May I begin by observing one of the usual courtesies of this House and explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) that I have a pressing engagement in the midlands and therefore will not be present to hear his comments in summing up the debate. However, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will occupy the Front Bench and will take note of any new ideas and new issues that may emerge in the debate in order to feed that information back to the Department of Trade and Industry and to the Home Office.

I thought that it might be helpful to place before the House for the first time the results of the first comprehensive survey which has been undertaken by statisticians in the DTI into the size and performance of the computer software industry. On Second Reading, we all recognised the crucial and growing importance of the industry, but I thought it might be helpful to put that information before hon. Members so that we may have a framework against which to judge the economic implications as well as the implications for fair play and for proper protection for authors of software as proceedings are conducted through this House and the Upper Chamber.

The first survey of the computer services industry, including small as well as larger firms, shows a 20 per cent. increase in turnover in 1984, and that provisional estimate suggests that the industry—which is concerned with the development and application of software—increased its turnover from £1,750 million in 1983 to £2,120 million in 1984. The industry consists of approximately 15,000 firms, but 200 larger companies accounted for more than half its total sales. The statistics were collected from the DTI's regular quarterly survey of larger firms in the computer services industry, but during 1984 it was supplemented by a sample survey, including the smaller firms, taken from the Business Statistics Office's register.

It is interesting to note that about 30 per cent. of the firms regarded manufacturing as their primary market, 20 per cent. were mainly concerned with the distributive trades, and 20 per cent. with financial services. Of the remaining 30 per cent., about half saw the public sector as the main market for their services. A further £180 million-worth of software is also produced by companies whose main activity is in another branch of the economy —computer manufacture, computer games or computer-aided design machinery.

The combined output of computer services inside and outside the industry is therefore about £2,300 million. About £1,000 million is attributable to what can be broadly described as systems analysis, software and software maintenance. Data processing and database services represent rather more than a quarter of the total, and the balance includes consultancy, hardware maintenance and training.

I am delighted that that information came forward only this week. This debate has provided an excellent opportunity to place it before the House, not least because there are among hon. Members, including my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), several enthusiasts who favour the industry as one of the growth points in the British economy.

Needless to say, the Bill has no enemies in the House, to the best of my knowledge. The only enemies it may have are among the pirates themselves who, no doubt, if the Bill is passed, will not be looking forward to the implementation of measures similar to those that have been so effective for video piracy.

Can the Under-Secretary tell us where the detailed results of the survey will be published? Can he assure us that they will be published in full? His Department has an extraordinarily bad record of publishing summary reports—for example, in January after a report on research and development—whereupon there is a two-year lag before the publication of the full report.

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said. Obviously he cannot expect me to agree with the import of what he has said. However, I hope that he will recognise that this information, as a result of an internal survey by Department of Trade and Industry statisticians, has been placed before the House before anyone else has had a chance to see or comment upon it. That is proper, and should be the case. Of course, we are prepared to provide the background to the survey, the headlines of which I have given the House this morning. A copy will be put in the House of Commons Library so that hon. Members can check its validity, the basis on which the statistics were collected, and so on. I am happy to discharge that obligation as a believer, in the case of statistical analysis, in the principles of open government.

Will the survey be published in British Business in the ordinary way and, if so, when?

I should be surprised if it were not published in British Businessin the usual way. It is a survey of major importance and significance. I do not think that I am on weak ground in predicting that the survey could figure in British Business at the earliest opportunity. However, I hope that the best way of proceeding is to make it available to hon. Members who have an interest in the industry.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) for introducing a Bill of major importance. It is of major economic importance, and is important to those who hitherto have been penalised for deploying their ingenuity and brain power in this growth industry. I repeat that, to the best of my knowledge, the Bill has no enemies other than among the pirates.

I am delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary who, I know, must depart, and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) and his supporters on piloting the Bill so successfully towards its Third Reading.

I was interested to hear the up-to-date figures on the size of the computer industry and the fact that the computer software portion is now at or approaching a billion-dollar industry. Copying in breach of copyright—as it will be — of computer software by electronic means is extraordinarily easy and profitable. It has attracted to itself the same type of wide boy and fast buck operator who, in the past, has been attracted to the video nasty and video piracy. The Bill makes it clear beyond doubt that computer software will be covered by the Copyright Act 1956 and provides for adequate criminal provisions so that pirates who indulge in that nefarious activity get their deserts. Their pirated material can be searched, they can be brought before the courts, and adequate punishments will be available.

As my hon. Friend the Minister said, computer software itself, whether for business purposes or computer games, is the result of a great deal of time, trouble, investment and ingenuity by those who take part in this important and fast-growing industry. It is quite wrong that their efforts should be stolen by those who, for example, equipped with a twin-disc drive mini-computer, can run off a copy of a floppy disc on to a blank costing £1 or £1·50 for word processing purposes, which retails at about £300. They can sell it off cheap for £100, £150 or £175 and make a fast buck for themselves. It is equally wrong that some people in legitimate activities in the computer industry should use that pirated software as loss leaders for their hardware. I am sure that the moral effects of the Bill will help to stamp that out. If it continues, they too can be brought to book under the new provisions.

I congratulate once again the Federation Against Software Theft on the careful way in which it has marshalled the evidence that has convinced my colleagues—my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Trade and Industry and the Home Office—and myself that this is another example of where Parliament should act swiftly. It has acted swiftly. I hope that within minutes the Bill will obtain its Third Reading. I wish it a speedy passage in another place and on to the statute book.

If I recall correctly, two or three of the four or five of us now present in the Chamber sat through the heat of the debate on Second Reading on 22 February. My further recollection, which the Minister has just borne out, is that there was an all-pervading spirit of unanimity in our dealings that day. As my hon. Friend said, there was unanimous acceptance of the dire problem of software theft. There was a unanimous welcome for the Bill and congratulations, I must confess that I am somewhat tainted by personal envy of the powerful and persuasive way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) presented his case. There was unanimous hope that the Bill would enjoy a speedy passage through Parliament. The reality of that hope exceeded my expectations. Delayed by the London traffic, I arrived for the Committee four minutes late to find that the proceedings had been completed.

Just as the Bill meets with widespread approval in the House so, not surprisingly, as we have heard, it meets with widespread and general support in the industry itself. On Second Reading we heard much about how software theft is a serious and immediate problem to the industry. In the intervening weeks, fresh evidence has come my way from the industry in my constituency which underlines the necessity for urgent and speedy action.

In the computer industry throughout the United Kingdom, software theft threatens innovation, jobs and investment. On Second Reading we heard how the phenomenal sum of nearly £150 million was lost by the industry last year—a breathtaking statistic that demands an instant and urgent response. During that debate we heard much about the various forms that the theft takes. To the Jay mind, it is hard to distinguish between the terminology of that theft. There is counterfeiting, replication without permission, production of look-alike copies and so on. However, the basic point is that every aspect, area and category of a software business is affected by theft — games and micro-business software and commercial software packages. We were left in no doubt that there is a very serious problem that must be dealt with, and dealt with effectively.

In introducing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby set it in the context of the computer software market in western Europe and Britain. He analysed the development of Government and public policy over the past decade or so to show why it is necessary to deal with the problem on its own rather than wait for more general Government legislation. Of equal if not greater significance was my hon. Friend's analysis of some of the difficulties under the present law. He spoke at length of the consequences for the industry of the present state of the law. It is that legal uncertainty that makes the present situation unacceptable and provides the justification for the Bill.

However, we must not delude ourselves that legal action on its own will solve the entire problem. Legal change is perhaps the most essential step, but there is also the whole area of technical deterrents to illicit copying. Perhaps we heard less about that on Second Reading than we should have done. I take up what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell) said, partly because it gives me another opportunity to praise the work of the Federation Against Software Theft. FAST has made much of the need for technical deterrents. I quote from one of its publications:

"No technical protection method, of itself, will prevent a determined thief from copying computer programmes and then selling them copyright-unpaid for his own profit. As the law stands there is small risk in this criminal activity. Instead, all the risk is borne by the Author and Publisher, who have made a substantial investment of skill, time and money. Unlike the thief, the Author and Publisher are potential sources of future software for the Consumer... FAST will not recommend an industry standard in this field, partly because that would concentrate the attention of would-be 'code-breakers'. However FAST is urging Authors and Publishers to investigate whether a technical protection system could reduce the vulnerability of their products, without causing an unacceptable reduction in user value or unacceptable increase in cost."

An industry that takes self-help seriously is doubly entitled to ask for the normal legal protection accorded to other forms of intellectual property. Technical deterrents clearly have a part to play, but all hon. Members who took part in the Second Reading debate acknowledged the urgent need for clarification and strengthening of the law.

The serious problem of software theft will be reduced significantly by the proposed amendments to the 1956 Act, and the effectiveness of the remedies will be increased. That is why we need the legislation. It is straightforward and not contentious, and I am sure that the House will accept it.

Clause 1 contains the simple assertion:

"The Copyright Act 1956 shall apply in relation to a computer program …as it applies in relation to a literary work".

Nothing could be much more direct than that. In one fell swoop the clause removes all doubt, uncertainty and ambiguity. It is what the industry wants. It provides the legal protection that will help to save the industry the £150 million a year that it is currently losing. In essence, clause 1 seeks to protect the software business in the same way as the Copyright (Amendment) Act 1983 sought to protect the video business. There is evidence that the video amendment legislation has provided considerable protection.

Clauses 2 and 3 bring into effect the provision of the 1956 Act for computer software programmes. Under the legislation it will be possible to apply to magistrates for a search warrant. That is a crucial power of law enforcement. It is the same as the power now available to deal with video piracy under the video amendment legislation. That legislation appears to have been immensely successful. It is estimated that two thirds of video piracy has been eliminated. If that statistic can he duplicated in computer software, there will be many smiling faces except among the pirates, and there is every reason to hope that the Bill will have a comparable impact on computer software theft.

Clause 3 provides for the penalties. I understand that at the moment there are no criminal penalties for computer software theft. Under the Bill, the penalties will be the same as those for any other breach of the Copyright Act — imprisonment for a maximum of two years and unlimited fines. Those are substantial deterrents. We are moving a long way from the days of the £40 fine under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. I apologise in his absence to my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) for referring by implication or innuendo to one of his constituents without giving him prior notice.

I am still as fervent in my support of the Bill as I was on Second Reading. Reduced to the barest essentials, it provides the industry with the legal protection that it wants. It is our job to give the industry that protection. On Second Reading, I made much of the importance of the computer industry to Basingstoke. It is partly because the computer industry features so prominently in my constituency that I wish it to flourish. The Bill will help the industry to flourish, and it has my total support.

I, too, should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) on his introduction and handling of a Bill that seems likely to receive the early agreement of the House. It will make a useful contribution to tackling the problems of copyright and software theft. Simply by doing so, however, it will highlight the remaining software problems.

The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) was right to draw attention to the question of technical deterrents, but I would be sceptical about how far that will contribute to the solution of the problem. It is only likely to have an effect at a somewhat low technical level. High-grade protection of systems will be extremely difficult to provide. We shall need to seek a change in practice and organisation within the software field much more akin to the openness of the results of scientific research which is an acceptable and necessary part of technical progress in other areas. We have found that, in the patent system, much of the problem lies in getting at information, not in locking it up. Thinking that the software solution lies in locking it all up so that it is not accessible is probably the wrong direction.

As for the size and growth of the industry, I think that the Minister was anxious to help by referring to the statistical survey, but he has probably thrown in a great deal of confusion by infringing what seems to me to be the best practice of Ministers when handling the results of statistical surveys. Guidelines were set out by Sir John Boreham, the head of the Government's statistical service, in a recent issue of Statistical News. They firmly advise separation of the first announcement of a survey's results, which should be done by officials without any comment from Ministers, any comment by Ministers should be the subject of a separate press release. That separation is intended to prevent Ministers from picking up the plums which suit them politically and because the information is in danger of being misunderstood and misrepresented if not presented properly as a professional statistician would do. The key importance of this particular information is in planning manpower policy in the computer industry, especially manpower for the software industry.

I shall examine the figures that the Minister gave more carefully, but it seems that as he presented them they offered no guide by which it would be possible to judge the adequacy of the plans that the Government have announced for the production of qualified scientists and engineers in software. The supply has been miserably inadequate. So far, the increases in expenditure have been achieved by bleeding Department of Trade and Industry Votes, and others, to support the Department of Education and Science spend on the training of computer staff. I hope that the Minister will write to me and ensure that the full results of the survey are published as soon as possible so that we have better information on which to judge Government policy, especially on the supply of manpower to the software industry.

There will have to be a substantially increased effort by the Government in the development of major software systems and standards which are freely available publicly for common use as the framework in which application areas can develop. The Government rightly turned down the proposal of British Telecom and IBM to develop their own value added network.

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is getting wide of the Bill. I have allowed a little latitude because I realise that the Minister wished to make a statement which was relevant to the background to the Bill. I therefore allowed the hon. Gentleman to comment as well. Strictly speaking, however, a Third Reading speech should deal with the contents of the Bill.

