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Commons Chamber

Volume 87: debated on Tuesday 19 November 1985

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House Of Commons

Tuesday 19 November 1985

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

Prayers

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Private Business

LOTHIAN REGION (EDINBURGH WESTERN RELIEF ROAD) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

PETERHEAD HARBOURS (SOUTH BAY DEVELOPMENT) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

Oral Answers To Questions

Education And Science

Teachers' Dispute

1.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' dispute.

2.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the current teachers' dispute.

10.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the current position in the teachers' dispute.

11.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the present position in the teachers' pay dispute.

14.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the teachers' pay dispute.

17.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on the teachers' dispute.

A series of offers have been made to the teacher unions. The package of reforms and pay improvements offered in the Burham committee on 12 September had the Government's endorsement and represented a basis for a worthwhile settlement, beneficial to teachers and pupils alike. All offers have been rejected by the unions even as a basis for further negotiations. The reconstituted teachers' panel met on 11 November, but failed to agree a resumption of negotiations.

Meanwhile, the appalling, deliberate disruption of children's education continues. In the light of the offers that have been made and the union's unwillingness to negotiate, there can be no justification for continued industrial action. The Government will continue to work for a lasting settlement that will raise pay levels for good teachers, reform the career structure, improve promotion prospects and clarify teachers' professional duties. Only such a settlement can lead to progress towards our objectives for better schools for pupils of all abilities.

Is it not abundantly clear that the Secretary of State is failing to satisfy this most moderate of professions, although he has reduced the National Union of Teachers representation on the Burnham committee? Is it not a fact that there can be a settlement only if he makes money immediately available to the local authorities? I do not for a moment doubt the sincerity of the Secretary of State, but in view of the unprecedented damage that he is causing to the education service, he should resign immediately.

It is not I who brought about the ending of the NUT majority on the Burnham teachers' panel. It was brought about by the individual decision of thousands of teachers who, of their own free will, left membership of the NUT. It is not the Government who have failed to act in the dispute. We have made a substantial, though conditional, offer. It is the teacher unions which have consistently rejected all proposals to negotiate.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the pupils in my constituency of Cannock and Burntwood are being singled out for punitive action by the NUT? Does he agree that, when there is £1,250 million of new money on the table, that is a disgraceful performance, and that the best service that the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers could do would be to come back to the negotiating table without imposing totally unreasonable conditions?

I agree with my hon. Friend. The teachers' unions seem to be putting children absolutely last in their considerations.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, which I am sure are applauded and agreed with totally by my right hon. and hon. Friends. Given the difficulties that we experienced last year and the year before on teachers' pay negotiations, has my right hon. Friend any proposals for abolishing the Burnham committee and introducing something different so that negotiations will be easier for all concerned? I believe that most teachers would like to return to work and would accept the Government's offer. Unfortunately, many of their unions do not want them to do so.

I am ready to take into account any proposal that would enable more sensible negotiations to occur. Unless there is a willingness to negotiate, changes in the negotiating machinery will not make much difference.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that even among moderate teachers there is great concern about the way in which appraisal might work? Will he take this opportunity to say once again that any system of appraisal could be instituted only on the basis that it operated fairly and that teachers realised that? Will he confirm that the idea behind appraisal is to help teachers to improve their own work, and not to punish them for any shortcomings?

Precisely. The purpose of appraisal is to further the professional development and career prospects of teachers. It is coupled with the much expanded and more effective in-service training system that we propose. Taxpayers' money has been set aside to run pilot schemes on appraisal but, sadly, these are being blocked by the teachers' unions, which will not agree to carry them forward. I hope very much that they will change their attitude and allow pilot schemes to go ahead.

Did my right hon. Friend notice that the National Union of Teachers chose to carry out its lobby of Parliament a couple of weeks ago in the week after half term, rather than during half term, thereby causing unnecessary and avoidable disruption to its members' schools? Does he agree that that undermines its claim to have serious concern for the children?

The teachers' unions seem explicitly to be following a campaign of maximum disruption to children's schooling at minimum cost to teachers' pay.

To assist the settlement of a damaging dispute, will my right hon. Friend reconsider the proposals made by his distinguished Conservative predecessor, that a review body should be set up, provided that all disruption ends at once?

A review body is meant for occasions when normal negotiations are not easily practicable. Negotiations are possible given good will by the teachers. It is important to bear in mind the employers' capacity to pay. Therefore, negotiations should involve employers as well as employees.

The Secretary of State is responding to five or six questions, but is it not a fact that nearly all of them have been tabled by Conservative Members? There are about 20 questions asking the right hon. Gentleman to make a statement on the dispute, and almost all of them have been tabled by Tory Members. [Interruption.] When will Conservative Members realise that shouting at me is not an answer to the teachers' damaging dispute, and when will the Secretary of State realise that new money must be put on the table to give teachers a professional wage? A moderate section of the community is asking only for the right to teach our children with a semblance of dignity, and the right hon. Gentleman is refusing to give them that, although he gave Johnson Matthey about £¼ billion overnight without questioning any of us.

My hon. Friends had questions early on the Order Paper on this subject. That is why there is a barrage of questions from them. The hon. Gentleman seems constantly to ignore the fact that the Government have made available a substantial sum of extra money in addition to normal pay increases, conditional upon the teachers accepting professional terms of duty. The teachers' unions have so far refused even to consider or discuss that offer.

Does the Secretary of State appreciate that he has succeeded in demoralising the entire education world? Does he not understand that teachers are as important to law and order, for example, as the police, and vital to Britain's future. It is essential that teachers be given their proper status.

I agree about the importance of teachers. I am repeatedly being told that teachers' morale has collapsed and that I am responsible for that. I am accused of starving education of resources and of continually denigrating teachers. In fact, public spending per child in schools has never been as high as it is now. I do not denigrate teachers. I recognise the difficulties that they face in dealing with a difficult job, and I applaud what they have achieved, but I believe that there is scope for better schools, and that can be achieved only by the teachers themselves.

Does the Secretary of State not realise that the Burnham committee is useless as a negotiating machinery for settling this strike? Is it not about time that he heeded the advice, not only of Opposition Members, but of his colleagues, and set up a pay review board to look properly and effectively at teachers? Does he agree that to many teachers the Burnham machinery is seen as an impediment to a settlement?

No. I do not accept that. Given a willingness to negotiate, which the teachers' unions have so far signally failed to show, I do not think that there would be any difficulty in using the present system.

If the Secretary of State is waiting for a parent backlash to compel teachers to drop their justified claims and industrial action, does he not realise that he is whistling in the wind? Parents cannot understand why the Government fell over themselves to pay bumper increases to judges, generals and senior civil servants. They gave them what we were told were incentives to deal with low morale. Parents see low morale among teachers, and they see teachers pursuing a justified claim to restore their salaries to what they were 10 years ago, when they were broadly comparable with other professional groups, managers and engineers. That is what this claim is all about, and the Government should respond to it with a sense of urgency and fair play.

I am not relying on any such assumption. The Government have recognised the need to offer pay that will recruit, retain and motivate teachers of the right quality—good and effective teachers—in just the same way as the extra money, although on a very much smaller scale in aggregate, was offered in order to recruit, retain and motivate civil servants and the judiciary of the right quality.

Does the Secretary of State recall that a few months ago there was a vote in the House on top salaries? Some would say that the House was over-weighted, like the Burnham committee, in favour of one side. The result was that Cabinet Members and all their cronies on the Back Benches voted to ensure that the Lord Chancellor received an adequate salary increase, according to their criterion. If that can be applied to their own people, and if everyone else on top salaries can get treated to an average 17 per cent. increase, why cannot the teachers be treated similarly? Surely the truth is that Tory government is all about double standards—different pay for different groups of people.

The Lord Chancellor does not take the increase that was voted for him. Secondly, the Government are concerned with better standards for children of all ability, and not with double standards.

Should not certain of the teaching trade unions change their attitudes towards their professional responsibilities and conditions of service, and instead of targeting certain constituencies for strikes and disruption, should they not be explaining the benefits of the Government's latest package and resuming normal working, while meaningful negotiations get under way?

Yes. Nothing can justify the behaviour of a profession in disrupting the education of its charges.

If the Secretary of State is so confident about his conduct of educational affairs, why will he not accept the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) and allow a review, so that we can establish whether his confidence is well placed, or misplaced?

Because the Government believe it right that those who have to find the money—although in this case it is ratepayers' money and taxpayers' money—should be part of the negotiation.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that any settlement of the teachers' dispute must enhance the team work between heads and teachers in schools?

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), the chairman of the parliamentary Labour education committee, recently told a meeting of teachers at the House, "The heads are your enemies"? Was that not disgraceful? Will that not damage schools deeply, and damage children? Is that not typical of what some Labour politicians have said? Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw it?

If it was said, I am sure that it could not have been meant. I should like to repeat the tribute that I paid in the House to the heads and many of their deputies for bearing such a burden to keep schools open for their children, and to those teachers, in all unions—particularly one union—who have refused to disrupt.

Is the Secretary of State aware that many hon. Members on each side of the House have found his failure this afternoon to announce a new peace initiative to end the 10 months long teachers' dispute deeply disturbing?

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has still not replied to my letter of 25 October, in which I urged him to set up an independent inquiry into teachers' salaries, with a remit to report as soon as possible, and with a firm commitment to fund its findings? If he is not going to resign, is it not about time that he stopped wringing his hands, started behaving like a Secretary of State, and took constructive action to bring justice for the teachers and end the disruption in our schools?

It is not the Government who are intransigent. In recent months, one side has been making offers, and the teachers' side has been saying no, no and no again. It is perverse for the hon. Gentleman to blame the Government and urge us to take a new initiative. He knows from his local authority party colleagues, who lead for the employers in the negotiations, that we face people who have not moved an inch from their position of, "Pay us more now and we will talk about reform later."

As for the hon. Gentleman's suggestion of a review on pay only, that is the last thing that the Government would contemplate. We are convinced that it is right that conditions of service and career structure must go with pay.

Parental Choice

3.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has for widening parental choice about their children's schools.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science
(Mr. Bob Dunn)

The Education Act 1980 substantially improved parental rights in the school admission process. There are no present plans to take this further.

Is my hon. Friend aware that a number of parents of children in my constituency of Basildon were dissatisfied with the schools appeals procedure this year? Will he encourage local education authorities to examine the procedures to ensure that the spirit of the Education Act, giving real parental choice, is complied with?

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his determination in promoting the interests of his constituents, but it would be perfection indeed if every child could be admitted to the school chosen by his or her parents. That cannot be guaranteed. I understand that nationally over 90 per cent. of parents are successful in securing a place at their prefered school. The latest information available to me suggests that about 40 per cent. of cases taken to appeal are decided in favour of the parents.

Does the Minister agree that the most important thing is to ensure that all schools are good enough for all children to attend? Will he persuade the Secretary of State to stop fantasising about making direct grants to primary schools and persuade him instead to ensure, first, that adequate resources are made available for the settlement of the teachers' dispute, and secondly, that there is an adequate supply of books in schools so that pupils do not have the problem of being unable to do their homework because books are not available?

The Government will continue to consider and contemplate ways of improving parental choice. However, I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government were the first Government to take steps to enshrine parental rights in legislation. When in office, the hon. Gentleman's party never did any such thing.

Research Funding

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is satisfied with the geographical spread of the research funding provided by his Department.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science
(Mr. Peter Brooke)

Yes, Sir.

Is my hon. Friend aware that out of nearly 2,500 Medical Research Council jobs in England and Wales that are funded by his Department, only 150 are located north of Cambridge? Does he not think that this is a matter of concern? The medical profession in the north of England certainly regards it as such.

