbell—Savours, Dale

      Flint, Caroline

      Cann, Jamie

      Flynn, Paul

      Caplin, Ivor

      Follett, Barbara

      Casale, Roger

      Foster, Rt Hon Derek

      Caton, Martin

      Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

      Cawsey, Ian

      Galloway, George

      Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

      Gapes, Mike

      Chaytor, David

      Gerrard, Neil

      Chisholm, Malcolm

      Gibson, Dr Ian

      Clapham, Michael

      Godman, Dr Norman A

      Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

      Godsiff, Roger

      Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

      Goggins, Paul

      Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

      Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

      Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Clelland, David

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Clwyd, Ann

      Grogan, John

      767

      Gunnell, John

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Hain, Peter

      Mallaber, Judy

      Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

      Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

      Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

      Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

      Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

      Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

      Hanson, David

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

      Marshall—Andrews, Robert

      Heal, Mrs Sylvia

      Martlew, Eric

      Healey, John

      Maxton, John

      Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

      Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

      Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

      Meale, Alan

      Hepburn, Stephen

      Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

      Hesford, Stephen

      Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

      Hewitt, Ms Patricia

      Mitchell, Austin

      Hinchliffe, David

      Moffatt, Laura

      Hodge, Ms Margaret

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Home Robertson, John

      Moran, Ms Margaret

      Hope, Phil

      Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

      Hopkins, Kelvin

      Morley, Elliot

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

      Hoyle, Lindsay

      Mullin, Chris

      Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

      Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

      Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

      Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

      Humble, Mrs Joan

      Naysmith, Dr Doug

      Hurst, Alan

      O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

      Hutton, John

      O'Hara, Eddie

      Iddon, Dr Brian

      Olner, Bill

      Illsley, Eric

      O'Neill, Martin

      Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

      Organ, Mrs Diana

      Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

      Osborne, Ms Sandra

      Jenkins, Brian

      Palmer, Dr Nick

      Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

      Pearson, Ian

      Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

      Pendry, Tom

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Perham, Ms Linda

      Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

      Pickthall, Colin

      Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

      Pike, Peter L

      Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

      Plaskitt, James

      Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

      Pollard, Kerry

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

      Pond, Chris

      Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

      Pope, Greg

      Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

      Pound, Stephen

      Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

      Powell, Sir Raymond

      Kemp, Fraser

      Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

      Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

      Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

      Khabra, Piara S

      Prescott, Rt Hon John

      Kidney, David

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Kilfoyle, Peter

      Prosser, Gwyn

      King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

      Purchase, Ken

      King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

      Quinn, Lawrie

      Ladyman, Dr Stephen

      Rammell, Bill

      Lawrence, Ms Jackie

      Rapson, Syd

      Laxton, Bob

      Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

      Leslie, Christopher

      Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

      Levitt, Tom

      Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)

      Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

      Roche, Mrs Barbara

      Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

      Rooker, Jeff

      Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

      Rooney, Terry

      Linton, Martin

      Rowlands, Ted

      Livingstone, Ken

      Roy, Frank

      Lock, David

      Ruane, Chris

      Love, Andrew

      Ruddock, Joan

      McAllion, John

      Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Ryan, Ms Joan

      McCabe, Steve

      Salter, Martin

      McCafferty, Ms Chris

      Sarwar, Mohammad

      McDonnell, John

      Savidge, Malcolm

      McGuire, Mrs Anne

      Sawford, Phil

      Mclsaac, Shona

      Sedgemore, Brian

      McNamara, Kevin

      Shaw, Jonathan

      McNulty, Tony

      Sheerman, Barry

      MacShane, Denis

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Mactaggart, Fiona

      Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

      McWalter, Tony

      Singh, Marsha

      McWilliam, John

      Skinner, Dennis

      Smith, Angela (Basildon)

      768

      Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

      Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

      Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

      Timms, Stephen

      Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

      Tipping, Paddy

      Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

      Todd, Mark

      Snape, Peter

      Trickett, Jon

      Soley, Clive

      Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

      Southworth, Ms Helen

      Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

      Spellar, John

      Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

      Squire, Ms Rachel

      Twigg, Derek (Halton)

      Starkey, Dr Phyllis

      Vaz, Keith

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Vis, Dr Rudi

      Stevenson, George

      Wareing, Robert N

      Stewart, David (Inverness E)

      Watts, David

      Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

      White, Brian

      Stinchcombe, Paul

      Whitehead, Dr Alan

      Stoate, Dr Howard

      Wicks, Malcolm

      Stott, Roger

      Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

      Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

      Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

      Straw, Rt Hon Jack

      Winnick, David

      Stringer, Graham

      Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

      Stuart, Ms Gisela

      Wise, Audrey

      Sutcliffe, Gerry

      Wood, Mike

      Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Worthington, Tony

      Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

      Wray, James

      Taylor, David (NW Leics)

      Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

      Temple—Morris, Peter

      Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

      Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Mr. Keith Hill and

      Mr. David Jamieson.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 10
      CAPITAL ALLOWANCES: ROAD FUEL GAS
      '.—After section 36 of the Capital Allowances Act 1990 (definition of "motor car" etc.) insert—
      CHAPTER IIIA

        ROAD FUEL GAS
        36A.—Where a person, while carrying on a trade, incurs expenditure—

        (a) on the provision of machinery or plant intended to act as a filling point for the supply of road fuel gas, or

        (b) on the installation of such machinery or plant,

        and where such expenditure is wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, a deduction equal to the whole of the expenditure shall be allowed in taxing the trade for the chargeable period.
        36B.—Where a person, while carrying on a trade, incurs expenditure on the provision of machinery or plant for the conversion of the engine of a motor car so that the motor car is capable of being propelled, wholly or partly, by road fuel gas, and where such expenditure is wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, a deduction equal to the whole of the expenditure shall be allowed in taxing the trade for the chargeable period.".'.—[Mr. Jack.]
        Brought up, and read the First time
        Mr. Jack: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 27, in clause 8, page 3, line 26, after 'centimetres,', insert
        'a vehicle falling within subparagraph (1) of paragraph 1A, or a vehicle falling within subparagraph (1) of paragraph 1B,'.

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        No. 28, in page 3, line 39, at end insert—
        '(6) At the end of paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 there shall be inserted—
        "1A.—(1) Any vehicle which has during the previous 12 months been certified as achieving an emissions figure of 140g CO2/km shall have a general rate of £100.
        (2) The Secretary of State shall by regulations establish the methodology by which the emissions figure referred to in sub-paragraph (1) is to be calculated, and any such regulations shall be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament.
        (3) Subparagraph (1) shall have effect in relation to any licence taken out for a period beginning on or after 1st January 2000.".'.
        No. 29, in page 3, line 39, at end insert—
        '(7) At the end of paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 there shall be inserted—
        "1B.—(1) Any vehicle which has been registered during the previous 12 months and which has been certified as using Liquefied Petroleum Gas as a fuel shall have a general rate of £100.
        (2) The Secretary of State shall by regulations establish the methodology by which the process of certification referred to in sub-paragraph (1) is to be carried out, and any such regulations shall be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament.
        (3) Subparagraph (1) shall have effect in relation to any licence taken out for a period beginning on or after 1st January 2000.".'.
        Mr. Jack: This debate gives us an opportunity to review the logic of the Government's proposals on vehicle excise duty and carefully to examine their credentials on the fiscal encouragement that they may be contemplating—[Interruption.]
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but there is far too much background noise in the House. We are conducting a debate.
        Mr. Jack: We have an opportunity also to consider the fiscal encouragement that the Government are giving to the use of fuels for motor vehicles, particularly liquefied petroleum gas, which have several environmental attributes to which I shall refer in a moment.
        I thank the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Calor Group plc for their assistance in preparing material for the new clause and the amendments. I tabled them because the Government received support for their proposal in the Budget and the subsequent Finance Bill to introduce a new vehicle excise duty regime. They reduced the VED for cars of 1100 cc or less by £50, but increased the VED on all remaining vehicles by a counter-balancing amount so that the measure would effectively be tax-neutral.
        Mr. Fabricant: I am sure that my hon. Friend was not fooled, as so many were, into thinking that the Government were being generous in their dispensation. Is he aware that even as small a car as the Fiat Punto does not qualify for the 1100 cc lower vehicle excise duty dispensation?
        Mr. Jack: I suppose that I should declare an interest: I have one of those cars, so I am entirely aware of my hon. Friend's point, with which I shall deal.
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        The 1100 cc cut-off was chosen quite arbitrarily. Magically, one supposedly reaches a tax-neutral position by taking £50 from the VED of the 2.9 million vehicles affected, and adding £50 to the VED for other cars. It is intriguing, therefore, that in year one of the change announced in the Red Book, the Government gained £14 million.
        I tabled amendments on the VED, because in the press release issued at the time of the Budget, the Government said:
        "New cars registered from Autumn 2000 will be subject to a VED system based principally upon their rate of carbon dioxide emission, to encourage the take-up of more fuel-efficient vehicles."
        I found it odd that they were jumping the gun on the outcome of their consultation document "Consultation on reform of Vehicle Excise Duty to ensure a cleaner environment", which was issued in November, although I do not disagree with such an objective.
        In paragraph 2.3 of that document, the Government say:
        "The UK also has a domestic aim of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by 20 per cent. by 2010 relative to 1990."
        So, a clear environmental objective was stated right at the start of the consultation exercise.
        In paragraph 2.4, the Government go on to point out that
        "Recently, a voluntary agreement has, however, been concluded between the European Commission and car manufacturers to reduce average emissions from new cars to 140 grammes of CO2 per kilometre by the 2008, a cut of about 25 per cent. on the current average".
        From the two statements, one would have thought that, at that juncture, the Government would have wanted to do all that they possibly could to encourage the take-up of fuels that will reduce carbon dioxide, and thereby encourage those who are to meet the remarkable voluntary agreement by 2008. As I shall demonstrate, my amendments give the Government an opportunity to encourage such developments over the next 12 months. They are entirely consistent with the Government's objectives in their consultation exercise.
        Amendment No. 29, which applies the introduction of the proposals to liquified petroleum gas, prays in aid the comment at the end of paragraph 2.5 of the consultation document. It draws our attention to the problems of fine particulates PM 10s, which have a demonstrated link with respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and to oxides of nitrogen, which can damage the lungs and play a part in summer smog episodes. Those emissions currently result from the use of petrol engines, which, as I shall demonstrate, are well tackled by the use of liquified petroleum gas. The amount of encouragement through the VED arrangements for the uptake of vehicles powered by such fuels is zero. It is the lack of consistency that persuaded me in the first place to table the new clause and the amendments.
        It is important to consider the detail because we then find that, of the 10 cars with the lowest carbon dioxide emissions, only five have an engine size of less than 1100 cc; the rest are diesel-engine vehicles. Secondly, the best performing vehicles have carbon dioxide emissions of between 129 and 139 g per kilometre. Current technology is already incorporated in some cars; they will meet the 2008 figure. Under the present VED arrangements, there is nothing fiscally to encourage the uptake of such vehicles.

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        Cars with engine sizes of less than 1100 cc have carbon dioxide levels ranging from 129 g to a massive 172 g per kilometre. It is odd that the arbitrary use of 1100 cc means that the Government are encouraging vehicles with carbon dioxide emissions that are not at the top end of environmental friendliness; they are at the bottom end—if I can put the matter in terms of good and bad. An examination of the logic of the current VED proposals shows that they seem to encourage the wrong kind of cars. My amendments give the Government the opportunity to correct that damage.
        Although I have prayed in aid of my arguments the 2008 agreement of 140 g of carbon dioxide per kilometre, the amendments may encourage the Government to consider the fact that other cars are already in existence that perform markedly better than the 172 g that I quoted but whose engine size is above 1100 cc. The Ford Ka at 155 g, or the Nissan Micra at 151 g are two good examples of vehicles that might be encouraged. I shall not read out the exhaustive list of cars that meet the 140 g output—the subject of my amendments—but it includes the Peugeot 106 diesel, the Volkswagen 1.9 diesel mark 3, the Audi A3 diesel and the Ford Focus 1.8 diesel. Many other diesel cars, because of their relative fuel efficiency, already meet the 140 g output of carbon dioxide per kilometre. Sadly, however, they do not benefit from the Government's arguments on VED on cars with engines of 1100 cc or below.
        We should consider alternative fuels. I shall apply the same logic as I have already used, but to cars powered by liquefied petroleum gas. The reference to engine capacity is purely arbitrary; it does not take proper note of the logic of trying to encourage more environmentally friendly cars. Liquefied petroleum gas is good on carbon dioxide; it deals effectively with benzine emissions, which can cause particular health risks. It deals well with particulates and PM 10s, with sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and ozone emissions. I will not list all the medical benefits, but heart disease and respiratory problems will certainly be affected by a reduction in those emissions.
        In fairness, the Government are backing their own policy of encouraging the uptake of liquefied petroleum gas. I am advised that the Deputy Prime Minister drives a car that is powered by that fuel—as are most of the Government's car and despatch agency vehicles. Sadly, however, by the end of 1998, just under 8,000 vehicles were powered by that fuel source.
        I can think of two reasons why such an obviously environmentally friendly fuel has not enjoyed a greater uptake, and they are addressed by my amendments, which deal with the tax relief arguments.
        There is no well-established infrastructure for the refuelling of cars with liquified petroleum gas.
        Mr. Tim Loughton: In past Budgets, the present Government gave specific tax incentives for the conversion of buses and lorries to use road fuel gases. Those incentives were not nearly sufficient because, throughout the country, fewer than 100 lorries and 100 buses benefited from them. The problem is not limited to cars.
        Mr. Jack: My hon. Friend makes a telling and helpful point. In my view, if there was some fiscal encouragement to install the necessary infrastructure, more cars would be converted to use liquified petroleum gas.
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        The second of my amendments would encourage the conversion of fleet vehicles to run on liquified petroleum gas. That fuel beats petrol and diesel on all of the polluting emissions that I mentioned except carbon dioxide. It is a very environmentally friendly and health-conscious fuel.
        Sadly, the Government appear to have missed a significant opportunity to start the process of encouraging the uptake of such fuel, and the development of the motor vehicle technology that would help to achieve the Kyoto targets by reducing damaging emissions earlier than agreed. For some reason—in my opinion, only to catch a cheap headline—the Government arbitrarily drew the line at 1100 cc. As a result, they have an inconsistent and illogical approach to their objective of encouraging cars that are more environmentally friendly. In the case of liquified petroleum gas, they have completely missed the opportunity to encourage earlier uptake among cars powered by that fuel.
        There is compelling evidence that the increased use of liquified petroleum gas would save more than £10 billion in health care and damage to the environment—especially by reducing particulate levels—by improving air quality. There would be many accompanying savings.
        My proposal is self-financing. Often, when we advanced perfectly respectable ideas to improve the Finance Bill, we were shot down in proverbial flames because they would cost money. However, I am now suggesting something that will save well in excess of its costs, which the Calor Group has calculated as a net figure of £607,000—the tax costs of encouraging the installation of the infrastructure for LPG. One company, Shell, has expressed willingness to install the infrastructure, but there is scepticism in the industry about how quickly that development will be made. The modest proposals that I am putting before the House tonight would effectively save far more money in preventing damage to the person and the environment than they would cost in tax terms. If the Government were to agree to my proposals this evening, it would be a worthwhile step on the way to achieving their objectives earlier than expected.
        Mr. Fabricant: I support the new clause so ably moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack). It gives the lie to the Labour Government's claims that the Budget is environmentally friendly. The fact that the arbitrary cut-off figure of 1100 cc generated a net income, in its first year alone, in excess of ¤40 million simply shows that it is yet another stealth tax, and is even more deceitful than the average stealth tax because it was introduced in the guise of being environmentally friendly.
        12 midnight
        The new clause and amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend meet the Kyoto accord and follow on from the principles of the Rio de Janeiro summit, which was established by a former leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, Lady Thatcher, who is now in another place. She established the conference in Rio de Janeiro and was instrumental in setting the targets that other Governments seek to follow. The vehicle excise duties set up in the Budget do nothing for achieving these targets.
        As my right hon. Friend has already asked, why have the Government, instead of saying that there should be a cut-off point of 1100 cc, not specified a cut-off point that

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        is related to the emission of particulates or carbon dioxide? Why, for example, have they not encouraged, as has the republic—that is the right way to put it—of California, the introduction of catalytic converters to Californian standards, which can reduce the emission of carbon dioxide to less than 110 g per kilometre. There is—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State for Scotland says from a sedentary position that it is typical that I do not mention British—[Interruption.] I give way to the right hon. Gentleman. I did not understand or hear what he said.
        The Secretary of State for Scotland (Dr. John Reid): I said that California has excluded almost all British cars. Is he suggesting that we do that here?
        Mr. Fabricant: The right hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. If the Government, instead of carping, understood a little about emissions—not from their mouths, but real emissions—and a little about industry, and introduced standards that would reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide, British cars would not be excluded. They are excluded because they do not meet Californian emission standards, and they should. We should aspire to those standards in the United Kingdom and not mock them. The Government mock them because they do not understand.
        When my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde was talking about 140 g per kilometre, I could see the eyes of Labour Members glazing over. They did not understand. They are innumerate. They understand only pound signs, stealth tax and the spin to try to make out that the measures that they are taking, which are primarily to raise tax, are designed to produce a cleaner environment, They are trying to misguide the population. They will not produce a cleaner environment by such means.
        We have a chicken-and-egg situation with regard to liquefied petroleum gas, which is a very clean way of generating power for motor vehicles. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde will be the first to concede that using LPG reduces the power output of a vehicle by about 20 per cent. The real reason why there are so few cars using LPG is that despite the best endeavours of companies such as Shell, there are only 14 outlets in the United Kingdom selling it.
        Mr. Jack: Is my hon. Friend aware that the question of loss of power output has been more than addressed? That has been ably demonstrated by the fact that one of the leading cars in the Vauxhall Vectra racing category happens to be powered by LPG.
        Mr. Fabricant: I am interested to hear that. I believe that the Volvo, which is the only commercially available car that has a device to enable it to use non-leaded fuels and LPG, loses 20 per cent. of its power when switched to LPG.
        Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that a very good British car—the Vauxhall Vectra—has such a switch.
        Mr. Fabricant: I am pleased to hear that. Like the hon. Gentleman, who is a powerful advocate for
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        British industry, and particularly British Aerospace, I would like to see the British car industry doing well and exporting to California. May I say how shocked I was that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State—I might say my right hon. Friend—should think for one moment that I would not wish to see British cars exported to California.
        If the Government were truly interested in the emission of particulates, carbon dioxide and other pollutants, they would focus on the emissions, rather than setting arbitrary sizes of car engine.
        Mr. Richard Page: I hope that my hon. Friend will develop the argument and explain to the House why the Government have banned the production and licensing of gas-powered electricity stations, as opposed to letting them continue with coal power, which produces far more emissions and environmental damage.
        Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend is right. Although carbon dioxide is extremely dangerous and damaging to the environment—we have all heard of the greenhouse effect—he knows that the power stations fuelled by oil and by coal produce sulphur dioxide, which is an even greater pollutant. One can use as many cleaners as one likes in the emission chimneys; the emission of sulphur dioxide is still damaging, and is in breach of the Kyoto and the Rio de Janeiro targets.
        Let us not be confused or beguiled by the Government's weasel words. The Government are not interested in ensuring that our environment remains safe for the generations that will follow. If they were, they would tax emissions. Instead, they tax the size of the engine. They tax it to the tune of £40 million in net gain this year—as I said, yet another stealth tax.
        By how much will that increase in years to come? The world will get warmer and warmer, and become more and more polluted. We will have a car industry that still cannot sell into California, as the Secretary of State for Scotland said from the Treasury Bench, because in California people are truly concerned about their environment, so they are concerned with output and emissions.
        I should have liked the Government to give real tax incentives for experimentation in the use of liquid hydrogen, which has not yet been developed in this country. Liquid hydrogen is one of the cleanest forms of fuel for the internal combustion engine. The sole emission of liquid hydrogen is steam.
        Mr. Page: Is it not explosive?
        Mr. Fabricant: Liquid hydrogen is less explosive than petrol.
        Before we all get carried away with diesel, may I point out to my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde that it is in many ways dirtier than non-leaded petrol. Whereas non-leaded petrol can produce long-term pollution of the environment, diesel with its particulates is particularly known for causing asthma, especially in schools located near main roads.
        I ask the Government to consider the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend. I wait with interest to hear how the Government justify their claim that the original

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        measure was an environmentally friendly move. Even if they deny that it would raise £40 million for the Revenue, will they not come clean and say at least that it was yet another example of Labour spin?
        Mr. Loughton: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) and new clause 10.
        At the outset, I should declare an interest. A few months ago, together with the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mrs. Brinton), I was given a spin round Brands Hatch in the aforementioned Vauxhall Vectra at 116 mph. When we got out, my make-up was rather less smudged than hers. The car certainly revealed no loss of power compared with petrol-driven racing cars. It is the only liquified petroleum gas-driven racing car in the world and I gather that it is currently second in the league tables. There is certainly no difference in that respect.
        Mr. Fabricant: Is not a larger engine required and is not fuel consumption therefore greater?
        Mr. Loughton: No.
        My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) was right when he said that this is a chicken-and-egg problem. I do not want to go into the environmental and health benefits of road fuel gases, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde has done, but the problem is that there are only about 135 points of service for road fuel gases even though this country has about 19,000 service stations. There are difficulties with access.
        There is an LPG service station in my constituency, but there are no others for miles around. The key to the success of LPG—and, indeed, of compressed natural gas—is infrastructure and making tax concessions to create that infrastructure. Installing an LPG pump at the average service station costs in excess of £30,000; installing the infrastructure to enable compressed natural gas to be pumped costs much more. The key to the installation of such pumps is businesses realising that there is a market for the product and the key to that market is company car fleets.
        About one car in 10 in this country is a company car, but 50 per cent. of all new cars are company cars. We need to give tax incentives for company car fleet operators to convert their cars to road fuel gas or to buy road fuel gas-driven cars in the first place. At the same time, we need to give tax incentives to the manufacturers of those cars so that they will produce them at rates that are competitive with those of the diesel and fossil fuel-driven cars about which we have heard so much.
        One of the few measures that we welcomed in the Budget was the 29 per cent. reduction in taxation on road fuel gases. We found out about it only in the small print and it was a great shame that the Government did not sound off about it rather more. That good measure followed another good measure that was introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) in a Budget about five years ago. He reduced the duty on road fuel gases by 25 per cent.
        Not enough has been done despite those two, proportionately large moves being made. The duty on road fuel gases in this country is still higher than in any other European Union country. Certain European countries, such as Belgium, do not tax road fuel gases or
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        LPG at all. We need to make a bold move on taxation—not only on fuel duty, but to enable people to install the pumps and the infrastructure necessary to make such products available.
        Getting sales of unleaded petrol off the ground was a great success of the previous Government. They succeeded only because they made a bold move—slashing the duty on unleaded fuel—and because such fuel was readily available in service stations. A new pump head had to be put on the same sort of tank and, in many cases, people had to put an extra widget on to the engine—a 30-minute job. However, the job is far more substantial on road fuel gas-fired vehicles, which is why tax allowances are required to speed things up.
        The industry would tell the House that it needs at least a five-year stability plan to show that the Government, whoever they are, are committed to promoting tax incentives and much wider use of road fuel gas-fired cars.
        Mr. Edward Davey: I generally agree with what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are trying to do. Does he agree that other clean fuel technologies, such as fuel cell technologies, should also be promoted by the tax incentives he proposes?
        12.15 am
        Mr. Loughton: I entirely agree, but those technologies are still some way off. In fact, 100 per cent. tax allowances are available in some circumstances, including for equipment for scientific research to develop technologies. We need immediate action to promote the use of road fuel gases over the next few years. The Kyoto targets are not many years off, and by the time that new technology comes in, it will be too late to achieve them.
        By promoting the use of road fuel gases, we would increase the residual value of cars. Dual fuel-driven cars are a current option, but conversion is much more expensive. If drivers are guaranteed to be close to a pump using road fuel gases, the costs will be brought down, and there are also economies of scale. Grants are available from the Energy Saving Trust for conversion, but such cars would be cheaper if the fuel were more readily available.
        There are also implications for noise pollution. Companies such as the John Lewis Partnership and Safeway have converted or bought vehicles that operate on LPG because they are quieter as well as more environmentally friendly, which enables deliveries to shops in residential areas at anti-social times. They can reach the shops more quickly, avoiding adding to the traffic congestion that costs British industry so much.
        The new clause would give more of a kick-start to the greater use of road fuel gases than merely reducing duty. It is no use reducing the duty on fuel if people cannot get the stuff. Manufacturers and operators of petrol stations will not make a capital commitment unless they are convinced that there will be some payback over, say, five years. New clause 10 sends a firm message to the industry that change will not cost much in the short term, but will have an enormous payback in the medium term, not only in revenue, but in savings from the promotion of the health of the nation.
        Mr. St. Aubyn: I support the new clause tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack).

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        I apologise for not having been here to hear him move it, but I watched his progress carefully on a television monitor.
        During the Committee stage, I, too, proposed the encouragement of the use of liquid petroleum gas. One of the key movers of that project, the British Oxygen Company, is based in my constituency. Everyone involved in the project welcomed the reduction in duty rather quietly announced after the Budget, but was concerned that it was not enough. We need more petrol stations providing road fuel gas outlets. In Committee, we heard startling statistics about how far one might drive by filling up with LPG. Of course, it depends on how big the car's tank is, but we need many more LPG outlets if the idea is to take off.
        A car converted to LPG requires expensive charges for substantial checks that it is roadworthy. Cars carrying the new fuel must be safe, and the cost of the fuel tank is another hurdle in the way of wider use. The basic cost of tanks is perhaps between £500 and £1,000, but safety checks add greatly to the cost, wiping out the benefit of Government grants. I urge the Minister to give that some thought when she responds to the debate.
        If this conversion is to happen it will require further research. I regret the fact that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mrs. Brinton) is not present. During the Committee, her thoughts were rather skimpy, to say the least, and tonight, they are not to be had at all. That is regrettable, because the heart of the research into LPG engines is at Perkins Engines in Peterborough. That company was the subject of a serious takeover bid, and it is well known that its new owners are reviewing whether this research project should go ahead.
        The comments of Ministers about the LPG project, and about what they are prepared to do to encourage the infrastructure without which the project will not succeed, could have a serious effect on the viability of the research programme and on the willingness of the new owners, Caterpillar, to invest in the project. That would affect employees in Peterborough, and it would have a knock-on effect on employees at BOC in my constituency, and all that it has invested in the project so far. BOC has converted its vehicles to run on LPG, and many other firms are looking into that.
        A firm in Cranleigh in the southern end of my constituency takes cars around the country for those who wish to travel by air. It is the air equivalent of motorail. If someone is flying up to Edinburgh, instead of putting his car on the back end of a train, he leaves it at Gatwick airport, where it is put with others on the back of a trailer and driven up to Edinburgh overnight. His car is ready for him when he arrives at his hotel in the morning. For the modern business traveller who uses his car as a mobile office, this is a tremendous saving, because he arrives without the hassle of having to drive all that way.
        Mr. Page: I suggest that my hon. Friend recommends to his constituents that they take a hire car in Scotland. That would probably be a lot cheaper.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I suggest that we come back to the matter in hand.
        Mr. St. Aubyn: That firm ensures that the environmental impact is much reduced, because it takes
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        all those cars up north in one go. The impact is reduced even further because it has chosen to invest in LPG vehicles. That works because it can manage to make the journey, as there are enough fuel stations where LPG is available. It enables the mobile office to move with the business executive, which is not possible with a hire car. To extend that service, many more fuel points are required around the country. That is why we shall listen carefully to the Economic Secretary's response.
        Ms Hewitt: I am delighted to hear from the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), and from the other hon. Members who spoke with such enthusiasm about cleaner cars and cleaner fuels. We share their enthusiasm, and the Government are taking practical and consistent action to encourage cleaner cars and cleaner fuels. I shall say a little about that action before I explain why the new clause is unnecessary and the amendments are impracticable.
        As several hon. Members have said, in the Budget in March, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor cut the duty on road fuel gases by 29 per cent. As a result, the duty differential is now the largest in Europe, and the duty on road fuel gas is only a fifth of that on diesel. We have committed ourselves to maintaining that differential for the lifetime of this Parliament, which will help to give confidence and stability to those who invest in the infrastructure of road fuel gas filling stations, and to those who are buying or converting to gas-powered vehicles.
        Let me also mention—as others have not yet done so—the Energy Saving Trust's powershift programme. The programme provides grants to help cover the additional purchasing costs of gas-powered vehicles, and to help those who wish to convert their vehicles to gas or change their vehicles. In some instances, it can meet up to 75 per cent. of conversion costs. We have also taken steps to encourage the use of road fuel gas by company car fleets. Since 6 April 1998, the extra cost of enabling company cars to run on road fuel gas has been disregarded in the calculation of the company car benefit taxable on employees.
        It is clear that there are already substantial incentives for people to buy or convert to gas-fuelled vehicles. As the right hon. Member for Fylde pointed out, the problem has not been encouraging people to use gas; it has been the lack of an infrastructure providing filling stations at which they can buy it.
        Mr. Loughton: The Minister specifically mentioned a tax change in the Budget in 1998 relating to the capital cost of company cars. That, of course, was down to an amendment to the Finance Bill tabled by Conservative Members. Can the Minister tell us how many cars have converted to road fuel gas since that date?
        Ms Hewitt: It is still quite a small number. As I was about to say, and as several hon. Members have already said, the problem is that the country does not yet possess an infrastructure providing filling stations where drivers can easily buy road fuel gas. But—as hon. Members have said today, and as was said in Committee—both Shell UK and BP have made the welcome announcement that they will implement major investment programmes to ensure that there is a network of LPG sites on forecourts throughout the United Kingdom. Shell UK has announced a—10 million investment programme designed to make LPG available to

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        80 per cent. of motorists by 2001, while BP aims to have 300 of its forecourts dispensing LPG within the next five years, and 75 sites on line by the millennium.
        Mr. St. Aubyn: In Committee, I asked the Minister what proportion of Shell's total forecourt investment the £10 million represented in the coming year. She did not have the figures then; does she have them now?
        Ms Hewitt: That is really a matter for Shell rather than for me, but I shall try to write to the hon. Gentleman.
        The welcome investment in infrastructure to which I have referred is happening without the proposed special capital allowances. Although I share the objective of the right hon. Member for Fylde, I consider it unnecessary to introduce such allowances. In my view, this is a deadweight proposal; but we will continue to monitor the take-up of road fuel gas, and will keep the case for additional incentives under review.
        I should mention in passing that special capital allowances for gas-powered vehicles and gas refuelling points would doubtless have to be notified to the European Commission as a state aid, and would probably also have to be notified to the code of conduct group on business taxation. That may well interest several Conservative Members.
        I hope that, for those reasons, the right hon. Member for Fylde will feel able to withdraw his motion. If he does not, I will ask my hon. Friends to oppose it.
        Let me now turn to the amendments. As the right hon. Gentleman and, I hope, others will know, in the autumn of 2000 we shall introduce a system of graduated vehicle excise duty for new vehicles based primarily on their carbon dioxide emissions. That will do what several hon. Members have urged us to do this evening: it will create a VED system that directly relates VED paid on new cars to their fuel efficiency and their level of emissions. It will give manufacturers and motorists alike a real incentive to take environmental issues into account when deciding on the type of vehicles that they make or buy. We are working closely with manufacturers to ensure that they have the systems in place to supply our licensing authorities with the emissions data on which we shall base the new system, but that cannot physically be done before autumn 2000.
        12.30 am
        I can just imagine what the motor manufacturing industry would say if we were to accept the amendment and to demand that it puts in place brand new information systems, to be up and running and linked to the VED system by 1 January 2000.
        Mr. Jack: Does the Minister not agree that information is already available about the carbon dioxide outputs of the vehicles that I listed? The information is there now and presents no barrier whatever to the achievement of the proposal in my two amendments.
        Ms Hewitt: The right hon. Gentleman is missing the point. New cars have been tested for carbon dioxide emissions since 1997, but the information has not been collated in a form that can be used to calculate VED rates. As I have said, manufacturers, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and computer suppliers are working together to put the systems in place, but they will not be in
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        place and ready to operate before autumn 2000. For the vast majority of cars—those registered before 1997—no carbon dioxide information is readily available.
        The right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members referred to the initial step that we took in the Finance Bill following last year's pledge by the Chancellor. We introduced a reduced rate of £100 VED for existing cars with engines up to 1100 cc. We did that not at a revenue gain, but at a revenue cost of £85 million, as the Red Book makes clear.
        Of course, engine size is not the same as carbon dioxide emissions. It is not a perfect equivalent for environmental damage and pollution. None the less, it is the best available proxy for fuel efficiency that we have and can obtain from the information that is held by the licensing authorities. The measure has given a tax cut to drivers of nearly 2 million smaller cars.
        Amendment No. 29 would extend the reduced rate to vehicles that are certified as using LPG as a fuel. I have referred to the incentives that the Government have already introduced to encourage such cars, but, as the right hon. Member for Fylde knows, many of the vehicles that use LPG can run on both gas and petrol. Indeed, according to DVLA records, only some 960 currently registered vehicles run solely on road fuel gas. About 10 times that number—some 9,300 bi-fuel vehicles—can run on either gas or fuel. As the amendment stands, bi-fuel vehicles that are capable of running on gas, but may not for most of the time, would none the less qualify for the reduced rate. Clearly, that would not make sense.
        I hope that the right hon. Member for Fylde will support the Government's practical steps to encourage the conversion to road fuel gas and the purchase of smaller and cleaner cars, and agree to withdraw his new clause. If not, I must urge my hon. Friends to vote against it.
        Mr. Jack: Although I appreciate the Minister putting on record some of the Government's efforts in the sector, much of what she said in rejecting perhaps technically flawed amendments was not consistent, although she used the word "consistent" at the beginning of her remarks. I understand that there is a legal requirement, if not in United Kingdom law, certainly at European level, to capture and to retain carbon dioxide data on car emissions. Therefore, that information is available and we have the voluntary agreement, which I mentioned and which is mentioned in the Government's consultation document on graduated VED.
        It would not be difficult for a motor manufacturer—I mentioned a number of those—to furnish the Government with that information, which such manufacturers are, I understand, legally required to do.
        I pray in aid a footnote to a briefing from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which states:
        "It was not a legal requirement to collect carbon dioxide data from new passenger cars before 1997".
        Admittedly, therefore, it might be difficult to visit my argument upon pre-1997 cars. However, clearly, the hon. Lady's argument falls like a pack of cards when applied to cars manufactured after 1997, as that information is available, and using it would be entirely consistent with the Government's own policy.
        I was worried by the hon. Lady's argument—which she based entirely on carbon dioxide emissions—that the Government favour a VED that would encourage

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        environmental improvement, as she not only said that she supports liquified petroleum gas, but prayed in aid a slightly weaker hand when describing its merits.
        When the Government make their proposals, the fleet will comprise cars of many different ages. It will be interesting to see how the Government cope with pre-1997 cars, on which data may not be available. I therefore fear that the second strand of the hon. Lady's argument, on consistency, may be difficult for the Government to maintain. Nevertheless, we shall have to await the outcome of the consultation exercise to discover how they will deal with that.
        I hope that, when the consultation exercise is concluded, the Government might find some way of rewarding people whose cars are either dual fuel or run solely on LPG, as such cars offer enormous benefits. I am sorry that the hon. Lady had not consulted the Department of Health on the matter. I am sure that, given a chance, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—who is now in the Chamber, and is a former Health Minister—would have whispered in her ear not sweet nothings, but hard information on how wider introduction of LPG could reduce the number of those who have to go to hospital because of heart or respiratory conditions.
        The hon. Lady also prayed in aid the work of certain fuel companies in creating an LPG infrastructure. There is some scepticism about just how widespread that network will be—I quoted figures of 400 forecourts; 200 depots, over a four-year period; and the conversion to LPG of 6,000 company cars. On the net tax effect of my proposals, I quoted £607,000. However, if such proposals were implemented, billions of pounds could be saved in the health budget. It is sad that the Government are not prepared to perform a very straightforward cost-benefit analysis when considering the amendments.
        I am grateful for the support for the amendments that I have received from my hon. Friends, some of whom spoke on the matter with great knowledge. However, I acknowledge that the amendments may have technical deficiencies, and that the Government themselves may not have the data necessary to apply the proposals. This debate has been useful, perhaps not only in teasing out the Treasury's thin thinking on the matter, but in encouraging it to do more work on it.
        I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
        Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New Clause 11

      ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY OF THE TAX SYSTEM
      'The annual Financial Statement and Budget Report shall include an analysis of the effect of the Budget measures on the administrative efficiency of the tax system, including the following matters:

      (a) the change in the number of taxes, tax rates, tax allowances and reliefs;

      (b) the estimated change in annual tax compliance costs for the private, public and voluntary sectors; and

      (c) progress on the simplification of tax administration for all taxpayers.'.—[Mr. Edward Davey.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Edward Davey: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      It may strike hon. Members as odd that, at this late hour, we are debating a new clause on tax administration, but, as we pass the Finance Bill, we should spend some time debating the matter. In 1986-87, the Tax Law Review Committee estimated that the tax administration industry, in both the public and private sectors, accounted for 1.5 per cent. of national income. At current prices, that means that the administration industry is worth more than £12 billion—as much as the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. The way in which we regulate that significant industry and the policies that we give it to administer affect many people and involve a lot of money. It is incumbent on us to look at the serious issues involved.
      To their credit, the Government have introduced new measures in clauses 123 and 124 dealing with electronic documentation to assist the administration of the tax system. That is welcome, but we need to approach the issue with humility. Having considered all the factors that make the tax system so complicated, tax expert Robin Godman wrote in Taxation Practitioner in July last year:
      "In fact, the Budget and the Finance Bill cycle are very significant factors in the causes of complexity".
      What we are doing today—what some of us have been doing for many months—adds to that complexity. We need to look at the process and try to find ways to reform matters and make them simpler—perhaps even to reduce the size of the industry. After all, it does not really help our balance of payments.
      That has been a recurrent theme over the years. Many committees have been set up. The Institute for Fiscal Studies was set up more than 30 years ago. The Meade committee report in 1978 influenced the Conservative Government. Recently, we have seen some major new studies on the tax system. The Bath report, published last year—its full title is "The Tax Compliance Costs for Employers of PAYE and the National Insurance System"—has become a seminal work on how we should look at the issues. The Government sponsored the study via the Inland Revenue and the Department of Social Security. It had some hard-hitting conclusions on compliance costs that should make us sit back and think.
      The Select Committee on the Treasury has looked at the Inland Revenue and spent some time analysing the report from Bath university. Its findings were published at the end of May this year. This is a live subject and it deserves our attention.
      What are the root causes of complexity? The foremost are the taxation policies of any Government. The Government have introduced a significant shift in the direction of taxation policy. We have seen some good signs, particularly in the Taylor report's comments on working towards the integration of the national insurance system with the income tax system. The Government have taken on board some of those important proposals, but they need to go further. The Government's proposals to merge the Inland Revenue with the Contributions Agency are progressive, and will help to reduce administration costs. There are other measures in the Bill that will also reduce complexity, including the abolition of mortgage interest tax relief and the married couples allowance. Those measures are going in the right direction for simplicity.

      783
      That is on the positive side of the ledger. Unfortunately, there are too many items on the negative side in this Bill and previous ones. The 10p tax rate that we debated earlier this evening has introduced a great deal of complexity for the personal and commercial sectors. Last year's Finance Act introduced the capital gains tax taper relief, causing huge complexities for many people operating the tax system. The system of tax credits, including the working families tax credit, the child care tax credit and now the children's tax credit, is an innovation in tax administration that I fear will increase compliance costs substantially for the private sector. Those policy changes impact significantly, and the net effect of all the tax changes has been to increase substantially the number of tax rates facing the taxpayer.
      12.45 am
      For ordinary taxpayers, there are three rates on earned income—10, 23 and 40 per cent. For dividend tax, we have 10 and 32.5 per cent. For capital and savings, we have 20 and 40 per cent. For trust income, we have 20, 23 and 34 per cent. For those receiving children's tax credit in the years to come, there will be a tapered tax rate and, at some stage, people will be paying a tax rate of 46.7 per cent. That is before we get to the many rates that have been introduced with the CGT taper relief. The number of rates has gone up, and that is why we propose that the Government say, when they introduce their Budget report, how many allowances, rates and reliefs there are as a result of the Budget.
      Complexity comes not only from policy changes, but from the administrative detail, regulations and rules that come from the tax authorities, be it the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise. Those are the root of the compliance costs for business. A business man—even someone employing only one or two people—must read all the information and regulations to ensure that he complies. Also, he must understand them—and that can take some doing. This is not just a one-off exercise. Employers must keep up to date because the tax law is forever changing.
      For small businesses, huge compliance costs are involved. They must come to terms with the coding for the UK's cumulative tax system. They must operate two forms of direct taxation—income tax and national insurance. Anyone who has had to deal with the complexities of class 2 national insurance for the self-employed will know how taxes that raise only small amounts of revenue can involve huge complexity, and can cause great concern for small businesses.
      The Bath report showed the extent of compliance costs and how they unfairly affect small businesses. The report showed that compliance costs per employee for the smallest employers—those employing one to four people—were £288 per annum. For the largest employers—firms employing 5,000 employees or more—the compliance costs were just £5 per annum. The relativities are even worse, and small businesses are even more badly affected. The gains that large employers get from the cash flow benefits of collecting the money from their employees before passing it on to the Inland Revenue are far larger than those for smaller employers.
      The Bath study showed that the gains that large employers get from that float income outweigh the costs of administering the pay roll. Large employers do very
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      well from the current tax system, and small employers do not. That is a serious issue when one looks to the long term. The UK's cumulative tax system was designed for a static labour market, when people stayed in their jobs for many years, when there were low staff turnovers and when we had many more larger employers. However, we do not have that sort of labour market now, and that will be the case increasingly in the future. We will have a much more dynamic labour market, with people changing jobs several times during their career. We will have a greater number of smaller companies. That crucial finding of the Bath report was not picked up in the previous studies of tax administration.
      The study showed that many of the compliance costs come when one takes on a new employee and a new coding has to be found. In theory, the P45 system should reduce those costs, but the study showed that it does not tend to work. That cannot be good for job creation.
      The Treasury Select Committee report said that the Bath study pointed the way forward. It said:
      "We recommend that the Inland Revenue be given a target to reduce compliance costs."
      That is absolutely right. The new clause would bring that about because it would force the Government to provide the information according to which targets could be set and progress measured
      The report focused on the compliance costs for small businesses. If a similar study were done on the costs for the personal taxpayer and the voluntary sector, it would also show significant compliance costs, increasing over the past few years with the introduction of self-assessment and the working families tax credit. If such studies were available to the House—perhaps the Government should sponsor them—many more hon. Members would be concerned about the matter and urge the Government to review it for the next Finance Bill.
      The complexity is not only in administrative detail but in the overall philosophy and culture of the Inland Revenue, which does not seem to emphasise the need for simplicity, which should be an objective of tax policy. With a simple tax system taxpayers—citizens—can more easily understand what is being raised in their name, and how. That will increase accountability and compliance, because, if people understand the system, they will be more willing to pay.
      The Government said that they were in favour of simplifying the tax system. That was almost a manifesto pledge. The Chancellor has certainly said that he is pro-simplification. If he is to achieve that goal, he should consider the approach embodied in the new clause.
      The new clause would build on initiatives set in train by previous Chancellors. Lord Howe was a great promoter of the tax law rewrite project, which was designed to try to simplify the wording of tax legislation. It is a signally good project, with support from hon. Members of all parties. Labour Members do not seem very interested, but they should be concerned about the regulatory burden that the tax system imposes on small businesses.
      The project does not shorten the legislation but it makes it easier to understand, so that one does not have to read it several times to find out what on earth the legislators were on about and what tax laws we were trying to create. It is very important for simplification.
      The people involved in the project have often argued for a technical finance Bill, to ensure that we get it right in the first place rather than pushing through imperfect

      785
      tax legislation and having to amend it the next year. That is certainly one way forward that I would urge the Government to consider.
      I also urge the Government to examine the recommendations of the Select Committee on the Treasury in its report on the Inland Revenue. The Committee considered three options. The first was a royal commission on tax simplification: I think that that goes a little far, but it is a possibility the Government might want to consider. The second was a White Paper to be published by the Government at the start of each Parliament, in which they set out their direction for tax policy, so as to give tax practitioners and taxpayers an idea of where it was heading and encourage a little more coherence in the Government's tax thinking. That might be another way forward. However, the most impressive aspect of the Select Committee's analysis of the evidence that it heard was its emphasis of the need for longer-term planning of tax policy. That points toward the idea of a technical Finance Bill, so that there is greater consultation on tax measures to ensure that we get them right.
      New clause 11 makes a more modest proposal: it simply asks that the Government provide information, so that we can see how their agenda for tax simplification is progressing. The new clause is based on paragraph 91 of the report of the Select Committee on the Treasury, recommendation (u), which states:
      "We recommend that in its response the Government gives its considered view on the options for simplifying the tax system we have discussed in this Report and sets out its own proposals for a systematic programme of simplification with a view to reducing compliance costs."
      If the Government accept our new clause tonight, they will have gone a long way toward implementing that recommendation.
      Mr. Flight: I welcome the Liberals' conversion to simpler and, by implication, lower taxes, given that one of the major causes of tax complexity is the overall rate of tax. I hope that they will not mind my saying that they are stealing our line. Earlier this evening, we heard a spirited speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who focused on the enormous complexity that has been introduced into our income tax system. The new clause would monitor that complexity and the cost to the private and public system, which is currently estimated to be £12 billion per annum. It would be useful if some specific measurement of the efficiency of specific taxes were included in the new clause—for example, ratios of collection costs to amount raised.
      The Government's stance—that they are keen to simplify tax and have taken initiatives to do so—does not bear the light of day. Over the past two years, the Chancellor has introduced a substantial degree of complication into the tax system. Much of that has been done for headline spin, some has arisen from the mantra of more means testing, and some has been the result of the traditional and continuing Labour prejudice against people with capital, especially small capital. We have ended up with six different tax rates: the gimmick 10 per cent. rate, which does not apply to one's little bit of investment income; a 20 per cent. rate; a 23 per cent. rate; a 32.5 per
      786
      cent. top rate on dividend income for top-rate payers; a 40 per cent. rate; and a 44 per cent. rate for those who will be paying tax on the new child credit.
      As has been said, there is a separate rate of taxation for trusts. The capital gains tax system is an absolute nightmare that needs to be reformed. There is very little chance that any individual will have the records necessary to calculate the old indexation and the new tapering rates. The Government seem to want ordinary individuals to have to employ accountants to keep and monitor those records. The present capital gains tax regime is unworkable.
      1 am
      The working families tax credit will cost employers a fortune to administer. On pension contributions, I wonder whether Labour Members realise that there are six different proportions of income that are allowable against tax as contributions for two different scales and different types of pension arrangements, depending on age. I do not blame the Government for that situation because it existed when they came to power, but if any Government were to consider reforming pensions, simplifying the tax rules for pensions would be the most important starting point.
      There is an element in the tax system of losing touch with ordinary citizens. It is not surprising that elderly people whose means are small complain of being harassed when they are sent tax forms that they do not understand. More and more people are being dragged into the detailed self-assessment tax net and have to deal with concepts and calculations that they simply do not understand. Their returns will be wrong; the fines will go up, and the Government will find that the quite unnecessary complications in the personal tax system become enormously unpopular.
      Citizens want tax rules that they can understand and remember. They want to be able to work out, almost on the back of an envelope, what their tax liabilities will be. There is no reason why tax rules for the average citizen should not be that simple—they were that simple not long ago.
      The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) pointed out that small business, which is the great creator of new employment in our society, is also particularly hard-hit by the growing web of tax complications, as the Bath report has shown.
      To return to my starting point, one of the big background problems for all Governments is the fact that tax avoidance measures inevitably complicate the tax system. This country should never forget the major difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. In Germany, there is no legal difference between the two concepts. A central part of culture in the Anglo-Saxon world is the distinction between that which is within the law and that which is without the law. Naturally, all Governments want to stop tax avoidance. I might add that most citizens naturally do not want to pay any more tax than they are obliged to. However, I suggest that there is growing Government paranoia about tax avoidance, which is nowhere better illustrated than in the recent IR35 proposals, which are not in the Finance Bill but will be implemented in April 2000.
      There are, no doubt, people who use companies to reduce their income tax and national insurance charges. However, as much of the evidence demonstrates, most of

      787
      those cases occur in genuine entrepreneurial situations. People set up a business to hire out their services, particularly in the software industry, and they do so through a company. If the Government's proposals remain as they are, they will be a major disincentive to individual entrepreneurship in the service sector. People will not be able to offset their costs; there will be huge hassle in qualifying as an exempt company; and the money that they are paid will have full tax and national insurance stopped out of it.
      The proposals will cause huge problems for professional firms. Professional lawyers who second their staff to organisations such as the Financial Services Authority, which will not be able to function without those staff, will face problems. Those proposals emanate purely from the Government's understandable but narrow focus on tax avoidance and their lack of thought about the knock-on effects and injustice caused by many of the proposals.
      The best antidote to tax avoidance must be a lower tax regime. In the low tax regimes of the world, it is not worth the possible legal costs to try to make clever cuts or avoid taxation. We on the Opposition Benches have not changed our clothes: we stand for simpler and lower taxation. We very much share the spirit of the Liberal Democrats' new clause, delighted that they are obviously looking to make friends with us, having perhaps been a little rebuffed by Labour. What the amendment recommends is absolutely in the spirit of what we as a party stand for and always have stood for.
      Mr. Page: It is not often that I welcome a Liberal Democrat amendment. I believe that it is the first time in 23 years; I do not rush these things. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) on the new clause. It flags up problems that face any Government and the Inland Revenue. The point has been made—although obliquely, and perhaps not as intended. I am sorry that it is late and that it cannot be fully debated and allowed the gallop around the field that it deserves.
      As matters of increasing complexity emerge in our taxation system, and as the Inland Revenue increasingly twists and turns and adds regulation on regulation to avoid the inevitable, the effect on small businesses will become intolerable. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton mentioned the pressures on small businesses and the Bath report. Compliance costs are rising day by day, and small businesses are finding them an increasing burden to bear. I can quote some examples.
      I know of a company that employs just over 100 people. It received a form from the Department of Trade and Industry the other day, which took the senior finance man four clear days to complete. If the company had not completed it, the panoply of law, pressure and fines would have descended on it. There must always be the temptation for those in small businesses to fill in any figure and send off the form, and then say, if ever checked, that they must have made a mistake. The person to whom I have referred was most conscientious; he did everything properly and filled the form in fully.
      A company of more than 100 people can withstand such demands, but what is it like for a smaller firm, in which the finance man is required for the day-to-day handling of the company accounts? As time goes by, pressure on such smaller businesses will grow and grow.
      788
      It is no secret that I was hoping that new clauses 2 and 12, which deal with the IR35 question, would be selected for debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) has touched on some of the problems that will result from that measure. Again, it will mean pressure on small businesses. Indeed, avoidance and perhaps even evasion may be brought about by the Inland Revenue's actions.
      As night follows day, Inland Revenue solutions to tax avoidance often tend to throw the baby out with the bath water. I always find it sad that the Government, who are no doubt driven by their masters in the Inland Revenue, look more to traditional methods for the solution than to the future. I say that because I believe that we are on the edge of a trading revolution, at which new clause 11 hints. There will be huge consequences for tax raising, which may be somewhat similar to the way in which Gutenberg's invention of movable printing broke the vast powers of the Church some five centuries ago.
      As hon. Members—I can see them looking at me—have instantly grasped, I am referring to the growth of internet trading. It would not surprise me to find that history repeats itself, with the Revenue trying to block certain internet activities, just as the Church tried to block the printing revolution that swept through Europe in the 15th century. You would correctly rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I moved into the detail of how the Church's hold was greatly loosened—if not broken—at that time, although it would be fascinating and I know that Labour Members would love to hear it. However, it would be wrong for me to take that course. I merely point out that another major effect of the move away from handwriting to printing and publishing in quantity was to contribute to breaking the hold of Latin as a common language at that time. The IT revolution that is introducing the internet will be the reverse of that because it brings with it a common language—English, or perhaps I should say American.
      The new clause provides for an analysis of the Budget which will mean an annual reassessment of everything included under the new clause—the costs of compliance and of tax raising and collection will have to be reviewed constantly. Such matters will not be dealt with once and then forgotten for five or 10 years; their consideration will have to be on-going.
      The Government seem unaware of the tide of change that is sweeping towards traditional trading patterns. If they are aware of it, they will realise at the same time that their powers are strictly limited. Politicians want to police the internet—perhaps to stop pornography. However, the majority of those politicians do not realise that that is the least of the threats to the established order. The new clause focuses on the accelerating trend of change. Internet users can, and will, use encryptions to transmit electronic data that will be impossible for tax inspectors to read. At least, data will be readable only at vast expense by using an extremely large computer to crack some of those encryption codes. As such codes use large prime numbers, a vast amount of computer time will be needed to break down a relatively short message. That will be impractical for the state to do.
      The new clause hints at an erosion of the tax base which will have severe consequences for Government revenues. To remove such controls from the Government will mean a move away from central provision to a situation in which individuals—not politicians—decide on

      789
      the state that they want. Individuals will make decisions in many spheres of activity by paying for those activities themselves rather than relying on their provision by the state. That will result in a marked reduction in what Harold Wilson called the social wage. Such a tendency will be driven by the erosion of tax bases caused by the encryption of trading on the internet.
      If anyone thinks that I am dreaming, or that this is pie in the sky, I tell them that the process has already started. It applies easily to goods for which information can be encrypted and made immune from tax inspection—films, music, airline and theatre tickets, advice of any kind, books, magazines, holidays and even, perhaps, the activities of personal service companies. The IR35 changes may well help to drive companies towards exactly what I have described. If we add to that the mobility of companies—the ability to trade elsewhere in the world—then it will require a Government who are fleet of foot and of mind to stay on top of that pile. The provisions of the new clause point in that direction.
      Nothing proves a point better than the practical example that people will migrate—physically or electronically—to the most favourable tax regime. The last part of the new clause makes exactly that point. It says that the Budget report should include an analysis of the effect of the Budget measures on
      "progress on the simplification of tax administration for all taxpayers."
      If that progress is not made, the taxpayer will migrate.
      1.15 am
      I have the privilege to be joint chairman of one of the most important all-party groups in the House—the all-party racing and bloodstock industries group. The Government have already been forced to cut VAT on training fees because of action by the Irish Government in reducing theirs, and to stem what was threatening to be a flood of horse migration. We have a much reduced stallion base in this country at the moment. Why? Because the Irish have a better tax regime on stallion allowances, so more and more people are sending their mares to Ireland. That is the physical movement towards a lower tax regime.
      To take a current example of the way in which electronic means are enabling companies to avoid tax, a well-known bookmaker has set up its operation in Gibraltar, letting its clients off the requirement to pay betting tax of some 6 per cent. on winnings—a loss to Government revenues. The age of digital cash is before us; we ignore it at our peril.
      It is late at night—[Horn. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I take those cheers as encouragement to develop my argument, but I feel that I should draw my remarks to a close.
      New clause 11 peels back the first corner in drawing attention to the huge changes that are upon us. I hope that the Financial Secretary—who rescued small businesses in her first year as a Minister and has inflicted the might of the Treasury in her second—will grasp the point that is being made tonight.
      Sir Robert Smith: The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) mentioned the problem that
      790
      conscientious people face when the tax system is complex. The Government need to bear that in mind when considering new clause 11. The more complex one makes the tax system, the harder it is for the conscientious, but one does not necessarily catch those who are fleet of foot or less conscientious, who can evade or accidentally avoid the system. New clause 11 is partly designed to tackle the burden and stress placed on the conscientious.
      I agree with the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) that new clause 11 would deter the Government from making a mess of IR35. I have with me a letter from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, expressing great concern that IR35, as currently proposed and currently out for consultation, might do immense damage through its compliance costs.
      The IT industry was mentioned. Worry has also been expressed in the media industry. However, as a result of where I come from, my postbag is obviously most heavily influenced by those who work in the oil industry, providing their services as single-person companies. There is concern about the extra burdens placed on the industries for which those people work, which must meet the costs of trying to police the system. Those who work in the industry have already experienced cuts in their income because contracting fees have been reduced, and further cuts are likely in order to pick up the extra costs of taking on board pay-as-you-earn and national insurance.
      I hope that, when the Government consider IR35, they will show some of the flexibility and understanding that they eventually did when they considered roll-over relief for capital gains tax. I hope that they will enter into effective consultation with the industry to work out where the real concerns are on tax avoidance. In that way they will avoid using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, which appears to be their approach at the moment.
      I urge the Government to accept new clause 11 because it is in their own interests to have it sitting there, waiting for them every year, to remind them not to put their foot in it, not to make mistakes, not to damage industry, and to think carefully before introducing any new tax system.
      Mrs. Roche: The debate has been interesting, but new clause 11 is completely unnecessary; I shall say why.
      First, the material published on Budget day contains comprehensive details of any changes in the number of taxes, tax rates, allowances and reliefs. Secondly, the Government also publish regulatory impact assessments for those measures included in the Budget that have compliance implications for businesses. Thirdly, the Government are committed to simplifying the administration of the tax system wherever possible. We are also looking to improve the administration of taxes and to restrict compliance burdens—for example, by introducing the new Small Business Service.
      Including the new clause in the Bill would therefore add nothing. Indeed, it would be unnecessary regulation. The Treasury has already set out a transparent framework within which it will work in the code for fiscal stability. That outlines the Government's commonsense approach

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      to managing fiscal policy in the long-term interests of the country. I therefore urge the House to reject the new clause.
      Mr. Edward Davey: I take it from the number of hon. Members who are in their places tonight that the theme that is expressed in the new clause has caught the attention of the House. It is a compelling new clause and there is interest in it. There are more hon. Members in their places for this debate than there were for almost all of the previous debates during today's sitting. I am rather pleased that we have been forced to debate the new clause tonight because there have been enough Members present to listen to the serious arguments that have been advanced.
      I am delighted that we have won the support of the hon. Members for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) and for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page). I am grateful for their kind words. However, they should not be as surprised as they seem to be that the Liberal Democrats propose such reforms. We and our predecessor parties have a long tradition of trying to simplify the tax system and reduce bureaucracy. For example, there are also proposals to integrate income tax and national insurance contributions.
      In the Minister's admirably short reply she was rather dismissive, and unnecessarily so. She said that the new clause and the proposals set out in it were unnecessary. When referring to paragraph (c), she said that the Government are committed to simplification. If they accepted the new clause, they could give some solemnity to that commitment and take on the requirement that they should report to the House on every Budget day about progress towards simplification. That is not a hugely onerous regulation. The Minister seemed to suggest that the new clause represented unnecessary regulation. The Treasury does not appear to like regulation of itself but often it likes regulation of the private sector. We are proposing a sensible regulation.
      Given the lateness of the hour, however, and given the Minister's assurances that the Government will move the agenda on—I hope that that comes to fruition in next year's Budget statement—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
      Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
      Bill, not amended in the Committee, and as amended in the Standing Committee, to be further considered tomorrow.

    CONTRACTS (RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES) BILL [LORDS]
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90(6) (Second Reading committees), That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    Question agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).

    DELEGATED LEGISLATION
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

    DELEGATED LEGISLATION
      VALUE ADDED TAX
      That the Value Added Tax (Abolition of Zero-Rating for Tax-Free Shops) Order 1999 (S.I., 1999, No. 1642), dated 11th June 1999, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1lth June, be approved.

      CONTRACTING OUT
      That the draft Contracting Out (Jury Summoning Functions) Order 1999, which was laid before this House on 14th June, be approved.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
      Question agreed to.

    DEREGULATION COMMITTEE
    Ordered,
    That Mr. Iain Coleman and Miss Geraldine Smith be discharged from the Deregulation Committee and Mr. Russell Brown and Mr. Andrew Love be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Jamieson.]

    COMMITTEES
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With permission, I shall put together the remaining motions relating to Committees.
    Ordered,

    COMMITTEES
      That Mr. John Hayes be discharged from the Agriculture Committee, and Mr. Michael Jack be added to the Committee.
      That Mrs. Jacqui Lait be discharged from the Catering Committee, and Mr. Michael Fabricant be added to the Committee.
      ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
      That Mrs. Eleanor Laing be discharged from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, and Miss Anne McIntosh be added to the Committee.
      That Mr. Shaun Woodward be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sir David Madel be added to the Committee.
      That Mr. Robert Walter be discharged from the Health Committee, and Mr. Simon Burns be added to the Committee.
      SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
      That Mrs. Jacqui Lait be discharged from the Science and Technology Committee, and Mr. Robert Jackson be added to the Committee.
      TRADE AND INDUSTRY COMMITTEE
      That Mr. John Bercow be discharged from the Trade and Industry Committee, and Mr. Christopher Chope be added to the Committee.
      TREASURY COMMITTEE
      That Sir Peter Lloyd be discharged from the Treasury Committee, and Mr. Michael Fallon be added to the Committee.—[Mr. McWilliam, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

  HIV-AIDS
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
  1.24 am
  Dr. Gavin Strang: I am grateful for the opportunity to initiate this short debate on HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom. HIV is the most important communicable disease in the UK. That is not my judgment, but that of the Public Health Laboratory Service Board. Since AIDS was first identified in the UK in 1981, a total of 32,200 HIV infections have been diagnosed. There have been 12,800 AIDS and HIV-related deaths, and more than 16,000 people are currently living with diagnosed HIV.
  Thirteen years ago, I introduced the Bill that became the AIDS (Control) Act 1987. That Act requires health authorities to report annually about the disease—how many cases there are, and what the authorities are doing to help people with HIV-AIDS and to prevent the spread of HIV.
  In introducing the Bill, I had three main objectives: first, to give us an understanding of the epidemic in each area of the United Kingdom; secondly, to tell us what health authorities and local authorities were doing on the ground, as a monitoring tool and in order that we could learn from best practice; and finally, to help ensure that there was a focus at national and local level on this terrible disease.
  Much has changed since the Act went through Parliament. The profile of the disease is ever-changing. Sex between men remains the major route of transmission in the UK, but sex between men and women was the transmission route for more than a third of all newly diagnosed cases last year. The majority of those cases were acquired abroad, usually in sub-Saharan Africa.
  One of the biggest successes has been in slowing the spread of HIV through intravenous drug use. Although that was once the major route of transmission in Scotland, the number of new cases of HIV transmitted by intravenous drug use has declined from 241 new diagnoses in 1986 to 25 last year. Such improvements can, however, be swiftly reversed, and indeed have been in other European countries.
  There has also been tremendous progress in treatment for people with HIV and AIDS. For many years, AZT was the only drug licensed for use by people with HIV and AIDS. Now, there are several different classes of drugs that can be used in combination to prevent the onset of AIDS and to help prevent illness for people with AIDS.
  These new treatments have brought their own challenges—challenges for individuals on tough drug regimes; challenges for our health services, which must cover the costs; and challenges for the significant proportion of those living with HIV who are unable to benefit from the new therapies. In addition, the success of the new treatments in prolonging life will result in significant rises in HIV prevalence, and increasing numbers of people undergoing long-term treatment.
  Just as the profile of HIV-AIDs has changed, there is now a strong view among those working in the field that 12 years on, we would benefit from updating the workings

  795
  of the AIDS (Control) Act 1987. The all-party parliamentary group on AIDS concluded in its recent inquiry that the Act should be
  "reformed into a more meaningful tool of accountability and audit, related to progress in implementing local strategies".
  I hope that if my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), who chairs the group, catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Minister is willing, he will have a chance to take part in the debate.
  I propose four changes to make the workings of the 1987 Act as relevant as possible to HIV-AIDs in the UK today. First, when the 1987 Act was going through Parliament, there were fears that people in low-prevalence areas might be identified by the press, and it was decided that where the number of cases was fewer than 10, an asterisk would be used instead.
  However, the climate has changed, and it is felt that as long as confidentiality can be guaranteed, it would be useful to amend the 1987 Act to enable reports to publish the number of cases under 10, for epidemiological purposes, for the purpose of studying the allocation of resources between districts, and for the purpose of studying HIV-AIDS strategies among districts.
  Secondly, the reports should include data for those resident in a health authority area, as well as those merely diagnosed or appearing for services in the area. I understand that a London local authority believed that it had just six people with HIV living in its area, but it commissioned research which revealed that 179 cases of HIV were readily identifiable as living within that authority's boundaries. The authority had been unaware of those additional people, as they had been travelling elsewhere for treatment.
  Making available data by district of residence would help in compiling a more comprehensive picture of the changing nature of the disease in different areas. It would provide a more accurate basis for planning and monitoring prevention work and social service work, preventing health authorities and local authorities from having a false sense of security about the amount and type of work that they should have under way. Also, it would allow more meaningful scrutiny by interested parties of the work of local authorities and health authorities. Again, however, we must be able to guarantee confidentiality.
  Thirdly, it is vital that the Government money provided to prevent the spread of HIV is spent effectively, but there are fears that HIV-AIDS funds are not being spent effectively on the people most at risk of getting HIV. It is the job of the AIDS (Control) Act reports to tell us what is being done, but there is concern that the Act and the Department of Health guidance do not do enough to ensure that health authorities account properly for their use of their HIV-AIDS funding, and that there is perhaps too much flexibility for health authorities to apply their own rules. The National AIDS Trust has said:
  "The returns made under the AIDS (Control) Act are not an effective tool to promote accountability at a local or national level."
  It is important that health authorities show how their prevention spending reflects the local profile of the disease. I suggest that the Act should be amended to require the reports to show total expenditure on recognised epidemiological target groups. Those groups should be identified in the Department's guidance and should be mutually exclusive. I also propose that health
  796
  authorities should be required to give some evidence that what they are doing is based on good practice, setting out the evidence base on which they are acting.
  Regional AIDS (Control) Act reports have not been compiled since the regional health authorities were dissolved. The Department of Health receives 100 reports from the English health authorities, which is hardly a manageable number. That does not make it easy for the Department to make optimal use of the important information in them and the bigger picture does not emerge as a result.
  I propose that regional AIDS (Control) Act reports should be prepared and collated annually by the national health service regional offices. We would also benefit greatly from an annual national report from the Department of Health. Such a report, perhaps from the Secretary of State, would give us an extremely valuable national overview of HIV-AIDS prevention, treatment and care work. I should add that that is a devolved matter, although surely the four nations of the United Kingdom should learn from one another.
  The Government's decision to initiate a national HIV-AIDS strategy has been welcomed in every quarter, and I welcome the announcement of the steering group to take it forward. In her reply to my letter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health setting out these proposals for changes to the AIDS (Control) Act, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health suggested that they should be considered by the steering group. I am happy for it to do so and should be grateful if, in the meantime, my hon. Friend the Minister of State would share his preliminary views with us.
  The apocalyptic predictions of the mid-1980s have not come true. When I introduced the AIDS (Control) Act, there was talk of the AIDS time bomb, Edinburgh was dubbed the AIDS capital of Europe and Government reports warned that Britain could have more than 30,000 AIDS cases by 1992. Compared with other European countries, the United Kingdom has done relatively well in dealing with the disease, but complacency about HIV would be a terrible mistake.
  There is a danger that people think that HIV is not a threat any more, or that it does not matter if they get it because drugs can help, but HIV is as great a risk as it ever was. There are still 2,500 new diagnoses of infection every year. Given the information we now have about how the disease is transmitted, I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that that figure is still too high. In addition, the new treatments can be tough to take and some people cannot take the drugs at all.
  It is vital that the Government money provided to prevent the spread of HIV is spent effectively and, 12 years on, it is time to bring the AIDS (Control) Act up to date. I have proposed changes to give us better accountability, better information and better vision. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say.
  1.33 am
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) and to my hon. Friend the Minister for allowing me to make a brief contribution to the debate.