I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was about to make the link with the problem of copyright in common user systems. The problem with the common user systems is to maintain their integrity in a form in which they can be properly described, developed and applied by a wide variety and level of user. Copyright has a part to play in that in maintaining the consistency of the different standards as they are produced. If a standard is offered by different manufacturers in their equipment, a necessary part of ensuring that software will run on different types of equipment is that it operates precisely, to the nearest bit of information, the same system that others use so that common additional software will operate reliably. I am not sure that we shall get from this Government a coherent scheme for the development of software which will provide those wider standards which can be used in value added systems and common user systems of the future.

I hope that the industry will turn its attention to the positive aspects of copyright—means by which unwise conformity to standards can be observed in the rapid spread of computer applications.

I hope that the Bill will not run into any problems in another place and that it will provide a foundation on which the wider problem of intellectual property in computers will be tackled by the Government. I hope, however, that it will not get too lost in the general problems of intellectual property, because computers will deserve continuing attention. It is right to tackle a problem with a private Member's Bill in this case, but I suspect that when the subject next comes up in the House it will have to be dealt with in a Government Bill. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill on behalf of the Opposition and wish it a speedy passage.

With the leave of the House, I should like to comment on what has been said. I thank those who have spoken on what has turned out to be an easy passage for the Bill so far. I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) for giving the Bill the wholehearted support of the official Opposition and for what he has said in our debates. I listened with interest to and agreed with a great deal of what he said today about the future of the software industry and the developments that must occur.

I should like to thank the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who was kind enough to tell me that he would be unable to attend this morning, for wishing the Bill rapid progress to the statute book. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell), who was the first Member to take up the cause of extending copyright law to cover computer software in his ten-minute Bill in July last year, which initiated the parliamentary process which has led to this Third Reading.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter), who made a major speech today, as he did on Second Reading, and whose interest in and knowledge of the computer industry and its ramifications is second to none.

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister, whose assistance and co-operation has enabled the Bill to be produced in a widely acceptable form. He, my hon. Friend the Minister for Information Technology and officials in their Department have been of major assistance.

None of this would have been possible without contributions from many quarters in the House and, as has been stressed, from within the industry. There has been unanimous agreement in the industry that such a Bill is necessary to secure its survival and prosperity.

This is, of course, an interim measure because in due course it will have to take its place within the context of the wider revision of copyright law which is now being contemplated and which we analysed on Second Reading. It is also an interim measure because in itself it will not be sufficient to deal with all the many problems facing the industry as it develops.

One of the most important tasks is to educate the public to respect copyright. In an age in which the copying of materials is so easy, it is all the more important to ensure that authorship and the legitimate proceeds of authorship should be respected in computer software as much as in literary authorship and in video, to which the law was extended two years ago.

We had a very full Second Reading debate, which no doubt assisted the Bill's progress in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke was, alas, all too right when he said that, due to unavoidable circumstances, he was late, but it never occurred to him that just a few moments delay would rule him out of the Committee stage which lasted all of seven seconds.

If the Bill receives a Third Reading today it will go to another place and, all being well, it will become law. But it is only a beginning. No one in the House or in the country should imagine that this is the end of the problem. I hope that the message will go forth from both Houses to pirates here and abroad that their behaviour will not be tolerated any longer. They have done immense damage to the industry and they are causing immense damage to our economy. They are doing immense damage to firms with a future that will be felt throughout the world.

This is a short, private Member's Bill, but it is surely also a major Bill which demands the approbation of the House.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The Committee Stage of this Bill was not quite so succinct as that of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell). Second Reading, however, went through on the nod, so this is the only opportunity to debate this important measure on the Floor of the House and it is right that the debate should be as complete as possible. It will also allow us to impress on the country the severity of the problem of drug trafficking and our readiness to tackle it.

This is not a partisan measure. It belongs to that rare breed which commands support from every corner of the House and I am proud to say that the 11 sponsors include representatives of every political grouping and every shade and faction within those groupings in the House. The Conservative climatic season is fully represented, from bone dry to saturated wet, and the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) will forgive me for commenting that on this occasion the Labour party is seen not so much in harmony as in unison, with the Healyite Right and the Bennite Left for once united. I am also grateful for the full support of the Government and I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and his officials for all their help and encouragement, especially in providing drafting facilities.

The Bill is brief but its potential impact, I hope, will be big. Its purpose is simple and straightforward—to increase to life imprisonment the maximum penalty available to the courts in sentencing people convicted of trafficking in class A drugs, principally heroin and cocaine. The Bill is not directed at addicts who pathetically push hard drugs to finance their habit. It is directed at the big boys—the Mafia-style drug dealers and godfathers of drug trafficking who are not addicts themselves but who are out to exploit addicts for financial gain.

The Metropolitan police estimate that 23 per cent. of targeted criminals in their area are now involved in hard drugs. Ten years ago those people would have stuck to armed robbery, but they now find dealing in heroin and cocaine far more lucrative. The Bill is concerned with that category of dealer—with the most serious offences, involving the most harmful drugs.

Why is the Bill needed? Again, the reasons are simple and straightforward. The existing maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment does not match the seriousness of the crime. Large-scale trafficking in lethal drugs is, in effect, dealing in death. To me, there is absolutely no difference between murder by shotgun in the course of armed robbery and murder by heroin for financial gain. The existing maximum sentence is also insufficient to deter traffickers who may be released after just a few years to enjoy the proceeds of their evil trade. Often a fortune awaits them because seven-figure fortunes can now be made in a relatively short time.

By increasing the maximum penalty to life imprisonment, we hope to achieve two aims—to create a far more effective deterrent, and to ensure that those who persist in trafficking in hard drugs will go to prison for a long time.

Can the hon. Gentleman now answer the question that both he and the Minister were unable to answer in Committee? How many people convicted of trafficking in class A drugs have actually received 14-year sentences?

If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I shall be coming to that point later. It is a small number, and we are aware of that. I shall mention Lord Chief Justice Lane's guidelines in the Aramah case and his comment during that case that, sadly, few of the big fish have been caught. However, rather than break up my remarks and lose the thread, I shall deal with that later.

Sentences of life imprisonment, should the Bill be passed on Third Reading and eventually receive Royal Assent, will be buttressed by the decision of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary severely to restrict parole for drug traffickers sentenced to more than five years. I hope that the sentence will be further reinforced by the effects of legislation in the next Session to deprive drug traffickers of the proceeds of their crimes.

I read with interest of the visit made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to the United States, and the comments that he made about it. He spoke of what he had learnt there and the possibility of introducing into British legislation a reversal of the burden of proof, and requiring the suspect to prove the legitimacy of his or her assets rather than those assets having to be shown to be acquired illegitimately by the legal authorities. This will be a contentious matter, but it is important that moves are made so that drug traffickers can be deprived of their assets and the astronomical amounts they are making from this evil trade. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend when he believes such legislation can come before the House.

The whole point of deterrence is to reduce the supply of drugs and so slow down the increase in the number of addicts. The measure of the problem can be clearly seen in the notified figures of heroine addicts for 1983. It is not melodramatic to say that we now have a heroin epidemic. In 1983, there were 3,550 notified heroin addicts, and that was 400 per cent. up on the figure for 1979. In 1983 there were 1,400 notified new addicts, which was 50 per cent. up on the figure for 1982. It is widely recognised that notified addicts are just the tip of the iceberg, and the number of regular users is much greater. It is estimated to be between 60,000 and 150,000.

The statistics may measure the problem, but they cannot measure the misery that the problem creates. I hope that the House will bear with me if I read some extracts from The Listener of January this year, following an effective programme on BBC 1, to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary alluded in Committee. The programme was called "Real Lives—Pushers". In that programme, two pushers were interviewed about the experience and physical effects of heroin addiction, and their feelings about selling heroin. The two pushers were called Chris and John, and when Chris was asked to tell the interviewer about the experience and physical effects, he said:

"When you first start smoking you vomit a lot—anything you eat you just vomit back up again straightaway and, as John said, you lose your appetite anyway. All you seem to need to get you through the day is your heroin. First thing you think of in the morning is your heroin and the last thing you think of at night is your heroin. There are also changes in your personality. I mean, I'd do things for money for heroin that once I would never have dreamt of doing — stealing, shoplifting, burglary, anything, it doesn't matter what it is. You'll even rob your mother and father. Personally, I haven't stooped that low, but most of my friends have. Then there's the lying. Your whole life's a lie. From the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed you are just telling one lie after another to con people, to get money. Heroin completely changes a person to a totally different person, a bad person."

John, when he was asked about his feelings of guilt about selling the drug, said:

"I always feel guilty. People think you do it by choice. Nobody does it by choice except the dealers who don't smoke it, the ones who are making all the money. I do it because if I didn't do this, I'd be out robbing. I don't want to rob any more because I don't want to go to prison again. But you've got to have it. I've woken up on the morning and I've started crying because from the second you open your eyes it's like someone dropping a ton of bricks on you: 'Where am I going to get the money? I've got to have it, where am I gonna get the money?"

It is those against whom the Bill is primarily directed.

Heroin addiction knows no barrier of geography, class or age. I came across a recent newspaper headline which read:

"The primary kids who fix at a fiver a time'.

It was sub-titled

"A glut in the supply of heroin has forced the pushers to seek even younger markets".

That headline does not come from some sensational Fleet street tabloid newspaper but from The Times Educational Supplement in an article last year on drug addiction among primary schoolchildren.

I shall quote from the article, because it illustrates the sheer misery caused by heroin addiction among very young children.

"Heroin dealers, anxious to dispose of a glut of the drug, began selling to younger and younger teenagers. 'They could see they're an easy market', Carole Woolley, Merseyside Drug Council's full-time advice worker, explained. Ten-year-olds are now offered 'starter packs' of low-grade heroin at £5 a time. 'The technique is usually the same', says Carole Wooley. 'A pusher will give the stuff free to a teenager three or four times running saying that it will make them feel good. When the child has got used to it, suddenly they find that they have got to pay. That is the start of the downhill slope'. As the addiction takes hold, usually over a period of weeks, children find themselves needing more and more of the drug. They may turn to shoplifting, mugging or even teenage prostitution to raise the money."

That is the extent of the problem. One of the main reasons for the dramatic increase in recent years is the change in the method of misusing heroin. There are many, especially children, who draw the line at injecting the drug but who are willing to smoke it, which is called chasing the dragon. They do so in the mistaken belief that it is less likely to lead to dependency.

It is important to impress anecdotal evidence upon the House and, I hope, through the House upon the public. I shall quote the most moving description that I have heard, from Detective Constable Brandon Barrow, of the Merseyside drugs squad of a typical routine heroin raid. It exposes the total degradation of heroin addiction and the disintegration of human lives to which it leads. The detective constable said:

"One case that will live with me for the rest of my life was just a routine raid in a house in search of heroin. I went to an address, together with another detective and a policewoman. I knocked on the front door of the house and I was allowed in by the male occupant. It was approximately 12 noon. I could see from his demeanour that he was under the influence of some drug. Having gained entry, we found his wife in bed, in a similar state to him. After identifying ourselves to them we started to search the premises, which consisted of two bedrooms, a lounge and a bathroom and toilet. Unfortunately for me, I chose one of the bedrooms which appeared to be not in use. I entered the room and was immediately confronted with a smell that cannot be described. The windows had been sealed with tape, in a feeble effort to stop draughts. On the windowledge lay a number of dead flies all of whom at some time had had to suffer in the stench of the filth. The room was so full of rubbish that it was near-impossible to search. I heard a noise coming from one of the corners. In a cot was a baby. Aged eight months, she was lying on her back attempting to position the teat on a sauce bottle, which contained cold tea, into her mouth. She was wearing what I can only describe as a loin cloth over her lower parts. I reached into the cot to pick her up and saw that her little arms appeared to have no strength in them, making me think that they were broken. There was a large bruise on her face. Her nappy, if that's what you could call it, had obviously not been changed for some considerable time and, not surprisingly, there was a dreadful stench in the room. The excuse given for the bruising to her face was that she was a very active child who thrashed about in her cot. I immediately took the child to a local hospital and she was taken into care. The doctors told me that the reason for the lack of strength in the child was lack of love, having rarely been lifted out of the cot or ever received the cuddles that a baby normally receives."

That description of heroin addiction is far more effective than any statistical evidence in showing the sheer degradation that the appalling drug brings to its victims and how evil the trade in the drug is.

It is true that the seizure of controlled drugs has increased dramatically. In 1973, only 3·3 kilos of heroin were seized. Forty kilos were seized in 1979 and the estimated provisional total seized in 1984 is 294 kilos. The seizure of increasingly large quantities is a great tribute to Customs and to the police. However, it confirms the severity of the problem. Despite record seizures, the street price for heroin is more or less unchanged, and its purity is still high. A plentiful supply is still available. It is impossible to say how much is still entering the country. When we discussed the issue in Committee, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State rightly said that the total was unquantifiable. It is difficult to know what percentage the amount seized is of the total, but the Minister conceded that it can be only a fraction.