There are nine such units in Scotland, as well as five in the north of England. In the context of Medical Research Council units, over the years there has been a pattern of almost as many opening as closing. Closure normally takes place on the retirement of the director of the unit. The location of the subsequent unit is determined by the choice of director. It is a fact that many of these are located in the south of England.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that injury is the largest cause of death and disability among the under-40s? Is he further aware that the trauma unit, the only one in the United Kingdom, is in Manchester, and that it is under threat? Is this not disgraceful? Will he please look at it once again?

I give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that I shall study the matter again. However, he will know, because of his deep knowledge, that Medical Research Council decisions are based on scientific judgment.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a university department without a research capacity is unlikely to be able to maintain the standards that we expect of university departments? Although my hon. Friend may therefore feel that it is necessary to contemplate the closure of individual university departments on economic grounds, will he not contemplate removing research capacity from departments and introducing teaching only departments into our universities?

I take the spirit of my hon. Friend's question. About one half of the £1 billion that is spent on research through my Department's funding is spent across the nation by the University Grants Committee, through the university system. Approximately two thirds of research council money is similarly spent on higher education. There is, therefore, a wide geographical spread.

Is the Minister aware that he cannot possibly be satisfied with the regional distribution of research, when the national total is so miserable? Is he further aware that after allowing for the increase of £15 million in the science budget this year over the total planned last year for this year, nevertheless, in real terms, the Advisory Board for the Research Council estimates that the volume of research activity will fall by 8 per cent. in the current decade?

I am conscious of the difference between the growth in the science vote, measured by gross domestic product deflator terms, which has grown by 8 per cent. since 1979, and the amount of science that it will buy, but the £45 million which my right hon. Friend has been able to secure in the most recent public expenditure announcement goes a long way towards restoring level funding for the balance of this decade.

Open University

5.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the funding of the Open University.

Since the letter announcing the university's grant for 1985 and indicated grants for 1986 and 1987 was issued in February, we have received 90 letters. A petition, with some 160,000 signatures, has been handed in to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister by the Open University students' association.

Does the Minister agree that these representations indicate support for the work of the university? How does a reduction in the funding of the Open University square with his Government's alleged commitment to adult and continuing education? Is not the university extremely cost-effective in terms of its distance learning techniques?

The petition to which I have referred shows that there is keen support for the Open University. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked the Open University visiting committee to make further funding recommendations. Its report will be issued shortly and my right hon. Friend will then announce his decisions. Some of the calculations on cost-effectiveness take student support into account. The cost-effectiveness of the institution per se compares very well with, that of other higher education institutions.

Is my hon. Friend aware of the contribution made by the Open University to those areas, such as Shrewsbury in Shropshire in my constituency, that do not have a university within easy travelling distance and, therefore, must make the maximum use of Open University services? Is my hon. Friend further aware that curtailing those services hits not only those rural areas but the disabled community and would not be welcomed by either side of the House?

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the manner in which the Open University has contributed to the spread of access throughout the country.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this year there were seven applicants for every two places in Scotland and, no doubt, similar figures for the rest of Britain? Is he also aware that an efficiency study has shown that the Open University has been run efficiently? As the Secretary of State appears to think that the main aim of education is to produce more science and technology graduates, does the hon. Gentleman accept that more generous funding would enable the Open University to produce more such graduates?

An efficiency study was carried out. It identified a number of areas in which savings could be made. The Open University has been pursuing them—

They were between £2 million and £3·5 million. I congratulate the Open University on the movement in student ratios which means that 50 per cent. of students study science, engineering and technology courses. In the decisions that were announced earlier this year, the Government put forward a further £360,000 to sustain that movement.

How much funding for the Open University comes from private sources, especially industry?

Of that part of the university's income which is grant and student income, 85 per cent. comes from the state. That is the percentage if one omits summer school fees. The figure is 81 per cent. if summer school fees are included. The Open University is to be warmly congratulated on the manner in which it has developed continuing education courses with industry.

Will the hon. Gentleman grasp the fact that, given the parlous state of the British economy, more highly trained people are needed? Because the Open University is a capital-intensive institution, it could take on 20,000 more students now and train them for the country, if it were not for the Government's parsimonious attitude. Will the hon. Gentleman heed Lord Briggs' statement just last week that; because of the expansion of the 30 to 60 age group, we need a second Open University? That is the size of the challenge. When will the Government wake up to what the Open University could do for our country?

One would not think from that question that, in the five years between 1974 and 1979, when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power, there were 97,000 disappointed applicants, whereas in the past seven years of this Government there have been only 87,000 disappointed applicants.

6.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many applications were received by the Open University for undergraduate places for the forthcoming academic year; and how many of these were unable to find a place; and how these figures compare with previous years.

The Open University has received 56,000 applications for its undergraduate programme for 1986. It has not been able to offer places to 23,900 of those applicants. That is the highest number since 1976, when 28,800 could not be offered a place.

Does the Minister accept that this has been a record year for applications? In response to the visiting committee's report, how does he expect to measure up to the legitimate expectations and hopes of many applicants, especially those in rural areas where there are no other immediate means of further education and training? Can he repeat the assurance given by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on 25 June this year, when he said that no student has to wait more than one year to be admitted?

Yes. In answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I am delighted to say that, despite the scare noises that have been made about the fees currently being exerted by the Open University, applications continue to rise in the way that the hon. Gentleman described.

On the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, of course I recognise the need that exists in parts of the country, but the Open University will maintain its level of students in 1986 at its current level.

How many of the applications were from people who wished to study the arts and the humanities? Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to contradict the impression that is now abroad that the Government are somehow biased against those who wish to study the arts? Would that not be a strange and perverse attitude for a Tory Government to take?

I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend. The Government retain their support for the arts, which has always pervaded our party. Half of the present student intake is doing science, engineering and technology, and that figure has increased.

Is the Minister aware that in Scotland, for example, there were over 7,000 applicants this year for only 2,000 places at the Open University? In view of the indisputable fact that the Tory Government's cuts are excluding thousands of potential students from their only chance of improving their education, is the Minister not ashamed of the fact that he is slamming shut the door of what was once called the Open University—one of the Labour Government's finest achievements'.

The hon. Member may deploy his rhetoric for as long as he likes, but, as I said earlier, in a shorter period of time his Government disappointed more applicants than our Government have over a longer period.

Religious Teaching

7.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent representations he has received from the Moslem community about the teaching of religion in schools.

My right hon. Friend has received no representations of this sort in the recent past.

Following the Swann committee's recommendations, what is my hon. Friend doing to help teachers who need additional training in that respect?

The Government have decided to extend the in-service training grant scheme to include training and are responding to ethnic diversity. We have taken some measures with regard to initial training, and we are anxious to increase the supply of ethnic minority teachers. We are therefore considering the comments received on the consultation document on that subject which we issued last July.

Does the Minister read the Daily Jang which is the most widely read Urdu newspaper? Has he read the article about the need for more language laboratories for teachers who are trying to teach Urdu in schools?

I am bound to say that I have not read that publication as frequently as I should. I shall, of course, now do so and take on board what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Open University

The following question stood upon the Order Paper.

8.

to ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has for further assistance to the Open University.

University Teachers

9.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many university mathematics and science lecturers have been appointed over the last year and are expected to be appointed over the next year.

Statistics on university academic appointments generally in 1984–85 are not yet available. However, about 260 new posts in mathematics, science and engineering were created last year under the "new blood" and information technology initiatives. Further new posts in those disciplines will be established over the coming year as a result of those initiatives and of the engineering and technology programme announced in March.

How does the Minister respond to the National Audit Office report, which states that his higher education policies have led to unnecessary chaos and disruption? Is it not ironic that he is now having to recruit new posts, especially in the sciences, when his policy only four years ago led to massive cuts in the same higher education posts?

The report of the National Audit Office is the subject of question No. 12. The reductions effected between 1981 and 1984 were in response to public expenditure restraints. It is widely acknowledged that there have also been benefits flowing from the new blood over and above the replenishment to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

Does the Minister not firmly agree that the whole future economic prosperity of this country depends on a highly trained and educated labour force, particularly in science and technology? Why are the Government insisting that all university science and mathematics departments should at least consider the implications of a 2 per cent. cut for each of the next five years? It is appalling that people should be taken away from their teaching and research roles to spend a considerable amount of time planning for cuts which clearly will be economically distastrous for the country.

The hon. Member knows perfectly well that if the UGC had not included science, engineering and technology in its planning exercise, he would have been the first to be on his feet to say that the cuts in the arts and humanities were too severe.

University Funding

12.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he is taking in the light of the National Audit Office report on university funding; and if he will make a statement.

The National Audit Office report itself identifies some action that has already been taken. My right hon. Friend will consider whether any further action is necessary in the light of any report the Committee of Public Accounts may make to the House.

Is the Minister satisfied with his complacent response? The National Audit Office report shows that this Government's record on university education has led to a reduction in staffing ratios and has affected the balance of staff within departments and between departments. The reality of this Government's record is that it has damaged the fabric of higher education. We need action, not words, from the Minister.

It is perfectly true that there has been a reduction in funding for higher education, particularly in the universities, from 1981 onwards, but the staff-student ratio that has emerged is still consistent with maintaining quality within the system.

How will the gaps be filled at the senior levels with the highly qualified and able teachers and researchers that are identified in this report when there is a drift away from such posts by university teachers, who are demoralised by the present pay levels?

The hon. Gentleman will find that there is greater concern within the university system about the age profile lower down the system rather than at the top.

Is not the message of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report that cuts have a malign and perverse effect that is highly damaging to our nation's future? Why does the autumn statement outline further cuts for higher education over the next three years?

It is a consistent part of public expenditure policy on higher education that efficiency savings of approximately 1 per cent. per annum will continue to be looked for.

Schools (Repairs And Maintenance)

13.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has for expenditure on arrears in maintenance and repairs to Britain's schools.

If local education authorities take advantage of the scope for efficiency savings and contain costs generally, the Government's plans for expenditure in 1986–87 provide the opportunity to redeploy resources in support of local priorities, and these might include the repair and maintenance of school buildings.

Has the Minister seen the report from the Confederation of Parent-Teachers' Associations? It points to the fact that 52 per cent. of primary schools and 72 per cent. of secondary schools have dilapidated fabric? It speaks of leaking roofs, draughty windows, rotten window frames, decaying plaster, dilapidated wiring—a general decline in standards. Does the Minister intend to do anything about that? Does he realise that Conservative voters do not believe that the Government can save money on the back of education? Why does not the Minister respond to what they want?

We take seriously the concern expressed in the report to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I must make it quite clear that the problem that we face is the accumulated result of inadequate expenditure on the repair and maintenance of building stock over many years, and under successive Governments.

Has my hon. Friend any comment to make on those Labour authorities which are well aware of the shortcomings in school buildings but refuse to spend money in areas that return Conservative councillors?

I condemn such action by any local authority controlled by the Labour party. However, I am not at all surprised that such policies are being practised.

Prime Minister

Engagements

Q1

asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be giving a reception for Fellows of the Royal Society.

Will my right hon. Friend find time today to welcome the enormous measure of all-party support that she received in the House yesterday following her statement on the Anglo-Irish agreement? Will my right hon. Friend reflect with sadness on the extremist reaction of certain hon. Members from the Province? Does she not agree that surely the time to judge the agreement is in two or three years, when it has had a chance to work? Do not those who prejudge the agreement misjudge the very real yearning of the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland, for a new and constructive approach towards achieving peace and stability in the Province?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I very much welcome the reception given to the agreement. I believe that most people wish to give it a really good chance to work, and that most people will take a constructive approach and condemn those who use violence to defeat democracy.

Is the Prime Minister aware that 72 per cent. of the electorate, including 62 per cent. of Conservative voters, now believe that a freeze on the testing and deployment of nuclear weapons is the way ahead at Geneva? Has the right hon. Lady told President Reagan that the Government are prepared to have the Polaris system counted in in the discussions and to freeze the purchase of the Trident if that would help the peace process?