  797
  As my right hon. Friend said, the all-party group on AIDS did a significant piece of work last year when it looked at what the UK's strategy ought to be. I want to say a few words about some of the report's conclusions and where we are a year on. I welcome the work that the Department of Health is doing and the setting up of a steering group within the Department. Its composition is important, and it is not made up simply of civil servants. Its members include people who are living with HIV, workers in the field, academics and medical experts. We need a range of expertise to be introduced. In particular, we need people who have daily experience of living with HIV.
  A national strategy can make a difference, as it has in Australia, where a strategy was developed a few years ago. Some complacency has crept in, not among health professionals or the Department, but among the public and in the media, as if we are somehow immune from what is happening in the rest of the world. One need merely consider the enormous changes in eastern Europe to see that that is not so, or the fact that of the 33 million infections across the world, 60 per cent. are in Commonwealth countries. We cannot regard ourselves as immune.
  HIV is a public health issue, and my right hon. Friend noted what the Public Health Laboratory Service Board has said. However, wider issues, to do with discrimination and prejudice, remain very much alive. They may not be the primary responsibility of the Department of Health—legally, they fall to other Departments—but a strategy that reaches across the board must take those issues into account.
  I shall end by naming four areas that a strategy should cover. First, it should deal with treatment and care, and with the setting of minimum standards across the country. Whether a person lives in an area of high or low prevalence, he or she should be able to expect minimum standards. Services must also be culturally appropriate. In London, problems arise particularly in the African communities, and it is sometimes difficult to get in touch with people in those communities, and to make them understand and participate in available services.
  The second major issue is funding. We are moving towards district-of-residence funding, as the stock-taking group at the Department of Health recommended last year, and most people agree that we should. However, we should consider how we allocate funds. This year's allocations were announced late, causing problems for health authorities and for organisations with which they contract, including service providers that are voluntary organisations. We need to ensure longer-term funding, tying together funds provided by the Department of Health, and those provided separately through local authorities and the AIDS support grant.
  The third issue is prevention. Whatever we do in care and treatment, we must first consider what we can do to prevent the spread of HIV. My right hon. Friend said that we should target to ensure that money is spent on the right people—those most at risk. I hope that allocations will continue to be ring-fenced as the National AIDS Trust report suggested that some money given to health authorities for prevention work was not necessarily being used in the areas of highest need.
  798
  Finally, we need to involve people who have the virus and who live with AIDS in the development of the strategy, both locally and nationally. Through that involvement, we are more likely to get a strategy that works, and that will be able to tackle discrimination and prejudice, which affect work on prevention. Prejudice and discrimination discourage people from coming forward for testing.
  I welcome the work that is being done. I hope that later this year, we shall have the first results of the working group and that the Department will embark on consultation, so that we get a strategy that addresses the problems that still need to be addressed.
  1.40 am
  The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) on his success in proposing this important topic for debate. I also acknowledge the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). They have both made an important personal contribution to this topic over the years.
  The United Kingdom has fared much better than many other countries in limiting the spread of HIV infection. Over the last three years, important developments in drug therapies have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of deaths from AIDS. HIV-AIDS is now often referred to as a chronic disease rather than a disease with a rapidly fatal outcome.
  As my right hon. Friend said, HIV and AIDS have not gone away. The people affected are living longer, but coupled with that is a continuing rate of new infections of between 2,500 and 3,000 each year. HIV and AIDS affect mostly young, economically active age groups. It remains an important public health issue that poses some particularly difficult challenges. For that reason, the Government have decided to develop a specific strategy for HIV-AIDS. Our plans to develop an HIV-AIDS strategy for England were contained in the Green Paper, "Our Healthier Nation." To pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, we are determined that people who use or work in HIV-AIDS services will have every opportunity to make their contribution to the development of that strategy.
  Early and sustained action to control the spread of HIV, such as screening of the blood supply, national health promotion campaigns, and the availability of free, open-access genito-urinary medicine clinics and needle exchanges, has contributed to the relatively low prevalence of HIV in the United Kingdom compared with some of our European neighbours. We have a good record on prevention, and we want that to continue. This year, we provided more than £53 million as a ring-fenced sum to health authorities to fund local HIV prevention activities, and centrally we provided some £5 million to carry out national HIV health promotion activities.
  With regard to health service delivery of treatment and care for people with HIV and AIDS, the concentration of specialist treatment centres matches the geographical distribution of the disease. Delivery remains skewed towards London and other major cities. In the current year, we have provided £234 million to health authorities for the treatment and care of people with HIV and AIDS, and £15.5 million to local authorities for care in the community.

  799
  As I said, we continue to have 2,500 to 3,000 new infections each year. We have a high number of babies born with HIV. We need to ensure that we respond to the demand for new drugs and for common standards, that we maintain our efforts on prevention and that we ensure that we keep prevalence low. Those are some of the issues that the new strategy will tackle.
  The process of developing the strategy was launched by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health at a conference last October. The conference made an excellent start on the process that is now being taken forward by the steering group, which met for the first time last week. I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their positive comments on that process. We hope that a draft document will be ready for consultation by spring next year. It will cover issues related to treatment and care and HIV testing and prevention, and it will draw on available evidence and relevant work already under way.
  As for strategies for the United Kingdom, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is tackling the issue, and an expert group, due to report later this year, is currently reviewing the HIV health promotion strategy in Scotland. In 1994, the Department of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland issued a strategy for HIV and AIDS, which recognised the need for increased efforts in public education, alongside education programmes in schools and youth settings, and the need for support for those involved in this work. Such efforts are continuing.
  In October 1998, the Welsh Office published the "Better Health, Better Wales" strategic framework, and work to implement the various strands of the framework is being done by expert groups. The sexual health working group has held its first meeting, and the group to develop the communicable diseases strategy is to hold its first meeting at the end of this month.
  The policy context that will shape the strategy in England will include the White Papers, "The New NHS" and "Modernising Social Services", and the forthcoming White Paper, "Our Healthier Nation". We shall also wish to provide the necessary frameworks to monitor the implementation and progress of the strategy.
  I want to say something about the role of the AIDS (Control) Act 1987 in the context of the HIV-AIDS strategy. My right hon. Friend was instrumental in the enactment of the legislation through his private Member's Bill some 12 years ago. I think there is no doubt that that legislation laid the foundations for one of the best surveillance systems in Europe for HIV and AIDS, and successive Governments have been able to build on it over the past decade. The Act has, uniquely, allowed the Department of Health and the NHS to build up information on service development and HIV prevention programmes undertaken by local health authorities over time throughout the country.
  I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's continued interest in the matter, and for his suggestion that a review of the legislation would be timely and, perhaps, should be incorporated in HIV-AIDS strategy work. His suggestion was supported by a recommendation from the all-party parliamentary group on AIDS in its recent and very welcome parliamentary hearings report on national HIV-AIDS strategies.
  I am pleased to report that the HIV-AIDS strategy steering group was satisfied that such a review would fit sensibly into its work plan. Any proposed changes in the
  800
  wording of the Act and its provisions will, of course, need careful consideration, but the development of a national HIV-AIDS strategy provides an excellent opportunity to update the Act in line with changes that have taken place in the epidemic, and in the provision of services. The Act provides for the submission of annual reports by health authorities on epidemiology, and on the use of resources for HIV-AIDS treatment and care and HIV prevention. Any changes in monitoring that are considered necessary will be indicated in the HIV-AIDS strategy document.
  I recognise, and share, my right hon. Friend's wish for rapid progress. The strategy work provides the opportunity to get any review of the Act right, and I am keen that we should use it in full for that purpose.
  The strategy development will also take into account developments on a number of different fronts that are of direct relevance to the formulation of the new strategy. Earlier this year, the Government announced their intention of drawing up an integrated strategy for the whole of sexual and reproductive health, with the aim of joining services and health promotion messages when that is relevant. We have known for some time that the presence of other sexually transmitted diseases can influence the spread of HIV, and it makes sense to link some health promotion messages.
  A key component of the overarching sexual health strategy will be the separate and complementary strategy for HIV-AIDS. The separate strategy will provide a clear focus in a difficult area where there are major cost implications for the NHS. Our priorities remain to communicate clear messages about safer sex, to focus on groups at high risk of infection, and to continue to enlist the help of community organisations in delivering our messages.
  The overall framework of the sexual health strategy will include key messages from other related programmes, including those involving HIV-AIDS, which will link with the communicable diseases strategy. We will thus be "joining up" health promotion messages when it makes sense to do so, but there will be no let-up in the important targeting of messages to the groups that are most vulnerable to HIV infection. Those are gay and bisexual men, people from countries with a high prevalence of HIV, currently sub-Saharan African countries, and injecting drug users.
  This country's excellent surveillance systems keep us alert to the changing epidemiology of HIV and AIDS and allow us to assess the impact on the UK population of the HIV epidemic elsewhere in the world. They also allow us to keep a close watch on groups such as injecting drug users, among whom HIV prevalence has been at a steady level for years.
  The NHS budget for drug misuse has been bolstered with funding from the NHS modernisation fund. This year, £12 million has been provided to health authorities. That will rise to £20 million over the next three years to achieve the key objective of increasing participation of problem drug misusers, including prisoners, in drug treatment programmes that have a positive impact on health and crime. The Government's anti-drug strategy is expected to strengthen prevention activities for vulnerable young people, particularly with regard to injecting behaviour.
  The surveillance data show that mortality due to HIV and AIDS in 1998 was a quarter of that in 1995–96. That is a direct result of the success of combination drug

  801
  treatments that are delaying progress of the disease and decreasing the mortality rate. As a result, we have an increasing prevalence of HIV, which makes our HIV prevention activities even more vital.
  Meanwhile, national work for African communities has produced new information resources on HIV issues for African men and women. A mass media and poster campaign and a weekly radio project are all under way. Health promotion directed at the general population to keep them alert to the seriousness of HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections has included a website and targeted work for young holiday makers. Health promotion work with gay men included a new media campaign that focused on awareness of undiagnosed HIV infection. A second conference on the community HIV and AIDS prevention strategy has taken place, which focused on HIV prevention, understanding risk and gay men with diagnosed HIV infection.
  Recently, there have been activities with a direct bearing on future services for people with HIV and AIDS—for example, the published work on standards for HIV services and developing networks for HIV care in London, which we hope will be extended to the rest of the country. We believe that developing networks of services throughout the country, using published clinical guidelines and agreed standards, will be key elements in the success of our overall strategy.
  Under the new arrangements, commissioning of services for HIV-AIDS and genito-urinary medicine will be commissioned at least at health authority level. The most complex level of HIV services involving the
  802
  administration and monitoring of combination therapies will probably be commissioned regionally. That should ensure that a coherent package of services that is based on previous experience and expertise is developed.
  As part of commissioning in the new NHS, alongside work on partnerships between health and local authorities, development of guidance on long-term service agreements is under way. The guidance will build on good joint working and the introduction of three-year contracts, where possible. Many authorities, especially in London and other cities, have long worked in consortia with their constituent boroughs to place three-year contracts with their voluntary sector partners.
  The strategy will clearly have an important role in setting the framework for future services for people with HIV and AIDS. The stocktake group was asked to make recommendations for the distribution formula, taking into account current use of the budget, financial pressures generated by combination therapies and the need to preserve open access GUM services. Some of the group's work has been used in distributing part of the treatment and care allocation to health authorities this year, in line with them taking responsibility for their residents. However, the redistribution of such large amounts of money must be considered carefully and in great detail. We need to move forward at a measured pace to ensure that specialist services are not destabilised while—
  The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at six minutes to Two o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Climate Change Levy
  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of(a) the cost of the climate change levy to his Department and (b) the savings from the reduction in National Insurance Contributions that will occur when it is introduced. [88863]

  Mr. Straw
  The net impact of the climate change levy and the associated reduction in main rate of employers' National Insurance Contributions on the Home Office will depend on the rates of climate change levy. The final rates of climate change levy will not be set until Finance Bill 2000.

  In addition, the Government are still considering a number of detailed issues on the tax treatment of different energy products which could have a significant impact in some instances. It is, therefore, not possible to give definitive figures about the impact of the climate change levy on the Home Office.

  Ministerial Protection
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which class of vote covers expenditure incurred on protection of Ministers and other current and former parliamentarians; and what is the total of this expenditure in the current financial year. [88849]

  Mr. Straw
  The class of vote covering such expenditure is Class IV. It is not the practice to publish how much is spent on protective security measures as to do so would provide an indication of the level of security being provided.

  Restaurant Health Inspections
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to include individual restaurant health inspection data in his Department's proposals for freedom of information. [89131]

  Mr. Straw
  Food hygiene inspections are conducted by local authority Environmental Health Officers under the Food Safety Act 1990. This Act does not prohibit the disclosure of inspection reports unless they contain confidential information.

  Local authorities are public authorities within the meaning of the draft Freedom of Information Bill and will be required to apply the legislation to information requests when the Bill is enacted.

  Clause 34(2) of the draft Bill exempts information from the right of access if disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person. It is possible that inspection reports may fall for consideration under this exemption. But, even if the disclosure of a
  324
  report is exempt by virtue of this clause, authorities would have a duty under clause 14 to consider, on a case by case basis, whether the information requested should be disclosed in the public interest.

  In addition, under clause 6 of the draft legislation, public authorities would have a duty to adopt a publication scheme, which has regard to the public interest and must be approved by the Information Commissioner. Under clause 6, a local authority could agree with the Information Commissioner that such reports should be published as of right and if so, in what form and to what timetable.

  Criminal Records Checks (Voluntary Sector)
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what estimate he has made of the cost of providing free access to criminal records checks for the voluntary sector; [89123]

  (2) if he will review the decision to include the voluntary sector in charging for criminal records checks on people who want to work in the sector; [89122]

  (3) what assessment he has made of the effects of charging for criminal records checks on the voluntary sector; [89121]

  (4) when the Criminal Records Bureau will be established; [89124]

  (5) what representations he has received on the effects of charging for criminal records checks on the voluntary sector. [89120]

  Mr. George Howarth
  It is intended that all applicants will be required to pay for certificates from the Criminal Records Bureau. We have received a large number of representations from voluntary organisations and individuals on this subject. We considered very carefully whether there was any way in which free checks could be provided for volunteers. Whilst we acknowledge the valuable contribution volunteers make, we have concluded that it will not be practicable to provide any free checks from the Criminal Records Bureau for volunteers or for any other groups. We realise that this is unwelcome news but providing free checks would prove an unsustainable burden on the public purse and may increase demand for certificates from the Bureau to an uncontrollable extent. In addition, we do not consider it would be fair to allow volunteers to have free certificates when there are other equally deserving groups such as the unemployed or the disabled.

  It is difficult to estimate what the cost of free certificates would be to the Bureau, as it is not known how many volunteers would be required to apply for certificates, but the cost is potentially enormous. If checks were provided only to new volunteers seeking the higher levels of checks, the cost could exceed £10 million a year. If checks were extended to all existing volunteers, the cost could be between £40–£200 million. The cost of the fees for certificates from the Bureau will be kept to the minimum necessary to recoup costs and to provide a satisfactory service.

  The Criminal Records Bureau is being established to enable checks to be carried out to help prevent unsuitable people from working with children or vulnerable adults. It will be for voluntary organisations to decide whether

  325
  volunteers require a certificate, and a certificate will not obviate the need for voluntary organisations to carry out their own checks and references as part of normal recruitment procedures. However, the over-riding consideration at all times must be the protection of the vulnerable, and the service provided by the Criminal Records Bureau will help to achieve this. We do not believe that volunteering will diminish with the introduction of these checks.

  The Bureau will be set up in Merseyside and work on implementation and timing is being taken forward.

  M4 Bus Lane
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many motorists have been(a) cautioned and (b) charged for using the new bus lane on the M4. [89174]

  Mr. Boateng
  The information requested is not available.

  Emergency Services
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average time for an officer to answer the telephone to a 999 call for the(a) London Ambulance Service, (b) Metropolitan Police and (c) London Fire Service in (i) 1999 to date, (ii) 1998 and (iii) 1997; what were the target times in each of those periods; and what percentage of calls met those targets. [89253]

  Mr. George Howarth
  This information is not held centrally; however, the following information has been supplied by the London Ambulance Service, Metropolitan Police and London Fire Service:The London Ambulance Service answers approximately 90 per cent. of 999 calls within five seconds. It aims to achieve a target of 95 per cent. of calls within five seconds by April 2000. 99 per cent. of calls are answered within 15 seconds.
  The Metropolitan Police aims to answer 80 per cent. of calls within 15 seconds. In 1997, it answered 90.8 per cent. within target time; in 1998, 88.6 per cent; and to 30 June 1999, 80.2 per cent.
  The London Fire Brigade aims to answer 90 per cent. of calls within 20 seconds. In 1997 it answered 93 per cent. of calls in 6 seconds; in 1998, 96 per cent. of calls in 4 seconds; and to 29 June 1999, 96 per cent. of calls in 3 seconds.

  Immigration Detainees
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people charged with immigration offences were detained in prisons in England and Wales on 1 June. [89177]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The available information is for 31 May 1999 and shows that 480 persons were detained in prisons in England and Wales under the Immigration Act 1971.

  Extradition Treaties
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the countries which do not have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. [89175]
  326
  Kate Hoey
  Details of the United Kingdom's extradition arrangements are not available on this basis. Those countries with whom the United Kingdom has extradition arrangements follow. The Extradition Act 1989 enables special extradition arrangements to be made with foreign states with whom the United Kingdom has no extradition arrangements. In addition, there are a number of international conventions which allow for the extradition of fugitives between ratifying states for certain serious offences, even in the absence of an extradition arrangement.

  Countries with bilateral extradition treaties with the United Kingdom (with date of entry into force)

  1. Albania: 1927

  2. Argentina: 1894, 1980

  3. Bolivia: 1898

  4. Brazil: 1997

  5. Chile: 1898

  6. Colombia: 1889

  7. Cuba: 1905

  8. Ecuador: 1886

  9. Guatemala: 1886

  10. Haiti: 1876

  11. Iraq: 1933

  12. Liberia: 1894

  13. Mexico: 1889

  14. Monaco: 1892

  15. Nicaragua: 1906

  16. Panama: 1907

  17. Paraguay: 1911

  18. Peru: 1907

  19. Salvador: 1882

  20. San Marino: 1900

  21. Thailand: 1911

  22. Uruguay: 1885, 1891

  23. USA: 1976, 1986

  24. Yugoslavia: 1901

  Commonwealth countries which have been designated by order in council under Section 5(1) of the Extradition Act 1989

  1. Antigua and Barbuda

  2. Australia

  3. The Bahamas

  4. Bangladesh

  5. Barbados

  6. Belize

  7. Botswana

  8. Brunei

  9. Canada

  10. Dominica

  11. Fiji

  12. The Gambia

  13. Ghana

  14. Grenada

  15. Guyana

  16. India

  17. Jamaica

  18. Kenya

  19. Kiribati

  20. Lesotho

  327

  21. Malawi

  22. Malaysia

  23. Maldives

  24. Mauritius

  25. Nauru

  26. New Zealand

  27. Nigeria

  28. Papua New Guinea

  29. St. Kitts and Nevis

  30. St. Lucia

  31. St. Vincent and the Grenadines

  32. South Africa

  33. Seychelles

  34. Sierra Leone

  35. Singapore

  36. Solomon Islands

  37. Sri Lanka

  38. Swaziland

  39. Tonga

  40. Tanzania

  41. Trinidad and Tobago

  42. Tuvalu

  43. Uganda

  44. Vanuatu

  45. Western Samoa

  46. Zimbabwe

  47. Zambia

  Overseas territories to whom the Extradition Act 1989 applies

  1. Anguilla

  2. Bermuda

  3. British Antarctic Territory

  4. British Indian Ocean Territory

  5. Cayman Islands

  6. Falkland Islands

  7. Gibraltar

  8. Montserrat

  9. Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands

  10. St. Helena and St. Helena Dependencies

  11. South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands

  12. Turks and Caicos Islands

  13. The United Kingdom Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (Cyprus)

  14. British Virgin Islands

  Parties to the European Convention on Extradition of 1957 which are designated by order in council under Section 4(1) of the Extradition Act 1989

  1. Austria

  2. Belgium

  3. Bulgaria

  4. Croatia

  5. Cyprus

  6. Czech Republic

  7. Denmark

  8. Estonia

  9. Finland

  10. France

  11. Germany

  12. Greece

  328

  13. Hungary

  14. Iceland

  15. Israel

  16. Italy

  17. Latvia

  18. Liechtenstein

  19. Lithuania

  20. Luxembourg

  21. Malta

  22 Moldova

  23. The Netherlands

  24. Norway

  25. Poland

  26. Portugal

  27. Romania

  28. Slovakia

  29. Slovenia

  30. Spain

  31. Sweden

  32. Switzerland

  33. Turkey

  Other Arrangements

  1. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: Extradition arrangements with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are under the Extradition Act 1989 as amended by The Hong Kong (Extradition Order) 1997.

  2. Republic of Ireland: Extradition arrangements with the Republic of Ireland are under the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965.

  Millennium Compliance (Kent Emergency Services)
  Dr. Stoate
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to ensure that the computer systems in use by the Kent Fire Brigade are millennium compliant and that emergency services will not be affected on 1 January 2000. [89186]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The millennium preparedness of all fire brigades in England and Wales is subject to independent assessment by Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate. The results, together with independent assessments of the millennium preparedness of the other emergency services and other key sectors of the national infrastructure, were reported to the Action 2000 National Infrastructure Forum on 21 April. Her Majesty's Inspectorate reported then that they expected all fire brigades in England and Wales to be fully prepared by September at the latest. That remains the case. The latest state of preparedness of each fire brigade will be reported at the next National Infrastructure Forum on 13 July, following which, I will forward further details to my hon. Friend.

  Dr. Stoate
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to ensure that the computer systems in use by the Kent Police are millennium compliant and that law enforcement activities will not be affected on 1 January 2000. [89187]

  Mr. Boateng
  It is important that all police forces in England and Wales take every measure to ensure year 2000 compliance. The Home Office has commissioned an Independent Assessment of all forces, including Kent, by
  329
  Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. The results of this survey will be published at the National Infrastructure Forum on 13 July.

  Prisoners (Cell Confinement)
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 24 June 1999,

  Establishment

  Total population1

  Number of prisoners locked up for more than 22 hours

  Percentage

  Comment

  Birmingham

  1,070

  476

  44

  8 for good order and discipline, 36 patients in the health care centre. The population of 1,070 is 336 more than Birmingham's certified normal accommodation and the shortage of out of cell activity is one result of holding this number of additional prisoners.

  Liverpool

  1,411

  2

  0.1

  1 for good order and discipline, 1 refuses to leave the segregation unit.

  Dartmoor

  594

  27

  4.5

  7 for good order and discipline, 10 held in segregation at own request, 10 unemployed. They are being encouraged to apply for work vacancies.

  Feltham

  799

  13

  1.6

  All for good order and discipline.

  Swansea

  320

  1

  0.3

  Patient in health care centre unfit for work or association.

  1This figure is the 'unlock figure', that is, the actual number of prisoners held in the establishment on the morning of 29 June.

  Police Forces (Minority Group Consultation)
  Sir Robert Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance his Department has issued to police forces about consultation with minority groups in the communities which they serve; and if he will list those forces which have established procedures for liaison with(a) ethnic minorities, (b) lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, (c) disabled people and (d) transsexual and transgendered people. [89159]

  Mr. Boateng
  In December 1996, the Home Office Police Research Group published a report "It's Good to Talk: lessons in public consultation and feedback". This report looked at good practice in consultation and feedback on policing and provided advice to police authorities and forces in deciding how to undertake their consultation arrangements. It set out a matrix methodology to help each force and authority decide on the most appropriate arrangements, and included advice on how to consult with minority groups—particularly those who found it difficult to take part in the more formal consultation processes.

  Extensive guidance has been issued on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which imposed new duties on police forces and local authorities to form partnerships to deal with crime and disorder. Consultation with local communities is a major aspect of these new duties and the guidance gives advice on the involvement of minority groups.

  Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary's thematic report on police community and race relations "Winning the Race", published in October 1997, and the follow-up report "Winning the Race—Revisited", published in March 1999, also made recommendations on a number of issues including the need to have sound and representative public consultation processes—with particular reference to minority groups.
  330
  Official Report, column 428, what proportion of prisoners is confined for more than 22 hours a day in HMP (a) Birmingham, (b) Liverpool, (c) Dartmoor, (d) Feltham and (e) Swansea. [89287]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The precise numbers vary from day to day. The table gives the position on 29 June 1999.

  A survey of all forces undertaken as part of the inspection revealed that at the time of the second inspection (September 1998), 93 per cent. of forces had a strategy in place to consult minority groups. The remaining forces are developing their own strategies. Such strategies will not necessarily be specific to any one group but will encompass all groups within the local community. The issue will be looked at again when Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary carries out a further inspection of race and community relations in 2000.

  The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has published guidelines for the police in dealing with gay and lesbian communities which includes advice on consultation arrangements.

  Special Constabulary Complement
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people served in the special constabulary of each police force in each of the past five years for which figures are available. [89552]

  Mr. Boateng
  As at 31 March, the figures for the number of special constables in post in each police force area in England and Wales for the past five years were:

  Force

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  19991

  Avon and Somerset

  651

  688

  759

  621

  547

  Bedfordshire

  189

  189

  182

  186

  154

  Cambridgeshire

  279

  275

  303

  320

  310

  Cheshire

  321

  274

  475

  459

  407

  City of London

  83

  77

  86

  76

  64

  Cleveland

  212

  195

  160

  164

  126

  Cumbria

  241

  201

  188

  198

  204

  Derbyshire

  434

  413

  428

  380

  317

  Devon and Cornwall

  1,142

  1,102

  1,148

  1,024

  918

  Dorset

  221

  254

  289

  315

  305

  Durham

  200

  187

  184

  144

  159

  Dyfed-Powys

  302

  314

  283

  254

  237

  Essex

  674

  608

  634

  638

  544

  331

  Force

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  19991

  Gloucestershire

  320

  333

  297

  276

  233

  Greater Manchester

  768

  746

  685

  598

  523

  Gwent

  126

  136

  157

  119

  113

  Hampshire

  598

  539

  621

  698

  760

  Hertfordshire

  320

  315

  297

  306

  238

  Humberside

  427

  391

  340

  324

  269

  Kent

  569

  555

  589

  592

  526

  Lancashire

  608

  531

  483

  489

  449

  Leicestershire

  356

  360

  415

  406

  316

  Lincolnshire

  322

  299

  271

  260

  216

  Merseyside

  384

  343

  401

  419

  458

  Metropolitan Police

  1,550

  1,841

  1,714

  1,282

  1,138

  Norfolk

  345

  319

  402

  337

  336

  Northamptonshire

  303

  289

  316

  288

  230

  Northumbria

  506

  471

  533

  400

  342

  North Wales

  288

  332

  341

  358

  400

  North Yorkshire

  381

  360

  362

  358

  276

  Nottinghamshire

  552

  537

  620

  558

  461

  South Wales

  477

  461

  361

  366

  338

  South Yorkshire

  452

  381

  308

  281

  246

  Staffordshire

  725

  702

  685

  595

  468

  Suffolk

  409

  407

  379

  397

  420

  Surrey

  238

  260

  297

  235

  224

  Sussex

  527

  511

  472

  442

  393

  Thames Valley

  679

  744

  656

  609

  569

  Warwickshire

  352

  344

  381

  345

  261

  West Mercia

  582

  613

  552

  512

  515

  West Midlands

  818

  897

  945

  889

  731

  West Yorkshire

  777

  709

  690

  589

  559

  Wiltshire

  318

  233

  154

  149

  184

  Total

  20,026

  19,736

  19,734

  18,256

  16,484

  1The figures for 31 March 1999 are provisional

  Motorway Accidents (Vehicle Removal)
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what legal basis exists(a) for the warning by the Association of Chief Police Officers that vehicles in motorway accidents or which have broken down must be removed within 30 minutes and (b) for the police to engage their own contractors and charge the owners to remove vehicles after this time limit; when these provisions will come into effect; and if he will make a statement. [89553]

  Mr. Boateng
  Police powers to arrange for the removal of vehicles from motorways are contained in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and the Removal and Disposal of Vehicles Regulations 1986. Under this legislation, the precise arrangements adopted by police forces for the safe recovery of vehicles from the motorway including the engagement of contractors to carry out this work are an operational matter for individual chief officers of police.

  In view of the increasing traffic flows on motorways and the associated dangers the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) issued guidelines in May this year which reduced the period of leeway which the police allow for the removal of vehicles from the motorway from two hours to 30 minutes. A memorandum of understanding has recently been agreed between the four main motoring organisations and ACPO whereby Greenflag, the Royal Automobile Club, Automobile Association and Britannia will aim to attend the scene of a breakdown on the motorway within 30 minutes.

  Personal Data
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement concerning the progress made by the reviews(a) on retention of DNA profiles collected by the police from individuals for elimination purposes, (b) on the wider use of electoral roll personal data without the consent of the elector and (c) on the application of the national security exemption to the processing of personal data held by the Security Service for a purpose which relates to serious crime. 89653]

  Mr. Boateng
  We intend to issue a consultation paper shortly. The Working Party on Electoral Procedures, which has been looking at this alongside other issues, is expected to report to the Home Secretary later in the summer. Consideration is still being given to the exemptions for the Security Service that would be necessary under the Data Protection Act 1998. At this stage, it is not envisaged that the Security Service would rely on exemption provided by section 29 of the 1998 Act (crime and taxation).

  Animal Experiments
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the dates since 1 July 1998 when the named veterinary surgeon appointed under section 7(5)(b) of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 visited Harlan UK Ltd., indicating which visits were announced and which unannounced; and on which occasions he considered that the welfare of an animal gave cause for concern and so invoked the procedure laid down in section 7(b) of that Act. [89533]

  Mr. George Howarth
  The Home Office does not hold records concerning visits to establishments by the named veterinary surgeon. I understand, however, that the named veterinary surgeon for this establishment is employed on a full-time basis by the company and would, therefore, have been on site most days.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the use of beagles in animal experimentation. [89450]

  Mr. George Howarth
  Animals can be used in scientific procedures only where the benefits to humans, other animals or the environment outweigh the costs to the animals involved and where there are no suitable alternatives. Dogs (along with cats, primates and equidae) can be used only if animals of no other species are suitable or if it is not practicable to obtain animals of a suitable species. Unless otherwise authorised, only dogs acquired from designated breeding establishments can be used in scientific procedures.

  In 1997, 7,490 scientific procedures were carried out on dogs (less than 0.3 per cent. of all procedures) of which 7,240 involved beagles. Of the 7,490 total, 4,581 were for assessing the safety or efficacy of pharmaceuticals and 1,738 were for pharmaceutical research and development.

  No-one likes to use animals in scientific procedures and particularly dogs. However, their use in some procedures is still essential in medical research and testing. The aforementioned figures indicate the important areas of work in which the vast majority of dogs are used.
  333
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will (1) make a statement on the findings of the recent British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection report into Harlan UK Ltd in relation to alleged infringements of the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986; [89534]

  (2) instigate an investigation into Harlan UK Ltd. to establish whether infringements of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 have occurred; [89535]

  (3) list the dates since 1 July 1998 when his Department's Inspectorate has visited Harlan UK Ltd. under section 18(2)(d) of the Animals (Scientific Proceedings) Act 1986, indicating which visits were announced and which unannounced; and what reports were made to him in accordance with section 18(2)(e) of that Act; [89531]

  (4) make a statement on the death of two primates en route from Oxford University to Harlan UK Ltd. [89449]

  Mr. George Howarth
  We have received, and are studying, a detailed report provided, on 29 June, by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). An investigation into the allegations made has already been launched and I have asked for urgent advice on whether there is a need to suspend—under the powers granted by section 13 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986—the establishment's certificate of designation.

  A comprehensive and thorough investigation will be carried out. It will be led by a senior member of the Home Office Inspectorate unconnected with this establishment. This could take two or three months to complete, but I will be receiving interim reports.

  In addition to the standards of care and welfare of animals, the BUAV report criticises the Home Office Inspectorate. These allegations will be considered during the investigation.

  I will be advising the Animal Procedures Committee of the outcomes in due course.

  It would be wrong to pre-judge the outcome of the investigation and I will not, therefore, comment further at this time. However, I give the hon. Member my assurances that if any of the allegations of contraventions of the Act; of the terms and conditions of licences or certificates; or of the Codes of Practice are substantiated appropriate action will be taken to rectify the problems and to prevent recurrence. No options have been ruled out at this stage.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what steps he is taking to end the practice whereby more animals are bred for research purposes than are used in experiments; [89448]

  (2) if he requires research, breeding and supply establishments to keep full records detailing the numbers of research animals killed each year, and where such animals have had their (i) blood, (ii) tissue and (iii) organs sold; [89455]

  (3) if he will make it a requirement under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 for establishments to keep full records of (i) the number of animals bred for research purposes and (ii) the number of such animals subsequently destroyed without being so used. [89454]
  334
  Mr. George Howarth
  I refer to the reply that I gave the hon. Member on 30 November 1998,Official Report, columns 80–81.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many project licences issued under the Animals (Scientific Procedure) Act 1986 are currently in force at Harlan UK; and how many of these are classified as(a) mild, (b) moderate and (c) substantial severity. [89532]

  Mr. George Howarth
  There are currently two project licences in force that have primary availability at this establishment—i.e. it is the main place at which procedures are carried out under the authority of the licence. One of these is of mild severity and one moderate. There are a further 22 project licences that have primary availability elsewhere, but that have secondary availability at this establishment. Eleven of these are of mild severity and the remainder are moderate.

  Drivers (Drug-testing Kits)
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when plans he has to introduce drug-testing kits for police to check people suspected of driving under the influence of drugs. [89746]

  Mr. Boateng
  We have no current plans to introduce such kits, but tests have been carried out on some to assess their practicality for police use and further work is being undertaken to develop a specification for a roadside screening device.

  Passport Agency
  Mr. Lidington,
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the criteria which he is currently applying to decisions to extend expired passports for two years; and what plans he has to review these criteria. [89866]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The criteria are as follows:

  Where children are included on passports, they can be:
  extended until the date of the eldest child's sixteenth birthday so long as there is a minimum of six months, or
  extended for two years so long as all the included children are 14 years or younger.

  Children included on a passport require their own passport when they reach the age of 16.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the dates since 2 May 1997 on which the Chief Executive of the Passport Agency submitted his quarterly reports to ministers. [89865]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Since 2 May 1997, the Chief Executive has submitted his quarterly reports to Ministers on the following dates:

  Period

  Date Submitted

  April to June 1997

  11 August 1997

  July to September 1997

  18 November 1997

  October to December 1997

  12 February 1998

  January to March 1998

  12 May 1998

  April to June 1998

  6 August 1998

  October to December 1998

  February 1999

  January to March 1999

  19 May 1999

  335
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the present members of the Passport Agency's Advisory Board. [89863]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The present members of the Passport Agency's Advisory Board are:

  Mike Elland
  Deputy Director General, Immigration and Nationality Directorate, Home Office (Chairman)
  Keith Ackroyd
  Former Managing Director, Boots Retail Division
  Malcolm Davidson
  Former Managing Director, Littlewoods Pools
  Robert Fulton
  Principal Finance Officer, Home Office
  Linda Lockyer
  Director Corporate Resources, Home Office.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the dates on which(a) the Passport Agency's Management Board and (b) the Passport Agency's Advisory Board have met since 2 May 1997. [89864]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The information requested on meetings of the Passport Agency's Management Board, and its Advisory Board since 2 May 1997 are as follows:

  Advisory Board

  Year

  Dates

  1997

  30 July, 30 October

  1998

  28 January, 29 April, 29 October

  1999

  28 January, 28 April

  Management Board

  Year

  Date

  1997

  19 May, 23 June, 2 July, 21 July, 18 August, 28 August, 15 September, 20 October, 17 November, 15 December

  1998

  19 January, 16 February, 16 March, 20 April, 18 May, 22 June, 20 July, 17 August, 16 September, 19 October, 9 November, 21 December

  1999

  18 January, 22 February, 22 March, 20 April, 17 May, 21 June

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy during the present delays at the Passport Agency to waive or reimburse the £10 additional fee due from applicants in person; and if he will make a statement. [89843]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced on 30 June that for any applicant calling personally at a passport office who applied more than two weeks ago, and had not yet received their passport, the £10 additional fee for personal applications would be waived.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to allow in urgent circumstances the two year extension of passports which include the names of children aged under 16 years; and if he will make a statement. [89844]
  336
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The arrangements to extend passports by two years includes passports where children are included.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many telephone calls were made to the UK Passport Agency in June; and how many of those received the Agency's courtesy message. [89846]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Passport Agency has information only up to 25 June. Up to that date, the Agency had received 914,580 telephone calls, of which 621,915 received a courtesy message.

  Martin McGartland
  Mr. Maginnis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made by the Northumberland Police in identifying those involved in the attempted murder of Martin McGartland at Whitley Bay on 17 June; and if he will make a statement. [89356]

  Mr. Boateng
  The investigation into this crime is a matter for the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police. I understand, however, that at the present time there is no firm evidence to establish responsibility for the shooting and inquiries are, therefore, continuing.

  Child Care Workers (Criminal Offences)
  Mr. Salter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people working with children who have been convicted of a criminal offence received sentences of(a) custody, (b) community service and (c) probation; and in each case of what lengths, in each of the last 10 years; [89267]

  (2) how many people working with children have been (a) arrested for and (b) convicted of a criminal offence broken down by category of offences in each of the last 10 years; [89266]

  (3) if he will estimate the cost to public funds for each of the last 10 years of those people working with children who have been convicted of a criminal offence and who have received (a) a custodial sentence, (b) a suspended sentence, (c) community service, (d) a conditional discharge, (e) an absolute discharge, (f) a fine, (g) a probation sentence and (h) a police caution; [89270]

  (4) if he will estimate the cost to public funds for each of the last 10 years of those people working with children who have been convicted of a criminal offence and who have subsequently re-offended; [89269]

  (5) how many people working with children who have been convicted of a criminal offence have subsequently re-offended in each of the last 10 years; [89268]

  (6) how many people working with children who have been convicted of a criminal offence have received (a) a suspended sentence, listing the length of that suspension and the sentence, (b) a police caution, (c) a fine, and of what value, (d) an absolute discharge and (e) a conditional discharge in each of the last 10 years. [89265]

  Mr. Boateng
  The information requested is not available as details about an offender's occupation are not recorded on the Home Office Cautions and Court Proceedings Databases.

  Personation
  Mr. Stringer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the level of personation in(a) the 1999 European elections, (b) the 1997 general election and (c) the 1999 local elections. [89442]

  Mr. George Howarth
  No arrests have been made for personation at either the 1999 European Parliamentary elections or at the local elections held in May 1999. We know of only two proven cases at the 1997 General Election, one of which resulted in prosecution and a substantial fine.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Climate Change Levy
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the extent of changes to energy savings targets for industrial sectors between 1990 and 2010; what proportion of the changes will have resulted from(a) adjustments in the economy and (b) the climate change levy; and if he will make a statement. [88011]

  Mr. Battle
  The Government intend to set significantly lower rates of the climate change levy for energy intensive sectors that agree targets for improving energy efficiency. Detailed negotiations on these targets are now underway with a number of industrial sectors with the intention of reaching agreement in October 1999.

  Over the period 1990–2000, the Government's climate change consultation paper estimated that about 70 per cent. of the fall in industrial carbon dioxide emissions relative to the increase in GDP is the result of large-scale fuel switching in electricity supply. Around three quarters of this fall is the result of the introduction of gas fired generation and the remainder from improved productivity of nuclear power and increased renewable energy. A further 10 per cent. can be attributed to changes in the UK's industrial structure and some 20 per cent. comes from improvements in energy efficiency.

  The climate change levy is expected to save around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon a year by 2010.

  Future reductions in greenhouse gases to 2010 from different sectors will depend on the policies and measures adopted as part of our climate change programme.

  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures he will take to ensure that gas and electricity prices are competitive within the European Union after the climate change levy is introduced; and if he will make a statement. [88012]

  Mr. Battle
  The Government are committed to the promotion of competition in energy markets which will maintain downward pressure on pre-tax prices.

  The White Paper "Conclusions of the Review of Energy Sources for Power Generation" sets out the Government's broad energy policy, including radical reforms to the electricity market. These reforms will bring greater competition to the wholesale market and lower
  338
  prices for consumers. New arrangements to improve the competitiveness of the gas market will be introduced in October this year.

  Proposals for the climate change levy also recognise the need to have regard to the competitiveness of UK industry. The Government intend to set substantially lower rates of levy for those energy intensive sectors that enter into negotiated agreements on their energy use and emissions.

  Specialist Shops
  Mr. Lock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what assessment his Department has made of the continuing commercial viability of small and specialist shops in small and medium-sized towns; and if he will make a statement; [88614]

  (2) what financial assistance is available from his Department to support small and specialist shops in (a) small and medium-sized towns and (b) Bewdley; and if he will make a statement. [88613]

  Mr. Wills
  [holding answer 28 June 1999]: Small and specialist shops are crucial to the economic, environmental and social development of small and medium-sized towns. They provide employment, regenerate the economy of town centres and have an important role to play in providing a service to those living and working in urban areas, particularly the disadvantaged, or those who may be socially excluded.

  The Urban White Paper published on 29 June will consider the effects of new technology on the retail sector and this is likely to include the role of small shops.

  In addition several Single Regeneration Budget schemes have an impact, either directly or indirectly, on retail sectors within small and medium-sized towns in the West Midlands region. Other assistance available to small businesses throughout the region includes schemes in Staffordshire, Hertfordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire that offer a mix of business services and support.

  Financial Transactions
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what discussions he has had with representatives of banks and credit card operators about liberalising regulations regarding use of credit cards for e-commerce transactions with internet firms with a limited trading history; [89318]

  (2) what discussions he has had with representatives of banks and building societies regarding the raising of existing and the introduction of new charges for over the counter transactions and use of cash dispensing machines. [89317]

  Dr. Howells
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has held no discussions.

  Platform Lifts
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action is being taken by his Department in response to the proposals being considered by the EC to transfer regulation of platform lifts from the Health and Safety Directive to the Lift Directive. [89546]
  339
  Mr. Battle
  It is assumed that the question refers to the Machinery Directive (98/37EC) and to the Lifts Directive (95/16/EC). The Services of the European Commission have been preparing a draft Proposal for simplification of the Machinery Directive but no formal Proposal for amending the Machinery Directive has been adopted yet by the Commission or presented to the Council of Ministers.

  It is understood that the measure may seek to clarify the scope of the Directive in relation to a number of other Single Market Directives including the Lifts Directive.

  The Government would welcome simplification and clarification in principle but would need to study the precise terms of any such Proposal before they could give a view on their merits.

  Agency Nursing
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the competition implications of agency nursing. [89380]

  Dr. Howells
  There has been no such assessment carried out either by my Department or by the Office of Fair Trading.

  British Coal
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the competitiveness of British coal in (i) the European and (ii) the international market; and if he will make a statement. [89387]

  Mr. Battle
  The Government do not collect statistics on UK coal production costs. We understand that, on average, UK coal is produced at costs which are roughly a third of German production costs, and a quarter or less of Spanish costs. Unlike the German and Spanish coal industries, the UK coal industry receives no state aid.

  Outside the European Union the picture is different. The delivered cost of UK deep-mined coal is currently reported to be around a quarter to a third higher than the delivered price of internationally traded coal, much of which also has a lower sulphur content than most British coal.

  The competitiveness of the industry is not determined purely by its costs, but also depends on factors including location, security of supply and the precise characteristics of the coal required.

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to support and encourage the export of British coal. [89386]

  Mr. Battle
  British Trade International, the new unified DTI/FCO operation, has lead responsibility within Government for trade promotion and development on behalf of British business and aims to help UK firms take full advantage of overseas business opportunities by providing support, information, advice and assistance throughout the exporting process.

  The Government seek to ensure that there is an open and competitive market for coal and coal products across the EU, and to ensure that markets are not distorted by products which do not reflect their production and
  340
  transport costs. To this end we have encouraged the European Commission to take action against such marketing practices which are supported by unauthorised state aid where there is damage to the export prospects of British coal.

  Classic Cars
  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what exemptions are available to classic car owners from the European End of Life Vehicles Directive. [89436]

  Dr. Howells
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: The proposed End of Life Vehicles Directive would provide for improved recycling and treatment standards for vehicles when they have become waste (as defined under existing legislation). In other words, it would apply only when the owners have decided to discard them. For this reason, no exemptions would be needed for classic cars, and the European Commission has therefore not proposed any such exemptions.

  At the Environment Council on 24 June, it was decided to put back a decision on a Common Position on the Directive until the next Environment Council meeting, in recognition of the German Government's concerns over the approach adopted to producer responsibility.

DEFENCE

  Efficiency Savings
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 5 May 1999,Official Report, column 382, on efficiency savings, when he will write to the hon. Member. [87586]

  Mr. George Robertson
  The figures that the hon. Member has requested on savings measures are currently being validated for consideration by my Department's Ministerial Efficiency Steering Group. Once that exercise is complete, I shall write to the hon. Member. As my Department has supplied an illustrative list of efficiency measures for 1998–99 and 1999–2000 to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, I am unable to make that information available to him until after the Committee have published the information in a Commons Daily Part. We expect that the Committee will make this information available to the House within the next week.

  US National Ignition Facility
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if United Kingdom involvement in the US National Ignition Facility replaces proposals to develop a high powered laser facility at AWE Aldermaston; [87694]

  (2) pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) of 9 June 1999, Official Report, columns 329–30, how much Britain has invested to date in the US National Ignition Facility; and what further investment is planned in each of the next five years; [87693]

  (3) if he will list the laser facilities in existence, under construction and proposed for the future at AWE Aldermaston, indicating their primary purpose and how they differ from the US National Ignition Facility. [87695]
  341
  Mr. George Robertson
  My Department has concluded that, as the cost of building a domestic laser of sufficient power would be unaffordable, we should, in the absence of nuclear testing, invest in the US National Ignition Facility, NIF, in order to make use of its facilities. The precise details of our investment in the NIF have yet to be formalised in a contract with the US. The information requested is, therefore, commercially sensitive. I can, however, say that the investment, to cover a shot rate enhancement programme and the design and construction of a UK target chamber, will be in the region of £100m. This represents an affordable and cost-effective way of discharging the undertaking we gave in the Strategic Defence Review that we would ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons.

  No new laser facility is under construction or planned for AWE Aldermaston. The present laser at Aldermaston, generally known as Helen and opened in 1979, has been used to research the principle of techniques to underwrite the integrity of nuclear warheads in the absence of nuclear testing. It is based on older technology than the NIF which is 600 times more powerful. Helen will be retained until access to NIF is obtained.

  Russian Missile Propulsion System
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what evidence he has evaluated on the Russian ramjet propulsion system for a beyond visual range air to air missile. [88086]

  Mr. George Robertson
  The MOD has been aware of the development of a Russian ramjet propulsion system for a beyond visual range air-to-air missile since 1993, when a model, designated RVV-AE-PD, was displayed at the Moscow Airshow. During this year's Paris Airshow, the weapon itself was displayed. Representatives stated that the missile, which is a privately funded programme, had completed testing including ground-launched firings against a target. Air-launched firings had not been carried out due to the high costs involved. They also confirmed that it was now ready to go into production although they had no customers, either in Russia or elsewhere.

  We continue to assess the capabilities of this weapon, the development of its associated ramjet propulsion system and the scope for its deployment.

  Rosyth (Trident)
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current status of the emergency dry-docking facility for Trident at Rosyth; and if he will make a statement. [88133]

  Mr. George Robertson
  Construction work on the Trident contingency docking facility is complete and the facility is in good shape for contingency use to support a Trident docking.

  Trawlerman IT Project
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department spent on the Trawlerman IT project; for what reasons it was abandoned without use; and if he will make a statement. [88134]
  342
  Mr. Spellar
  A fixed price contract was let in July 1988 and ultimately the MOD spent £42 million on the Trawlerman IT project. The project experienced serious technical difficulties and delays such that, by the time it was delivered in May 1995, some 3½ years late, it was obsolete. The problems experienced by this project go back to the early 1990s. The Department subsequently acquired a replacement system at a fraction of the cost (£6 million), using a modern off-the-shelf design and applying the lessons learned from the experience of Trawlerman. Lessons have been learnt and procurement procedures have been improved with the introduction of the Smart Procurement Initiative launched earlier this year under the Strategic Defence Review. Further information is contained in the Eighteenth Report, Session 1988–99 of the Committee of Public Account on the Ministry of Defence: Appropriation Accounts 1997–98.

  Sellafield
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what use is made of the plutonium recycling facilities at Sellafield for plutonium from old nuclear weapons; and if he will make a statement. [88143]

  Mr. Spellar
  No use is made of facilities at Sellafield for the recycling of plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons. The recovery of this material is undertaken at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.

  US Atomic Co-ordinating Offices
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the annual operating costs of the US Atomic Co-ordinating Offices in London and Washington; and how many staff are currently employed in each office. [881351

  Mr. George Robertson
  The details requested are as follows:

  Atomic Control Office,London

  Staff

  Number

  Senior Executive Officer

  10.5

  Executive Officer

  1

  Administrative Officer

  1

  Administrative Assistants

  4

  1This official has other duties in addition to his responsibilities as Head of Atomic Control Office, London

  Atomic Co-ordinating Office, Washington

  Staff

  Number

  Unified Grade 6

  1

  Unified Grade 7

  1

  Executive Officer

  1

  Administrative Officer

  1

  The annual running costs of the London and Washington offices are £122,000 and £263,000 respectively.

  Joint Working Groups (USA)
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will provide(a) a list of all joint working groups with the United States Department of Defense currently in existence, (b) a brief explanation of the purpose of each one and (c) the number of meetings that have occurred in the last two years. [88131]
  343
  Mr. George Robertson
  The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Trident
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will explain the purpose of payments made to the US Government under the heading Trident Refit Feasibility Study; and if he will provide the total cost of this item. [88144]

  Mr. George Robertson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence gave him on 28 July 1998,Official Report, columns 200–02. The total we expect to pay for these studies remains in the region of £850,000, subject to exchange rate variations.

  Airlift Programme
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many companies will be on the tender list for the Strategic Short-Term Airlift Programme; and when the list will be announced. [88311]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Ministry of Defence received expressions of interest from nine companies in response to the MOD Contracts Bulletin published in July 1998. The Invitation to Tender was issued to seven companies on 30 September 1998. Five tenders were received by the closing date of 29 January 1999 from Air Foyle, Airbus Transport International, Boeing in conjunction with British Aerospace, IBP Airlift Ltd. and Rolls Royce. The tenders are currently being assessed.

  Antonov 124
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the Antonov 124 has military aircraft release. [88309]

  Mr. Spellar
  There are currently two variants of the Antonov 124: the basic version used by the Russian armed forces and others, and the An 124–100 used by civil operators. Neither has a UK Military Aircraft Release.

  Kosovo
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many targets were hit in Montenegro; and of what types. [88456]

  Mr. George Robertson
  UK forces were involved only in attacks on Podgorica airfield.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the destruction as a result of NATO action of civilian infrastructure in Montenegro; and if he will make a statement. [88457]

  Mr. George Robertson
  No estimate has been made of any damage to the civilian infrastructure of Montenegro during the course of the air campaign. NATO targeted only military related objectives.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the number of cluster bombs dropped by NATO in Operation Allied Force on Kosovo that did not explode; and what methods are being used to locate and disarm the unexploded NATO ordnance in Kosovo. [88597]
  344
  Mr. George Robertson
  I am not in a position to comment on NATO air forces as a whole. However, the RAF dropped some 500 RBL755 cluster weapons during Operation Allied Force, each containing 147 bomblets. Research trials of the equivalent weapon (BL755) when used at low level indicate that approximately 5 per cent. of the bomblets are likely to fail to detonate. However, when used at medium level as during Operation Allied Force, the failure rate is expected to be lower given that the impact angles and velocities are greater, and could be as low as 1 per cent.

  UK explosive ordnance disposal operators use visual and sub surface instrument detection to locate unexploded ordnance. The preferred disposal method is to destroy the ordnance in situ.

  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest assessment of(a) the extent of contamination of land in Kosovo by land mines, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices and (b) the risk posed by these to returning refugees and displaced persons. [87374]

  Mr. George Robertson
  The full extent of the problem has yet to be determined. However, there is considerable contamination of the land in Kosovo, particularly by land mines, and especially in border areas. These pose a serious threat to everyone in Kosovo. Known areas are being marked and a mine awareness programme is being implemented, which includes advice on minimising the risk from mines and unexploded ordnance.

  Front-line Troops
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his projection on the strength of the Army in terms of front-line troops, for the next three years, taking into account any increase in premature voluntary release which may occur as a result of the extra deployments in Kosovo; and if he will make a statement. [88622]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  [holding answer 28 June 1999]The forecast of trained strength of the Army over the next three years is:

  Year

  Amount

  April 2000

  100,271

  April 2001

  102,058

  April 2002

  103,670

  The figures represent the forecast of all UK trained Army personnel and Gurkha trained personnel. "Frontline" is not a recognised description of any part of the Army.

  Although it is still too early to measure the effect of deployment of troops to Kosovo on Premature Voluntary Release (PVR) rates, we are taking a number of measures to reduce overstretch, which is recognised as one of the causes of high PVR rates.

  Yugoslav Military Equipment
  Mr. Duncan Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate his Department has made of how
  345
  many Yugoslav (a) tanks, (b) surface-to-air missiles, (c) fighter aircraft, (d) armoured infantry fighting vehicles, (e) armoured personnel carriers, (f) towed artillery pieces, (g) self propelled artillery pieces and (h) helicopters were destroyed in (i) Kosovo, (ii) the Republic of Serbia, excluding Kosovo and (iii) Montenegro during Operation Allied Force. [88782]

  Mr. George Robertson
  [holding answer 28 June 1999]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 30 June 1999, Official Report, column 160 to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell).

  Statutory Instruments
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of statutory instruments introduced by his Department into Parliament in(a) 1998, (b) 1992, (c) 1985 and (d) 1973 had the European Union as their legislative source. [89161]

  Mr. George Robertson
  My Department introduced into Parliament three statutory instruments in 1998, six in 1992, five in 1985, and four in 1973. None had the European Union as its legislative source.

  Centre for Defence Medicine
  Mr. Dawson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects an invitation to tender to be issued to the seven NHS trusts recently shortlisted by his Department as potential partners for the Centre for Defence Medicine; and if he will make a statement. [90047]

  Mr. Doug Henderson
  An Invitation to Tender is being issued today to the following NHS Trusts:

  Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospital Trust

  Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

  North Bristol NHS Trust

  Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals

  The Lothian University Hospitals Trust (Edinburgh)

  The Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust

  University Hospitals Birmingham Trust.

  The Trusts were selected by my Department from an original list of 18 that had expressed interest in becoming the host for the Centre for Defence Medicine. Tenders will be due for return by 5 October 1999.

  The issuing of the Invitation to Tender is an important milestone in the development of the Centre for Defence Medicine, whose establishment is a fundamental element of the new strategy for the Defence Medical Services announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in December 1998. The Centre will have important academic, research and training roles as well as a significant clinical function, and will become a professional focus for medical personnel in the Armed Forces. We also envisage that the Centre will develop an international reputation for excellence in military medicine. Our aim is to have the formal Customer Service Agreement in place with our chosen partner by 1 April 2000 with a view to opening the Centre for Defence Medicine on 1 April 2001.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Common Foreign and Security Policy
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 18 June 1999,Official Report, column 264, concerning the purposes of the proposed European Union Political and Security Committee and associated Institute for Security Studies, if he will list (a) the date, nature, status and attendance of the meeting at Petersberg, (b) the ministerial attendance from the United Kingdom, and reference to the consequential statement in any parliamentary proceeding and (c) the scope and definition of the tasks in executing an integrated and single Union policy for foreign defence, security and military activity in aid of peace keeping and crisis management as defined in the consolidated Treaty on European Union. [88683]

  Mr. Hoon
  The meeting at Petersberg was a ministerial meeting of the Western European Union. It took place on 19 June 1992. The United Kingdom was represented by the right hon. Douglas Hurd MP, then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and the right hon. Malcolm Rifkind MP, then Secretary of State for Defence.

  The Treaty on European Union provides for the Union to define and implement a common foreign and security policy, covering all aspects of foreign and security policy: and for the common foreign and security policy to include all questions related to the security of the Union, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, and that this shall include humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. These are the "Petersberg tasks". The Treaty on European Union further provides for the Union to avail itself of the Western European Union to elaborate and implement actions of the Union which have defence implications.

  The "Petersberg tasks" are referred to in the European Council Declaration on Strengthening the Common European Policy on Security and Defence issued at Cologne on 4 June. The Declaration also outlines the objectives of future work within the European Union in order to enable the European Union to undertake these tasks.

  Sudan
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when(a) he, (b) his Ministers and (c) his officials recently met representatives of the Government of the Sudan; what was discussed; when normal diplomatic relations will be restored; and if he will make a statement. [89150]

  Mr. Hoon
  Dr. Hassan Abdeen, Under-Secretary at the Sudanese Ministry of External Relations, visited London during the week beginning 21 June. He paid a courtesy call on me and had other meetings with officials.

  Discussions covered a wide range of issues and on 25 June a joint statement was released announcing agreement to the return of British and Sudanese staff to Khartoum and London. This is an important step in normalising relations between the two countries.
  347
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received of the state of the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Western Upper Nile regions of Sudan. [89523]

  Mr. Hoon
  The ceasefire in southern Sudan, first agreed during the visit to the region of the late Derek Fatchett in July 1998 and recently confirmed at a meeting between the UN, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, relates to Bahr el Ghazal.

  We shall continue to press for a comprehensive ceasefire throughout Sudan.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received concerning the treatment of Sudanese people in the peace camps in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. [89520]

  Mr. Hoon
  Owing to the difficulty of access, we receive few reports on the situation in the Nuba Mountains. However, a UN assessment mission did visit very recently. I look forward to seeing their report.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received on the progress of oil excavations in southern Sudan by Western oil companies. [89524]

  Mr. Hoon
  Oil exploration has been going on in southern Sudan for some time. A pipeline has recently been built from fields to the Red Sea coast. I understand that oil is likely to flow through the pipeline in the near future.

  Statutory Instruments
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of statutory instruments introduced by his Department into Parliament in(a) 1998, (b) 1992, (c) 1985 and (d) 1973 had the European Union as their legislative source. [89167]

  Ms Quin
  The total number of Statutory Instruments (SIs) registered as General Instruments in 1998, 1992, 1985 and 1973 is listed in the following table. I have indicated where information is available, the number of SIs which were made by my Department to comply with European Community obligations.

  Year

  Number of SIs

  Number implementing EC obligations

  1998

  1,565

  5

  1992

  1,692

  2

  1985

  1,204

  3

  1973

  1,260

  2

  Loizidou v. Turkey Judgment
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy in respect of the Loizidou v. Turkey judgment by the European Court of Human Rights. [89389]
  348
  Ms Quin
  Responsibility for implementing the judgment in Loizidou v. Turkey lies with Turkey. We take such responsibilities seriously, as with all obligations in the Council of Europe, and expect other members to do likewise. We continue to make clear to Turkey, including in the Committee of Ministers' Deputies, the need to respect the Court's judgment.

  The Chairman of the Committee of Ministers' Deputies wrote to the Turkish Foreign Minister on 22 June requesting information on how Turkey intended to satisfy its obligations in this case. The Government fully supported this action.

  Kosovo
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many civilian Serbs in Kosovo have been unlawfully killed since NATO troops entered. [89602]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: KFOR are aware of a number of incidents where Serb civilians have been killed by Kosovo Albanians and are taking measures to ensure the security of all citizens. At present, no verifiable figures are available.

  As the answer I gave to my hon. Friend on 2 July 1999, Official Report, column 314 made clear, steps are being taken to reassure Serb civilians in Kosovo.

  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps are being taken to establish an armed international police force in Kosovo. [89603]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: UN Security Council Resolution 1244 authorised the UN Secretary General to establish an international civil presence in Kosovo, with responsibility inter alia for maintaining civil law and order, including through the establishment of local forces and meanwhile through the deployment of international police personnel. It was agreed at the Friends of Kosovo meeting in New York on 30 June that the United Nations Mission in Kosovo should acquire the capacity to take over responsibility for public security from KFOR as soon as possible.

  The UN Secretariat has recommended that UN police officers serving in Kosovo should be armed for self-defence purposes, but has left the final decision to UN members. The Foreign Secretary has already announced that the UK is willing to provide 60 police officers to recruit, to train and to monitor a civil police force in Kosovo.

  EU Business
  Mr. Stinchcombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the forthcoming business in the Council of the European Union for July, and the major European Union events for the next six months. [90107]

  Mr. Trickett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the forthcoming business in the Council of the European Union for July, and the major European Union events for the next six months. [90108]
  349
  Mr. Hoon
  The business is as follows:

  Monthly forecast of business

  July 1999

  Venue

  Event

  2–3

  Oulu

  Industry and Research Ministers (Informal)

  9–10

  Oulu

  Labour/Social Affairs Ministers (Informal)

  12

  Brussels

  ECOFIN

  16

  Brussels

  Budget Council

  18–20

  Savonlinna

  Culture and Audiovisual Ministers (Informal)

  19–20

  Brussels

  General Affairs Council

  19–20

  Brussels

  Agriculture Council

  20–23

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  23–25

  Helsinki

  Environment Ministers (Informal)

  28

  Brussels

  Preparatory Meeting for EU-ACP Ministerial Meeting on 29–30 July

  29–30

  Brussels

  EU-ACP Ministerial Meeting

  No agendas have yet been circulated for the above meetings

  European Calendar: July-December 1999
  This calendar is primarily concerned with European Union matters, but certain other relevant events are also included. Events and dates quoted are based on the information available on the date of issue.

  Date

  Venue

  Event

  2–3

  Oulu

  Industry and Research Ministers (Informal)

  9–10

  Oulu

  Labour/Social Affairs Ministers (Informal)

  12

  Brussels

  ECOFIN

  16

  Brussels

  Budget Council

  18–20

  Savonlinna

  Culture and Audiovisual Ministers (Informal)

  19–20

  Brussels

  General Affairs Council

  19–20

  Brussels

  Agriculture Council

  20–23

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  23–25

  Helsinki

  Environment Ministers (Informal)

  28

  Brussels

  Preparatory Meeting for EU-ACP Ministerial Meeting on 29–30 July

  29–30

  Brussels

  EU-ACP Ministerial Meeting

  August 1999

  No Council Business

  September 1999

  4–5

  Saariselka

  Foreign Ministers (Informal)

  10–11

  Turku

  ECOFIN (Informal)

  12–14

  Tampere

  Agriculture Ministers (Informal)

  13–14

  Brussels

  General Affairs Council

  13–17

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  16–17

  Turku

  Justice and Home Affairs Ministers (Informal)

  24–25

  Tampere

  Education Ministers (Informal)

  27–28

  Kuopio

  Ministers of Housing

  27–28

  Brussels

  Agriculture Council

  30 September–1 October

  Helsinki

  Ministerial Conference on Equality between Women and Men

  October 1999

  1

  Florence

  Trade Ministers (Informal)

  4–5

  Luxembourg

  Justice and Home Affairs Council

  4–5

  Tampere

  Regional Policy Ministers

  4–8

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  6

  Luxembourg

  Transport Council

  8

  Luxembourg

  ECOFIN

  11–12

  Luxembourg

  General Affairs Council

  11–12

  Luxembourg

  Environment Council

  15–16

  Tampere

  Special European Council

  18–19

  Luxembourg

  Agriculture Council

  22

  Luxembourg

  Labour/Social Affairs Council

  350

  Date

  Venue

  Event

  24–25

  Helsinki

  Energy Ministers Task Force Meeting

  25–29

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  26

  Luxembourg

  Fisheries Council

  28

  Luxembourg

  Research Council

  29

  Luxembourg

  Justice and Home Affairs Council

  November 1999

  3–4

  Brussels

  European Parliament Plenary

  8

  Brussels

  ECOFIN

  8

  Brussels

  Consumer Affairs Council

  9

  Brussels

  Industry Council

  11

  Brussels

  Development Council

  12

  Brussels

  Labour and Social Affairs Council (possible)

  11–12

  Helsinki

  Ministerial Conference on the Northern Dimension

  15–16

  Brussels

  Agriculture Council

  15–16

  Brussels

  General Affairs Council

  15–19

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  18

  Brussels

  Health Council

  19

  Brussels

  Youth Council

  22

  Brussels

  Fisheries Council (possible)

  22–23

  Brussels

  EU-ACP Ministerial Meeting (possible)

  23

  Brussels

  Culture and Audiovisual Council

  26

  Brussels

  Budget Council

  26

  Brussels

  Education Council

  29

  Brussels

  ECOFIN

  29

  Brussels

  Labour and Social Affairs Council

  30

  Brussels

  Telecommunications Council

  December 1999

  1–2

  Brussels

  European Parliament Plenary

  2

  Brussels

  Energy Council

  2–3

  Brussels

  Justice and Home Affairs Council

  6–7

  Brussels

  General Affairs Council

  7

  Brussels

  Internal Market Council

  9–10

  Brussels

  Transport Council

  10–11

  Helsinki

  European Council

  13–14

  Brussels

  Environment Council

  13–17

  Strasbourg

  European Parliament Plenary

  14–15

  Brussels

  Agriculture Council

  16–17

  Brussels

  Fisheries Council

  Indonesia
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what role the Government played in monitoring the recent elections in Indonesia; and if he will make a statement. [89207]

  Mr. Hoon
  We provided almost £2m in electoral assistance to Indonesia, making us the fourth largest national contributor overall and the largest European contributor. Bilateral projects included substantial support for the student-based election monitoring group UNFREL, which fielded over 100,000 domestic monitors; and financial support for an election media monitoring project, organised by the International NGO Article XIX.

  This bilateral assistance was in addition to our contribution to the European Union's 7m euros electoral assistance package. We also nominated five British election observers who formed part of the European Community's election observer team.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what role the Government played in improving electoral administration in Indonesia. [89208]
  351
  Mr. Hoon
  As part of the £2m bilateral electoral assistance package, referred to in my written answer to the hon. Member today (ref 89207), we provided funding for a pre-election programme of in-country workshops on cross-party lines for Indonesian political parties run by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, with the co-operation of hon. Members. This helped to develop a code of conduct for political parties as well as address issues of transparency, policy formulation and financial integrity. We also provided financial support for voter education programmes, including some aimed specifically at reaching women and first-time voters.

  Working Time Directive
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the costs to his Department of complying with the Working Time Directive in all foreign posts. [89870]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  No additional financial costs have been incurred so far.

  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if all British embassies are applying the Working Time Directive. [89871]

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  All UK-based staff in overseas posts are subject to the provisions of the Working Time Directive and Regulations. Guidance for staff and managers on their application has been circulated.

  Arms Exports
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many F680 applications for clearance to promote products for export were (i) made, (ii) approved and (iii) refused in 1998. [86205]

  Mr. Spellar
  I have been asked to reply.

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

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Jobseeker's Allowance
  Mr. Clapham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he expects to announce changes to the Jobseeker's Allowance to allow those who lose their job because of insolvency to claim the allowance. [88042]

  Angela Eagle
  We are aware of the effect of the JSA rules in this area and are considering the matter in conjunction with the Department of Trade and Industry to see whether any changes can be made. There are, however, complex issues to be resolved. Meanwhile, there are existing safeguards to protect those most in need as payments can be made if hardship would otherwise result.

  Ms Roseanna Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if school ancillary staff who were in term-time employment were entitled to claim Jobseeker's Allowance during the summer vacation of 1998; whether they are entitled to claim it during the summer vacation of 1999; if he will list the changes to 352
  Jobseeker's Allowance rules over the last 18 months which affect term-time employees; and if he will make a statement. [89288]

  Angela Eagle
  There has been no change to the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations in the past 18 months specifically relating to term-time employees.

  However, an independent Social Security Commissioner has recently decided that people who are not entitled to Jobseeker's Allowance during term-time because of the number of hours they work, are also not entitled to benefit during holiday periods. In deciding claims for Jobseeker's Allowance, adjudication officers are legally bound to follow this interpretation of the law.

  School ancillary staff may claim Jobseeker's Allowance during the 1999 summer vacation. This position has not changed since 1998. Whether such claims result in entitlement to benefit will depend upon the circumstances of each individual case. Where any doubt exists about entitlement to benefit, individual school ancillary staff should claim.

  State Pension (Over-80s)
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to increase the state pension to those aged 80 years and above. [88043]

  Mr. Timms
  Our priority is to help those pensioners who are the least well off. Our minimum income guarantee for pensioners over 80, delivered through Income Support, is £82.25 for single people and £125.30 for couples. After next year's earnings uprating of the guarantee, pensioner couples over 80 will be around £ a Week better off in real terms than before the guarantee was introduced. Older pensioners will also benefit from the £100 winter fuel payment to be paid to every pensioner household before Christmas.

  Lone Parents
  Mr. White
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures his Department is taking to assist lone parents to get work. [88044]

  Mr. Darling
  We are taking a wide range of action to help lone parents into work. These include the New Deal for Lone Parents programme which has helped over 16,500 lone parents into work and changes to the benefits rules from this October, which will allow lone parents to have a two week run-on of Income Support when they start work.

  Disabled People (Pensions)
  Ms Kelly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proposals he has to improve the pensions of people forced to leave work through long-term disability. [88045]

  Mr. Bayley
  Currently, those who are in receipt of certain disability benefits can earn credits towards their basic State Retirement Pension.

  The Pensions Green Paper published in December set out our proposals to extend the new State Second Pension to long-term disabled people with broken work records. They will receive flat-rate credits subject to a

  353
  simple contribution test. This will represent a significant improvement in the financial position of disabled people in retirement.

  Social Security Fraud
  Mr. Michael Jabez Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to improve co-ordination between the Benefits Agency and Local Authorities in combating fraud. [88048]

  Mr. Timms
  We regard improved co-operation across Government, as well as with Local Authorities, as fundamental to our anti-fraud work. We are continuing to encourage and develop strong links between the Benefits Agency and Local Authorities. For example, we have installed 360 Random Access Terminals in 349 Local Authorities to facilitate the exchange of data between the Benefits Agency and Local Authorities. More widely, the Government are helping Departments, Local Authorities and the private sector to work more closely together to combat fraud across the range of welfare services. There is a continuing work programme to measure the size of the security problem facing welfare services, to ensure that Departments know what type of data each holds and to explore new ways of working in concert to fight fraud and uphold compliance with the law. An Inter-Ministerial Group on Welfare Fraud was announced in July 1998 to oversee this work.

  Child Support Agency
  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to improve the performance of the Child Support Agency. [88054]

  Angela Eagle
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security set out our plans to reform the child support system in the White Paper published last week.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the working of the Child Support Agency. [88021]

  Angela Eagle
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced our plans for reform last week. These will put children's rights at the centre of child support and get money to a million children who today miss out.

  Widows Benefits
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the proposed changes to widows benefits. [88049]

  Angela Eagle
  Our proposed changes will modernise the present, out-dated widows benefits scheme, which was devised over 50 years ago and has altered little despite the enormous changes in society.

  We will continue to provide support to bereaved people. Our reforms will concentrate help available from the State where and when it is most needed: on immediate needs and on children and families. Importantly, our reforms will give equal treatment to married men and women; making bereavement benefits available to men for the first time.

  Pension Reform
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on his proposals for pension reform. [88050]

  Mr. Timms
  Our strategy for a fundamental reform of the pensions system was set out in the pensions Green Paper "A New Contract for Welfare: Partnership in Pensions" published before Christmas. It is based on the principle that everyone who can save for his or her retirement has a responsibility to do so. In turn we have a responsibility to provide security in retirement for those who cannot save enough. Our proposals are based on four interlinked pillars:the contributory Basic State Pension, increased at least in line with prices, will remain the key building block of the pension system.
  the Minimum Income Guarantee, delivered through Income Support, which will provide an income floor below which no pensioner without savings will fall, and we aim to uprate that guarantee in line with earnings as resources permit. The new Minimum Income Guarantee will form the target which we want people to beat through their pension provision and they will do that in different ways.
  a new State Second Pension to replace SERPS. State Second Pension will ensure that everybody who has worked and contributed throughout their working lives will have an income on retirement above the level of the Minimum Income Guarantee. People caring for a disabled person or bringing up children aged five and under, and disabled people with broken work records, will get credits for State Second Pension.
  Stakeholder Pension schemes, which will provide good value, reliable funded pensions for people for whom no suitable funded scheme is available.