Other evidence of the growing problem is the number of offences involving drugs. In the area covered by the north Wales constabulary, which includes my constituency of Delyn, in 1978 there were 292 drug offences, none of them involving heroin, but in the first eight and a half months of 1984 there were 826 drug offences, half of them involving heroin.

This is no longer an inner city problem. It is no longer restricted to the great metropolitan areas or even to the peripheral suburban areas of cities such as Liverpool. I hope that the hon. Member for Birkenhead will not mind me describing his constituency in that way. The constituency of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) is affected as well. Heroin addiction has spread much further into the countryside and the small towns and, indeed, the small villages of north Wales.

The sentencing of drug offenders shows the courts' awareness of the need for firmer action. The proportion of drug offenders sentenced to more than five years imprisonment has doubled since 1978, from 3 per cent. to 6 per cent. In the guideline judgment in the Aramah case Lord Chief Justice Lane made it clear that heavier sentences should be imposed and to an extent that has been followed by the courts. Lord Lane advised that in cases involving the importation of any amount of class A drugs a sentence should seldom be for less than four years. For trafficking and amounts to the value of £100,000 or more the sentence should be seven years or more. For amounts to the value of £1 million or more the sentence should be 12 to 14 years.

For the actual supply of any amount a sentence should seldom be for less than three years for transactions of any amount. The nearer the source the heavier should he the sentence, up to levels similar to those for importers. But Lord Lane added that unhappily all too seldom the big fish among suppliers would be caught and that most prison sentences would be two years or less. I concede that point. That is why I, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), who made this point effectively in Committee, believe that it is important that the powers of the police and customs officers should be increased whenever possible. They have considerably strengthened their efforts to combat drug trafficking.

In Committee my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State mentioned the increase from 125 to 212 in the number of customs officers dealing with heroin alone and he spoke of a further increase of 160 over the next 12 months. We are also grateful for his assurance that he would not hesitate to recommend further increases if he were satisfied that there were still further difficulties in combating the problem.

Since 1 January 1985 every police force in England and Wales has had its specialist drugs squad. There are now 1,000 officers involved in some way in the investigation of drug offences. The regional crime squads are now spending at least half their time dealing with drug conspiracies.

Two other important innovations have been the now regular annual conference of the Association of Chief Police Officers where experience and information on tackling problems of drug misuse can be exchanged. The association has set up a committee to review arrangements for drug operations. There is also in New Scotland Yard a central drugs intelligence unit, drawing officers from all over the country and disseminating information that is gathered to all the police forces. That unit also has five customs officers.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West emphasised in Committee, it is important that liaison between customs officers and police should be improved and increased and that there should be much more coordination of their activities. A further valid point that he made was that, as in the United States, the Inland Revenue should be brought more into drug investigations. Often the only signs of criminal involvement are large unaccounted-for assets. The Inland Revenue could help the police greatly in drug investigations.

There has been and must be an increase in the effectiveness of the police and customs officers, and an improvement in the co-ordination of their investigations. All the improvements that have been made so far are essential and welcome. Fear of detection can be as great a deterrent to crime as fear of punishment.

Parliament must ensure that the efforts of the law enforcement agencies are supported and reinforced wherever possible by making available to the courts, as this Bill does, penalties that will act as a genuine and effective deterrent to drug traffickers, and sentences that match the gravity of the crime of those caught and convicted of trafficking.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) on choosing, as the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) did, a subject in a narrow area which has all-party support, and on negotiating it successfully through the labyrinth of Parliament to Third Reading, which it will receive today. He was extremely fortunate in that there was no Second Reading debate and only a small and uncontentious Committee stage, and now we have an interesting but clearly abbreviated Third Reading debate. Nevertheless, he is to be congratulated on having had the foresight to choose a subject which would command all-party support. I am puzzled, however, about the categories into which he fitted my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and myself when he described the Labour Members who supported him.

The hon. Gentleman addresses the serious problem of drug abuse. All hon. Members have attested to that problem in terms of the increase in the availability of both heroin and cocaine. Both substances are now freely and easily available, certainly in all our major cities, and almost certainly in the major urban areas. Moreover, it is available inexpensively.

As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the number of addicts has increased considerably. We know the number of those notified as addicts to the Home Office. Since 1979, during the lifetime of the Government, there has been a 400 per cent. increase in the number of heroin addicts notified in that way. None of us knows the number of drug abusers. Official and unofficial estimates vary from 50,000 to 100,000. Certainly all hon. Members are experiencing in their constituencies an increasing number of younger addicts of heroin and cocaine.

Three years ago it would have been extremely unusual for me to come across a young person who was a heroin or cocaine addict or a drug abuser in my constituency. It used to be rare for me to receive letters or representations from parents about the paucity of facilities in my area because their children were not drug abusers. Unfortunately, it is now an everyday occurrence to hear of, to know and to meet drug abusers, and to come across the more distressing feature of their anguished parents seeking help. It has even reached the stage when the Liverpool Echo can publish photographs of newborn babies who are addicts suffering from withdrawal symptoms of heroin because their mothers were addicts.

The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn) and his wife foster children. In Committee he gave a graphic account of the way in which he and his wife had to deal with the withdrawal symptoms of a baby whom they fostered, whose mother had been a heroin addict. That is a terrifying picture of the state that we have reached.

The problem is exacerbated by the amount of heroin, cocaine and other drugs that come into the country. The fact that seizures have increased dramatically during the past few years is a tribute to the effectiveness of Customs and Exise officers, but it also suggests that they are seizing a larger amount of a bigger overall volume coming through the ports. The fact that 300 kilos of heroin were seized last year suggests that it is only a fraction of the amount that is entering the country. In Committee the Minister said that that was nearly 20 per cent. of the amount coming in, but even if we take that as a reasonable estimate—I do not know on what it is based—we must not forget that a considerable amount of heroin is still entering the country and is freely available.

That is aided and abetted by the reduction in customs staff. I do not wish to make too much of the point, and the Minister will no doubt say that the number of uniformed staff has been reduced but that there are many more officers engaged in intelligence work. I accept the sense and importance of that. Of course it is much more important to have trained professional officers trying to identify sources and couriers, catch them and convict them, than it is to rely only on untrained uniformed officers at the ports.

However, while acknowledging all that, it is still true that the more a person knows he is likely to be stopped and searched, even on a random basis, the more will he be deterred from bringing in heroin. Of course it will not stop the major pushers and the professional organisations, because enormous amounts of money are involved, but it may stop some of the smaller fry, who are also important in terms of the total volume of drugs entering the country. I regret that the Government have reduced our defences, inadequate as they were in the first place, so dramatically during their period of office. Given our open boundaries and the open nature of our society, we shall never prevent determined, professional, well-organised traffickers from bringing drugs into the country. We should never believe that that is possible, but the Government could have done more than they are now.

It is also true that more small-time pushers as well as addicts are being convicted of drug offences every year, and more of them end up behind bars without the services and facilities that are required. More crimes are also being committed by drug addicts, either as a result of hallucinations or delusions stemming from their addiction, or because they need the wherewithal to purchase drugs. Drug addiction leads not only to the destruction of young and adult lives, to enormous social pressures and family difficulties, but to a great increase in ordinary crime, which affects innocent, law-abiding citizens. There is also a massive increase in the cost to the Health Service, not least in terms of illness and death caused by drug addiction. Several hundred people die each year in the most horrifying and terrible circumstances.

There is a massive and increasing problem of drug abuse. Just as during our debate on the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Bill, so it is relevant to say here that we need more education of youngsters and their families. Therefore, we need more training of social workers, teachers and other professionals, which in turn means that we need many more facilities and services, be they rehabilitation hostels, detoxification units or drop-in advice centres, than are currently available. It is a disgrace that many areas of Britain, including London, the home counties and the north-west of England, are completely bereft of facilities for drug abusers or their families. It is a disgrace that, under all Governments, we have not taken a greater interest in the deep and serious problems of drug abusers and their families and provided the necessary social, medical and rehabilitative services. As we said in the previous debate, the Government are providing about £10 million, but that is not enough. On other occasions, right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have acknowledged that and made representations to the Government about it.

More importantly, the £10 million comes to an end in two years. Whatever that money is pump-priming now runs the risk of dying when that mony from the Government stops in two years. It is clear that we need not just £10 million as a one-off payment, but a continuing Government commitment to central funding for rehabilitative services for drug abusers.

What we really need to do—and this is what the Bill addresses itself to—is to catch those responsible for bringing the substances into the country and for subverting young people into becoming abusers. We need to catch and punish the traffickers. They are evil men and women who are making huge commercial profits out of the destruction of young lives.

In that context, incidentally, it may be relevant to point out that many of us greatly regret that the Minister is not yet able to announce when legislation will be introduced enabling the courts to take the assets of drug traffickers gained in the trafficking of drugs. It is not a new idea. It was put forward a long time ago with all-party acclamation. It was received with enthusiasm by the Minister and his Home Secretary more than 18 months ago. We are still waiting for the legislation to help deal with that problem.

If and when that legislation comes, presumably it will shift the onus of proof to the alleged drug offender to show that his assets were not obtained during the course of his trafficking in drugs, and I am not sure that that will receive the support of the Opposition. That is a matter to which we shall have to come back on another occasion, but it may be useful to point out now that the Minister should not assume that such a fundamental change in our criminal justice system and in the principle of an individual being innocent until proved guilty will obtain the support of the Opposition.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we already have the concept of the shift of proof in taxation matters, where the man is put to proof that the money that he has received has come from legitimate and earned income sources? This is not such a fundamental shift in our principles.

That may be so, but because a precedent exists in one area, that does not mean that it would be appropriate in another area. However, I do not propose to get involved in an argument about the merits of our fiscal system. We are discussing a Bill dealing with a very specific area. In any event, I have no doubt that we shall have that debate across party lines, and I am sure that there will be many hon. Members on the Government Benches who will take a different view from my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham). But that is for another occasion, and it looks like being an interesting debate.

When I mentioned, incidentally, an area that seemed to arouse controversy, I was saying that we needed to do a great deal more in terms of prevention and of detecting and catching those responsible for trafficking in drugs. There is no doubt that we need more police working full time on this problem. I know that every police authority now has a full-time drugs squad. However, the number of police officers in each police authority area actually working full time in the drugs squad varies enormously. Given the size of my own county of Merseyside and of its drug problem, there seems to be a relatively small number of officers working full time on drugs inquiries when compared with other areas of the country. Perhaps more guidance should be given by the Home Office to ensure that the priority that the Government and Parliament accord to catching those who traffic in drugs is recognised by our chief constables and acknowledged in terms of the resources that they put at the disposal of their drugs squads. In that context, I should like to see more liaison between police forces arid Customs and Excise investigative officers.

The Opposition do not oppose the Bill. We endorse its principle and wish to see it on the statute book as quickly as possible, though I am not convinced that it will make a major impact on the drug scene. First, I do not believe that many of those who come before the courts will receive life instead of 14 years' imprisonment. Many of those who are caught at the moment do not receive 14 years. The hon. Member for Delyn could not tell me, despite my repeated requests, how many drug traffickers had been sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment or less. The Minister could not answer that question in Committee. As he has been put on notice, he will no doubt have the answer, or an adequate reason as to why he does not have one. It is important. I do not suspect that many individuals will come into that category. Not many will receive life imprisonment, because not many receive 14 years at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman's logic is somewhat astray—the intervention of the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) may have somewhat thrown him — because the fact that few maximum sentences of 14 years' imprisonment are not given at the moment does not mean that that will be the position in the future.

As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear in Committee, he expects that the Lord Chief Justice, should the Bill become law, will produce further guidelines. There is evidence that the guidelines that he produced in the Aramah case have been observed. The hon. Gentleman is being somewhat negative. He should wait and see how effective the Bill will be, rather than dismiss it before there has been a chance to implement it.

I am not dismissing it. If I were, I should be opposing it, and I am not. The Bill has gone through largely undebated, let alone opposed. It will go through unopposed today. It is reasonable in that context to make the point that if Parliament is saying that it wants to increase penalties it has to show that the penalties presently available are insufficient and not effective or strong enough. The only way to demonstrate that is to show that many people who should have been given life have not been so sentenced. We cannot show how many people have been given the maximum of 14 years, which is available to the courts at present. We should consider that point.

I accept what the hon. Member for Delyn says, with his convoluted logic. If we make the maximum life, it may act as a greater deterrent to drug traffickers. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about catching more people or providing extra resources for the police and Customs and Excise. We are not doing any more on the ground. We are saying that when we have caught the drug traffickers, they may get life instead of 14 years. I do not dissent from that for the evil people about whom we are talking.

The only effect of the change of law might be to deter from drug trafficking because of the threat of life imprisonment some people who would otherwise have trafficked in drugs because the threat was a mere 14 years. That is not a deterrent, but it is a matter of judgment and I hope that I am proved wrong. If the Bill saves one life, or the destruction of one family, it will have been worth while. I hope that it does more than that, but I do not believe that it will.

The hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) has called into question the Government's determination to confront the drugs problem. I dissent from what he has said on that point, but only on that point.