I do not believe that either the independent French or independent British nuclear deterrent should be counted in in the discussions, for obvious reasons. If there are negotiations between the two super powers on the broad basis of equality, balance and verification, to count in the British and French would mean that we would determine exactly what the United States says, and the right hon. Gentleman must see that that would be utterly impossible.

In view of the meeting taking place in Geneva between President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev, does my right hon. Friend agree that, while it is imperative that there is a positive result from the conference, it must be remembered that unless the human rights issue is included—rights which, regrettably, do not exist in the Soviet Union—and unless Mr. Gorbachev adheres to the Helsinki final act, nothing positive will result from the conference?

It is, of course, imperative that we continue to have a sure defence. I believe that the human rights issue is on the agenda at Geneva. It would be wise to wait to see what comes out of Geneva, rather than attempt to prophesy.

Will the Prime Minister confirm that as the Government expect to receive £4·75 billion next year from the sale of British Gas and other public assets, the tax cuts that she proposes for March will be wholly financed by those sales?

No. The right hon. Gentleman should wait for the Budget before talking about tax cuts. We will not be in a position to determine what will happen in the Budget until we have the latest economic forecast, which usually comes in February. That will depend upon many things, and it is thoroughly mischievous to try to say in advance what will happen.

I take it that the Prime Minister does not deny the Chancellor's estimate that £4·75 billion is to be obtained through asset sales. If that is the case, what other means of financing the tax cuts is possible? Is not the Prime Minister trying to set up a smokescreen to obscure the truth that, having increased taxes year after year when she promised to cut them, she now proposes to sell off national assets to buy a few squalid votes?

The privatisation programme stands in its own right, because we believe in putting more companies into the hands of the people, with the possibility of enhanced share purchase. Even if the proceeds of privatisation are added to the public sector borrowing requirement, that figure as a proportion of GDP is expected to be the lowest since 1971–72. Will the right hon. Gentleman contrast that with the record of the Labour Government in 1975–76, on which the equivalent PSBR now would be £33 billion?

The right hon. Lady flagrantly and pathetically avoids answering my question, so I shall repeat it. If she proposes to raise £4·75 billion next year from the sale of public assets, what possible alternative financing is there for the tax cuts that she proposes?

Public expenditure is projected to remain broadly stable in real terms over the survey period, whether those asset sales are included or excluded. I do not propose to make any statement about taxation cuts. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor particularly did not make any statement about fiscal adjustments. The right hon. Gentleman is intentionally being thoroughly mischievous.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the tragedies of Ireland is that those who should take the lead in ending the maiming and killing of people in our land are the very people who talk of treachery, where only courage and vision have been shown at this time? Is it not important that those fanatics, whether they be IRA or Protestant, should seek a way in which all peoples can live at peace and be united in this land?

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I believe that men and women of good will in Northern Ireland, in the whole of the United Kingdom and in the Republic should join in defeating the IRA.

Reverting to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), as the Prime Minister says that the equivalent of the just over £10 billion PSBR in 1977 would now be £33 billion, does that not illustrate how seriously our currency has been devalued under her management?

No one in the House could exceed the right hon. Gentleman's own record on devaluation.

Will my right hon. Friend comment on the report in The Guardian today that she may be having second thoughts about the Anglo-Irish agreement? Is she aware that a large number of reasonable, non-extremist English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish unionists would welcome a reconsideration?

I think the general view is that the agreement should be given a chance, that it is contructive, and that it is welcomed because it should get everyone who believes that violence should not be a part of democratic life to join in defeating violence.

Q2.

asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

What does the Prime Minister intend to do about the decline in traditional industries such as engineering? It is deplorable in a community like mine, which has one of the main railway engineering workshops in the United Kingdom. BREL is closing that workshop. When will the Prime Minister reverse the decline and do something about unemployment?

Because of reduced maintenance requirements of modern rail rolling stock the work force of British Rail Engineering at Springburn is to be reduced from 1,680 to 460. We cannot alter that. The new rolling stock requires less maintenance. I understand that the Scottish Development Agency has undertaken a study to make recommendations on how to generate employment and has made suggestions about how best to go about it.

Has my right hon. Friend had drawn to her attention the article by the political editor of the Mail on Sunday to the effect that the Government have abandoned their plans for rate reform in England and Wales? In view of her very firm commitment during her speech on the Loyal Address, can she confirm that that remains Government policy?

Yes. I hope that a Green Paper will be published early in the new year.

Q3.

asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

Will the Prime Minister now agree with even her own supporter, the CBI, which has called for at least £1 million more to be put next year into spending on contruction and training to create jobs? Will she agree to that, instead of sucking up to the electorate with more promises of tax cuts?

The CBI stresses in its proposals that any increase in spending on certain areas must be contained within the same overall total. It also says that employers are more inclined to believe that the level of unemployment results from excessive pay increases, overmanning, poor productivity and management failures rather than from Government policies.

Q4.

s asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

Has my right hon. Friend noticed the hefty sentences handed out by courts yesterday and last week to bunches of brutal thugs and rapists? Will she join me in congratulating the judges who have indicated that we will not tolerate violence of that kind, be it against male of female, be it done by black or white? Is not that a message that we must hand out loud and clear?

I agree with my hon. Friend that some of the crimes that we have seen recently warrant very serious sentences indeed. The sentences are justified on the basis of punishment for the offender, as a deterrent to others and to protect the law-abiding citizen.

Q5.

s asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Reassuring as it is to the House that the right hon. Lady knows that human rights are on the agenda in Geneva, may I ask whether she will undertake to use every possible opportunity to emphasise to the Soviet authorities that mutual trust between nations requires that they should comply with human rights within their own countries, and in particular that a modest gesture, such as the release of those comparatively few Jewish people who have been waiting for many years to join their families outside, would do a power of good and create much goodwill for the Soviet Union?

The answer is, yes, to both parts of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question. As he knows, we frequently raise the matter both in general and in particular cases. My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary did so when he last met Mr. Shevardnadze. The matter will again be raised in Geneva. I respectfully suggest that we would all be very pleased if rather more than a moderate gesture were forthcoming.

Q6.

asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 November.

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that there are some on the Tory Benches who believe that the Anglo-Irish agreement will tend to increase rather than diminish the level of violence? Does she further recognise that that view is widely shared by Ulster Unionist Catholics as well as by people throughout the Province? Concerning the detail of the agreement, may we have an assurance that the representations by the Government of the Republic at the Anglo-Irish conference will be made public on all occasions?

The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question is that I hope he will join in thoroughly condemning all who resort to violence, and will make that perfectly clear. The answer to the second point, about representations at the intergovernmental conference, is that they would not normally be published.

Does the Prime Minister consider that distinguished Member of the Dublin Parliament, Senator Mary Robinson, to be an illiterate extremist who has thrown away the advances made in this document by her resignation, announced this morning, from membership of the Irish Labour party

"on the basis that it was negotiated without the involvement in any way of the majority community in the North and was unacceptable to all sections of Unionist opinion, and not just to extremists."

I do not believe that the agreement is unacceptable to all shades of Unionist opinion. Part of its purpose is to give them greater security and greater assurance about their future.

Bill Presented

Crown Agents (Amendment)

Mr. Timothy Raison, supported by Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, Mr. Secretary Brittan and the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented under Standing Order No. 111 (Procedure upon Bills whose main object is to create a charge upon the public revenue) a Bill to amend section 17 of the Crown Agents Act 1979; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 11.]

Statutory Instruments, &C

By the leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the three motions relating to statutory instruments.

Ordered,

That the draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Modification) Order 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments &c.
That the draft Cosmetic Products (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments &c.
That the draft Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments &c.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Questions To Ministers

3.32 pm

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will know of my concern about rail services from Bradford and therefore you will understand my disappointment that my question to the Secretary of State for Transport listed for 2 December came out of the ballot at No. 38.

You will understand how my disappointment turned to dismay, Mr. Speaker, when I found that the Conservative Member for York (Mr. Gregory) in the same selection of questions had questions Nos. 1 and 30. You will understand how my dismay turned to bewilderment when I found that the Conservative Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) in the same selection for questions had questions Nos. 44 and 55.

It is not for me to speculate about the way in which those who busy themselves planting questions may have been working overtime on this occasion, or to seek your advice, Mr. Speaker, about whether in future we should all put in two questions in the hope of settling for the best of two. However, I seriously suggest on this occasion that it would be best if the selection for questions could be conducted again because there is clear evidence that some hon. Members may have taken advantage by submitting more than one question for this question period.

I must make it plain to the House that only one question may be put to the same Minister, and evidently there has been a mistake. If it is of any assistance to the hon. Member, I propose to attend the shuffle this afternoon to see these matters for myself.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) has made the important point that two questions were placed in the ballot by one hon. Member. Does that negate the ballot and should a further ballot now take place?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black? A Labour Member is balloted to come out later this week or next with Question No. 1 to the Prime Minister, and Question No. 40 or thereabouts, and the Table Office has decided that question No. 1 should stand.

I intend to attend the shuffle this afternoon and I shall look into these matters.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If hon. Members wish to table a question, should they not go into the Table Office and do so themselves?

Orders Of The Day

Okehampton Bypass (Confirmation Of Orders) Bill

Considered.

3.36 pm

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

I bring this Bill before the House because I genuinely believe that it is the right thing to do in the interests of the environment, the people of Okehampton, and the economy of south-west England.

I think that everyone agrees that a bypass of Okehampton is urgently needed. I need only pray in aid The Times of last Wednesday, which said:

"The true blight is the endless growling flow of heavy lorries. They wind through at a rate of 1,300 per day, darkening the front rooms, playing havoc with the old coping stones on the Baptist Chapel and threatening at any minute to barge, uninvited, into a hotel bar. It is a miracle that there have been so few accidents.
No wonder everyone, from local trades people to Cornish Members of Parliament, is champing at the bit for a bypass."
The people of Okehampton have suffered too long from the thunder of heavy traffic and damage to their environment. The economies of west Devon and Cornwall desperately need better communications with the rest of the country. It is necessary now to make a decision. For 17 years we have been arguing about which side of Okehampton the bypass should go. It is becoming a British weakness that we can never make up our minds. I think that most people would agree that the matter should be settled, and none more so than my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) who so strongly supports the Bill but who, sadly, will not be here today to advocate it because of his illness. I know that he would like us to remember his great interest in the Bill.

The contention is whether the bypass should go to the north or the south of the town. The Bill is straightforward. It seeks to confirm the compulsory purchase orders for a bypass route to the south of Okehampton. It is introduced under section 6(3) of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Act 1945. That Act provides that, in these circumstances, the Bill requires only a Report and Third Reading in both Houses. Its two schedules are the compulsory purchase orders that require confirmation.

I wish to concentrate my remarks on the environmental aspects of the scheme. I shall leave other hon. Members to cover other policy aspects to which I had to have regard when deciding about this road. They are the desperate and urgent need for west Devon and Cornwall to be linked properly to the national road network which is fundamental to regional development and is an integral part of our national policy for roads, the need for economy in road building and the need to conserve agricultural land.

I emphasise that we are promoting the southern route because we believe on balance it is environmentally superior. It is my firm conviction that, in an area as unique as the countryside round Okehampton, environmental factors must not only have high priority but must be the priority. Despite the 17 years of waiting that Okehampton residents have already suffered, if I had believed that the balance of environmental interest favoured any of the northern alternatives, I would not be here today presenting the Bill. But I do not so believe. I take the responsibility myself. This is not a decision taken by my Department; it is a decision taken by Ministers. I have looked carefully at all the alternative routes with an open mind. I am convinced personally that the southern route is the best option for the environment. I know that these matters are subjective, but I am in good company. My predecessors in this office were so convinced, including those in the last Labour Administration who first made the decision. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House have visited the area and I expect that many of them are equally convinced.