  We believe that for most people on moderate and higher incomes it is a funded pension that offers them the best prospects for their income in retirement and that is why we are determined to ensure that those people who today can save for their retirement have the framework in which to do so. Stakeholder Pension schemes will combine the low overheads and high security of occupational pensions with the flexibility of the best of personal pensions, and will be available to all. They will be particularly designed to help those on middle incomes, those earning roughly between £9,000 and £20,000 a year, but will benefit those on higher incomes as well. Once secure low-cost value for money Stakeholder Pension Schemes have become established, we expect the State Second Pension will no longer be earnings-related but paid at a flat rate.

  Occupational pension schemes are one of the main reasons for the improvement in pensioners' incomes over the recent decades and will continue to play a vital role. We want to build on the success of traditional occupational schemes. In the "Strengthening the Occupational Pensions Framework" consultation paper that was published on the day after the pensions Green Paper we set out a number of proposals to strengthen and simplify the regulation of occupational schemes.

  Our objective is to bring the UK pensions system up to date and to make sure that after a lifetime of hard work people do not arrive at retirement certain to depend on income-related benefits. We are determined to ensure that everyone has a decent income in retirement and these objectives are at the heart of the Pensions Green Paper we published in December.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received from landlords on the reform of housing benefit. [88052]

  Angela Eagle
  I have received representations from landlords on a number of aspects of Housing Benefit. I welcome these representations. It is important that we understand the effect of Housing Benefit on landlords as well as tenants, as we consider proposals to reform the system.

  Welfare Reform
  Mrs. Roe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received on his proposals for reform of the benefits system. [88053]

  Mr. Timms
  We have received numerous representations on our recent proposals for reform from organisations, academic bodies, MPs and members of the public towards our central aim of work for those who can and security for those who cannot. Over 4,000 responses have been received in total to formal consultation exercises on welfare reform since March 1998.

  Minimum Incomes
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when and how he last assessed the minimum income needed by(a) young people, (b) single people, (c) couples, (d) pensioners, (e) people with disabilities and (f) people with dependants; and how his conclusions relate to social security rates. [88056]

  Angela Eagle
  Benefit rates are reviewed annually. Our welfare reform programme aims to tackle the root causes of poverty, help people to earn a decent income through work and provide security for those unable to work. We have introduced improvements in benefits for pensioners through the Minimum Income Guarantee, and announced plans for a new Disability Income Guarantee. We have also increased support for families with children through the tax and benefit systems.

  Disabled Children
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the level of support given to children with disabilities. [88057]

  Mr. Bayley
  The level of financial support given to a disabled child is dependent upon the circumstances of the case. There is a wide range of financial assistance available which contributes towards the extra costs faced by families of disabled children and which includes:Disability Living Allowance which provides a contribution towards the extra costs incurred because of the effects of disability. The Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, currently before Parliament, provides that the age limit for entitlement to the higher rate mobility component of Disability Living Allowance will be lowered to the age of three, giving help to an additional 8,000 children.
  Within Income Support, income based Jobseeker's Allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, groups identified as likely to have extra expenses receive help through the disability premium structure. The new Disability Income Guarantee will
  356
  provide extra help in these premiums for families with disabled children getting the highest rate of the care component of Disability Living Allowance.
  Help is also available from the Family Fund Trust. This is funded by the UK Health Departments and has been allocated over £24 million for 1999–2000. It provides grants to low-income families with severely disabled children to enable them to continue to care for them at home.

  Pensioner Support
  Dr. Naysmith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to help the poorest pensioners; and if he will outline a timetable for introducing the new measures. [88058]

  Mr. Timms
  We have already announced that next April the minimum income guarantee, delivered through Income Support, will rise in line with earnings, demonstrating our determination that the least well-off pensioners should share in rising national prosperity.

  We are currently considering options for encouraging more pensioners to claim the Income Support they are entitled to. We are also looking at ways in which the rules on the treatment of savings can be changed to better reward those pensioners who have managed to save a modest amount for their retirement.

  We will be bringing forward our plans on these measures in due course.

  Maternity Costs
  Mr. Hope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to assist mothers with the costs of maternity. [88059]

  Mr. Bayley
  We are extending Maternity Allowance to women who earn £30 a week or more and increasing it for self-employed women, who currently receive less benefit than employed women.

  The existing Social Fund Maternity Payment will be replaced with a Sure Start Maternity Grant from April 2000 and doubled from £100 to £200 for each child.

  These improvements will give low-earning mothers-to-be some financial help towards the costs of a new baby, enable them to take their full entitlement to maternity leave and help them achieve a better balance between work and family life.

  Invalidity Benefit
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many persons had their invalidity benefit cancelled in the most recent annual period for which figures are available. [88060]

  Mr. Bayley
  I refer the hon. Member to the written answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) on 31 March 1999,Official Report, column 839.

  Stakeholder Pensions
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of the proposed 1 per cent. maximum charge for stakeholder pensions is intended to cover the costs of advice. [88051]
  357
  Mr. Timms
  We want to set the overall charge limit at a level which will, over time, allow stakeholder pension schemes to meet the cost of delivering a number of services, including information and basic advice, to potential members. These costs are likely to vary from scheme to scheme and it would not be sensible to specify what proportion of the charge should be used to provide each element.

  We will be consulting further on the advice arrangements for stakeholder schemes, including defining what basic advice should cover. The final decision on the overall limit on charges will be made in the light of this further work.

  Pensioners (Benefit Take-up)
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to ensure that pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. [88055]

  Mr. Timms
  We undertook pilot projects and research last year to understand more about why many pensioners do not claim the Income Support they are entitled to, and what could be done to improve this situation. We are currently exploring options for further activity to encourage more pensioners to claim, and we will be bringing forward our plans in due course.

  Departmental Spending
  Ms Roseanna Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide a breakdown of total spending on each benefit provided by his Department and on central, regional and agency administration costs in each of the last three years. [89075]

  Mr. Timms
  A breakdown of total spending on each benefit provided by Department of Social Security grouped by the Departmental objectives is published in Tables 9 and 10 (pages 117 to 1720) of the Social Security Departmental Report (The Government' s Expenditure Plans—1999/2000).

  DSS running cost expenditure for its central (HQ) and Agencies

  for the period 1996–97 to 1998–99

  £ million

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–991

  Central (HQ)

  77

  87

  2-112

  Benefits Agency

  1,862

  1,743

  1,800

  Child Support Agency

  212

  211

  208

  Contributions Agency

  15

  3-4

  3

  War Pensions Agency

  36

  33

  28

  Information Technology Services Agency (purchaser function)

  16

  16

  15

  1Estimated outturn

  2Net of PRIME receipts of £250 million

  3All of Contributions Agency costs are recoverable, in the main from the National Insurance Fund, however this may not occur in the year of expenditure. Contributions Agency was transferred to Inland Revenue on 1 April 1999.

  Note:

  The Department does not allocate its running cost funding on a regional basis

  Tax-benefit Model Tables
  Mr. Goggins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish tax-benefit model tables (1) under the system operating when the Working Families 358
  Tax Credit is introduced for a married couple with two children aged under 11, with average council tax and a mortgage of (i) £35,000, (ii) £45,000 and (iii) £55,000, where there is (a) no earner, (b) one earner on £3 per hour and (c) one earner on £3.60 per hour and where, if there is an earner, he works for (A) five hours, (B) 10 hours, (C) 15 hours, (D) 20 hours, (E) 25 hours, (F) 30 hours, (G) 35 hours, (H) 40 hours, (I) 45 hours and (J) 50 hours; [89308]

  (2) if he will publish tax-benefit model tables under the existing system for a lone mother with two children aged under 11, who is an owner-occupier with a mortgage of (a) £35,000, (b) £45,000 and (c) £55,000, paying average council tax, where her earnings as (a) nil, (b) £3 per hour and (c) £3.60 per hour, where, if she is an earner, she works for (i) five hours, (ii) 10 hours, (iii) 15 hours, (iv) 20 hours, (v) 25 hours, (vi) 30 hours, (vii) 35 hours, (viii) 40 hours, (ix) 45 hours and (x) 50 hours and where, if she is an earner, she has childcare costs of (A) £20, (B) £30, (C) £40, (D) £50 and (E) £60. [89310]

  (3) under the present system for a married couple with two children aged under 11, with average council tax and a mortgage of (i) £35,000, (ii) £45,000 and (iii) £55,000, where there is (a) no earner, (b) one earner on £3 per hour and (c) one earner on £3.60 per hour and where, if there is an earner, he works for (1) five hours, (2) 10 hours, (3) 15 hours, (4) 20 hours, (5) 25 hours, (6) 30 hours, (7) 35 hours, (8) 40 hours, (9) 45 hours and (10) 50 hours; [89307]

  (4) under the system operating when the Working Families Tax Credit is introduced for a lone mother with two children aged under 11, who is an owner-occupier with a mortgage of (a) £35,000, (b) £45,000 and (c) £55,000, paying average council tax, where her earnings are (i) nil, (ii) £3 per hour and (iii) £3.60 per hour, and where, if she is an earner, she works for (A) five hours, (B) 10 hours, (C) 15 hours, (D) 20 hours, (E) 25 hours, (F) 30 hours, (G) 35 hours, (H) 40 hours, (I) 45 hours and (J) 50 hours and where, if she is an earner, she has childcare costs of (1) £20, (2) £30, (3) £40, (4) £50 and (5) £60. [89311]

  Angela Eagle
  The information is not available as the Department's Tax-Benefit Model Tables are not produced in respect of owner-occupiers who have mortgages.

  Personal Data
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will request the Audit Commission to keep records with respect to each data matching programme undertaken or investigated which contains(a) the total number of individuals whose personal data were matched, (b) the number of matches which resulted in no further action, (c) the number of matches which required further investigation by staff, (d) the number of matches which following such investigation resulted in no further action, (e) the number of withdrawn claims or prosecutions identified by data matching, (f) the cost of the data matching programme including all direct and indirect staff costs and (h) the amounts saved by the data matching programme. [89592]

  Mr. Timms
  The Audit Commission's National Fraud Initiative which was carried out in 1996, 1997 and 1998 will help to provide this type of information. The Audit Commission are due to publish a report on the outcome of this work in late 1999.

  Compensation
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the matters within his Department's responsibility in respect of which it has had to pay out compensation to members of the public since May 1997. [89708]

  Mr. Timms
  Compensation has been paid to members of the public on a number of areas since 1997. A great many of these payments stem from problems that arose before May 1997, including the NIRS2 computer system.

  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much compensation has been paid to people who have been underpaid benefits as a result of the NIRS2 computer breakdown. [89709]

  Mr. Timms
  The amount of compensation, under the normal Departmental Special Payment rules, which has been paid to people who have been underpaid benefits as a result of the NIRS2 computer problems is £12,891.13. These figures are up to the end of May 1999. Further compensation has been made to customers who suffered inconvenience as a result of NIRS2 delays. However, not all of these people have been underpaid benefit.

  Market Research
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the title and purpose of each item of market and opinion research commissioned by or through his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies since May 1997 stating in each case whether or not the results were published. [89689]

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

  Earnings Statistics
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security of those households below half average income whose main source of income is welfare benefits, what proportion have income from earnings; and what is the(a) mean and (b) median amount of those earnings. [89529]

  Angela Eagle
  Eight per cent. of households with below half average income whose main source of income is benefits have income from earnings. This proportion is the same both Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC).

  Both BHC and AHC, the mean of those earnings (for those households below half average income whose main source of income is benefits) is £55 per week and the median £52 per week (BHC) and £51 per week (AHC).

  Notes:

  1. All figures are estimates and are taken from the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data set which is based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS). The FRS does not include Northern Ireland. 1996–97 is the latest year for which information is available.

  2. For the purposes of this analysis, benefits are deemed to be the 'main source of income' where they form more than 50 per cent. of a household's total gross income.

  3. The income measure used to determine whether or not a household is below half of the national average is weekly net (disposable) equivalised household income (that is to say income that is adjusted to reflect the composition of the household). It is
  360
  standard HBAI practice to give results for income both before and after housing costs, in order to allow for the effect of variations in housing costs between households.

  4. Monetary values are given in April 1998 prices and refer to gross weekly household earnings.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of households below half average income have any earnings; and what the(a) median and (b) mean amount of their earnings is. [89530]

  Angela Eagle
  Twenty six per cent. of households with below half average income have income from earnings. This proportion is the same both Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC). The median of those earnings is £125 per week BHC (for those below half average income) and £138 per week (AHC). The mean of those earnings is £145 per week (BHC) and £160 per week (AHC).

  Notes:

  1. All figures are estimates and are taken from the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data set which is based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS). The FRS does not include Northern Ireland. 1996–97 is the latest year for which information is available.

  2. The income measure used to determine whether or not a household is below half of the national average is weekly net (disposable) equivalised household income (that is to say income that is adjusted to reflect the composition of the household). It is standard HBAI practice to give results for income both before and after housing costs, in order to allow for the effect of variations in housing costs between households.

  3. Monetary values are given in April 1998 prices and refer to gross weekly household earnings.

  Single Gateway
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the administrative cost of the Single Gateway to benefits. [88030]

  Angela Eagle
  An additional £79.5 million has been allocated from the Invest to Save Budget to fund the ONE service (formerly Single Gateway) in the 12 Pilot areas.

  The extra allocation is on top of the amount that would be required to administer benefits in the pilot areas under current arrangements. It also covers one-off start-up costs (for example, estates and training costs), and Information Technology and capital expenditure over the period of the pilots.

  Pensions
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the potential liability for compensation incurred by his Department from advice from(a) Benefits Agency offices to widows on changes to their SERPS entitlement and (b) the new hotline to advise people on Stakeholder pensions and other pension schemes. [89707]

  Mr. Timms
  Existing widows are not affected by the change in inherited SERPS. We are aware of concern about the information given in response to inquiries about the change that is due to take place from April 2000. We are considering how best to resolve this matter and will make an announcement in due course.

  The "Pensions Power for You" helpline is being organised by the TUC and this Department as a partnership initiative with the CBI, the Financial Services

  361
  Agency and other supporting organisations and companies to provide general pensions information. Call handlers will not provide individual financial advice.

  Disabled People
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what his Department is doing to help disabled people obtain jobs. [88025]

  Mr. Bayley
  We have a comprehensive strategy for helping people with disabilities who want to work. We are providing active help and encouragement for people to move towards work; we are addressing barriers to work in the benefit system; we are taking steps to make work pay; and we are promoting radical change in the workplace to ensure equality and opportunity.

PRIME MINISTER

  Serbia (Reconstruction)
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Prime Minister what measures he will take to prevent Governments providing Serbia with funds to repair bridges whilst President Milosevic remains in power. [88084]

  The Prime Minister
  We have no plans to provide reconstruction assistance as long as Milosevic remains in power; we do of course support the UNHCR programmes and others which offer humanitarian aid to the Serbian people. We believe that this approach is widely shared by our partners and allies. We are discouraging other countries from providing reconstruction assistance, but there are no legal means to stop them.

  Danube (Destroyed Bridges)
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the impact of the destruction of bridges on the Danube in Serbia upon the economies of (i) Germany, (ii) Turkey, (iii) Austria, (iv) Romania and (v) Bulgaria. [88083]

  The Prime Minister
  All countries to which the hon. Member refers participated in, or gave wholehearted support to, the NATO action in the Balkans.

  We are in close touch with all the countries of the region and with the international financial institutions, who are carrying out assessments of the reconstruction needs. We have already contributed to packages of support for those most directly affected, and will continue to do so.

  EU Anti-fraud Office
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Prime Minister what amendments he supported to proposals for the formation of the EU Anti-Fraud Office; and if he will make a statement. [88466]

  The Prime Minister
  The United Kingdom supported amendments which would serve to deliver a strong, effective, independent anti-fraud office with wide ranging powers and rights matched by responsibility and accountability including reporting to the European Parliament and the Council, in line with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer's initiative at the 362
  January ECOFIN Council. Details of the original and amended proposals and the final Regulation which was supported by the Government are set out in explanatory memoranda dated 15 January 1999, 5 May 1999 and 10 June 1999.

  Kosovo
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his oral statement of 21 June 1999,Official Report, column 766, what the status is of the undertaking given by the KLA on demilitarisation; and what are the consequences of such demilitarisation for an unaccompanied tour obligation for British armed forces and their families. [88872]

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: The undertaking of 21 June 1999 commits the KLA to a cease-fire and to a process of disengagement from the zones of conflict, subsequent demilitarisation and reintegration into civil society. The Commander of KFOR, Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson, is the final authority regarding interpretation.

  We will reduce our contribution to KFOR as soon as circumstances permit.

  Cabinet Joint Consultative Committee
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister who chairs meetings of the JCCC in his absence. [89282]

  The Prime Minister
  Such an occasion has not arisen.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) if he will list those hon. Members from the Liberal Democratic Party who have attended meetings of the JCCC; [89305]

  (2) how many meetings of the JCCC there have been since its inception.[89303]

  The Prime Minister
  Like all Cabinet Committees, details of the proceedings of the Joint Consultative Committee are exempt from disclosure under the internal discussion and advice exemption of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister if it is his policy that the JCCC should continue indefinitely. [89304]

  The Prime Minister
  The Joint Consultative Committee exists to consider policy issues of joint interest to the Government and the Liberal Democratic Party. I would expect it to remain in existence while it continues to fulfil this remit satisfactorily.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister what considerations led him to conclude that the subjects for discussion within the Joint Cabinet Consultative Committee should be exempt from the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. [89837]

  The Prime Minister
  Paragraph 2 of Part II of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information states that information is exempt from the commitments under the Code if its disclosure would harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion.
  363
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister if the 30 year rule applies to the Joint Cabinet Consultative Committee; and if he will make a statement. [89838]

  The Prime Minister
  Yes.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will lift the exemption from disclosure under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information of proceedings in the Joint Consultative Committee. [89815]

  The Prime Minister
  No.

  Inward Investment
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Prime Minister how many meetings(a) he has and (b) his staff have had with representatives of the American Government at which opportunities for inward investment by American companies in the British retail sector were discussed. [89338]

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: I, Ministers, advisers and other civil servants meet many people in the course of our work. This properly includes meetings with representatives from foreign governments. By convention it is not the practice of governments to make information on such meetings or their content publicly available.

  It is the job of the British Prime Minister to promote this country as a place to invest, boosting British jobs and prosperity. I have done this on many occasions and will continue to do so.

  EU Rights Charter
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Prime Minister if the EU Charter of Rights will include rights not presently accorded to citizens under EU law. [89813]

  The Prime Minister
  It is too early to say what the final Charter will contain; the draft will be submitted to the European Council during the French Presidency in the second half of 2000. Most member states (including the UK) favour a document which sets out in a more accessible form the many rights which citizens already enjoy at European level.

  European Commissioners
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Prime Minister on how many occasions the acting European Commissioners have represented the Commission(a) at Council of Ministers meetings, (b) at other internal Committee meetings, (c) at public events and (d) at international meetings, following the no-confidence motion at the European Parliament. [89828]

  The Prime Minister
  The Commission resigned following the publication of the Committee of Independent Experts' Report into its activities. It was not dismissed and no motion of no-confidence was passed by the European Parliament. In accordance with the Treaty, Commissioners have since carried out their 364
  responsibilities in a caretaker capacity pending the appointment of a new College. We expect this to take place in September.

  Ministerial Visits
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Prime Minister what guidance he gives Ministers about letting hon. Members know in advance when they visit an hon. Member's constituency in a ministerial capacity. [89396]

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) on 27 November 1997, Official Report, column 604.

  Yugoslavia (Civilian Deaths)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Prime Minister what is his present estimate of(a) military and (b) civilian deaths resulting from NATO air activity over Yugoslavia. [89736]

  The Prime Minister
  Our most recent assessment is that up to 5,000 members of the Serbian forces may have been injured or killed during the recent military action. We have no estimate of the number of civilian casualties and I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) on 20 May 1999,Official Report, column 403.

  Turkey (Arms Exports)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on Government policy towards the export of arms to Turkey. [89836]

  The Prime Minister
  The criteria to be used in considering licence application for the export of conventional arms was announced by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to the House on 28 July 1997,Official Report, columns 26—30. The criteria and the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Sales, agreed during the UK Presidency of the EU in 1998, provide clear guidance. The Government's policy is clear: they will not issue an export licence if there is a clearly identifiable risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression or international aggression. All applications for exports to Turkey are considered on a case-by-case basis according to the criteria.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Prime Minister when he intends to answer parliamentary question 81450, a holding answer for which was given on 20 April. [89742]

  The Prime Minister
  I did so on 21 April.

  Telecommunications Masts (Chilterns)
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations have been made on his behalf to Wycombe District Council about planning applications to erect telecommunication masts in the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. [89868]

  The Prime Minister
  None.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Genetically Modified Crops
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if in relation to the Monsanto field trials of genetically modified sugar beet approved to take place in Ruddington, Nottingham, he will set out details of(a) the pre-planting environmental audit of the area surrounding the field test site, (b) the sub-soil analysis of the field test site prior to planting, (c) the terms and timing set for impact assessments and (d) who will be responsible for the monitoring; (e) what steps he will take to ensure that the monitoring is independent of corporate genetically modified crops interests. [81075]

  Mr. Meacher
  (a) The pre-planning environmental audit of the area surrounding the field test site included details of the release site ecosystem including climate and fauna, details of any sexually compatible wild relatives or cultivated plant species present and the proximity of officially recognised biotopes or protected areas.

  (b) Adverse effects on soil micro-organisms arising from the expression of the transgenes introduced into the genetically modified sugar beet were not identified as a potential hazard in the risk assessment. This is because the gene products are not associated with any known toxicology effects on micro-organisms and are of microbial origin. As the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) accepted this assessment, the release consent did not require a sub-soil analysis of the field test site to be undertaken prior to planting.

  (c) The terms and timing set for impact assessment are set out in the terms and conditions of the consent. All consent holders must notify the Secretary of State of the effects of the release for assessment of any risks to the environment. In this particular consent, the consent holder is also required to submit a report to the Secretary of State on the outcome of the release one month after the termination of the trial. For two years following the trial the consent holder must ensure effective control of volunteer GM sugar beet.

  (d) The consent holder is responsible for monitoring the outcome of the release. The programme of inspections by the Health and Safety Executive ensures that the terms and conditions of the consent, including any monitoring requirements, are adhered to.

  (e) Independent monitoring of the results will be undertaken by ACRE.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment his Department has made of the implications for British beekeepers wishing to produce honey free of genetically modified material of the commercial growing of genetically modified oilseed rape. [81395]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 20 April 1999]: In evaluating a risk assessment for the release of a genetically modified (GM) plant, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment will always take into account the consequences of bees visiting the flowers of the GM plant. The Advisory Committee for Novel Foods
  366
  and Processes have considered the food safety issues relating to the presence in honey of pollen from GM plants.

  If in the future we move to the widespread cultivation of GM crops in the UK, it may not be possible in those areas with intensive arable farming to guarantee that honey will be entirely free of genetically modified material. I am aware that the European Commission is currently considering guidelines for those wishing to make claims that foods are free from GM materials.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the farm-scale sites for genetically modified sugar or fodder beet, indicating the (i) location, (ii) area grown and (iii) consent holder and number. [85943]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 8 June 1999]: SCIMAC (Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops) are carrying out a farmscale evaluation of genetically modified (GM) sugar beet with ecological monitoring at Manor Farm, East Bradenham, Norfolk. The total area of the trial is two hectares. The consent holder is Monsanto Life Sciences and the consent number is 98/R22/12. Further information on the trial and the environmental risk assessment are available on the statutory public register held by my Department.

  The Government are not directly involved with this trial. GM sugar and fodder beet are not included in the joint Government/SCIMAC farm-scale evaluations which I announced to the House of Lords Select Committee on 21 October 1998.

  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions where the seed used for and to be used for this year's farm-scale trials of genetically modified oilseed and maize were grown; and where the seeds to be used for next year's trials will be grown. [85948]

  Mr. Meacher
  The seed being used this year in the farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified maize and spring oil seed rape has been imported from outside of the European Community by AgrEvo UK Ltd.

  The particular varieties of seeds to be used in the evaluations of winter oil seed rape, starting later this year, and for the evaluations planned for next year, have not yet been decided. Consequently the source of the seed is not yet known.

  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what consultations were undertaken with neighbouring farmers about the location of genetically modified crop farm-scale trials. [85950]

  Mr. Meacher
  All crops in the farm-scale evaluations are being grown in accordance with the SCIMAC (Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops) guidelines. The code sets out requirements for separation distances between genetically modified (GM) crops and conventional and organic crops. Neighbouring farmers must be contacted if these separation distances cannot be maintained within the boundaries of the farm.

  The farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified spring oil seed rape were planted under a consent issued under Part B of Directive 90/220/EEC. This required

  367
  consent holders to place an advertisement in a local paper, giving information about the release including the exact location of the field, prior to planting. The farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified maize were planted under a consent issued under Part C of Directive 90/220/EEC. This does not require consent holders to make any public notification prior to planting.

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the crops grown in genetically modified crop trials which have so far entered the food chain by(a) type, (b) volume and (c) date. [75111]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 8 March 1999]: Material from genetically modified (GM) crop trials cannot enter the food or feed chain without specific approval. No material has been used as food. Of the 154 consents for GM crop trials issued one, in respect of a GM maize, has approval to be used as animal feed. Consent was issued in April 1996. It is not known whether the crop was used in this way but, if it was, the yield from the site would be less than one tonne. Two further consents, in respect of GM oil seed rape given consent in August 1994 and March 1997, have approval for the meal from the trial crop to be used as feed. Again, it is not known whether the crop was used in this way but, if it was, the maximum yield would be in the region of 4 tonnes.

  Air Bags
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate his Department has made of the number of people(a) killed, (b) injured and (c) whose lives have been saved, by air bags in vehicles in the most recent year for which figures are available. [86300]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  Statistics collected for Great Britain do not yield this information. However, international research indicates that air bags provide an overall safety benefit for drivers.

  BMW Advertisement
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has made to BMW about its national newspaper advertisements on 10 June which refer to the enjoyment of cornering on country lanes at high speed; if he will publish its response; and if he will discourage such advertisements. [87633]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  The Department registers complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority against press advertisements which contravene the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion in relation to road safety. The advertisement for BMW to which the hon. Member refers is one in a series placed over three pages. The three advertisements include many road safety messages taken from "The Advanced Driver's Manual" published by the motoring organisation the Institute of Advanced Motorists. The Department does not consider 368
  this advertisement contravenes the advertising guidelines and supports advertising campaigns which encourage drivers to take responsibility for their driving and to learn advanced driving skills.

  Public Service Agreements (Environmental Objectives)
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions which non-departmental public bodies do not have aims or objectives under the public service agreements, related to environmental protection or environmentally sustainable development; and if he will list them. [88909]

  Mr. Meale
  The Green Ministers Committee has reviewed how departments and their associated bodies (including non-departmental public bodies) take account of sustainable development in their aims and objectives. The first annual report of the Green Ministers Committee is due to be published in July 1999 and will set out the findings of this review. As part of this review non-departmental public bodies sponsored by my Department have been advised of the Government's policy on sustainable development, including the environmental protection aspects of the policy. They have been encouraged to include their plans for sustainable development in their corporate plans and work is in hand to discuss with them their scope for contributing further to the policy. Many of the Department's non-departmental public bodies do contain environmental matters as part of their aims and objectives and we are considering whether all our non-departmental public bodies should have an environmental policy on which they should report.

  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions which Government Departments do not have aims or objectives, under the public service agreements, relating to environmental protection or environmentally sustainable development. [88908]

  Mr. Meale
  Each Department's Public Service Agreement was set out in the document "Public Services for the Future: Modernisation, Reform, Accountability" which was presented to Parliament by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in December 1998. The Green Ministers Committee has since then reviewed the aims and objectives of Departments in terms of how sustainable development and the environment are addressed. We will set out our findings and the background in the first annual report of the Green Ministers Committee which is due to be published in July 1999.

  London Transport (Consultants)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what has been the amount spent on consultants in relation to London Transport matters in each of the last eight years; and how much is currently(a) committed and (b) estimated to be spent; [89012]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the principal reasons for the use of consultants in relation to London Transport matters (a) in each of the last three years and (b) currently. [89013]
  369
  Ms Glenda Jackson
  The information is not available in the form requested. The Government use external consultants when they require expert independent advice. Over the last eight years consultants have been employed to advise on, among other issues, the Jubilee Line Extension, Crossrail and the privatisation of London Transport's bus operating companies. Consultants that are currently employed by the Department to advise on London Transport are Ove Arup, acting as the Secretary of State's Agent on the Jubilee Line Extension project, and Gibb Ltd. to advise on integrating the national rail network with the Underground. In 1998–99 the Department spent £693,000 on consultancy work relating to London Transport and in 1999–2000 the amount spent by 1 July was £294,000.

  Leyton Yard
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what(a) negotiations and (b) consultations took place prior to his Department selling the site of Leyton Yard to Asda; which other potential purchasers expressed an interest and how the sale decision was determined; what amount was agreed; how much of the proceeds will be paid to Government and how much to other parties; what conditions were attached to the sale agreement; and if he will make a statement. [89017]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  Under the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) Development Agreement, London & Continental Railways (LCR) is permitted to dispose of land, transferred to them under that Agreement, which the Secretary of State determines to be surplus to the needs of the CTRL Project. Leyton Yard is such a site. The sale of the Leyton Yard site, as with other sites which may be declared surplus, is subject to a clawback which returns half the proceeds to the taxpayer, allowing for the costs of site development and sale. London & Continental Railways' share of the sale proceeds has to be used to fund the CTRL project. The disposal price of Leyton Yard was arrived at through an open bidding process. I understand from LCR that, in addition to Asda, negotiations were held with other major supermarket chains. The final size of the clawback payment cannot yet be calculated as the development is still at an early stage. The non-cash terms of the agreement are a matter for LCR, but the agreement also delivers significant planning gains to the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and helps to facilitate and finance important local highway improvements.

  London Underground
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the figures for each of the financial years 1995–96, 1996–97 and 1997–98 in respect of the operations of London Underground Ltd. for(a) total sales revenue from (i) fares, (ii) elderly and disabled concessions and (iii) other sources, (b) staff costs, including pensions, (c) energy, including power distribution, (d) train movement and maintenance, (e) track and signalling maintenance, (f) stations and escalators and (g) other revenue costs including administration, excluding costs arising from the extensions to, and adaptation of, the Jubilee Line. [89015]
  370
  Ms Glenda Jackson
  The following table shows London Underground Revenue and Operating Costs from 1995–96 through to 1997–98:

  London Underground revenue and operating costs 1995–98

  £ million

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  Revenue

  Ordinary Fares

  746

  779

  878

  Elderly and disabled concessionary

  18

  17

  20

  Other fare income

  1

  1

  1

  Non-fare income

  51

  57

  62

  Total

  816

  854

  961

  Operating Costs

  Employee costs

  356

  376

  363

  Energy

  28

  29

  27

  Maintenance

  58

  57

  58

  Other costs

  182

  182

  248

  Total

  624

  644

  696

  Gross Margin

  192

  210

  265

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received concerning the decision of London Underground Ltd. to dispense with its own means of electricity generation in London; and if he will make a statement. [89010]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  I imagine my hon. Friend is referring to the Power PH deal with London Underground signed last August with the private sector Powerlink consortium. The deal involves the modernisation of the Underground's power generation and distribution network and all assets will return to the public sector at the end of this 30 year PFI contract.

  I met my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) and union representatives on 22 December 1997 to discuss a number of issues arising out of London Transport's PH deals, including Power. Ministers have also received a total of 10 letters concerning the project from hon. Members and trade unions representatives.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions his Department has had concerning plans to avoid disruptions to travellers during the scheduled closure of the London Underground Northern Line City Branch this summer. [89136]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  I meet with the managing directors of London Underground (LU) and London Transport Buses (LTB) on a regular, monthly basis to discuss issues such as any line closures and measures to minimise the resulting passenger disruption. Officials from the Government Office for London have also been involved in regular meetings with LU, LTB, the London Boroughs and the Police to discuss replacement services during the Northern Line City Branch closure.

  In addition, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport and I met the managing director of LU on 23 June to discuss both the Circle and Northern Line City Branch closures. He assured us that LU are making every effort to keep passenger disruption as low as possible. During the Northern Line City Branch closure, extra buses

  371
  will be provided along the route and LU will also increase the number of trains along the Charing Cross Branch. Alternative routes are being advertised and extra station staff will help to keep passengers informed.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions his Department has had concerning efforts to end disruptions for travellers on the Circle and District London Underground lines arising from current closure of parts of the line. [89137]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport and I met the managing director of London Underground (LU) on 23 June to discuss both the Circle and Northern Line City Branch closures. He assured us that the timetable LU are now operating around the Circle Line is robust and that it is providing passengers with a better service than they received in the first week after Circle Line engineering works began on 12 June. He also promised to provide us with a full report on what went wrong and to inform us immediately if the service around the Circle Line should deteriorate again.

  In addition, I meet with the managing directors of LU and London Transport Buses on a regular, monthly basis to discuss issues such as any line closures. My officials have also discussed with LT the measures they are taking to minimise disruption around the Circle Line.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the progress made with the construction of the Jubilee Line Extension; and when the section between Green Park and North Greenwich is due to be fully operational. [89134]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  Phase 1 of the Jubilee Line Extension opened on 14 May. London Transport plan to open phase 2 (on to Waterloo) in late summer, and phase 3 (linking with the existing line and providing an end-to-end Stratford to Stanmore service) by late autumn.

  Somerset Levels
  Mr. Dafis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assistance he is providing to the Environment Agency to further the promotion of eco-tourism on the Somerset Levels. [89019]

  Mr. Meale
  The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions provides the Agency with grant in aid each year to enable it to carry out its statutory duties. One of its duties is to promote the conservation and enhancement of water and associated land for recreational purposes. In addition the Agency is a lead organisation for flood defence and water level management, both of which contribute to the distinctive landscape of the area.

  The Agency is just one of many organisations that has a role in maintaining, managing and developing the internationally important Somerset Levels wetland area. An organisation known as the Levels and Moors Partnership (LAMP) was set up some years ago to bring all the partnership organisations together to address such issues as the socio-economic development of the Levels. This work has included the development of a sustainable
  372
  tourism strategy which recognises the economic needs of the local people and the needs of visitors, while providing effective protection to the environment.

  Climate Change Levy
  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of(a) the cost of the climate change levy to his Department and (b) the savings from the reduction in National Insurance Contributions that will occur when it is introduced.[88857]

  Mr. Meale
  The net impact of the climate change levy and the associated reduction in the main rate of employers' National Insurance Contributions on the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions will depend on the rates of the climate change levy. The final rates of climate change levy will not be set until Finance Bill 2000.

  In addition, the Government are still considering a number of detailed issues on the tax treatment of different energy products which could have a significant impact in some instances. It is, therefore, not possible to give definitive figures about the impact of the climate change levy on the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

  Renovated Empty Properties
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of the percentage of properties undergoing major repairs and renovation that have been empty for over 12 months. [88839]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Out of an estimated 11,200 vacant local authority-owned dwellings in England awaiting or undergoing major repairs on 1 April 1998, almost one third (31 per cent.) had been empty for more than a year. Equivalent information for Registered Social Landlord vacant stock indicates that of approximately 9,000 such dwellings, just over a quarter (27 per cent.) had been vacant for over one year.

  Comparable information about other residential stock in the public and private sectors is not available centrally.

  Tunstall Floral Hall
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will visit Tunstall Floral Hall, Stoke-on-Trent. [88810]

  Mr. Prescott
  I have at present no plans to do so.

  London Taxis (Millennium)
  Mr. Efford
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will alter the rate of the charge tariff for licensed London taxis for the period of the millennium public holiday. [89068]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  I shall make a decision later in the year on whether any supplement, above that which would normally apply at the New Year, is justified for the millennium public holiday, and if so, what it should be.

  Food Standards Agency
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if the proposed Food Standards Agency will have powers to publish the details of all regular health and safety inspections of restaurants under the proposals for freedom of information. [89132]

  Mr. Meale
  The proposed Food Standards Agency remit is to look after food hygiene. Health and safety inspection of restaurants and similar premises is carried out by local authorities under the general direction and guidance of the Health and Safety Commission. Each local authority will be directly responsible under the Bill for the disclosure of the information it holds.

  "Sustainable Energy from Waste"
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what consultation took place with his Department on the contents of "Sustainable Energy from Waste", published by the Department for Trade and Industry; what representations he made; and if he will make a statement. [89116]

  Mr. Meale
  The pamphlet is itself publicity for the Government's complementary strategies on waste, "A Way With Waste: a draft waste strategy for England and Wales", and renewable energy "New and Renewable Energy: prospects for the 21st century".

  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to publicise the Government's pamphlet, "Sustainable Energy from Waste"; and if he will make a statement. [89117]

  Mr. Meale
  Officials in both Departments work together closely on the full range of waste and renewable energy issues. This document was prepared by consultants in line with agreed policy.

  Rural Housing
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to issue guidelines to the Environment Agency on its responsibilities in relation to housing in rural areas. [89156]

  Mr. Meale
  The Environment Agency has no direct responsibilities for housing in rural areas. The Department has no plans to issue rural housing policy guidance to the Agency.

  Our White Paper for Rural England will, however, explore how a wide range of policies will support sustainable rural communities in the future.

  Environment Agency (Estate)
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many houses the Environment Agency owned in each parliamentary constituency in the South West in each of the last five years. [89154]
  374
  Mr. Meale
  Since 1994 the Environment Agency has owned houses in the following constituencies in the South West region:

  Cotswold: 2 houses

  New Forest: 1 house

  North Dorset: 1 house

  Salisbury: 2 houses (one sold in 1996)

  West Dorset: 2 houses

  Somerton and Frome: 2 houses (one also sold in 1994)

  Taunton: 3 houses (one being sold by auction in July 1999)

  Tewkesbury: 2 houses

  Torridge and West Devon: 2 houses (one sold in 1996 and the other sold by auction on 30 June 1999)

  Truro: 1 house bought in 1998 and demolished for a flood defence scheme.

  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has for the disposal of Environment Agency properties; and what matters he will take into consideration in respect of such disposals in rural and environmentally sensitive areas. [89155]

  Mr. Meale
  Disposal of property is an operational matter for the Agency to determine in accordance with the Financial Memorandum issued to it by the Department.

  Statutory Instruments
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what percentage of statutory instruments introduced by his Department into Parliament in(a) 1998, (b) 1992, (c) 1985 and (d) 1973 had the European Union as their legislative source. [89163]

  Mr. Meale
  The total number of Statutory Instruments (SIs) registered as General Instruments in 1998, 1992, 1985 and 1973 is listed in the table. Of the SIs so registered in 1998, 306 were made by my Department, of which 9.9 per cent. were made (either wholly or as to part) to comply with Community obligations. As a result of machinery of government changes, it is impracticable, without incurring disproportionate cost, to determine how many of the SIs made in 1992, 1985 and 1973 by the predecessor departments of my Department were introduced to comply with Community obligations.

  Year

  Number of SIs

  1998

  1,565

  1992

  1,692

  1985

  1,204

  1973

  1,260

  Source:

  Statutory Publications Unit of HMSO: an SI is classified as a General Instrument if it is in the nature of a Public General Act. SIs may otherwise be registered as Local Instruments if they are in the nature of local or private Acts. SIs implementing EC/EU legislation will always be classified as General Instruments.

  Birth Certificates
  Sir Robert Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list those purposes for which his Department and its executive agencies require a birth certificate to be furnished by(a) employees, contractors or those applying for employment or contracts, and (b) other persons. [89152]
  375
  Mr. Meale
  The sight of a birth certificate is requested in the following circumstances within DETR(C) and its executive agencies:to enable checks on identity and nationality to be carried out on people applying for jobs in the Department;
  to establish the identity of relatives of departmental staff in circumstances relating to the payment of pensions.

  Where contractors or consultants are directly employed by the Department, it may be necessary in certain circumstances to see certificates for security clearance purposes and where contractors supply individuals to the Department, for example building security guards or temporary staff, the contracts may include the need for basic checks to be carried out which could involve the contractor seeing a birth certificate.

  The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency requires applicants for photocard driving licences to provide evidence of identity. One of the documents that is acceptable is an original birth certificate.

  Arts Grants (London)
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what level of local authority grant aid has been paid by the London boroughs of(a) Wandsworth, (b) Hammersmith and Fulham and (c) Bromley to arts and theatre organisations in each of these boroughs for (i) 1997 and (ii) 1998; and if he will make a statement. [89466]

  Mr. Meale
  This information is not centrally available.

  Sellafield
  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his departmental news release number 544, of 11 June, what is the reason for the delay in the posting of the Sellafield MOX plant consultation documents on his Department's web site; and if he will extend the consultation period to compensate for the shortened notice given. [89314]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: On 11 June 1999, Official Report, columns 399–400, my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced the go-ahead for uranium commissioning and a further round of consultation into the economic case for the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant at Sellafield. On the day of the announcement, copies of the consultation documents were sent to:
  organisations previously consulted by the Environment Agency as part of their consideration of the MOX plant;
  organisations and individuals who made representations in response to either of the two consultations held by the Environment Agency; and
  organisations and individuals who made representations to my Department.

  The publishing of consultation papers is an important part of my Department's communication strategy. Although it is our policy to publish consultation papers on the web site, this is not the primary method of consultation. It is there to complement our more established means of publication and notification. Therefore, I do not see any case for extending the consultation period. The documents were available on the web site on 25 June, as soon as the necessary preparations could be completed.

  Diesel Duty
  Mr. Gunnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what estimate the Government made, prior to its announcement, of the effect of the increase in diesel fuel duty announced in the Budget statement on employment in the road haulage industry; and what estimate he has made of levels of employment in the industry over the next six months; [89650]

  (2) what is his estimate of the number of jobs lost in the British road haulage industry since the recent increase in the diesel fuel duty. [89649]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Government closely monitor the level of employment in the road haulage industry through the Labour Force Survey and the Annual Employers Survey. The statistics for the spring quarter of 1999 will not be ready for release until 14 July. However, the figures for goods vehicles drivers do not show a significant change between end-1997 and end-1998.

  Aircraft (Low Fuel)
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions he has had with the Civil Aviation Authority concerning low fuel state occurrences involving foreign airlines; and if he will make a statement. [89519]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  DETR and Civil Aviation Authority officials discussed the allegations concerning an aircraft of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) in detail with representatives of the airline. MAS has co-operated fully in reviewing their fuel policy and examining why, on a very few occasions, low fuel levels may have been recorded at the completion of a flight. MAS offered to provide weekly reports of fuel levels for all its aircraft on arrival in the UK and this has been incorporated into their conditions for operating into this country.

  Under the Chicago Convention, responsibility for regulating an airline, including compliance with minimum fuel regulations, lies with the country in which the airline is based.

  Archaeological Services
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received from(a) The British Archaeological Trust and (b) the Association of Local Government Archaeology Officers regarding the effect of the local government settlement for 1999–2000 on archaeological services. [89402]

  Mr. Meale
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: We have received no direct representations from these organisations on the settlement approved by this House on 4 February 1999, Official Report, columns 1138–86. I am, however, aware of their concerns, through the Early Day Motion number 377 laid in the House on 2 March and correspondence from the hon. Member.

  OSPAR Convention
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the matters discussed and the outcome of the
  377
  OSPAR Convention meeting in Hull on 21 to 25 June; and if he will place in the Library a copy of the submissions made by (a) the United Kingdom and (b) other OSPAR contracting parties and recognised observer organisations relevant to the United Kingdom. [89732]

  Mr. Meale
  The annual meeting of the OSPAR Commission, held in Hull at the invitation of the UK Government from 21 to 24 June, was opened by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. The main outcomes were the adoption of a strategy on environmental goals and management mechanisms for offshore activities (which, with the four strategies adopted at the Ministerial meeting in Portugal last year, means that all the main activities of the OSPAR Commission are now covered by long-term strategies), of a recommendation on the best available techniques for the manufacture of emulsion-PVC, and (with a reservation from Norway) of guidelines on artificial reefs in relation to marine living resources.

  Other matters discussed mainly concerned the implementation of the long-term strategies adopted last year. On the strategy for radioactive substances, the Contracting Parties agreed to intensify their efforts to implement it by focusing on the principal sources of discharges, emissions and losses, including the reprocessing of nuclear fuel and some other nuclear and non-nuclear activities; where action by the operators of nuclear installations is required, the Contracting Parties agreed to ensure that this is taken without delay. Another major theme was the improvement of the structure of the OSPAR Commission and of its working practices, in order to help the implementation of the strategies.

  The UK delegation presented no formal papers to the meeting. The papers which the OSPAR Commission has agreed to make public can be found on its web-site: www.ospar.org.

  Raptors
  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received regarding the harmful effect on the racing pigeon population of raptors. [89658]

  Mr. Meale
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: My Department has received a number of representations concerning the effect of raptors on racing pigeons. This issue is being considered by the Raptor Working Group co-chaired by my Department and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. The working group is due to make its final report before the end of the year. To assist the working group in drawing its conclusions my Department let a research contract to assess the impact of raptor predation on pigeons and to investigate the effectiveness of non-lethal deterrents. It is hoped that the findings of this research will help to provide some guide to pigeon fanciers as to how they may best reduce any losses they may be incurring.

  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will use his powers under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to control raptors. [89417]

  Mr. Meale
  [holding answer 2 July 19991: Raptors are protected by Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. This reflects obligations under the EC Wild Birds Directive 79/409/EEC to protect all naturally
  378
  occurring species of birds. The control raptors can only be licensed for the reasons set out in Section 16 of the 1981 Act, provided that there is no other satisfactory solution.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to answer parliamentary question 81262, a holding answer for which was given on 19 April. [89741]

  Mr. Meacher
  A full answer was given to the hon. Member on 27 April 1999,Official Report, columns 88–89.

  Greater London Authority Elections
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what progress he has made with the possibility of using electronic equipment in the Greater London Authority elections. [90057]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The Government have been considering the potential for introducing more innovative and up to date electoral procedures. Electronic voting is one of the areas the Howarth Working Party recommended for further consideration and piloting. The Working Party expects to submit a summary of its recommendations to Government later this month and its detailed report at the end of the summer. The London Mayor and Assembly elections on 4 May 2000 provide an excellent opportunity to introduce a more up to date system of voting or counting, more in keeping with our modern way of life.

  Following the invitation for expressions of interest from potential suppliers, issued in March, we received a number of suggestions as to how we might make best use of some form of electronic voting equipment for the London elections next year. We have shortlisted four potential suppliers, all of which have experience in elections worldwide where electronic equipment has been used successfully and offer either touch-screen voting at polling stations or optical scanning equipment to speed the counting process. The four suppliers are Data and Research Services Plc; Election Systems and Software Inc with Unisys Ltd.; Nedap; and Smurfit Ltd.

  The next stage is to carefully consider the detailed proposals for London's elections which the four shortlisted suppliers have been invited to submit. Our top priority is to run a successful election on 4 May 2000—less than a year away. We need to be sure that the use of electronic equipment will be cost effective, help rather than confuse voters, and lead to a more efficient delivery of results. The Greater London Authority will be a new modern form of governance and we need to consider voting systems to match as we move into the 21st century.

  EU Directives (Water Standards)
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the costs to the water industry of complying with EU directives on environmental and water quality standards for the period 2000 to 2005. [89445]

  Mr. Meale
  The Government announced on 1 March decisions on environmental and water quality improvement programmes which should be included in
  379
  water company business plans for 2000–05. These programmes were largely comprised of investment required to meet the requirements of EC Directives, although they also included, in a fully integrated manner, significant programmes to improve compliance with domestic quality objectives.

  We consider that these proposals can be delivered for around £8 billion. Companies' draft strategic business plans are now being considered by the Director General of Water Services, who will reach a provisional view later this month on the costs of these obligations for the purposes of the Periodic Review of water company price limits between 2000 and 2005.

  Water Charges
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what progress the Government have made in producing guidelines for water companies on alternative payment arrangements to water metering. [89205]

  Mr. Meale
  We are considering with water companies and other groups with an interest in water charging how any alternative to the present system of unmeasured charging, such as the use of Council Tax bands, could be designed to provide for fair charges and to avoid significant losses for some groups.

  There is no statutory bar on water companies introducing alternative unmeasured charging systems. Under the Water Industry Act 1999, companies will be obliged to include in charges schemes details of the basis on which they wish to charge for water and sewerage services to homes. Schemes will be subject to approval by the Director General of Water Services. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will issue guidance to the Director General on the approval of schemes. We shall be consulting on draft guidance shortly.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans the Government have to review water rates, with particular reference to help for pensioners. [89206]

  Mr. Meale
  The Director General of Water Services' periodic review of prices for the period 2000–05 may be expected to offer reductions in average water and sewerage bills in April 2000.

  The Water Industry Act 1999 will, for the first time, require water companies to give householders a measure of choice in the method by which they are charged for water. Many pensioners, if they make comparatively small demands on the water system, will be able to benefit from the new statutory right to be charged on a measured basis free of initial cost. We propose to make regulations under the Act to provide protection for households who are particularly vulnerable to high measured charges because of unavoidable high water use, such as those with certain medical conditions.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will take steps to ensure long-term reductions in water charges to domestic consumers. [89701]

  Mr. Meale
  Under the Water Industry Act 1991 the regulation of water and sewerage undertakers' price limits is for the Director General of Water Services. Changes 380
  in average charges for water and sewerage services must remain within limits set by the Director General for each company for each year. The Director General is currently conducting his periodic review of prices for the period 2000 to 2005. The Government have given guidance to the Director General on the environmental and water quality improvements to be delivered by 2005. We believe that these can be secured while offering reductions in average water and sewerage bills. The Director General expects to announce draft price limits for each undertaker later this month.

  Energy Efficiency (Pensioner Households)
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what measures his Department has taken to reduce the level of energy inefficiency in pensioner households. [89440]

  Mr. Meale
  The Government have developed a wide range of measures to improve domestic energy efficiency.

  The Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES) is currently the main programme for insulating the homes of the neediest householders. The Scheme provides grants (up to a maximum of £315) for energy efficiency improvements in the homes of people on benefits, the disabled and the over-60s. Those aged 60 or over but not on a qualifying benefit are entitled to a 25 per cent. grant.

  On 11 May I launched our consultation proposals for revising and expanding HEES. With a budget of some £300 million for the first two years, New HEES will provide comprehensive packages of heating and insulation improvements. The programme will provide substantial help for over-60s on low income, including central heating systems, with a revised grant maximum of £1,800.

  The Government have also increased the annual Winter Fuel Payment to £100 for every eligible pensioner household. Pensioners can put this money towards the cost of their fuel bills, or to help fund energy efficiency improvements.

  In addition to a broad range of Government energy efficiency programmes, the Director General for Electricity has, since 1994, set Energy Efficiency Standards of Performance requiring the public energy suppliers to encourage and assist customers with energy efficiency measures. Around two thirds of this help has gone to pensioner and low-income families.

  Telecommunication Masts (Chilterns)
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received about applications to erect telecommunication masts in the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. [89867]

  Mr. Raynsford
  My Department received two representations about a proposed mast at Chisley Wood, Buckmoorend.

  Traffic Census (M56)
  Mr. Stringer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of the cost to the local economy of his Department's traffic census on the M56 in May. [89441]
  381
  Ms Glenda Jackson
  The relationship between delays to traffic and their impact on the local economy is complex and cannot be estimated for a one-off incident of this nature.

  Mr. Stringer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the cost to his Department of the traffic census carried out on the M56 in May. [89444]

  Ms Glenda Jackson
  The census point on the M56/Princes Parkway site was one of 70 sites being surveyed for DETR, to monitor the effect of the completion of the Manchester Outer Ring Road (M60) Denton to Middleton. The average cost per site was about £4,000.

  Remand Provisions (Housing Act 1996)
  Mr. Stringer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he will bring into force the commencement order for the remand provisions associated with section 152(2)(b) of and Schedule 15 to the Housing Act 1996. [89443]

  Mr. Raynsford
  My Department is aware that some local authorities take the view that non-implementation of certain provisions in Part V of the Housing Act 1996 (Conduct of Tenants) is hampering their efforts to deal with anti-social behaviour on estates. My Department is actively considering this issue and is discussing with the Lord Chancellor's Department the best way forward. I will write to my hon. Friend when we have reached a decision.

  Departmental Car Pool
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many cars are available for the use of(a) his Department's Ministers, (b) his Department's officials and (c) executives and officials of his Department's non-Governmental bodies and agencies. [88087]

  Mr. Prescott
  [pursuant to his reply, 2 July 1999, c.288]: The position at March 1999 was as follows:

  Number of cars

  (a) Ministers

  19

  (b) DETR (Central)

  25

  (c) Agencies

  181

  1leased from GCDA

  2one leased from GCDA

  In addition, the Department owns or leases 25 cars at the MAVIS (Mobility Advice Vehicle Information Service) Mobility Unit at Crowthorne. These cars are specially adapted for disabled assessment and although this is their primary purpose some are occasionally used by DETR officials on official business.

  Information is not kept centrally for non-Government bodies.

  My Department also has a shared responsibility (with DTI and DfEE) for the operational management of the Government Offices for the Regions. As at March 1999, there were 79 cars available for use of officials of these three departments.

SCOTLAND

  Market Research
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the title and purpose of each item of market and opinion research commissioned by or through his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies since May 1997 stating in each case whether or not the results were published. [89684]

  Dr. Reid
  Information on market and opinion research carried out by The Scottish Office, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Sports Clubs
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will assess the advantages and disadvantages of allowing voluntary sports clubs to become eligible for charity status. [88747]

  Mr. Banks
  The Charity Commission is currently undertaking a review of the Recreational Charities Act 1958, in which I am taking a close interest with Home Office colleagues who are responsible for charity issues. The outcome of the review will inform a subsequent public consultation about the charitable status of community based sports clubs. I understand that Sport England will make the case for a change to enable sports clubs to benefit from the many advantages that charitable status can offer. The Government will consider carefully the responses to the consultation.

  European Communities Working Groups
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the European Communities working groups which met over the last 12 months with a representative from his Department in attendance; if he will list the number of times each met; if he will indicate the nature of the Government's representation; and if he will make a statement. [88482]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Officials from my Department regularly attend meetings of Council working groups. Occasionally, my Department is represented by officials from the United Kingdom's Permanent Representation of the European Union. I have listed in the table the working groups with which my Department is most closely involved, and the number of meetings attended in the last 12 months.

  Meetings attended

  Audiovisual

  9

  Cultural affairs

  16

  Economic questions (tourism)

  15

  Intellectual property

  13

  1DTI lead

  Lottery Funding
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if lottery funds from the World Class Performance Programme will be available for(a) chess,

  383
  (b) bridge, (c) pigeon racing and (d) hang-gliding when the new financial directions for the lottery come into force. [89142]

  Mr. Banks
  As a sport recognised by the UK and home Sports Councils, hang-gliding is eligible to apply for Lottery Sports funding. Lottery funds are, however, not unlimited and it will be necessary for the Sports Councils, when looking at applications, to prioritise and target awards based on criteria which they have established as the statutory distributors of Lottery funding for sport.

  Currently, UK Sport and the four home country Sports Councils do not recognise bridge, chess and pigeon racing and are not eligible to receive Lottery Sports funding. We will seek to amend existing legislation when parliamentary time allows so that chess may become eligible for Lottery sports funding. The final details of the Bill have yet to be determined and we will consider again later in the year whether to extend these changes to other activities such as bridge.

  Sports Governing Bodies
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what powers the United Kingdom sports councils have to delegate the handling of small grants to member clubs to the governing bodies of sports; and who will be responsible for assessing whether those governing bodies have adequate administrative controls. [89145]

  £000

  1994–1995

  1995–1996

  1996–1997

  1997–1998

  1998–1999

  British Library

  Grant-in-aid

  75,171

  80,364

  84,324

  87,200

  82,364

  Newspaper Library

  Total gross expenditure

  2,176

  2,145

  2,400

  2,199

  2,020

  Total net (grant-in-aid) expenditure

  1,423

  1,337

  1,667

  1,476

  1,222

  Archiving and filming (gross)

  1,034

  1,126

  1,203

  1,044

  978

  Public services (gross)

  436

  446

  468

  496

  469

  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what is the estimated durability and life expectancy of post-1850 newspaper newsprint copies held in the national newspaper collections. [89109]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Newspapers produced in the last 150 years have not been made to last. It is estimated that the durability of newsprint is unlikely to be more than 60 years. After this time, the paper is too brittle to be handled. The British Library is addressing the problem in its retrospective transfer of newsprint to microfilm and the continuing process of microfilming all issues of UK daily and weekly national and regional newspapers received under legal deposit.

  The Library is also a subscriber to Newsplan, a co-operative programme devised by public libraries, national libraries and the newspaper industry for microfilming and preservation of local newspapers and for making them accessible to users. It is estimated that, since the late 1980s, over 14,000 reels of microfilm, each corresponding to a bound volume of historic local newspapers, have been filmed by the Newspaper Library for Newsplan. In March this year, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £5 million in support of Newsplan.
  384
  Mr. Banks
  As independent corporate bodies set up by Royal Charter, it is for the UK and the four home country Sports Councils to determine their own spending and distribution priorities, to enable the most efficient and effective use of the public funds made available to them. Some of these funds are directed as grant-in-aid to sports governing bodies. The Sports Councils, as Lottery distributing bodies, have powers to delegate the handling of any grants made to governing bodies, member clubs and other groups. The Chief Executive of the Sports Councils act as Accounting Officers for the funding they receive and distribute and are explicitly required to ensure that any organisations given powers of delegation have suitable administrative controls and systems.

  Newspapers
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport for each of the last five years, how much funding was allocated to(a) the British Library, (b) Colindale Newspaper Library, (c) archiving and filming at Colindale Newspaper Library and (d) public services at Colindale Newspaper Library. [89106]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The allocations to the four categories requested are shown in cash, excluding depreciation, internal charges and internal income. They are direct costs and exclude overheads, e.g. estates expenditure.

  Acid Paper
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans he has to discourage the use of acid paper for the printing of books, newspapers and paper records; and if he will make a statement. [89110]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The National Preservation Office at the British Library (in conjunction with the Library Association and the Society of Archivists) has for several years been instrumental in promoting actively the use of acid free paper, particularly to the UK publishing community. Resolutions for the use of permanent paper were adopted by the International Publishers Association in 1989, and by UNESCO IN 1997.

  Newspapers (Microfilm)
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) in the national newspaper collections, how many(a) national and (b) regional newspaper titles have (i) been copied onto microfilm and (ii) remain to be copied; and, on present estimates, how long it is forecast that it will take to complete the task; [89107]
  385
  (2) for each of the last five years, how many (a) national and (b) regional newspaper titles have been copied onto microfilm by the national newspaper library collections. [89108]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  On current microfilming, since 1986, the policy of the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale has been to film all issues of UK daily and weekly national and regional newspapers received through legal deposit.

  The following numbers of newspaper "titles" were in publication and received through legal deposit in each of the five years:

  Year

  National titles

  Regional daily and weekly titles

  1994–95

  31

  627

  1995–096

  31

  694

  1996–97

  30

  711

  1997–98

  30

  709

  1998–99

  30

  706

  The serial nature of newspaper publication means that the transfer of newsprint to microfilm is a continuous process. The transfer of issues of national titles to microfilm has been given high priority and this programme is up-to-date. Material awaiting transfer from issues of regional newspaper titles would constitute five years' microfilming at present output levels.

  Retrospective transfer of newsprint to microfilm is undertaken in response to customer demand (self-funded) and in the light of conservation requirements within allocated budgets.

  The total number of preservation frames microfilmed from newspapers in the last five years is:

  Year

  Number frames

  1994–95

  9,976,710

  1995–96

  11,127,221

  1996–97

  15,502,623

  1997–98

  11,608,279

  1998–99

  8,288,201

  The Library has increased its allocation for current and retrospective microfilming in 1999–2000 by 37 per cent. over the previous year with a view to targeting production of 11.5 million frames. Further increases are planned for the following two years.

  National Lottery
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list, for each year since the introduction of the National Lottery,(a) the percentage of income derived from sales in Scotland and (b) the percentage of charitable awards paid to Scottish-based voluntary organisations and charities. [89659]

  Mr. Banks
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: Total National Lottery ticket sales to date have reached £21 billion, of which sales in Scotland account for £1.6 billion (7.8 per cent. of ticket sales). Registered charities in Scotland have received 9.1 per cent. of all
  386
  awards going to registered charities in the UK. Awards to voluntary organisations are not separately identified. The following table sets out the position in each year.

  Shares for Scotland

  Percentage

  Ticket sales for Scotland as percentage of the sales

  Scotland total awarded to registered charities as a percentage of awards to all charities

  1 April 1994 to 31 March 1995

  7.9

  15.2

  1 April 1995 to 31 March 1996

  7.8

  8.2

  1 April 1996 to 31 March 1997

  7.7

  11.3

  1 April 1997 to 31 March 1998

  7.7

  7.8

  1 April 1998 to 31 March 1999

  8.1

  8.6

  Total

  7.8

  9.1

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Law Reform Bills (Parliamentary Scrutiny)
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the President of the Council if she will make a statement on the Government's response to the Law Commission recommendation for parliamentary procedural reform to facilitate scrutiny of law reform Bills. [87779]

  Mrs. Beckett
  I met the Chairman of the Law Commission on 22 June, after publication of the 33rd annual report, to discuss the enactment of Law Commission Bills. There are already special procedures in both Houses for such Bills, but modernisation of parliamentary procedures may in time create other opportunities for their scrutiny. The Government attach great importance to the work of the Law Commission. Where the Government do accept that the Commission's proposals merit legislation, we will seek to make the best use of available parliamentary time and procedures.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Attorney-General how many cases there were in 1998 which were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for criminal proceedings in which no further action was taken. [89178]

  The Attorney-General
  The table shows the number of cases which the Crown Prosecution Service received from the police, and the number which the Service finalised, during 1998. Both figures are inclusive of cases submitted for pre-charge advice and non-criminal proceedings, and the number of these are shown separately.

  The number and proportion of cases in which a prosecution did not proceed are then shown. These outcomes are divided into cases discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service, and those which were written off because the defendant could not be traced or had died, or because proceedings were adjourned indefinitely.
  387
  Finally, the number and proportion of cases in which a prosecution proceeded are shown, divided into those where the defendant was bound over, those which proceeded to a committal hearing, and those which proceeded to a trial or guilty plea.

  A prosecution did not proceed in 251,167 cases, amounting to 18.5 per cent. of those completed during the year. However, it would not be true to say that no further action was taken in those cases. Every case received by the Crown Prosecution Service is reviewed by a lawyer, who must ascertain whether there is sufficient reliable and admissible evidence to offer a realistic prospect of conviction. If so, then the reviewing lawyer must determine whether a prosecution is in the public interest. The criteria on which these decisions are based are set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and are applied in every case.

  If the balance of the evidence or the public interest weigh against a prosecution then the police must be consulted, wherever time allows, before a decision is taken.

  Review is a continuing process, extending up until the point at which a hearing begins. Thus a case may proceed as far as the date of the trial before the need for discontinuance becomes apparent and, in these circumstances, the prosecution will have taken all the action necessary to prepare for a contested hearing.

  More than half of discontinued cases are unable to proceed because: witnesses fail to appear at court, refuse to give evidence, or change their evidence; defendants produce driving documents providing their innocence on the day of trial; evidence is excluded because of irregularities in its collection; or gaps in the prosecution case cannot be plugged by the police

  Cases not proceeding include those written off as well as those discontinued. However, these are quite distinct outcomes: a write off is an administrative procedure whereby dormant cases are removed from the record of live proceedings, so giving a more accurate account of work on hand. The majority of write offs occur where the police cannot trace a defendant for the service of a summons, or where a bench warrant for arrest remains unexecuted following the defendant's failure to surrender to bail. If the defendant is subsequently arrested, the prosecution can recommence.

  Crown Prosecution Service Magistrates' Court cases 1998

  Number

  Percentage

  Received

  1,427,837

  —

  Finalised of which

  1,430,555

  —

  Pre-charge advice

  59,799

  —

  Non-criminal proceedings

  11,660

  —

  Did not proceed

  Discontinued

  162,661

  12.0

  Written off

  88,506

  6.5

  Total cases which did not proceed

  2,51,167

  18.5

  Cases proceeding

  Bind over

  24,914

  1.8

  Committal hearing

  95,073

  7.0

  Trial or Guilty plea

  987.943

  72.7

  Total cases proceeding

  1,107,930

  81.5

CABINET OFFICE

  Genetic Modification Committees
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office (1) what(a) the relationship is between and (b) the relative responsibilities are of the (i) Interdepartmental Group on Genetic Modification Technology and (ii) MISC 6; [87827]

  (2) what is the membership of the Interdepartmental Group on Genetic Modification Technology; how often it has met; and if he will make a statement. [87826]

  Dr. Jack Cunningham
  The Interdepartmental Group on Genetic Modification Technology (IGGMOT) is an internal forum for officials across Government to co-ordinate policy matters on genetic modification. The Ministerial Group on Biotechnology and Genetic Modification (MISC 6) is responsible for making decisions on Government policy in respect of biotechnology. IGGMOT supports the work of Ministers by ensuring that the wide range of Government Departments with an interest in this issue are in close and regular contact with one another about developments. It is not the normal practice of Government to release details of internal discussions, advice to Ministers, specific meetings or their content. This principle is reflected in the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Market Research
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will list the title and purpose of each item of market and opinion research commissioned by or through his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies since May 1997 stating in each case whether or not the results were published. [89693]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  The information requested is not held centrally and is available only at disproportionate cost.

  Public Sector Staff (Transfers)
  Mr. Peter Bradley
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress has been made on the Government's policy to protect the terms and conditions of public sector staff when they transfer to a new employer; and if he will make a statement. [90060]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  I have today published for public consultation a Statement of Practice for Staff Transfers in the Public Sector which should ensure that Public Private Partnership (PPP) deals and modernisation within the public sector go forward smoothly and guarantee fair and consistent treatment of employees rights—utilising the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)—TUPE—Regulations. The publication of this Statement reaffirms our commitment in the Modernising Government White Paper to support staff by presuming TUPE protections apply

  PPPs and organisational change within the public sector have a key part to play in delivering high-quality modern public services. I want future PPPs and organisational change to be conducted with the presumption that the protections of TUPE will apply unless there are genuinely exceptional reasons not to do so, ensuring that staff involved are treated fairly and consistently and their rights protected. Clarity and certainty about the treatment of staff involved in the modernisation of the public sector is

  389
  fair to staff, employers, contractors and taxpayers alike. The new Statement of Practice is designed to achieve this aim across the whole public sector

  The Statement of Practice, which includes the Chief Secretary's new policy for protecting pensions in PFI and PPP deals—14 June 1999, Official Report, column 30—will now be subject to a 3-month public consultation exercise

  The Statement of Practice, following the public consultation exercise, will apply to Government Departments and Agencies and the intention is to apply it to the NHS. I hope that other public sector employers will also apply its principles, and the Government will encourage and facilitate that outcome

  Copies of "Staff Transfers in the Public Sector; Statement of Practice" have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Genetic Modification
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will set out the terms of reference for the inquiry he has established into the unauthorised disclosure of material relating to the public presentation of genetically modified issues. [89452]

  Year

  Pre registration house Officer

  Student nurse

  Grade D nurse

  Trainee MLSO (Biomedical scientist)

  MLSO 1 (Biomedical Scientist)

  1990

  9.5% from 1.1.1991 (7.0% from 1.4.1990)

  13.9% from 1.1.1991 (7.0% from 1.4.1990

  9.0% (7.0% from 1.4.1990)

  7.9%

  12.2%

  1991

  9.5% from 1.12.1991 (7.5% from 1.4.1991)

  11% from 1.12.1991 (7.5% from 1.4.1991)

  9.6% (7.5% from 1.4.1991)

  11.3%

  7.9%

  1992

  5.5%

  6.0%

  5.8%

  6.8%

  4.8%

  1993

  1.5%

  1.5%

  1.5%

  1.5%

  1.5%

  1994

  3.0%

  3.0%

  3.0%

  2.6%

  2.4%

  1995

  2.5%

  1.0% national with 2.0% agreed locally

  1.0% national with 2.0% agreed locally

  1.0% national with 2.0% agreed locally

  1.0% national with 2.0% agreed locally

  1996

  6.8%

  **

  2.0% plus local pay (2.8% as baseline for 1997 pay)

  2.0% plus local pay (2.8% as baseline for 1997 pay)

  2.0% plus local pay (2.8% as baseline for 1997 pay)

  1997

  3.75% from 1.12.1997

  —

  4.1% from 1.12.1997 (2.0% from 1.4.1997)

  3.3% from 1.12.1997 (2.0% from 1.4.1997)

  3.3% from 1.12.1997 (2.0% from 1.4.1997)

  1998

  4.55% from 1.12.1998

  —

  3.8% from 1.12.1998 (2.0% from 1.4.1998)

  3.8% from 1.12.1998 (2.0% from 1.4.1998)

  3.8% from 1.12.1998 (2.0% from 1.4.1998)

  1999

  3.5%

  —

  112.0%

  Under negotiation

  Under negotiation

  1Increase for lowest point of scale.

  Notes:

  1. All staged settlements are shown in full with the date of implementation first, followed by initial payment and date.

  2. In 1993 all settlements in the public sector were agreed at 1.5%.

  * Project 2000 nurse training was fully implemented so all trainees receive a bursary.

  Biomedical Scientists are classed as Medical Laboratory Scientific Officers (MLSOs) for pay and grading purposes.