I support the Bill wholeheartedly. I am sure that the introduction of draconian penalties for those who indulge in the filthy but lucrative trade of producing and supplying class A drugs will accord with the wishes of the public. I am sure that that will find a great deal of sympathy in the country. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) on introducing the Bill.

Everyone in the House must agree with the Bill in so far as it seeks to confront the enormous growth in the supply of hard drugs. As a Member of the House and as the parent of two teenage children I am worried about the possibility that my children might be dragged into that foul trade. The habit cannot be acquired or sustained without the production, supply and distribution of drugs. The dramatic increase in the supply in recent years was confirmed by the evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee this year by the customs and excise group of the Society of Civil and Public Servants.

Almost daily we read in the newspapers of dramatic seizures by the customs and excise and by the police. I pay tribute to the vigilance and success of those enforcement agencies—particularly to those dedicated and diligent officers quartered overseas who are pursuing inquiries in the countries of supply. However, I fear that the startling successes of the customs and excise merely highlight the growth of the trade.

Only yesterday customs officers at Heathrow seized 14 kilos of cocaine, valued at £2·5 million. That is thought to be the largest ever single seizure of cocaine intended for supply and sale in Britain. It is interesting that two foreign nationals—Brazilians—were arrested in connection with those offences. I shall say no more about it because it is now sub judice.

The highlighting of the big seizures merely demonstrates the extent of the problem. I understand that there are now major fears on the part of police and customs officers that cocaine abuse in Britain will explode, as it has in the United States. The latest seizure figure for cocaine in the United States, in the most recent year for which figures are available, is 33,000 lb — a growth from under 1,000 lb in a very few years. Last year customs officers in Britain seized 77 lb of cocaine, valued at £7·25 million. Yesterday's seizure tends to demonstrate that the growth in the supply of the drug is explosive.

There seems to be a view that cocaine—which has a following among those who might broadly be called the prominent people of the café society—is in some way more acceptable than the established heroin abuse. There is nothing to choose between them. The appalling growth of heroin abuse merely serves as a pointer to the potential growth of cocaine abuse. An increasing number of addicts are known to the police; there is an increasing amount of seizure.

Another extremely worrying factor is the apparent drop in street prices. That tends to confirm the fears expressed by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North that there is a dramatic increase in the availability of the drugs. Like the hon. Gentleman, I regret that the Bill does not include any measures to allow the seizure and forfeiture of the assets of those convicted of drugs offences. There is now a very sophisticated laundering of the illicit gains of those convicted of supplying and producing drugs, and only by seizing their assets shall we spike the laundering process.

I am also worried about the number of convictions of foreign nationals. There should be automatic deportation of anyone from another country who is convicted of the supply and distribution of class A drugs, and there should be no right of appeal.

Notwithstanding those reservations, I give the Bill my complete support. I am sure that we all worry about the drugs problem. It has no respect for social class, from the café society people that I mentioned to those in the public bars of working class pubs, this pernicious and evil trade is making its impact. I speak with some limited experience in that respect. I congratulate my hon. Friend again on introducing the Bill. I shall have absolutely no qualms about giving it my full support.

Like other hon. Members, I congratulate the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) on bringing forward the Bill. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) made that point, but he was unfair to go on to say how limited the Bill's impact would be. No one who supports the Bill pretends anything other than that it is one small measure in attempting to deal with a grave problem. When we have had the chance to debate it before, we have pressed the Government on how comprehensive their policy is to try to beat the evil disease that is racking our society. Speeches have concentrated on the need to break up the centres of production, the supply routes and gates into this country, the pushing and the need to help those who are addicted.

However, today we are dealing with one small area, which is the penalty for those who are liable to make most out of the trade. I wish to give the Bill wholehearted support because it is a matter about which many of my constituents feel strongly. It is interesting that in meetings around the constituency, drugs is now the number one issue that people wish to discuss. Constituents are worried about the level of sentencing. They have another worry, on which the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) touched. If people who make considerable profit out of the trade are given light sentences, they come out of prison to rich pickings. I point out that it is significant that three quarters of the Opposition Members present are from Merseyside constituencies. That shows the importance that we attach to the matter.

I ask the Under-Secretary to give us an idea about his proposals for dealing with the assets of those who have made considerable fortunes out of the drug trade. I should like to draw his attention to the fact that one does not have to be what is typically described as one of the big boys or girls in the trade to make a fortune. Let me illustrate that point. A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting in the north end of Birkenhead at which the residents' association told me that one of the ordinary pushers had been given a good beating up five times by local people because they were so horrified at the role that that person was playing in pushing drugs in the area. To ordinary people like me, the threat of one beating up from the north end of Birkenhead would bring about a change in my behaviour. To risk not one but five such beatings and still push that trade tells us something about the gains that those people are making.

When I reported back on the Bill in the constituency, there was overwhelming support for it. Equally, however, people have suggested that if we are going to hand out tough sentences, we should also take measures to make sure that those who are little more than merchants of death in that trade do not profit by the horrors that they inflict on others. Therefore, my one contribution to the debate is to ask the Minister to tell us something more about his proposals and the experience that he gained in the United States, which we learnt about in The Guardian and The Times earlier this week.

As a practising lawyer, I have come across the merchants of death in one capacity or another on several occasions. An anecdote was told to me by a friend, who is also a practising lawyer, which illustrates the moneys involved in that dirty and despicable trade. One of his clients received a sentence of five years for supplying a class A drug. The only thing that concerned that man after sentence was how he would safeguard his investments while he was in prison. It is wrong that people should make a vast amount of money—vast amounts of money are involved in the trade—cause other people misery, go to prison, and know that while they are in prison their money is being utilised, earning more and growing in size so that they come out to a fat little nest egg. I take the view—I hope that the Minister will reassure us on the matter—that those who are involved in the drugs trade, make money out of the misery and suffering of others, and are convicted for doing so, should be put to the test of having to explain where their assets come from. I refer, of course, only to those who have been convicted.

I would take issue with anyone who argued that we would be shifting the burden of proof and contravening the natural principles of justice. Do we allow the burglar, after conviction, to retain his stolen property? We do not. It is taken back. The equivalent of the proceeds of a burglary in the case of dealing in class A or class B drugs is the money received. There is no logical distinction between the drug pedlar and the burglar or car thief who has taken property that he should not have taken.

I stress that the Bill is concerned with the drug dealer, not the user, who belongs in a quite different category. We are talking about those who make money out of the sale of class A and class B drugs. If legislation were brought in to take away the proceeds of crime from the dealer after conviction, I would support it. There is no distinction in my mind between the position of a convicted drug dealer and that of a burglar, thief or fraudster who gains the property of others through criminal activity. The dealer gains the property of others—their money—by criminal activity. We should not deny the courts the right to take that money back, by putting the dealer to the test of having to reveal where his assets have come from. I suspect that a vast number of members of the Labour party share my attitude towards the convicted criminal and the proceeds of his crime.

Belatedly, I congratulate the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) on the content of his Bill. I welcome the availability of the life sentence for those convicted of class A drugs offences. For certain dealers a life sentence is the only justifiable punishment. Life sentences are available for manslaughter. They are rarely used but they are part of the armoury of the court. The Bill adds the life sentence to the armoury of the courts in the case of class A drugs. I do not expect that many people will receive a life sentence. Very few cases would merit such a sentence. However, the possibility should be there.

I welcome, too, the increase to 14 years as the maximum sentence in the case of class B drug offences. Recently I read with horror an article in Police Review advocating the legalisation of cannabis. Few people in this country would support that attitude. Cannabis is as insidious and as open to manipulation as any other drug. There seems to be an attitude of mind that cannabis is not very harmful. I invite anyone who takes that view to spend a day in Amsterdam to see what happened there when a relaxed attitude was adopted towards the drug trade. It got so completely out of hand that the police were unable to cope, and there was the spin-off effect of people experimenting with quick pleasure and rapidly turning to hard drugs. Amsterdam is now an absolute mess, as anybody who has been there knows.

People who deal in cannabis also make vast fortunes. When we hear of shiploads of £2 million or even £3 million-worth of cannabis being intercepted, we should ask why people are importing the stuff. It is because there is a market for it, and a quick profit is readily available. That profit is not taxed and it is not, at the moment, seized. If a Bill to legalise cannabis were ever introduced, I should resist it all the way, and I am sure that many other hon. Members would, too.

Drugs are addictive, manipulative and damaging, and ultimately they destroy those who use them. Drug dealers are evil and cunning and should be incarcerated for a long time. If I had my way—I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance on this—when they came out of prison they would be bankrupt. There should be no profit in the sale of substances which cause such misery.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) on bringing forward the Bill, on securing such widespread support for it, and on the eloquent way in which he proposed its acceptance in Committee and again today. He has done an excellent job.

The problem of drug abuse is a matter of increasing concern and is central to my work at the moment. I have recently returned from the United States, where I learnt a great deal about their problems. It would be instructive for the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-S ilk) to make such a pilgrimage, as I am sure that his understanding of the problem would deepen if he went there.

It has been noted that the Americans are as interested in how we are tackling our drugs problem as we are in knowing how they are tackling theirs. I was told more than once that they are surprised, not that we have a bad problem, but at how long it has taken us to get one. America has had a serious problem with drug misuse for several decades, but it has intensified as cocaine has entered parts of the community which previous drug habits did not. The problem in some other western European countries, such as the Netherlands, Italy and West Germany, started before ours and is worse than ours. I say that not out of complacency but to put our problems in perspective.

One of the lessons to be learnt from the United States is that there is no one lever on the wall which can be pulled to resolve the drug abuse problem. The matter must therefore be addressed in many ways. There must be interventions at each link in the long chain that leads, in the case of cocaine, from South America or, with heroin, for the most part from Pakistan, to the user. We have to disrupt the supply in the country of origin, at ports and airports and as it is distributed.

Although the Americans are spending between $1·5 billion and $2 billion at federal level on dealing with drug abuse this year, 20 per cent. was the best estimate that I could get from the Drug Enforcement Agency of the amount of cocaine that it is intercepting. We must all keep trying as hard as we can to disrupt the flow of drugs, but we can never take all drugs away from customers. In a free society there will always be some people who can get around the inevitably limited restrictions on the importation of a product.

Unless one is prepared to erect the barriers of totalitarianism, one cannot check every individual entering the country, intercept every package and search every container. No free society can do that, so we must give increasing attention to taking the customers away from the drugs. That is why we have been anxious to expand facilities for the treatment and rehabilitation of long-term addicts and have made direct funds available for that purpose. [Interruption.] I am trying to answer questions put to me by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North. No doubt he put them merely for the record and is not particularly interested in the answers, but it would be a good deal easier for me to make my speech if I could have his attention.

We have sought to give impetus to treatment and rehabilitation in two ways: first, funds are available through the DHSS central funding initiative; secondly, we have sought to apply proper pressure to health authorities to ensure that in carrying out their duty to provide comprehensive health care for their communities a fair proportion of funding is directed to the treatment of drug misuse. The Department is making efforts in that regard. About £700 million in increased cash is being made available to the Health Service this year, of which some £60 million to £70 million is actual growth money, and it is right that a fair proportion of that should go to improve these facilities.

I appreciate the gravity of the problem on Merseyside, where I shall be spending all day Monday. I do not have my programme with me, but I believe that I shall be visiting the constituency of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I shall be opening a new facility provided by Merseyside regional health authority, and I know from my friendship with the chairman that that authority is deeply concerned about the situation.

Both we and the Americans are also using prevention campaigns and trying to educate people to recognise the misery of drug abuse. My hon. Friend the Member for Delyn quoted tellingly from the extremely helpful BBC television programme and the article in The Listener. Who could read about the misery of that addict's life without feeling that no one should have to go through that, and that even a teenager feeling rebellious and disenchanted with society should not willingly put himself at that kind of risk.

However much Governments may do, as both we and the Americans recognise in the forewords to our statements of strategy—it is Government's duty to set the framework—the drug menace will be turned back only when the energies of the whole community are directed towards eradicating it. That can be done in many ways. There is a need to build better relationships between parents and teenagers so that teenagers can talk candidly to their parents about the pressures to which they are subjected. People should be prepared to co-operate to the maximum extent with the police and the authorities in making it clear that drug pushers will not be tolerated in their communities. There is far more knowledge in the community about what is happening on the drugs scene than is ever revealed to the authorities.

If we are to defeat the pushers, I believe that even the user-pusher, for whom one may have some sneaking sympathy, must go to prison, along with the more cynical pusher who is in it purely for the money. Whether the motive for spreading the habit be cynical greed or the need to feed one's own habit, anyone who is prepared to try to interest others in drug taking deserves to be taken out of the community. That is the only defence mechanism that the community has.

I wished to put our efforts in context because I believe that we are evolving a comprehensive policy. In recent months we have intervened in all those ways, and more is to come. We have expanded the capability of the customs, and we will not hesitate to increase the numbers of customs officers if the threat from heroin and cocaine continues to grow. The value of intelligence and the impetus that is put on knowing what is happening is clearly evidenced by Operation Rattlesnake, which was concluded yesterday, when 14 kilos of cocaine were seized as a result of many months of effort.