The independent landscape advisory committee visited the area on no fewer than six separate occasions. On each occasion it said that a southern route was best. The public were consulted in 1975 on a route to the south and two to the north. The majority preferred a southern route. So did the independent inspector. His report concluded, on balance, that environmental considerations favoured the southern route along with other relevant factors, and that the damage incurred in going north of Okehampton on any of the 13 possible variants of a northern route would be greater. The county councils of Devon and Cornwall, and all the affected local authorities in the area, are similarly convinced.

Why are so many people persuaded of the environmental case? Of course, the idea of driving a major road through Dartmoor national park is, at face value, highly undesirable. People imagine a noisy, ugly scar cutting across the moor. But the southern route does not go on the moor proper; it goes along the lower slopes of the northern escarpment, very near its boundary. The northern boundary of Dartmoor follows the lines of the railway and the old parish boundaries. Despite its incursion into the edge of the national park, a southern route would be better absorbed into the landscape and concealed than any northern route could be because it follows the natural contours. It would not affect the moor proper and people who want to get on to the moor would not have their access to it restricted. We know that the railway line, which our route parallels, is virtually invisible from any distance.

The Secretary of State talks about the "moor proper." Does he not agree that over the years, with the protection of national parks, there has been a constant problem of edging? In many senses, it is the edge of the moor that is almost the most precious part of it, and the House of Commons is charged with responsibility for looking after and safeguarding the national park as a whole, not concentrating on the moorland or the central part.

I am coming to national parks policy. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who will reply to the debate, will dwell on it, too. The right hon. Gentleman seems to be unaware that the eastern part of the road takes a section of road out of the national park. Not much credit has been given to us for that.

We are of course planning to do all we can to ensure that the route causes minimum noise, or visual intrusion, for the residents of Okehampton or visitors to Dartmoor. We plan to plant more than 70,000 trees, partly to replace the 1,000 or so that would be lost, but mainly to shield the road. We shall do all possible to get good tree cover as quickly as possible. We plan to build earth embankments to screen parts of the road from the town and its immediate surroundings and provide noise baffles on the viaduct at Fatherford. I am also looking at the possibility of additional tree cover in four areas in Meldon woods, two parts of East Hill and Fatherford, which will further screen the road, especially from higher up the slope. I am sure that we shall obtain the co-operation of the local owners. In short, there would be little evidence of the road from any distance once the tree cover is in place. I should like to make it clear to the House that we are open to any suggestions for further measures to improve the environment of the road within reasonable cost limits. That has always been my position.

My right hon. Friend has said that the road may be hidden by 70,000 trees—Heaven knows where he will put them all. Does he agree that the uniqueness of this part of Dartmoor is the swinging arc of a valley with a deep river at the bottom, and that the noise from the dual carriageway will have an adverse effect on Dartmoor in the valley and on the high moor to the south? Is it not noise that is the real factor?

If noise is the problem, the noise of the present A30 is appalling. That road is close to the middle of Okehampton and close to the castle as well. The scheme will take the traffic that now uses the A30 much further away. I thought that my hon. Friend would be rooting to get it built as quickly as possible.

Contrast the possible routes to the north of Okehampton. We cannot achieve this degree of concealment in that area. The countryside is different. Any road there would involve conspicuous and ugly 20 ft high embankments. Attempts to conceal these by tree planting would simply accentuate the inevitable scar. The road would be seen from Dartmoor, while the southern road would not. Any northern route involves a 90 ft high viaduct across the Okement river at Knowle—on the very doorstep of the town—twice as high as the viaduct on the southern route and very much more generally visible. That really would be an environmental disaster, especially for the national park.

I therefore conclude that the southern route is the best. But I must deal with the implications for national parks and open space. I concentrated on purely environmental issues first because in the heated debate which has been going on, inside and outside Parliament, the interests of the environment have been presented as being synonymous with maintaining the integrity of the boundaries of the Dartmoor national park. Those who favour the southern route have been dubbed as anti-environment, QED This is simply not true.

As the House knows, the compulsory purchase orders for the southern route were referred to a joint Select Committee, not because the route clipped the edge of the national park, but because the southern bypass would have taken a small amount of land, which was claimed to be public open space land and the exchange land proposals were found by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to be not good enough. There was also an area of land which was claimed to be open space and which the inspector recommended should be treated as such but for which exchange land could not effectively be offered prior to the inspector's view on the point. Opponents of the southern route argued before the Joint Committee—as they had argued at the public inquiry in the 58 days devoted to these issues—that a southern route should not be approved because it makes an incursion, albeit a slight one, into Dartmoor national park. They pointed to the alleged inconsistency between the route and the Government's policy to avoid such incursions unless there is a compelling need which
"could not be met by any reasonable alternative means"—
a quote from the Department of the Environment's policy circular 4/76, which was issued by the previous Labour Government. The objectors failed to convince the inspector but they did convince four out of six members of the Joint Committee.

My right hon. Friend has referred to the Joint Select Committee, which I had the dubious privilege to chair. He has spoken of the four to two majority as if that was in some way a denigration of the majority vote. Presumably he would not apply the same criteria to majority votes in the House or in general elections, which are rarely unanimous. Surely he should accept that a majority of four to two, or any other majority, is a mandate.

I do not accept that I used the words "four to two" in any derogatory sense. I can assure my hon. Friend that I entirely respect the majority. If, at the end of the process, the Bill receives the support of the majority of both Houses of Parliament, I am sure that he, equally, will respect that majority. It is this place and another place which jointly have the responsibility to come to a final verdict on the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee.

On which previous occasion have a Government sought to overrule a majority finding of a Select Committee which was set up under the procedure that has been described? Is there a precedent for the Government's reaction to a Committee of both Houses'? What does the right hon. Gentleman cite as his authority for doing what he seeks to do?

I am coming to the constitutional point and I shall give the precedent. The hon. Gentleman could have saved the House's time by asking the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), who I am sure would have put him right, as would many others.

The DOE circular 4/76 on national parks was a statement of the policy of the then Labour Government. It is also this Government's policy. Its publication in 1976 preceded the Government's announcement of their preferred route for the Okehampton bypass through the edge of the Dartmoor national park, by eight months. The then Labour Government clearly saw no discrepancy between their national parks policy and their preferred route for the Okehampton bypass. The circular provided for exceptions and Okehampton is just such an exception where, and I quote again,

"there is a compelling need which could not be met by any reasonable alternative means".
I know that there is a fear that even if the southern route is better environmentally, it may create some sort of precedent because it infringes the outskirts of a national park. People think, that if it goes ahead, a future Government may have no qualms about driving roads through national parks. I assure the House that it does not create such a precedent. We stand by the national parks policy of DOE circular 4/76. There are examples of major roads where we have deliberately sought to avoid national park boundaries, even where it would have been cheaper and more convenient to cross a national park. Indeed, to the east of Okehampton, the new route for the third stage of the Exeter to Okehampton A30 route was deliberately re-designed to take the road out of the national park altogether. Okehampton by pass, however, is an exception—an exception allowed for in the policy—which the Labour Government provided for.

I must also mention open space. It was, after all, open space and not national parks issues which prompted the setting up of the Joint Committee. We are always concerned to find land as replacement open space to exchange for the land we are taking. We have, of course, already offered four acres in Meldon woods for the two required for the road to cross it. Furthermore, I am now more than hopeful that we could acquire two significant pieces of land for public use—both of which are within easier reach of Okehampton and Dartmoor users than Meldon woods and total almost 30 acres. One plot is near the castle, the other on the lower slopes of East hill. All this would mean a total of well over 30 acres compared with approximately 22 acres of land now used by the public and needed for the road. This is, of course, in addition to the extra land we might get agreement on for landscaping purposes, which totals another eight acres or more. If Parliament approves this Bill, my Department will negotiate with the owners, who are, I understand, willing in principle to sell.

So it is on environmental grounds that I recommend this Bill to the House. I hope that what I have said so far will reassure hon. Members that this is the right solution and that we are doing all we can to accommodate people's concerns.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the swap of open spaces. Does he agree that part of the attraction of open space is that it is relatively quiet for people to go out in? Is there not a danger of much of the land that he is offering in exchange suffering considerably from noise pollution because of the motorway?

The hon. Gentleman clearly has not been there. If he tried to penetrate Meldon woods, as I have, he would find no conceivable way of getting more than two yards into it. It is a thicket. It may be quiet, but there is no point having a quiet place into which one cannot get. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) agrees that the exchange land that we are offering is infinitely more desirable than much of the land that has been taken.

I am sure that the House will be interested in the swap of open space because, as my right hon. Friend knows, the offer has been made only in the past couple of weeks. The Department took it upon itself to consider the matter only in July after my right hon. Friend's statement, when I raised it with him. The 10 national environmental and conservation bodies involved spent more than £50,000 petitioning the Joint Committee about open space. My right hon. Friend has subsequently found open space—whether it is comparable is another matter. Does he agree that those national environmental and conservation organisations should be repaid the £50,000 that they have spent on representing to the Joint Select Committee a point that they need not have made had the open space been offered before the Joint Select Committee was convened?

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is now castigating me for having found, admittedly at a late stage, the open space land that he seeks. That cannot be a cause of criticism, because had such land not been found he would presumably have been disappointed. I do not think that I can accept the principle that those who fight cases before the courts, at public inquiries or before parliamentary Committees should be recompensed whether they win or lose. I am sure he would agree that such a principle could lead to the disbursement of public money on causes, some of which he might not be very keen on.

I should like to mention two other secondary but important issues. Opponents of a southern route claim that a route to the north of Okehampton could be built very quickly and would take only five years as opposed to the three years needed to complete the route to the south. That is wrong. It would take at least nine years before we could get any northern route built. That estimate is the best we could achieve. It assumes that work on other national roads in the west country would be delayed while further effort is diverted to Okehampton.

On average, it takes 13 years to plan and build a new road. The so-called expert opinion, which believes that a northern route could be built in five years makes a number of assumptions about the way in which a northern route could he progressed that are simply not real. I regret as much as anyone the time it takes to implement roads schemes, but I find it inconsistent that some of the very people who most prize their rights to object and delay at public inquiries should suddenly believe that we should deny these rights to others, for that is effectively what a shorter time scale would involve.

It is as if the objectors to the southern route mattered while their opponents did not. Any material reduction in the time needed for this statutory process would mean that those against a northern route would have to lose their rights to be consulted and to object—rights which the objectors to the southern route have exercised to the full. Any northern route would be bitterly contested. No public inquiry could be reduced to the mere formality that seems to be implied by their timetable.

We would also have to cut corners in the design process. There is no ready prepared northern route waiting to be brought off the shelf and dusted off for public consideration. Furthermore, if the inspector did not accept the Department's proposal, and rejected any northern route on environmental grounds and recommended a southern route instead, we are back again to square one and more endless delays.

The second issue is the question of the constitutional propriety of a Government asking Parliament to override in a confirming Bill the report and recommendations of a Joint Committee that the compulsory purchase orders should not be approved. Some in this House and in another place have suggested that any challenge to the Joint Committee would be without constitutional precedent and wrong. I have to say again that the facts do not bear this out. No Committee of Parliament makes decisions; it makes recommendations to Parliament as a whole. The Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945 provided that, if a Joint Committee turned down compulsory purchase orders in this way, either the orders would fall or the Government would bring forward a confirming Bill. Indeed, that possibility is expressly provided for by the confirming Bill procedure laid down in the Act. There is a precedent for the confirming Bill procedure. It was used in 1949 to reverse two amendments reported by a Joint Committee which were regarded as issues of principle in the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Order. It was certainly the intention of the Government which introduced the legislation in 1945 that, where matters of policy or principle were concerned, they reserved the right to have the matter decided by Parliament as a whole.