  Pay Offers for 1999, now subject to consultation by Staff Side with their members, would give trainee MLSOs between 6.6% and 26% and 7.1% to all MLSO1s.

  Source:

  Advance Letters, Report of Review Body for Nursing Staff, Midwives and Health Visitors.

  GP Lists (Removals)
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will implement the Health Ombudsman's recommendation that health authorities review removals from GPs' lists and conduct research on such removals. [87971]
  390
  Dr. Jack Cunningham
  An inquiry was established by the Secretary of the Cabinet on 2 March 1999 to establish the facts regarding the unauthorised disclosure of a Cabinet Office document concerning genetically modified foods.

HEALTH

  Residential and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he intends to announce the consultation arrangements in respect of the report of the Centre for Policy on Aging on National Standards for Residential and Nursing Homes, presented to him on 19 January; and if he will make a statement. [85047]

  Mr. Hutton
  We intend to publish the Centre for Policy on Aging report during the summer for full and extensive consultation

  Medical Staff (Pay)
  Mr. Sawford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the percentage increase in pay for trainee and newly qualified(a) nurses, (b) doctors and (c) biomedical scientists in each year from 1990 to 1999. [86468]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is shown in the table

  Mr. Denham
  In his evidence to the Select Committee on Public Administration, Sir Alan Langlands made a commitment to further research into the reasons why general practitioners remove patients from their lists. Funding has been arranged for this and a steering group, which will include representation from the General Practitioners Committee, will be set up

  Junior Doctors
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what will be the hourly rate of pay for house officers working in hospitals on 31 December 1999 and 1 January 2000. [88066]

  Mr. Denham
  Those staff who are required by roster to work in hospitals on 31 December 1999 and 1 January 2000 will receive their normal rate of pay: 100 per cent. for their standard hours, and payments for additional duty hours at the rate appropriate to their working pattern. Doctors rostered for duty on either of these two bank holidays will also receive time off in lieu.

  The payment of additional duty hours (ADHs) for a 72 hour week adds an extra 40 per cent. to the basic salary of a junior doctor, enhancing the basic salary from £16,710 for a first year house officer to £23,394 when ADHs are included.

  Pay for first year house officers expressed as an hourly rate is £8.04 for each standard hour of duty. A class 1 (full shift) additional duty hour (ADH) will be paid at £8.04; a class 2 (partial shift) ADH will be paid at £5.63; and a class 3 (on-call) ADH will be paid at £4.02. Doctors in more senior training grades will receive higher pay rates according to their incremental point: for example, a specialist registrar on the fourth point of scale would receive ADHs at the hourly rate of £12.90, £9.63 and £6.45 respectively. The basic salary scale for an SpR is from £23,300 to £33,965. When ADH rates are included the total salary payable ranges from £32,617 to £45,571. For senior house officers the basic salary scale is from £20,845 to £27,845 and, including ADHs, the total salary payable ranges from £29,176 to £38,993

  Diamorphine
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has made recommendations on dosages of Diamorphine that can be given to patients suffering from a terminal condition. [87990]

  Ms Jowell
  In June 1998 the Department endorsed and distributed throughout the National Health Service three documents of good practice in palliative care, produced by the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services. One of these documents was "Guidelines for Managing Cancer Pain in Adults", which was designed for use by health professionals in primary care and institutional settings and includes guidance on dosages of Diamorphine for terminally ill patients. Copies are available in the Library.

  Women's Unit
  Lorna Fitzsimons
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what(a) reports and (b) research have been produced by the Women's Unit; when these were produced; and which have been published. [88388]
  392
  Ms Jowell
  The Women's Unit has produced the following:(a) Reports and Guidance

  National Childcare Strategy (with Department for Education and Employment) May 1998

  Policy Appraisal for equal treatment, (with the Home Office and DfEE) on 9 November 1999

  Delivering for women: Progress so far, on 9 November 1998

  4th Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, on 15 January 1999

  (b) Research

  Tackling violence against women, on 9 November 1998

  Researching Women's Attitudes, on 9 November 1998

  Women's Individual Income (with Government Statistical Services, and Department of Social Security Analytical Services Division), on 26 March 1999

  Women's attitudes to combining paid work and family life, on 31 March 1999

  Citizens' Juries: An appraisal of their role based on the conduct of two women only jurie, on 31 March 1999

  Relationship Breakdown: a Guide for Social Landlords (with Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and Department of Health), on 18 May 1999

  Living Without Fear: An integrated approach to tackling violence against women, on 30 June 1999.

  The reports and research have all been published. The Women's Unit has also contributed to a wide range of other Government publications and reports.

  European Communities Working Groups
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the European Communities working groups which met over the last 12 months with a representative from his Department in attendance; if he will list the number of times each met; if he will indicate the nature of the Government's representation; and if he will make a statement. [88473]

  Ms Jowell
  Officials from the Department regularly attend meetings of Council working groups. Occasionally the Department is represented by officials from the United Kingdom's Permanent Representation to the European Union. The Department is most closely involved with the Health working group which has met 18 times in the last 12 months. Officials from the Department also attend meetings of the Economic Questions. Social Affairs, and Youth working groups when relevant issues are discussed.

  Influenza
  Liz Blackman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the cost of last winter's influenza epidemic to his Department. [88774]

  Ms Jowell
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  Cancer Services
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 11 June 1999,Official Report, column 416, if he will list the cancer centres in the West Midlands. [88734]
  393
  Mr. Hutton
  The following hospitals in the West Midlands Region have designated cancer centres:

  University Hospital Birmingham National Health Services Trust

  Walsgrave Hospitals NHS Trust

  Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

  North Staffordshire NHS Trust

  Royal Shrewsbury Hospital NHS Trust, which is a joint cancer centre with North Staffordshire Hospital Trust cancer centre.

  These centres are designated for treating certain types of cancer, and not necessarily all cancers

  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the percentage profit made by drug companies on each individual drug used in cancer treatment. [88729]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Government indirectly control the prices of branded prescription medicines supplied to the National Health Service by the pharmaceutical industry through the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). Companies have freedom of pricing for new medicines launched on the market, although the PPRS controls the profits that pharmaceutical companies are allowed t make through their trade with the NHS.

  Under the PPRS, pharmaceutical companies are required to submit annual financial returns to the Department of Health reporting, among other things, sales, research and development expenditure, other costs and profits. These returns, however, are reported in aggregate form. It is not possible, therefore, to identify separately the profits made by pharmaceutical companies on individual medicines.

  Special Advisers (Costs)
  Mr. Tyrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will (1) list the total number of occasions when(a) departmental and (b) non-departmental special advisers have travelled abroad in an official capacity since 2 May 1997; [76828]

  (2) what was the total cost, including travel and accommodation, of each occasion when a special adviser from his Department travelled abroad in an official capacity since 2 May 1997, whether accompanied by a Minister or not, indicating the place visited. [89066]

  Ms Jowell
  Between 2 May 1997 and 30 June 1999, special advisers have accompanied my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State abroad on six occasions to America, Brussels and Madrid at a total cost of £6,370.

  All travel complied with the requirements of the Ministerial Code and the Civil Service Management Code.

  Maternity Units
  Laura Moffatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the midwife lead maternity units without a full consultant unit on site [88930]

  Ms Jowell
  The Department does not collect the information requested. Details of local maternity service provision can be obtained from health authorities and individual National Health Service trusts. They are 394
  responsible for decisions about patterns of service delivery taking account of the needs of local people, evidence of effectiveness and available resources.

  Vaccinations
  Mr. Ian Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the present methods of reporting adverse reactions to vaccination; and if he will make a statement. [88806]

  Ms Jowell
  The safety of medicines, including vaccines, in the United Kingdom is continuously monitored by the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) and the Medicines Control Agency (MCA). Various data sources are used including spontaneously reported adverse drug reactions (ADRs), company produced periodic safety update reports, clinical trials and epidemiological studies such as the recent North Thames study on MMR vaccine.

  Under the UK spontaneous reporting (Yellow Card) Scheme, doctors, dentists, hospital pharmacists and coroners may report adverse drug reactions to the CSM and MCA. Pharmaceutical companies have a statutory obligation to report suspected adverse reactions received world wide in relation to their products.

  The Yellow Card Scheme is regularly reviewed by the MCA and CSM and initiatives are undertaken to strengthen reporting when necessary.

  The reporting of suspected ADRs to vaccines through the Yellow Card Scheme was specifically reviewed by the MCA and CSM in 1997.

  Market Testing
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance has been given to NHS trusts on market testing their insurance requirements; and if he will make a statement. [89081]

  Mr. Denham
  Historically, National Health Service trusts have not been required to market test their insurance requirements. As with other goods and services, however, they have been expected to obtain best value for money. Since 1 April this year trusts have only been permitted to renew commercial insurance to cover motor vehicle risks. They are now able to cover other non-clinical risks—mainly buildings, property and liabilities—by membership of two new NHS risk pools established under Section 21 of the NHS and Community Care Act, 1990. Alternatively, they may choose to self-indemnify. These new arrangements are already significantly reducing the overall cost of insurance to the NHS, releasing additional money for patient care.

  NHS Direct
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the planned cost of NHS Direct in the current year. [89060]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: £54 million has been allocated in 1999–2000 to NHS Direct.

  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many calls have been made to the NHS Direct phone line to date; and what was the average cost per call. [89057]
  395
  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: Over 250,000 calls have been made to the NHS Direct phone line since its launch in March 1998. While call volumes are building up rapidly it is not possible to provide a realistic estimate of the average cost per call.

  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what change has been recorded in the number of visits to general practitioners' surgeries and accident and emergency units in those areas where the first three pilots of NHS Direct were established. [89054]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: Sheffield University's Medical Care Research Unit has been commissioned to carry out an evaluation of the first wave pilots of NHS Direct. Data, in their first interim report published in March 1999, on the impact of NHS Direct on other services covered only the first 5 months of operation of NHS Direct and the researchers concluded that it would have been surprising to have seen any measurable impact at such an early stage. Monitoring of this data is continuing and a further report will be published later in the year.

  GP Consultations
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what was the cost of an average GP consultation in (i) 1997–98 and (ii) 1998–99; and what is the forecast cost for 1999–2000 [89058]

  (2) how many general practitioner consultations took place in (i) 1997–98 and (ii) 1998–99; and what number is forecast for 1999–2000 [89059]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: The information is not available in the form requested. The latest information collected (and published as figure 4.18 in the Departmental Report for 1999–2000) relates to 1996–97 when there were estimated to be 270.97 million consultations with general practitioners. These data were based on the General Household Survey and may overestimate the number of consultations.

  Hospital Waiting Times (Oxfordshire)
  Mr. Heseltine
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total number of patients waiting over 13 weeks for an outpatient appointment following a written referral from their GP in the Oxfordshire Health Authority area in(a) March 1996, (b) March 1997, (c) March 1998 and (d) March 1999. [89072]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is as follows:

  (a) These figures were not collected.

  (b) These figures were not collected.

  (c) 1,136

  (d) 2,006.

  GP Prescribing
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will review the cost effectiveness of GP prescribing. [89091]

  Mr. Denham
  The Government continue to encourage general practitioners to prescribe cost effectively. A number of measures are in place to help them to achieve this, for example the employment of prescribing advisers 396
  by health authorities. Recent developments such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will also help to ensure cost effective prescribing.

  Patient Satisfaction Survey
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on publishing patient satisfaction survey results for each NHS trust [89084]

  Mr. Denham
  The Government are committed to publishing national and local results of the national survey of National Health Service patients. As part of this programme, a survey of patients with coronary heart disease is underway, and we expect to publish headline results in due course.

  Health Products
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance he has given to health specialists on the altered status of particular health substances following the Government's consultation document MLX 249. [89290]

  Ms Jowell
  No guidance is required. The proposals in the consultation document MLX 249 will not alter the status or classification of health products.

  Processed Food (Salt Content)
  Ms Drown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his discussions with the food industry on reducing the salt content of processed food [89298]

  Ms Jowell
  Following initial discussions between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food/Department of Health Joint Food Safety and Standards Group and the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) which represents the food and drink manufacturing industry) to explore the scope for broadening public choice in, and reducing, the salt content of processed foods, the FDF has announced that it will be conducting a systematic review of the purpose and usage of sodium in manufactured foods. We have welcomed this review.

  Millennium Compliance (West Kent)
  Dr. Stoate
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he has taken to ensure that the computer systems in use by the West Kent Health Authority are millennium compliant and that hospital and health provision will not be affected on 1 January 2000; [89185]

  (2) what steps he has taken to ensure that the computer systems in use by the Kent Ambulance Service are millennium compliant and that emergency services will not be affected on 1 January 2000. [89184]

  Mr. Denham
  Detailed local arrangements for the National Health Service and social services in planning for winter 1999–2000 including the millennium period were set out in a joint circular to the National Health Service and Social Services (LAC(99)15) in April 1999. Copies are available in the Library.
  397
  Kent Ambulance NHS Trust and West Kent Health Authority are making good progress towards ensuring year 2000 compliance.

  Progress is monitored quarterly by the National Health Service Executive to ensure robust arrangements are in place to deliver services for the coming winter including the millennium period

  Cloning
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the Government's policy on therapeutic cloning of human tissue [89181]

  Ms Jowell
  The use of cloning techniques on non-embryonic human cells and tissue is a long-established medical practice for the treatment of serious disorders. This may include treatment using vaccines developed with cloning technology, or tissue grants such as skin for burn victims.

  In December 1998 the joint Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC) and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) report "Cloning Issues in Reproduction, Science and Medicine" was published. The Report recommended, among other things, that the Government should consider making regulations under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 to extend the purposes for which human embryos may be used in research to include particular therapeutic purposes.

  The Government's response to the joint HGAC/HFEA report, 24 June 1999, Official Report, column 436, reaffirmed their policy that human reproductive cloning is ethically unacceptable and cannot take place in this country. However, we recognise that the recommendation to extend the regulations to allow research for particular therapeutic purposes should be very carefully considered. We believe that more evidence is required of the need for using human embryos in such research, its potential benefits and risks and also that account should be taken of alternative approaches that might achieve the same ends.

  We announced that a group chaired by the Chief Medical Officer would be set up to examine these issues and report early next year. We expect to announce the membership of that group shortly.

  Agency Nurses
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department takes(a) to monitor the cost of agency recruited nurses and (b) to give guidance to health purchasers on appropriate charges for agency nurses. [89383]

  Ms Jowell
  The National Health Service Executive is working with the Social Partnership Forum to review the use of bank and agency staff and the alternative approaches to employment flexibility, with a view to recommending good practice guidance to NHS employers.
  398
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the average cost to the NHS in London of(a) hiring a nurse through an agency and (b) recruiting a nurse of comparable grade through the NHS. [89382]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is not available centrally

  NHS Staff Pay
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library the letter dated 1 February sent by the Chief Executive of the NHS to NHS trusts and health authorities concerning pay for staff in 1999–2000 [89587]

  Mr. Denham
  Copies of the letter have been placed in the Library.

  Clinical Terms
  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the formal review of Read Codes 3 will take place. [89651]

  Mr. Denham:
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) on 14 April 1999, Official Report, columns 270–71.

  The independent evaluation of the Read Codes is taking place in the following three stages.

  (i) An assessment of the need for clinical terminology and the robustness of Clinical Terms Version 3 against alternatives;

  (ii) Development of a methodology for evaluating clinical codes in use;

  (iii) A process of continuous evaluation in live use in clinical practice.

  The first stage has been completed, and copies of the report are available in the Library. A contract has been awarded after open competition to First Consulting Group for the second stage. The methodology for the evaluation of clinical terminology will be developed by September 1999. It will then be rigorously trialled in the National Health Service in preparation for stage 3.

  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many general practitioner practices are using Read Codes Version 3. [89647]

  Mr. Denham
  Records indicate that 41 software system suppliers to the National Health Service have licences giving them access to Version 3 of the Read Codes (CTV3). Suppliers are building systems to support CTV3 to underpin the development of the Electronic Patients Record in full. Current software in common use by general practitioners is based on earlier versions of the Read Codes.

  The NHS Executive intends to mandate the use of a coded clinical terminology (currently Clinical Terms Version 3 (Read Codes)) which is a central plank of the NHS Information Management and Technology Strategy "Information for Health", published in September 1998. This is a pre-requisite for the development of the Electronic Health record which is the cornerstone of the strategy.
  399
  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what basis Mr. Roger Browell was selected for the Phase 1 Read Codes Review [89656]

  Mr. Denham
  Roger Browell was selected for the Phase 1 Read Codes evaluation via the Strategic Assignment Consultancy Service (SACS) of the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA).

  SACS is an established service whereby CCTA procures consultants with a wide experience of Information Services and Information Technology. CCTA was asked to procure an independent consultant with no previous input to the work area in order to maintain independence.

  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS trusts are using Read Codes Version 3 on a hospital-wide basis; and in which hospitals. [89646]

  Mr. Denham
  Licensing records indicate that 41 software system suppliers to the National Health Service and 149 NHS trusts have access to Version 3 of the Read Codes. Records also indicate that the Version 2 terms in a Version 3 file format is used in Scotland and by one system supplier with several sites in England.

  Health Act 1999
  Dr. Naysmith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how he intends to use his order-making powers under schedule 3 of the Health Bill [Lords]. [89464]

  Mr. Denham
  The powers in Section 60 of what is now the Health Act 1999 allow for the regulation of new professions and the strengthening of existing regulatory schemes by Order. We intend to use these powers to fulfil our commitment to work with the professions to strengthen and modernise the existing systems of health professional self-regulation

  Clinical Negligence
  Mr. Malins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if NHS trusts are free to use private sector insurance to obtain clinical negligence cover [89354]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: There is no legal impediment to a National Health Service trust using commercial insurance for clinical negligence risks. However, the NHS Executive has always strongly discouraged trusts from doing so on the basis that it does

  Date

  Destination

  Project

  5–9 July

  Nicaragua and Honduras

  DFID Projects

  19–21 July

  Sierra Leone

  DFID Projects

  28–30 July

  Brussels

  Lome Ministerial meetings

  30August–September

  Bolivia

  DFID Project

  25–27 September

  Washington

  IMF/World Bank meetings

  29 September

  New York

  Ministerial Group on Environment and Poverty

  Both the Secretary of State's and my diaries for the rest of the year are likely to include speaking engagements and overseas travel which are as yet undetermined.

  My ministerial responsibilities involve working from offices in East Kilbride and London.
  400
  not represent good value for money, and trusts have accepted that advice. The Clinical Negligence Scheme for trusts was established to help trusts manage their clinical negligence liabilities. At present all trusts are members of that Scheme.

  Mr. Malins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health from whom the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts has sought reinsurance; and if the reinsurance was competitively tendered. [89355]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: The Clinical Negligence Scheme for trusts is a voluntary risk pooling scheme set up under Section 21 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 to help NHS trusts manage their clinical negligence liabilities. It is self-funding through annual contributions from member trusts. At present all NHS trusts are members of the scheme. Individual members' contributions are assessed according to the type of services they provide and their past claims history.

  Prescriptions Charges
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which patients qualify for free prescriptions; which illnesses qualify patients for free prescriptions; and if he will make a statement [89663]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: The information requested is contained in leaflet HC11 "Are you entitled to help with health costs?", copies of which are available in the Library

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Ministerial Visits
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what dates she and the Minister of State plan to be absent from the office in 1999; [89618]

  (2) what overseas visits are proposed for (a) her and (b) Ministers in her Department from 1 July to 1 December. [89617]

  Mr. Foulkes
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have planned overseas visits on Government business up to 1 December 1999 as follows:

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Departmental Expenditure
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list actual and planned expenditure in each financial year by his
  401
  Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies on (a) market research, (b) conferences, (c) direct mail, (d) advertising and publicity, (e) opinion polling, (f) websites, (g) hospitality, (h) central administration costs and (i) external consultants and advisers on (i) summer literacy schools, (ii) the National Grid for Learning, (iii) the New Deal for Schools Phase 3 and (iv) special educational needs. [88182]

  Summer literacy schools

  £

  Year

  Market research

  Conferences

  Direct mailing

  Advertising and publicity

  Opinion polling

  Websites

  Hospitality

  Central administration Costs

  External consultants and advisers

  1997–98

  Planned

  0

  15,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2,500

  7,500

  Actual

  0

  15,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3,500

  7,500

  1998–99

  Planned

  0

  70,000

  4,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  12,000

  10,000

  Actual

  0

  70,000

  4,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  10,500

  10,000

  1999–2000

  Planned

  0

  0

  4,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  9,000

  0

  National Grid for Learning—departmental spend

  £

  Year

  Market research

  Conferences

  Direct mailing

  Advertising and publicity

  Opinion polling

  Websites

  Hospitality

  Central Administration Costs

  External consultants and advisers

  1997–98

  Planned

  0

  1—

  780

  44,000

  0

  0

  0

  1—

  22,900

  Actual

  0

  1—

  780

  44,000

  0

  0

  0

  1—

  22,900

  1998–99

  Planned

  0

  1—

  1—

  98,000

  0

  0

  0

  1—

  55,000

  Actual

  0

  1—

  1—

  98,000

  0

  0

  0

  1—

  55,000

  1999–2000

  Planned

  0

  50,000

  1—

  40,000

  0

  0

  0

  1—

  154,200

  1There costs were unable to be separated from total spend incurred in this category

  National Grid for Learning—spend incurred by British Educational Communications and Technology Agency

  £

  Year

  Market Research

  Conferences

  Direct mailing

  Advertising and publicity

  Opinion polling

  Websites

  Hospitality

  Central administration Costs

  External consultants and advisers

  1997–98

  Planned

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  285,000

  0

  1—

  0

  Actual

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  285,000

  0

  1—

  0

  1998–99

  Planned

  0

  0

  0

  27,000

  0

  330,000

  0

  333,900

  137,000

  Actual

  0

  0

  0

  27,000

  0

  330,000

  0

  333,900

  137,000

  1999–2000

  Planned

  0

  125,000

  0

  0

  0

  435,000

  0

  655,350

  430,000

  1These costs were unable to be separated from total spend incurred in this category

  402
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The following tables list the actual and planned expenditure for the financial years 1997–98, 1998–99 and 1999–2000 as appropriate. These costs represent expenditure which has been identified as additional to that which would have been incurred as part of the normal operational activity.
  403
  New Deal for Schools Phase 3

  There was no additional spend in any of the categories identified for the New Deal for Schools programme—Phase 3.

  Special educational needs

  Year

  Market research

  Conferences

  Direct mailing

  Advertising and publicity

  Opinion polling

  Websites

  Hospitality

  Central administration costs

  External consulants and advisers

  1997–98

  Planned

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Actual

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1998–99

  Planned

  0

  120,000

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  64,528

  Actual

  0

  127,247

  1,750

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  64,528

  1999–2000

  Planned

  0

  32,500

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  127,204

  School Playing Fields
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many school playing fields were sold(a) between 1979 and 1997 and (b) from May 1997 to date; and how these figures were collated. [88662]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Department did not collect information in the form requested before 1 October 1998, when section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 came into force. However, sports bodies suggest that under the previous Government 40 playing fields a month were being sold off. Since 1 October 1998 an average of 8 applications a month have been approved. Because of the tightening up of the rules, local authorities are usually only putting forward proposals which meet our very strict criteria which have been further strengthened by new guidance we published on 7 June.

  Schools Funding
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list for each local education authority the percentage share of the local schools' budget delegated to schools, calculated to take account of whether an authority has capitalised Standard Fund money or delegated it to schools.[89153]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Tables which the Government published on 24 June showed, in column 2, the percentage of each local education authority's Local Schools Budget being delegated to schools this year. Delegated funding in this context took into account that part of an authority's Standards Fund programme which they were devolving to schools. We expect authorities to exclude from their Local Schools Budget any grant-supported expenditure of a capital nature.

  Special Educational Needs
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he plans to implement the policies outlined in the Green Paper, Excellence for All Children: Meeting Special Educational Needs. [89339]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  We received over 3,600 responses to consultation on the proposals in the Green Paper, "Excellence for all children: meeting special educational needs". In the light of those responses, and advice from the 404
  National Advisory Group on Special Educational Needs, we published "Meeting Special Educational Needs: A programme of action" in November 1998. The Action Programme explains how we will implement our policies for children with special educational needs for the remainder of this Parliament.

  Deprived Areas (Educational Achievement)
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he is taking to raise parents' expectations of their children's educational achievement in deprived areas. [89340]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Involving parents in their children's learning is crucial to raising their expectations and we are pursuing a number of initiatives to encourage them to be actively involved. Parents have an important role to play in helping to raise standards in Education Action Zones and in the new "Excellence in Cities" initiative.

  We are supporting family literacy and family numeracy courses, targeted on parents and children with low basic skills, often in deprived areas. Many parents are helping with our summer school pilots this year, several of which are targeted at pupils in deprived areas who might not otherwise have access to the opportunities offered. And our "Playing for Success" initiative is establishing study support centres with Premier League and Nationwide Division One football clubs, most of which are situated in deprived areas. The centres target local pupils who have lost motivation, involving their parents through pre-course meetings and questionnaires.

  The publication of school performance tables enables parents to look at the results obtained by similar schools and encourages them to demand more of those in which their children are educated.

  Head Teachers
  Mr. Cann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he has taken to increase the(a) support for and (b) training of head teachers. [89362]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) on 10 June 1999,Official Report, column 390.

  Equal Opportunities
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what action he has taken to monitor the impact of equal opportunities legislation on recruitment, pay and promotion opportunities of(a) male, (b) female, (c) disabled and (d) ethnic minority university research and teaching staff; and what were the results of this monitoring. [89563]

  Ms Hodge
  The Government have promoted the recommendation of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (the Dearing Committee) that all higher education institutions should review their Equal Opportunities policies, and identify and remove barriers to recruitment and progression for particular groups. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the Commission on University Career Opportunity are advising institutions on equal opportunities policies and monitoring their implementation in the sector.

  Ethnic Minorities
  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment which local authority received the highest level of support through ethnic minority achievement grant for 1999–2000. [89439]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: In 1999–2000, Tower Hamlets local education authority will receive the highest level of support—an allocation of £8,125,390.

  Mr. Sutcliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment which local authority contributed the greatest amount towards ethnic minority achievement grant for 1999–2000. [89437]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: In 1999–2000, Bradford local education authority will make the greatest contribution—50 per cent. of its allocation of £7,569,000.

  LEAs (Strategic Management)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will rank each local education authority according to the value of its budget for strategic management in 1999–2000 as a percentage of that for management and administration in 1998–99; and if he will show those percentages and values distinguishing the authorities with grant-maintained schools in 1998–99. [89740]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Direct comparison cannot be drawn between local authorities' estimated expenditure on management and administration for 1998–99 and their estimated expenditure on strategic management for 1999–2000 in view of the very different definitions set down in regulations. Figures extracted from the statements for 1998–99 prepared under section 122 of the Education Act 1996 and for 1999–2000 prepared under section 52 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 are provided in the following table.
  406

  £ million

  LEA name

  Management and administration 1989–90

  Strategic management (a) 1999–2000

  City of London

  0.044

  0.370

  Camden

  0.953

  *3.317

  Greenwich

  2.038

  *5.622

  Hackney

  1.023

  *4.536

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  0.881

  *1.787

  Islington

  0.960

  3.173

  Kensington and Chelsea

  1.339

  *1.998

  Lambeth

  1.069

  *3.511

  Lewisham

  2.157

  *5.041

  Southwark

  2.197

  *5.129

  Tower Hamlets

  2.644

  *5.113

  Wandsworth

  0.851

  *3.272

  Westminster

  2.07

  1.521

  Barking and Dagenham

  1.351

  1.692

  Barnet

  1.313

  *3.978

  Bexley

  1.607

  *4.198

  Brent

  1.393

  *2.800

  Bromley

  1.101

  *3.525

  Croydon

  1.041

  *3.666

  Ealing

  2.103

  *3.050

  Enfield

  2.354

  *4.669

  Haringey

  1.845

  *6.158

  Harrow

  1.081

  *3.670

  Havering

  0.876

  *3.146

  Hillingdon

  1.056

  *2.469

  Hounslow

  1.839

  *3.521

  Kingston upon Thames

  0.726

  *1.517

  Merton

  0.747

  *3.717

  Newham

  2.493

  *3.837

  Redbridge

  2.314

  *6.043

  Richmond upon Thames

  0.872

  1.936

  Sutton

  0.944

  *3.331

  Waltham Forest

  1.945

  *3.820

  Birmingham

  5.066

  *16.766

  Coventry

  2.355

  5.358

  Dudley

  1.006

  *4.929

  Sandwell

  1.605

  *5.990

  Solihull

  0.660

  *3.179

  Walsall

  1.510

  *4.690

  Wolverhampton

  1.755

  *3.430

  Knowsley

  1.582

  *4.354

  Liverpool

  6.489

  *9.387

  St. Helens

  1.504

  2.952

  Sefton

  2.996

  4.652

  Wirral

  1.938

  *7.380

  Bolton

  1.407

  *4.428

  Bury

  1.312

  *4.356

  Manchester

  4.085

  *15.706

  Oldham

  1.76

  3.533

  Rochdale

  1.225

  *3.780

  Salford

  2.097

  *4.706

  Stockport

  1.175

  4.128

  Tameside

  1.102

  *4.036

  Trafford

  1.303

  *3.321

  Wigan

  1.525

  3.733

  Barnsley

  0.872

  3.552

  Doncaster

  2.369

  *5.553

  Rotherham

  1.732

  2.639

  Sheffield

  2.751

  *8.831

  Bradford

  3.053

  *7.693

  Calderdale

  1.074

  *2.925

  Kirklees

  2.345

  *6.694

  Leeds

  3.157

  *10.747

  Wakefield

  1.763

  4.905

  Gateshead

  1.372

  4.439

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  2.582

  9.114

  North Tyneside

  1.215

  *2.874

  South Tyneside

  1.012

  2.821

  Sunderland

  1.087

  3.771

  Isles of Scilly

  0.008

  0.119

  Bath and North East Somerset

  1.713

  *3.141

  Bristol City

  3.362

  6.767

  North Somerset

  1.266

  3.031

  South Gloucestershire

  1.859

  4.145

  Hartlepool

  0.866

  1.875

  Middlesbrough

  1.322

  3.277

  Redcar and Cleveland

  1.152

  2.949

  407

  £ million

  LEA name

  Management and administration 1989–90

  Strategic management (a) 1999–2000

  Stockton on Tees

  1.851

  4.281

  Hull City

  1.537

  3.948

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  2.436

  *4.290

  North East Lincolnshire

  1.273

  2.865

  North Lincolnshire

  1.448

  3.35

  North Yorkshire

  2.824

  *6.384

  York

  1.119

  1.957

  Bedfordshire

  2.980

  *3.468

  Luton

  1.453

  *3.444

  Buckinghamshire

  2.63

  *6.249

  Milton Keynes

  2.011

  *3.464

  Derbyshire

  2.713

  *8.883

  Derby City

  1.058

  *3.267

  Dorset

  2.811

  *5.584

  Poole

  0.944

  *1.725

  Bournemouth

  1.098

  *2.423

  Durham

  2.773

  7.070

  Darlington

  0.788

  0.981

  East Sussex

  2.176

  8.065

  Brighton and Hove

  2.571

  3.757

  Hampshire

  6.427

  *13.445

  Portsmouth

  1.307

  *3.006

  Southampton

  1.503

  *3.663

  Leicestershire

  3.755

  *8.311

  Leicester City

  1.833

  *5.068

  Rutland

  0.194

  *0.375

  Staffordshire

  3.084

  *10.131

  Stoke-on-Trent

  2.495

  *3.617

  Wiltshire

  2.047

  *5.732

  Swindon

  0.903

  *2.268

  Bracknell Forest

  1.036

  2.384

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  1.023

  *2.249

  West Berkshire

  0.958

  *3.034

  Reading

  0.885

  *2.251

  Slough

  0.607

  *1.484

  Wokingham

  1.465

  *3.632

  Cambridgeshire

  2.37

  *6.946

  Peterborough City

  0.909

  *2.801

  Cheshire

  2.508

  *8.714

  Halton

  0.689

  *3.791

  Warrington

  0.983

  2.966

  Devon

  2.706

  *8.375

  Plymouth City

  2.523

  *3.828

  Torbay

  1.099

  *2.811

  Essex

  3.674

  *17.648

  Southend-on-Sea

  0.486

  *1.662

  Thurrock

  0.740

  *2.657

  Herefordshire

  1.088

  2.558

  Worcestershire

  2.692

  *7.175

  Kent

  7.771

  *24.551

  Medway Towns

  1.876

  *4.485

  Lancashire

  4.852

  *13.013

  Blackburn with Darwen

  1.880

  *2.814

  Blackpool

  0.494

  1.669

  Nottinghamshire

  0.527

  *9.140

  Nottingham City

  1.608

  *2.481

  Shropshire

  1.286

  *4.071

  Telford and Wrekin

  0.771

  *2.712

  Cornwall

  2.278

  *5.464

  Cumbria

  1.282

  *5.162

  Gloucestershire

  1.915

  *5.783

  Hertfordshire

  1.401

  *11.978

  Isle of Wight

  0.624

  3.168

  Lincolnshire

  2.125

  *6.273

  Norfolk

  2.566

  *9.102

  Northamptonshire

  2.900

  *7.697

  Northumberland

  2.045

  *4.430

  Oxfordshire

  2.051

  *3.013

  Somerset

  0.935

  *3.450

  Suffolk

  2.535

  8.384

  Surrey

  4.312

  *9.980

  Warwickshire

  1.912

  *5.691

  West Sussex

  3.112

  *9.706

  England

  274.155

  734.042

  LEAs with grant-maintained schools

  LEAs (Schools Budgets)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will rank each local education authority according to the value of the schools components of its Standard Spending Assessment for 1999–2000 as a percentage of the value of those components for 1998–99; and if he will show those percentages and values distinguishing the authorities with grant maintained schools in 1998–99. [89738]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The following table shows, for each local education authority, the value of the Schools Standard Spending Assessments (SSA) for 1999–2000 and 1998–99, and the former expressed as a percentage of the latter, ranked by this percentage. Schools SSA has been interpreted as an authority's total SSA excluding the "Other" block. Local education authorities with grant maintained schools in 1998–99 are indicated by an asterisk.

  A Schools SSA 1999–2000 £ million

  B Schools SSA 1998–99 £ million

  Percentage A/B

  Swindon

  71.394

  *65.630

  108.8

  Kensington and Chelsea

  36.522

  *33.726

  108.3

  Redbridge

  114.800

  *106.051

  108.2

  Trafford

  88.508

  *81.915

  108

  105.577

  *97.865

  107.9

  Torbay

  48.404

  *44.914

  107.8

  Westminster

  61.744

  57.347

  107.7

  Lambeth

  104.611

  *97.205

  107.6

  Dorset

  131.751

  *122.506

  107.5

  Newham

  151.616

  *141.033

  107.5

  Herefordshire

  59.594

  55.448

  107.5

  Blackpool

  50.928

  47.402

  107.4

  Southwark

  118.447

  *110.258

  107.4

  Waltham Forest

  106.917

  *99.612

  107.3

  South Gloucestershire

  91.649

  85.388

  107.3

  Devon

  237.013

  *221.027

  107.2

  Thurrock

  58.773

  *54.817

  107.2

  Poole

  48.59

  *45.340

  107.2

  Wiltshire

  115.218

  *145.063

  107

  Barking and Dagenham

  81.858

  76.54

  106.9

  Solihull

  85.868

  *80.313

  106.9

  Brighton and Hove

  78.939

  73.861

  106.9

  Somerset

  171.012

  *160.076

  106.8

  North Yorkshire

  214.69

  *201.036

  106.8

  Bournemouth

  53.715

  *50.316

  106.8

  Norfolk

  278.525

  *260.907

  106.8

  Lincolnshire

  244.589

  *229.168

  106.7

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  118.455

  *111.062

  106.7

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  59.335

  *55.647

  106.6

  Bromley

  122.179

  *114.604

  106.6

  Southampton

  84.088

  *78.908

  106.6

  Leicestershire

  222.692

  *209.019

  106.5

  Cambridgeshire

  185.36

  *173.981

  106.5

  Surrey

  347.795

  *326.472

  106.5

  Gloucestershire

  209.368

  *196.545

  106.5

  Croydon

  135.162

  *126.887

  106.5

  East Sussex

  169.055

  158.738

  106.5

  Sutton

  76.637

  *71.967

  106.5

  Sheffield

  187.774

  *176.357

  106.5

  Warrington

  76.599

  71.958

  106.4

  Cornwall

  184.804

  *173.627

  106.4

  Southend

  66.566

  *62.549

  106.4

  The Wrekin

  64.419

  *60.535

  106.4

  Portsmouth

  69.82

  *65.612

  106.4

  Enfield

  134.984

  *126.870

  106.4

  West Sussex

  261.745

  *246.109

  106.4

  Reading

  46.01

  *43.274

  106.3

  Lewisham

  121.996

  *114.743

  106.3

  Northamptonshire

  251.23

  *236.313

  106.3

  York

  58.422

  54.954

  106.3

  Derbyshire

  265.534

  *249.778

  106.3

  409

  A Schools SSA 1999–2000 £ million

  B Schools SSA 1998–99 £ million

  Percentage A/B

  Darlington

  38.491

  36.213

  106.3

  Tameside

  93.028

  *87.528

  106.3

  Slough

  57.089

  *53.714

  106.3

  Shropshire

  98.323

  *92.522

  106.3

  Rotherham

  113.162

  106.488

  106.3

  Newbury

  59.637

  *56.127

  106.3

  Bexley

  103.186

  *97.112

  106.3

  Ealing

  123.927

  *116.643

  106.2

  Calderdale

  85.924

  *80.877

  106.2

  Tower Hamlets

  140.484

  *132.302

  106.2

  Suffolk

  243.909

  229.726

  106.2

  Essex

  509.944

  *480.339

  106.2

  Staffordshire

  315.414

  *297.145

  106.1

  Barnet

  130.946

  *123.371

  106.1

  Derby

  93.620

  *88.206

  106.1

  Nottinghamshire

  288.497

  *271.821

  106.1

  Plymouth

  104.410

  *98.377

  106.1

  Hampshire

  434.902

  *409.794

  106.1

  Walsall

  121.361

  *114.368

  106.1

  Wandsworth

  92.513

  *87.207

  106.1

  Stockton-on-Tees

  79.882

  75.302

  106.1

  Worcestershire

  193.086

  *182.023

  106.1

  Bury

  69.526

  *65.576

  106.0

  City of Bristol

  128.538

  121.26

  106.0

  Nottingham City

  111.505

  *105.221

  106.0

  Lancashire

  455.316

  *429.663

  106.0

  Dudley

  117.159

  *110.561

  106.0

  Richmond upon Thames

  50.301

  47.478

  105.9

  Kent

  538.741

  *508.568

  105.9

  Warwickshire

  182.725

  *172.526

  105.9

  Rochdale

  94.018

  *88.775

  105.9

  Buckinghamshire

  188.986

  *178.479

  105.9

  Bath and North East

  60.526

  *57.188

  105.8

  Somerset

  —

  —

  —

  North Somerset

  66.255

  62.619

  105.8

  Hillingdon

  104.296

  *98.573

  105.8

  Stockport

  101.452

  95.89

  105.8

  Wolverhampton

  108.116

  *102.190

  105.8

  Hackney

  98.449

  *93.053

  105.8

  Hertfordshire

  435.257

  *411.418

  105.8

  Hartlepool

  41.380

  39.139

  105.7

  Cheshire

  257.244

  *243.373

  105.7

  Bolton

  114.221

  *108.100

  105.7

  Leeds

  282.890

  *267.770

  105.6

  Kirklees

  159.304

  *150.825

  105.6

  Wakefield

  125.526

  118.848

  105.6

  Merton

  63.641

  *60.267

  105.6

  Cumbria

  190.629

  *180.529

  105.6

  Barnsley

  84.769

  80.286

  105.6

  Luton

  84.918

  *80.433

  105.6

  Hounslow

  103.456

  *97.997

  105.6

  Wigan

  122.006

  115.594

  105.5

  Rocheser and Gillingham

  115.093

  *109.048

  105.5

  Sefton

  118.649

  112.426

  105.5

  Camden

  82.403

  *78.119

  105.5

  Salford

  91.810

  *87.038

  105.5

  Kingston upon Thames

  51.451

  *48.784

  105.5

  North Lincolnshire

  63.333

  60.056

  105.5

  South Tyneside

  66.683

  63.237

  105.4

  Wokingham

  57.211

  *54.263

  105.4

  Brent

  117.837

  *111.776

  105.4

  Bracknell Forest

  40.406

  38.349

  105.4

  Oldham

  105.634

  100.267

  105.4

  Manchester

  199.028

  *188.920

  105.4

  Greenwich

  121.599

  *115.435

  105.3

  Isle of Wight Council

  51.708

  49.090

  105.3

  Northumberland

  126.090

  *119.705

  105.3

  Knowsley

  82.478

  *78.305

  105.3

  Islington

  87.151

  82.756

  105.3

  Sandwell

  131.856

  *125.232

  105.3

  Birmingham

  489.002

  *464.835

  105.2

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  110.726

  105.260

  105.2

  Middlesbrough

  66.093

  62.831

  105.2

  Durham

  197.484

  187.738

  105.2

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  106.356

  101.118

  105.2

  410

  A Schools SSA 1999–2000 £ milliion

  B Schools SSA 1998–99 £ million

  Percentage A/B

  Oxfordshire

  210.862

  *200.487

  105.2

  Wirral

  144.316

  *137.280

  105.1

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  49.727

  *47.316

  105.1

  Milton Keynes

  90.186

  *85.837

  105.1

  Coventry

  131.560

  125.246

  105.0

  Havering

  96.233

  *91.641

  105.0

  Bedfordshire

  157.120

  *149.634

  105.0

  Doncaster

  132.481

  *126.185

  105.0

  Gateshead

  75.712

  72.121

  105.0

  North Tyneside

  75.332

  *71.812

  104.9

  Sunderland

  125.016

  119.218

  104.9

  Redcar and Cleveland

  64.427

  61.440

  104.9

  Harrow

  78.116

  *74.513

  104.8

  Halton

  57.671

  *55.062

  104.7

  North East Lincolnshire

  71.056

  67.861

  104.7

  Leicester

  129.892

  *124.054

  104.7

  Bradford

  226.718

  *216.979

  104.5

  Liverpool

  229.767

  *219.973

  104.5

  St. Helens

  74.297

  71.160

  104.4

  Stoke on Trent

  96.247

  92.200

  104.4

  Blackburn

  68.623

  *65.780

  104.3

  Rutland

  11.333

  *10.898

  104.0

  Peterborough

  76.769

  *74.177

  103.5

  City of London

  0.703

  0.683

  103.0

  Isles of Scilly

  1.184

  1.177

  100.6

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will rank each local education authority according to the value of the individual schools budget as a percentage of the value of the local schools budget; and if he will show those percentages and values distinguishing the authorities with grant maintained schools in 1998–99. [89739]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The following table shows for local education authorities in England, ranked from the highest to the lowest, the Individual Schools Budget for 1999–2000 as a percentage of the Local Schools Budget. Those local education authorities with grant maintained schools in 1998–99 are indicated by an asterisk.

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  LSB 1999–2000 £ million

  ISB as percentage of LSB

  Southend-on-Sea

  57.732

  66.015

  *87.5

  Northamptonshire

  213.487

  247.729

  *86.2

  Hillingdon

  89.225

  103.622

  *86.1

  Havering

  81.688

  94.944

  *86.0

  Portsmouth

  60.352

  70.406

  *85.7

  Barnet

  115.046

  135.336

  *85.0

  Brent

  95.060

  112.343

  *84.6

  Slough

  42.493

  50.297

  *84.5

  Hampshire

  363.305

  430.498

  *84.4

  Solihull

  72.305

  85.866

  *84.2

  Suffolk

  207.075

  245.930

  84.2

  Staffordshire

  256.602

  305.397

  *84.0

  Nottinghamshire

  242.569

  288.696

  *84.0

  Leeds

  236.632

  281.633

  *84.0

  Walsall

  97.639

  116.282

  *84.0

  Birmingham

  415.080

  495.981

  *83.7

  West Berkshire

  49.350

  59.105

  *83.5

  Warrington

  63.990

  76.651

  83.5

  Somerset

  142.293

  170.571

  *83.4

  Norfolk

  231.185

  278.245

  *83.1

  Dudley

  101.629

  122.370

  *83.1

  Sunderland

  98.485

  118.690

  83.0

  Cheshire

  219.381

  264.400

  *83.0

  Redbridge

  90.777

  109.434

  *83.0

  Hounslow

  83.880

  101.123

  *82.9

  Wigan

  105.141

  126.794

  *82.9

  411

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  LSB 1999–2000 £ million

  ISB as percentage of LSB

  Hertfordshire

  350.786

  423.152

  *82.9

  Poole

  40.069

  48.34

  *82.9

  Southampton

  67.847

  81.916

  *82.8

  West Sussex

  216.381

  261.283

  *82.8

  North Yorkshire

  179.496

  216.901

  *82.8

  Swindon

  56.479

  68.254

  *82.7

  Kingston upon Thames

  43.316

  52.391

  *82.7

  Bedfordshire

  129.678

  156.891

  *82.7

  Waltham Forest

  86.873

  105.138

  *82.6

  Leicestershire

  184.441

  223.688

  *82.5

  Sutton

  61.955

  75.17

  *82.4

  Lewisham

  92.475

  112.208

  *82.4

  Oxfordshire

  165.601

  201.093

  *82.4

  Rutland

  10.278

  12.482

  *82.3

  Essex

  417.561

  507.5

  *82.3

  Derbyshire

  215.216

  261.848

  *82.2

  York

  49.663

  60.436

  82.2

  Cumbria

  157.633

  191.879

  *82.2

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  99.003

  120.611

  *82.1

  Lambeth

  77.169

  94.015

  *82.1

  Wokingham

  48.208

  57.809

  *82.0

  Bath & North East Somerset

  53.875

  65.760

  *81.9

  Gloucestershire

  166.583

  203.403

  *81.9

  Lincolnshire

  196.988

  240.541

  *81.9

  Bromley

  96.139

  117.765

  *81.6

  Plymouth City

  84.481

  103.508

  *81.6

  Bournemouth

  43.255

  53.006

  *81.6

  Thurrock

  46.212

  56.744

  *81.4

  Windsor & Maidenhead

  39.231

  48.179

  *81.4

  Medway Towns

  91.713

  112.773

  *81.3

  South Gloucestershire

  78.060

  96.135

  81.2

  Telford and Wrekin

  51.793

  63.812

  *81.2

  Nottingham City

  88.378

  108.958

  *81.1

  Oldham

  85.477

  105.401

  81.1

  Richmond upon Thames

  42.02

  51.827

  81.1

  Rotherham

  88.438

  109.085

  81.1

  Calderdale

  68.122

  84.047

  *81.1

  Stoke-on-Trent

  75.590

  93.347

  *81.0

  Surrey

  276.423

  341.364

  *81.0

  Redcar and Cleveland

  49.916

  61.669

  80.9

  Worcestershire

  153.581

  189.780

  *80.9

  Milton Keynes

  68.376

  84.495

  *80.9

  Croydon

  106.012

  131.066

  *80.9

  Trafford

  72.001

  89.049

  *80.9

  Halton

  45.2

  55.952

  *80.8

  Hartlepool

  31.889

  39.515

  80.7

  Tameside

  72.651

  90.052

  *80.7

  Wiltshire

  124.224

  153.989

  *80.7

  Bexley

  78.4

  97.202

  *80.7

  Coventry

  107.939

  133.865

  80.6

  Stockton on Tees

  65.255

  80.945

  80.6

  Bristol City

  112.797

  139.962

  *80.6

  Warwickshire

  149.502

  185.777

  *80.5

  Doncaster

  104.981

  130.662

  *80.3

  Kent

  429.172

  534.287

  *80.3

  Stockport

  81.645

  101.833

  80.2

  Barking & Dagenham

  64.739

  80.752

  80.2

  Darlington

  29.270

  36.529

  80.1

  North East Lincolnshire

  57.108

  71.369

  80.0

  Wolverhampton

  85.984

  107.504

  *80.0

  Sheffield

  144.125

  180.221

  *80.0

  Kirklees

  124.3

  155.542

  *79.9

  Enfield

  106.512

  133.386

  *79.9

  Wandsworth

  74.366

  93.170

  *79.8

  Liverpool

  171.983

  215.671

  *79.7

  Shropshire

  77.418

  97.084

  *79.7

  Sefton

  96.88

  121.503

  79.7

  North Somerset

  54.604

  68.496

  79.7

  Wirral

  112.100

  140.651

  *79.7

  Bolton

  90.427

  113.754

  *79.5

  Reading

  34.780

  43.761

  *79.5

  St. Helens

  58.446

  73.588

  79.4

  East Sussex

  134.245

  169.036

  79.4

  Harrow

  64.174

  80.808

  *79.4

  Bury

  55.273

  69.607

  *79.4

  Bracknell Forest

  31.107

  39.183

  79.4

  412

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  LSB 1999–2000 £ million

  ISB as percentage of LSB

  Brighton & Hove

  61.738

  77.788

  79.4

  Northumberland

  100.049

  126.392

  *79.2

  Durham

  154.961

  195.831

  79.1

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  83.741

  105.869

  79.1

  Rochdale

  68.797

  87.043

  *79.0

  Islington

  61.693

  78.074

  79.0

  Luton

  63.909

  80.89

  *79.0

  Blackpool

  38.421

  48.641

  79.0

  South Tyneside

  50.036

  63.362

  79.0

  North Tyneside

  60.651

  77.116

  *78.6

  Hammersmith & Fulham

  45.732

  58.196

  *78.6

  Dorset

  103.34

  131.553

  *78.6

  Devon

  182.248

  232.083

  *78.5

  Ealing

  93.875

  119.573

  *78.5

  Merton

  50.732

  64.758

  *78.3

  Buckinghamshire

  141.691

  181.138

  *78.2

  Derby City

  70.233

  89.894

  *78.1

  Lancashire

  354.402

  453.67

  *78.1

  Knowsley

  60.562

  77.614

  *78.0

  North Lincolnshire

  49.46

  63.476

  77.9

  Sandwell

  103.388

  132.69

  *77.9

  Cornwall

  135.115

  173.723

  *77.8

  Leicester City

  97.215

  125.016

  *77.8

  Torbay

  37.585

  48.384

  *77.7

  Bradford

  163.495

  210.656

  *77.6

  Herefordshire

  44.938

  57.929

  77.6

  Peterborough City

  58.601

  76.044

  *77.1

  Greenwich

  91.204

  118.529

  *76.9

  Wakefield

  94.812

  123.359

  76.9

  Camden

  63.001

  82.089

  *76.7

  Gateshead

  58.796

  76.713

  76.6

  Middlesbrough

  48.644

  63.482

  76.6

  Isle of Wight

  39.147

  51.534

  76

  Barnsley

  60.699

  80.046

  75.8

  Salford

  71.119

  93.993

  *75.7

  Blackburn with Darwen

  50.547

  67.094

  *75.3

  Tower Hamlets

  99.000

  131.444

  *75.3

  Isles of Scilly

  0.867

  1.152

  75.3

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  80.323

  106.999

  75.1

  Newham

  98.939

  132.656

  74.6

  Cambridgeshire

  137.63

  185.096

  *74.4

  Kensington and Chelsea

  30.942

  41.825

  *74.0

  Southwark

  85.803

  116.234

  *73.8

  Hackney

  65.391

  88.808

  *73.6

  Manchester

  145.009

  197.538

  *73.4

  Haringey

  77.2

  105.572

  *73.1

  Westminster

  46.454

  64.804

  71.7

  City of London

  0.652

  1.497

  43.6

  England

  15,759.478

  19,507.598

  80.8

  *LEAs with grant-maintained schools

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the differences between spending shown in local education authorities' section 52 statements and that shown in their section 122 statement for 1998–99 which are attributable to the existence of grant maintained schools. [89745]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Estimated expenditure on schools which were grant maintained in the financial year 1998–99 was not required to be included in budget statements prepared by local education authorities under section 122 of the Education Act 1996 since these schools were funded direct by the Funding Agency for Schools. Budget statements prepared under section 52 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 cover estimated expenditure for the financial year 1999–2000. Whilst grant-maintained status remains until the end of August, local education authorities have been responsible for passing on funding to these schools since 1 April and
  413
  section 52 statements include the full year's funding, together with any transitional protection to which individual schools may be entitled.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will rank each local education authority according to the value of its individual schools budget for 1999–2000 as a percentage of the value of its Aggregate Schools Budget for 1998–99; and if he will show those percentages and values distinguishing the authorities with grant maintained schools. [89737]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The following table shows for local education authorities in England, ranked from the highest to the lowest, the Individual Schools Budget for 1999–2000 as a percentage of the Aggregated Schools Budget for 1998–99. Those local education authorities with grant maintained schools are indicated by an asterisk.

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  ASB 1998–99 £ million

  ISB as percentage of ASB

  City of London

  0.652

  0.658

  99.1

  Isles of Scilly

  0.867

  0.872

  99.4

  Richmond upon Thames

  42.020

  41.034

  102.4

  St. Helens

  58.446

  56.602

  103.3

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  80.323

  76.977

  104.3

  North Somerset

  54.604

  52.321

  104.4

  Islington

  61.693

  58.96

  104.6

  Manchester

  145.009

  138.513

  *104.7

  Hackney

  65.391

  62.45

  *104.7

  Salford

  71.119

  67.742

  *105.0

  Redcar and Cleveland

  49.916

  47.386

  105.3

  Sunderland

  98.485

  93.463

  105.4

  Isle of Wight

  39.147

  37.132

  105.4

  North Tyneside

  60.651

  57.482

  *105.5

  Westminster

  46.454

  43.932

  105.7

  Gateshead

  58.796

  55.591

  105.8

  Oldham

  85.477

  80.807

  105.8

  Coventry

  107.939

  101.954

  105.9

  Barnsley

  60.699

  57.268

  106.0

  Leicester City

  97.215

  91.714

  *106.0

  Bracknell Forest

  31.107

  29.329

  106.1

  Stockport

  81.645

  76.948

  106.1

  Greenwich

  91.204

  85.9

  *106.2

  South Gloucestershire

  78.06

  73.497

  106.2

  Solihull

  72.305

  68.075

  *106.2

  North East Lincolnshire

  57.108

  53.745

  106.3

  North Lincolnshire

  49.46

  46.511

  106.3

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  83.741

  78.681

  106.4

  Leeds

  236.632

  222.29

  *106.5

  Brighton & Hove

  61.738

  57.859

  106.7

  Wokingham

  48.208

  45.171

  *106.7

  Middlesborough

  48.644

  45.532

  106.8

  Herefordshire

  44.938

  42.049

  106.9

  Cornwall

  135.115

  126.34

  *106.9

  Rotherham

  88.438

  82.652

  107.0

  Sefton

  96.88

  90.525

  107.0

  Wigan

  105.141

  98.226

  107.0

  Wakefield

  94.812

  88.468

  107.2

  Durham

  154.961

  144.424

  107.3

  West Sussex

  216.381

  201.515

  *107.4

  Sandwell

  103.388

  96.236

  *107.4

  Blackpool

  38.421

  35.741

  107.5

  Darlington

  29.27

  27.228

  107.5

  Knowsley

  60.562

  56.25

  *107.7

  Suffolk

  207.075

  192.304

  107.7

  Nottinghamshire

  242.569

  225.158

  *107.7

  North Yorkshire

  179.496

  166.577

  *107.8

  East Sussex

  134.245

  124.341

  108.0

  Warrington

  63.99

  59.039

  108.4

  Oxfordshire

  165.601

  152.76

  *108.4

  South Tyneside

  50.036

  46.062

  108.6

  Bristol City

  112.797

  103.745

  108.7

  York

  49.663

  45.662

  108.8

  Northumberland

  100.049

  91.981

  *108.8

  414

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  ASB 1998–99 £ million

  ISB as percentage of ASB

  Harrow

  64.174

  58.962

  *108.8

  Stockton on Tees

  65.255

  59.868

  109.0

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  99.003

  90.715

  *109.1

  Haringey

  77.200

  70.675

  *109.2

  Merton

  50.732

  46.347

  *109.5

  Hartlepool

  31.889

  29.124

  109.5

  Braking & Dagenham

  64.739

  58.978

  109.8

  Cheshire

  219.381

  199.603

  *109.9

  Shropshire

  77.418

  70.308

  *110.1

  Doncaster

  104.981

  95.039

  *110.5

  Halton

  45.200

  40.904

  *110.5

  Bury

  55.273

  49.869

  *110.8

  Newham

  98.939

  89.123

  *111.0

  Leicestershire

  184.441

  166.088

  *111.1

  Windsor & Maidenhead

  39.231

  35.144

  *111.6

  Lancashire

  354.402

  316.358

  *112.0

  Sheffield

  144.125

  127.823

  *112.8

  Lewisham

  92.475

  81.984

  *112.8

  Kirklees

  124.300

  110.189

  *112.8

  Devon

  182.248

  161.186

  *113.1

  Somerset

  142.293

  125.401

  *113.5

  Southampton

  67.847

  59.675

  *113.7

  Plymouth City

  84.481

  74.266

  *113.8

  Staffordshire

  256.602

  225.248

  *113.9

  Stoke-on-Trent

  75.590

  66.345

  *113.9

  Tower Hamlets

  99.000

  86.720

  *114.2

  Worcestershire

  153.581

  133.945

  *114.7

  Redbridge

  90.777

  79.079

  *114.8

  Wirral

  112.100

  97.538

  *114.9

  Liverpool

  171.983

  149.121

  *115.3

  Bradford

  163.495

  141.116

  *115.9

  Dorset

  103.340

  89.119

  *116.0

  Bath & North East Somerset

  53.875

  46.432

  *116.0

  Blackburn with Darwen

  50.547

  43.203

  *117.0

  Bolton

  90.427

  77.285

  *117.0

  Hounslow

  83.880

  71.225

  *117.8

  Torbay

  37.585

  31.903

  *117.8

  Wolverhampton

  85.984

  72.543

  *118.5

  Tameside

  72.651

  60.799

  *119.5

  Hammersmith & Fulham

  45.732

  38.022

  *120.3

  Warwickshire

  149.502

  123.878

  *120.7

  Rochdale

  68.797

  56.997

  *120.7

  Hampshire

  363.305

  299.740

  *121.2

  Camden

  63.001

  51.934

  *121.3

  Dudley

  101.629

  83.298

  *122.0

  Havering

  81.688

  66.874

  *122.2

  Kensington and Chelsea

  30.942

  25.292

  *122.3

  Nottingham City

  88.378

  72.231

  *122.4

  Waltham Forest

  86.873

  70.832

  *122.6

  Birmingham

  415.080

  338.420

  *122.7

  Buckinghamshire

  141.691

  115.424

  *122.8

  Bexley

  78.400

  63.821

  *122.8

  Norfolk

  231.185

  183.873

  *125.7

  Portsmouth

  60.352

  47.889

  *126.0

  Bedfordshire

  129.678

  102.333

  *126.7

  Hertfordshire

  350.786

  270.356

  *126.7

  Enfield

  106.512

  82.059

  *129.8

  Cambridgeshire

  137.630

  105.589

  *130.3

  Southwark

  85.803

  65.726

  *130.5

  Derbyshire

  215.216

  163.700

  *131.5

  Surrey

  276.423

  208.275

  *132.7

  West Berkshire

  49.350

  36.867

  *133.9

  Northamptonshire

  213.487

  159.466

  *133.9

  Luton

  63.909

  47.728

  *133.9

  Walsall

  97.639

  71.928

  *135.7

  Ealing

  93.875

  69.052

  *135.9

  Telford and Wrekin

  51.793

  37.955

  *136.5

  Cumbria

  157.633

  112.415

  *140.2

  Milton Keynes

  68.376

  48.527

  *140.9

  Swindon

  56.479

  40.076

  *140.9

  Medway Towns

  91.713

  64.418

  *142.4

  Croydon

  106.012

  74.029

  *143.2

  Derby City

  70.233

  48.595

  *144.5

  Reading

  34.780

  23.978

  *145.0

  Kingston upon Thames

  43.316

  29.433

  *147.2

  Trafford

  72.001

  46.763

  *154.0

  415

  LEA name

  ISB 1999–2000 £ million

  ASB 1998–99 £ million

  ISB as percentage of ASB

  Bournemouth

  43.255

  27.842

  *155.4

  Peterborough City

  58.601

  37.525

  *156.2

  Lambeth

  77.169

  49.288

  *156.6

  Wandsworth

  74.366

  47.406

  *156.9

  Barnet

  115.046

  73.241

  *157.1

  Sutton

  61.955

  39.235

  *157.9

  Kent

  429.172

  270.191

  *158.8

  Lincolnshire

  196.988

  122.265

  *161.1

  Thurrock

  46.212

  28.654

  *161.3

  Wiltshire

  124.224

  74.784

  *166.1

  Poole

  40.069

  23.989

  *167.0

  Calderdale

  68.122

  39.423

  *172.8

  Slough

  42.493

  23.72

  *179.1

  Gloucestershire

  166.583

  92.539

  *180.0

  Brent

  95.060

  48.976

  *194.1

  Essex

  417.561

  212.747

  *196.3

  Hillingdon

  89.225

  41.565

  *214.7

  Southend-on-Sea

  57.732

  26.296

  *219.5

  Bromley

  96.139

  41.116

  *233.8

  Rutland

  10.278

  4.010

  *256.3

  England

  15,759.478

  12,965.534

  121.5

  *LEAs with grant-maintained schools

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the local education authorities which failed to meet the statutory deadlines(a) for notifying their fair-funding budget shares to schools and (b) for supplying to him details of their fair-funding schemes for 1999–2000, stating in each case the date by which the information was supplied. [89700]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Information on the notification of budget shares to schools is not collected centrally. All authorities' schemes for the financing of schools made under section 48 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 were approved by 31 March 1999.

  Learning Difficulties (Spending)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what was the amount of special needs provision(a) nationally and (b) in Gloucestershire in terms of children with (i) moderate learning difficulties, (ii) severe learning difficulties and (iii) emotional and behavioural difficulties, in the most recent year for which figures are available. [89744]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The latest available data drawn from Annual Schools' Census returns relates to January 1998. The number of children with a statement of special educational needs nationally is 242,294 and in Gloucestershire 2,539. Information is not collected centrally by type of special need.

  Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what measures he is taking to ensure that all public buildings and facilities comply with the standards set out in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. [89209]

  Ms Hodge
  The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 does not set specific standards for buildings or facilities. Rather, it requires employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.
  416
  The new duties on those who provide goods, facilities and services to the public to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people are coming into force on 1 October, although service providers will not be required to make physical adjustments to their premises until 2004. The October phase of implementation is being supported by a revised Code of Practice which was issued on 29 June. The Code gives guidance to service providers about their responsibilities under the Act and how to adopt good practice. A similar Code of Practice in respect of employers' duties under the Act was issued in 1996. In addition, other information for service providers and employers can be obtained from the DDA Helpline and more will become available as 1 October approaches.

  Whether a service provider or employer has fulfilled their duties under the DDA can only be determined when an individual pursues a claim through an Employment Tribunal or the Courts. However, we are currently taking legislation through Parliament to establish the Disability Rights Commission which will support disabled people in securing their rights under the Act and seek to ensure that employers and service providers who discriminate change their practices and procedures. The Commission will also work to promote good practice among service providers and employers, and be a central source of information and advice about the DDA.

  A campaign to raise awareness about the DDA, and disability in general, with employers and service providers, as well as the general public is currently underway. From 1 July, national newspaper advertisements have been alerting service providers to the new rights in respect of access to goods, facilities and services. Further newspaper and radio advertisements are planned for the autumn. The campaign will also be working with intermediaries such as the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce and the Local Government Association to ensure that all service providers, in both the public and private sector, are aware of the new rights and duties.

  Market Research
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the title and purpose of each item of market and opinion research commissioned by or through his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies since May 1997, stating in each case whether the results were published. [89699]

  Mr. Mudie
  Assembling this information will take a few days. I will write to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  New Deal (Lone Parents)
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in respect of the New Deal for Lone Parents, how many(a) participants have been invited to interview, (b) interviews have been booked, (c) interviews have been attended by participants and (d) jobs have been attained. [89706]

  Ms Hodge
  From April this year, the Government Statistical Service will be reporting independently on New Deal for Lone Parent (NDLP) results, and reports will be published on the first Thursday of every month.
  417
  The first report was published on 1 July, and for the period since the full national roll-out of the New Deal for Lone Parents' programme, i.e. from 26 October 1998 to 30 April 1999, the figures requested are:

  377,840 lone parents were sent an initial invitation letter.

  66,832 initial interviews were booked.

  57,500 lone parents attended an initial interview.

  11,200 lone parents obtained employment: these jobs are in addition to the 5,400 already helped into work during the earlier phases of the programme.

  Copies of the full report are available in the Library.

WALES

  Ancient Monuments (Disabled Access)
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what assessment he has made of the arrangement for disabled access to Skenfrith Castle in Monmouthshire; [89447]

  (2) what statutory responsibilities CADW has to ensure that ancient monuments in Wales are accessible to people with disabilities who need wheelchairs. [89446]

  Mr. Michael
  These are matters for the National Assembly for Wales.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Wal-Mart/Asda Merger
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will assess the effect on farm gate prices of purchasing policies following the proposed merger between Wal-Mart and Asda. [89258]

  Mr. Nick Brown
  The purchasing policies of individual supermarkets are primarily a matter for the businesses concerned. The Competition Commission is conducting a 12 month investigation of grocery retailing 418
  and will examine, as part of that review, the nature of the relationships between the multiples and their suppliers including agricultural producers.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to answer parliamentary question 81263, a holding answer for which was given on 19 April. [89743]

  Mr. Rooker
  I replied to the hon. Member on 20 April.

  Genetic Modification
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement outlining the extent to which the UK is permitted to impose restrictions on the growing of GM foods without the permission of the European Union. [88945]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 29 June 1999]: I have been asked to reply.

  The release into the environment and the marketing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are regulated by Council Directive 90/220/EEC. All such releases are carried out following a scientific assessment of risk carried out case-by-case on the basis of an environmental risk assessment. All authorisations for the experimental release of GMOs are issued by the UK authorities on the basis of this Directive. The UK authorities may impose specific conditions on any release, and may suspend a release where there is evidence of harm to human health or the environment.

  Consents to market GMO products (Part C consents under the Directive) are issued at Community level in order to secure the single market for these products. Notifications on the basis of the Directive are submitted through the competent authority of one member state and all other competent authorities may then comment upon the application. If there are differences between member states, the matter is resolved by qualified majority voting.

  Restrictions may always be imposed to take account of specific environmental conditions in member states, and the safeguard clause allows member states to suspend any release immediately if evidence emerges of harm to human health or the environment. This is subject to confirmation within three months at Community level.

TREASURY

  Working Families Tax Credit
  Mr. Maude
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the number of families earning more than(a) £20,000, (b) £25,000 and (c) £30,000 a year who will be eligible for the working families tax credit. [88906]

  Dawn Primarolo
  It is estimated that in 2000–01, the first full year of the Working Families Tax Credit, about 1.4 million families will be in receipt of the credit. About 100,000 families will have earnings over £20,000. The numbers of families in receipt of the credit with earnings over £25,000 and over £30,000 are so small that reliable estimates are not available.

  Scottish Widows
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many life insurance ISAs are accounted for by policies with Scottish Widows. [89353]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 2 July 1999]: None. We understand that Scottish Widows does not offer policies suitable for inclusion in life insurance ISAs.

  Financial Services Authority
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the terms of the contract of the head of the FSA. [R] [89329]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: The head of the FSA was appointed in 1997 for a five year fixed term, which expires on 31 July 2002. His salary and other benefits are set out in the Notes to the Accounts of the FSA' s Annual Report.

  Inland Revenue 35
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment has been made in the Government's Impact Assessment of the effects of the implementation of the IR35 proposals on small business failures. [89316]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: The National Insurance compliance implications for small businesses are set out in the Regulatory Impact Assessment of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill. The Government are continuing to consult with business representatives on the actual detail of the proposals. Those being consulted include small businesses and their representatives.

  Tax-free Savings
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will assess the benefits of (1) streamlining tax-free savings schemes by merging PEPs and ISAs; [R] [89324]

  (2) if he will assess the benefits of merging single company PEPs and general PEPs. [R] [89323]
  420
  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: In the light of responses to the initial public consultation on the shape of the ISA scheme, we concluded that existing PEPs at 5 April 1999 should continue, separately from ISAs, under the existing PEP rules. This decision reflects the wishes of a majority of respondents to the consultation and has been approved by Parliament.

  However, as my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell) made clear to the hon. Member during the Committee stage of last year's Finance Bill, 4 June 1998, Official Report, Standing Committee E, column 524, we will be keeping the position under review.

  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many investors have taken out life insurance ISAs; [R] [89325]

  (2) how many people have taken out (a) maxi and (b) mini ISAs and how many took out general and single company PEPs at the same stage in the financial year last year; [R] [89322]

  (3) what is the amount of money invested in cash ISAs to date as a proportion of overall investment in ISAs; [R] [89703]

  (4) what is the amount of money invested in life insurance ISAs to date as a proportion of overall investment in ISAs. [R] [89704]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 1 July 1999]: Over £4 billion were contributed to ISAs in the first two months after their introduction. This is twice the comparable figures for PEPs and TESSAs in the same period last year.

  Bank of England figures show over £3 billion saved in ISA cash accounts operated by banks and building societies and AUTIF figures show over £1 billion saved in ISAs investing in authorised unit trusts and OEICs in April and May. The available figures do not include ISA investment in other areas such as individual shares, or life insurance ISAs, so the full total will be higher.

  ISA managers are required to make a quarterly statistical return, which will identify subscriptions made to mini and maxi ISAs, and to individual components, on a quarterly basis. The first return is due to be received in August. The Inland Revenue will be publishing ISA statistics on a quarterly basis, starting later this year.