There will always be room for the random stopping of people coming through customs, because experienced customs officers, pooling information with drug enforcement authorities in other countries, will be aware of what is going on. I was delighted to learn of the high level of co-operation between the United Kingdom and the United States in these matters. Any experienced officer on duty in the green channel will have an idea of the profile of the potential drug pusher. He will always make a large find by having the experience to say that someone is behaving suspiciously.

However, in the end, if we are to get more of the people organising this, and not just the mules, who are literally two a penny and will run the stuff through an airport for a fee, we shall have to rely on intelligence. There has to be the maximum transparency between police and customs. We have not only to lay down a database from which careful exploration of these conspiracies can be made, but we must have experienced analysts able to analyse what is happening, what that tells us and how that enables us to get down to the heart of the practical job of smashing these conspiracies.

The police role against drugs needs always to be enhanced. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North took a somewhat one-dimensional view of the police role in talking only about drugs squads. Drugs squads have an important role to play at individual force level, including some of the specific work on the distribution network of drugs within the community, but the size of the drugs squad should not be taken as evidence of the commitment of the police force to the eradication of drugs, because that ignores two dimensions.

The first is the extent to which, on the instigation of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, and the Association of Chief Police Officers, so much attention is being given to educating every policeman, and not just those who are in the drugs squad. This is particularly directed to the officers on the beat so that they are able to intervene helpfully in the drugs problem in their neighbourhood. It is not good enough to say that the drugs squad is the expert part of the force, and that the rest of the force gets on with other work. We all know that drugs are not a problem on their own. People involved in drugs are often involved in crime either because they are criminals or because they become criminals to feed their habit.

Secondly, major criminals who have hitherto earned their living from counterfeiting or robbing banks have moved into major drugs distribution as a way of making even richer pickings. That is why it is crucial for the House to recognise that up to 50 per cent. of the time of regional crime squads is spent investigating major drugs distribution networks. That is the way it should be. Drugs should be treated as a mainstream police activity, because it is certain that mainstream criminals are involved.

If there is to be an answer to the drugs problem, it can come about only by the will of the whole community to resist it, and the ability of people to say no. In the end, that is the key to it. It is the willingness at all levels of society — inexplicable to those of us outside — to become involved in drugs that is so frightening. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) will find how desperately frightening it is when he goes to America next week. I wish him and his colleagues on the Home Affairs Select Committee all success on that visit. He will be as horrified as I was to learn of the extent to which cocaine has penetrated not just to the deprived ghetto areas, where one can argue, as the hon. Member for Knowsley, North did, that deprivation causes drug addiction, but to the achievers in society. These are successful people with a high income—the yuppies as I think they are sometimes called. The influence of such people—often bankers and executives, who go to the smart consulting rooms of the leading cocaine specialists whom I saw in New York—on the drug scene is causing the problem.

I was told that one of the leading groups telephoning the cocaine hotline consisted of airline personnel, and that makes one realise how serious is the threat to the community. That crucial personnel, whose spot-on behaviour is vital for the mechanisms of a sophisticated society, are robbed of their energies, abilities and concentration by drugs is one of the most frightening things. It is even more frightening in many ways than the fact that unsuccessful people escape from their misery into drugs, although that is troubling enough.

In erecting barriers against drugs, it is essential to have a framework of law and penalties which enable sentences of imprisonment to be visited on drug dealers which are commensurate with the gravity of the offence and enable a warning to be sent to those who might become involved that the courts will not overlook such behaviour and that it will be visited with severe sentences of imprisonment.

We know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn has told us, that, within the existing range of penalties, the Lord Chief Justice has constructed a careful set of guidelines for the courts, which were promulgated in September 1982. I believe that the guidelines have been highly successful. In 1978, 15 people were sentenced to over seven years' imprisonment for drug offences. In 1979, the figure was 20. It was 16 in 1980 and 31 in 981, of whom three were sentenced to 14 years. There were 28 in 1982, of whom one was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment.

In the first year after the Aramah judgment, 61 people were sentenced to more than seven years' imprisonment, of whom two fitted into the Lord Chief Justice's principal category of 12 to 14 years in prison for trafficking in class A drugs to the value of more than £1 million. However, neither of those persons received 14 years' imprisonment. One was sentenced to 13 years and the other to 12.

I do not have the figures for 1984, as they' will not be available until the summer. However, I have taken a sample of some of the cases which have been heard this year, and those who believe in stiff penalties for these offences will be encouraged to learn that this very month at the Inner London Crown court three people who were involved in one importation of 12.78 kg of heroin were each sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. In February, at Maidstone Crown court, three principals in a heroin smuggling syndicate were dealt with following a 6 kg seizure last year. They were sentenced to 12 years, 12 years and 10 years respectively.

As recently as yesterday, an American woman who sought to import cocaine to the value of about £250,000 received eight years' imprisonment and an experienced High Court judge, Mr. Justice Kenneth Jones, made it clear that that was precisely the sort of sentence which those running drugs in from America could expect. On the same day, at Reading Crown court, an Indian involved in heroin smuggling was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. When a circuit judge said the other day that the courts had declared war on the drug smuggler, there was much evidence — we read it in our newspapers every day — to show that he was right. I warmly congratulate the Lord Chief Justice on giving a lead, as I do the judiciary on so faithfully following it.

We are bound to make value judgments on gravity in the criminal justice system, but it is wrong that individual acts of murder, for example, or some offences not involving murder, should merit life imprisonment if drug trafficking, which involves death and misery on a large scale, does not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn said, that must be the underpinning case for introducing life imprisonment for trafficking in class A drugs.

Within the 14-year tariff, the Lord Chief Justice is compelled to have a wide bracket when dealing with offences involving drugs to the value of £1 million or more. We know from the Rattlesnake operation that amounts that are worth more than £1 million are being intercepted. We know, too, that the tariffs for bank robbery and armed robbery are often higher than those for drug offences. That is because there is no restriction of 14 years for those offences. When the Bill becomes law, as I hope and pray it will speedily, those involved in offences in which a large quantity of drugs has been discovered will merit life imprisonment. In many instances a lot of money will be lying around and it will be clear that the Crown will not be able to take possession of it whatever effort is made to do so. Those who are now sentenced to the maximum term will be released within 10 years even without parole. A decade of one's life may seem worth while in the judgment of some if one has millions of pounds, dollars, Swiss francs or another currency stashed away to live on.

The penalty of life imprisonment and the determination of successive Home Secretaries to make that stick, enables the courts to deal for the first time with people who have cleverly salted away assets which, however hard we try, will be difficult to get hold of. It will also allow the tariff all the way down the scale to be lifted up. It is not for me to offer advice to the Lord Chief Justice, but I imagine, knowing of his identification of drugs as one of his principal worries in exercising his criminal jurisdiction, that as soon as the Bill becomes law he will take the opportunity of another case such as that of Aramah to lay down fresh guidelines. I am equally sure that his colleagues will, with equal vigour, ensure that those guidelines stick as well as they have made the Aramah guidelines stick.

This is an area in which it is crucial to make clear the good and bad aspects of the situation. If we are to get on top of the drugs problem, we shall only do so by candour and by recognising the scale of the difficulties that we face. It is clear that sending people to prison is important if they are major dealers, but that it is not the end of the exercise while we do not have the most effective way of confiscating assets.

There might be some misunderstanding about what can be done at the moment. It would be wrong, just because we are focusing on finding a new and more effective way of confiscating assets, to think that ways do not exist to deprive people of the profits of their crime. They do. As recently as the Criminal Justice Act 1972 a mechanism to make serious offenders criminally bankrupt was introduced. That was carefully thought out and went through the House, to a great deal of acclaim. It is regrettable that for one reason or another it is not much use and is regarded as a rather blunt instrument, but it is there and can be used.

The courts also now have the option of imposing unlimited fines. The confiscation of assets does not need to be by way of a confiscation order. If it is known that someone has £1 million stashed away, there is no reason not to fine him that amount and rely on the enforcement procedures. That can be done by the courts today, so it must not be thought that the courts are impotent to deal with assets.

Equally, the Inland Revenue has a role to play. Although it took a long time, it was almost certainly worth while, in the judgment of us all, that some years of pursuit of the principals in the Operation Julie case led, as I understand it, to the Inland Revenue recovering almost £500,000.

All those steps can be taken by the court today. What cannot be done as effectively as we would want is to deal with the fact that the sophisticated international criminal does not have a large deposit account in his name in a high street bank so that anybody on a moment's investigation can find it. He is involved in a sophisticated enterprise and the money may be in a country unaffected by the conspiracy. It may be in assets, passed to other criminals or laundered through a multiplicity of accounts, as the Americans will tell the hon. Member for Knowsley, North when he goes to the United States. We must find more sophisticated ways of tracing assets, and that is what we are directing our attention to.

In the world of fantasy which the hon. Gentleman will occupy at a moment's provocation, he seems to think that all this is easy. It is interesting to note that in goading us to find the answer he was rather short on solutions himself. Having latched on to one possible solution which appeared in the press yesterday as a result of my debriefing on my American trip—that there might be some utility in reversing the burden of proof—the hon. Gentleman, having called for effective measures, was quick to say that if that were introduced it might be too effective for the liking of the Opposition. Happily, there are independent spirits on the Back Benches in the shape of the hon. Member for St. Helens, South and others who, I dare say, will give that a fair wind.

The business of tracing assets requires a number of things. It requires the ability to find mechanisms to go through and uncover a complicated system of dealing in which the successful Mr. Big will have become involved, and a high level of co-operation between various countries. That is why we are working so hard with the Americans and through the Pompidou group—the Council of Ministers' group on the misuse of drugs, which we now chair—to find mechanisms to ensure that our orders are given effect in other jurisdictions.

Above all, there may need to be changes in banking arrangements so that there is transparency in appropriate cases. The Inland Revenue may need to be more greatly involved in the police work to uncover drug conspiracies. Those are major points. I know that when the hon. Member for Knowsley, North tries hard he is capable of being fair. He will recognise that these matters cannot be carried out at the drop of a hat. They merit careful thought. The worst step that we could take would be to rush into arrangements which we think will be successful, but which are only half thought out.

I am determined that we shall make progress on this matter. I do not regard my hon. Friend's Bill as the last word on the matter, but it is a crucial contribution to the efforts that we are all making to get on top of the drugs menace. I commend the Bill to the House.

I should like to make some brief comments on the speeches that have been made today. I wish in all good humour to apologise to the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) if I upset him by my description of the Labour party. I admit that it was a gross over-simplification to suggest that there were only two factions. I did not intend to do that.

I agree with most of the hon. Gentleman's comments. He made a valid point when he referred to the increased amount of heroin seized being as much a reflection of the fact that increasing amounts are entering the country as of the increasing effectiveness of the police force. There is no room for complacency. We must be eternally vigilant and do all that we can to improve the effectiveness and the co-ordination of the police and customs officers. The Bill is no substitute for that.

It is unfortunate to play the old numbers game about customs officers. There is no doubt that my figures and the Minister's answer show that an increased number of customs officers, whatever their overall total number, are directing their efforts solely towards drug trafficking. All hon. Members must be extremely careful and responsible in their comments about customs officers. It is important that we do not say or do anything that could possibly lower their morale or raise the morale of drug traffickers. I hope that hon. Members will be responsible in that respect, because the House must give those officers every support.

I agree, as, did the Minister, with the remarks of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North about random stopping. In Committee, the hon. Gentleman referred to the three hours that it took to search a Boeing 737 and its passengers. If every plane coming into Heathrow or Gatwick were stopped and searched, there would be tiers of aircraft up to 50,000 ft. waiting to land. That would be impossible. By its nature, random stopping cannot be highly effective in the sense that it cannot stop the trade dead.

There are many other aspects of the problem, including the medical and educational aspects. Last month the Minister produced a pamphlet on tackling drug misuse, which has been most valuable and which brings everything together. He is leading a co-ordinating team of Ministers from different Departments who are considering all the different ways of tackling drug misuse. I am only sorry that the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is not mentioned, although the name of one of the Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland is. Perhaps we can bring that matter up at Welsh Question Time and find out whether he has been attending those meetings. I hope that he has.

Another important aspect raised by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North is that of sentencing and Lord Chief Justice Lane's guidelines. The hon. Gentleman is being unfair in harping on about the numbers who receive the maximum sentence. The guidelines have proved effective. Although not as many drug traffickers have received the existing maximum sentence as he would have wished, as the Lord Chief Justice said, there are great difficulties in catching the big fish. Obviously, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) said in Committee, we cannot sentence them until we catch them. It is a valid point, but I do not believe that sentencing is at fault.

We must detect the major dealers, and my hon. Friend the Minister made an effective point about the sophisticated methods of detection in the United States, which I have no doubt are duplicated here. The major drug dealers—the merchants of death, as the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) rightly called them—are sophisticated operators. They are not running sweetie shops. We need highly sophisticated operations and legislation to deal with them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) was disappointed that there is no clause in the Bill relating to the forfeiture of assets. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) also believed that it might have been useful to include such a clause. We had discussions about it, but the feeling was that it would be sad to endanger the Bill by including a clause that might he contentious and inadequate.

My hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham mentioned sophisticated laundering operations. In order to deal with them, we need highly effective legislation, which should not be drawn up hurriedly, although I hope that it will be introduced in the next Session. That Bill will obviously be much longer than this one, and it must be sophisticated if it is to work. My hon. Friend the Minister referred to the present bankruptcy legislation, which is rather a blunt weapon. It would be sad if any legislation on the forfeiture of assets were also blunt.

There was an omission in my opening speech, which I wish to correct now. It might be invidious to single out any of my supporters for the help and encouragement that they have given me, but I shall do so, because the hon. Member for Birkenhead has give me considerable support and help, and I wish to pay tribute to him. His commitment to the problem is well known in the House, and he was the instigator of an important early-day motion that was tabled last autumn. I am extremely grateful to him for his assistance.

The Bill is no magic cure, as the hon. Member for Birkenhead said. The problem of drug misuse is highly complex, extremely serious and ever-growing. There would be no point in the Bill if it were seen simply as the Tory Right on a rampage of retribution. The fact that I introduced it shows that it is not a Tory Right measure anyway. The hon. Member for Knowsley, North was right to say that there are many aspects to the problem, including prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. However, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, no lever can be pulled which will suddenly, miraculously and at a stroke resolve the problem. The Bill covers just one aspect of deterrence, which in itself is just one part of prevention.

I hope that the hon. Member for Knowsley, North's suggestion that the Bill will have no impact will be proved wrong. It is unduly negative to say that now. It is a modest Bill, but it can do something, and surely we should do anything that we can.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am delighted that we have reached this stage of the Bill's progress because there has been pressure for such a measure for several years. I am grateful to all those who have assisted me. The purpose of the Bill is to make it clear beyond doubt that the practice of female circumcision should be illegal in Britain. Although, as the law stands, it might be argued that to perform such an operation constituted an act of actual bodily harm, there is no precedent detailing this. The degree of abhorrence of these procedures felt by all can leave no room for uncertainty. The Bill, though short, is both concise and exact and achieves that purpose.

Female circumcision is an act of mutilation performed upon young girls and women. The Bill seeks to include all the various methods adopted, from the most simple, known as sunna, to the most radical, infibulation. To achieve this, the working of the Bill, as set out in clause 1(1), has had to be of a catch-all nature. Obviously there is no desire so to leave the Bill that it interferes with legitimate medical operations, and clause 2 makes this clear. With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall return to that shortly.

Accordingly, any act of mutilation is included in clause 1, which creates the offence itself. This is then extended to include the aiding and abetting of another in self-mutilation. As I mentioned in Committee, this is a direct analogy with the Suicide Act 1960. No offence is committed by a person performing such a violent act upon herself. In our society, such prohibitions, echoing faintly the notion of burying suicides in unconsecrated ground, are not felt to be appropriate. But the weak need the protection of the law from those who would exploit their weakness. If these practices are to cease in this country, the law prohibiting them cannot have potential loopholes.

In accordance with the basic principle of the criminal law, the Bill therefore provides that to aid and abet the offence is also itself an offence.

The penalties envisaged underline the detestation of female circumcision in this country. The Bill does not regard the offence as one to be treated lightly.

Since the discussion of the Bill in Committee, I have received a letter from Professor Macnaughton, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In it he sets out the views of the college:

"Firstly, we are at one with you in seeking to prohibit female circumcision of any kind being performed in this country. However, there are a variety of surgical operations that are necessary for the physical and mental health of women, which have nothing whatever to do with circumcisions performed for traditonal or cultural reasons. I wish to make it clear that the College would be opposed to any statutory limitations on these legitimate procedures."

The operations to which Professor Macnaughton refers can be divided into two categories—those dealing with physical health, of which cancer is an example, and those dealing with mental health.

The Bill does not seek to interfere with a patient's right to receive legitimate or ethical surgery, and therefore clause 2 excludes such operations from the scope of the Bill.

There has been some discussion of the nature of exclusions for reasons of mental health. In a very small number of cases surgery is required for reasons other than physical illness. Obviously these fall into a category which is a form of cosmetic surgery, often resulting from the distress caused by a perception of abnormality.

The problem in a previous incarnation of the Bill proved insurmountable, as the word "abnormality" was used without real regard to its definition. In practice it must be right to leave that to the judgment of the individual doctor. This consideration is essential.

There is no doubt that if a woman was deluded or imagined that there was something wrong with her, it would be good professional practice not to offer surgery but to persuade her to accept psychiatric treatment. This is a view that could adopted with all forms of cosmetic surgery, but is surely best left to the professional judgment of a doctor. Such cosmetic surgery is a long way, both qualitatively and quantitatively, from female circumcision.

The purpose of the Bill is to prevent the custom of female circumcision, not legitimate, ethical and surgical procedures. The exclusion therefore of reasons of mental health needed careful drafting. There was no point in passing a Bill that created an offence if, in a later clause, it was so poorly drafted that it allowed unlimited exemptions. Accordingly, it is worth examining precisely the offence and the practice that we find so abhorrent.

The Bill seeks to prevent the ritual mutilation of the female genitalis, hence the deliberate inclusion of the words "custom or ritual" in clause 2. We cannot create an offence and then say that the act constituting that offence is exempt from the Bill. Such legislation would be nonsense. The provisions for exemptions for reasons of mental health must ensure that reasons of custom or ritual are not justified.

We cannot allow female circumcision to occur on the ground that a woman's health would suffer if she did not conform with the prevailing custom of her community. Such an argument knows no bounds—we would have allowed suttee in this country a century ago. Would we allow it now were it still the prevailing custom in India?

The Bill has its roots in the protection of children. It stands four square behind the United Nations declaration on the rights of children of 1959, which asserts that children should have the possibility to develop physically in a healthy and normal way in conditions of liberty and dignity.

The Bill seeks to prevent an appalling practice which leads to no physical benefits and is associated with a number of health hazards, including haemorrhage, pain, shock, infection, septicaemia and long-term obstetrical problems.

We in Britain are not alone in our desire to act. Other European countries, including Sweden, have banned the practice. In Kenya, it is illegal, as are all but the simplest procedures in the Sudan.

There is no doubt that at the same time as legislation there must be a process of health education among those people who still perform the acts. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister, who confirmed in Committee that his Department would consider sympathetically any applications for grants for that purpose, but we cannot allow that consideration to prevent the Bill from becoming law. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on her luck in the ballot and on bringing forward this important Bill. May I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for not being able to remain until the end of the proceedings.

I want to give the Bill my support because it concerns an issue that came across my desk when I was in the Department. It is one that I viewed with the greatest sympathy, but there were then, as my hon. Friend said, many difficulties. The medical profession was not perhaps as helpful as it has now turned out to be. The Department tried to get the matter working, but it was not possible. I am delighted that, clearly with the aid of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, that has now been possible.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, and I hope that the Bill will rapidly become law.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on her Bill, of which I am a sponsor. She has done a good service by introducing it. I hope that today we shall see the completion of its stages in this House. As she said, the subject has had a somewhat chequered legislative career. In many respects, we all understand the problems which gave rise to the complexities of legislating on this difficult subject

There is no doubt that there is enormous abhorrence of and anxiety about the practice. At the same time, as hon. Members will know, some black women feel that clause 2(2) could be considered to have racial overtones as it forbids the use of mental stress as a reason for those who wish to have female circumcision for ritual or custom as against those who use mental stress as a reason because of difficulties with deformed or enlarged genitalia. I hope that we have been able to convince them that there is no such intention behind the Bill.

It must be put on record that even now the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is not, as far as I am aware, 100 per cent. satisfied with the formulation of the Bill. Indeed, it gave me a revised amendment which I tabled unsuccessfully in Committee. The Commission for Racial Equality also has some reservations about this portion of the Bill. However, I have been unable to find any other way of changing it. Perhaps the noble Lords will have a look at it.

I underline the hon. Lady's hope that the Minister of Health will confirm what his colleague the Under-Secretary of State said in Committee two weeks ago. He said that he recognised that black women face very serious pressures in all sorts of ways because of the practice in their own community, and that they needed health counselling and health education. He undertook to look at that aspect with sympathy.

It was only by chance that before coming into the Chamber this morning I saw a letter to me from the director of the Foundation for Women's Health research and development—the organisation called FORWARD. It is a very reputable organisation with distinguished sponsors, including Dame Josephine Barnes, Lord Kennet and Baroness Lockwood. The director, Mrs. Stella Efua Graham — who, in her correspondence with me, has welcomed the Bill—sent me a copy of the letter that she sent to the Under-Secretary of State on 18 April picking up the point that he made in Committee, when he said that he would look sympathetically at accepting

"applications from any organisations for funding to cover such activities."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 3 April 1985; c. 16.]

She points out that, in the name of FORWARD she asked for support from the DHSS in late 1983, but received no response.

Mrs. Graham is putting forward—as she has in the letter—three projects which could very well receive funding and support from the Department. It would help in terms of health education and health counselling, and would be seen by those who may be worried about the matter as a sensible way of having a public health programme alongside the legislation that we are discussing today.

Although I am not trying to bounce the Minister into an answer on the project, I hope that, when he has an opportunity, he will discuss the application with his hon. Friend. It would go a great way towards reassuring people who would genuinely like to outlaw the practice altogether but who see the difficulties of women, of their mothers and of their prospective husbands in dealing with a problem which has been so much a part of their culture and practice.

I reiterate my congratulations to the hon. Lady and hope that, when the legislation becomes law, the Department will deal with it in the most sensitive possible way and not in a nasty, draconian way, because the Bill will cause some problems and one would not want legislation to drive the practice underground in a way that none of us would welcome.

I happily join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on the way in which she has so skilfully steered the Bill through the House to its present stage. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg), who was a colleague of mine in the Department until recently, that it proved an intractable and difficult problem when it came to drafting legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne has come close to leading us to a solution.

I am sure that the Bill will be welcomed by the public because publicity about those operations has aroused general indignation. Although we believe that female circumcision has been carried out in only a handful of cases in this country, it does not mean that there are not compelling reasons for legislation to make sure that there are no more such operations here. The mutilation and impairment of young girls and women have no part in our way of life. I am glad to know that that view is shared by representatives of the ethnic minorities who live here. That is why the Government warmly welcome the Bill, and have, indeed, welcomed it throughout its passage.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne that it is arguable that the procedures known as female circumcision are already against the criminal law in this country, but that is by no means certain. We have not had a case to provide a precedent. I am sure that the House would prefer that we had definite legislation making it clear in statute that it is contrary to criminal law.

The problem that arose in the early stages of the Bill was to make sure that one discriminated between female circumcision and other legitimate surgery, because in straight anatomical terms there is little difference between the operation known as circumcision, or some forms of it, and other desirable medical practices. The present drafting of the Bill, as a result of work in Committee, meets that aim and will proscribe the activities that we wish to proscribe without damaging the decision of those who wish to carry out legitimate surgery on their patients.

The hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) mentioned the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. A copy of the latest letter sent by the president to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne has been given to me. It may not have reached the hon. Member for Barking yet. My hon. Friend quoted a passage from Professor Macnaughton's letter. He concludes by saying:

"The College will be happy to comment on any amendments that are suggested and I can confirm that the College would approve of your Bill as amended by the Standing Committee."

That may mean that the college is now satisfied that any possible problems have been sorted out. While I am sure that their Lordships will wish to look at the Bill, I hope that they do not embark on amateur draftsmanship of their own and get the Bill back into complications that might run the risk of frustrating its purpose.

Like all those who have spoken so far, particularly the two hon. Ladies, I share their view that there is no question of racism in the Bill or anything of that sort. I am satisfied that it is necessary to make the references to custom and ritual for the reasons explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne. All the sponsors of the Bill and all those associated with it are plainly not only not guilty of any racialist views, but many of them, including the hon. Member for Barking, play a prominent part in combating racism and trying to make sure that no elements of racial segregation find their way into our law. It is the need for careful drafting that caused those references, and there is no need for people to be suspicious of them.

I agree that the Bill should be seen only as a necessary part of a wider health education campaign to eradicate that practice in this country and abroad. We do not underestimate the importance of education and counselling among the communities in which female circumcision has been a custom for millennia. Groups are now at work among those communities providing just such counselling and information services. We share their aims and commend the work that they do.

The hon. Member for Barking is ahead of me in reading copies of correspondence addressed to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. He made a helpful offer in Committee that we would look at any applications for grants. We shall do so as quickly and sympathetically as possible.

I conclude by renewing my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne on her success in having brought the Bill this far. I commend the Bill to the House, and hope that its passage through another place will be equally successful.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This is a simple Bill. It is a Bill to save the bilberry. Farmers in upland areas need to be able to burn heather and grass so that their livestock are able to benefit from fresh heather and grass. That procedure creates difficulties for wildlife in the upland areas, and it has therefore been necessary, since the passage of the Hill Farming Act 1946, to regulate the burning of heather and grass. It has been found that in practice other species may be damaged by the burning, especially bracken, vaccinium and gorse, and it has therefore been thought necessary to introduce a Bill to enable the Minister to control the burning of those species. The Bill is widely welcomed by those concerned, and I hope that hon. Members will give it their support.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) and thank him for introducing the Bill. As he said, the Bill will extend the powers available to Ministers to make regulations controlling moorland burning, which is very important for agricultural management.