The then Lord Privy Seal, Arthur Greenwood, said during the passage of the Bill:
"We hope to get on to the Floor of the House discussions which go to the root of Ministerial Orders … instead of allowing them to be conducted in Committee upstairs".—[Official Report, 14 November 1945; Vol. 415, c. 2181.]
This is such a case and the only way of achieving discussion on the Floor of the House, following consideration by a Joint Committee, is through introducing a confirming Bill. We are following exactly the procedure provided for in that Act.

The measure is desirable on environmental grounds, vital for the economy of the south-west of England, and essential for the quality of life of the residents of Okehampton and, dare I say it, their sanity. I hope that the House will give it a Third Reading.

4.1 pm

There will, of course, be many contentious issues argued in the debate, but perhaps I should begin with one or two points on which there is common ground.

I join the Secretary of State in wishing the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) a speedy recovery to complete health. May I suggest to him, as I am sure that he will read today's Hansard very closely, that he might like to read Tom Sharpe's comic novel "Blott on the Landscape", which deals in a hilarious way with a situation not dissimilar to that which we are discussing today.

I think that there is common ground that Okehampton needs a bypass and that such a provision is long overdue for the residents of Okehamptein, for the heavy goods vehicle and commercial vehicle drivers, for the tourist trade, and to develop the industry and commerce of the south-west of England. I suspect that on the matter of the Okehampton bypass and also on new roads generally there is a degree of common ground and common concern at the time that such matters take to reach a conclusion.

When I was in local government, before I came to this House, I was frequently impatient and often irritated by the seemingly interminable delays which took place and the endless objections to projects which I thought worth while and urgent. However, I was counselled by more experienced colleagues not to let impatience cloud my judgment and that irritation should not be allowed to override the rights of individuals. I suggest that, to some extent at least, impatience and irritation have a lot to do with the Secretary of State's decision to invoke the exceptionally rare method of proceedings of a confirmation Bill.

Before turning to that question in some detail, may I ask the Secretary of State whether he has yet responded to a letter of 8 November from Susan Hoyle of Transport 2000? Jonathan Roberts of Transport 2000 was refused admission to the Department of Transport press conference on the Okehampton bypass on 8 November. It was apparently on the ground that the Department of Transport feared that someone would damage the bypass exhibition. Although the Department has only once invited Transport 2000 to a press conference, it has never been refused access to a press conference.

Transport 2000 is an eminently respectable organisation. The Secretary of State may find some of its opinions incompatible with his own and he may feel discomfited at some of the criticism that it makes of him, but surely that is no reason for withholding the right of access to his press conferences. I trust that he will send his apologies to Susan Hoyle for that regrettable episode, and give a categorical asssurance that in future invitations will be sent to Transport 2000.

With regard to the procedure adopted by the Minister to overturn the decision of the Joint Committee which recommended a northern route, in his statement of 26 July this year, and again today, the Secretary of State drew attention, I think with some relish, to the precedent of the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board Bill. He said that it was done by the Labour Government and that there was nothing unique or unconstitutional about what the Government are now doing. The Secretary of State was making what he thought to be a perfectly fair debating point, but he neglected to tell the House, either on the earlier occasion or today, of the reaction of Conservative Members to the procedure. Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot, Mr. Charles Williams, Mr. On-Ewing, Mr. Manningham-Buller and others all savagely attacked the use of procedure.

Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot said:
"here is a decision of a Joint Committee of both Houses which the Minister in this Bill seeks to overturn. I suggest first of all that this is the use of the veto in circumstances to which it is quite inappropriate to apply it and to which it was never expected it would be applied."—[Official Report, 4 May 1949; Vol. 464, c. 1045.]
I also take that view.

The Secretary of State may very well say that circumstances were different, but they were different in two ways. First, they were Tories complaining bitterly at the actions of Labour Ministers. Secondly, in addition to the passage from the Official Report that the Secretary of State quoted, I remind him that Mr. Arthur Greenwood gave a pledge that the Act would not be used to beat down opposition. Mr. Greenwood said:
"I give the most specific assurance that we do not regard this Bill as a weapon with which to beat down opposition or to carry proposals through without due regard to all the interests who ought to be considered."—[Official Report, 14 November 1945; Vol. 415, c. 2180.]
We all understand the constitutional dictum that one Government cannot bind another Government, and the Secretary of State may very well say that he is not bound by such a pledge. Given his own cavalier disregard for the law, we could not expect him to be bound by such a pledge. His claim that he is acting according to precedent has a rather hollow ring to it.

The Joint Committee looked into the issues with very serious deliberation. The Ministry should not disregard that consideration and seek to make short cuts in parliamentary procedure. Although everyone is in agreement on the need for a bypass, there is profound disagreement on the merits of the southern route as compared with the northern route. We have a straightforward conflict of interests between the protection of the environment and the national park on the one hand, and the defence of farming land on the other. [HON. MEMBERS: "No".] Yes, a detailed examination of the inspector's report shows that he argued the case against taking away agricultural land. Make no mistake about that. The Government are displaying their well-known predilection for favouring the farming lobby against all other interests.

That the interests of the national parks need to be vigorously defended is well recognised, and is the basis of the environment circular 4/76 which the Minister quoted, and circular 7/76, which was the equivalent Welsh Office circular. That followed the report of the National Parks Policies Review Committee chaired by Lord Sandford. It is worth quoting paragraph 58 of circular 4/76 in some detail. It says:

"It is now the policy of the Government that investment in trunk roads should be directed to developing routes for long distance traffic which avoid national parks; and that no new routes for long distance traffic should be constructed through a national park, or existing road upgraded, unless it has been demonstrated that there is a compelling need which would not be met by any reasonable alternative means. Application of the policy to some parks does, however, give rise to particularly difficult decisions because of their geographical location".
Several questions arise and require to be answered. First, is there a feasible alternative route? Secondly, is there a compelling need which cannot be met by a reasonable alternative route?

The hon. Gentleman referred to a "feasible" alternative route. The circular says "reasonable". Was that a slip of the tongue or was it deliberate?

No, it was not a slip of the tongue, it was deliberate. I am sure that the Minister has read every word of the inspector's report. I will not pretend to have gone that far. The Minister will know that the inspector sometimes speaks about "feasible" routes as well as "reasonable" routes. Therefore, the use of the word "feasible" instead of "reasonable" is deliberate and the answer to the first question is yes.

From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s the proposals related to a northern route. In making their traffic proposals for the Okehampton bypass, the councils in that area used the northern route. A southern route was considered only in 1976.

The answer to the second question depends upon the definition of "reasonable." The inspector who conducted the local public inquiries did not reject the proposition that a northern route was feasible. He made a qualitative, balanced judgment—that the price that would have to be paid for avoiding the national park was too high.

Does my hon. Friend agree that this will set a very dangerous precedent? Arguments about cost will have to be considered in future and they will carry the day.

Yes. That is one of the serious concerns of those who are opposed to the southern route. Although the Secretary of State argues that this will not be a test case, many people regard it as a test case.

If one looks at the circular which announced the decision of the Secretary of State for Transport and Secretary of State for the Environment on 16 September 1983—CSW240 1/26/013—one sees that in paragraph 27 they say that they
"agree with the Inspector that 'substantial expenditure would be justified in order to construct the bypass on route that would avoid the National Park, provided that this can reasonably be done."
The Secretaries of State agreed that substantial expenditure would be justified. If we look at the full text of paragraph 2767 of the main report, we find that the inspector said:
"Thus, it would be right in my view to accept a somewhat greater length of road, somewhat greater cost, the taking of somewhat more good agricultural land and some landscape effects in the northern countryside. Such disadvantages and the possible advantages require assessment, and I will consider them below."
Therefore, we have, first, the use of this delightful, all-encompassing word "reasonable" which appears again and again in the documents.

Having made those very strong statements, it is difficult to understand why the inspector decided in favour of the southern route. However, we can conclude that in rejecting the northern route, on the ground that the price to be paid would be too high, we are speaking not just about cash. The Secretary of State has conceded that the expenditure of extra cash on the northern route would be justified on account of the environmental issues. What are the reasons, therefore, for rejecting the northern route?

Paragraph 28 of the same letter discussed the balancing factors: the disruption of other activities and the disruption of the environment north of Okehampton. On balance, the Secretary of State has decided in favour of the southern route. His judgment is, however, strongly contested by the Countryside Commission.

In case any hon. Member is in any doubt about the locus of the Countryside Commission, I should point out that it is the Government's statutory adviser on landscape conservation matters in England and Wales and that it has special responsibilities for the national parks. The Countryside Commission has always favoured a northern route. It submitted to the local public inquiry a line of route and expressed its disappointment with the decision that favoured a southern route. It welcomed the decision of the Joint Committee that
"the northern route provides a reasonable alternative means."
In this case, it believes that the national interest lies in protecting the national park. Its judgment is absolutely clear cut.

There are compelling reasons for the House to reject the southern route and to direct the Secretary of State to proceed with the northern route. There remains only one other reason, therefore, for passing this confirmation Bill—delay. I have received heartfelt pleas from several organisations which say that the issue of the Okehampton bypass has stuttered on for 20 years and that they have suffered enough from traffic congestion; they need a new road to assist commercial and industrial developments and to provide new jobs, so for goodness sake let us get on with it. Some of them have said to me that the conservationists represent no more than trendy, middle-class, bourgeois ideas. I reject that view.

Throughout history, working-class people have always suffered the most because, in the drive for industrialisation, the environment has been neglected. That neglect has not been confined to industry. In modern times there have been the most appalling errors of judgment over the building of some of our municipal housing estates. Tower blocks have been demolished because they have proved to be so awful. One housing estate in London which was completed only three years ago is, I believe, such an environmental disaster that the gravest of difficulties are experienced over getting tenants for it. Although I make those criticisms of modern housing estates, I do not challenge the good faith of those councillors who had to take the decisions; they were reacting with speed to try to solve the chronic condition of bad housing in which so many people had to live. In this case, therefore, delay itself is no justification for reaching the wrong conclusion.

If, however, there were to be inordinate delay, I concede that we may have to swallow the environmental damage to the Dartmoor national park as the lesser of two evils. But the length of the delay lies entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State. He argues that delay in its completion will amount to six years. There is, however, strong evidence to the contrary. The Countryside Commission has drawn to our attention the evidence of Mr. Parker, a highway and engineering witness. The Secretary of State does his case no good by referring to "so-called" expert witnesses. I take the view that those who give evidence do so in good faith. I accept the expertise of the Secretary of State's witnesses, even though I do not necessarily accept their evidence. I hope that he will be "cannie", as we say in Scotland, about casting doubt upon the integrity and value of independent witnesses.

The Countryside Commission sought an independent assessment of Mr. Parker's evidence. It was obtained from Mr. Singleton, of Denis Wilson and Partners, consulting engineers and transport planners. Both have said that the delay caused by switching back to the northern route need not be more than two or three years. This weighed heavily with the Joint Committee. In paragraph 6 it said:
"The further delay this decision is likely to cause before Okehampton can be relieved of traffic congestion was seriously considered by the Committee. They therefore asked the Department of Transport to accord the highest priority to the construction of a by-pass to the north of the town. The Committee believe that, given good will, commitment and cooperation, this can be achieved in a significantly shorter timetable than was suggested in evidence."
According to the Joint Committee, the essence of speed depends upon good will, commitment and co-operation.

Could the hon. Gentleman draw to the attention of the House the fact that bypasses have been built from scratch within two or three years from the day upon which the plans were issued?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that the bypass could be built in two or three years. The evidence suggests that the delay in the completion of the northern route could be about two or three years, not six years as has been argued by the Secretary of State. We are saying not that the bypass could be completed in two or three years but that it could be completed in a much shorter period than six years.

Is the hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Opposition, adopting the fallacy that a public inquiry after the present Session of Parliament could not find in favour of the southern route and put us back where we are now?

I am not under that impression. I shall come later to the need for a fresh public inquiry, if the hon. Gentleman has a little patience.