  Reliable comparisons with PEP take-up in earlier years cannot be made on a quarterly basis as statistical returns from PEP managers identify subscriptions only on an annual basis.

  Health and Education Spending
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the extra £40 billion allocated to health and education spending over the next three years in the 1999 Budget and the Comprehensive Spending Review, how much has been allocated to specific programmes; and if he will give a breakdown of how the allocated funds will be spent. [89528]
  421
  Mr. Milburn
  The allocation of health and education spending to specific programmes is set out in the following Departmental Reports listing the Government's Expenditure Plans for 1999–2000 to 2001–02: the Department for Education and Employment and Office for Standards in Educations (Cm 4202); the Department of Health (Cm 4203); the Scottish Office (Cm 4215); the Welsh Office (Cm 4216) and Northern Ireland (Cm 4217).

  Disabled Person's Tax Credit
  Mr. Rendel
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the annual cost of the disabled person's tax credit is estimated to be in 2010. [89874]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I regret that it is not possible to provide a reliable estimate of the cost of the Disabled Person's Tax Credit in 2010.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends to reply to the letters to him dated 5 March, 15 April and 27 May with regard to Mrs. M. Wilson from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. [89958]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Chancellor has written to my right hon. Friend.

  Death Totals
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the statistical significance of the fluctuations in death totals in the past three years measured over the previous 52 weeks published in ONS (99) 224. [89648]

  Ms Hewitt
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Peter Bottomley, dated 5 July 1999:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent parliamentary question asking what assessment has been made of the statistical significance of the fluctuations in death registration totals in the past three years measured over the previous 52 weeks published in News Release ONS (99) 224.
  Fluctuations in annual death totals are primarily related to mortality in the winter months. Deaths from all causes increase during the winter but the magnitude of this increase varies considerably from year to year, depending on, for example, temperature and the incidence of influenza.
  There was a sharp peak in mortality in the 1996/7 winter. This was described and statistically analysed in the ONS publication, Population Trends No. 90, Winter 1997–Mortality during the 1996/7 Winter, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons library.
  In the first part of January 1999 there was a higher than expected winter influenza activity. Such activity is known to lead to an increase in respiratory disease deaths generally, not just influenza deaths. This is reflected in the date presented in News Release ONS (99) 224.
  The increase in winter mortality for 1997/8 was less pronounced than for the winters before and after.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Statutory Instruments
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what percentage of statutory instruments introduced by his Department into Parliament in(a) 1998, (b) 1992, (c) 1985 and (d) 1973 had the European Union as their legislative source. [89173]

  Mr. Vaz
  Of statutory instruments (SIs) introduced by my Department in 1998, 1992, 1985 and 1973, one in 1985 included amendments to rules of court resulting from legislation implementing the Brussels Convention. Otherwise, no SIs were made by my Department in the specified years to comply with European Community obligations.

  Justices of the Peace
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many women from ethnic communities are justices of the peace serving in courts in the Greater London area; what were the figures in(a) 1990 and (b) 1995; and if he will make a statement. [89176]

  Mr. Hoon
  I cannot give my hon. Friend the information he seeks for 1990 and 1995 because this information was not collected. In July 1998, my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor issued revised Directions to Advisory Committees requiring, among other things, that they keep information about the gender and ethnicity of magistrates. The first full set of figures will be available in January 2000. The latest figures available (which draw partly on a survey in May 1997) show that there are 199 women from the ethnic minorities serving as justices of the peace in Greater London.

  "Who Decides?"
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he proposes to publish the results of his consultation on the Green Paper "Who Decides?", published on 10 September 1997. [89179]

  Mr. Vaz
  The Government published the consultation paper "Who Decides?" in December 1997 about the recommendations of the Law Commission on decision-making for mentally incapacitated adults. We wish to give very careful consideration to all the issues involved before deciding the way forward. No decisions have yet been taken on whether there should be legislation and, if so, when it should be introduced.

  Market Research
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the title and purpose of each item of market and opinion research commissioned by or through his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies since May 1997, stating in each case whether the results were published. [89695]
  423
  Mr. Vaz
  The information is shown in the table.

  Market and opinion research commissioned by Lord Chancellor's Departments, agencies and NDPBs since May 1997

  Title

  Purpose

  Commissioned by

  Publication

  Applying to become a magistrate: Expanding the socio-demographic base of applicants, COI

  To inform the development of a communications strategy that would attract a broader base of applicants to the magistracy from all sections of the community.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Not published

  Provision of Information Meetings: market research findings, KPMG

  To assess potential interest in the private sector in the provision of information meetings under Part II of the Family Law Act 1996.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Not published

  Monitoring the rise in the small claims limit: litigants' experiences of different forms of adjudication, Professor John Baldwin

  To support research into the effect of the rise in the small claims limit.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Published

  Investors in People

  To obtain staff views on matters relating to IiP in order to determine whether the Department met the standards required for IiP accreditation.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  The results were made available to staff.

  Staff Attitude Survey

  To obtain staff views on aspects of their employment in order to ascertain where improvements to systems, procedures and practices are required.

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Survey in progress. The results will be made available to staff.

  The Court Service Investors in People Project—Staff opinion survey 1998, British Market Research Bureau

  To obtain staff views on matters relating to IiP in order to determine whether the Department met the standards required for IiP accreditation.

  Court Service

  The results were made available to staff.

  Staff opinion survey 1999, British Market research Bureau

  To find out staff views on the areas of training and development; communication and appraisal.

  Court Service

  Survey in progress. The results will be made available to staff.

  ONS Omnibus module: non-Franchising: Post Campaign Study, MORI

  Research into public perceptions of what damages for non-pecuniary loss in personal injury cases should be. The purpose was to assist in the preparation of report on Damages for Personal Injury: Non Pecuniary loss. ((1999) Law Comm. 257)

  Law Commission

  Published

  Tracking Public Opinion on Legal Aid Franchising: Post Campaign Study, MORI

  A number of questions were placed on the MORI omnibus poll to gauge public awareness of legal aid in general, and franchising in particular.

  Legal Aid Board

  Published

  Survey on divorce (commissioned by Office of Law Reform)

  Contribution towards a survey of public opinion on divorce law and experiences in Northern Ireland.

  Northern Ireland Court Service

  Not published

  Annual Customer Surveys

  To provide independent verification of customers' satisfaction with the delivery of services and identify areas for improvement.

  HM Land Registry

  Published

  424

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ely.

Railtrack: Performance
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are disappointed with Railtrack's performance, as highlighted by the rail regulator, in relation both to increasing capacity on the west coast main line and in meeting agreed targets for reductions in delays.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty): My Lords, better punctuality and more capacity are both fundamental to the high-quality, high-growth railway that we want to create. Railtrack clearly needs to do more to meet its obligations. We shall look to the new regulator, Tom Winsor, who takes up his post today, to ensure that it does so.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. It is a matter of satisfaction to many people that the new rail regulator has described himself as determined to ensure that things go better in the future than they have done in the past. Nevertheless, it must be a matter of grave concern to the Government that in this country we are renewing our track about half as quickly as other major European countries; that Alastair Morton, who is the Chairman of the shadow rail authority, has described the investment plans of British Rail as a sham because so much of it is really maintenance money; and, finally, that there is now a wide assumption that the west coast main line upgrade will not make available the extra capacity for slower passenger and freight pathways which were originally promised.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, in so far as that was a question, Railtrack's position is clearly not up to scratch. It is certainly an issue which the new rail regulator must address. However, it is true that Railtrack has managed to double the level of investment. The jury is still out as to whether that has met the requirements of the operators and the Government, even in the short term. Clearly, we shall have to make a judgment on the totality of Railtrack's proposals in the medium term. We hope that the combination of a sharper rail regulator—I have every confidence in him—and the way in which Railtrack is now involved in improving performance, along with the operators and the Government, will lead to a significant improvement in that performance over a relatively short period of years.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the noble Baroness's Question is extremely appropriate? I travel regularly from Birmingham New Street to Euston. This morning, there was not a train out of Birmingham New Street until eight o'clock because Railtrack is undertaking engineering works at Coventry. By how much is Railtrack subsidised by the Government and how does that compare with pre-privatisation subsidies?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, Railtrack is not subsidised directly by the Government. Government subsidies are paid to the operators and the operators pay access charges to Railtrack. The question of whether a direct subsidy should be paid to Railtrack will be addressed by the strategic rail authority when it comes into being. As the House will know, the Deputy Prime Minister indicated that he intends very shortly to introduce a railways Bill in another place.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the regulator has the power to fine Railtrack up to 10 per cent of its annual turnover if it fails to deliver? Will he confirm also that, as that money goes to the Treasury, it does not help reinvestment in the railway network? Will he ensure that included in that new railways legislation is a provision that the money is reinvested in the railways?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the provision to be able to fine Railtrack up to 10 per cent relates to competition legislation, not all of which is in place. But those regulations will allow the regulator to do as my noble friend says. The question of hypothecation of that revenue will no doubt be a matter for interesting discussion among Ministers. I note the point which my noble friend makes.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, the railways were nationalised because under private ownership they could not be run at all satisfactorily in the national interest. Bearing that in mind, does my noble friend agree that the new railways legislation to be introduced should include the option of renationalisation if it is demonstrated again that the private sector cannot run the railways?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, it is our aim to make the current structure of the railways work, difficult though it has proved in view of the structure we inherited and the inadequate regulatory powers. We believe that the combination of an effective regulator and the new powers which we intend to introduce for the strategic rail authority, through the Bill, will give us the power to make that system work.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, in connection with delays, if a train is recorded as having arrived on time, does that mean it has arrived spot on or is it allowed a few minutes' delay? That seems to happen to my train most mornings.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I believe that a delay IA a few minutes is allowed, but I should need to write to

577
the noble Lord to give him a precise Answer. If the operator's performance has been 90-plus per cent, I can assure the noble Lord that the delay will not have been significant. We are looking for that level of performance; but it has yet to be met in all parts of the railway network. That is due in part to the railway operators and in part to the inadequate infrastructure.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, no man can have two masters. With its involvement in the Tube system, will Railtrack work under two regulatory regimes with conflicting interests? If Railtrack's performance leaves so much to be desired, why involve it in the Tube system?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, although in many respects Railtrack has poor management and poor project performance, it has much expertise. There are considerable advantages in integrating the overground network with the sub-surface London Tube network. If we succeed in reaching an agreement with Railtrack in relation to that which is not yet delivered, there will be considerable benefits to the travelling public. Railtrack would be operating under a contract to London Underground, whereas the rest of the rail network operates under regulations.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the line from London to Anglesey has improved a great deal? Is he also aware that when I travelled on the nine o'clock train the other day I had a splendid breakfast for nothing?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am so gratified that my noble friend had that experience and that there has been some improvement on that line. I am sure that the House will register its appreciation that he has brought that to our attention.

Women's Issues: Consultation
2.45 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe Baroness Seccombe asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why no women's organisations were consulted over the decision to legalise buggery with girls under 18, and whether this is consistent with the declared policy in the document Better for Women, Better for All—Listening to Women of consulting women on all matters of concern to them.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn wrote to the noble Baroness on 7th June explaining the context and scope of the Home Office consultation on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill. A copy of that letter was placed in the Library. The Listening to Women forums, which have been taking place in the last few months, are not relevant to that consultation by the Home Office.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the vast majority of people in the country
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have no idea that the legislation proposed in the Bill presented to the House and rejected by your Lordships had any effect on young girls of the ages of 16 to 18? Since we last spoke about this subject, I have spoken to many people and I have been unable to find one person who knew that girls were implicated in any way in the provisions of the Bill. Does the Minister agree that it is an absolute duty of any government to alert major institutions—in this case women's organisations—as well as the general public of such a change of great importance? The Government pride themselves on communicative and consultative skills. Will the Minister ensure that there will be a wide-ranging and a country-wide debate before the Labour Government brings forward a similar Bill to promote a way of life that is unnatural, dangerous and physically harmful to girls of that age?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I disagree with about three of the premises of the noble Baroness in that extensive question. In answer to her point that all people in the country think one thing or another, the Government have clearly set out consultative arrangements for consulting women's organisations. We have the Women's National Commission. As I mentioned in answer to her first Question, we have been undertaking a series of forums around the country. Twelve regional meetings have been held on the subject. Subsequently, 25,000 postcards have been received by the Women's Unit. On no occasion has that particular issue been raised. I respectfully point out to the noble Baroness that it was made clear in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill that there was a distinction between homosexual acts and buggery and that the explicit nature of the distinction between the relationship of gender was made clear in that way.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that while there was evidence of pressure from certain quarters to lower the age for consensual buggery for boys to the age of 16, there was little evidence—perhaps no evidence at all—that there was pressure to reduce the age comparably for girls to 16?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I thought I had made it clear in my Answer, but perhaps I was not sufficiently explicit. It was made absolutely clear on the face of the Bill and in the Explanatory Notes that if one seeks to achieve equality before the law on sexual behaviour in this way, that equality will include both genders.
On the other point raised by the noble Lord, he will be well aware, as my noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn has reported this on the many occasions that the subject has been debated in your Lordships' House, that a large number of organisations concerned with the sexual health of young people supported this measure.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind the point that the Minister has made—I understand that she regards this matter as important—can she consider

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giving a report to the House from time to time on what progress she has made and what assistance she may require from other noble Lords?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that suggestion. The Listening to Women forums that we have undertaken are ongoing. My noble friend may be interested to know that the last one is due to take place in Cardiff later this month. I shall be happy to give any reports to the House on the consultative procedures that we undertake.
Baroness Young: My Lords, will the noble Baroness reconsider her earlier answers to my noble friend Lady Seccombe? She did not address the issue as to whether or not women's organisations were consulted on this. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, made it perfectly plain in his helpful letter that no women's organisations were consulted. If I understood the Minister correctly—I read the document to which reference was made—women's organisations were not consulted at all. The question is: how will women know that this change in the law is to take place? Most women do not read Hansard or follow the intricacies of legislation.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I can only repeat what I said before. My noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn—as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, pointed out—made clear in his letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, that the part of the Bill on which consultation took place was that part relating to abuse of trust and not to the age of consent. The age of consent was an issue raised under an ECHR obligation on the Government. It was not put to either House of Parliament as an issue of government policy; it was put as a free vote and was therefore considered in that way.
I can only say to the noble Baroness that, as she would expect, I am very much involved through the Women's National Commission and other women's organisations with the opinion of women. In none of those organisations, nor in this sensitive, nationwide consultation which we have just finished, was that issue raised at all.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, will women's organisations be consulted before any similar Bill is introduced into this House?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, that will be a question for the Home Office.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that this is not so much a matter of women's rights as a matter of public health? Does she agree also that anal sex, whether undertaken heterosexually or homosexually, gives rise to a much higher risk of infection and damage? Also, a young man or boy involved in such a case, if it is heterosexual
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intercourse, is also at risk. Are not the Government concerned about the health of young men as well as young women?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, of course. I understand from my noble friend Lord Williams of Mostyn that the Home Office has been in close consultation with the Department of Health on this subject, as I would expect. The noble Lord and other Members of the House may be interested to know that the last time in which the sexual offences issue was considered formally was by the previous government in 1984. The recommendation produced to Parliament by the Home Secretary of that time was,
"Most of us are of the opinion that girls do not need the protection of criminal law against anal intercourse once they have reached the age of 16".
It has obviously been a consistent position for some time.

Kosovo: Reconstruction Opportunities
2.52 p.m.
Viscount Falkland Viscount Falkland asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps are being taken to ensure that British enterprise plays an effective role in the reconstruction of Kosovo.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, at the initiative of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, a joint government/private sector taskforce has been set up to promote and co-ordinate the UK's response to the reconstruction work arising in Kosovo. All the private sector members of the taskforce are aware that they are on it as representatives of the UK business community generally, not of their own companies.
The taskforce has already met twice and a website at www.dti.gov.uk/ots/kosovo has been established. My colleague, Energy and Industry Minister John Battle, led a group of six businessmen to Kosovo on 28th and 29th June to assess the initial reconstruction opportunities. He hosted a post-visit conference on 1st July so the findings of the business mission could be disseminated more widely to UK companies.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that full and helpful Answer. Does he agree that what has to date been an Anglo-American campaign has now changed to what is de facto a European protectorate? One feature of that is that British names are not to the fore as perhaps they were during the campaign. The admirable Dr. Kouchner takes over as the United Nations representative and we are likely to see General Jackson replaced by a German general. In those circumstances, how optimistic is the noble Lord that the criteria and the judgments needed to decide who does

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what in this massive reconstruction programme and what companies will be involved will give the British a fair crack at the whip?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know that it is proper to draw an analogy between those who took part in the air campaign—after all, 19 countries took part in that campaign—and the opportunities for reconstruction work. This country can do what it has been doing; that is, ensuring that British companies are fully informed of the opportunities; that those who are commissioning work—the European Commission set up a reconstruction agency in Pristina to deal with European Union and World Bank aid—are fully aware of what British companies can provide. I do not accept the analogy of the noble Viscount.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, will HMG be encouraging all British enterprises and the taskforce that the Minister mentioned to co-operate with the relevant Balkan businesses by contracting out locally in the countries that not only were badly affected by the war but were also extremely supportive of the NATO cause? I refer to countries like Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the original Question concerned Kosovo and that was the Question I answered. It is well recognised that there will be reconstruction needs and therefore opportunities in other parts of the Balkans, including ultimately in Serbia and Montenegro, though that depends on political decisions which have yet to be taken. But the answer to the noble Baroness is that we aim to take an active part in reconstruction, not only in Kosovo, but also in the other Balkan countries.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, bearing in mind the international reputation of British civil engineers in bridge building, will my noble friend advise the House that the Government will take all the action they can to ensure that British civil engineering firms win the contracts to rebuild the bridges over the Danube?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the civil engineering industry is well represented on the taskforce. The membership of the taskforce was chosen by Nigel Thompson of Ove Arup who is the chairman of the taskforce. It includes a number of civil engineering companies. The priorities for the business mission which took place last week were supply contracts, project and facilities management and consultancy. The most urgent work appears to be in restoring the power and water supply systems.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I understand a French civil/military taskforce reached Kosovo before the formal end of the war? Our own taskforce may therefore need to develop a sense of urgency. Also, can the Minister say something about the involvement of the voluntary
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sector, particularly given the important part it can play in education in citizenship and building democratic institutions in that country?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know that we are competing entirely on dates, but the taskforce to which I referred was set up before the end of the air conflict. The noble Baroness is right that we have to involve the voluntary sector, NGOs and the DfID field office in Pristina, which is particularly concerned with relief for refugees. As regards emergency relief, it is working through NGOs.
I should also have said to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, that when it comes to housing, school and civil construction work, it is anticipated that a great deal of the work will be done by local resources.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, will my noble friend go a little further and say how this essential aid is to be financed? Unless we obtain a comprehensive statement in that regard, we will find ever greater expectations that the European Union budget will pick up the cost and the people who pay for it are the accession countries which we are all seeking to welcome into the European Union.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Yes, my Lords. There will, of course, have to be continuing and ongoing discussions about financing. That is why the reconstruction agency is bringing together the work of the European Union and the World Bank, which is responsible for aid for refugee housing and jobs. It should not be assumed that all of the money will come from the EU budget.

The Asian Community in England
2.59 p.m.
Lord Paul Lord Paul asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the current state of relations within the Asian community in England.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, relations within the Asian community in England are excellent. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary received a delegation of South Asian High Commissioners on 10th June. They praised the Government, the police and the community for their efforts in the wake of the recent bombings. They also reassured the Home Secretary that, whatever difficulties might arise between their own countries, they are determined to ensure that communities here live in peace and harmony.
Lord Paul: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. I should like to say that the Asian community in Britain—that is, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and others—live in great friendship and harmony. They are law-abiding citizens and are very proud of being British and good citizens of this country. Although they may sometimes fail the "Tebbit test" when supporting the cricket teams from their countries of origin, they pass the test of good citizenship. This was evident at the India v Pakistan World Cup Cricket

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match at Old Trafford and the final contest at Lord's where, despite predictions of disorder, the behaviour of the community was exemplary. Can my noble friend tell me whether Her Majesty's Government have commended this good behaviour?
However, attempts are made by various groups from the sub-continent to export their domestic politics to the south-east Asian community in Britain with, it would appear, the intention of causing unnecessary discord. Can my noble friend confirm that Her Majesty's Government rigorously discourage such action?
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comments. I note his support for the cricket teams and their recent activities. I believe that many people were very surprised at the harmonious way that certain teams competed; and, certainly, at the support that was given by various individuals. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister attended a Muslim Council of Britain reception, and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary also spoke at a special lunch which it organised last December. Both my right honourable friends attended recent celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Sikh Khalsa in London and Birmingham. My right honourable friends applauded the vital contributions made by the Moslem and Sikh communities to our multi-cultural nation. They honoured their traditions based on shared values of tolerance, decency and justice.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Government will do everything possible to make clear to the media that most Moslems and Hindus in this country—and, for that matter, in the rest of the world—are not extremists or fundamentalists but people who share most of the beliefs of those of us who are Christians? Incidentally, this was confirmed for myself and for some other noble Lords this morning at a memorial service in St. Paul's when a passage from the holy Koran was read.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I agree with what he said. Indeed, I believe that most fair-minded people in Britain would also agree with his remarks. The Government's proposals for new UK-wide counter-terrorist legislation, published in a consultation document on 17th December, proposed a new definition which would enable serious violence by so-called "domestic" terrorist groups to be treated as terrorism. These are areas and aspects that I think we all agree need to be tackled in the future. I am sure that this Government, like any fair-minded government, will wish to tackle these issues and aspects in as positive a fashion as possible.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I welcome the Question tabled by the noble, Lord, Lord Paul. Although I agree with much of the sentiment he expressed, I cannot support him on the cricket because I support England. However, is the Minister aware of the concern of the Asian community in this country about the recent events in Kashmir? Is he also aware that ethnic minority
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newspapers report such news in a substantial manner? Therefore, when debates are held in your Lordships' House would it not be appropriate for him to take this into account and ensure that great care is exercised so as not to destabilise the situation among the Asian community, especially as regards exaggerated claims?
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the point he has made. I know how difficult it is for each of us to deal with issues concerning countries abroad, especially the circumstances surrounding Kashmir. This Government have been totally even-handed in their approach. That will be the position that they will pursue in the future.
Baroness Uddin: My Lords, notwithstanding the very good practices of this House, can my noble friend the Minister explain what is being done by the Government to encourage more women, especially Asian women, into playing prominent roles in public life?
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her question. I should like to make it clear that young Asian women in Britain today are excelling in education, both at school and at university, and, indeed, in business and in professional life. However, we recognise that it can be hard for maturing Asian women to access the opportunities for a fulfilling career or participation in public life. We would welcome any ideas that my noble friend, or any noble Lords, may have on this particular issue for consideration in the future.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister comment on what success is being achieved in recruiting more police officers from the Asian community than has been the case in the past? This is clearly an issue which needs desperately to be tackled.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, as far as concerns this Government, attracting able young people from ethnic minorities into public services is a priority. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is setting targets for the Home Office and all its services to ensure that they visibly represent the communities that they serve. Some of the services, like the police and the Prison Service, are predominantly white, male institutions. So we are keen to see more women entering the service; and, indeed, more people from the ethnic groups. I believe that, only today, the Home Secretary issued a statement on this issue.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 4.15 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in another place on Northern Ireland.

Protection of Children Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Greater London Authority Bill
3.8 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Whiny.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 186 [Duty of the PPP arbiter]:
[Amendments Nos. 282 and 283 not moved.]
Clause 186 agreed to.
Clause 187 agreed to.
Clause 188 [Provision of information to the PPP arbiter]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 283A and 283B:
Page 100, line 32, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
("(c) any person who has entered into arrangements falling within section 172(2)(6) above.").
Page 100, line 36, leave out from ("to") to ("in") in line 37 and insert ("answer any question or produce any document which he would be entitled to refuse to answer or produce").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 188, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 189 to 191 agreed to.
Clause 192 [Interpretation of this Chapter]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 283C:
Page 102, line 1, at end insert—
(""PPP arbiter" shall be construed in accordance with section 181(1) above;").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 192, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes moved Amendment No. 284:
Before Clause 193, insert the following new clause—
(" . No agreement made under section 193 shall reduce provisions for concessionary fares that exist on the day before this Act comes into force.").
The noble Baroness said: This is a simple amendment to ensure that the present concessionary fares system for people aged 60 or over living in London continues. I was in this Chamber when the issue of concessionary fares was debated some years ago. At that time the Government were defeated by an amendment brought forward by Lord Pitt of Hampstead. The original scheme was to start at 9.30 in the morning and cease at four in the afternoon. Lord Pitt moved an amendment to make
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the scheme operate from nine in the morning with no interruption. As I said, the Chamber thought that made sense and accepted the amendment.
Afterwards Lord Avon, who was dealing with the Bill on behalf of the government, told me that he was about to have a meeting with the then Secretary of State, Nicholas Ridley. He asked me whether I thought that the original scheme should be reinstated. I felt strongly that the new scheme should not be abandoned merely on grounds of political expediency as the Chamber had debated the matter and had decided that the new scheme was worth while. I was fortunate enough to persuade Lord Avon of the validity of my argument. He in turn persuaded the Secretary of State not to overturn the amendment. The people of London have benefited greatly from that decision. One of my main reasons for supporting the amendment was that I was on the GLC at the time and I received many letters of complaint from people who had missed the four o'clock bus because it had not turned up and at that time they had to wait until seven o'clock for the concessionary fare. London Transport was always refunding fares to people because the relevant pre-four o'clock bus had not turned up.
The scheme, which has now been in operation for many years, has worked marvellously well. However, I believe that nothing that is done in the future should damage the present scheme. To alter the start time of the scheme would make a big difference to people's lives. By nine o'clock those who are going to work have gone and the rush hour traffic is over. This scheme does not inconvenience rush hour travellers. I know that for years a group of people known as the "twirlies- have used the buses. These people get on a bus at five minutes to nine. They wave their passes at the inspector. When he tells them it is not yet nine o'clock, they reply, "Am I twirlie?"; that is, "Am I too early?" There are still a few such "twirlies", but whatever time the scheme started I am sure there would still be such people. Of course, on Saturdays and Sundays there are no time limits on the scheme. This amendment asks the Government to ensure that this concessionary scheme, which has huge social benefits for the people of London and keeps them mobile, should continue. It reduces social services costs in terms of employing home helps and people to help with shopping. I ask the Minister to assure us that the scheme will continue. I beg to move.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I shall speak briefly to my Amendment No. 285 which is in the group we are discussing. In our view the way the Bill is drafted leaves open to doubt whether the travel concessionary scheme would continue as at present. Clause 193(1) states that any local authority "may enter into arrangements". Our amendment obliges Transport for London to make arrangements with the London authorities,
"within six months of the establishment of Transport for London".
The amendment provides that these popular travel concessions which are so valuable for a number of groups, including the old, the blind and the disabled should continue on a compulsory basis. I support my noble friend's amendment.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord who have spoken for agreeing to group their amendments with the Government's amendments as it is sensible to have an overall debate on the future of the concessionary scheme. The Government's amendments should clarify the position.
This Bill essentially provides for continuation of powers which have been in existence since 1984, which may be the period mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. The amendments that the Government are bringing forward essentially update and improve the operation of the current arrangements to the benefit of both users and local authorities. They bring the times of operation of the free travel scheme into line with the times of the scheme that the local authorities currently agree voluntarily. They clarify the costs of the free travel scheme and they give the local authorities powers to set up a statutory joint committee to take decisions on concessionary fares on the basis of qualified majority voting. These amendments have been drafted in accordance with the principle that at the end of the day concessionary fares are a matter for local discretion.
Government Amendments Nos. 286A and 286B are purely technical in nature. Amendment No. 286B relates to penalty fares but is being taken here because it is similar in effect to Amendment No. 286A. Amendment No. 286A ensures that it will be possible for the London local authorities to offer travel concessions on services provided under an agreement with London Transport under statutory powers contained in the London Regional Transport Act 1984, after the relevant sections of that Act are repealed. Amendment No. 287B ensures that the penalty fares schemes currently in operation by the Docklands Light Railway under that franchise will be able to continue. This is already the case for LT services.
Amendment No. 286AA is more substantial. It gives the London local authorities the option of exercising their power under Clause 193 to enter into concessionary travel arrangements with TfL and train operators through a joint committee to which special provisions apply. Decisions of the joint committee would have to be unanimous, unless the authorities themselves had already unanimously decided that all decisions or decisions on particular matters could be taken by a specified majority of the members. The majority so specified could not be less than two-thirds.
These powers, if the London authorities choose to make use of them, could make their decision-making on concessionary fares much more secure. They avoid the risk, inherent in a process which requires the unanimous agreement of all 33 local authorities at every stage, that travel concessions for London's elderly and disabled residents cannot be agreed because one local authority fails to signal its agreement in time. The powers in this amendment will be available to the London local authorities only if 'hey choose to use them. It would not in my submission be right for the Government to seek to impose the joint committee arrangements on the London local authorities.
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Amendments Nos. 286B, 286C and 286D change the times of operation of the statutory reserve scheme, bringing them into line with those currently in the voluntary scheme. In the event of the London local authorities failing to agree a satisfactory scheme, TfL will be obliged to put a scheme in place which will provide free travel concessions on all services under its control. TfL would recover the cost of the free travel scheme from the London local authorities. The statutory reserve scheme has never been activated but its presence has always been a reassurance to London's elderly and disabled residents that the travel concessions they rely on will not be taken away. These amendments will reassure users of the scheme that if the free travel scheme is ever activated they will be able to use their travel permits at the same time as they currently do.
Amendments Nos. 286E and 286F require TfL to take into account the costs of travel concessions in previous years when calculating how much the boroughs would pay for the free travel scheme. TfL is also required to take into account fare changes and changes in the information available to it for calculating the costs. In the event of the London local authorities failing to agree a satisfactory scheme, TfL will be obliged to put a scheme in place which will provide free travel concessions on all services under its control. TfL would then recover the cost of the free travel scheme from the London local authorities. I hope that explains the slightly complex, interlocking government amendments.
Perhaps I may now make a few points on the other amendments before us. Amendment No. 284, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, seeks to impose a particular level of concessionary fares provision on the local authorities. The local authorities in London currently choose to fund free travel concessions for their eligible residents on London Transport services, Docklands Light Railway and the railway services. They have provided such concessions for many years and I have no reason to believe that any of the boroughs have plans to change that. Nevertheless, to follow completely the noble Baroness's amendment would mean the Government seeking to interfere with the local boroughs' discretion by prescribing the concessions that they must provide. It is right that the boroughs themselves should make such decisions and be accountable for them. The Government believe that that should remain the position, while recognising the powers that we propose to bring forward in our amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, indicated that the main point of Amendment No. 285 was to require boroughs to enter into agreement rather than that they "may" enter into agreement. The drafting of the Bill follows that of the 1984 Act, which is the basis of the present scheme. That Act also said "may". At the end of the day, for reasons similar to those I have set out, it is for the boroughs to agree the scheme. If the boroughs do not agree, then the reserve scheme comes into play; that will still guarantee concessionary travel. However, in the first instance, it should be a permissive power for the boroughs themselves, hopefully, to agree a scheme. Bearing in mind those reserve powers, I do not think the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon—

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which seeks to turn "may" into "must"—is appropriate. I would therefore ask the noble Lord and the noble Baroness to withdraw their amendments.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: Before the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, tells us what she proposes to do with her amendment, perhaps I may welcome some of the government amendments, in particular the change of period in Schedule 12 from what it was to, in effect, 9 a.m. until 4.30 the following morning. That satisfies many concerns about the concessionary schemes. After all, quite a lot of people will be able to use them go to work; previously it was difficult for them to go to work at all on a concessionary ticket.
We also welcome Amendment No. 286AA and the arrangements for the joint working of the London authorities in relation to the setting up of the schemes. The reserve scheme will be at least as good as the existing scheme and not, as it has been in the past, slightly less good. One can unreservedly welcome the government amendments.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: The noble Lord asked me whether I would withdraw my amendment; I have not yet moved it. However, I am grateful to him for his explanation. I shall read what he said, but I think I am satisfied that my amendment is not necessary at this stage. I join with the noble Baroness in welcoming the government amendments.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I am delighted by the Minister's explanation. My one objection to Schedule 12 concerned the hours set out there because the fallback scheme was just not good enough. The amendments have changed the fallback scheme and have answered our concern. This carries on the marvellous work done by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, many years ago. I am delighted that it is no longer necessary to move my amendment. It is appropriate that the boroughs should take the first decision and that the matter should be in their control. However, the fallback scheme is very important in case some of the boroughs fail to meet what we hope they will achieve. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 193 [Travel Concessions on journeys in and around Greater London]:
[Amendment No. 285 not moved.]
Baroness Darcy de Knayth Baroness Darcy de Knayth moved Amendment No. 286:
Page 103, line 32, at end insert—

("(5A) Each local authority shall, in consultation with organisations of disabled people, make and keep under review criteria as to what constitutes a disability or injury which seriously impairs a person's ability to walk, having regard to any guidance issued by a joint authority established to run the concessionary fare scheme.

(5B) All criteria and guidance under subsection (5A) above shall be made available to the public.").

The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 286, which stands in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, and myself. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, regrets that he cannot be here today. He is setting up a telemedical link between Bangladesh and hospitals in this country. Noble Lords may consider that that matter is every bit as important—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is impressed—and perhaps even more exciting than taking part in the debates on the Bill.
Amendment No. 286 seeks to reduce the wide variations which exist at present in the criteria used by different boroughs to determine eligibility for the disabled person's freedom pass. Many boroughs say that a disabled person who is an orange badge holder is not eligible for the disabled person's freedom pass. I am told that that stance is illegal. A disabled person's eligibility for a disabled person's freedom pass should not depend upon in which borough he or she happens to live.
The London Accessible Transport Alliance, which has been mentioned before in Committee, is formed of groups of older and disabled people who are all door-to-door transport users, including the Greater London Action on Disability. I should declare I am a patron of GLAD. Perhaps if I declare that once today I need not do so again, otherwise the Committee may be bored rigid during the course of the evening.
The London Accessible Transport Alliance believes that the boroughs should frame their local eligibility criteria for the disabled person's freedom pass in the light of guidance issued by the joint authority running the scheme London-wide and that organisations of older and disabled people should be consulted in the preparation of the guidance. Amendment No. 286ZA, standing in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, omits the requirement to consult disabled people and their organisations. I do not know whether they feel that that is unnecessary because the matter is covered elsewhere or because they feel it is undesirable. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and her colleagues have to say, and to the Minister's reply.
Lady Thomas of Walliswood: We support the amendment. Amendment No. 286ZA seeks to do the same thing in a slightly different way. I accept that the consultation element may well be desirable. At present I think it is more important to press the principle involved. In our last debate in Committee a number of issues affecting people with mobility disabilities of one kind or another were raised. At that time, the question was raised—I cannot remember by whom—of how one determines who is disabled and who is not. These amendments attempt to answer that question. Perhaps the Government can say how that question is answered in the legislation before us. It is obviously important that the determination of who is to receive concessionary travel is perceived to be fair, both by people who have disabilities and impairments of one kind or another and by others. I do not need to bore your Lordships with the whole question of

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special tags for cars and how irritating that can be. That was also mentioned during the course of our debates in Committee. Can the Minister say how the question of defining criteria is resolved at the present time and in the Bill?
3.30 p.m.
Lord Morris of Manchester: I welcome this further opportunity to debate the problems and needs of disabled people with severe mobility handicaps. In doing so, I am again most grateful to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, for having tabled his amendment in close rapport with Greater London Action on Disability of which, as my noble friend the Minister knows, I am, like the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, a patron. I am most grateful also to her for moving Amendment No. 286. As she said, its purpose is to reduce the wide variation that now exists in the criteria that different London boroughs use to determine eligibility for the disabled person's freedom pass.
For my part, I do not believe that a disabled person's eligibility for a freedom pass should depend on which borough he or she happens to live in. I believe that boroughs should frame their local eligibility criteria for the pass in the light of guidance issued by the joint authority running the scheme London-wide.
I believe also that organisations for disabled and older people should be consulted in the preparation of the guidance. I do so on the basis of the recent experience of organisations of and for disabled people of contacting 18 London boroughs and asking for the criteria they operate when determining eligibility for the disabled person's freedom pass. A number were unco-operative. The City of London Corporation required prior permission from the Lord Mayor's office.
Amendment No 286 is important to disabled people and their organisations. I know that my noble friend the Minister will want to reply to it as helpfully as he can. Meanwhile I am most grateful to him for his letter to me of 5th July, which I received by hand during this debate, about the amendments I moved earlier in Committee on exempting disabled people from road user and workplace parking charges. My noble friend informs me:
"The Government will endeavour to agree the structure of concessionary arrangements for disabled persons in local authority schemes in time for them to be included in the GLA Bill at Lords Report".
That is a most welcome response to my amendments. When I moved them, I said that I knew my noble friend's reply would be a positive one. He has been as good as his word in promising carefully to consider the case I argued and I am sure that Members in all parts of the Committee who have taken part in our debates on the problems and needs of disabled Londoners will honour him for his reply.
Lord Whitty: I am deeply grateful for my noble friend's response. I had not realised that my letter had
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reached him. I am glad that it has done so in time for this debate, although the issue to which it refers will arise later in the proceedings. My response indicates that the Government are trying throughout the Bill to meet the concerns of disabled people.
My noble friend may not be so positive about my response to Amendment No. 286. As I indicated on the last group, the principle, at least in the first instance, should be that discretionary affairs are a matter for local discretion. The section of the Bill dealing with disabled persons' permits is drawn from previous legislation, which says that they should be issued to people who suffer from a disability or injury that, in the opinion of the local authority, seriously impairs their ability to walk. Although that definition is fairly broad, its intention is clear.
I regret that my noble friend encountered some difficulty in getting information from particular local authorities. Nevertheless, we believe that local authorities themselves should decide whether they need to draw up further criteria for issuing permits to disabled people or rely on the definition in the Bill. Regardless or whether or not they have such criteria, if a London borough refuses to issue a pass to those considering themselves eligible under the Bill, the borough would be open to legal challenge over its decision. Anyone who felt they had been treated unfairly would have recourse to the local government ombudsman.
As to whether such criteria should be made public, both existing and planned legislation cover that area. The present access to information rights in the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 mean that all papers put to a council are open to the public. Under our new proposals in the draft Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill, such papers will continue to be made available. In addition, if decisions are taken at an official level, those decisions, together with the reasons for them, must also be made public. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, and others who support the amendment to consider whether current and planned legislation providing rights of access deals with the issue of publication. The Government are bringing forward an amendment that would give boroughs the power to establish a joint committee to take decisions on the arrangements for concessionary fares. I quickly look around to make sure that my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon is not in his place. Those decisions would be on the basis of qualified majority voting, which is an issue on which he jumps up in a different context. That also reflects our commitment to subsidiarity and the hope that boroughs will act jointly. Then there is the reserve scheme we debated earlier. If the London boroughs decide that the criteria for issuing disabled persons' permits ought to be drawn up and published, they could use the joint committee to do so.
Although I have some sympathy with the experience of my noble friend Lord Morris and others who tabled the amendment, I cannot agree that it is the appropriate

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vehicle for achieving their objectives. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, wishes to come back on her amendment before I withdraw mine.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: It is kind of the noble Baroness to give me that opportunity. The best that one can do is to read carefully the Minister's long answer to make sure that it satisfies the points raised. That is what I propose to do.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I thank all who have spoken and particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for her points and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for his comment about subsection (5B) and publicity. I am grateful also for what he told us about the Minister's letter to him, which we will come to later. I am deeply appreciative of that response and cheered by it.
I am reasonably cheered by the Minister's response on subsection (5B). He has he set my mind at rest. I shall be happy to read his comments on subsection (5A). I think I probably am satisfied.
Given the myriad of amendments about disabled people and transport, the wide range of fears and concerns that have been expressed, and the importance of getting it right, would the Minister be willing to meet the noble Lords, Lord Swinfen and Lord Morris, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and our advisers between now and Report, to discuss all those matters?
Lord Whitty: I would be most happy to proceed with such an arrangement.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I thank the Minister very much. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 286ZA not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 286A:
Page 104, line 21, after ("233") insert ("or 324").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 193, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 194 agreed to.
Schedule 12 [The free travel scheme]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 286B to 286F:
Page 228, line 21, leave out ("the daytime, evening or late-night") and insert ("an eligible").
Page 228, leave out lines 24 to 26 and insert ("the eligible periods are—

(a) the period from midnight to 4.30 a.m.; and

(b) the period from 9.00 a.m. to midnight.").

Page 228, line 27, leave out ("daytime, evening or late-night period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (3)") and insert ("periods which are eligible periods for the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)(b)").
Page 229, line 6, after ("year") insert ("(referred to in this paragraph as the "current financial year")).
Page 229, line 34, at end insert—
("(5) In fixing the charges payable by London authorities under this paragraph Transport for London shall take into account—

(a) the sum applicable by virtue of sub-paragraph (6) below; and

(b) the matters specified in sub-paragraph (7) below.

(6) The sum applicable by virtue of this sub-paragraph is—

(a) where the free travel scheme does not have effect during the current financial year, a sum equivalent to the total of the costs agreed to be reimbursed by local authorities during the current financial year under arrangements made by virtue of section 193(1) of this Act; or

(b) where the free travel scheme has effect during the current financial year, a sum equivalent to the charges payable by London authorities under this paragraph in respect of the current financial year.

(7) The matters specified in this sub-paragraph are-—

(a) the coming into operation of a service falling within section 195(3) of this Act, or the variation or discontinuance of such a service,

(b) changes in the fares payable in respect of any such service, and

(c) changes in the methods or information available to Transport for London for calculating the amounts specified in sub-paragraph (4) above, since costs were last agreed to be reimbursed by local authorities under arrangements made by virtue of section 193(1) of this Act or, if more recent, since charges payable under this paragraph were last fixed.").

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 195 and 196 agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 286AA:
After Clause 196, insert the following new clause—
EXERCISE OF FUNCTIONS BY A JOINT COMMITTEE
(" .—(1) If all the London authorities enter into arrangements under section 101(5) of the Local Government Act 1972 for the joint discharge of their functions under—

(a) subsection (1) of section 193 above, or

(b) subsection (2) of that section,

and the arrangements so provide, then this section shall apply.
(2) The arrangements shall have effect for such period as may be specified in the arrangements or until otherwise terminated by the unanimous decision of the London authorities.
(3) The arrangements must provide for the function to be discharged only by a joint committee under section 101(5)(a) of the Local Government Act 1972.
(4) The joint committee must consist of one member of each London authority.
(5) Decisions of the joint committee must be unanimous decisions of those present and voting.
(6) Subsection (5) above is subject to a resolution of the joint committee, passed unanimously by those present and voting, that—

(a) decisions of a kind specified in the resolution, or

(b) decisions generally,

may be made by such majority of those present and voting as may be specified in the resolution.
(7) The majority specified in a resolution under subsection (6) above must be not less than two-thirds of the members of the joint committee.
(8) In consequence of the preceding provisions of this section—

(a) section 102 of the Local Government Act 1972 (appointment of committees) has effect in relation to the joint committee subject to those provisions; and

(b) paragraph 39(1) of Schedule 12 to that Act (questions to be decided by simple majority), as applied to a joint committee by paragraph 44(1) of that Schedule, does not have effect in relation to the joint committee.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes moved Amendment No. 287:
After Clause 196, insert the following new clause—
DISABLED PERSONS' TRANSPORT SERVICES
(" . The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for and in connection with the provision of transport facilities and services provided for the purpose of meeting the needs of disabled persons resident in Greater London.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment has been widely debated. I now rise to move it formally, as I have had the benefit of reading in Hansard the discussion and Minister's response to it. I shall ask him to comment on what he said the other day.
The Minister said:
"As was indicated in our White Paper … responsibility for Dial-a-Ride and Taxicard will transfer to the new authority".
He later said:
"The mayor will also be able to take responsibility for Taxicard or operate a similar scheme".
The comments were made during a general debate on a number of mixed amendments. My concern is that they seem to run contrary to the Bill as presently drafted. While I understand that the mayor will be able to seek clarification on the role of the Taxicard within his or her local implementation plans, my concern is that funding for the Taxicard scheme is already being eroded in many boroughs. There seems to be no mechanism for the mayor, or indeed the Secretary of State, to ensure that the funding is not simply salami-sliced in boroughs on an individual basis. If that happens, there will be no Taxicard scheme for which the mayor can take responsibility.
Again I quote the Minister:
"Both schemes [Taxicard and Dial-a-Ride] are very important and need to be developed for disabled people".—[Official Report, 1/7/99; col. 462.]
I simply seek a reassurance that there will be a safeguard for maintaining borough funding for Taxicard during any interim period that may arise if the schemes were to be transferred to TfL. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: The principle is there, and it is reflected within the Bill. If a transitional problem of the sort alluded to by the noble Baroness arises, I am confident that the powers cover that. However, to make doubly sure, perhaps I may undertake to write to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I thank the Minister for that reply. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 197 [Penalty fares]:
[Amendment No. 287A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 197 agreed to.
Schedule 13 [Penalty fares]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 287B:
Page 232, line 20, after (" 233") insert ("or 324").
[Amendments Nos. 287C to 287G had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 288:
Page 233, line 51, leave out ("the Secretary of State and").
The noble Lord said: This is a very small amendment. Schedule 13 deals with penalty fares on London buses and tubes. The amendment basically rewrites the whole of the London Transport Regional Transport Penalty Fares Act 1992. We shall shortly debate a more substantial amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty.
As I understand it, the powers are to be transferred mainly to Transport for London and to the mayor. The penalty fares are set at a certain level—£5 on local buses and £10 on the Underground. Paragraph 5(2) states that,
"The Mayor may by order prescribe that the amount of the penalty fare in either or both of the cases set out … above shall be different (whether higher or lower)".
Sub-paragraph (3) goes on to state that,
"No order may be made by the Mayor under sub-paragraph (2) … unless he has consulted the Secretary of State".
That is a blow for subsidiarity, for the power of the mayor. We do not understand why the mayor cannot be allowed to get on and do this without consulting the Secretary of State. The mayor already has to consult local authorities and,
"such persons or bodies representative of those who travel on local services … and … such other persons or bodies",
as he may wish to consult. But I cannot understand why the mayor has to consult the Secretary of State as well. I beg to move.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Whitty: This provision does not give the Secretary of State powers, but the reason why there is a requirement to consult is so that there can be consistency about penalty fare levels on all relevant modes of transport. That is particularly the case where a number of stations are served both by London Transport and by the operating companies. At those stations there could be some confusion were the two forms of penalty charge to be completely out of line with each other. At the end of the day, the decision lies with the mayor, but the mayor needs to take that into account, and therefore needs to consult the Secretary of State on those matters.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Given that explanation, although I am not entirely happy that it is necessary to consult the Secretary of State, it is not an important enough point to pursue to the end. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Clancarty The Earl of Clancarty moved Amendment No. 288A:
Page 234, line 18, at end insert—
("Penalty Fares Appeals Service
.—(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2) below, the Authority shall establish a body, separate from either Transport for London, or from any person providing a transport service to which this Schedule applies, to be known as the London Penalty Fares Appeals Service.
(2) Any body established by, or with the consent of the Rail Regulator to consider appeals against penalty fares issued on the national railways under Section 130 of the Railways Act 1993 may be appointed by the Authority in fulfilment of its duties under sub-section (1) above.
(3) Any person who has been issued with a penalty fare pursuant to paragraph 3 or 4 above, whose representations to the person providing the service in relation to which the penalty fare was issued has failed to result in that penalty fare being set aside, may appeal to the body, appointed under either sub-paragraph (1) or (2) above, for a determination.
(4) The Authority may, after consultation with Transport for London and the London Transport Users Committee, give guidance to the body appointed under either sub-paragraph (1) or (2) above as to the criteria it should adopt for the judging of appeals against penalty fares issued in accordance with the provisions of this schedule.
(5) The costs of the service provided under this paragraph shall be borne by Transport for London.
(6) Except as provided for in sub-paragraph (4) above, the London Transport Users Committee shall not consider penalty fares appeals except in so far as they give rise to questions as to the procedure followed by the body appointed under sub-paragraph (1) or (2) above in relation to the consideration of an individual appeal.").
The noble Earl said: First, I should like to apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading. The intention of this amendment is to establish an independent appeals body for penalty fares. This is an important amendment, and I am happy that it has the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood. There is currently considerable concern, shared both by passengers and the London Regional Passengers Committee, over the judgments made by London Transport, particularly concerning penalty fares applied by London Underground, and 82 per cent of representations on the London Underground to the LRPC are about penalty fares.
Sub-paragraph (4) asks for what I believe should be the bare minimum of guidance and consultation over the criteria by which appeals are judged. I understand the desire of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, to catch those intending to defraud, which she stated when the 1992 legislation was introduced. But London Underground's present effectively unregulated penalty fares regime is draconian. There needs to be a fair and sensitive balance—300,000 penalty fares were issued last year on the Underground. That is an absurd figure and includes, I believe, many bona fide passengers who are caught out for a wide variety of reasons, including the complexities of the fares and differing ticketing systems, such as the carnet system for which London Underground makes no allowance for inadvertent errors.
In particular, the option of buying an excess or add-on ticket should be restored, since there is no reason whatsoever why a passenger who has a ticket showing evidence of his or her starting-point and who offers to pay the excess fare should not be allowed to do so, rather than have to traipse up and down the escalators
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to buy a second ticket for the same journey. For many, the £10 penalty paid on the tube at their destination point is not an expression of guilt; it is simply more convenient to do so rather than to raise an objection. Ten pounds for most waged people is not a lot of money, although for an unemployed person it is. The major problem, then, becomes the inflexibility of the conditions of travel, including for instance the inability to change one's mind about a journey once one is in the system in order to carry out a longer journey.
The main point to be made here is that London Underground is acting autocratically. A wider consultation process is needed—something that London Underground is resisting. Ideally, Transport for London, the authority, the London Transport Users Committee, the Rail Regulator and other operators from whom TfL can learn—including Nexus, for example, which runs the Tyne and Wear Metro and whose penalty fares regime is "exemplary" according to the Rail Regulator—should all be sitting down in the same room. The Rail Regulator is keen to encourage best practice sharing of penalty fare schemes.
Whatever criteria are agreed upon, they do not invalidate the important principle also that the appeals body should be independent. It is worth quoting the Rail Regulator's view on this principle as expressed in the 1995 consultation document on penalty fares:
"The normal requirement of criminal law provides for an appeals mechanism, independent of the prosecution, against conviction. In the case of penalty fares, the operator fulfils the role of both prosecutor and judge. In the Regulator's view, this makes it all the more important to ensure that an appeals mechanism is in place which operates impartially and independently".
I entirely agree with that and beg to move the amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I am happy to support the noble Earl's amendment. He has pursued the matter by most methods open to a Member of this House and, as a result, has received interesting answers from government Ministers. It is obvious that one point we must deal with on penalty fares is the way in which the fare and penalty fare structures operate. However, an equally important element that we are dealing with at present is appeals. The current system of appeals laid down in the Bill is not satisfactory. I support the noble Earl's amendment and look forward to hearing what the Government have to say on the issue.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: As mentioned, I achieved this legislation in 1992 when I took it through as a Private Member's Bill for London Transport. At that time there was a desperate need to try to make up some of the vast amount of lost revenue. Sadly, the revenue is still being lost and, if I am to believe the Evening Standard, there is an even greater loss now than years ago.
It is important for us to maintain a tough but fair stance on penalty fares. All those who legitimately pay their fares do so at a higher cost because of the great loss being carried. The time has gone when people used to pocket the excess fares when the passenger arrived at the end of the journey. That used to be a great fraud in

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the past. People used to set up arrangements to close the ticket office at one station in order for their friend to collect all the money at the next, then they would share it later. That was well known at the time. However, all that is a thing of the past.
Now the remaining issue is the appeals system. As a general principle, it is not right in any field and it does not accord with our sense of justice that people should have the right to be both judge and jury in any situation. For that reason I support the noble Earl's amendment.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: I also support the noble Earl. Many Members of the Committee may have read the case of the nun who fell asleep on a bus. They took her through the courts. Cannot common sense be applied'? Does the Minister realise that we all remember the advertisements saying: "If you are caught not paying your fare. you are a criminal"? That is how the lady felt when she was dragged through the courts. Admittedly, she got off in the end, as is being whispered on the Front Bench., but the matter still got into the press and was unpleasant.
Will the Minister consider all that has been said? I agree totally with the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that when fares are not paid there must be a system for collecting them. It cannot be fair that those who are willing to pay should pay higher fares because the company does not receive the full income. Of course I understand that. But also, as the noble Baroness said, it is not right to have a judge and jury situation. I hope the Minister will consider the matter.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I, too, hope the Government will consider the amendments. As I understand it, and as the noble Earl explained, this is not about penalty fares but appeals against penalty fares. There is no mechanism for them at the moment, other than an internal one operated by London Transport.
My noble friend Lord Archer pre-empted my criticism of the actions of London Buses the other day, widely reported in the press, in pursuing the most ridiculous claim against the nun who happened to fall asleep. I am glad that the magistrates dealt with it in the best way they could. Nevertheless, it caused the victim of the incident a good deal of disquiet. No doubt it also cost the fare-paying passengers of London Transport a good deal of money to pursue the exercise through the courts. It seemed to me completely unnecessary.
When the noble Earl last raised the issue at Question Time, I said that one of the best solutions would be to introduce more automatic ticket barriers at outlying stations. I reported that at the station I use in Zone 2 the barriers had been put in but were not yet in operation, owing to a lack of power at the station, according to London Transport. I cannot remember how long ago the Question was—at least a month—and I have to report that the barriers are still not in operation. I do not know whether there is a problem with the electricity in Fulham; I have not found one at home, where it seems to work well for me, but obviously it does not at Putney Bridge station.
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I digress from the purpose of the amendment and I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says on the subject of appeals.
Baroness Hamwee: The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, said that in the case of the nun who fell asleep on the bus the magistrates dealt with the matter in the best way they could. That described it precisely. As I understand it, the nun was not found not guilty, but was given a conditional discharge. That goes to the heart of the complaints made by Members of the Committee about the criminalisation of something which should not be treated as a criminal matter. If I were taken to the magistrates' court on whatever charge and received a conditional discharge, I would leave the court feeling very unhappy.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: As I understand the penalty fare system, certainly the one I introduced, there is no criminal charge involved. The nun must have been charged under some other process; perhaps fraud. It is one of the important features of the legislation that when you are asked to pay a penalty fare no criminal liability or criminal record is involved.
4 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for both her earlier intervention explaining why we introduced the penalty fare system in the first place and for the clarification of the position. The nun in the case was prosecuted for travelling with intent to avoid payment. I am not clear why she was not able to pay a penalty fare, but we are making further inquiries in that regard.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: I believe the nun tried to pay the penalty fare.
Lord Whitty: We are trying to establish the exact circumstances and why she was not permitted to pay the penalty fare. The noble Baroness is correct that the penalty fare system was introduced to avoid criminality and taking people through the courts. It was to provide a penalty fare, irrespective of proof of intent. Nevertheless, it was free from the label of criminality.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, said, there is a problem of fare evasion on the London Underground. Some of it will be dealt with when the whole network has been gated under the prestige project. I am not sure why the gates at Putney Bridge do not currently work, but no doubt when the full system is in operation they will. We hope that that will restrict evasion in the sense of intent to travel without a ticket. But there will still be people who travel beyond the duration of the ticket, for whom the penalty fare should apply.
The current legislation does not formally recognise the concept of an appeal. The appeal process was well established by London Transport, at the request of the previous government, at the time the penalty scheme was introduced. We are aware of the concerns of the noble Earl and other Members of the Committee in this matter. The Government have asked London Transport and the London Regional Passengers' Committee to

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review the whole system of penalty fares. A draft report has been produced and has, we hope, already led to some improvements in the operation of the scheme by London Transport. The final version has not yet been produced, and I must ask the Committee for a further period of patience before we see the final recommendations. The draft form is currently being considered by my colleague Glenda Jackson.
The amendment would compel the mayor to establish an independent appeals body without having the opportunity to assess the merits of that body in that situation. For example, the mayor may instead conclude that the administration of penalty fares can best be improved by other means. The review has already resulted in a much closer convergence of approach between the London Transport system and that which applies to the national rail network.
Changes arising from the penalty fares review are already being phased in by London Transport. I believe that London Transport should be given a little time to demonstrate that it can operate the scheme more effectively, including the appeals dimension thereof. I recognise the concerns of the Committee, but I believe that it is better to deal with the issue in that context rather than by way of an amendment to the Bill.
The Earl of Clancarty: I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, suggested that there should be more ticket barriers. I do not believe that we should await technology in order to have a fair and sensitive penalty system in operation right now. I am disappointed that the Minister does not immediately see the merits of this amendment and accept it straight away. I await with interest the recommendations relating to penalty fares. I shall certainly return to this matter at Report stage, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 198 agreed to.
Clause 199 [The London Transport Users' Committee]:
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 288B:
Page 106, line 37, after ("use") insert ("public").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 288B takes us to that part of the Bill which deals with the Transport Users' Committee. The amendment provides that the new committee shall represent the interests of those who use public transport facilities and services, as distinct from all passenger transport facilities and services. Later the Committee will consider Amendment No. 294A in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood (who is to be congratulated on spotting this matter in two places). That amendment also provides that the matters referred to in Clause 200, which deals with representations to the committee, are restricted to public transport.
We understand that the Government are concerned to encourage all of us to think about integrated transport, not just integrated public transport, and that is entirely
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right. However, we do not believe it means that every reference to transport should deal with all transport. We do not believe that the new Transport Users' Committee is an appropriate vehicle to deal with the rights and concerns of all transport users. The Bill makes clear in dealing with the duties of the committee that the remit of that body is primarily public. If the definition included all transport it would cover almost everything, not just users of buses and so on but car users, pedestrians and cyclists. I do not deny that these people have rights, but there would be considerable problems if the committee was required, and resourced, to acquire the detailed knowledge and necessary representativeness to cover the wider agenda.
The committee may also have directly conflicting interests; for example, the respective claims of bus users and motorists where road space is scarce. The London Regional Passengers' Committee has put to me what is probably the worst case scenario with which the new committee may be faced: an appeal from a householder whose property fronts a GLA road and who wants to park his or her car outside the house but TfL wants to site a bus stop at that point. In our view, it would not be appropriate for the Transport Users' Committee to be required to deal with that situation. It will not be able properly to voice the concerns of the users of public transport, which must be its primary purpose.
We do not believe that the benefits that might be gained by including the interests of all transport users within the LTUC's remit would outweigh the dilution of its commitment to passengers which would inevitably occur. It is not the task of the new committee to take decisions about priorities between public and private interests that are likely to arise. The LTUC will have quite enough to do looking after the needs of public transport users, and its effectiveness could be very badly prejudiced if its remit was widened. I beg to move.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Reading the Explanatory Notes on the Bill, the whole point of this arrangement is that the new Transport Users' Committee will not try to sort out the problem but refer it to whoever has that ability. With great respect to noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench who are working so hard on this Bill, I do not believe that it is any good to go on about integrated transport and then to say that they do not want to integrate the public transport system with the private one. If cars are parked in a road where a bus stop is required, that issue must be sorted out. Surely, a complaint can be made to the committee, which will then refer it to whoever can deal with it. The committee is more a channel of communication than a body to sort out problems, unless I am mistaken.
The Earl of Clancarty: I rise to support Amendment No. 288A and speak also to Amendment No. 294A, which I believe the Government Front Bench has agreed can be debated at this stage. Like Amendment No. 288A, Amendment No. 294A seeks to ensure that a statutory watchdog is in existence to deal only with issues of public passenger transport. I speak simply as a regular user of public transport in London who is very

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worried that in dealing also with private transport the new Transport Users' Committee will have the effect of diluting, or even eliminating entirely, the voice of the public passenger, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already pointed out. Clearly, that would be disastrous. The private passenger, unlike the public one, already has powerful lobbying organisations to turn to: the AA, the British Road Federation and so on. There is also the possibility of conflicts of interest. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has referred to the classic issue of whether a bus stop or private parking space should be provided outside a resident' house. It should not be up to a statutory watchdog to resolve differences between these two interests.
This amendment also has the strong support of the National Consumer Council and the Central Rail Users' Consultative Committee. One wonders whether the Government are falling between two stools. On the one hand, they appear to promote public transport; on the other, they are clearly very keen to develop overall strategies. But the assembly will be the executive and should make such decisions based on the evidence and advice given to it. from wherever they come. Have the Government properly thought out the effect that combining the two interests of public and private transport would have on the new body?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would prescribe the factors to be taken into account when drawing up membership of the London Transport Users' Committee. Clause 199 indicates to the assembly what factors to take into account in selecting members of the committee. However, it is not an exhaustive list of criteria.
Amendment No. 288B proposes that the assembly takes into account the users of public passenger transport facilities rather than simply passenger transport. Even having listened to the noble Baroness, I am not sure why she would wish to append the word "public", given that the committee will have to consider representations from a wide range of transport users and the assembly would be expected to select the membership of the committee so as to reflect the full diversity of experience. I therefore hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment No. 294A also reflects a misunderstanding of the Government's proposals for the London Transport Users' Committee, or a difference of opinion on them. The committee is intended to be a new body, drawing on the strengths of the London Regional Passengers' Committee, but doing so within a new context of London governance and with a wider remit.
Transport provision in London will be largely concentrated in a single integrated body—TfL—which must have due regard to the mix of demands represented by transport users. We believe that the new LTUC remit should reflect that integration and represent transport users who will be affected by the full range of TfL activities. LTUC will inevitably
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consider more representations about public transport because its highways functions are primarily connected with only 5 per cent of the road network in London.
As the Minister for Transport in London explained in the other place, while the LTUC will be capable of considering complaints from all transport modes, it will still represent passengers. We do not accept that a valuable voice will be weakened.
When considering complaints about GLA roads, the committee will be under a duty to consider the interests of all those who use the road, not just car users. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate that the committee should give particular attention to complaints from motorists rather than those travelling on public transport.
Perhaps I could remind the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and other noble Lords who spoke, that LTUC will not be a decision-making body. It will not itself be able to resolve a dispute about the use of a particular road. It can only recommend a course of action to TfL, and the mayor and the assembly will also see the advice. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: Before the noble Lords whose amendments we are considering speak, I wish to make a intervention. There is a profound difference of opinion between those who have moved the amendments and the Government who have written these clauses into the Bill. The difference of opinion is about exactly who the new passenger representative body should represent. Our contention is that they should represent the interests of, and speak up for, public transport users.
A curious suggestion seems to have arisen from this debate that somehow that unelected body, which has been appointed and not elected and which does not directly represent anybody, should take extremely important decisions about the balance of interests between one sort of transport and another and make a recommendation to TfL as to the decision it should take. Our contention is that it is precisely that sort of decision—such as where the balance should be struck—that should be taken by those people who act for, on behalf of or as part of the new GLA, and not taken on behalf of people who use transport.
There are several powerful bodies which represent the interests of freight on rail, cyclists, and especially those who travel in cars, so it seems to us to be more sensible to leave those bodies to continue to represent the interests of passengers in non-public forms of transport direct to TfL. That would leave the new body the task of representing direct to TfL the interests of those who travel by public transport. It would then be up to TfL to resolve any difficulties, ultimately backed by the power of the authority.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: It is perhaps necessary for us to bring forward amendments to clarify the structure. The LTUC will be appointed by

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the assembly and we will bring forward amendments to allow the assembly to issue guidance and directions to LTUC. It may be that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, will then feel able to accept that point.
Baroness Hamwee: Does the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, wish to say anything before I deal with my amendment?
The Earl of Clancarty: I am not convinced by the Minister's argument. I agree very much with what the noble Baronesss, Lady Thomas and Lady Hamwee, have said. The question still remains: what will happen to the smaller voice of the public passenger? What structure will allow that voice to be heard?
Baroness Hamwee: I am interested to have heard the Minister's comments and look forward to seeing government amendments. As the Minister will appreciate, and as my noble friend Lady Thomas made clear, there is a clear difference between us as to the appropriate remit of the new body. The appointments will be made by the new assembly and, no doubt, in making the appointments the members of the assembly will have the needs of an integrated transport system for London in mind, especially the strategic nature of the whole job. I must make it clear again—and I am sorry that it was not clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour—that we are not suggesting in any way that London's public and other forms of transport should not be integrated. That is as far from the case as it could possibly be.
I am puzzled by the wording of Clause 199(3). I read it again during this discussion and it states that the assembly is to have regard to the desirability of ensuring that members of the committee between them represent the interests of those who use passenger transport facilities and services in greater London. I suspect that, as drafted, that means everybody who does not stay at home all day every day. The Government may understand why, having read that clause, we felt that it was necessary to try to pin the description down a little more. However, we shall return to the issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I beg to move that the House be now resumed. In moving the Motion, perhaps I may remind noble Lords that questions and comments from Back-Benchers on the Statement should be brief because the time is limited to 20 minutes and taking longer can use time available to other noble Lords.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Northern Ireland
4.20 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
"With your permission, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on last week's talks on Northern Ireland. Last Friday, I proposed a way forward for Northern Ireland.
"The starting point was the Good Friday agreement, which set out an agreed basis for a peace settlement in Northern Ireland. It offered the unionists what they have sought for the last 70 years: the principle of consent; no change to the status of Northern Ireland without the agreement of the majority of its population; changes to the Irish constitution, with Dublin dropping its legal claim to the North; and devolution of powers to Northern Ireland, with an elected assembly, an executive and other institutions. The Good Friday agreement offers the Nationalists and Republicans equality, justice, and the normalisation of Northern Ireland society; for the first time since partition, the ability to share power and responsibility and not have their electoral mandate set to nought; a range of new institutions, including North-South bodies; and over time, as the security situation improves, demilitarisation.
"Above all, the Good Friday agreement offered all the people of Northern Ireland the prospects of permanent peace and an end to violence. It is the only true way forward for Northern Ireland.
"Of course, difficulties remain. There is still violence, much of it by loyalists opposed to the Good Friday agreement. There is still conflict and bitterness, as we can see in Portadown, where I will continue to work for a settlement of the Drumcree issue.
"But life in Northern Ireland has improved immeasurably since the Good Friday agreement. Normality has returned to most parts of the Province. Whatever their disagreements, the two sides now talk to one another regularly. But one vital issue is unresolved: how to secure the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. The Good Friday agreement required all parties to use their best endeavours to secure decommissioning.
"On 25th June, the Taoiseach and I secured the commitment of all the parties which signed the Good Friday agreement to three principles on which the rest of our work was then based. First, an inclusive executive should be formed exercising devolved powers. Secondly, all paramilitary arms should be decommissioned by May 2000. Thirdly, decommissioning should be carried out in a manner determined by the International Commission on Decommissioning under General John de Chastelain.
"Both sides need certainty. Unionists want certainty that decommissioning will happen, and a guarantee that, if it does not, they will not be left in an executive with those who refuse to do so.