The Bill will bring three new plant species—gorse, bracken and vaccinium, or the bilberry—into the same category as heather and grass. The need to make this change was another profit of the discussions held by the heather and grass burning working party, which observed that the burning of moorland vegetation affects adventitiously a number of other plant species which grow in close association with heather and grass. Chief among these are gorse, bracken and vaccinium.

In addition, some farmers choose deliberately to burn certain of these species either to control or to eradicate them. As the potential risks and consequences of the burning of these species are similar to those of the burning of heather and grass, the working party argued that a loophole in the present controls needed to be closed. I am persuaded by this argument and am delighted that the Bill gives us the opportunity to bring about the necessary changes. It therefore has the support of the Government.

Any system of control is meaningless unless it is backed by some sort of penalty. The Hill Farming Act already includes a fine of up to £400 for a breach of the present regulations, and my officials in the regions are under instruction to follow up reports of illegal burning. Last year there were only two such reports. We have also written recently to chief constables asking for their cooperation, by making sure that police officers in rural areas are aware of the legal requirements. We therefore have a mechanism for enforcement which, I am pleased to say, has rarely to be applied to the full, but which provides an appropriate back-up to our main aim, which is to encourage sensible burning through sound advice. This year, as in previous ones, our publicity campaign will include radio announcements and press notices, issued at regular intervals throughout the year and designed to achieve this end.

It is perhaps premature to talk of the type of controls that we might apply once the Bill becomes law, but we would want to use these new enabling powers as soon as the necessary subordinate legislation can be drawn up. I see here a further opportunity for consultation with the working party, since subtle differences might exist in the growing charactristics of the three new species and in how they are best dealt with. I believe that it will also be important to extend the heather and grass burning code which the working party has produced and which is widely circulated, so that suitably fuller advice on moorland burning is available. However, I do not regard these as protracted matters and I hope that subordinate legislation might be laid before the House fairly quickly once the Bill becomes law.

I am delighted to be able to commend this Bill to the House, because, although it is short and simple, it marks yet another important step towards achieving a balance between the needs of conservation and the needs of agriculture, which the Government have already done much to further.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This is a modest Bill which I hope will enable the Agricultural Training Board to offer its unique training expertise overseas to the benefit of the United Kingdom.

As many hon. Members know, the Agricultural Training Board, which was established in 1966, provides training for the commercial agriculture and horticulture industries in Great Britain. Many of the board's activities centre on short craft skills courses for agricultural workers. It has great expertise in the development of those courses and the training of instructors. It also undertakes management training and organises farming apprenticeships and other youth training. Its skills are highly regarded by the farming industry in the United Kingdom.

The board has powers under section 5 of the Agricultural Training Board Act 1982 to teach workers from overseas the methods of agriculture in the United Kingdom, but those powers do not enable the board to carry its expertise overseas. Its ability to do so would be especially useful in the involvement in major export contracts in the agricultural sector such as the installation of irrigation schemes and the setting up of other agricultural businesses, such as complete dairy units, in areas like the middle east. The training of local staff to run such new systems is a vital part of the total export package, and the participation of the board could improve the United Kingdom's chances of gaining contracts and materially helping employment in the United Kingdom.

I hope that the board will be able to operate profitably overseas and that its involvement in such work will be of great benefit to the United Kingdom. There are safeguards to that effect in the Bill. I hope also that the board will he able to use its commercial expertise and to maximise its revenue so that any profits that are generated can be used for the material benefit of training in the United Kingdom.

The Bill also has the subsidiary purpose of strengthening Ministers' formal rights of access to the board's books and records. There is already an agreement that such access will be given, but this power will bring the Agricultural Training Board into line with the current guidelines for public bodies.

The Agricultural Training Board is outstandingly effective in promoting training techniques in agriculture. I hope that this modest measure will enable the board to help to promote British agricultural expertise and business worldwide. I commend the Bill to the House.

It is most gratifying that the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Torney) has been able to progress this useful Bill so fast. I congratulate him on introducing it and on the speed with which he has got it through the various stages so far.

As the House knows, the Agricultural Training Board was established in 1966 under the Industrial Training Act 1964, together with many other training boards in ether industries. Subsequently, the board was transferred to the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and its powers were consolidated in the Agricultural Training Board Act 1982.

The board provides a vital training role for the commercial agriculture and horticulture industries in Great Britain. It is largely funded by a grant in aid from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, amounting to more than £7 million in 1984–85. The development of short craft skills courses and the training of instructors is undertaken by the board, while the organisation of most individual training courses is carried out by a network of 600 farmers' training groups. The strength of this group activity, and the board's expertise in organising them, is of particular interest to developing overseas countries, as the hon. Gentleman has emphasised. In addition, the board undertakes management training and organises farm apprenticeships and other youth training. The board's skills are highly regarded by the farming industry.

In 1982, the then board chairman suggested that the board's training expertise could with advantage be made available overseas. Ministers agreed in principle on the understanding that such activities would be undertaken by the Agricultural Training Board in collaboration with the private training sector and that this would not lead to any dilution of domestic training effort. That is most important. As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, clause 1(2) of the Bill imposes on the board a requirement to act commercially in the exercise of its overseas functions so that at an early date it can show that expenditure on overseas work can be met from revenues received. That is a most important provision, as we do not wish the United Kingdom agriculture industry to suffer any diversion of funds from its training in order to meet the needs of others, however deserving, outside the United Kingdom. The board has had substantive discussions with private sector consultants through the British Consultants Bureau on this basis, and I understand that a good understanding has been reached.

The 1982 Act does not, however, enable the board to engage fully in overseas activities. The hon. Gentleman's Bill would therefore empower the board to undertake work which Ministers have agreed is desirable. It would remove the restraint on providing training for employment overseas to permit the board to provide training courses and teaching and advisory personnel as well as advice and to charge for those services. Through the requirement to keep separate accounts under clause 1(3), the Bill also provides an assurance for agriculture that there is to be no diversion of funds from the United Kingdom to overseas activities.

Although the board has not yet been authorised to do work overseas, there is considerable evidence that there would be a demand for its services. It has received requests for consultancy and training advice and activities, and there is a steady flow of orders for its publications.

I was also pleased to see that the opportunity had been taken in the Bill to incorporate a further amendment to the Agricultural Training Board Act 1982 to give the Government a formal right of access to the board's books and records. As has already been said, there is already an agreement between Ministers and the board, and it is reaffirmed every year when grant in aid is given that such access should be given.

The Bill is welcome. The ATB has great expertise in the sector within which it operates. As a public sector body, it must first provide a high service and value for money for its customers in the United Kingdom. It is most important that the public and private sectors collaborate in a positive fashion to promote our interests abroad. Agricultural expertise in this country is second to none and many areas of the world would benefit from it.

Object.

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Second Reading what day? No day named.

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Second Reading what day? No day named.

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Second Reading what day? No day named.

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I draw the attention of the House to the fact that it is unusual to take the Committee stage without notice. Is there any objection?

Object.

Second Reading what day?

With the leave of the hon. Member concerned, Friday 5 July.

I shall declare my interest in this matter while the shed end is vacating the Chamber. I have been a regular football supporter for about 30 years. The first full season that I spent watching Chelsea was the 1954–55 championship year. Under the inspired chairmanship of Ken Bates, I look forward to a repeat performance of that division one championship in the near future. As I have since moved myself to Newham, I go to watch West Ham as well as Chelsea. I am the vice-president of Clapton football club in my constituency, which is one of the oldest and most distinguished amateur football clubs in the country.

The subject of British soccer generally is of sufficient interest to merit a full parliamentary debate. When the Government produce their report, I hope that we shall get just such an opportunity.

Crowd trouble inside and outside football grounds is not a recent development and is not confined to Britain. The problem should not be overdramatised by politicians and the media. However, more people have become aware of the problem and it has increased in seriousness. The Prime Minister is far from being the first politician to express concern. The right hon. Lady's instant-response approach could create almost as many problems as it solves. If the Prime Minister had not seen the hooliganism at the Luton Millwall match on television, I doubt whether we would have had so many Ministers running around trying to find immediate solutions to deep-seated and complex problems.

I hope that the Minister has studied the report of Norman Chester's committee, which was produced in 1968, the White Paper on sport and recreation, which was produced by the previous Labour Government, the 19'76 report of the working group on football crowd behaviour, a committee chaired by the late and much-lamented Frank McElhone, and the 1984 report on football violence from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. If the Minister can find the time to add to that reading list, he might like to read my own paper on the subject, which was written when I was chairman of the GLC's general purposes committee in 1975. This is a way of showing that the problem of crowd violence at football grounds has been analysed to death over the past 15 to 20 years. Unfortunately, successive Governments, the football authorities and the clubs have failed comprehensively to deal with it properly. There have been too many knee-jerk reactions and far too little real action.

I do not believe that there is any one identifiable cause for football violence. Different outbreaks occur for differing reasons. Local solutions based on local knowledge but with Government support are far more likely to be successful.

The problem should be confronted at two distinct levels. The long-term approach should be aimed at dealing with the decades of neglect within the sport itself. The short-term approach should be designed to contain the immediate menace of increasing crowd violence that is created by a small and unrepresentative element. There is disturbing evidence coming to light which shows that the most serious violence in football is being efficiently organised.

It is only comparatively recently that professional football has become aware that it is in competition with other forms of mass entertainment and, in comparison, is losing out pretty badly. Those who go regularly to football matches know that terraces open to the weather, insufficient seating and primitive refreshment and sanitary arrangements remain the rule rather than the exception. Any serious supporter knows just how appalling conditions remain in most of the 92 league clubs.

Since 1979 the Prime Minister has been to just two matches, and they were both cup finals. She was lucky to get the tickets. Perhaps she will tell me her source. I do not know how many league clubs the Minister has been to, but it is important that politicians who will be making decisions and recommendations should base those on some element of personal experience.

Virtually all football league clubs need to be modernised. That is best done through partnership arrangements between clubs, local authorities and Government agencies, together providing the large-scale funds that are needed to establish sports and social complexes based on the individual grounds.

Local authorities already give grants to a wide range of cultural bodies. I can speak as a past chairman of the arts and recreation committee of the GLC. I have never been able to see any rational argument for excluding footboll clubs, which represent a major working-class cultural activity, from receiving local authority grants. When I argued that particular case in 1975, it was caricatured as soccer on the rates. We have opera, theatre, ballet and recreation on the rates, so why not professional football?

Much could be achieved in terms of general ground improvements and the more intensive use by commuities of football grounds, but it requires imagination as well as resources. None of that is original, because closer working between local authorities and football clubs is already well under way. In Manchester, both Manchester city football club and the city of Manchester recreation department have been involved in the past five years in a football and community programme. It is probably the most highly developed scheme in the country and shows the positive benefits of a long-term relationship between football clubs and local authorities. In that particular scheme, I understand that something in excess of 100,000 people have taken part, 70 per cent. of the courses and competitions that are organised are aimed at the 8 to 18 age group and 85 per cent. of the people taking part have come from the local communities.

In London the GLC has been pushing ahead, as one would expect from a well-run Socialist and progressive authority. In the past two years we have developed several major initiatives with football league clubs. The provision of the all-weather pitch at Fulham was in exchange for the club guaranteeing a minimum of 500 hours of community use of the pitch for six years. A programme of community use is already well developed and it is used by school children, the unemployed, and people with disabilities, and there is a highly imaginative programme involving a senior citizens' club. In a short time that club has become an important resource for the local community instead of a woefully under-used facility.

A recent scheme announced by the GLC involves close co-operation with Arsenal football club, using the club's indoor training facilities for the benefit of the local community. Such things can be done and the Government should encourage local authorities to work on those partnership arrangements with clubs. Their grounds represent an under-utilised asset within our communities where such assets are badly needed.

Public funds should not be used to reinforce private gain. Therefore, I would look for radical changes in the way in which clubs are presently owned and organised. If football clubs were owned and run by a more representative section of supporters, the problem of crowd trouble would disappear in the long run. Football should look to the way in which cricket and rugby union organise themselves. That is the way that professional football should go. It is only in football that directors can act like 19th century mill owners. Regrettably, it is the worst elements of Victorian attitudes that survive in the way that our premier national sport is run.

Those are some of the long-term problems. Let me now deal briefly with the immediate problems we face. No one can doubt that soccer crowd violence is on the increase. The bad publicity that the sport gets is clearly affecting the gates and therefore the economic ability of the game to deal with its problems. It is a reinforcing cycle. The violence is partly a reflection of our increasingly violent society. Therefore, it is nonsense to single out football violence.

I shall make some brief suggestions because I wish to give the Minister plenty of time to reply. As it is a short debate I shall make out a list and if the Minister cannot respond to them all when he replies, perhaps he will respond to me in the usual way, as he has done in the past.