In connection with the issue of speed and delay, I should like to commend to the Secretary of State the Prime Minister's answer to a question from the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller). The hon. Gentleman asked the Prime Minister:
"Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind during her busy day the problems of less successful areas such as the west country, where decisions about road planning have been too long delayed, and where implementation of plans have been delayed even further?"
The Prime Minister replied:
"Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend has been to see me about this matter. He has complained bitterly about the length of time taken to reach decisions. I share his opinion that planning decisions take far too long, and I shall do what I can to speed up the decision in which he has a particular interest."—[Official Report, 14 November 1985; Vol. 86, c. 685.]
I think that the Secretary of State can earn himself some Brownie points with the Prime Minister if he commits himself to accepting that a northern route could be delivered with a delay of two to three years.

The hon. Gentleman said that "given good will" a faster speed could be achieved. May I make it clear to him that the people who live along the northern route and those who objected to that route, of whom there are many, do not have good will in this matter. They made it abundantly clear that they would object to a northern route and would fight it tooth and nail. The hon. Gentleman cannot, therefore, assume that there is good will. That, of course, invalidates his whole perspective.

As I read the Joint Committee's report, which referred specifically to urging the Department of Transport to act, we are asking for good will from the Secretary of State. That may be too much to expect. We are asking, as the Countryside Commission said, for more management efficiency in administration in the Department of Transport. That is something that we would expect to have anyway.

Is the hon. Gentleman urging my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to override the rights of the people living along the northern route? That is what he seems to be saying.

The hon. Gentleman must not try to put words into my mouth. I am not suggesting that the rights of individuals should be overridden. By this confirmation Bill, the Secretary of State is overriding the rights of individuals. He is adopting this procedure, which is unusual even though it may be constitutionally proper.

The Secretary of State and, I gather, many of his Back-Bench colleagues have said that, in order to look at the alternative of a southern route, we must start with an entirely fresh public inquiry. Goodness knows how long such an inquiry would take. That inspector might not reach the correct conclusion. The views of those who objected to the northern route have been well canvassed. It is not necessary to start from scratch, because the issues have been thoroughly argued. Is the Secretary of State saying that in all matters affecting transport planning—many will arise in the near future—he will hold a full public inquiry? The right hon. Gentleman should give us a clear assurance.

I believe that the interests of protecting the national park are compelling. The northern route is a feasible and reliable alternative. The delay need not be longer than two to three years. Such a delay would be tolerable. The balance of judgment on all counts is weighted against the Secretary of State. Whatever he may say, he is putting bureaucracy before democracy and his departmental case before that of the Joint Committee. I therefore have no hesitation in recommending to my right hon. and hon. Friends that they join me in the Lobby to oppose the Bill.

4.24 pm

The essence of the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) was that, if he were Secretary of State, he would, having weighed all the evidence, have rejected the advice and recommendations made by the independent inspector after the 96-day inquiry. In other words, he was saying that the House should substitute his judgment for that of the other people concerned, especially the Secretaries of State. In the end, it is all a matter of judgment and balance. I think we all accept that the issues are of national as well as local concern. We have little opportunity to debate the application of planning policies generally to particular cases.

From my experience, I know the agonies that Secretaries of State have to go through in weighing often bitterly opposing, deeply felt views and then coming to a decision. We must accept that, sooner or later in these matters of national and local importance, decisions must be made by someone. In the absence of compelling reasons to the contrary, I should have thought that it was right that the views of the Secretaries of State should be upheld, especially when they follow the recommendations of an independent inspector.

Over the years we have devised a system of public participation in the planning process that has reached the point where controversial but necessary development is being held up—perhaps for decades. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North says that everyone agrees that something must be done in this case. He thinks that there should be a northern route and that somehow the necessary planning procedures need not be followed. Some people will never accept that the point has been reached where a decision must be taken. We must examine our planning processes so that decisions can be taken and supported.

Recently, a Minister was discussing with his French opposite number how he dealt with difficult planning issues—roads, nuclear power stations and the rest. Reportedly, the French Minister replied with a shrug, "If you want to clear the swamp, you do not consult the frogs." There is a real danger that frustration with our planning processes could lead to an over-violent reaction.

It is wrong when considering the development of docklands or enterprise zones to hold no public inquiry. We have concluded that there should be no such public inquiry because people have become frustrated by delays. In the case of the Okehampton bypass, there have been 17 years of design and public consultation. Finally, after an inquiry lasting 96 days—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that 58 were devoted to the question of incursion on the national park—the independent inspector said that in his judgment, the total price that would be paid for avoiding the national park was too high. He gave a number of reasons, none of which were dealt with by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North.

This is the time for all of us to apply common sense. Projects that took a few months to decide in the 1950s are taking an unconscionable time to decide now, and that must he stopped. A balance between the democratic right to object and the need to take a decision in the general national and public interest must be found. This is not a new problem. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment—that Department then encompassed Transport—I thought that the delays were unreasonable. Obviously, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister takes the same view. This is not an easy matter to resolve.

I appointed Mr. George Dobry—he is now Judge Dobry—to to look into the development control system. He made a number of recommendations, many of which have been implemented. For the run-of-the-mill inquiry I think it is fair to say that the Departments have speeded up the process, but there is still no improvement in respect of major inquiries such as the one that we are considering. One solution might be to impose a time limit—to have a guillotine—to combine speed with fairness. We cannot go on as we are at present without bringing the planning process into disrepute. My right hon. Friend might ask Judge Dobry to update his report.

It is unreasonable for the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North to suggest—whatever views he might have about delays in public inquiries—that we could arbitrarily in one case abrogate the planning processes that are laid down.

Objectors at inquiries usually fall into two classes.

There are the local participants, some of whom say,
"We won't have heaven crammed,
Let all the rest be damned."
There are other objectors who say, "We must have a road, but not where I don't want it." They will never accept another point of view. Then there are national interest groups. Where there is a conflict between local opinion and the national interest groups, which are entitled to express a view, the balance of argument should be drawn in favour of the local people.

We know that a majority of the local members on the county council and local authorities favoured the southern route. I see no overriding reason why the House, with representatives from all other parts of the country, should override local interest in this case.

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that when Devon county council last voted, the vote was 38 to 34? Although I respect much of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, it is not as if it were national conservation bodies against overwhelming local opinion. Local opinion is divided. The county council vote reflects that clear division.

On the other hand, we are told that it would be wrong to take account of the fact that the vote in the Select Committee was four to two. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. All that we can do, using our best judgment, is to ask, "Where does the balance of advantage lie?" I am aware of how difficult these matters are. I remember when there was a proposal for a Winchester bypass. Because it was to go through part of Winchester college's playing fields, I received a letter from virtually every living Old Wykehamist putting across their interest. However, they did not mind whether the road went straight through the nave of Winchester cathedral. The balance of advantage in that case lay in the proposed route against another that would have done more environmental damage.

I was also interested in a comparable case involving a national park, when I had to deal with the proposal that the A66 go through a national park. For some time, I was burned in effigy, but luckily in no other way. I have refreshed my memory about that case. It occurred in 1972. There were alternative proposals for a route that was outside the national park, but on the inspector's recommendation, after much heart searching, I came to the conclusion that the balance of public advantage, locally and nationally, lay in approving a route that went partly through the national park because on balance it did less damage to the environment than the alternative.

I am pleased to say that my decision at that time had the support of the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). I notice that he has not signed the motion before the House. It would have been difficult for him to do so, because he gave evidence at the public inquiry into the A66. He rejected the idea that another route should be chosen merely because it lay outside the national park. He pointed out, as I think is correct, that a national park boundary does not mark a point beyond which environmental considerations should not apply. He also pointed out that the A66 improvements, which were being urged by all the local authorities, would lot be accomplished by going for the alternative route. All that, in every case, is a matter of judgment. It is significant that the Opposition spokesman on the environment took a view different from the one apparently now being taken by those Opposition Members who put down the motion.

The fact that a route passes through a national park, although even peripherally, is a weighty matter. It is not a conclusive matter. That is the burden of the 1976 circular, which, of course, came after my decision, but it was before the Labour Government's decision to prefer the southern route. Clearly, the Labour Government accepted that there were circumstances in which a route could go through a national park.

It is not reasonable for the House to go against the independent inspector's recommendation, backed by the Secretaries of State, merely because of the Joint Committee's findings.

Why does the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that it is right to accept the inspector's views but not those of the Joint Committee?

The inspector presided over the inquiry on the spot for 96 days. He was interested in studying in detail the views expressed by the proponents of and those against the northern and southern routes. Both Secretaries of State supported that recommendation. As I understand the position, the matter was referred to the Joint Committee only because of the issue of the open space. It would not have had referred to it the issue whether the route should go through the national park. It would never have considered the matter. It was considering the effect on the open space of the legal inability to provide compensation.

My right hon. and learned Friend would riot wish to deceive the House. The Joint Committee might have sat for only 16 or 17 days, but nevertheless its inquiry consisted of hearing evidence from petitioners as to whether there was a reasonable alternative to the compulsory requisition of that land. That involved considering whether any evidence had arisen since the public inquiry which might have changed the balance of judgment.

My view is that the Committee went rather beyond what was required. The 15 days' sittings should have been devoted to the issue that it was required to judge—the open space issue. It dealt with the issue as one of national parks policy. That is not what it had to consider. The Committee said that the orders should not be made on national parks policy grounds; not on the ground that the open space that was to be taken was valuable and could not be replaced.

My right hon. and learned Friend was asked why he should prefer the inspector to the Joint Committee. Will he confirm that the inspector was duty bound to hear petitioners against the northern route, but the Joint Committee was not permitted to and did not? That must be a convincing reason, in natural justice, why my right hon. Friend should attach more weight to the independent inspector's report.

I am glad that my hon. Friend made that point, because it is important. As he said, during 15 sittings the Committee heard the petitioners' evidence. It never heard anything from the people who preferred the southern route. I do not call that satisfactory.

I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend would wish me to put the record straight. More than half the Joint Committee's time was taken up by the Department of the Environment putting forward its witnesses in support of its proposals against the petitioners. It acted like a court of appeal and heard witnesses who were against the northern route.

With respect, that is a fallacious point. The Select Committee is not, and should not act as, a court of appeal, reopening every issue dealt with at the inquiry. The Select Committee heard witnesses from the Department of the Environment. It may not have thought much of them, but that was not the issue before it. Perhaps it was no fault of the Committee, but it did not have an opportunity to hear the objectors to the northern route, and that is not a satisfactory basis upon which to reject the Bill.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for signing my early-day motion opposing the southern route for the Okehampton bypass, but his action does not quite bear out what he is saying. On the matter of open space, he has rightly pointed out that the sole task of the Joint Committee was to look at the open space issue. Because no open space had been offered by the Government to replace the open space that would have been taken by the southern route, the Committee met and 10 petitioners petitioned and spent £50,000 of private money putting forward their case. A couple of weeks ago the Government found public open space. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Joint Committee need never have met? We need not be meeting today on a confirming Bill if the open space that is now on the table and being offered to the nation had been offered prior to the Joint Committee being convened. For that reason, the Secretary of State has delayed the building of the Okehampton bypass, and he should recompense the national petitioners for the money that they have wasted.

I understand my hon. Friend to be saying that there is no need to oppose the Bill, and that it is only a matter of compensation for expenditure that need not have occurred. I accept what my right hon. Friend said about the problems of paying compensation, or repaying the costs of people involved in litigation, either in the courts or at public inquiries. That raises many difficult issues. I am glad that, in effect, my hon. Friend is withdrawing his objection to the Bill, because he says it should never have gone before the Select Committee. What I ought to say is that I should withdraw my name from his motion. I fell into a trap, and that is something that one sometimes does in this House. One looks at something and says, "Yes, that is reasonable. I support that. There seems to be a lot of opposition to the southern bypass." I must now confess that having thought in more depth in the light of debate, and having studied voluminous literature sent to me by everybody, I have come to the conclusion that the Bill ought to be passed. I am reinforced in that view by what my hon. Friend has said.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that virtually every other Tory Member of the House has had exactly the same reaction? Having studied the matter in depth, they are equally disposed towards the Bill.