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"Republicans want the certainty that Unionists are serious about participating in a genuinely inclusive government. Our agreement last Friday provides both. In more detail, our proposal is as follows. Northern Ireland Ministers would be nominated by the parties, using the d'Hondt procedure, on 15th July. The devolution order would be laid before Parliament on the following day, and powers transferred on 18th July.
"The de Chastelain commission would require a start to the process of decommissioning. The general has already said that he expects this to be within `literally a couple of days'.
"The 'process of decommissioning' begins when a paramilitary group,
'makes an unambiguous commitment that decommissioning will be completed by 22nd May 2000 and commences detailed discussions of actual modalities (amounts, types, location, timing) with the Commission through an authorised representative'.
"So there would have to be a definitive statement of intent, certified by de Chastelain literally within days. If it does not happen and de Chastelain certifies a breach of this process, then at that point the executive is unwound. So we will know within days whether the decommissioning is to happen or not.
"The commission then sets a further time limit, within which there is to be a start to actual decommissioning of weapons. The general has said that he would expect this to be within a few weeks. Again, should the actual decommissioning not come as de Chastelain has laid down according to the Good Friday agreement, then again the failsafe kicks in. De Chastelain is due to make reports on progress on actual decommissioning in September, December and May 2000, by which time it is to be complete.
"This is all entirely in line with the Good Friday agreement. Under it, parties are expected to use their best efforts to secure decommissioning. Last Friday's agreement is the basis for how that will be judged.
"Should default occur, the institutions are suspended automatically while we find a way forward. We are all then, in effect, back to where we are now, but with these two vital differences. The blame for default I s clear, and the parties are then free to move on in an executive without the defaulting party.
"I cannot make the other parties agree to a new executive. I cannot force anyone to sit in a government with anyone else. But I can make sure that Sinn Fein does not continue in an executive with the UUP should there be a default of the de Chastelain process. All this will be set out in legislation.
"It is a far better deal than was on offer at Hillsborough. That offered a token act of decommissioning, dependent on reciprocal steps by the British and Irish with no clear framework for completing the process by May 2000. This provides a guarantee of a complete process of decommissioning, plus a failsafe that protects fully the interests of the Unionists.
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"So there is a challenge here to all parties: to Unionists to agree to a power sharing executive; to Republicans not just to give up violence, but to decommission weapons in accordance with the undertakings of the Good Friday agreement; to nationalist opinion to support parties implementing this agreement and not support those who refuse to do so.
"If last Friday's agreement is put through, we will know in days whether the paramilitaries are serious about decommissioning their weapons. After 30 years of bloodshed, grief-stricken families, terror-torn communities, is it not worth waiting 30 days to see if the undertakings made here are fulfilled? If they are, then peace will come—real peace. If they are not, then we will know that the challenge of true democracy was too much for those linked to paramilitary groups. Either way, we will know. So I say to people: discuss the detail. Debate it. Engage. But do not throw away the best chance for peace we will have this generation".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Prime Minister's Statement in the way that she has. The whole House, I am sure, will understand the difficulties of this process and appreciate the efforts of all those who are negotiating in good faith to find a way forward.
It is, of course, some years since this process was begun by my right honourable friend Mr Major. We in the Conservative Party have supported the process all along. We continue to give full support to the Good Friday agreement. We are committed to making it work and seeing it implemented in full. I am sure that the Government will agree with me when I say that an essential part of the process is the decommissioning of all illegally held arms and explosives. So far it has not yet happened. I should have thought that parties genuinely committed to peace do not need weapons in their armoury.
Will the noble Baroness the Leader of the House agree with me that in matters such as this it is therefore essential to proceed with caution and with remorseless attention to detail? Does she agree that it is not appropriate to apply all the pressure on Mr Trimble? The democratic parties have already done all that was required under the agreement; and the Unionist leader has made the historic statement that he is prepared to sit with the political representatives of terrorist organisations provided those organisations show a genuine intent to disarm. Is the noble Baroness concerned that although the process of decommissioning is supposed to be completed within 10 months it is still to begin? The Government are asking the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland to take on trust claims by Sinn Fein—which does not, the House will remember, even profess to speak for the IRA—and by other political parties linked to paramilitaries that once they are in the executive, disarmament will begin.
It is for that reason that we have two main areas of concern. The first relates to the question of a guarantee. Is it the case that there is still no cast-iron guarantee that

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the IRA will decommission illegal weapons, although the Prime Minister has said that that will happen? Can the noble Baroness give the House more details about how soon decommissioning must start after the formation of an executive that includes Sinn Fein? Does she agree that, if the House is to be able to debate this proposal meaningfully—and I think that it should—we may need a more precise and transparent timetable from General de Chastelain on which to form such a judgment?
On a fail-safe guarantee, Friday's document said that, without decommissioning, the Government would:
"suspend the operations of the institutions set up by the Agreement".
Does the noble Baroness agree that that would penalise democratic politicians for the intransigence of terrorists—and, incidentally, give paramilitary organisations leverage over the continuance of the executive? Yet today the Prime Minister said that if the IRA does not express a willingness to decommission,
"it is open to us all to formulate a new way forward without Sinn Fein".
The key question that arises is: what do the Government mean? Do they mean an executive only with Sinn Fein or an executive without Sinn Fein if need be—because it cannot be both?
Will the noble Baroness also confirm what appeared to be the meaning of the Prime Minister's words this morning—namely, that without decommissioning he would seek the suspension of Sinn Fein or any other defaulting organisation from the Assembly and invite the Assembly to choose a new executive? Finally, will the noble Baroness confirm that, without decommissioning, the Government would not hesitate to stop the early release of terrorist prisoners onto our streets?
The Government have said that they will ask us for assistance with emergency legislation. On behalf of these Benches, I would like to say that we will work with the Government to provide a speedy approval for that legislation. First, is the noble Baroness in a position to tell us whether it will be primary or secondary legislation? Secondly—I say this in the knowledge that we have a great deal of business to complete before the Summer Recess—I think that it would be fair for there to be some negotiation with those individuals who find themselves on the Cross Benches, who have a great deal of interest in Northern Irish matters and who might have some difficulties with whatever arrangements I, or indeed the Liberal Democrats, come to.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, from these Benches, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating in your Lordships' House the Prime Minister's Statement in another place—even if, to be realistic, nothing that we are likely to say here will determine in any way the immediate events in Northern Ireland. We congratulate the Prime Minister on everything that he has done personally to resolve the crisis, just as we applauded John Major from these Benches for his brave attempts to solve the problems of Northern Ireland.
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As for the Statement, we agree with what the Prime Minister said about the Good Friday agreement. We agree also about the three principles to which all parties were committed on 25th June and with the current challenge to those parties that progress represents.
I think it is correct to say that those of us here must recognise that it is desperately difficult to trust Sinn Fein in the present circumstances, given its past record. However, this must be done, given the situation that has now been reached based on the assumption that its leadership genuinely wants the Good Friday agreement to work. Indeed, I think that the evidence of the Statement and all that has happened in the past few days shows that we are very close to the further agreement that would make the Good Friday agreement meaningful. It should be possible to find a way in which the timing is such that the gap between setting up the executive and the commencement of decommissioning is so narrow as to be almost simultaneous.
I see in the Statement reference to "within a couple of days". That is reassuring to a degree, but I wonder whether, in practice, it might become an even shorter period. It would be a tragedy for the people of Northern Ireland who want peace if their leaders cannot now go the whole way regarding the agreement presented to them. They must—here we reach an inevitable cliché—have a leap of the imagination and an act of courage in which personal reputations do not matter because peace does.
I have three questions to put, perhaps tentatively, to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. First, can she say something more about the present timetable for decommissioning? If the executive is set up on 15th July, when is it assumed that decommissioning will begin? Is it the two days referred to in the Statement—which seems to be a shorter period than mentioned hitherto? Secondly, if Sinn Fein fails to deliver, would it be open to the executive to continue without Sinn Fein? As I understand it—perhaps the noble Baroness will clarify this point—it will be open to the rest of the executive to choose what to do or for the Assembly to make that decision.
The third point is a difficult one, and I may be very wide of the mark. Would it not help if General de Chastelain made more frequent reports so that, if the worst happened and decommissioning stopped, action with regard to the executive would be immediate? At present, I think that he is expected to report every three months; a shorter interval might be helpful. However, none of this should be taken to be any attempt to negotiate. It is uniquely the case that, as in times of war, the Government must be supported in their endeavours to reach objectives that we all share.
4.36 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their support of the broad outlines of the Statement. I shall of course echo back to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister the words that have been spoken about his role—particularly last week, with his strenuous efforts on behalf of the agreement. I of course acknowledge the

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enormously important work of the right honourable gentleman Mr Major in beginning this process. One of the tremendous virtues of the process so far has been the bipartisan nature of the efforts that have been made. I am grateful to the noble Lord for confirming that that will continue. We obviously hope very much that it will do so both in words and in practice.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, has said, we are all united in our broad aims of trying to achieve an inclusive executive in Northern Ireland for a devolved form of government and to achieve decommissioning. Both noble Lords rightly place great stress on the nature of the decommissioning process and the timetable—or the "sequencing" as it is called in the Northern Ireland jargon—of the decommissioning and the establishment of the executive. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that there was no decommissioning precondition in the Good Friday agreement, but there is an obligation. That obligation is reinforced and made much more explicit by the statement of Friday.
I think that one point has changed, which was emphasised in the Statement: we are no longer dependent upon trust—I agree with those who are suspicious of trust in this area—but upon action. As I repeated in the Statement, that action is set out clearly in the timetable that has been agreed with General John de Chastelain about the benchmarks that he will require on the decommissioning beginning immediately after the executive has been established.
Of course, there are always concerns about whether any group of people represented in the political process is speaking for the paramilitaries, on either side, whom it claims to represent. However, I think that the House will have noted the words of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister this morning—uttered not in the other place but in an interview—when he said he believed that last week he was listening to the authentic voice of the IRA. However, as I have said, this is not a time to depend solely on words. We can, in this instance, depend on the actions that have been set out in the agreement and which are put forward clearly in terms of a time frame.
Both noble Lords were concerned about when the fail-safe agreements will kick in if anyone defaults on the agreement. As my right honourable friend said in the Statement, if default occurs, the institutions would be suspended automatically while we find a way forward. However, as he also said, there would be two vital differences from where we are now. The blame for default is clear and the parties are free to move on in an executive without the defaulting party. I hope that it is explicit to noble Lords who raised the issue that the situation could be taken forward without Sinn Fein being part of the executive. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords about the Statement's interpretation in parts of the media that some parties might be penalised if the paramilitaries did not decommission.
It is worth repeating that the parties have the option of excluding any party from the executive if it does not meet its commitments. Only if that does not happen would the Government here take action to suspend the
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institutions. That would be a drastic step but it would be prompted by a clear breach of faith by the party responsible.
The point about the arrangements for the failsafe on the executive is clearly set out and would kick in immediately if there were any breach of the undertakings under the de Chastelain benchmarks. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, wanted more detail about the timetable. I repeat that the first report on decommissioning will take place in September. There will then be a report on the decommissioning process at three-month intervals until May 2000 is reached.
The point of the reports is to enable the fail-safe arrangements, which will be brought forward in the legislative process, to take place. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that that will require primary legislation. I take the point, as I did last week when we spoke of the possibility of there being a Statement and order on devolution, that Cross-Benchers should be included in the process. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, when he raised the point last Thursday, I am sure that the usual channels will extend their consideration to the Cross-Benchers in this particular instance.
The noble Lord raised the issue of the prisoners, which is always an extremely difficult issue. He is only too well aware that the release of the prisoners is dependent on whether organisations are maintaining complete and unequivocal ceasefires. I am sure that he will have noted the statement of the chief constable last week that nothing the Secretary of State has done in this context was in his view inappropriate on the basis of the briefings he had been given about the security situation and the ceasefire.
I say to noble Lords in general that the anxieties which surround the whole issue, specifically as regards prisoners and more broadly as regards trust, are more than clear to those who have followed the history and been involved in the political decisions for so long. I re-emphasise what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, in his concluding remarks, that it would be a tragedy if we reached this point and then, in the words of the Prime Minister, had to rewind the whole process. I simply echo his words that this is the best hope for a generation and hope that the legitimate anxieties can be assuaged.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, will the noble Baroness the Leader of the House accept that one can have only admiration for the Herculean character at the efforts of the Prime Minister and of the Taoiseach in seeking to secure from all parties fulfilment of their obligations under the Good Friday agreement? Every one of us must hope to see an agreed and fair way forward.
However, will the noble Baroness also agree that there has developed what was described on the BBC at lunchtime today as a fog of confusion as to what really is on offer? For that reason, the fail-safe agreement to the deal promulgated on Friday speaks of the Government's commitment to the automatic and

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immediate suspension of the Assembly, the executive and other institutions in the event of certificated failure to meet an obligation to decommission. It will be automatic and immediate, which is all one gets from the agreement of last Friday.
However, today, again on the BBC, the Prime Minister said that it would be open to the Unionist and other parties to go forward with devolved government without Sinn Fein and that he would expect them to do so. Does the Minister agree that that is a very different outcome and, to those who do not wish to see improper influence being accorded to terrorists, a very much more acceptable outcome? That is not least because if the Unionists were to suffer the loss of devolved government, which to them has been such a special prize, it would be deeply unjust if the cause were simply the failure of the IRA to decommission.
Does the noble Baroness agree that it is necessary for the Government to make more sharply clear that they would invite the parties to proceed on the executive without Sinn Fein in those circumstances and to continue to repeat that? I am sure that she will agree with me that the public's fear that the Government are being taken for a ride by extraordinarily adroit politicians and practitioners on the Republican side are rational and never ever to be underestimated.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, for allowing me to repeat and underline some of the points which were made more explicit in the Statement than in previous media interviews. It is the case that if the de Chastelain process records a default by one member or one party to the executive, the organisation is suspended. Indeed, the Government would encourage other parties to the executive to go forward. Perhaps I may repeat that the Prime Minister said that we should be back to where we are now, but with the two vital differences. First, the blame for default would be clear, which is not particularly relevant to the noble and learned Lord's point but is still in the text; and secondly, all the parties would then be free to move on in an executive without the defaulting party.
I am happy to repeat what my right honourable friend said in another place. The Government would encourage them to do so. But, as he also said, he cannot make people sit down in the executive and he cannot force them to form a government. However, it is his position that the UK Government, working closely with their Irish colleagues, will do what they can to encourage the process to continue. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for drawing attention to the role of a Taoiseach in that process.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House clarify that point? Have the Government had any indication from the SDLP whether it would support the exclusion of Sinn Fein because of an adverse report from de Chastelain either in September, December or May? I understood that exclusion would have to be voted upon under the
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d'Hondt system and that if the SDLP did not support that exclusion that would act as the impediment to the process.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot offer any insight as to the position of the SDLP. However, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to its significance, particularly in terms of the possible vote within the executive. I can only say to the noble Lord that if the black scenario which he projects were to occur, the fail-safe proceedings on which there will be legislation would kick in. Although the situation would be less productive than the one I suggested in response to the question asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, a view could be taken about proceeding with the executive without Sinn Fein.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: Perhaps I may join the admiration which has been expressed on all sides of the House for the Prime Minister's dedication, patience and skill in pursuing these negotiations. He has made a remarkable effort and I believe that it should be recognised as such by everyone.
May I also add to that my expression of admiration for the work of the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, without whose skill and charm the Good Friday talks might never have been held? We should not forget that, because she has not had an easy task in trying to be number two to a Prime Minister who is so obviously shining in his success. Would the Leader of the House not agree with me that it is time to stop the nit-picking? Every time she is asked a question, "Would the Prime Minister dot that T; Would the Prime Minister cross that and "Is the Prime Minister being misled here and fooled there?", it counteracts the impression we have all been giving of belief in his sincerity. We are in fact saying that we do not trust his word and we do not trust what he has achieved. Is it not true that all the verbal safeguards that anybody can devise will be no guarantee that the peace process will in effect lead to a peaceful Ireland unless there is a change of heart on both sides of the sectarian divide? I think that we have enough evidence of that change of heart on one side and I hope the Unionists will parallel it on theirs.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for what she said about the Prime Minister's efforts, re-emphasising, as it were, our personal congratulations to him. I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, used the expression "Herculean" about the undertakings in which he had been involved last week, and I think that is quite appropriate. I am also very grateful to her for what she said about my right honourable friend, Dr Mowlam. We all seek to congratulate her. The combination of skill and charm to which my noble friend rightly referred has been unparalleled and extremely important at difficult moments in this long process.
My noble friend referred to nit-picking. We have to be a little careful about how we distinguish between what we regard as irritating attention to detail and appropriate anxieties, to which I was hoping to refer

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in the contributions of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. I would agree with her that obviously we must not allow the attention to the minutiae to distract us from the enormous achievement that has been made, but I would also just remind noble Lords of the final words of the Prime Minister's Statement, which I repeated, in which he said that this should be discussed in detail, that it should be engaged with, but again his final sentence was, "But don't throw away the best chance for peace we will have this generation". I am sure my noble and learned friend would agree with that.
The Lord Bishop of Ely: My Lords, I join other Members of the House in most warmly welcoming the Statement of the Prime Minister this afternoon and in asking the noble Baroness the Leader of the House whether she agrees that the form of argument which might be used with Loyalist politicians would be strengthened if it were admitted that they were faced at this moment with a forced choice between the lesser of evils? On the one hand, there is the evil that people of violence appear not unequivocally to have renounced the use of violent means before their nearest political neighbours sharing the same political aims benefit from, or apparently benefit from, the campaign of indiscriminate terror that has been waged. On the other hand, there is the greater evil that the process itself, which was begun on the richly symbolic day, Good Friday, should grind to a halt and the Province return to the appalling circumstances of the past 30 years.
My mother was an Irish woman—born in County Sligo—and was separated a child from her father because of the religious politics of her day. I am therefore passionately concerned for the future of Ireland. If ever there were a just case for warfare, it only presents itself in the form of a choice between evils. Is it not conceivable that the making of peace at this moment too involves such a choice, but may we not ask the Unionist community to make it and thereby enjoy the support of very many other people of goodwill, both on the mainland and much more widely throughout the world?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is grateful to the right reverend Prelate for putting the whole situation in Ireland, both historically and today, in such vivid terns. I think he made a very important plea for a non-sectarian future for Northern Ireland and I am sure that that is one that the House would echo. I simply say to the right reverend Prelate that we would hope that the choices he presents are less bleak than the ones which he outlined in his vivid contribution, and would hope that the twin aims of decommissioning and the inclusive devolved assembly would bring people together in that non-sectarian venture which requires courage on every side but, as he rightly says, is probably the only way forward.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that 30 years ago next month, her father, the then Home Secretary, was responsible for sending British troops into Northern Ireland in the wake of the trouble which had broken out then. At that time, I think around
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about 15 people had been killed. Since then, more than 3,000 people have been brutally murdered in Northern Ireland. The passions which existed in 1960 have been multiplied time and time again and, at this present time, there is a great deal of distrust between both communities in Northern Ireland.
I have said repeatedly in this House and outside it that the one big mistake made in the Good Friday agreement was not to have contained the issue of decommissioning. It has been hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles every minute since then. Now we must answer and try to grapple with the circumstances which have arisen because that issue was not contained.
Is it a question of 24, 48 or 72 hours on which this whole process hinges because Sinn Fein has said that, unless the executive is formed, it is not going to give any undertaking on decommissioning? The Unionists say, "Our manifesto, our party policy, is that you must enter into the process of decommissioning before you are admitted into the executive". Is it realistic that the whole process of peace in Northern Ireland should hinge on 24, 48 or 72 hours? Again, I have to support what has been said by many people in Northern Ireland. There is a good deal of confusion as to how the fail-safe device will work. It looks at the moment that if Sinn Fein does not give an undertaking to General de Chastelain that it will decommission—people will interpret it to their own satisfaction—then the whole Assembly could be brought to an end. I think it would be very, very unfair if democrats elected to that Assembly should be cast out to the wilderness because the members of Sinn Fein, the perpetrators of murder, have not agreed to disarmament.
I have not read in any great detail the commentaries which have been given by the Loyalist paramilitaries. At least the Sinn Fein representatives who are to be appointed to the executive have not been convicted of murder. There are Loyalist representatives in the Assembly who have been convicted of murder and have served a long time in prison. What happens if their ceasefire breaks down? Are they to be excluded from the Assembly? Are the Sinn Fein representatives on the executive to be banished from the executive but still maintain their positions in the Assembly?
Before one can begin to envisage peace in Northern Ireland, the Government must be seen to be acting equally and bringing out equality on both sides.
Over the past two or three days, there has been an absolute avalanche of criticism mobilised against the Unionist party. There are two communities in Northern Ireland. I believe that David Trimble has gone out of his way to do all he possibly can in this process and the Government should go out of their way to assist him. Otherwise, he will be abolished by his own party and the whole agreement will fall into the abyss.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the noble Lord speaks from an extremely authoritative background on this issue. He reminded me of my long-term family connections with the situation in Northern Ireland. But even so, I cannot match his experience.

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I simply remind the noble Lord of what I said in response to an earlier question on the issue of exclusion of parties from the assembly. The parties have the option of excluding any party from the executive if it does not meet its commitment. That was extremely clear. He is right to draw attention to the role of the Loyalist paramilitaries. He will have noted that the Statement referred to the fact that a great deal of the recent violence has come from that source.
The particular point about the executive, which is at the nub of the present concerns about the fail-safe arrangement, is that the Loyalist paramilitary groups would not be represented within the executive because the parties which are, as it were, the democratic face of the loyalist paramilitaries do not have sufficient seats, under the d'Hondt system, to be represented on the executive. Therefore that issue is constitutionally irrelevant.
However, I repeat that there are all the concerns to which the noble Lord rightly drew attention about the detail of the decommissioning process. That process will have been said to have started if, within a couple of days—I use General de Chastelain's phrase—the commitment on decommissioning is given by the IRA and it appoints a link person to negotiate all the precise details with his team. That will set the decommissioning process in train. As I said in answer to other questions, that will be followed by certain benchmark activities which must be satisfied during the coming months.
However, I merely say to the noble Lord and to the whole House that if we do not follow through and we are not able to deliver on the agreement, there will be no decommissioning at all.
Lord Hurd of Westwell: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for the way in which she has handled questions so far. She has shed light on some difficult points.
However, the fog persists. Does she not agree that one of the main reasons for that confusion across the water is the way in which Sinn Fein and IRA spokesmen seem, day by day, to be saying one thing to their own supporters and another to the Prime Minister? If that ambivalence persists during this crucial month, the chances of the Unionists reaching a satisfactory conclusion are bound to be greatly reduced.
The second point has not yet been made. Will the noble Baroness accept—I am sure she will—that the Statement today and the events over the weekend put a huge burden on General de Chastelain? His integrity and good sense impress anyone who meets him. However, he now carries that burden. It is his job to be clear and not to throw a cloak over any ambiguities and things which are going wrong. The whole process depends not just on the Herculean efforts of the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach but also on the capacity and integrity of that Canadian general. Will the noble Baroness assure us that he will receive full support in the independent carrying out of his role?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for allowing me
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to say that there is an enormous burden on General de Chastelain. Our Government and the fish Government have recently recognised that explicitly. He will receive the full support of both Governments in the extraordinarily delicate work which he undertakes.
I go back to the noble Lord's earlier comments. The ambivalence which he describes must be resolved by actions, not words. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has set out in such detail the way in which the defaulting system, if one can call it that, kicks in once the devolution process, if it does begin, begins. After two days—and General de Chastelain used the expression "a couple of days"—we need to see the agreement from the IRA to the decommissioning process. If in September and further on in subsequent months General de Chastelain is then able to report that the benchmarking process has been agreed, those actions will in a sense reinforce the whole political process. They will be crucial to it. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has insisted on those objective tests of movement on decommissioning rather than, as I said in answer to the original point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, relying on people's good faith. That has been sorely tested in this process.
I repeat to the House—because it may not have been clear, judging by the questions which have been asked—that all those fail-safe arrangements will be set out in legislation. That is being consulted on urgently and I know that my right honourable friend is hoping to bring forward the legislation within a matter of days.

Greater London Authority Bill
5.7 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 199.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 288C:
Page 106, line 38, leave out ("Greater London") and insert ("the Greater London area").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 2888D. These amendments are proposed to Clause 199 which deals with the appointment of the London Transport Users' Committee.
The first amendment proposes that rather than simply and precisely "Greater London" being the area relevant to the use of transport facilities and services, the area is described as the "Greater London area".
It is in the nature of transport that one cannot set a political or administrative boundary. The term "the Greater London area" is used in the Railways Act 1993 to define the area with which the current committee—the LRPC—is concerned. We believe that there should be a similar provision here and that membership of the committee should be able to cover the whole area.
When the matter was raised by my honourable friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton in another place, the Minister said that she was prepared to consider the

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issue further and return to it at a later stage. On that basis, he withdrew the amendment. I hope that the Minister may have some news for us about that.
The second amendment seeks to exclude the mayor from membership of the new committee. That is because of a concern on our part about a possible conflict of interest. Members of the assembly, Transport for London and the staff of those organisations may not be appointed. Of course, the mayor falls within one of those categories.
In response to this amendment in another place, the Minister said that it was unlikely and unacceptable that the assembly would appoint the mayor in such a capacity. She said:
"As it is inherent that, although it is unlikely, there may be criticism of the mayoral transport strategy as well as Transport for London, the amendment is unnecessary".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee A, 2/3/99; col. 885.]
It seems to me that by saying that it would be unlikely and unacceptable for the assembly to appoint the mayor to the new committee rather makes the point that the amendment is necessary and desirable.
On the Bill, the Government's response to amendments has been that such and such is inconceivable. We take the view that our role is to say, "What if?", and to ask that question of the Committee. The amendment was tabled in that spirit I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We have similar difficulties with these amendments as with Amendment No. 288B. Amendment No. 288C seeks to define the geographical area covered by the LTUC. Noble Lords will recognise—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said—that the boundary of LTUC in its role as a rail users' consultative committee is much wider than Greater London or indeed the outer boundary of TfL services. However, the assembly is not prevented from selecting people from outside the boundary of the Greater London Authority, and it is important to recognise that the rail regulator has the opportunity to contribute to the process of appointments. If the noble Baroness remains concerned on the issue of boundaries, I am prepared to consider whether the geographical area covered by the LTUC may be more clearly defined in the Bill.
We do not believe that Amendment No. 288D is necessary. Decisions about appointments are taken by the assembly in consultation with the rail regulator. A basic purpose of the committee is to assist the assembly in the scrutiny of the mayor's policy and the performance of TfL. It would clearly be perverse for the mayor to participate in the proceedings of the committee as its chair while his or her policies were under debate. We believe that that is so obvious that the assembly does not need an express provision in the Bill to point it out.
I am conscious that the noble Baroness, in speaking to her second amendment, was commenting on the strength of the language. I hope she feels reassured by the clear expression that it would be perverse for that to happen and will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee: On Amendment No. 288D, I believe that it is the job of this Committee and the
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House as a revising Chamber to exclude any possibility of perversity. Nevertheless, I shall admit to an argument that the noble Baroness has not used against me. We have sought all the way through the Bill to give the assembly as much flexibility as possible vis-à-vis the mayor. Perhaps there is logic in my accepting the rather odd situation with which we are presented on that amendment.
I am grateful for the comments of the Minister on the first of the amendments. It would be useful to provide for what we are agreed upon. On the basis that the Government will consider returning with an amendment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 288D not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 289:
Page 107, line 2, at end insert (", or
(e) any officer or employee or member of a company having business with the Authority or with Transport for London, or any company in which Transport for London has an interest, which generates revenue in any twelve month period (measured according to generally accepted principles of accounting) in excess of £10,000, or any officer or employee of any company under the control of such a company, or which is controlled by a company which also controls such a company").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 289, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 290, 292 and 293. This group of amendments is concerned with the transport users' committee. Amendment No. 289 seeks to add to the list of those who may not be appointed to that committee—assembly members, members of TfL, members of staff and so on—those who have a business interest with Transport for London, or with the authority, in excess of a certain amount of money. I am prepared to be flexible about the sum of money. The principle is that those who have business interests with the authority should not be members of the users' committee because there could be a potential conflict of interest.
Amendment No. 290 requires that,
"The Assembly shall appoint and fix the remuneration of external auditors"—
and that it shall conduct,
"an annual audit of the finances of the Committee and submit an annual report on such finances to the Assembly".
As I understand it, the transport users' committee has no requirement to be externally audited. We are dealing with fare-payers' money—those who use the London transport system—and we believe it is right that an audit should be carried out by external auditors and a report made to the assembly.
Amendment No. 292 deals with public sessions of the users' committee. The amendment merely suggests that the committee should give three days' notice of such meetings. At the moment I can see no requirement lo give notice of such meetings. Unless the public is given notice—we suggest three days—there is little value in having public sessions of the users' committee.

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I understand that local authorities are obliged to give three days' notice and that would be a good principle to apply here.
Amendment No. 293 deals with business taken at the meeting from which the public should be excluded. We have no objection to the fact that it may be necessary for the public to be excluded from some items, but we are suggesting that if such an exclusion is to take place, the public should be told what items are involved and given a brief reason why their attendance is not allowed. That seems a perfectly reasonable requirement to put on the committee.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: These amendments cover a range of matters concerning LTUC, including provisions on membership, on audit and public accountability, and on the actual subject matter to be considered by the LTUC.
Amendment No. 289 is similar, as the noble Lord acknowledged, to one we debated last week in relation to the independent bus permits appeals body. The Government wish to see public bodies, such as LTUC, representing the full diversity of the communities who use the services. Yet the effect of this amendment would be to debar a significant number of people from applying for membership of LTUC. For example, the amendment would disqualify those working for firms providing office supplies, financial services and catering contracts to TfL, none of which is directly linked to transport provision, and many of which could easily be in excess of the £10,000 threshold contained in the amendment. On Thursday, the noble Lord acknowledged that the figure of £10,000 was perhaps too low.
At present, members of the London Regional Passengers' Committee, in common with members of the other rail users' consultative committees, are asked to disclose financial interests in the transport sector, and may be asked to divest themselves of such assets prior to appointment. That non-statutory method of managing conflicts of interests has worked effectively. We see no reason why the same practice should not be followed.
Moreover, it is the assembly which is to appoint members of LTUC. The assembly will want the LTUC to be independent, and will no doubt make appointments accordingly. We believe that the amendment is disproportionate, and that this is a matter for common sense rather than one requiring legislation.
Amendment No. 290 would require the assembly to appoint external auditors for LTUC. The Government plan to bring forward technical proposals of their own at a later stage to ensure that the audit provisions for LTUC fit within the overall structure for the Greater London Authority and its constituent parts. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord in that respect. I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Some of the amendments are proposed with the best of intentions but can cause practical problems. Amendment No. 292 is such an example. I am sure that, as a public consultative body, LTUC will strive to give
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timely notice of its meetings. However, the amendment would prevent LTUC meeting to discuss issues within a shorter timescale. A consultative body such as this should be allowed the flexibility to react to events in a timely way.
Amendment No. 293 would require the committee to give notice to the public of items from which they may be excluded. It would cause administrative difficulties. Although the confidentiality provisions in the Bill permit some items to be taken in private session if provided in confidence by the rail regulator or franchising director, other items can only be held in private session if the committee formally resolves to do so. Such decisions can only be taken at the relevant committee meeting.
I should perhaps add that it is the LRPC's normal practice for confidential items to be taken together so as to minimise inconvenience to members of the public who wish to attend the relevant meeting. That is not always possible and it would be inappropriate to limit LTUC in this way. I hope therefore that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: These are small points but if things went wrong they could cause a great deal of trouble. Have the Government thought about this? Three days is a very short time in which to give notice of a public meeting. Would it not be a good idea to have something on the face of the Bill.
We all know that there will be occasions when a body such as the new London Transport Users' Committee will want to be able to say it has held a public meeting but is not keen on too many people expressing their views at that meeting. Putting a minimum period of notice on the face of the Bill is certainly desirable, and I cannot imagine that less than three days would ever be required.
In relation to Amendment No. 293, will the agenda containing the items to be discussed in private be publicly available, or will the agenda of those items also be private? If the normal access to information applies, the agenda will explain what the items are. If the public know what the items are, then the chairman will have to give an explanation in order to get the members of the public to leave the meeting. One can trivialise this matter a little too much. Trouble could easily arise at these meetings.
Baroness Hamwee: When similar issues were raised from these Benches in connection with meetings of the assembly and public meetings, we detected—without commitment—a little sympathy on the part of the noble Baroness that they require careful attention. I hope that we can return to those earlier amendments at a later stage and that the Government will be prepared to agree to some minor alterations of the Bill simply in the interests of the good working of the new authority.
The points made in this current debate are very much in the same category. No ground is lost if this matter is conceded; it simply enables the Bill to provide what it should provide for the right sort of regulations. Will the

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Minister be prepared to consider these aspects of this part of the Bill with the equivalent provisions relating to another part of the new organisation?
Lord Avebury: Before the noble Baroness responds, can she give the Committee some idea of what matters are likely to be of such an emergency nature that it would be impossible to give three days' notice of their discussion at a meeting? Presumably, meetings will be held on a regular basis at fixed intervals and there would be no problem in giving the three days' notice provided for in the amendment. The Minister says that if we write this into the Bill it will prevent the committee having special meetings to discuss some item which requires prompt consideration. Can she tell us what kind of items might be likely to be taken at such a meeting?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: A matter of public safety would be an example. I cannot think of another example off the top of my head. If a restriction was placed on the committee, it would not be able to convene in a situation where there was that nature of urgency. I am happy to give the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the assurance that we will give careful thought to this matter when we come back with amendments on the issue of guidance to LTUC from the assembly.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Can the Minister tell me if the agenda will be public, even if some of the items are private? Will people know what the private items are if they come to a public meeting?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: That is a matter to which we can return in terms of guidance. Obviously, there would need to be enough information for people to be aware of the decisions being taken. I am sure the noble Baroness can remember from her distinguished days in local government that there was always enough information on an agenda to be able to tell that the nature of the business being taken had to be taken in private.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: That was because of the Local Government (Access to Information) Act, which I do not believe applies here.
Lord Berkeley: Another example of when a meeting might have to be convened at short notice is if a major bus operator suddenly went into liquidation. There may need to be quick discussions taking place in such a situation.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I shall write to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, as to whether that Act applies.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Carnegy, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who felt able to support at least the principle of two of the amendments. I shall read with interest what the noble
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Baroness had to say in relation to the first amendment. It may be that the provisions for disclosure of information will satisfy me.
In relation to the second amendment, I look forward again with interest to the technical proposals on audit which the Minister intends to bring forward. On the matter of allowing three clear days' notice, the explanation that there might be a matter of urgency which would need less than that is difficult to accept. Frankly, there will be up to 24 members on this committee plus the chairman, and I feel it would be difficult to organise a meeting of that number within three days in any case. It is not easy to arrange such a meeting at short notice.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, gave an example of the possible liquidation of a London bus operator. I would have thought that was more a matter for Transport for London than the new London Transport Users' Committee. It might be something with which the LTUC will have to deal, but I doubt that it would need to do anything immediately. It would be for Transport for London to produce an alternative operator if that was required. The reasons therefore for not allowing three days' notice are pretty thin. As I understand it, local authorities are required to give that amount of notice and I cannot understand why the LTUC should not be able to do so also.
The explanation to be given to the public as to why they are being excluded from the meeting relates to a very small request. As my noble friend Lady Carnegy said, it could lead to trouble if people find themselves being thrown out of a meeting without being told why. However, I shall not pursue the amendments at this point. Nevertheless, I shall study the Minister's response with care and reserve the right to return to such issues. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 199 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 290 not moved.]
5.30 p.m.
Schedule 14 [London Transport Users' Committee]:
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 290A:
Page 236, line 33, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment deals with a small point and I have tabled it in order to probe a little a matter which was discussed in another place. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 14 provides that the assembly,
"may after consultation with the Rail Regulator make arrangements for the Committee to be provided with office accommodation".
Our amendment proposes that the assembly "shall" provide such accommodation. That is not because we believe that it should or should not do so but in order to ask the Government to explain why it is that the provision needs to be here at all.
In another place, I understand that the Minister said that the objection to this amendment was that it would prevent funding to provide offices for the committee; in other words, saying that the assembly "shall" provide accommodation would disqualify it from providing funding as an alternative.
I am concerned about the detail of the provisions in Schedule 14. One has to be so careful over this sort of provision. There is a provision in paragraph 5 of the schedule which allows the assembly to provide for the "expenses" of the new committee. Would that not be adequate to cover arrangements for office accommodation, which is the subject of paragraph 7? Moreover, as a subsidiary point, why should this apply to the rail regulator? He has many functions and sensible things to say, but does he really need to be concerned with this decision? I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: This amendment is unnecessary and could impose undue restrictions on the provision of accommodation for the committee. It is unlikely that the assembly would not provide accommodation for the committee that it had just appointed. However, there could be a situation where the committee is provided with accommodation in which the assembly had no hand. The assembly is already under a duty to provide the committee with funds for expenses incurred, and these could include accommodation costs.
Under Schedule 14, the assembly is under a duty to make funds available for expenses which could cover accommodation. The committee may want to make its own arrangements with funds provided by the assembly. Therefore, there is no need to make it a duty for the assembly to make arrangements for accommodation.
The rail regulator is involved here because of his role as sponsor of the rail users' consultative committees, of which LTUC would be one. With those explanations, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee: Perhaps my amendment should have sought to delete the paragraph. By tabling an amendment in the same form as it appeared in another place, I now realise that I tempted the answer I have received, which I fear does not deal with my concerns. However, they are not the most major issues in the Bill.
I see that the Minister is looking puzzled. It seems to me that paragraph 5, which talks about the assembly providing the committee with funds to "defray" expenses, should be all that one needs to provide for accommodation. However, I shall not pursue the point at this stage. As I said, it is not the most important issue in the whole scheme of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 290B:
Page 237, line 5, after ("sub-committees") insert ("or officers").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment relates to paragraph 10 of Schedule 14, which allows the committee,
"to delegate the exercise and performance of any of their functions to … sub-committees".
Our amendment would allow for delegation to "officers" as well as to sub-committees. In another place, the response to a similar amendment was that this would be
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inconsistent with the regulations applying to other rail users' committees. However, whether or not it is inconsistent, we believe that it should be allowed if it is a sensible arrangement. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Officers of a committee such as the London Transport Users' Committee are responsible for much day-to-day activity and integral to its success. It is indeed right that it should work without the risk of possible legal action. However, the right level of protection under the law comes from acting within the broad framework of committee policy and considering representations accordingly. The officers are able to do so under the Bill without the proposed amendment. We are not aware that any problems have arisen under the present arrangements to which LRPC is subject. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: Before my noble friend decides what to do with her amendment, I should point out that this issue was also debated in another place. In the course of the argument that took place, the Minister said that the amendment would make LTUC's arrangements inconsistent with those for other rail users' consultative committees—indeed, an argument which the Minister used when dealing with the other amendment that we have just discussed. I find that quite an interesting way of putting things. To my way of thinking, it takes us back to the previous amendment which was directed at trying to ensure that the new representative organisation represents the interests of public users of transport rather than the users of all transport. It is as though the Minister was saying that it will be like a rail users' committee; but it is not. It is going to be a different sort of committee. The Government must make up their mind as to what sort of committee we are talking about.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Reverting to the previous amendment, the answer is that in this case the rail users' consultative committee for the area is LTUC. The other answer is that, although it is that, it is that plus; in other words, it has a value added over and above that. I hope that that satisfies the noble Baroness.
Baroness Hamwee: We are used to being not quite as satisfied as we would wish. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth Baroness Darcy de Knayth moved Amendment No. 291:
Page 237, line 5, at end insert—
("() The Committee shall appoint a sub-committee whose sole responsibility shall be to deal with complaints about door-to-door transport.").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment has been tabled in my name and that of the noble Lord, Swinfen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood. In moving this amendment, I should like briefly to speak to Amendment No. 294B which is grouped with it

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and stands in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
The aim of Amendment No. 291 is to ensure that in the new arrangements whereby the London Regional Passengers' Committee is replaced by the London Transport Users' Committee, there is a body capable of dealing with the specialised area of complaints from disabled people about door-to-door services. Door-to-door services are a new, expanding and specialised area. The London Accessible Transport Alliance feels that the users of these door-to-door services will require a body dedicated to dealing with these complaints, probably a sub-committee of LTUC which will still deal with accessibility issues regarding mainstream transport. But it must be an adequately resourced body purely dedicated to dealing with this complicated area. The majority of members should be disabled people and users of the door-to-door services because they have the required expertise in these matters.
Amendment No. 294B would leave such matters to be dealt with by the main committee. I look forward to hearing what other Members of the Committee have to say on both these amendments, and particularly to the noble Lord's reply. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Manchester: Again I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, for tabling Amendment No. 291, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, for moving it this afternoon. She did so with all her customary persuasiveness. I welcome the amendment and underline the importance of her point about ensuring that the body helping users of door-to-door transport is adequately resourced and dedicated to dealing with this complicated area of provision. I will not detain the Committee further except to say that this is an important amendment to which I know that my noble friend the Minister will want to reply as helpfully as he can.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I rise briefly to support Amendment No. 291 and to refer to our Amendment No. 294B which states that the functions of the authority that relate to transport should include transport for those with mobility impairments. The Minister has already told us that he is prepared to have a meeting with those who have taken a great interest in this matter. For that reason I do not propose to discuss this amendment in further detail.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I believe that the concerns which lie behind these two amendments could perhaps be dealt with in the meeting, as the noble Baroness suggests. It is our view that these amendments are unnecessary. Of course it is right that LTUC should be able to consider representations from all transport users, including in particular those who use door-to-door transport. The Bill already provides for LTUC to consider representations from the users of such services directly provided or funded by TfL, including Dial-a-Ride. However, there is no need to spell that out on the face of the Bill.
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The reference in Clause 200(1)(a) to the transport functions of the authority and TfL includes precisely those functions relating to the provision of transport services to disabled people. The mayor will of course have a duty to include in his or her transport strategy proposals for the provision of accessible transport and TfL will be responsible for implementing those proposals. LTUC will be consulted and will be able to comment on those proposals. These activities are therefore clearly functions which LTUC can consider.
As regards Amendment No. 294B, clearly what I have said about the provisions in Clause 200(1)(a) relating to transport functions already provide for this matter to be covered. As to prescribing a sub-committee, I believe it would be rare to include provisions on the face of a Bill describing how an organisation should divide itself into sub-committees. The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, may be thinking of something rather more than a sub-committee, although Amendment No. 291 refers to a sub-committee.
Paragraph 10 of Schedule 14 already provides LTUC with the power to form sub-committees and to co-opt people on to them who are not members of the committee. The assembly will have to ensure that LTUC truly represents all users of transport in London, including disabled people and so on. I think it would be an unhelpful precedent for us to specify how bodies set up in statute should organise themselves in terms of sub-committees, especially as in this case it is clear that what the noble Baroness seeks is already covered by other provisions in this Bill. Nevertheless if there are remaining anxieties I shall discuss them with those interested, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, suggested.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for his welcome support. He stressed that this is an important amendment and that it is important to get it right. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for her support. I welcome very much indeed what the Minister has said. I find it greatly reassuring. I think that the matter of the expert body of people is exactly the kind of matter that we could pursue further in the meeting. I am most grateful for the offer of a meeting. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 291A:
Page 237, line 19, after second ("the") insert ("Authority, Transport for London, the").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 291A I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 291B, 294C and 294D. Amendment No. 291A seeks to enable the committee to exclude the public not only when discussing items of business that already fall within paragraph 13(2)(a) of Schedule 14—that is, when discussing information that is furnished in confidence by the rail regulator or the franchising director—but also when discussing information that has been furnished by the authority itself or by Transport for London.
Amendment No. 291B would provide that only commercial, legal or personnel information from the various bodies to which I have referred will be dealt

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with on the basis I have mentioned. In another place in response to similar amendments it was argued that the committee should be consistent with other rail user consultative committees. As I said on a previous amendment, it seems to me that it is more important to be right than to be consistent.
Amendment No. 294B seeks to place a duty on Transport for London or the authority to provide information to the committee. This again was an amendment proposed in another place for the obvious reason that the committee will need information in order to carry out its duties. I accept of course that this amendment was lost in a Division in another place. The Minister there said that the amendment was not necessary because the committee,
"will inevitably not be able to carry out its function without access to information".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Cttee A, 2/3/99; col. 895.]
The Minister here has alerted the Committee to amendments which the Government propose to table at a later stage which deal with guidance. Can this matter not be dealt with in guidance, if not on the face of the Bill?
Amendment No. 294D seeks to provide for Transport for London or the authority to give reasons to the committee for any decision that it reaches in response to the committee's recommendations. That seems to me to be almost a matter of natural justice. That is perhaps using too technical and "highfalutin" a term, but to give reasons must be more than simply sensible. It cannot be appropriate for reasons not to be given when a decision is made. In another place the Government said that this measure was not necessary because there was a statutory requirement for the committee to be notified of decisions. It was further stated in Standing Committee A in another place that:
"Neither the authority nor Transport for London is likely to supply a decision with no reasons attached. Including an explanation of a decision is a matter of good practice, not a matter for legislation".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Cttee A, 2/3/99; col. 900.]
We are in danger of being criticised for being over-prescriptive but that is in response to what we see as the over-prescription of the Bill. We believe that giving an explanation for a decision constitutes a little more than simply good practice. It is important to the good functioning of the bodies concerned. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: As the noble Baroness has indicated that she does not accept my main objection to the amendments as drafted—namely, that they would clearly make the London Transport Users' Committee operate under a different system from that which applies to the Rail Users' Consultative Committee—I am not sure that I will be able to convince her totally of my position. Nevertheless, as I think she recognised at various points, these amendments would be much more suitable to guidance than on the face of the Bill. For example, Amendment No. 291A would place TfL in a rather odd position. It would give information imparted by TfL the same status as that imparted by the regulatory bodies, whereas TfL is, in this sense, a service provider.
Apart from the fact that it would be inconsistent with the provisions on other rail user consultative committees, Amendment No. 291 B seeks to limit the kinds of
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information provided by the franchising director and the rail regulator which are subject to being heard in private. If that were restricted it could well hinder the flow of information between the regulatory bodies and the committees, which would be undesirable.
As to Amendment No. 294C, while it is understandable that the committee would wish to have access to information held by the GLA—and, in nearly every case, also by Transport for London—it is equally clear that a constructive relationship is a better way of achieving this than by putting it on the face of the Bill. If there is any difficulty it is, of course, open to the LTUC to approach the assembly to ask for assistance; the assembly will have powers to require TfL to provide information. We hope to avoid that situation if we follow the noble Baroness's view that this is more appropriate to guidance.
As to the final amendment concerning reasons, clearly we would normally expect reasons to be given. If reasons are not given, again it would be open to the LTUC to raise the matter with assembly members in accordance with other provisions in the Bill; they can always question the mayor and obtain answers at that point. Again, we hope that this will be a matter where good practice and a constructive growth of relations will ensure that in most cases the mayor or TfL would automatically give reasons. If that requirement were to be on the face of the Bill, one would have to bring forward an amendment which recognised that there would be certain circumstances where the mayor or TfL were constrained from giving reasons; for example, because of on-going legal proceedings, privacy and so on. It would be a more complicated amendment. I feel that this should be subject to the organic growth of good relations, perhaps subject to guidance, as the noble Baroness has suggested. I therefore request that she withdraws her amendments.
Baroness Hamwee: I do not want to damage the chances of matters we would like to see in the guidance by starting on a path of commenting on what seems to be in the Bill and what seems to be left out—with not, to our eyes, huge distinctions between the two. We should be very happy for quite a lot of the prescription around this subject to go into guidance. I am happy to wait until I see the Government's amendments on guidance.
I, among others of your Lordships, have been lax and have failed to ask when the draft guidance might be available for consideration. The Minister might have thought that he was going to get away without being asked that question. He might like to respond now.
Lord Whitty: We are referring here to guidance by the assembly rather than by the Secretary of State. Although that is normally the question, it is not appropriate at this point.
Baroness Hamwee: I deserved that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 291E to 293 not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 294:
Page 237, line 39, leave out paragraph 14.
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 294 standing in my name and the names of my noble friends. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has also added his name to the amendment. That is a first for this side of the Committee.
The amendment seeks to strike out that the consent of the Treasury should be required for any determination or approval by the assembly under this schedule. We feel that on the principle of subsidiarity the: Treasury has no right to veto the assembly on the matter of the committee's remuneration and structure. It should be a purely London matter and it would be petty to give the Exchequer the right to interfere. I should very much hope that officials in that great department of state, the Treasury, would have better things to do than to deal with this kind of matter. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, is absolutely correct. At one stage I had thought of making a dramatic concession on the floor of House. It is a matter on which we all clearly agree. Unlike its predecessor, the LTUC is not a government NDPB. Therefore, in those circumstances, it is not appropriate that the Treasury should be involved. I agree with the noble Lord.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 200 [Representations to the Committee]:
[Amendments Nos. 294A to 294C not moved.]
Clause 200 agreed to.
Clause 201 [Recommendations and reports etc]:
[Amendment No. 294D not moved.]
Clause 201 agreed to.
Clause 202 agreed to.
Schedule 15 agreed to.
Clause 203 agreed to.
Schedule 16 [Hackney carriages]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 294E:
Page 240, leave out lines 37 to 40 and insert—
("(5) A fee of such amount (if any) as Transport for London may determine shall be paid to Transport for London—

(a) by any applicant for a licence under this section, on making the application for the licence;

(b) by any applicant for the taking or re-taking of any test or examination, or any part of a test or examination, with respect to any matter of fitness, on making the application for the taking or re-taking of the test, examination or part; and

(c) by any person granted a licence under this section, on the grant of the licence.

(5A) In paragraph (b) of subsection (5) of this section "matter of fitness" means—

(a) any matter as respects which Transport for London must be satisfied before granting a licence under this section; or

(b) any matter such that, if Transport for London is not satisfied with respect to the matter, they may refuse to grant a licence under this section.

(5B) Different amount may be determined under subsection (5) of this section for different purposes or different cases.
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(5C) Transport for London may remit or refund the whole or part of a fee under subsection (5) of this section.").
The noble Lord said: We now come to Chapter IX of the Bill, which deals with taxis and minicabs. With the indulgence of the Committee, before I turn to the amendments it might be appropriate to record a few words about Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham who, unfortunately, is no longer with us, although he attended the Second Reading of the Bill.
Your Lordships will know that he had a number of diverse interests but in the House he was well known as a champion of the London taxi trade. He drove a black cab himself, which could occasionally be seen in the forecourt, and was engaged in many charitable aspects of the London taxi trade—including accompanying cab drivers taking less affluent children to Disneyland and leading a convoy of lorries to Algeria. The noble Earl's work was well appreciated in the House and probably even more so by the London taxi trade. I regret his passing, particularly before seeing the full passage of the Bill. He will be much missed in discussing the current amendments.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: With the leave of the Committee, I would like to thank the Minister very much for what he said about our much-cherished colleague, Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham. He was not only a man of many interests, which included a profound love and knowledge of jazz, but was the dearest, kindest colleague that anybody could have. I never heard him express a cross word or saw him to be anything except smiling and delightful. He will be greatly missed, not only for his contribution to our debates but for his charm and personality.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I would, from these Benches, like to be associated with the remarks of the Minister and the noble Baroness.
Lord Whitty: I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord.
Earlier in the passage of the Bill in another place, my colleague Glenda Jackson gave an undertaking to take away and consider an amendment to provide for Transport for London to be able to charge fees on application for the grant of a taxi driver's and vehicle licence. That undertaking recognised the considerable support from the taxi trade, members of both Houses and others that the measure has attracted.
The current position is that taxi drivers pay fees only for the grant, including renewal, of drivers' and vehicle licences, but the work involved in the lead-up to the grant of a licence can vary greatly from case to case. For example, some would-be taxi drivers pass the knowledge of London test fairly quickly. Others require a number of tests, with the resources that involves, before they pass—if they pass at all. The effect of the current charging system is that people have no incentive properly to prepare themselves or their vehicles before going forward for a test.

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The result is inefficiency because the resources of the Public Carriage Office are wasted on testing people or vehicles that are not ready. The result is also unfairness. People who have prepared properly are undoubtedly kept waiting. People who pass the test and gain a licence are in effect paying in their licence fee for people who did not prepare adequately and have failed. That cannot be right.
Amendments Nos. 294E and 294F address that anomaly by providing for TfL to charge for the initial application for a taxi driver and vehicle licence, and for any test or re-test arising from the licence application. The amendments fulfil the Government's undertaking in another place and I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: The taxi community asked me to bring forward such amendments but it is so good to see that the Minister has done so. I strongly support them.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 294F:
Page 241, leave out lines 29 to 32 and insert—
("(7) A fee of such amount (if any) as Transport for London may determine shall be paid to Transport for London—

(a) by any applicant for a licence under this section, on making the application for the licence;

(b) by any applicant for the taking or re-taking of any test or examination, or any part of a test or examination, with respect to any matter of fitness, on making the application for the taking or re-taking of the test, examination or part; and

(c) by any person granted a licence under this section, on the grant of the licence.

(8) In paragraph (b) of subsection (7) of this section "matter of fitness" means—

(a) any matter as respects which Transport for London must be satisfied before granting a licence under this section; or

(b) any matter such that, if Transport for London is not satisfied with respect to the matter, they may refuse to grant a licence under this section.

(9) Different amounts may be determined under subsection (7) of this section for different purposes or different cases.
(10) Transport for London may remit or refund the whole or part of a fee under subsection (7) of this section.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 204 agreed to
Schedule 17 agreed to.
Clause 205 agreed to.
6 p.m.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment 294G:
After Clause 205, insert the following new clause—
THE WOOLWICH FERRY
(" . The duty of the Secretary of State under section 16 of the Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act 1885 to work a ferry-boat across the river Thames is transferred to Transport for London by this section.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment provides for the Secretary of State's duties to operate the Woolwich ferry to be transferred to Transport for London. The ferry is an important river crossing and is a link in the road network that the Government propose should be the responsibility of TfL. The new clause will permit the use of powers in Part XII of the Bill to transfer the property rights and liabilities associated with the ferry from the Secretary of State. It will allow the replacement of the Secretary of State's powers, to make orders on the use of the ferry with by-laws made by TfL and permit any existing orders or by-laws made by predecessor bodies to be treated as by-laws made by TfL.
The staff who operate the Woolwich ferry are employed by the London Borough of Greenwich, which has an agency agreement with the Secretary of State. TfL will inherit the current arrangements when it takes over responsibility and staff will continue to be employed by the London Borough of Greenwich.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the new clause. I only wonder how the Woolwich ferry could have been forgotten for so long, until the Bill reached a Committee of this House.
Does the Woolwich ferry make or lose money? I suspect that it loses money. If so, presumably it currently receives a subsidy from the Secretary of State. If that is the case, will that subsidy be paid by Transport for London? Will the Secretary of State therefore make a special grant to TfL? If the Woolwich ferry makes a profit, all well and good. Presumably the TfL will enjoy that profit. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: While scribes are scribing in other parts of this Committee, perhaps I may simply rise to welcome the amendment—which is thoroughly sensible and a delightful example of not exactly devolution but, at any rate, devolvement of power. It is most satisfactory.
Lord Avebury: Why was it decided to transfer the powers this way, rather than by the tidier method of repealing the 1885 Act and conferring the powers directly on TfL?
Lord Whitty: The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is correct. The present provisions for the Woolwich ferry arise from the 1885 Act, but we felt that, rather than make an amendment to that statute, it would be appropriate to insert an explicit clause.
As to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, I believe that the requirement is to run a free service. If I am wrong, I will write to the noble Lord. The annual running costs are paid directly by the Secretary of State. Henceforth, the money will form part of the GLA transport grant and be included within that.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes moved Amendment 295:
After Clause 205, insert the following new clause—
SMOKING IN LONDON TAXIS
(" .—(1) A person shall not smoke or carry lighted tobacco in a London taxi where passengers are by means of a prescribed notice informed that smoking is prohibited.
(2) For the purposes of this section, "prescribed notice" means a notice or marking of such type, and displayed in or on a London taxi in such manner, as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.
(3) A passenger who contravenes subsection (1) may be required by the driver to leave a London taxi and, where the passenger refuses to comply with that requirement, may be removed by the driver or, on the request of the driver, by a constable.
(4) Nothing in subsection (3) shall be taken to relieve a passenger from the obligation to any pay fare and where a passenger is required to leave or is removed from a London taxi in accordance with that subsection before reaching his destination he shall be liable to pay the fare up to the point where he is required to leave or is removed from that taxi.
(5) A person who—

(a) contravenes subsection (1),

(b) refuses to comply with a requirement made in accordance with subsection (3), or

(c) resists lawful removal in accordance with that subsection, is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

(6) Notwithstanding the provisions of any enactment requiring certain hirings to be accepted, it shall be lawful for the driver of a London taxi bearing a prescribed notice to refuse to carry a passenger who is smoking or carrying lighted tobacco.
(7) In this section "London taxi" means a hackney carriage licensed under section 6 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869.").
The noble Baroness said: It is clear that taxi drivers, having had such success with their last amendment, have not managed yet to persuade the Minister on the issue of smoking—which is why they have asked me to table this amendment.
Amendments Nos. 295 and 296 are much the same. The first covers black London cabs, which always like to be differentiated from any other form of car transport because they are such an exceptional service, to which we pay tribute. Lord Winchilsea and Nottingham would certainly have done so, had he been here. The second relates to other vehicles, to what were previously called minicabs and are now termed private hire vehicles. These new clauses would give drivers the right to choose whether passengers may smoke in their vehicles. They would not oblige drivers to designate their cabs non-smoking—after all, some taxi drivers themselves smoke—but they would increase the individual rights and freedom of choice of drivers of London taxis and also of passengers. More importantly, it would enable drivers to work in a smoke-free environment.
When we go into a restaurant, we are entitled to choose the no-smoking area. When we travel on the tube or by bus, no smoking at all is permitted. The only form of public transport in London where smoking is permitted, unless the situation is different as regards the ferries, is a taxi. It can be very unpleasant for people to travel in a cab after someone in it has been smoking heavily. This provision would not eliminate all smoking in cabs. People who required a cab in which they could
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smoke would either be able to specify that if ordering by telephone or wait until a cab came along in which smoking was permitted. But it would mean that if a driver had chosen to place a no-smoking sign in his cab, it would be enforceable.
The proposal is set out in considerable detail, and therefore requires little explanation—whereas many amendments that merely propose to replace two words require a long explanation. I shall therefore not go into detail. The new clauses are self-explanatory.
In a letter to the London Taxi Board, which has led this campaign in a most professional way, the chief executive of the British Lung Foundation commented that:
"Drivers should be able to work in a smoke-free environment and passengers should have the right to hire a smoke free cab, for everyone's safety, comfort and health".
Irving Yass, of London First, states that:
"If legislative provision to govern smoking in cabs is not introduced now it could be some years before there is another opportunity".
The Government have accepted the position in principle, committing themselves as far back as July 1998 that the change would be introduced "when parliamentary time permits". The Minister may say that this is not the parliamentary moment. But if it is not, I should like him to tell me when is. It is important with an issue such as this to bring it forward at a time when it can be fitted in and is appropriate. Surely, when we are dealing with transport in London, this would seem to be the moment. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I strongly support the amendment. I particularly support the noble Baroness's previous point. We have just welcomed government Amendment No. 294G, which could have been achieved in a different way; namely, by amendment of another Act. The Government's response was that they felt that this was the more suitable place to introduce the provision. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, has made precisely the same point. This is a good opportunity to put forward this new piece of legislation governing taxis in London.
Lord Berkeley: I cannot resist the temptation to support the noble Baroness's amendment. As a keen anti-smoker, I believe it is right to enable drivers to ban smoking from their taxis. It is rather a long amendment; however, the noble Baroness has provided a ready explanation for that. Perhaps her next move will be to change some of the custom and practice in this House so that we have rather more non-smoking activities here. It certainly seems a good idea.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am neutral in my response to the amendment. As a recent convert, now a non-smoker, I see the force of my noble friend's arguments. I do not have much sympathy for the drivers of black cabs. They can shut the glass window between themselves and the passenger and smoke in the front of the cab, which they frequently do.

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In principle, we can give some support to the amendment. The only point that slightly concerns me relates to the statement in subsection (3) of the first proposed new clause that a passenger who refuses to comply,
"may be removed by the driver or, on the request of the driver, by a constable".
The second part is fine, but I am not certain that removal by the driver will necessarily be easy to achieve. It could give rise to more trouble than is envisaged. That is particularly the case in regard to the second amendment relating to private hire vehicles. I wonder what would happen if someone got into a cab late at night after being at the pub and lit a cigarette and the driver tried to eject him. I leave that for the Minister to comment on.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Whitty: This was an area of high policy that was subject to an enormous amount of discussion in another place. More broadly, as the noble Baroness said, my honourable friends in another place indicated that, in principle, we were quite strongly in favour of such a proposal. But there are serious problems in regard to how it is done and what the consequences might be. It is therefore the Government's view is that we need the widest possible consultation before we can consider bringing forward legislation; and that legislation should be on a national basis rather than specifically a London basis.
That commitment to consult on a national provision still stands. A consultation document is being prepared. Our aim is to issue that document during this summer. It should set out all the issues and options, their merits and problems, and will give all concerned a chance to have their say.
As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, hinted, there are some serious difficulties. There is the problem of evidence. There might be substantial trouble with the driver or police constable ejecting people from the cab. By the time the police arrived, if passengers were quick enough on their toes, they would presumably have thrown away the cigarette, and there are unlikely to be other witnesses. Would the police or the Crown Prosecution Service take up those new tasks?
Safety issues are also involved. In the kind of situation referred to by the noble Lord, the passenger might be a young woman, possibly slightly drunk late at night. If she insists on smoking, what does the taxi driver do? Does he have a legal right to throw her out anywhere? There are serious complications as regards the enforcement of such a provision: for example, how soon the taxi driver has the right to throw someone out and how the police become involved. All those are difficult issues.
At present, a taxi driver can request someone not to smoke in the back of the cab; 99 per cent of the time that occurs and there are relatively few problems. With this provision, I can see the possibility of some quite nasty problems. They may be resolvable. If there is overwhelming public support for the proposal, clearly it will be the Government's intention to legislate in the
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light of that consultation. However, the consultation should take place first. The views of the enforcement authorities as well as taxi drivers and consumer interests should be taken into account. I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise the weight of that argument.
Lord Avebury: The point that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is making is that this is the legislative opportunity. If we miss the cue, there is not likely to be another chance for several years.
Lord Whitty: If everyone were agreed that this was the way to go, and if the difficulties that I have spelt out and the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, hinted at could be overcome, there would be a strong argument for legislating for London now—although, strictly speaking, there is no reason why this provision should apply only in London. Given that there are uncertainties and difficulties with the implementation of such a scheme, I do not believe that we are on firm enough ground to legislate at this stage.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I thank those who have supported the amendment. They brought forward very good points and I wish to reply. My noble friend said that those in a black cab can close the glass screen; they are not too worried about the driver. That is true, but there are between 40,000 and 80,000 minicabs in London which do not have the glass screens. I hope that the day never comes when we have to have them, as in New York, for the safety of the driver. That protection would be of no benefit for the driver of a private hire car vehicle, unless it were a luxurious limousine.
I understand the point on subsection (3). Perhaps it is too onerous and there is some other way of doing it. I believe that if taxi drivers had the right to say, "Mine is a non-smoking cab", the majority of people would abide by it and consider it law. The cases that arose would not be so many as to cause the degree of difficulty that the Minister suggested. The taxi trade is distressed that, having been told that it had a commitment from the Minister in the other place, Glenda Jackson, to an immediate consultation exercise, it has heard nothing since. I am pleased to hear the Minister mention today that consultation papers are being prepared, but the summer is too late for London. We are dealing with this matter now. Therefore I shall come back to it. We now have a legislative opportunity. Lord Winchilsea was mentioned: when I took a minicab Bill through this House he strongly opposed it at Third Reading. It was about 10 years before we got the minicab legislation, and the last time, when it became law, he was strongly supportive and everyone had come around to thinking how necessary it was.
I would hate to think that we might wait years before this provision was passed. If the proposal introduced a prohibitive ban, I could understand the objection. But not all taxis would be obliged to be non-smoking, so the case is quite different and we should come back to the matter. Between now and Report stage, I hope to persuade the Minister that he could find a way round the problem and bring forward a permissive amendment

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which would allow the provision to be brought in for London easily without new primary legislation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 296 not moved.]
Clause 206 [Introductory]:
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 296ZA:
Page 109, line 30, at end insert ("outside the City of London").
The noble Earl said: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon, I wish to move Amendment No. 296ZA and it may be convenient if I speak to Amendments Nos. 297YA, 297ZA, 297XGA and 297XGB.
Among other things, Clause 206 amends Section 1 of the Highways Act 1980 and inserts a new subsection, so that TfL will be the highways authority for all GLA roads. Amendment No. 296ZA prevents TfL's authority from extending into the City. Thus it retains the spirit of Section 10(9) of the 1980 Act which provides that no highway within the City shall be a trunk road.
No doubt the Minister will describe the amendment as a wrecking one because there is no consequential amendment to make any other person the highways authority. However, all I seek is some understanding as to why TfL powers will extend into the City. The other amendments in the group cover the same points. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My noble friends on the Front Bench, supported by many behind, have been carrying on this debate during the Committee stage and have earned my undying admiration. I thought it right to leave them to it; they have done it extremely well.
However, at Second Reading I mentioned the concerns of the City of London about the Bill's effect, in Clause 206 in particular, on the powers which the City has hitherto had and under which the authorities introduced the ring of steel. The Committee will remember that following the bomb outrages in the City, particularly following the second Bishopsgate bomb, profound concern was expressed, not least by the representatives of some of the overseas banks and financial institutions in London, that unless the authorities took pretty drastic action to protect them from the outrages they would have to reconsider carefully where they maintained their European base. I do not need to labour the point about the City. As a financial centre, in many aspects of the financial world the City is pre-eminent.
That threat was real and, accordingly, using its traffic powers contained in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, the City Corporation introduced as an extreme emergency the ring of steel. It was so christened, notwithstanding that all the physical features that created it were made of red and white plastic. But the ring was manned and then enforced strictly. Every vehicle that could not account for itself was stopped and investigated. Nowadays, the ring is not manned; instead there is a sophisticated system using television and other electronic devices which have enabled security to be maintained.
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The powers that the City authorities use are not specific to the City, but the fact is that the City retains its own dedicated police force and has its own local authority provided through the City Corporation by the Common Council. Those facts have undoubtedly facilitated the introduction of what became known as the "ring of steel". However, under this Bill without the amendment, once the GLA is established, Transport for London will become the highway authority for GLA routes. They will include the arterial routes passing through the City which my noble friend Lord Attlee mentioned. Those have always been excluded from administration by other authorities. The Bill would mean that the City Corporation would no longer he able to proceed with any traffic management scheme unless Transport for London were agreeable. The initial introduction of the ring of steel was quite controversial for the reason that it was felt to be giving in to the threat of terrorism. However, within almost days it was recognised that it was an extremely valuable feature, widely appreciated. Within a few weeks, it was recognised that the environmental impact of steering large quantities of traffic away from the City of London was appreciable. Therefore, there is no doubt that it is a good thing.
The question must now be asked whether that would be able to continue under the Bill. An organisation like TfL, with its close links with the mayor of London, with the assembly may well find it much more difficult to introduce a controversial measure of this nature at short notice, whereas the City Corporation was able to do so. It earned great praise for its initiative.
The City is untypical. It is primarily a place for doing business rather than living in and it has its own arrangements for local authority and police services. In those circumstances, it seems to me that it is highly desirable that the Bill should be amended. The amendment is a probing one and if arrangements could be made under the Bill, that kind of operation could remain within the sole control of the City of London.
There are other aspects, which no doubt will feature in future debates on amendments, about the extent of GLA roads. How far down side roads will TfL's powers extend? It has been suggested that those powers may extend as far as 100 yards, or even 200 yards, down side roads as a necessary concomitant of designating roads which are the responsibility of the GLA. It means that in the City of London pretty well every road would become the responsibility of the GLA and TfL, and the City Corporation would have almost no jurisdiction. Anyone who walks, drives or bicycles round the City of London recognises it as a mesh of roads, courtyards, lanes, places and so on. If the powers extended 100 yards or 200 yards down each side road the traffic powers of the City Corporation would be rendered totally nugatory.
Therefore, for those reasons I believe that there is a strong case for excluding the City from these powers. There has never been a strategic authority with power over the City's roads, and there are some fairly powerful arguments as to why this Bill should not now introduce one. Having said that, I have no doubt that the City Corporation and the traffic committees that deal with

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these matters will want to consult very widely with the GLA and TfL before any of these powers are exercised. But in the last resort I believe that the City should retain these powers, and this amendment allows it to do so. Under the Bill it cannot do so. I have every wish to support the amendment as strongly as I can.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Tope: I support the intentions behind the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, has explained fully the importance of this matter to the City and all Londoners. Whether or not this amendment is the right way to deal with it I do not know. I await with interest what the Minister says. That it is a very important issue I have no doubt. I hope, therefore, that if the Government are not about to accept the amendment they will at least address the concerns that have been raised so well by the mover of the amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, in supporting it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I support this amendment. However, while my noble friend Lord Jenkin has put the City's case very well I do not believe that the amendment goes far enough. I believe that the whole of the London road system will be completely confused. Under Clause 206 Transport for London will be the highway authority for all GLA roads, and under Clause 208 London borough councils will be responsible for all other roads. There is, thus, a dual responsibility and road users will not necessarily know who is the highway authority for a particular London road.
As a highway authority Transport for London will be responsible for issues such as maintenance, street lighting, signing and so on. That may cause problems. When road repairs must be reported and carried out the public will be confused. Westminster City Council understands why Transport for London should as part of its strategic functions be the traffic authority, but not the highway authority, which deals with local issues.
The proposals to extend the boundaries of GLA roads down borough side roads which connect to GLA roads will cause the public further confusion and lead to inefficient and bureaucratic operation of highway responsibilities. This is an important issue, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will be looking at this matter.
Lord Whitty: I am afraid that I cannot accept the intent of this amendment, which in part misunderstands the situation. The central issue here is that the GLA road network will be the strategic network for the whole of London. Following a lengthy period of consultation with the London boroughs and the City Corporation, we have announced the routes that will form part of the network. To exclude the City of London from that network does not make sense in terms of transport strategy. TfL should have direct control of this key network of roads.
However, some of the observations of noble Lords imply that we are handing over virtually all of the streets of the City to TfL. That is not so. The routes that have been designated as the GLA road network are: the
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existing red route from Bishopsgate to London Bridge, together with the Tower Hill gyratory and Tower Bridge; the route along the north bank of the Thames; and the A201 northern route which crosses Blackfriars Bridge. Only one of those, the red route, crosses the ring of steel; the others, while in the City boundaries, are outside the ring of steel. There is, therefore, only one route which is already a red route that crosses the ring of steel. Given that it was already a red route and the direct responsibility of the Traffic Director, the situation has not dramatically changed.
When the City introduced the ring of steel and the two crossing points it had to do so in conjunction with the Traffic Director. If there were any recurrence of the unfortunate situation that gave rise to the ring of steel the same would apply to TfL; in other words, there is no change in the balance of responsibilities between the City and the other authorities. All the designated roads were either red routes or other routes where the Traffic Director had a role. The City never had absolute control over the roads now designated.
As to the issue of side roads to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, made reference, there are some short stretches that need to be taken into the GLA network to ensure that the main roads are operated safely and efficiently. In the wider context referred to by the noble Baroness, we are aware of the concerns of the City about the practicality of that proposal. We shall consult upon and consider further the best way to address that during the summer. But that is not a particular problem for the City. Certainly, there is no implication that the power will extend down side roads any further than anywhere else. It would probably be less far in the City given the network of roads to which the noble Lord referred.
As to the ring of steel, we are not changing the position; nor do we wish to do so. The proposal would affect only one road and two crossings, which are already the responsibility of the Traffic Director for London, to be taken over by the GLA.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I understand the Minister's observation on the ring of steel, but he must recognise that the designation of the red route came after the ring of steel was instituted. Therefore, one must ask whether the Traffic Director would have been prepared to agree that given the controversy at the time. It is no secret that it was very unpopular with Ministers in the previous government for the reasons I explained: it appeared to be giving in to the IRA. Would be have done that? The City Corporation, in recognition of the security aspects, was able to do it on its own initiative. While I accept the Minister's point about the two crossings, they came after the system was established.
The more important point, which I believe will give rise to difficulty unless we have a clearer view, is how far down side roads TfL's authority will extend. If one is talking of 10 or 20 yards—equivalent to the frontage of two or three houses—perhaps it is justifiable. However, it has been suggested to me that the powers might extend as far as 200 yards down roads leading off GLA roads, in which case in the City the powers would extend to virtually the whole highways network. Before