First, all football league matches should be played on Sunday mornings. That would undoubtedly upset some people, but it would do much to eliminate the problems of alcohol inside the grounds. Secondly, ground, should be all seating, covered and divided into small secure sections with closed circuit television. I know that it is easy to say that, but such ground improvements and security measures would cost the game millions. If the Government are not prepared to provide the cash, they should make low or no-interest loans available to professional football clubs through a national funding agency.

Thirdly, if, as I hope, we move towards the concept of football clubs organised as social clubs, admission by club membership card would be compulsory without any erosion of civil rights, which straightforward identification cards at present represent. I read today in The Standard that the chairman of Luton football club is pushing such an idea.

Fourthly, where clubs have singularly failed to minimise the dangers, they should be penalised in a much more draconian fashion. League points should be deducted. Clubs should face compulsory relegation or even expulsion from the league if they persistently fail to deal with problems when help is being offered to them to deal with such problems.

Fifthly, I should like to see courts giving more custodial sentences and community work orders on match days for offenders. The sort of thing that gets right up the nose of the average football supporter is having to weed someone's garden when an FA cup match is being played.

Sixthly, increased policing inside the ground should not be a charge on the clubs. Many people are not aware that in London clubs must pay the Metropolitan police for their presence inside the ground. That should not be the case. The charge should fall on the public purse. Clubs could encourage many more of their supporters to act as voluntary stewards as a form of self-policing.

Seventhly, in London the Commissioner should set up on a trial basis football community policing teams. These would be specialised police teams which would travel regularly to away games to brief the local police force and attend the game with their supporters. If the Commissioner ever gets the scheme off the ground, he may wish to enrol me as a special constable, it seems to be a good job. That would assist the police greatly in maintaining effective policing inside the grounds. Those police teams would soon get to know the regular fans and, therefore, could identify those who were attending only to cause trouble.

In conclusion, if the Government genuinely wish to eliminate soccer violence and to help restore the image of this important international sport, they must show political will and financial commitment. The Government take a lot of revenue from the game. Pools promoters, television, and Fleet street all make big money from football. As a football supporter, I believe that the clubs have a right to expect much more of the wealth that their sport creates to come back into the game for the benefit of the much-abused and vilified football supporter.

I am grateful for the constructive way in which the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has approached this important subject. I am at one with him on many of the points that he raised. I only hope that, when Hansard is published, he will circularise his speech to as many of those who are responsible for running our great national games as possible. His comments were extremely helpful in the overall context of this national problem.

I confirm that I have read all the documents which the hon. Gentleman enumerated at the beginning of his speech. However, I am oblivious of his report, which I shall certainly read if he would kindly send my office a copy. I shall sit down and study it. There is much to be read on this important topic.

I can also confirm that since I started watching football in the early 1950s—as an Essex dweller, I began at Leyton Orient—I have visited about four fifths of all first and second division football grounds at some stage or another during the past 30 years.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, disorder at football matches is by no means a new or recent phenomenon. The problem has been with us for many decades and it affects many countries. It is interesting to note, for example, that Millwall's ground was first closed as a disciplinary measure in 1934, and suffered the same fate in 1947, 1950 and 1978. If he were here, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) would acknowledge that the problem was prevalent during his two terms as Minister with responsibility for sport. He will remember some of the more serious incidents that took place during that period. In 1975, in Paris, when Leeds was playing Bayern, and in 1977, when St. Etienne was playing Manchester United, thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused inside and outside the grounds, and many people required hospital treatment. Again in 1977, England fans in Luxembourg caused £15,000 worth of damage to the stadium and went on a rampage through the city. All this, unhappily, is familiar reading for us.

In their book, "Hooligans Abroad", the Leicester university researchers gave some vivid examples of crowd disorders abroad not involving British fans in support of the argument that football hooliganism is not purely a British disease. In Lima, in 1964, when, in a match between Peru and Argentina, the referee refused to allow a goal to the home side, a riot followed in which 318 people were killed and more than 500 were injured. In Turkey, in 1974, fans of two club sides fought with pistols, knives and broken bottles for days after the end of a match between the two teams. Before troops restored order, cars were burnt out, 600 spectators were injured and 44 were killed. We have seen more recent examples in South America. In Argentina, the national association had to implement a nine-day ban on prfessional football.

Of course, that the problem is not new does not mean that there is an excuse for inaction. It is worth highlighting what the Government have done so far. On law and order, we have strengthened the powers of magistrates through the Criminal Justice Act 1982. The courts can now require parents and guardians to pay fines, costs and compensation for offences committed by young persons and children. The Act has also given the courts greater flexibility in the sentencing of young offenders, providing a new sentence of youth custody and doing away with the limitations on custodial sentences on young offenders. The power to impose community service orders was amended to bring offenders aged 16 or over within the scope of the scheme. We have introduced new custodial measures to deal with young offenders convicted of violent crimes, and doubled the maximum fines available to magistrates. We have also considerably increased the number of attendance centres.

I established a liaison group involving all the concerned agencies and authorities, and four Government Departments, to prepare for the three home countries' participation in the World Cup finals in Spain in 1982. A s we were successful in eliminating incidents of hooliganism through close co-operation in all the regions of Spain, I extended the remit of the liaison group, led by the Football Association chairman, to co-ordinate policy and precautions for domestic and international matches. Officials from my Department serve on that liaison group, as do officials from the Home Office, the Department of Transport and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

We have ensured that embassies and consulates support the Football Association and clubs in planning matches abroad. Consular staff attend meetings with the Football Association's liaison officer, together with stadium authorities, clubs' staff and the local authorities to ensure, so far as possible, that the necessary security precautions are taken. We have, through the Football League, focused league clubs' attention on the need to take precautions, highlighting the segregation of opposing supporters and the importance of pre-match planning, especially if the clubs are known to have problems.

We have agreed with the liaison group a "blueprint" listing the precautions which should be taken for domestic matches. This was circulated to league clubs last August in time for the new season. It revised existing recommendations, and for the first time ensured that recommendations on segregation and the movement of crowds became mandatory under the Football Association's guidelines.

Following serious incidents of violence towards the end of the 1983–84 season, the Government established a working group of officials from the Departments concerned to review what further options were available to tackle the problem. The group's report was published last August as a consultation document. With ministerial colleagues and the Football Association I have since met 17 representative organisations to discuss the report and its recommendations. The organisations, together with many other bodies and individuals, have also submitted a mass of written evidence for our consideration. The report and the consultation on it formed the basis for our most recent considerations following the serious violence at Luton and Chelsea.

Although the recent violence has focused our attention on the domestic scene, the aspect of the problem which has perhaps troubled me most since my appointment in 1981 is the effect that violence by English supporters abroad has on the good name of this country. Clearly there is more than just national pride at stake. The hon. Gentleman touched upon this. There are more tangible economic casualties both in loss of exports and contracts for British companies to carry out work abroad, and particularly if any club is banned or invited to play behind closed doors by the governing body of European football, in which case there could be serious economic loss to the club.

To help tackle this problem, the Government, through the Council of Europe, promoted the recommendation on the' reduction of football violence. In my visits to many European footballing capitals and my discussions with Ministers over the past two years I have found that all accept that this is not purely an English problem.

The recommendation calls for joint action among European countries and sets out the precautions, based on the European Football Association's ground rules, to be taken by the clubs and the authorities.

I first called for the recommendation at the informal working party of sports Ministers in Paris in January 1983, following which a working group chaired by one of my officials was set up to draft these recommendations. I also attended the informal working party of sports Ministers meeting in Rotterdam later in 1983 at which the recommendation was discussed fully and agreed. The recommendation was adopted formally by the Committee of Foreign Ministers in March 1984.

The Government have since taken the lead in the implementation of the agreement. At their fourth conference, held in Malta in May 1984, the European Ministers responsible for sport passed a resolution which I proposed in which they undertook to do all in their power to ensure the full implementation of the recommendation and to draw it to the attention of their respective national football authorities and the European Football Association.

I have also written to my ministerial colleagues abroad in advance of matches involving English clubs pointing out the potential dangers and drawing their attention to the recommendation. On the whole, efforts since have met with co-operation and constructive responses. We shall continue to take the lead on the international front in efforts to build on what has been achieved so far.

I have mentioned briefly the most recent developments following the serious violence at Luton and Chelsea. I was present on 1 April when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, together with other colleagues, met representatives from both the Football Association and the Football League to discuss soccer spectator violence. I have already informed the House that it became clear from that meeting that the football authorities shared the Government's commitment vigorously to combat violence at football matches.

They agreed to re-examine urgently the Football Association rules governing discipline and the responsibility of clubs with a view to changing and strengthening them. They agreed to accelerate the introduction of closed circuit television, especially at grounds where problem matches are played. They agreed to ensure that perimeter fencing was in place and effective in those grounds. They agreed to investigate a practical scheme of membership cards for Football League, Football Association and European and international matches, in discussion with the European Football Association as necessary, reporting back to me within six weeks. They agreed to consider the introduction of more restrictions on the issue of tickets for problem matches—which should be ticket only. Should there be more flexibility, such as Sunday morning kickoffs? I am convinced that such arrangements should be considered by all those clubs. They also agreed to encourage more and better family enclosures at League grounds. They agreed to deal severely with any bad example set to supporters by players' behaviour on the pitch. They agreed, in advance of the Government's proposed legislation, to take action under existing powers to deal with the problem of alcohol at matches.

The Government will give the strongest possible support to the football authorities, and we are prepared to take action in many ways. It is clear that the Football Association and the Football League are the governing bodies of football in this country. They have to run their own sport, as all sports are run through the 140 governing bodies which we support in one way or another. They are responsible for generating their rules and for setting standards of behaviour both on the pitch and elsewhere. They must put their house in order, but we shall do all we can to help. We shall ensure that we take action in the following ways. Legislation will be introduced in England and Wales to control the sale of alcohol at grounds and on transport to grounds along the lines that have been successful in Scotland. I pay tribute to the report of the late Frank McElhone in 1976 which has become the guiding light for legislation in Scotland and for us.

Under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 designation will be extended to clubs in divisions three and four of the Football League. Initially, it will be to grounds with a record of crowd violence. The guidelines and the green code will be reviewed.

The public order White Paper based on our conclusions following the review is to be published shortly, and our proposals for legislation in the autumn. Some new proposals will assist in preventing and controlling football hooliganism.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will be discussing with the police what improvement can be made to their effectiveness in dealing with football violence—in particular, in obtaining evidence to bring more serious charges where appropriate.

My right hon. and learned Friend is encouraging magistrates to make full use of their powers, including detention and attendance centre sentences. I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about the importance of young people, who have nothing to do with watching and enjoying football—our national sport—but who seek to disrupt games. I am convinced that it would be an effective deterrent if they were certain that they would be put away on a Saturday afternoon at an attendance centre when a match was on. Many other people would perceive it to be an effective deterrent.

We shall do all that we can to ensure that everyone understands the full range of legal sentencing available. We shall encourage bail conditions forbidding attendance at matches and we are drawing attention to the Court of Appeal guidelines on sentencing violent offenders.

Is the Minister prepared to recommend to his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary some examination of the idea of specialised police teams to deal with the problem of soccer violence?

I shall draw that important point to my right hon. and learned Friend's attention. It is something that he would have to consider, but it may well have a part to play.

I have not heard from the Opposition parties on our spectator violence report despite my suggestion that they might make comments and observations. I told the House some months ago that 17 organisations and authorities had provided evidence and opinions. I should welcome any contribution or commitment that the hon. Gentleman could give and I would convey it to my right hon. and learned Friend.

For matches abroad, we shall consult other Governments about giving better publicity to and perhaps strengthening last year's Council of Europe recommendation on football violence which I have already mentioned. We shall review how the diplomatic service can help in identifying troublemakers. We are considering arrangements for people convicted overseas to serve their sentences in this country. We shall seek to discourage travel agents from setting up special schemes for problem matches.

The hon. Gentleman made several points that 1 shall cover in correspondence with him. Our football clubs could become the focal point of many communities They could develop and generate facilities. The Sports Council has helped in many cases. The urban aid programme and the derelict land grants scheme, in addition to normal local authority expenditure, have helped many football clubs to develop as the focal point for young people in the community.

When I consider the number of people who attended professional football matches in the 1950s compared with the present time, I believe that the time is long overdue for urgent action. The great weight of public opinion is behind everything that we do. We must approach the problem in many ways.

I pay tribute to the tremendous contribution made by the Football Trust, which is financed by the pools promoters and the spot-the-ball competition. It has provided the better part of £20 million for ground improvements, not just under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, but for all-weather pitches for youngsters, not just for the club members but for the people within the community. Football must now somehow compete with the ever-increasing demand of public attention and competition from alternative sports.

What we are seeking to do represents a substantial package of new measures from the Government to support the new tough line that the Football Association and Football League have agreed to take. We must take urgent action with a package of measures as we approach the close season.

Those people involved in professional football and those responsible for clubs must sit down and rigorously examine what they want to do to see how they can save our great national game domestically and internationally—