I am grateful for that information. I quite agree. I am completely convinced by the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the constitutional point. There is no merit at all in the argument that there would be something unconstitutional in reversing the findings of the Joint Committee. The 1945 Act clearly provides that orders will fall unless the Government decide to bring forward a confirming Bill. That has been done in this case, and in answering a question my right hon. Friend gave a precedent where it had been done before. It is clear that in 1945 the Labour Government said that in appropiate circumstances the Government would have to act in that way, and that clearly must be right.

My own view is that the joint Secretaries of State have statutory responsibiliies, and Parliament must also have the right to review the findings of one of its own Committees. It is for this House to decide whether the order should be made. This is an extremely difficult case, and there are deeply felt views on all sides, but it seems to me on the evidence that the Secretary of State has made the right decision about the best way to proceed. I hope that the House will support the Bill.

4.45 pm

To say that this issue has caused some interest and excitement in the far southwest of the nation is putting it rather mildly. There may be questions about whether a full day of parliamentary time is required to make a decision about a bypass around what is, after all, a rather small town some 250 miles from here. That is something some of us may wish to reflect upon on another occasion. The simple fact of the matter is that a decision is asked for and has to be made. I ask for the forebearance of the House so as to mention Cornwall.

The hon. Member says, "Oh dear." That is his attitude and I recognise that.

This is the main road for the county of Cornwall. On more than one occasion I have been delighted to accept the company of one of my right hon. or hon. Friends on the drive to my part of the country. Sometimes when we are driving down the A30 they say to me, "It's very nice of you, David, to take us by the picturesque route." I have to reply, "This is not the picturesque route; this is the main road." The A30 through Okehampton and through the rest of the villages that run from there down to Launceston, has long been known as Britain's longest lane, but it is the main artery for business and commerce and for all the activities for at least four fifths of Cornwall. That four fifths takes in my constituency, the constituencies of the hon. Members for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) and, of course, the constituency of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale). It affects less the constituency of the hon. Member for Cornwall. South-East (Mr. Hicks) but for the other four of us, it is overwhelmingly the main road to our part of the world.

The economic difficulties affecting my part of the world are substantial. We hear endless talk in this House about the great north-south divide. I do not complain that hon. Members from the north draw to the attention of the House the difficulties they face. I often listen to them abusing the south, but as far as the argument goes, I am a part of the north. Today I looked up the latest unemployment figures for the towns the A30 serves. The figures are comparable to those anywhere else in the nation. In Falmouth 24·9 per cent. of the male population is currently registered as unemployed and receiving benefit. In St. Ives, Penzance 26·1 per cent. of the male population is in this position. I will read them all so that hon. Members can see I am not just picking out the worst ones.

In Redruth 22·8 per cent. of the male population is unemployed. My own Truro—which for reasons for which I claim some credit is better than the rest—has a male unemployment figure of 14·9 per cent. St. Austell is the bright spot with 13·2 per cent. Newquay has 27·6 per cent., Bude 18·3 per cent., Helston 23·6 per cent. and Okehampton, ironically, has 13·9 per cent. Bodmin and Liskeard is 20·2 per cent. and Launceston is just short of 14 per cent.

Those are the levels in an area 100 miles long. We are not talking about one suburb in an urban area, but about an immense expanse. Besides that—this is a statistical fact and not a new one—Cornwall has the lowest average wage of any county in Great Britain. That is the situation we face. Sometimes these things cut across party channels, and those of us in the south-west who have been trying to do something for the economy, for our homes, or part of the world and our people, time and time again meet industrialists. They show some interest because Cornwall has much to be said for it. It is clean and basically law-abiding and has a good work force. But when those people we meet go down to the south-west they take one look at the A30 and that is the end of that.

Of course, it affects not just the industrialists we try to attract. I wonder how many tourists are put off visiting the county of Cornwall in August? I never cease to be amazed at the sheer bravery of people who set off from London to go to Cornwall during the summer. One can get from London to Madrid a great deal quicker than one can get from here to the other end of our nation. Often at peak times there are 13 to 14-mile queues outside Okehampton, and on a normal weekend those queues are five or six miles long. That is the reality of the position as it affects those who look at Okehampton from our end. Okehampton is in between where I live and here, whereas for most hon. Members it is at the end of the road, somewhere almost beyond all civilised thought.

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the length of time it takes to get through Okehampton. As a regular user of that road to go on holiday every year, I can assure him that the Okehampton police make a lovely cup of tea first thing on a Saturday morning, and many times have I sampled that delight.

What we will do in the south-west to make a shilling out of tourism is beyond compare.

I shall ensure that our police are supplied with free tea for the hon. Gentleman, even when the road is built.

One of the ironies of the argument about the road is that most of those living in Devon will be no more affected by it than those living in Shropshire, Aberdeen or anywhere else. Okehampton is very much at the end of Devon. Those who will be most affected live in the areas covered by the West Devon district authority, the Okehampton town council and the Cornwall county council. I beg the House to take my word for the fact that, for a number of reasons, opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of the building of a bypass as soon as is conceivably possible.

On checking "Erskine May", I discovered that I am allowed to do something in this Chamber that I had not thought would be allowed. For the edification of the House, I have brought with me a map of Devon. Apparently I can display what I want, provided that it is not a weapon. The map may be argued to be a weapon, but not in the context of "Erskine May".

Hon. Members who can see this far across the Chamber will realise that I am holding a map of my part of the world. Towards the top is Exeter, as the hon. Member who represents that area will confirm, and towards the bottom is Plymouth. Cornwall runs away one way and England runs away the other way—if hon. Members understand the way that I phrase that.

The Dartmoor national park is outlined accurately with a green line. It was done by professional cartographers and is not one of my efforts. Hon. Members with good enough eyesight will see that that covers a not inconsicerable expanse of the map—indeed, 233,000 acres. Hon. Members wishing to see the proposed road that we are discussing will need very good eyesight indeed, because it comprises six little red dots in the top corner. That is the size of the issue that has been brought to the House, and which has dominated and disadvantaged the economy of my part of the world. Objectors talk about the intrusion and the rape of Dartmoor, yet the road comprises only that little line of red dots across the top of the map. Therefore, I find the importance given to the issue quite extraordinary.

For those whose eyesight is not good enough, I shall use some of the training that I received as an engineer. The Chamber in which we have the opportunity to argue our case is approximately 24 panels wide and 60 panels long. The actual amount to be slivered off the Dartmoor national park is proportionately equivalent to three panels square—the space occupied by less than two civil servants in their box. That is the rape of Dartmoor. Yet people claim that the road is being driven straight through the middle. Some of the arguments are quite nonsensical and of little merit.

Let us examine the 460 acres that it is alleged will be slivered off the top of Dartmoor. I know Okehampton well, and to say that I have been there and looked at it on a number of occasions would be an understatement. Many hon. Members will also have been there on a number of occasions. The largest bit of the 460 acres that will be affected is a golf course. Now I am all for the people of Okehampton having the maximum opportunity to play golf, but to argue that the entire environment is being destroyed because a golf course is affected is nonsense.

The second largest area affected is what is romantically called—not only in the south-west, but elsewhere—a medieval deer park. I, like many other people, at one time was foolish enough to wonder just what a medieval deer park was. I have to tell the House that it is a place where deer were kept up to about 300 years ago. In other words, there are no deer there now and there have been no deer there for a long time. Unless, suddenly, deer should come back as the great solution to west country agriculture, I suspect that there will be no deer there in future. The remainder of the land involved is woodland and the areas surrounding the castle. The castle will actually be further from the main road, given that that improvement occurs, than it is now.

The woodlands have already been discussed today. The area has become known as the bluebell woods. I have received letters from anxious people in various parts of Britain telling me that I am committing one of the great outrages of all time because the bluebell is an endangered species. In all honesty and with all the vigour that I can muster, I must insist—people can take my word for it or not as they please—that the bluebell is not an endangered species in the south-west. There are acres and acres of them. Indeed, it would not be difficult to find people who would argue that the bluebell is a weed, although I hasten to add that that is not my view.

There is no doubt that the Government's current position on tree planting is a great improvement on their previous position. We must give the objectors full credit for that because it has been achieved largely as a result of their efforts. As the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) said, there has been much effort recently to find open space, and I believe that open space to be better than the previous open space because it is nearer Okehampton. People already use it. Some of the original open space is certainly space, but is not open—unless one is 6 ins high and can go under, or more than 20 feet high and can climb over.

Let us honestly examine what we are discussing. The truth is that moors do not start as conveniently as the 1948 Act suggests. By definition, the Act forces someone to draw a line on a map. That line must have zero width because that is the nature of legislation. Moors do not start like that—there is a gradual change in the land from what is obviously moor to what is obviously not moor. I suspect that many cartographers and geographers of the highest standards would have great arguments about whether certain parts were or were not moor.

My honest view is that the piece of land that we are discussing cannot be described as moor. It is true that it is on a slope running up to what I believe to be moor, but the actual area is most definitely not moor. Such is the geography of the land that the road will blend in extremely well. If the trees are given a reasonable chance, which clearly they will be, before long the road will be hardly noticeable.

One of the great ironies of the argument is that when people visit the moor—as they do in large numbers, which I understand because I do so often myself—

I do not deny that figure. The moors are a major attraction in my area, and parts of them are beyond compare in Britain. When people visit the moor they tend to stand on it and look outwards. They do not go to the nearest agricultural area and look inwards to the moor.

If the road is the southern route and one stands on the moor looking out, there is not the least possibility of the road being seen. It is true that if one went from the other side of Okehampton and stood in the middle of a barley field—I admit that some visitors do that, though not many, thank goodness—and cast one's eyes across the moor one would be able to see the road, but the ratio of those on the moor looking out to those on the outside looking in must in this case be in the order of several hundreds to one.

I am convinced that the southern route is the preferable one, although I confess that my starting point in the argument was a desperate anxiety on behalf of the community that I try to represent in the House to promote a road that represents the present decade and century. I have been forced to investigate the matter and I believe that the intrusion of the proposed road into the moor is so insignificant that it makes no difference to the great space that is Dartmoor. I do not believe that it constitutes the precedent that some hon. Members have argued because I believe that moors and other great beauty spots will live or die on their own merits.

It is generally agreed that if this House and the other place vote as I would like them to, we could have the southern route in about three years. The optimists argue that we could have the northern route in approximately six years—that is, three years' delay and two or three years to build the road. The pessimists argue that the northern route would actually take nine or 10 years. I believe that the truth is probably somewhere between the two, but the House must not underestimate the sheer vigour with which the anti-northern route people would fight that proposal if it came back to the House. They believe that they defeated the Devon establishment on this issue at a public inquiry which lasted 96 days. I was rather surprised that they pulled off that triumph, not because of the merits of the argument but because of the vigour with which some anti-southern route people pursued their case.

As the Minister knows, the coward's way out of this would be to have the road put around the north, but it would be an outrage for the House to suggest that the solution to the agonising dilemma my constitutents face is to take away from them the right to argue their case again if this vote is lost. If another inquiry is necessary, it will be a significant one. One would hope that it would not last for 96 days but insanity may go that far again. There will certainly be significant and vigorous argument and the House need not kid itself that if we vote in a particular way today the northern route will suddenly be acceptable.