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we leave this amendment I believe that the noble Lord must give a clearer indication of what the Government have in mind in this regard. The problem of the side roads impinging massively on the boroughs' positions as highway authorities in their areas was raised by my noble friend Lord Bowness on Second Reading, but in the City there would be nothing left. I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten the Committee on that point.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I also wonder whether the Minister would consider placing TfL under an obligation to offer contracts for highway maintenance. In the past, it has been common for the Department of Transport to contract out the maintenance of local roads to the local authorities. Does the Minister agree that TfL should be placed under an obligation to offer a contract of highway maintenance functions to the relevant local authority, with appropriate funding of course, so that a seamless service could be provided to local road users? Would that be an answer? Will the Minister think about that before we get to the next stage of the Bill?
Lord Whitty: I am not at all sure that I can bring any further enlightenment to this issue. Clearly the contracting arrangements will be a matter for TfL when established, and it is not immediately obvious that the best value would be achieved on strategic routes by extending a contract that related to local authority roads.
The objective of extending the function a small way down some of the side streets would be to ensure that the junctions were safe and appropriate to the traffic coming on to the GLA strategic road. In some cases, that would be more than 10 yards, but in most cases it would not be significantly more than 10 yards. I suspect that there are not many places in the City in which it would be significantly more.
Without analysing the precise design of every junction on every GLA road, I am not sure that I can give the noble Viscount, Lord Allenby, an authoritative assurance that the provision would not affect the City as dramatically as he suggests. However, it is the intention only to take that part of the road that would affect the junctions and the flow of traffic on to and from GLA strategic roads. I do not know whether that is any guidance to the noble Viscount, but I hope that he would recognise that that is as far as I can go tonight. We will consider the issue farther over the summer.
Lord Bowness: Perhaps I could ask the Minister to recognise, when he considers the issue further over the summer, that he has just articulated the problem. One cannot address it without a detailed analysis of every road junction. The fear is that what will happen is that a blanket, overall policy will be applied that will affect every junction whether it is relevant or not. That is one of the problems that will lead to untold delay in the two-tier highway system that the Bill will establish.
The problem goes further than the City of London. When we come to later clauses, the whole question of highway authorities for non-GLA roads taking decisions that, in the words of the Bill, "may affect" GLA roads
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will have to be considered carefully. We will have to be much more specific than we have been so far this afternoon on the question of the City's roads.
Earl Attlee: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have supported the amendment: it was more successful than I thought it would be and we have widened the debate. I had intended to keep the ring of steel argument for the next group. I do not know whether I am right to do that, and perhaps I should have paid more attention to the management of the groupings. In view of that, I might drop Amendment No. 296AA because we have covered it in such detail.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin talked about the extension of GLA roads. I also intended to speak to Amendments Nos. 296CB and 296AC. which would cover that point.
My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes asked who was the highways authority, and that is a very good question. I have an interest to declare, because I am president of the Heavy Transport Association. One of the association's problems is that it has to notify the highways authorities when it wants to move something and it is often difficult to find out who the highways authority is. That can apply especially if the load will cross a design, build, finance and operate motorway and it is not known whether the bridge belongs to the DBFO operator or to the local county council.
The Minister said that only one GLA road crosses the ring of steel. However, GLA roads can be designated in the future, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin mentioned red routes, so the problem could expand in the future.
I am grateful to hear that the Minister will reconsider the issue over the summer. I accept that the amendment as drafted might not be perfect and I am sure that we shall return to the issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 296A not moved.]
Clause 206 agreed to.
Clause 207 [Designation of first GLA roads]:
[Amendments Nos. 296AA and 296AB not moved.]
6.45 p.m.
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 296AC:
Page 110, line 14, at end insert—
("() An order under this section may be made solely in respect of a road which is considered in itself and on its own merits to be of strategic importance in determining an integrated transport policy for Greater London.
() In making an order under this section, the boundary of any road to be designated as a GLA road shall lie at the edge of the carriageway and shall not extend to any side roads connecting with the road in question and neither shall this section confer any authority on Transport for London over the facia of or any fixtures to any building or structure in the vicinity of any GLA road. "").
The noble Earl said: Clause 207 inserts a new Section 14A into the Highways Act 1980 to define a GLA road. The amendment picks up on a suggestion by the Association of London Government that the boundaries of GLA roads should be clarified, and would make it clear that the boundaries would not extend to

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side roads. They would be confined to the roads themselves. That issue was raised by my noble friend Lord Jenkin.
The amendment also provides a definition of what a GLA road is supposed to be. When TfL got a road, it would be simpler if it also got the bridge underneath it. I appreciate that some bridges are not owned by boroughs, but belong to other organisations such as Railtrack.
Lord Tope: I am very glad that the noble Lord moved this amendment, because it is worthy of a slightly wider debate than we had just now, with particular reference to the City of London and the possible problems. All of us hope and believe that the mayor and the London boroughs will work co-operatively together, and we are all realistic enough to know that there are some policy areas that are likely to be more sensitive than others. Planning is an obvious example. However, as far as all London boroughs are concerned, this issue is probably the most sensitive of them all.
As I understand it, as the Bill is currently drafted, the mayor will have responsibility for what are known as side road returns. They may extend as little as 10 metres down a side road to as much as 100 metres, perhaps more. Whichever they are, I believe—with some experience—that they are likely to be the greatest and most common cause of conflict between London boroughs and the mayor, and the greatest cause of confusion among the public.
In his previous reply, I understood the Minister to say that the Government have recognised that it is a controversial issue. I am not surprised to hear that. I speak as vice chair of the Association of London Government. For some months we have sought to convince Ministers that it is an area of considerable concern, although it received no attention in another place. If the Minister is to consider this further over the summer, and continues with the useful discussions held to date, I am sure that that will be extremely useful.
First, we need clarity not only for the highway authorities, but for the public. If the mayor has responsibility for a side road return, the mayor also has responsibility for all the related matters—broken lamp-posts, broken paving stones, possibly planning applications, and so on. It gets very difficult. I have not understood why London, uniquely I think, has side road returns whereas I understand that elsewhere in the country the boundary in such matters rests at the edge of the carriageway of the strategic road, as is suggested in the amendment. That seems so sensible and obvious that, despite discussions with the Minister, I have not understood why it is taking so many months to get even as far as an assurance from the Minister that he will consider the issue. Perhaps I may urge him to do so, and favourably, in the interests of public clarity and considerably less bureaucracy and administrative inefficiency.
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I support most strongly the intention of the amendment and urge the Minister to give it most favourable consideration over the summer.
Lord Bowness: I support the amendment and the arguments adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I do not propose to repeat them. However, the clarity sought is vital in this issue. If there is a planning application, where one has a relatively average property abutting a road return, to which authority will a mundane planning application be referred for statutory highway purpose consultations? The fear is that it will not be referred to the London borough or the local planning authority alone but also to Transport for London as the highway authority.
These matters go much further than the apparent administrative convenience of ensuring that TfL can deal with the junctions to the side roads.
Lord Jenkin of Boding: My noble friend Lord Bowness has made the speech that I would have made. I add only one point. If there were one single issue that caused the maximum ill will between the London boroughs and the GLC it was the overlapping planning powers that had grown up over the years between those two tiers of the authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, used the phrase "may even" extend to planning applications. The most serious aspect is the impact that the measure will have on planning applications on these road returns for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Bowness explained eloquently.
During their further consideration, I urge the Government to recognise that if they do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, this clause must be amended.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: Over the past few weeks, I have received several documents from councils in which one sentiment is repeated again and again. If the Minister is to consider the matter over the summer, perhaps he will consider this one sentence: that a continuing lack of clarity makes us wonder what is actually going to happen. After the Minister has considered the issue over the summer, perhaps the local councils will then be able to say: "I know exactly what is going to happen and I understand".
Lord Whitty: We understand the concerns to which the noble Lord, Lord Archer, refers. We shall be considering the matter over the summer. I do not believe that some of the implications are as wide ranging as has been suggested. Nevertheless there are serious concerns. My colleague, Glenda Jackson, will discuss the matter with the ALG. A meeting to discuss this issue is arranged for, I think, 12th July. It is to be hoped that we can obtain greater clarity, as the noble Lord, Lord Archer, requests.
We did not envisage this as the great problem suggested in this House and by some of the boroughs. We had some experience on the red route designation for side roads. It may be that that raised more complex

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issues. Nevertheless, we believe that the matter can be sorted out with the London boroughs. There is no blanket-imposed solution, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, suggested in an earlier intervention. We are looking again at the issue over the summer. We shall do so in conjunction with the London boroughs. I hope that at this stage the noble Earl will withdraw the amendment.
Earl Attlee: The noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred to the possibility of confusion and disagreement between authorities. I am sure that the Minister will not want that. The Minister said that he will give the issue careful consideration over the summer. He also said—I am relieved to hear it—that Ms Glenda Jackson will also consult the ALG over the summer. We shall return to the issue at the next stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 207 agreed to.
Clause 208 [Orders by the Authority changing what are GLA roads]:
Lord Tope Lord Tope moved Amendment No. 296B:
Page 110, line 17. after ("London") insert ("and the London Assembly").
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendment No. 296C, which seeks to achieve the same purpose: to give the assembly, in addition to the mayor, the duty to keep the highway system in London under review. It is an important issue. The highway network in London will be one of the major issues of public interest and concern; and therefore of interest and concern not only to the mayor, quite properly, but also the assembly.
I understand, I think as well as most, the separation of powers and the scrutiny role of the assembly. The assembly will not be able to carry out effectively its scrutiny role in relation to the highway system unless it is keeping it properly and effectively under review. Therefore it will be as well to make it clear and explicit in the Bill by giving it a duty so to do. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Clause 208 provides that the mayor shall keep Linder review the system of roads other than trunk roads in Greater London. If he or she so decides, any borough roads in Greater London can become a GLA road; and any road can cease to be a GLA road, in both cases by order of the mayor.
The purpose of the amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, is to give this responsibility to the mayor and the assembly. We have given this important power to the mayor and only to the mayor because we see it right and proper that a new and powerfully elected mayor should be able to take an overview of London's roads and, if he or she thinks it right, take a decision to alter the existing road network. We do not believe that it is appropriate for the assembly to have a say in this. In asking the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment,
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perhaps I may say that the process whereby the mayor may reach such a conclusion and take a decision will be covered in the next two amendments.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the Minister, and I am of course aware of that. I think that we have a straightforward difference of opinion about this issue—and not for the first time. I will not pursue the matter now and we shall consider it further. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 296C to 296CB not moved.]
Clause 208 agreed to.
Clauses 209 and 210 agreed to.
Clause 211 [Exercise of powers so as to affect another authority's roads]:
7 p.m.
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 296CC:
Page 112, line 33, at beginning insert ("Subject to subsection (11 A) below,").
The noble Earl said: It may be convenient if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 296CD to 296CH and to Amendments Nos. 297XMA to 297XMD.
I will explain briefly the effects of each amendment. Amendment No. 296CC makes consultation unnecessary if it is irrelevant. For instance, the impact on traffic safety of a road crossover footbridge might not be relevant to a GLA main road. However, it would of course be relevant locally in the borough. The Committee needs to know where the need to consult will stop.
Amendment No. 296CF raises the question as to how far the GLA/TfL will be able to interfere in local decisions through their control over GLA roads. Clause 212 inserts a new section into the Highways Act 1980 giving the GLA a veto over local decisions in respect of roads. Therefore, this appears to be an appropriate place to peg back GLA power by clarifying the basis upon which it can act.
Amendment No. 296CG deletes subsections (6) and (7) of the new clause to be inserted in the 1980 Act. These give TfL the power to act if a borough contravenes this clause. This is necessary because the self-help remedy is totally inappropriate. The exercise of highways powers affects third parties, particularly highway users. They should be confident that they know what they are allowed to do. We cannot have a situation whereby TfL staff remove traffic signs and the borough erects them again. If TfL considers that the provision is not being complied with, it should, if necessary, take the matter to court or to arbitration.
The other amendments in this group are similar and raise the same issue. I beg to move.
Lord Bowness: Perhaps it comes as no surprise to the Committee to learn that I rise to support this group of amendments and to express my fears about how these various clauses will work when brought into force. My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding referred to the fact that one of the greatest problems under the former

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Greater London Council administration was the two-tier highway and planning regime. That situation led to an enormous lack of clarity, and to citizens not knowing who was responsible for what, in their eyes, were minor and local matters. That problem arose because many issues were referred to the GLC.
I am concerned about the provisions in the Bill that refer to the London borough councils not exercising any power under the Act:
"in a way which will affect, or be likely to affect … a GLA road … a road in another London borough".
There are similar provisions regarding the workings of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. I refreshed myself about those workings earlier this afternoon in the office and I was amazed how many functions are dealt with under that Act. The Minister will no doubt be glad—as I was—that I could not find a copy of the Highways Act 1980, but it deals with a similar number of issues.
Both the Highways Act and the Road Traffic Regulation Act contain the statement:
"No London borough council shall exercise any power under this Act which will affect, or be likely to affect".
I have no doubt that that statement will be interpreted very widely. I believe that, whatever good will may come to this legislation, those responsible will feel that it is necessary to refer to the other authority. For example, London borough councils will feel that it is necessary to ensure that their pedestrian crossings, their one-way local traffic management schemes or whatever are referred to the mayor and to the GLA in order to ensure that they do not adversely affect a Greater London Authority road. They will fear the powers in the Bill that enable the mayor and the authority to reverse the actions of London borough councils if they have not done what they are required to do in the event that their proposals affect a GLA road.
This process is extraordinarily tortuous. I understand that there must be some provision to protect the Greater London Authority roads from what might be described as the "maverick" actions of a London borough council—if there is such a thing as a maverick London borough council. However, I believe that it would be wrong to enshrine in this legislation this kind of provision that will lead inevitably to duplication and to delay.
Those who remember the time of the Greater London Council will recall that it might have taken two years to establish a pedestrian crossing in a relatively minor street. Members will remember that it took a similar amount of time to lay a few yards of yellow paint to make some road safety provision. Signs—which were commonsense provisions in the eyes of the public—could not be erected without referring to somebody else. The truth of the matter is that, when such things start to be referred, they are referred in profusion. To protect the position, queries and objections are inevitably raised while further investigations are made. That is when the delays set in.
I ask the Minister to re-examine these provisions during the summer. He kindly said that he would consider the provisions that we discussed relating to the
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City and how far around side turnings the writ of the GLA should go. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, if the public are frustrated with the operation of the GLA, it will do no one any good. We do not want to live in the past, but we must remember the mistakes of the past. This kind of duplication, delay and lack of clarity led to the unpopularity of the former Greater London Council. That sort of thing was much more responsible for its unpopularity than some of its more exotic policies. Businesses and residents became disenchanted with the GLC when they realised that totally local matters were being referred to the county authority.
These clauses contain a recipe for that to happen again. I ask the noble Lord to reconsider the matter during the summer to see how it can be clarified and simplified.
Lord Tope: I support the pleas from the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, who speaks with 30 years' experience as a London borough councillor—and, for most of that time, he was a very distinguished leader of that council and of London borough government. I speak with a mere 12 years' experience as an Opposition leader at the time of the GLC and as a London Borough councillor in the 13 years since then. The noble Lord and I adopted very different views about what should have been the future of the GLC—and I suspect that that is still the case. However, I recognise absolutely the horror stories that he has told of the borough councils' relationship with the GLC regarding matters such as this.
I am sure that the Minister will say to us, and with justification, that the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, is not understating his case and that we will not replicate the horrors that all of us in London experienced under the GLC. I hope that it will be the case with the mayor and the London boroughs. If we do we shall have failed massively. All this points to the same issue we raised in connection with side road returns; we need greater clarity about where responsibility lies.
While not necessarily speaking in such extreme terms as my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, I support at least as strongly his plea to the Minister to consider the issue carefully during the summer. If, as I suspect, he rejects this amendment, I urge him to bring back amendments at the Report stage which will provide for much greater clarity or—and I repeat earlier warnings—the issue will be the source of the greatest conflict between the mayor and the London boroughs. We all want to avoid that conflict and at this stage we can largely do so.
Lord Dormand of Easington: I wonder whether the noble Lord would support what might be called "direct action" in pursuing the noble Lord's proposal? Some years ago I was a member of a parish council which decided to move a bus stop as a result of the danger involved. The people in the village wanted it so. We applied to change it and discovered that we needed the permission of the district council, the county council and

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the transport authority. The procedure went on for months and months. So one night, two of us got up, dug it up and changed it and we heard no more about it!
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am tempted to follow the noble Lord's great initiative. However, I want to say only that on Second Reading I joined others in supporting the structure if the assembly consisted of representatives of the London boroughs. It is on precisely such an issue that there will be no constraint on what the mayor does from an elected assembly. If the assembly had consisted of borough representatives, I suspect that many of the fears voiced tonight might have been much fewer. However, that is water under the bridge and it i s clear that we shall not achieve that. Therefore, I join in the plea to the Minister, in so far as it lies within human power, to bring clarity and avoid the bureaucratic nonsense which so disfigured the earlier regime.
Lord Tope: My response to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, is that whatever might have been possible or appropriate in a parish area, I view with horror bus stops all over London being moved overnight and the chaos that would be caused. Far be it from me as a London borough councillor to support such action on the record; I would rather have the clarity which made it unnecessary.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I do not want to reopen the issue, but I disagree that a gathering of borough council representatives would sort out such issues. He has given a better illustration than many of why that would be inappropriate. The role for the Greater London Authority is strategic. 'The issues we are discussing here are not strategic in which case they should be clearly and wholly the responsibility of the particular London borough councils. They do not need to meet in an assembly; they deal with it on their own. That is the clarity we seek in the Bill.
Lord Whitty: While it is true that I have expressed some sympathy with the need for us to reconsider certain areas of the Bill, I do not feel the same sympathy for these amendments, certainly as expressed tonight. I would not go so far as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in accusing the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, of being an extremist—
Lord Bowness: He said I exaggerated, and I plead guilty to that.
Lord Whitty: I do not accuse anyone of being extremist. I have never accused my noble friend Lord Dormand but now I begin to wonder. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and others are exaggerating the problem. We are not talking about a two-tier structure. We are not replicating the problems which I acknowledge existed in the days of the GLC. We are talking about how a borough carrying out works on its roads which are likely to affect a GLA road or the road of another borough should notify the GLA and the other borough.
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I cannot see the objection to that. Are Members of the Committee suggesting that boroughs should not notify the GLA or other boroughs when they are undertaking work which affects other authorities' roads? It is bizarre that people have become worked up to such an extent about this mechanism. After all, the provisions are modelled on arrangements with which people are familiar—the arrangements for designated roads and priority route. The concept of "affect or likely to affect" is well established. Indeed, in August 1992 the traffic director for London issued guidelines to all chief executives and borough engineers about the practical arrangements for notification of highways and traffic proposals. That situation already exists and when the mayor is in place he will be able to issue guidance on the operation of the provisions. If modifications are required, they will take place under the guidance. For example, some clauses would allow for minor or emergency use of highway or traffic powers to be excluded from the requirement for consultation.
The amendments seek to change the formulation which has stood the test of time. It is not an innovation or a reinvention of the GLC. We do not believe that any of these changes are necessary or desirable. Indeed, they could be counter-productive to the whole spirit of the GLA and TfL operating in conjunction with the London boroughs. If I have missed something, no doubt Members of the Committee will tell me now or at a later stage, but I believe that the amendment could be counter-productive and that we should keep the formulation as it is. I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
7.15 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My noble friend Lord Bowness and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred to the problems with the old GLC. Fortunately, those problems occurred well before my time. They referred to problems which inevitably lead to duplication and delay on minor matters. Unless we keep the GLA as a strategic authority, we could fall into the same trap. I am not sure that we could draft an amendment to follow the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington. If we could, I am sure that the Clerks would advise against tabling it. We may return to the issue at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 296CD to 296D not moved.]
Clause 211 agreed to.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare moved Amendment No. 297:
After Clause 211, insert the following new clause—
CHARGES ON UNDERTAKERS OF STREET WORKS
(" . The Secretary of State may by regulations make provisions for and in connection with the establishment and operation by or on behalf of—

(a) the Authority,

(b) any London borough council, or

(c) the Common Council,

of schemes for imposing charges on undertakers of street works in Greater London.").
The noble Lord said: I have tabled the amendment because I worry that if for political reasons a mayor were elected who did not want to introduce a road tax, or any form of it, he would have little opportunity to raise money and do many of the things a mayor might want to do in the city simply because he was restricted to the £3.4 billion, which is currently his budget, 95 per cent of which will be accounted for on the first day.
One of the many things that annoys Londoners—and I do not suspect that the rest of Britain is any different—is continually to pass holes in the road and see no one working on them. In any one day now, I have fun travelling through London and counting how many holes I can see. On average, it is 14 and, if you are lucky, two of them are being worked on. There is one famous one outside LWT which has half-a-dozen cones around it. It only stretches into the road 2 feet and 3 inches but, every morning and every evening, the traffic is held up because vehicles have to stop to let each other pass. That hole is remarkable because I have never seen anyone working on it. We are now investigating who is not working on it. If that were not funny, it would be tragic.
Then there is the situation where people ask, "Do you know they are digging the same hole again? Three months ago, they told us it was for the electricity. Now it is cable television and, in six months' time, they will tell us it is for the gas. Does it not seem simple that they might ring each other up and all agree to dig the same hole at the same time?" "No", is the answer. They are all running their own private lives. They are not going to bother to ring anyone else up. There are holes being dug in the road on one side of the Thames. And if you cross the river, there are holes being dug on the other side. They do not even talk to each other on both sides of the Thames.
I have a simple solution for the Minister, a practical man who, I know, would like the mayor to be able to capture money from these people without having to bother the voters. Would that not be wonderful? I suggest that we tax these blighters per cone per foot. Then they will start ringing each other up. I suggest to the Minister that they will be on the phone to each other all the time saying, "Are you digging a hole to lay your television cable next week because we are digging a hole to put the gas in?" "No, I am filling in another hole where we put in the electricity." If I, or any candidate, or any human being, going for this job were able to say, "I am going to charge them per foot per cone," I do not think you would find many people objecting, whereas the Minister well knows how many people are complaining about the road tax.
Of course, the chairman of BT, the chairman of British Gas, the chairmen of the electricity companies and the chairmen of cable television companies may ring to complain. That is fine. Half-a-dozen of them will be complaining. I have no problem with that at all. I realise that the Minister will not be able to take my actual wording, but I hope he will be able to return in the summer with his own wonderful clause, his own amendment.
I agree very much with President Truman's attitude to these things; namely, that it is amazing what you can get done if other people take the praise. So I say to the Minister that it can be his clause and he can take the praise. I simply want it to be included in the Bill. The Minister is a man who understands how the other place works, and he will have noticed that there was a Bill in the other place to do just this. He will have seen that the Bill failed. He will have seen that the Member who brought forward the Bill made it absolutely clear that the Government approved of it. I would be surprised if the Minister were not able to leap up and say, "This is wonderful, we shall accept this amendment." New York has eight ways of raising tax; this Bill has only three. I say that if anyone who wanted to be mayor removed those three, at least this provision would still exist to bring in the money.
I ask the Minister to take the matter very seriously. I accept that the amendment will not be accepted today. I accept that the Minister will be unable to rise to the Dispatch Box and please me with this small pleasure. But I hope he will be able to rise to the Dispatch Box and say, "We agree and we shall return with an amendment at a later stage." I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: That was a most interesting prefiguration of what the mayor might or might not do in certain circumstances. The assumption that mayors would not be willing to use the powers contained in the Bill to raise taxes for congestion charging or levies on workplace parking is one we are all noting with interest. However, it is impossible not to have some sympathy with the main thrust of the amendment.
When I lived in Richmond, my husband and I decided that the King's Road was the trial area where people were taught how to dig holes and how to fill them in again. In the 10 years or so that we commuted into London, not daily but on a fairly frequent basis, never was there a time when there was not a hole in the King's Road. We thought it was the classroom for undertakers to teach their lads how to dig a hole and fill it in again.
An interesting idea would be to have something approximating to the lane rental charge now levied on people who undertake work on the motorway. I think it could be argued that obstructions on London roads are quite as serious in their effect as obstructions on the motorway. If those mending the roads take longer that they should, they should pay a form of damages to the Highways Agency. That idea perhaps has some merit.
We want people to dig holes only when they really need to; when they are acting in co-operation with each other and with the Highways Agency, and for the minimum amount of time. Nothing is more irritating than to see small amounts of work being done on one day, nothing being done on the next day and then, five days later, they are back again. Meanwhile, the traffic has been held up in the rush hour. There is a place not two miles from here where that is happening at this very moment.

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I am a little reluctant to accept what the noble Lord, Lord Archer, says in relation to the role of mayor, but what he has to say in relation to the cost of digging holes in the road has some merit.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I support strongly the principle behind the amendment. We have had so much legislation over the years, each time trying to control the utilities. Of course, they always have the let-out that it is an emergency and therefore they can dig any hole anywhere and at any time without consulting any other utility. The amendment would be a good thing.
The charge might help to bring about some changes. In the United States they resurface a whole road overnight. I saw that in Boston. It is certainly time that there was an incentive for people to invest in more expensive machinery so that work on roads could be completed more quickly. A charging system such as that proposed would create such an incentive.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: We all have great sympathy for the amendment of my noble friend and we all have our own personal experiences of holes in the road. I am somewhat embarrassed by this amendment because the very last piece of legislation I took through this House as a Minister back in 1992 was something called the New Roads and Street Works Act. Part of that Act was intended to cure all the ills of the old Public Utilities Streetworks Act of 1950. Clearly, it has had absolutely no effect whatever, which is most unfortunate. It was the only Act with which I was involved to have befallen that fate. Therefore I was very pleased when, earlier this year, my honourable friend, Mr Christopher Fraser, in another place introduced a Bill to which my noble friend Lord Archer has referred which was going to put this right. My honourable friend was most encouraged that the then transport Minister, Mr John Reid, said that he entirely supported the thrust of the Bill and was willing to hammer out the small print.
Now, according to the Evening Standard:
"Ministers scupper Bill to end 'hole in road' misery".
The reason quoted in the Evening Standard for their having done that is that it is said that Treasury officials are unhappy at the prospect of revenue from fines going back to local councils rather than into central government coffers.
We are about to deal with hypothecation in relation to road user charges and non-residential parking charges. Yet here we have the very same Treasury scuppering that Private Member's Bill because it is frightened that the money will go to local councils or, in the case of this Bill, to the GLA and the mayor rather than into central government coffers.
I hope that the Minister will give us a good explanation as to why that Private Member's Bill has been scuppered and why he can no longer support it.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I am sure that we are all deeply impressed by the bravura performance by the noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, who I know feels deeply about this issue and reflects the views of
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many drivers and pedestrians throughout London and many other cities in this country. I accept the mea culpa of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, that the New Roads and Street Works Act has not been entirely successful in that respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, was so impressive that for a moment I thought he was auditioning for the Heineken advertisement on that subject, with which Members of the Committee will be familiar, if he is not auditioning for something else entirely. That became apparent when he explained at the beginning of his remarks the real purpose of the amendment; namely, to raise money which he does not wish to raise through road user charging. That is an interesting indication. I have no doubt that that will feature in future debates which are held more widely than in this Chamber.
As regards the current legislation, the Government have issued codes of practice under the street works Act and are now looking at a pilot project to be run by the Traffic Director for London for an area-wide database in east London—in the vicinity of the Millennium Dome—which will explore the possibility of bringing together all those aspects of information and better provision for the utilities and others which are involved to avoid the problems which the noble Lord, Lord Archer, and others have mentioned.
As regards the Fraser Bill in another place, it is true that my right honourable friend John Reid expressed general sympathy for that provision, but in its existing form it would have pre-empted what we intend to do now; namely, to consult widely on how we can introduce a scheme which will apply not just to London and the GLA roads in London. We shall consult on options for an incentive scheme with penalties to minimise disruption and encourage the co-ordination of street works, as we promised in the White Paper. We intend to undertake that consultation shortly. London will be included within the scope of that consultation. We shall need to consider all the responses.
The promised consultation will seek to clarify the practicability of charging, the best type of scheme, if we decide to go ahead with charging, and whether to use the existing provision or to opt for a solution which would allow charging from the very first day of the works, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Archer, seeks.
Therefore, there is no point in introducing a new regulatory power which would largely duplicate the existing provision in Section 74 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 before we have consulted on how to proceed more generally. We need a national provision. London is not alone in suffering from such disruption. If consultation reveals that there are specific problems within London or on GLA roads within London, the 1991 Act already provides that there can be different rates of charges according to the place and time at which the works are executed. Therefore, we already have powers to differentiate. We need to assess how such a scheme would work. We need to consult not only with road users and the utilities but also more widely. We are about to issue a consultative document on that.

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Therefore, we intend to introduce the powers which the noble Lord seeks for London for the country as a whole. In so far as London is different, current provision would be able to meet the specific needs of London. Therefore, in one way or another, the noble Lord will achieve part of what he seeks, and I ask him to be patient.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Is "the country as a whole" England?
Lord Whitty: In relation to the probable legislation, the country as a whole would be England. However, I should not be surprised if the Welsh Assembly and Scottish executive took similar powers.
Lord Elton: Is the noble Lord saying that the amendment now on the Marshalled List would add nothing to what is available already under existing legislation, or is he saying that we should wait to add whatever may be necessary until the rest of England is ready to benefit from new legislation? I do not believe that many Londoners would be impressed by the idea that we should wait for main programme time to be available for future legislation for the whole of England if the opportunity now exists to provide this sensible provision for London.
Lord Whitty: I am saying that the provisions of this amendment would not enhance substantially the provisions in existing legislation, as the noble Lord's speech suggests they would. Therefore, there may be better ways in which to enhance them which could apply nationally but which could, in any event, be applied differentially to London. Therefore, we should wait for that at least so that we have a scheme which is likely to work. It is not clear that the scheme as proposed by the amendment would work. It certainly needs to be tested by those who must operate it.
Lord Elton: Will the Minister elaborate on the word "substantially"? He said that this will not add "substantially". If the amendment would enable a scheme to be introduced next year which would unblock the potholed surface of the King's Road, for example, then it is "substantial". The amount on paper may be small but the amount in effect would be considerable. I shall not delay the Committee any further but I should like an answer to that.
Lord Whitty: As regards the pothole in the King's Road, that road is in the London Borough of Kensington. I am not entirely sure that that would be affected by the noble Lord's amendment. We are talking about the strategic roadworks in London. I do not believe that the King's Road would benefit. We are looking to introduce a national scheme which will benefit the roads of all local authorities, including the GLA and TfL roads, and not simply GLA roads within London.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: That is a wonderfully ingenious scheme. I was wondering how
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the noble Lord would reply to my amendment. Where will the money be going? Will it be going to the Treasury or, in the case of London, will it be going to the mayor?
Lord Whitty: The noble Lord may have put his finger on a very important point. That is what I thought lay behind his initial intervention. Under the legislation taken through the House by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, the money would not go to the local authorities. Therefore, using the existing regulatory power, the money would go to the taxpayer, I would prefer to say, rather than the Treasury.
Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare: I put it to the Committee that the Minister has simply stolen my idea, moved it to the whole country and, in addition, has stolen the money. I should tell the Minister that I am not going to bring forward any more ideas for fear that this Government will simply steal them.
The Minister has come to the Committee and delighted us by saying that he has understood the idea and that he is going to go ahead with it. That is robbery of the highest order. Today I shall withdraw my amendment. But, be assured, I intend to table it again on Report and if I fail then I shall go on and on until people realise that the Minister has, yet again, stolen great ideas from the Conservative Party. No doubt, as the next two years proceed and the Government are faced with an election, such an occurrence will become more common. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I beg to move that the House do now resume. I suggest that the Committee stage begin again not before 8.40 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Local Authority Duties
7.40 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Tanworth Lord Hunt of Tanworth rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made on plans, referred to in paragraph 8.8 of the White Paper Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People, to introduce a new duty on local authorities to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area and accompanying powers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest in that I am honorary president of the Local Government Association. I also want to remind your Lordships of a report of the 1995–96 Select Committee on Central and Local Government Relations that I had the honour to chair. That report argued that, just as there had been a shift in the role of local government from being service providers to being enablers, so local

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authorities should be encouraged and helped to play their proper role as democratic community leaders in the complex world of local governance.
Therefore, it was good to read in paragraph 8.8 of Cmd. 4014 that:
"The Government intends to introduce legislation to place on councils a duty to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas and to strengthen councils' powers to enter into partnerships".
That new duty was to enshrine in law the role of the council as the elected leader of the local community, required to produce a strategic plan for the locality and free to enter into partnerships with other bodies. In other words, the council was to take a comprehensive overview of the needs and priorities of its local area and communities in a way that other more specialised and non-elected bodies cannot.
That White Paper was published a year ago, in July 1998, and the new duty still does not figure in either the Local Government Bill, which is to have its Third Reading in the House next week, or so far in the draft Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill, currently being examined by a Joint Committee of both Houses.
I want to stress, briefly why I believe that that new duty is so necessary, particularly as I believe that some noble Lords fear that it would open the door to allow local authorities to interfere in the activities of local partners or to force others to work with councils when they do not wish to do so. That is not the intention of the Government. The Local Government Association agrees with the Government that safeguards would be necessary to prevent local authorities unduly impinging on the work of other bodies or prejudicing the latter's statutory functions.
Local authorities are, however, governed by the doctrine of vires and must produce specific statutory authority for their actions. They are not like private individuals who are free to do anything that is not specifically forbidden. Local authorities are unable to act unless given specific authority to do so, with only one limited exception under Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972.
As a consequence, there are already specific examples where local authorities wish to enter into partnerships or commercial activities which all concerned agreed to be desirable and sensible but which were thought that the action would be open to legal challenge over the authority's right to proceed. Those range from matters like the Hertfordshire County Council's plan to set up a company to run its old people's homes and to access private capital, to enable it to improve its facilities, to the way in which the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act inhibits partnership dealings such that the local authority hedge-cutter is not legally entitled to cut a privately owned hedge even if the owner wants him to do so and is willing to pay for the service.
These days we hear much talk of the so-called wicked issues where one agency, acting alone, will not produce effective solutions to deep-rooted problems and of the need for greater cohesion and coherence at the local
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level for all those whose parallel activities can affect local communities: councils, other public bodies, businesses and voluntary organisations.
The proposed new duty and powers would help to strengthen partnership working in key areas and would also provide an overall framework within which councils would have to perform all their existing functions. So in taking planning decisions, for example, councils would have to consider the likely effects of a decision against the three objectives—economic, social and environmental—and if necessary strike a balance to ensure that the overall well-being of their area is achieved.
Above all, the new duty would remove uncertainties about local government's legitimacy in community leadership and community planning and would encourage local authorities to think and work in a more innovative and experimental way, freeing them to develop partnership solutions, operating across organisational boundaries.
I believe—I hope rightly—that that is also the wish of the Government. I hope when the Minister replies to this debate that he will be able to tell the House that the few clauses needed to give effect to the proposed new duty will be included in the draft Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill with which it is so closely linked, as new political structures need to be developed with the community leadership role firmly in mind, or failing that, that it will find some other place in the next legislative programme.
7.48 p.m.
Baroness Goudie: My Lords, the Labour Party manifesto, on which this Labour Government were elected, committed us to place on councils a duty to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of an area. The Government have set about doing just that.
The Greater London Authority Bill defines the principal purposes of the new authority as promoting in Greater London economic development, wealth creation, social development and the improvement of the environment. In furthering any of those principal purposes, the authority will be required to consider the effect that that may have on the remaining purpose or purposes, in so far as that is practicable, and, over a period of time, to secure a reasonable balance between furthering each of those principal purposes. In particular, it must contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.
The new Government lost no time in bringing out their Green Paper, Modernising Local Government: Local Democracy and Community Leadership. That sought views on the implications of a duty to promote economic, social and environmental well-being. The Green Paper made the very valid points that such a duty would spur local authorities more widely to follow the practices of the best in their leadership of their local communities; and would go a long way to remove uncertainty as to the extent of their powers. Removing uncertainty is most important.

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The Green Paper also sought views on the need to replace Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972. This of course is the subsidiary power which allows authorities to do anything incidental, conducive or calculated to facilitate the discharge of their functions. The Green Paper made the valid points that shortcomings have been identified by a number of prominent court cases in recent years and that confidence has been undermined, in particular in relation to co-operation and partnership activities.
The Green Paper rightly pointed out that a notable area of difficulty arises from the concept that only one incidental action is allowed, thus creating the position that a series of linked actions becomes unlawful by virtue of being "incidental to the incidental". The Green Paper concluded that, to remove such basic uncertainty, the Government were inclined to replace Section 111 with a new, broader power. This would in particular enable participation in the establishment of joint arrangements. I welcome this approach.
Then last July came the White Paper. Paragraph 8.8 states that the Government intend to introduce legislation to place on councils a duty not only to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas, but also to strengthen council powers to enter into partnerships. There is reference to a new legal framework, but no express reference to Section 111. Indeed, the Greater London Authority Bill contains a provision in the same terms as Section 111. I hope that the Minister will be able to inform us of the current state of the Government's thinking on revamping Section 111.
Much uncertainty has been removed by the Local Government (Contracts) Act 1997, which the present Parliament fast-tracked. It effectively addressed the problem of the "incidental to the incidental". It gave a much needed impetus to the private finance initiative. But uncertainties remain. The 1997 Act deals only with long-term contracts—those intended to operate for at least five years.
Due regard should be paid to the fact that local authorities consist of representatives elected by the public on a wide franchise for comparatively short periods. If they are regarded as mere creatures of specific statutes, with unsatisfactory subsidiary powers, they will not be able to provide civic leadership and act, innovate and integrate on behalf of their local communities. I therefore support the Government's approach and am delighted that it has already been partly implemented.
7.52 p.m.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity provided by this debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for asking the Unstarred Question. I welcome it not least because it occasioned me to read the White Paper published a year ago.
The White Paper, Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People, is beautifully produced and readable, but it is full of wish-lists which have not been costed and which could have the unwelcome effect of
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raising expectations at a local level. The section entitled "Promoting the well-being of communities" certainly falls into that category. Practically every single one of the statements, suggestions and strategy proposals looks fine on paper but begs a significant number of questions.
The last thing I want to be is a "Jeremiah"—a prophet of doom—and certainly I subscribe to the overall wish that local authorities should be in touch with the inhabitants of their areas. But the ambitious White Paper would generate huge demands for massive additional resources, both in the financial and in the skills area.
"Blue skies" planning used to have a devoted following—often described as "shoot for the sun and you might reach the moon". But in an age when expectations are constantly being raised to giddy heights, the non-fulfilment of expectations comes as a rude shock. That, in essence, is my health warning; now to the proposals contained in Chapter 8.
Although the Unstarred Question deals specifically with paragraph 8.8 there are other issues raised in the chapter which impinge upon the successful achievement of the promotion of economic, social and environmental well-being of an area. The White Paper, quite rightly, emphasises the need for leadership. Sadly, leaders are in very short supply. We can debate for hours on whether leaders are born or made, and I do not have very firm views on that, but I have very firm views on the fact that leadership can take a long time to develop. Some people are flexible enough to grasp the opportunities when placed in a leadership position, but I fear they are the exception.
In my experience, both as an erstwhile local authority chief officer and more recently having involvement with my own district council on a matter of liaison between the council and the local doctors on the matter of finding an alternative site for a surgery, I can say that "leadership" qualities are not in great supply. This is not to cast aspersions on the calibre of the staff employed but rather reflects the uneasy relationship that exists between the permanent staff and the elected members. Risk taking is not encouraged; time horizons differ greatly, and training for staff seems to concentrate more on servicing the endless committees rather than on originating ideas. There are, of course, exceptions—probably in every local authority—but the demands of this White Paper call for a very large number of high calibre staff with strong leadership qualities.
Ideally, all would-be councillors should be able to demonstrate strong leadership characteristics and leadership training should be high on the agenda for all officers and senior staff. In order to fulfil the proposals in the White Paper dealing with economic, social and environmental well-being, the following skills are essential: communication skills; strategic planning skills; promotional skills and mindsets that can be both flexible and pragmatic—open eyes, open ears and open minds. These skills are not in great over-supply and have seldom been required of local government employees, or indeed of elected members.
The greatest task facing local government in the fulfilling of the obligation to promote economic, social and environmental well-being is the development of

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strategic plans. Having spent a great part of my business career as a strategic planner, naturally I support the emphasis on that function in the White Paper. But strategic planning is a tedious, detailed, specialised exercise and I can already foresee problems of a most basic kind. Short-termism is a feature of most elected members, whereas strategic planning is by its nature long term in its work. How will that dilemma be addressed? The Government said in paragraph 8.14 that they,
"will not impose on councils any particular approach to this task [the task of strategic planning]—councils will have flexibility over the precise nature, scope and coverage of the strategy, the level of detailed action it contains and over how they go about preparing it in partnership with other organisations, with the new Regional Development Agencies which themselves will be preparing an economic strategy for their region, and with local people".
Gosh! It really will be the heyday for strategic planners; I am afraid I was born too soon!
I have spent some time on this issue because in my opinion it is fundamental to the promotion of economic, social and environmental well-being. Before any progress can be made the plans will have to be drawn up. Before the plans are drawn up the staff will have to be trained in strategy planning. Before training in strategy planning is undertaken, serious attention will have to be paid to the selection and recruitment of people who can undertake such exercises—or indeed who want to. The last thing that is required is another case like that reported today where a local government employee was moved from one function to another without the necessary training and ended up bringing a successful case against the authority for stress. Financial resources are in short enough supply without having them used for payoffs in such cases.
Of course, there is one way of circumventing the problem; that is, to hire consultants. But I implore the Minister to give us the assurance that this will not be the case. The duties placed on local government are worthy but very onerous. I just wonder how they will be fulfilled. In my own area of West Sussex we have the county council, the district council and the town council. Who is going to be responsible for marshalling the ideas, the background data, the market studies and the business plans which are all a necessary part of the process leading to the promotion of economic, social and environmental well-being?
One thing this White Paper has been most successful in achieving is the Interest created by it:. All sections of the population firmly believe that they are going to be instrumental in developing the well-being of their area. But the "wish lists' are endless. For example, the town in which I live has a population of about 3,000. Various groups are looking at various aspects of the well-being of the town, and I was shown the deliberations of just one of those groups, the one dedicated to the needs of public transport. There are eight recommendations and were they to be accomplished it would certainly improve the provision of local transport. Nowhere, however, is there a single costing; nowhere is there any acknowledgement of the fact that most people are and will be wedded to their car; and even with the eight recommendations very little additional flexibility over and above the current situation would be provided.
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Yet—and this is a serious point—the people who spent time and energy drawing up this list really do have high expectations of their recommendations being met; in touch with the people, listening to the people. When this list goes to the district council I wonder what will happen. Even more, I wonder what will happen when the list goes to the county council. I think I know what will happen in the latter case. It will be dealt with by the new "Cabinet" which is to be introduced with effect from April 2000, but I fear that the inhabitants of my town will not have the response they either deserve or expect.
The last thing I want to do is appear to be destructively critical of the process and the proposals. I subscribe to the view that local government can and must be improved, but I plead for realism—not least in the allocation of resources and uprating of skills which these exercises will trigger.
7.59 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, like other noble Lords speaking in this debate I, too, welcome the opportunity provided for us by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth. I should like to declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. As a member of the Joint Committee on the draft Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill, I must say that I have enjoyed hearing the debate on the overall vision of a modern local council that has been brought together in the Government's White Paper Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People.
The challenge for local government is twofold: first, to ensure effective decision-making and local leadership; and, secondly, to re-engage our communities so that we work better together and arrive at the best in local services. It is for this reason that I, too, welcome the opportunity this evening to discuss the advantages of including a duty of well-being in the Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill. Like many other local government leaders, I welcome the publication of the Bill as a draft. The unique recognition of local and central government's ability to work together, to learn from best practice across the country and also to challenge inertia has led to many councils, like mine, embracing the changes contained in it well ahead of the legislation. In fact, it sometimes seems like a race—an obstacle race—to see who gets to the "modernised council" finish line first.
Such competition is healthy and, perhaps, fun but it also needs to be balanced against the ability properly to hear and respond to suggestions for change and improvement. That is why I wish to speak this evening about the advantages of including the duty of well-being, alongside the proposals radically to change and improve political leadership.
The publication of the White Paper gave us a holistic vision of the role and place of local government. It 'was hoped that the six key areas of the White Paper—namely, new political structures, the ethical framework, best value, improving local financial accountability, promoting the well-being of communities and business rates—would be brought together in a cohesive and comprehensive local government Bill.

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However, and understandably, pressure on the parliamentary timetable has led to an incremental approach. The Minister has said in the past that that will perhaps be a 10-year programme. Councillors in my authority quickly organised to meet the overall vision of the modern council and identified the community councillor role as being crucial to delivering more effective consultation and involvement both from and within the community. Community leadership is very much at the heart of modern local government. The new duties and powers for community planning and social, economic and environmental well-being will bring to life this new and powerful role for all new councillors.
Recent elections have confirmed the other continuing source of concern. Fewer than one in four Britons voted in the European elections and 11 per cent fewer people voted in the English council elections than in those held four years ago. I hasten to add that that was not the case in Brighton and Hove, where we had a near 40 per cent turnout, though that is nothing really to be proud of. There have been many theories and proposed remedies for increasing voter turnout. Local government, the government closest to the people, is failing to make that link. Yet we provide vital services every day that people need to access.
The draft local government Bill offers local authorities the chance to develop a system of local governance that is clearly accountable for decisions and able to deliver dynamic leadership. The inclusion of the duty of well-being would add to the other vital components—the ability to develop a system of local governance that is responsive to people's needs and the ability to work together with a range of community stakeholders, including business and the voluntary sector, with a clear duty to secure social, economic and environmental well-being. This duty, as promised in the White Paper, would enshrine in law local authorities' role as the elected leaders of the local community, with a responsibility for the well-being and sustainable development of their area.
Now is the time for the inclusion of this duty. Councillors are moving away from committee structures and want to make better use of their time. This "freeing-up" of councillors' time is linked to the need to attract a wider range of people into becoming councillors. One attraction must be the ability to work closely with the community and represent its views on how local services should be provided. As well as supporting our councillors in this role, we need to ensure that their views are properly informed. The new duty would therefore act as a "power" within the council and as another effective check and balance in the new executive role.
I would go further and simply ask for the inclusion of the duty of well-being in the draft Bill. Community planning, effective consultation and the production of comprehensive strategies for the promotion of well-being will be a considerable challenge to authorities, not least because we are currently required to produce some 40 statutory or non-statutory plans on various aspects of our work.
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However, community planning has the potential to deliver significant benefits, including breaking down organisational barriers, contributing to democratic renewal and creating a shared appreciation of the needs of an area and the action required of the authority, its agencies and other groups. To me, this work is essential, not just desirable. It should be about delivering a better form of local government. It is also about engaging with our communities to tackle issues such as deprivation and social exclusion—issues that can only be resolved through effective inter-agency working and a real engagement with local communities.
In conclusion, I believe that the inclusion of the duty of well-being gives a clear message about the role of local government. It gives new and more powerful roles to community councillors and it will provide an incentive for greater involvement with a council which is seen as leading its community. In return, councils will see the benefits of greater co-ordination in planning and in the allocation of resources to meet local identified needs. This, in turn, will give confidence to local people to become more involved in planning local services and, therefore, will sustain interest and involvement.
Last week, the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, produced his report on urban renaissance. In it he made over a hundred recommendations, perhaps the strongest and most persuasive of which was that the process of change locally should combine strength and democratic local leadership with an increased commitment to public participation. That observation and frequent references to the important roles that local government perform underline the case for having the power and the duty of general social economic and environmental well-being included early in legislation. We have it for London and I think that that must naturally follow for the rest of the country; indeed, local authorities will be the better for it.
8.6 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I hesitate to begin because I thought that there would be a speaker in the gap—
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I received a second request to speak in the gap but said that there was not enough time because someone was about to speak. However, in the circumstances, perhaps the noble Earl would speak briefly.
8.7 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for speaking briefly in the gap. I am prompted to do so by the indication given by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that local government is being re-arranged and more people are being encouraged to become involved in councils. I recently visited the Walthamstow Housing Action Trust. The members of its committee of local residents were all women—indeed, about six or seven women who had become very involved in the development of the trust. Given that the primary cause of youth homelessness among young disadvantaged people is poor relationships with their families, especially with their mothers, it would be most helpful if mothers from housing estates

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were encouraged to be involved in local government. In that way they would feel empowered, their particular needs would be better met, they would feel better supported and they would, therefore, be better able to support their families.
8.8 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, for introducing this debate. I very much enjoyed serving on the Select Committee which he chaired. It certainly made me think rather more about some issues that I think I had probably approached in perhaps too facile a fashion. I should also declare an interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the Association of London Government.
It is quite clearly widely agreed that the current limits on local government's powers are both undesirable and impractical. I have used the following example before in your Lordships' House because, I confess, it hurt me deeply. I refer to the case of McCarthy and Stone. When I was chairing the planning committee, my borough thought it would be sensible to charge the developers for advice from planners merely at the cost of their time. I think that £25 an hour was what we had in mind. However, we were unable to do that.
Recently, in considering the Local Government Bill, I discovered advice to a local authority that it may not sell advertising space in its own publication. That is a telling measure as best value and good practice require local publications to be made widely available. Advertising income does not seem a sinister way of ensuring that that should happen. Local authorities need to be able to consult economically, efficiently and effectively.
On a more general point, the public are rightly concerned about the outcomes of local authority activities; that is, the services. I share the view that the less central constraint there is, the better. It must help if local authorities are not hamstrung as to how to provide services. Flexibility and local decisions about how to do things are particularly important in community leadership. As the White Paper states—and as other noble Lords have said—this is probably the most important role of local authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has mentioned evidence to the Joint Select Committee on the Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill. The aim of the new organisational models is reconnecting people and politics, which I believe is a vital aim, and not just at local level. However, it is notable that the witnesses keep telling the committee that the new duty is more important than the structures. This has been a thread running through the evidence from the Local Government Association and from staff from SOLACE and UNISON. This has not just come from the trade organisations. Over this weekend I have considered evidence from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It referred to surveys of local authorities that show how many are failing even to make a commitment to produce local Agenda 21 plans. The RSPB states—and I think rightly—that even where there is a
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non-statutory target a significant minority of local authorities seem to be failing to meet the necessary standard. The target is set by no less a person than the Prime Minister.
The London Forum—a forum of amenity and civic societies—has responded to the committee's request for evidence. It mentions local authorities "listening and responding". It states that,
"the 'listening and responding' issue is not so easily addressed by structural change".
I think that these are important points. It is interesting to note the wide variety of organisations which make them.
In my eyes sustainable development is as much about process as it is about outcome. It is about reconciling demands—the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, talked about a wish list—seeking a consensus across a local community, or indeed across many communities (I think we all accept that one cannot define a community just in terms of geography), distinguishing demands from needs, wishes and aspirations from urgent requirements, and setting priorities. That is about process, but the process itself helps to define the outcome.
Will the new duty be enough? We know all too well the financial constraints that are applied to local authorities. Because the duty—as we have seen it so far—is a duty, do we not rather need a power? The White Paper at paragraph 8.11 mentions that the new duty will be,
"underpinned with a discretionary power",
but is that merely to enable the duty itself to be exercised? The duty is specific but does it merely meet the issues of the day; is it sufficiently wide to see far enough ahead? I wonder whether the duty as it appears to be framed will miss the point. Once it is framed as a duty, flexibility and priority setting may be excluded. The Greater London Authority Bill has had to prescribe on the face of the Bill a reasonable balance between each of its three principal purposes. That Bill amply illustrates the problems of being specific and limiting the scope of activities, or the manner in which a power is exercised.
We have considered the matter of staff for the mayor. We have discovered that the staff whom the mayor can appoint are not full-time equivalents, they are people. In these days of family friendly working practices, as advised by the Government, the mayor cannot appoint more than the prescribed number of people to share a job. Today we have discussed accommodation for the London Transport Users' Committee. I find it difficult to accept that the Bill has to provide in detail how accommodation is to be made available.
As the Select Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said, and as he has mentioned, the new duty should allow for innovation and for local authorities to make mistakes. When we see the legislative form of the new duty I hope that we shall also see that it demonstrates a trust on the part of the Government as regards other democratic structures. That would be for the good of local government and of local people.
8.16 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, for asking this Question which has considerable relevance to discussions that have taken place during the course of the day. While in general I support the Government's intention to introduce legislation to place on councils a duty, as mentioned in paragraph 8.8 of the White Paper,
"to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas and to strengthen councils' powers to enter into partnerships",
I think we have seen in the GLA Bill some reasons why this simple—as one might have thought—little matter has not been included in the draft local government Bill.
The Greater London Authority Bill contains a multitude of checks for the Secretary of State to exercise on how the Greater London Authority can or will work and—if the Secretary of State thinks that it is not working properly—how he may persuade it gently, or forcibly, to behave in a way that he considers proper. Much as I regret that provision, it is perhaps the reason that the Government have hesitated in this regard.
My background in local government does not suggest to me that the Government's attitude in this regard is either wise or correct. I have immense confidence and faith in local government despite the follies of some authorities on some occasions. If we believe in devolution and local democracy and if we believe that local councils will be accountable and will work in the interests of local communities, we also have to believe that sometimes they may get things wrong. We have to be prepared to live with the consequences.
Management structures in local government to improve their relevance, accountability and communications with their communities have been under discussion for a long time. I refer to the Maude Report on management and local government which I think was published in 1968—over 30 years ago. We have come a long way since that time, but the subject is still under discussion and it is still as provocative a matter as it was then. It will still be as provocative in 30 years' time. In this House, where we are long on discussion—unlike local government, which has to take firm decisions which are acted on immediately—that is perhaps unsurprising.
The British public, the electorate and the communities at large—and here I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—are interested in outcomes. As my noble friend Lady O'Cathain illustrated, all the consultation in the world will, on occasions, give rise to idealistic views of what can be done, might be done, should be done. But most people want a clear lead and a clear determination of outcomes. They are not too bothered about being consulted to a great degree provided that the decisions taken on their behalf are the right ones and can be seen to work. I, too, should prefer to see that. One of the problems in the Government's White Paper and their former Green Paper is that we are long on the business of consultation and somewhat short on action.
One aspect which perhaps causes concern appears to be the belief in government—which is inherent throughout the White Paper—that everything should
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change. It is an interesting ambition. Most people like to leave their mark on the world and it is a good way of setting about things. But I call in aid against that philosophy no less a person than the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who, when sitting on the Woolsack only last week, said:
"My Lords, the fact that some things or institutions call for modernisation does not mean that every one does".—[Official Report, 24/6/99; col. 1061.]
That does not mean that local government cannot modernise itself and improve its procedures. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, illustrated that his authority, without the backing of new legislation—although it has probably run into some limitations—has already been able to improve the way it works. That also is a fact and a record that one sees in progressive local authorities.
Over the years, I have been fascinated by the way in which good local authorities have introduced new practice, which has subsequently been followed by government and all too often comes up somewhat later in the form of legislation.
I should perhaps return to the present Local Government Bill which is passing through the House. That has what I would call a let-out clause for the Secretary of State to operate in the event that local authorities find themselves unreasonably constrained by a particular piece of legislation at the present time. I suggest that perhaps the constraints, the corsets, under which local government may act are capable—or might be capable when the Local Government Bill becomes law—of being relaxed somewhat.
However, that leads to one aspect to which we should pay attention. As we introduce these more general powers, we change the nature of what I call the vires consideration. Up until now, local government has been obliged to act within the law—and the law is precise. But the new clause that we are debating tonight is not precise; it is general. Indeed, we have the same problem with the Greater London Authority Bill. That is precisely why the Government have felt it necessary to place all these checks on what the Greater London Authority might do on the face of the Bill.
Perhaps the Minister in his reply—to which I look forward—will consider carefully the vires implication of these more general clauses. What is the Government's attitude to the problems they might throw up? It has always been a useful constraint on local government in the past—I have chafed against that constraint as much as anybody; but it has been useful—that it has been bound by the law. As we put in general clauses, that becomes a potential source of difficulty. I wonder what is the view of the Government on that particular problem.
I am grateful to the noble, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, for his Question.
8.24 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Tanworth, for raising this issue and to all noble Lords who have contributed. It

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gives me a chance to explain how this issue fits in with the totality of the Government's approach to local government reform.
In the White Paper, which has been referred to, we made clear our commitment to a comprehensive and co-ordinated agenda, which will modernise the way in which local government will work. It will guarantee the quality of local services and will promote the well-being of communities.
We have already taken action to deliver on some commitments. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, the electorate are interested in outcomes, and we wish to deliver them. The current Local Government Bill will set in place a new system of best value. It contains measures to improve the delivery of all local authority services, giving a better deal to local people. A beacon council scheme will establish centres of excellence in delivering local government services from which other local authorities can learn. The first round of successful applicants for beacon status will be announced in November. So we have already taken significant steps to establish the kind of modern councils we want to see.
As my noble friend Lord Bassam, who sits on the joint committee, indicated, the Local Government (Organisation and Standards) Bill is now under consideration by the joint committee. It will introduce new structures. A separate executive to make councils more efficient, effective and accountable will also be an important step in making sure that councils are in a position to provide leadership for their communities.
The White Paper made clear that we see community leadership as being at the very heart of the role of modern local government. It also made clear that to do this successfully councils must be both outward-looking and responsive to local needs. For example, tackling the complex problems which blight some of our poorer communities depends on all public bodies working together. Modern councils are well placed to lead this process and to ensure that action is co-ordinated and focused on locally determined priorities. They need to act together with other public authorities in order to do that. We need to take certain steps to remove the constraints on local government, acting with both other authorities and the private sector, to deliver these aims.
Local government will be required to produce new community plans. I welcome the Local Government Association's support and encouragement to launch that new community planning process. I know that many councils are already involved. The process covers a wide range of issues, including, broadly speaking, the well-being aspect and the sustainability to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred.
Community planning will provide a context for the action which authorities and their partners need to take to address community needs. But it is only part of the framework. Just as importantly, authorities will need new powers to build partnerships with other local bodies and to develop and implement innovative, cost-effective solutions to local problems. A central part of that framework, therefore:, will be legislation which gives local authorities the powers they need to promote the
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economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas. We are looking at the way in which legislation might be framed. We want to see an effective framework which gives councils real powers to promote the well-being of their areas.
Of course, we are not talking about powers for authorities to do absolutely anything they like. They will need to be sensible and have appropriate limitations on the scope of their powers, if for no other reason than to recognise that there are wider national interests involved. There are constraints, including constraints on the capacity of local authorities to deliver, given the kind of management and other internal problems to which the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, referred. So there will be limits but within them authorities should be given discretion to take action when they feel the need to promote particular aspects of well-being for their local communities.
The powers must tackle the doubts that currently exist about authorities' scope for action. They must enable councils to work with a wide range of agencies and clarify their ability to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly emphasised the importance of providing a framework for improving co-operation between local partners. The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, referred to the need to take action and we are already doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, drew attention to Clauses 16 to 18 of the Local Government Bill, which provide the means to remove elements of primary legislation that act as a barrier to the achievement of best value. In particular, they will enable best-value authorities to enter into new arrangements across the whole range of their service responsibilities.
Those powers will be used to facilitate joined-up service delivery—working across organisational boundaries to provide integrated services; develop more service-delivery models, with an emphasis on partnerships between and within local authorities; and clarify the circumstances in which authorities can provide goods and services to others. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, gave a couple of examples of where the present provisions are clearly nonsense and inhibit sensible development. The powers will also be used to make better use of local authority assets. Those provisions will go a long way towards removing the constraints that have hitherto frustrated authorities' efforts to improve the lives of local people.
The well-being legislation will build on all those developments. We will not stop there. Over the coming months, we will look at ways of doing more to remove the barriers that prevent councils and other bodies from working together to tackle the problems that they encounter. The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, asked whether they will have the capacities and skills to plan strategically. Developing appropriate skills is obviously an important part of the modernisation of local councils. We will work closely with the Local Government Association and others to explain ways of building the necessary capacity within local authorities. We recognise that constraint will have to be tackled.
We need to learn also from government initiatives such as the New Deal for Communities and the various action zones. We need to build on the work of the Social

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Exclusion Unit on effective means of tackling social exclusion. In building on that incremental process through the various legislation that will come before Parliament, we are developing an entirely new approach to local government—but there are some horses for courses aspects. A number of noble Lords cross-referred to the Greater London Authority Bill, which is not far from our thoughts today. I understand the relevance of the cross-references but there are important differences between the GLA and local authorities as a whole. The GLA legislation is concerned with establishing from scratch a new strategic body. Providing it with a purpose—to promote well-being—is a necessary part of the powers of that new body. They need to be explicitly so.
The position for local authorities is historically more complex and a lot of baggage—if I may use that word neutrally—comes with it. Local authorities already have a wide range of specific powers and duties and many developed ways of delivering them. They have an even wider range of restrictions on the exercise of those powers. We are not starting with a blank piece of paper. We need to frame the legislation in a way that clarifies local authorities' powers and removes unnecessary restrictions but which recognises that we are starting with something that has organically developed over a long period.
Queries were raised as to why the well-being provisions are not at present in the draft Local Government Bill being considered by the joint committee. We are committed to a comprehensive and coherent agenda for modernising local government and well-being is a fundamental part of that agenda. It almost goes without saying that the transformation of local government will require strong political leadership. That commodity may be in short supply—although I am not quite so pessimistic as the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. A new environment will help to create more positive and innovative leadership but that will take time and will involve leadership in the community as well as in the local authority.
In terms of providing for well-being, my noble friend Lord Bassam, although he supports it being in the Bill, recognises that our whole programme is a rolling programme of introducing various changes. Although the proposed measures are clearly interrelated, it is not necessarily the case that one cannot have a particular measure before the others. Nevertheless, your Lordships will understand that it is not possible to present detailed proposals for every measure at exactly the same time and to indicate now what will be done next. The reform of the structures will relate to all the functions of a local authority—and its powers and duties will follow.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that in implementing well-being, we need to provide a flexible framework to respond to local priorities and to deliver improvements to the local quality of life. That is the historical responsibility of local government and one that it can fulfil under the new scheme. I agree also with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that authorities need a broad power to enable them to promote well-being. It
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needs to be sufficiently flexible to allow authorities to respond to future changes and opportunities. That is where we will be concentrating our legislative attention.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked gently whether we will be legislating in the next Session for well-being, in the context of the draft Bill or otherwise. I cannot possibly anticipate what might or might not be in the next Session's legislative programme. Nevertheless, I assure the noble Lord that the Government are concerned, along with local government, that a legislative framework is in place that enables authorities to lead their communities and work effectively with other service providers to that end.
The Government have an ambitious programme to modernise local government. Modern, open and accountable councils with strong leadership are uniquely well placed to lead their communities. The delivery of well-being will be greatly dependent on the other changes we are making in local government.
I have welcomed the opportunity to set out the rolling programme for carrying that forward, and we will doubtless take note of the various comments made during the course of the debate when deciding precisely how to do that.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.45 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.35 to 8.45 p.m.]

Greater London Authority Bill
House again in Committee.
Clause 212 [Transport for London to be the traffic authority for GLA roads]:
[Amendments Nos. 297YA and 297ZA not moved.]
Clause 212 agreed to.
Clauses 213 and 214 agreed to.
Clause 215 [Transfer of London Traffic Control System to Transport for London]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment 297A:
Page 116, line 34, leave out subsections (3) to (7).
The noble Lord said: This is a simple amendment. The clause transfers to Transport for London from the Secretary of State London's traffic signals system for all roads in Greater London other than trunk roads.
The amendment removes specific provision for the transfer of property rights and liabilities of the traffic control systems unit. Such transfers will, instead, be effected under the general provision on such matters under Part XII of the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 215, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 216 agreed to.
Clause 217 [Transfer of traffic control systems between Secretary of State and Transport for London]:
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 297B:
Page 118, line 30, after ("and") insert ("the Authority, through").
The noble Baroness said: I rise to move the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Amendments Nos. 297B to 297E form a series which in effect join the authority and Transport for London, acting as a subsidiary of the authority, in the rather curious Clause 217, which allows traffic control systems to be transferred to and from the Secretary of State and Transport for London. The point that we want to make is that the Secretary of State is a responsible political officer and Transport for London is not a political organisation. It would be more appropriate if transfer was officially to the authority rather than to Transport for London.
The more one reads the clause, the odder it becomes. Clause 215 already says that all the traffic control systems, in so far as they relate to GLA, roads and roads in Greater London which are neither GLA roads nor trunk roads, will be transferred as part of the operation of the Bill. I am not sure under what circumstances the Secretary of State on the one hand and the authority, via Transport for London, on the other, can move or needs to move the powers to and from, or between each of them.
This is an amendment to Sections 74 and 74A—Clause 216 of the Bill. All those parts of the Bill are amendments to the same part of the Road Traffic Act. I am becoming mare and more confused as to why powers which are transferred under Clause 215 are then transferred to and from the bodies again at some later date. We did not like the idea that Transport for London should be the transferee or transferor of the powers; it should be the authority acting through Transport for London. However, I am becoming more and more confused about the matter. I hope that I shall receive elucidation of the broader issue when I receive a reply on the narrower one. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Clause 217 allows Transport for London, with the Secretary of State's agreement, to make schemes transferring all or part of the London traffic control systems from one to the other. Amendments Nos. 297B, 297C, 297D and 297E would mean that instead of TfL, exercising the power to make schemes, the GLA, acting through TfL, would have that power. TfL is under the direction of the mayor and it is the mayor who provides that democratic and political input.
We keep returning to the issue of TfL's functions in respect of the role of the GLA. TfL is not to be closely monitored, supervised and nursed by the GLA because TfL is simply the mayor's transport executive. As well as its many other important functions, TfL will be the highway and traffic authority for GLA roads—those designated by the GLA.
I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that in that capacity it is quite capable of dealing directly with the Secretary of State over London's traffic control
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systems. In asking the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, I was hoping to give her a detailed analysis of the circumstances in which the power will be used, which is extremely important to the functioning of TfL and for ensuring the smooth running of the traffic systems. However, I find myself unable to do that. I am sure it will assist the noble Baroness if I offer to write to her in order to ensure that she has the fullest possible information before we come to the next stage of the Bill.
I am now able to provide further information. TfL and the Secretary of State may need to agree changes in respect of traffic signals on motorways or trunk roads which remain with the Secretary of State. So there is an interchangeability of the roads. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Before the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, decides what to do, perhaps I may say that at present I understand that the traffic control systems are run by the City of London. They are not run from the City of London, but from Smith Square. With other noble Lords, I had the pleasure of visiting the site and seeing the excellent job being done there. I hope that nothing in the Bill would prevent that working as well as at present.
The boroughs have raised concern about the traffic control systems. Therefore I hope the Minister will give me and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, copies of correspondence. I wish to consider the matter before we reach the next stage.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I can say with delight and speed that I shall send a copy to the noble Lord.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I admire the skill with which the Minister kept her response to me going until help and the cavalry arrived. I feel for her in her predicament; it is a difficult clause to follow and to link with the rest of the Bill. However, I have heard what she said and look forward to the letter she will write to us. I am glad she will send a copy to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 297C to 297E not moved.]
Clause 217 agreed to.
Clause 218 agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297F:
After Clause 218, insert the following new clause—
>ROAD SAFETY INFORMATION AND TRAINING
(" .—(1) Section 39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (powers of Secretary of State and local authorities as to giving road safety information and training) shall be amended as follows.
(2) For subsection (2) (duty of local authority to prepare and carry out measures to promote road safety etc) there shall be substituted—
"(2) Each relevant authority—

(a) if it is a local authority, must prepare and carry out a programme of measures designed to promote road safety, or

(b) if it is Transport for London, may prepare and carry out such a programme, and may contribute towards the cost of measures for promoting road safety taken by other authorities or bodies."

(3) In subsection (3) (duty of local authority to carry out and act upon studies into accidents arising out of the use of vehicles on roads in their area, other than trunk roads) for the words preceding paragraph (a) there shall be substituted "Each relevant authority—".
(4) In paragraph (a) of that subsection (the duty to carry out the studies)—

(a) after "use of vehicles" there shall be inserted—
"(i) if it is a local authority,";

(b) after "other than" there shall be inserted "GLA roads or"; and

(c) at the end there shall be added "or

(ii) if it is Transport for London, on GLA roads or parts of GLA roads,".

(5) After subsection (3) there shall be inserted—
"(3A) The duties imposed by subsection (3) above are without prejudice to the generality of subsection (2) above and—

(a) in the case of a local authority, are to be discharged in pursuance of their duty under subsection (2)(a) above; and

(b) in the case of Transport for London, are to be discharged by exercising their powers under subsection (2)(b) above."

(6) In subsection (4) (definitions) the following definitions shall be inserted at the appropriate places—

""GLA road" has the same meaning as in the Highways Act 1980 (see sections 329(1) and 14D(1) of that Act);";

""relevant authority" means a local authority or Transport for London;".").

The noble Lord said: The amendment deals with road safety. Today one or two people asked me what insignia I am wearing; it relates to National Road Safety Week which I launched this morning with the organisation Brake.
The amendment seeks to provide Transport for London with appropriate powers and duties in respect of road safety. As the Committee will know, at present road safety powers rest with local authorities. TfL is clearly not a local authority. If the Bill were not amended, then TfL, as the highway and traffic authority for GLA roads, would have no locus over road safety or on GLA roads within the capital. That must be remedied and Amendment No. 297F does that by amending Section 39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The aim is to leave London boroughs with their existing duty to promote road safety and deal with road safety issues on borough roads. It is also to provide TfL with the power
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to promote road safety measures and a duty to deal with road safety issues on its own GLA roads. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297G:
After Clause 218, insert the following new clause—
THE ROAD TRAFFIC REDUCTION ACT 1997
(" .—(1) In section 1 of the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997 (interpretation) the following definitions shall be inserted at the appropriate places—

""local implementation plan", in relation to a London council, means the plan prepared by the council under section 127 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999;";

""London council" means a London borough council or the Common Council of the City of London;";

""the Mayor of London's transport strategy" means the transport strategy prepared and published under section 124 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999;".

(2) Section 2 of that Act (duty of principal councils to make reports) shall be amended as follows.
(3) In subsection (3) (information or proposals which relate to levels of local road traffic and are required by guidance under subsection (6)) in paragraph (b), after "guidance under subsection (6)" there shall be inserted "or (in the case of a report prepared by a London council) directions under subsection (6A)".
(4) After subsection (4), there shall be inserted—
"(4A) A report under this section prepared by a London council must take account of the Mayor of London's transport strategy and the council's local implementation plan; and—

(a) any targets specified in such a report pursuant to subsection (2), and

(b) any proposals contained in such a report pursuant to subsection (3), must be in conformity with that strategy and that plan."

(5) After subsection (6) there shall be inserted—
"(6A) The Mayor of London may give directions or issue guidance to London councils in relation to any matter in relation to which the Secretary of State may issue guidance under subsection (6).
(6B) The Mayor of London must not give any direction or issue any guidance under subsection (6A) which conflicts with guidance under subsection (6).
(6C) A London council preparing a report under this section—

(a) shall comply with any directions given under subsection (6A), and

(b) shall have regard to any guidance issued under that subsection."

(6) In subsection (7)(a) (report to be sent to the Secretary of State) after "Secretary of State" there shall be inserted "and, if the council is a London council, send a copy of the report to the Mayor of London".").
The noble Lord said: When the provisions of the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997 come into force, local authorities which are also local traffic authorities will have a number of duties. First, they must assess road traffic levels; secondly, they must set targets for

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reducing traffic levels or the growth of those levels; and, thirdly, they must make a report to the Secretary of State. As currently drafted, the Bill does not refer to the Road Traffic Reduction Act, and we need to remedy that. The Government have looked carefully at how the provisions of that Act should apply in London where there will be two types of local traffic authority. We felt strongly that we should not split the duty between boroughs concerned with borough roads and TfL concerned with GLA roads. We therefore concluded that the primary duty should remain with the boroughs.
Amendment No. 297G, therefore, provides that reports prepared by London boroughs under the provisions of the Road Traffic Reduction Act should conform to the mayor's transport strategy and the local implementation plans of boroughs, and that when a London borough sends a report to the Secretary of State it should send it also to the mayor. I commend this amendment to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
9 p.m.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297H:
Before Clause 219, inert the following new clause—
DESIGNATION OF PAYING PARKING PLACES ON HIGHWAYS
(" .—(1) Section 45 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (designation of paying parking places on highways) shall be amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), in the second paragraph (which requires a local authority outside Greater London which is not the traffic authority to obtain the consent of the traffic authority to any designation) the words "outside Greater London" shall cease to have effect.
(3) After subsection (1) there shall be inserted—
"(1A) Transport for London may not by virtue of subsection (1) above designate parking places on any highway which is not a GLA road."
(4) In subsection (7), in the definition of "local authority", at the end of paragraph (a) there shall be added "or Transport for London".
(5) In subsection (7), in the definition of "the local authority", after the words -in whose area the site is" there shall be added "unless the site is in Greater London, in which case—

(i) if the site is on a GLA road and the parking place is, or is proposed to be, designated by Transport for London, "the local authority" means Transport for London;

(ii) if the site is on a GLA road and the parking place is, or is proposed to be, designated by the London local authority in whose area the site is, "the local authority" means that London local authority; and

(iii) if the site is on a highway which is not a GLA road, "the local authority" means the London local authority in whose area the site is."

(6) After subsection (7) there shall be added—
"(8) In this section—

"GLA road" has the same meaning as in the Highways Act 1980 (see sections 329(1) and 14D(1) of that Act);

"London local authority" means the council of a London borough or the Common Council of the City of London.

(9) For the purposes of this section and sections 46 to 55 of this Act, Transport for London's area shall be taken to be Greater London.").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 297H, with the indulgence of the Committee I shall not read out the remaining amendments in this group to which I shall speak in the course of my remarks. We have grouped these amendments together because we believe that it is sensible to spell out the totality of our approach to parking in London, with the exception of workplace parking charges which arise under a later clause. We intend to do three things in the area of parking and, taken together, this group of amendments provides TfL with all the necessary powers: first, to operate a de-criminalised parking regime on GLA roads; secondly, to provide the mayor rather than the Secretary of State with power to set de-criminalised parking penalties in London, subject to certain safeguards; and, thirdly, to address the issue of parking surpluses.
A number of these amendments arise because parking is normally a local authority responsibility. Although TfL will be the highway and traffic authority for GLA roads, it is not a local authority for this purpose. Our amendments will provide TfL with power to designate pay and parking places on GLA roads, operate the parking account, employ parking attendants and agree with the police that traffic wardens can act as parking attendants. Amendments Nos. 297M, 297P, 297S, 297V, 297X, 297XB, 297XC, 297XD, 297XE, 297XF, 297XH and 297XJ fulfil an undertaking given during the Committee stage of the Bill in another place on 4th March when my colleague Nick Raynsford indicated that, in the light of Opposition amendments, the Government were minded to table amendments to enable the mayor rather than Secretary of State to approve the level of parking penalties in Greater London. Our amendments do just that but provide a reserve power for the Secretary of State to intervene if he considers the proposed charges to be excessive.
The third group of government amendments in this group relates to those matters on which London authorities can spend their parking surpluses. As well as providing that TfL must operate a parking account, Amendment No. 297HA allows the mayor to specify in his or her transport strategy additional categories of activity which further his strategy and can be funded from those parking surpluses. It also enables one borough to contribute to another borough's spending on activities that can be financed from its parking account. This opens the way for a variety of flexible methods for the voluntary pooling of surpluses.
In this group there are also a number of non-government amendments that seek to devolve the setting of additional parking charges to the mayor and assembly. The idea of involving the assembly is a frequent occurrence in Liberal Democrat amendments, but we do not consider that to be an appropriate role for the assembly as we propose to set it up. While we agree that the mayor should approve additional parking charges, we consider that our long stop safeguard of intervention by the Secretary of State is more appropriate than the involvement of the assembly.
In the light of the government amendments setting up parking penalties and the other provisions within this group, I hope that the noble Baroness will not pursue the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. Taken together, I believe that these amendments provide an indication of the strategy that we are adopting towards parking in London and its regulatory framework. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: The series of amendments, beginning with Amendment No. 297P which is all about the mayor rather than the Secretary of State approving borough charges and so on, is welcome. It is at least a devolution of power. We are content that the mayor should do it, which is better than TfL being given substantial powers so that it acts in a fairly independent manner.
The Minister has in effect replied to my amendments before I have formally moved them. I understand why he has done so, and at this stage in the proceedings I shall not create about it. Based on what the Minister has said, when the amendments are put by the Deputy Chairman of Committees I shall not move them.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: We shall need to look at these amendments and the shape of the Bill once they have been incorporated. The amendments form a fairly substantial group of provisions; they rewrite this part of the Bill to a considerable extent. I do not say that we have anything against them. However, I am slightly curious that here the Minister has removed "Secretary of State" and inserted "Mayor" in the context of the level of parking charges to be set by individual boroughs, whereas a little while ago he rejected one of my amendments which proposed that the mayor should be responsible for penalty fares and the Secretary of State should not have a say. The argument then used by the Minister was that the level of penalty fares in one area could impact on that adopted in another. That argument could also be used in respect of parking charges. I agree with what the Minister seeks to do in this case, but I just wonder why he could not have been more accommodating earlier.
Lord Whitty: I thought that I had been fairly accommodating. However, my argument then was that the Secretary of State needed to take into account the implications for other means of transport that might not fall within the authority of the mayor and GLA. Whereas clearly between them the boroughs and the GLA have total control over parking, a London Transport penalty fare at shared stations could have an impact on other operators outside what is currently the London Underground network.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: That is true, but one has the same situation where one has a borough or county, whatever it is, just outside the boundary of Greater London that may have a totally different system of
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parking charges and penalty fares. As now, one will have people moving from one area to another and parking where it is cheaper or perhaps free of charge.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I did not intend to rise again, but the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has made an important point. Those issues should be devolved. When the Bill is redesigned on the page, it will be easier to see how it links together, but I hope that then we shall see that there are obligations for the mayor to consult on those matters. Nothing is more controversial between authorities than the different levels of parking charges levied. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, smiling at me, and anyone who has experienced different towns fighting to lower their parking charges so as to attract the maximum amount of trade will know what I am talking about.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297HA:
Before Clause 219, insert the following new clause—
FINANCIAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO PARKING PLACES ON THE HIGHWAY
(" .—(1) Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (financial provisions relating to designation orders) shall be amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)(a) (accounts in respect of parking places on the highway in the case of London borough councils and the Common Council) after "in the case of" there shall be inserted "Transport for London,".
(3) In subsection (3A) (London borough councils and Common Council to report to Secretary of State on action taken with respect to deficit or surplus on their parking account)—

(a) at the beginning there shall be inserted "Transport for London,"; and

(b) for "Secretary of State" there shall be substituted "Mayor of London".

(4) In subsection (4) (purposes for which a surplus on a local authority's parking account may be applied) the word "and" immediately preceding paragraph (d) shall be omitted and after that paragraph there shall be added—

"(e) in the case of a London authority, meeting all or any part of the cost of the doing by the authority in their area of anything—

(i) which facilitates the implementation of the London transport strategy, and

(ii) which is for the time being specified in that strategy as a purpose for which a surplus may be applied by virtue of this paragraph;

(f) in the case of a London authority, the making to any other London authority of contributions towards the cost of the doing by that other authority of anything towards the doing of which in its own area the authority making the contribution has power—

(i) to apply any surplus on the account required to be kept under subsection (1) above; or

(ii) to incur expenditure required to be brought into that account."

(5) At the end of the section there shall be added—
"(8) For the purpose of enabling Transport for London and any other London authorities to discharge jointly any functions conferred by virtue of subsection (4)(f) above by a joint committee established

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under section 101(5) of the Local Government Act 1972, sections 101(5) and 102 of that Act shall have effect as if Transport for London were a local authority.
(9) In the application of this section in relation to Transport for London, any reference to its general fund shall be taken as a reference to the financial reserves for which provision is made under section 70(2)(c) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 in calculating Transport for London's component budget for the financial year in question.
(10) In this section—

"London authority" means Transport for London, a London borough council or the Common Council of the City of London;

"the London transport strategy" means the transport strategy prepared and published tinder section 124 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297J:
Before Clause 219, insert the following new clause—
APPOINTMENT OF PARKING ADJUDICATORS BY JOINT COMMITTEE
(" .—(1) Section 73 of the Road Traffic Act 1991 (appointment of parking adjudicators by joint committee of London authorities) shall be amended as follows.
(2) For subsection (1) (London authorities to establish a joint committee within two months of issue of first guidance under section 63 of that Act) there shall be substituted—
"(1) The London local authorities and Transport for London (in this section referred to as "the appointing authorities") shall establish a single joint committee under section 101(5) of the Local Government Act 1972 ("the Joint Committee") before 4th September 2000 or such later date as the Secretary of State may by order specify.
(1A) For the purposes of subsection (1) above, sections 101(5) and 102 of the Local Government Act 1972 shall have effect as if Transport for London were a local authority."
(3) In subsection (2) (functions of London authorities under sections 73 and 74 to be exercised by the Joint Committee) the words "and section 74 of this Act" shall cease to have effect.
(4) For the words "London authorities", wherever occurring, there shall be substituted "appointing authorities".").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 219 [Fixing of certain parking and other charges]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297K:
Page 1 9, line 37, leave out subsection (1).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 297L not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297M:
Page 120, line 4, at end insert—
("(1A) Before setting the level of any charges under subsection (1) above, Transport for London must consult the London local authorities.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 297N not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297P:
Page 120, line 8, leave out ("Secretary of State") and insert ("Mayor of London").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 297Q and 297R not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297S:
Page 120, line 15, leave out ("Secretary of State") and insert ("Mayor of London").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 297T and 297U not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297V:
Page 120, line 20, leave out from first ("by") to end of line 21 and insert ("order made by the Mayor of London.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 297W not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297X:
Page 120, line 21, at end insert—
("(4A) Levels of additional parking charges set in accordance with this section may only come into force in accordance with section 74A below.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 297Y and 297XA not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 297XB to 297XF:
Page 120, leave out line 29 and insert ("have been set in accordance with the provisions of this section.").
Page 120, line 31, after ("section") insert ("or section 74A below").
Page 120, line 35, at end insert ("or section 74A below").
Page 120, line 35, at end insert—
("(8A) Section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (exercise of functions by local authorities) shall apply in relation to—

(a) Transport for London,

(b) the London local authorities, and

(c) the Mayor of London,

and functions conferred on them by or under this section as it applies to local authorities and functions conferred on them by or under that Act.").
Page 120, line 42, at end insert—
("Additional parking charges: reserve powers of Secretary of State.
74A.—(1) Where the Mayor of London—

(a) on a submission under subsection (3) of section 74 above, approves any levels of additional parking charges, or

(b) sets any such levels under subsection (4) of that section, he shall notify the Secretary of State of the levels of charges so approved or set.

(2) Where notification of any levels of charges is required to be given under subsection (1) above, the levels of charges shall not come into force until after the expiration of—

(a) the period of one month beginning with the day on which the notification is given, or

(b) such shorter period as the Secretary of State may allow.

(3) If, before the expiration of that period, the Secretary of State gives notice to the Mayor of London that he objects to the levels of charges on the grounds that some or all of them are or may be excessive, those levels of charges shall not come into force unless and until the objection has been withdrawn.
(4) If, at any time before the levels of charges required to be notified under subsection (1) above to the Secretary of State have come into force, the Secretary of State considers that some or all of them are excessive, he may make regulations setting the levels of charges.
(5) Levels of charges set under subsection (4) above must be no higher than those notified under subsection (1) above.
(6) Subsections (5) and (6) of section 74 above shall apply in relation to levels of charges set under subsection (4) above as if those levels of charges had been set in accordance with the provisions of that section—

(a) by Transport for London, so far as relating to GLA roads or trunk roads, or

(b) by the London local authorities, so far as relating to other roads.

(7) Regulations under subsection (4) above are without prejudice to the duties imposed on Transport for London and the London local authorities by section 74(1) above; but where the Secretary of State makes any such regulations—

(a) Transport for London, if the regulations relate to GLA roads or trunk roads, or

(b) the London local authorities, if the regulations relate to other roads,

must not make any further submission to the Mayor of London under section 74(3) above until after the expiration of the period of twelve months beginning with the day on which the regulations are made.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 219, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 220 agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XG:
After Clause 220, insert the following new clause—
VARIATION OF SPECIAL PARKING AREAS BY THE MAYOR
(" . After section 76 of the Road Traffic Act 1991 (special parking areas) there shall be inserted—
"Variation of special parking areas by Mayor of London.
76A.—(1) At any time when an order under section 76 above designating the whole or any part of a London authority's area as a special parking area is in force, the Mayor of London may by order under this subsection amend the order so as to vary the area which for the time being constitutes the special parking area.
(2) No order may be made under subsection (1) above without the consent of every London local authority which is the traffic authority for a road which the order has the effect of bringing within, or removing from, the special parking area concerned.
(3) An order under subsection (1) above must not be such as to bring within a special parking area—

(a) any area specified in an order under this paragraph made by the Secretary of State; or

(b) the whole or any part of a Royal Park, except with the consent of the Secretary of State.

(4) No area may be specified in an order under subsection (3)(a) above unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that it is expedient, on grounds of national security, that no part of that area should be included in a special parking area.
(5) In this section "Royal Park" means any park to which the Parks Regulation Act 1872 applies (see sections 1 and 3 of the Parks Regulation (Amendment) Act 1926).").
The noble Lord said: Since the passing of the Road Traffic Act 1991, the principle of decriminalising parking offences has been well established through the creation of special parking areas. Now, in Greater London, illegal parking remains a criminal offence only on the red routes, in royal parks and in a few places in and around Westminster. In those places, the police and traffic wardens—rather than the local authority parking attendants—undertake enforcement.
The purpose of Amendment No. 297XG is to allow the mayor a simple way to change the boundaries of special parking areas, thereby offering an opportunity to extend decriminalisation of parking offences. The mayor may only do that with the consent of the traffic authority. In practice, most roads outside the current special parking areas are red routes which will become GLA roads, so Transport for London will be the relevant traffic authority. Where a new road is within a royal park, the consent of the Secretary of State is required. The Secretary of State can also exclude any area by order on grounds of national security.
Lord Berkeley: Perhaps I may raise the question of royal parks. Before the next stage, can the Minister consider whether it is necessary to have the approval of the Secretary of State? As regards parking, traffic control and speeding fines—and could we not resurface the Mall, which must be the widest road in London, without closing it for two months?—perhaps they could be incorporated more into Transport for London rather than being set apart with criminalised parking.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Whitty: At an earlier stage in the Bill—I can no longer remember quite when—I indicated that we propose to amend the Bill at a later stage to provide that the Royal Parks Agency must consult the highway or traffic authority on traffic management or parking proposals; and, likewise, that the Royal Parks Agency must have regard to the mayor's strategy. Those amendments are still subject to some discussion, but I hope to bring them forward at a later stage.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 221 [Interpretation of parking provisions]:
[Amendments Nos. 297XGA to 297XGB not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XH:
Page 121, line 32, at end insert—
("""Minister of the Crown" has the same meaning as in the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975;".").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XJ:
Page 121, line 40, at end insert—
("(5) In subsection (6) (power to make orders or regulations to be exercisable by statutory instrument) after "conferred by this Part" there shall be inserted "on a Minister of the Crown".
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 221, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 222 agreed to.
Clause 223 [Parking attendants]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 297XK and 297XL:
Page 122, line 37, leave out ("the Greater London Authority") and insert ("Transport for London").
Page 122, line 38, at end insert—
("() After subsection (5), there shall be inserted—
"(6) For the purposes of this section, the area of Transport for London is Greater London."
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 223, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XM:
After Clause 223, insert the following new clause—
EXERCISE BY TRAFFIC WARDENS OF FUNCTIONS OF PARKING ATTENDANTS
(".—(1) Section 95 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (appointment of traffic wardens) shall be amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (4) (which confers power to employ traffic wardens to act as parking attendants at certain street parking places) there shall be inserted—
"(4A) For the purposes of subsection (4) above, Transport for London is a local authority."").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 224 [London borough council affecting another authority's roads]:
[Amendments Nos. 297XMA to 297XMD not moved.]
Clause 224 agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 225 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Clause 225 adds a new Section 121 C after the new Section 121B of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to provide for TfL to commission or to carry out consultancy services relating to traffic control including pedestrians. This is not required. The general provisions under Schedule 9 to the Bill provide for TfL to commission or to carry out consultancy services relating to traffic control, including pedestrians, thus obviating the need for this specific provision under Clause 225. I beg to move that Clause 225 do not stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: There is more joy in Committee at ore clause removed! That is all I am willing to say.
Clause 225 negatived.
Clause 226 [Interpretation and exercise of functions by the Mayor]:
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 297XN:
Page 125, line 8, leave out ("definition") and insert ("definitions").
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 297XP and 297XQ. These are technical amendments that regularise the definitions in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendments Nos. 297XP and 297XQ:
Page 125, line 9, leave out ("place") and insert ("places").
Page 125, line 11, at end insert—
("""trunk road" has the same meaning as in the Highways Act 1980 (see section 329(1) of that Act)".'').
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 226, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 227 [Repeal of certain enactments]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XR:
Page 125, line 39, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 41 and insert ("In subsections (6) and (7) below "relevant local plans" means any local plans prepared or in the course of preparation by a London borough council or the Common Council under section 54 of the Road Traffic Act 1991.
(6) To the extent that they relate to roads which are or become GLA roads, within the meaning of the Highways Act 1980, any relevant local plans shall, until such time as they are superseded by the transport strategy, continue in force and have effect as if they were prepared or, as the case may be, in the course of preparation as part of that strategy.
(7) To the extent that they relate to roads other than those mentioned in subsection (6) above, any relevant local plans").
The noble Lord said: This is a technical amendment. As the Bill stands, a red route local plan prepared by a borough continues in force until such time as it is superseded by a local implementation plan under Clause 127 of the Bill. However, the Government intend that the GLA road network should be based largely on the red route network. This means that most, if not all, red routes currently subject to local plans will transfer to TfL. So the red route plans will not be superseded by borough local implementation plans.
Therefore, this amendment provides that local plans in respect of roads that become GLA roads will continue in force until they are superseded by the mayor's transport strategy. Local plans for roads that continue to be borough roads will remain in force until they are superseded by local implementation plans. I hope that the amendment clarifies the issue and I commend At to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 227, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 228 [Road user charging]:
[Amendment No. 297XRA not moved.]
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 297XRB:
Page 126, line 3, at beginning insert ("Where the revenue raised is to be invested solely and exclusively in better provision for public transport, cycling and walking in Greater London,").
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 312ZA. I rise to speak briefly to these amendments, the purpose of which I think is extremely clear. They will put in the Bill, at the earliest opportunity, mention of the new charges and levies that the Bill enables the authority or the London borough councils or the Common Council to make. The amendments seek to ensure that it is stated at this early stage that the revenue raised from the road user charging

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scheme or from the workplace parking levy is invested solely in public transport, cycling and walking provisions in Greater London. I beg to move.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: At this early hour of the evening by our standards, we come to the vexed issues of congestion charging—or road user charging, as it is called in the Bill—and workplace parking. I put it on record that we on this side of the House are not really in favour of either measure but, as we are going to get them in this Bill, we are advancing a series of amendments—and will do so again in the next stage—to lessen the impact of the charges and to reinforce the essence of the noble Baroness's amendment that they should be used mainly to improve public transport. That does not exclude certain improvements to the road network when that could assist the movement of public transport and cycling provision. However, the point remains the same. We have a number of amendments to the provision to which we shall come in due course, but I wanted to put that principle on the table in response to the noble Baroness.
Lord Whitty: We understand the noble Lord's opposition to the provisions, but we are not entirely clear about his alternative to the congestion problems in London. I also appreciate the keenness of the noble Baroness to put forward a further proposal on what is already a substantial ground-breaking arrangement for the application of charging revenues. But, first, the amendments are out of place in Clauses 228 and 229. They simply empower the mayor and the boroughs to bring forward road user and workplace parking charges. The arrangements for the retention and use of charging revenues are in Schedules 18 and 19. The noble Baroness is already well aware of those because she has tabled amendments to them, too.
I would argue that for the immediate period the amendments are unnecessary because the schedules already make it clear that every penny from the new charges will be hypothecated for at least 10 years for each scheme brought forward within the first 10 years of the GLA. It is true that those arrangements will be reviewed in 10 years' time, but the noble Baroness's amendment is largely met by the provisions.
The amendments are restrictive. They would inhibit the mayor and boroughs from spending those revenues on other areas of transport; for example, the support of river bus services. They would also rule out spending on road improvements and enforcement activity within the capital. Services to bring people into London would not be compatible with the services in Greater London, which is how the amendment is phrased. Those drafting shortcomings are avoided by simply allowing charging revenues to be spent in support of the mayor's transport strategy, which would cover all of those aspects. For those reasons, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: For once, the Minister's reply has made me more enthusiastic about my amendments. I do not agree that supporting the mayor's
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plan is the same thing as doing what we are suggesting should be done with the revenues. The mayor will have a number of objectives in his plan and no doubt one of them will be to enable whatever traffic is still on the roads, whether it is private or public, to move more smoothly. That is always one of the objectives of everyone in local authority in towns and counties because stationary traffic is polluting, disagreeable and costly to individuals and business. Therefore, it would be appropriate for the mayor to have as part of his strategy sensible measures to improve the flow of vehicular traffic on the road space left to it after the cycle lanes have been drawn.
However, we should like to see the revenues from congestion charging and so forth being put to support public transport and cycling and walking. Both take up relatively little space on the road and are not polluting. The noble Lord said that that would not cover river buses. I contest that; river buses might well be in public transport and if not they might well be set up as part of Transport for London's powers to provide or cause to be provided transport services. Therefore, I am more enthusiastic about the two amendments than I was originally. However, I will do as we always do and that is withdraw these amendments for the present moment. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, that we may well return to this rather vexed subject, albeit from slightly different points of view as we, of course, support the idea of road charging and workplace parking levies, at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 297XS:
Page 126, line 4, leave out ("the Authority.") and insert ("Transport for London,").
The noble Lord said: These are technical and drafting changes to the Bill, as the notes of my noble friend Lady Farrington inform me—she so often comes to my rescue. Amendments Nos 297XS and 312A are small but significant technical amendments. They are needed because any road user or workplace charging scheme introduced by the authority would be established and operated by TfL on behalf of the authority. It is therefore necessary to empower TfL to establish and operate charging schemes rather than to empower the authority to do so. I should make clear that the decision to allow TfL to establish an operator charge scheme will still rest with the mayor acting on behalf of the authority.
Amendments Nos. 455BA and 455BB are minor amendments to tidy up the drafting of Clause 325(6). Subsection (4) of this clause states that regulations which amend workplace parking charges and amend the definition of workplace parking will be subject to the affirmative resolution in this context in another place. Subsection (6) therefore needs to make clear that all these provisions will not therefore need to be subject to the negative resolution procedure of both Houses. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 298 not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 299.
Page 126, line 15, at end insert—
("(4) The purpose of any charges imposed by schemes established pursuant to this section shall be to encourage the use by individuals of public passenger transport services in preference to other forms of transport and regulations issued to establish such schemes shall be drafted, applied and interpreted in the light of this purpose, and any feature of or provision within any purported regulations which is neither essential nor reasonably incidental to such purpose shall be void and of no effect.
(5) In order to fulfil the purpose set out in subsection (4) above, no scheme shall be established which imposes a charge for the use of any road unless it contains a provision for the Authority or any London borough council or the Common Council, as is appropriate (in this Chapter "the charging body"), to make payments to any resident (including the occupier of any business premises) of the area over which they have authority.
(6) The payments referred to in subsection (5) above shall be calculated, as far as is reasonably practicable, to be equal to the charges which would be borne by a person who used the road or roads in question no more than the average during a twelve month period; and the charging body shall review the level of payments each year to ensure that the purpose in subsection (4) is fulfilled.
(7) In order to calculate the payments referred to in subsection (5) above, no regulations establishing a scheme pursuant to this section may be made unless the charging body in question has first conducted research over at least three months into the level of use of the road or roads in question (including such information as the number of persons using such road or roads, the frequency with which they use the road or roads in question, the nature of the motor vehicles used, and the distance travelled by them within the relevant area).
(8) Where the research conducted pursuant to subsection (7) above indicates to a charging body that the payments required by subsection (5) above cannot be calculated with reasonable accuracy, then no scheme relating to the road or roads in question may be established pursuant to this section.
(9) The results of the research conducted pursuant to subsection (7) above shall be available at no charge to members of the public and published electronically by the charging body in a form capable of access by members of the public.").
The noble Lord said: The introduction of road user charging, or of congestion tax as we would prefer to call it, is a significant break with our centuries old tradition in this country that the public highway should be free for use by the public. The Transport White Paper states,
"We will therefore introduce legislation to allow local authorities to charge road users so a.5 to reduce congestion, as part of a package of measures in a local transport plan that would include improving public transport".
That comes from Chapter 4 of the Transport White Paper, Making it Happen, which deals with changing travel habits, tackling congestion and pollution on local roads.
In other words, the purpose of road pricing is to encourage people to use public transport instead. There is an amendment to clarify that this significant breach of the civil rights of the motorist should be subject to an overriding purpose to combat possible abuse, in other words the use of road pricing to raise funds for other purposes. The Transport White Paper states that road pricing will be based upon mileage travelled, in other words acts to cut down distance which motorists travel. To make this effective without penalising the responsible car driver who cannot avoid using his car, there needs to be a mixture of incentives and disincentives.
If everyone stopped using their cars and used public transport, London Transport would collapse from overload. I do not know how many Members of the Committee use the Tube but I can say from my personal experience that even travelling outside the rush hour, as I do most of the time, the system is in serious difficulty, particularly with the closure of the Circle Line and, today, with the closure of a major branch of the Northern Line. There are continuous problems. There is simply no more room on the system at, for example, half past eight in the morning. As a regular traveller in the ordinary way, I cannot bear to think that there may suddenly be a huge number of additional people trying to use London Underground.
Therefore, road pricing should discourage excessive use, but not every use, of the road. The amendment provides for payment of a rebate to people likely to be affected by road pricing, the rebate to be based on likely mileage charge suffered by the average road user; the average mileage to be calculated; and so on. Indeed, it requires research to be conducted, as envisaged by the transport White Paper. It would be good to have that research publicly available.
It would be sensible to ban road pricing where an average mileage cannot be calculated because if that cannot be found by research, how can a local authority justify road pricing to reduce congestion?
I turn to Amendment No. 300. The transport White Paper states that,
"we do not want to restrict car ownership—with our vision for a prosperous Britain where prosperity is shared by all we expect more people to be able to afford a car".
That is on page 1 of the White Paper.
Therefore, this amendment seeks to protect the low paid. We suggest that road pricing should be capped to the value of the car. For the most part, cars are a notoriously bad investment and lose value the moment they are driven out of the showroom. Therefore, that cap should be linked to the second-hand value. We suggest that a 1 per cent limit would ensure that road pricing does not put car ownership out of the reach of the low paid. I am sure that the Government would approve of that. Certainly, from their statement in the White Paper, that would appear to be the case. Therefore, we bring forward that suggestion.
The last amendment in the group again refers to the Secretary of State's claim to want an integrated transport policy. The amendment fulfils that purpose by ensuring that road pricing cannot be introduced in an ad hoc manner without proper research into the knock-on effects on other roads. There is that question of other roads in nearby areas. Again, research is required to be published widely as a means of democratic accountability. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: Taken together, these amendments seriously undermine the approach to road-user charging in the capital which we have proposed. Although some of them have a superficial attraction, they do not add up to anything which we could accept.
The first two amendments would allow charging schemes to be brought forward only if they encourage the use of public transport in preference to all other

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modes of transport. I am sure that the mayor's strategy will encourage the use of public transport. The noble Lord is saying that it would not be possible to use those revenues to encourage cycling or walking in preference to public transport or it would not be possible ever, in any circumstances, to use the revenue for road improvements or for improvements which benefited a number of users wider than those who use public transport. That would not be sensible. As I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, it is clear that the Government's intention is that the money will be used to promote the mayor's transport strategy in all its aspects. Although a big aspect of that will be the improvement of public transport, other aspects will need to be addressed.
Amendment No. 299 would also require revenues from road user charging to be paid to London residents and businesses. Exactly how much would be paid is not clear from the amendment, but the Government have made it clear that all that money will be ring-fenced for transport for at least the first 10 years. That will ensure that transport services and facilities can be substantially enhanced for the benefit of all Londoners. Paying the money back to Londoners is not appropriate and sits rather uncomfortably with the proposition of the noble Lord that the revenue from any charging scheme should be used to encourage the use of public transport.
The amendments would also require extensive research to be undertaken into the effects of road user charges. Before any road user scheme were to come into effect, the results of that research would be required to be made available electronically. Extensive research has been undertaken by the Government, the previous government and by other bodies such as London First into the impacts of road user charging. The findings indicate that charges can reduce traffic levels in the areas where they are applied, leading to less congestion and less pollution. They can also generate a revenue stream to fund improvements to transport services and facilities.
In addition, the Government are currently undertaking an extensive study to provide information for mayoral candidates on the use of road user and workplace parking charging powers in London. The Review of Charging Options for London study is looking at how charging schemes may work in practice, what impact they can have on congestion and pollution in the capital, and how they would be received.
Representatives of the study's steering group include London Transport, the London boroughs, the transport departments of three universities in London, the AA, the RAC and Transport 2000. The final report is expected in October and will be available to mayoral candidates. Ultimately, it will, of course, be open to the mayor and boroughs to undertake further research. However, the power to decide to undertake that research should not be on the face of the Bill but should be for the mayor and the boroughs.
Amendment No. 300 is extraordinary, unless it is intended to undermine any credibility in the scheme. The amendment would cap the road user charges so that they are levied on motor vehicles at 1 per cent of the value of a vehicle. I am not clear why the value of the
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vehicle should be relevant. The mayor should decide whether or not to place such a cap. Normally the payments would relate to an access charge or a mileage related charge. The idea that it would relate to the value of a vehicle is slightly odd. It must be for the mayor to decide how the scheme would work, but a cap on this basis would be totally impractical. Every vehicle of a different age, type and state of repair would face a different maximum charge. The mind boggles as to how such a scheme could operate.
I do not think much of this group of amendments. I hope that the noble Lord, who no doubt will wish to return to these issues later tonight and at later stages of the Bill, will reconsider his proposal.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: The amendments were probing amendments. I understand the Government's objection to some parts of them. They have enabled me to have a reply from the Minister on some of the issues involved. I was interested to hear the reply regarding the research and information which will be available to mayoral candidates in October. I wonder whether the noble Lord could make that information available in September so that we may be able to look at it when we return in the overspill period for the next stage of the Bill. Perhaps that is asking too much.
The amendment concerning the value of the car was a little tongue in cheek. I was trying to assist the Government to fulfil their White Paper commitment that they do not want to restrict car ownership. I hope that their vision for a prosperous Britain and the ability to afford a car will be shared by all. I have been interested to hear the reply of the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 228, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 300 and 301 not moved.]
Schedule 18 [Road user charging]:
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 302:
Page 250, line 5, leave out paragraph 3 and insert—
("3.—(1) A charging scheme may be made by the appropriate charging authority only if it appears necessary for the purposes of—

(a) relieving or preventing congestion of traffic on such roads or in the surrounding area, or

(b) securing the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of vehicular and other traffic (including pedestrians and cyclists) on such roads or in the surrounding area.

(2) If the Authority reasonably considers that a charging scheme needs to be introduced by a London borough or boroughs—

(a) because the objectives of the transport strategy cannot otherwise be achieved within the periods specified therein,

(b) to achieve the objectives of any charging scheme introduced by the Authority, or

(c) to achieve the objectives of any other London borough in introducing or proposing to introduce a charging scheme,

the Authority may invite such London borough or boroughs to introduce a charging scheme for that purpose.
(3) If any London borough in question shall fail to introduce a suitable charging scheme within a reasonable period the Authority may, following a resolution of the Assembly to that effect, impose such a charging scheme provided that it shall have no power to do so if such charging scheme would conflict with the local

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implementation plan of that London borough or otherwise have an adverse effect on the provision of public transport or management of traffic or movement of pedestrians and cyclists within Greater London.").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 302 and in order to save the Committee's time, I shall speak also to a large group of amendments. Most are in my name but one or two are in the names of my noble friends and no doubt we will deal with those as well. I do not intend to deal with all these issues in detail. I believe there is a play in London at the moment called "All Shakespeare in one-and-a-half hours"; these are all my objections to road user charging and work-place parking levy in a nutshell. Again, as on the last amendment, I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says in reply. I will no doubt wish to distil the issue before the next stage and come back with a real blockbuster at that point.
The Bill at present gives the Greater London Authority the power to ride roughshod over the boroughs in imposing road pricing schemes at will. That is undemocratic. The GLA should have the power to impose schemes only in respect of GLA roads or trunk roads and have a reserve power, if necessary, to achieve the objectives of the transport strategy so long as that does not conflict with the implementation plan or the borough's aims strategy.
It is of key importance for democratic accountability that the boroughs should be given a chance to produce their own schemes First. Paragraph 3 of the amendment enshrines that objective, and assembly consent is included for that reason.
Other amendments cover the need to receive and publish a report from an independent economist on the effect of business activity in the area. As I said earlier on the previous amendment, the White Paper clearly states that the purpose of this charging scheme is to reduce congestion and encourage people to use public transport. If we are talking about business activity in an area, we are talking about deliveries by commercial vehicles to businesses in the area. They do not have the alternative of public transport to turn to and should not be penalised by a congestion charge. Any congestion charge levied on commercial vehicles delivering to an area is nothing more than a tax on the business in that area. I know that the associations involved in this activity are concerned about that.
We believe also that as a consequence of that there is an insufficient requirement for consultation on the introduction of road user charging. Amendment No. 304 requires consultation with, among others, organisations and representatives of potential users—motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and disabled persons; I add to that business users in the area—before a charging scheme is introduced.
We believe also that the objectives meant to be achieved should be stated so that everybody knows what the purpose of introducing the congestion tax is. Those objectives should be published and voters can then hold the relevant politician to account if the objectives either are or are not achieved.
I am trying to deal with the amendments as briefly as I can. Amendment No. 306 has the object that only the minimum charge should be made which is necessary to secure the specified objectives. The fear of many Londoners—it is certainly mine—is that this will become a new back-door tax which can be used for other things and that it will not necessarily be used for that which we would like to see it used. Therefore, we propose that the road pricing charges should be set only at the minimum level necessary to achieve the limited objective of reducing traffic congestion and that it should not be set any higher.
Amendment No. 307 brings us back to the issue of those who should be exempted from road user charges. Here we are suggesting the inclusion of the disabled, schoolchildren under secondary-school age who cannot really be expected to use public transport on their own (nor can their busy parents be expected necessarily to take them to and from school), school buses, doctors and nurses, hospital and emergency vehicles and motorbikes. Of course, there could be other categories and I am sure that the issue of exemptions will arise again.
I should like particularly to mention motorbikes in this connection. As I said earlier, if the purpose of the provision is to reduce congestion—and that is what it is supposed to do—it cannot be argued that motorbikes cause congestion; indeed, although they cause a good deal of other inconvenience, that is the one thing that they do not do.
Amendment No. 309 provides that "penalty charges"—the fines—for not obeying this congestion charge should be no more than is reasonably necessary to secure the specified objectives of the scheme. Again, people are worried that this will prove to be yet another way of raising taxes. Of course, we do not know whether the penalty charges will actually be spent on improvements to public transport, cycling, walking, and so on.
I believe that what I have said sums up the majority of the amendments in the group. I should stress again that one of them refers to the capacity of the public transport system. As I said on the last occasion, the Underground is operating almost at capacity; indeed, many lines are certainly running at capacity in many central areas at peak times and running very nearly at capacity at non-peak times. So where will this extra traffic go when it is turned off the roads?
As I see it, the whole problem with this congestion charging and non-residential parking is that at present it is all stick and no carrot. If we must have this, we would like to see a situation where at least some improvement is made to public transport, preferably before the introduction of congestion charging; but, if not before, then certainly at the same time as such charging is introduced. This takes us back to the arguments about borrowing, and so on, to which we shall no doubt return. I repeat: as set out in the Bill, it seems to be all stick and no carrot. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley: I have two amendments in this group; namely, Amendments Nos. 310A and 324A. I do

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not intend to speak to them for very long, but they are designed to ensure that TfL and the mayor should be able to keep the Revenue from these various parking charges—
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I should point out to the noble Lord that those amendments are not included in this group; indeed, they are self-standing.
Lord Berkeley: I am sorry. I thought that they were in this group.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I shall step in while the noble Lord re-groups himself. We have been dealing with a complicated series of amendments which were obviously very difficult to group. Efforts were made to re-group them with the assistance of the various teams involved, but, even so, I am not entirely sure that an absolutely satisfactory arrangement has been found for this large group of amendments. Nevertheless, we are all doing our best to cope with what we have. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, may wish to know that Amendment No. 321A, which is tabled in his name, is in this group.
We have tabled a number of amendments in this group. I refer in particular to Amendments Nos. 302B and 317A which pick up one of the themes mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, in that they suggest that a road user charging scheme or a workplace parking levy scheme should be levied only if it has regard to the capacity of the public transport system to accommodate such increase in use as may result from the scheme. I believe that that ties in with some of the fears that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, understandably mentioned.
In the dear, dead days of Fares Fair, it was relatively easy to lower fares and thus encourage increased use of the Underground system because it did not carry the number of passengers that it does today. Today it is always full, although it has always been full at the rush hour. I remember when I first worked in London a large number of years ago. I did not get onto the Northern Line going north until at least half-an-hour after the main rush hour had passed because I could not bear being crammed into it. Some famous lines have been "black holes" as far as capacity is concerned for a long time. But now all the lines seem to be in that position and it seems to be the case more or less all day long. It is not just a matter of the trains being full; the stations are also extremely full now at any time of the day. The capacity of the Underground is a serious matter and must be addressed.
Buses are the other main form of public transport. Here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, because one cannot improve the capacity of the bus system until one has taken some of the cars off the road. That is the balance that this Bill seeks to achieve in the series of clauses which concern charges and their use. Quite apart from the issue of borrowing against revenue streams which we dealt with earlier, we need to be certain that revenues from charging schemes will be spent on public transport and that those two issues will
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gradually move together. One cannot significantly improve road public transport until one reduces the number of cars on the roads.
I may address the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when I am certain that it means what I think it means. For the moment I shall leave that amendment to him.
Lord Berkeley: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for giving me the opportunity to confirm that I have three amendments in the group we are discussing; namely, Amendments Nos. 310A, 321A and 324A. I refer to deleting the requirement that after 10 years the revenue from parking charges or congestion charges returns to the Treasury. I believe that we have discussed this matter before. It also fits nicely with the statement made by my noble friend the Minister earlier; namely, that the mayor will have the sole right to set the charges. It is a pity that he will not be able to keep the revenue. As I say, he can set the charges but he cannot keep the revenue. It would be nice if he could keep that revenue for ever.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, talked about the civil rights of motorists. I believe that bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians have equal civil rights. The Government have never said that they are against people owning cars; they are encouraging it. However, they have said that in certain circumstances car usage must be restricted when there is a capacity constraint, for example—as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said—in order to leave space for buses. I believe that there could be an enormous growth in bus passengers if there were continuous bus lanes and therefore little delay. I shall certainly oppose the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon.
10 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, on at least bringing some coherence to this block of amendments. I have similar difficulties with groups of government amendments and he has made a better job of it than I would. Nevertheless, there is a range of issues involved, many of which cannot be properly addressed. Noble Lords will have to decide which ones have priority for bringing back at a later stage. Certainly some of the points made by the noble Lord are fundamental to the totality of the approach.
Equally, many of the amendments seek to be deeply prescriptive. We are leaving to the mayor's discretion how and at what level he or she draws up the precise schemes. The issue of hypothecation, if I can put it that way—we have discussed it before—is quite clear. I should say to my noble friend Lord Berkeley and to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, that the hypothecation is for 10 years. For any scheme that starts within the first 10 years, the revenues remain within that ring-fenced area for 10 years thereafter—forever is a long time—which is a fairly substantial commitment. It is a reasonable period of time into the future in which to tackle many of London's infrastructure problems.
I have no doubt that London's responsible, democratically elected mayor will wish to consider many of the issues raised by the noble Lord in terms of

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where, at what level and in what sequence the charging schemes will be introduced and pay for transport infrastructure projects. The responsibility for working out those matters must rest with the mayor, rather than be prescribed on the face of the Bill.
The noble Lord expressed a particular concern about the interests of business in London. Clearly that must be central to our considerations. I understand that London's business community is only too well aware of the enormous costs currently imposed on the capital and its economic activity by congestion. Both London First and the Chamber of Commerce have found that business is quite prepared to support road user charging provided that the revenues are ring fenced and spent only on improving transport in London.
A number of other issues were raised in this context during the course of the debate. I agree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley and with the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, in relation to the improvement of bus travel. The capacity of buses within London depends on some reduction in road traffic; the two go hand in hand. That must be clear.
As to two of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord—he did not make much of these points in his address—there is an issue that I need to consider in the area of consultation. Amendments Nos. 304 and 319 seek to place a duty on charging and licensing authorities to consult on the detail of any charging scheme or any substantial variation to any scheme. While the amendments, as drafted, are unduly prescriptive, I recognise that there is merit in requiring at least a minimum amount of consultation on the detail of any such charging or licensing scheme. That would allow Londoners, organisations and businesses in London the opportunity to have their say. On that basis, I would like to take away and consider the two amendments with a view to bringing forward Government amendments on Report.
We envisage that such amendments would require a charging or licensing authority to advertise its proposals and to invite representations. As I said during earlier stages of the Bill, prescribing precisely who should be consulted will lead to a potentially endless sequence of demands that additional names should be added to the list. In any case, that is rightly left to the mayor to specify. Any minimum requirement in the Bill introduced after consultation could be improved upon by the mayor. Nevertheless, I accept part of the noble Lord's comments about consultation.
As to the rest, he is either raising again fundamental issues or attempting to be prescriptive, so I hope that he will not pursue the clauses. I trust that he will withdraw his large and wide-ranging group of amendments and will focus down at any subsequent stage.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am grateful to the Minister for his response and that I have at least achieved agreement on one small part of the amendments, regarding consultation. I was going to say that half a loaf is better than none but that is just a tiny slice. Nevertheless, it is better than nothing.
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The Minister referred to my enormous group of amendments, but it was the noble Lord's grouping, not mine. In the interests of time, I reluctantly agreed to accept it, feeling that we could at least have a short debate at this stage, returning to the more significant items at the next stage.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, rightly pointed out that the Underground has been at capacity during the rush hour for many years. I remember that that was so when I started working in London in the late 1960s. We must hope that the new PPP, if it happens, and revenue stream will do something to improve that capacity, if we are to see more cars off the road and additional passengers using the Underground.
It is right to say that bus services cannot improve until the cars have gone. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to bus lanes. They have been introduced on many routes in central London but there are many others where there is no room. On the No. 14 route from where I live to Piccadilly there are many places where there is no room for a bus lane.
One reason that buses travel so slowly in central London is that they stop every 400 yards for people to get on and off—not necessarily because of congestion. At the moment, buses are not a serious means of transport for people who are in a hurry to get from one place to another.
Lord Berkeley: Route 14 is a particularly bad example but there are many other roads in London where there are two lanes in each direction and one could perfectly well be used for buses. Buses stop to pick up passengers, which is their objective. If bus lanes were continuous across traffic lights and so on, buses could travel even faster.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I am glad that the noble Lord agrees that buses stop frequently to pick up passengers. Unfortunately, the corollary is that they do not make their journeys particularly quickly. I dare say that the noble Lord is right and that there are roads other than those used on the No. 14, 22 or 74 routes—to cite three examples that I know—where bus lanes could be introduced, and no doubt they will be.
Returning to the carrot-and-stick point, congestion charging has been introduced with some success in other cities of the world because improvements to public transport were made before or at the same time. The trouble with the Government's proposals is that congestion charging will be introduced but then a long time will elapse before there are improvements in public transport.
Apart from his concession to me on consultation—we shall wait to see what comes of that—the Minister quoted London First as being in favour of congestion charging. My point was not about business as such, but related to the retail trade and delivery to shops and also to the messenger trade and offices in the area. They do not have the alternative of public transport. Therefore, any congestion charge on them is nothing more than a tax on business in the area. It cannot be said to encourage public transport because they do not have that

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choice. However, I shall read what has been said in the debate. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 302A to 305A not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 305B:
Page 251, line 41, at end insert—
("() different distances travelled;").
The noble Lord said: This small amendment makes it clear that charging authorities can levy road user charges on the basis of distance travelled.
I recognise that this is unlikely to be an immediate option; and it will not be an option unless a charging authority brings forward a rather complex electronic road user charging scheme. Any such scheme is unlikely to be brought forward by the mayor in the short term. However, the primary legislation that we are putting in place should allow for a future road user charging scheme to be brought forward that levies charges on the basis of distance travelled. That is in line with our proposals to allow the mayor to design and implement the road user charging scheme which can best help deliver the policies and proposals contained within the mayor's transport strategy. The amendment allows for that. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: The amendment has interesting implications. For some people who need to travel rather long distances to work—it might include work for the authority or the mayor—charging more the greater the distance travelled would seem to be rather a handicap. On the other hand, there could be an advantage in charging people more for short distances in order to discourage them from using private transport. Shorter distances might well be more suited to the use of public transport. I wonder whether the Minister has in mind the possible effects of the reference to "different distances travelled".
Lord Whitty: The point of road user charging is to discourage, constrain or redistribute the amount of road traffic. In the immediate circumstance is it unlikely that that is achievable, except by what is effectively an access charge: more or less a flat rate would be charged for access to parts of London.
It is now not beyond the wit of technology to charge electronically on the basis of distance travelled. Such systems now exist in some parts of the world. That would reduce the temptation to use the car, for example, for long or medium distance commuting. It would also discourage the use of the car when public transport arrangements for cross-city journeys were available.
I take the noble Lord's point that some of the journeys that he would particularly wish to divert onto public transport are relatively short. It may well be that the mayor will decide that a combination of an access charge and a road user charge—a road mileage related charge—is the most sensible way of discouraging short
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use by fixing a higher threshold and combining that with a discouragement from driving into central London every day from, for example, Croydon.
However, those are all matters for the mayor. The only point of the clause is to recognise that at some point, when the legislation is likely still to be in place, it will be technically possible for the mayor to devise schemes which are based on mileage as well as those based on access. In the long term, that may well be the way in which the mayor would wish to go. I hope that clarifies the matter for the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
Lord Renton: I thank the noble Lord for his explanation. It looks as though the amendment will give a wide discretion to the mayor because it will be he who decides the policy.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 306 and 307 not moved.]
Baroness Darcy de Knayth Baroness Darcy de Knayth moved Amendment No. 308:
Page 252, line 6, at end insert—
("() A charging scheme shall include an exemption scheme for disabled people and transport services for disabled people drawn up in consultation with organisations of disabled people.").
The noble Baroness said: I wish to move Amendment No. 308 and speak to Amendment No. 323 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and myself. It is grouped with Amendments Nos. 308A and 323A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas and Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. They all seek to achieve the same objective by various means. They all aim to create a scheme for exempting certain classes of disabled people from road user charging and workplace parking licensing schemes.
Amendments Nos. 308A and 323A mention consultation with groups representing disabled people. It is important that the consultation should be with organisations of disabled people where over 50 per cent of the members have direct experience of disability.
I shall not rehearse the arguments about disabled people not being able to exercise choice over using public transport or the need for an overall scheme. We have been through it all before. The amendments are similar to Amendments Nos. 298 and 314 which were spoken to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester. They called for an overall national scheme, one that is the same throughout the country, I hope including Scotland and Wales. Amendments Nos. 308 and 323 and the one by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, relate only to London. The amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, are therefore definitely better. He regrets that he cannot be here, but the Committee will acknowledge that he has done sterling work already on the amendments.
I look forward to the Minister's reply, perhaps even more optimistically than usual in view of the early arrival of his letter to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, which was flagged earlier. I shall move Amendment No 308, although I prefer Amendment No. 298,

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because I wish to give the opportunity to the Minister to tell us a little more about the amendments. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I support the amendments. I accept the gentle reproof administered by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, on the advantage of the phrase "groups of" disabled people rather than "groups representing" disabled people. However, we have the same aim and, like the noble Baroness. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.
Lord Renton: I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy. The alternative put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and others has roughly the same effect. As for the alternatives, one must bear in mind that, disabled people have a wide range of disabilities. Some disabled people might be able to use public transport but others are so severely disabled that they could not even drive a specially adapted vehicle. Special arrangements have to be made for them.
When we come to consider Amendment No. 323, it is important to beat in mind that transport services may need to be arranged for groups of very severely disabled people, not necessarily individuals, because they cannot propel themselves. We must generalise on this matter. I am sure that the Government will be sufficiently broad-minded and imaginative to realise that it is important to give adequate power to the mayor and authority to provide, exemptions under the first group of amendments and a special licensing scheme under Schedule 19. I hope that the Government will give a helpful, favourable and sympathetic reply to this amendment.
Lord Whitty: I hope that I can be at least slightly sympathetic. This matter relates to the exchange of correspondence between me and my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, who is no longer in his place, about the timing of the Government's proposals on the application of any national exemptions to the GLA. The Government's view is that in general terms it should be the responsibility of the mayor to decide what exemptions from road user and workplace parking charges should apply across London, but that if there are any national exemptions they should apply also to London.
Currently, we are analysing a very large number of responses to the paper, Breaking the Logjam. A good number of those bring forward the likelihood of national exemptions. Without pre-empting full consideration of that area of consultation, it is clear that a strong case is made for national exemptions for disabled persons. Exactly how that operates, in what context and in respect of whom will be a matter for national exemptions. It is not our intention to rush the process of specifying those exemptions because a further period of discussion will be required, but I am sure the Committee will agree that it is essential to ensure that any exemption from charges for disabled persons is clearly defined, practical to implement, equitable and not open to abuse. All of those angles must be covered.
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Nevertheless, the undertaking that I have given to my noble friend Lord Morris, which I give again formally to the Committee, is that we shall endeavour to agree the structure of any national exemptions from local authority road user and workplace charges in time for it to be included in the latter stages of the Bill in this House. In any case, even if we missed that timetable the national exemptions would be clear by the time the mayor came to propose any scheme within London. I hope that we can put it into the Bill. I hope the noble Baroness agrees that I should take away these amendments and feed them into that consideration. As to the substance of the case she makes, the Government are strongly sympathetic and believe that the results of their consideration will be positive.
Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he can amplify his observation about national exemptions being considered at a later stage of the Bill. As I understand it, all that we shall know about the national exemptions is what the Government intend to propose to Parliament. However, they will not be part of the law, whereas in this Bill we shall be making the law. It is very important to ensure that the exemptions are available within the Greater London Authority. It would be terrible if in the long run it turned out that the national exemptions did not sufficiently help disabled people in London.
Lord Whitty: I think that the noble Lord is seeking an understanding that we might legislate in this Bill first. It is the case that if we are clear about what we want to do with the national exemptions in time for the latter stages of this Bill, we would wish to incorporate them. It is possible that subsequently, during the passage of the Bill, Parliament will be persuaded to alter those national exemptions and we would therefore need to provide that they would be altered in London as well. All those contingencies must be covered in the way in which we deal with the issue.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, wishes to say anything. I thank her for her support, especially after her gracious concession about consultation. I also wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for his warm and strong support.
I thank the Minister particularly for his response, because it would be good news if we could learn more about the national exemptions before Report. I think that he agrees that the important point is that the London scheme should be the same as the national scheme and that we avoid the orange badge mess that we have had to date. I thank the Minister very much for the content and the manner of his response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 308A to 310A not moved.]
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara moved Amendment No. 311:
Page 253, line 17, leave out from beginning to ("be") in line 19 and insert ("The net proceeds of any charging scheme shall").
The noble Lord said: With respect, I do not believe that we have covered this issue properly and I wish also speak to Amendment No. 325. The amendments deal with the 10-year period of hypothecation which we have not dealt with so far.
As presently drafted, as your Lordships will be only too well aware, the Bill allows hypothecation of the net proceeds of parking charges and, in Schedule 19, of non-residential parking charges to be applied to relevant transport purposes, but for only 10 years. The amendments would remove the 10-year period and would allow the hypothecation—a dreadful word, but one that seems to have entered into popular use—to continue longer.
The Government were able, after much discussion, to get the principle of hypothecation agreed for 10 years. It is almost the first time that that has happened. I gather that it is not the first time that the Treasury has agreed to hypothecation, but it is certainly the most significant. The issue is major flows of money into major improvements in the London transport system. Earlier, we discussed the PPP for the London Underground. It appears that such schemes may last for upwards of 30 years. If the revenue from parking and congestion charges is to be of maximum use to Londoners, one of the principal purposes will be to make improvements to the London Underground by assisting with the PPP process.
I put it simply. If this can be assumed only for 10 years, whereas the period for the PPP is up to 30 years, that is not good enough. There may be other schemes which would take longer than 10 years to introduce. For example, the building of the Cross-Rail line or the Chelsea-Hackney line would take a great deal longer than 10 years to finance. Therefore it is essential that we have this revenue stream available to the promoters of such a scheme for longer than 10 years.
A number of amendments have been tabled. The noble Baroness has tabled an amendment providing for 35 years. I prefer my amendment for its simplicity. It merely states that it should last forever. I may receive criticism for the "forever" but it is open to anyone to come to this House and another place to change it back again. In the meantime, I beg to move.
10.30 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I hope that I am right in thinking that we have now moved to the group of amendments beginning with Amendment No. 310A. I endorse what the noble Lord said. Even a double decker bus has a longer lifespan than 10 years. Some have been on the roads for heaven knows how long. No doubt they have long outlived their being financed. They have simply pottered gently around the roads of London free of such finance. Nevertheless, 10 years is absurd if we speak of the financing of major projects.
The noble Lord mentioned a number of them. Amendment No. 311XA and the others grouped with it aim to increase the ring-fencing period from 10 to 35 years. We think that that is a more reasonable period. Within that 35 year limit, the authority might choose to
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adapt the financing scheme to suit the expenditure of capital. That would be sensible. However, I do not believe that a 10-year maximum limit makes sense when we are talking about major investment of moneys in capital schemes.
Lord Whitty: Like the noble Baroness, I am confused by this somewhat cavalier approach to the groupings. However, we have a coherent debate led by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, so let us be thankful for that.
How long one hypothecates is an important issue. To establish this degree of hypothecation was a ground-breaking step. Although the noble Lord said in a slightly exaggerated way that hypothecation was a popular term, I am not sure that it is spoken of in clubs and pubs around London. Nevertheless, it is not that popular among those who control public finances. To establish this breakthrough is an important step, and an indication of the commitment of the Government to exactly the intentions that the noble Lord purports to support. If we are introducing these schemes—he is against them—he wants us to spend all the finance on transport. So do we. To say that it is a maximum 10-year period, as the noble Baroness said, is not precisely the truth. It does not reflect accurately where we are.
The clauses provide for any scheme for road user charging, addressed by the first of the noble Lord's amendments, or for workplace parking charges, addressed by his second amendment, to be established any time within the next 10 years. Any scheme that is established in the next 10 years will last for 10 years. So a scheme established after nine years would be still running after 19 years. Furthermore, that would not necessarily be the end of the process, because we are saying simply that there will be a review after 10 years. One could be deeply pessimistic about how that review will be conducted, but I shall be optimistic. If the schemes have worked and we are beginning to generate a substantial new resource with transport infrastructure, I have no doubt that there will be popular and political pressure to extend the schemes further.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I must reassure the noble Lord that I am perfectly well aware of the details in the Bill in respect of the length of time that is—I think, correctly—allocated to a scheme and not the length of time that all schemes might be supported.
Lord Whitty: I am sorry, but I was picking the noble Baroness up on the reference to a 10-year maximum. That is not the period for which all schemes would run and it does not mean that schemes would be necessarily cut off after 10 years because there is a review period.
However, I recognise that the noble Baroness has proposed a limit of 35 years whereas the noble Lord wants the schemes to run for ever. There must come a point—somewhere between 10 years and for ever—when it is not value for money to plough all the resources back into transport. If that money were available, it should be used on other aspects to improve the quality of life in London or the scheme should be dropped or the charges reduced. There must logically be

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a point at which the beneficial and good-rate-of-return investments in transport end. That is the point of having continual reviews. In the event, we may run the schemes for 35 years, but we will have made an assessment after 10 years about how much further we will go. That is the proposition before us.
There are other ways of generating revenue that runs beyond the 10-year period. For example, it would be particularly valuable if the mayor wished to undertake a private finance initiative deal and the private sector required a guarantee that revenue schemes would be available for more than 10 years. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to guarantee the hypothecation for more than 10 years in those circumstances. So there is a greater flexibility than is immediately apparent from our current position. I hope that a closer understanding of what is provided in Schedules 18 and 19 will reveal that we recognise that some of the expenditure of money—whether it is on vehicles or infrastructure—may take longer than 10 years to achieve. The question is how the process will be monitored and controlled, not that it will need to go beyond 10 years in some circumstances.
With that slightly lengthy explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: Before the noble Lord tells us what he is going to do with his amendment, I must say that I found the Minister's reply very interesting—especially in its latter stages. I will give it very close attention because I think that some of his comments put a slightly different gloss on what I had understood from reading the Bill. If we return—I might be bold and say when we return—to the matter at a later stage, it will be with the benefit of having studied the Minister's reply with great care.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I agree with the noble Baroness, and I certainly do not intend to press the amendment this evening. However, I shall almost certainly want to return to it.
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. He is correct to say that the hypothecation is ground-breaking stuff. I do not like hypothecation—the word, not the meaning—any more than anyone else, but that is what we must use. Let us not argue about that. There are two points that arise immediately out of this discussion. If we are to impose a 10-year limit and if the Government wish the mayor—whoever he or she may be—to introduce these two charges, the mayor will think twice about doing so if he or she does not know for certain that Londoners will get the benefit of the levies for more than 10 years. If I were in that position, I would do so. On the other hand, if he had a guarantee that the money would last much longer, he would be able to introduce it to the public with a good deal more confidence than he could under the provisions as they now stand.
The Minister said that it would be and probably will be for longer than 10 years. If something begins in nine years' time, it will be 10 years after that, so it is 19 years. That is all very well, but if one goes to the bank in order to borrow £1 billion for, say, 20 years against
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building CrossRail and says to the bank, "We are fairly certain we have a revenue stream for the first 10 years but after that it is up to the Secretary of State whether we have the money any longer", I am afraid that the bank will give a depressing reply.
If all this is so successful that people stop using their cars, convert to public transport in a major way, congestion is ended in London and everything is wonderful, presumably the mayor can decide not to operate congestion charging and there will be no more revenue to be hypothecated. Therefore, the situation the Minister described does not arise. There is no question of the charging going on for ever and ever and the money being wasted on other things or not being immediately spent on public transport. It will always be up to the mayor to remove the congestion or workplace parking charge.
This is a serious issue. It is important for the mayor and for Londoners and we shall almost certainly want to return to it at the next stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 311XA to 311ZAE not moved.]
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 311 ZAF:
Page 254, line 8, leave out ("Authority") and insert ("Mayor and Assembly").
The noble Baroness said: The amendment would substitute for the word "authority", as a consultee of the Secretary of State in setting up licensing arrangements, the words "Mayor and Assembly". Once more, I have used the period of leisure that has occasionally been afforded to study the Bill in greater detail. I suspect that I shall be told by the Minister that when the word "authority" is used it means the mayor and the assembly acting together. It that is right, I shall unreservedly and immediately withdraw the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: I cannot say that I noticed the noble Baroness having hours of leisure during the progress of this Bill. She has assiduously concentrated on the business in hand.
As I said previously, the mayor will have the executive role to provide London with strong leadership and the assembly the scrutiny role. Consequently, Schedules 18 and 19 make it clear that the road user and workplace charging power and functions conferred on the authority are exercisable by the mayor acting on behalf of the authority. That is the appropriate way to express it. It is therefore right that the Secretary of State should consult the mayor before regulations are tabled. The mayor will be subject to the general scrutiny of the authority and may well need to seek the views of the assembly. That will be a decision for the mayor or for the assembly to assert its powers of scrutiny. However, for the purposes of legislation, the Secretary of State's

709
consultation should be with the mayor acting on behalf of the authority. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I am extremely disappointed with the Minister's answer, as I am sure he understands. However, at this hour I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.45 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 311ZAG:
Page 254, line 24, at end insert—
("(7) In determining the amount payable by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 86 of this Act, no account shall be taken of any sums which are attributable to the net proceeds of any charging scheme.").
The noble Baroness said: These are two amendments which seek to put the principle of additionality more clearly on the face of the Bill. We have spoken about this before and I cannot say that we are entirely reassured by the response the Minister has given to our concerns. We think it is very important that revenues which come from the charge and levy programme are in addition to revenues granted to the authority from the Secretary of State. It is very difficult to see how this principle is actually incorporated into the Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: These amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, seek to ensure that all the proceeds from road user and workplace parking charging schemes will be in addition to the mayor's transport grant. The Government are committed to ensuring that the proceeds from charging schemes will be additional moneys for improving transport in London. That is why Schedules 18 and 19 already contain provisions for the establishment and publication of ring-fenced accounts for these charges. This will make it absolutely clear to Londoners how much money is being raised and how this money is being spent. However, there may come a time in the future when having a world class transport system for London could mean that further spending on transport, whether financed through the authority's transport grant or through charging revenues, might not be the best value-for-money improvements that Londoners will want. Londoners will want to be confident that the charging revenues are being spent wisely on value-for-money measures.
This legislation needs to look beyond the next 10 years and to provide for the medium to longer term when substantial improvements to transport in London will have been implemented. In any event, the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness are virtually unworkable. A number of factors will influence the level of the transport grant and it would be difficult in practice, in legal terms, to separate out and prove exactly what weight was given to those decisive factors. Unfortunately, the amendment of the noble Baroness
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could make the determination of the transport grant open to judicial challenge, which would not be in the interest of Londoners.
We are committed to the additionality of charging revenues but are unable to accept these amendments and therefore hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw them.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I welcome the very clear statement from the Minister as to the Government's commitment to the principle of additionality. For the time being, that will clearly have to do and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 311ZAH:
Page 254, line 33, at end insert ("or provision for pedestrians or cyclists").
The noble Baroness said: This is another effort to bring the spending of money on public transport, including cycling and pedestrians, into the uses of the hypothecated moneys. I think the two amendments—they apply to both schemes; that is why there are two of them in each of these pairs—are quite clear. Earlier on in today's Committee, we spoke at some length about the necessity of ensuring that the moneys spent by the authority or by Transport for London of these hypothecated sums covered the important areas of cycling and pedestrian travel. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty: I contend that the amendments are unnecessary. The Government have ensured that the revenue from those charges can be spent on any measure which directly or indirectly supports the policies and proposals contained in the mayor's transport strategy, which undoubtedly would include measures to encourage walking and cycling.
Therefore, the inclusion of the amendment would cast doubt on whether support of the strategy included those measures. It clearly does and it is clear that it is our intention so to do. Therefore, the power to spend the money on cycling and walking exists already in the Bill. Therefore, it is not necessary to pursue the amendments.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I thank the Minister for that satisfactory response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 311ZAJ to 312 not moved.]
Schedule 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 229 [Workplace parking levy]:
[Amendments Nos. 312YA and 312ZA not moved.]
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 312A:
Page 126, line 17, leave out ("the Authority,") and insert ("Transport for London,").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Brabazon of Tara Lord Brabazon of Tara had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 313:
Page 126, line 21, at end insert—
("()The purpose of any licensing scheme established pursuant to this section shall be to encourage the use by individuals of public passenger transport services in preference to other forms of transport.
() Regulations issued to give effect to any such licensing scheme shall be drafted, applied and interpreted in the light of this purpose, and any feature of or provision within any purported regulations which is neither essential nor reasonably incidental to such purpose shall be void and of no effect.").
The noble Lord said: These amendments could have been grouped with the large group of amendments which related to congestion charging. They are similar amendments but relate to workplace charging. Therefore, I shall not move them.
[Amendment No. 313 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 314 not moved.]
Clause 229, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 315 and 316 not moved.]
Schedule 19 [Workplace parking levy]:
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 316A:
Page 262, line 25, leave out ("or business customer") and insert (", business customer or business visitor").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 316B and 316C. This group of amendments improves the drafting of paragraph 3 of Schedule 19. It makes clear the difference between business customers and business visitors.
I should explain for the record that business customers are those who are visiting premises in the course of their work as clients or customers of the building's owner whereas business visitors are those who are visiting the premises in the course of their work but are not clients or customers of the building owner; for example, those who are visiting the building for a seminar or conference, I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 316B and 316C:
Page 263, line 5, leave out (", or an employee of a client or customer,").
Page 263, line 7, at end insert—
(""business visitor", in relation to a relevant person, means an individual who—

(a) in the course of his employment, or

(b) in the course of carrying on a business or for the purposes of a business carried on by him,

is visiting the relevant person or any premises whose occupier is the relevant person;").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos 317 to 325 not moved.]
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 325XA:
Page 266, line 43, leave out from ("scheme") to third ("the") in line 44.
The noble Baroness said: This is another set of amendments concerned with the length of time for which the financing of the scheme can be allowed. As we have already discussed these matters at some length, I shall not move any of the amendments that deal with that matter.
[Amendment No. 325XA not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 325YA to 326 not moved.]
Schedule 19, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 230 and 231 agreed to.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 326A:
After Clause 231, insert the following new clause—
FUNDING DURING THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
(" . The Secretary of State shall ensure that London Regional Transport remains adequately funded during the transitional period.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 326A formally.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: It may be helpful if I give a little background here. Chapter XIV of Part IV of the Bill deals with the arrangements for the transition from London Regional Transport to Transport for London.
During Second Reading in another place, my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister announced that if, as seemed likely, the bidding process for the London Underground PPP ran beyond the GLA elections, the Government would see that process through.
Chapter XIV therefore allows a slimmed down London Transport to be kept in existence as long as is necessary to see through the PPP process. For a limited transitional period, therefore, Transport for London and London Transport will exist in parallel. As subsection (9) of Clause 231 makes clear, that transitional period will end once LRT ceases to provide or secure the provision of public passenger transport services.
In practical terms, that means that LT will remain in existence under ministerial sponsorship until the PPP contracts are let. During that period London Transport will retain responsibility for operating the Underground. Once the PPP contracts are let, management of the PPP and LT's Underground functions will pass to the mayor and Transport for London under the transfer provisions in Part XII of this Bill.
We feel that the Bill is not the appropriate place to resolve matters of funding. We have a public expenditure system with a budget process and Members of both Houses are able to express their opinion on levels of funding in that context. I hope therefore that the Committee will accept that the amendments will provide no guarantees for LRT. I am prepared to write to the noble Baroness if she would like further information in this area, and hope that she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: I make one brief observation on the two amendments. It is a mistake that

713
they should state that London Regional Transport should "remain" adequately funded. The point about PPP and everything else is that at present it is not adequately funded. We want it to be adequately funded; it cannot remain funded in the way that it is.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: The anxiety behind these amendments was that there would be a hiatus in funding while the process of completing the PPP agreements was finalised. I shall read with care what the noble Baroness said. I shall be grateful if she will write, but I would appreciate it if her letters could be directed to my noble friend Lord Ezra. This matter is
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his great interest, though we all support him in it. He will no doubt keep me fully informed of the information the noble Baroness sends to him. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 232 to 235 agreed to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at two minutes past eleven o'clock.

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