If the House throws out the confirming Bill, would the hon. Member agree that it would not be proper to open a future inspection and inquiry into the southern route? If the southern route goes ahead, it will take traffic out of the centre of Okehampton. The hon. Gentleman says that it will also revive the economy of Cornwall, but it will simply move the bottleneck from the centre of Okehampton to an area four miles west of Okehampton. The hon. Member knows that the road between Okehampton and Weston is still single track and that it would be six more years before a dual carriageway could be constructed to Okehampton. If the northern route were constructed there would be a continuous dual carriageway to Tongue End just outside of Okehampton running east through to Launceston. Does the hon. Member agree that building the southern route would not help the economy of Cornwall but would simply jam up the dual carriageway four miles west of Okehampton?

The hon. Member knows that I do not agree with that. There is a marvellous Cornish definition of the word "expert". The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) was talking about experts earlier on. My somewhat cynical Cornish friends define an expert as a man from 50 miles away. Sometimes when I listen to the hon. Member for South Hams discussing these matters, I take a similar view to that of my Cornish friends.

I do not defend the attitudes of successive Governments towards improving the A30. If successive Governments had applied themselves to the problem, we would not be in the present difficulty. One of the significant problems created by arguments to the bypass is that the bypass is between Cornwall and the dual carriageway that currently exists. Given the present row, we do not know where the Okehampton bypass would start or where it would finish. It will be impossible to build a road to the Okehampton bypass or a road from the bypass until a decision is taken.

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) has said. I should add for his edification that if this House and another place pass the Bill we shall be able to proceed with the Okehampton to Launceston section. I have asked my Department to give that road full priority and to make it a dual carriageway. If the Bill is not passed there will be no need to do that because the bottleneck will stay in Okehampton.

I hope that the Bill will be passed. As the Secretary of State knows, I have previously called the attention of the House to the standard of the road and one likes to believe that occasionally one has some effect and can see changes being made.

The Joint Committee which met to discuss this matter voted by four votes to two to reach its decision and I make no complaint about the outcome. I apologise to the House, however, because I believe that I and other hon. Members made a mistake in connection with the Joint Committee. I read, studied and took advice on what I understood to be the Committee's powers. The general view was expressed —wrongly, as events turned out in my part of the country—that there was no purpose once again in going to the Committee and arguing in favour of the southern route and not the northern route because the Committee was not allowed to investigate that point. In fact, the Committee did investigate that point. I do not complain, but the Chairman of the Joint Committee did not get the anti-north lobby in full flood before him. Local people express their case with more vigour than civil servants, who are sometimes reduced to reading from a map. The reason why the case was not presented was not that it did not exist—the public inquiry showed that it did—but that, perhaps foolishly as it turned out, we believed that the Committee would not be arguing once again the case of northern route versus the southern. That being so, the evidence taken from individuals as opposed to civil servants was totally one-sided.

I am sure the hon. Member for Truro will appreciate that the Joint Committee had serious doubts as to what its terms of reference were before it commenced the inquiry. We took the best procedural advice available from the House of Lords Procedure Committee, which advised us that, although the basis of the petitioners' case was the narrow one of open space, that case could not be fairly presented by the petitioners without also allowing them to put the argument against the Dartmoor route. We were therefore obliged to consider the arguments against that route and the arguments presented by the Department of the Environment in favour of it. There was no chance for us to invite witnesses as happens in a normal Select Committee. Our only power was to hear the petitioners' case and the defence put up by the Department of the Environment.

I thank the hon. Gentleman. It is a legitimate description of what happened and fits in with what I said. We took advice, which was that there was no point in organising the arrival at Westminster of the anti-north route view. I do not think the hon. Gentleman was trying to argue that he did not hear that from the local people who held that view so vigorously.

I ask the House not to allow the matter to become a simple party issue. There are in my party divergent views, which I have done my best to correct. We shall see what happens when the vote takes place. I ask hon. Members to examine the merits of the case. After all these years the intrusions within the 1948 boundaries of Dartmoor national park are of such minor significance and the road is to be built in such a way that I ask the House to back the Government and support the Third Reading so that the road can be built as soon as possible and can start to give my part of the country, which has as much right to prosperity as other areas, at least the chance to compete on an even basis.

5.10 pm

I think the whole House knows that if my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) had not had an operation recently for the removal of a kidney he would be here putting, as forcefully as only he can, the case for the route which has been recommended by every democratically elected tier of local government. As he lives in my constituency, and as his constituency adjoins mine, I hope that the House will be no less favourably disposed to the Government's case than it would be if my hon. Friend were here to put it before the House himself.

The final absurdity from the Opposition Front Bench was the peroration, if it might be dignified with that description, saying that what the Government wanted to do was a triumph of bureaucracy over democracy. The facts are the exact reverse. Every tier of local government supports the route put forward by the Government. The parish council of Okehampton, which is a town council properly elected, favours the route recommended by the inspector and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State; so do the district council, the county council and Cornwall county council, whose interest in the matter was so ably put before the House by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon).

In the debate on Third Reading it would not be a service to the House for me to repeat the points made by the hon. Member for Truro, which show the extent to which this is not a local issue purely for Okehampton. The prospect of economic recovery for Devon to the west of Okehampton and for Cornwall as a whole will be intimately affected by the decision of the House.

It is more than a decade ago that the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, as it is now called, made an investigation into means of promoting economic activities in development areas. I was a member of the Committee that took evidence from business men who had set up new enterprises in the peripheral areas of Britain. We asked them what incentives were decisive with them in locating new enterprises in peripheral areas. In those days, there was relief from selective employment tax, regional economic premium, interest free loans, rent free factories, relief from rates, training grants and a whole catalogue of incentives. But the representative answer was good road communications, because that meant a permanent reduction in costs which no change of Government policy could take away.

The facts that were true then are even more true today. With the tachograph and stricter control of drivers' hours, if it is not possible to get from the source of supply in Cornwall to the market in the midlands, or to the docks and back in a day, double the number of vehicles and double the number of drivers are required. That is enough to deter anyone from bringing new employment to those areas.

Delay in constructing the bypass is a direct cause of avoidable unemployment in the further south-west. Let those who make speeches about unemployment bear that in mind and share the responsibility for continuing avoidable unemployment if they vote against the Bill tonight. I repeat that every layer of local government in the area has expressed itself decisively in favour of the southern route.

I was born in a village on the edge of Dartmoor and lived there as a child. I knew Dartmoor before many of the people who have chosen on retirement or for other reasons to move to the south-west. I love the area. It is where I go with my wife and children to swim, rather than to the coast. Dartmoor will suffer less from the southern route than from the northern route, which would appear like a scar when seen from Dartmoor.

The issue of principle is the issue of good sense against bigotry. Where the frontier of Dartmoor was drawn on the map was a matter not of principle but of judgment. Those who decided on the boundary did not have in mind the sort of performance in which we are engaged if they were to draw it a few hundred yards south. With its present boundary, Dartmoor includes some areas of great ugliness. One would need a peculiar sense of beauty to settle on Meldon quarry as an example to draw to the attention of the House, yet Meldon quarry will be on the Dartmoor side of the proposed road if the House approves the Bill. That is the sort of thing that one should bear in mind.

To a considerable degree, for those familiar with it, the history of Dartmoor as opposed to Exmoor is archaeological rather than natural. The Stanary law which overruled all the normal law of England was centred on the Stanary town in Devon of Tavistock and Lydford. Wheal Jane and the buildings by the mine shafts cannot be destroyed, quite rightly, because they are listed. The heritage of Dartmoor is partly one of untouched natural beauty and partly one of natural resources harnessed to the service of man, as can be seen in the wool towns around Dartmoor, which for centuries, not for decades, have used the rivers flowing from Dartmoor.

Within the last few weeks, as opposed to months, some people have set themselves up as the protectors of Dartmoor, but many others, without labelling themselves, love Dartmoor every bit as much. Those who have set themselves up as a self-appointed protectors of Dartmoor have claimed the right to object to a massive potential source of new employment outside Dartmoor at Hemerdon, a wolfram mine, on the ground that it can be seen from inside the national park.

My right hon. Friend has shown that he can see the force in arguments of that kind. He went there personally to look at what would be visible from Dartmoor if the northern, instead of the southern, route were adopted. What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. If people say, "We must protect what can be seen from Dartmoor," that must be as important in the north as it is in the south of Dartmoor. It must be inconsistent to put forward that argument in the south and deny it in the north.

A convex slope is one above which one cannot see what is in its shadow below. That is largely where the southern route of the bypass will go and where the existing railway line is, which one does not see from the moor because of that convexity. That is the truth of the matter which one must be familiar with the part of the country to know. Looking at a map—unless one does the old cardboard trick and marks out the contours—one cannot be aware of that.

It has been suggested that the northern route could be adopted without a public inquiry. It could not, and there are many reasons why. Those who are familiar with the compulsory purchase procedures know the view that the High Court has taken when there has been bad faith on the part of the Minister. The Minister is allowed to exercise his judgment in seeking compulsory purchase orders so long as he is exercising good faith. But what if the Minister tries to impose compulsory purchase orders in respect of a northern route when, in good faith, he does not believe that to be necessary in the public interest, nor does he believe it to be the route that is required by the relevant circumstances?

No Parliament can bind its successors. The fact that a Joint Committee of both Houses, split four to two, reached a certain conclusion this Session does not mean that a differently composed Joint Committee in a different Session would come to the same conclusion, even on the same facts. Do not let those outside Parliament come to believe that a decision made—I attach no particular weight to the fact that it was a split decision; our vote tonight will also be a split decision—by Parliament in this Session binds a Parliament in a successive Session. It does not.

The inspector hearing an inquiry against the objections, which would undoubtedly be massive, to a northern route would be bound to consider the same facts again. He would be no more bound by a decision made by a Joint Committee of six Members drawn from more than 1,200 Members of both Houses in this Session than that Joint Committee was bound by the inspector. What would be the view of an inspector trying the same facts over again? The probability is that he would come to the same conclusion, which would be that the southern route was to be preferred to the northern one.

The Government would then make sure that the open spaces hurdle was crossed—and it was not the Government's fault that it was not crossed earlier. After all, it was not a matter of compulsory purchase orders. Such orders could not have been sustained for that purpose. It was a matter of people being willing to sell their land to facilitate the route, and the Country Landowners Association did an honourable and excellent job in assisting the finding of the land. All credit is due to the association for that. Thus, there would not even be the opportunity of arguing on the basis of what the Committee found on the last occasion, because the circumstances would not warrant such a Committee in the future. We should have only rich lawyers from the public inquiry and poor unemployed people.

I ask the House, therefore, as forcefully as I can, to give its judgment in this matter in accordance with the democratically declared wishes of the town council, which has the legal status of a parish council, in Okehampton, of the district council, of the county councils of Devon and Cornwall, reinforced by an independent inspector after one of the longest public inquiries there has ever been for a bypass. It was, I believe the first such inquiry in which public money from the Consolidated Fund paid for a considerable chunk of the opposition case, through the Nature Conservancy Council, and for the Government's case, through the Department of Transport.

That was a departure. It set a precedent and, on that subject, to argue that one cannot do anything without an exact precedent is to argue that one can never do anything new. Is the Labour party wedded to that doctrine? It is not, so far as I know.

The hon. Gentleman has not been a Member of the House for long. If he turns up the 18th edition of "Erskine May", he will find in the preface these wise words:

"'old Mr. Ley (Clerk of the House of Commons from 1820 to 1850) used to say "What does it signify about precedents? The House can do what it likes. Who can stop it?"'"

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. Long before I entered the House I was aware of his expertise above all in matters of this nature. Will he accept that, once the precedent of breaking into previously inviolate national parks has been established—particularly since the circular of 1976, which the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) accepted, and which came after a decision of his relating to a road in the north of England—national parks, as a matter of public policy, are far less secure?

No, I do not accept that. The security of national parks depends on reason rather than on law. As I pointed out, the boundary of a national park is drawn, not as a matter of principle, but as a matter of judgment, and the two must never be confused.

Mr. Harris